She smiled. “No,” she said. “But you have to at least taste whatever I put on the table. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it. Deal?”
Hank put out a hand again. “Deal,” he said.
Five minutes later, having left the wedding in a hail of congratulations and good wishes, the bride and groom found themselves standing on the doorstep of Jake’s magnificent house.
Jake scooped her up in his arms to carry her over the threshold. “The boy’s spending the night with Bridget and Trace,” he said. His voice, normally a baritone, seemed deeper than ever. “We’ll have the place to ourselves for tonight, anyway.”
Skye was looking forward to her initiation into true womanhood, for she’d long since guessed, mostly from Bridget’s glowing face and tendency to sing in the mornings, and from some of her own feelings as well, that lovemaking was more than the mere duty her mother had believed it to be. Still, not knowing precisely what to expect, she was a little frightened, too.
Jake kicked the front door closed behind them. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked in loud, measured beats, each one carrying Skye that much closer to her fate. A tangle of contradictory emotions sprang up within her. What in the name of heaven had she gotten herself into? How could she possibly bear to wait until he’d made her his own, once and for all?
He started up the grand staircase, carrying her as easily and as reverently as if she were made of the thinnest and most precious porcelain. At the top, in the hallway, he paused. A set of double doors loomed before them, slightly ajar.
“Are you scared?” He looked as though he were really concerned with her feelings, and perhaps he was. He wasn’t cruel or unkind, after all. He simply didn’t love her the way most new husbands loved their brides.
“A little,” she confessed.
He carried her into the master bedroom, and she caught the tantalizing scents of starched linen and bay rum and of Jake himself. For the second time since they’d met, he kissed her, more deeply this time and more intensely.
The touch of his lips set her soul ablaze.
“Don’t be,” he said. “There are a lot of things I can’t promise you, Skye. But one thing is for certain—I’ll never hurt you. Not on purpose.”
It was not a declaration of love, but Jake’s vow brought fresh tears to Skye’s eyes all the same. The contents of her own heart swelled into her throat, and only by dint of sheer desperation did she stop herself from uttering them.
Chapter
5
J ake undressed Skye slowly, reverently, like a man uncovering some sacred treasure, fold by fold. She was shy, like any virgin, however spirited, and kept her eyes lowered until he had taken away the last of her clothes. Then she looked up at him through those dark, dense lashes of hers, and he thought he glimpsed a spark of excitement there, even triumph. But he saw a certain sorrow, too. He turned her in a timeless pirouette, as though they were partners in some graceful minuet, and when her shapely back was to him, he saw the bruises.He knew how she’d gotten them, of course—by sailing over the bay’s head that morning, near the end of their race, and landing on the hard, stony ground made harder still by the long spell without rain.
Her right shoulder was the worst, purple and scraped, though her hip and one perfect buttock had sustained some damage, too. Jake was stricken by a sense of almost overwhelming tenderness, as though something infinitely precious had been marred, and he drew in his breath, closed his eyes tightly for a moment. Although he’d known he was attracted to Skye, even that he was fond of her, the depth of his emotions came as a vast and unsettling surprise.
Good God, did he love her? Had he really been stupid enough to fall into that trap for a third time in his life?
When he opened his eyes, she was facing him again, looking up into his face. “Mr. Vigil?” she asked softly.
He nearly smiled, full of passion and panic as he was. “Jake,” he corrected. The word came out coarse as rusted iron, but quiet.
“You—you find me—unappealing?” she asked, and that look of personal misery was back in her eyes.
“No,” he rasped quickly. “God, no. It’s just—I should have realized—”
She frowned, still confused.
“That you were hurt. When you were thrown this morning.”
Her smile was sudden and dazzling. “Oh,” she said. “That. Well—er, Jake—that wasn’t the first spill I’ve taken from a horse, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.”
She did not seem to realize how delicate she looked to him. He felt big as a grizzly bear, awkward and inept, faced with this lovely, trusting, porcelain creature, and all the tumbles he’d taken with various local prostitutes meant nothing, in terms of experience, faced with the prospect of bedding an innocent young bride.
Cautiously, he lifted his right arm and ran the backs of his fingers down the length of her arm, shoulder to wrist, barely touching her yet eliciting a shiver. He was instantly alarmed, seized with an urge to swaddle her in quilts, like an invalid.
“Are you cold?”
She smiled a mysterious woman-smile and shook her head.
“You seem so small,” he confessed.
She held his gaze intrepidly. “Well,” she said, “I’m not. In fact, I’m tall for a woman. Everyone’s always said so.”
He thought of the bruises again. “I wouldn’t want to—to hurt you.”
Her eyes softened. They were like velvet as it was, those eyes, brown and rich, drawing him in, laying permanent claim to his soul. “I don’t know much of anything about this,” she said, and blushed a little, “except what I’ve seen animals do.”
Maybe it was nerves that made him grin. “It’s a little-different with people,” he said. He felt the grin fade from his face, replaced by consternation. “I reckon it might hurt, just a little, this first time.”
She nodded. “Bridget told me that,” she said.
“Ahh,” Jake replied. Somehow, without his knowing, his hands had come to rest on the smooth, nearly imperceptible slope of her shoulders, and the pads of his thumbs made slow circles in the hollows above her collarbone. He didn’t dare look at her breasts again; he was at the ragged edge of his self-control as it was, and he wasn’t sure how long he could restrain himself if he were to see the nipples tighten under his gaze.
She raised her chin and carried on the conversation with the special aplomb that is woman’s alone. “After that,” she said, “I won’t mind.”
He wanted so much more for her than “not minding,” when it came to his physical attentions, but he was dealing with a new bride, he reminded himself. Such things took time and skill, tenderness and patience. Jake had all those qualities, though he would have been the first to admit that the latter was a bit taxed at the moment. If she’d been one of the loose women over at Diamond Lil’s, he’d probably be putting his shirt back on by now, but she wasn’t. Dear God, she wasn’t.
He swallowed hard and hoped she didn’t guess that he was nervous, too. One of them, it seemed to him, ought to be in charge.
“Don’t you think you should undress?” she asked logically. “After all, I’m standing here naked, and there you are, wearing everything but a hat.”
He felt heat surge into his face at the idea of taking off his clothes in front of this delectable little nymph—God, he might have been an uninitiated youth instead of a man with a long and rather colorful history behind him. Reluctantly, he removed his suit coat, loosened his tie.
A groan escaped him when she pushed his hands gently aside and began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, and the sound must have pleased her, for her dark eyes were shining as she looked up at him, her fingers busy all the while.
“I’ll be a good wife to you, Jake Vigil,” she said.
He kissed her then, suddenly, and with a lot of force, surprising both of them. When it was over and he’d recovered enough strength to draw his head back and look at her, he saw a bedazzled expression in her eyes. He wished he could tell her he loved her, w
ished it sorely, but for all his wanting, for all his passion, he knew there was a void inside him where tender sentiments should be. A place that had to be kept closed off.
“I’ll protect you,” he said gruffly, “and I’ll always provide. No matter what.”
She didn’t respond but simply pushed his shirt back over his shoulders. He shed the garment, let it fall unheeded to the floor. Within a few seconds, he, too, was stripped to the skin.
He had no recollection of taking her to the bed, tossing back the covers, sprawling next to her on the smooth linen sheets. He was in a fever, a delirium, and by the time his mind cleared, even a little, they were lying on their sides, facing each other, the skin of their thighs touching. He rested a hand on the supple curve of her hip.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said.
Under any other circumstances, that remark would have amused him, but there, in his bed, with his brand new wife awaiting him like a feast, he was touched instead. He ran the tip of one index finger lightly from her temple to her chin, then traced the shape of her delectable mouth. The next thing he knew, he was kissing her again, and so desperate to be inside her that it took all his self-control to keep from mounting her right then.
Instead, he took his time, introducing her to every nuance of pleasure—rousing soft cries from her when he grasped her wrists together, above her head, and suckled at her breasts, sometimes leisurely, sometimes with the hunger that was already consuming him, sending the blood racing hot through his veins.
He reached her silken belly in due time and made a circle around her navel with the tip of his tongue. When he did that, she gasped and arched her back, raising herself to him like an offering. Instinct had taken over Skye’s every action and movement.
Knowing that, he was lost.
He moved down, beneath the quilts and the top sheet, and slid his hands under her buttocks, lifted her to his mouth like a chalice. When she felt his tongue, quickly followed by the tugging of his lips, she sobbed his name, plunged her fingers into his hair, and begged.
He could not deny her but drew on her with more insistence, and still more, until her excitement had turned to frenzy and her buttocks were quivering in his hands. When, at long last, she stiffened against him, moist and flexing, he called upon the last dregs of personal discipline to guide her over every peak. Finally, when she sagged, sighing raggedly, to the mattress, he parted her legs gently and poised himself above her.
“Skye?” He was asking her permission, and she knew it.
She looked up at him dreamily, blinking, and a silly, beautiful smile curved her kiss-swollen mouth. “Yes,” she said on a breath. “Oh, yes.”
He found her entrance, slid slowly inside her. He felt the maidenhead give way, and though she flinched a little as he breached that last barrier, her breathing soon quickened, and her hips began to move in precise rhythm with his.
He was amazed.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, Jake—”
“Shh.” He kissed her, his tongue sparring with hers.
She began to buck beneath him, fitfully at first and then with an age-old eagerness. He rode her, plunging deep, covering her face, her jaw, her neck with kisses as they rose and fell together.
And then, for Jake Vigil at least, the universe exploded, spewing stars. At the same time, Skye clung to him, her fingernails deep in the flesh of his back, and cried out in satisfaction, over and over again.
She lay still beneath him, sated, swept away, and utterly embarrassed by the echoes of her own abandon. Nothing, nothing Skye had ever heard, read, or imagined about the act of love had prepared her for the reality—for the fever, the need, the tender violence of it. Her throat was raw, and she was mortified, thinking she must surely have shouted right out loud in her frantic jubilance. She knew by the twisted sheets and the cool sheen of perspiration on her skin that she had been thrashing about, and she turned her face to one side.
Jake, still breathing hard, lay balanced on his thighs and forearms, careful not to crush her. “Skye,” he said, and though the word was gentle, there was a command in it. “Look at me.”
She looked, cheeks flaming. She’d shouted, she agonized silently. She’d tossed back and forth and up and down on the bed like a shameless hussy. What must he think of her?
“What,” he demanded quietly, “is going on in that mind of yours?”
She lowered her lashes, and he kissed each of her eyelids, ever so softly. The warmth of his lips sent a hot thrill of fresh, unexpected fire through her, stealing her breath. She gasped and met his gaze again, her heart picking up speed like a steam engine chugging downhill. “I was just—just wondering—I mean, I’ve never—I’m just not sure—”
He smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s just say I’m glad you lost that horse race this morning,” he said, with mischief dancing in his eyes.
Skye was glad, too, but she wasn’t so far gone as to admit it. She didn’t want Jake to start thinking she’d taken that spill intentionally, because she hadn’t. At least, she was pretty sure she hadn’t.
“I’m sorry we can’t take a honeymoon trip,” he said, and he looked for all the world as though he meant it. Skye was seeing a side of Jake she had never glimpsed before, as deeply as she had loved him; behind all that strength and power and obstinance lurked a passionate, skillful lover, a poet, not of pretty phrases but of caresses and kisses and whispered urgings. “Not just yet, anyhow.” He rolled onto his back beside her and sighed, gazing up at the ceiling. “You might as well know, you’ve married a man who might just lose every cent.”
She raised herself onto one elbow and peered down into his face. He was magnificent, lying there, broad at the shoulders and deep through the chest, his hair still mussed from her fingers and his aristocratic features at peace in a way she had never known them to be. It gave her a delicious sense of power to know that she’d done this for him, however unwittingly, that she’d given him the singular, womanly solace of her body.
“I don’t care,” she said. “If you go broke, I mean. We can live on my land.”
She saw amazement in his eyes as he stared at her. “You don’t care?” He sounded as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Well,” she allowed, finding the strength at last to sit up, pulling the sheets modestly up over her breasts. “Of course I care. I mean, you’ve worked hard for all this. But it doesn’t really change the important things, does it? We still have each other, and Hank. We’re a family now. We have my sister and my cousins and the land at Primrose Creek.”
He smiled and tugged the sheet down, smiled again when she blushed. “You, Mrs. Vigil,” he said, “are a remarkable woman.” He traced the circumference of a nipple with the tip of one finger, delighting in the instinctive response and the little groan Skye couldn’t hold back. “Come here,” he said, drawing her down into his embrace. “Let me show you just how remarkable.”
She was lost then, utterly, completely, triumphantly lost. And, for the moment at least, she didn’t give a tinker’s damn about being found.
Hank stood watching Skye from the doorway of Jake’s enormous kitchen one morning, some three days following the wedding, and the expression in his eyes was at once cautious and hopeful. “I didn’t figure on gettin’ myself another ma,” he said. “Fact is, the one I had wasn’t much.”
Skye, who had been assessing the contents of the pantry, which were sorry indeed, wiped her hands on the apron she’d fashioned from a dishtowel and smiled down at the little boy. He’d avoided her neatly so far, except for their brief exchange after the wedding, but now he evidently felt ready to draw up some kind of unwritten treaty. He was the very image of Jake; when he grew to be a man, she expected he’d look much the way his father did now. “I see,” she said carefully, keeping her distance lest she frighten the child away. He reminded her of a yearling deer, curious but watchful, too. Prepared to spring away into the underbrush at the slightest provocation. Her tone was thoughtful, al
most bemused. “Well, I didn’t precisely expect to get a little boy, either. At least, not right away. All the same, I’m really, truly glad I did.”
“I’m not a little boy,” Hank protested.
Skye bit back a smile. “No,” she said with a ponderous shake of her head. “I don’t suppose you are.”“I don’t have to do what you tell me.”
She dragged a chair back from the round oak table, sat down, and propped her chin in her hands. “I’m not entirely sure that’s true,” she said. “I do expect you to wash behind your ears and keep your teeth clean and, of course, to do your chores and schoolwork.”
He made a face. “Women,” he scoffed.
Skye wanted to laugh, but somehow she managed to maintain a properly serious expression. “I think we can learn to be friends if we really try.”
“But you’re not my ma.” He plainly wanted that understood.
Jake had told Skye what little he knew about his son’s past. She wondered what sort of a woman gave birth to a child, kept his existence a secret from the man who’d fathered him, and then abandoned that same child with little or no compunction. Her heart went out to Hank, though she was careful not to reveal that, either. Long experience with Noah had taught her to communicate with children as persons in their own right.
“No, I’m not your mother,” she allowed. “That’s true. But I would certainly be proud if you were my son.”
The hazel eyes widened, narrowed again. “You’re just sayin’ that,” he accused.
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I never say things I don’t mean. Do you?”
He studied her in silence for a long while, and she waited, content to let him speak when and if he was ready. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes I tell lies.”
Skye kept her features very grave. “Oh.”
“And sometimes I spit.”
She nodded solemnly.
“And if I don’t care for a place, then I just move on.”
“Hmmm,” Skye said. “Well, I hope you’ll like Primrose Creek and stay right here with us. I think your father would be very disappointed if you left.”
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