Forbidden (19 page)

The fire in her loins began to reach a
fevered pitch and his name was a prayer on her lips. Clenching her
fists, she pressed hard against his length, tightened her thighs
around his waist and still he teased her. Her entire body rocked
with the force of his strokes and in the part of her mind that
still functioned, she realized that each time his shaft slipped
over her, the heavy sac between his legs would slap against her
opening. The sting of it made them both shudder and Jocelyn began
to focus solely on the gathering bliss and the solid strength of
Damon’s hands on her hips.

He worked her over and each time his
body slapped and slid against her own she cried out at the intense
pleasure of it. Larger and larger a weight began to build, a bright
light down a long tunnel calling to her. Beckoning until she ran
for it with her heart pounding.

Between one sigh and the next Damon’s
eyes appeared above her and he rested his forearms on either side
of her head. He was close enough now that she could wrap her arms
around his neck and hold him to her. The angle of his hips shoved
at her body so exquisitely that it was all she could do not to
simply break down and beg.

Their breathing mingled, her eyes
filled with tears, and the muscles in her thighs began to shake. He
shifted and moved one arm away from where it rested beside her,
then he surged again forward and the head of his thick shaft slid
down over her very core. When he pulled back he gripped the base of
his sex and rubbed himself over her opening. She felt a spurt of
liquid escape from the head of his sex and it was scalding, liquid
fire. A brand compared with the breeze that blew across her from
the sea. It rolled over her sensitized body at the same time he did
and the contrast was all it took to send her over the
edge.

She clenched, and her body went stiff.
Jolts of ecstasy rolled through her, riveting down her legs,
through her belly. Her breath hitched in her chest, dragging from
her lungs as she cried out. She clawed at his back, wanting more
and knowing she wouldn’t get it. Damon groaned, shuddering. He
pressed his face against her own and she gasped and sobbed as she
pulled him close, fingers tangling in his dark hair. The world was
white, an explosion of colors and she sunk into the ocean of it
with Damon’s arms wrapped securely around her and his voice
whispering soothing praise against the shell of her ear.

* * * *

How could he have been so
stupid?

Where was his restraint? Where was that
inner strength and determination he’d often been praised for in the
war? Where, and this was the most important question of all, was
his head?

He watched as Jocelyn’s eyes fluttered
and closed, hiding eyes dilated with pleasure. She fell asleep
almost instantly and her nipples brushed against the hair on his
chest each time she took a breath. He watched until her thumping
pulse calmed and her body relaxed completely in his arms. Then he
pulled away from her. His clothes were dryer now than they had been
but his skin still broke out in goosebumps as the cool wind from
outside hit him. He was still hard, still painfully erect but he
forced himself to move away from the molten lava that was her cunt
and back into is britches. For a moment he stared down at her, the
clouds which had been sending down torrents of rain now clearing
away as the storm passed.

The light from the moon was strong
enough to see how pink she was, how small and wet. His attention to
her pretty little clit had engorged it with blood and it sat there,
nestled within her folds looking raw and much too sensitive for his
peace of mind. He wanted to touch her again, wanted to lean forward
and lick her, clean her excitement from her body and feel her
shudder and convulse. He wanted to suck her clit into his mouth,
scrap the folds of her sex with his teeth and devour her until she
came screaming in his mouth.

Then what?

Take her? He couldn’t marry her
afterwards. His holdings were modest and Jocelyn deserved … she
deserved the world. He wouldn’t ruin her and kill her chances of a
good life. She could have a handsome young man, one with less scars
on his soul, who would buy her the best and love her above all
others. He would make her body swell with his child and she would
never want for anything.

He imagined it for a minute, let his
mind wander. She would be a good mother and any child of hers would
be beautiful. They would have the same honey blond hair and their
eyes would be either blue like Ava’s or Jocelyn’s own drugging
green. He refused to think of what color this invented husband’s
eyes would be, he balked at the knowledge that as the father the
children could just as easily look like him. Picturing Jocelyn’s
offspring was painful enough without him giving them the features
of some unworthy little pissant--

When he realized he was getting himself
worked up over an imaginary man, he cut the thought short and
clenched his fists.

Damon was smart enough to admit that at
this point, it was no longer about staying away from Jocelyn for
his own sake. It wasn’t even about avoiding her out of respect for
John.

It was for her.

Jocelyn didn’t deserve the pain he
could inflict.

He would do well to remember that the
next time he felt his gaze tracking her.

Running a shaking hand down his face,
he took a deep breath. Then he cursed as the scent of her musk
invaded his nostrils. Her scent sent a fresh wave of lust to
tighten his groin and he winced as his control once again began to
crack around the edges.

He was in actual physical pain he
wanted her so badly. With a disgusted groan at his own weakness,
Damon got to his feet and stalked from the shelter and into the
muggy Caribbean night.

* * * *

What was wrong with her?

She’d awoken alone and trembling that
morning. But mostly alone. Whether he’d spent the night beside her
or had simply woken up earlier Jocelyn didn’t know. By the time she
reached searching fingers for him he’d already been on the beach
and in the middle of building another shelter. There were no large
leaves and sticks this time. He carried branches, as thick around
as her wrist and lashed them together with a vicious strength that
had the wood groaning. His blade was used with such force that it
finally snapped from its handle as he sawed at the trunk of an
unknown tree. When the handle of the blade was gone he latched it
to a thin piece of wood and created a spear. Then he got a rock and
sat by the fire sharpening it until it gleamed, deadly and pale in
the sunlight. He slaved most of the morning away with Jocelyn
bringing him water when he grew too exhausted to lift his arms. She
would have done more but he shied away from her touch and her help
and she decided it might be better to give him some space until he
wore off that deadly energy.

Following behind him into the forest,
she sat on a tree stump, watching wide eyed as he cleared the
grasses and other bits and pieces from a small clearing. Then he
dragged the walls he’d made into the clearing and began to form a
large lean-to against the trees. The ceiling wasn’t made from
leaves this time but solid wood and he smoothed some of the smaller
palm fronds onto it with mud to help fill in the cracks.

Damon worked like a man possessed, his
mind narrowly focused and his bare back straining as he moved and
built. He’d taken off his shirt and she watched the leached
strength of him explode onto his surroundings with quiet awe. Gray
eyes that should have been meeting her own every other minute
avoided her as if she were physically repulsive. It had to be about
what had happened the night before. She’d known she shouldn’t have
acted as she had last night. Her behavior had been appalling and
the more she brooded over it the more upset she got.

What was wrong with her? After all the
times she’d reprimanded Ava for her inappropriate behavior she’d
turned right around and writhed under the first man to spare her a
glance. Poor sweet mama must be turning over in her
grave.

Jocelyn thought about that, made
herself feel bad about it, and was managing to work up the
appropriate contriteness when her treacherous brain took a sharp
turn.

She danced around the truth for a
dizzying few minutes until she gave in. The admission came out in a
silent rush, as if the faster she confessed the truth to herself
then the easier it would be.

It had felt good. It was like there was
a fire in her veins now, as if she’d inhaled a drug. She was
addicted and wanted to do it all again as soon as
possible.

That, more than anything, had her
beating herself up all over again.

She shifted on her seat and licked her
lips as she watched the muscles in Damon’s abdomen stretch and flex
as he first stood and then straightened to his full height. It
didn’t matter that had anyone asked she wouldn’t have been able to
tell them what he was doing. What mattered was how lovely he looked
doing it.

Sighing, she watched as his shoulders
stiffened at the sound.

Hmm, interesting.

“Damon?”

He visibly flinched before he forced
his body to relax and continue working.

“What is it?” His voice was casual and
Jocelyn grinned. His avoiding her had to do with what had happened
between them all right, just not as she’d first thought.

If the nervous twitching of his muscles
were any indication, he wasn’t disgusted with her so much as he was
… well, not disgusted with her.

He’d liked it just as much as she had.
The thought was tantalizing all by itself.

“What are the marks on your back?” The
question rattled him but she had a suspicion that anything would
rattle him at this point. After a moment of silence he visibly
calmed, and his movements became less jerky and more reflective.
He’d finished with the lean-to for the time being, which stretched
an impressive size now, across three or four trees at least. All he
needed to do to finish it was make the last wall but he was so
obviously exhausted that Jocelyn doubted he’d get to it today. Now
he sat in the cleared space in front of their shelter and whittled
a pile of sticks down until they were as wickedly sharp as his
dagger.

“You mean my tattoos?”

It was a relief that he was talking to
her now though he still wouldn’t look at her. She nodded eagerly
all the same.

“They’re my family.” His voice was low,
sad and Jocelyn found herself leaning towards him as her own chest
squeezed in sympathy.

“What do you mean?”

He sighed and finally, finally looked
up at her. His gaze was clouded, the gray orbs so dark with memory
they seemed black. It made him look like a stranger.

“I grew up in Bengal.” He began, his
voice almost musing as if he told the story of someone else’s life.
“My father was an Englishman, my mother a native, so growing up
there was a marked difference between their beliefs and customs. My
father was raised a Christian while my mother was a practiced
Hindu. You’d think it would have caused more of a problem but it
was actually the exact opposite. They raised my siblings and I with
a healthy amount of appreciation for both religions and then left
it in our hands to decided what we wished to do.” He fell silent
and Jocelyn found herself getting up from her perch to come and sit
beside him on the ground. She was miserably hot back in her black
gown but she no longer cared. He spared her the briefest of
glances, the briefest of smiles that flashed his dimple at her,
before he went back to his story, seemingly oblivious to the
devastating effect such looks held.

“When I was eighteen,” He frowned and
gave a short humorless laugh. “Gods, I was young.” He turned to her
as if to include her in some joke and she hated the cynical tilt of
his lips. It wasn’t a smile he often leveled on her but she’d seen
it too often during their travels together to count. “I joined
Wellesley’s army when I was eighteen. Tippu Sultan, the man we
fought against was a good leader. He was smart and a strong
military leader and he did what had to be done to make his country
prosper.”

“You respected him?”

“He was cruel. He was more cultured
than his father but knowledge never equaled a good heart and Tipu
was a bigoted, arrogant, mean-spirited man.”

“What did he do?”

“He persecuted the Hindus, attacking
and slaughtering his own subjects. He showed us all early on in
Kannara and Coorg that the only right religion, the only good one,
was Islam. Over two thousand Brahmans killed themselves rather than
convert while another hundred thousand were carted off and
forced.”

His accent had thickened and this time
it wasn’t the one he’d acquired from his years in Georgia but from
someplace exotic and therefore completely alien to
Jocelyn.

He leaned back on his elbows as he fell
further into his memories. She tried to ignore how good he looked
like that, how the sun seemed to caress his skin and bring out the
deep bronzed undertones.

“There was a time, when you could
worship your God and not have to worry about the temple going up in
flames around you.”

He looked over at her and his eyes were
dead and nearly black.