Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (37 page)

He would gladly hang the Hawk, but later!

She nibbled nervously upon her lower lip as Roc led her from the governor’s mansion and outside to the palace green. His hand was upon hers and she trembled, torn between guilt and a growing affection, and a slowly rising desperation that he should leave her.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked her suspiciously.

She shook her head, lowering it. “I am worried about my father.”

He paused, catching her shoulders, drawing her close. “You mustn’t worry!” he told her kindly. “You mustn’t. I swear that I shall not fail you.”

She smiled, startled to feel that tears were hovering on her eyes. He held her against him. She heard the sound of the children playing, of the leaves rustling over their heads. It seemed so peaceful, and he held her so gently. As a husband might. As a lover.

She inhaled and exhaled quickly, pulling away. “I’d like to get home. I’d like to have a bath.”

“Of course,” he told her.

By nightfall she was up in her own room and in her own deep tub with a froth of French rosewater all about her. She leaned back her head and breathed deeply and felt steam rise above her.

He was across the hallway from her. In one of the guest bedrooms. She had not told him that he must go there; he had
chosen the room. He had said that he would not disturb her, and he was a man of his word.

A man of his word, and more.

The steam about her seemed to swirl within her. She remembered his whisper, and his touch, and it seemed that the very heat of the steam swept deep inside of her. She flushed, wanting to forget. It was so wrong to feel this way. It had to be, after what she had come to feel for the Hawk.

She was going after the man to help her—and never to come close to him again. She could not do so. She was married to Lord Cameron. Truth, whether she denied it or not.

And truth … because in the fireglow and green darkness of the forest, he had taken her into his arms, and their marriage had been consummated there. She would never escape it now.

Not her marriage …

She had to escape her husband. That night, she had to escape him. How? she wondered desperately.

She shivered, despite the heat of the water. She could not betray him so. He had been too decent to her.

She had to leave, and leave that very night!

She never quite knew her intention when she stood in her bath, the scented rosewater dripping from her, to reach for her bathtowel. It was a huge cotton sheet of material that smelled freshly of the sun. She wrapped it around herself and stepped into the hallway. Downstairs, she could hear Mattie humming softly. But no one would ever disturb her up the stairs. Mattie would come if she called. If not, Skye knew, she would be left undisturbed.

She clutched the towel to her breasts. For long moments she stared at the door, then she knocked upon it. She did not wait for an answer, but shoved it open and entered into his room.

He had been lying upon the bed. As she entered, he bolted up.

He had bathed, earlier, Skye knew. He had gone out to the barn, and they had brought him pails of warm water there. He was barefoot and bare-chested, and clad only in a pair of soft bleached buckskin breeches. He looked at her, startled, reaching for a linen shirt that lay across the bed. His action amused
her somewhat. He had been so ready to touch her in the night, to make intimate demands upon her. Then he shielded his own chest with a startling modesty.

His actions did not help her cause, she thought, and she was already rueing the rash impulse that had brought her here.

“What is it?” he asked her. The room was dim, his voice was husky. Strange, but the lack of brightness did not bother her here. She felt safety, knowing that he was near. No … she felt very alive, knowing that he was near. She dared not admit that it had been easy, easy to come here.

The damage was done! she cried inwardly. It had been done last night. And if this ever ended well, then she would be his wife in all truth, and she would make it up to him, God help her!

She stepped closer. “I …”

“What?” He came out of the bed. She remembered briefly from the fleet seconds in which she had seen them bare that his shoulders were broad and fine and his skin bronzed and sleek. She remembered his touch, and the strength and demand of it, and she wondered briefly if she hadn’t discovered him to be very fine, and if she hadn’t lost a corner of her heart to his raw demand and vehement, sometimes tender care. Perhaps she had. In the dim light she found that she had no voice, and she could not think of the words she wanted to say.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured.

It was not without some astonishment that he said the words, for he was amazed that she should be there.

He had been a fool to touch her last night. He should keep a far greater distance than he did. But when she had lain so close to him, and when his hands had found her nakedness in the night and her soft moan had been his response, he had cast caution to the wind. He had never meant to take her. Her distress this morning had struck deep into his heart, and he had never felt more the knave.

But now she was here.

Fresh from her bath. Her eyes wide and luminous and nearly teal in their glazed color. Her features so fine and delicate and so hauntingly feminine that the sight of her trembling lips brought a rush of heat stabbing into his groin. Desire rose,
and pulsed hard against his breeches, and still she stood there, silent.

He strode around the bed to the side table where he had brought a bottle of Mattie’s best dark rum. He poured out a portion and came before her, bringing the glass to her lips. She swallowed, and winced slightly as the fire of the rum rode through her.

“I …”

“Yes?”

“If it is truly your desire …”

He waited, but her voice had trailed away. “Yes?” he prompted softly.

She took another sip of the rum, moistening her lips. Her hair spilled all about her, touched by candlelight. It glowed with the red fury of fire, it cascaded like sunlight. He longed to thread his fingers through the length and mass of it. He longed to feel the fiery tendrils fall softly over his naked shoulders and chest.…

“Yes?” he repeated.

“You have been very kind.”

“Have I?”

She was still faltering. “I appreciate all that you have done for me.”

“You are my wife,” he said softly, standing back to watch her curiously. The length of him had come alive. The pulse and need rushed to fill his limbs, and his heart, and his soul. Warnings called out to him, and he ignored them. Let her speak! Let her come to him, or run, for he could not bear to keep his hands from her a moment longer. He wanted to rip away the towel and drink the sweet scent of rose dust from her flesh.

“That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“What?” he demanded sharply.

“I’ve been trying to say that … if it is your desire despite all that has happened … if you wish to have me for your wife, then, milord, I am yours.”

Her words hung softly upon the air for long moments as he tried to believe them. This sweet wild thing, this creature of temper and beauty and tempest, was coming to him.

She lifted her arms and dropped the towel that covered her. She stepped from it and stood before him in naked perfection, her flesh so gently kissed by the glow of the candlelight that touched the room. She was exquisite. Her hair did not touch his shoulders, but streamed over her own. Her breasts rose with coral peaks, full and tantalizing, beneath the caress of her swirling gold locks. Strands of red and gold cascaded all the way to her waist, and curled over the curve of her hips and buttocks.

He caught his breath. For one long moment he was unable to move.

Then he cried out hoarsely, casting the rum glass into the fireplace and sweeping her into his arms. He carried her swiftly to the bed and laid her upon it. The candles glowed on the table. He looked down at her and her eyes were passionate slits, teal and shadowed by the lush fringe of her lashes. Her lips were damp and parted as if they awaited his. As if they invited his touch …

But he did not bring his mouth to hers. Not then.

His lay low against her, fascinated to touch her. His hands curved over her breasts while his tongue teased the taut skin of her abdomen. Slight sounds escaped her, and he continued to touch. He rose against her to bring her breast deep into his mouth, and he withdrew to watch the nipple harden and the color deepen. He stroked the length of her, and felt the surge of her body, and still he did not touch her lips. She reached for him, but he eluded her, and buried his face against the sweetness of her body again. He moved lower and lower again, taking all of her with his sweeping caress. He parted her thighs and heard a startled sob escape, but he gave her no quarter that night; he longed to seek from her all that she had to give. He watched her for a moment, and her eyes were closed. They opened slowly, and when they met his, he lowered himself between her legs. He teased her inner thigh and stroked her flesh with the searing heat of his tongue. She gasped, writhing to escape so great an intimacy, but she was his, and he knew it. He touched her with that sweet stroke where and how he would, and her fingers curled into his hair while a breathless series of whispers and sobs and incoherent
words tore from her lips. He brought her to the very brink of passion and then cast her over the edge, savoring the constriction of her beautiful form, and at long last, coming to her lips, there to swallow down the cries of pleasure that rose.

He did not hesitate a moment, but untied his breeches and drove deep within her welcoming warmth. She lay still, just trembling from all that had been before. He moved against her with the care of a master artist, seeking to elicit all emotions, all desires, and all needs. And when she rose again to the sure blaze of sensation, he at last gave over to his own desperate need. Hungry and afire, he took her with a fierce and driving force, and it seemed that the sun rose in his heart and vision, only to burst and explode all around him. There was no woman like her. None with her slender, provocative form, none with the perfect fullness of her breasts, not with her wild blaze of hair, her startling teal eyes.

No woman could love as she, caress a man so, part her lips so. Drive him to absolute heights with the thrust and sway of her hips, with her whispers, cries that touched the wind, that brought him to heaven.

She created … paradise.

She was his wife. She had said it. He had claimed her.

And he loved her. Deeply, and forever.

He fell beside her, pulling her close. For long, long moments they were silent. They were together, softly trembling with aftershocks of the explosion of the sun.

At long last he gently moved his hand over her bare breast, watching a golden curl fall from it. She buried her head against his throat and reached out a finger tentatively to touch his shirt.

“You’re still dressed!” she whispered reproachfully.

He hesitated. “Umm,” he said noncommittally. He saw his own fingers upon her flesh and he drew them away, holding her tightly. He should not even let her see his hands so, he thought. A smile teased her lips. Of all women to fear the darkness!

Darkness could hide so many sins.

He drew up the covers, but she was watching him pensively. She seemed very nervous. He leaned against her, and a shudder
swept through him. He was about to leave her again. It might have been easier if she hadn’t come so close to him. If she hadn’t given him, freely, and willingly, this ecstasy.

He touched her lip. He stared into her beautiful eyes, and he remembered how he had fought the very idea of marriage.

This was no cross-eyed bride.

She was everything to him. She had been, from the very beginning.

“I love you,” he told her.

She inhaled sharply, her eyes widening. Then they widened even further, and she whispered, “I—I think I love you, too.”

“You think?”

She twisted away. He longed to pull her tight again. He knew that she was remembering a different man, a pirate, in a faraway paradise of her own.

He hated himself at that moment.

He longed to speak to her.

But he could not.

He pressed his lips against her hair and held silent for long moments. Then he whispered again, “I do love you, Skye Kinsdale Cameron. You have become my very life, and I swear, my love, I vow myself to you, now and forever.”

She lay silent. He turned away with a sigh, tying up his breeches. He rose from the bed and walked over to the table, picking up the rum bottle and swallowing down a long draft.

They would have this night, he determined. He would have to leave her in the morning, and by God, he would return with her father. She would be his wife then, in every way, for every day and month and year that came to follow.

But until then, he would have this night.

Something like a sob seemed to escape her. He turned around and saw that she was rising, too. Naked and graceful and beautiful and sleek, she walked his way. Her head was lowered. She came to stand in front of him. Her hands fell upon his chest. She leaned against him, kissing him, letting the wet warmth of her tongue blaze through the linen of his shirt.

“I will honor you, I swear it!” she cried softly.

He frowned, for her tension was so great, then his frown faded, for the lap of her tongue against his flesh was so arousing.
Her fingers moved against his shoulder, her body was flush against his. She had indeed given herself to him that night, in so many ways.

In so many ways …

He moved to sweep his arms around her, but she slipped away and idly picked up the rum bottle.

“I’ll get you a glass, love,” he murmured.

She shook her head, and her teal eyes were luminous with a glaze of tears. “It will not be necessary,” she said.

She slipped back into his arms. She drew him down to her embrace, finding his lips with parted mouth, meeting him with a wild abandon that swept away his very thoughts.…

Then a shattering pain burst upon his skull.

Darkness came in upon him, and wavered back. Liquid spilled over him as he crashed down to his knees. He managed to look up, and into her eyes. He saw the broken rum bottle in her hands, and he managed to swear at her in a single gasp.