Amanda uttered a choked cry and would have cringed away from him, but he caught her by one arm and held her still as his knife sliced through the sodden knot. Her petticoat immediately dropped to lay in a soggy heap around her feet. Pulling her free of it, he folded the knife and put it back in his pocket. Then his hands were at her waist, stripping off her dripping pantalettes, leaving her standing in nothing but her chemise.
“Matt, I can do it.” Amanda tried to speak calmly, not wanting to provoke him further. He ignored her, catching the hem of her chemise and lifting the icy-wet garment over her head. Her words of protest were muffled by the folds of cloth. Then he was flinging the chemise aside, and she was left standing before him with nothing but her dripping hair to preserve her modesty. She wrapped her arms over her naked breasts, blushing furiously as she tried to look everywhere but at his face. He was looking at her, she knew. She was all too aware of the heat of those metallic eyes as they moved over her body.
“Matt …” Whatever she had intended to say died in her throat as he took a step toward her and scooped her up in his arms. Her head fell back against his wide shoulder as he held her against his chest. He seemed not to care that her hair was soaking his shirt. Amanda quivered as his eyes roamed insolently over her body, lingering on her breasts, which had grown rigid with cold, and her bare, slender thighs. Then he was lowering her without ceremony into the tub. A muscle jumped convulsively in his jaw as he moved away.
Amanda watched that broad back as he walked away from her to rummage in a sea chest pushed against one wall. The hot water was wonderfully warming, and one part of her mind acknowledged its comfort, but the rest of it concentrated on Matt, and what he meant to do next.
“Can you bathe yourself, or do you want me to do that, too?”
He had turned back to look at her, with a cake of soap in one hand and a towel in the other.
“I can do it.” Her voice was low, her eyes wide with appeal as she looked at him. If anything, her expression made his own harden. Clearly he was determined to believe the worst of her—and while she was sitting naked in a bath, vulnerable and defenseless, was not the ideal time to try to persuade him otherwise. She would get warm first, and clean and dry, and then she would try again to convince him of her innocence. It couldn’t be that difficult. The Matt she had come to know was kind and fair, and at the very least fond of her. He had to listen, and believe …
“Don’t be all night about it. You and I have some business to attend to, milady.” There was that sneering mode of address again. Amanda’s lips tightened, but it was not difficult to restrain her own quick temper. She had never been a fool, and it would be foolish to lose it now; in a confrontation with Matt, she was bound to lose. She cast a quick, apprehensive look at him. He was walking toward her, the soap and towel in either hand. When he was perhaps a foot from where she sat in the tub, he tossed the soap to her. Taken by surprise, she missed, and had to scrabble around the bottom of the tub for the slippery cake.
“Are you certain you don’t want me to scrub your back?” His jeering question made Amanda flush, and she looked at him quickly. He had walked back to reseat himself in the straight-backed chair. Only this time he tilted the chair against the wall so that it balanced on its two back legs. One hand was in his pocket and the other idly drummed the tabletop as he watched her. Amanda flushed under that mocking perusal, supremely aware that the shallow water left her body from the waist up clearly visible to him. And from the expression on his face, he was intent on enjoying the sight.
“You make me feel like a … a wanton,” she said, voice quivering, then could have bitten her tongue out. She had not meant to say the words aloud. As she had suspected he would, he looked pleased at her discomfiture. That long mouth twisted into a nasty, mocking smile.
“If the shoe fits …” he said softly. Amanda stared at him in angry disbelief, her soft lips trembling with hurt, her eyes huge with reproach. With her long, water-darkened hair trailing around her in the water, its sodden state making it of very little use in hiding her charms from him, she looked like a mermaid. Or a siren. One of those deadly sea sirens who sang so prettily until they lured besotted sailors to their graves …
“Take your bath. And hurry. I’m not feeling very … patient now.” He watched her from beneath half-lowered lids as he added this last. Amanda flushed, for his meaning was unmistakable. He meant to force her to endure another of those degrading, painful performances with him.
“Matt, why are you acting like this? You
must
know that I didn’t betray you. We were friends, Matt—at least I thought we were.”
“Is that how you would describe what we were to each other, milady? Now, I would have said we were lovers—and that you didn’t like having a lover. Oh, you liked the kisses and the caresses, but when we arrived at the consummation, it wasn’t quite genteel. So you decided to put the memory—and me—behind you in the most effective way you could think of. Do you have any Borgia blood in your veins? I wonder. If I remember correctly, that family boasted a lady who rid herself of unwanted men by killing them off.”
“Matt, that’s
not true.
” She was glaring at him and beseeching him at the same time. His mouth twisted into a snarl, and his eyes glittered as the front legs of the chair hit the floor with a bang. He was on his feet, glaring at her as if he hated her. Amanda cringed.
“Finish your bath,” he gritted. “And be silent. If you say another word, I won’t be responsible.”
Amanda watched, biting her lower lip, as he took a quick, angry turn about the small cabin. Temper emanated from him in waves. It came to her then that Matt Grayson was a dangerous man when he was angry—and she had made him very angry indeed. Prudently deciding to say nothing more for the moment, she began to soap herself.
She worked the soap over her arms and shoulders and breasts and belly, then extended first one long, slender leg and then the other to be lathered. Throughout, she felt Matt’s eyes on her, his gaze growing hotter and angrier with every new movement. But she refused to look at him. Bathing in front of him this way was humiliating in the extreme, and it would be made even more so if she acknowledged that he was watching. But she could not prevent the blush that spread from her face to her neck and even to her breasts. The usually pale peaks were rosy and glowing … Amanda saw a trickle of soapy water run down the slope of one breast to dangle from the nipple, and she absently wiped it away. Then, compelled by instinct, she looked up to find Matt’s eyes fixed on her, their expression unnerving. His jaw was clenched so tightly that a nerve jumped at the corner of his mouth. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, the knuckles whitened by the force of his grip.
“You’ve had long enough. Get out,” he ordered tersely, his eyes, with that same frightening expression, never leaving her body.
“Matt …” Now was the time to try to reach him, if there was ever to be a time. Now, before he got his hands on her body, as she could read in his eyes that he meant to do. But he didn’t give her a chance. At the wide-eyed fear in her expression, the soft appeal in her voice, his mouth twisted savagely. He crossed the floor in two quick strides, catching her under the armpits to haul her dripping and still partially covered with soap to stand before him. His eyes raked her contemptuously, the sneer not quite able to hide the desire. Amanda shrank from him, twisting to try to preserve as much of her modesty as she could, but he wouldn’t let her go. One hand bit into the soft flesh of her upper arm while the other caught up the towel and ran it roughly down her body. To her shame, the abrasion of the rough material made her nipples harden. He laughed as he saw her body’s involuntary response, and tweaked one nipple insolently. Amanda cried out at the sudden touch that was almost painful, and her eyes flew to meet his. What she read in them made her knees tremble.
“Matt, please, don’t,” she breathed, shivering at the thought of being taken by him in anger. Before, when he had been kind and gentle with her, it had been a horrible, disgusting experience. What would it be like now, when he hated her, and seemed bent on proving it?
“Oh, yes, you’re the little virgin who decided she didn’t like making love,” he said, smiling unpleasantly at her as he stopped drying her body to wind the towel around her hair. “Isn’t that unfortunate?”
“Matt,
please.
” She was begging, shamelessly, terrified by what she read in his eyes. He meant to deliberately hurt and humiliate her.
“Not this time,” he snarled softly. “
This
time I mean to please
me.
”
And he picked her up in his arms.
Amanda lay as still as death as he carried her to the bunk, which was built into the far wall. He wanted her to struggle, she realized, so he could have the pleasure of taming her. If she fought him, it would only inflame him further. She knew that instinctively.
“What, no maidenly protest?” He was mocking her, his silver-smoke eyes gleaming at her nastily, his arms like iron bands around her as he held her close against his muscular chest. She could feel the heat and strength of him through the fine linen of his shirt, feel the flexing muscles of his arms as he lowered her to the bunk and sat beside her, his hands on either side of her, imprisoning her. Her eyes were huge purple pools of fright as she stared up at him. He smiled tauntingly.
“Matt, won’t you please listen?” Her teeth were chattering, from fear this time instead of cold. The fate he intended for her was too horrible to contemplate. She remembered the stabbing pain that had felt as if it would rip her in two, and shuddered. If she didn’t convince him of her innocence now, at once, it would be too late … “I didn’t betray you, Matt.” She spoke slowly, as if to a child. “I swear it. It was Edward.”
“Say any more, and I just might strangle you.” His voice was almost pleasant, but it was belied by both the ominous glitter of his eyes and the savage snarl that revealed most of his white teeth. Terrifying in their slowness, his hands moved to unwind the towel from about her head and drop it to the floor. Then he began to spread out her still-damp hair across the pillow …
He wasn’t listening, wasn’t going to listen, Amanda realized with a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. His face wore that absorbed, almost blind look of passion that she had seen on it only once before, when he had forgotten everything except his own desire and the slaking of it … Despairing, she tried one last time.
“Matt,
please
listen to me. I would never betray you: I
love
you.”
He looked at her then, his eyes hardening and darkening until they appeared almost black.
“You lying little bitch,” he gritted. “You’ll try any trick, won’t you?”
And then he reached for her.
Amanda jerked helplessly as she felt his hands close over the soft flesh of her upper arms, but it was useless. His mouth came down over hers, his lips hard and hot, taking what they wanted from her shaking mouth, his tongue thrusting insolently between her teeth, daring her to fight him. When she tried to wrench her mouth away, his hand came up under her chin, his long fingers biting into her jaw as he held her still. He kissed her, over and over again, long, hungry kisses that gave no quarter to the remnants of her innocence. His hands were everywhere, not hurting her but shaming in their familiarity, roaming her body as if it were his to touch and explore. Despite her fear, the feel of those long, strong fingers with their faintly calloused tips running possessively over the crests of her breasts caused a tingle in her belly. Her nipples swelled to quivering life against the stroking hands. She felt him smile against her mouth at this evidence of her reluctant arousal, and then one hand was trapping the tender prey while his mouth moved to torment it. Amanda gasped as his teeth closed over the rosy nipple with a force that stopped just short of pain. Her eyes flew open, and her hands came up instinctively to clutch at his head. A pair of lanterns lit the cabin; by their soft glow, she could see every detail: the blackness of his hair against the pearly gleam of her breast, the whiteness of his teeth as they mouthed her quivering nipple, the bronze of the large hand that cupped her softness, holding it helpless victim to his mouth. The rough texture of his jaw and chin against her silken flesh reminded her vividly of the first time he had taken her. He had seduced her then as now, exciting her unsuspecting body to blind enchantment before destroying her girlish illusions forever with hard, thrusting pain. Remembering that pain, Amanda went rigid. Her hands, which had been curling around the back of his head, now tried to push him away.
“
No,
” she gasped. At her protest, he moved away from the nipple he had been alternately tormenting and enticing. His eyes as they met hers seemed to sizzle, their silvery color darkened to the shade of molten iron.
“Yes,” he said softly, baring his teeth at her in what was more a snarl than a smile. Then, to her surprise, his hands fell away from her and he stood up. Amanda lay blinking up at him, bemused, too amazed that he was letting her off so easily to do more than stare at him. She completely forgot about her nakedness until his eyes raking her body reminded her. Then she blushed and turned onto her side, groping for the rough-textured cover beneath her to pull over her quaking body.
“Be still,” he said, reaching down to remove the fold of blanket from her clutching fingers. Then his hand on her shoulder turned her onto her back again. Amanda tried to resist, but his strength was far greater than hers and reluctantly she surrendered to it. She lay on her back, one leg slightly bent as she instinctively sought to hide the silky triangle of black hair. Her arms came up to cross over her breasts in that age-old gesture of self-protection, but he wouldn’t allow that. He bent, catching both her wrists, pulling them away from her breasts and pushing them down until her palms lay flat against the bunk. When he released his grip, she would have returned her arms to their original position if a predatory gleam in those smoldering eyes had not stayed her. He watched her expectantly for some few seconds; when she made no move to defy him, his muscles relaxed slightly and one hand went to the buttons on his shirt. His eyes never left her.