by Jo Goodman
Ryland wanted to brush aside the pieces and have done with the game. He wanted to take her in his arms and finish with playing the gentlemen. He might have made her a prisoner in his valley, but he hadn't once made her prisoner in his embrace. His body stirred, reminding him of the danger of this particular line of thinking. "Go to bed, Brooklyn," he said suddenly, harshly.
Brook nearly dropped the piece she had been about to move. She set it down gently and slid the rook three squares forward, glancing up at Ryland. His eyes were implacable, impenetrable. They seemed to look through to her very soul and find her wanting. A tremor shivered through Brook, but she did not want to name the thing that caused it. Without a word she gathered her skirts in one hand and stood, fleeing the room as if the devil himself were after her.
Ryland was a long time coming to bed that night, but Brook was only pretending to sleep when he slipped under the comforter beside her. It was no good denying to herself that she was aware of him. With a frequency that alarmed her she found herself thinking of what it would be like for Ryland to touch her with something besides his contempt. She was conscious of his every movement, his every mood, in a way that she had been with no other man. She was conscious of his body, of his lithe grace and lean, muscular strength. Brook told herself it was because he forced her to be aware of him, keeping her in sight most days, keeping her at his side every night. How could she help the direction of her thoughts under those circumstances?
Brook waited for Ryland to turn on his side as he always did, but this night he remained on his back, hands cradling the back of his head while he stared at the ceiling.
"I'm sorry," he said. The words were spoken in the manner of a man unused to saying them, forced out as if against his will. "I know you're not sleeping," he added a moment later when Brook said nothing. "Are you afraid of me?"
"No."
In the dark Ryland smiled to himself. He turned on his side, not away from Brook, but toward her. Putting a hand on her stiff shoulder he gently pushed her onto her back and propped himself on one elbow. Outside, a thin layer of clouds spread moonlight throughout the valley. The light filtered in through the window, and Brook's face was bathed in cool moonshine that allowed Ryland to make out her features. "No?" he said softly.
"No," she repeated mutinously.
"Very well," he agreed, letting his hand slide off her shoulder. "Still, I regret that I didn't acknowledge your victory earlier. I didn't notice you had me in checkmate until you left."
"Then why did you tell me to go?"
So she had thought him a poor loser. Ryland nearly laughed at that. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He had felt nothing save admiration for the way she had cornered his king, though he believed the fault had lain with him for giving Brook more attention that he had given the board. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself." He was about to turn away when Brook nearly brought him out of his skin with her next words.
"Why haven't you raped me?" she asked quietly.
"What?"
She knew he had heard her. Did he get some sort of perverse pleasure from making her repeat herself? "I asked you why you—"
"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But what kind of question is that?"
"A pertinent one, I think. Do I get an answer?"
"I haven't raped you because it's never occurred to me to take by force what you're supposed to give me of your own free will. I told you what we did in this bed was your choice."
Why was she supposed to believe him? she wondered. He had held her at gunpoint on the Mary Francis and forced her to take off her clothes. In her own suite he had considered trying to take her again. "I didn't think you meant it."
"Well, I did. No matter what you might think, I never intended to rape you on the Mary Francis. I wanted to frighten you. We both recall how my efforts ended."
"I don't have a gun now," she pointed out. "What is there to stop you now?"
"My own sense of what is right and decent. Content yourself with knowing I still retain a measure of both." He stared at her while she mulled over his words. Her brows drew together and she sucked in her lower lip, worrying it with her teeth. "I don't understand you, Brooklyn. What sort of whore are you anyway?"
"I'm not a whore," she said. When Ryland snorted his disbelief Brook turned away, thumping her pillow with her fist. Her wrist bracelet jangled wildly. "Good night."
"Good night."
Ryland didn't think he would be able to fall asleep, but he did, or at least he thought he must have, because the dream he was entertaining was highly erotic and featured Brooklyn as the sole object of his desire. Her beautifully slender hands were sliding over his back, easing the tension in his muscles and creating a different sort of tension in his groin. He could feel her thighs pressed to the naked backs of his, her hips cradling his hips, her breath softly sweet and warm at the nape of his neck. She whispered something in his ear that he could not catch. He murmured her name and turned over, facing her now. He cupped her face in his palms and lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips parted as his tongue slipped over the curve of her mouth, retreated, then touched her again and forayed deeper. She moved tentatively beneath him. The arch of her hip nudged his groin. He felt hot and hard against her skin.
"Please," she said.
Ryland was ready to oblige her, wanting nothing more than to slide into the warm, moist center of her. His hands pushed the flannel nightgown she wore higher, groping for her breasts.
"Please," she repeated. "Get it over with."
Brook's words seeped into Ryland's senses like ice water trickling through an underground spring, waking him to the harsh reality of what was happening between them. He swore, tearing himself away from Brook, and sat up, kicking at the covers that tangled around his legs. "Damn you, Brooklyn! I should strangle you! What do you mean by starting something you never intended to finish? Do you want rape? Is that what you want?" He pounced on her, grabbing her wrists and pinning them on either side of her head. "Is it, damn you?"
Brook flinched and shut her eyes, blocking out the hate and censure in Ryland's obsidian gaze. "You're wrong," she said, turning her head to the side. "It wasn't me, it was you."
"Liar!"
"I'm not ly—"
He gave her a little shake, stifling the sound of the bells on her wrist with his palm. "Your hands were all over me," he growled. "Just like they are every morning. Have I given you the impression I'm made of iron?" He drew her hands to his chest, laying her palms flat against his rib cage. "Flesh and blood, madam. Unlike you, I'm flesh and blood!" He pulled her hands lower so she could feel the male hardness of him, which anger and frustration had done nothing to relieve. "Does that feel like iron to you?" Even as he said the words he knew what was going to happen.
There was a moment of stunned silence between them before Brook's laughter washed over him like a cleansing spring rain, and, as he recognized the utter ridiculousness of his question, he joined her, releasing her hands and falling back on the bed. He realized with the small portion of his mind that was still thinking coherently that he had never heard her laugh like this before. He also realized he would take Drew's place as court jester to hear it again and again.
Ryland drew the comforter over him and edged nearer Brook. Her laughter died as suddenly as it had come. At her temples he could see the glistening path of tears that had been born of her laughter, and he wiped them away with the ball of his thumb.
Brook watched him warily. His gentleness moved her in ways his anger never could. "It rather did," she said, her voice a mere thread of sound.
He grinned disarmingly, thankful for the dark that hid the color staining his cheeks. "I'll accept the compliment, though I wasn't fishing for one." Ryland watched her eyes dart over his face and come to rest on his mouth. He was suddenly inspired. "What does this feel like?" he asked huskily. His head lowered and his mouth drifted over hers, teasing and tempting her with the lightest of touches. "Hmm?" He raised his lips slightly.<
br />
"Dandelion fur," she said. "It feels like dandelion fur. It tickles."
"Ahh," he said wisely, as if making a great discovery. "And this?" His mouth lowered again, but instead of touching the lips that parted expectantly beneath his, Ryland brushed the curve of her jaw and then nuzzled against the sensitive cord of her neck, touching her pulse with his tongue.
Brooklyn's breath caught. "Like a puppy," she whispered. "Sweet and eager and wet." She felt his smile pressing against her skin. It was like sunshine, but she said nothing.
"This?" he asked. His mouth closed over hers, hard this time. And searching. One hand rested between her breasts. Even beneath the inviolate flannel he could feel the heavy beat of her heart. Breaking the kiss, he caught her glance and asked the question again with only his eyes speaking for him.
"Another," she said, unable to break his searing gaze. "It feels like another."
"You're certain?"
She knew he was asking about more than the kiss.
He wanted to know her intentions, and he wanted her to know that if she said yes now he was not going to stop this time. For an answer Brook sat up and drew off her nightgown. She held it in front of her, hesitating a moment, then tossed it to the floor. Heat shivered through her as Ryland's eyes dropped to her breasts, and she bent her head, letting her unbraided hair fall forward.
"No," he said. "You're every bit as lovely as I remember. Let me look."
Afraid that he would remind her that he had won the privilege because Phillip had cheated him, or worse, that he had bought the right, Brook said nothing as Ryland's hands parted her hair and drew it over her shoulders.
"Come here," he said.
"Where?"
"Closer. Here. In my arms. I want to touch you."
God help her. Brook wanted to be touched. She edged closer, and when Ryland's hands could exert more pressure she allowed herself to be pushed gently back on the bed. The tips of Ryland's fingers caressed the hollow at the base of her throat and then traced a path down the center of her chest with unnerving slowness. One hand closed over her breast. The pad of his thumb caressed her nipple. Brook could not take her eyes from his hand. She felt her breast swell and harden in response to his touch. Threads of fire spiraled outward, tugging at her senses, making her ache with a longing she understood in only the basest of terms, using words that she had learned in the meanest of hovels. A rush of heat shimmered through her and brought Brooklyn back to the present. She had forgotten what she must do. His pleasure, she thought. She must see to his pleasure.
Her belled wrist fell over his, holding him still.
Brook's other hand slipped behind his neck and pulled his mouth down on hers. Her teeth tugged at his lower lip, biting gently. She swallowed his low groan of desire as her mouth opened hotly on his, inviting the caress of his tongue, the pressure of his teeth, even as she initiated it. Brook's fingers slid across the taut muscles of Ryland's back, dipped inward, and stroked the curve of his buttocks. Her hand quieted on the back of his naked thigh as the heat and strength of Ryland's need was pressed against her flesh. Brook murmured incoherently against his mouth.
"Tell me," he encouraged her. "Tell me what you want."
Brook did so, using the only language she knew, the harsh gutter language of the streets and brothels.
Ryland admitted that for a short time, in the heady arms of Brook's passion, he had forgotten she was a whore. Her vocabulary reminded him with a vengeance. She could wait for what she wanted, he decided. There were things he wanted more. Like to have her forget every man who had come before him. Ryland brushed aside the hand that held his still and his mouth lowered to her breast. He tasted the sweet, salty curve of her flesh, spiraling inward until her nipple was captured by the hot suck of his mouth.
Brook pushed ineffectually at Ryland's shoulders, then surrendered and held him to her instead. Her body trembled as his mouth drifted across her skin and came to rest on her other breast. Ryland gave it the same attention, his tongue flicking and soothing by turns, until she responded with a tiny cry that was part torment, part pleasure. "Ry—"
"Say my name again. Just like that. Say it."
Brooklyn expelled his name on a breathless sound of pleasure. Her hip twisted against him, arching into him. She felt his hand slide over her abdomen, and her skin shivered beneath his touch. When his fingers moved lower, searching out the center of her pleasure, Brook squirmed and tried to avoid the intimacy of this touch.
"No," he said. "Open your legs." Without waiting for her to obey him, Ryland nudged apart her thighs with his knee. "This is what I want."
Brook gasped as Ryland's hand moved her inexorably toward pleasure's end. In the moonlight her skin was iridescent, unblemished mother-of-pearl, yet soft and yielding, responsive to Ryland's every caress no matter how much she might wish it otherwise. She had wanted his touch, but Brook had given no thought to what it would mean. She felt helpless now and was shamed by it, naked and vulnerable to Ryland in a way that had nothing to do with her lack of clothes.
"Let me hear you," he said when he saw her fighting the mewling sounds of excitement as it blossomed within her. She might have been a whore, but Ryland recognized that she was innocent of her body's command of pleasure. No man had ever taken time with her before, and the knowledge filled Ryland with purpose and urgency.
"No more," she bit out. "Please. I cannot... bear... it." But she could and she did. Ryland saw to it, stroking Brooklyn until her body was taut as a stretched canvas, flushed with heated colors of passion. His lips silenced her last cry and his tongue played against hers in way that expressed his immediate need, drawing in and out, foreshadowing the joining of their bodies.
Without breaking the kiss Ryland moved over her, settling between her parted thighs. He reared back, lifting her hips, and thrust into her. He knew at the end he had cast aside all semblance of gentleness, but he was in no way prepared for the pained cry that was torn from Brook as he entered her. Neither was he prepared for, or capable of, calling a halt. A myriad of questions rose in his mind, and all of them were quelled by the aching hunger of his desiring.
Brook was embarrassed for herself. The unexpectedness of the pain had made the pleasure that had come before it unimportant. She bit her lower lip, holding herself very still, and waited for Ryland to finish with her, wanting him to be done quickly and never ask this hurtful thing of her again. When he quieted, supporting himself on his elbows above her, Brook tried to move away.
"Oh, no," he said softly on a husky puff of air. "Not yet." He readjusted his hips, moving slowly and more deeply in her as she tried to escape. "Just feel me in you."
Brook's glance was accusing. "I can't feel anything else."
"Really? You can't feel this?" His mouth captured hers a moment before she would have turned her head.
Brooklyn felt heat shimmer through her as Ryland took up the challenge and reminded her of what had come before the pain. His teeth nibbled on her lower lip, sending sparks of radiating excitement tripping over her skin until they converged against the point of their joining. She felt her hips move against him and had no idea how that had come to pass. It was as if she had no control over her body's responses, as if Ryland knew her better than she knew herself. When his lips brushed the soft inner skin of her arm she shivered. When his hands threaded through her hair and stroked the downy strands at her nape she sighed. His warm breath on her neck and the exquisite tugging of his kisses had Brook wrapping her arms around his back and her fingertips pressing whitely into his flesh.
She was uncertain when he began to move in her again but there was no pain now, only an ache that was born of wanting. Brooklyn's heels dug into the bedding as she raised herself to meet Ryland's thrusts. She heard her name and knew by the huskily murmured sound that he was pleased.
Ryland held her, showing her how to move with him, measuring the course of his loving to prolong their pleasure. "That's it," he said when her hands brushed against his chest and e
xcited the flat male nipples. "Touch me."
She did. Her hands and fingers explored the breadth of his shoulders and the tapering arrow of dark hair at his abdomen. Her mouth slanted across his, engaging his tongue in a delicious battle that left her senses reeling. Brook felt a change in the rhythm of Ryland's loving, and a moment later, when he broke their kiss, she saw it in his features. His cinnamon eyes were nearly black now. His skin was stretched tautly over his cheekbones and jaw, making him somehow fierce and threatening in the moment he was most vulnerable.
The force of Ryland's excitement rocked her, and Brooklyn gasped as she was flung over the edge of pleasure's precipice yet again. Her body shuddered in the circle of his arms, and Ryland rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, as if protecting her from a fall.
"Open your eyes, Brooklyn," he whispered, stroking the silky strands of her hair.
She did as she was told and found her eyes straying to the gentle curve of his mouth. Oh, dear. What that mouth could do to her! Brooklyn buried her face in Ryland's shoulder, vowing she would never look at him again.
"So shy," he teased. "Somehow I didn't expect that." He groaned slightly. "There were a great many things I didn't expect," he admitted. "How long has it been since you were with a man?"
