The other women still hadn’t arrived, and Serenity was glad. She sat down on the bank, too exhausted to move another inch. Her skirts were liberally spattered with blood, but she couldn’t imagine finding the strength to remove them, let alone the petticoats and bodice and underthings to which she was so unaccustomed. Jacob continued to the river’s edge and waded in, carrying his ruined trousers.
Serenity had seen Jacob naked on several occasions before tonight, each time when he had been about to Change. She had noticed his beauty before and tried to pretend she hadn’t.
But now she was keenly aware of his body, of the way the rising moon’s light slid over the contours of his back and shoulders and flowed down to his waist and below. He kept his back to her, a small concession to modesty, but there was nothing self-conscious in his movements.
Why should there be? He and Serenity had shared every intimacy possible between a man and woman. All except one. She watched him as he emerged from the river, water glistening on his chest and dripping from the trousers he had carried in with him. He laid the trousers out on the rocks and came toward Serenity, crouching on the bank a few yards away with his hands dangling between his knees.
“You ought to wash up,” he said. “I can go a little ways off while you do it. I’ll know if anyone comes.”
She sighed. “I don’t want you to go away.”
“Then I won’t look. You’ve got to take care of yourself, Serenity.”
Others had said that to her before. She wasn’t sure what it meant anymore, if she ever had been sure. For a year after the tragedy, “taking care of herself” had meant personal survival, and then it had been making sure the ranch survived. When Jacob had arrived, the only thing she’d wanted for herself was revenge.
Now that purpose was gone. What could possibly replace something that had driven her for seven years? If she removed her dress and bathed the blood from her flesh, would she wash away her sins, as well?
It was too good to be true. All the things she had imagined in the most secret corners of her heart were too good to be true.
“Jacob,” she said wearily, “I have something to say to you.”
He met her gaze, his gold-flecked eyes intent and worried. Was it fear that she would declare her love for him again? Ask him to return the sentiment? Beg him to marry her?
“I—” She drew in a hard breath and let it out again. “I won’t be going on after the Reniers.”
Whatever he had expected her to say, it obviously hadn’t been that. “Why?” he asked.
She laced her fingers together and clenched her joined hands. “I always intended to kill them, Jacob.”
“I know.”
Of course he had. That was why he’d tried so hard to discourage her from the beginning. He hadn’t wanted her to become a murderer.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said, forging ahead.
“Even after Leroy, I still didn’t understand what it would be like to kill someone with my own—” She opened her red-stained hands and stared at them blankly. “Never again. I’m finished.”
THERE HAD BEEN more than a few times in Jacob’s life when he’d had to hide his feelings. There had been times when it hadn’t been easy, but this was one of the hardest.
This was what he’d been hoping for. He’d just about given up when he’d realized that Serenity could never return to her Quaker ways or find acceptance among kin who had no comprehension of what she’d been and what she’d done to survive.
But he hadn’t counted on Perry. He hadn’t counted on what Serenity had had to do to save his life again, or how much that would change her.
He should have been relieved, but his feelings were as tangled up as petticoats on a barbwire fence, and he couldn’t seem to sort them out. Just like he couldn’t forget the words Serenity had spoken when he’d been fighting for his life.
I love you.
Jacob stared at the soft earth between his feet, wishing he could dig a hole deep enough to bury himself way down where no one could ever find him. When she’d blurted out her feelings, he’d been too busy trying to survive to really understand the words. And afterward, he’d had plenty more to think about, especially where it came to Serenity’s well-being and the clucking of the Quakers with all their high-minded rules.
Now he felt her avowal all through his body, tightening every muscle and shortening his breath. In all the time they’d spent together, even when he’d had her in his arms, those words were the last ones he’d ever expected to hear her say.
Not because she couldn’t learn to love a man. She’d done it once. Hell, he’d thought that someday if she could only let go of her hate, she could find someone who would treat her decent and soothe her hurts and make her happy. He’d just known it wouldn’t be him.
The only thing that made sense was that she hadn’t meant what she’d said. Maybe she’d only intended to help him when he was losing his fight to live. And she had helped him. He’d felt her words, even if he hadn’t fully understood them. They’d given him strength. She’d done what she’d set out to do, if that had been her purpose. But that knowledge didn’t help him, either. Not when she’d gone and made it so clear that she’d chosen him over her own kind.
Chosen him for what? Virgil had wanted to marry her. Jacob had heard the proposal himself when he’d been listening to their conversation after supper.
Serenity had rejected him firmly, but had she been tempted by Virgil’s offer, even for a moment? Had that put some idea in her head that Jacob wanted the same thing? Could her brief time at Tolerance have changed her in ways he hadn’t recognized?
A hollow pit opened up in Jacob’s chest, a cage where his heart rattled around like seeds in a dried-up yucca pod. He had to be wrong about that, too. She’d only wanted to show her kin that she was serious in her intention to go her own way, and get rid of Virgil at the same time.
If she had meant the other thing, she would tell him. She was too honest not to. And now that she’d decided to give up her revenge…
It didn’t mean he had to give up the hunt, too. Your devotion to the law is what sets you apart, Serenity had told him. He’d come dangerously close to forgetting that when he’d realized that Perry had ignored his warnings. He would have killed his old friend without hesitation.
But Serenity had brought him back to himself again. He could entrust her to her friends, knowing they would do everything in their power to heal her sadness, that she would become all the stronger for what she’d suffered. He would go after the Reniers using the information he’d picked up in Bethel. He would bring the outlaws in under the Code, as he’d always intended.
Everything would be the way it was before he’d met her.
A fish plopped in the river, and Jacob came back to himself.
Serenity was still gazing at him steadily, her eyes filled with profound sadness.
“I understand,” he said slowly. “You’re no killer, whatever you think. Letting go is the right thing to do.”
Serenity tugged her bonnet off, pulled the pins out of her hair and shook it loose around her shoulders. “I have a chance to start over now,” she said. “And that’s what I plan to do.”
Jacob’s mouth was crowded with words he couldn’t speak. “You’re strong,” he said. “You’ll find your way.”
Serenity glanced away, and Jacob realized how what he’d meant as encouragement must have sounded to her. Your way. Not our way. If she looked at him again with hurt in her eyes…
“I don’t know if I’m strong,” she said. “I only know I can’t go back to the way I was before I came here.”
He wondered if he could.
“You’re going back to Avalon?” he asked.
“I was always going to go back,” she said. “I just didn’t know it would be so soon. Or so difficult.”
“It won’t seem that way when you’re home.”
Serenity drew up her knees, tucking her skirts around her legs. “I guess we won’t be seeing
each other again after I leave.”
There it was. No more circling around, each waiting for the other to make the first move, speak the words out loud. Serenity had just answered the questions that had been haunting Jacob since they’d left Perry’s grave.
So why in hell did he want to tear the whole world apart with his bare hands?
“My work takes me to New Mexico Territory pretty often,” he said thickly. “There’s no telling…”
But he knew, as she did, that once they parted it would be for good.
There was nothing left to say. Jacob became suddenly aware that he was still naked. A few minutes ago it hadn’t mattered; now it did, and his trousers were still sopping wet. Until the other women got back with the horses and his other clothes, he would find somewhere in the brush to wait, maybe even go for a run and work this sickness out of his head.
Serenity moved before he did. She got to her feet, reaching behind her to the fastenings of her skirt. She let it fall in a puddle at her feet, kicked it aside and began to unbutton her bodice. Underneath she wore some kind of a modified corset, fastened with hooks and worn over an unbleached muslin chemise. She removed her petticoats, made for an old-fashioned kind of dress, one without a bustle. Her drawers were unadorned, without even a hint of ribbon or lace.
Jacob clenched his teeth and forced himself to look away. He’d urged her to bathe, sure enough. But she had to know better than this. He jumped up and started for the trees.
“Jacob.”
He stopped in his tracks. The sound of his name on her lips filled that empty place in his chest with air too hot and heavy to breathe.
Move on, he told himself. But her voice had bound his legs, his whole body, with silk and thorns. He turned his head. As Serenity unbuttoned the placket of her chemise and pulled it over her head, baring her small, firm breasts, he knew the situation was already out of his control. And when she stepped out of her drawers and cast them aside like the skirts and petticoats, he didn’t figure it was much good trying to hide the part of him that gave him away.
He’d imagined her body naked plenty of times, just as she was now, slender and curvy all at the same time, innocent and seductive as a siren. He’d felt a little of that sweet body—the firmness of her belly, the plumpness of her breasts. But he hadn’t seen her bare legs, sleek with muscle earned from days in the saddle, soft and feminine all the same. Or the gracefulness of her bare arms. Or the little fluff of hair over her—
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asked, her voice husky.
Virgil had called her that. Jacob never had, even though he’d thought it more times than he could count.
“Yes,” he said. “And you’d better get on with your washing up. I’ll just go over to the—”
“No.” She came toward him, moonlight caressing her skin with eager fingers. “I want you to stay with me.”
Jacob’s heart seemed to swell up as big as his cock. “The others will be here anytime now. It’s time you—”
He lost his train of thought as Serenity turned toward the river, hips swaying as she glided down to the water’s edge and slipped in. It wasn’t very deep, but she crouched until she was floating on the surface, then swam out to the middle. She stood upright again and began to splash water over her face, her shoulders, her back, dunked her head and came up with her hair sliding over her neck and shoulders like drifts of seaweed.
It was a struggle, but Jacob managed to consider the idea that she still might not completely understand what she was doing. Maybe she thought since he’d been so easy being naked that she should be, too. But he couldn’t quite convince himself that she could be that naive after what they’d already done.
Serenity glanced back at him over her shoulder, her hands moving where he couldn’t see. He imagined them stroking her own breasts, the nipples hardening to stiff peaks, and the ache in his cock became almost unendurable. He’d been ready for this for a long time. So ready that he would have to watch himself once he got inside her.
If that was what she really wanted, and if he didn’t have the sense and discipline to refuse. He was about to walk away again when Serenity waded out of the water, bold as you please, and all he could think about was licking the glistening drops from her breasts and belly, and hearing her little cries of surrender.
She held out her hand. “Jacob,” she said, a little crack in her voice, “I want to be with you. In every way.”
“Serenity,” he said. “Listen to me. I—”
“I want you.”
Oh, she knew what she was doing. Maybe too well. There was a chance—he despised himself for thinking it—that she saw sex as a way to bind them. That this was a trick, and all the quiet acceptance of their separation a lie.
He wouldn’t believe it of her.
“I know it’s only this one night,” she said, oblivious to his ugly speculation. “I won’t ever ask anything of you again. But I want something to remember you by. Something I can never forget.”
Jacob was ashamed, but he wasn’t done worrying. In giving herself to him, Serenity might get far more than she bargained for. He had to think for both of them, as long as he could still think.
“Have you thought…” He started again. “You know there’s a chance…a danger that…”
“I don’t think it’s possible, Jacob.” She looked down, her hair swaying over her face.
Jacob couldn’t ask her how she knew. For most women, it would be a tragedy. There was nothing he could do to take that pain away. But he could show her she didn’t have to be alone.
He took her hand and pulled her into his arms.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SERENITY WASN’T AFRAID. She didn’t fear Jacob’s touch, or the arousal that made itself so plainly known as he embraced her.
And she wasn’t afraid of what the others would think if they returned too soon. None of that was important now. What had Jacob said about the way wolves saw the world? No future, no past.
Tonight she was a wolf.
Like a wolf, guided only by instinct, she searched for his mouth and found it, opened her lips to welcome the gentle push of his tongue.
There had been two other kisses, only two, and yet it felt as if they’d done this a thousand times. A thousand times, and every one as arousing and exciting as the last. Jacob was incredibly gentle as he explored her mouth, probing the subtle dips and hollows with flicks of his tongue.
She had never been kissed like this. It was an act of love in itself, demanding nothing more than what she had already offered. If she had asked to stop here, Jacob would have let her go, even though she had seen the extent of his arousal and felt it pressing against her thigh as he leaned above her.
Once that would have terrified her. Later, she had trained her body not to feel anything at all. But with Jacob she was a virgin again, clean, untouched, eager to know the mysteries into which every young bride was initiated.
But there was no bride here. Only a lover, in every sense of the word. And that would have to be enough.
She suddenly became aware that Jacob’s mouth was no longer on hers. His face was a few inches away; he hadn’t left her. But he was searching her eyes, looking for…what? Fear? Uncertainty? Second thoughts about continuing what she had always stopped short of before?
No words could reassure him. She reached down to feel for his hand, twined her fingers through his and lifted it to her breast.
The last time he’d touched her there, she had been caught in a kind of desperate pleasure, as if she were snatching joy from the mouth of an abyss. But when Jacob cupped his palm around her now and began to tease her nipple with his thumb, the abyss was nowhere to be found. Only the exquisite sensation of his big hand on her soft flesh, gentle and firm at the same time.
Her nipple hardened under his caresses, aching so badly that it seemed nothing Jacob could do could take away the pleasure-pain.
But he found a way. He kissed her lips again, then her chin, then the hollow of
her neck and the upper slopes of her breasts. When his mouth closed over her nipple, she cried out in surprise. Heat flowed like an invisible current up to her head and down to the warm, wet place where her thighs met her belly.
Jacob’s tongue stroked over her nipple, curled around it, drew it into his mouth. Serenity arched her back, pushing herself deeper as he began to suckle. The obvious satisfaction he took aroused her even more.
He did think she was beautiful. He worshipped her body as he sucked, running his hands over her hips, along her thighs, around her belly. And he made her realize, with the part of her mind that could still hold a thought, that her body was something wonderful. Not a thing to be used, not a vessel to serve a man’s lust, but a source of joy.
That was why, when Jacob cupped his hand over the mound of soft curls below her stomach and slid his finger into the tender cleft below, she didn’t try to push him away, or struggle or resist. It was the most natural thing in the world to feel the flood of moisture nourish what had been dry for so many years, feel the petals plump and swell like flowers bursting from the desert earth after a summer rain.
“Serenity?” he murmured into her ear. “Am I going too fast?”
If she had been able to laugh, she would have given him his answer. There was nothing quick or impatient about anything he was doing to her.
But since she couldn’t speak, she slipped her hand between them and followed the length of his arm until she found his slick fingers and pressed them into her again. He dipped in, rubbing gently, and all of a sudden brushed against something that set off an electric current, shocking her whole body at once.
Her thighs opened of their own accord, inviting him to continue. He didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. He returned to that remarkable nub of pleasure, gradually applying more pressure as he circled it with his thumb. Serenity could feel something building inside her, a strange and almost frightening sensation that could not be compared to any other, not even the things Jacob had already done. It was as if she was poised on a high pinnacle above a deep valley, wings pressed tight against her back, and was only awaiting the moment to unfurl them and fly.
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