Jesse didn’t want a drink, she realized.
Jesse wanted her.
Six
Suddenly, he slammed the door shut behind him and advanced upon her, his long strides bringing him to stand before the chair. She was silent, staring down into the cobalt depths of his eyes.
She’d thought that he’d have so much to say, that he would speak and she would listen, that she would soothe the anguish that swept his soul. She’d thought there would be many words to share.
But there were no words. He reached out to her, wrapping his arms around her. The tempest and the passion and the heat in his arms were so great that she instinctively wound her own arms around him, and for a long moment, his head lay against her breast. Indeed, she thought, she soothed him.
But his was a wildness that did not seek to be soothed.
His hands wound around her waist, and he lifted her from the chair. She slid slowly, evocatively, against the length of his body. She felt again all the things that she had felt in that previous touch.
Felt his body, the hot corded tension. Felt the deep power of his chest, the hardness of his thighs. Felt the taut demand of his hips and the unyielding strength of that which lay within his loins.
His lips touched hers hungrily. He did not seek to slowly seduce—there was nothing leisurely about his kiss. His lips took and consumed hers, ravaged them. He did not seek a subtle entry to her mouth. Instead, his tongue plunged between her lips and teeth and demanded the sweetness of her mouth.
His arms held her with magic, with fire and fervor and tempest, with something that entered deep into her body and demanded a response.
He broke away and stared down at her in the shadows cast by the dying sun. For a long, long moment she didn’t move. They stared at each other, caught up in the heedless, swirling excitement that hurtled and slammed between them. Feelings raced through Kiernan, hungers and yearnings, and dark forbidden things.
She had imagined them before. She’d tasted hints of aching and wonder in his arms before.
He began to kiss her again.
She closed her eyes and swept her arms around his neck. She met his kiss as a new-found thirst and desire brought a trembling to her lips.
She was learning swiftly what to do with those lips.
An innate sensuality blossomed and grew within her, there in the wooden shack, in the late afternoon of a day that had been beset by blood as dark as the crimson of the dying sun.
Their lips met again and again, open-mouthed, in hungry, wet kisses, kisses that melded their lips and their bodies, that brought the searing heat from that sweet touch to burn deep into the heart of unleashed desire.
Kiernan knew what she was doing all the while. She knew before his lips trailed from hers to touch her earlobes and her cheeks, to slide provocatively along the narrow column of her throat, to rest against her pulse and travel onward along the length of her collarbone.
The touch of his fingers upon her shoulder sent her cape falling to the floor. And his lips fell against the naked flesh of her throat once again.
The things he did with his tongue …
She felt that she was falling, that his touch had already entered into her body. She trembled as her senses reeled. The warmth was so sweet, entering, like nectar that caressed her inside and out. She concentrated so on the wonder of the sensation that she barely realized that Jesse had found the tiny hooks and buttons at the back of her gingham day gown, and that she was slowly losing it as he slipped it downward to her waist.
His fingers lifted the delicate strap of her chemise, and his mouth pressed against the spot where it had been. That same wet warmth was placed over the fine silk where it molded the very tip of her breast. He caressed and nurtured the flesh beneath the fabric, wet against the hardening bud of her nipple.
Like lightning it moved, the searing ecstasy of the sensation. It touched her breast, and like his kiss, it touched so much more. It spread like the summer rays of the sun, spiraling down to her stomach and beyond, entering low into intimate places between her thighs—shocking places.
“Oh, Jesse!”
She whispered his name at last—not with protest but with wonder. She discovered herself swept up into his arms, held tight against the rough fabric of his cavalry cape. As he carried her to the bed, she didn’t care.
She didn’t care about the dust that had settled upon the woolen blanket and down mattress. The room was surely cold, but she felt no chill. None of it mattered. She had mused and pondered and imagined, as any young woman might, this first time with flowery, chivalrous phrases, with soft candlelight and the scent of roses on the air.
But none of that mattered, none of it at all.
It didn’t even matter that no words of God’s blessing had made them man and wife.
She was with Jesse, and she trusted him as much as she desired him. Perhaps therein lay the beauty of this tryst in the cold and rugged cabin in the woods.
When he saw the dust, he set her upon her feet, swept his cape from his shoulders, and laid the garment with the soft lining upward upon the sleigh bed. Then he turned back to her, and again he paused, and she realized that he was trembling too.
He lifted a ringlet of her hair from her shoulders, and she saw the slight movement in his fingers. He buried his face against it, then she was in his arms once more, tasting his kiss, tasting all the sweet and mysterious and haunting things that it promised.
He found more hooks, and she felt her gown whisper down to her feet, leaving her in the bone of her corset, her delicate chemise, her petticoat, and her pantalets.
He was an experienced lover, she thought. Despite his haste and fire, he was at ease with the complexity of her clothing. He could kiss and tease and tantalize, his lips never leaving her flesh. Her petticoat crumpled to her feet. The softness of her chemise was stripped away, the material rustling over her naked flesh, as sensual as his touch. Still his mouth and the moist searing heat of it kept her in wonder as he cast aside the restriction of her stays, tossing the bone far from them.
Her shoulders and breasts were naked to his gaze.
He paused briefly to just stare at her. In the twilight, his eyes reflected flames, flames that smoldered and elicited both desire and shyness, a need to be known, and a need to hide. But before she could react fully to the fires that blazed in his eyes, she was within his arms again.
There were words at last, words that touched her flesh in hot whispers. They told her that she was beautiful. Words of poetry—
And words of raw hunger.
She found herself swept up again and laid both fiercely and tenderly upon the satin lining of his cape. He lay quickly down beside her. The brush of his fingers and the warmth of his tongue raged over the mounds of her breasts, explored contours and creamy skin, and set fire to the pebblelike peaks of rouge and crimson that tautened instantly at his touch.
She had thought before that his kiss could enter deeply into her. Now it seared a trail so hot that it denied her all thought. All she knew was longing. She arched against the palm of his hand as he pulled the tie to her pantalets. A flush—soft pink in the twilight of the shack—flooded her cheeks. But she felt the husky tenor of his delighted laughter, and when his lips found hers again, his whispers eased her from embarrassment.
He had wanted her so very long. He had waited, and he had known, he had always known, just as he had known the summer gales that swept the Tidewater, that one day they would come to this.
Her pantalets were shed, her shoes were tossed aside.
And her stockings were removed more erotically than she had ever imagined clothing could leave the human body. The stroke of his fingers, feather-light against her thighs, moved upwards toward that center of flame.
His shoulders were broad and bronzed in the light, his chest dusted with a heavy spattering of dark hair. He was well muscled but whipcord lean, so taut in the belly, lean in the hips …
And passionate within the dark nest of his l
oins.
She saw him completely for only seconds because he crawled over her and straddled her hips. She gasped as his sex touched her, as hard as steel but as hot as fire against her flesh. With almost the curl of a smile to his lips, his face was still very tense. He stared at her again. She felt shuddering within him and knew that no matter how badly he wanted her, he would pull back now if she wished it.
The sun suddenly fell farther. Red light flooded into the shack, washing away the shadows. His flesh was toned red, and when she lifted her own hand, she saw that it too was caught in that glowing reflection.
Like a reflection of blood.
She started to shiver, suddenly very afraid. But she wasn’t afraid of Jesse. She wanted to hold him tighter than ever.
“Jesse,” she whispered.
“It isn’t right,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have you here. I shouldn’t have swept you away. I should never have touched you. Your father would have a right to take a rifle to my heart this very moment.”
She blinked away the illusion of the red light. The shivering stopped. Her soul was on fire, her body was on fire. She wanted to touch his flesh, to run her fingers over the muscled breadth of his shoulders, to test the tight ripples in his belly, to press her lips against his chest. Most of all, she wanted to appease the longing inside her. She wanted the emptiness to be filled.
She reached out and touched his cheek. She spoke a truth that she never thought she would utter.
“I love you, Jesse.”
A soft oath escaped him, and she was swept back into his arms. She felt the fervor of his kiss, and the heat and fire began to build and spread anew within her. Hungrily he feasted upon her breasts.
And hungrily she tasted him in turn, twisting, turning, to press her lips to his shoulders, his throat, and softly, wetly, drew patterns down the rippling muscles of his chest.
He shifted upon her suddenly. The thrust of his knee parted her thighs, and the weight of his body spread her further. She felt the erotic touch of his hands again. His fingers caressing, exploring, ever more boldly. She felt him touch her intimately in the very place where she seemed to feel the spiraling heat most deeply.
A cry tore from her lips and she surged against him. And still he touched her, more deeply, more intimately.
Tantalizing …
He had created a tempest within her, and she rocked and undulated against his touch. A spark glowed deeply inside her, and each sweet stroke of his sent the fire burning more and more brightly.
Again he shifted, and it seemed that all of his body parted her. Incredibly, impossibly, he demanded more from her, and he gave more to her. His kisses lingered upon the softness of her upper thighs.
She must protest, she knew that she must—just as she knew that her cheeks were flooded with color. She tried to whisper his name, but the word wouldn’t come.
She couldn’t protest. The feelings were too exquisite, the longings too intense.
Then he took his boldness a step further, and she felt the searing moist heat of his kiss, of his tongue, against the most intimate of virgin flesh. Nothing, not the wind, not the fire, not the ice of winter, could ever cause such sensation. She gasped and sought to rise, but his fingers curled around hers.
The ecstasy was so sweet that it was anguish. She could bear no more of it. She was faint, she was dizzy, she was trembling, and she knew that she must reach some promised explosion or perish soon for the longing and the soaring.
It was then that he took her, when she needed him so desperately. The pain came swift and staggering. She cried out with it, stunned, her fingers tightening upon his flesh.
But so quickly it was gone!
She had been empty, and now she was filled. His kisses held her while the thrust of his body entered within her, deep, deeper. A velvet blade cut her in two, brought agony, a certainty that she could never bear the intrusion.
But his kiss, his touch, his slow, shattering movement—all these brought her feelings and senses reeling into play again. The agony receded, and the sweetly soaring ecstasy came to the fore once again.
He moved so slowly, thrusting against her until she cried out, then rose again. Then once more he moved, slowly, achingly slowly …
Until she discovered that she was rising against him. Until the need within her was so rich and so great that she could not bear his absence. Oh, how it grew, this need! And still he took care, planting kisses upon her breasts as he moved. She arched against him, thrust and writhed against him.
Suddenly his arms wrapped tightly around her, and she knew that Jesse would wait no more. She arched against him, and he willingly availed her of her longing, bearing down upon her deep and hard and fast, creating a rhythm that flew with a pulsing beat. She lost all sense of what was around her. She heard the water beating over the rock, and the sound swept into her. She hungered, she wanted, she ached. She needed all that she received, but she reached, and she did not know why she reached. The sweetness, the ecstasy filled her until she thought that she must die with it, that she must explode, and still he moved.…
Then it seemed that she did die, and that her senses did explode. Shattering light burst all around her, the rays fell from the sun, a thousand stars seemed to burst and shimmer down upon her all in one. She could not move, for the stars disappeared and the world went briefly black, and when she could see again, the stars were still cascading down upon her. Warmth radiated through her body and to her limbs, sweet nectar filled with warmth. Her body was racked with shudders.
And then she felt Jesse. He went deadly taut above her, muscles bunching and constricting, and he moved against her once again, thrusting so very deeply.
A sweet warmth burst from within him, showering into her. To her amazement, it brought a new flow of ripples within her own body, tantalizing, wonderful little aftershocks of splendor.
His weight rested briefly upon her until he rolled to his side. His arms curled around her, and he brought her with him. She leaned her cheek against the sweat-sleek flesh of his chest, and her lashes closed over her eyes. She had never felt such exhaustion.
She had never known such wonder.
Jesse was silent, stroking her hair. She herself couldn’t speak because she couldn’t think what to say. It had been one thing to share such absolute intimacy in the heat of the moment, but now, in memory, much of it made her blush. And now, as the cold night air settled over her and darkness began to replace the multitude of colors of the sunset, she realized that she should not have done this. Her father would be horrified; indeed, any man or woman within her world would be horrified.
She’d never really even kissed Anthony.
And Anthony would have never even thought of making love to her like this. It would not be proper. If she married Anthony, they would probably go through years together with neither of them ever knowing the other as intimately as she now knew Jesse.
And yet doing this couldn’t be wrong. She loved Jesse. She had told him so. He had given her every opportunity to stop what had happened between them.
She shivered from the briskness of the air. “Cold?” Jesse asked her.
“Very,” she whispered.
He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, then balanced his weight to roll over her and leap lightly to the floor. Naked and comfortable in his nakedness, he walked over to the fire and knelt low. “There’s kindling,” he murmured. He strode back to his pants for his striker, and within a few minutes he had a warm fire going. Kiernan had not waited for that warmth to draw his navy cavalry cape around herself. She wasn’t sure if she was ashamed of her own behavior or not, but she simply couldn’t be as comfortable in front of Jesse as he was in front of her. When he returned, she was sitting up and watching him somewhat nervously.
He smiled. His dark hair was totally disheveled and fell in an ebony lock over his forehead. He seemed younger than the man who had carried her here in such a tempest. His smile was crooked and wicked, yet broad and filled with both hu
mor and tenderness.
“I saw you reaching for the liquor when we came in. Need a drink now?”
“Yes,” she said. “No—I mean, I don’t need a drink. I really shouldn’t be drinking whiskey. Ladies don’t …” She paused and her voice trailed away, and then she looked up at Jesse. “Oh, Jesse, ladies don’t ever do what I did here today, do they? Ever.”
He found a glass and wiped the rim carefully, then splashed whiskey into it. He took a long sip himself, then came to sit beside her. He drew her close to him, and the roughness of his cheek rubbed against her forehead when he spoke. “Only the very greatest ladies could love so deeply and so well,” he told her. He offered her the whiskey. She sipped it and coughed and choked, and he patted her upon the back, smiling.
“Don’t! Oh, please don’t laugh at me!” she implored him.
“Kiernan, I would never laugh at you. Lord, sweetheart, today has been the most tender day in all of my life, and I will thank you for it always.”
He seemed sincere, and she discovered that she could no longer meet his eyes. She stared at her hands. His were so large and so bronzed—the palms roughened from constant riding, but the fingers so long and precise and dedicated to his medical calling—very dark against the whiteness of her own.
Those fingers curled around hers. “I think that this has been coming all our lives.”
“I am practically engaged to another man,” she murmured.
“Ah, yes. Poor Anthony,” Jesse said dryly. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. He rose and reached for his long johns and then his trousers with their yellow piping. He pulled them on and headed to the fire, poking it to stoke up the flame. The firelight played upon his chest. For a few moments she dared to survey him. She relished the play of gold and orange and fire that danced over his flesh. In his very masculine way, he was beautiful, toned and hard and beautiful. He had held her in his arms, he had held her against his flesh, and he had given her so very much. She had no experience, yet she was shrewdly convinced that she had been seduced by a rare man, that what she had touched was indeed a form of magic. And without Jesse, she might never touch that magic again.