He lowered his mouth against her. “I hate you!” she choked out. His hand cupped her breast, his lips and teeth encompassed her nipple, and she cried out at last, shuddering at the searing rage of deep, molten desire that swept through her. “Stop it, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—”
He had stopped. He held her wrists in a fierce, merciless grasp and tore at her petticoats and shift with a sudden, startling violence. Frightened, Jassy writhed to be free of him, wondering at his intent. She swore, she twisted, but in seconds she lay entirely naked, with her petticoats and shift a pile of debris beneath her, only her garters and stockings covering her legs.
His hand fell heavily over her abdomen, large, his fingers nearly covering the entire area of it. He inhaled sharply, and his eyes found hers once again.
He knew. He knew about the child.
“You’re pregnant,” he said crudely.
“It is scarcely my fault!”
He stiffened like steel. His fingers bit into her wrist, and his hand tensed upon her abdomen. “Whose is it?” he asked in a deceptively pleasant voice.
It took her several seconds to realize the accusation of his question, and when she did, she exploded with fury and broke his grip upon her. The tears she had held back, and all the desperate fear of the ocean voyage, surged into her, and she became a wild thing, crying, screaming, tearing at him, striking out with her fists and her feet and barely coherent words.
“Jassy!”
She didn’t hear him. She managed to rise to her knees, and he rose to meet her, but she slammed her fists against his breast with such a vengeance that he grunted in pain. She leapt from the bed and started to run in her stockings and little blue satin shoes, but he caught her hair and spun her back. She slammed back against the bed again, and he was on top of her.
“Jassy!”
“No, no, no!” She tossed her head in furious distress while he straddled her. “You will not speak to me so, treat me so, and think that we can do … this!”
“Jassy, shush!”
“Go to her, go to your Indian mistress!”
“She is not my mistress, I have never touched her.”
“But she serves you so well!”
“She shaved me this morning, that is all. While you—”
“You hateful, loathsome snake! It is your baby, but that doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care whose baby it is, I don’t want it! I want to go home! I do not want to die here—”
“Jassy, you’re not going to die!”
Silent tears streamed down her face. “Why not? The baby died upon the ship. It was born blue. They wrapped it up and they threw it overboard, and the fish have surely eaten it. And then Joan died too. She bled to death. She lay there and she bled to death, and there was nothing—nothing!—that could be done for her.”
She hadn’t realized that he had freed her hands until she saw that she was pounding them with little strength against his chest. He was dead still, tense, watching her, and ignoring her blows. Finally he caught her hands. He held them between his own. “Jassy, you are not going to die. You are a very healthy young woman.”
“I don’t want this child!”
“I do.”
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him. “Why did you marry me?”
“What?” he said wearily.
She started to laugh. “You did not want me. You wanted a vessel who you could force here. You wanted someone who could survive childbirth in this place. You—”
“Stop it, Jassy.”
“No!”
“Stop it!”
“No!”
She opened her mouth to speak again, but this time he found a more direct route to stop her. He closed her mouth with a kiss.
It was a deep, searing … and tender kiss.
His tongue delved into her mouth again and again. It filled her mouth insinuatively, and then withdrew, and each time her lips parted more fully in anticipation, and then she met his tongue with her own, and their mouths met again and again. He began to stroke her body, and she had never known such care from his hands, such a tenderness. He touched her so lightly that she arched, aching to feel more his palm against her breast. He breathed and nibbled against her earlobes, and his tongue drew a fiery trail down her throat and over her collarbones and into the deep, shadowed valley between her breasts. And again she writhed and arched to meet him when his mouth fell full and wide over her breasts and sucked upon her slowly and completely. His hands wandered and roamed and found the moist center of her, and she cried out and pressed him there too. Trembling from head to toe, she closed her eyes and writhed, awaiting him. Suddenly he was gone.
And she had what she had wanted, what she had longed for.
He stripped impatiently.
She watched him through half-closed eyes. He moved toward her, bronzed and sleek and powerfully muscular. She admitted as she lay there with the air caressing her body that she loved the proud, leonine quality of his head, the indigo of his eyes, the rich, dark hair upon his head, his chest, and nesting the protruding manhood of him. She wanted him.…
He crawled atop her and caught her palm and brought it to his lips. He kissed it and brought her hand downward.
“Touch me,” he whispered.
“No …”
“Touch me.”
“No …”
“Touch me.”
“Yes …”
He cast back his head and let out a male groan of pleasure and triumph that might have shattered the house. Jassy did not care. She was fascinated by the powerful shaft of him, by the seething pulse, the massive life. His lips found hers, and he kissed her, and he touched her, too, and in the end she was nearly delirious. He groaned out again and twisted her and turned her, and there was nowhere upon her that his lips did not brush her flesh. His teeth nipped against her buttocks and his tongue ran hot and wild over her spine, and she was seeking access to him, too, all the while. She indulged herself in her whims, and in her dream, and she stroked the fine muscles of his chest, she played the touch of her fingers over his tightly muscled rear, and she teased his earlobes with her teeth and bathed his shoulders with her kisses. She was half sobbing when he rose above her at last, and she screamed with incredible pleasure when he plunged deep, deep within her, burying himself.
She screamed again when it was over, the sensation was so strong and so volatile. Embarrassed, she buried herself against the slick dampness of his chest and tried not to think of all the very wanton things she had done.
His arms wrapped tightly around her. His chin rested on her forehead, and he stroked her hair. He was as silent as she.
The fire in the hearth burned low. Jassy thought that perhaps he slept. She turned slightly, but he held her still, his hand beneath her breast, his fingers very lightly splayed upon it. She felt the length and warmth and strength of his body, curled flush to hers.
“Jassy …” he whispered. His fingers moved from her breast to her belly. “Don’t be afraid. You are not going to die. I want my son. I will be with you.”
“I—”
“What?”
“I want to go home,” she said.
He stiffened, and his arm went still. She trembled and caught his hand when he turned away from her. She was suddenly terrified that he would spurn her.
“Jassy,” he said, and he held her again. “This is your home.”
“You will not let me go?” she whispered.
“No.”
Another tremor ripped through her, and she was not sure if his answer distressed her, or made her sweetly pleased. Her fingers tightened around his, and he paused and laced his slowly and carefully with hers. “You are my wife, for better or worse, and I will never allow you to leave me.”
“You accused me of lying with Robert!” she said.
“I do not think that you would.”
“And why not?”
“Because you know that I would be forced to slay Robert.”
She shivered, sud
denly, violently, because it was certainly true. She wished that he had told her that he knew that she would not because she would not dishonor him, her sister, or herself.
But then, Jamie certainly did not think the best of her, or of her motives.
He had gone silent. He held her still, warm and secure against him, and for that she was glad. But she could not bear her life here if he were to turn from her.
“What of the Indian girl?” she persisted.
“She is an interpreter. Nothing more.”
“Would you swear it to me?”
He released her suddenly, rising above her to study her eyes in the darkness. “What?”
She swallowed, meeting his eyes with a mixture of determination and innocence in her own. “Please, I want you to swear it to me.”
He smiled slowly. “This once, milady, but I am not a man accustomed to having his word doubted, so do not think to challenge me so again. I swear—Hope is an interpreter, and nothing more. We think that she is a descendant of a white hostage from Roanoke, the lost colony. I have never touched her, I promise. Is that all?”
“Yes,” Jassy said complacently. She hesitated and added a prim “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He lay down beside her. His arm did not come around her until she nudged her buttocks against him and sighed softly. Then he turned, holding her against him once again, his hips to her derriere, his hand resting upon and below her breast.
It was a very comfortable way to rest, Jassy determined.
“One more thing, milady.”
“Yes?”
“I shall teach you how to fire a musket; you need ask no other man.”
“No, milord,” Jassy said sweetly. “I will need to ask no other man.”
“For anything.”
“For anything.”
Her fears had receded remarkably, and to her amazement she quickly closed her eyes and very quickly drifted into a sound and dreamless sleep.
XIII
Jassy awoke when a firm hand made sound contact with her derriere. She jerked up in indignation and discovered that Jamie was already dressed, and staring down upon her like a tyrant. The fire had burned very low and the room was cold. Adding insult to injury, he pulled her covers away. “ ’Tis morning, love. And we’ve things to do. Up.”
It wasn’t morning, not at all. There was only the palest flicker of soft pink light finding its way into the room. Jassy stared at him with sure hostility, reprocured her covers, and burrowed back within them. She had not risen so early in a very long time. Not since she had scrubbed floors before dawn to save her mother the labor at Master John’s.
“Come, milady—up!”
The covers were swept away again. Jassy cried out in protest, coming to her knees to retrieve them. She came flush against Jamie, who was laughing at her, a wicked gleam to his dark gaze. Men, she decided, were impossible. She had submitted and surrendered to him, answered his every demand in life, and he was behaving like the devil’s own autocrat.
“I’m freezing!” she said.
“Then dress quickly and you will not be so cold. Wear something warm, for it seems we have an early cold snap.”
“Fine!” she promised him. He started to turn, and she snatched back her covers and sank back into the down of the bed. She was startled to hear the sound of his laughter, and then feel the weight of his body as he leapt down beside her. Her eyes opened wide upon his, and the mischievous glare within them.
“If I cannot get you up, then I suppose that I must come down.”
She gasped softly and rolled quickly from the bed, just evading the grasp of his fingers. Shivering, she landed upon the floor but quickly leapt up and snatched the covers around her nakedness. She frowned, seeing the good humor in his face as he propped upon an elbow to watch her. He was completely dressed, down to high boots and greatcoat and plumed hat.
“You’ve been out already?” she said.
“Aye, madame, I have. The hunting is best in the very early morning, when the creatures of the forest awake to break their own fasts of the eve.”
“You might have let me sleep—”
“Nay, love, though I’d a mind to, in appreciation for the wondrous quality of the night.”
She flushed and bit into her lower lip. He was amused; she wished that she did not so easily betray her ardor, for she was certain that it gave him good cause to reflect upon her background. “If there is a certain time—”
“There is, and it is now. The day begins early, at dawn. We hunt, and the farmers take in the first hours of the day to work the fields, for with winter almost upon us, darkness comes early. And now is the time when we dine, and since the days are so busy, it is best if we all dine at one time.”
“I will dress.”
He sighed with drama, and his eyes fell fleetingly over the length of her. “Be damned with a meal!” he declared, pushing off from the bed and striding toward her. She let out a little gasp, but he was upon her, taking her hard into his arms. “Be damned with a meal, and with time, and with schedules. I cannot bear it. I fear that I must sweep you into my arms.…”
He kissed her, sweetly and deeply and tenderly, and though she knew that he was teasing her and being entirely dramatic, the kiss was sweet and enflaming and entirely decadent, and quickly sent a surging stream of molten flame streaking through her. His lips left hers to land against the pulse at her throat, and she whispered to him in sudden panic. “No, Jamie, it is morning! People will expect us downstairs, we must go down. I’ll dress quickly, Jamie, they will be waiting for us—” She choked off, catching her breath, for he pulled the sheet away from her in an instant, baring her body to the cool air of the morning.
“Let them wait,” he said, and he was teasing her no longer. His eyes were hungry, and they ravaged her with no uncertainty. She was indeed freezing now, for the room was chilly, and she had no sheet about her, nor did he touch her to warm her. Her teeth chattered, goose pimples broke out on her flesh, and her hair streamed out over her breasts where the peaks of them teased through golden strands, hardened by the chill, and fascinatingly enlarged by her pregnancy.
“Jamie …”
He came back to her, laughing. He took her into his arms and kissed her again, then his laughter faded and his lips found her shoulder blades and collarbone, and he very slowly lowered his length against her. Her fingers fell upon his well-clad shoulders and she could have pushed him away, but she did not. “I am cold—”
“Nay, lady you are hot as fire.”
And soon she was. The light of day was upon them, and it seemed dangerous and sinful and very exciting. She shivered still against the cold of the room, but where his lips touched her and where his hands fell upon her, she was aflame. He traveled the length of her, and she gasped and bit back a scream when he touched her searingly and intimately, and she cast back her head to the abandon of it, her fingers moving over his shoulders and then into his hair, her body alive with trembling.
She could not think, but only feel the sheer, sweet assault upon her senses.
She was not cold.…
No, not cold at all. The molten fire raged the whole of her, like sunlight streaking from the center of her being, wherever he touched and ravaged and laved. She gasped and cried out, incoherently mouthing his name, pleading that he stop. But he did not, and the sunfire did burst and explode and cascade throughout her, and then she heard his pleased, husky laughter, and flamed crimson as the nectar of her ecstasy escaped from her body.
She thought that she would fall, but he quickly swept her into his arms. He laid her upon the end of the bed, adjusted no more than his breeches, knelt down, and swept into her with the driving velocity of a sudden summer storm. He held tight to her shoulders and met her eyes, until she cried and twisted so that he could not stare at her eyes and see the betraying and forbidden things that were surely alive within them.
The storm spent, he lay against her, his dark head just below her bre
asts. She was tempted to run her fingers through his hair, but she bit into her lower lip and held back, suddenly afraid of the very depths of the thing that raged between them. She must not give so much, so freely. She could hold nothing back, nothing at all, and it was frightening, when he still held so very much of himself away from her.
He shifted slightly, and his hand moved over her abdomen. She stiffened; she could not resist, for no matter what his words, the thoughts of the child brought new horrors to her.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” she lied quickly.
He swore slightly, turning away from her. “I wish I knew what it was that could unlock your mind!”
“Unlock my mind!” she cried. “You have everything! You have even that which I would hold away from you—”
“That’s it, my love. Exactly. You try to hold back.”
“But I am the daughter of a whore and unable to do so?” she whispered bitterly.
He caught her shoulders, pulling her up. “Jassy, you are my wife, and a beautiful and passionate woman, and nothing else beyond that matters.”
“Because we are in this wilderness.”
“Because I have said that it is so.”
She flushed and lowered her eyes, for she thought that he was in earnest, and that he did not mock her. He rose and adjusted and tied his breeches, and before she could curl away from him, he was beside her again, his hand lightly upon the swell of her abdomen. His fingers rose and encircled her breasts, and she bit her inner lip, staring toward the door.
“You frighten me,” he said softly.
She stared at him, amazed for one that anything could frighten Jamie Cameron. “Why?”
“Because you do not want the child and you are capable of impetuous and dangerous measures. Tell me, is it because it is my child?”
She didn’t understand his question at first, and therefore she hesitated, then hoped she had not hesitated too long. “No,” she said quickly. “I—”
“Never mind. I don’t want to hear it. But you will hear me out, and hear me out well. If you think to avoid this pregnancy, you could very seriously be risking your own life.”
Sweet Savage Eden Page 24