Tempting Torment (The McClellans Series, Book 3) Author's Cut Edition

by Jo Goodman

  Noah's laughter was short, and to Jessa's ears, humorless. "Just like you did this morning."

  It was Noah's tightened grip on her arms that kept Jessa upright. Her legs buckled under the weight of the painful memories he evoked. Four nights ago she had become Noah's whore and each evening since then was a repetition of the first. Holding herself aloof, Jessa made his pleasure her sole concern. She caressed him with her hands, her fingers, her mouth. She began to know his body better than she did her own, had learned exactly where to touch him in order to wring a cry of pleasure from his lips.

  They never exchanged any words. In the darkness he would reach for her and Jessa would turn and surrender her body to his needs. Guarding against feeling anything herself, Jessa's thoughts were never connected with what she was doing. She could kiss him deeply, press her body flush to Noah's, and be considering which of her gowns to wear when she met his family. While her fingers stroked his abdomen, caressed his chest, or tightened in the bunched muscles of his arms, Jessa contemplated her escape from the landing. She recited poetry, counted to one hundred by threes, and imagined herself in any place but Noah's bed, doing anything but what she was.

  Until this morning.

  This morning she had been wakened by Noah's caress and retreat was out of the question. He wouldn't permit it. Every time he sensed her withdrawal he pulled her back to reality, describing in very explicit, erotic terms precisely what he intended to do to her and what he wanted her response to be. It was a complete assault on her senses. His fingers threaded in her silken hair. His lips traced a line down the length of her neck. The tip of his tongue stroked the hollow of her throat. Then he moved lower and her breasts were treated to the hot suck of his mouth. Stroking, caressing, he wouldn't let her deny her own pleasure. His mouth and hands tormented her, his desire teased her, and he created a wild rush of heat in Jessa she could not hide from him or from herself. He made her vulnerable to him, arousing her until she had surrendered to each of his demands, including telling him that she wanted him.

  Noah had taken her then with a force that nearly left her breathless, yet there was no pain, only an answering need on her part. Her arms and legs clung to him. She moved with him, matching his rhythm and his hunger, and by slow degrees she was lifted, and lifted again, to another plane of excitement more intense than the last.

  At the end Jessa cried out his name. Then she simply cried.

  Turning from him, she had buried her face in her arm and released all the anguish and guilt caused by her response to his possession. Gone completely was the feeling of power. In its place was a terrible awareness of her own vulnerability, and she despised herself for it. In the aftermath she did not hate Noah even a tenth as much as she hated herself.

  Drawing a ragged breath, Jessa attempted to take a step back from the taffrail, but Noah's body blocked her. His hands slid along her arms, then circled her waist. She could feel his chin against her hair, moving back and forth in its softness.

  "You're not crying are you, Jessa?" asked Noah.

  She shook her head, wishing he would not pretend concern when none existed. "No. Don't worry. I won't shame you."

  Noah supposed he deserved that, but it still had the power to smite his conscience. Not that Jessa would realize it. Noah was of the opinion that Jessa thought he was long past the point where anything she said or did touched him below the skin. He had thoroughly humiliated her, not once, but time and time again over the past four days... and nights. Each evening he drew her to him, perversely hoping it would be the night that he would reach her with pleasure. But she withheld her responses, giving everything, accepting nothing. She behaved like the whore he had said he wanted and he could never find the words to tell her that he was not satisfied with the arrangement he had forced on her.

  He tried to tell her in other ways, with his hands, his mouth, his body. It was as if her flesh were deaf to the whispering of his fingers. She remained remote, unaroused, which only made his own excitement more difficult to bear. Sometimes he wished he could join her at the basin when she washed herself of his touch. Each evening she satisfied him beyond anything he had ever known. Each evening she left him aching with a loneliness he had never expected to feel.

  It was little better during the day. Noah had devised the Strategy to Convince Others of Wedded Bliss because Jessa would never accustom herself to his touch without it. She was closed to him and so were her secrets. The harder he pushed her, the more guarded she became. Clearly another strategy was called for, and Noah thought he had come upon it, if only he could keep his temper in check. Calmly, patiently, he explained to Jessa that in order for her to be accepted by his family it would be necessary to persuade them the marriage was a lovematch. Jessa was skeptical at first, but there was enough truth in Noah's explanation that she was easily brought around to his way of thinking. Noah was actually less concerned with how his family received Jessa than he was with avoiding their damnable interference. He considered it very likely that everyone would be more accepting of Jessa than they had been of Hilary Bowen. This, of course, was his own secret to keep, and thus he began his war on Jessa's senses.

  He resumed taking her for afternoon strolls on deck, finding it entirely appropriate to hook his arm in hers, whisper in her ear, or sometimes slip his arm about her shoulders. Noah persisted in spite of Jessa's discomfort, and over time he felt her relax, no longer stiffening when his hand "accidentally" brushed hers. He spent more time with her in their cabin, and though she made no objection, Noah was well aware that she wished him gone. He found small ways to make himself invaluable, hooking the back of her gown when she could not reach the fasteners, pacing the floor with Gideon when the infant was fussy, drawing water for the wash when Cam was unavailable.

  Still, Jessa was unresponsive to his overtures, distrustful and wary, and Noah knew she had every right to be. He had given her a multitude of reasons to maintain the invisible barriers she had erected.

  Then this morning he had awakened and found Jessa still deeply asleep, turned trustingly in his arms, defenseless, open, guileless. He was a little astonished to realize she could still stir some protective instinct in him. And she stirred something else as well. Slowly, with great care, Noah set about drawing her from sleep, intent upon waking the desire she kept shielded from him. He succeeded. And he failed.

  Jessa's response was more than he could have hoped for. She came alive in his arms and matched his hunger, not mechanically as she had done previously, but with genuine feeling, leaving no doubt that she wanted him, needed him. When she realized what was happening, when the last dregs of sleep disappeared, she had tried to retreat only to discover it was too late.

  Noah remembered the wicked, erotic things he had said to her, the husky, throaty murmurs that fell across her skin like a caress. He encouraged her response, fed it with the touch of his fingertips, stroked it with the flat of his palms. He made her say she wanted him, not to humiliate her, but because he needed to hear it, had needed to hear it for days. Hindsight was all knowing. Noah understood now what it had cost her pride to admit that need. He understood it the moment she turned away from him and sobbed out her grief and pain in the curve of her arm. Had her own misery been any less she would have seen the tortured look in Noah's eyes, the grim, self-punishing set of his jaw.

  "I know you won't shame me," Noah said, responding at last to Jessa's statement. Silently he added, I'm more than able to do that to myself.

  Jessa felt a measure of strength return to her legs. "Will anyone be at the dock to welcome you?"

  "Probably not. No one's expecting us. When we docked in Norfolk I thought about sending a skiff upriver with word that we were coming, but I decided against it. I didn't think you would appreciate my entire family swooping down on you, which is precisely what would happen. This way we'll surprise them. I'm thinking we'll have about five or six seconds of blissful silence before pandemonium erupts. As I've said, after you become acquainted with them you'll than
k me for those few seconds of quiet."

  Jessa didn't believe him for a moment. Although his life had taken an incredible turn since he last saw his family, she knew he was still looking forward to seeing them. He wanted to be part of the confusion and noise and laughter. He'd never convince her otherwise. "It was kind of you to think of me," she said. "After all, you could be introducing me as your whore."

  Behind her, Noah shook his head, grimacing. Jessa could say something like that in her quiet, unobtrusive manner and cut him to the quick. "Jessa," he began, wanting to make one last attempt to set a better balance between them before they reached the landing. "I know I've made a—"

  "Look, Mrs. McClellan!" Cam's excited cry cut Noah off. "That's the landing! See the dock! And there's Miss Courtney, fishin' off the last piling! Hey! Courtney!" Cam began waving his hands wildly, trying to get the young girl's attention.

  "Careful, Cam," Noah said, tempering his smile as the boy fairly danced on the deck. "You've still got Gideon on your back."

  Cam's thin face reddened. His eyes pleaded with Jessa. "Can you take Gideon now, ma'am? I don't want... that is... Miss Courtney would laugh if she saw me carrying a papoose."

  Jessa's heart went out to the boy. "Of course I'll take him." Noah released her so that she could unfasten the sling. She took Gideon in her arms and flushed slightly as Noah renewed the embrace. She would have liked to trounce his toes, but Courtney's dark head had swiveled in the direction of the Clarion, and she was peering intently at the bow, one small hand raised to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun on the water. Jessa knew the moment she spotted Noah. His niece jumped from the piling, calling happily to Cam, then she stopped, stared harder, and her mouth opened wide in astonishment. She let out a whoop of joy that carried across the water. "I think she's quite glad to see you," Jessa said dryly.

  "She's a handful. Look at her," he added, laughing as Courtney ran back and forth along the wharf. "She can't decide whether to run to the house and alert everyone or stay here and be the first to welcome us."

  "She's a lovely little girl," said Jessa. Courtney's ebony hair whipped around her small oval face as she ran. The folds of her russet-colored dress kept tangling in her legs and she lifted the hem impaitently, revealing that she was without shoes or stockings. "How old is she?"

  "Eleven. She's Salem's daughter."

  Jessa had remembered that. "It seems as if she's decided to stay and greet us," she said as Courtney plopped herself down on one corner of the wharf. She glanced sideways at Cam and saw his rapt look centered on the girl. The look of youthful longing brought a sigh to her lips.

  Noah heard Jessa's sigh and knew the reason for it. "You've been replaced in his affections."

  "I didn't encourage him."

  "I never said you did. But the fact that you're so quick to deny it makes me wonder."

  "Don't, Noah. Please don't start with me. I can't..."

  Sensing her despair, he brushed his lips against Jessa's temple, simply because it seemed the most natural thing to do. For the span of a heartbeat it was as if no animosity existed between them. Jessa's stiff smile for the benefit of the crew reminded him otherwise.

  The Clarion put down its gangboard some fifteen minutes later and Noah escorted Jessa along the narrow ramp. Courtney was still on the wharf, carrying on an excited conversation with Cam at the taffrail above her. She broke away as soon as Noah's feet touched solid ground.

  "Whoa!" Noah said as his niece's arms circled his neck. "You're going to knock me in the water!" He caught Courtney by the waist, lifted her, and twirled her around while she clung like a limpet.

  "Oh, I've missed you!" she cried breathlessly, laughing. "Did you have a splendid time? Isn't England lovely? How was your voyage? Were you terribly sick? Did you miss us?" She took a deep breath, seeming to notice Jessa and Gideon for the first time. "Who are they?"

  Noah set her on the wharf, tapping the end of her pert nose with his fingertip. "All in good time."

  Courtney stuck out her lower lip, disappointed. Almost immediately the expression vanished and she stepped closer to Jessa. "Hallo," she said guilelessly. "I'm Courtney McClellan. Is that a boy or a girl?"

  Jessa bit back a smile. "He's a boy," she said gravely. "His name is Gideon." Gideon sputtered something and smiled widely. "I think that means he's very happy to make your acquaintance."

  Courtney nodded, sighing. "All the babies like me. It's a curse."

  "Brat," said Noah, not unkindly. He gave her backside a little swat. "Why don't you lead the way to the house and you can tell us all about your new sister. Or is it another brother?"

  "A brother," Courtney said, disgust rife in her tone. She began walking backward, waving farewell to Cam. "His name is Christian and he's fat and when he cries his face is all red and ugly."

  "That's much how I described you," said Noah, his eyes dancing.

  "Uncle Noah! That's a beastly thing to say!" She looked at Jessa. "He's an awful tease, you know. Everyone says so. You're very pretty. I should love to have hair like yours."

  "Watch where you're going, Court," Noah interrupted, saving Jessa from replying. "Why don't you turn around and walk with your eyes ahead of you?"

  Courtney spun on her heels and found herself directly in front of a tree. "Oops." She sidestepped it, shooting Noah a grateful look, and skipped along the path to the house.

  "Where are your shoes and stockings?" asked Noah.

  "If Tildy hasn't found them, they're still on the veranda."

  "Tildy is our cook," Noah told Jessa. "And when she finds things where they don't belong she spirits them away. Sometimes you get them back and sometimes you don't. She's still in possession of three of my very best slingshots and one corncob pipe... and she's had them for twenty-five years."

  "Truly?" Jessa asked, arching an eyebrow.

  "I swear it!"

  Jessa's heart turned over. She laughed at his earnest expression because she couldn't help herself. Often during the last few days she had been reminded of the first time they met, how he had captured her interest with his open friendliness and easy charm. Given time she believed she could have confided in that man. Now she was careful not to dwell on those thoughts, preferring to remember the times when he was far less than kind. She made herself recall one of those instances now and answered a trifle coolly, "Then I shall be careful not to mislay anything."

  Noah frowned at the sudden change in her mood, wondering if he would ever be privy to the thoughts that altered her feelings with lightning swiftness. He decided to ignore her, concentrating on Courtney instead. "Why were you fishing alone, Court?" he called. "Where is everyone?"

  The girl's head turned just enough so Noah could see the woeful expression on her face. "They're eating dinner."

  "Then why aren't you with them?"

  "Because I don't like venison and I honestly said so, but Papa thought I was rude so he said I should excuse myself and catch my own dinner then." She took a deep breath. "So that's what I was doing, only the fish aren't biting, and I suspect I shall be very hungry at breakfast."

  "I suspect you shall," said Noah, one corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. He glanced at Jessa and saw she was smiling also. "I hope you like venison," he whispered conspiratorily.

  "I wouldn't dare complain," she said, shooting him a wry glance. "Even if we were served rice and animals."

  Noah's handsome head was thrown back as he gave a shout of laughter. "Oh, Jessa, you're wonderful!"

  Jessa's eyes widened at this spontaneous accolade. On the heels of the momentary thrill came the inevitable suspicions.

  "Let me take Gideon," Noah said as they came to the foot of a grassy knoll. "I'll carry him the rest of the way. The house is just beyond this rise."

  Jessa considered objecting. There was a measure of security in holding Gideon, and she wasn't certain she wanted to relinquish it. "All right," she said after a moment's hesitation.

  "If you'd rather I didn't..."

 
"No," she said quickly, realizing Noah had taken offense. Jessa couldn't let him think she didn't trust him with Gideon. However he had treated her, she could not fault his care for the child. "No, my arms are aching. I'd be grateful."

  With sudden insight, Noah understood the reason for Jessa's reluctance. He took Gideon, balancing the infant in the crook of one arm, and placed his free hand at Jessa's back. "There's no reason to be afraid as long as you keep to our strategy." Then he urged her up the hillock where Courtney was waiting impatiently.

  Jessa felt an odd stillness encompass her when she saw the house. She had not formed any expectations regarding it because she knew it had nothing to do with her, yet upon seeing it she wished that it could be otherwise. Set against a backdrop of towering oaks, Noah's family home was impressive but not imposing. Four white columns supported the portico entrance and the white roof fairly gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. Used to the dull gray stone of the manor homes in England, Jessa found the red brick appealing and warm. Four chimneys rose above the roof, vying with the trees for command of the sky, and the white-shuttered windows on both floors caught the sun and seemed to wink a welcome. There were two verandas at the east end of the house, one opening from each floor, and beyond them was a meticulously manicured garden.

  "Don't become too enraptured," Noah said a little roughly. "We won't be here long."

  Some of Jessa's joy faded. She had not meant to be so obvious. "Yes," she said quietly. "I know."

  Before Noah could reply Courtney interrupted, urging them to hurry. "If we don't follow her quickly, she's going to spoil our entrance." Even as he spoke Courtney began running down the hillock and across the wide lawn toward the veranda. "This is important to me, Jessa. I've given it a lot of thought. It would be best all the way around if my family believes we're happy."

  "We've been over this before," she said dully.