The Tiger's Lady (22 page)

Her eyes widened at the sight of that lean, hard stomach, the dark swatch of hair that narrowed as it went lower.

The shadowed ridge of muscle jutting just below the loosened V of his breeches.

“What sort of base reptile are you? Leave me!
Now,
before I—”

“Before you what?” the Englishman growled, covering the distance to the bed in two long strides and jerking aside the mosquito netting. He stripped away her petticoat and seized her slim wrists, hauling her against his chest. All the time his burning eyes raked the ivory curves that trembled above her constricting corset. “Have you forgotten that this is precisely what Ruxley sent you here to do?”

His captive tensed, red flags of fury in her cheeks. “Ruxley, Ruxley, Ruxley! The man can fly off to hell, for all I care. And you can join him, Mr. Bloody Pagan. For when your employer hears about your treatment of me, he’ll see that you’re booted out in the dirt where you belong!”

The man before her merely smiled. “Brava, my dear. Most affecting. This whole business might turn out to be more interesting than I thought. Yes, if you pleasure me well, I might even provide you with a few scraps of information to keep Ruxley interested.” His mouth hardened. “If you are clever—and something tells me you are
very
clever, Cinnamon—you might even rub by rather well by playing both sides.”

“Go to hell and toast your eyebrows, you—you son of a sow!”

A muscle flashed at Pagan’s jaw. “I grow tired of your cursing, woman. Keep a civil tongue within your head!”

“I’ll speak when and how I choose, you—you bufflehead!”

With callused fingers he pinned her wrists to the bed. A mocking smile twisted his lips as their bodies strained, only inches apart. “Did Ruxley tell you that fighting was my pleasure, Cinnamon? Did he tell you that swearing and kicking would encourage me? Yes, it might be amusing at that. Anything would be better than your anguished virgin role. Why don’t we find out?” His thigh crushed her to the bed.

Abruptly the woman beneath him went totally still.
Was
she a virgin? Sweet heaven, she hadn’t the slightest idea! She blinked, frozen by uncertainty.

Why couldn’t she remember? Still, letting this man see her fear was the last thing she’d ever do! “You’ll be sorry if you touch me,” she hissed, unaware that the stark pallor of her face belied her attempt at confidence. “
They
didn’t succeed, nor will you!”

The instant the words were out of her mouth she froze, her breath catching sharply. Dim images swept over her, images of hard hands and jeering laughter. She shuddered, feeling fear ghost down her spine.

But then the phantom visions vanished, like sand spilled through open fingers. Yet what she’d said was true; somehow she knew that there had been others who had tried to bend her to their will.

She had outwitted them. She would do the same to
this
man.

The certainty warmed her, strengthening her courage.

Pagan’s eyes narrowed. “So, your memory is not so deficient after all. Or is it merely selective?”

“Neither,
you brute. The image just—just came to me.” She tossed her head, fighting his hard grip until the pain began anew.

“Still set on playing the tormented innocent?” His face descended inexorably, until she seemed to see grinning devils in his single uncovered eye. “And now I think it’s time we dispensed with that corset.”

He was so close that she could see every springy strand at his chest, every band of muscle rippling beneath his skin. At her belly she could feel the heat of his powerful thighs, and the angry blade of muscle that lay rigid against her.

“Never!
You can just—”

“Ah, Cinnamon, now you begin to bore me. Surely you can be more inventive than that?” Grim-faced, Pagan caught her wrists in one hand and freed the satin bow at the neck of her corset. The white fabric immediately parted, her breasts threatening to spill free any moment.

His long fingers dropped lower, attacking the first of the metal hooks that secured the front of the garment.

His touch was fire, she thought. As scorching and ruthless as his eyes. As sure and knowing as his body atop hers.

“L-let me go, you—you imbecile!” She arched desperately, and in her fury she reopened the wound at her forehead. Tears hazed her eyes, but even then she did not stop fighting. “I’ll tell the viscount what you’ve done! Even in this desolate place—wherever it is—you can’t hope to get away with such villainy!”

“St. Cyr?” The man in the black eye patch laughed coldly. “The viscount is even worse than I in his treatment of women, I’m afraid. Were he here now, Cinnamon, he’d merely enjoy the spectacle, then demand to be given his own turn between your legs.”

At those harsh words, the last bit of color drained from her face. The man was inhuman! Her hands curved into talons, lashing vainly at his neck and face.

Pagan merely ducked.

Suddenly her nails found his cheek, raising blood in an angry slash from cheekbone to jaw. Just beneath another scar, which glowed silver against his bronzed skin.

Pagan cursed long and low.
Enough talking, fool! Take her now and be done with it. Clear your mind and get back to your work. You’ve a plantation to run after all.

And a murderer to catch.

Grimly the Englishman braced his body above her and shoved one knee against her hip. The contact was electric and immediate, as if he’d been scorched by a bolt of lightning.

His arousal swelled to painful proportions. Bloody hell, if he didn’t have her soon, he’d…

Abruptly Pagan froze. The white bandage at her brow was tinged with fresh blood. “Give it up or you’ll tear open that wound. I won’t hurt you, you know,” he muttered roughly, oddly unsettled by the pallor of her skin, the churning turmoil in her strange blue eyes. “That’s not part of my fantasy, either, Cinnamon. You can forget the rest of whatever act Ruxley coached you in. There’s no reason to make this any more complicated than it already is.”

Her eyes flashed back, dark with defiance. “You already
have
hurt me, scum. And the first chance I get, I’ll repay the favor, I assure you!”

So much for feeling she was vulnerable, Pagan thought. This woman was about as vulnerable as a python! He freed two more hooks, and as he did so he felt her shudder.

His hands stilled instantly. “What is it?”

But the woman beneath him only clenched her jaw, turning her face away in silence.

With a smothered curse, Pagan renewed his assault. “You’re wearing too damned many clothes. Why can’t you women get it through your heads that this is the
tropics
, not England? You’ll suffocate beneath so much cloth!”

The tropics? The woman beneath him blinked, engulfed by a wave of helplessness. So far from home, from anyone who would help her.

But where was
home?
Who were her friends?

Tears pressed at her eyes, but she refused to give in to the luxury of self-pity. Something told her she had strengths she did not yet remember, strengths honed in a hard struggle for survival.

She’d teach this madman a lesson, she vowed. He would have to release her soon if he wanted to finish his own undressing. And when he did, she would be ready.

Catlike, her teal eyes narrowed, studying his face. She concentrated on staying ready; with the effort, she could almost forget the pain gnawing across her back.

Almost.

“So, you understand the situation at last. Good.” Pagan worked another hook free, then moved to the next. More and more naked skin sprang into view beneath his unsteady fingers.

Tormenting skin, the color of pure ecru silk. Skin so warm that a man would go up in smoke at the very first touch.

Skin such as Pagan had not seen for months.

Skin he had imagined night after night in fevered dreams.

His hands slipped on the next hook. She twisted once, pulling free before he shoved her still beneath him. With each movement he had to fight back memories of another woman, a black-haired beauty whom he had kissed beneath a globe of London gaslight.

But he could not forget. With each touch, the memories grew stronger.

“Stop struggling, damn it!”

The garment was nearly free and should have sprung loose. Pagan frowned, wondering why it still clung firmly to her ribs.

Probably some wretched new device of torture that the women of England had come up with in his absence, he thought irritably.

Impatiently he tossed her onto her stomach, tugging at the laces crisscrossing the corset’s back. He noticed that the stays were made of iron and smiled darkly. Metal stays didn’t last long in the tropics. Here rust or rot destroyed everything but ivory.

Evidently no one had told her that.

Which meant, Pagan concluded, that she was newly out from England. Otherwise she would have learned this already.

Another fact to store away for future consideration, just in case she persisted in this ludicrous story of having lost her memory.

Her slim shoulders stiffened. Her rigid posture fired Pagan’s blind fury. So she still insisted on this masquerade of the virgin sacrifice, did she? Ruxley must have paid her a fortune!

The thought of Ruxley tutoring her in sexual fantasies was the last straw. Smothering a curse, Pagan seized the loosened corset and stripped it from her body.

And then he went deadly still, staring numbly at her back. What in the name of bloody everlasting hell?

Blood covered his hands, blood everywhere. Thick and red, it oozed from raw scabs crisscrossing her spine and shoulders, right down to the top of her ridiculous ruffled drawers.

Why in heaven’s name hadn’t she
told
him?

In taut silence Pagan jerked away and stumbled to his feet, his stomach churning. He caught the bedpost, certain he was going to be sick. Who would do such a thing?

Only then did he hear her soft, choking sob. The sound filled him with self-loathing.

Either a brave woman or a very clever one, he had thought her. Now he knew which.

Silently he reached down to cup her shoulder. “Dear heaven, Cinnamon, I—”

But his captive flinched and struggled away from him.
“Don’t!”
Blindly she searched for the netting, then tossed it aside and stumbled from the bed. “Don’t touch me or I swear I’ll make you sorry you ever laid eyes upon me!”

Step by step she inched away from him, one white hand hugging her breasts protectively. Her eyes burned into his face, deep teal pools of pain.

Never before had Pagan met such a woman. A woman who fought him even now, when her pain must be beyond imagining.

Nausea gripped him at the memory of her back. “Those wounds … they’ll have to be cleaned.”

He saw her eyes glisten, hung with tiny diamonds where tears pressed. But she did not cry, and her chin stayed high.

No, Pagan thought, this woman would not cry easily. Whoever had done this to her probably realized that.

For a moment rage blocked his vision. He yearned to feel the man’s neck between his fingers.

And yet in spite of everything else, the sight of her proud face was doing strange things to his pulse. So was the lovely curve of naked skin scarce hidden beneath her trembling fingers. With a body like that she could command a fortune for a night in her bed.

Damn it, was he nothing but a rutting beast?

A muscle flashed at his jaw as St. Cyr fought the heat exploding through his veins.

“Who did it?” he demanded. “Just tell me that much.”

Some dark, skittering emotion passed over her face as she swayed against the door frame. “I
told
you, I don’t know. I don’t even know
what
was done to me. I can remember nothing, don’t you understand? Not a single, wretched thing!” With a choked sob she turned away, squeezing back the tears she could no longer conceal. In a silent rush, the hot salty drops spilled down her cheeks.

Pagan was at her side before she could fight him, drawing her with rough tenderness against his naked chest. In her pain she did not struggle, only stood stiffly in the circle of his arms.

He shuddered when he felt her unbound breasts thrust against his naked skin, one perfect crest nestling in his matted hair, setting off a fire storm of exquisite sensation.

And all the while her tears fell, hot and heavy, searing his naked skin. Each one burned him with a thousand regrets, making his heart twist, making him wish things could have been different between them.

Through a long and reckless life Deveril Pagan had never let a female make him uncomfortable for a single second. Now in a matter of hours this tawny-haired stranger had turned his world upside down.

Her nipple shifted in silken torment, and Pagan found himself swallowing audibly. “Damn it, woman, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

She held herself rigid, too weak to fight him but too strong to let him think she had any liking for his touch. “I’ve done nothing
but
try to tell you, lackwit!” Her voice rose, choked and unsteady. “Just go away! Leave me alone!” Her lashes dropped, tawny spikes fluttering against her cheeks.

What would it feel like to plant tiny kisses across those eyelids? he wondered. Across those creamy cheeks? Most of all, across those intoxicating, coral-tipped breasts.

His fingers tightened unconsciously at the thought.

She gasped. “Stop—please!”

His hand froze instantly. Damn it, what was wrong with him? How had she managed to twist him up inside this way? This fresh evidence of his loss of control fired his fury anew. “Don’t worry, it meant nothing—less than nothing. What you’re feeling is merely the response of a man long in the jungle. Right now any whore would make me hard.” He made his voice flat and impersonal.

She raised her face then, mesmerizing Pagan with the changeable hues of her teal eyes.

“Who did this to you? A jealous lover? A husband who returned home unexpectedly to find you pleasuring his best friend? Or was it Ruxley himself, irritated when you didn’t learn his lessons promptly enough?” He spoke with cold, cutting precision and had the shallow pleasure of seeing her grow paler with every word.