But he felt good. Really good. Strong. Ready to be up and about. To walk, to run …
To make love.
He groaned, rolled over, and pulled the pillow on top of his head. It could be so easy. They could both forget who they were and give in to temptation. Had he forgotten? She was a widow, but a respectable one. She should never have been kissed the way that he had kissed her. There were ways to act with a young woman, and ways not to act.
War made a mockery of propriety.
She had asked him not to touch her.
And so he would not.
Sleep. The Yankees are not coming tonight. She’s given you back your life, your health. She’s sheltered you from the enemy. She’s fed you, and given you clothing. And she’s cared for you.
He leapt up and went back to the dresser for the whiskey bottle. He swallowed a big draught, then fell back on the bed.
Colonel, you will sleep, he told himself. That’s an order.
But he didn’t sleep. Lying awake, he thought of home. Kiernan, Jesse’s wife, was there now, with her new baby. His nephew. Daniel at last smiled, thinking of the big, lusty fellow with a fine temper to match any Cameron who had come before him.
His smile faded. That’s where the future lay. With their children. What would the South be now, after this ravishment had gone on even longer? What world would they inherit?
He reached out in the darkness, almost as if he could touch some intangible beauty that might soon be gone. A very special world had been his. His, and Jesse’s, and Christa’s. Cameron Hall had provided everything for them. All of those lazy days by the river. All of the dreams that they wove and dreamt beneath blue skies and powdery white clouds, beneath the shade of moss growing thick on old trees. Maybe it had been a world of privilege, and maybe the privilege was about to be lost. He wouldn’t mind that so much, he thought. Since the war he had become extremely self-sufficient, as there was little other way to be. But if they were to lose Cameron Hall, he was not sure he could ever learn to live with the loss.
Cameron Hall, or Christa—or Jesse. His brother, his enemy.
Daniel had understood when Jesse had kept his loyalty to the Union. Maybe because he knew his brother better than anyone else in the world. The first Cameron to come to America had left behind vast estates and wealth. He had turned his back on those riches and built in a wilderness. More than a century later, Daniel’s great-grandfather had set his cap with the struggling new colonies, despite the fact that he had been an English lord. Win or lose, they had always been taught that a man had to follow his heart and the dictates of his soul.
The way that Daniel saw it, Jesse’s soul had just told him to go the wrong way. But he understood. And he would never have asked Jesse to go against those dictates.
It had been hard to watch him walk away the first time, back in ’61, right after Virginia had made its decision to leave the Union. He was the oldest son, the inheritor. Still, he had walked away.
They had not met in person again until McClellan had waged his peninsula campaign early in the summer.
Then it had become necessary for Daniel to find Jesse because he had to tell his brother that Kiernan was expecting his baby. Kiernan, who was as passionately southern as Jesse was determinedly pro-Union.
A smile crept slowly onto Daniel’s face then. He’d been badly wounded in the battle that day. Jesse had found him and had risked a hell of a lot to bring him home to Cameron Hall, along with Kiernan, who had been trying to reach her own home. And Jesse’s Yank friends had turned blind eyes toward Daniel, and a whole troop of Rebs had pretended not to see Jesse along the way.
Kiernan had married Jesse, and the baby had been born, and Daniel had healed up nicely in a few days. In that time they had almost brought back the magic. They had all played with the baby on the grass, they had lain back and listened to the river, and they had felt the heat of summer and the soft breeze of the night.
And then Jesse had ridden out again. A number of Yanks might have been dispensable, but not Jesse. He was a doctor, a good one. No army in this war could afford the absence of a good doctor and crack surgeon.
They’d stood by the old cemetery, surrounded by their long-gone ancestors, and in silence they had embraced once again. The silence had been broken by the sounds of Kiernan’s sobs. She had discovered that she loved Jesse far more than any cause.
Kiernan was at Cameron Hall now, along with Christa, the baby, and Kiernan’s young in-laws from her first marriage. The slaves had been freed, but most had remained. There was nowhere that they really wanted to go. So right now, it was still possible to dream of home.
He rolled over, wishing that his thoughts would cease to haunt him, that he might sleep.
But no thoughts of others could keep his thoughts from the one Yankee who now shared this house with him. If Kiernan had married Jesse in the midst of the conflict still raging, then all was possible.
It could be possible for him to touch his angel once again. She of the dove-gray eyes and dark-fire hair and swift, elusive tenderness. She was so near him. Just down the hall.
She had asked him not to touch her.
Asked him after he had already touched her once, felt the fever in her body, felt the shape of her, sensed the longing, known the taste of her lips.
He flung himself up, swearing loudly and violently. One more swig of whiskey. Hell, no, maybe the whole bottle. He had to do something. He was a wounded soldier, needed back in action. He had to sleep, to heal.
He glanced at his sword across the room and took another pull from the near-empty bottle. At long last, he slept.
The sound of something heavy falling awoke him from a deep, deep sleep. He jumped up, startled, instantly on the alert.
He was no longer drunk though he did feel slightly hung over. The more awake he became, the more his head hammered.
He stood shirtless and barefoot, clad only in his borrowed breeches, listening. The sound didn’t come again. He narrowed his eyes, realizing that it had come from the bedroom to his left down the hallway.
Callie’s room.
He reached for his hip, accustomed as he was to wearing his Colts and sword even as he slept. He didn’t know what had happened to his guns, and his sword lay in its scabbard across the room. Silent on his bare feet, he strode across the room, sliding his cavalry sword from its scabbard. Still moving in silence, he slowly twisted the knob on his door and began to move down the hallway.
The door to Callie’s room was closed. He was certain the sound had come from there. He clenched his teeth tightly together, hesitated just a moment, then twisted the knob, and thrust the door open in a single, fluid movement.
A startled “Oh!” greeted his arrival. He stood in her doorway, his sword at the ready, the tension in him rippling the muscles in his naked chest. His hair was in rakish disarray over his forehead from the night he had spent tossing and turning.
There was no enemy within the room to meet him, just Callie herself.
She was not ready to welcome him at all. Her eyes, enormous in the white heart of her face, flashed out a silver dismay. Deep auburn wisps of hair escaped a knot she had fashioned at the back of her head to trail damply about her cheeks and forehead. Her flesh, too, was damp, touched with little buttons of water.
She sat in a hip bath, her knees drawn halfway to her chest, the wooden tub itself barely blocking the length of her body from his view.
It was the most extraordinary torment. There was so much that he could see. The long ivory column of her throat. No woman had ever possessed a throat so beautifully long, so slim, so elegant. He could see the slope of her shoulders and the hollows of her collarbones. Lovely hollows, shadowed, dark, seducing, demanding a kiss or a caress. Beneath the shadows, he could just see the rise of her breasts. Full, fascinating, taunting.
He had to walk away Fast.
But just then she nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. He didn’t know if it was the wetness of her li
ps, or the glimpse of her tongue, but every bit of his control vanished, swept away in the mist that rose from her bath. He didn’t move. He remained transfixed, his eyes upon her lips.
“What—what are you doing?” she managed to demand in a whisper.
He had to wet his own lips to talk. He couldn’t quite draw his eyes to hers.
“I heard something.”
“I dropped a kettle,” she said defensively. Still, he didn’t move. His gaze was slipping. Her mouth was fascinating, but so was her throat. And the lush hint of the fullness of her breasts.
He dragged his gaze back up to hers.
“I thought that the house was under attack,” he said.
A smile flashed quickly across her features. “So I see. You were ready to defend yourself. So, Colonel, would you skewer me through?” Her voice was still almost a whisper. Husky, throaty. A voice that titillated, that sent hot spirals curving into his groin. If he hadn’t felt the raw surge of desire searing into his body already, the sound of that voice alone would have brought him to attention like a bolt of steel. “What with your sword so raised, Colonel …” The hush of her voice trailed away all together. Her smile faded and a flush infused her cheeks as she realized the double meaning of her words. Indeed, both his “swords” were well raised and certainly at the ready.
“Cause you injury, madam? Never,” he said gallantly. But had he really been gallant, he would have turned at that moment. But his feet were lead, and he could not leave. He remained, watching her.
“You are interrupting my bath!”
“I came rushing to your defense.”
“I am in no danger.”
“I could not know that.”
“I take that back!” she cried. “I am in grave danger now.”
Indeed, she was. “The danger, Mrs. Michaelson, was in choosing to bathe, I’m afraid,” he murmured regretfully.
“Oh, damn!” she swore softly. “Damn! I could have bathed in the kitchen, but with you here, I did not! I dragged the tub and the buckets up the stairs, and … and …” She paused, staring at him. “And here you are, invading my privacy.” She was really beautiful with her eyes flashing so. He’d never seen a color closer to true silver. Shimmering, haunting. So elusive, so seductive.
“I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. Only—”
“Defend me, indeed,” she murmured.
“I should leave now,” he said.
“Yes, you must.”
But he didn’t leave.
Watching him there, Callie knew that there had been no conviction in her voice. Leave, yes! Walk away, she thought. But the words would not come. She had watched his eyes. She had felt their blue fire move over her. Felt them touch her own eyes, felt them slip lower. And where his eyes touched her, she felt a sweet fever, as if that mere touch could warm and excite her flesh. As if some exotic caress covered her shoulders, and skimmed her throat. She felt the desire, and feeling that raw passion deep within him ignited some essence within her own soul.
It was so wrong. She was a widow. She had loved her husband. She honored his memory. She never should have had a man in her house. She never should have allowed a man’s eyes to touch her in this way.
But sweet visions of the past had faded away. All sense of propriety seemed to slip through her fingers like the water that she bathed in.
From the moment that she had seen him, she had felt a fascination with his face. From the moment that she had touched him, she had felt a growing affection for him as a man. From the moment he had first touched her, she had felt the overwhelming stirrings of desire that came now to haunt her heart and limbs and soul with a vengeance.
Tell him to go! she commanded herself.
But she could not.
She stared into his eyes, and then her own vision slipped. She was staring at his chest. At the sleek muscle there, so taut now, rippling with his every breath. At the dark whorls of hair that grew there. She wanted to touch that whorl, feel it spring beneath her fingers. He was so bronze. He had probably tanned in the rivers where he bathed while camped with his men. He had gained that muscle from wielding his sword, she tried to tell herself. But reminders of war meant nothing. Enemy or no, she liked the man she had come to know. Watching him now, she wondered if even that mattered.
She wanted him. Wanted him to come closer. And touch her.
“You have to go.” She managed to speak the words. That was not at all the message in her eyes.
“I know,” he said. But neither was that the message in his movement, for he had lowered his cavalry sword and was walking toward her.
Closer, closer, until he stood over her.
And then he smiled. Ruefully. Sensually. His fingers wound around the rim of the tub.
“I like my women to want me badly,” he drawled softly, his blue gaze burning into hers.
“Ah, but I don’t want you at all, Colonel,” she told him smoothly. What a lie. In all of her life she had never wanted anything so badly as she wanted this man now. Her lips were dry again, despite the steam that rose from the bath. She could feel the swell of her breasts, the hardening of her nipples. And dear Lord, what she could feel between her thighs …
His smile had deepened. “I like my women to want me very badly, Callie. I like them just as hungry as they can get. I like my women—”
She crossed her arms over her traitorous breasts and raised her chin in a taunting challenge. “Ah, but Colonel, I am not one of your ‘women.’ I am the enemy, remember?”
“Indeed, Callie. But what a way to do battle!” he murmured.
“We cannot do battle.”
“On the contrary, Mrs. Michaelson. I’m afraid that we must.” He lowered himself down on his haunches, his eyes on a level with hers. “You are one Yankee to best me beyond a doubt, Mrs. Michaelson, for I could not leave this room were I threatened with Hell’s damnation itself! To think!” he added softly, ruefully, “I mocked that poor fool last night, Callie, when I, myself, will want you now until I die.”
He could not know what he did to her, how he made her feel, how deeply, how desperately she wanted him in turn. But how could she dare touch him, stroke his shoulder, taste the salt upon his flesh, lie naked beside him….
Flashes of desire, like melting stars in the sky, caught fire and danced all through her.
“Callie!”
Her name on his lips was a caress. He stood above her once again, and still he had not touched her.
“Think!” she charged herself to say once again. “I am the enemy! Vile, fearsome—”
“Never, never vile!”
She drew her knees more tightly against her body. Sensations tore madly through her as he walked behind her slowly. To have him here, so close, where she could not see him! To know that soon he would touch her and then … She felt the blood begin to race through her body like wildfire and a raw, searing excitement bring shivers to soar up and down the length of her spine.
“Really. You have to go,” she whispered. She was barely able to create sound. The words were a breath on the air.
He knelt down behind her. “I know,” he said. But he made no attempt to leave. “Really. I have to go. Dear God, Callie, we both know that I cannot!”
Just when she thought she would scream with the waiting, with the anguish, with the denial, with the desire, she felt his lips at the back of her neck. Felt his kiss cover her flesh. Felt a searing, sensual heat that was so sudden and so startling and so welcome that it sent a burning ripping through her.
“Oh!” The softness of her cry escaped her. She nearly slipped beneath the water, but he was there. Lifting her up, pulling her into his arms. She fell against him. The water from her body formed rivulets that snaked along his. Her breasts were crushed against the dark hairs that had so fascinated her before, and now brought such a new rush of sensation to fill her. He held her still for one breathless moment, held her against him, feeling the mist-laden heat that fused between them. His hand stroked the side
of her face. He cupped her jaw. And he kissed her. Kissed her again and again.
Deep, wet, hungry kisses rained down upon her. Kisses that raped and ravished. Kisses so tender that she strained and ached to have more. Kisses that again plundered and excited, kisses that left her both weak and hungry. As hungry as he might ever have desired her to be.
Her arms wound around his neck and he lifted her high from the tub. Water sluiced over both of them, and neither of them seemed to notice. He stretched her out on her bed, freeing her hair from its wound knot as he did so, and splaying it over the white covering on the bed. He watched his handiwork as he surveyed the dark fire and sable strands, then his gaze met hers.
He found her eyes full of wonder.
Once again, he kissed her. This kiss was soft and slow and achingly tender. Everything wild and raw and urgent was held tightly back, and his mouth very slowly caressed her. Liquid and effusive, his lips moved over hers, his tongue tasted them, his teeth grazed them.
She felt the movement of his hand upon the length of her, his fingers grazing over her thigh and her hip, her ribs, her breast. His knuckles grazed the lower side of her mound, then his hand cupped around it. She realized that he was no longer kissing her, his eyes were on her once again. His gaze lowered, focusing on her breast, and on a tiny bead of water on the hardened red peak. Once again, his gaze touched hers. His head lowered against her body and the tip of his tongue touched the droplet of water, and moved erotically over the very crest of her nipple. His mouth closed over that taut bud and the dusky rose areole, and began to tease and taste and savor, to suckle and caress.
She cried out at the strength of the sensations that seized a tight hold of her. Her fingers curled into his hair, and she heard herself calling out his name.
Deep within her body began a pulse, an urgency unlike anything she had ever experienced. She felt the power of his body over hers with every inch of flesh, with all of the searing fire now burning swiftly through her limbs. Her fingers moved in his hair, stroked down his neck, then down over his back. She stroked hard muscle, alive and vibrant. Flesh and muscle she had touched before, to cool, to heal.