By the third day they were well into the hills, tawny as a roe deer’s coat now that summer had come to dry the grasses and shrink the streams. The wagon road had become a series of curves, winding and doubling back on themselves, and the horses slowed even more.
The mountains were close now; the live oaks that dotted the hills were interspersed with stands of pines, and the air was crisp with promise. The only stain on the beauty of the wilderness was the scent of machinery and torn earth from the mining camps that sometimes reached Aria on the wind.
At night, when even the faintest sounds rang loudly in her ears, she listened to Cort’s breathing and tried to match her own to the same steady rhythm. It seemed the only way she could be close to him.
When they reached Placerville, a dusty mining town crouched against the mountains, Cort took the wagon to the livery stable, bought a fresh pair of horses and secured a room for them in a hotel. As soon as Cort saw her up to the room, he turned back to the stairs.
“Wait!” Aria said, following him onto the landing. “Where are you going?”
He stopped without turning, his hand on the bannister. “Go to bed, Aria.”
“I’m coming with you!”
“You’ll only be in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“Earning money.”
“But I thought…you said in San Francisco that you had enough to pay for what we needed.”
“It’s always better to have more than we need.”
“Where are you going to find money here?”
“In a card game, of course.” He half turned toward her and smiled, though there was an edge to it that removed any sense of humor. “Miners are notorious gamblers.” He took a step down. “Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be back before dawn.”
“Cort!” He stopped again, and Aria could feel his temper growing short. She didn’t care. “Why don’t you talk to me anymore?” she asked.
Aria heard the groan of cracking wood. “What would you like me to say?”
“Anything.” She felt her own nails cutting into her palm, digging painful crescents into her skin that healed almost as soon as she made them. “What have I done wrong, Cort?”
The railing began to split. Cort removed his hand and dropped it to his side.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said in a harsh voice. “Once we get to the lodge, you’ll be under Babette’s instruction. We won’t be seeing much of each other. You might as well get used to it now.”
“But I don’t want to get used to it!” She went down several steps so that she was standing right behind him. “There are still things only you can teach me. About the Reniers, and New Orleans…”
“Babette can tell you anything I can.”
“Not everything.”
All the muscles in his body seemed to turn to stone. “Go to sleep. We’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning.”
She laid her hand on his shoulder.
He turned so fast she could barely catch her breath. “Stop this, Aria. It’s no good.”
And then he was down the stairs, taking them three at a time, and gone. Again.
Cort didn’t return to the room that night, and came back only briefly in the morning with breakfast. Though he claimed to have won what they needed, he seemed almost haggard and refused to discuss anything that had been said the night before.
After hitching up the fresh horses, he drove them out of Placerville through denuded hills and the scars of mining, new and old. They began to climb at an even steeper angle, following an ever-narrowing path along a rushing river, and in a few hours they had left the mixed forest and were among the pines.
Aria made no attempt at conversation. When they stopped for the night, she lay down, closed her eyes and waited patiently. When she was certain that Cort was asleep, she stripped, concealed her clothes among a tumble of boulders near the camp and let herself pretend they no longer existed, that nothing human existed.
The Change was glorious. She ran on four swift feet higher into the mountains, filling her lungs with clean, fresh air. Her paws found purchase on slippery rocks and needle-strewn deer paths, splashed through streams and over fallen trees thick with moss.
She hadn’t intended to go far. She had only wanted to get away from Cort for a little while, leave behind the sadness and frustration she had felt every minute of this journey. She wanted to remember what she really was, that her whole life didn’t depend on a man who seemed to think she was a doll he could put aside when he was tired of her.
But no matter how far from the camp she went, she couldn’t shake off the slender thread that bound her to Cortland Renier. He was always there, in her breath, in her racing limbs, in her heart. She chased and killed a rabbit, tearing into the warm flesh and gulping down the stringy meat with the efficient single-mindedness of a predator.
Nothing helped. It was only an hour before dawn when she turned back, tired to the bone and wondering what she would do tomorrow, and the next day, and all the days they were at the lodge.
A familiar scent and the faint vibration of running feet brought her to a halt. Her hair stood up along her spine, and she laid her ears flat. Joy and fear mingled in her chest.
A red wolf burst out of the nearest stand of pines, looking even bigger and more imposing than he had when they had fought side-by-side in San Francisco.
Aria knew why. He wasn’t going after bad men this time. He was coming for her, and he was furious. She braced herself, expecting his full weight to crash into hers, but he stopped at the very last second, bumping her lightly but just firmly enough for her to feel it. His jaws seized her ruff, teeth pressing on her skin but not breaking it.
Cort was all wolf now. He shook her as if she were a pup. His breath was hot in her fur, and he growled in a continuous rumble. Aria made herself as small as she could, a little frightened in spite of herself, and whined in her throat.
Shaking her one last time, he let her go. He put a little space between them, shook his bristling coat and Changed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS NOT AS IF ARIA had never seen him naked before. It hadn’t been so very long since the last time. But something was different since the fight. Cort looked larger, stronger, more muscular, than before.
She Changed, as well, and as she did her feelings became fully human again. She felt weak in a different way now, and her mouth had gone so dry she couldn’t speak.
“Merde,” Cort swore. “Damn it, Aria! Where in hell do you think you’re going?” He took her by the shoulders and shook her again. “Did you think you could run away from me?”
Part of Aria wanted to rail against him, fight him, swear at him in return. He deserved it for making her hurt so much inside.
Instead, she moved until she was flat against him and wound her arms around his shoulders, kneading his back with her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
His heart thudded inside his chest, booming in her ear. Her breasts, crushed against the hollow beneath his ribs, hummed and tingled. She felt a difference in him, in that part of him she’d never had a chance to examine too closely. It grew very hard, wedged between her stomach and his.
She touched it, more than merely curious. She knew right away that her touch affected him deeply by the way he groaned and closed his eyes. She had begun to ache in between her thighs, and she didn’t have to think very hard to realize what it meant.
She wanted to join with Cort. She wanted to be so close to him that there was not so much as a hair’s breadth of space between them. She wanted him to—
Cort pulled away almost violently, stumbling back and striking his foot on a rock. He hardly seemed to notice the pain. He stared at her, his breathing louder than the wind in the tree tops.
“Non,” he whispered. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, starting toward him. “From the first time you brought me into your house.”
He swore again. “Do you think�
��what you want will help you with the Reniers? If they were to learn—”
She was almost touching him again. He sucked in his breath. She leaned her forehead against his chest.
“You never told me why they should care.”
“A proper lady—”
“I know you want to do it just as much as I do,” she said.
Cort leaned his head back, the pulse beating fast in his throat. “Dieu du Ciel,” he said. “God help me.”
Aria kissed the base of his neck. He stopped breathing completely. Slowly his hands curved around her waist, stroked up her back. She tilted her face toward his, and he kissed her.
That first kiss in Sacramento had been nothing like this one. He didn’t even try to be gentle. His lips were demanding, forcing her mouth open so that he could push his tongue inside. It felt as if he wanted to devour her.
But her hunger was just as great. She cupped the back of his head and kissed him every bit as hard. Everything was right, slipping into place like a key into a lock. She licked his chest and his small, tight nipples, delighting in his ragged gasps of surprise and pleasure.
But then he set her back again, cupped her face between his big hands and looked into her eyes so deeply that she almost became afraid.
“This cannot change anything, Aria,” he said hoarsely.
His words meant nothing to her. She put her hands around his shaft and rubbed it against her belly. When he shifted his grip and swept her off her feet, she knew she would finally have what she wanted.
She tucked her face into his shoulder as Cort carried her into the trees and found a place where the pine needles were thick under his feet. He laid her down with such care that she didn’t even realize she was on the ground until he stretched out beside her.
There were no words after that. Cort began by touching her cheek, stroking her skin in gentle circles. Aria closed her eyes, matching the rhythm of her breathing to that of his fingers. If her body hadn’t felt so alive, she might have fallen asleep under his caresses.
But sleep was the last thing on Cort’s mind. His hand moved down from her face to her neck, dipping into the hollow at the base of her throat. He leaned over her, and his tongue replaced his fingertips. The sensations that radiated out from that one point of contact were indescribable. Aria squirmed, and Cort kissed each of her shoulders and then the top of her chest.
Aria had quickly learned how good kissing Cort’s chest had made him feel, and she thought his doing the same to her would feel just as nice. But she wasn’t prepared for the shock of his mouth moving down over her breast, his lips drawing her nipple inside and his tongue swirling over the tender tip. He began to suck, tugging and nipping, until her breath came in ragged gasps and she couldn’t help reaching for that very wet place between her legs.
Cort put his hand over hers and pulled her arm above her head, holding it there as he cupped her other breast in his palm and kissed her lips. She strained upward, longing to put her arms around him, but he wouldn’t let her. He kept on kissing her while his hand moved down and down, stroking her belly, her hips, her thighs.
And then coming, at last, to the wetness. His finger barely grazed her, but she jerked almost violently when he touched the swollen little nub between the soft folds of flesh.
This was what she had wanted. No one had ever told her about it. She had never been sure that women, like men, could enjoy this so much.
Now she knew it was more than possible. It was astonishing. Cort teased the nub with little flicks, and Aria gasped again and again. He knew exactly what made her feel good, just as if he was in her body and felt it himself. The wetness became a flood, and she felt like a flower opening its petals to the sun.
She almost didn’t notice when he let go of her arm. Only when he drew away did she open her eyes and begin to protest.
Cort wasn’t listening. He was too busy kissing every place his hands had gone, all around her navel and along the tops of her thighs. She was almost ready when his tongue slid over the nub.
But she wasn’t ready at all.
She cried out, sending birds flying from the trees above them. Cort didn’t stop even for an instant. It was as if he were drinking from her as he would from a cup full to the brim, as if she were a fountain that could never run dry.
But there was a vast empty place farther down, deep inside her. That was the entrance to her body, the opening where babies emerged into the world. But Aria wasn’t interested in babies now. Something very powerful was building inside her, getting bigger and bigger, until she knew it wouldn’t stay still much longer.
Cort felt Aria shaking, moving closer and closer to the moment of release. He hadn’t believe it was possible, after so many years of sleeping with beautiful, jaded women of energetic skill and experience, to feel as he did now, trembling with the desire to give this innocent girl a kind of pleasure she’d never known.
It was wrong. He knew it in his head, where the gentleman still ruled over the beast.
But his head wasn’t strong enough. Not against the demands of his body. The feel of her slick, quivering flesh against his tongue drove him to want more…more of her sweet taste, her little whimpers of excitement, her surrender.
No, she had never known anything like this before. He was the first man to touch her naked skin, just as he had been the first to kiss her lips.
He kissed her other lips now, sliding his tongue deeper, lifting her hips and spreading her thighs so that he could go deeper still. Her entrance was hot, tight and wet. So wet and ready that he could have lain over her and entered her without feeling the slightest resistance.
The weeks of self-restraint, the longing, the frustration, seemed to vanish as if they had never happened.
Aria arched against his mouth as he thrust his tongue inside her, crying out again.
She had started this. Perhaps she didn’t know exactly how it would end. But he knew she would accept him into her without a moment’s hesitation, joyfully and without regret.
Nor would he have anything to regret. He had made a plan his “honor” had forbidden, but he was well beyond the reach of such strictly human constraints. He would mark Aria as his own, and when he took her to New Orleans…
He realized he had stopped his caresses when Aria reached down to tangle her fingers in his hair. Her arms were strong, pulling him up, all but forcing him on top of her supple body. She rubbed her thighs along the outside of his hips, oblivious to how her movements drove him beyond any hope of sanity.
There was no time to ask her if she was sure. He braced himself on his arms and fitted his body to hers. His cock was trapped between their bellies. He moved again, making ready, pressing his lips to hers so that he could swallow her little gasp of surprise when he took her. She clung to him, her pale lashes thick against her cheek, her golden hair like an angel’s halo.
It wasn’t honor that made Cort stop. It wasn’t even the distant thought that he might get Aria with child when he had never imagined himself a father.
It was Aria herself. Her purity, her honesty, the fearless trust that shone in her eyes when she opened them to meet his gaze.
It was the love he saw in them. The love that strangled his desire and made him choke on his own hypocrisy.
He rolled away from her, slid down her body and put his mouth to her again, working with lips and tongue until she bucked beneath him, rose up like a cresting wave and fell gently back to earth.
“Cort,” she whispered, stroking his sweat-damp hair. “Oh, Cort.”
THE EARTH STOPPED spinning, and Aria remembered to breathe again. The sunburst of overwhelming pleasure was gone, but a warm humming filled her body from head to toe. She reached for Cort again, desperate to hold him, to stroke his back, to hear him murmur gentle words in her ear. To tell him how much she loved what he had done.
How much she loved him.
But he didn’t fall into her beckoning arms. He sat up, his shoulders hunched, and shuddered like a horse shaking o
ff a stinging fly.
Aria got to her knees, gazing at his back in bewilderment. After a little thought she began to guess what was wrong. He had done so many wonderful things to her, but never once had he asked for anything in return.
The picture came clear in her mind. She had wanted to feel him inside her, and he had wanted the same thing. He had deprived himself of pleasure when he had stopped.
But why? What had gone wrong?
Nothing but his insistence that they should never be alone together. He had kept away from her after they had kissed the first time, too.
But Aria knew she could make him finish what he had started. A touch was all it would take. A hand on his rigid back, her lips on his chest.
Only one thing kept her from acting on her impulse. He couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened. Not after this. And there was something else she had to do now that the wall between them had crumbled.
She could explain everything. There would be no more secrets. Once Cort knew the truth about her, the real truth, he could let go of his plans for her and they could make new plans. Together.
She put her arms around his back and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “Cort, there is something I have to tell you.”
He stiffened. It was only a small change in his body, but Aria felt it jar her bones and knock the air from her lungs.
“Not now, Aria,” he said.
“But…it’s something you need to know. Before we get to the lodge.”
Without a word he slipped out of her grasp and got to his feet. “Aria,” he said quietly, “I told you nothing would change.”
She tried to remember when he had spoken those words, but they were only a vague echo, like birdsong from a distant canyon. Her heart seemed to squeeze into a tight little ball, too small to push the blood through her veins.
“Cort,” she said, rising to stand behind him. “When I tell you—”
“It’s no use. I should have made it clearer. I am sorry.”
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