You Belong to My Heart (22 page)

Yes, she was afraid of him. This new, commanding Clay frightened her in a way she had never been frightened before.

She was terrified of him.

But weeks went by and Captain Knight continued to pay her little or no attention. While some of his men covertly cast covetous glances her way now and again, their aloof commander took no notice of her.

It was as if she didn’t exist.

Mary Ellen began to let down her guard. Sleep, though still difficult, came a bit more easily.

She was finally able to get some much needed rest in her own home.

Until she awakened in the middle of a sweltering, moonless Memphis night, hot and thirsty.

Her throat was parched. She felt as if she’d been trekking across the vast Sahara Desert at high noon. She got out of bed, felt her way in the darkness to the marble-topped chest of drawers, and eagerly picked up the china water pitcher.

Mary Ellen shook the pitcher in disbelief and frowned. It was empty. She turned it up to a glass, hoping there was at least enough water for one small sip. There wasn’t a single drop.

“The devil!” she said aloud.

Irritated, she set down the empty pitcher and glanced toward the clock, but she couldn’t see it, much less read the time. The room was far too dark. No moon at all.

Mary Ellen stood there in the thick darkness and listened for sounds from below. She heard nothing. Evidently it was very late or perhaps even early morning. Longwood was dark, silent, sleeping.

She
had
to have a drink.

It would, she felt sure, be safe to slip out of her room and down the back stairs to the kitchen. She was familiar enough with the old house; she needn’t light a lamp and risk awakening anyone. She’d feel her way along in the darkness. Nothing to it. She’d hurry down to the kitchen, have a nice, cooling drink of water, and be back upstairs in her room before anyone knew she was out of bed.

Mary Ellen went back to the bed, felt around for her blue silk wrapper. She pulled it on over her thin blue cotton nightgown and drew her long, loose hair up outside the robe. Tying the sash, she cautiously made her way across the dark bedroom. Quietly she opened the door and slipped out into the pitch black hallway. Barefoot, she tiptoed a few tentative steps in the inky blackness and stopped short.

In the hot darkness she saw the tiny orange pinpoint glow of a lighted cigar. She froze as the tip of the cigar burned hotter, glowed brighter, moved closer.

Anxiously Mary Ellen began backing away, bumped into a hall table, and was trapped. A perspiring, bare-chested Captain Knight loomed before her, the lower half of his hard, handsome face faintly illuminated in the cigar’s tiny circle of light.

He said nothing, but he took the cigar from his mouth, reached around her, and crushed it out in an ashtray on the table. A little gasp of fear escaping her lips, Mary Ellen pushed on his naked chest and attempted to whirl away from him. But an arm of iron encircled her waist and he swept her tightly against his tall, lean body. She trembled. She blinked and squinted, but she couldn’t see him. Could only feel the heat of body, the warmth of his breath on her face.

“Don’t do it,” she murmured weakly.

“I have to,” he said, and his hot, hard mouth captured hers in a long, penetrating kiss.

When finally his lips released hers, Mary Ellen found herself sagging weakly against him, her flushed cheek pressed against the granite muscles of his slippery naked chest.

She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply of his clean masculine scent, her heart and her body in a tumult. But she managed to make a biting remark.

“You got your Annapolis appointment by making love to me. Wasn’t that enough for you, Captain Knight?”

His long fingers tangled in her hair, the Captain urged her head up off his chest. “Quite enough, thank you,” he said, meaning to hurt her, which he did. “And you, Mary? You got what you wanted as well?”

Preble pride fashioned her swift reply. “Of course I did. Yes! I most certainly did.” She wanted desperately to hurt him as he had hurt her. “I always get what I want,” she boasted, her head thrown back, straining desperately to get a glimpse of him.

She never saw, in the thick darkness enveloping them, the fleeting expression of pain that crossed his handsome face.

It was gone in an instant, and he said coldly, “And the divorce? Did you discover that a forbidden dalliance with the son of a seamstress was more to your liking than making love with your rich, aristocratic husband?”

“You vile, vulgar bastard!” she said, struggling against him. “I hate you, Captain Knight! With all my heart and soul I hate you, and I shall go on hating you until there is no breath left in my body!”

“Hate away, my sweet,” he said coolly as he tightened his grip on her hair and his lips slowly descended to hers, “because I intend to kiss all the breath out of your body.”

H
E BENT HIS DARK
head and again kissed Mary Ellen forcefully, his hot mouth almost brutal on her open lips. He felt her whole body stiffen against him and realized she was afraid of him.

He didn’t care.

His mouth stayed fused with hers as she tried frantically to free herself from his embrace. He refused to release her. He shifted their positions, pressing her back against the wall, trapping her with his leanly muscled body.

And he kept on kissing her.

Moaning her protests, Mary Ellen attempted to turn her head from side to side to tear her lips from his. But his strong fingers were tangled in her hair and he held her fast, forcing her head back.

And he kept on kissing her.

Overwhelmed by his fiery aggression, Mary Ellen tried desperately to save herself. She beat frantically on his bare back and shoulders with her clenched fists and whimpered her outrage at the forced assault on her senses. But the invasive, blazing kiss continued.

And continued.

It was a deep, intrusive kiss of such blatant intimacy, Mary Ellen felt its effects in the shock waves rocketing through her body. Her nipples began to peak, and a gentle throbbing started between her legs as his powerful, probing kiss awakened her long sleeping passions. Her entire body tingled as a thousand new electrifying sensations swamped her.

Her swelling breasts were crushed to his sweat-slick torso, the crisp damp hair of his chest tantalizingly abrasive to her aching nipples straining the thin fabric of her nightclothes. Pressed flush against him, she responded involuntarily when his wet, sleek tongue plunged deeply into her mouth, leaving nothing inside untouched, untasted, untried.

Mary Ellen’s head was spinning, her heart pounding furiously. She was both apprehensive and appalled at what was happening to her. She so wanted to be repelled by his kiss, to despise his touch. But it was impossible. She hadn’t felt like this since the last time he had held her, kissed her. No, that wasn’t true, either.

She had
never
felt like this.

She remembered only an innocent boy’s sweet, gentle kisses. This was a jaded man’s probing, urgent caresses, and she couldn’t resist him. Still she tried, knowing what would surely happen if she did not.

Mary Ellen continued to fight her fierce attraction to this dark, dangerous man who held her so tightly in his strong arms. Shocked and excited by such raw masculine power and passion, she felt panicky. Felt as if she were smothering, but deliciously so. Each brazen thrust of his tongue, every strong pull of his lips, the growing pressure of his arm around her waist, drew her more fully into him.

This dark, erotic seducer whom she could not even see was practically swallowing her up in his bold, burning kiss, as if starved for the taste of her. Mary Ellen couldn’t help herself; she melted under the fierce persuasion of the handsome Captain’s drugging kisses.

Her fists stopped raining impotent blows on his bare back and muscular shoulders. She quit struggling so furiously. Her body stopped thrusting and wrenching against his in a futile attempt to get away from him. The long dazzling kisses, the animal heat and granite hardness of his well-honed body, the blessed cover of the encompassing darkness—all combined to work their provocative magic on the weakened Mary Ellen.

Somewhere far back in her still functioning brain a warning was flashing that she was in imminent danger of losing herself to this mysterious man. She should fight doggedly on or risk dire, far-reaching consequences.

But at the moment she didn’t want to listen to reason or warnings. She didn’t want to think. She wanted only to feel. Finally Mary Ellen sighed softly in acquiescence, wrapped her weak, weary arms around his neck, and dissolved in his embrace.

The experienced Captain Knight knew the exact second of her surrender. And it
was
surrender. She didn’t know it yet, but he did. He knew as well that this surrender was total.

She was now his.

Under different circumstances he would have immediately slowed the pace of his seduction. Skilled and generally sensitive even with the most wanton of women, he would have taken the opportunity to start over at the beginning. To woo and win her with whispered words and tender kisses and gentle caresses.

But the tension between them had built for too long; his hunger for her was too great.

Captain Knight’s passion swiftly eclipsed Mary Ellen’s, and his blood turned to liquid fire in his veins. Ruled only by blinding desire, he could barely keep from tearing the nightclothes from her warm, desirable body and taking her right there on the floor.

He continued to conquer her with amorous kisses, and when his heated mouth finally freed hers, Mary Ellen tried one last time to save herself.

“Let me go,” she whispered breathlessly, her head falling back against the wall, her heart drumming a rapid, uneven cadence.

Her answer was a wet-hot kiss to the sensitive side of her throat and a firm, decisive tug of the sash at her waist.

“No…please…” she murmured as he swept the blue robe from her body in one swift, fluid movement, leaving her defenseless in her thin damp cotton nightgown.

The touch of his fingers as he unbuttoned the gown’s high-throated bodice made Mary Ellen’s senses reel. She tried to say no, but she choked on the word. Her pulses leapt wildly with the warmth of his breath on her shoulder. Her exposed flesh trembled, and she moaned when his fiery lips pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck and shoulder.

She winced when his hand slipped inside the opened gown and closed warmly over her swelling left breast. His thumb rubbing back and forth over the tightening crest brought a gasp of pleasure, and he quickly covered her mouth with his own in a searing kiss. Her lips opened ardently under his as her passions flamed.

Mary Ellen stood there in the inky darkness of Longwood’s upstairs corridor, eagerly kissing Captain Knight as he plucked teasingly, tormentingly, at her diamond-hard nipple with all five fingers. It felt good to her, so incredibly good that she hoped he would never stop.

His lips left hers, but his hand continued to fondle her bare breast, to toy with the nipple. She felt him shift against her, and she blinked owlishly. But she could see nothing in the darkness, so she let out a little whimper of shocked wonder when his heated lips closed around her right nipple through the soft fabric of her blue nightgown.

“Captain.” She sighed. “Cap…oh… Captain Knight.”

Her head came away from the wall, and she bowed it slowly. Her unbound hair fell forward, spilling around her flushed, hot face. Her hand lifted, touched his wide, slick shoulder, moved up, and cupped the back of his dark head.

He tongued her peaking nipple through the wet, clinging cotton until it was pebble hard and throbbing, feeling as it were on fire.

“Please…oh, yes…pleasssse,” she whispered in the darkness, and her slender fingers tangled in the silky jet black hair at the back of his head.

The obliging Captain opened his lips and covered both nipple and gown and sucked forcefully. Mary Ellen’s fingers tightened in his hair, and she pressed him close, closer. Almost frantic with joy, the suddenly wished more than anything in the world that she could see him.

She knew he was down on one knee. Knew one strong hand was anchored at her waist, the other still stimulating her naked left breast. She could imagine how he looked kneeling there before her, with his wide, sensual mouth clamped on her breast, his beautiful silver eyes closed, the long raven lashes sweeping down on his dark, high cheekbones.

Oh, if she could only see him.

Mary Ellen could see nothing. She could only feel.

She could feel the wet heat of his mouth enclosing her throbbing right nipple while his lean brown hand toyed with her left. She drew a sharp intake of air when his mouth abruptly lifted from her. He swept away the fabric, but when his mouth came back to her, it settled on her left breast. He playfully nipped and licked and sucked on the nipple while his fingers stroked the kiss-wet right breast.

The hot, dark night was also a very still and quiet one. No sigh of winds. No settling of the house. No shouts from the river below. The mansion was totally silent. Mary Ellen could hear nothing but the sound of his hungry sucking, and it was powerfully erotic. She shivered with bliss and bent forward a little, at the same time clasping the back of his head to draw him closer.

Abruptly he allowed the hard, wet nipple out of his mouth, and his fevered lips pressed kisses to her delicate ribs. Mary Ellen felt his hands tugging the opened gown down her shoulders and arms. She helpfully drew her hands free of the sleeves, and when the gown settled on her flaring hips, she placed anxious fingers atop his wide, bare shoulders.

She closed her eyes and sighed when he kissed her waist, her quivering stomach, and, pushing the gown down with his hot face, dipped his tongue into the small indentation of her naval. She made no move to stop him when he lifted his face, gave the snagged gown a firm yank, and lowered it over her hips. She felt it whisper down her bare legs to the floor, felt his fingers enclose her ankle to lift her left foot free.

He didn’t bother freeing the right foot. His hot face returned to her bared flesh, and his sure hands clutched her hips. Mary Ellen sighed and squirmed as his burning lips sprinkled kisses over her tingling stomach, tracing the prominent hipbones with his tongue, licking at the thin line of wispy white-blond hair going down from her naval.