Natchez Flame (31 page)

She jerked free and swung again—and this time the blow connected, the resounding slap echoing across the room. She sprang off the bed and raced to the door, but Brendan caught her in two long strides.

Cursing beneath his breath, he turned her into his arms as he pressed her against the door. “You’re wrong, Priscilla. I would have come after you, no matter where you were. You’ve been mine since the night we made love on the prairie—Egan isn’t the only man who keeps what belongs to him.”

With that his mouth came down over hers. Priscilla struggled against him, felt the hard strength of his body, felt the yearning in his touch, the hunger, and the passion. She also felt his need for her. It was there in the way he held her, securing her tightly, yet not hurting her. He had never hurt her, she recalled. Never.

His long-fingered hands moved down her body, gentling her, willing her to respond. How could she not when she loved him so? Brendan let go of her arms and she settled them around his neck. When her tongue slid into his mouth, he groaned. He kissed her again, so thoroughly her knees went weak, and then he pulled away.

“You trusted me once, Priscilla. In a grubby seaport town on the Texas Gulf where trusting a man was the craziest thing you could do. You looked into my eyes and you believed in me. I’m asking you to believe in me now.”

Priscilla didn’t answer. Her throat had closed up and her eyes filled with tears. “If you were innocent, why were you running? I knew you were—I could see it in your face.”

“But you don’t see it there now, do you?”

Her gaze searched his, looking for the truth. “No.”

Brendan raked a hand through his hair. “I was running, Priscilla, but not from a murder charge. I killed that man because he tried to shoot me. I was innocent of anything but defending myself, and I never really believed the law would follow me to Texas. What I was running from—hiding from—was the war. There were things that happened in Mexico … things I didn’t want to face up to.”

She let the words sink in, remembering the way he had withdrawn whenever someone mentioned his involvement in the war. “And now you can?” she asked softly.

“In Texas—after I left you at the Triple R with Egan—I realized I’d found something worth living for. A reason to put the past behind me and make
something of myself. I want us to build a life, Priscilla, have the children we talked about. I need you, Sill, and I want you for my wife.”

She reached out to him then, touched his face with trembling hands, and knew without doubt his words were true. His strong arms went around her. It felt so right to be held by him, as if she were finally where she belonged.

Tears trickled gently down her cheeks. “Make love to me,” she whispered. It was madness, she knew, for anything might yet happen. But the moment Brendan had carried her out of the house on Pearl Street, she had known the chance for a life with Stuart was past. She loved Brendan Trask, and no amount of denial could change that.

It wasn’t fair to Stuart, hadn’t been since the night she had married him. Whatever happened now, she intended to set things right between them. In the meantime, Brendan was here and she loved him. She wanted to show him how much.

Brendan stepped back to look at her and his heart swelled with love. His wet shirt and breeches had dampened the front of her nightgown, making it cling to her willowy curves. The tips of her breasts thrust upward with every soft breath, and tendrils of shiny dark hair fanned out at her temples. His body, already hard, throbbed with an ache he knew only too well. God it felt good just to look at her.

Sliding an arm beneath her knees, he lifted her up, carried her across the room, and laid her gently on the bed.

“You’re wet,” Priscilla said softly, running a finger through the dampness on his neck. Drops of water
clung to his chest hair and glistened in the glow of the lamp. “You’d better get out of those clothes.”

Brendan smiled slowly. “Exactly what I had in mind.” He tugged his shirt from the waistband of his breeches and stripped it off, then sat down on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. Priscilla ran her fingers along the muscles of his back, and they tensed beneath her hand.

“I love the way you feel,” she said, trailing small soft kisses where her hands had just been, making his loins grow thick and heavy.

Turning toward her, he lifted away a lock of her hair and kissed her shoulder, then stood up to unfasten his pants. Priscilla’s hands came up to work the buttons.

“Just this once,” she said, “I’m not going to think about what we’re doing, whether it’s right or wrong. Tonight I’m going to touch you the way I’ve always wanted, be just as wicked as the other women you’ve known.” She popped the first button free, but Brendan stilled her hand at the second.

“I know this is all still new to you. I wish we were married, that you didn’t have to worry about the problems we still have to solve. But I want you to understand that no matter what happens, making love isn’t wicked.” He tipped her chin with his fingers. “It’s beautiful. It’s sharing and joy, giving and receiving. At times it can be playful, sometimes passionate, but nothing has ever been more right than what we’re doing here now.”

She blinked back a fresh mist of tears. Brendan picked up her hand, kissed it, then returned it to the hardness at the front of his breeches. “I believe you
were helping me undress,” he said with an edge of roughness.

Priscilla’s mouth went dry. With fingers a little less steady, she unfastened the buttons that closed up his breeches, then started in surprise at discovering he wore nothing underneath.

“Need some help?” he teased, his blue eyes warm with amusement. There was hunger there, too, and bold masculine power.

She shook her head. “No.” The word came out on a soft breath of air as she slid his breeches down his hard-muscled thighs. Brendan stood naked in front of her. Priscilla stared at his rigid manhood, thick and virile and demanding. On the prairie, their love-making had come between rounds of exhaustion and their fear of being pursued. There’d been no time for exploration, only time to ease their need.

Now, in the glow of the lantern, Priscilla let her eyes drift over him, taking in the width of his shoulders, his narrow waist, and smooth dark skin. A thatch of springy brown hair covered his muscular chest, then arrowed down his flat belly to surround his manhood.

“Touch me, Silla.”

It was what she wanted, what she ached to do. Reaching for him, she encircled his hardened length with her hand and Brendan groaned.

She’d only begun to discover his secrets when he pulled her to her feet in front of him and drew the nightgown over her head. They stood naked before the big bed, touching, caressing, getting to know each other’s bodies.

Brendan cupped a breast, expertly teased a nipple,
and Priscilla felt the heat of it all the way to her toes. He pulled her closer, bending to place his mouth where his hand had just been. Flames licked her body; gooseflesh danced up her spine. Her breasts felt heavy and achy, and the place between her legs grew damp and throbbing.

He hadn’t kissed her yet, and she thought she might die if he didn’t. Reading her as always, he fitted her against him and captured her mouth with his. His tongue felt like satin and his breath held the clean scent of rain. When Brendan deepened the kiss, his hands sliding down to her bottom, cupping it to bring her closer, Priscilla swayed against him, clutching his neck for support.

“I want you,” she whispered against his ear. Brendan groaned and lifted her into his arms. She thought he would take her then, but he only set her down on the edge of the tall four-poster bed. Kissing her all the while, he eased her legs apart, and settled himself between them.

“Remember what I told you, baby. Nothing we do is wicked.” Trailing kisses along her throat and down her shoulders, he nipped a breast, kissed the flat spot below her navel, then moved lower. Priscilla stiffened, tightening her legs against his intrusion when she realized where he was headed.

“Open for me, Silla,” he whispered, urging her legs apart. “Let me love you.”

Priscilla relaxed, accepting the fingers he slid inside her, feeling his lips moving hotly along her thigh. He pressed her down on the mattress as his mouth touched her most intimate parts and he began
to nip and tease, sending a wave of heat through her body.

Priscilla couldn’t think, couldn’t move, in fact she could barely breathe. Fire engulfed her, waves of liquid heat and mounting pleasure. In seconds, the fiery sensations had built until she was thrashing against him, begging him for more.

“I need you inside me,” she told him when the ecstasy rose to a pleasure she couldn’t quite bear. “Please, Brendan.”

He kissed her breasts as he rose above her. She felt his thick shaft pressing against her, and then he slid inside.

“Brendan….” she whispered, feeling the heavy length, absorbing the heat it created, the waves of spiraling passion. He paused for a moment, gathering his control, and Priscilla squirmed in frustration. “More … I need more, Brendan. Please….”

He plunged hard inside her. “All you want, baby,” he promised, filling her completely. “All you can take.”

Priscilla moaned at his words. When she gripped his shoulders and arched against him, Brendan began to move, slowly at first, easing in and out, setting up a rhythm that drove all other thoughts from her mind. With each of his strokes, he grew bolder, demanding a little more, driving a little deeper. Priscilla met each of his demands and begged for more.

She wasn’t disappointed. Brendan drove hard and deep, staking his claim, forcing her to accept it. Their bodies pounded together in an age-old rhythm, hurling them higher and higher. They reached their peak together, bright stars bursting in Priscilla’s mind
among a backdrop of rich dark sweetness so poignant she could taste it. Brendan shuddered, his muscles grew rigid, and his warm seed spilled inside her. He rode the crest of the wave, the sheen of his perspiration mingling with her own.

Several heartbeats later, he moved to a place beside her and snugly fitted her against him. “Everything’s going to be all right,” he said with conviction. But something in the way he said it made it seem even harder to believe.

I love you
, she wanted to say, but didn’t. There were too many things unfinished, too much still unresolved.

Instead she lay awake beside him, watching the movement of his wide chest, thinking about what they had done, about how she felt. He was right, she decided. Nothing that wonderful could ever be wrong.

With a little more confidence, she let her fingers trail over the hairs on his chest and down his stomach. One slim finger ringed his nipple, making it pucker and grow hard. It wasn’t the only thing to harden, she discovered, as his maleness began to rise up.

“Minx,” he whispered into the darkness. “I suppose this means you want more.”

Priscilla laughed softly. “You said I could have all I wanted.”

Brendan chuckled, a husky masculine sound. “I’ve got a surprise for you, sweetness—that works both ways. I mean to take all you can give.”

*  *  *

They made love three more times that night. Content and satisfied as they’d never been before, they slept until late in the morning. Priscilla awoke first, happy just to lie there watching the rise and fall of his powerful chest.

When his eyes opened a few minutes later and he felt her gaze on him, he rolled her beneath him and took her gently one more time.

In the silence that followed, Priscilla curled against him. “I lied to you about Stuart,” she said softly. “I’ve never been with any man but you.”

Brendan smiled gently. “I figured that out for myself. You’re not a very good liar.”

She braced a hand on his chest and drew back to look at him. “I’m frightened, Bren. What are we going to do?”

“First we’ll get that annulment, just like we planned. The man who owns this place is a friend of mine, a cotton planter named Bannerman. He knows a lawyer who can help us. Barton Stevens. He’s already been to see him. Stevens will talk to us whenever we’re ready.”

“Do you really think it’ll work? That Stuart will let me go?”

“With the Bannerman family’s support, the social pressure they can bring to bear, I don’t think he’ll have much choice.”

She released an uncertain sigh. “I hope you’re right.”

Brendan lifted dark chestnut hair away from her throat and kissed her ear. “Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

Priscilla smiled, feeling a rush of warmth. “You’re still an outlaw. There’s that to consider.”

“I’m working on it,” he assured her. “Just give me a little more time.”

They lay quiet for a while longer, enjoying the closeness they hadn’t had time for until now.

“I supposed we’d better get up,” Brendan finally said. “Though God knows, I could stay with you like this all day.” Tossing back the sheet, he swung his long legs to the floor.

“Easy for you to say,” Priscilla countered, “thanks to you, all I have to wear is my nightgown.”

Brendan grinned lazily. “Maybe if we get lucky, something will happen to that.”

“Very funny.” He handed her the nightgown, which Priscilla pulled over her head.

“I’ll go up to the main house, see what I can do to solve the problem.” He pulled on his breeches and boots. His shirt was too wrinkled to wear, so he found another and shrugged it on, then started for the door. He stopped midway there.

“You wouldn’t leave, would you? I mean, you’re not going to run back to Egan?”

Priscilla shook her head, a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Not after … what happened last night. It wouldn’t be fair to Stuart.”

Brendan’s jaw grew taut. “You just worry about what’s fair to Priscilla. The rest will take care of itself.” Turning, he strode out the door.

She heard him coming long before she saw him through the window, trailed by a bevy of Negro servants, one of whom carried a copper bathing tub. Two more carried steaming pails of water, a short
black woman carried a sewing basket, and Brendan lugged an armful of lady’s clothes.

Priscilla dove back beneath the covers as the entire entourage came barging into the bedchamber. “What in the world—”