Justin, followed always by his Beau, returned and before she could move or protest, he swung his long legs around her and sat down, placing her possessively in front of him. She flushed and looked down, hardly noticing how perfectly she fit against him or the comfort of such an intimate position through her embarrassment and a sudden acute modesty. No one else seemed to notice, or if they did, they gave no sign.
"I couldn't find any tracks and Beau never seemed to catch a scent of anything," Justin told Jacob and Cajun both and added, "Though God knows, the dog's worthless when it comes to tracking."
" 'Tis not the first time a woman's imagination led her to hysterics and, I daresay, 'twon't be the last."
Hanna socked Jacob so hard he fell back, chuckling into the sand. Justin laughed too and then speared a shrimp and asked her if she had tried it yet. She shook her head. Watching her with that ever-present amusement dancing in his eyes, he brought it to her mouth, once again leaving her with no choice. She took a small bite and discovered what any fisherman knows—shrimp is one of the tastiest and succulent of the shellfishes.
The men talked of the endless things to be done. Hopefully by tomorrow the sea would be calm enough to begin retrieving things from the sunken ship. They needed ropes, nets, buckets, and tools, in short anything they could get to survive. When his men returned with information about the island parameters and terrain, fires would be started and forever maintained on the four sides of the island to attract any ship that might someday pass by the island. The remainder of the day would be spent making temporary shelters in which to sleep.
Cajun began making an unappetizing mush of mixed fruit and fish and Christina knew at a glance it was to be used to feed Marianna. She finally had her fill, felt ever so pleasantly full, and before she turned back to attend to Marianna, she asked Justin for his knife.
"What for?" he asked.
"We have no comb or brush and my hair," she reached a hand to the tangled knot of hair, "I have to cut it."
Justin just laughed. "Over my dead body."
Christina looked at him with surprise, and then hardly knowing how to respond, she quickly lowered her eyes. Justin studied the long hair tumbling in an attractive chaotic disarray, and the problem was immediately apparent.
"I can carve the ladies a comb," Jacob said.
"Even if she 'ad a comb, she couldn't get it through," Elsie said with years of experience fixing hair. "She needs rose oil, and that doesn't grow on trees."
"I have to cut it," Christina said firmly.
Justin sighed with irritation. He had enough to worry about without worrying about her hair. He only knew he'd be damned before he'd see it cut.
"Well now, I do believe I have a solution." Jacob chuckled mischievously. "Justin, don't you remember those beautiful brown-skinned women with their long black hair on Cook's Island?"
"It's not something I'm likely to forget," Justin assured him, and the men suddenly laughed. Even Cajun smiled at the memory of the voyage.
"No doubt," the Arab added with a huge grin as he addressed Justin. "You had lines of them outside your hut, waiting to take your seed and all in hopes of having children of your skin color! A harem that would make a king in my country green with envy." They all laughed as he added, "I never cursed my dark skin before."
"The hardest thing we ever did was get you off that island. You, Justin—" Jacob laughed, "always impatient with the speed of things, nothing ever moving fast enough, no one ever working hard enough to satisfy you and suddenly you can't understand the rush to get off the island and around the horn before winter hits." The men roared with good-natured laughter while Christina blushed profusely, shocked by such a story and having no idea what it had to do with hair. "Hell," Jacob continued, "Cajun had to knock you out—the only man who could have done it too, and—"
"The point, Jacob?" Justin interrupted impatiently, though he too was grinning at the memory.
"The point is the lasses' hair."
Justin lifted a strand of Christina's hair. "Yes," he chuckled, "their hair, so long and black, and always smelling of coconut."
"They smashed up coconuts to make oil for their hair," Jacob said, tossing a shell into the air, catching it and smiling. "We need oil for cooking and," he looked at Hanna's pearl-white skin, skin like Christina's and Elsie's that had never seen the sun, probably for sunburns too."
With the matter thus settled, the gathering soon broke up to begin tackling the day's tasks. Christina never paused for a minute. Cajun taught her how to care for Marianna, for that would be her job. The men began constructing small wood shelters, like tents, while Elsie and Hanna gathered more food for the night.
The sky remained cloudy all day, but when dusk settled over the island, it brought a strange quiet. The wind stopped completely, not even a breeze stirred, and the ocean waves grew gradually smaller and less fierce.
Christina sat on the warm sand near the stream, watching the ocean darken by the minute. Jacob had carved her a wooden comb and presented her with the first batch of coconut oil. She had soaked her hair first in water and then worked the coconut oil through it, and now she struggled to comb it. Her thoughts traveled far away.
So many people had perished in the storm, hundreds, maybe. Justin, with unmasked grief in his eyes, said the Defiant and probably his other ship the Hero had probably met an unkind fate. She could hardly imagine so many tragic deaths.
In the afternoon, an older quiet man named Brahms had led a brief memorial service. Justin had been noticeably absent. While brief, the service had been poignant, even poetic. Brahms had likened the passing of so many people to watching a ship sail into the horizon. "Finally, the great white sails are but a small cloud on the most distant horizon and then it disappears all together. Is it gone now? No, others are watching it arrive on the opposite horizon, waiting to greet the passengers."
It seemed to effect Hanna the most, for she had started crying. Despite her good-natured goading of her lord and lady, she confronted the certain fact that they had perished with sadness and grief. "They really were good to me and my mum, truly..."
Christina herself could hardly bear the thought of so many deaths. Captain Forester and Dr. Michaels, the others she had come to know, even the Ladies Knolls and Everett. She thought optimistically, though, that perhaps fate had intervened for them as well; perhaps the ships had been somehow spared, or at least some of the crew and passengers.
Her musing was interrupted by Elsie's laughter, which drew her attention to the campfire. Elsie stirred a fish stew in an old tortoise shell she had found washed up on the beach. Eric was at her side, apparently causing her laughter. Jacob and Hanna had gone off to gather moss for the four small tents of sticks the men had constructed. She did not know where Justin had gone.
Justin! She closed her eyes and imagined another Justin, the man she had known through a small hole on a doomed ship. How she had fallen in love with him—that other Justin! Her heart broke with the duality. She worshiped a part of him and disliked— nay hated—the whole. She reached a hand to her lips and remembered his kiss, sometimes so gentle and other times forceful, both equally devastating.
She panicked at the question of what the night would bring.
Don't think of that now...
Night fell with abrupt swiftness. Christina took a place at the campfire. Justin and the others returned, gathering around the fire for the evening meal. The flames of the campfire danced like gypsies in the night and tossed long shadows up and around the small party. Shells served as the plates they had all known in a world now lost. The fish, cooked slower to soak its own juices, tasted even more delicious and Elsie and Hanna had found numerous other fruits to add to the fare.
The men conversed about all nature of things: the tasks at hand on the morrow, retrieving items from the ship, the conditions on the island, what the other men would report finding when they returned, and the subject that would be popular for a long time—the prospects of rescue.
Christina hardly listened. Even when he addressed the others, she felt his gaze upon her. Would he force her to sleep with him? No surely... he wouldn't do that. Why then was she so terribly frightened, a fear that seemed to engulf her entire being?
Justin was well aware of her fear written plainly on her features. An inevitable fear, he knew, and he was quite confident of putting it to an end—and tonight, a night of unspoken promises. He had thought he could wait; he knew with sudden certainty he could not. Not for a week, a day, an hour.
He could only wonder how the firelight accented her beauty so. Bathed in the soft light, her long gold hair, drying now, fell in neat waves down her back and, so long, the ends curled in the sand. She sat with her legs folded under her and she stared into the fire with a faraway look in her eyes that was part trepidation, part something else he couldn't identify.
One by one the men left to retire beneath the lifeboat. Then it happened. Christina watched in shock as first Jacob and Hanna rose, retreating to one of the shelters, then Elsie and Eric. She had not expected it, at least not so soon and her eyes shot to Justin in apprehension.
"It's for the best, Christina," he said, not having to guess at her thoughts. "There are two things a man will fight for: fortune and women. Had either Hanna or Elsie not chosen, and soon, my men would have been like a pack of wolves, the women their catch. That would not have been pleasant."
She refused to believe this. "Would you ever do that?"
"Until now, no. I've never cared for a woman enough to fight for her," he said with masculine simplicity. "But now, I think I could kill a man and for the mere thought of touching you."
The words jolted her, scaring her with an ominous portent of something horrible, too horrible to contemplate. Fear grew on fear; her heart started pounding, she felt cold and shaky all at once. She watched him lift a stick that had moss wrapped tightly around the end. He set it to fire. With torch in hand, he stood up and took her hand. She hesitated, seemed to plead for something he was not willing to give.
"I'm not asking" was all he said.
He led her to one of the shelters and stopped in front, leaning over to plant the torch in the sand outside the opening.
She had to stop him. Somehow, some way, she had to stop him. She thought first of begging but then she looked into the darkness that was the forest.
His gaze returned to her and he chuckled, reading her thoughts. "I am perfectly capable of chasing you down. Spare yourself the humiliation."
She stood frozen, just staring at him, hating him, his height and strength, his threatening masculine presence outlined in the firelight, hating most of all his amusement as he considered her, and wishing she could run. Tears threatened, she could not help it, and when Justin saw this, he went to her and lifted her into his arms, carrying her into the shelter.
He laid her on the thick cushion of sweet-smelling moss, and lay down next to her, careful to keep her partially beneath him. He stared down at her and unmasked tenderness showed in his eyes, confusing her almost as much as the sweeping warmth that sprang so quickly between them.
"Christina," he whispered, gently brushing his hand over her forehead, then through her hair. "This fear of yours, is it just a maiden's fear or is there something more?"
She could not answer him through all she felt and she tried to turn from him, but he stopped the movement. "No, don't turn from me, sweetheart. Close your eyes and pretend we're back on the ship, I want to know."
"But that's just it," she cried in a whisper. "We're not on the ship and you're not the... the Justin that I... I—" She stopped, for to finish would be a confession she was not willing to make.
"Fell in love with?" he questioned with sudden understanding. He smiled. "Christina, I can make no apologies for who I am but I assure you, the man you fell in love with is the same man lying with you now."
"No." She denied it adamantly. "He would never... never force me."
He ran his hand along her side, stopping beneath her breast, pleased with the small shiver his touch brought. "The only thing I will force is your desire."
She shook her head and braced her hands against his shoulders to stop him. "You can't," she vowed with sudden passion. "I can't stop you but you can't make me... make me want you like that."
"You are so innocent," he kissed her lips lightly, all too unconcerned, "and it will be my pleasure to prove you wrong."
He took her hands and gently pinned them to the ground, careful to rest his weight on his elbows. For a long moment he stared down at her, loving her even then as she stared back in defiance, almost daring him. But unable meet his stare for long, she retreated behind lowered lashes in obvious pained submission.
"It will not even be hard, Christina," he whispered, "for know it or not, I already have your heart."
His lips found hers, his tongue slipped into her mouth and he kissed her with a tenderness he had never before shown her. He drank the sweetness that was her—a sweetness he could never get enough of and filled her with the taste of him. It was her undoing; she could not fight the effect, not even for an instant. Warmth spread through her. As his lips broke from her to travel slowly along her neck and teased there, she felt a rush of wild tremors. She held perfectly still, frightened and yet—
His hand untied the laces crossing the front of her chemise. He parted the flimsy garment, marveling at her partially unclad beauty. She stiffened and forgot to breathe. His hand slipped lightly over her breast, caressing her in a way she had never imagined, a way that made her draw a sharp breath, then bite her lip hard. Almost lazily, with but a casual touch, he caressed until he was answered. With a half groan of pleasure, he smiled. "No, it will not even be hard."
Her eyes opened in protest but she met his bold desire, mixed with a hint of amusement. She shut her eyes tight again, fighting the continuous rush of shivers from his touch, frightened by all she felt.
He undressed her slowly, savoring every long moment and for her, forced to endure it passively, it felt like an eternity. He untied the strings of her petticoat and pulled it from her, his hands brushing her skin with fire. Her chemise was lifted over her and all the while he touched her in a manner that made her breath come in small quick gasps. She quickly crossed her arms over her nakedness but he gently forced them back, allowing her no modesty as he lifted from her to give the sight of her unclad beauty shrouded in the soft light of the torch a long thorough appraisal.
She could feel it! She felt his gaze travel slowly over her, her skin grow taut in his path, the effect every bit as devastating as his touch.
He drew a sharp breath, unable to believe how beautiful she was to him. He shrugged out of his breeches and turned her to him, pulling her slender figure against his hard length. She started, then gasped at the feel of his lean muscled body on her skin, the hard swell of his manhood pressed against her nakedness.
"Yes, Christina," he smiled at the virginal response, "I want you to feel me. To know how much I want you."
And then his magic began.
He kissed with a deep longing as his hands came over her in a slow exploration, careful to keep his desire under tight restraint, wanting to awaken every part of her to his lovemaking. She was unaware of his restraint; she only knew he was kissing her again, that his touch, light and curious, was leaving her awash in sensations. She felt hot and cold and shaky and all at once. That melting feeling spread through her as a hot flush. Tremors rushed from a tight ache building deep inside her, making her twist restlessly beneath him.
Feeling this, seeing the sultry darkness fill her eyes, Justin rolled over, effortlessly lifting her with him. He slid her slender body slowly over his length. She arched against him as a shocking hot warmth gushed through her. It made her mindless and breathless, crying, no more able to stop herself than she could him. She was suddenly like a wild supple creature in his arms, and witnessing the birth of her passion overwhelm her innocence, he nearly lost himself. He lifted her higher and took her breast in
his mouth and she gasped, clinging to him, crying softly for something she could not yet know.
He could barely restrain himself and while he still had her slowly, there was nothing casual or leisurely about the way he began caressing her. His lips played over every inch of her skin, his hands touched and caressed, forcing her to tremble with rhythms of pleasure at his command. But when his hand gently slipped between her thighs, where nothing had touched before, she panicked and tried to pull away. "No, Justin... please, I—"
"Shhh," he whispered, forcing her still, gently biting her lips before kissing her. He slowly caressed her there. Flames leaped from his fingertips and her back arched instinctively, as though she knew this game. She broke from his kiss, clung to him ardently, as that sweet ache of desire grew, swelled, blossomed, then suddenly, mercifully collapsed only to return again and again.
He pursued his pleasure relentlessly, skillfully pushing her passion to a breaking point, savoring the swell of this sweet measure of desire, amazed by the complete surrender of her small body to his demands.
He finally came over her, brushing light kisses on her forehead. She was too lost to be afraid anymore until he entered her with a long, hard thrust. Instantly he stopped, startled by the tightness of her, the almost imperceptible burst, and shocked by the sheer intensity of this, their first joining.
She felt only a hot searing pain, and without a conscious thought, she had bit his shoulder hard to stop her scream. Tears sprang in her eyes and, unable to stop herself, she tried desperately to twist from him but he lifted and thrust himself slowly into her, forcing her open to him.
"I won't hurt you anymore, sweetheart," he whispered like a soft wind. "Give yourself to me. Let me have you."
She closed her eyes and he filled her, forcing the pain through her and away, pulling completely from her before slipping back, filling her with a hot searing warmth. With each slow movement her heart pounded, her breath and pulse raced and, terrified by the intensity of it, she clung to him, desperately trying to keep him to her.
Horsman, Jennifer Page 9
