One Wore Blue (15 page)

He lifted a ringlet of her hair from her shoulders, and she saw the slight movement in his fingers. He buried his face against it, then she was in his arms once more, tasting his kiss, tasting all the sweet and mysterious and haunting things that it promised.

He found more hooks, and she felt her gown whisper down to her feet, leaving her in the bone of her corset, her delicate chemise, her petticoat, and her pantalets.

He was an experienced lover, she thought. Despite his haste and fire, he was at ease with the complexity of her clothing. He could kiss and tease and tantalize, his lips never leaving her flesh. Her petticoat crumpled to her feet. The softness of her chemise was stripped away, the material rustling over her naked flesh, as sensual as his touch. Still his mouth and the moist searing heat of it kept her in wonder as he cast aside the restriction of her stays, tossing the bone far from them.

Her shoulders and breasts were naked to his gaze.

He paused briefly to just stare at her. In the twilight, his eyes reflected flames, flames that smoldered and elicited both desire and shyness, a need to be known, and a need to hide. But before she could react fully to the fires that blazed in his eyes, she was within his arms again.

There were words at last, words that touched her flesh in hot whispers. They told her that she was beautiful. Words of poetry—

And words of raw hunger.

She found herself swept up again and laid both fiercely and tenderly upon the satin lining of his cape. He lay quickly down beside her. The brush of his fingers and the warmth of his tongue raged over the mounds of her breasts, explored contours and creamy skin, and set fire to the pebblelike peaks of rouge and crimson that tautened instantly at his touch.

She had thought before that his kiss could enter deeply into her. Now it seared a trail so hot that it denied her all thought. All she knew was longing. She arched against the palm of his hand as he pulled the tie to her pantalets. A flush—soft pink in the twilight of the shack—flooded her cheeks.
But she felt the husky tenor of his delighted laughter, and when his lips found hers again, his whispers eased her from embarrassment.

He had wanted her so very long. He had waited, and he had known, he had always known, just as he had known the summer gales that swept the Tidewater, that one day they would come to this.

Her pantalets were shed, her shoes were tossed aside.

And her stockings were removed more erotically than she had ever imagined clothing could leave the human body. The stroke of his fingers, feather-light against her thighs, moved upwards toward that center of flame.

His shoulders were broad and bronzed in the light, his chest dusted with a heavy spattering of dark hair. He was well muscled but whipcord lean, so taut in the belly, lean in the hips …

And passionate within the dark nest of his loins.

She saw him completely for only seconds because he crawled over her and straddled her hips. She gasped as his sex touched her, as hard as steel but as hot as fire against her flesh. With almost the curl of a smile to his lips, his face was still very tense. He stared at her again. She felt shuddering within him and knew that no matter how badly he wanted her, he would pull back now if she wished it.

The sun suddenly fell farther. Red light flooded into the shack, washing away the shadows. His flesh was toned red, and when she lifted her own hand, she saw that it too was caught in that glowing reflection.

Like a reflection of blood.

She started to shiver, suddenly very afraid. But she wasn’t afraid of Jesse. She wanted to hold him tighter than ever.

“Jesse,” she whispered.

“It isn’t right,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have you here. I shouldn’t have swept you away. I should never have touched you. Your father would have a right to take a rifle to my heart this very moment.”

She blinked away the illusion of the red light. The shivering stopped. Her soul was on fire, her body was on fire. She wanted to touch his flesh, to run her fingers over the muscled
breadth of his shoulders, to test the tight ripples in his belly, to press her lips against his chest. Most of all, she wanted to appease the longing inside her. She wanted the emptiness to be filled.

She reached out and touched his cheek. She spoke a truth that she never thought she would utter.

“I love you, Jesse.”

A soft oath escaped him, and she was swept back into his arms. She felt the fervor of his kiss, and the heat and fire began to build and spread anew within her. Hungrily he feasted upon her breasts.

And hungrily she tasted him in turn, twisting, turning, to press her lips to his shoulders, his throat, and softly, wetly, drew patterns down the rippling muscles of his chest.

He shifted upon her suddenly. The thrust of his knee parted her thighs, and the weight of his body spread her further. She felt the erotic touch of his hands again. His fingers caressing, exploring, ever more boldly. She felt him touch her intimately in the very place where she seemed to feel the spiraling heat most deeply.

A cry tore from her lips and she surged against him. And still he touched her, more deeply, more intimately.

Tantalizing …

He had created a tempest within her, and she rocked and undulated against his touch. A spark glowed deeply inside her, and each sweet stroke of his sent the fire burning more and more brightly.

Again he shifted, and it seemed that all of his body parted her. Incredibly, impossibly, he demanded more from her, and he gave more to her. His kisses lingered upon the softness of her upper thighs.

She must protest, she knew that she must—just as she knew that her cheeks were flooded with color. She tried to whisper his name, but the word wouldn’t come.

She couldn’t protest. The feelings were too exquisite, the longings too intense.

Then he took his boldness a step further, and she felt the searing moist heat of his kiss, of his tongue, against the most intimate of virgin flesh. Nothing, not the wind, not the fire,
not the ice of winter, could ever cause such sensation. She gasped and sought to rise, but his fingers curled around hers.

The ecstasy was so sweet that it was anguish. She could bear no more of it. She was faint, she was dizzy, she was trembling, and she knew that she must reach some promised explosion or perish soon for the longing and the soaring.

It was then that he took her, when she needed him so desperately. The pain came swift and staggering. She cried out with it, stunned, her fingers tightening upon his flesh.

But so quickly it was gone!

She had been empty, and now she was filled. His kisses held her while the thrust of his body entered within her, deep, deeper. A velvet blade cut her in two, brought agony, a certainty that she could never bear the intrusion.

But his kiss, his touch, his slow, shattering movement—all these brought her feelings and senses reeling into play again. The agony receded, and the sweetly soaring ecstasy came to the fore once again.

He moved so slowly, thrusting against her until she cried out, then rose again. Then once more he moved, slowly, achingly slowly …

Until she discovered that she was rising against him. Until the need within her was so rich and so great that she could not bear his absence. Oh, how it grew, this need! And still he took care, planting kisses upon her breasts as he moved. She arched against him, thrust and writhed against him.

Suddenly his arms wrapped tightly around her, and she knew that Jesse would wait no more. She arched against him, and he willingly availed her of her longing, bearing down upon her deep and hard and fast, creating a rhythm that flew with a pulsing beat. She lost all sense of what was around her. She heard the water beating over the rock, and the sound swept into her. She hungered, she wanted, she ached. She needed all that she received, but she reached, and she did not know why she reached. The sweetness, the ecstasy filled her until she thought that she must die with it, that she must explode, and still he moved.…

Then it seemed that she
did
die, and that her senses
did
explode. Shattering light burst all around her, the rays fell
from the sun, a thousand stars seemed to burst and shimmer down upon her all in one. She could not move, for the stars disappeared and the world went briefly black, and when she could see again, the stars were still cascading down upon her. Warmth radiated through her body and to her limbs, sweet nectar filled with warmth. Her body was racked with shudders.

And then she felt Jesse. He went deadly taut above her, muscles bunching and constricting, and he moved against her once again, thrusting so very deeply.

A sweet warmth burst from within him, showering into her. To her amazement, it brought a new flow of ripples within her own body, tantalizing, wonderful little aftershocks of splendor.

His weight rested briefly upon her until he rolled to his side. His arms curled around her, and he brought her with him. She leaned her cheek against the sweat-sleek flesh of his chest, and her lashes closed over her eyes. She had never felt such exhaustion.

She had never known such wonder.

Jesse was silent, stroking her hair. She herself couldn’t speak because she couldn’t think what to say. It had been one thing to share such absolute intimacy in the heat of the moment, but now, in memory, much of it made her blush. And now, as the cold night air settled over her and darkness began to replace the multitude of colors of the sunset, she realized that she should not have done this. Her father would be horrified; indeed, any man or woman within her world would be horrified.

She’d never really even kissed Anthony.

And Anthony would have never even thought of making love to her like this. It would not be proper. If she married Anthony, they would probably go through years together with neither of them ever knowing the other as intimately as she now knew Jesse.

And yet doing this couldn’t be wrong. She loved Jesse. She had told him so. He had given her every opportunity to stop what had happened between them.

She shivered from the briskness of the air. “Cold?” Jesse asked her.

“Very,” she whispered.

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, then balanced his weight to roll over her and leap lightly to the floor. Naked and comfortable in his nakedness, he walked over to the fire and knelt low. “There’s kindling,” he murmured. He strode back to his pants for his striker, and within a few minutes he had a warm fire going. Kiernan had not waited for that warmth to draw his navy cavalry cape around herself. She wasn’t sure if she was ashamed of her own behavior or not, but she simply couldn’t be as comfortable in front of Jesse as he was in front of her. When he returned, she was sitting up and watching him somewhat nervously.

He smiled. His dark hair was totally disheveled and fell in an ebony lock over his forehead. He seemed younger than the man who had carried her here in such a tempest. His smile was crooked and wicked, yet broad and filled with both humor and tenderness.

“I saw you reaching for the liquor when we came in. Need a drink now?”

“Yes,” she said. “No—I mean, I don’t need a drink. I really shouldn’t be drinking whiskey. Ladies don’t …” She paused and her voice trailed away, and then she looked up at Jesse. “Oh, Jesse, ladies don’t ever do what I did here today, do they? Ever.”

He found a glass and wiped the rim carefully, then splashed whiskey into it. He took a long sip himself, then came to sit beside her. He drew her close to him, and the roughness of his cheek rubbed against her forehead when he spoke. “Only the very greatest ladies could love so deeply and so well,” he told her. He offered her the whiskey. She sipped it and coughed and choked, and he patted her upon the back, smiling.

“Don’t! Oh, please don’t laugh at me!” she implored him.

“Kiernan, I would never laugh at you. Lord, sweetheart, today has been the most tender day in all of my life, and I will thank you for it always.”

He seemed sincere, and she discovered that she could no
longer meet his eyes. She stared at her hands. His were so large and so bronzed—the palms roughened from constant riding, but the fingers so long and precise and dedicated to his medical calling—very dark against the whiteness of her own.

Those fingers curled around hers. “I think that this has been coming all our lives.”

“I am practically engaged to another man,” she murmured.

“Ah, yes. Poor Anthony,” Jesse said dryly. She didn’t like the tone of his voice. He rose and reached for his long johns and then his trousers with their yellow piping. He pulled them on and headed to the fire, poking it to stoke up the flame. The firelight played upon his chest. For a few moments she dared to survey him. She relished the play of gold and orange and fire that danced over his flesh. In his very masculine way, he was beautiful, toned and hard and beautiful. He had held her in his arms, he had held her against his flesh, and he had given her so very much. She had no experience, yet she was shrewdly convinced that she had been seduced by a rare man, that what she had touched was indeed a form of magic. And without Jesse, she might never touch that magic again.

She could never have shared this experience with any man but Jesse, she thought. Never. Maybe she had always known it.

“There’s no reason to be rude about Anthony,” she murmured, drawing the cape more tightly about her as if it were a shield of respectability.

“No,” he said, sounding bitter. “There’s no reason to be rude about Anthony.”

“Jesse, I hadn’t seen you in months, and suddenly—”

“And suddenly I was back in your life,” he interrupted. His voice was quiet, thoughtful.

“You came to me this afternoon,” she began, but she didn’t finish. This time he strode back to the bed and came down on one knee before her, taking her hand.

“Yes, I came in a tempest to steal you away like the wind.
And you came with me,” he murmured, and brushed aside her hair.

She smiled. “Yes, I came with you,” she told him. She let the cape fall to reach for that straying lock of black hair upon his forehead, and she smoothed it back. She didn’t want to talk about Anthony again. She didn’t want to hear or say words that might dispel the closeness between them. She didn’t want the magic broken.