“Just a kiss, Jenna,” he murmured, surprised at the husky sound of his voice. “Open for me. You are indeed the sweetest thing I ever tasted.”
He felt the moment of hesitation, and probed with exquisite gentleness at her lips with his tongue. With a tiny sigh she parted them, and with delicate care he slipped inside, his own breath catching at the blast of sensation that swept him.
He shuddered, helplessly, at the onslaught of rioting pleasure that rippled through him as Jenna yielded completely to his kiss, as she lifted her hands to cling to his shoulders, her fingers digging into his flesh even as she sagged against him. His body surged to full attention, rapacious, demanding, ordering him to take what was within his grasp now, right now, warning him it would brook no denial this time.
Some small, still-functioning part of his mind knew that he was dangerously out of control, and with one of the greatest efforts of his life, he pulled back.
Jenna made a soft, quiet sound in the back of her throat, a sound of protest, of loss. It was that involuntary sound that undid him; he’d never thought to hear such a thing from a woman, such an expression of genuine need, of regret that he’d abandoned her. And that quickly his need shifted, changed, becoming no less powerful but somehow different. He didn’t just want release, he didn’t just want to drive himself mindlessly into her body, seeking that momentary easing of tension, he wanted . . . more. He wasn’t even sure what it was, wasn’t sure it even existed. But that tiny sound Jenna had made had made him wonder if it did, for the first time in his life.
He stared down at her, suddenly realizing that the proof of all her stories of her people stood before him. What could have produced a woman like her, except a society such as she described? What, short of a people who deserved such a sacrifice, could drive such a proud, brave woman to making it?
He felt a sudden, relentless chill, as if he’d looked into the dark, seething well of his soul and seen the devil he’d so often been called.
“Jenna,” he said, not realizing he’d been going to say her name, and barely aware that his voice held everything of what he’d just felt.
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and soft with the remnants of arousal, her lips soft and slightly swollen from his attentions. Something flickered across her face, some combination of pain and empathy and compassion that made him want to protest that he neither needed nor wanted any soft feelings from her. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Slowly, she lifted one hand from his shoulder, and raised it to his face. With one slender finger she traced his mouth, sending tiny bursts of heat surging through him. His lips parted as his breathing became as labored as if he’d run the length of a field of battle in full armor. Then she moved again, cupping his cheek—his ugly, scarred cheek—with her palm.
It was too much. He could not do this, could not accept this, whatever it was she was offering. She should hate him for forcing her to this with his devil’s bargain. Yet she touched him as no woman ever had, gently, caressingly, with a sincerity he could not doubt. And she responded to his touch in turn as if she felt the same rising, crazy need he felt, although he knew it impossible for any woman to feel such for the likes of him.
Confusion careened around inside him, and he pulled away from her. And for the first time in his life, the man who had fought against odds beyond imagining, who had faced death countless times, who had found within him the courage to leave everything he’d ever known behind, ran. He turned and ran, fleeing one small woman as if she had the power to destroy him.
He was not entirely certain she did not.
HE WISHED TAL would show up, in that mysterious way he had, always seeming to know when Kane was wrestling with a demon or two. He could use some of his friend’s quiet wisdom about now, even though this demon was a new one.
But perhaps even Tal could be of no help with this; he’d said more than once that for all his cleverness, matters between men and women were beyond him. As, Kane thought wearily, was being in two places at once; Tal had said he was going down below again, despite the bloody turmoil they both knew was rampant. And all of Kane’s efforts to convince him not to risk it had been fruitless; Tal did not make capricious decisions, but once his mind was made up, there was no changing it.
He’d been worried that Tal’s decision might have something to do with his preposterous reaction when he’d seen him with Jenna, but Tal had assured him it did not. He hadn’t even laughed at Kane’s discomfiture, something Kane had been surprised at even as he was relieved.
Maybe even Tal could not help with this, Kane thought as he perched on the boulder and stared down into the chilly waters. Maybe there was no help for this kind of insanity. How was it possible for a man who had once been so lucid, so single-mindedly clear of thought, to have reached such a pass? How could it be that he was now torn in so many directions he barely knew who he was anymore? Perhaps it was hopeless.
Nothing is ever hopeless, my friend. It is simply more difficult at times to find where hope resides.
Tal’s quiet words came back to him now, as vividly and strongly as if the man stood beside him. So vividly Kane caught himself looking around, half expecting to see his friend, or at the least that extraordinary bird of his. He saw nothing but the familiar shapes of the trees, the faint reflection of the half-moon in the water of the stream. He listened, and heard only the quiet sounds of the forest at night. His mouth twisted ruefully at his own fancifulness.
Nothing is ever hopeless, my friend.
“I wish I could believe that,” Kane muttered under his breath. If he could believe that, perhaps he could believe there was a way out of this quandary he found himself in.
An image of Jenna formed in his mind, clear and vivid. Jenna, looking up at him as she had, a world of benevolent emotions in her eyes. Touching him, with a touch more tender than any he’d ever known. It was a kind of gentleness that had died in his life when his father had struck his sister down for that last, lethal time.
He shook his head and stared at the stream once more, eyes fastened on the rock that tried to divert it but failed; the water simply divided and rejoined, becoming again as it had been before.
Unchanged.
He knew then what he had to do. What he must do. If he did not, his time here would truly have been for nothing, and he was truly the same cold, brutal man he had been before.
He would send her home.
Unchanged.
Untouched.
He got to his feet and headed back to the austere, stark cave that was the only real home he’d ever had. His steps slowed the nearer he came, until he was fighting for every stride. When he reached the clearing, he knew it was going to take every bit of his resolve to do this.
He crept silently past the outside fire, not even looking at the tangle of blankets, checking only to see if the fire would keep for her until morning. If she was asleep he would not wake her; time enough in the morning to tell her that their pact had been severed. He would teach her what he could, but he would not hold her to her part.
He pulled aside the hanging cloth and stepped into the cave. Weary as much from the mental battle as from anything, he yawned as he removed his belt from his waist and the lion’s skin from his shoulders.
Perhaps he would even tell her that he’d never meant it to be that way in the first place, that he’d thought to scare her away. That he’d underestimated her nerve, her courage, her determination. She’d earned that much and more, he thought, and she seemed to treasure what small bits of praise he gave her.
Yawning again, he pondered the chill, added one more log to the small fire that heated the stones. She’d more than proven she was tough enough to take whatever he threw at her; he would have her begin to sleep in here, before this fire; ’twas much warmer. And if it cost him some sleepless nights, so be it.
Sleepily he walk
ed over to the furs piled over soft branches. Rubbing at gritty eyes, he stripped off his tunic and leggings and laid them to one side. Naked, he knelt to climb into bed.
The removal of his own shadow, which had fallen over the bed, revealed what had been hidden; Jenna, her hair a red-gold splash of color against the dark fur, lay there. In his bed. Curled up with one hand, the hand that had stroked his cheek, curled beneath her own. As if she’d come there to await him, and fallen asleep.
Kane knelt there, shivering suddenly as if the relatively warm cave had turned to ice. He felt his grip on his intentions slipping; just looking at her was sending all rational thought flying away swifter than Tal’s damned raven.
And then she moved, just slightly, beneath the single fur that covered her. The motion neatly outlined the slender lines of her body, and shifted the fur just enough to bare her shoulder and part of her back. And Kane was hit with the stunning, gut-plowing realization that beneath the fur she was as naked as he was.
It was more than he could bear. If it damned him to eternal fire, he could not walk away. He doubted if the fact that he had tried would earn him much when the time came to face his own accounts, but it didn’t matter now. Nothing did. Nothing on earth could stop him from claiming her now.
Not even the sudden certainty he felt that he was about to put an end to more than just her innocence.
Chapter 11
JENNA CAME AWAKE the moment she felt the tug on the fur that covered her. For a moment she lay still, puzzled by the faint light and the softness beneath her; she’d become used to the hard ground and the surrounding darkness. And then it came back to her in a rush, and she sucked in a quick, apprehensive breath.
She was in the cave; the light was reflecting off the walls.
She was in Kane’s bed.
Kane was here.
She fought her panic; she’d decided this, of her own will, to wait for him here, to show him she understood she was to be held to her part of their bargain tonight, as he’d told her. She would not renounce her choice now, simply because she was now faced with the reality.
Even though it was a reality beyond anything she’d ever imagined. She’d always known Kane was big, powerful, but somehow he seemed more so now. Even naked he seemed massive, and she had the quick, idle thought that in armor he must have seemed invincible.
In the faint light she saw the twisted whiteness of a scar here, the thin, curving line of another there. As he’d said and as she’d expected, he bore the marks of a warrior’s life.
“If you wish to change your mind, it’s far too late.”
His voice was low, harsh, and gruff, and startled Jenna out of the odd sense of detachment she’d been lost in. And made her realize what her mind had been carefully skirting; this warrior, this big, powerful man, was aroused far beyond anything her limited knowledge of such things could have prepared her for.
He saw where her glance had fallen, and sat back on his haunches slightly, as if to give her a clearer view. The idea flooded her with heat and embarrassment, and she closed her eyes.
“Look!” he snapped.
Her eyes came open.
“I have fought this from the day you fell at my feet,” he ground out, his tone telling her it was not pride in his maleness or the evidence of it that had made him do it, but rather torment at the loss of whatever internal battle had kept him from taking her the moment she had agreed on the price for his tutelage.
“You . . . needn’t have fought,” she said, wondering why she felt the need to point out what he already well knew.
“I didn’t . . . I wanted . . .”
He broke off, letting out a harsh, compressed breath, and Jenna wondered if he ever in his life had stammered so, had been so torn by whatever it was that raged inside him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, moved by an urge she didn’t quite understand to comfort him. As if a man like Kane would want, need, or take her small comfort.
“No, it does not,” he agreed, his voice little more than a growl. “I will take what you will give, and if it is not enough, ’tis my own foolish fault.”
Jenna went still, “I . . . warned you. I told you I had not the kind of passion in me a woman holds for a man.”
He laughed, short, sharp, and wondering. He shook his head. “No passion? You, who practically melt beneath my hands, you, who nearly sears us both with merely a kiss?”
Her brows furrowed. “But that is . . . surely not passion? I thought passion was a flying thing, not . . .”
“Not what?” he asked, his voice suddenly soft.
“Fire,” she whispered.
“Fire is exactly what it is,” he said huskily. “The flying comes after the flames.”
He moved then, lifting the fur and sliding in beside her. She gasped at the shock of it, of his naked body against hers. She’d given him back his cloth shirt, and hadn’t been able to find it to borrow this night. Awaiting him fully dressed had seemed wrong somehow, as if she were denying his right to the freedom of her body their agreement had given him. But now she wished she had; his heat was about to consume her.
She’d known that he generated a heat that amazed her but this, this was beyond imagining. Everywhere his skin touched hers she burned. And when he reached for her, she cried out at the touch of his hand, not because it hurt, he was far too careful for that, but because his merest touch set her afire all over again, yet made her shiver as if she were chilled.
He stopped at the sound of her cry. “You did not seem to mind my touch outside by the fire,” he said, his voice low and harsh.
“I . . . do not. Truly. But it feels . . . so strange. Fire. And ice. Together.”
His hands tightened on her arms, and she felt a movement ripple through him as if he’d felt the same sensation she had moments before.
“I know little enough of a woman’s pleasure,” he said tightly. “ ’Twas never my concern.”
She supposed it was a warning to her, that she was not to expect anything of pleasure from this joining.
“There was no mention of such in our agreement,” she said, trying to control the heat that threatened to flood her face; she had already felt more pleasure from his gentle touches in the evenings by the fire than she had ever dared expect from this cold, powerful man.
“Nor have I ever . . . dealt with a virgin.”
Trepidation rose in her, but she fought it down. It was the price he had demanded, and she would pay it. She would have laid down her life if it would help her people; next to that her body seemed a small enough sacrifice.
“That is not your concern, either.”
“Once,” he muttered, his voice oddly strained, “You would have been right on both counts.”
She shifted, trying to see his face. At her movement, Kane groaned. His hands tightened yet again on her arms.
“I can fight this no longer.” His voice was little more than a growl.
And then he pulled her hard against him, his mouth coming down on hers. This was not the gentle, coaxing kiss he’d given her earlier; this was demand, declaration, and warning all in one. He was claiming his prize, declaring his possession, and making it clear there was to be no turning back this time.
’Twas only what she’d said before, Jenna thought dazedly; ’twas only that it was a relief to have the waiting over. That was what had turned her to soft wax in his arms, nothing else. It was not the feel of his lips on hers, not the shocking invasion of his tongue into her mouth, not the fierce heat and exciting feel of his naked body next to hers.
And then his hands began to move, to stroke and cup and mold, seeking out each curve, lingering in each hollow. Her body twisted in his grasp, to get away, she assured herself, although it seemed to her that she was arching toward his touch more than away.
She was afr
aid, that was why she trembled, she told herself, wondering why it was so hard to think, wondering what this odd haze enveloping her was. But fear had always turned her cold before, not swamped her with heat, not sent arrows of flame racing through her, not made her cry out not in a plea for it to cease but in a plea for it to go on and on.
Kane deepened the kiss, his tongue probing into the depths of her mouth. Driven by an instinct she didn’t understand but couldn’t resist, she tentatively, briefly, met his probing caress with a flick of her own tongue.
Kane went rigid, as if she’d flicked him with a whip. A low, rough sound rumbled up from his chest, and he rolled her onto her back, covering her with only one side of his body, as if afraid his full weight would crush her. She wondered if it would. If she would survive it if he took her as roughly as he could. She knew only of love between a man and a woman; she knew little of this, but she knew enough to know that it was generally the woman who was most vulnerable, simply because of the superior strength of the man. And Kane was a very strong man.
And then his hands were at her bare breasts, and she knew nothing, nothing except the shock of sensation that jolted through her. He cupped and lifted the soft flesh, and rather than feeling embarrassment, an unexpected and utterly new excitement pounded through her. She felt her nipples draw up tight, tingling in a way she’d never known.
Kane lifted his head, freeing her mouth at last, and she drew in a breath she hadn’t known she needed so badly. Perhaps that was why she felt so odd, she hadn’t been able to breathe, hadn’t—
She saw where Kane’s gaze had gone, that he was staring at her breasts, at the achingly taut crests, and the embarrassment struck at last. It had to be embarrassment; what else could explain the rush of heat that flooded her?
And then Kane, that low, growling sound rumbling out of him again, lowered his head—and his mouth—to one breast. Jenna gasped as his lips closed over her nipple, but the alarm at what he’d done vanished in an instant amid the burst of sensation that erupted in her from beneath his suckling caress.
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