Samantha James (16 page)

And he was tired of others feasting their eyes on what was his.

By God, she
was
his. She shared his home. His name. But she did not share his bed…

He slammed his glass down. The chair scraped across the carpet. Prodded by drink, driven by desire, he took the stairs two at a time. He did not knock to gain entry to her bedchamber; he merely flung the door wide.

Clad in a white lawn nightgown, she was standing near the bed, preparing to blow out the lamp. Her head came around and she spied him.

“What is it?” Her tone was breathless. “Was there something you wanted?”

You
, he nearly said, but didn’t. He smiled thinly. “The night has not yet ended, Yank. Indeed, it only begins.”

Her heart ceased to beat. A slender hand came up to her throat. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

Very deliberately he closed the door.

“I’ve already made you my wife,” he said softly. “It’s time I made you mine.”

H
e began to advance. “It occurs to me I have neglected you, Yank. It’s time I fulfilled the requirements of a husband.”

She blanched, her eyes wild and panicked. Her insides twisted in sickening dread.

Her lips parted. She could barely find the breath to form his name. “Gabriel…”

Her heart beat in a wild frenzy. She could not move. She could scarcely even breathe. The room seemed to seethe with the power of his presence. His shirt was open halfway to his waist, revealing a strong, hair-roughened wall of muscle.

“You play the role of lady far better than I dreamed possible, Yank. Will you play the role of wife and lover as well, I wonder?”

Their eyes collided, hers nervous and uncertain, his hard and relentlessly piercing. The message she glimpsed in his brought a surge of blood to her cheeks.

She had to force her lips to move. “You cannot be serious,” she said faintly.

“Oh, but I am. If you play the role of wife to all the
ton
, you will also play it here—in private.”

Cassie felt as if she were strangling. “But we had a bargain!”

“I’ve changed my mind, Yank.”

“And I have not!”

She stared into eyes that held no gentleness, eyes as cold as the northern seas.

“Come now. You’re well schooled in the drawing room. Shall we see how well skilled in the bedroom you are?”

“No!” she cried. “I-I’d not lay with you if you were the last man on earth!”

Her eyes were huge and stricken, glistening with tears. Gabriel was both furious and confused. What game was this that she played? Had he not known better, he’d have thought she was frightened. But he shunned the mantle of innocence which clung to her, for she was anything but innocent.

“You would not lay with me if I were the last man in the world, eh? Well, for you, Yank, I am the
only
man.”

He stopped, a mere two paces distant. “Come here.”

Cassie did not move. She had known his kiss…but not the touch of his hand. Only now that was about to change…

His tone took on a note of icy menace. “Yank, you are not dull-witted.”

Cassie’s eyes darted to the door. Silently she gauged the distance. If she hurried…

“It will do you no good to run, Yank.”

For all the fierceness of his expression, his voice was almost whimsically soft. Cassie drew a deep, uneven breath, trying to banish her rising panic. Then all at once he was there before her, so close she could feel the burning heat of his body, the rush of his breath on her cheek.

Cassie drew a sharp breath, wanting desperately to retreat yet not certain she dared. She stiffened as a blunted fingertip came out, tracing a flaming line over her jaw, down the arch of her throat, across her shoulder.

Cassie froze, aware that something had changed…His touch was disturbingly warm, yet light as a feather, almost absurdly gentle, as if he meant to soothe and seduce…

“Why do you fight this, Yank? Why do you fight
me
?”

Cassie said nothing. Indeed, she could barely think. The pad of his thumb swept across her collarbone, back and forth. Fiery shivers played over her skin. Never had Cassie been so quiveringly aware of Gabriel as a man…and herself as a woman.

His fingers slid down her throat. Then his hands were on her bare shoulders, drawing her close. “I’ve not forgotten how it was between us that first night in Charleston. You played the unwilling maid then, too. But you did not fool me, Yank. You felt something—”

She shook her head wildly. “I felt nothing! I was there only because Black Jack demanded it!”

For the space of a heartbeat, anger leaped in his eyes. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by a dark, sultry promise that was somehow all the more frightening.

He smiled slowly. “Black Jack was not there in that room with us, Yank. And though I have tried, I’ve not forgotten what passed between us.” Even as he spoke, his hands laid claim to her waist. His head began to lower.

Cassie opened her mouth to deny it—to deny him. “Why are you doing this?” The words were torn from deep inside. “It’s hardly ardor that prompts you to—to take me. I am merely a possession to you, a pawn! You—you said the day we made our bargain that you did not want me!”

His hand twisted in her hair, bringing her face up to his. “You underestimate yourself,” he muttered just before his mouth closed over hers.

But his kiss was not the brutal assault she expected. Oh, at first she kept her lips clamped tightly shut. But he was endlessly patient…endlessly seductive.

“That’s the way, sweet…open your mouth, love, just a little more…”

Their breath mingled deep in the back of her throat. Cassie was helpless against his masculine persuasion. A dark, sweet thrill ran through her. She could feel all of him against her—the indomitable breadth of his chest, the burning brand of his thighs against her own, the swelling potency of all that lay between.

She gasped as his tongue traced the pouting fullness of her lips, and then that daring invader trespassed deep within to breach the honeyed sweetness and claim it for his own…

As he would soon claim her.

With but a touch her flimsy nightgown was whisked down her shoulders, pooling around her ankles. Instinct alone compelled her to protect her modesty at all costs. Her arms came up to shield herself but he did not allow it. With a husky laugh he clamped her arms tight to her sides.

“Don’t do this.” She despised the pleading in her voice yet there was no help for it.

“Why?” His voice was muffled against the arch of her throat. “God knows I am paying dearly enough for the privilege.”

And Gabriel could no more have stayed his desire than he could have stilled the beat of his heart. She was as glorious as he remembered. Her hair fell in rich, deep ripples over her shoulders and down her back, an invitation no sane man could resist. Her breasts, small but perfectly formed and tipped with rose-hued nipples, peeped insolently between silken strands of gold. The golden thicket at the juncture of her thighs paved the way to the treasure beneath.

His blood was pounding almost violently. His manhood, already hard and near to bursting beneath the restraining confines of his breeches, swelled still further.

He freed her, but only for an instant. His hands closed possessively over both breasts. With his thumbs he traced tiny circles around and around her nipples, leaving them tight and aching. He brushed his thumbs across the tips; alive to an aching sensitivity for the very first time, a jolt of sheer pleasure shot through her.

She moaned into his mouth. The sound only inflamed him further. Without releasing the delicious fusion of their lips, he swept her into his arms and laid her on the bed.

Still dazed by the riotous sensations pouring through her, Cassie opened her eyes just as his boots hit the floor. She could not tear her gaze
from him as he ripped off his shirt. Flickering lamplight played across the contours of his shoulders, the knotted muscles of his arms. Her throat grew dry and parched. In awe she stared at his chest and abdomen, densely matted with hair. Her gaze strayed helplessly lower, just as he stripped off his breeches.

She had seen him naked before…naked…

But never aroused.

Her eyes widened. She was unable to stifle a gasp, for never had she imagined the proof of a man’s desire would be so brazenly blatant and bold. To Cassie’s untutored eyes, his staff was huge, swollen and irrefutably erect. And suddenly she understood so very much more…Sweet heaven, how could he take her? He would tear her in two!

She would have bolted then, but he was already there. Arms like twin bands of iron came around her. He dragged her close—closer still, as if he sought to fuse their bodies together…

As indeed he would. Oh, she knew what he intended. Etched into her mind were memories of Bess crawling into bed, quietly weeping, her body sore and bruised. He would vent his lust in her body, defeat her in that age-old way that man dominates woman.

“Stop,” she cried. “Stop!”

His laughter was a terrible sound. “Cease this game, Yank, for I know you want me. Oh, you would try to hide it from me, but I see it in your eyes. I’ve felt you tremble beneath me, your lips soft and yielding. You want me as much as I want you.”

She flung out her hands as if such feeble resistance could keep him at bay. “If I tremble, ’tis because I can hardly stand the thought of laying with the likes of you! I do not want you—do you hear? I do not want you!”

Cool gray eyes glittered down at her. With the weight of his chest he pinned her beneath him. “A pity you feel this way, sweet, for I’ve decided to claim my rights as a husband—and I will claim them now.”

His usual cool control had vanished. She sensed within him all that she feared. Oh, but she should never have been so rash with her words, for now he meant to punish her!

Dark and dangerous, he loomed above her. His eyes were no longer cold, but heated and searing. In some distant part of her being, Cassie knew he was right. There would be no escaping this night. There was no escaping
him
.

“No!” She twisted beneath him, but there was no denying him. On some far distant plane, she knew he was not a violent man—hard and ruthless perhaps, but not unspeakably cruel. Her mind recounted that not-so-distant day at Farleigh when they had been shot at. His features had not lied—his icy remoteness had vanished. She remembered him bending over her, his expression anxious, almost frantic. And when she had nearly been swept from his ship, he had held her tight to his warmth when he might easily have left her alone. Though she might never view him as kind and considerate, she could be no less than honest. Whether he knew it or not, whether he willed it or not, he
could
be gentle…

But there was no softness in him now. There was only a stark, unyielding purpose that somehow frightened her.

His mouth captured hers, hot and consuming. A tremor coursed through her. She could scarcely tell when one kiss ended and the next began. There was nowhere their bodies did not touch. She could feel the iron-taut shaft of his manhood rigid and thick against her belly.

His hands were on her breasts again. She gasped as his fingers again circled her nipples, as if to taunt and tease. She clutched at the hardness of his shoulders. An odd, melting sensation fanned low in her belly. Then, even as she watched, his mouth fastened on that turgid, aching peak. His tongue curled slowly around her nipple. In shock she felt his mouth close fully around it. Tugging, suckling, the contact blatantly erotic…She tossed her head, whimpering. Tiny needles of sensation were centered there, on the throbbing point of her breast. But just as she abandoned herself to a swirling pleasure, his hand strayed still further.

With no hesitation his fingers slid boldly through her golden fleece. He touched her there between her thighs. Deliberately. Boldly. Neither realized he moved far too fast for a woman of her inexperience.

Cassie stiffened, instinctively closing her thighs against his shamefully invading encroachment, shocked to the core. Surely it was wrong—surely it was wicked. Surely no gentleman would touch a lady so! And then she remembered…

He thought her a harlot.

He thought her no better than her mother. That bitter truth tore through her—the one thing that Cassie could not endure.

She tore her mouth free. “No,” she cried. “Damn you, stop—stop!” She shoved at his shoulders, this time no pitiable effort, but with all her strength.

He was as immovable as stone. His head came up. His eyes were pure frost, his mouth a grim slash. “Why do you fight me?” he said furiously. “Why do you deny me, your husband, what you’ve given so freely to others?”

She had no chance to answer. His mouth came down on hers, fiercely devouring. Her fingers were caught and laced within his, borne down to the mattress alongside her head. With his knees he pried her thighs apart.

With one burning, stretching stroke of fire he claimed her, clear to the depths of her womb.

How tight she was…impossibly tight. Even as the thought ripped through his mind, a strangled cry of pain broke from her throat.

Confronted with the truth, Gabriel froze. Though reason compelled retreat, his body ruled otherwise. He could not battle the blind, driving passion which seized him, the fire that had not abated since the day he’d set eyes on her. The red-hot desire in his body clamored for release. With a groan of defeat, he began to move, slowly at first, then faster, until he was lunging mindlessly again and again. He shuddered, his scalding seed erupting deep inside her.

Gabriel was the first to recover. He rolled from her, reaching for his breeches.

“How can this be?” he demanded. “Black Jack offered you to me that first night—how can it be that you were a virgin?”

Her eyes opened slowly, wounded and bruised, as if he’d run her to ground…and perhaps he had. His mouth twisted. The taste of self-disgust was like dust in his mouth.

He saw her reach for the sheet that lay tangled about her ankles. He saw the way she trembled; with one swift movement, he wrenched it over her nakedness. He damned himself for his weakness—and damned her for hers.

Cassie would not look at him. “Black Jack did not make us lie with the customers if we did not wish to. Nor was there any need for me to…” She faltered. “Nell was only too willing,” she went on, her voice barely audible. “My friend Bess did it for the money it would bring. But she died birthing her babe only a few days before you arrived. I—I did not want to end up like her.”

“So why didn’t you tell me the truth—that you were a virgin? All this time you let me believe you were well experienced when it came to the ways of men!”

At last Cassie braved a glance at him. She was blind to all but the tense line of his jaw. She sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to her naked breasts. “I
let
you?” Her eyes darkened. “You’ve made no secret what you thought of me, milord. You called me thief. You thought me a…a whore.” God, but it hurt to say the word aloud! “Had I told you the truth you would never have believed me.” Her tone was as scathing as her eyes. “You believed what you wanted to believe.”