“Because, to be frank, it doesn’t sound like a very good proposition.” Suddenly she was consumed with a need to hurt him as he had hurt her. Not that she could, of course. Her ridiculous love for him gave him an unfair advantage. But she could prick his vanity. She managed a silvery laugh. “You’re very attractive, of course, but …
marriage.
When I marry, it will have to be to someone of my own social class. If I didn’t, if I married someone like you, my father and all my ancestors would turn in their graves.”
His face blanched. “Why, you snobbish little …”
Amanda smiled tauntingly as she watched him suffer. Not that anything could make up for the pain in her own heart.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she said very gently. “But I felt that it was best to be honest.” He stared at her as she gently disengaged her arm from his slackened fingers. Then she turned on her heel and left the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He was behind her, and he sounded ugly. Amanda smiled. She hoped that his damaged pride was paining him as much as her damaged heart was her. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, surprised to find him so close.
“To my room. To pack. I’m leaving, Matt.” They were in the front hall by then, and Amanda headed for the beautiful carved mahogany staircase that lifted gracefully into the upper regions of the house.
“The
hell
you are.” He caught her arm again, swinging her around. Amanda glared at him, feeling fury flare and die as she saw his face. He looked half out of his mind. His mouth was contorted with rage, and his eyes glittered wildly down at her.
“You can’t stop me, Matt,” she said almost gently. He let out his breath with a sound like a snarl.
“Can’t I, my fine lady?” He was looking at her as if he hated her. “We’ll see about that.”
Amanda turned away without replying, jerking her arm from his grasp. Behind her she heard him swear violently. Glancing back over her shoulder, her eyes widened as she saw that he was coming up the stairs after her, vengeance in every line of that dark face.
He caught her on the second-floor landing. Breathless, Amanda had picked up her skirts to run, hoping to reach her bedroom so that she could bolt her door against him. She didn’t think that he would go so far as to burst through a locked door, not with the servants in the house. But Matt was too fast for her. Even as she had gathered up her skirts his hand closed over her arm roughly, swinging her around to face him. Amanda looked up at him, her heart pounding wildly at what she saw in his face. Then he bent and scooped her up in his arms, holding her struggling body hard against his chest as he strode down the hallway.
“Let me
go,
Matt.” Suddenly he terrified her, this tall, dark man who was both lover and stranger. He looked like a man who had reached the end of his rope; his silver eyes burned with an unholy fire, and that handsome mouth was set in a harsh, almost cruel line.
“Like hell.” He looked down at her as he spoke. One corner of his mouth twisted up in a travesty of a smile, frightening Amanda almost more than the glitter of his eyes. Matt had shed his civilized skin like a snake, and she was left facing a primitive, untamed male.
“Matt …” She tried again to make him see reason, only to fall silent as he snarled.
“You always say my name so prettily.” His tone was savage. “Do you do it deliberately, I wonder, or is it your feminine camouflage that gives you a voice like silk when underneath you’re as hard and cold as a knife?”
“Matt, this won’t stop me from leaving.” She hoped to penetrate the angry bitterness that flamed so furiously in his eyes. As soon as she spoke, she knew that reminding him of her plans was a mistake. His jaw clenched, and his arms tightened around her, crushing her against his chest.
“Won’t it?” He smiled down at her. Amanda shrank from the violence she saw in that smile. “I think it will. You’re mine, Amanda, and this time I won’t let you out of my bed until you know it, too. You belong to me—I’ll never let you go.”
“You’re
insane.
”
“If I am, you’re the cause.”
He had reached the end of the center hallway and now turned left along the corridor that led to his rooms. Lalanni came out of one of the bedrooms, a duster in her hand. Her eyes widened as she saw her master striding down the hall with a face like the devil’s and Amanda struggling in his arms. The girl knew better than to say anything; Matt’s face as he stalked past her told her that. She moved back into the bedroom, as if to make herself invisible. Amanda felt her face flame at being caught by her maid in such a humiliating position.
“Damn you, put me down.” Embarrassment added fresh impetus to her struggles. Matt paid no heed to her efforts; he had reached the door to his bedroom and now shouldered through it. “Matt, I
won’t
…”
Her voice trailed off and her face turned an even brighter shade of scarlet as she saw Lamb, Matt’s valet, place a change of raiment on the bed. He regarded them incredulously.
“
Get out.
” Matt’s voice was a snarl. Lamb, flushing, hurried to obey. When the door closed behind him, Matt strode to the bed, sweeping the carefully arranged clothes onto the floor with one hand before dropping Amanda onto the silk bedspread.
Amanda quickly rolled toward the edge of the bed and to her surprise, she wasn’t stopped. Then she saw why. Matt stood between her and the door, a nasty, mocking smile on his face. As she watched he crossed to the door and turned the key in the lock. Then he came back to stand in the middle of the room. His eyes never left hers as he shrugged out of his coat and began to remove his cravat.
“This won’t change anything, Matt,” she warned, swallowing as she watched the lacy cravat fall to the floor and his fingers move to the buttons of his shirt.
“Won’t it?” The last button came out of its hole; Matt pulled the shirttails from his pantaloons and shrugged out of the shirt. Amanda’s mouth grew dry as she stared at the wide, bronzed shoulders and black-furred chest. If she were honest, she would have to admit that she had craved his lovemaking for weeks now. The last time he had taken her, he had introduced her to a range of pleasures that she had never imagined existed. Her cheeks colored at the memory of what he had done to her with his mouth and hands, and her heart began to beat faster. She wanted him—but she wanted him in love. Not like this, with anger and a desire to force her submission fueling his passion.
“If you do this, you’ll regret it, Matt,” she said softly. Standing in front of one of the two large, many-paned windows that stretched from floor to ceiling and let in a dazzling amount of sunlight, she could see every hair and pore on the bronzed skin while her face remained in shadow. Shirtless, he was magnificent: all hard muscle and rippling sinew, with a broad chest that could have been carved from teak and a flat, tautly muscled abdomen that she knew from experience was as unyielding as a board.
“I only regret not doing this weeks ago.” He was bending to pull off his boots, then began to unfasten his pantaloons. “God knows why I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter. From now on I’ll make love to you when, where, and how I please. And don’t lie and pretend you’ll find it a hardship. We both know that you enjoy the way I can make you feel—and we have only just begun.”
“I won’t be your mistress, Matt.” He was sliding the pantaloons down over his legs, stepping out of them and letting them fall carelessly to the floor.
“I asked you to marry me.” He straightened, looking at her, his eyes suddenly keen. Amanda stared back at him, meeting his eyes calmly, determined not to let him know how affected she was by the sight of his nude body.
“I won’t do that, either.”
“Then, damn you to hell,” he said, his voice suddenly thick. In two quick strides he was beside her. Amanda didn’t try to run. There was no way she could escape him, and she knew it. As his arms came around her, pulling her hard against him, she knew that she didn’t want to. She craved him as fiercely as he craved her.
When his mouth came down on hers, she met his kiss with a bitter passion that left him gasping. He didn’t have to tell her what to do or force her response. Her arms twined about his neck, holding him tightly to her while her hands stroked the black head. She could feel the fine tremor in the hands that moved over her back, struggling with the myriad tiny hooks that closed her dress. She didn’t notice when at last the dress fell open; her whole being focused on the kiss that threatened to steal her soul.
At first he had meant to hurt her. His mouth had been rough, insulting, as it had closed over hers. But when she opened her mouth to his without resistance, meeting his tongue with hers with a fierce joy, the kiss altered dramatically. It still throbbed with passion, but there was a tenderness in the chiseled mouth as it stroked over her lips that roused an ache deep in her belly. She wanted him—oh, God, she wanted him. More than she had wanted anything in her life.
She was hardly aware of what he was doing as his hands brushed her clothes from her body. Finally she was naked in his arms, trembling as his hands found her breasts, the sun warm on her bare back and buttocks. Then his hands slid from her breasts down the front of her body and around to close over the curved flesh the sun had warmed. His big hands cupping her bottom, he lifted her, pulling her against him so that she was left in no doubt that she aroused him as much as he aroused her. Clinging to his neck, drowning in his kiss, she felt herself lifted off her feet, and then he was striding with her toward the bed.
It was a huge four-poster with a gold silk spread. Sunlight streaming in from the gold-curtained windows fell across it, warming the silk, which he didn’t bother to pull aside. Achingly alive in every nerve, Amanda was aware of the sun-warmed silk against her bare back even as Matt came down beside her. Her hands moved restlessly over his shoulders, beseeching, as he kissed her deeply. She felt his hands in her hair as he withdrew the pins that secured her chignon. Then he was spreading her hair out against the silk, smoothing the thick waves. After a moment his mouth left hers and he buried his face in the soft fire of her hair.
“Matt …” she whispered in a low, aching voice as her hands ran over his shoulders and back. The contrast between the satiny skin of his shoulders and the rough mass of scars lower down twisted like a knife in her heart. She ran her fingers lightly, delicately over the raised surface. He shuddered against her. Amanda felt the movement of his big body with every centimeter of her skin. Then he moved on top of her, his mouth seeking and finding hers with a hungry eroticism that shook her to the depths of her being.
There was no hesitation—they wanted each other too much. Amanda twined her legs around his waist even as he settled himself between them, on fire for him, lifting her body in shameless need. He took her, fiercely, thrusting inside her with a flaming passion of his own. Amanda cried out, then cried out again as he repeated the movement. Then she was dissolving in a wave of bliss unlike anything she had known.
He was tireless. After that first time he took her again and again, in ways she had never dreamed a man could take a woman while the sun sank outside the windows and darkness stole over them like a velvet blanket. If she had been capable of conscious thought, she would have been shocked at some aspects of their lovemaking. But she was aware only of the volcanic heat of their passion, and how wildly she wanted him.
The moon had risen and was peering at them through the window when they both succumbed at last to an exhausted sleep.
Amanda awoke slowly, conscious of a penetrating warmth against her breasts and belly and thighs and around a narrow portion of her waist; her buttocks were cold. Frowning, she opened her eyes. Had she kicked the covers off half her body? She found herself staring directly at Matt’s hard brown neck, and then she understood the reason for the mysterious disparity in temperature. He was holding her close against his chest, his arm around her waist and one muscular thigh thrown over both her legs. Everywhere he touched her, her body was toasty warm. But they were both naked, lying on top of the rumpled bedspread, and her buttocks were exposed to the night air.
The memory of what they had done, of her own wanton response, warmed her cheeks. He had treated her like something he owned, as if she had been bought and paid for, and she had reveled in it. How would she face him again without blushing? And then it came to her that she wouldn’t, couldn’t. Because she had refused his proposal of marriage, he had made her his mistress with a vengeance. But Amanda knew she couldn’t live with either alternative—without love.
He had said many things in the heat of passion, but the word “love” had never passed his lips. And with good reason: he didn’t love her. She doubted that he was capable of loving a woman. Oh, he wanted her; he had made that abundantly plain. But she needed more, much more. She needed to own him as he owned her, body and soul—and heart.
There was one other choice left to her. She could, as she had threatened earlier, leave him. Then she had been speaking in anger, and she doubted that, if he had persisted in his arguments, she would have acted on her threat. But now much more than anger was involved. Vividly she remembered that night in the cave, the first night he had kissed her, when he had warned her not to fall in love with him, warned her that he would break her heart. Well, she hadn’t listened—and he hadn’t lied. She had fallen in love with him as passionately as it was possible for a woman to love a man, and her heart felt as though it lay shattered in tiny, jagged shards inside her chest. She loved him—but he wanted only her body. That was the truth, however painful she might find it. She had to get away from him if she was ever to have a hope of repairing her fractured heart.
But where could she go? If she stayed in New Orleans, he would search for her, at least while his passion raged at its present white-hot intensity. Yes, she would have to leave New Orleans, but she was without funds or friends. Suddenly Mother Superior’s kindly old face appeared in her mind’s eye. If she returned to the convent, the sisters would take her in, she knew. The calm serenity of her days there beckoned to her. She needed peace now, whereas before she had craved adventure. Well, she had had her adventure, and it had been far more pain than pleasure. Suddenly she realized the answer to all her problems: she would return to the convent and, in time, perhaps take her vows. A life without pain or worry seemed infinitely appealing.