She couldn’t help herself; her body arched violently upward and a cry escaped her. It rang in the silence, echoing off the walls, taunting her with the undertone of shocked pleasure that she could not deny.
She was not afraid; it was not relief. It was Kane, and what he was doing; it was the feel of him, his body, his hands, his mouth on her that was causing this firestorm within her. She had heard that what passed between a man and woman was good, when there was love. She had been warned by her mother that outside Hawk Glade there were hard, cold men who could make it an ugly, painful thing, and she had feared Kane would be one of those. But now, whatever it was he was doing to her was neither cold nor painful, and even though there was no love in it, it was beyond anything she’d ever imagined.
The realization made her tremble anew. Kane lifted his head, and she nearly cried out again at the cessation of the hot, sweet suckling.
“Did I . . . hurt you?” His voice was thick, husky, and she had a fleeting impression of a raging need held back.
“No,” she said. It came out as a tight little whisper, but she couldn’t help it. “No,” she repeated.
It was all she could say. How could she tell him he’d far from hurt her, that it was the fierceness of her own response that frightened her? The men in her world were nothing like him; they were calm, quiet, restrained men who led their lives in peace. There had been a few, over the generations, who had had a wilder streak, but they rarely stayed in Hawk Glade once they were old enough to strike out in search of the adventure they craved.
Jenna had never understood that drive. Until now. She’d never encountered anyone like this warrior. She had never expected to. But suddenly she understood why some thought Hawk Glade too calm, too quiet, too peaceful. Whatever they sought outside that tranquil place was here in this man, in the wildness of his spirit. He was untamed, and ever would be.
She had never known there was a part of her that craved that kind of wildness. Until now.
“Jenna,” he said, low and rough.
He was looking at her as if her thoughts were written in her face. As perhaps they were, she thought; how could such a discovery not show? She stared up at him, knowing her wonder was showing in her eyes. And after a moment, a no less wondering look spread across his face.
“You look at me as if . . .” He stopped, shook his head sharply. He muttered something under his breath, something she thought sounded like “Don’t be a fool.”
She didn’t know what to say. She had no words to explain; she did not understand herself what was happening to her. She only knew that, in making this bargain she had thought of as the only way to save her people, she had learned something she had never known of herself.
“I did not know,” was all she managed to finally get out.
She knew she was still staring at him, but she could not help that, either. She took in the powerful width of his jaw, the dark slashes of his brows, the strong line of his nose, the unexpected softening of his mouth. The thick fall of his hair shadowed his face, threw the sharp angles and planes into stark relief, made the scar on his cheek almost invisible. And his eyes, those eyes that had seen so much, and that sometimes betrayed so much of bleakness and remembered pain . . .
She reached up slowly, with one hand, to cup his scarred cheek as she had done before. Gently, as if she could somehow ease that long-ago pain. She heard an odd sound, as if his breath had caught deep in his chest.
“Kane . . .”
He shifted his body over her, nudging her legs apart so he could slip between them. Jenna tensed, the amazement of her discovery fading in the fear of what was to come. She could feel the heat and size and hardness of him against her belly, and the image of him as he’d been when he’d knelt before her, open to her gaze, seared through her mind. It seemed impossible; it could not work. Yet it did; it had, for centuries.
As if he’d read her fear—and perhaps he had; she’d conveyed it clearly enough with her sudden tension—Kane bent to kiss her again, this time with a soft persuasion that was beguiling in its gentleness.
“I will try not to hurt you,” he said against her lips. “But I’ve been a long time without a woman, and I am . . .”
His words trailed away, but his hips shifted slightly, reminding her of just what he was. She should feel grateful he thought even that much of her; it was not part of their bargain that he be careful with her, only that she not complain, no matter what he asked of her.
What she should feel about the unexpected sensations his touch roused in her, she did not know.
She had thought he would simply take her now; there could certainly be no doubt about his readiness to do just that. So when his hand slipped between them, and she felt the probing touch of his fingers she was startled. But even more startling was the realization that his fingers were sliding easily over her most private flesh, that she was slick and, shockingly wet. And then he reached a spot that sent a shower of heat sparkling through her, and she cried out in surprise at yet another discovery.
“I cannot wait,” he growled.
She felt it then, his fingers replaced by blunter flesh as he guided himself. And it struck her then, the meaning of that shocking, wet slickness; her body had been preparing for this, as if it knew she would not take a man of Kane’s size easily.
And she did not, even then; she thought he would tear her apart as he probed her. Instinctively her body tightened against the invasion.
Kane stopped. She felt a drop of moisture, and realized sweat had beaded on his brow. She looked up at him, and her breath caught at the mixture of pain and need on his face.
“I . . . have no wish to hurt you, but the heavens help me, I cannot stop now. I cannot.”
It took her a moment to understand. She drew in the breath that seemed to have lodged in her throat. She hadn’t meant to fight him, had no right to fight him, yet her body had done so instinctively. She took another breath and made herself relax.
“I cannot make it . . . painless for you,” he said roughly. “But I will try to make it . . . quick.”
He pushed forward a bit more, she felt the incredible stretching of her body, and had to fight not to tense again. Kane muttered something low and guttural, and she realized he was fighting as hard as she, fighting to move in haste. Fighting not to hurt her.
That he would do so, when it was not required of him, warmed her; she supposed she was foolish to find any small comfort in this cold, ruthless man’s actions, but she did.
The pressure built, but still he pushed further. Slowly, until she was sure she could take no more. And in the moment she almost told him, he moved quickly, thrusting forward sharply. She felt the tearing deep inside, and bit back a cry of pain.
Kane gathered her close, holding her, nuzzling her hair with a tenderness she never would have expected from him.
“ ’Tis the worst of it,” he said.
The pain was already ebbing. In its place came a flood of realizations that came so quickly Jenna could hardly keep pace. Kane was inside her, fully inside her, his body buried to the hilt, his hips pressed hard against hers. He was holding himself stock-still, yet shudders seemed to rack him, and his breathing was coming in rapid pants. And to her surprise she took his weight easily. Most startling of all, it felt . . . right somehow, that she was cradling him this way.
The foreign presence intimately within her was shocking, but at the same time it filled a hollow place she’d always had yet had never known the answer for. She’d thought it was some lack in her that had made her feel that way, part of that lack of passion she’d always felt. She’d never thought that perhaps it was simply something that she was missing, something someone else could give her.
Kane began to move then, and the friction of his male flesh stroking her from within set up a burgeoning sensation she neither recognized nor knew
how to cope with. She could only respond. And her body did, moving in time with his movements in a way she could not control, could only let happen. It was as if her body was controlled by his, as if each of his thrusts demanded she lift herself to meet him. And she did, her hips moving in a way she’d never known, yet seemed to have known forever.
And within her the tensions built, the fire flared, and she wondered what it meant that she could feel this, and that she could feel it with a man such as Kane, and what did it mean for their bargain; this had not been part of it, that she should feel such fierce, searing pleasure, that she should be driven even higher with every move of his body, that she become certain with every passing second that there was something, something just out of reach, something more powerful than she had ever imagined, something that would answer every question she’d ever had—
The flying comes after the flames . . .
For an instant she thought Kane had spoken the words again, but no, he had only cried out her name, in a voice full of triumph unlike anything she’d ever heard. His body arched as hers had, driving him into her fully. She looked up at him, and the raw, pure exhilaration she saw drawing his face taut was the spark to her own passion.
The greatest of passions require the greatest of sparks . . .
Her mother’s words came back to her in that moment when her body gathered itself, and that which she had not understood as a child became perfectly clear to her now.
And she learned then that the flying truly did come after the flames.
“DRIVE UP WITH the blade, the instant you unsheath it. If you wait to raise it and strike downward, you will be cut in half before you draw blood.”
“If he is that close,” Jenna said glumly, “I will most likely die anyway.”
“True,” Kane observed mildly. His tone was at odds with the feeling that had spurted through him at her all-too accurate comment.
It had struck him hard the morning after they had consummated their agreement. He had awakened feeling pleased, lazy, and utterly sated; twice more he had turned to her in the night, each time astonished by her welcome and the swiftness of her response. And the pattern had continued as begun in the nights since, making them a haven of warmth and passion he would have doubted could exist, especially for himself.
He knew her swift passion had to be unusual for an untried woman—in fact, he suspected, for any woman—yet he could not deny the truth of it; he felt the proof each time he was buried to the hilt within her and he felt the pulsing clasp of her climax around his swollen flesh. Likening what he’d known before to this was like comparing a snowflake with the glaciers of Snowcap: one was small and fleeting, the other vast and eternal. The idea would have frightened him, had the pleasure not been so great as to wipe any such concerns out of his mind.
He stifled a shudder of need; only the knowledge that her body was no doubt sore had prevented him from reaching for her more often that first night. He’d never expected this; he’d thought once he had slaked his need, a need he thought only natural after so long a time of celibacy, that the urge that was nigh unto driving him mad would ease, that once he had her, the need to take her would pass.
It had not.
“Show me again,” she said.
Kane let out a breath, reminding himself that she meant the dagger she held, not the dagger he wielded in their nights together. After her body had grown used to his presence, he turned to her often in the darkness. And always she welcomed him, seemed eager, even.
And he told himself to ignore the tiny voice that reminded him that she had no other choice.
She did not, he argued endlessly with himself, have to appear eager. Nor did she have to pour such pleasure into her tiny cries, or caress him so sweetly in return. Never had he asked her to pretend she wanted this, only that she submit.
He had less success trying to ignore that part of him that wanted her to want it, that wanted every cry he wrung from her to be true and real, wanted every convulsive movement of her body to result from her passionate response to his touch.
He refused altogether to acknowledge that some even more deeply buried part of him wanted it to be only his touch that she rose to.
“Like this?” she asked.
The sun caught the blade, flaring silver light in all directions. And he thought again of that first morning, when he’d awakened so content, still half asleep as he pulled Jenna close, threaded the fingers of one hand through the silken length of her hair, remembering the feel of it as it had brushed over his body, letting his other hand rest gently on her hip, his shaft already rousing to the memories of being clasped so tightly by her feminine flesh.
And then it had struck him, like the worst of blows to the gut, stealing his breath, his hearing, and nearly his sight. She would leave here in a few days. And when she did, she would probably die.
“The blade is at your waist,” he answered by rote, relying on the old lessons he had once learned, then taught. “Do not spend time bringing it upward to strike downward. The moment you have it clear, drive up and in.”
“Beneath the ribs.” She repeated what he’d told her when, after walking to this small but level clearing near the stream they’d begun the lesson this morning. “Why?”
“The ribs are there to protect what is most vulnerable . . . and vital. That is where you will do the most damage.”
She nodded, practicing the motion he’d shown her with the same intensity she had turned on his instructions with the bow, the crossbow . . . and in bed.
The stab of desire he felt now nearly doubled him over. He wanted nothing more than to throw away that silly little dagger that would never save her, lay her down on the soft mountain grass, and take her right now. He wanted to see the sun turn her hair to fire as it lay spread over the green grass, wanted to look up at the sun through it as he taught her to ride him. He wanted to measure the length of his already swollen male flesh against her, then plunge it into her, remembering in his mind’s eye so he would know just how deeply inside her he was.
He wanted to be so deep inside her that there would always be some part of her no one else would ever touch.
He wanted to hold her here, keep her here, safe, not send her off to what would surely be her death. And as if holding her body could somehow accomplish it, the need to do just that became unbearable.
“Kane?”
She was staring at him, wide-eyed, and he could only guess what he must look like. He had to stop this, had to control these urges that came upon him so quickly, unlike anything he’d ever known before. He had to control this.
Why?
The question rang in his mind, and on its heels came the memory of his own words, the words of their bargain.
You will become my woman. You will allow me the freedom of your body in whatever way I wish, whenever I wish, without complaint.
He reached suddenly for the dagger she held. Wresting it free of her grip, he flicked it aside heedlessly.
“Undress,” he growled.
Jenna drew back slightly. “What?”
He yanked at the laces of his own shirt, and drew it over his head with a haste that betrayed his urgency. He did not even care that every mark that marred him, every scar that twisted his flesh would be lit by the glaring light of the midday sun. Jenna seemed remarkably unsickened by them when she touched them in the dark; surely that was worse than looking at them. Perhaps it was easier for her, knowing it was only for a brief time.
Jenna was staring at him, and for an instant he thought he saw a certain pleasure in her eyes as she gazed at his naked chest. It was enough to fire him to even greater urgency.
“Now,” he said, his voice a tight, throttled sound.
Jenna blushed as understanding clearly struck her. Her eyes flicked downward, to the rapidly expanding evidence of the need that
had seized him. Mere days ago she wouldn’t have had the knowledge to look; she’d learned much in their time together, not the least of which was how to arouse him beyond bearing with simply a glance.
He toyed with the idea of having her unlace his leggings, but doubted he could stand it and did it himself, a near gasp of relief escaping him as swollen male flesh sprang free as he pulled them off. And when she slowly, as if in a trance, moved to undo her own clothing, he doubted he would stand that sight without humiliating himself, either.
But he watched. He watched as she undressed for him, her movements awkward for a woman of such grace. He watched as she straightened, standing naked before him, her body slender yet ripely curved in all the places that made her woman, her hips tempting, her breasts full and beckoning, her nipples already drawing up tightly, as if in invitation. Aware of his own fierce arousal, he watched as, at his command, she loosed her hair and let it tumble down, a living flame against pale, perfect skin.
And when he moved toward her, he would have sworn she did not quail. Would have sworn she looked at his body with at least a touch of the same hunger that drove him when he looked at hers. Would have sworn that there was some small bit of eagerness in the way she lifted her arms to him.
He would have sworn to all of it, had it not been for the simple fact that he knew he was worse than useless when it came to judging a woman’s true feelings. They had never mattered to him, so he had never tried to discern them. And he was a fool for letting them matter now.
Especially with a woman who would die when she left here as surely as he would.
And later, as they lay under the brilliant sun, as he cried out with the force of the incredible pleasure that swept him, he wondered for the first time if perhaps there weren’t more things worth dying for than he’d been taught.
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