Her Defiant Heart (51 page)

Christian's fingers uncurled around Jenny's wrist. He did not move away. Neither did she.

"You believe your plans are superior to my own," she said. "How can I not be afraid for you? You will not even consider the possibility that something might happen to me."

Christian listened, but he did not want to hear. As if she knew, he felt Jenny's hand move to his shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you," he said. "I
won't."

"You may not be able to prevent it," she said. Her arms slid around him, and she rested her cheek against his hair. "And you will blame yourself anyway. I know you will... it is in your nature. It was not your fault that Braden or David or Logan died. You are not responsible for your mother's death, nor your father's. You are not so powerful as all that. Those things
happened.
There is no good explanation... no fairness in it."

Jenny heard him suck in his breath as his shoulders heaved once. She could feel the ache of his unshed tears as if they were her own. She held him. Her eyes burned. Long minutes went by before she spoke again. "I want to be with you, Christian, but by my own choice. Can you accept that? Can you accept that you cannot determine everything that happens to me by sheer force of your will?"

Christian laid his hands over hers and turned his head slightly. Her lips brushed his ear. "Never stop loving me, Jenny," he whispered. "I can accept anything but the thought of you not loving me."

She kissed the corners of his eyes and tasted the damp, salty traces of his tears. Her mouth hovered above his. "I love you, Christian Marshall. That is not going to change."

He believed her. "I am a like your portrait," he said. "A work in progress."

She smiled. "Yes. You are that."

Christian's hands curved against her waist. "I wanted to smash Stephen Bennington's face tonight."

Jenny adjusted her position, resting her head on his shoulder. "I never loved him. I know that now. I suppose I pretended for a time, but I was engaged to him because I did not know what else to do... and being in love seemed a convenient solution." Jenny's fingertips were a light caress across the hard plane of Christian's abdomen. "You understand why I did not tell you who I was, don't you?"

"I think so. You were afraid to trust anyone—including me. Most especially me."

"That was part of it," she said. "But it is also true that I
enjoyed
being Jenny Holland. People accepted her... me. You can see that it is confusing."

"The only difference between Jenny and Caroline is the size of her fortune."

Jenny considered that for several moments. She pressed back another yawn. "It is something to think about it, isn't it?"

"May I suggest sleeping on it instead?"

Jenny nodded and allowed fatigue to claim her. She fell asleep long before Christian permitted himself the same luxury.

When he was awakened abruptly, Christian felt as though he had been asleep only minutes. At first he thought the noise had come from the outer room. He stilled, his ear cocked toward the door, hardly daring to breathe. When the sound came again he realized it was beside him.

"Jenny?" Except for a low, aching whimper, she didn't stir. Christian reached for the bedside lamp, lighted it, and replaced it on the table. As he turned on his side, light fell over his shoulder and beyond, caressing Jenny's face. Beneath her heavily lashed lids her eyes were moving rapidly. Her mouth was slightly parted. There were tiny beads of perspiration glistening above the curve of her upper lip.

Without warning Jenny's left leg shot out. Her foot caught Christian on the shin. He cursed softly, not because of his pain, but because of hers. He could only imagine what dreams were torturing her; she had lived a nightmare.

Christian placed one hand on Jenny's shoulder. He shook her gently and said her name again. Her face contorted, and he recognized her anguish. He had seen it in the treatment room as she was being forced under water. Jenny was right when she said there were events over which he had no control, but in Christian's mind this did not qualify as one of them. He could spare her the remainder of the nightmare.

Brushing aside a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, Christian said her name forcefully, compelling her to join him in wakefulness. Jenny's eyes were deep wells of darkness when they opened, unfocused and startled. He watched her panic ease when she recognized him.

"Was I sleepwalking?" she asked. Her heart still beat a rapid tattoo in her chest. She breathed in slowly to calm it.

"No."

"Just a nightmare then."

Christian did not mistake the relief he heard in her voice. "Do you remember any of it?"

"No."

He got out of bed and padded naked to the bathing room. He tossed a towel over his shoulder and wet a fresh cloth. When he returned, he washed the visible traces of her nightmare away.

Jenny was soothed by his presence, by the tenderness of his ministrations. "I am going to have a baby, Christian."

His expression did not change. He patted her face with the towel, and then he dropped it and the damp cloth over the side of the bed.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

Lying down beside her, he propped himself on an elbow. The back of his fingers caressed her cheek while his eyes remained cool, fathomless pools.

Jenny sighed. "You already knew, didn't you? I suppose Scott told you. He promised he wouldn't."

"No, Scott did not tell me. You can depend on his word. But why not say so?"

"I thought you would insist on marriage."

"I didn't, though, did I? And I have known almost as long as you and Scott."

"You have?"

"Mm. Would you like to see your portrait, Jenny?"

"Now? But you said it wasn't finished."

"It's not. But then neither are you." He grinned, levered himself away from her. "Not quite. I make it to be another six months give or take a week. Is that about right?"

She nodded.

"I thought so." He wrapped the fallen towel around his hips and padded softly to the easel. He turned it around and stripped away the sheet. "I believe I mentioned I was filling you out."

Jenny stared. Her lips parted, but no words occurred to her. Awe kept her silent.

She had no real sense that she was looking at herself. What she saw was a young woman, heavy with child, sitting in a rocker with her back to a mullioned window. A penumbra of light haloed her hair. Her face was partially shadowed, but there was a suggestion of ineffable peace in the smile that hovered about her lips. One hand rested on the arm of the rocker. The other rested on her swollen belly. She wore a plain cotton shift. There was purity in the simplicity of the shift, grace in the woman's pose, and serenity in her condition. Christian's brush strokes were soft. The colors blended at the edges, diffusing the light so that it seemed to come from the canvas as if it existed there independently of the sun.

Christian watched Jenny closely, gauging her reaction. He followed every expression that crossed her face and knew that she was not displeased. He covered the painting and turned it away. "I knew when I began painting you that something was different. I could not identify what it was at first... just a difference. Then the picture began to take shape, and it was as if my hand was disengaged from my eyes. When I looked at what I had sketched... when I saw... I knew then it was true. So many things fell into place after that. The sickness that you struggled to hide, the weight loss. The teary moments."

"The fainting," she said wryly.

"That, too. You scared me that night." He returned to bed, sliding under the covers she held up for him. "You didn't know until then, did you?"

She shook her head, her smile sheepish. "I was so hopelessly ignorant. Scott had to tell me. It was a relief to know there was nothing wrong with me. The weeping was the worst part of it. I was out of patience with myself. Sometimes I thought, well, you know what I thought. Madness. The treatment room is never far from my mind."

She plucked idly at the blanket. "Scott says it is not at all unusual for a woman in my condition to be a watering pot." She released the blanket and raised a forefinger to trace the line of Christian's lower lip. Her expression was solemn. "I like the painting, Christian. I like it very much. You honor me... and our child."

His head lowered. He touched Jenny's mouth with his own. They shared the first sparks of heat. Jenny's lips parted and Christian caught her sigh. Her mouth was warm, sweet, and his kiss was tender and tasting.

She removed her nightshift, pulling it over her head. She smiled a little at Christian's frank, almost impersonal assessment as he studied the changes in her body with his artist's eye. When she saw passion flare in his darkening eyes, her smile widened. Whatever changes there were, real or imagined, they met with his approval. She removed the towel from his hips and regarded him as openly as he had regarded her. Oh, yes. It was good that there were changes.

They did not exchange many words. It was unnecessary. Their bodies spoke for them. Jenny had only to move a certain way, lean into Christian, arch her throat, or shift her weight for him to know what she wanted and to respond to her need with the touch of his hand or the caress of his mouth. Christian welcomed Jenny's exploration. Her lips were damp, velvet soft, and they made an erotic sucking sound each time they touched his flesh.

Christian's knuckles brushed the undersides of her breasts. They were so achingly sensitive to his lightest touch that he went slowly, gently, until that too became a form of such exquisite torture that Jenny begged for his mouth. His tongue laved her nipples while her fingers curled in his hair and her breath grew increasingly ragged.

His mouth returned to hers, and he kissed her deeply, silencing the short gasps that gave sound to her pleasure. Jenny's hands slipped away from his hair, first bunching at his shoulder, later skimming the length of his spine. He arched, grinding his hips against her. She moved too, cradling him so her skin felt the hot pressure of his arousal.

Jenny kicked at the sheet that had become tangled in their legs. The barrier between them was unwelcome. Jenny wanted to feel the contrasting strength and texture of Christian's legs against hers. They changed positions so that he was under her. She moved over him, touching her lips to his mouth, his chin, trailing kisses along his neck and collarbone. Her forefinger traced the outline of his chest muscles, and she felt him suck in his breath as her mouth dipped over his navel and her tongue made a damp, tickling foray. She moved lower. And lower still. She heard him say her name, and the sound of it was husky encouragement as she began to pleasure him with her mouth.

Christian's strong fingers pressed white against the mattress. The liquid heat of Jenny's mouth fired every nerve. He withstood the loving assault as long as he could before dragging her away. He made her endure the full measure of equal pleasure in return, parting her legs so he could stroke the hot, wet flesh that was at the center of her excitement. He lifted her legs and brought them over his shoulders. Her heels dug into his back as Christian's probing caress lashed her senses.

Jenny was a willing captive to all that he did to her, all that he made her feel, yet there was no sense that she was surrendering any part of herself. Nothing was given that was not given freely. For his part, Christian was as deeply held by the spell that she cast. It wasn't a word that brought him inside her, but a look. The desire that darkened her eyes to polished onyx was not to be ignored. He held himself still inside her while she adjusted to the hard length of him, and then he smiled and dared her to be the first to move.

It was not a challenge she cared to take up. She arched beneath him, and he couldn't help but respond. He stroked her slowly until it was no longer possible to continue in that manner. The elemental need they shared demanded shorter, harder thrusts, and even though Christian wanted to draw out the pleasure just shy of forever, he gave in to the more basic, quickening rhythms that were the prelude to loving's end.

Jenny clutched him for purchase as pleasure rippled through her. She bit her lower lip until Christian's mouth slanted across hers, hot and hungry. Their mouths were touching as he shuddered against her. They exchanged hurried whispers that spoke of their joy, desire, and love.

Afterward, their bodies curved together. They were quiet. Christian's arm rested under the soft fullness of Jenny's breasts, and his warm breath parted light strands of her hair. Their breathing calmed in unison, and they fell asleep within minutes of each other.

* * *

They woke up making love. It was an odd experience as they came to awareness together. Their eyes, which had a sleepy aspect of desiring in them, cleared and widened as they exchanged startled glances. "Oh, my," said Jenny. The hard evidence of Christian's arousal was buried deep within her. "Oh, God," said Christian. He closed his eyes a moment and tried not to think of how tightly she held him. "I'm sorry," he said, and started to withdraw. "I'm not," she said, and trapped him with her legs. After a moment she eased slightly and slanted him a look that was all feigned innocence. "Unless you don't want to..." Christian soft laughter came from deep in his throat. "Like hell."

* * *

"Do you want to come with me?" Christian asked. He picked up a sweet roll from the breakfast tray he had ordered and took a bite. He was ravenously hungry and made no secret of the reason for it. It was his third roll.