No Other Man (11 page)

She poured
herself a bowl, joining him at the opposite end of the table. He tore his eyes
from her at last, finishing his bowl of soup quickly. He sat back, stared at
the whiskey bottle, drank long and deeply once again.

"A vice you indulge in often?'

"Everytime I acquire an unwanted bride."

"Is that often?"

"Thankfully, no."

"You've never married be—"

"Yes. I was married before."

"Your wife—"

"Is dead."

"I'm sorry."

He
shook his head. "Are you? Not nearly as damned sorry as I, Lady
Douglas."

She
stood abruptly. "Perhaps you should go ahead, then, and dwell in your
self-pity and bitterness." She came around the table, lifting the whiskey
bottle, slamming it back down right in front of him. "Why don't you just
go ahead and drink yourself into a stupor? I'll enjoy the quiet."

She
turned away from him with a dismissive contempt that seemed to light the short
fuse of his temper. To his astonishment he found himself on his feet, wrenching
her back by a corner of her robe. The robe fell from her shoulder, exposing
one of her full young breasts. He'd seen it before, he reminded himself. No
need to feel such a heated lust growing ...

Yes,
he'd seen her before. Familiarity was breeding desire.

"Madam,
I could drink all night—and not fall into a stupor. And remember, you have
chosen to be here. I've offered you a way out. You refuse to take it."

' 'You
are hardly in a proper frame of mind in which to talk this matter through.
You—"

"Talk!"

She
tried to jerk free from him and spin away, gain distance from him. But his
fingers remained taut on her robe, and when she left him, she left behind her
covering as well.

When
she turned to face him, silver eyes wide, she was naked, and at last, somewhat
unnerved.

She blinked, moistening her lips, staring at him without
moving. She lifted a hand toward him, indicating the robe that had fallen by
his feet. "If you'd be so good as to hand that back ..." she
murmured.

He picked up the robe, still meeting her gaze. Then he opened
his clenched fingers, allowing the robe to fall back to the floor.

"Maybe not. Maybe it's time you get to know me better
than you knew my father."

He was taking two long, swift strides toward her before she
seemed to realize her danger. She turned to bolt just when he reached her, his
hands around her waist, lifting her, throwing her down upon the furs on the
bed. She seemed stunned when she first fell, all that golden hair softly
glittering in the subdued firelight, splaying out like tendrils of the sun.
Again, she seemed to regain her breath and attempted to rise for an escape, but
he was quickly down upon her, his weight pushing her deeper down into the furs.

She came to life then, twisting beneath him as she strained
to throw him from her. She fought like a wildcat, trying to strike, kick, punch
him.

"Lady Douglas," he mocked, avoiding the blows she
was attempting to dole out. "I have no desire for a wife, remember? I need
but your word that you'll go home—"

She lay still for a second beneath him, her breasts heaving,
her silver eyes on his.

"We need to talk!"

"There's nothing to say. It will be one way or the
other. We are man and wife, or we are not."

"You're in no frame of mind to straighten this
out—"

"Shall we get an annulment then?"

"You're drunk—"

"Ah, but alas! I've fallen into no stupor. And, as you
can see, I'm not on the verge of a heart attack, either."

"You'll wind up stabbed in the
heart!" she cried, slamming against him again.

"Some men are easier to kill than others."

He straddled her, his fingers sliding along the length of her
bare arms to her wrists, capturing them.

He leaned close to her face. "We're husband and wife, or
we are not," he told her. "The choice is yours. Say the word, and 1
will let you up."

But she didn't speak. Her eyes glittered with a fury that
matched any he had seen in the face of the most savage Crow warrior. She was
dead still, staring at him, challenging him. At last she whispered fiercely,
"I am not going back."

He didn't know what he had expected from her; he didn't even
know exactly what he wanted.

Yes, he did.

He tried to tell himself that it was the whiskey in him, that
he was drunk. But he had drunk to dull the sensations in him, the pain for his
father, the desire for this woman. Hating her, doubting her, indeed, still
wondering what part she had played in his father's death.

But it didn't matter.

He wanted her. Wanted her in a way that defied all reason.
It was like a blinding pulse within him, a pulse that quickened its beat with
each second that went by. It seemed like the force of a storm, like that of a
hundred ponies tearing over the plain. More powerful than thought and reason,
and even pain. He was seduced as well. She had sold herself to the highest
bidder; no matter how he challenged her, she wouldn't say the words that would
force him to set her free now no matter what rage of raw lust had taken root
within his loins.

"Again!" he exclaimed harshly, "I ask you—"

"I will be a wife!" she cried out furiously.

She was trembling but he didn't care. He shifted his weight,
shoving apart her thighs with the force of his knees, adjusting his buckskin
trousers. The painful swell of his sex lay against the softness of her flesh
when he noted her eyes again. They had closed. Her lips were slightly parted. I
ler breasts rose and fell as she gasped for every breath she drew. He watched
her, drawing a hand down the length of her hip and thigh, firmly stroking the
smooth dip of her abdomen, then running his palm over the golden thatch of her
mound before sliding firmly between her legs to part the tender lips of her
sex. She shuddered fiercely again, her lips moving, no sound coming from them.
He thrust her l highs further apart and felt again the fierce shuddering seize
her. He leaned closer against her, pausing to catch her lace in his hand, as he
leaned down taut upon her. "Open your eyes!" he commanded.

She did
so. Swallowing as she faced him. That silver fire still with her. But her eyes
seemed huge once again. Luminous. She moistened her lips, wetting them
furiously with the tip of her tongue. She writhed as if to combat the threat of
him between her thighs. Yet she stopped quickly, meeting his gaze, her lashes
falling then.

"You said something," he whispered to her.

She shook her head.

"You spoke. What did you say?"

Her eyes opened again. "I said ..."

"Yes?"

"Please."

"Please what?"

She
shook her head, closing her eyes. "Please, just don't..."

He
grated down on his teeth. Defied the savage hunger in himself.

"You can still be free."

"I... no."

"Then please ... ?"

She
shook her head again. She shifted. The hard, wildly aroused length of his sex
rubbed against her inner thigh. "Please, don't..."

He frowned. "Hurt you?" he whispered.

She
tried to turn away, forcing the tip of his sex intimately against the portals
of her own. She froze, and he felt her body shaking again, rubbing against him,
now driving him near to insanity. But he placed his palm against her cheek,
brushing his thumb over her lips. "I'll not hurt you," he heard
himself promise huskily. "I'll do my damnedest not to hurt you."

He pressed his mouth to her slightly parted lips, opening
them further, filling them with the force of his tongue, tasting, stroking,
coercing, moving slowly, leisurely at first, lulling ... until he was certain
that she responded. He-kept his lips upon hers while he allowed his hands the
exquisite freedom to roam over her body. Touching. Fingertips light upon the
flesh of her inner arms, his palms barely touching the tips of her breasts.
Holding, caressing, cradling the weight of them, arousing the peaks once more
with a stroke of his palm, the manipulation of his thumb and fingers. His lips
rose from her at last. Trailed along her throat. Took root upon a swollen,
crested nipple. Played long, slowly, suckling, teasing, his tongue darting
against her flesh. Thunder played havoc in his mind. His body tensed into
magnificent knots. He feared that he would implode with the hunger building
inside of him....

She didn't move. Didn't protest. She trembled. At times,
little sounds seemed to escape from her, gasps and moans. Only when he dipped
lower against her, his lips skimming her abdomen as he moved his head in a
horizontal pattern down the length of her, did her fingers suddenly clench his
hair, then release it... and another sound escaped from her throat. He moved
his hand down her inner thigh, his fingers stroking with a featherlight touch.
With his fingertip he drew a line that he touched then with the heat of his
lips and tongue, feeling the rigid tautness of his own muscles, the straining
within him, the desire spiraling with each taste of her. His fingers burned.
His body seemed a roaring inferno. He brought the line of his touch, and the
damp stroke of his kiss behind it, ever higher. He stroked the soft V of golden
blond hair, parted the outer flesh there, pressed intimately within her. She
stiffened, muscles taut, her body shaking despite her efforts to keep still. He
teased, invaded with a liquid caress, then rose, his fingers still touching her
intimately, watching her curiously as he seared within. Her eyes remained
closed. Her fingers were dug into the bed furs with such force that she might
have torn the hair from the pelt. Enough. The thunder within him might well
cause his heart to cease to beat within seconds. He rose again above her.
Thrust apart her thighs, which she had instinctively brought together again.
Thrust heedlessly, hungrily within her. Deep, deep within her, being
encompassed, the relief of just being inside of her so great that he was both
appeased and more wildly aroused and ...

He went dead still, his body both burning and frozen, the
pounding within his head now something that raged, denying all reason. Denying
her innocence.

But he couldn't deny the physical evidence his own rough
force had brought home to him.

Whatever else she might have done, she hadn't seduced his
father into bed. Or at least not this far. Nor had she made her way through
life sleeping with any man.

She didn't cry out. The same reckless courage that had
brought her this far kept her silent now. Her fingers clenched the furs so
tightly that her knuckles were white. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling above;
she had bit into her lower lip with such fierce determination that a tiny drop
of blood rested there now....

His muscles knotted, eased, tensed, contorted again. Reason
demanded he withdraw, sanity demanded that he not. He caught her ashen face
between his fingers, forcing her to look at him.

He should have whispered something reassuring, said something
tender, gentle. He'd taken a virgin before, a virgin wife at that, and the
night had been one filled with laughter and sweet, erotic pleasure for them
both. But they'd both known what they wanted, what they were doing; they'd
known one another....

"Damn you!" he whispered.

So much for tender words. But he could not withdraw, would
not withdraw. They had come this far. She had insisted on being a wife.

He'd said he wouldn't hurt her. He hadn't
realized ...

"Damn you!" he whispered once again. But he drew
her fingers from the fur, threading them through his own, holding her hands
tightly, very slowly beginning to move. He kissed her lips, forcing open her
mouth. As slowly as he moved with the thrust of his sex, he coerced and teased
with his kiss against her lips, with the tip of his tongue upon her mouth,
throat, breasts. Until finally her fingers were no longer entwined with his but
braced upon his shoulders, his back, moving. Until it seemed that her lips
parted to his demand, that her body arched, her nipples hardened again, her
breasts swelled, the length of her form...

Undulated.

Arched. Moved to his.

Caution was lost. The thunder was like a hammer blow, driving
him to a relentless, furious, shuddering rhythm. Heat built within like the
rage of a firestorm; it spiraled throughout him, into her. Her fingers dug into
his flesh, sounds tore from her throat. Her teeth grazed his shoulder, her head
arched back. He grasped her knees, parting her further. A gasp ripped from her
throat, the supple perfection of her form locked around his, rocked, writhed,
undulated, moved with and against his ...

That supple movement forced him to an explosive brink of
climax. He strained to hold himself back, force her ever higher, force from her
...

A cry, strangled back, so quickly swallowed. Yet not so
easily hidden in the rigidity of her form before it went limp, the dampness
that closed so warmly around his sex, driving him the last few seconds into an
explosive, staggering climax, one that brought him thundering into her again,
and again, and once again, his body constricted to a taut line, spilling out
the firestorm that had raged and swept within him. It wracked his body, shook
it, tensed it, eased it, tensed it...

And then, it was over.

He braced over her, his flesh soaked beneath the clothing he
had never found the time to shed. He couldn't remember the last time he had
known such hunger or such fulfillment, such wanting, and such a volatile
climax. He was unbelievably sated, yet thinking of her alone could trigger the
sparks of something deep inside him again, ignite anew the subtle growth of
such a wild hunger again. He stared down at her.

She didn't open her eyes. She had to inhale several times
before she could manage to speak, and even then, her words were barely a
whisper. "Could you ... get off me now?"