MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN

by Christine Rimmer

  Eden lay beneath him, grateful for the sweet lassitude that had stolen over her limbs after the fulfillment he had just given her. She looked up into his face. This was what she'd wanted, what she'd waited for. She was doing the right thing, she was sure of it.

  She could see the glaze of hunger and desire in his eyes. He was far gone in it. And she was glad. Because she wanted him to claim her. And if he knew her secret too soon, she feared he'd call a halt.

  He said her name, braced above her on his extended arms.

  She gave him her answer, her only answer, "Yes…" Then she brazenly wrapped her legs around him and pulled him down to her.

  She felt him, there, at the entrance to her womanhood. He moved, finding the right angle.

  And then he thrust into her.

  Crying out at the sharp, burning pain, Eden drove upward to meet him, gripping his hard buttocks, taking him fully inside, though her eyes teared and her untried body protested such a sharp invasion.

  Jared froze. And then he bucked up onto his arms once more. His lips drew away from his teeth. He glared down at her.

  "What the…?"

  Eden whimpered a little—both at the way it burned down there, where he felt so very large, buried in the tender heart of her—and in response to the look in Jared's eyes.

  "You're a virgin…" It was an accusation.

  She bit her lip and forced herself to answer. "Not … anymore."

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  Jared threw back his head and groaned at the ceiling. He poised himself to withdraw.

  And then Eden moved, a slow, sweet rolling motion, beneath him.

  He groaned again, before he could stifle the sound. He tossed his head and gritted his teeth. He knew he must break this off now. He jerked back.

  She held on and pressed herself closer against him.

  "No, Eden…"

  "Yes, Jared…"

  "I should…"

  "…never stop…"

  He swore then, a poignant oath.

  "Please never stop…"

  He glared down at her.

  "Please…"

  He felt himself weakening. "Eden…"

  "Yes. Please…"

  He hovered there, as if on a precipice, clinging in fading hope to what he knew he should do, while bewitching desire lured him down.

  Her soft, final "Please…" finished him off. Jared, enveloped by her, sheathed in her, admitted that the moment for withdrawal had slipped away.

  He let go of what he should have done. Desire took him down.

  She moved again. He moaned in response.

  She whispered, "Yes," once more. He drank the word from her sweet, wide mouth.

  He didn't deserve her, not even for the limited alliance they'd agreed upon. He shouldn't have taken her. But he couldn't, in the end, refuse the heat and wonder she offered him so freely, with no holding back.

  In all his life, bound by duty, lured by violence, he had never known such a woman as this. Who talked too much and listened too well, and whose smile pierced him in a place he hadn't really known he possessed.

  He surrendered.

  With a low, hoarse cry, he submitted to his own feral nature. He plunged into her hard and fast, pushing himself ever deeper, into the center of her sweetness, calling out her name.

  She held him to her, opened herself wider, letting him claim all of her, though he knew it must hurt her, virgin that she was.

  But Jared couldn't control himself by then. He was lost. Gone. Finished. He bucked up, and then surged into her, deeper than all the thrusts that went before. He felt his seed spilling, pumping out of him in that culminating ecstasy that turned a man inside-out.

  And then, with a long, shuddering sigh, he sank upon her. Relaxing along the smooth, satiny length of her, he tangled his fingers in the bright spill of her hair.

  It seemed to him that a sweet eternity passed as he lay there, listening to her breathing and his own, feeling the wonderful softness of her, idly stroking her hair. The skin of his hand felt rough against the short, silky strands. He wrapped a lock around his index finger.

  And then he allowed his touch to roam the little distance to her neck. He caressed the soft flesh there and put his thumb, possessively, on the deep pulse of her throat.

  She was lying very still. He sensed an apprehension in her. A slight tension.

  Well, she should be tense. She had lied to him. If not with words, then with what she'd failed to say.

  She was what? Twenty-six, he thought she'd said once. In this day and age, there weren't a lot of twenty-six-year-old virgins around. She must have known he would assume she'd been with a man before.

  And she'd probably also known that there was no way he would have taken her if she'd told him the truth. To bed an innocent, let alone a woman who was not his wife, was the kind of thing only a womanizer would do. And Jared Jones was no womanizer. A troublemaking unemployed over-the-hill alcoholic, maybe. But a seducer of innocent women?

  Never. No way.

  Which was why she hadn't told him.

  So if she was worried he might be mad, well, she ought to be worried.

  But was he mad?

  He nuzzled her neck, ran a hand down the slim curve of her ribs to her waist.

  How the hell could he be mad? She'd just given him all he'd ever known of heaven. A man couldn't be mad at a woman for that.

  "Jared?" Her voice sounded hesitant, a little scared.

  "Yeah?"

  "Are you … angry at me?"

  He smiled to himself and rolled slightly to the side. As he did that, he slipped out of her. He felt the wetness along his thigh and looked down.

  The starry light from the window above the bed shone down on her bare thighs. There was a dark trail across them: blood.

  "Oh," she said softly, looking at the blood, too.

  "I'll be back." He rose from the bed.

  He went to the bathroom, got rid of the condom and moistened a towel with warm water. Then he returned.

  She'd slipped beneath the sheet while he was gone. Modestly covered, she was peering at him, her brown eyes wary. He thought she looked more like a virgin, right now when she was no longer one, than she ever had waltzing around The Hole in the Wall acting as if she knew everything there was to know about men and their ways.

  He approached her, carrying the towel. Her eyes widened. He smiled, reassuringly he hoped, though he'd never been very good at smiling.

  He carefully kept eye contact with her as he took the hem of the sheet and pulled it back, revealing her slender, pink body. She allowed him to uncover her, biting her lip the whole time.

  He knew exactly why she was keeping that poor lip caught between her teeth. To keep from babbling. She was nervous as hell now. And when Eden was nervous, her jaws started flapping like crazy, as a rule.

  And, oh, she was beautiful. As long and slim as a willow wand. With high, firm breasts and a waist made for a man's hands. The curls on her mound were darker than those on her head. He couldn't see in the dim room if they were auburn or light brown, but he knew how silky they were. He'd felt that for himself. His gaze drifted lower, to her legs. They were a damn poem, those legs of Eden's. He was getting hard again, even at his age, just looking at them.

  Carefully he put one knee on the bed and half knelt there beside her. Then he gently began to use the moistened towel, to wipe the traces of blood from her thighs.

  He concentrated on what he was doing and didn't glance at her face, both because he enjoyed it and because he wanted to give her a moment of privacy, a moment when he wasn't looking in her eyes. He felt her body relaxing as she realized that he only meant to tend to her comfort. Her legs parted slightly. He tenderly stroked the blood away there, too.

  And while he stroked the signs of her lost innocence away, he tried his damnedest not to think that no other man would have that of her. That in this at least, he would always be the only one. He had no right to th
ink that, because his whole intention, as they both knew, was to get out of her life as soon as his father was back on his feet.

  When he was done, he took the towel back to the bathroom. And then he returned to her and slid under the sheet that she'd once again pulled up.

  "Jared?" she asked, once he was settled in, with his arm beneath her head and one hand cupping her breast.

  "Um?"

  "You didn't answer me. Are you angry?"

  "No. I'm not angry." He toyed with her breast a little, felt the nipple grow in quick response. He liked that, the way she responded to him. Her breathing had changed a little. It was quicker, shallower.

  He thought of taking her again, but then realized how sore she probably was. He could wait. They had time.

  Yeah, but not forever…

  He blocked out the taunting voice. This was just for now. One day at a time. As they'd agreed.

  "I thought you wouldn't … make love to me, if you knew." She arched a little toward his teasing hand.

  "You were right, I wouldn't have." He shifted, pulling his arm from beneath her head and canting up on an elbow. He stroked her hair again. "And hell. I guess I'm glad you tricked me."

  She smiled then, a burst of sunlight in the moon-dark room. "Oh, Jared. I'm so glad you're glad."

  He smiled back, the third or fourth time tonight. Damn. He was turning into a grinning fool. He'd never smiled as much in a year as he had in the last two weeks, since this tall, enchanting creature had taken over his house and half of his inheritance.

  He looked at the clock on the bed stand, the clock she'd clobbered him with that first night. It was late. Very late.

  She read his mind. "Um. Snuggle down." She fitted herself against him as if she's been sleeping with him for years.

  He closed his eyes and thought of how he really did want to ask her about how she could look the way she looked, handle herself as she did, and yet still have been a virgin a few hours ago.

  He wrapped an arm and a leg around her. She snuggled even closer.

  It was late, he decided. He could ask those questions later. They had time.

  But not forever, the taunting voice in his head whispered.

  Jared pretended not to hear the voice. He was wrapped up in his woman's arms and halfway off to sleep.

  * * *

  Morning came too soon.

  Eden hadn't remembered to set the alarm, but she'd left all the curtains and windows open. The gradual lightening of the room did the trick. That and the incessant squawking of a group of mouthy blue jays outside the window.

  Jared awoke looking at the clock. It was eight-fifteen. Groaning, he brought up an arm and covered his eyes. And then, as the events of last night stole into his mind, he smiled. He turned his head toward Eden's side of the bed and raised his arm enough to look at her.

  She wasn't there.

  He realized then that there was water running in the bathroom. She must be having her shower.

  He dropped his arm and sat up.

  And every muscle in his body shouted at him never to move again.

  "Ugh," Jared grunted, rubbing the small of his back and shaking his head.

  He thought of the fight with Lew and felt some regret. He was still young enough to come up with the moves when he had to. Unfortunately he was also old enough now to have to pay the price later on.

  Carefully he eased his legs over the side of the bed and put his feet on the little woven rug there. He rubbed his jaw, feeling the tender place where Lew had clipped him a good one. Then, cautiously, he stood up.

  He felt as stiff as an untanned hide. Slowly he stretched, forcing his muscles to stir and respond, though they seemed to be screaming at him to get back into bed and not move for a week. He knew he'd done more damage to Lew than Lew had done to him, but he couldn't console himself with thoughts of how Lew must be feeling right now.

  Lew, the lucky stiff, was twenty-five at most. At that age, Jared could have taken on ten idiots, slept the night in a ditch and still arisen in the morning ready to fight again.

  Jared forced himself to bend at the waist. It was pure agony. He cursed Lew and his youthful resilience, as he felt each of his vertebrae crack in agonizing turn.

  This getting old, Jared decided, was not the most fun he'd ever had. On a morning like this, he could almost feel sympathy for his father, who was constantly complaining that his aging bones didn't work the way they used to.

  Jared was so concerned with getting his body loosened up a little, that he hardly noticed when the shower stopped running. Had he noticed, he would have slipped into his jeans before Eden could emerge from her shower and see him in the altogether by the bright light of day. Jared was a modest man by nature. Besides that, last night had been Eden's first experience with to-the-limit lovemaking. He would have put on some clothes in consideration for her tender sensibilities.

  But he didn't notice. And so when Eden opened the bathroom door she found herself staring at a naked man doing push-ups on her bedroom floor.

  Her first reaction was more of appreciation than embarrassment. Jared was a marvelously put-together specimen of a man. There really wasn't an ounce of fat on him. Eden watched the muscles of his arms and back flex and release as he raised and lowered his entire body. She thought that it was really a delightful plus that she'd ended up loving a man who was so very nice to look at. She blushed a little, as her roving gaze traveled lower and she was looking at the rocklike hardness of his buttocks and his strong, hair-dusted thighs. Also, she could see his manhood. It looked much different than it had the night before when he'd been making love to her.

  Right then, he caught sight of her, out of the corner of his eye. He fairly leapt to his feet.

  "Good God, woman!" He flew to the little chair, where he'd tossed his jeans last night. He shook out the jeans and shoved his legs into them, buttoning them up as if his life depended on it. Once he was covered, he barked out gruffly, "You surprised the hell out of me."

  Eden felt her slight blush turn to crimson. She gathered her robe closer around her. "Oh. I'm sorry. I…" She gestured, rather ineffectually. And then she started babbling. "I went ahead and took my shower first. But I was careful not to use all the hot water. There's plenty left. So you can go ahead, if you want. And take yours. And I'll go get breakfast started. I thought maybe French toast. Do you like French toast? Because if you don't, I can just make eggs and bacon, or whatever you—"

  "Eden."

  She hitched in a breath. "Huh?"

  A slow smile was curling his mouth. Oh, she really did like it when he smiled. And then he was coming toward her, soundlessly on his bare feet. She looked at his chest, at the beautiful, sculptured hardness of it, at that little tempting trail of hair that went down toward his jeans.

  He tipped her chin up with a finger. She saw that there was a bruise on his jaw, beneath the place where Lew had broken the skin.

  "French toast is great. Whatever you make is great." His eyes looked into hers, seeing everything, knowing everything.

  She looked at his mouth. For a man who'd only made love with two women before her, he really knew how to kiss. But then, he could have done a lot of kissing, couldn't he? He could have been a kissing fool, kissed every woman he met, and not have made love all the way with them. Just because you kissed someone didn't mean you had to sleep with them, after all.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked softly.

  "You have a bad bruise on your chin."

  Well, it was the truth. She had been thinking that. Before the other about how many women he might have kissed.

  "That bruise is the least of my problems. You should feel the rest of me."

  I have. You felt wonderful, she thought but didn't say. "Serves you right. For fighting. Nothing ever gets solved by fighting." She tried to sound reproving.

  "I know."

  "You do?"

  "You bet. I oughtta know, if anybody does. I've been in enough fights."

  "So why did yo
u get in a fight last night?"

  "Haven't we covered this ground already?"

  "Yes," she agreed. "I guess so."

  "Then can we leave it behind?"

  "Yes. All right. That's fine."

  "Good." He gave her one of those smiles that she enjoyed more each time he bestowed one on her. "But I will say this much."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm really working on it—staying out of fights, I mean."

  "I'm glad."

  His mouth covered hers then, his hands slipping down to wrap around the collar of her robe and pull her closer. Eden let out a long sigh as his tongue slipped beyond her lips.

  She let her neck relax. His hand left her collar to cradle her head, holding her still for more of his arousing, blood-heating kisses.

  Then, just when she was thinking how close the bed was, he drew slightly away. "If I don't take that shower now, I'll probably never take it."

  She smiled up at him. She knew her eyes were shining and that he'd felt her arousal in the way she'd melted like butter in the sun when his lips touched hers. She didn't mind that he knew what she felt for him. It was obvious that he wanted her, too. And beyond that, she was giving all of herself to him, unashamed, in the brave hope that her love and her passion would be enough to make him surrender his wounded, hardened heart.

  She kissed him once more, a swift, sweet peck on the lips. "Well, go on, then. I'll make breakfast." She turned him around and pointed him toward the bathroom door. Then she hurried to get dressed.

  * * *

  He joined her in the kitchen twenty minutes later and helped her put the finishing touches on their breakfast.

  They sat down and ate. Then together they cleaned up after the meal.

  Eden felt that there was a certain tension in the air through all of this. Jared was quiet, though whenever she looked up, she found him watching her. And she was constantly on guard against talking too much, so it was a silent breakfast, for the most part.

  By the time they got to washing up, Eden had begun to wonder if something was wrong.

  She was putting the final dish away as Jared finished rinsing out the sink. She turned to find him drying his hands, looking at her.