“You heard me, Berry. You may be a spitfire and need some strong handling, but you’re not stupid. I’ll not allow my wife to go traipsing off in the woods like an Indian squaw when she’s got her own work to do on our place upriver.” He pulled on her hand. She was so stunned by his words that she sat down before she realized it. She tried to get back to her feet, but he held her.
“Your . . . wife? You mean . . . ? You mean . . . me?” The air around her seemed to vibrate first with her astonishment and then with her anger. “You . . . you . . . Damn you to hell! You’re tellin’, not askin’! I’ll not wed you to get a . . . place for myself. What do you think I am?” The words burst from her in bitter rage. She was shaking all over and felt as if something inside her was giving way.
“I think you’re a woman with warm, red lips, white arms, and hair as black and shiny as a black-bird’s wing. A woman with stormy green eyes that flash like lightning, a woman that can drive a man mad with wanting her.”
And then he was kissing her, one arm locked around her shoulders, the other at her waist pulling her hard against him. His mouth was hard against hers, and the skin around it and on his chin was rough with new beard. He kissed her until her lips burned, and until the strength dissolved from her body.
Simon raised his head to stare down at the shadowed face and closed eyes when he felt her go limp against him. He had long ago admitted to himself the overwhelming attraction he felt for her. She had touched his heart and entered his mind even as he willed it otherwise. He knew she was willful, headstrong, exasperating, and foolish. He had spent the day wavering between a desire to make love to her and an urge to bend her over his knee for the sound beating she needed for even thinking of leaving the security of this place. Yet there was another side to her. She was spunky and brave. She had fought like a little wildcat to protect herself and Rachel from the river scum who had come to their camp. She was uplifting, fun, and endearing. She made him forget to be so serious about life, made his heart laugh, and he didn’t want that feeling to stop.
He felt a strong desire to force her to want him—to see in her eyes a need and a longing for him. Calmly, he made a vow that he would make that happen, make her want to be with him for the rest of her life, make her depend on him to keep her safe. His eyes roamed her quiet face, her youthful, rounded breasts and trim waist, and her silky black hair. The intensity of his gaze caused her to open her eyes and regain her senses.
“I don’t like to be kissed,” she declared imperiously. She could see his face if she tilted her head back onto his crooked arm.
“Yes, you do,” he said with matter-of-fact confidence.
“I don’t! And you’re no gentleman to say it!”
He laughed softly. “You’re right. I’m no gentleman. But you’re no lady, either.”
“I am,” she declared. “I was taught by my mother, who was a lady! I’m not a . . . tart!”
His laugh was low and rumbling and came from deep inside him. He blew warm, moist breath on her face when he laughed. His lips touched her forehead briefly before his cheek pressed against hers.
“I don’t know what you are,” he admitted in a rough whisper. “I’m afraid to scratch the surface. No telling what I’d find.”
Suddenly the laughter bubbled up out of her. The absurdity of their banter had reached her senses and her sense of humor took over. Her laughter turned to giggles she couldn’t stop. The enchantment that floated about her enfolded Simon in its aura so that he laughed with her.
The mood changed without either of them being aware of it. Berry melted against him, allowing his hands to mold and shape her to his hard form as he wished. His mouth moved over hers, as if he sought to draw her heart out through her lips. For the first time she touched him with her hands, stroking his back and shoulders, then tangled her fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. Simon responded to the touch of her hands and to the movement of her lips with urgent, seeking hands. He drew an uneven breath and his deep voice vibrated with feeling.
“I’ve never seen anyone like you. You’re like finding a soft, beautiful pelt among a pack of mangy hides. I want to stroke you . . . feel you. . . .”
Berry felt a spurt of surprise on hearing those words, but then his mouth closed over hers, parting her lips, blotting out all rational thought. His kiss was tender and probing . . . deep and disturbing. She felt his tongue pushing against the inner pads of her lips, intruding with gentle insistence until she tingled with the unfamiliar sensations he awakened. He lifted his mouth and tucked her face into the curve of his neck. His breath came in gasps and she could feel the pounding of his heart against her breast. Her breast! His hand was on her other one. How long had it been there? He shouldn’t . . . She shouldn’t let him. She tilted her head and opened her eyes to find his inches from hers.
“What’s the matter?” he asked softly.
“Nothing. I . . .”
“Then relax.”
“You shouldn’t . . .” She grasped the wrist of the hand covering her breast and tried, in vain, to push it away. “I think we should go back now.”
“I don’t.” He rubbed his palm gently over her breast, liking the feel of the soft globe in his hand. He covered her mouth with his again and molded her so tightly to him that she wondered if the imprint of his body would remain on hers when they parted. His kiss was a dark, sweet eternity of firm lips and warm breath. She felt a small fire kindling deep within her.
When he drew back he traced a finger softly across her kiss-puffed lips. “You like what I do. You like being in my arms.”
“No . . .”
“Yes. No man has kissed you but me. No man has touched your soft breast, nibbled on the skin below your ear, held your bottom in his hand.” The words were spoken with deliberate possessiveness before his lips moved back to hers. This time hers opened magically beneath his.
Berry felt her defenses begin to crumble away from the longing that had grown inside her. She became aware of a new warmth spreading over her, and with surprise she discovered his hand beneath her skirt stroking her thighs. She knew this was forbidden and dangerous, but what he was doing was so pleasant, so gentle, that she didn’t want him to stop.
The desire Simon felt for the exquisite form he clasped so tightly to his own was a deep pain gnawing his vitals. Her fierce pride was an intense irritation to him, yet it touched his heart and commanded respect. Stubborn little baggage! No other woman had ever come close to making him feel like this woman did. Someday he would tell her that. His laugh was low and tender when he wasn’t kissing her sweet-smelling mouth.
Why couldn’t she think? What was this leading to? His hand beneath her skirt moved up to cup her bare buttocks. A bold, searching mouth was nipping at the corner of hers, tracing a path to her eyes and then back to close over her mouth as if his lips couldn’t stay away. His tongue was insistent, demanding that she meet it with hers. She responded hesitantly at first, then with welcome, and finally with blatant craving. She clung to him, her hands sliding over him, feeling the strength of his muscles, the smoothness of his shoulders and back. A small warning crept into the back of her mind. She knew she should be pushing him away, but every part of her being was responding to his touch. It was wildly exciting. This is foolish, her sanity argued. But she didn’t want it to end. Not yet!
Berry felt as if she were drifting on a sea of soft, white clouds. Tomorrow she would hate herself for what she was doing and allowing him to do, but that was tomorrow. Right now she felt a wondrous warmth and rightness at what was happening. His mouth was persistent, snatching away her breath as well as her ability to think. There was also a rightness to the feel of his hands on her body beneath her skirt and her arms entwined around his neck.
“Damn! Damn!” Simon groaned in frustrated agony and buried his mouth in the hair behind her ear. “You don’t know what this is leading up to, do you? Soon I’ll not be able to stop! I’ll have all of you right here in the grass. Damnation! You deserve
more than that. You deserve long, sweet loving . . . and coaxing . . . and gentling. . . .”
“Simon . . .” she protested softly.
His arms dropped from around her and he slid to the grass and leaned back against the tree trunk on which they had been sitting. He pulled her down on his lap and wrapped her in his arms. She cuddled contentedly against him.
“Berry . . . girl . . .” The sound of his deep voice caressing her name made her tilt her head so she could nuzzle his jaw with her nose. “I can’t let you go back to the house . . . just yet.”
His hand caressed her cheek and moved down over her shoulder. While he kissed the hollow of her throat, his fingers worked on the buttons on her dress, then he brushed aside the garment and gently cupped her exposed flesh. He worked the nipple with his callused palm, teasing it to hardness.
“Someday your breasts will be filled with mother’s milk,” he murmured half to himself. “But now . . . they are only for me.” He moved the fabric farther back and bent his head. Softly he kissed her breast, and then, to her wide-eyed surprise, his lips surrounded her nipple and he suckled her gently. The roughness of his tongue and the pull of his whiskers on her skin caused a warm rush of sensation to surge through her and she felt lightheaded. The feeling was so acute that she arched her back and with her arm around his neck held his head to her breast. The tormenting touch of his mouth brought her to an ardent, fevered frenzy. She made no protest when his hand moved beneath her skirt to wedge itself between her thighs.
“Berry . . . girl . . .” He whispered the words in a strangely broken voice. He was almost dizzy with desire. He wanted to bury himself in her, suckle her soft breasts, kiss her warm, wet mouth, and satisfy the hunger that gnawed at him. But, young and innocent as she was, it wasn’t fair to her! She shouldn’t be taken fully clothed on the damp grass. She should be able to taste the full pleasure of it. He forcibly held himself back, withdrew his hands from her body, pulled down her skirts, and covered her breasts. He cuddled her in his arms. She could not guess the depth of torture it put him through to stem the tide of his passion.
“When the time is right I’ll make it long and sweet for you and you’ll have no regrets.”
For a long moment he simply held her. Reason dissolved the hunger that tormented him. He stroked the hair back from her face as if she were a child and kissed her forehead, her nose, and her eyelids. She would be his—the small, firm body, the beautiful green eyes, the dark curling hair, breasts, lips—all his. He would be able to touch her, possess her, whenever he wanted to. . . . The thought sent a quiver of desire through him. He lifted her face with a finger beneath her chin. Their eyes locked, hers moist and faintly confused, his tender and searching.
“I shouldn’t have let you. . . . It was wrong.” Her eyes wavered beneath the intensity of his. She was suddenly a small girl trying to account for her actions. She summoned all her determination to speak, but her voice still came out thin and weak. “I don’t know what possessed me to let you. . . .” Her lower lip quivered and she ducked her head.
“The urge is as old as time,” he whispered.
“Yes, but without . . . without . . .”
He lifted her off his lap, stood, and pulled her up beside him. His fingers worked at the front closing of her dress and she stood like an obedient child. He put his fist beneath her chin and lifted her face.
“Smile for me.”
“You treat me like a child.”
“You are a child.” He pressed his hands briefly to her shoulders. “Come. We’d better be getting back.”
“What did you mean about a . . . wife?” She refused to move when he took her arm.
“Just what I said. We’ll wed and I’ll take you up to my place. The cabin isn’t much, but we’ll build something else later on.”
“You’ve not said that you love me.”
“Love?” His eyes laughed at her. “What’s love? You need a husband more than love.”
“But I don’t want a husband unless there’s love, too.”
“Foolish fancies.” He shrugged. “But then you’re only a child.”
“Stop saying that! I’m eighteen.”
“That old? A woman of eighteen should be old enough to know she can’t get along in this country without a man. If she finds a decent one she ought to take him without expecting love to be part of the deal.”
His eyes were still wrinkled at the corners, his lips still twitching. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing. She wanted him to be serious. She had to say it, had to let him know what she had to have before she would wed. She peered up at him. “I want . . . to . . . love my husband.” She spaced the words to give them emphasis, to be sure he understood.
“Then love him.” His voice was light, as if he was laughing inside. “There’s no law that I know of that says you can’t love him.”
“I want to be sure that he loves me,” she said stubbornly.
He laughed so uninhibitedly that she drew back, her green eyes flashing up at him with insolent appraisal. Setting a hand on each rounded hip, she cocked her head in challenge. “Don’t you laugh at me, Simon Witcher!”
“The first thing you’ve got to learn about men in this country is that they can spin a wild yarn that’ll curl your hair, and woo a woman with soft words if that’s what she wants to hear. Never believe a man’s soft words of love, Berry. Pay a mind to what he does.”
“I like soft words,” she said angrily.
He laughed again and she wanted to hit him. She balled her fist and prepared to swing. Before she could move, he was kissing her with a violence that stunned her. She stiffened her body, but his tight clasp bent that stiffness to the curve of his body. He crushed her lips so hard with his that she couldn’t tell whether he was kissing her or trying to hurt her. After an instant his lips softened and her resistance vanished, leaving nothing but the awareness of him, awareness that rose like a hot fountain from the core of her being. It rose to consume her with the force of its heat. She closed her eyes. Her lips surrendered to the searing heat of his.
They drew apart slowly. “You may like soft words, but you like hard kisses better,” he said with a deep chuckle in his voice and ignored the needling glance she threw at him.
Berry choked down the quick denial that his words provoked. She couldn’t summon the bitchiness needed to end this night on an ugly note.
They walked silently up the path to the house. Simon left her at the cabin door with only a brief touch of his fingers on her cheek. She watched him cross the yard and disappear in the shadows before she slipped into the house.
She crossed to the bunk and sat down, immeasurably glad to be alone in the room. She undressed in the dark and slipped her night rail over her head. Simon Witcher, you make me so damn mad! Her mind was boiling with emotions. Among her turbulent thoughts one stood out above all the others: she would make him love her and she would make him say it!
Chapter Eleven
Berry woke from a sound sleep.
“Is the blackberries ready for pickin’?” Biedy was trying to speak softly, but her voice rang like a bell in the close confines of the room. “Did ya put the cream in the spring for coolin’ till I can get to the churnin’? And ’bout my hens—did ya pen ’em and caution the boys to be on the lookout for weasels?”
It was Silas’s voice, patient and gruff, that answered her.
“I done it all, Biedy, jist like ye knowed I would. Now, get on with the vittles so’s we can be gone.”
Berry blinked and looked away from the light the glowing candle made in the dark room. Excitement zigzagged through her like lightning as memory returned and each and every moment, every detail of the hours she had spent with Simon, came clearly to mind. He wanted to marry her! Spend his life with her! She could hardly wait to see him again.
She reached for her dress and slipped it over her head while she was still beneath the sheet, fastened the front buttons, then swung her feet to the floor. Silas was bending over the co
okfire and Biedy was smiling and nodding to her. Berry stood and smoothed her dress down over her night rail.
“Mornin’.”
“Mornin’. It’s a mite early, but Silas is strainin’ to be goin’. He’s the beatin’est man! If’n it’s startin’ or stoppin’, he’s bound to get it done right away. I’ll declare, Silas, I got to have me more fire’n that if’n ya want meat ’n’ gravy for breakfast.”
“Hold your taters, hon’. It’s a-comin’.”
Berry went to the wash dish, scooped water into her hands, and splashed her face. After drying it on the soft, clean towel that hung on a nail beside the washstand, she tidied her hair and pinned the braid to the top of her head.
“Mornin’, Miz MacCartney.” Silas spoke from beside the fireplace.
“Mornin’.” Rachel paused in the doorway and then hurried to help with breakfast. “My, my! How misput of me to let guests cook their own vittles! You made no noise at all or I’d-a been up.”
“I heard Faith a-frettin’ in the night. Is she all right?” Biedy lifted the big spider skillet onto the grate.
“She’s a glutton, is what she is. She was hungry,” Rachel replied with a laugh. “Morning, Berry.”
There was no way Rachel could contain her happiness. It shone in her eyes, tilted her lips, and quickened her steps. She had a wonderfully considerate husband who had held her tenderly in his arms all night long and whispered that when the time came that she was well and strong, he’d not allow her a wink of sleep. She felt loved and wanted for the first time in her life. She had a home and a man to take care of her, and at last she was able to do something for Berry. These thoughts and many more danced about in her mind while she set the table for the first time in what was truly her home.
Rachel took her place at the end of the table opposite Fain when they sat down to breakfast. Silas and Biedy sat on one side, Berry and Isaac on the other. Biedy ceased her chatter long enough for Silas to say grace. Isaac nodded silently when Fain inquired if he had tied onto their mounts the sack of shot and the small keg of gunpowder he had set out for them to take, along with the candle mold and beeswax for Biedy.
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