by Donna Cooner
Tara stood in shock. He was within it, she thought. The half-breed who had taken her. His back was to her and all that she could see was a set of copper shoulders covered in the rising steam and a headful of ink-dark hair.
“No!” Tara said the word, but it didn’t seem to make any sound. She felt weak again, as if she would fall. She had been so sure that the half-breed had been this girl’s husband or lover, she had never imagined …
What? She was so frightened now that she still felt paralyzed.
The man in the tub snapped out something that Tara could not understand, and the girl pressed her forward.
“I will not!”
“You must!” The girl’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t make him come after you!”
Chills swept over Tara. So it had come to this! She wished with all her heart that she could hurry back to grind koonti root, yet she was certain suddenly that it wouldn’t matter, that this had been planned.
She had been expected here all night.
“Go!” The Indian girl commanded her with another thrust.
“Wait! This is insane! I cannot, don’t you see? Untie me!” Tara cried. “I cannot serve—”
The man said something harshly, interrupting her.
“He can see that you will use any trick to escape. And he thinks you are much better behaved when you are tied. You will serve!” the girl said, then Tara nearly fell because the girl abruptly stopped pushing her and turned and exited the cabin.
Tara spun around to follow her, to make any possible mad dash for freedom.
But the cabin door slammed shut, and Tara could hear the sound of a heavy wooden bolt being slid across it. She stood dead still for a moment, then raced toward it, clenching her bound fists together, slamming them against it. A sob choked out of her, and she leaned against the door, fighting hysteria, then wishing that she might become so insane with it that this wretched world she had come upon might disappear.
But a sharp command was snapped out to her, and she went dead still before turning to brace her back against the door. He remained. Black head to her, fingers gripped tight around the rim of the tub, muscles rippling in his copper shoulders. He was going to stand any minute and come after her. And she was tied and trapped in the cabin with him.
There was no escape. Not tonight. Not from him.
She didn’t know what he was saying, and suddenly she didn’t care. She saw that there was a deep pan of water suspended above the fire, boiling away. He wanted to be served; she would serve him.
“God rot you!” she whispered. “I’ll not serve you, you will boil in hell!”
She ran to the fire, ready to grab the water and scald him with it. But before she could reach the kettle, bronze arms snaked out and copper fingers closed like bear traps around her wrists. She gasped, choked, fighting wildly, aware of the wet and naked savage who had now leapt out of the tub to wrestle with her, his arms firmly about her in his determination to grip her wrists.
She kicked back wildly and heard a hiss of aggravation. She tried harder to free herself but he wrenched her back, and in so doing brought his own knees back against the crude wooden hip tub. She felt his strength as he fought a moment for balance, but too late. In a second they had both fallen into the water. His arms encircled her as she sat atop him, his fingers grazing her breasts. Beneath her, through the many layers of her clothing, she could feel him. Feel the muscles in his thighs, the heat of them. Feel as well the boldness of his arousal, steel hard and insinuating.
She cried out wildly, thrashing in the water. She twisted and turned, half drowning herself in her reckless efforts.
“Tara!”
The harsh sound of her name brought her still. She had heard it, yes.
Then she felt his arms, tight and restrictive around her again.
She twisted in his arms and this time his hold eased and she stared into his face, her heart beating wildly. She had expected the half-breed with the piercing blue eyes. She had to be losing her mind. She was staring at features that were somehow similar, and somehow not. She was staring into the coal-black and amazingly merciless eyes of Jarrett McKenzie.
Her husband.
Chapter 14
“McKenzie!” She gasped.
Those black eyes narrowed sharply on her.
“My God, you!” She gasped again. “You!” She felt her temper rising to a fever pitch. “What—oh, my God! I was terrified! I was afraid for my life. I’ve been wretchedly worked and all but tortured here.”
“Had you been tortured,” he snapped, “you would have been well aware of it.”
“Let me up!” she commanded, struggling against him as fiercely as if he were one of the savages. At the moment he was more of one than the Seminoles, she decided.
But he wasn’t about to let her free. They were both entangled in the sodden mass of her clothing but his fingers threaded through her hair, holding her still and forcing her eyes back to his.
“Let me up!” she insisted again, clenching her teeth against his painful hold. “Oh, my God, I could rip you from limb to limb, what have—”
“This is nothing. You should see what punishment sometimes befalls runaways, my love.”
The tone of his voice was sheer warning, as was the ebony fire in his gaze. Her heart skipped a beat, and she inhaled on a wild gasp as she realized that he had come home.
And not found her there.
“The Seminoles, my love,” he continued, drawing a wet trail down her cheek with his forefinger, “like many other Indians, can be harsh. Adultery and betrayal are judged especially brutally. Sometimes the ears and nose of the guilty party are slit and clipped, sometimes—”
“Oh!” she cried, raising her bound wrists and making her hands into a ball to slam against his chest. “How dare you, how dare you! You’ve been here, you know these people! And you let them—” She broke off, crying out, for he suddenly stood, lifting her with him, his eyes darker and more menacing than ever before. “Don’t—!” she cried, but he was standing barefoot, naked and dripping before her, pure gold and copper in the flickering firelight, and she was now drenched and sodden herself. His fingers were like steel clamps around her upper arms.
“Sweet Jesu, lady, don’t you think to preach to me!” he threatened, shaking her. “After everything! You still think that you will simply run off as you choose—”
“After everything!” she cried. “You brought me into the wilderness and abandoned me.”
“You’re my wife!” he snapped heatedly.
No, she thought, she just wanted to be his wife. His wife was the woman who lay dead in the ground, she had felt that from the beginning. She was the stranger he had brought home to fill the void in his life, to sit at the head of his table, to be a warm female form to hold, to take in the darkness of the night.
She tried to fight his grip upon her shoulders and could not. She drew herself up as straight as she could, returning his stare with her own alight with blue fire. She realized that Jarrett had been here for quite some time. He had certainly made himself at home in the small cabin. She saw that one of the rolls against the wall consisted of his saddlebags and belongings. His weapons leaned against the wall, even the luxury of a white man’s linen towels lay ready for him upon the furs of the pallet.
She had been set to work scraping skins and grinding stringy roots—because he had commanded it. Jarrett! Not the half-breed with the blue eyes, nor even the war chief in the red leggings. No, Jarrett had let her sit there in terror, had forced her hands to cramp, her flesh to blister. Jarrett had held the “higher” authority over her, and he had used it ruthlessly.
“You bastard!” she hissed, and once again her bound fists came up to pound against his naked chest. “I’ll rip your heart right out of your chest! I’ll never forgive you for this, I swear it. I’ll—”
“You’ll hush!” he warned her, his voice all but a growl.
“Not in this lifetime, McKenzie—” she began, but she fou
nd herself slammed up against his chest, her breath clean knocked from her body.
“They can hear you!” he warned her.
“I don’t give a damn!”
“I do!” he warned, and there was a very sharp glitter in his eyes now. “My little runaway wife is not going to put me into any more difficult situations.”
“Your situation was difficult?” she exploded. She started shaking. She had been so damned terrified. And then she’d all but scraped her fingers to the bone. “Your situation!” she railed again, but she felt a wet hand clamped hard over her mouth. He seemed to tower above her, and she was reminded of the way that the savage half-breed had seemed to tower in the doorway of the other cabin.
“Madam, it would not do well for any Seminoles, no matter how close I am to them at this moment, to become convinced that I cannot even manage my own house. You see, they intended you no harm, but were appalled to find you wandering from lands where they had guaranteed me you would be safe. They wanted an explanation, and I must confess, I didn’t have a good one!”
She shivered fervently, unable for the moment to offer him an excuse since his hand remained so firmly over her mouth. He suddenly eased it from her, spinning her around. She felt his fingers at the hooks of her gown and despite her deep longing to shout at him again, she whispered a furious, “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, there’s not a great deal I’m expecting out of my wife for the moment,” he taunted. “You’re soaking wet.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not going to make a bigger mess out of this by coming down with pneumonia!” he warned.
He had the gown undone, her corset beneath it, even the ties to her pantalettes and petticoats. She still shivered as her clothing fell from her shoulders, but he could go no farther, for her hands were still bound at her wrists.
“Untie me!” she commanded, still shaking.
He spun her around to face him. He arched a brow high. “Still demanding, eh, runaway?”
“Now!” she insisted.
“No.”
“No!”
“Maybe if I’d had the sense to leave you bound and tied at home, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned me to the savages, we wouldn’t be here now.”
“Maybe if you had listened—”
“Untie me! You’ll never get these wet things off me if you don’t!” she challenged him. Oh, to have her hands free! Just to hit his hard, handsome face once with a stinging slap!
“I won’t, won’t I?” he asked softly. She was startled as she felt his hands upon the many layers of fabric of her gown. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he ripped the dress clear from breast to toes.
“Oh, you bloody, bloody bastard!” she whispered, and pitched herself at him.
He swept her up, and she slammed his chest as he carried her to the fur pallet on the floor. He set her down none too gently, wrenching away her loosened petticoat, pantalettes, and corset. She swore at him all the while, twisting, threatening. “I swear, Jarrett McKenzie, you will pay for this! I shall rip your eyes out—”
“And you call them savages!” he taunted.
She was naked and breathless, staring into his black eyes, furious, and yet …
Alive. So very alive. He had never seemed more sensual to her, naked, damp, bronzed to a glow, furious himself, and rippling with muscle. Nothing glowed within the room but the fire; she felt as if they might be at the ends of the earth. Perhaps it was cold outside; it was warm in here. She could smell the earth outside, the scent of cypress, of rich grasses, of pine. She felt the air against her own bare flesh, felt a hot coil stirring deep within her. And yet something hurt deep inside as well, and she was determined to fight him—and herself.
He knelt down beside her; she struggled up to her knees. “Damn you, McKenzie! I want to know! How long have you been here? You told her that I was better behaved when I was tied!” He didn’t seem to hear her. He was reaching for her, and she tried to inch away, but his arms were on her, holding her still. “Don’t you—”
“Idiot!” he grated. “I’m trying to warm you!”
He had set a warm braid blanket around her shoulders. Even as he stared at her, there came a soft tapping at the door. Jarrett stood and started for it. She was about to cry out that he couldn’t answer it naked, but he plucked up one of his towels and wrapped it around his waist before opening the door, which had now been unbolted from the outside.
The half-breed had come back. He stared at Jarrett and said something in his language, which Jarrett answered. Tara stayed on the pallet, the blanket wrapped completely around her, staring at them with her chin high, not moving. An unease settled around her. She remembered how she had dreamt of being chased by an Indian.
Jarrett had been the Indian. But Jarrett had no Indian blood in him, or did he?
These two were almost of a height. From the back they might well have been the same person.
The half-breed had brought something with him, a basket, which he offered to Jarrett. “Thank you,” Jarrett told him in English.
“You’re welcome,” the half-breed said. Clearly.
Tara gasped involuntarily. She stood up, hugging her blanket close, staring at the man, her eyes narrowing, her temper rising all over again. “You speak English!” she accused him.
He arched a brow at Jarrett. “You haven’t told her yet?” He smiled suddenly, having noticed something about Tara. “You haven’t untied her yet?”
Tara felt her flesh go crimson.
“I haven’t had that much time alone with her yet,” Jarrett explained.
“Ah …” murmured the half-breed, his lip still curling. When he smiled so, he was a very striking man, Tara thought.
Like Jarrett.
“Is Osceola still here?” Jarrett asked.
The half-breed shook his head.
“Good!” Jarrett murmured softly. His eyes fell upon Tara. “If she carries on till dawn, it won’t matter a whit to me now!”
Tara gasped.
The half-breed inclined his head to her. “I think I should leave you two. It was a pleasure meeting you, Tara McKenzie,” he said, and while she still stared after him, angry and baffled, he exited the cabin.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” she demanded furiously of Jarrett.
He didn’t answer her. Instead he walked toward her again, shedding the towel as he came. Barefoot, silent, a copper wraith with the grace of a panther, he stalked her with determination.
He came before her, set his hands upon her shoulders, and threw the blanket to the floor.
“Jarrett—”
“It’s been a long time. Forever. An eternity. All right, so it hasn’t been so long, but it feels like bloody forever!” His hands were on her shoulders again, forcing her down.
“Jarrett!” she cried out, trying to thrust her bound wrists before her. But he caught her wrists and forced her to the floor, stretching her arms over her head, running his fingertips down their smooth whiteness as he lay atop her. She inhaled sharply, furious, yet feeling the hunger grow as if it were fueled by the very emotion that made her long for the power to scalp him!
“I mean it!” she cried put, her lips trembling. “I’ll never forgive you for this. Given half a chance I’ll have half of your hair and your scalp and—”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “Too damned bloody long!” he whispered, leaning over her.
“Jarrett!”—She whispered his name again, trying to twist her head aside. But his lips captured hers. Hot and hungry, giving no quarter. His mouth closed over hers, his tongue forcing her lips and teeth apart. And all the while the lapping fires inside her seemed to grow, heating, igniting, simmering, playing havoc within her flesh and blood. His touch was upon her again, his palm covering her breast, massaging it, sliding down between her legs.
Parting them with a firm thrust.
She gasped as he stretched hard over her for a momen
t. Then he rose above her on his knees. There was a knife in his hands. She nearly shrieked, but she caught hold of her bottom lip with her teeth and held silent, her heart pounding mercilessly, as he leaned over and slit the leather straps that bound her wrists.
Then he was upon her.
And it had been long, too long, forever. Because she, too, quickly forgot that she had intended to fight him, that she was exhausted, that she had been held prisoner here all day and night, that she had scraped skins, ground roots.
She forgot everything with the wild, searing sensation that came as he lifted her thighs, parted them, thrust himself full within her. Black eyes captured hers. Sleek sweat cast a new sheen over his coppery length as he moved within her, watching her. Her hands fell upon his shoulders. She wanted to push him away. She hadn’t the strength, or the desire. She couldn’t even close her eyes, twist her face from his. She just held him tight to her, feeling the screwing of the fiery coil within her, the sweet agony of wanting him, of emotions spiraling ever upward with his erotic tempest. It was almost frightening to realize how much she wanted this. Wanted him. Frightening to realize how glad she was of him, of feeling the shudder of his sleek nude body, the force of it, the heat of it. Wild thunder seemed to beat within her ears; it was the pounding echo of her heart. Then she seemed to burst into a field of splendor, of searing light, and she had barely cried out with the violent ecstasy of it when his climax came shuddering through her, creating a new wave of sweet ripples within her as she drifted back to a plane of sanity. She felt the soft furs against her damp back, the slick, hard heat of his flesh against her own. His weight, the still rampant pounding of his heart. His fingers entwined tightly within her hair for a moment, eased from it, and he slid to her side.
She was silent for a minute, catching her own breath, staring up at the shadowed roof. He reached for her again, trying to draw her into his arms, but she protested his hold on her.
“I’m still going to strangle you, given half a chance,” she told him stiffly.
“Me?” he demanded, and, rolling onto an elbow, stared down at her. His striking features were tense; a lock of ebony hair fell over one eye. “I wasn’t the one who was where I shouldn’t have been—running away.”