Desire in the Sun (42 page)

Lilah gazed into the hazel eyes and weather-beaten face that she knew so well. Over his broad shoulder she could see Joss, naked to the waist, grimy and sweating in his loose white trousers, jerking savagely at the harness of the recalcitrant mule. Any sane woman choosing a mate between the gentleman planter and the half-naked slave would have no choice to make. So did that make her insane?

Whether it did or not, Lilah knew, suddenly and with no doubts at all about the correctness of her decision, that she couldn’t marry Kevin. She didn’t love him, and she didn’t think he loved her either. Not like a husband should love his wife. Not like Joss loved her.

She would have to tell Kevin of her decision, soon. But not now. Not with Joss a witness to what she very much feared would be an unpleasant confrontation. Kevin was unlikely to take his congé lightly since it also meant losing Heart’s Ease.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” Kevin murmured, his hands stroking over her bare forearms, then tightening to hold her in place as he bent his head toward her. Before Lilah could answer he was kissing her, lingeringly this time, in full view of the slaves; in full view of Joss.

As Lilah walked back across the yard with her hand tucked in Kevin’s elbow and her mouth throbbing from his kiss, she was all too aware of a pair of eyes turned vivid emerald with anger watching her from a suddenly savage face.

LII

T
his time, when Lilah snuck out of the house, it was near to midnight. It had taken that long for her to be sure everyone was asleep. She dared not tell even Betsy that she was going to see Joss. If Betsy knew of her mistress’s activities and kept silent, she would be another target for Leonard Remy’s wrath. And Leonard Remy’s wrath would be terrible if he discovered his daughter’s perfidy. Which sooner or later Lilah very much feared he had to do.

She ran across the night-dark yard, holding her skirts clear of the dew-wet grass. When she got to the slave compound, she slowed to a walk. The huts were all dark; the slaves long since asleep.

Even Joss’s hut was dark.

As before, the door was unlatched. Lilah let herself in, closed the door, and stood for a moment leaning against it. She heard not a sound, not a rustle of bedding, not a breath.

“Joss?” Even as she said it she knew she was alone. He was not there. Once her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she looked around. As she had thought, his cot was empty. The hut was empty.

Lilah was suddenly, sorely afraid that he had done as he had threatened and left without her.

Where else could he be, so late at night, when all sensible people were in their beds?

When she had come to see him before, he had just come back from bathing.

It was a slim possibility. Lilah left the hut, the door with its leather hinges swinging silently shut behind her. Walking carefully so as not to make any noise, she headed for the far edge of the slave compound where the cane fields began. This close to the house, the cane had yet to be cut, and it rustled continuously as the balmy wind ruffled through it. It had been years since she had been this way, and it took her a few moments to find what she was looking for. Then, a terrible fear driving her, she picked up her skirts and ran down the path to the pool where the slaves bathed. The path was narrow, and tall stalks of cane brushed her bare arms and skirt, caught at her hair. Night creatures hissed and slithered as they got out of her way. She never spared them a thought. She had to find Joss before it was too late. …

Bursting into the clearing, panting, Lilah scanned the silent black surface of the water where she and Betsy had spent so much time as young girls.

“Joss?” Her voice was soft, despairing. “Joss?”

No answer. She walked to the edge of the pool, careful not to lose her balance on the slippery vines that grew around its perimeter. Think, she willed herself, think: What route would he take? If she could figure it out, it was possible that she could overtake him before he got too far away. …

He was floating on his back in the water, watching her, Lilah saw him just as she was starting to turn back.

“Jocelyn San Pietro! Why didn’t you answer me?” Relief washed over her like a tidal wave, perversely igniting her temper. Hands on hips, she stood glaring down at him. He was almost at her feet, turned parallel to the shore as he floated in the shallow pool. Only his
water-sleeked black head rose above the surface of the water. The rest of his body was a pale blur.

“Maybe I didn’t want to talk to you.” His voice was hard, insolent. “Maybe I’ve had a bellyful of you and this whole bloody situation.”

Lilah sighed. “You’re angry because Kevin kissed me. If you’ll come out of there, I can explain.”

“I don’t want your explanations. I’ve had a bellyful of them, too.”

“Joss, you’re being unreasonable.”

“And I’m bloody tired of you telling me I’m unreasonable!” His voice was suddenly explosive. His eyes in the darkness were shards of green glass.

Her voice turned soft, coaxing. “I’m not going to marry Kevin.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I’m not going to marry Kevin.”

“Oh? Do you always kiss men you’re not going to marry? Come to think of it, I guess you do.”

“Don’t you want to know who I’m going to marry instead?” She ignored his blatant attempts to start a fight. What she had to tell him was too important, too wonderful to be put off by his ill humor.

“Not particularly.”

Blast the man, did he have to be difficult at a time like this?

“I’m going to marry you, you bad-tempered beast!” She glared at him. He scowled right back at her.

“Am I supposed to say I’m honored?” The deliberate sarcasm made her fists clench. At all costs, she was not going to fight with the infuriating creature when she was accepting his proposal of marriage! Taking a deep breath, she forced her voice to stay even.

“Would you please come out of there so that we can talk?”

“No, I will not.”

“Then I’ll come in!”

“Suit yourself.”

Gritting her teeth at his studied indifference, Lilah quickly undressed. Joss watched her in silence. Then, as she untied the tapes to her petticoat, he got to his feet. Water streamed off him, rained into the pool that now came no higher than his hips.

“You are the most maddening, aggravating, mule-headed man that it’s ever been my displeasure to meet!” she snapped.

“And yet you’re going to marry me?” He was mocking her but still angry, his voice scarcely above a growl as he stalked naked from the pool and walked right past her to pick up his trousers.

“At the moment I’m not so sure!” she spit back, furious. Then, drawing a long-suffering sigh, she relented, walking toward him. “Yes, I am!”

He eyed her, his trousers forgotten. Something in his expression gave her pause. Lilah stopped walking, stood for a moment looking at him. Never in a million years had she pictured this kind of reaction from him! She’d expected him to shout for joy when she told him she’d decided to toss her cap over the windmill at last and become his wife!

“Have you told lover-boy the wedding’s off?”

“If you are referring to Kevin, he’s not my lover, and you know it!”

“Have you told him?”

She looked at him, shook her head. “Not yet.”

“I thought not.” He shook out his trousers, put a foot into one leg of them, oblivious to the fact that he was still soaking wet.

“What difference does it make when I tell Kevin? Don’t you even care that I’ve said I’ll marry you?” The words were almost a wail.

His face tightened, and he put his other foot into his trousers and pulled them up. “Oh, I care. I just don’t believe you.”

“You don’t believe me!”
She
didn’t believe
him.
“You don’t believe me!”

“That’s what I said.”

“You have got to be the stubbornest, stupidest …” She broke off, advancing on him with murder in her eyes. “I love you, you blithering idiot, and I am going to marry you! Do you understand me?”

She reached him, thumped him in the center of his chest for emphasis.

“Ow!”

“And another thing, while we’re on the subject of how utterly unsatisfactory you are! For all the times you’ve made me say the words, you have never, not once, told me that you love me!”

“Never?” His voice was suddenly meek.

“Never!”

“Not once?”

“No!”

“And you’d like me to?”

“Yes!” It was a hiss.

“I do.”

“You do what?”

“You know.”

She literally ground her teeth. “Jocelyn San Pietro, if you do not tell me, now, this minute, that you love me in so many words, I am going to go straight home and marry Kevin! Do you hear me?”

He smiled then, a slow-dawning smile that was as charming as any she’d ever seen. He gripped her hands, pulling her a step closer so that she was standing right up against him with only their clasped hands between them.

“Would you really marry what’s his name?” The anger had totally left his voice; he sounded almost as if he was teasing her.

“Yes!” Then, an instant later: “No.”

There was a pause. Then she said, “I’m waiting.”

He looked down at her, his grin going all lopsided. “I have trouble saying the words.”

“Oh?” The single syllable was definitely not encouraging.

“I’ve never said them before.”

“Never?” That caught her attention, softened her. She looked up at him, up at the big handsome man whose wife she’d promised to become, and felt her heart catch. “Is that the truth?”

“Suspicious little thing, aren’t you?” The grin still lurked around the corners of his mouth, but his voice turned serious. “It’s the truth, I swear.”

For a long moment she just looked at him. “I’m still waiting,” she prompted when it seemed as though he’d stand there, silent, all night.

His lips quirked. He opened his mouth, closed it again.

“All right,” she said, suddenly obliging. “I’ll help you.”

She freed her hands from his, stood on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck. He was still wet, but as she pressed against him, she didn’t even notice.

“I …” she said, drawing his head down so that she could brush his lips with hers.

“Love …” She deepened the kiss, stroking his lips with her tongue tantalizingly, forging within to probe at the hard smooth line of his teeth.

“You.” She pulled her lips away. When he followed them with his own, his hands tightening around her waist, she shook her head at him.

“Say it!”

“Help me some more,” he said, his voice husky despite the amusement that laced it.

Lilah looked at him, at the night-black hair that was wet beneath her fingers, at the hard, handsome mouth, at the green eyes that darkened and glittered as they moved over her face, and felt her breath catch.

“All right,” she whispered, and lifted her mouth to his again.

LIII

W
hen she kissed him this time, employing on him all the devastating little tricks he had taught her to such good effect, his hands slid down over the backs of her thighs, bare beneath the hem of her chemise. He ran them up again, over the buttocks, to caress the silky bare skin of her waist, his hand forging under the one garment she had left to her. But when his hands tightened on her and he would have bent her backwards, taking control of the kiss, she pushed against his shoulders and pulled her mouth free.

“Oh, no. Not until I get what I want. Say it, Joss. A big strong man like you can’t be afraid of three teensy little words.”

Though his eyes had heated, his mouth quirked in a teasing grin. “Going to torture me, are you? Go ahead. I think I like the idea.”

“Mmmm.” She pressed tiny kisses along the bristly line of his jaw, down over his throat, along his shoulders. His skin was warm, wet, and just faintly salty, and she loved the taste of it. Her lips could feel the blood pulsing beneath his skin.

In her sudden fascination with the taste and texture of his flesh, she quite forgot that her object was to coax a confession of love from him. She bent her head, followed the line of his breastbone down, her lips brushing
over crisp curls of hair, over hard muscles and flat planes. In her lingering exploration of his chest she encountered a male nipple peeking out at her from its bed of black hair. Intrigued, she touched it with her tongue, flicked it. To her pleased amazement, it hardened just like her own did. He drew in a sharp breath as she took it between her lips, nibbling. His hands clenched on her waist. Her lips traveled across his chest to his other nipple, performed the same exercise on it.