Perhaps he should have read “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” instead. Chaucer was raunchy and humorous, and he needed his spirits lifted tonight, not weighed down with the morose musings of a Danish prince.
Thoughts of Rachel drove desire deep into the region below his waist, warming and filling him. He spit out an expletive. Sleep would elude him again.
He slid out of bed and crossed to the stove to feed the fire. As he shoved in a piece of wood, he looked up and thought he saw someone pass in front of his window. It could be nothing; the moon was out, creating changing shadows everywhere even though there wasn’t much wind.
He waited, listening for the code. Everyone knew the code. If they needed him and it was after midnight, they were to knock on his window four times—two quick, two slow. He heard no one at the window… but someone did enter the office.
Quietly, stealthily, he went to his dresser, slid open the drawer, and pulled out his gun. He moved soundlessly to the door that led to his office, pressing himself against the wall in order to get the advantage over his intruder. The barely audible footsteps came toward him slowly, with the slightest swish of movement.
Now!
He reached around the side of the door and grabbed an arm, pulling the intruder swiftly into the room. A gasp, then a shriek followed.
He pressed the barrel of his gun at the intruder’s head—against a mass of familiar brandy-hued hair.
“Rachel?” He moved the gun away, dropping his arm to his side.
She slowly turned and looked at him, her eyes round with fear.
He crossed to the dresser, dumping the gun where it belonged. “What in the hell are you doing, sneaking around in the middle of the night?” Surprise made him angry.
She stood where he’d stopped her, apparently unable to move.
“Well?” he repeated, pulling his shirt off the bedpost and shrugging into it. “What are you doing here?”
Glancing nervously around the room, then at the floor, she answered, “I’m… I’m not sure. I just couldn’t sleep.”
He frowned. “Is something wrong?”
She continued to look at the floor, refusing to meet his gaze.
He looked her over. She stood before him in her voluminous cape, her head bowed and her hands clasped together looking like a Christian martyr, awaiting the cross. “I suppose you know what time it is.”
She nodded. “But I can see your room from my window. I… I saw the light.”
He raised a sardonic eyebrow. Sometimes she was so totally open and without guile. Most women would have acted coy, batting their eyelashes at him and tittering like rabid squirrels. Not Rachel. Suddenly everything he’d said to her yesterday soaked through him like pig swill. He should apologize to her, but he didn’t think he could. It wasn’t in his nature.
“And why couldn’t you sleep, Rachel?”
She took a deep breath and glanced around the room. Her gaze slid to his bed—then quickly away. “I didn’t really mean that… that I thought you’d killed Jeremy. I know you’re not a murderer. I… I guess,” she added, “I guess I’ve come to apologize.” Her nervous fingers fiddled with the edge of her cape.
His own self-loathing grew. How easily she apologized for everything. How impossible it was for him to do the same. His pride wouldn’t allow him to go to her in the middle of the night the way she’d come to him.
He walked over and stood in front of her. She still kept her eyes fastened on her shoe tops. “Apology accepted.” She smelled of flowers and fresh air. He remembered picturing daisies, then roses between her thighs, and desire surged forth. Damn Hamlet! Damn his hormones, damn the seductive differences between men and women, and most of all, damn her.
She coughed, a nervous sound that seemed to strain past her throat. “Well… I guess I should be going…”
He felt the pang of her earlier rejection, when she’d learned he was a breed. Forcing himself to feed on it, to free himself from wanting her, he snarled, “Nervous being in the same room with a savage?”
She looked at him, and, finding his gaze on her, she glanced away. “Of… of course not. I’ve been in a room alone with you before.”
He lifted his black eyebrow again. “At night? When everyone else is fast asleep—in their warm, snug beds?” Her discomfort spurred him on. “It’s bad for your reputation, you know. After all,” he added, stepping so close that their clothes touched and her sweet scent assaulted him, “you’re an upstanding widow, and I’m the dangerous, dastardly half-breed.”
Her lips quivered. They looked soft, sweet, and delicious. She opened her mouth as though to answer him, but nothing came out. Panic flashed in her eyes.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” He forced himself to feed on what to him was her shallow rejection. It relieved him of guilt. He could say what he wished. He could say what he felt. He could hurt her again.
“How relieved you must be that Buck interrupted us that night. Just think,” he hissed, “you almost let a savage touch you. I wanted to, you know.” He saw the pink flush darken her cheeks before she looked away again.
“You can’t imagine the number of times I’ve dreamed of your breasts, naked and full, in my hands.”
“I’ve got to go,” she whispered, turning away. “I—”
“Oh, no. Not yet, sweet witch.” He grabbed her arms and held her in front of him.
“Do you want to know something even more ridiculous? This ought to really make you laugh. I’d sit and think about undressing you. Peeling away your clothes, layer by layer,” he said, drawing the words out so she’d get a vivid picture, “until your luscious pink nipples were exposed, just for me. For me. Isn’t that a laugh? Then I’d go crazy, imagining myself feasting on a sweet strawberry lollipop, licking it, washing it with my tongue, watching it bead up into a tight, hard bud…”
A tiny sob escaped her mouth, blending with a moan. “Don’t,” she gasped. “Please don’t—”
He gripped her harder. “Why aren’t you laughing? Isn’t this funny? Isn’t this the funniest damned thing you’ve ever heard?”
She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Jason couldn’t stop. He ached for her even now, when he was purposely hurting her. God, she drove him crazy! He wanted to wound her, humiliate her. He pulled her even closer against him, pressing his groin against her.
“And the funniest thing of all is that ever since that day you put a sprig of those damned daisies in a vase on my desk, I’ve wondered if they grew from that virginal place between your thighs.”
She shook against him, suddenly gasping out a ragged sob. “Stop it! Stop, please. Why are you doing this?” She finally looked up at him, her eyes filled with pain and her face so wet with tears they were dripping off her chin.
A knife, sharp and long, seemed to twist into his heart. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight.
Just as quickly, he released her. She stumbled backward, her eyes wide and her hand over her mouth.
He felt an odd, uncomfortable pressure building behind his eyes. He hated himself for what he’d just done to her. He also hated her for bringing these emotions out in him. “Maybe you should go.”
She clung to the chair by the door as if it could shield her from further abuse. “Yes,” she whispered.
“I didn’t really mean to hurt you, Rachel.” Then why, why had he done it? God, but he hated himself. Life was so much easier to bear when he didn’t allow himself to feel.
She slipped onto the arm of the chair, her head lowered. “Some of what you said to me yesterday was true.”
Her voice was so low, he had to strain to hear her. “No,” he argued, hating himself more because she didn’t seem to. “No one has the right to hurt someone else.” No one knew better than he the truth in that statement. Sweet Jesus, what had happened to him?
She gave him a watery smile. “But it didn’t hurt. It was true.” She shrugged
. “I’ve never been given much responsibility. Not until…” She looked at him, her face soft and filled with an odd yearning. “Not until you gave me a job.”
He didn’t want her vulnerability to touch him. He didn’t want to see those emotions that she clearly couldn’t hide. “I thought you worked for your uncle.”
Nodding, she replied, “But he didn’t trust me to do the right thing. He didn’t trust me to say the right thing. He …he just didn’t trust me…” She stood and turned to leave.
In spite of his stiff resolve, his heart ached for her. “Rachel.” When she stopped, he whispered, “Don’t go.”
She turned, wiping her face on her sleeve. “Why should I stay?”
“Because if you go, you’ll never come back.”
She dug into her pocket and fished out a handkerchief. Uttering a shaky sigh, she wiped her face, pressing the cloth against her eyes.
“I should go. I should…”
He went to her, untied her cape and slid it off her shoulders. Glancing down at the front of her blouse, he repressed a weary grin. The buttons were askew, as if a child of four had dressed her. “Did you dress in the dark?”
She followed his gaze. “Yes,” she answered, giving him an apologetic smile.
“Let me help you,” he said, as he unbuttoned the buttons at her neck. The pulse at the base of her throat moved rapidly beneath her skin, matching the sound in his ears.
“You drive me crazy, you know,” he said, pressing his finger against the pulsing movement.
“I do?” Her voice was barely audible. “Why?”
He let out a long, ragged sigh, then continued undoing her buttons. “Damned if I know.”
Her hand came up to stop him. “That’s… that’s probably enough.”
He looked at her mouth and knew that what they were doing now would never be enough.
“No,” he answered, continuing his downward path with her hand on his. Soon her hand slid away, and he felt her shiver.
“Come over here,” he ordered softly, pulling her toward the stove.
She followed, her head down and her cheeks pinkened with a virgin’s bloom. “I… I don’t care, you know.”
He paused. “About what?”
She looked up at him, then lowered her gaze to his chin. “That… that you’re part… part Indian.”
His heart did a funny dance in his chest. He didn’t know what to say. He just nodded, then slid her blouse off her shoulders, pulling her arms free. Her camisole was cut modestly across the tops of her breasts, but the plump mounds were still visible. God, but he wanted to bury his face there. He balled his hands into fists, clenching them tightly to keep them from shaking.
“Jason,” she whispered, her voice filled with anguish. “Please, I… I can’t stand up…”
Scooping her into his arms, he carried her to the bed and set her down on the edge. She sat there, her hands clasped in her lap, her knees pressed together, her face hidden by the long, glimmering fall of her hair.
He sat down beside her, moving her hair away from her face. She was still flushed.
“I don’t… I don’t know—” Shaking her head, she clamped her lips together.
Gently, with great restraint, he ducked his head and kissed her. She softened beneath him, but her mouth still quivered.
He lifted her hair and kissed her ear, her neck, the pounding pulse at the base of her throat, all the while listening to her breath quicken at his touch. His lips touched the sweet, creamy flesh above the lacy edges of her camisole and he reined in his hunger.
Slowly, keeping his need at bay, he moved back and looked at her. She was shivering, yet the stove kept his room warm. He reached up and slid the top button of her camisole out of the buttonhole, watching her as he did so. Her light eyes held his. She was breathing erratically. He persisted, sliding each button out until he reached the waist of her skirt.
Without pulling her gaze from his, she waited for his next move.
Taking the open edges of the camisole in his fingers, he pulled them apart. Hunger, urgent and deep, lanced through his groin. She was perfect. Her breasts were firm, high, and round. They quivered, moving to the rhythm of her rapid heartbeat. Her nipples were small pink buds of beauty that had already eagerly hardened.
Swallowing, he licked his dry lips, unaware that he’d been staring at her with his mouth open like a callow youth. He touched her, briefly closing his eyes at the boundless pleasure that surged through him. Circling her nipple with his thumb, he listened as tiny gasps escaped her throat.
Slowly, he bent to touch her nipple with his tongue. She gasped and pushed at his shoulders.
He looked at her, a question in his eyes.
“I… I didn’t…” She swallowed, shaking her head.
“Do you want me to stop?” He didn’t want to. Hell, he didn’t know if he could.
She shook her head. “No, I’m sorry… I just…”
Relief flooded him when she shrugged out of her camisole. He slid to his knees in front of her, cupping her breasts, teasing the nipples, gently, seductively kneading the soft flesh.
Her knees relaxed, allowing him to move between them. He snaked his fingers up under her skirt and massaged her bare calf, inching his way up until he met the edge of her drawers. She moaned against him, draping her arms over his shoulders.
As his hand moved higher, her breathing became more labored. When his fingers grazed the heated delta of her thighs, he found the fabric hot and damp. She moved, trying to close him off, but it only made his own loins swell with need.
She pushed at his shoulders again. “Oh God,” she whispered, her breath ragged.
He didn’t understand her. But he wanted her, and he was sure she wanted him. “Do you want me to stop, Rachel?” he asked again. He looked up at her, and her eyes were heavy with desire and her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. He almost lost it.
“Oh no… Just hurry,” she pleaded, running her hand over his cheek, down his neck and over his shoulders.
Springing to his feet, he pulled her off the bed and into his arms. They kissed, hard. His hands roamed her bare back, then came around to her breasts, down her sides to her hips. He pulled her against him, letting her feel his arousal. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and pushed back.
Groping behind her, he found the opening to her skirt. It fell to the floor, leaving her in her drawers. He drew back and looked at her. Heat, wet and deep, spread through him.
“Take them off,” he said, his voice husky with need.
She fumbled with the tie, but soon let the fabric fall. Her eyes never left his face.
His gaze filtered over her. She was perfectly made. High, swelling breasts tapered into her waist, small and delicate. Her hips were seductively curved to drive him wild, and at the base of her thighs, there was a generous thatch of rustred hair. He’d dreamed of it; he’d imagined it. Yet nothing could compare with the reality of it.
He touched her stomach, dipping his fingers down to gently fluff her pubic hair. She gasped, but didn’t pull away. “Get into bed,” he ordered, his voice husky with need.
She slid under the covers, bringing the blanket to her chin.
Quickly shedding his clothes, he joined her, dragging her against him. She arched toward him, asking the unspoken question, giving the unspoken answer.
Without further thought, he pressed over her. Her legs moved apart, and he entered her. He drove, intending to go deep, when suddenly she gasped, and her face was pinched with pain.
A horrifying realization imprisoned him, draining him of his desire. He stared down at her, watching as she tried not to cry.
“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?” Anger, sympathy, and surprise beat a path across his heart.
Chapter Ten
He moved off her, rejecting her as she’d known he would once he found out. Turning away from him, she rolled into a ball.
“How in the h
ell can you be a virgin, dammit?”
He sounded furious. She had thought she’d be able to pull it off. She didn’t want to be a virgin. She hadn’t wanted it for the past two years, hoping her surprise trip to California to be with Jeremy would remedy the hated condition. But what could she tell him? She could feel him staring at her, silently berating her.
“Tell me, Rachel.”
“What’s there to tell?” The pillow muffled her voice.
He swore. “Rachel—” He heaved a sigh, which ended in an incredulous, humorless laugh. “You’ve been married for two years.”
“I know that,” she answered. “Don’t you think I know that?” Feeling his hand on her bare shoulder, she waited for more recriminations.
“He never touched you?” he asked, sounding puzzled as he continued to stroke her arm.
She shook her head, his gentleness surprising her.
Pressing her shoulder toward him, he said, “Look at me, Rachel.”
Reluctantly she turned. His sultry, magical eyes explored her face as he pushed her hair back behind her ear. He pulled the covers away and gazed again at her breasts. Her nipples puckered automatically. Reaching out, he touched one with the tips of his fingers, then cupped the breast in his palm. She swallowed a shudder.
“How could he not touch you?” He still sounded bewildered.
It would have been easy to tell him—if she’d understood it herself. “He… he didn’t even try,” she finally answered, remembering her confusion on her wedding night when Jeremy had left her to go drinking with his friends.
He pulled the covers down further, until she was completely exposed to his gaze once again. His hand touched her skin, moving over her gently, encircling her navel, and she closed her eyes, praying he would never stop.
Heat of a Savage Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Two Page 15
