Laura Kinsale (22 page)

She turned to him as he lay again beside her, flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Oh, it had been so long that she’d waited, so achingly long. She squeezed her eyes shut on the tears, not wanting him to see. His hands cupped her buttocks, pulled her to him, fusing their bodies together. When he shifted and rose above her, her legs spread easily. She arched upward, seeking the other half of herself, ready to yield him everything.

And then…oh, it hurt, but she bit her lip and closed her eyes, holding herself unflinching beneath the first hard thrust. He conquered the constriction, no gentleness anymore, no hesitation, and she was glad, for be
yond the pain was something else, a part of the hurt and yet more: his filling her, the joining, a joy that deepened with each driving stroke. His breath was hoarse and loud against her ear, louder even than the rain. He hung a little way above her, supported on his elbows. Tess wanted to kiss him; she threw her head back, and touched her lips and tongue to his throat, the only part of him she could reach. At the contact, he gripped her shoulders convulsively. He moved against her with a shuddering thrust—harder, deeper than any before, his fingers digging cruelly into her skin. For a suspended moment his body trembled, straining…once, twice, and then the breath rushed out of him.

He buried his face in her neck. For a long time, Tess lay beneath him quietly, listening to the slow return of his heartbeat and breathing to normal. The lamplight was almost gone, and shadows leaned in around them. Her own heart pumped a glow of well-being into every limb, every finger and toe. She raised one hand and curled it through his hair, playing, smiling to herself as she felt him turn his head slightly to give her access to the warm, damp skin behind his ear. She was sore everywhere, with a wonderful, woman’s ache. His weight pressed her down, but she wanted him there. He could stay resting on top of her for all time, if he would. But he wouldn’t, of course. As if in answer to the thought, he shifted and slid to one side, taking her in his arms. She nestled naturally into his shoulder as he turned on his back. The rain made talk useless—just as well, for what more was there to say? She was his; she loved him. That was all there was to the world. That, and the rain, and his body pressed against hers in the close, wet darkness.

G
ryf dreamed about his family. Old dreams—good dreams, not the nightmares. He was warm again, and safe; his mother scolded him for inconsequences, and kissed his forehead in forgiving. His younger sister cried over a skinned knee in the dusty street, then smiled, a chubby, tearstained smile, and ran away giggling with the ragged wild flower he picked to comfort her. He dreamed of his father, of his own bed in the cool evening—and there was a question between them, some answer he needed, a test, a broken promise…his father’s face was grave. Honor, he said. Never forget it. All else is nothing if honor is lost.

And the boy in the dream answered: I’ll never forget, Papa. Never…

Gryf came awake with a soft start. All black around him, but the dream warmth was still there. Smooth skin curved against his chest and he felt the flowery tickle of loose hair beneath his nose. The rain had stopped; in the silence he could hear Tess’s even breathing, feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his side. It seemed more miraculous than the dreams. He lifted his free arm and stroked her hair, without really meaning to wake her.

She sighed, and snuggled closer. A memory of Eliot, of what she was, drifted into conscious thought. Gryf banished it. Later. Later he would deal with that. For now…she was here, and already he was hard with wanting her again.

He turned, pulling her against him. She came willingly, with a soft, sleepy sound of pleasure. In the dark he could see nothing, but his hands and his body found sensation enough. He ran his palm down the curve of her slim waist and lovely swell of her hip. Her hair was like silk where it lay across his arm. His fingers drifted downward, tenderly searching the soft skin of her inner thigh, where her smoothness was marked with evidence of their lovemaking. Desire shafted through him at the discovery. The patches of drying moisture seemed a silent message, an assurance. She had wanted him, too. In the heat of his passion, he had not waited to know.

He raised himself on his elbow and leaned to find her lips. He kissed her gently, wanting to compensate for that earlier heedlessness. She was awake now; her hands came up to answer with a caress of their own. She traced the outline of his ear, a touch that made him groan and deepen the kiss, then draw away to run his tongue down the salty-sweet curve of her throat. In his temporary blindness, she seemed more beautiful to him than even touch and taste and sound and scent—all beautiful. He slid his leg between hers, moving half on top of her, his shaft pressed in delicious agony against the satin of her skin.

He wanted to prolong the torture this time. He began a slow exploration with his lips, lingering in the hollow between her breasts while his hands drifted upward. He murmured her name, and felt the faint shudder as she sighed in response. He found her breast with lips and hands, and drew the stiffened peak into his mouth with
an eager tug. Her body tightened; her legs moved, twining with his. The smooth slide of her skin against his manhood nearly overcame him; he went suddenly still, struggling to master the urge to drive himself into her instantly.

She gave him no time to summon control. Her hands drifted down his back and spread over his taut buttocks. He pressed downward with a moan of guilty delight, unable to resist the coaxing message in her fingers. Slowly, without conscious volition, his hardness slipped into the warm, inviting recess. He trembled on the verge of thrusting, his breath ragged, his lips grazing the tip of her excited nipple. He bent, circling the swelling peak with his tongue.

Her legs parted then, on a sound of feral pleasure that came from deep in her throat. Gryf held back still, playing and sucking hungrily, reveling in the way she writhed beneath him. He shook with the anticipation, with the torment of her movements that just barely took him in and then retreated, driving him to a wild peak of frustrated lust. Her soft, panting moans increased, her hands kneaded him until he thought that he must burst from the strain of waiting. And then she bent her knees, and drew her legs up around him, pressing him downward.

His body reacted before thought: he plunged into her, burying himself. He felt her flinch and then arch beneath him, heard her low, plaintive cries: his name, and please, and oh…oh my—She clung to him, rose hard and awkwardly. A savage joy surged in him, to feel her anxious, unpracticed seeking. He could give her that, at least: the certain knowledge of what her questing body needed. He slid his arms beneath her, taking control of her movement and matching it to his. She responded with a whimper of excitement, meeting his rough kiss
greedily, taking him in, straining upward to each thrust with a trembling violence. He prolonged them for her, hard and deep, and then he couldn’t hold back any longer: she was urging him on with her hands and her rhythm and he couldn’t wait; he had to move, had to answer, had to drive her on until his groan became a sharp cry and he crushed her to him—a momentary, mindless ecstasy—and he let the world blow apart around them.

It was over far sooner than he had wished, a total defeat of his plan to spin out the pleasure. But when he moved to release her from his weight, she held him back and made him stay, clinging as if she was afraid that he might disappear. He nuzzled at the tender skin below her ear, his own satisfaction heightened immeasurably by her voluptuous sigh of contentment. For a long time, he held himself above her, until the sound of her breathing became soft and regular, and his arms could no longer support him. He shifted, very slowly so as not to wake her, and eased himself onto his side.

She made a soft sound and fumbled for his hand, drawing it across her as she turned away and fitted herself into the protective curve of his body. The simple trust of the gesture made him want to squeeze her tightly against him; instead, he brushed his hand across the plump softness of her breast and kissed her shoulder. She sighed again, and pressed back against him for a brief moment before she relaxed.

Sleep took her, but Gryf could not find the same release. He stared into the darkness, feeling the short-lived happiness drain away. Even as he lay in full possession of the sweetest treasure of his life, reality crept in. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had. She was another man’s wife.

Stephen Eliot’s wife.

The dream came back to Gryf—his father’s words about honor. Had that really happened? He could not remember, and the forgetting hurt him more than anything else: to know that it had been that long ago. His father’s face was no more than an impression, a vague image of someone tall and quiet. But though his father’s features might have faded, in Gryf’s mind he was a fortress, a compass point that never varied.

Gryf closed his eyes. The ache that filled him was familiar, a longing that went beyond the physical frustration that had tormented him for months. He thought that he could not stand it again. All his life, all his losses: his family, Grady, Tess; over and over he had let himself love, let himself feel, and then the hurt came, the numbing agony that never healed, but only dulled into the limits of endurance.

He could not love her and bear that again. He would not. Even if she were free, he could not have risked it, would not have had the courage to lay himself open to that kind of pain one more time. And the passion, the desire—she was his in that way if he wanted, he knew that now, but his father stood behind him in the shadows. To take advantage of her flight from Stephen, from the mistake Gryf had not prevented her from making…He had no honor anymore, no right to claim it, but he would. In the name of what he had been once, he would find the strength to go away as he should have done long ago, for he could never be near her now and trust himself. He was not what his father had been, not made of that fine, unbending steel. But he could find his own honor. Tomorrow, he would go away.

He lay with his arms around her, gazing ahead in desperate melancholy, as the blackness faded before him.
The first pale gleam of light touched her skin, drawing a soft outline of her body and her hair.

It was dawn. Tomorrow had already come.

Tess blinked, waking to an unfamiliar coolness on her skin. She realized in one quick rush that she was naked, that it was morning, that she was alone. Memory came a moment later, and she sat up to look for Gryf.

The movement caused a twinge of pain, and she glanced down. Smears of darkened blood stained her legs and the blanket beneath her. She blushed, and then shook back her hair with a bubbling laugh. It was true, all true; it hadn’t been a dream. He had lain with her and held her—the plan had worked, far better than she could ever have imagined. She belonged to him now, irrevocably.

Shyly, she peeked out of the hut. Gryf was not within view of the campsite. She tiptoed out and filled a basin with fresh rainwater, carried the bowl back and washed herself. She started to dress, but noticed the damp pile of discarded trousers still left in the corner where they had been cast the night before. Another blush heated her cheeks, for the wanton thought which came to her. She hesitated, and then tossed her blouse aside. They were alone—who would ever know?

Abandoning all sense of propriety with a happy giggle, she slipped out of the hut. How strange it felt, the touch of the light morning wind on her body—how delightful. She carefully trod the short path to the beach, where the glare of the sun on the white sand made her squint as she gazed out at the lagoon.

It took her several moments to spot him. He was far out, swimming strongly, in the deep water where the big breakers came rolling over the reef. As she watched, he disappeared beneath the foaming crest of a wave. She
tensed instinctively, judging the danger—it was water she would never have dared herself. He reappeared momentarily and was gone. Long minutes passed, and she did not see him again.

Her knees felt weak; she sat down abruptly on the warm sand. Helpless anger filled her. Why had he done that—gone so far out? She bit her lip and tried to tell herself she was foolish. But as she buried her face against her knees she muttered a little prayer, and then called him several unkind names. She waited as long as she could stand before she pushed back the curtain of her hair to look for him again.

If not for the erratic twist of an albatross’s flight that caught the corner of her eye, she would not have seen him. He had gone far to the leeward, into calmer water closer to the island. With a relieved cry, she sprang up and ran down the beach, splashing into water up to her thighs and then diving ahead. If he saw her, he gave no sign. Tess fell into the smooth swimming stroke that Hina had taught her so long ago. The water was warm and clear; it stung her sore flesh at first, but the touch was healing. She avoided the coral heads and paid no attention to the dull flash of fish that started away from her.

She caught up with him in a stretch of sandy bottom between the coral. He had stopped swimming, and stood, waist deep, watching her approach. Renewed shyness seized her; she slowed a little distance away and floated, keeping her bare shoulders below the water as she caught her breath. “You scared me,” she said, and a little of her worry still colored her voice. “You could drown, out there on the reef.”

“Fine.” His tone was cold, the look he gave her even colder. “Good riddance.”

She spread her arms, riding a swell up and down. The
pleasant assumptions of the morning withered rapidly beneath his emotionless gaze. She glanced down, frowning at the swaying, crystalline expanse of the lagoon. “I don’t know why you’d say that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked up again. “Tell you what?”

“Christ.” He swung his arm in a jerky move of disgust, sending a spray of water to one side.

“Tell you what?” she repeated, after a moment.

“That you were still a virgin, damn it!”

She bit her lip, tasting salt, taken aback by the vehemence of the accusation. “I did tell you,” she said timidly.

“You didn’t,” he snapped. “Good God, do you think I would have—” He broke off. “What do you think I am?”

She did not answer that. She was trying to think back, to remember the letter and how she had phrased it. Impossible, that he could have misinterpreted the meaning. She said, “I wrote you. About Stephen, and…everything.”

He simply looked at her, as if she were speaking some strange and discordant foreign tongue.

“You didn’t read it.”

Still no answer. He stared with violent disapproval at a point somewhere near her chin. It dawned on Tess that if he hadn’t read her letter, there were other things he did not know. She floated helplessly, at a loss as to how to tell him. As she hesitated, his glance slid downward to where the clear water lapped gently at the swell of her breasts. Though the frown never left his face, she saw a muscle tighten in his cheek as he looked quickly away. The desire, and immediate denial of it, were plain.

The threat of losing what she had so lately gained gave her courage. She set her feet down on the yielding sand and rose, no longer permitting herself to hide in
the questionable concealment of transparent water. “Before you make any judgments about—what happened last night,” she said evenly, “I think you should know something.”

He kept his eyes determinedly on the far reef, even though the early sun hid nothing of her glistening torso.

“I’m not married,” she said.

He looked at her then, all right. As if she were some monstrous, mythical beast, just risen from the sea.

“The vows I took with Stephen were anulled. He never touched me—” She paused, bit her lip. “Not in that way.”

Somehow, she had expected him to be glad. Relieved, at least. His stunned expression didn’t surprise her, but the slowly dawning fury that replaced it she had not anticipated. In a voice low and trembling, he said, “No. You won’t get at me like that. I’m not going to fall for another one of your bloody tricks.”

“It’s not a trick. It’s true.”

“Then why are you running away from Eliot, if your marriage was anulled?”

“I’m not running away from him,” she said simply. “I wanted to find you.”

He blinked, looked confused and angry. “What the hell for? To get your hands on a shabby clipper ship?”