“I’ll be right up,” Callie promised her husband. When Daniel had gone, she turned to Jeremy. “You may have fooled them all,” she said softly, “but I don’t believe a word of it.”
Callie stared at him with her wide silver eyes, and he found himself lifting his hands. “Callie, what do you want out of me?” he asked, rising, running his fingers through his hair, then leaning against the mantel. “They were going to burn the house down.”
She stood and came over to him and began to speak softly in a rush. “It’s just that you don’t know Christa like I do, Jeremy. She’s proud, yes. And she can be very stubborn, and she can fight harder than a catfish. But you don’t know what it was like being here for the whole war, not knowing if and when the house would be taken—” She broke off, because he was looking at her, smiling.
“Callie, you’re my sister, remember. I don’t intend
to do anything evil to Christa. She wanted to become my wife. That’s all that I intend to ask of her.”
Callie came up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I’ll pray for you both!” she promised. “Jeremy, you are my brother, and I do love you, and I want you to be happy.”
“I’m going to be very happy,” he promised her softly. “You’ll see.”
She smiled wanly, then walked to the door. “Good night, then. Don’t stay up too late. Christa will be waiting.”
He nodded. “I won’t be long.”
Callie left him. Yes, Christa would be waiting. Yes. Camerons always paid their debts.
Fine. He was going to collect.
He started to pour himself another brandy, then decided against it.
He left the parlor behind and started up the stairway. The floor in the upper hallway creaked beneath his footfalls.
She was in the bed when he entered the room. She was in some kind of an all-encompassing nightgown, and her back was to him. He was certain that she was feigning sleep.
He didn’t care. He closed the door behind him with a definite click. He paused for a moment. Let her wait, let her wonder. Let the blood begin to flow too quickly through her veins. He knew damned well that she was awake.
He strode across the room to the bed. Once there, he methodically took off his clothes. When he was naked, he drew back the covers and crawled in beside her.
He wasn’t going to make her wait any longer.
He put an arm around her, rolling her around to her back. Her eyes were tightly closed.
“Christa, I know damned well you’re awake,” he said.
Her eyes flew open. Burning blue in the night.
He ran his fingers around the beautiful embroidery and lace at the high collar of her nightgown. “Off with it,” he told her flatly.
“You are a son of a bitch!” she told him heatedly.
He nodded. “A Yankee son of a bitch. One you’re going to remember when I’m gone.”
“You’re leaving?” she said quickly.
He nodded. He had decided it just this minute, but it was probably the best thing for everyone involved. “First thing in the morning. I’m going back to Washington until the final order to head west is given.”
He could almost feel her relief. It was not particularly complimentary.
She wasn’t getting out of the night ahead of them. “Christa, get the damned thing off.”
“But—”
“You can take it off, or I can rip it off. Either way, it goes.”
Next thing he knew she was hissing that he was a Yankee bastard and scalawag, but she sat up and nearly ripped the gown herself, wrenching it over her head.
She didn’t scream. She even cursed him just as quietly as she could manage.
She threw the gown furiously on the floor, then she sat there, naked beside him, seething and trembling, her eyes downcast. They rose to meet his, liquid and blue and shimmering. She threw herself back on the pillow. “Go ahead, then! Do whatever you’ve got to do!”
He was hard put not to laugh out loud. He leaned down on an elbow at her side, tossing all the covers back as far as they could go, then running his hand down the length of her body. How had she been created
so damned perfectly? Moonlight fell over the rise of her breasts, and added mystery and shadow to the clefts at her hips and the dip between her breasts. At first he just touched her, running his fingertips lightly over her flesh. He felt her inhale sharply as he paused, running his palm over her nipple. Her breasts were perfect, firm and rounded, the peaks large and deeply rouge in color. Tempted, he leaned over her, running his tongue slowly around the aureole, then encompassing the whole of her nipple. She shifted beneath him. He felt the slam of her heart, the quickening of her body. He cupped her other breast with his hand, then rose, meeting her eyes before lowering his head to take her lips.
She didn’t intend to respond to him. She didn’t exactly fight him, but neither did she simply allow her lips to part to his. He intended to persist. He threaded his fingers into her hair, and with a growing passion he forcefully invaded her mouth, bathing her teeth with his tongue, then plunging deeply into her mouth. He could still feel her heartbeat. And he could feel the trembling that still riddled through her.
There was so much passion within her. If he could only reach it, touch it.
Her mouth was sweet. The taste and feel of it seeped into his system, adding to the hunger that had begun for her, creating a harsher throb of desire within him. She no longer protested the kiss. Perhaps she did not aid him, but she did not resist him either.
He lifted his lips from hers. Her eyes were open and on his. Her breathing came quickly and shallowly. Was she afraid? Christa Cameron, afraid?
She’d kissed a man before, he was damned certain. She’d been so in love with Liam McCloskey. Just how much else had she done? How much was innocence?
And how much was hatred?
“You’ve never done this before?” he queried.
“Oh, you oaf!” she cried out, struggling then to free herself from him.
He laughed softly, pleased, and not at all sure why. He caught hold of her cheeks and kissed her again, deeply, hungrily, giving her no chance to protest. The heat surged swiftly to his loins now. He tasted her lips and tasted them again. He rose above her.
“I will try to be very gentle,” he told her.
She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were closed. She lay, her beautiful face pale against the ink-dark cloud of her hair. He kept his eyes on her as he lowered himself against her. He caressed her breasts once again, feeling the pulse within her, feeling the heat. He lowered himself still, burying his face against the dip of her belly. Then lower. He brushed his fingers over the triangle between her thighs. Stroked her lower and lower. Forced her thighs apart.
He stared up at her. Her eyes were still closed. There was so much inside of her! he thought. He had felt the quickening in her when he touched her breast. He felt the rampant trembling within her now.
But she wasn’t going to give to him. No matter what, she was determined to deny him.
Still, he didn’t want to hurt her. He slid his thumb through the silk ebony of her pubic hair, and then into the damp softness of her sex. He felt again the trembling. Slowly, sensually he stroked her. He lowered his mouth to the tender, intimate regions of her flesh and began to tease her thus, moistening her at the least, if he could not arouse her.
But he did arouse her, he was certain! For scarce had he touched her before she jerked and surged. Her fingers tore into his hair. Whispered protests flew from her lips, but he ignored them all, delving deeper and deeper within her, bathing her, savoring her. She began to shake. Hunger gnawed raw and painfully within him, a surge of heat came like a rush of anguish.
He rose over her at last. And at last, those magnificent blue eyes were on his. He said nothing more but seized her mouth once again, taking her lips just as he took her body. He tried to take care, tried to go very slowly. She hadn’t lied in her earlier protest—she had never made love with young McCloskey. Her body protested the invasion of his; she cried out briefly at the pain, catching her lower lip between her teeth to keep from letting out any other sound. He forced himself to stop completely, gritting his teeth against the will of his body as he awaited the acceptance of hers. Then he began to move with her slowly. Filling her with the length of his shaft, feeling the hug of her body around him. Dear God, it was good to be within her, sheathed by her. Even if she bit her lip. Even if she damned him for all eternity.
She had been made for this! he thought. For despite her protests, she gave to him, her body beautifully encompassing his. He thrust slowly at first, very slowly, bracing his arms at his sides, watching her face. But her eyes remained closed, her head to the side—her teeth upon her lower lip. Yet as he moved, she began to move with him, instinctively, naturally. The subtle undulation of her hips quickened the drive within him. He closed his own eyes, clenching down hard on his jaw, fighting for control. He maintained it as long as he could. Then his rhythm came faster, his drive stronger. He slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, molding her to him, and he gave free rein to the voracity of his hunger, taking her then with a volatile and fierce passion. Again and again he drove into her. Perspiration broke out in a fine sheen on his skin. He stiffened and thrust once, and once again, hard and deep within her, and his climax burst fiercely upon him, spilling his seed within her.
His weight was upon her, and his sex remained within her. She struggled beneath him, and, somewhat
ashamed, he quickly lifted his weight from her, rolling to her side. Instantly she turned her back on him, like some creature deeply wounded. A rush of anger and impatience came to him. Dammit, she was his wife. And if he only saw her every five years or so, he intended to see her in bed.
He set an arm on the shoulder she had set so defensively against him.
“Christa, I’m sorry if I hurt you. It’s fairly natural, I understand, for a woman to cry the first time—”
“I am not crying!” she whispered.
But he thought that she was. He wanted to comfort her. He ran his hand down her beautiful, sleek back. “Christa—”
Her back stiffened like a poker. “You’ve had what you wanted. Now, please, leave me the hell alone!”
He withdrew his touch as if he had been burned. He laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. Liar! he wanted to charge her. She could have responded if she wanted. He had felt the response of her body. She was beautiful, passionate, sensual, and he could feel it all. Feel it in her hunger for life, in her will, in her spirit.
Even in her hatred.
Hate me then, he thought. But you will respond to me, Christa, you will.
He let her lie there, fuming, stiff, and keeping her distance.
Then he reached for her again.
He saw her eyes. Blue ice and blue fire. Rebellious, furious, she stared at him.
“It’s over—” she cried.
“It’s just begun,” he corrected. This time he swept her into his arms. From the very first touch of his lips to hers, he was filled with a force and passion that brooked no resistance. He kissed her until her lips were wet and swollen, then tasted her earlobes and her
throat. He suckled her breasts, one then the other, taunting them with a slow rubbing motion with his thumbs, then suckling them again until she cried out. His hands, his lips, were everywhere. Hers flew about in protest, but he merely moved on. He rolled her onto her stomach, teasing the line of her spine with the caress of his fingers and tongue, nipping her buttocks, then rolling her over once again, parting her thighs, and having his way between them. When he took her again, he was so fiercely hungry himself that he could scarcely believe it. He should be sated with her. He wanted more. He knew her from head to toe. He had touched her, tasted her, from head to toe. But she moved, whether she wanted him or not. She writhed, and trembled, and created an ever greater fire. And it burned. Burned so that he stroked and drove until he was nearly mindless himself, and then amazed at the force of the climax that seized him again. She shuddered as he filled her. But no sound escaped her, no surrender even came in a whisper from her lips.
He fell to his side. Once again, she turned her back to him. Frustrated, he stared at her in the moonlight.
“Christa—why?” he demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.
He touched her again, stroking her back whether she wanted his touch or not this time.
He grit his teeth. “Christa, you’re my wife. Why won’t you give in to me?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He rose up on an elbow. “Yes, you do. You’re flesh and blood, and you’re very much a woman. And you’re doing your damned best to deny me.”
“I didn’t deny you anything,” she said.
“You did, and you know it.”
She was silent for a second, then burst out. “I don’t
owe you anything. You take what you want. There’s nothing else that should be yours. You’re not—”
She broke off suddenly.
He caught hold of her shoulder and rolled her around once again. He met her eyes, those blue eyes that were brilliant with tears that she would die before she shed.
“I’m not what, Christa?” he demanded harshly.
She shook her head.
“Answer me. No? All right, I’ll answer for you. I’m not Liam McCloskey. Well, my dear Miss Cameron, you’re not the woman of my dreams either. But you are my wife. Liam is dead, lady, and you’re going to let him rest. Do you understand me?”
She bit her tongue, staring at him. But then her lashes fell over her eyes. “Hail the conquering heroes!” she whispered vehemently.
“Damn you, Christa,” he said quietly. “Fine. Have it your way. It’s a conquered nation, Christa. Consider yourself beaten.”
Her eyes rose to his again. “The South lost the war. I have never been beaten.”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ll surrender. I’ll see to it. I promise it,” he told her.
She wrenched herself from his touch once again, presenting him with the long line of her back. He lay back, staring at the ceiling.
He should have been feeling pretty wretched.
Oddly enough, he smiled.
It was there, somewhere inside of her. Something tangible to hang on to, to make a life with. Something made up of passion and spirit and glory, and all manner of hot and wonderful things. She might spend a lifetime hating him, but at the very least, they would have an interesting time of it.