Jeff followed, ready for what was to come. Relishing it. The sun and the fresh air felt good after his long exile, and the song of the river was pleasant in his ears. None of these things, however, lessened his need for an all-out, no-holds-barred fight.
In the side yard, Keith suddenly stopped and pointed upward with one imperious hand. For a moment, Jeff thought he was going to call down a thunderbolt or something. “See that?” he said.
Jeff looked up, puzzled. “It’s the sky,” he answered.
“I’m glad you remember. You’ve been hiding in your room for so long, I thought you might have forgotten!”
Shame brushed against Jeff’s spirit, but just briefly. He was scarred for life. He’d lost his ship and the only woman he’d ever wanted to marry. If anybody had a right to retreat from life, he did! “What if I did?” he roared. “Who the hell needs the goddamned sky?”
Keith stood straight and tall, though not quite as tall as Jeff himself, and shook his head. “You do, Jeff. We all do—we need the sky and the wind and the trees and the land. We need God and we need other people.”
“How the hell do you manage to turn every conversation into a sermon?”
Keith shrugged. “Second nature, I guess.”
“I want to fight!”
“I know,” replied the pastor, looking pleased and damnably unruffled at the prospect. Didn’t that Bible-jockey know when to be scared?
Jeff advanced on his brother; he was going to hit him—even though his conscience stung like hell, he was going to hit him.
Except that Fancy Jordan suddenly flung herself against Jeff’s chest. The impact of her gave him a swift, sweet, piercing jolt.
“Stop!” she screamed.
Jeff caught her shoulders in his hands and even this contact, born of anger as it was, caused him a strange mingling of joy and alarm. “What the—”
“Step out of his way, Fancy,” Keith interceded quietly, evenly.
Fancy’s small, straight back stiffened and she glared up into Jeff’s face with those wide violet eyes, daring him to do God-knew-what. “No,” she said in a clear voice.
Mostly to make a rather unadmirable point, Jeff lifted Fancy off her feet and set her aside as though she were a doll.
She immediately returned, but this time there were tears standing along her thick eyelashes. “Please,” she said. “I’ll do anything—I’ll go away or whatever you want. But, please, don’t do this!”
Jeff stared down at her in amazement, moved by her tears and infuriated that he could be deluded by one of the oldest of feminine wiles. The desire to fight was gone, replaced by another kind of need.…
“You’ll be late for church,” she said pointedly, looking back over one shoulder at Keith.
Keith grinned and shrugged. “Sorry, Jeff, but the lady is right. Anybody want to come along?”
Jeff made a rude snorting sound, but his eyes kept going back to Fancy’s upturned face, no matter how he resisted. What magic was she working?
They stood like that, in a mutually stricken silence, for some minutes, the spell breaking only when Keith and Alva drove away from the house in a buggy, on their way to services.
“Why did you do that?” Jeff managed to ask.
One golden eyebrow arched, and the tears that had stung him so were evaporating in the bright sunlight. A breeze made a tendril of her hair dance. “Do what?” she retorted.
Jeff was maddened. “Why did you break up the fight before it could get started?”
She shrugged and turned to walk away. “Keith was late for church,” she said.
Jeff grabbed her by the shoulders and whirled her around to face him again. “Damn it, Frances, don’t you dare walk away from me!”
“I don’t answer to that name,” she said loftily, and then she had the gall to turn away again.
Jeff swore loudly, wrenched her back toward him, and, to his total and absolute surprise, kissed her. Her soft, full lips had all the resiliency of a brick for the first moment or so, but then they softened and parted for him. He took full and savage advantage of this, all the while thinking that Temple had trained her well.
Seeming to know what was going through his mind, she backed away, glaring up at him with furious eyes, her cheeks flushed. “Don’t ever do that again,” she choked out.
“I intend to do far more than that,” Jeff replied flatly.
“Try it and I’ll rip your lips off,” she shot back, whirling and storming off toward the barn in strides far too long for her short, slender legs.
Jeff stood still for a moment in the middle of the lawn, stricken by her, infuriated with her, wanting her more than he’d ever wanted a woman. Then, having no choice, he strode after her. Damn it, no woman but Banner O’Brien had ever spurned him and he just wasn’t going to tolerate that again!
He reached the wide open doorway of the barn and halted, breathing as though he’d just run all the way from town. Letting his eyes adjust to the shadowy interior, the sweet scent of hay came to greet him, drawing him in. “Frances!”
Silence.
Jeff sighed, ran one hand through his hair in exasperation. “Fancy?”
He heard her then. She was crying softly, hopelessly. The sound broke over Jeff like a tidal wave.
“Fancy?” he repeated, entering the barn.
“Go away!” she sobbed indignantly. “Just go away and leave me alone!”
Jeff approached her. She was crouched on a bale of last year’s hay, leaning against the barn wall as though she wished it would absorb her. “Why are you crying?” he asked reasonably.
“I just feel like it!” she wailed.
He perched on the bale beside her and then pulled her onto his lap, cradling her head against his shoulder, stroking her wayward golden hair under one hand. There in the cool shadows of the barn, she allowed him to hold her, gradually relaxing. When he lifted her chin to kiss her again, she didn’t resist.
The passion she stirred in Jeff Corbin was almost more than he could bear. He allowed one skilled hand to slide upward, from the curve of her small waist to the plump rounding of a generous breast. She stiffened, then whimpered when Jeff began to stroke a hidden nipple with the side of his thumb.
He felt the enticing nubbin harden in response, and the need of this woman ground within him, painful and all-consuming. “God in heaven,” he muttered.
It was an unfortunate choice of words. Fancy sat bolt upright, and her blush was visible even in the relative darkness. “Stop it!”
Jeff thought it interesting that she did not try to leave his lap. Brazenly, acting on well-honed instincts, he lowered his face to her generous bosom and gently bit the very tip of her right breast. She trembled and cried out, and he deftly opened the first button of her dress, then the second, the third. He had not taken this particular sort of nourishment in months, and he craved it now.
“No,” she whispered, even as she tugged her camisole down to reveal one delectable, rose-pointed breast for his pleasure.
Jeff plucked at the morsel with his fingers and then with his lips, delighting in her soft gasps, in the way she cupped the breast in one hand and uplifted it in offering. “Delicious—” he muttered.
She made some strangled, nonsensical reply, and Jeff chuckled as he feasted. He knew she’d shared Temple Royce’s bed, knew she’d given suckle to his worst enemy in just this way, but he didn’t give a damn.
Chapter Three
FANCY FELT DAZED, FULL OF WONDER AND CONFUSION. The warm mastery of Jeff’s mouth plundering her breast was a strange mingling of both heaven and hell—the pleasure shot through every part of her, causing her body to demand things it had never asked for, or even known about, before. Involuntarily, she arched her back, allowing him even greater access.
He was greedy, and yet he was gentle, and when he suddenly stood Fancy on her feet before him, she was startled and off balance. She swayed a little and he caught her, steadied her, his hands strong on the curves of her hips.
Knowing full well that she was at this man’s mercy, Fancy stood perfectly still, waiting. She knew that she should run away, or at least resist, but she couldn’t bring herself to do either of those things. Her complete conviction that Jeff Corbin would not force himself upon her if she protested did her no good at all.
In silence, Jeff looked up at her and she saw an amazement in his face to match her own. His hands began easing the skirts of her new lavender dress slowly upward, ever upward, and Fancy felt an odd, heated chill. A protest climbed into her throat and then lodged there, unutterable.
He had brought her skirts to her waist and she stood before him in only her drawers, having no petticoats to provide further interference. He bent forward, very slowly, and nipped at the now-heated center of her womanhood.
A groan escaped Fancy, along with a strangled, senseless, “What are you—oh, God—”
His deft fingers undid the ties of her drawers, slid them downward. She was completely revealed to him now and she trembled with a certain delighted helplessness; never before had she permitted a man any liberty such as this. On the other hand, even though she despised him, Jeff Corbin was not just any man. There seemed to be a separate set of rules governing him.
With two fingers, Jeff unveiled her. What would he do now? Did he mean to hurt her? Fancy’s mind swirled with unanswered questions and unspeakable desires—the foremost of which he immediately fulfilled.
Jeff’s tongue touched her in that most vulnerable place and some primitive part of Fancy’s nature came to the fore, completely taking her over. Her head fell back, with no order from her, and a soft cry of surrender escaped her.
He began to kiss her, to nibble at her as though she were the most delicious delicacy, and she groaned his name, her fingers tangled, frantic, in his butternut hair. She still did not know what magic he offered, but she was already prepared to beg for it. Unconsciously, she widened her stance to permit him greater enjoyment and he chuckled brazenly as he tasted her and lapped at her with his tongue. Finally, he took full suckle, and when he did that Fancy gave a choked shout of triumph.
Heat surged through her, all of it coming from the delicate bud where his mouth at once caressed and punished her. She shuddered as the joy built toward some unbearable conclusion, and his strong hands gripped her bare bottom, holding her close, making the anguished pleasure inescapable.
“Ooooh!” she shouted, and there was a great, brutal trembling inside her as this unknown need was fully, finally met. When the last tender explosion had ebbed away, Jeff stood, then calmly removed Fancy’s new dress, her displaced drawers, her camisole.
“What are you—” she managed to choke out. “I’ve never—”
“Oh, certainly not,” agreed Jeff, with tender sarcasm, as he lowered her to the clean straw covering the barn floor. Then he removed his own clothes and Fancy thought distractedly how magnificent he was. The hard, muscular length of him was something of a shock, though, when stretched out upon her.
“Jeff—you must listen—I—”
His head slid to one bare and generous breast, causing it to welcome his attentions. Fancy was lost, because that same mystical, blinding need that had consumed her before was back again, dictating the actions of her body, silencing the protests of her reason. With one knee, Jeff gently forced her legs apart.
He entered her swiftly—too swiftly, for there was a tearing pain as her seal was broken. Fancy stiffened and gasped aloud.
Jeff lifted his magnificent head to stare at her, his face draped in soft shadows. “Fancy?” he questioned, in a hoarse, stricken voice.
The pain had faded and Fancy was aware again of the wild urgings that came from within her and yet could not possibly be contained by one small body, so infinite was their scope. She clasped at the muscle-rippled small of his back, desperate for the completion she knew she had not yet achieved.
“A virgin!” he muttered distractedly, but he was again moving upon her, slowly, smoothly. It was as though he wanted to stop but couldn’t.
Fancy began to rise and fall beneath him, instinctively allowing him to lead her. And yet he moaned a soft plea, as though it were she who commanded.
As his thrusts increased in power, so did Fancy’s passion. She was delirious with it now, clutching at the muscled curves of his buttocks, driving him deeper and deeper. Their separate bodies became fully one, heaving with the exertion demanded of them, glistening with a sheen of perspiration.
Fancy seemed to burst through the barn roof, spinning. She clutched at Jeff in a beautiful sort of terror, but his cries and the ceaseless thrusts of his fierce manhood only drove her higher. She was certain that if she could only turn her head, she would find herself looking down on the house and the river and the apple orchard.
Suddenly, his great body stiffened and he rasped her name as his seed rippled into the depths of her, again and again. She spoke softly and soothed his broad back with her hands as he shuddered upon her.
Finally, Jeff sank to her, his breath harsh, his frame still quivering with the brutal force of his release. “God—Fancy—oh, my God—”
Reality came crashing down on Fancy in that moment. She realized what she had done, what they had done together, and struggled beneath his inert frame, a choked sob coming from her throat. “Let me up!”
Jeff eased away from her, still breathing hard, his eyes glazed and distracted. He watched without apparent emotion as Fancy frantically grabbed for her clothes, stood up, and struggled into them.
“You were a virgin,” he observed in a flat voice, while Fancy grappled with her underthings.
“I tried to tell you that!” she burst out, tears streaking down her face.
One powerful, burn-scarred shoulder moved in a shrug. “I didn’t believe you,” he replied matter-of-factly, as though that made everything all right. “You used to work on the Silver Shadow in Port Hastings. I remember you.”
“Does that make me a whore?” hissed Fancy, tangling one foot in the hem of her cherished lavender dress and nearly toppling back onto the straw again.
Idly, Jeff reached for his trousers and shirt. He was almost fully dressed before he answered, “It certainly doesn’t make you respectable. The place is a brothel, after all.”
Fancy wanted to strike him, but she knew that he would restrain her easily, perhaps even laugh at her. And right then she couldn’t have borne that. “My father works in a coal mine!” she shouted senselessly, as she struggled with the buttons Jeff had found so easy to manage. “He’s dying of lung fever! My mother washes other people’s clothes and they’re still in debt to the company no matter what they do! Therefore, Captain Rich-and-Spoiled Corbin, I’ll work anywhere, as long as I’m paid a fair wage!”
He stopped buttoning his straw-flecked shirt to watch her. “To send to them?” he prompted.
“Yes!”
Jeff chuckled, low in his throat. “You’re certainly worth your wages, Nurse Jordan.”
That did it. Fancy lunged at him, still only half-dressed, a furious animal sound rattling deep in her throat. She flung both fists at an impervious, rock-hard chest, frantic to hurt Jeff Corbin, to make him bleed.
He caught her wrists in a firm hold and, to her eternal surprise, pulled her close. His arms were around her instantly, the palms of his massive hands cupping her small bottom, kneading the still-tingling flesh there into a submission that soon spread throughout Fancy’s being. “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I was only teasing you.”
Fancy was determined not to be caught in his trap again. “I came out here to build a rabbit hutch!” she yelled.
Jeff threw back his head and laughed uproariously. When he finally sobered, he looked down into her flushed, furious face and said, “Lord, woman, the way you build rabbit hutches could send a man to an early grave.”
“Wretch!”
He bent and kissed the tip of her pert little nose. “You’d better go inside, Miss Jordan, and repair your appearance. At the moment, you look as t
hough you’d just been deflowered on the barn floor.”
Fancy broke free of him and strode toward the house. It wasn’t until she reached her room and forced herself to look into the mirror, that she realized how right Jeff had been. Her hair was full of straw and falling around her shoulders in untidy loops, her dress was mussed and not properly buttoned. A telling apricot blush pulsed in her cheeks and her eyes were as bright as the sunny heights where she’d soared.
Trembling, Fancy took the pitcher from her wash stand, stomped to the kitchen sink, and pumped cold water into the vessel so vigorously that her arm ached. Then she swept back to her room, poured the water into the waiting basin, and splashed her face until some of the heat faded away and her heart slowed to its normal pace.
After that, she took her hair down and brushed it, causing it to crackle and flare around her face. She exchanged the lavender dress for her own gray woolen, unsuited as it was to the warm weather, and then pinned her thick tresses into a severe coronet at the back of her head. Maybe she wasn’t innocent anymore, but she certainly looked the part, and that was what mattered now. If Keith and Mrs. Thompkins had seen her in her earlier, scandalous state, she would have been mortified.
Jeff was in the kitchen when Fancy dared to return to that room. He’d stripped off his shirt and he was washing industriously, noisily at the sink, the sparkling water flying in every direction.
Of course, Fancy took in the long scar stretching across his broad back and her anger softened, just momentarily, into tenderness. She longed to walk across that room and touch the mark with her fingers, tracing its path from his shoulder to his hip.
He turned to see her frozen there in the doorway, his face and hair dripping water from his impromptu bath. Mirth danced, deep blue, in his eyes. “How very prim and proper you look, Miss Jordan. I liked you better with hay in your hair.”
Fancy blushed but she did not avert her eyes, though she longed to. This was a contest of wills and even if she could not win, she had no intention of being cowed, either. “I’ll thank you not to refer to that—that indiscretion again!”
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