And then she met his eyes, triumphant, over hers.
“Oh!” she gasped in horror, and she yearned desperately to escape him, to escape his eyes, but she could not, for he wouldn’t free her. He caught her lips, and she heard him tugging upon his breeches, and then he stepped away to free himself from the restriction of them. In the starlight he was extraordinary, like an Adonis, bronzed and created of nothing but muscle and sinew and the long, hard staff of his desire. He lifted her high in his arms, she flushed with the embarrassment of her actions, and he was still triumphant with his throaty laughter. “Please….” she said to him, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of what she meant by it. He laid her down upon the bed and crawled atop her, driving into her as he took her breast deep into his mouth again. She gasped, for it was all with her again so easily, the sweet need, the ache deep inside of her, the desperate, undulating desire to have more and more of him.
And that he was willing to give. He held himself above her, and his face was strained with the harsh fever of desire, dark and striking. She did not look at him long; she could not meet his eyes. Her breath came in quick, desperate pants, and she moved with him rhythmically, accepting his every thrust with fervor, feeling the sensations rise in splendor and beauty, knowing what she reached for, and the cascading climax of it all. She was as wet and sleek as he, and achingly aware. Then she felt the explosion burst upon her again, the glorious, sweet answer to her need. She felt the sudden, shuddering ferocity with which he thrust within her, again and again. He cast his head back, a guttural groan escaped him, and he fell down beside her.
She lay in silence. Even as the breeze cooled her, her face flamed, and she wondered if a lady was supposed to behave so wantonly. She wanted to burrow into the pillows, she wanted to hide herself away somewhere, curl into a little ball in a hole deep in the darkness of the earth.
It wasn’t to be. Just seconds passed when she felt his hands upon her again. They were light and idle, his fingers just brushing over her naked flesh.
Then he pounced over her and caught her chin, and she hated the victory and the laughter she saw in his eyes.
“So she does exist!” he said. “The woman of passion, the creature of fire.”
“No …”
She closed her eyes and tried to deny him. She heard his husky laughter again, and felt his lips upon her throat, and then upon her breast, and she was so sensitive to his lightest touch by then that she cried out and shuddered and instinctively reached out, digging her fingers into his shoulder.
“No more!” she whispered. “Oh, no more!”
His dark eyes swam before her own. “I must have more while I have this woman of fire,” he told her, “lest I lose her when I shall seek her again.”
And he would have more. Nor could she deny him, or the miraculous new sensations she had discovered. There was little difference in her surrender to him when he made love to her again and again that night.…
Except that instinct took over completely, and she was not aware herself that she made love in return, that her fingers moved sensually up and down his back, that she bit into his shoulders and laved each little hurt with the tip of her tongue.…
She was not aware of it, but Jamie was, and for the splendor of that evening he gloried in her every abandoned breath and movement. He bitterly rued the fact that he was due to leave her soon.
And so he used the evening well, determined that she would not forget him, nor their marriage, when the time came that he must sail away. The dawn had long broken when he let her sleep at last, and even then he brooded upon her. He stroked the long, golden strands of hair that lay across his pillow like a sunburst, and he followed the elegant lines of her features to the slender and beautiful curves of her body.
Was he a fool, he wondered, to whisk her away, across a treacherous ocean?
She sighed, and smiled in her sleep, and he wondered of whom she dreamt. He had touched her passions. At long last he had reached inside of her, and he had found the deep sensuality he had been certain must lie beneath her sizzling eyes. But he was truly a fool, bewitched and besotted, if he didn’t realize that it meant little between them. When morning came, she would despise him anew, and perhaps ever more so, for he had proven himself the victor on this curious battleground.
No … he was right. His dream of the hundred had always been his true passion. He had married her, aye, because he had wanted her, and because he was his own master, and he had chosen to do so. But he had done it, too, because there was about her an innate strength. Her passion was for life. He would not live without her. Happy or not, she would come, and she would be his wife in all things.
Already he missed her. Already he longed for her again. There was so little time left.…
He rolled her over. Her sleepy gaze widened to his, and she whispered in protest.
“Nay, Jasmine, no words and no pretense, for I want you, and I will have you!”
She gasped, and the world spun into splendor again. When it was ended that time, he rose, quickly washed and dressed, then exited the room. A new day had dawned.
And she was left alone, small and spent, naked and tangled in the covers of their huge bed, and suddenly aware that she had given in to him. She had submitted, surrendered, and given away all.
She cursed, she cried, and she threw a pillow across the room with a vengeance, and then she lay back and cried violently into her pillow.
X
Jamie had barely left the room when Jassy heard the sound of horses’ hooves and the clatter of carriage wheels on the cobblestones below the open window to their room.
Shouts and commotion assured her that someone of import had arrived. Drawing the sheets about her, she rushed to the window, crawled upon the seat, and stared down to the ground.
There was, indeed, a carriage below, drawn by four perfect bays and bearing the crest of King James I. Jassy gasped and shivered slightly, and her eyes widened. She suddenly realized the importance of the man she had married, that a royal messenger would come to him from the king.
A portly man with a set of lush, dark curls stepped down as the footman ran down the velvet-clad ladder. By the time he stood upon solid ground, Jamie himself had appeared below to greet him. The visitor was dressed in green taffeta with red stockings and ribbons upon his doublet, and he wore a richly plumed hat. Jamie was in simple black breeches that morning, and a loose linen shirt, and his high black boots. He stood tall, whipcord-hard and lean beside the stranger. No elegance worn by another could ever diminish the nobility of his bearing, Jassy thought, and she startled herself. She bit into her lip and realized that he was an extraordinary man. From the proud carriage of his head to the sharp intelligence of his eyes, he was striking. There was much about him that was extremely fine. He had the grace of a cat, and its sleek power. He was always vital, even in stillness, even in silence. Like the sun, he radiated heat; like a forest blaze, he swept in an indomitable fury against any opposition. His passions were hungry ones; his demands he saw as law. And yet he was strikingly sensual, and that morning she at last saw the raw magnetism of him as a man, and understood that London might well be filled with women who had coveted her husband’s touch. He could stir and elicit the wild winds of the heart with a touch, with a breath, with the pressure of his lips upon naked flesh.…
He greeted the newcomer like an old friend, and received a rolled parchment from him. Then, as if he sensed some scrutiny, he looked up and saw her there, her hair tumbled all about her face, her fingers clutching the covers to her throat. He stared at her long and hard, with a curious cast to his eyes. Then he smiled slowly, and it was a smile that acknowledged not his own demanding sexuality, but hers. It was his smile of triumph, and it was a sensual invitation all its own. Then his smile faded as he heard something that the portly man said. He paid Jassy no more heed, but a dark, annoyed frown fell over his features, and he was hard and unapproachable.
Jassy gritted her teeth, flushed, and drew back inside
. She found the pitcher and bowl and hurriedly washed. She quickly dug into her chest for a clean linen shift, slipped it over her head, and found her petticoats upon the floor, where she had discarded them the night before. She paused, picking up her gown, running her hands over the silk. She pressed it to her face. She was seldom so careless with things of value. She had traded the value of her life for the value of a fine bed and a strong roof, and silk against her flesh.
Her fingers started to shake, color rushed to her face, and she felt nearly faint and very warm. The previous night had been no part of a contract, no deception. Thoughts of it still made her long to bury her face from the world, and yet they made her feel as if her bones melted inside of her, and she wondered now if the shattering ecstasy could have been real. She was shamed to realize that deep inside herself she yearned to discover it all anew.
No! She would not think about it; she could not admit to the exquisite pleasure, nor allow herself such abandonment again. She was certain that a true lady would not do so, and that when he’d looked up at her from the cobblestones below, with her hair awry and tumbling down, he’d determined that he had indeed married a whore.
She bit her lip and straightened, realizing that Molly would come and cheerfully straighten the room. She was the lady of the manor, and as such, she must hurry down and greet the royal messenger. But standing there in her petticoats and shift, she was startled when the door to their room burst inward. With her eyes very wide, she watched Jamie as he purposefully strode back into the room, a fierce scowl tightening his features.
“What—what has happened?” she said.
He cast her an irritated glare, striding toward his desk and jerking open the drawer. “God rot his Royal Majesty!” he swore in what was surely a treasonous statement.
“What—”
“The King is inconstant. The man was four hundred thousand pounds in debt when he inherited the crown from Elizabeth; five years later he is seven hundred thousand pounds in debt! He and Anne provide masque after masque for their own entertainment, when what income he has could so better be used to support his colony. One day he supports his bishops and swears that he will prosper in the New World, that he will see the Virginia colony grow and expand and fight the Catholic cloak of the Spaniards. Then he is apologizing for his colonists to the Spaniards, eager for the alliances of his children to the nobles of Europe. He is inconstant, I tell you, and seldom knows his own mind. He creates havoc by mere whim.”
“I thought that he was your friend.”
“He is the king, madame, and as such, I serve him. Yet he is part of the very reason I hunger for the new land, for though it is the king’s dominion, it is far away, and a man is judged far more for his measure than he is for his title.”
“But what is wrong?”
He cast her a sharp gaze. “You will be delighted, madame, I am sure. I have been summoned by the king to receive and deliver some of his correspondence to the Jamestown colony. I leave earlier than expected. I leave now.”
He found what documents he sought and slammed the drawer shut. He strode across the room to the door. “Lymon!” he called.
Jassy, standing there in her shift and petticoat, gasped in protest. “Don’t you dare call Lymon, and don’t think to vent your wretched temper upon me. I’m not decently clad, and I tell you, I will not have it—”
“You!” he seemed to growl, coming to her quickly and setting his finger upon her chin to lift it. “You, my grand lady, will not tell me anything. You will sit still and await my convenience.” He lifted her up by the waist and cast her in a flurry of her petticoats upon the bed. Tears stung her eyes, and she swore at him, and she wondered how, after the previous night, he could still be so carelessly rude to her. By then Lymon had reached the room, and she backed against the headboard, pulling the covers to her. She sat in brooding silence as Lymon assisted Jamie with the final touches to his packing, for he had been nearly prepared for the voyage. More servants arrived to carry down the heavy trunks, and when they were gone, Jamie at last turned to her. He leaned upon his desk and crossed one booted foot over the other, and his arms across his chest. “I had thought to have more time to express the vehemence of my determination. Lymon will see to it that a coach is prepared to bring you to London with your immediate household in time for the Sweet Eden to sail. You are free to bring your horse, Mary, if you desire, for you will definitely need a mount in Virginia, and as you seem attached to the creature, you may bring her. I know that you are still totally against the voyage, but I stress to you, my love, should you not arrive upon the Sweet Eden, you had best pray that your remains rest at the bottom of the sea, for I swear it will be a better end than what I shall have in mind.”
She did not know if it was his words, or the insolent way in which he said them, but her temper seemed to burst and shatter, and she’d have gladly torn every last hair from his dark, arrogant head. She leapt from the bed in a blur of motion and flurry and catapulted herself against him, her fists flying, her words incomprehensible, her nails bared. She came in such distraught passion that he was unprepared, and her palm and nails caught his chin and drew blood. She was scarcely aware of it, though, or of the leashed rage that grimly tautened his flesh over his features. He caught her hands and dragged them behind her back, and she swore on in a vengeance, suddenly very lost and confused, and hating him fiercely. “How dare you, how dare you speak to me this way, how dare you continue to abraid and abuse me—”
“Abuse you, madame? You know nothing of the word! Alas, perhaps I do abuse you! I drag you away from the china and the crystal, and the elegance of the manor. And you do covet fine things, do you not, milady?” He pressed her ever backward as he spoke. She stared up into the smoldering blue fire in his eyes, and the battle was still with her.
“Yes! Yes!” she cried. “You thought that if you married a tavern wench, she would not care that you brought her to a barbaric mud pit! Well, you are a fool, for I shall hate it with every breath in my body, just as I hate you—”
“Despise it, Jasmine, but find yourself there. And you may despise me, madame, but so help me, you will not forget me, or that I command your life, ever.”
“No? I have forgotten you already!” she swore violently.
He had reached the foot of the bed. and she was startled when he suddenly cast her free, shoving her upon it. He loomed over her, and she had been a fool not to realize the tempest of anger, or that the blaze in his eyes had come from anger to something more. Stunned and dazed, she struggled up to her elbows.
“Lady, we shall see that you do not forget me!”
“No!”
She struggled fiercely, slamming him hard in the chin with her elbow. He grunted in acknowledgment of the pain, and it was then that she saw the blood she had drawn upon him. She cried out, in a fury to avoid him, to twist away from him. His mouth ground down hard upon hers, and his body pinned her to the bed. There was nothing tender about his kiss, it was brutal and punishing, and still, it was searing in its heady passion. She felt a warm rush about her, the male scent of him, the unyielding strength of his arm. The pressure of his knee increased. She freed her lips from his, breathing in ragged gasps. He caught tendrils of her hair, golden in the sunlight, and wound his fingers into them, then found her lips again. She twisted from him, tears stinging her eyes. “No, you will not! You cannot order me about and have me at your whim. You will not—”
“But I will, madame,” he said grimly, “and when I am done, you will never dare jest that you have forgotten me, not for a single moment.”
“Bastard!”
“Nay, I married the bastard, you will recall. The scheming, grasping little wench who yearned for my money. How ironic! But, madame, think of it! None in the New World will know you as anything but a very grand lady, indeed. You may reign over the savages supreme!”
“Get off me!” Jassy raged. “I have paid for this bargain, and dearly. I hate you, and I hate you—I hate you atop me, and—�
��
“Do you? Last night I was convinced otherwise.”
“You, sir, are the one who called me a magnificent actress! Get off me!”
“Never, madame, for you will give me my due—”
“I owe you nothing—”
“At my leisure, my dear wife. The bastard, the actress, the whore—you have come to perform very well. Let’s see if we can draw such a performance again!”
“No!” She clawed at him anew, but he was in command, and she was pushed back, back—into the softness of the down mattress. It was quick, it was violent, and it was shattering. He secured her wrists as she swore and struggled, pushed up her petticoats and the linen of her shifts, and fumbled with the draw of his breeches. She didn’t think that she had ever despised him so fiercely.…
And yet when he took her, the fire had never been so brightly lit within her. Her struggles ceased, her hands were free, and she was sinking endlessly into the soft clouds of the bed. She cried out at the fierce impact of his thrust, and she shuddered. He paused, and then his lips lowered and took hers, and his tongue came warm into her body, as did his sex. She came alive, wild and desperate, and dug her fingers into his shoulders. She wanted him, more than she had ever learned to want him the night before. She arched for the feel of his hand upon her breast through the linen of her shift, and her hips shifted and moved and undulated in a fever. So much came so quickly. The soaring rise of sweet need, the thunderous beat of his deep strokes. She wound her limbs around him and held tight, straining against his body. His dark eyes loomed above her, and with a sob she pulled his face to hers, and her lips, curiously wet with the salt of tears, demanded something of his. He kissed her deeply, raggedly, and then tore from her, an anguished, shuddering groan escaping him. Fulfillment raged through her, cascading like a warm blanket of liquid sunshine, seeping through her limbs and into her womb. Little tremors seized her again and again, and then she fell down to earth once again, down to the tangle of sheets and linen and petticoats, and the man who still lay heavy upon her.
Sweet Savage Eden Page 19