She stopped to stare in disbelief. Before her stood the man for whom she had daily yearned.
“Rhodes,” she gasped.
Standing at ease, wearing crumpled white linen trousers and a white shirt that had seen better days, Rhodes still presented a daunting figure. Intent, amused, he studied her. “Who were you expecting?”
“Chinese pirates,” she whispered. Suddenly weak, she leaned her trembling legs against the bunk.
The smile that spread across his lean dark face was not a pleasant one. “Perhaps you’d prefer them in the long run,” he murmured.
She peered at him: at that well-loved, square-jawed face, so taciturn and deeply tanned and with a careless growth of dark beard; at his handsome frame, so strong and sinewy; at the gleaming dark hair that looked as if he didn’t cut it, but rather hacked it off; at the eyes . . . especially at the eyes. Looking back at her, they were murky as a stormy green sea breaking across the deck. Windows of hell, she thought, staring into his haggard face.
She cast a quick look around her. She recognized the cabin. “We’re aboard the Virginia Lass!”
His smile was thin. “The same,” he said in a hard offhand tone. “Although I had thought to rename her Delilah in your honor.”
Roxanne did not like the look in his eyes. Slowly she straightened. “What—what do you intend doing with me, Rhodes?”
He laughed. It was not the laugh she remembered. Looking into that handsome weathered face, with the grim lines overlaying the boyish lighthearted ones, she realized how thoroughly she must have destroyed his feelings for her.
“Do with you?” He drawled as he sat down on the corner of a ship’s table. “Why, I intend to enjoy you, Roxanne, as a man should enjoy you. And after that . . He shrugged.
She moistened her lips. “And after that?” she asked steadily.
“Why, then I may sell you to Yen Chiang or some of his friends. They’ll give me a good price for you. Now or later.”
Yen Chiang .... she shuddered. Yen Chiang was the most notorious of the Chinese pirates that infested the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. With an effort she kept her face under control. Her eyes were as expressionless as his, but less hellish.
“Perhaps I would prefer Yen Chiang to you,” she said coldly.
“Perhaps,” he said indifferently. “But the choice is not yours to make.”
Cold, so cold, she thought. So different from the old laughing Rhodes she had known. This was the bitter man who had come to Nome, hunting her. The man who had followed her out across the barren wastes of ice not to save her but to kill her. He had saved her there only because he wanted the pleasure of killing her himself. And now ... he planned another kind of retribution. She had thought that by nursing him through his fever in Nome, she might have won some measure of forgiveness, but obviously, he had not forgiven her.
“How can you do this to me?” she demanded. “I saved your life when Lars shot you!”
“Oh, I heard about that,” he drawled. “They told me about it at the same time they mentioned you’d run off with another man. I suppose he brought you to Singapore. He’s said to have money. Bright lights, parties, men to entertain you—that’s your style.”
Her teeth closed with a snap. “They’ll hang you,” she said, her voice low and deadly. “You know that, don’t you? Kidnapping a white woman just isn’t done—even in this godforsaken part of the world.”
He shrugged. “Life is not so dear to me I wouldn’t risk it for what I want,” he declared coolly.
As the force of that hit her, Roxanne swayed on her feet for a moment. “I should have left you to die in Nome!” she cried.
He gave her a bleak bitter smile. “But you didn’t. That was your mistake.”
Facing his taunts, she felt her blood boil with what she thought was fury, but might also have been fear. Did he really think she would stand for this? To be used like this? Sold to Chinese pirates, bandied about from man to man?”
That indignity at least she would not endure! Life was no longer dear to him. Well, it was not dear to her either. Half-blinded by tears and rage, she darted past him and ran from the cabin up to the deck. She would have hurled herself over the rail into the shark-infested waters, if Rhodes had not come up behind and, grasping her roughly, swung her about and dragged her back down to the cabin.
He held her shoulders in a grip that hurt. She could almost feel the triumph in him. “Did you think I would let you escape so easily?” he demanded, and his hard face above her broke into a wolfish grin. “I'll lash you to the bunk if I must. But you’ll stay with me, Roxanne, as long as I wish it.”
Angrily, she struck at that wolfish smile, and he bent her backwards and kissed her wet face. His lips clamped over hers as he silenced her mouth with his own. Not letting go of her, he withdrew his mouth and smiled nastily down at her. “A willing woman is a delight to any man,” he said.
In white fury, she sank her teeth into his wrist. He cuffed her lightly, but hard enough that her head snapped back. “You will learn manners,” he said, “Or I will teach them to you. The choice is yours.”
Roxanne stood staring at him until there was a discreet knock and the door opened. A Malay boy clad only in torn white trousers slid into the room. Giving them both a curious look, he pulled a large metal tub of water into the cabin, and left. When the boy was gone, Rhodes released Roxanne.
“What's this . . . this tub?” Roxanne faltered.
“Your bath,” Rhodes explained. “In this damned heat, you should be grateful for it. Undress and climb in.”
“Then leave first!” she cried. “I won’t bathe with you here.”
“You’ll bathe when I say—and where I say.” His voice had a cutting edge to it.
“It’s your tub, your bath—you use it!”
“I’ve had my bath on deck, thanks. This is for you. I choose to sit here and watch you take it. If you don’t undress immediately—” he rose threateningly to his feet. “I'll rip the clothes from your back.”
She winced. These were her only clothes. Still . . . anger and pride bade her defy him.
“I will not,” she said, her face white.
With an oath, he sprang across the room and seized her. As she fought him, his impatient hands began systematically stripping the clothing from her body. She struck at him wildly, but he pinioned her arms behind her. Ignoring her flailing legs that kicked at him, he tore off her dress and flung it aside.
“You were not always a savage!” she cried.
“I am what you and the Coulters have made me,” he said.
“But you are a Coulter,” she panted.
“Not in truth, and you know it.” His voice was grim. “Gavin was right. My fair maid of a mother did cuckold Joab Coulter—and so she should have—and I’m the result of it.” He jerked the fabric from her shoulders so that her soft breasts were bared to his view. Roxanne winced. A moment later, with another yank he swept her up and pulled the rest of her under-things down around her hips and off her kicking legs.
She stood naked and panting before him. her bright hair tumbled, clad only in a pair of silk stockings and garters and her high-heeled shoes. “Faith, I like you like this,” he observed coolly. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take your bath in your shoes and stockings.”
With an angry exclamation, Roxanne turned her back and tugged off her own garters and stockings. She was spine-tinglingly conscious of Rhodes’s eyes boring into her naked back, but—these were her only stockings. The memory of his ungentle hands upon her was vivid. Her whole body flushing pink at his critical inspection of its trim profile, her outthrust breasts only partially concealed by her slender arms—she stepped into the water and sank gratefully into it, slumping down so that only her white knees and whiter shoulders could be seen above the water line.
Rhodes, coming to stand over her, dropped a sponge and a bar of soap into her hands. “Would you like me to wash your back?”
For an answer, she threw th
e soap at him, which he gravely retrieved and tossed back to her, then resumed his seat on the edge of the table.
It was a very long bath. The water had cooled before Roxanne, feeling almost shriveled, decided enough was enough. The imperturbable Rhodes was regarding her through half-shut eyes. Plainly he would outstay her.
“I would like a towel,” she said irritably.
He rose and tossed her one. Clutching the small inadequate towel around her, she stood dripping in the tub, her long white legs gleaming and wet.
“Come here,” he said, and something in his voice had softened.
“No,” she said, glaring at him. And then defensively, ‘I’m all wet.”
His voice hardened. “Wet or dry, you belong to me. Come here.”
Something dangerous in the green eyes that considered her so sternly made her move sullenly toward him, barefoot and dripping. He reached out and took the towel from her. She suffered him to do it, half afraid and half mesmerized by the look he gave her. She could not fathom it.
Methodically, he began to towel her soft body. She gave him an affronted look, and he laughed, spinning her about so that he could dry her back. She felt the towel rasp along her spine, felt her muscles contract sharply as, slowly, he toweled dry her buttocks, her inner thighs and ran the towel down her legs. Then he spun her around again and gently toweled her breasts and stomach as she trembled at his touch.
Tossing the wet towel from him, he laughed down at her.
“Now we’ve washed the touch of other men from you at last,” he said, “and you’re ready for me.”
She backed away.
“Odd you should be so lovely,” he murmured. “It’s enough to make me believe in Joab Coulter’s devils, sent to earth to tempt men. But you’ve little cause to worry, Roxanne. I’m sure you’ll land on your feet wherever there are men to be deceived.”
His words, heavy with irony, lashed at her, but she stood up stiff and straight and returned his gaze scornfully. Whatever he did with her, he would not find her a coward.
“I never deceived you, Rhodes.”
“Oh, no?” There was almost pleasure in his smile as he advanced upon her, towered over her slight arrogant figure, lovely in its nakedness. Suddenly he reached down and tilted up her chin so that her gasping parted lips were close to his own. “Lovely, lying lips,” he murmured. “Hard to believe you arranged to have me rolled and half killed in a Dawson alley.”
She started to object, but he said, “Doesn’t your consciousness ever bother you when you ruin a man Roxanne?”
“Have I ruined so many?” she asked bitterly.
“All the poor fools who loved you, I’ve no doubt,’ he said, and his lips followed his fingers, nuzzling, tumbling that delicate pink nipple this way and that way with his tongue.
Roxanne looked up at the ceiling and steeled herself. With savage determination, she tried to make her body stiff, unyielding. Felt fierce anger at her body’s rippling betrayal as, in spite of herself, she quivered to his touch. This was the man she had yearned for so long, so long . . . and now he was going to take her—without love. The thought screamed through her brain.
“You can’t!” Despair forced out the words as she made a last desperate effort to twist away from him.
“Can’t?” His voice was lazy, amused.
“No,” she cried raggedly. “It’s wrong—because you don’t love me!”
“Roxanne,” he said softly, “what would you know of love?”
He tired of the game then, and his hands tightened around her slender waist. Suddenly, she was wrenched up in his strong arms, held so that she was looking directly into his eyes—and what she saw there chilled her. After a moment, he carried her over to the bunk, and flung her down upon it.
Silently, Roxanne studied the savage grace with which he moved until he stood naked before her. Shoulders and chest deeply bronzed, contrasting with the paler skin of his muscular hips and thighs, Rhodes stood smiling down at her. It was not a pretty smile. She turned away from that smile and closed her eyes as he lowered his body onto hers.
And then—something miraculous happened. The hands that were moving over her exploringly were a lover’s hands. The lips that softly probed her own were lover’s lips. Rhodes’s face, his manner, his voice had told her that he hated her—that he had brought her here only to punish her, but now his body, with a gentle yearning tenderness, was telling her something else. Telling her that he loved her.
His love was there in every touch, every movement: in the delicacy with which his strong hands caressed her, in the elegance of his entrance as he brushed aside her leg with a gentle hand and claimed her. In the strength and, yes, the beauty of the way he moved within her, rhythmically, pulsingly. In the exquisite way in which he led her on to passion.
Perhaps Rhodes was not a better lover than she had known before, but to her he seemed so. Every light touch burned her, every pressure of his lips or tongue roused in her a silken madness more violent than any she had known. Her heart beat suffocatingly. And it was all because it was Rhodes. Rhodes holding her intimately, lovingly in his arms at last.
She knew now with certainty that he had not raped her, could not have raped her that night in Baltimore. The housekeeper had not lied after all. It had been some stranger who had followed her, slipping in from the dark street and quickly out again. This magnificent lover who moved with such grace, such authority, such all-consuming fire, could never have struck her down and raped her brutally.
In his arms, Roxanne forgot Baltimore, forgot Alaska. All the other arms that had ever held her dimmed to insignificance. Something wild, something elemental was unleashed in her. A new feeling, like nothing she had ever known before, washed over her, drowned her in its reckless sweetness.
It was not sex that held her so in thrall. This was true mating-—this was love. Golden and wonderful, she tasted its pleasures fully.
Wildly, she clasped him to her. Her breath sobbed in her throat as with passion and yearning she answered his kisses. She felt for a moment his surprise at the sudden unexpected heat of her response, but she did not care—she wanted him to know, wanted her body to speak to him as his had spoken to her, telling him with wordless abandon that she was his and only his forever. She could feel the exultation in him as he drove onward. Her whole body clung to him feverishly, wanting him with a desire greater than any she had ever imagined, until at last she reached a shivering ecstasy of joy that left her spent and unable to face him, as he lay beside her on the bunk, his lean naked body touching her own.
After a while he moved, and she stole a look at him. He was leaning on one arm, watching her keenly, a thoughtful frown upon his deeply bronzed face. “You’re a very good actress, Roxanne,” he said, and with a lithe movement he rose, picked up his trousers and strode naked to the door.
In blind rage Roxanne grabbed the first thing her hand landed upon—one of his boots—and flung it after his departing back. As the boot struck the door beside him, he turned with a laugh, flung down the trousers he had picked up, and sprang back toward her.
“How lovely you are—like some wild thing no man can tame,” he murmured, catching her arm easily as she tried to strike him, and looking down somberly into her mutinous face.
She tried to wrench away from him, but he held her easily. “This time it won’t be so easy, Roxanne. Once you held me in the palm of your hand. I was younger then, and fool enough to love you.” His jaw hardened. “Now I’ll take what’s mine—-and keep on taking.”
She opened her mouth to scream at him, but he swooped down and closed his mouth over hers. Warmly, suffocatingly. At his leisure he explored her mouth with his tongue. And as her body stiffened and she tried to beat at him with impotent fists, he held her tighter so that her breasts were crushed against his chest. She could feel the strong throbbing beat of his heart.
With a sob, she felt herself giving in to him, felt those wild emotions she could not control taking over once more as he eased
his big body down on the bunk and took her again.
Afterward, he straightened abruptly, leaving her panting where she lay. “Nice to know you’re warmblooded,” he said coolly. “There was a time when I wasn’t so sure. When you decide to get up, put this on.” He reached into a chest and tossed a length of material at her. His taunting laugh echoed in her head as he picked up his trousers and strode out naked, perhaps to lie on the deck and let the hot winds of the Indian Ocean cool his long hard body.
With turmoil in her heart, Roxanne watched him go. Could she, she asked herself savagely, have been wrong about the way he took her? Could his body have lied to her? Could what she thought was love have been merely lust?
She turned over and flung herself face down in the bunk, and dry sobs wracked her beautiful body.
After a while the heat grew so oppressive she felt she could not breathe. She got up, saw that her linen dress was badly torn, and reluctantly picked up the length of cloth that Rhodes had thrown carelessly on the bunk. It appeared to be a native sarong of a lovely silky material in blue and gold—she had seen them in Singapore. She wrapped it around her, noting that it was so long that she might also have been wearing a strapless gown.
Tossing back her tumbled dark-blond hair that had long since lost its pins, she climbed up to the moonlit deck, running her fingers through her hair to comb it. The hot wind fanned her hotter cheeks, and above her, silvery white, billowed the shrouds of the familiar Virginia Lass. Around her, she heard the creakings of a sailing ship making way through a dark and trackless ocean. Overhead were a scattered handful of big bright stars.
Catlike, Rhodes came up beside her. He was wearing only his wrinkled white trousers; his bared chest gleamed in the pale light. “The sarong becomes you,” he approved. “I bought it for you in Singapore.”
She whirled about, incredulous. “You planned all this?”
She couldn’t read his smile. “I planned it before I left Nome,” he said. “But you were hard to find, Roxanne. It was luck, my running across you in Singapore. You were riding by in a rickshaw with the Dutchman. I followed you home.”
These Golden Pleasures Page 41