“A drunken parrot. The mind reels.”
“More like the stomach.”
“On a sip of brandy? Impossible.”
“Then it must be the butterflies.”
“What butterflies?”
“The ones in my stomach. Every time you touch me a certain way, they whirl around like leaves on the wind.”
Jessica giggled again, then gasped softly when Wolfe’s thumbs drew deeply beneath the curves of her buttocks, skimming the place where her thighswere pressed together.
“Like that?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Y-yes.”
“Then I’ll do this, instead.”
Jessica’s breath unraveled in broken sounds as Wolfe’s lean, strong fingers kneaded down the back of her thighs to her knees. A curious, boneless feeling stole over her, a combination of brandy and the shimmering warmth of Wolfe’s hands smoothing oil and pleasure into her skin. Without realizing it, she groaned softly and relaxed the tension that had kept her legs pressed together.
Wolfe took one look at the dark mahogany shadow her relaxation had revealed and locked his jaw against a sound of passionate need. Very quickly he looked away, concentrating on the slender legs that lay beneath his hands. But here, too, Jessica’s femininity was obvious in each satin curve of thigh and calf, in the unblemished silk of skin never before seen by any man, and in the shivering response that rippled through her when he caressed the sensitive crease behind each knee.
“Roll over, little one.”
Bemused by unexpected lassitude, Jessica responded to the gentle command. She didn’t stop to think of her nudity until she felt the caress of fur from her nape to her ankles. Her eyes opened slowly, then closed once more when Wolfe dropped the soft flannel blanket over her, covering her from breasts to mid-thigh. She sighed and snuggled more deeply into the fur with slow movements of her hips.
Wolfe looked away with a soundless curse at his own foolishness in offering himself such a temptation. But his dark glance came back again, drawn inevitably by the small movements of Jessica’s hips, the swell of her breasts, and the telltale rigidity of her nipples.
“Warm enough?” he asked in a husky voice.
Jessica nodded slowly.
“How do you feel?”
“Like a mitten…being unraveled.”
Wolfe’s smile was as hot as the blood surging through his veins, but Jessica didn’t notice. She was adrift on a soft fur raft while strong hands kneaded her neck and shoulders, her arms and fingertips. As Wolfe soothed every knot from her aching arms, she made tiny, low sounds. Each sound was a knife sliding over the leash of his self-control, fraying it, until finally his hands slid down to her wrist and his fingers interlocked deeply with her own.
“Sore?” he asked, squeezing her hand gently.
The ragged sound Jessica made was pleasure, not pain. Her lashes stirred lazily, revealing a flash of aquamarine eyes. When he flexed his hand again, her fingers spread and laced tightly with his until their hands could not be more deeply joined.
“That feels good,” she said in a husky voice.
“This?”
Wolfe’s hand flexed again, caressing the sensitive skin between Jessica’s fingers and sliding down until he could go no farther. He pressed palm against palm and squeezed deeply.
Sighing, Jessica nodded. “Yes, that.” She smiled. “The butterflies like it, too.”
Wolfe continued the seduction of Jessica’s hand until she moved with him, spreading her fingers wide in silent invitation, sighing as he caressed from tip to base until her fingers closed, trapping his hand against her.
With a final squeeze, Wolfe dragged his fingers free of hers, ignoring Jessica’s small murmur of protest.
“Wolfe? You’re not stopping, are you?”
“No,” he said as he poured more oil into his palm. “I’m just going to work on your legs some more. Let your arms relax or they’ll knot up again. You’re weak as a day-old kitten.”
“I know.” Jessica’s sigh was so deep it was almost a moan. “But it was worth it.”
“What was?”
“All the scrubbing. Without it, I’d never have discovered what pleasure your hands could give me.”
Wolfe’s eyes narrowed against a violent surge of desire. He began rubbing the length of Jessica’s legs, beginning at the ankles and working slowly upward. When he reached mid-thigh, she stretched without moving her arms from her sides, arching her back and her feet, curling her toes. Her response was a knife in his loins, demanding that he take what she was so innocently offering.
“Jessi,” Wolfe whispered.
Long fingers pressed between her thighs as he encircled one leg and began kneading slowly, deeply, unraveling her even more. When his hands slid up beneath the blanket, Jessica stirred. Wolfe hesitated, waiting for an objection. None came. He let out a silent breath and slowly moved his hands even higher. The delicious pressure made Jessica sigh and stretch again.
“Why have you never done this to me before?” she murmured.
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
His palms slid higher. She sighed and shifted languidly.
“I’m all unraveled. ’Tis quite wonderful.”
“Yes,” Wolfe said huskily.
Closing his eyes, he savored the sleek resilience of Jessica’s flesh, the warm shifting of her body, the languid sighs. He knew he must stop touching her soon, for the hunger of his own body was becoming unmanageable.
Yet the soft temptations of her flesh were so close to hand, so hot, that he couldn’t force himself to withdraw right away. She was a heady fragrance and a hard need that was eroding his control as surely as he was unraveling her fear of a man’s touch. The blanket retreated before his gently insistent hands, leaving her secrets defended only by the mahogany cloud he longed to brush with his palm.
Then Jessica shifted again and the cloud parted, and a low sound of need was dragged from Wolfe. His hand moved, brushed, lingered, burned. Then his fingers were seeking and finding and testing the softness that had been revealed.
The intimate caress sent Jessica bolt upright with a gasp of mingled pleasure and shock. When she saw Wolfe’s hand between her legs, pleasure fled and shock became fear fed by a torrent of brutal memories. In her mind a stormy night descended and her mother screamed from the hallway floor as the lord ruthlessly pulled her legs apart.
“No!” Jessica cried.
“Easy, little one,” Wolfe said thickly. “I won’t hurt you. It’s a natural part of—”
His words were lost beneath the raw scream that tore from Jessica’s throat. She moved convulsively to defend herself, but her arms were too weak to push away a child, much less a man of Wolfe’s strength. She drew breath to scream again, only to have a hard hand clamp over her mouth, forcing her back down upon the bed.
It was her nightmare all over again, a woman’s screams cut off by the brute force of a husband intent upon rutting between his wife’s legs. Jessica tossed and thrashed from side to side, but couldn’t shake off the hand over her mouth or the heavy thigh pinning her own legs to the bed. Shuddering, wild with fear, she flailed against Wolfe with weak arms until he gathered her wrists in one hand and held them against her naked stomach.
“Jessi, listen to me, I won’t hurt you.”
If she heard, she didn’t respond.
As Wolfe looked down at Jessica’s struggling body, he felt a volatile combination of frank lust, shame at his loss of control, and anger at her wild fear.
“Be still, damn it,” Wolfe said curtly. “I won’t touch you. Do you understand me? Jessica!”
Wolfe had to repeat himself several times before Jessica subsided and lay still but for the involuntary tremors that shook her body, residue of her terror.
“I’m going to lift my hand from your mouth, but if you scream again, so help me God I’ll slap you into sanity as I would any hysteric.”
Jessica watched Wolfe with pale, glittering eyes. There was no
comfort in his face—his eyes were black, his face dark and grim, his mouth a flat line. Even so, she nodded her head, for his hand was no longer invading her body. Slowly, Wolfe freed her mouth.
Jessica didn’t scream, even though she was pale and trembling. When she spoke, her voice was like breaking glass and her breath was coming in bursts. Despite that, her words were all too clear.
“No wonder you were called the viscount’s salvage. Gentlemen who can’t control their baser urges make use of whores, not wives. If I had thought you would ever do anything so vile to me, I would never have sought a marriage. You have no need of an heir to inherit a title or a great estate, no reason to so foul my body, yet you would rut upon me like a beast!”
Wolfe looked down into Jessica’s face and felt her contempt beating at him with thick, invisible wings. Silence stretched and stretched until it was a living thing quivering between Jessica and Wolfe.
“What do you expect?” Wolfe snarled. “Ever since we got on the stagecoach together I’ve been breathing your air and watching you look at me when you think I won’t notice.”
Jessica didn’t deny it, for it was true. She had always watched Wolfe. He fascinated her. And the older she became, the more the fascination had deepened.
Wolfe continued speaking, his voice harsh with frustration and anger. “You keep watching me with hungry eyes and wondering how it would be to couple with a savage, but when I—”
“Never!” Jessica interrupted wildly. “Never! I never thought of coupling with you. The thought horrifies me!”
Wolfe’s eyes narrowed until they were little more than splinters of black. “Then you will agree to an annulment.”
The words were so soft, Jessica didn’t understand them at first. When she did, she closed her eyes and sought to control the fear clawing at her.
“No,” Jessica said, her voice shaking. “You may be a savage, but you won’t take me by force.”
Deliberately, Wolfe’s hand settled on the mahogany nest just above her thighs.
“Won’t I?” he asked softly.
She stiffened as though he had taken a whip to her. When her eyes opened, they were so dilated with fear that there was barely any color to them. She tried to lift her hands in a silent plea, but her arms wouldn’t respond. She tried to speak, but all that came from her lips was a hoarse whisper that could have been Wolfe’s name.
With a barely controlled fury at himself, at her, and at the sham marriage, Wolfe surged to his feet beside the bed.
“Get out,” he said flatly.
Jessica looked up at Wolfe without comprehension.
“Get out of my bed, your ladyship. You disgust me as much as I horrify you. I couldn’t take you if I had to. You’re not a woman, you’re a spoiled, cruel child.”
Jessica moved too slowly to suit Wolfe. He bent over and hauled her to her feet.
“Agree to an annulment,” he demanded in a low voice. “Damn you, let me go!”
She swallowed dryly and shook her head.
Wolfe looked at Jessica for a long moment before he spoke in a soft, cold voice that was more punishing than a blow.
“You will rue the day you forced me into marriage. There are worse things than being caressed by a savage. You shall learn each one of them.”
7
W ITH an apprehension Jessica didn’t reveal, she watched from the corner of her eye as Wolfe took a sip of the coffee she had prepared. When he did little more than grimace at the taste, she let out a soundless sigh of relief and passed him a dish of stewed fruit and a platter of ham and biscuits.
Covertly, Jessica watched while Wolfe forked ham onto his plate, ignored the biscuits, and spooned stewed fruit into his bowl. She hoped he would be less fierce after he had eaten. Perhaps then he would listen to her explanations. Perhaps then he would look at her with less contempt.
Silently, Wolfe ate, sensing Jessica’s watchfulness. He said nothing to her. Nor did he look at her. It was safer that way. The rage in him was still very close to the surface. Awakening in a state of arousal that had increased at the mere sight of Jessica had done nothing to sweeten Wolfe’s temper.
“More ham?” she asked in a soft voice.
“No, thank you.”
Jessica took little comfort in Wolfe’s politeness, for she knew it was as automatic to him as breathing and meant far less. In England his manners were as impeccable as a duke’s. More so, for Wolfe had no tradition of wealth and power to mitigate any social gaffe he might make. When among the English, he never forgot for one instant that he was an outsider. He had made of their customs both an armor and a subtle insult. The viscount’s savage always proved better at elegant nuance than those who had been to the manor born, making them seem savages by comparison.
“Wolfe,” Jessica said, “last night I was tired and frightened and—”
He interrupted curtly. “You made yourself clear last night, your ladyship. My touch horrifies you.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“The hell it isn’t. It’s what you said.”
“Please, listen to me,” she said urgently.
“I’ve heard all I—”
“I’ve never been naked with a man,” she interrupted, her voice rising. “I’ve never touched a naked man or been touched by one and I saw how much you wanted me and I forgot you wouldn’t hurt me and I—” Jessica’s voice broke. “I was frightened. I felt cornered and I just…just panicked. Please don’t be so angry with me. I—Wolfe, I liked touching you and being touched. That’s why I was afraid.”
“Christ,” Wolfe muttered in disgust, shoving back from the breakfast table. “You liked it so you panicked? Come, your ladyship. You’ve had hours of pacing in which to concoct pretty excuses and that’s the best you can do? I heard the truth from you last night and we both know it.”
“No,” she said urgently, “that’s not—”
“Enough!”
Jessica opened her mouth to argue, but a look at Wolfe’s icy indigo eyes made the words die in her throat. There was no indulgence in Wolfe now. Nor was there the least sign of the desire that had burned so clearly in him last night. He was looking at her like she was a stranger newly come to his home—a very unwelcome stranger.
She lowered her eyes, not wanting him to see the unhappiness and fear in her. It would take time and much work to win him back to even the uncertain companionship they had shared during the long trip to his home. It would take a miracle to regain the friendship they had known before marriage.
“After you clean the dishes,” Wolfe said curtly, “let the fire go out. We’re leaving.”
“We’re going back to England?” Jessica asked.
“No, your ladyship. If I never see England again, I’ll die a happy man.”
“I didn’t realize you hated it so.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
“I will learn.”
“A woman never truly knows a man until they are lovers.”
“Then I shall have to speak to your duchess,” Jessica retorted before she could think better of it. “No doubt she’ll be a font of wisdom.”
Wolfe’s smile made his face look harder than ever. “You have missed the point, your ladyship.”
“Which is?”
“While the basics of the sexual act remain much the same no matter who performs it, the variations are still infinite. No man is the same with every woman. No woman responds equally to every man. In those differences is found much that illuminates the human experience, as well as the true measure of love.”
“That’s rather a lot to expect from rutting.”
“Spoken like a true nun, Sister Jessica.”
“I’m not a nun.”
“You’re more nun than wife.”
“There’s more to being husband and wife than the marriage bed,” Jessica said with subdued desperation.
“Not for a man.”
Jessica pushed back from the table without having eaten more t
han a bite. “I’m sorry our marriage is such a disappointment to you.”
“You’re not as sorry as I am, and I’m not as sorry as you’re going to be.” Wolfe threw his napkin on the table. “There are two leather valises beneath my bed. Use them for your clothes. We leave in two hours.”
“It would help me to pack if I knew where we were going, and for how long.”
“We’re going over the Great Divide.”
Jessica’s eyes showed her surprise and relief. “Truly? Are we going hunting?”
“No,” Wolfe said impatiently.
“Then why are we going?”
“To check on the horses I left with Caleb and Willow, especially the steeldust mare. And to eat real biscuits. Willow makes the best biscuits this side of Heaven.”
Jessica tried to conceal her dismay at the thought of being close to the woman Wolfe loved, the paragon who could do no wrong.
And Jessica could do no right.
“For how long?” she asked tightly.
“Until you learn to make good biscuits or agree to an annulment. On the whole, my money is on the annulment.”
The back door banged as Wolfe strode out to the stable. Jessica waited until he disappeared before she turned and eyed the dishes with distaste.
Half an hour later, Jessica heaved the dirty dish-water off the back step, heard metal hit a rock, and saw a spoon lying on the ground. Sighing, she walked beyond the house and retrieved the spoon that she had somehow overlooked in the bottom of the dishpan.
As Jessica straightened from picking up the spoon, she heard the trill of a hidden bird and noticed that the willows around the spring held a green promise of summer’s leaves at the tips of their branches. Sunlight poured in rich, slanting fans between fluffy clouds that were so white it made her eyes water to look at them. The yellow warmth of the light was a balm and a benediction.
She tugged off the linen towel she had used as a headdress and shook out the clean coils of her hair. The untamned glory of the Western day poured down around her, lifting her heart.
Within the shadow of the small stable, Wolfe stood frozen in the instant when Jessica had shaken down a cloud of hair that burned beneath the unbridled sun. When she lifted her hands and spread them as though to catch sunlight itself, Wolfe felt a combination of hunger and tenderness that shocked him.
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