Rules of Surrender (33 page)

She didn’t care how much bigger he was. She didn’t care that he was right. She didn’t care what the law and custom demanded. She would not give in.

Balling her fists, she struck at his inner elbows. He collapsed, then caught himself. She rolled against his arm, and he fell all the way down, half on her, but she was out from underneath. The chemise got caught under him, and she was crawling toward the door.

The element of surprise, she thought triumphantly.

But he caught her easily and pressed her to the floor, like a lion playing with a mouse.

He was heavy. He was naked. He was aroused.

The carpet prickled at her bare belly. Her breasts were crushed beneath her. And between them rested his organ, hard and very definitely seeking.

A proper Englishwoman would be shocked and helpless. She was just enraged. Wynter was larger and stronger, yes. But that didn’t give him the right to always win. “Get off me, you big oaf.” She reached back, trying to grab his hair.

He pulled away, straddling her thighs. “With just a little adjustment, I could…” Slowly, he slid a finger between her buttocks and down to that place he loved to touch.

For the last three weeks, every chance he could, he had slid a finger inside of her. He had caressed each fold, each mound, finding her secret places and seizing control, regardless of her resolution to remain unmoved. She had moaned and whimpered, shuddered and undulated on his command, and never, ever, had he been similarly overcome. Now here he was again, overpowering her, holding her against her will, making her want more than him—and now, as her husband, he had the right.

It wasn’t fair. She was already damp. She was already ready. He still retained mastery of himself.

She didn’t have to put up with this.

Kicking and twisting, she challenged his domination. She turned over, sat up and shoved him as hard as she could. He went over backward, falling on the mattress like a great toppling tree, and she went after him. She jumped on him without concern to any body part, his or hers.
She
straddled
him,
groin to groin, and glared at him. “You think because I’m civilized I have to yield to a savage like you?”

His hands rose toward her breasts.

She grabbed his wrists. “I don’t care what the law says. I’m not just your wife, an extension of you. I’m a person.” She slammed his wrists to the mattress. “And I will not submit!”

He gave a roar like a wounded lion, came up from underneath her and tumbled her sideways and over onto her back. She kicked out, gained purchase against the mattress and kept the momentum going. They were rolling, over and over. She caught whirling glimpses of the white and pink tent walls, then the ceiling, then the silk bedcovers, then the walls… then the ceiling.

They’d come to a halt. She was on her back, her legs around him. He was still grinning, but no longer in a mocking manner. No, this was the grin of a warrior in combat, and she realized she grinned in just the same way. Blood thundered through her veins. Her muscles strained. She panted for breath, fighting for air so she could live to fight again.

Live. Yes, she felt so alive.

His hips and chest pressed her down into the feathers, but she still held his wrists. He couldn’t touch her
there.

But he did. Just like before, he began to penetrate her body… only not just like before. This wasn’t his finger. This… this was large, stinging, directed by the gradual flex of his hips.

She dropped his wrists and grabbed his shoulders, lunging toward him—and screamed.

She’d pushed him farther inside. He threw his head back, eyes closed, teeth clenched, groaning, “Charlotte. Oh, sweet God, Charlotte.”

How dare he look as if
he
were in pain? She
burned
with pain… surely this was pain. She wanted him all the way inside. She hurt and she… she bit his shoulder, sinking her teeth deep.

His eyes opened; he looked incredulously at her, at the mark on his skin. And she saw it happen. He lost control.

He plunged all the way inside, clearing the way for himself, making himself at home in her body. Tears sprang to her eyes, but when he pulled away she wrapped her legs around him. He came back, sliding more easily this time. She whimpered, her inner muscles flexing and releasing.

“Charlotte.” His voice was dark and rich, flavored with the desert language. “You are so beautiful, Charlotte.”

He moved between her legs. Driving in, touching deep, then gliding out. Her feet stirred restlessly across his buttocks, feeling the labor of his muscles. He encircled her with his body, enveloped her in his pleasure and she loved it. She rose beneath him, learning to match his rhythm. Learning that her movement could make him groan her name again and again.

His hands skated into her hair, every strand loosened in their struggle. He held her head and brought his lips to her face, showering kisses on her. Kisses that fell so lightly she couldn’t catch them, but kisses that told more clearly than words his delight in her.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. The pain—or was it ecstasy?—increased as his tempo increased. She recognized the sensation; he’d brought her to this peak of exhilaration time and time again in the last weeks.

But this was more. With him inside her, touching the deepest part of her,
being
a part of her, the loneliness of a lifetime vanished.

Close against her ear, she heard the catch of his breath. The momentum increased. Excitement thrummed through her, rising inexorably with each stroke and kiss. Each whisper of her name became a groan. She raced toward the tumult with him in her arms, cradled by him. Yet inside her womb was stillness… waiting. Waiting.

The waiting ended. Deep inside, the spasms started, growing, pulling at him. He panted, thrusting into her as if heat would make them one. Planting her feet on the bed, she lifted and lifted her hips—and froze as surges of rapture shook her. Again she screamed, this time not in pain but in bliss.

He continued, then halted. His face above her revealed a man transported by euphoria. The muscles of his thighs contracted once, twice, three times. Tiny movements, nudging as deep inside her as he could be, filling her with his seed.

Closing her eyes, she luxuriated in the scent of him, the weight of him, the full satisfaction of urges she’d realized only with him. Trembling and ecstatic, she savored the last moments of fulfillment.

“Charlotte,” he whispered. “My wife. At last.”

Then, languidly, they sank to the bed.

For a blessed long time, her mind was empty of worry or guilt or…

My God, what had she done?

CHAPTER 29

Charlotte had wrestled with Wynter as if she thought herself some kind of warrior.

She
had
thought herself some kind of warrior. For some reason, he’d let her tussle with him, hold his wrists, imagine she had a chance of winning. And she had fought him until vigor had swept her mind clear of thought and left her only her instincts. Instincts which had led her to this… mating.

Merciful heavens, she had screamed in the throes. Twice.

His voice rumbled through his chest to hers. “I was hoping you would drop off to sleep and not be troubled by vexsome cares, my rose sweet with petals of flame.”

He hadn’t moved. He remained a weight atop her, his head resting beside hers and turned away, so how did he know?

“You…”

“Yes?”

She didn’t know what to say to him. What did one say to a man when one had experienced such an amazing activity in his arms? “You must think I’m a woman of easy virtue.”

“Easy?” He reared back and stared down at her, the portrait of righteous indignation. “I’m married to you and I still had to shoot off the lock!”

She tried to look straight at him, she really did, but her eyes swam with tears.

“Ah, woman.” Gently he lifted himself away from her.

To her distress, her body objected, pulsing around his organ as if providing a lingering kiss.

“Dear lord.” He sounded hoarse, tormented. “You are… wonderful.”

Wonderful wasn’t what he had been going to say, she was sure. Wanton? Maybe.

Where he had been pressed against her skin, the air felt cool, and the chill revived her brain yet more. How could she have been so gullible as to think she might have a chance against him?

Slowly, as if he hadn’t yet recovered his vitality, he stretched out on his back beside her. Painstakingly, he wrapped his arm under her shoulders and around her hips and pulled her against him.

She hadn’t grown used to this nudity, his or hers, and now that passion and wrath no longer tumbled through her, she was painfully aware. Her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. Her hands… where did she rest her hands? One underneath him, of course, but the other? He caught it as it hovered and placed it on his chest. The front of her rested against his side, and she didn’t dare move. That would attract his attention and… and what? She didn’t know what happened next. She only knew that as he held her close, the chill faded.

Catching a blanket, he pulled it over them. Tilting up her chin, he looked into her eyes. “Now. You are thinking: He played me for a fool, pretending to wrestle with me. But you must think with my mind, Lady Wife. I have wanted you since I saw you standing on the portico with your carpetbag at your feet. I was determined to be strong and not take advantage of my children’s governess, but you tempted me.”

The heat of vexation dried her tears. “I never tempted you!”

“But you did. You walked, you breathed, you smiled.” He traced the curve of her cheek, the shape of her lips, and it felt remarkably like affection. “Too seldom you smiled, Lady Wife. When my mother decided you should teach me, I decided to surrender to your wiles.”

“I don’t have any wiles.”

He smiled down at her. “Your
unconscious
wiles. I could not be a cad and seduce you, so I determined to wed you.”

“You could have warned me,” she muttered.

“So you could fight me more? I do not think so. My conceit lies in tatters as it is.”

That made her laugh. Just a chuckle, brief but reviving.

“Then—I have convinced you to marry me—”

“Blackmail!”

“And you challenged me. Me!” He thumped his chest. “I answered your challenge, finding you, teaching you to accept my touch, bringing you to ecstasy.”

She tried to bury her head in his chest, but he still held her chin.

“No. Don’t turn away. It is a good thing for a wary woman to find pleasure in her man’s caresses.” He took an exasperated breath. “But it is very, very difficult for the man.”

“Really?” Such a thought had never occurred to her. “Did you suffer?”

“Yes.”

She liked that. She liked that very, very much. “How charming.”

Now he chuckled, but darkly. “If I had managed to climb up to your bedchamber, I doubt I could have kept my vow to consummate our marriage after the ceremony, for you had strained my resolution to the limit. I would have taken you then.” He glared at her to give his words more impact. “I would have taken
you.”

Her fingers flexed on his chest. Her legs moved in a restless movement. Just as she had responded to his coercive seductions, now she responded to the fact he had wished to dominate her. What kind of primitive creature lived in her heart, craving his mastery?

“Your railing gave way, thus proving God was watching over us.” He tipped her over on her back as he came up on his elbow. Leaning over her, darkly golden and insistent, he said, ’Today I did not take you, Lady Wife. We struggled. We fought. We took each other. Never lie to yourself about that.“ He cupped his hand over her shoulder and shook her slightly. ”Promise me.“

So. He had tricked her. He had known he would possess her—truth to tell, she had known it, too—but he’d refused to allow her the easy way out. She could never say she had been unwilling. She had been a participant in their joining. ”You know me very well,“ she said.

He towered over her, rugged, hearty, male and completely convinced of his superiority. ”A wise hunter knows his prey.“

She knew him very well, too. ”Everything has come out just as you intended.“ Her throat hurt with holding back tears, but she had to bring forth the words. She had to tell the whole truth, and thus comprehend exactly what she had done. ”I will now be your wife. You will take care of me. And I will love your children—and you.“

”Yes!“ His eyes shone with approbation. ”You see at last my wisdom and the wisdom of my desert father.“

She’d said it. She’d admitted that she loved him. She’d admitted it to him and to herself. And he did not reciprocate. His only thought was that he had been proved right. That she had become a creature of his design. A woman like any other.

The press of tears eased, for what had she to cry about? Her life was settled. She’d had to surrender the one principle that had molded her character. She’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t love her and become, not the center of his universe, but a convenience to make his life easier, a mere planet dependent on the mighty sun. She had lost herself.

Ironic, that he had come from the dry and arid desert and brought the desert to her. ”As you say, you didn’t take me, we took each other,“ she said. ”I can’t lie to myself about that, and I never will. I promise.“

He kissed her forehead and smiled at her, the most beautiful smile in the world. ”You are everything I have ever wanted. Sensible, hardworking and pleasing to gaze upon.“

She watched him, in awe of his handsome face and impregnable conceit. ”Such praise will turn my head.“

For a moment he frowned, uncomprehending. Then a gentle smile lifted his lips. ”You are the light of my eyes, the dawn of spring, the—“

She interrupted. ”And you are the custodian of worthless compliments. I liked being sensible, hardworking and pleasing to gaze upon better.“

”You do not like my tributes?“

She couldn’t contain her distress. ”You already have me. There’s no use wasting them.“

”But to me you are the dawn of spring,“ he said.