Just Once (14 page)

“I think you must have hit your head on something in the river.”

“You don’t want to make love to me, is that it?”

“That’s not it at all. It’s just that … you put me in an awkward place.”

“I’ve embarrassed you?”

“It isn’t right—”

“You think a man should do the asking, is that it? It’s a man’s world, Hunter, but I think choosing the man who’s to take her virginity is the one thing a woman ought to be able to decide for herself.”

“I can’t do this, Jemma.” Dear God, he was actually beginning to shake with need.

“Something in your eyes tells me different, Hunter; Am I asking so much?” When she laid her hand on his arm he felt the touch vibrate through him.

“It’s not as simple as kissing.”

“Then show me,” she urged.

“I don’t have the right.”

“Oh, yes. I know. The right should be reserved for my husband. I should save myself for someone willing to marry me. What if that man turns out to be someone of my father’s choosing, not mine?”

“You haven’t found your father yet—”

“But I know him well. What if he chooses someone old and toothless like Many Feathers, or someone cruel, or perhaps demented?”

“Surely he wouldn’t—”

“You don’t know my father. Why shouldn’t the single most important act of my life be shared with someone I trust and admire?” She was angry, beneath the bravado of her outrageous request; he heard her bitterness.

“Jemma, don’t.” He was afraid her argument was actually beginning to make sense.

“Why shouldn’t it be you?”

“You know why. I’m not looking to settle down.”

“Nor am I. All I’m asking for is tonight.”

He was going to burst and embarrass them both if she didn’t quit talking. He wasn’t made of stone. Pulling her into his arms, he silenced her with a kiss. One kiss, that’s all, he told himself. One kiss and he would let her go, send her back to her bedroll. He kissed her long and deep, drew her sensual body close until she warmed his entire length. She was so soft, so willing.

“
All I’m asking for is tonight
.” Her hushed whisper gave him pause. Was it so much, what she was asking? She knew him, trusted him. She had put her faith in him and her life in his hands since that night in New Orleans. Now she wanted more, without commitment, without thought for tomorrow. Where would they be tomorrow? No one could say for sure.

If nothing else, the past twenty-four hours had taught them both that life is a gift as fleeting, as temporal as a crystal droplet of dew balanced on the tip of a leaf. It was too precious to take for granted, too priceless to waste.

The bite of fall was in the air. Hunter enfolded Jemma in his arms and, without a word, held her against his heart. She was snug and warm in the striped blanket, and yet he could feel her trembling. When she tipped her head to look up at him, he smoothed her hair back off her face. She was silent, as if she knew that he was wrestling with his thoughts, weighing her request.

He cupped her jaw with his hand, traced her lips with his thumb. There was nothing about her that wasn’t soft, except for her will, which had the strength of granite.

“Jemma, you make it hard for a man to say no,” he whispered.

“Then don’t.”

“Are you afraid?”

She shook her head, turned her lips into his palm and kissed it. “Not of you.”

Every intention he had of refusing her evaporated. He was lost.

She kissed his palm again. The land had grown so dark she couldn’t read his expression, but she could feel the hesitation, the war that was being waged inside him.

She knew he wanted her. She had seen as much that afternoon in the stream, but now, most likely he thought she had taken leave of her senses. When he let go of her and took a step back, she wasn’t surprised; she only wondered how she would ever be able to face him when dawn’s light painted the sky with a new day.

Jemma watched him walk away without a word and felt like a fool.

She turned her back to the hastily set-up camp that was invisible in the sheer black of the moonless night. It was a blessing there was no fire. At least she could hide her embarrassment and chagrin until morning. Cradling her elbows with her hands, shivering, she tightened her arms and hugged herself. Rocking a bit, she stared up at the stars overhead and listened to the hoot of an owl somewhere in the distance as it joined the cricket songs and the
hush, hush
of the breeze that rustled the tips of the tall sea of grass.

Hunter was moving around near the supplies; she could hear him not far away. Wishing she could call back her impulsive request, she was certain he would be anxious to see the last of her.

“Jemma.”

She started at the sound of Hunter’s voice, foreign against the background of nature’s night symphony. Half-turning, she tried to make him out in the dark. He seemed to be kneeling near the canvas of supplies.

“Hunter, I’m so—”

“Come here.”

The apology died on her lips. Her heart hammered a bruising tempo. The blanket around her shoulders began to slip. She rescued it, tugged it up, and began dissolving the distance between them as she moved through the dark.

When she drew closer, she found him still hunkered down on one knee. He raised his hand. She slipped her fingers into his warm palm and he drew her down beside him.

“I put the bedrolls together,” he said. “For warmth if nothing else. If you’ve changed your mind—”

“I haven’t,” she said, suddenly wondering at the enormity of what was about to take place. “What should I do now?”

He took the blanket from around her shoulders, unfurled it, and set it close by; then he reached for the hem of her shirt.

“Nothing. Let me do everything. It’s what you wanted.”

“And you? Do you really want to do this, Hunter?”

He paused in the act of drawing her shirt up and rested his hands at her waist. “I can’t resist, not when it’s something I didn’t dare let myself think about these past days and nights.”

She was not looking for a husband. She knew better than to expect words of love from a man who proclaimed himself a loner. He had only admitted that he could not resist her offer and she did not begrudge him that, for he was only human, but his touch spoke volumes. She felt calm. Quite certain she was doing the right thing. After tonight, there would be no fear of her father bartering away her virginity. No more wondering about
other things
.

His hands were warm and sure as he finished with her shirt, forcing her to kneel before him so that he could pull it over her head. She was bare from the waist up, half-naked and exposed to the night, which in itself sent an unmistakable thrill through her. Boston seemed a lifetime away with its crowded streets, the congested wharf, houses of brick and wood built close beside one another—the stringent, uncompromising rules of society that hemmed people in more than brick or mortar ever could.

She untied the thong at the nape of his neck, ran her fingers through his hair, and shook out the long, heavy mass. Any woman would have envied him this thick blond mane, yet there was nothing feminine about it. She suspected, now that she knew him better, that he wore it long as a sign of rebellion, a symbol of his frontier independence.

He sat back on his heels and pulled her closer until she was kneeling between his thighs. Gently, without a word, he lay his open hands on her shoulders, drew them down her skin, stroking her, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. When his fingers reached her breasts, he gently molded his palms to fit her, closed his hands over her and cupped her, squeezing lightly. She threw her head back and moaned, leaning into him, wanting more.

When he drew his hands away, exposing her heated flesh to the teasing night air, she trembled. His mouth replaced his hands. She gasped aloud when she felt the pull on her breast as he suckled.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispered.

She struggled to think of the word. “No.”

He took her in his mouth again, caught her hardened nipple in his teeth and teased it. Deep inside of her, a wild primitive throb had begun to echo her heartbeat. She wanted him to go on and on forever, wanted to melt into him. Just when she was beginning to think that surely nothing, nothing he could do to her could make her feel any more glorious, she felt his fingers loosen the drawstring at her waist. The baggy trousers fell to the ground and pooled around her knees.

Before she could think, his hands slipped around and cupped her buttocks, lifted her and crushed her against him. His mouth slashed across hers, his tongue exploring, delving, teasing. She clung to him. With her arms locked about his neck, she pressed into him, wishing she could crawl inside his skin and know the mystery of him.

“Jemma.” The word came on a rush of breath, more than a sigh, for there was wonder in his voice. It made her heady with delight.

Hunter rose to his knees. She could feel his hard arousal as he pressed her up against him. The cool, slick feel of his buckskin pants sent a shiver down her spine. He urged her back until she was lying on the bed he had fashioned out of blankets and waited, silent, expectant, aching with need while he shucked off his clothes and stretched out beside her.

Chapter 9

It was a night of firsts.

She was his first virgin, not to mention the first woman who had ever asked him to make love to her.

Drawing a blanket over both of them, he ran his hand down her side, along her ribs, over the gentle swell of her hip. It surprised him when he realized that his hand shook, that it was important to him that her first time be perfect.

Cloaked in the night, huddled beneath the blanket, he could not see her lovely body, so he committed it to memory with his touch. Her skin was smooth, flawless. Her breasts were lush and ripe, begging to be tasted, stroked, molded to his palm. She lay beside him, willing, anxious to discover, to give back. He felt her hands on him. Wherever he touched her, she mirrored his exploration.

When he cupped the mound between her legs, she gasped, but didn’t draw away. Instead, she pressed into him, offering him more. Jemma ran her hand along his thigh until she grazed his throbbing manhood with her fingertips.

At the gentle touch, light as air almost, he shuddered and nearly spilled his seed. His breath caught in his throat and he lay there quivering, taut as a bowstring, fighting to gain control. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers until his raging senses calmed.

“Are you all right?” she whispered against his mouth.

He nodded, afraid to speak.

“Am I supposed to feel this way?”

Clearing his throat, he finally managed. “What way?” The words came out in a gravelly croak.

“Hot and cold all over. Like I’m about to … to fall apart inside.”

“Yeah.” He began to explore her with his fingers. Gently probing, he was surprised to find her moist, ready for him. His fingers, slicked with her dew, easily slipped inside. Hunter heard her gasp, felt a shudder reverberate through her slender frame.

“Hunter?” she whispered, almost frantic.

“What?”

“I … that’s … oh! I feel so … is this … normal?”

“Yeah.” He began to explore deeper, easing his fingers further, opening her, preparing the way.

She gasped against his lips, rocked against his hand.

“Hunter?”

“
What?
”

“Is this supposed to … feel so … so very
good?
”

“Jemma?” He strained for composure.

“What?”

“How about you just kiss me and let things happen without all the questions?”

“But—”

He covered her lips with his, thrust his tongue between her teeth, and increased the stroke of his fingers. Within seconds she forgot all about talking. Clinging to him, she dug her fingers into his shoulders, moving her hips to match the rhythm of his touch. He kept up the deep caresses until she began to whimper softly and then moan low in her throat. Finally breaking the kiss, she threw back her head and cried out when her release came.

He held her close as her body rocked with the pleasure of her first fulfillment. Smoothing his hand along her spine, he whispered, “Shh. Shh.” Gradually she calmed and lay her head on his shoulder. Her breathing was still ragged. He was aching to slake his own thirst, but wanted to give her the chance to change her mind.

“Jemma?” He shrugged the shoulder she was using for a pillow.

“Hmm?” Her fingers were tracing his collarbone.

“We don’t have to go on.”

Her voice was lazy, seductive. She drew her fingertips over the rise of his shoulder, along his arm to his hip, feathering her touch across his pelvis.

“We’ve gone too far to turn back now,” she whispered, voicing his own thoughts aloud.

“No, we haven’t. You can keep your virginity, Jemma. No one will ever know.”

“So far, it’s brought me nothing but trouble. I don’t want it.”

But he did. He wanted it. God forgive him, he wanted to take her with every breath that left his body. He wanted to be her first. He wanted to slip inside that tight warm passage and carry the memory of it with him into the unknown wilderness of his future.

He wanted to give her what she wanted, take what he so desperately needed, and still believe they could go their separate ways with no regrets. She had asked for this night without stipulations. He would take her virginity, but he was determined not to spill his seed inside her. That way, there would be no danger of pregnancy, but he could have her none the less.

It was what the lady wanted. What he wanted.

Just once. Just for tonight.

He pressed her back on the blankets, drew her beneath him, nudged her legs wider with his knee and settled between her thighs.

Again, he touched her with his fingers, opened her, found her hot and ready. He kissed her deeply, cupped her face in his hands, and whispered against her lips, “This will hurt for a moment, but no more.”

She kissed him back and slipped her arms around his neck, ready, willing, so achingly sweet.

He wrapped her thighs about his hips and touched the entrance to her honey-slicked depths with the tip of his shaft. When he eased inside her, she gasped, but held him close. Slowly, gently, he edged into her and then withdrew when he met resistance. He moistened himself with her dew before he entered her again. He had intended to go slowly, to repeat the movement until her virginity was breached, but when she suddenly shifted and opened herself to take more, his control snapped. He plunged, driving into her fully. He felt her tear, heard the sharp, anguished cry she tried to stifle.

She lay beneath him unmoving, but not resisting. He sensed that she was waiting for the pain to subside. His breathing was uneven, jagged as he hovered there above her until he could move slowly once more. Along his shaft, her sheath began to pulse, to tease, to quiver. Jemma was panting, moaning against his throat. Slowly, her hips began to undulate against his, demanding he move faster. Once again she was on the brink of release. Her fingers pressed into the flesh of his buttocks, urging him to go deeper, to take more.

He complied, slowly lunging into her until his movements picked up tempo and they were rocking together, climbing close to the precarious edge of fulfillment. Jemma cried out, tightened around him and lost control. Before he could withdraw, his own climax was upon him. Hunter threw back his head and cried out. Unwilling, unable to stop, he came deep inside her.

For a long while afterward, they did not speak. He held her close, knowing that, like him, she was staring up at the stars. He wondered what was going through her mind.

“Hunter?”

“What?”

“What are you thinking about?” Her question echoed his thoughts.

“Nothing.” And everything. She had entrusted him with her life on this journey and he had let his need override his common sense. Not only had he put her in danger while they made love and were vulnerable in the dark, open countryside, but worse, he had not been able to control his lust. Now only time would tell whether or not his seed would find fertile ground in her womb. Time he didn’t have to give. Hunter sighed.

Still naked beneath the blankets, they lay on their backs, shoulders and arms pressed together, but otherwise not touching.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“I was just looking up at all those stars, too many to count in a lifetime. It’s strange, but I feel a part of it all now, a part of the whole universe. I’ve never felt that way before.”

He found her pronouncement odd, seeing that she had her God and a whole host of saints. Even without all of that, he had always felt a part of a bigger whole.

“You know what else?” she asked.

“What?”

“Lying here next to you, thinking about what just happened between us, I know that no matter what the nuns ever said, I’m certain, without a shred of doubt, that what we just shared had nothing whatsoever to do with sin, or the everlasting torment and fires of hell.”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t believe what they had done was wrong, either. They were adults, on the edge of nowhere, far from the restrictions that society imposed, but if the ground had just fallen away, he couldn’t have felt any more shaken or unsure. With that one soul-shattering act, he might have created a child. More frightening than that, while he’d held her, his mind had pulsed with visions of clearing the land, of building and putting down roots. Of babies and gardens. Of waking up to new-fallen snow and watching countless sunsets with this woman in his arms.

He had envisioned seductive images that he wanted to avoid dwelling on. Things that had no place occupying the private, guarded corners of a loner’s mind.

Letting the conversation die seemed the easiest way out. Hunter lay tense but silent until he heard her breathing deep and easy. Sandwiched between Jemma and his Kentucky long rifle, Hunter slid his hand over to the gun. It was primed and ready in case there was trouble.

Jemma shifted and rolled over in her sleep, threw her leg over his and nuzzled up beside him. Her skin was soft as a duckling’s down, far too tempting to ignore. She was sound asleep. Because she would never know that he could not resist touching her again, with a light, gentle movement Hunter laid his hand on her thigh. Sleep would elude him tonight. He contented himself with watching the constellations move across the heavens, vowing never to give into temptation again.

To Jemma, the next two weeks seemed endless. They found a shabby tobacco plantation on the edge of the wood, where Hunter was able to trade fresh venison for thick woolen stockings and a pair of moccasins for her. Closer to settled lands, the last major river crossing they had to endure was accomplished by ferryboat.

As they headed north, the landscape changed dramatically. Grassy open plains gave way to great forests of oaks, hickory, ash, maple, and even cottonwood. Even though fall had painted the leaves and then stripped them from the trees, Jemma couldn’t help but think of how wondrously full the forest must look in spring and summer.

Since the night she would forever think of as the end of her virginity, Hunter had become increasingly distant, worse than he had been on the first few days of the journey. He barely spoke more than to issue orders when they made camp. At times she found him watching her closely, speculatively. She knew what was wrong, that he no doubt regretted taking her virginity, but she couldn’t find the words to make things right between them.

The night they had shared was never far from her thoughts. A thousand times a day, memories crept back without invitation, haunting her with flashes of sensual recollections, stirring her intensely. More than anything else, she realized she had been naive to think that she could let Hunter possess her and
not
dwell on such a momentous occasion.

He had been so gentle, so kind. How could she stop thinking of the man who had made her senses sing? How could she not want to repeat the experience again and again? Her heart beat triple-time whenever he looked her way, when their hands met accidentally or their gazes locked. She doubted that he had erased the memory altogether, but he had certainly steeled his heart against it.

He seemed to grow more anxious to get to their destination with every passing hour and pushed on unmercifully. Being hungry and tired had become part of her existence. When she finally questioned him, asking if he was intent on killing them both and the horses, he merely shook off her complaint and said, “I’ve been at this too long. I need to get back.”

Now, as they traveled along the bluff above the Mississippi, she couldn’t help but notice he had become even more preoccupied than usual. They rode to the top of a knob, as Hunter called the upswells of land, and Jemma fought to keep her gaze from straying his way time and again. She had forced her attention to late asters growing alongside the trail when Hunter suddenly reined in.

“There it is. That’s Sandy Shoals,” he said.

Astonished by the love and pride in his tone, she drew up beside him and stared down at what appeared to be little more than a gathering of log structures of all shapes and sizes. They were almost within shouting distance.

Captivated, she stared at the scene below. Lazy smoke drifted up from the chimneys of two of the larger cabins, lacing the air with the comforting smell of hickory. Huddled above the river, the settlement was surrounded by dense woods on three sides. Here and there, burned-out remains of enormous tree stumps scarred the open land. In one field, half a crop of dried cornstalks had been cut and bundled. Thick ground vines of pumpkins and other squash trailed between the rows. A smaller vegetable garden had been laid out close to one of the cabins.

“Is this the outskirts of town?” She had seen two cities in her life: Boston and New Orleans. Surely this group of cabins, some half-hidden by trees, was not the entire settlement of Sandy Shoals.

“There is no town. Our only other neighbor is my friend Noah LeCroix. He lives a bit farther north, in a house he built on stilts over a lake formed by the big earthquake a few years back. Noah’s a half-breed; his mother was a Cherokee, his father a French trapper. He’s legendary for piloting river craft over the shoals downstream. Not a boat captain goes through here that doesn’t want to hire Noah on to see him through.”

It seemed incredible to her that there were no shops or stores, no carriages or cobblestone streets, no sound other than the rushing river, bird songs, and the chatter of a jay in a nearby oak. It was wonderful, an enchanted village that might very well have been tucked away in the Black Forest, a magical place where mystical creatures existed side-by-side with settlers.

“It’s not much,” Hunter said, his love for the small, crude settlement evident in his tone. Even as he denied its raw beauty, she could see the pride on his face and wondered what it must be like to have carved a life out of the wilderness.

“It’s wonderful. Like something out of a storybook.”

His gaze swung her way. Although he tried to hide it, she could tell that he was pleased by her words. It surprised her that he cared so much. She wondered if he even realized that he did. A chilly breeze kissed with the promise of winter played with her hair before it moved on. Jemma shivered and tucked the edges of her coat up around her throat. Hunter had nudged his horse into a walk down the gentle slope.