The Savage

by Nicole Jordan

  Chapter 3

  Her wedding was nothing like she’d ever dreamed it would be, with none of her family in attendance and only Dusty and the minister’s wife to act as witnesses. Indeed, Lance had to rouse the circuit-riding Methodist minister out of bed, who then balked at performing the ceremony for a white woman and a half-breed under such suspicious circumstances.

  When Reverend Baxter insisted that he first talk with Reed, Summer retorted that she didn’t need her brother’s permission to marry. Lance settled the issue by saying they were leaving tomorrow on a long journey to Indian Territory, and that unless the good Reverend wanted Miss Summer to live a life of sin, he would make their union legal.

  Summer managed to repeat her vows in a credibly steady voice—not at all like a woman whose life had just been thrown into turmoil—and listened tensely as Lance did the same.

  An awkward moment followed. Lance didn’t have a ring, and it was left to Dusty to fashion a substitute of braided leather taken from a horse’s bridle.

  Summer watched with a sense of unreality. That she should be reduced to this…She might have laughed if the reason for her marrying hadn’t been so sobering. As it was, the strangeness of the ceremony hardly touched her. She felt light-headed with fatigue and the strain of the past two days, and all she wanted was for it to be over so she could get on with finding her sister.

  It was only when Lance turned to kiss her to seal the vows that Summer seemed to waken. He bent his dark head and brushed his hard masculine lips over hers briefly, and she suffered an attack of nerves so strong, it was near panic. She was married to this man. This hard, unforgiving stranger. For better or for worse. And she would have to honor those vows…tonight and every night, if Lance could be taken at his word. He had made it perfectly clear he didn’t want a wife in name only.

  The ride back to the livery was made in silence. When the buckboard drew to a halt, Lance sprang down and raised his arms to help Summer descend. She felt his fingers firm on her waist, all business, while his dark face remained shuttered, devoid of all emotion.

  When he set her on her feet, Summer found her gaze drawn to the rough log building that was the livery stable and office—the place where she would spend her first night with her husband.

  “Go on inside,” Lance said quietly as he hefted her carpetbag from the back of the buckboard.

  Wanting to delay the inevitable as long as possible, Summer turned and looked up at Dusty, who sat twisting the reins in his hands.

  “Thank you, Dusty. For everything.”

  “Sure, Miss Summer…Mrs. Calder, I mean. I hope to God you find her.”

  She gave a start at the strange new title, but managed to nod and say with determined conviction, “We will. Tell Reed…Tell Reed this is for the best.”

  Dusty tipped his hat solemnly.

  Forcing her feet to move, Summer entered the office, where an unwelcoming darkness greeted her. She fumbled for the lantern and matches Lance had left on the table beside the door, and busied herself lighting the wick while she tried not to think about what was to come.

  She heard Lance’s low voice outside as he spoke briefly to Dusty, then the rattle of the buckboard as it moved off into the night Lance’s booted footsteps behind her as he entered the room sounded like gunshots. When the door shut softly behind him, panic welled up in her again. Summer shivered violently.

  “Are you cold?” she heard him ask gruffly.

  With effort, she shook her head. “Just nervous.”

  Without comment, Lance set down her bag on the bed and began to build a fire in the cast-iron stove in the corner.

  “You want some coffee?”

  She started to say no, but then changed her mind. Hot coffee might help settle her nerves, and at the very least, occupy Lance for a few more minutes. “Yes, please. That would be nice.”

  She watched as he filled the coffeepot from a bucket of water by the stove. His home apparently boasted none of the amenities the Weston ranch house had. If there was a water pump, it was outside.

  Glancing around her at the crude furnishings, she found her gaze fixed on the narrow bed that was little more than a wood-and-rope frame covered with a straw mattress and a wool blanket. Hanging above it on a peg was a buffalo hide, which probably provided extra warmth in winter.

  Tearing her gaze away, Summer forced herself to say calmly, “Tomorrow will be a long day. Perhaps we should get some sleep.”

  “Maybe we should go to bed.”

  The tone was cool, hard, inexorable. She couldn’t possibly mistake his meaning. Lance intended to claim his rights as her husband.

  Lamely Summer turned to look at him. He had paused while grinding a measure of coffee beans, and was watching her narrowly. The force of that black gaze nearly took her breath away.

  “Your brother may come looking for you,” he said grimly in explanation. “I don’t want to give him any reason to say we’re not married.”

  She thought she understood his reasoning. He was determined to consummate the marriage so it couldn’t be annulled. But that didn’t make her feel any calmer.

  Silently she nodded.

  Lance seemed to take her agreement for granted, since he resumed the task of grinding. Summer didn’t know what to do with herself. She was aware of the fragrant aroma of coffee mingling with the odor of woodsmoke from the stove, aware of the heavy thud of her heart.

  “Do you need to use the privy? It’s out back.”

  Embarrassed at the discussion of such a private function, Summer shook her head without answering.

  “Then you better take off your clothes.”

  There was a pause the length of a heartbeat. Then, obediently, she reached up and fumbled with the strings to her bonnet. When she had set it on the table, she stood there awkwardly.

  Lance spoke again. “All your clothes, princess.”

  Her heart started pounding erratically as she realized what he was demanding; he didn’t intend to give her any privacy at all. Summer turned to stare at him. He had gone quite still, as if waiting for her answer.

  “This is what you agreed to when you married me,” he reminded her sharply.

  “I know…It’s just that…shouldn’t…we put out the light?”

  “No. I want to see you.” At her shocked hesitation, his mouth twisted. “You might as well get over your modesty now, princess. I’m going to know your body well enough in a little while, in any case. And you’re going to know mine.”

  The thought of learning about his body made her pulse suddenly skip several more beats. Tense with nerves, Summer walked the three steps to the bed and fished in her bag for a nightdress. When she pulled it out, Lance cut into her whirling thoughts.

  “You won’t be needing that. I want you naked when you’re in bed with me.” When she froze, he added defensively, “I’m not like your polite starched gentlemen, sleeping in a nightshirt and hiding beneath the covers to rut in secret. I wasn’t raised that way.”

  No, Summer thought wildly. He was raised a savage. His ancestors were cold-blooded killers who raped and murdered white women like her.

  “No,” she retorted, resentment flaring at her fear, at Lance’s high-handedness, his insensitivity. “I wouldn’t expect someone of your background to behave like a gentleman.”

  She regretted her outburst instantly. She saw his grim mouth harden, saw his narrowed eyes spark with fury, and chastised herself for a fool. Taunting him about his heritage would hardly endear her to him, or encourage him to treat her with gentleness and concern for her inexperience.

  Shivering, she let the nightdress drop from her shaking fingers. This was nothing like what she had expected for her wedding night. This tense skirmish of wills with a cold, hard stranger, unvarnished by tenderness or love. But she’d made a bargain with Lance: marriage in exchange for his help and protection. It was the same bargain women had made with men for centuries, and she would find the strength to keep her end of it. She had no other choice. If she ch
anged her mind, then Lance might change his. No, if he insisted on making her undress in front of him, then she would do it. The cost to her pride, her modesty, was nothing when stacked up against Amelia’s life.

  She risked another glance at him. He was watching her, his features taut, his muscles coiled with the vital, dangerous energy that was so much a part of him, his smoldering eyes so dark, so intense, so…hungry that it frightened her.

  She couldn’t think with him looking at her that way, not when she could feel this fear dancing inside her stomach, not when she was fighting against an unnamed emotion that she didn’t want to call excitement.

  Not daring to look at him, she shrugged out of her jacket bodice and began to unfasten the buttons of her lawn blouse. It felt so wanton to be taking her clothes off in front of him. Her body felt flushed and hot, her nipples puckered and tight beneath her chemise. She kept her back to him as she drew off the blouse and folded it neatly in the carpetbag. Then she reached for the buttons of her full skirts.

  Lance watched her undress, hardly daring to breathe. The anger, the want, the need, were like a fist inside him, twisting his innards. He was so hard, he could pound fence posts. So swollen, he thought he might explode if he touched her. If he didn’t touch her.

  Forcing himself to look away, he finished the mundane task of fixing coffee, adding the grounds to the water and setting the pot on the stove to boil. That gibe of hers about him not being a gentlemen had cut him to the quick. He’d hoped to make her forget his Comanche blood, his bastard birth. He’d wanted to make her forget that he wasn’t good enough for her—

  Realizing where his thoughts were headed, Lance muttered an expletive even as the old resentment came surging back. He couldn’t change who he was. It was stupid to feel the old gnawing inferiority. Summer was his wife now. He had the right to take her if he wanted to.

  More than the right. It was a necessity. He had to consummate their marriage; tonight, on their wedding night. And not just because her damned brother would be breathing down their necks as soon as he learned what they’d done, although that alone was a good enough reason. No, it was because of Summer herself. She’d be less likely to renege on their bargain if she was fully his wife. If she lost her virginity to him, if he branded her as his, then she couldn’t back out of her vows so easily—like she was obviously thinking about doing right this minute.

  Slanting a glance at her, Lance let himself look his fill as she stood there in crinoline petticoat and camisole, her throat and shoulders and arms bare. Seeing her so nervous was unpleasantly satisfying to his soul: the proud, pampered Belle of Williamson County brought to her knees by the savage half-breed.

  She was looking at him, her green eyes wide, wary, her lips slightly parted. She looked afraid. He didn’t want her afraid of him.

  Then again, Lance consoled himself, maybe he was being too hard on himself. Maybe that was Summer’s game—making him feel sorry for her, playing on his sympathy so he wouldn’t carry through tonight with making her his woman. He knew better than anybody how good she was with games. Which was what he had to remember, he told himself fiercely. He would be damned if he’d fall for her wiles again. He wouldn’t give her reason to really be scared of him. He would show her more mercy than his mother had received at the hands of all the white men she’d known.

  “You gonna take all night, princess?” He voiced the taunt with a slow, calculated Texas drawl and watched Summer’s chin snap back up to an imperious angle. It made him feel a little better, seeing the defiance in her eyes. It appeased his own fear a smidgen.

  Summer was his now. His woman. She belonged to him. There was no way in hell he would let her go. He would bind her to him the only way he knew how, by making her share the most intimate act that could happen between a man and a woman, by making her take him into her body. He would try to make it easy for her, though.

  Without watching her remove her petticoat, Lance pulled off his vest and hung it on a wall peg, then his chambray shirt, baring his torso. He felt Summer’s gaze touch him: his hairless chest, his bronzed skin, his lean frame corded with ropes of muscle developed during countless hours of physical, backbreaking labor taming wild mustangs. Lance felt himself tighten, his skin grow hot. He wanted her to look at him, wanted her to become familiar with his body so she would lose her fear of him.

  As she took off the camisole, he sauntered over to the bed, trying to ignore the way Summer flinched when he squeezed past her, trying not to curse when she backed away a few steps.

  Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he tugged his boots off, one by one, and then leaned back, propping his shoulders against the wall.

  Maybe he should try to get her to talk, so she wouldn’t think so hard about being afraid of him.

  “Do you know what’s supposed to happen tonight?”

  “N-No…not really.” She bit her lip as she untied the laces of her corset. “I once saw a stallion cover a mare. It looked…awkward.”

  “It won’t be that way for your first time. We’ll be face-to-face.”

  “You’re…going to have to show me what to do.”

  An unexpected tenderness crept through him. He felt suddenly like a low-down snake. She was so innocent. He would contaminate her purity just by touching her. She was too good for him; bright and decent and fresh.... Maybe he was a savage. For sure the hot storm of lust streaking through him felt savage. Being so close to fulfilling his fantasies had a lot to do with his brutal hunger. Knowing Summer was his for the taking made him ache with need. The things he’d dreamed of doing to her…Having her go wild beneath him. Feeling her wrap those long, slender legs around his hips as he thrust hard and fast into her. Hearing her cry out with pleasure as she bucked and writhed and arched against him. The image was strong enough to make him break out in a sweat. Sinful enough to make him unsure of himself.

  Hell, he didn’t know how to make love to a lady. It was beyond his experience. He’d never had a true lady. The few whores he’d mounted who didn’t mind getting tossed by a half-breed had all been willing and wild, as eager for a good tumble as he. He knew how to give a woman pleasure. He’d learned on purpose, so they would have good reason to let him in their beds. He could hold his own with the most practiced whore.

  But he didn’t know how to treat a lady…let alone his wife. And soon he would have her beneath him. His wife…Summer. The notion made his mouth go dry. If there’d been time, he would have asked the saloon girl in Georgetown who’d taught him about women what he should do. He wanted it to be good for Summer. He would try his damnedest to make it good.

  “Everything, princess,” he said, seeing her hesitate. She had removed most of her underwear and stood shivering in her drawers and chemise.

  Summer clenched her teeth as she sat in one of the two rough wooden chairs by the table to remove her boots. Then standing again, she shimmied out of her lace-edged drawers.

  When that was done, there was no more reason for delay. She felt Lance watching her, felt those hot, smoldering eyes touching her scantily-clad body in all the most intimate places. She wanted to sink through the floor, and yet the turmoil roiling inside her was not just embarrassment or fear. There was heat and wonder and nervous anticipation, too.

  “I’m waiting,” Lance said softly, giving no quarter.

  Hesitantly, rebelliously, she reached for the edges of her chemise and drew the garment over her head. Letting it drop to the table, she heard Lance’s sharp inhalation and closed her eyes in shame. This was how slave women must feel on the auction block. Naked. Quivering. Heart wildly pulsing. The object of base male speculation and desire.

  A sensual shiver raced through her.

  The small room grew hushed, only broken by the quiet crackle of wood in the stove and the soft bubble of simmering coffee. For the longest moment Lance said nothing; he couldn’t have managed it just then if his life depended on it. His breath had hissed from his lungs at the sight of her. She had high, rounded breasts with tight
pink nipples…slender, graceful shoulders that tapered to a waist so narrow, he could span it with his hands…sweetly curving hips and slender legs. Between, at the junction of pale, slim thighs, lay a bush of dark, curling hair that hid the portal to her womanhood.

  She was a thing of beauty, and after a lifetime of ugliness, his soul craved beauty.

  For a full minute his hot gaze took her in, while the tension in the little cabin swelled. Her chin was raised at a stubborn angle and she’d opened her eyes, as if determined not to be cowed. He wondered how a person could look so proud and vulnerable at the same time.

  “Come here, Summer,” he said gruffly, huskily. “I can’t touch you if you’re all the way across the room.”

  Since the room was barely ten feet wide, there could be no great distance between them, but she bit back the retort and forced her feet to move till she reached the narrow bed where he was sitting and stood over him.

  “Lance…” Her voice was hoarse, shaky. “You said… you said you wouldn’t hurt me…”

  He felt his gut tighten at her soft plea; unwanted tenderness squeezed his throat and roughened his voice. “I won’t…not on purpose…but it may hurt a little. I hear sometimes it hurts a woman the first time. But I’ll try to make it easy. I’ll do my best to pleasure you.”

  Summer stared down at him, biting her lip as she considered the possibility. She hadn’t thought that Lance would want to give her pleasure after what she had done to him. For that matter, she didn’t want to feel pleasure, not when Amelia might be suffering torment. Still, his assurance relieved her mind. He wasn’t going to fall on her and rape her like a beast.

  She watched blankly as he patted the mattress beside him. “Sit down here next to me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Reluctantly she obeyed, turning to sit rigidly on the edge of the bed.

  Lance felt every muscle in his body clench at her nearness. She was so beautiful, it made his chest ache, his manhood throb with painful need. He couldn’t quite believe this was happening, that Summer Weston was really about to become his wife in fact as well as name. Almost reverently he reached out a finger to stroke her tight, naked back. She flinched at his touch, but didn’t move away.