Coming Up Roses (24 page)

She never finished the question. Zach caught the erect tip of her nipple between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. Her spine arched, and she let loose of the nightgown to grab his hair. A low wail came up her throat as he drew sharply on her.

"Zachariah?"

He rolled her lightly between his teeth, exerting just enough pressure to drive all thought from her mind. She shoved halfheartedly against him and gave a ragged sob. Then her fists relaxed, and she ran her fingers into his hair, cupping her palms to pull him closer.

"What are you doing?" she finally managed.

In response, he drew all of that wonderfully taut cone of flesh into his mouth. She cried out and arched up to meet him, her throat issuing breathless little cries each time he dragged his tongue over her. The tension in her changed, and instead of trying to ward him off, she bowed her body into his and clutched him close.

Confident now of making her his, he nearly smiled at the jolts he felt running through her. As he worked her, Zach slid a hand along her hip, down her thigh, his busy fingertips gathering muslin until he found warm, silken skin. He lowered her onto the pillows and shifted his body to lie beside her, his mouth never relinquishing possession of her breast. Soft inner thigh. He grazed a palm upward, seeking the tantalizing center of her.

Just as his hand found its mark, she gasped and started scrambling to pull her nightgown down. The change in her came so quickly and with so little warning that for an instant, Zach tried to hold her. Then he realized she was struggling in earnest against him.

The fear in her was unmistakable. He drew back and listened with growing puzzlement to her frantic attempts to convince him she was innocent of any wrongdoing.

"I haven't been thinking anything bad. Honestly I haven't!" She finally managed to shove his hand back down to the region of her knee. Gulping for breath, she said, "Not one lustful thought, I swear it. The same urges came over Joseph sometimes. Once when I was washing dishes! I didn't do anything. I wasn't even aware he was in the room." A high-pitched, nervous little laugh punctuated that. "Isn't that crazy? No thyme nor reason to—" Her voice broke on a dry sob. "P-Please don't be angry, Zachariah. Please don't. I can't seem to help it."

Her grip on his wrist was frenzied, her nails digging into his skin. All because he had been about to touch her?

Confusion jumbled his thoughts, and on the heels of that, anger lashed him. A cold, mind-numbing anger that made him feel half sick. Dear God, what had that madman done to her?

"Katie," he whispered. "Shhhhhh, honey. It's all right."

Gathering her close, he pressed her face against his shoulder and felt her hot tears against his skin. His passion spiraled downward, splatting like a cold griddle cake in the pit of his stomach. She was trembling, trembling horribly. And by that he knew a measure of her fear.

That bastard. That miserable, no-good bastard.

Zach considered just holding her. Finishing what he had started was out of the question. He had never forced himself on a frightened woman in his life, and he didn't intend to start now. On the other hand, though, problems never got solved by pretending they didn't exist.

He tightened his grip on her knee. "Katie, is your body ready for me? Is that what you're afraid I'll be angry about?"

"N-No!"

He braced his arm to resist her tugging hands and inched his fingertips up the inside of her thigh. "Let me feel."

"No, I don't—"

His strength won out. His fingertips encountered a molten heat and wetness that made his belly contract around a knot of longing.

"Katie…" He searched his mind for something he might say to soothe her. "Have you any idea how sweet and beautiful you are, how precious you are to me?"

"A person can't help how she looks."

Zach circled that. He hadn't meant the compliment as an accusation.

"I didn't mean to tempt you!" she cried. Her eyes sought his, huge and filled with fright.

Growing more bewildered by the moment, Zach drew her closer and buried his face in her hair. "Honey, you'd tempt a man in your sleep."

"But Joseph—"

She broke off with a sharp intake of breath when he moved his hand. Zach wasn't certain he could speak. His body clamored for release. After a deep breath and a determined swallow, he managed, "I think we need to have a long talk. This morning when I asked if Joseph was ornery in the bedroom, you weren't entirely honest with me.

Were you?"

Still trembling violently, she lay there in the circle of his arm, her spine curled to keep distance between their bodies. An endless moment of silence passed.

Zach could see that she had no intention of answering. Toying with her hair, he gazed thoughtfully at the wall behind her. "Katie, how can I ease your fears if I don't know for certain what he did to you?"

Her voice little more than a high-pitched squeak, she cried, "I can't talk about it. Please, don't ask me to."

He closed his eyes on that. "No matter how hard it is, you have to try."

A violent trembling shook her.

He tightened his embrace, hating himself for pressing her, yet convinced he had no choice. "Did Joseph punish you for making him want you?"

"It wasn't my fault. He said it was, but I never did anything! Not a single thing."

Her defensiveness was answer in itself. He gazed sightlessly into the shadows, trying to put together everything she had unwittingly revealed to him tonight, to make sense of it. He recalled her initial calmness when he first approached her at the dresser, then her sudden rigidity when he started to caress her. Moments later, when he had begun to remove his clothing, there had been no mistaking her alarm.

Piece by piece, the puzzle began to come together, and the overall picture sent Zach's mind reeling. A beautiful woman who drew her hair into a severe braid and wore threadbare dresses, so somber in color that he had mistakenly thought they were widow's weeds. Not so, he realized now. Joseph had been dead only six months, not nearly enough time for her to have worn the sleeves of her gowns thin at the elbows and cuffs.

Katie… Sweet, precious Katie who had done everything in her power to look plain because her late husband had punished her for being beautiful.

"Sweetheart…" He bent his head, trying to see her face. "Can you look at me?"

"I'm not going to talk about Joseph," she whispered fiercely.

Despite the seriousness of the moment, Zach bit back a smile at her bravado. "I'll do the talking. All you have to do is listen."

Her chin came up a notch, but not nearly far enough to let him see her face. Not a man to split hairs, Zach contented himself with that.

"There's no sin in being pretty," he whispered. "I don't know what Joseph said to the contrary, but trust me. You can no more control how you look than you can the beating of your heart."

"But Joseph said—"

"I don't care what Joseph said. The man was an idiot."

He rolled up on his arm so his face was above hers. She looked so young lying there, her eyes huge and luminous in the moonlight. He wished he could simply let the subject drop. But he couldn't. If left to fret over it, she'd probably grow upset every time he grew amorous. Which was bound to be often.

He tried a smile, but she didn't seem to relax much. Gazing down at her pinched face, he ran a finger lightly along her cheekbone. "One of the first things about you that I fell in love with was your beautiful face. Your skin is like fresh cream, and your features in profile are as perfect as a cameo. You don't have to encourage me to make me want you."

She lowered her lashes, clearly uneasy. Zach bit the inside of his lip, then plunged ahead, convinced that even a bungled attempt at easing her mind was bound to be better than letting her continue to believe the bullshit Joseph had told her.

"Katie, a man can get aroused just by watching a woman walk into a room," he whispered.

At that proclamation, her eyes widened with horror. "Are you saying you don't want me to walk in front of you?"

The suggestion was so preposterous that if any other woman had made it, Zach would have felt certain she was joking. Not so with Kate. She clearly wished to avoid enticing him, no matter what lengths she had to go to. It was also equally obvious that she hadn't the faintest notion what aroused the opposite sex.

"Of course I'm not saying I don't want you to walk in front of me," he replied patiently. "I'm just trying to make you understand—" He broke off, his heart catching at the way she hung on his every word. "Katie, sweetheart, what I'm trying to say is that a woman is seldom responsible when a man becomes aroused. It just happens."

"She isn't?"

"Take walking, for instance. It might be the way her skirts cling to her hips. Or the way she moves. She can be totally unaware of him, not even trying to entice him, and he can start to want her."

By the bewilderment he read in her expression, Zach knew she needed to hear this even if it embarrassed her, which it surely would.

"Just by smiling at Mandy, you've made me ache with wanting you." he informed her in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could manage.

"I never intended—"

He rested a finger across her lips. "I'm not laying blame, Katie girl. You're not responsible for the thoughts that go through my head." Her obvious distrust brought a smile to his mouth. "You have fifteen buttons on the bodice of your black dress, fourteen on the brown, and I've imagined unbuttoning each one a thousand times."

She looked completely scandalized at the thought. "You counted all of them?"

"I did." His grin broadened. "The night we quarreled in the sickroom? When you were ordering me out of the house? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think enticing me was foremost in your mind. But I wanted you even then."

She drew back slightly to escape the pressure of his finger on her mouth. "You did? When I was so angry?"

"You're beautiful when you're angry," he replied huskily. "And beautiful when you're not. A man who'd blame you for his own lusty urges ought to be horsewhipped.

"Sometimes when you move a certain way and the bodice of your dress pulls tight, I want you so badly that I ache. Or you bend over and—"

The color that flooded to her face was visible even in the moonlight, and upon seeing it, Zach cut himself off. He smoothed her hair from her tear-streaked cheek.

"You can't change the way God made you," he whispered. "The differences between us, my need to touch you …

that's natural and right. When we make love, it should be glorious for you, not frightening."

She cupped a shaky hand over her eyes. "Joseph said I was sinful and wicked for making him want me. The most awful part was that I was never certain what he thought I'd done." After moistening her lips, she continued. "He came to me only when—when he was long overdue in performing his husbandly duty—just to beget offspring, like Scripture tells us. When the urge came over him to do more than that, he grew furious."

"His husbandly duty? At the dresser, you mean? Always quick and polite, never so much as touching you?"

She gave a nod.

"And what of those times when he wanted to do more? Did he?"

Her response this time was a negative shake of her head. Then, in a ragged whisper, she added, "He believed anything more was a sin and that I must have deliberately seduced him if those wicked urges came over him."

Very gently, he drew her hand down. "Sweetheart, what did he do? Those times when be got angry, what did he do?"

Where seconds before her face had been flushed with embarrassment, it now went deathly pale. She slid her gaze from his. Her throat worked with the effort it took for her to speak. "Some things—" She took a shaky breath.

"Some things are so awful they can't be put into words. Please don't ask me to try. Please don't."

Pictures flashed inside his head. Pictures of Kate at the dresser, as she had been earlier, the man behind her not him, but Joseph. The possibilities made his guts clench. Aching for her, he bent his head to kiss the tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks. As she said, some things were so vile, so appalling, a person couldn't describe them, and he would be a callous bastard if he forced her to try. The haunted look he had seen in her eyes conveyed enough. He only hoped he could be as eloquent, in the way he touched her, in the way he held her—that with unfailing gentleness and patience he could heal the wounds Joseph had inflicted.

"Katie, sweetheart, I—"

Before Zach could finish the sentence, he heard the doorknob click. All memory of what he intended to say fled his mind. He jerked Kate's nightgown down and twisted to look over his shoulder. Hinges squeaked, the door swung open, and there stood Miranda, a tiny white wraith in the darkness.