Part 21 (2/2)
He lay down beside her and brought the back of his hand against her cheek, touching the length of it, as if he studied just her cheek and found the form and texture both beautiful and fascinating. Then his finger roamed over the damp fullness of her lip. He watched the movement as he touched her, then his eyes met hers. She could still feel, in her memo~j, in the pulse that seemed to beat throughout her, the touch of his lips against hers. And yet when he kissed her again, though the feel was poignant, she knew that he would move away when he did.
He lay back against the hay, staring at the rafters and the ceiling.
He groaned softly, then rolled suddenly, violently, to face her again.
He didn't touch her, but leaned on an elbow to stare at her reproachfully.
”You couldn't have just arranged a room, for me, huh?”
”You couldn't have just stuck around for a while, huh?” ahe retorted.
He was ruining it, dissolving the moonbeams, destroying the moment she had imagined and waited for.
He rolled on his back again.
”Go to your room,” he told her.
”I had no right to drag you out here.”
Tess leaped to her feet, her cheeks flaming, her body and soul in torment.
She stared at him furiously.
”You have no right to do what you're doing now! To ruin everything!”
”To ruin everything?” He scowled.
”Tess! I'm trying d.a.m.ned hard to do the decent thing!” And she would never know what an effort it was taking. He felt on fire, as if he burned in a thousand h.e.l.ls. It had been all right before he touched her, before he felt her lips parting beneath his.
Before he sensed her innocence and the sweet wildness beneath it, the pa.s.sion, the sensuality that simmered and swept beneath it all, that promised heaven. She was different. He wasn't sure if he dared take her all the way, because he knew it would mean fragile ties that might bind him forever. He couldn't find a simple fascination in her beauty; it would be more, and though he couldn't begin to define it, it was there.
He already slept with dreams of her haunting his mind; he never forgot for a moment the way she had looked upon the rock, as naked as Eve, as tempting as original sin.
”Tess, don't you see? I'm trying to let you go!” She paused, and it seemed that she waited upon her toes, as if she would go or stay according to the way the breeze came.
There was a curiously soft smile on her face, almost wistful, a look he had seldom seen.
”What if I don't want to be let go?” she asked him very quietly, with a breathless, melodic whisper. He wasn't sure he had really heard the words.
Real or not, they ignited embers within him. He came to his feet and looked at her across the small, shadowed distance that separated them.
He could almost reach out and touch her. If he did, he would be lost. If he put his hands upon her now, he would never let her go.
”You have to make up your mind.” He almost growled the words.
”No strings, no promises, no guarantees. You should run. You should run from me just as fast as one of those thoroughbreds of yours.”
”Why?”
She didn't move; she hadn't taken a step. There was a note of amus.e.m.e.nt and challenge in her voice. Her chin was raised high; her eyes were brilliant, nearly coal-black in the shadows. He forced himself to walk around her, but that was a mistake. The moon was filtering through the windows, and the light played havoc with the flannel gown she wore.
Light touched fabric, molded it, saw through it. He felt again the softness of the woman he had held, and his hands itched to touch her again. A hunger took root inside him, one that made him long to caress and taste and know.
”Why?” He repeated her question.
The reasons were swiftly leaving his mind. If she was willing, he was more than anxious to drown in the sweet depths of her fascinating waters. He clenched his fingers and kept moving casually.
”Because we're in a barn, because I've the distinct feeling you don't know what you're doing, because you're young and because you're probably the type of woman who ought to fall in love, deeply in love, with the right man, and have a band of gold, and all the rest. Because I'm the hardened refuse of an ill-fated war, and though I don't mind a fight, I wouldn't be looking for more than a lover.”
She smiled.
”Lieutenant, what makes you think I'd be looking for anything more than a lover?”
He almost groaned aloud. If she didn't leave soon. ”Tess, I don't think you know” -- ”I'm twenty-four, Lieutenant. And just as much the refuse of an ill-fated war as you are. That war taught me a great deal. You can't always wait to seize what you want. Life is too short, too quickly severed.”
She was smiling still, and there was something poignant about her words that caught hold of his heart. He had never seen her more beautiful, more feminine, more arresting. Her eyes were wide; her smile was gentle; her still form was compelling in the flannel that was draped over her shoulders, nearly falling from them, that conformed to the rise of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then fell to the floor. Her hair was a river of dating, honeyed light that caressed and embraced her, waving around her shoulders and falling almost to her waist. Her eyes. When he came close, he saw that they were not coal-black at all, but so deeply colored in the near darkness that they appeared to be a rich and hypnotic purple.
He held still. He watched her and tried to find the fight words, the words that would get her to leave. She would hate him for humiliating and rejecting her, but maybe that would be better than what he wanted.
To own her, to have all of her, to teach her everything she wanted to know so thoroughly that she would forget everything but the feel of him beside her.
”Come here then,” he said hoa.r.s.ely.
She still seemed to pause. Like a sprite, like a night witch or angel, he knew not which. A rueful curve came to her lips, and she said softly, ”Jamie?”
”What?”
”Where did you take your bath?”
He smiled, too.
”At the livery stables. Not at the saloon.”
”Thank you,” she murmured, then she took a step toward him, and another step, and she was in his arms.
His mouth closed upon hers, and he let his hands wander where they would. He had tried to do the decent thing. And it hadn't worked. So now. She was fragrant, like a drug. He breathed in the scent of her hair and the scent of her flesh. He kissed her lips and her earlobe, and he pressed his tongue against the surge of her pulse at her throat, and he took her lips again, savoring the caress of her tongue, feeling the rise of heat and need and the rampant beat in his loins as the thrusts of their tongues became ever more erotic and telling. He stroked her body through the flannel, caressing her breast, finding the peak and ma.s.saging it to a hard pebble with his thumb and fingers. Then he cried out and lowered his mouth upon her, his teeth grazing the fullness of her breast and the hard peak through the fabric, the dampness of his mouth pervading it and bringing whispers and whimpers to her lips.
She braced herself upon his shoulders, and cried out, falling against him.
Trembling, he lifted her and set her on the coc.o.o.n of sheet and quilt in the hay. Then he stood over her, watching her. He ripped away the kerchief at his throat and slowly undid the b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt. He watched her all the while, but her eyes did not close. He threw his s.h.i.+rt upon the hay, and pulled off his boots and socks, unbuckled his gun belt and then his pants belt and finally peeled away the last of his clothing. Her eyes closed at last, but not before her cheeks had taken on a dusky hue.
”You can still run,” he told her harshly.
She shook her head. Her hair lay spread across the quilt and sheet and dangled into the hay around them. He knelt before 'her and set his hand upon the hem of her gown, pus.h.i.+ng it up.
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