A Lady of the West (29 page)

She untied the tapes and pulled the first one off over her head. He stared down in frustration at the almost identical garment that had been beneath the first. She hurried to release it, then closed her eyes in mortification as she let it drop to pool around her feet. Now she
was clad in only drawers and shift, and hot color rushed into her pale face. Even on those two horrible nights when the Major had tried to consummate their marriage, he hadn't insisted on watching her remove her clothing. But this wasn't the Major, it was Jake. Paralyzed, she stared at his broad chest and naked, heavily muscled shoulders, the smooth skin gleaming in the mellow lamplight. Curly dark hair covered his chest, punctuated by two small, tight brown nipples. Oddly, she had never before thought about a man having nipples, and seeing his made her even more acutely aware of his half-naked state.

Jake stiffened against a surge of lust as he looked at her round breasts pushing against the thin cotton covering them. God, she was pretty, slim and ivory-skinned, delectably curved in all the right places. “Now the shift.” The words were a little hoarse.

She turned white again and automatically crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I won't.” But her voice shook, and Jake was almost at the limit of his control. He reached out and roughly jerked the garment up and over her head, forgetting about it even as he tossed it aside. His mind was on Victoria, on the pale, full globes of her breasts and the delicacy of her small, pinkish-brown nipples. He had wanted to punish her a little bit because of the worry and torment she had caused him by running off, but his patience and need for revenge had run out. More than anything, he now just wanted her naked and willing in his arms.

Victoria cringed as her breasts were bared. Not even the Major had ever insisted on seeing her naked bosom. She tried to cross her arms over her chest again, but Jake caught her wrists and held her arms down at her side as he leisurely looked her over.

“Don't hide from me.” Heat was rising in him, swelling his loins with an intensity that made him shake, now that he was so close to having her. He'd never before known this kind of hunger, this overwhelming urge to have this particular woman and no
other. “I'm going to see every inch of you before I'm finished.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she burst out, tears stinging her eyes. She blinked them back, not wanting him to see her cry. “What have I done to you?”

“You've got it all wrong,” he said, his voice even hoarser than before. “I'm not looking for punishment. I want you, and you want me. It's time we did something about it.” He released one of her wrists and put his hand on her waist, smoothing his palm up her rib cage, savoring the softness of her skin under his fingers. “You're going to enjoy it as much as I do.”

She stared incredulously at him. “You're mad!”

Her disbelieving outburst told him a lot. He smiled and slid both arms around her, pulling her tight against him. “You'll see, sweetheart. I'm not McLain. I'm going to love you until we both go crazy.”

Out of the confused, combined vortex of fear, shock, embarrassment, and outrage, only one coherent protest formed, and the words were a moan of despair. “But you—you shouldn't see me like this!”

“Why not?” he murmured, bending his head to nuzzle her ear. “You're so pretty and soft. We're both going to be naked before too much longer, and if you like to look at me half as much as I like looking at you, we may never put on clothes again.”

She trembled at the very idea of lying naked with him; the thought was so foreign to her upbringing that her mind felt numb, unable to form the picture. She was pathetically grateful that at least she was still wearing her drawers, though she was afraid the garment wouldn't remain on her much longer.

“Kiss me,” he said in a cajoling tone, but she couldn't. He cupped her chin and turned her face up to him. “Kiss me,” he said again, whispering, and covered her mouth with his.

Victoria hung in his brawny arms, her toes barely brushing the floor. His mouth smothered hers, and
she felt dizzy. Despite herself, she had to cling to his heavy shoulders. The raspy sensation of his hairy chest against her sensitive nipples almost took her breath. When she gasped for air, his tongue moved into her mouth, taking the deeply intimate kiss from her, penetrating her in that small way to help prepare her for the other. Despite her fear, his taste was warmly familiar, the scent of his heated skin so exquisitely tantalizing that she wanted to turn her face into his shoulder and inhale it more deeply.

A warm, heavy feeling was growing in her body, making her feel drugged. She pulled her mouth away but her head fell back, exposing her throat to his mouth. “That's right, honey,” he murmured, sliding one hand down to her bottom and lifting her against the hard bulge at his loins.

She gasped again and moaned an incoherent little protest. He couldn't be doing this to her, she couldn't be feeling this way, as if she wanted him to continue kissing her, as if she wanted him to do more. It was a strange, hot madness, that she should want him to do the very thing she had found so repulsive when the Major had tried it. Her shock at her own lack of propriety made her squirm, an action that tore a groan from deep down in his throat.

He held her to him with one arm around her bottom, and with his other hand he pulled at the tapes that tied her drawers at the waist. When they loosened he closed his fist in the soft material and tugged it downward, baring first her buttocks, then her mound and thighs. Victoria gave a strangled cry and arched against the steel band of his arm, but he merely tightened it and lifted her higher, so the drawers fell to her feet, and then to the floor.

He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. For the first time Victoria actively fought him, trying frantically to get away. She felt painfully exposed, so much at the mercy of his much greater strength and rampant sexuality that she lost control.
She kicked and hit at him, trying to pull free and throw herself off the bed. He subdued her easily, catching her hands and pinning them over her head, controlling her legs with his powerful ones.

“Easy now,” he said soothingly, his breath warm against her face. “Don't be afraid, honey, you have no reason to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you.” His voice was low and reassuring, and he bent his head to brush his mouth across the tender joint of her neck and shoulder.

The hot touch of his mouth on her bare skin made her jump, and with an incoherent cry she strained upward again. He held her down, wondering why she was so frightened. Surely she knew he wasn't going to hurt her. But maybe her experiences with the Major had been even more unpleasant than he'd thought, maybe she truly expected the worst of him. His body was screaming for him to take off his pants and enter her now, but relief wasn't all he wanted. Victoria was so much a lady, but she was also a woman of passion and he wanted her to give him that passion. He wanted her to cling to him, her body arching to receive him rather than trying to throw him off; he wanted to feel the soft internal clenching of her release.

“Victoria. Look at me, honey. Stop fighting and look at me.”

“Get off of me,” she cried in a stifled voice.

“No, I won't get off.” He shifted control of her wrists to one hand, and with the other caught her chin and turned her head toward him. Her eyes were wet with tears, he saw, but she hadn't allowed them to fall. He kissed her temple in appreciation of her pride, then moved his lips to her cheek. “You don't have to be afraid,” he repeated softly, and brushed a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

“Don't do this, please don't do this to me.” The words burst out, and she was dimly appalled to realize she was begging. She'd sworn she wouldn't do that,
but the stark reality of being stripped naked had also stripped her of pride. She would grovel if it would stop him from hurting and humiliating her this way. “I'll leave, I promise I will. We'll leave in the morning if you want—”

“Now, why would I want that?” he murmured, the corners of his mouth kicking up in amusement. He leaned over her and lightly rubbed his chest against her nipples.

The contact, light as it was, rasped across her delicate flesh. She inhaled with a quick, shallow gasp, her concentration splintered. Her nipples were burning, tightening. He did it again, this time increasing the pressure a little, and the traitorous warmth in her began to blur the edges of her fear.

He kissed her, opening his mouth over hers. He probed her mouth with his tongue, kissing her in the slow, sure, purposeful manner of a man who knows he isn't going to stop at kisses. She made a muffled sound of protest but he kept on until her lips softened, until he felt some of the tension ease out of her muscles and she began to respond to him.

She didn't want to respond; she tried to fight it, only to find herself undermined by her own emotions. When everything was said and done, she loved him. Even knowing he didn't love her, that his taking of her was part of his hatred for the Major, she couldn't stop the warm tide of feeling when he touched her. She couldn't stop herself from welcoming his small invasion with her own tongue and drawing his taste deep inside.

He stroked his hand in one slow motion from her chin to her throat, and downward to cover her breast. She jerked in shock, alarmed by the first feel of a man's hand on her bare breast. His palm burned her, and the tightening sensation in her breasts intensified. He gently kneaded, then rubbed his thumb around and over the nipple in a circular motion that made her
moan aloud. She tried to jerk her mouth free of his, but Jake deepened the kiss, holding her while he transferred his attentions to her other breast.

She began to tremble, but no longer from fear.

He finally lifted his head and looked down at the soft, pale mounds of her breasts, at the tightly beaded nipples. His sinewy, darkly tanned fingers were a rough contrast against her delicate skin. “You're so damn pretty,” he said, and bent his head to her breasts.

His mouth closed hotly over her nipple. Victoria cried out, the sound strangled in her throat. Pure sensation jolted her and she arched again, but was still held pinned by his controlling hand and legs. She had never imagined he would use his mouth on her in that way, never anticipated the searing wet heat, or the prickling pressure as he sucked strongly, his cheeks flexing with the movement. His tongue flicked and rolled around her nipple, and she began burning, the heat twisting downward to pool between her legs. She whimpered, aware of the shameful undulation of her hips but unable to do anything to stop it.

“That's right, honey,” he whispered. “Let me feel you move.” He shifted his mouth to her other breast, awash in her taste, giddy with the sweet scent of her breasts and the feel of her nipples. She gave another little cry, the sound making him shiver with need.

He slid his hand down her belly and pushed it between her legs.

She jerked wildly, shock overcoming pleasure. “No,” she cried, shaking. “Dear God, no!” Her hips bucked as she tried to dislodge him.

Jake caught her mouth with his, silencing her protest with long, deep kisses. She strained against him, but he kept kissing her until that storm of resistance, too, had passed. When she was limp and shaking, he lifted his mouth.

“You feel so good, sweetheart. Open your legs for me, let me touch you.”

“No, it isn't right, you shouldn't do that—” She remembered the pain when the Major had shoved his fingers so roughly into her, and she shrank from the memory.

“Yes, it is right,” he interrupted in a low, warm tone. His eyes were intensely green, burning, and—tender. “I want to touch you, I want to feel how soft and wet you are.”

She shuddered. “You won't hurt me?” She wanted his touch. Her body was aching shamelessly for him, but the remembrance of her wedding night kept her from obeying.

His face tightened. “No, I won't hurt you,” he promised, and wished bitterly that McLain could come back to life so he could kill him again for daring to hurt this woman. “Open your legs, Victoria.”

She did, finally, her thighs relaxing enough to allow him to move his fingers. He did so gently, parting the lips of her sex and opening her to his caresses. Victoria shuddered again, acutely aware of the embarrassing moistness she knew he could feel as he lightly stroked her. But this wasn't like what the Major had done, she thought dazedly. He wasn't hurting her, he was rubbing her, exploring the sensitive folds with tender fingers, and he was breathing hard as if touching her there excited him beyond bearing.

“You're going to like this,” he said, and brushed his thumb across the small nub at the top of her sex. An exquisite pleasure, so intense it was almost painful, shot through her body. She moaned, unaware that her legs opened wider as she arched against his hand.

He continued using his thumb, drinking in the small sounds she made, loving the way her hips were moving. The scent of her body was hotter, more intoxicating. There was fever in her now, the fever he had craved from the time he had met her, burning high to match his. Soon, very soon, she would be his. She was wet, he thought wet enough, but to make certain he slowly slipped one finger inside her.

Victoria stiffened when she felt her body penetrated, dazedly bracing herself for the pain, but instead the heavy, burning ache inside her intensified. No, it wasn't an ache, it was intolerable pleasure. She didn't know, didn't care. Her entire body was throbbing. She turned her head against his shoulder as he began moving his finger in and out, the motion enticing her hips into an undulating movement she couldn't control.

Jake groaned aloud. She was so small and tight he knew he'd have difficulty entering her, no matter how ready she was. She was so wet, trembling on the verge of satisfaction, that there was no point in delaying any longer.

Now, finally, he released her hands, but Victoria didn't think of fighting. It was too late for that. Fire was burning through her, her breasts were aching and there was a deep throb between her legs that she didn't know how to handle. Her body felt heavy and limp, curiously disobedient. She watched him without comprehension as he got up and stood beside the bed, his hands working at his waistline. Only gradually did she understand that he was unbuttoning his pants, and then only a fraction of a second before he pushed them down and off.