Savage Impulses (6 page)

His chuckle was rich and soft, and he ran a
gentle hand down her back. “Well, I hardly got you into bed with a
song and a dance,” he said ruefully, “but, you are right. The truth
is coming out, and it is the truth to me to say that you are
beautiful.”

She ignored the comment and stood up to
stretch her limbs. Despite her careful nonchalance, there was still
something to her that thrilled to his sweet words. When she peeked
over her shoulder at him, she was pleased to see his eyes were
watching her with something that might be called admiration.

“Well, if the truth must come out, then you
are quite handsome, too,” she teased. “I suppose that since we are
being honest, I should say that as well.”

His face grew serious, and he sat up. There
was a tension in his body that hadn't been there before, and he
reached for her hand.

Warily, she gave it to him.

He pulled her close. “Shall we be honest with
each other?” he asked, searching her gaze carefully.

She nodded.

He eased back to sit with his back against
the wall.

She found herself sitting between his legs.
She leaned back against his chest, and slowly she felt their
breathing lengthen and soften. She was almost asleep before he
spoke again.

“I cannot abide liars,” he said softly. “I've
had them in my life from the beginning. There has always been
someone who was ready to cheat me, to steal from me. That's life.
But lying, especially when there's no need, well, I cannot abide
that, do you understand?”

She nodded, but there was already a knot of
fear growing in her throat. She knew what the next words out of his
mouth were going to be, and she dreaded what was going to come
next.

“Were you a virgin when I first took you this
morning?” he asked.

The silence between them stretched and
stretched, and she felt tears prickle at her eyes again. She
wondered if this was punishment for some kind of sin that she
couldn't remember, or if there was something broken inside her that
she could not fix.

“I was,” she whispered dully. It was the
truth, and he had asked her for the truth. It felt like a damning
thing, and when he stirred to speak again, she continued.

“You were the first man I had on top of me
and inside me. I grew up in Bristol, and not the nice part. I know
what it is for a man to want a woman, do you understand? I fought
off men who wanted my virtue since I got my breasts. I ran, I
fought, I kicked, and I never thought that I would want a man's
hands on me until I heard those two in their room.

“I never believed in love songs and ballads.
You told me yourself, after the fun is over, the truth comes out,
and all of that sweetness and gentleness, well, I thought for sure
that it would be over soon enough. Those two, though. My god, can
you imagine what it was like for me? They were honest with one
another. They knew how they wanted each other and what they wanted,
and perhaps they would leave there and never look upon one another
again, but what they had was real.

“Jake, what we have had today was real, too.
I know it is. I know that you think I'm a liar, and I know you
think that I am a whore, but the truth is that I am neither. I
swear to you, I was a virgin when we met.”

Her words tired her more than anything else,
and she slumped back against him. She was ready to hear his words
of recrimination all over again, to have him push her away. She
wondered if he would push her out to sleep in the front room again,
or if he would even let her sleep in the house after what she
said.

For a long handful of moments, all Marigold
could hear was the beating of his heart against her ear. Outside,
the wind howled hard over the prairie, and, somewhere far away, a
wolf howled at the moon. To her shock, Jake's arms came up around
her again, and he pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“I believe you,” he whispered against her
hair. “God and Heaven help me, I believe you. You're sweet, you're
brave, and I want nothing more than for you to be honest as well.
Marigold, I....” Whatever he was going to say trailed off, and he
only held her more tightly. “I believe you,” he said.

When she turned and looked at him, she could
see no shade of doubt on his face.

Wordlessly, she reached up to wrap her arms
around his neck, and then he bore them both down to the
mattress.

“I need you,” he whispered in her ear, and it
thrilled something deep and real inside her.

She curled up in his embrace, lulled by the
sound of his voice whispering things that she had always wanted to
hear in her ear.

* * * *

He was gone again when she woke up the next
day. She knew that he had cattle, but for some reason, she didn't
think that he was out with them. They weren't milk cows after all.
She knew from listening to the conversations of the cowboys that
they were in beef country.

She moved restlessly through the house,
cleaning as she had before. Despite the strangeness of her
situation, she could not help but enjoy a little of the domesticity
that she had been offered. When she came to the United States, she
had expected to be little better than a slave. Though the abuse
that she had endured at the hands of men like Black was far worse
than what she had feared, she had never expected to be able to do
much more than labor her life away for a crust of bread and a place
at the hearth.

The loneliness of the land suited her, she
thought. It was far different from the bustle of Bristol or of the
city of New York, where she had landed. After some time, however,
after her chores were done, she grew restless.

She paced through the rooms of the small
house, back and forth. As the sun dipped closer and closer to the
horizon, she felt an ache rise up inside her again. Jake had
awakened something inside her that could not be calmed. Eventually,
she found her way back to the room where they had slept and done so
much more.

She lay down on the covers again. After they
had slept for some time, she had awakened to feel his hands close
over her breasts, his touch soft and gentle. She had held her
breath as he fondled her, sending sparks of pleasure shooting all
over her body with the lightest of touches. There was something
sweet and slow about it that had been absent in their earlier
lovemaking. He had taken her again, this time simply holding her in
place while he rocked into her from behind. Her climax, when it
came, was long and drawn out, less intense than the ones that had
come before it, but it still shook her down to her core. She
remembered a sleepy kiss before he had left, but that was all.

Marigold sat on the bed for a long moment,
and then her eyes happened to fall down on the rope that he had
used on her before. A red blush came to her cheeks as she
remembered how he had bent her over and made her bare. She glanced
at her wrists where she was oddly disappointed to see not a single
sign or mark of what had come before. She rubbed her wrists gently,
recalling the pressure of the rope and how it had made her
feel.

Hesitantly, she picked up one of the lengths
from the floor. She only meant to wrap it up for when Jake came
back, but the smooth texture of the rope and its even twist
compelled her. She ran the length through her fingers and over her
palms again and again, and it made her sigh deeply.

Marigold lay back on the bed, feeling a
little foolish, but curious about that faintly prickly sensation
and how it might feel on parts even more sensitive. It made her
think of Jake looming over her, and, with a soft naked sound, she
spread her legs and pulled up her skirts. After the long night that
they had spent together, she had impulsively left off her drawers
and her stockings. Underneath the skirt, she was entirely bare, and
there was an undeniable excitement that came from dragging that
length of rope over and over her bare legs.

She started simply by pulling the rope up and
down her legs from shin to thigh, but then she grew bolder and
spread her legs wide apart. The rope roused deep tingles of
sensation when she draped it over her inner thigh. She felt almost
faint with the texture of the rope against her sensitive skin, and
that was even before she dragged the rope any higher.

Biting her lip and trying hard not to think
about what she looked like, she pulled the rope higher still until
the weight of it sat heavily across her sex. Her scant hair there
offered little protection from the harsh kiss of the rope. What had
felt so smooth when she was running it over her hands now felt
almost painful.

It was that sensation that she craved,
however, and, without another thought, she passed one end of the
rope underneath her thigh. With a little bit of fumbling, she could
tug the rope until it was snug up against her warming sex. She
could already smell herself as she tentatively bore down on the
rope. Slowly, her lips split over the harsh length until it was
touching her deeply. When she adjusted the angle, it fell straight
across the most sensitive bud at the top of her slit.

That roughness against her clit made her
gasp, and then she heard a soft, low laugh from the door.

Marigold made a noise that she would later
refuse to admit was a squeak, and she whisked the rope away from
her private parts. At least, she tried to. It caught underneath the
weight of her thigh, and, when she yanked, it hauled hard against
her, making her moan out loud.

Jake stood in the doorway, one shoulder
hitched up on the frame, looking so handsome it took her breath
away. He looked like he had just washed, and now he was dressed
only in jeans and a blue chambray shirt, his feet bare and his
black, black hair swept back. It made him look surprisingly young,
and there was a flash of mischief in his dark brown eyes.

“So the little miss couldn't wait for me,
could she?” he asked, a note of playful menace in his voice. “Just
couldn't keep your hands to yourself?”

“I didn't know I was meant to,” she retorted
shakily, but she couldn't help feeling as if she had been caught
red handed. The rope fell away from her fingers, and she scowled to
make up for the red creeping up cheeks.

He stalked over to the bed, making Marigold
feel as though she were a fawn that was being tracked by a wolf.
She sat up to face him.

He pushed her back down with an easy
confident strength.

Jake bent over her, and she couldn't keep
herself from putting her hands up to push him away. He laughed and
caught each of her wrists in his hands, and then he pinned them to
either side. Trying to struggle against him was like trying to free
herself from iron bands. No matter how much she writhed, she
couldn't budge him an inch.

“I'm just going to let you wear yourself
down,” he told her. “I can keep you pinned for hours until you're
too tired to fight.”

“And then what?” she threw back. “What
exactly are you planning to do with me?”

His soft laugh sent tremors of desire racing
through her body. Almost against her will, she ground her hips
against the bed before she realized what she was doing.

Jake caught her inadvertent motion.

Instead of coming to lie on top of her, the
way she was hoping, he bent over her instead, bringing their faces
close enough to touch. When she tried to reach up for a kiss, he
pulled back. When she tried again, he did the same thing.

She could feel a slow simmer of her temper
build up, and, when he dodged her lips a third time, she snapped
her teeth in anger. Just before she could really let go and give
him a piece of her mind, however, he pulled back to stand
again.

“You stink,” he said calmly. “When was the
last time you even bothered to wash?”

That, coming on top of his teasing, was all
she could take, and she lunged at him, beating at his chest with
her fists. For a moment, she thought she was making him fall back,
but then he grabbed her again. She could have howled with the
helplessness she felt and then he was turning her around wrapping
his arms in front of her.

“You're trouble,” he told her softly. “I knew
you would be trouble from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“What are you going to do with so much
trouble in your arms, then?” she asked, her voice coming out
huskier than she intended. She could feel his cock stir as she
pressed her rear against him, and she did it again,
deliberately.

“Well, first, I'm going to get you good and
bare...”

Instead of taking her on the bed as she
craved, he shifted her wrists to one hand and his free hand went to
the fastenings at the front of her corset. He had them free in a
trice, and then he was yanking her skirt down to the floor. She was
now standing naked in front of him, and she trembled a little at
what was to come.

“And now, I'm going to make it so that you
can't take another swing at me.”

He reached for the length of rope on the
floor. With a few quick, fluid motions, he bound her wrists in
front of her with a long lead coming from the tie. He stepped back,
hanging on to the leash.

When he wrapped the loose end around his fist
and tugged, she could do nothing but follow along.

Mystified, she followed him into the kitchen,
where there was an enormous copper tub dragged out to the middle of
the floor. As if that wasn't enough, it was also filled with gently
steaming water. Her jaw dropped.

“You did this?” she asked, touched. In
Bristol, save for the rare occasion when she and her sister could
scrape together the money for the public baths, she had largely
kept herself clean with a rag and a kettle of water heated on the
cook stove. Sometimes, when fuel was scarce, the water might be as
chilly as the sea. The bath in front of her seemed a terrible
luxury, and it almost made her nervous.