“Why is that, I wonder?” She felt the stiffening of his thigh under her hands, and moved her fingers against the taut muscle. The wool of his breeches was rough to her touch. Beneath the cloth his leg was smooth and hard.
“What are you asking me, Caroline?” His eyes were hooded as they met hers.
“ ’Tis no great mystery, is it? I am merely asking you why, after all these years of harmonious living, your brother should suddenly provoke you past all bearing?” If the words and tone were innocent, her intent was not. Her fingers smoothed the cloth, stroked up his thigh and then down again.
“Why? You want to know why?” His words were almost fierce. Without warning, his hands moved to cover and still hers, flattening them against his thigh. The size and strength of his hands as they rested over her own much smaller ones sent a flicker of heat racing along her spine. Arrested, she savored the sensation and the quickening in her loins that accompanied it. After months of cultivating a somnolent peace, it was surprising to find herself being jolted into quivering life again.
He started to say more, hesitated, and scowled at her.
“If ’tis your intention to wed Daniel, then you have no business being out here with me. I suggest you get up from there and hustle yourself back inside.”
“I’m most fond of Daniel,” Caroline replied with a pensive air. Her heart leaped at the sudden blue blaze that her admission caused to flare to life in his eyes.
“Are you indeed?” He bit off the words.
“And I believe he is fond of me as well. But he has not asked to wed me.”
“He will.”
“If he does, then I shall just have to—refuse.” She smiled a little, and turned her hands so that her fingers sought and intertwined with his. “ ’Tis not Daniel I have an eye to.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” Emboldened by what she thought she saw in his gaze, she freed her hands and rose up on her knees so that her face was on a level with his. Her hands rested on his wide shoulders, while his, automatically, she thought, sought and found the slenderness of her waist. His eyes glittered into hers, restless and very blue.
“ ’Tis you,” she continued softly.
At that his eyes narrowed, while his hands tightened on her waist. Something that was far too intense to be termed a smile twisted his mouth, was gone.
“Are you making me a declaration, by any chance?” Underneath the deliberate lightness with which he tried to imbue the words, there was a wary note.
The heat that shimmered to life between them made speech increasingly difficult, but Caroline forced the words past her tight throat.
“And if I am?” she asked, her breath catching and holding as she waited, waited for his reply.
“I take leave to warn you that you are living dangerously.” He was still striving for lightness, but his eyes, deep blue and hungry, said far more than his words.
“Indeed?” Uttering more than the single word was beyond her. Her hands shifted of their own accord along his shoulders, savoring the feel of the thick muscles through the shirt she had made. “And just what does that mean, pray?”
Matt looked at her for a long moment without answering, his face dark and his eyes restless. Then he laughed, a short, harsh sound that had nothing of amusement in it. “What does that mean, my poppet? Are you sure you want to know? But I’m going to tell you, since you’ve asked, whether you want to hear it or not. It means that you’ve been a raging fever in my blood for months. I can’t think, I can’t work, I lie awake nights going mad with wanting you. Is that enough to send you flying back to the house, or do you want to hear more?”
Caroline said nothing, but she made not the slightest move that might indicate incipient flight. Her eyes locked with his, and her breathing stopped.
“I burn for you.” His voice was low and rough. “My flesh aches and throbs in a constant torment that must surely rival the tortures of hell. I can conceive of no surcease but that of easing myself in your flesh—yet I would not hurt you, or frighten you. So run away now, while you’ve still the chance. Or I warn you, you may sorely regret the outcome of this night’s work.”
“I am not afraid of you, Matt.” It was the merest whisper, and not quite true. While she was not afraid of the man, she was afraid of the voracious passion that he held on so fragile a leash. She was afraid of what might happen when the quivering taut string that held him like that which strung a bow snapped.
“Are you not?” His eyes, dark with need yet blazing too, moved to her lips. “Then kiss me, Caroline.”
It was a ragged taunt. Caroline’s breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she hesitated. But he was hers for the asking now, she knew. She needed only to lean close and meet his challenge. Her eyes never left his face as she swayed toward him, sliding her arms around his neck. Her gaze was as intense as though she would commit his image to memory for now and forever. Only as their mouths touched did her lids flicker shut.
His lips were warm and surprisingly soft beneath hers. For just a moment he remained motionless, letting her feel the heat that arose from the simple meeting of their mouths. Then his hands shifted, sliding around her waist, and he pulled her close.
“Oh, Matt!”
She breathed his name even as she was crushed against his chest and he opened his lips over hers. His hand was on the back of her head, tilting it and positioning her mouth for his taking. Her lips had parted instinctively; his tongue slid inside, filling the warm wet cavity, claiming and taming it. The last time he had kissed her thus, he had gotten so far and no further before she had panicked. But this time, because he was Matt and she loved him, she forced from her mind the images of the past that rushed forth and concentrated instead on him: on Matt.
“You taste so sweet.”
He was still holding himself back, withdrawing from the deep melding of their mouths as he pressed rousing little kisses to her lips, murmuring to her, gentling her so that she would not take fright. Caroline felt him reining himself in, and the knowledge that he cared enough for her to do so melted the last of the barriers that she had erected between them. In a sudden glorious burst of loving generosity she tightened her arms around his neck, pressed her body to his, and slid her tongue between his teeth. She would give herself to him, anything he wanted without restraint, because she loved him. He was more to her than the whole world.
“Caroline.” He pulled back, sounding as if he were drowning. His breathing was uneven, his face flushed. She could feel the struggle he was having to hang on to his control. “If you kiss me like that again. I’m likely to lose my head.”
“I want you to lose your head,” she whispered against his mouth and, tilting her chin, fitted her lips to his again. This time, when her tongue touched his, he gasped. Then he gave her no quarter but crushed her closer, his mouth slanting over hers, his heart slamming against her breasts.
Even as he kissed her with hungry need he half rolled, half fell off the bucket, taking her down with him to the floor where he wrapped his arms around her and slid his legs over hers and let her feel the whole long hard length of him against her body. She tightened her arms around him and shut her eyes and held him close, not protesting when his trembling fingers found and fondled her breasts even though the ghastly memories were once again fighting to surface. But she held them at bay by repeating to herself, over and over, “This is Matt.” Even when his hands slid down her legs to jerk at her skirt, she did not try to stop him, but clung to him as he yanked her dress and petticoat up around her waist and fumbled at his own breeches until his buttons popped with his urgency.
When he parted her stocking-clad legs with his knee she gritted her teeth. When he found the part of her that had been hurt before and that he would hurt again she sank her nails in his shoulders in grim acquiescence. When he pushed himself inside her, stretching her and filling her until she thought she must burst, she trembled with the horror that broke over her in waves as she could no longer hold it at
bay. Yet still she held him, eyes shut, teeth clenched, and uttered not so much as a single sound of protest as, with hoarse sounds of ecstasy, he thrust himself inside her again and again.
Against her bare backside she felt the prickle of straw and cold earth. Over her and in her was the hard strength of groaning, heaving man. Her hands clutched his back, bunching his shirt in her fists, and her toes curled in her shoes as she resisted with every scrap of willpower she possessed the urge to fight what he was doing to her. He was Matt, her Matt, and she loved him. By this act he made her his. Clinging to that thought, she endured.
When he finished, with a great cry and a thrust so deep that she whimpered before she could stop herself at the ferocity of it, she held him as he collapsed shuddering atop her. She held him and stroked his hair and tried not to think of his body still wedged inside hers, or her soreness, or his seminakedness, or hers. Such thoughts would bring on shudders of disgust, she knew, instead, as her hands smoothed over his shoulders and caressed his back, she concentrated on the certainty that she had pleased him enormously with her gift. As she had thought it would, that notion made the violation of her body far easier to bear.
Until, at last, he raised himself on his elbows so that he could stare down into her face. Looking up at him with a loving smile, she was stunned by the harshness she saw there.
“Damn you!” He gritted the words out even as his body tensed atop hers. “Why the hell didn’t you stop me?”
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“Why—why should I have stopped you?” Her eyes were huge with confusion and shock as they met his. He was clearly angry, his bright blue gaze narrowed and hard, his mouth set in an uncompromising line. Before tonight she had never heard him use such deliberate profanity, but he was suddenly making up with a vengeance for his normal temperateness. Even his body with its rigid muscles emanated hostility. Though why, when she had practically sundered herself in two to give him the dearest gift she had to give, he should be angry with her was beyond her ken.
“Because for all your sweet little seduction, you weren’t a bit more ready for a man’s loving than a twelve-year-old virgin!”
“But—that’s because—you know.” She was stuttering in her surprise.
“Yes, I know.” Bitterly mimicking her tone, he surged to his feet. His face was red with temper as he adjusted his breeches without the slightest bit of modesty. Glaring at her all the while, he continued, “I’ve wanted to lift your skirts ever since I first laid eyes on you, sitting on your delicious little rump in the dirt with your gown half torn off and your hair tumbling over your shoulders, looking so mad you could spit. When you lay in my bed and I kissed you, do you know how hard it was for me to let you go? No, of course you don’t. You don’t have any idea. But let you go I did. And why? Because I had a fondness for you, Caroline, and you clearly needed to be cherished and kept safe. Trust was there between us, and trust is something I value far too highly to allow it to be tarnished by my lust. Before I took you to bed—if ever I did—I wanted to give you time, and a chance to heal. And by God, I did my part. I’ve kept my hands off you, haven’t I? I’ve earned my spot in heaven with all the effort it took! But now—how the devil do you suppose we’re going to be able to go back to what we had? We can’t, because I’m going to go mad with wanting you, and yet knowing that if I take you you’ll be sick with revulsion all the while I’m slobbering and panting away! Do you think I’m such a swine as to take a woman who doesn’t want me? Especially a woman I have a care for?”
“But—but …” Words failed her. Never in her wildest imagining had she suspected that her selflessness would lead to such a denouement. His reasoning was beyond her at the moment, though she had clearly heard him say he had a care for her. That alone would have been enough to make her happy if he hadn’t looked so fiercely angry.
Decent now, he was thrusting the ends of his shirt back inside his breeches. She bethought herself of how she must look, naked from her waist to the middle of her thighs where her white cotton stockings began, her legs wantonly sprawled, her skirt twisted about her middle. The sable triangle of her womanhood stood out starkly against her pale skin, and even the small indention of her navel was clearly visible to his view. Face crimsoning, Caroline thrust her skirt down and scrambled to her feet.
“I did want you to—do what you did. It’s just that—I—I can’t help it if I don’t like it when it happens! Oh, Matt, can’t you just accept the fact that I made you a gift, and be happy about it?”
“Be happy about it!” For a moment she thought he would punch the nearest wall. His face mottled with passion, and he clenched his teeth. “I neither need nor want any human sacrifices, thank you very much!”
“It wasn’t like that!” she protested, almost wailing, but he was already stalking toward the door, running his fingers viciously through his disordered hair as he went. Clearly he did not mean to stay and discuss the matter further.
“Matt!”
Ignoring her, he yanked the door to one side, his temper and strength combining to make it slide as though its runners were greased. Then he stopped dead as he came face to face with Daniel outside.
Daniel stopped too, and for a pregnant moment the two merely stared at each other. Matt’s back was to Caroline, but even so she could see the menacing stiffening of his body. Daniel, facing her, was still largely enveloped by shadows despite the pool of light that spilled out through the barn door, but she could sense the tension in him too.
“What do you want?” Matt growled, his big body planted so as to block both Daniel’s access to and view of the interior of the barn. Daniel made as if to step around him, but Matt held him off with an answering move of his own.
“Where’s Caroline?”
Matt laughed, the sound ugly. “Caroline is no concern of yours.”
“She’s as much my concern as yours! Where is she? She …” Daniel’s voice trailed off as, over Matt’s shoulder, he found Caroline with his eyes. She had hurried in pursuit of Matt, only to stop some paces behind him as he confronted Daniel. Now she moved so that Daniel could see her, and urgently shook her head at him. But Daniel, his eyes widening, was not pacified. Though Caroline didn’t realize it, with her hair fallen from its knot to tumble over her shoulders, her lips rosy and swollen from Matt’s mouth, and the pale skin of her cheeks reddened from his sandpaper jaw, she was the very picture of a woman who had just been, at the very least, thoroughly kissed.
“You—bastard!” Daniel said to his brother on an incredulous note. And then, without any warning at all that Caroline could see, he punched Matt in the face.
The blow resounded throughout the barn. Jacob, who had his own spacious stall at the rear, snorted in alarm, his gigantic body thumping against the wood. A cow penned nearer the door mooed loudly as Matt stumbled backward and then measured his length on the floor with a loud thud.
“Matt!” Caroline shrieked, running to Matt’s aid as he sat up, a hand to his eye. She clutched his arm, crouching at his side and glaring up at Daniel with the ferocity of a lioness defending her cub. “You’ve hurt him! What were you thinking about? He’s your brother!”
“You stay out of this,” Matt growled at her, pushing her away and seeming to shake himself. Then he was coming up off the floor in a fast lunge, tackling his brother and staggering with him out into the barnyard. They fought furiously, trading blows and kicks and curses, both big, strong men and lethally furious. Matt was an inch or so the taller and the more muscular by a discernible degree, but he was hampered slightly by his lame leg and so the contest was more or less even. Darting behind them as they circled, grappling, the shadowy, shifting darkness obstructing much of her view, Caroline was reminded of nothing so much as a pair of dancing bears.
“Stop it! Matt! Daniel! Do you hear me? Stop it!”
Caroline grabbed at Matt’s arm, only to be shoved back out of the way. At the same time, Matt, distracted, took another blow to the face. The splat of Daniel’s fist connecting with Ma
tt’s jaw made Caroline cringe. Matt grunted, jerking his head back. Daniel followed with a blow to Matt’s midsection, which, fortunately, Matt managed to avoid by twisting to one side. With a roar Matt planted a toe in Daniel’s middle. Then, as his brother doubled up with a gasp, Matt followed with a bone-crunching punch to the face. This time it was Daniel who measured his length on the ground.
“Please stop! Please!”
But she might as well have kept silent, for all the good her cries did. Daniel flung himself at Matt again. Caroline, jumping from one foot to the other as she watched helplessly, remembered the bucket in the barn and ran to fetch it just as Daniel managed to lock his arm around Matt’s neck. On the way back, she detoured just long enough to fill it with icy water from the trough. Then she stood beside them—’twas Matt who had Daniel in a headlock now—and sloshed the contents of the bucket impartially over them both.
“What the devil …!” They parted, gasping and spluttering at the freezing deluge. Both men rewarded her interference with identical glares. In the shifting moonlight, despite the differences in their coloring and height, they looked enough alike at that moment to be twins. Once the source of the intervention was identified, their eyes swiveled from Caroline to fasten on each other. Then, with identical snarls, they were at it again.
This time Caroline didn’t even hesitate. She threw the bucket down on the ground, clenched her fists, and stormed toward the house. If the blasted fools wanted to kill each other, then she could only hope that they would succeed!
This Side of Heaven Page 23
