The Barefoot Bride (44 page)

"Whatever sorter woman I am, I'm still a woman," she whispered huskily. "And whatever kind o' man you are, yore still a man. Make... love... to... me... now."

He took a step forward. The brandy he still held sloshed onto his hand. He watched it drip to the rug. Looking back up at Chickadee, he pointed to the floor.

A question in her eyes, she sank to her knees. He shook his head. She sat. His blue gaze told her
no.
She met it with one that said
anything
and stretched out on the luxurious carpet. He knelt beside her, inserted his finger into his snifter, and painted her lips with brandy. "Drunk. I am drunk with lust for you, mountain girl. Tonight I will drink my fill."

Drop by drop, he wet her body with the brandy. From toes to forehead, she was thoroughly moistened with the potent fluid. "I have no idea," he said and bent to lick at the brandy pooled in the hollow of her throat, "which is the more intoxicating, you or the brandy. But after tonight I will know the answer."

His mouth drank the amber droplets from her ivory skin. At her toes he began; to her calves, knees, and thighs he went. Upward, onward, his tongue, his lips, his teeth traveled, biting, licking, sucking alternately at her flat belly, the gentle curve of her rib cage, the swell of her breasts, the velvet slope of her neck, and finally the peach softness of her mouth. Her scent, the perfume he'd never been able to describe, permeated his mind and soul. He gulped at the taste of her, and still his thirst for her could not be quenched. Her skin rippled beneath his hungry mouth, her moans filled his being, lifting him to greater heights of desire.

"Saxon." His name was her plea. He needed no other urging and gave her that for which she begged. She accepted him with all the love she had for him and indulged herself with one brief moment of the pleasure mounting within her before she mentally tore herself away from it. Steeling herself from the anger she knew was just on the horizon, she used every bit of willpower to rise above the desire that continued to lance through her.

"Remember," she panted into his ear and never slowed the rhythmic circling of her hips. "You was about four, five years old."

He became still.

"Make love to me, Saxon."

Had he imagined what he'd heard her say? Unsure, he resumed his lovemaking. The pleasure was intensified with each of the wild movements she made beneath him.

"You wanted lovin' hands, but she only had pizened fangs. She was a spider a-layin' in wait fer you."

His stomach wound into a hard knot. "What?"

"Love me, love me," she purred, her tongue flicking in and out of his ear. She tightened herself around him and continued to stroke him within.

"Keely," he began but was again lost in the bliss her body offered him.

She let him savor it for a while longer before speaking again. "You couldn't run away then, and you cain't run now neither. She hurt you, and that hurt never went away. Let it outen, Saxon. Git shed of it ferever."

He realized he was hearing correctly. "Stop—" His every muscle strained as he tried to control the explosion of memories Chickadee's whispered reminders loosened within, but even as they escaped from their chains, his unbridled passion for her continued to grow. His entire body was welded to hers in one way or another. He shook his head in an effort to clear it of his past, wanting to concentrate on nothing but Chickadee. But the memories still remained.

Chickadee knew it by his body's sudden stiffening. He was remembering.

"Let me see... from the time you was old enough to understand thangs, Araminty set a-plantin' it in yore head thur was somethin' so dang wrong with you that it jist warn't possible fer her to love you. But that warn't enough. She tole you nobody else was ever gwine love you neither. Ain't that what she said?"

His only response was to try and lift himself from her, but his efforts were futile. She clung to him, body and soul, giving him no quarter.

"Stop this at once," he growled, then moaned when she shifted beneath him and he slid deeper into her.

"Iffen I close my eyes, I can near 'bout see you as a young-un. You prob'ly got inter all sorter mischief jist like all young-uns do. And ole Spider Woman was allus thar with that cane, a-mellerin' you ever' time you—"

"Dammit, Keely!" he shouted, his mind ravaged with pain. "Don't—"

"Yore little heart was a-breakin' fer her to love you, and yore little body was a-achin' fer her to hold you. But she didn't never do them thangs. She only kept on—"

"I'm warn—"

"And finally that cane o' hers broke more'n yore body. It broke yore spirit. Beatin' after beatin', and her allus a-tellin' you that nobody warn't never gwine love you. Allus a-sayin' that you didn't know how to love nobody neither. Over and over agin, ever' minute of ever' day and night. She didn't never let up. She—"

"Enough!" But it was too late. Like red-hot lava, the memories spewed forth from the volcano he'd kept dormant for too many years. Destructive and uncontrollable, they covered him with burning rage.

He crushed her face between his hands. His gaze, like a blue bolt of lightning, sizzled into her. "Go on and slap me, Saxon. Y'know dang well you want to hit somebody."

He dug his fingers into the back of her neck.

"Still cain't do it? Well, let me hep you. Thank on all them thangs Araminty done to you. Remember that cane, how it felt on yore bare skin. How you cried and begged her to stop. And how she didn't never stop!"

Her sweet face seemed to melt into Araminta's heinous one. He shook his head, searching for Chickadee again, but he couldn't find her. "Keely?"

"What did she do? Have Thatcher hold you down? Did she tie you up with ropes?"

The need to release his violence overwhelmed him. With tremendous determination, he tried to expel Araminta's horrible visage from his mind, but she remained, sneering, cackling, her black brooch glowing.

"Yore afeared." Chickadee goaded him on and arched her hips against his. Her efforts were rewarded by Saxon's involuntary moan. "Yore skeert o' them feelin's you got pushed down so deep. Y'know iffen you let 'em go and brang 'em to mind, thur gwine make you hurt agin—jist like they hurt when you was little."

"So you're saying if I talk about them, they'll go away?" He let out a horrible laugh. "Things like that don't go away, Keely! Not ever!"

"Yeah? What makes you so dang shore? You thank you know ever'thang, but you—"

"Stop!" He hammered his fist down to the floor.

"Saxon—"

"Quiet!"

She kept him within her, and while her body tormented him sensuously, her lips tortured him verbally. "It's a sour tit, but you got to suck it. Ain't nothin' else in the world but mem'ry, and that'll mend what Spider Woman done to you. Yer gwine have to reach down and get holt o' that little boy who's still inside thar. He's been covered with pain, fear, and hatred fer too many years. Even when his body turned inter a man's body, his little mind, heart, innocent needs... No, thur ain't two ways about it. Yer gwine have to git mad enough to bite a nail in two and then let it all out afore—"

"Why are you doing this?"

"I love you! And that's why fer I'm a-doin' this to you, you dang fool! So git mad, Saxon!"

Tremendous fury thundered through him. "If it's rage you want, Keely, I grant you your wish!" Brutally, he drove into her.

Instinctively, she had known she was the only instrument he could use to overcome the pain. "Go on," she urged him. "Here I am, ready to take ever' bit o' hatred you got to give. All the frustration, wrath, and sorrers. Give it all to me, Saxon. I'm gwine take it and turn it inter love!"

He rammed into her, his devils driving him unmercifully. Everything came back to him full force, all the horrible memories. He couldn't separate himself from them any longer. They tore through him, and with them rose a loathing for the woman who'd caused them.

And Chickadee knew then the fight between hatred and love had begun.

She could feel nothing but misery surging through him. His lovemaking was barbaric. He plunged into her with a strength akin to madness. "You want to be crazy, Saxon? Have at it then!"

Her hips circled faster and her movements, frenzied now, caught up with the pace of his and matched them, soon outdoing them. She pushed at his buttocks, demanding he seek even more deeply inside her.

Though he was now thrusting into her with incredible power and urgency, she took all of him, her love forming a warm cushion for him. "Saxon, by all them angels in heaven, I love you. With ever' bit o' what and who I am, I love you."

Her hands swept up his back to grab at his hair. She pulled his head away from her neck and then caught his lips with her own. There was no gentleness in her kiss as she plundered the inside of his mouth. She bit at him until she tasted his blood, and still she continued to kiss him, allowing him no chance to escape her.

"The trunk," he gasped down at her, the memory flooding him with remembered terror. The trunk. The years fell away. He was only five. "She locked me in it!"

Chickadee's eyes fluttered closed in horror. "I'm in thar with you, Saxon!"

He felt her warmth seep into him. "Once," he choked into her hair, " she locked me in it for two whole days. No food, no water, and in my own stench. When she let me out..."

"Feel me with you, Saxon," Chickadee encouraged him, and rained kisses down the length of his neck.

"When she let me out, she—"

"Beat you?" Chickadee guessed and knew she'd realized the truth when his face tightened with the effort to control the memory that was too horrible to bear any longer. "That dang cane again?"

"Cane." He drove into her again, his mental image of Araminta still driving him violently onward. "It was a black serpent in her white claws! It bit, and its bite was deadly, time and time again!"

"Feel my hands, Saxon," Chickadee said as she swept them down his sides. "I ain't got no cane. Thur ain't nothin' in my palms but the itch to hold you."

Another memory seared into his mind, branding him with more anguish. "One time... I wanted to put flowers on my parents' graves," he whispered raggedly. "I took my pony one morning and went to the field where I knew they were buried. I didn't know exactly where they were though, so I scattered wildflowers all over and prayed some would land where their bodies lay."

She hugged him fiercely. "You ain't in that field alone, Saxon. I'm right thar with you."

"I wasn't alone then either. Thatcher followed me. He caught me and returned me to Grandmother. She made me watch as she gave my pony away to a stranger. My pony, Keely! He kept looking back at me as the man led him away! Maybe he thought I didn't want him anymore!"

His misery became her own. Her tears slid freely down her face and into her hair. "Yore poor, poor pony."

His frenzied lovemaking slowed a bit as he felt her tears wet his face. It seemed so strange to know someone else was sharing his pain. It had been his and his alone for so long. The memories—

He tensed again as more erupted. "I'm still here, Saxon," she reminded him.

He told her all of it, holding nothing back. She fought nausea as she listened. That a small, defenseless child should have had to endure such atrocities, that Araminta had threatened separate orphanages for him and Desdemona should he try to escape or tell anyone... It was almost too much for Chickadee's compassionate heart to bear. But bear it she did for Saxon. He'd lived with it for years all by himself. He would never be alone with it again.

And he would soon be rid of it all. "Saxon," she whispered when he became still atop her, his fight with his past steadily draining him. "You mem'ried all them thangs. Now you got to thank on 'em in yore mind and in yore heart. See 'em fer what they are. Let 'em do what they will. Let 'em do thur worstest, and when they cain't do no more, they'll disappear."

The battle within him quickly rose to a climax. His pent-up hatred for Araminta, his ever-growing love for Chickadee, the war between the two, coursed violently through his body, heart, and soul. They weakened him again, and he wondered if he could continue. Yet when he was at the point of collapsing, he felt Chickadee's strength rush into him, filling him with yet more power, more need for her. His muscles, his entire body seemed to execute his actions not with
his
stamina, but hers.

And how it lifted him. Like a whirling, furious tornado, Chickadee coiled around him, elevating him and taking him into her world. And there, Saxon was besieged by emotions so heated, so profound, he shuddered from the force of them. They writhed through him, seeking, finding, burning, and finally melting the old glacier within him.

"Keely!" he called out to her, vaguely hearing her answer him in kind.

Together, they continued the frenzied spin through the cyclone of Chickadee's love. It wrapped around them both, clutching and demanding until both were yearning for release. And finally, when their bodies could stand no more, their souls met and meshed.

There they stayed for an eternity, their pleasure never seeming to diminish, their bodies still trembling and longing for the last shreds of fulfillment...

...and healing.

And when at last it was over, Saxon, his chest heaving, slid from Chickadee, and searched through the battleground inside him. He found writhing memories scattered everywhere, bloody and wounded, but still alive. His first instinct was to turn from them, but a force stronger than he had ever known kept him watching them. His eyes closed, his heart and mind opened to it all, and he saw his childhood horrors, one by one, die and disappear forever. And in their place was peace, a tranquility that could only be called heartease.

"Love..." Chickadee began hesitantly, longingly, "...won. Ain't that right, Saxon?"

The irony of it all, he thought, his eyes still closed. Chickadee—the love of his life, the one person who had given his existence meaning, the enchantress whose magic had overcome the spell of hatred, the most beautiful and extraordinary girl in the entire world—lay quietly beside him, her love still wrapped firmly about him... and he still had to make her go. The miracle she'd wrought tonight didn't, couldn't change that.