Runaway (30 page)

He rose above her again, and she dragged air into her lungs.

“I said that I needed a
wife!
” he reminded her softly.

“I never meant to deny you that!” she whispered in turn. Then with honesty and anguish she cried out, “But I cannot be what you want if it is not fair.”

“Fair?” he said, truly puzzled, and she found herself struggling for words.

“I cannot be silent and forever grateful.”

“Silent?” he echoed, a brow arched very high.

“You saved me once, I am grateful. And you said exactly what you wanted and I—I wanted you with me as well, you—”

“To save you from the Indians.”

“You insisted on coming here; you should do so!”

“I am to protect you with life and limb, and at least now I am to enjoy that luscious life for which I would give my own!” he taunted.

“Oh!” she cried out with aggravation, trying to throw him from her. But he laughed and leaned nearer again, and when she twisted her head from the promise of his lips, his liquid caress fell upon her cheek, then her throat, her collarbone, and downward, his tongue, just the tip of it, circling her breast, teasing …

“Where were you?” she demanded.

Again, he paused. Ebony eyes met hers, and a slow smile curved his mouth. “When?”

“Last night.”

“In one of the guest rooms.”

“And the night before?”

He frowned. “On the ship, of course.”

“In—in Tampa.”

For a moment he hesitated, and she felt her heart begin to sink. Misery crawled over her. He had been with the ever luscious and so very bold young lady, Sheila.

He sighed deeply. “I went to the fort, to speak with one of the men who survived the Dade massacre,” he told her quietly, and she knew that he had hesitated because he wondered whether a lie might have stood him better, whether she might have accepted a night with another woman more easily.

“Oh!” she whispered.

“Satisfied?”

“I wish I could make you understand!” she whispered, meeting his eyes again. “If you tell me that I must sleep here—”

His forefinger suddenly pressed against her lip, and she fell silent.

“Then I must sleep here too,” he agreed very softly. He watched her eyes for a moment. Waited to see if she would speak again. She did not.

His mouth touched down upon hers again. She could think of no more reason to fight him.

Her lips shaped to his, parted to him. She seemed to sink into a bed of clouds as she felt the fire of his touch, the thirst of it, the sweet heat it elicited within her. Yet it seemed that her sudden, complete surrender surprised him, for despite the wild heat that quickly ignited within the passion of their kiss, he drew back from her, staring
down at her. He took hold of her discarded corset and thrust it from the bed, then stood, catching her shoes one by one and swiftly tossing them heedlessly aside. Her petticoats went next, then she felt the hot pleasure of his hands upon her bare hips as he wrenched at the pantalettes, swearing when he ripped a satin tie. He trembled when she lay all but naked except for her stockings, and he paused again, smiling, and wickedly this time, she thought. And she soon knew why, for his hurried touch was somewhat stayed as he began to roll and slide the silk stocking from her leg, fingertips teasing all the way, a pause again here and there as he set his lips against her naked flesh. She held her breath, tried to breathe, tried not to feel the aching sensation that had begun to burn between the limbs he so tormented.

He arched a brow, watching her, as her second stocking fell to the floor. She kept her gaze on his, and he suddenly hurried again, wrenching off his frock coat, waistcoat, heedless of buttons and threads. His steady gaze of ebony fire remained on her while he tugged off his boots and stockings, but she felt her eyes slipping from his, and sliding down the length of his body. For a moment she thought it curious that she could covet him so, admire the taut muscled angles and planes of him, the sleek bronze of his flesh, and know such great anger against him so frequently. Know such jealousy.

Such longing. A fierce, hot trembling set into her as she realized that wanting him was both natural and right. She had married him, she was his wife. And most important, she was falling more and more in love with him.

He cast his breeches to the floor and she discovered herself slipping like a wraith from their bed, anxious to touch him. His back had been to her, and her action took him by surprise, for he swung around with startling
speed, his ebony eyes slightly wary as they fell upon her. For a moment she felt awkward, unsure. But haltingly she took a step forward, reaching out to set her fingers and palm upon his chest, near his heart. “I just wanted to—touch you,” she whispered.

His hand closed over hers, and he drew her tight against his naked body. “Ah, my dear wife, there is nothing I could want so much as to be touched by you.”

She felt a sweet smile of happiness slipping onto her lips, and he lifted her chin, barely brushing her lips with his own, then turned his back to her once more to kick the rest of his clothing out of the way. She stepped closer again, fingers delicately upon the breadth of his shoulders, her body all but brushing his, her lips upon the muscled, bronze flesh of his back. She heard him inhale sharply. He stood very still for a moment, and she came closer still, nuzzling against him, hands now exploring the length of him, her knuckles running down his back, her fingertips riding up again over his length. Bringing them down again she curled her fingers around his hard-muscled buttocks, and it was then that she heard him exhale. He spun around to her, this time all but savagely taking her lips with a heated passion as their bodies pressed close together, as the state of his arousal pulsed hard and insistent against the naked flesh of her belly. She clung to him, savoring the wild hunger of his kiss, the swift, forceful velvet of his tongue, the tempest it all awoke within her. His fever erupted further. She was suddenly off her feet and upon the bed, and his kisses still seared her mouth, her throat, her breasts.

His hand slid down the length of her inner thigh. His palm pressed against her, his fingers caressed her, teased her, entered her. Thrusts of velvet fire seduced her mouth, and stroked against the most erotic and feminine
places, swept her into a sweetly drugged splendor, into fierce longing.

Hungry kisses, savage, then light, rained down upon her, bathing her breasts, her throat, the hollow of her abdomen. Where his fingers had trod so boldly, his liquid caress followed. Cries escaped her, protests, gasps. Desire shot into her explosively, ecstasy, anguish, a building inferno.

Cascades of wonder seemed to explode within her. As if in a half-drugged state she felt the weight of his body, the hard swell of his sex. His kiss came against her earlobe, teased her throat, consumed her lips. And still the shock of his body thrusting hard into hers was a fire that lit into her all anew, and to her amazement she was swiftly swept into the ferocity of his desire once more, undulating to his rhythm, flying again, reaching.

A soft cry ripped from her lips as white stars seemed to burst and soar against the very darkness of the night. She lay on clouds, yet she was so intensely aware of him, of his slick bronze flesh against hers, of the wild constriction of his muscles, of the hard thrust of his sex into her body, again and again.

And then she seemed drenched with him. A deep groan echoed in the golden shadows, and his body shuddered against hers. Then his arms were around her, strong and gentle, as he eased himself to her side, holding her. She curled against him. His arm remained around her, his fingers dangling over her abdomen. She closed her own fingers around them. Her heart still pounded fiercely; her breath came in shallow gasps as she asked softly, “Do you really have to leave?”

He eased up, a brow arched as he looked at her. “Was this wondrous seduction nothing but a ploy to keep me here?”

“I don’t remember seducing you,” she said, itching to slap him.

“You but breathe, and it is seduction,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was taunting her or not.

“I thought you liked your women to breathe,” she retorted.

“I do—see how much?”

She groaned, closing her eyes, only to feel his arms encircling her once again as he lay back down beside her. He was silent for a moment, and though she bit her lip, wishing she dared pull away from him after his comment that she had seduced him to gain her way, she held still as well.

He spoke, and his words were tormented and vehemently sincere, startling in the darkness of the night. “If I didn’t have to go, I would not!” he said.

Tears threatened hotly against her lashes, and she blinked them back furiously. He meant what he had said. She didn’t reply. She lay there, her back to him, his arm around her. She didn’t try to draw away, yet there was nothing for her to say.

“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he told her.

She could still think of nothing to say.

“I have a great deal to come back to now,” he added.

Still, she could not tell him that it was fine for him to go, and she closed her eyes very tightly, unaware of just how stiff a body he held.

Perhaps he had nothing else to say, either, for he was silent a long time. Despite her certainty that anxiety alone would keep her awake, she began to drift. Yet even as sleep all but claimed her, she found herself in his arms again, found that she was the one quite well seduced that night, and that she had no protest against his lovemaking.

Still later, she did open her mouth when she felt his touch, the blaze of his eyes again. Ah, he wanted her! Yet he was so set upon leaving her!

“Will you want me so when I am minus my scalp and a great deal of hair?” she challenged him reproachfully.

“You’ll keep your hair,” he told her, and his next words were whispered against her own lips. “And you will remember me when I am gone.”

It was very, very late when she really fell asleep. Perhaps that was why she dreamed and dreamed so vividly and with such terrifying detail.

She was running again. The Indian was at her back, knife in a sheath at his waist, tomahawk raised high to break her skull. She didn’t dare look back to see his face, because she was so afraid that it would be the very man she had married, intent himself upon killing her.

She had to stop running, because when she looked before her, she saw William. Someone was holding him up by his hair, and there was a knife at his throat, ready to slash through his flesh.

Words seemed to echo in a strange, savage wilderness, haunting her. “Come back, Tara. Pay the price, pay the price, save him.…”

“William!” she screamed his name again and again, certain that she could save him if she could only reach him.

But the Indian was behind her. She had led the Indian right to William, and it was the Indian who threatened him now. Her scalp, or William’s.

“Tara!”

A hand clamped suddenly over her mouth, and she awoke with a start. Jarrett was naked, straddling her, smooth and sleek like a great, agile panther in the night. His eyes were black as coal and hard as ice.

“I will have half a regiment of men breaking in here any second now to see if I’m murdering you,” he said somewhat harshly, but his hand eased from her mouth.

Her eyes were wide, her heart was pounding viciously. “There’s no company of men here. You told me that Captain Argosy and Rice and Culpeper went back to the ship.”

“I didn’t want you screaming before,” he admitted offhandedly, “and I had no idea in hell you’d be screaming as if I were committing some horrific evil in the middle of the night!”

“You lied—” she began to accuse him.

“Who’s William?” he demanded.

She couldn’t help it; tears sprung to her eyes. She was still shaking.

“Tara, who’s William?”

He looked as hard and merciless as tempered steel. Well, she had known that he could be that, even as she had known that he could be strong, protective, passionate—and even tender—at times.

She opened her mouth, wet her lips. But before she could speak she started shaking again and a soft sob escaped her. To her amazement she found herself swept up, cradled in his arms. He asked no more questions. His fingers moved gently through the length of her hair, smoothing its tangled length from around her face.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “It’s all right now. You can sleep, I’m with you.”

But you won’t be with me tomorrow!
she almost cried out.

“You’re safe here,” he whispered to her. “I swear it—on my land you’re safe, Tara. You’re safe.…”

The words stayed with her. Gradually she ceased to
tremble. “Rest, Tara,” he commanded her. “Rest, you’re safe with me.”

His strength and tenderness surrounded her. The dream faded. She was so very, very tired.

When she finally slept, she did so deeply.

She woke from the depths of that sleep slowly, as if heavy clouds sat over her as she tried to struggle to consciousness. She wanted to remain asleep. But someone was shaking her.

She opened her eyes.

Her reprieve was over.