He held her in his arms once again. Her eyes met his, very wide, soft, dazed.
Perhaps she hadn’t really expected this. To feel the burning inside, the need like raw hunger. She shook her head wildly again. “No!” she mouthed.
“Yes,” he insisted, both tender and determined. “Tonight, my love, we have twisted the key already.”
“It’s the wine!” she whispered. “You’re taking advantage of my confusion.”
“Damn right!” He laughed huskily. “I take every advantage that I can get. And it isn’t the wine so much, because I’ve noted that you barely touch the stuff since you’ve been carrying our child.”
“I tell you—”
He pressed his case, capturing her mouth, and feeling at long last the duel of her tongue with his own. Hunger seared through him. His hand moved fervently over her breast, discovering the peak pebble hard. He delivered his kiss there, teasing the peak, savoring the sweetness of it, suckling upon the fullness of it. She shifted beneath him gloriously. Even as she did so longing gripped his loins tightly, a savage heat swept through him and he moved against her, his hands never still. There was a greater demand to his touch now, an urgency that filled his body.
She could always arouse his desire. But tonight, she was a breath of magic. Perhaps hatred was close to love, perhaps the passion of anger danced narrowly close to that of desire. Maybe they had just been building to this.
But she was moving too. She was liquid and supple in his arms. He stroked her breast, and she rose against him, and he whispered soft words to her. “Feel the touch, my love. Here, and here … feel it become a heat that begins a swirl inside of you, deeper and deeper, here.” He stroked her upper thigh, set his palm over the rise of her ebony triangle. “Here,” he whispered, then slipped a finger deep and hard inside of her. “And here …”
She gasped and trembled massively against his touch, and shifted as if she would deny it. If the fires were not sizzling through her then, they were running rampant within his own body. Still, he took his time. She was stretched out on her back. Her flesh was damp with an exotic sheen, touched by the gold lamplight. Her hair was a tangle. Her limbs were long and beautiful and her breasts were rising and falling in a rush. Her eyes were soft glazed as if he had taken her quite by surprise. Perhaps he had. And perhaps it had been building as he had said, and tonight he had finally bridged the last of the walls of her defenses.
An anguish tore through him. He wanted her, then and there. But he wanted more tonight, too, than he had ever wanted before. He wanted those blue eyes to fill with the passion he knew lurked behind the midnight shadow of her lashes. He wanted to feel the bowstring quivering of her slender form, the ardent rhythm of her hips. It wasn’t time to seize hold of her, not yet.
He rose above her and gently touched her lips with just the breath of his own. He drew a pattern between the valley of her breasts with his finger. He followed it with his tongue. He lowered himself slowly against her. Wherever he caressed her, he kissed her. Lower and lower until he lay between her legs. Touching her, parting her, caressing her, kissing her.
A soft, fervent cry escaped from her. Her fingers tugged upon his hair. He caught her hands and held them firmly within his own. She moaned softly. Her head began to toss, her body to writhe.
If it was the wine, then bless that wondrous fruit of the vine! Perhaps they lay in the wilderness, but magic surrounded them. Beyond the canvas of their tent, the night breeze stirred, making their flesh seem all the more searing. In the endless sky the stars rode the heavens. They seemed to also dance within the tent. They rained down upon him in bursts of radiant light. Jesu, she was beautiful, alive with her passion.
He smiled wickedly. All the torments of hell could take hold of him now and he would endure them gladly. He found the tiny bud of her greatest sensuality and played mercilessly upon it, laving, teasing, demanding with the caress of his lips and tongue. She began to shudder, and the golden gleam of light upon her began to shimmer with the growing undulation of her hips. “Please!” she whispered suddenly. “I can take no more!”
And she could not! What had happened tonight, she wondered. Why couldn’t she fight this fire?
It mattered not, she could not, and that was simply that. She couldn’t think, the sensations were so strong.
And it was wonderful, erotic, and sending her into such a sweet spiral of sensation that she couldn’t fight. He was whispering things to her and in her mind’s eye she was seeing things of startling beauty. A rosebud, so dark and rich a pink, flowering beneath a radiant heat, stretching, growing, parting to burst into an open beauty. Even as she saw the image of the rose she was aware of the very graphic reality around her, the camp bed, herself, the glow of light that touched them, the bed beneath them. Jeremy. The power of his hands, his fingers locked around hers. The taut muscled feel of his body. The weight of him between her legs. The way that he touched her. The things that he did. The tension grew inside of her, hot, warm, wonderful, painful, and sweet. It grew until it was anguish, until she was arching wildly against him. Until sounds filled the night, soft, desperate, breathless. Sounds that she was making herself.
Then something seemed to explode. Sweet, so achingly sweet! It burst with wonder over her, with light, and then with dark. With stars across a velvet sky. Like a million shots firing into the night. It was the sweetest thing she had ever imagined, like a taste of honey burning throughout her system. It was so, so good. She floated with it. Saw the light, saw the darkness.
Then he was atop her. His eyes silver and wicked in the gleam of light, his naked body slick and hard and muscled and fascinating still. She cried out softly, closing her eyes, trying to turn away from him. He wouldn’t have it. His body slid into hers hard. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
“Oh, yes,” he corrected.
Her fingers fell upon his shoulders. She shifted, amazed that he could feel so wonderful within her so swiftly. Even denying it, she had liked the feel before.
Tonight, the spiral began again. The heat deep inside of her. Curling, deepening. It couldn’t come again. The velvet black, the bursting of light, the liquid stars bursting warmly throughout her body, so sweet, so delicious, so wonderful. It couldn’t come again.
But the spiraling, the hunger, that led to it were so easily coming alive again. She was achingly aware of him, as if all sensation of her flesh had become heightened. She felt his hair-roughened legs and chest, the hardness of his arm muscles, the rock of his hips, and him, inside of her. The fullness of the movement, the thrust …
She gasped. The spiraling was rising again. She arched to meet him. She dared open her eyes. His blazed into hers, and she bit her lip, her lashes falling. His face remained so taut, his length so vital yet rigidly hard. He moved, demandingly. His arms held his body above hers. He thrust into her. And into her again, his eyes locked with hers. He moved faster and faster, his face fraught with tension. She cried out, unable to deny the quickening within her. Her hands fell upon his shoulders. Her fingers raked across them. She was pulling up to him, meeting his thrust with a rhythmic arch of her own. Her lips fell upon his shoulders. She covered them with ardent kisses. Her fingers played upon his back, massaging, digging, clinging. She felt him thrust incredibly hard against her just as the sensations seemed to split and explode within her in a wild frenzy of fire and hunger. She gasped, clinging to him, as she felt the force of the climax that seized her. Darkness fell. Light burst. The liquid stars seemed to rain down upon her once again. For a moment she was so absorbed with the shimmering feel of ecstasy that she did not realize that he remained above her, that the heat spilling from his body was just filling her own.
He fell to her side, slick with sweat, breathing hard.
She shuddered, turning to her side as sudden tears warmed her eyes. Dear God, she’d never imagined such a piece of heaven.
But yes, she had. She had known that Jeremy could bring her to it, and she had been fighting it fiercely. Why? Becau
se it was wrong that it should be Jeremy when she had once loved so innocently and so sweetly? When Liam lay cold and buried. When all her world lay in ashes.
She had married Jeremy.
She could say what she wanted, to him, to herself. He was not so detestable. He had seized hold of her life. He had shaken her in the midst of defeat.
He had given her something more.
She bit her lip.
She cared for him. Cared far more than she wanted to know. They were enemies who had clashed head-on, but they were enemies, too, because they were both strong, determined, willful.
And he was honorable. She had demanded that he marry her, and he had done so. He had read her heart and eased the way with her and her brothers. He had brought her with him, and he had forced her to live.
He was beautiful, whipcord strong and lean in his physique, rugged and handsome in his face. Indeed, he held the key. He had touched her and found all that he had demanded of her.
He stroked her shoulder gently. “Madam, I take it back!” he murmured. “You are an excellent wife.”
Was he gloating? She had certainly given him all that he wanted, whether willingly or not. Every word that he had spoken had been true. She had teetered on that precipice night after night, tasting the wonder, refusing to let it come to her.
Yet tonight it had been undeniable. It had taken her in a flood.
“Excellent …”
He was gloating. Yankees. Once they won, they just didn’t let up. That’s why it seemed tragic to surrender.
“It was the wine!” she whispered.
“Was it?” he murmured.
She started to stiffen, not sure if he mocked her or not. But then something miraculous happened. She felt something. Not wild and magical and exciting …
Different. She inhaled sharply.
The baby. Deep, deep inside of her the baby was moving. It was just a flutter. So curious. So light. Then it came again.
She gasped.
“What is it?” He was over her instantly.
She shook her head. “The baby.”
“My God!” His voice was harsh, rasping. “Is it all right? Did—”
“No, no! It’s fine. He’s moving! I can feel the baby. It’s so strange!”
His palm moved over her abdomen. “I can’t feel it!” he said.
She shook her head again. The darkness cast shadows over them both. “No, you can’t feel him, not yet. It’s just inside. I think it takes time to feel the movement from the outside. But—oh, there again! He’s alive, he’s moving, he’s kicking, he’s …”
“He’s what?” Jeremy said. His palm still lay gently against her flesh.
“He’s real!” she breathed. “He’s real, he’s going to be born, he’s going to live.”
His hand went rigid. He pulled her back against him. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
His body enwrapped hers. The comfort was there.
But she wondered if he thought of another unborn child. And of that child’s mother.
Fifteen
“Christa. Christa. You have to wake up. Now.”
She came awake from a deep unconsciousness. There had been a strange cocoon of comfort in her sleep. Last night, she had given in to him. She had given in to far more than duty. She had felt so very weary, and even in her surrender she had discovered a certain peace.
But now, awaking, she felt a tinge of fear encroaching upon her comfort. She had given too much. Surrendered too much.
She had tried to tell him that it had been the wine. Now all that she wanted to do was crawl beneath the covers and not have to face him until she was ready. Until it was dark again. Until forever. She didn’t know which.
She shook her head, trying to pull the sheets tightly around her. “Leave me be!” she pleaded.
“Christa!” His voice had been fairly gentle. Now that old snap of command was back in it. If that weren’t irritating enough, she felt the palm of his hand fall sharply upon her derriere.
Indignantly, she opened her eyes, staring at him with all the evil reproach she could muster. She turned her back on him again, murmuring. “Please, just—”
“Up!” he repeated, catching her shoulder and rolling her over to face him. He had apparently risen some time ago. He was fully clad in his dress uniform. She heartily resented the fact that he could appear so striking in the cavalry dark blue, and that most women would find him a handsome figure indeed.
Yes, he was a striking figure. Yes, he had done things to her that she had never imagined. Yes, now when he touched her, she remembered and grew warm.
She hugged the sheets tightly, determined to stare him down—even after last night. “Jeremy—”
“You have to get up.”
“You did tell me a wife belonged in bed!” she snapped.
A smile curved his lip and he leaned against her. “I do like you there, Christa. Very much so. And I would dearly love to join you again. Especially after last night. You were wonderful. Extraordinary.” He started to stroke her cheek.
A flood of color rushed to her cheeks. “It was the wine!” she whispered.
“The wine! And I thought it was my devastating charm! Ah, Christa, are you sure that it wasn’t? Perhaps I should cast duty to the winds and crawl back in to discover the truth!”
“Trust me!” she murmured, inching herself against the rear of the bed. “It was the wine—”
She didn’t want to remember how completely she had surrendered, how desperately she had wanted him.
And there was still the Sherman matter between them!
“If you’d please just leave me be—” she began.
But she broke off. She swallowed hard, shrinking back as he suddenly pinned his arms on either side of her, bracing himself as he studied her eyes. “Christa, I won’t go back,” he said softly. “Everything I longed to find was there within you. I won’t let you deny it again. I never meant to press my point with as much anger as I did last night, but hell, who knows? Maybe the only way to ever get anything from you, Christa, is to take it by force.”
She felt a trembling deep within her. She didn’t want to have the surge of emotion that flowed through her. She didn’t mean to be so hostile to him. There were times now when it seemed that he was trying to find peace, break down the wall between them.
This morning, she needed the wall. She was suddenly very afraid. Afraid for her own heart.
“Don’t talk to me like that!” she said heatedly, and she saw the silver in his eyes glitter and harden but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m not one of your privates to be ordered about. And don’t think yourself such a great commander! You’re only a colonel because the Rebs managed to kill so damned many Yankee officers that they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill their ranks!”
His brow arched. His lip curled. She wondered fleetingly whether he was amused or furious. She hadn’t meant to say the words. She was sorry that hundreds of thousands of Yanks were dead as well as Rebs. She was sorry for the whole damned war.
And she was heartily sorry that she kept finding herself fighting it again and again when it should have truly been over.
“I’m a colonel because too many Yanks are dead,” he said softly. “And you’re my wife because too many Rebels fell. And it’s all a travesty, but it’s the way that it is, my love, and you had best get used to it. I found there does exist a match to strike the fire within you. By God, Christa, I swear I’ll not let that flame go out.”
“I told you, it was the wine—”
“Then perhaps we shall have to douse you in the stuff nightly.”
A sense of panic was rising within her. He could hurt her all too easily. It seemed best to strike out first.
“Have it your way, then! Dead Yanks, dead Rebs. But a few too many glasses of wine and you’re no longer a Yank. You’re a Reb officer, a ghost come back to life—”
She broke off with a little cry of protest as his fingers wound ar
ound her upper arms, lifting her from the bed and hard against him. “We’ll have to see to it that next time, Mrs. McCauley, you are well aware that you’re not sleeping with a corpse!”
The tension within him was suddenly frightening her. She wanted to cry. Last night had begun with anger, yes. But they had come so close to something being right between them.
Daylight always seemed to bring back the war.
“Let me go!” she cried. “If you even think about touching me tonight—”
“I’ll think and do whatever I please, Christa. But cheer up—perhaps you’re not so all damned alluring as you seem to believe. Maybe I’m weary of sleeping with someone who seems to be one of the walking dead herself at times. For now, just get up. Or stay there. My staff sergeant is due here any minute. Maybe you’ll give him the entertainment of his life, lying there naked. The picnic for the officers and their wives is at eleven. You’ll be there and you’ll behave politely. And you won’t sing a single note under any circumstances!”
He was balanced upon their bed on one knee, his fingers tightly vised around her arms. She should just give in, she thought.
But she wouldn’t lie and promise that she’d behave any differently if General Sherman made an appearance.
She narrowed her eyes at Jeremy. “Will he be there?”
She almost cried out. It seemed impossible, but his hold upon her tightened.
“What difference does it make?”
“All the difference in the world.”
He released her so suddenly that she fell back, unprepared. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and breasts, and the covers fell away from her. He stepped back, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, then unclenching again. “The war is over!” he exclaimed. He stared at her and she was startled by the depths of the passion in his eyes. She wondered if the burning emotions within him then were hatred or desire, or perhaps a combination of the two. Despite his anger, despite his harshness, she wanted to cry out, to reach out to him. To tell him that she wanted it to be over! I just don’t want to have dinner with George Tecumseh Sherman!