Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) Page 30

  After finishing his ablutions quickly, Alex shaved and dressed in fresh buckskins, then mounted up and rode the short distance into camp. After the way they had parted, he would have a deal of making up to do. He wondered how she had spent the time while he was absent—reading? Perhaps sewing. Keeping to herself, he was certain of that. Her unease with his people still rankled him. They would have to discuss that. Joss was not normally prejudiced or unkind.

  By the time he arrived at Charity's house, it was nearly dusk. The family had gathered upstairs in his grandmother's living quarters to share their evening meal and Devon was explaining what he and Alex had accomplished while they were gone. Joss was standing beside Charity. When he climbed up the stairs, everyone crowded around him with happy greetings, but Joss hung back, a cool, unreadable expression on her face. Blast the perverse woman!

  How could he just stand there, Joss thought, looking so wonderful that she longed to melt at his feet? He was all charm and smiles on the outside while inside he hid the heart of a born philanderer. His dark eyes swept hungrily over her as he made his way across the crowded floor.

  "Hello, Joss. Miss me?" His voice was husky, as intimate as the soft kiss he pressed in her palm after taking her hand.

  She swallowed audibly, feeling like a fool. "Hello, Alex." Her voice was frosty and prim and it must be obvious to one and all that she had not missed him at all.

  Before he could frame a reply to her cool greeting, Charity said excitedly, "Joss has the most wonderful news for you, Alex." For one startled instant, he thought she was going to say Joss was with child, but then reason reasserted itself. It had only been a bit over two weeks since they lay together. Joss could not know that yet...but the possibility did give him pause.

  Recovering himself, he took Joss's arm, saying to no one in particular, "I think my wife and I have a deal of catching up to do."

  Smiling, Charity said, "I will send some dinner to your quarters later on."

  Everyone beamed conspiratorially as the newlyweds left the room. All but Barbara, who sensed the reticence in Joss the instant Alex had touched her. At times she wished to take the two of them and knock their stubborn heads together.

  Crickets and other night insects hummed in the thick air and large animals called out from the woods at the water's edge, their shrill cries sending shivers down Joss's back. Perhaps it was not the scream of the panther or the roar of gators that caused the shivering but the presence of the man walking beside her. He no longer touched her, but she still felt his hand as keenly as if he'd branded her skin. How could he come walking in so calmly after...after what he'd just done? Why, his hair was still damp from his bath.

  "I know we parted in anger, Joss, but I'd hoped you would have had time to calm down."

  "I am calm, Alex." Her tone was as leaden as her heart.

  "You act cold, but now I know that isn't the real Jocelyn Blackthorne, don't I?"

  Her breath hitched in shock. "How could you say such a thing to me after the way you practically fell upon me like a ravening wolf?" she accused.

  He laughed mirthlessly, stung by the fact that he had been rough...needy...desperate. He no longer knew Joss. Hell, he no longer knew himself. "As I recall it, I had to do damn little forcing—either time we made love, my dear. You want me, Joss, you just don't want to admit it."

  They stood on the first floor of the house, facing each other in the darkness. A candle cast down flickering light through the planks from the second floor. Someone, probably Charity, had made the bower welcome for them.

  Joss studied his face, unable to read his expression in the shadows. "Yes, I do desire you, Alex," she confessed miserably. And you desire everything in skirts.

  "So, lusting after a savage like me makes you ashamed, does it?" Looking at her standing there, so wretchedly dejected, so shamed by her admission, made his heart bleed as if a panther had sunk its claws into it. The Blackthorne men love too well. The old family axiom rang in his ears. No, this was not love! He did not understand love, did not want to, only the other...old, familiar lust.

  Joss was so stunned by his accusation that she could not for a moment frame a reply. All she heard was "ashamed" and "lusting after," the accusation in his voice, the bitter mockery. "Yes, I am ashamed of loving a man like you—a man without morals or honor," she lashed back as the tension between them thickened. With a sob she tried to get past him, to run away where the woodland darkness would hide her.

  But Alex would not let her go. He seized her arm and turned her to face him, so close in the darkness he could smell the sweetness of her breath, the scent of her. "Let me show you, dear wife, what a man without morals or honor can do...."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Joss could feel a fire trembling in her body—or did it come from his? She could not tell as he embraced her. Yet he made no attempt to kiss her or caress her, just stared at her lowered head in the semidarkness as if willing her to look up and meet his harsh, mocking gaze. She could not.

  "Afraid, Joss?" he taunted. "I never took you for a coward."

  But I was. This very afternoon. "What do you want from me, Alex?" she whispered.

  "What I cannot have—perhaps should not have," he answered enigmatically. "But I'll settle for this," he said, raising her chin with his hand, curling his fingers around her jaw to position her lips so his mouth could claim them.

  She wanted to scream, to rail, kick, bite, cry out against the unfairness of it all...and she could not. Instead she opened to his invading tongue, fervently returning the searing kiss he offered, just as he had taught her. Oh, he had schooled her well in passion, well enough to know the tightening deep in her belly, the ache in her breasts, the wetness that betrayed her want to him. All he had to do was look at her. One touch and she was lost.

  Alex felt a small kernel of satisfaction at her fierce response to his kiss, although he knew she hated herself for her body's weakness, and this fueled his anger. "I will do things to you...make you do them to me, Joss...things you never imagined," he murmured against her mouth. When she moaned in protest, he ignored the plea, continuing the kiss.

  She felt his hand gliding up the curve of her waist to cup her breast, finding the hard, pebbly nipple with clever fingers, teasing it in maddening circles. She cursed her traitorous body even as she gloried in it. If there could be nothing else but this fierce sweet passion between them, then she would accept the crumbs of his love...or even his lust. For tonight.

  Alex broke off the kiss suddenly. He did not wish to lose all control and fall onto the dirt floor in the darkness, coupling with her like an animal. Instead, he took her hand, leading her to the ladder. She followed like a chastened child, obedient under protest. When he placed her hand on one rung of the ladder and waited, she began to climb. He followed her upward into the light.

  The candle bathed the room in its soft golden glow. The air was filled with the smell of fresh herbs and the rich, spicy fragrance of beavertree. This time he led her to the big low bed, a mattress lying on the floor, filled with corn- husks and sweet grasses, covered with Charity's clean linens. White petals were strewn across it like random splotches of moonbeams.

  Standing beside it he tugged his buckskin shirt over his head and tossed it aside, then kicked off his moccasins and began to unlace his leggings. 'Take off your clothes, Joss," he said as he worked.

  For an instant she considered disobeying the peremptory command. Only for an instant. His eyes, glowing dark and compelling, held hers as he disrobed. He was so splendid. Bronzed muscles gleamed with a fine dusting of golden hair. Slowly her hands came up to her chest and she began to unfasten her tunic, sliding it from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. She wore nothing beneath it but her sheer camisole. The cool night air caressed her skin and she shivered anew.

  In a moment he was finished stripping off his clothes. He stood before her completely unconcerned by his nudity. Rampant proof of his lust jutted from the gold bush at his groin, dark red and puls
ing with life, hard, thick and long. How could something that huge possibly fit inside her? Yet she knew it did, gloriously so. Her fingers grew clumsy as she struggled with the waistband of her skirt.

  He let her tug ineffectually at her skirt for a moment, watching the rapid rise and fall of those high perfect globes barely concealed by the thin white batiste. Her tawny hair caught the light, rippling down her back, bound by a simple leather cord. He ached to bury his face in the gleaming curls and inhale the soft scent of lavender. Instead he reached out and covered her hands with his, moving them away as he deftly flicked the fastenings loose so the heavy skirt dropped to pool at her feet.

  She stood clad only in her soft, thin undergarments. He tugged at the drawstring of her chemise until it slipped loose, then smoothed the open neckline down over her shoulders until it caught on her breasts just at the nipples. He rubbed it across them slowly, back and forth, watching with satisfaction as the hard tips puckered even more. "You want my mouth on them, don't you, Joss?"

  She bit her lip, desperate to deny it. The slow, seductive brush of soft cotton continued back and forth, back and forth. The heaviness, the ache intensified until she could not bear it. "Yes ... yes." Her voice caught in her throat.

  Slowly he pulled the chemise down past her breasts, letting it gather around the curve of her hips. Then he reached up with both hands and cupped her breasts, raising them like an offering, teasing the rose nipples with his thumbs. "Lie down, Joss."

  She obeyed and he followed her onto the pallet. She could fell the velvety richness of the beavertree petals as she sank into the mattress. He knelt at her side and unfastened the tapes of her undergarments, then peeled them and the chemise over her hips. When she was utterly naked, he sat back on his heels for a moment, skimming his hand over her body from her throat downward, over breasts, belly, hip and thigh, the curve of her calf. One moccasin still clung to her foot. He raised her slim ankle, encircling it easily in his big bronzed hand and removed the slipper, tossing it onto the strewn pile of their clothing.

  She was pale as cream, lightly dusted with tiny gold freckles where the hot Georgia sun had touched her. "So pale compared to me. Look at us, Joss, milk white and copper bronze. Does it excite you?"

  When she gave no answer, just moistened her lips and stared at him in mute entreaty, he stretched out beside her, then pulled her under him, covering her hips possessively with one muscular thigh, bracing himself on his elbows so he could look down into her face.

  Joss felt the crisp abrasion of his body hair as he pressed her deeper into the mattress. When at last he lowered his mouth to her breast, she whimpered her pleasure. He cupped, shaped, molded the small mound as he suckled it, then switched his ministrations to the other one, doing the same. Her fingers dug into his scalp, urging him to continue.

  His mouth scalded a trail to her navel, circling it languidly with his tongue, feeling the taut concave skin quiver. Then his lips moved lower, brushing the golden brown curls at her mound, and she withdrew her hands abruptly. He heard her gasp of shock and smiled, nuzzling lower until his tongue flicked at the musky wet petals of her femininity.

  "No," she whispered helplessly.

  "Yes," he rasped in satisfaction. "You have much yet to learn."

  Her hands dropped helplessly to her sides, her fingers curling into the sheet, holding on tightly as his mouth brushed and tongue teased, opening her completely to his silken invasion. The pleasure was sudden and sharp, unlike the gradual building she had learned from his more conventional lovemaking. Her hips came up off the mattress as her back arched rigidly. She held herself open to him like some pagan priestess making a sacrifice to a dark god.

  He accepted her offering, tasting the rich honey of her hungry body, teasing and lapping delicately in the soft folds, skirting around the tiny swelling bud of her pleasure until he could make her ready. He went slowly, reveling in every soft moan, each restless arch of her hips, all the panting desperation in her breathing.

  Such sweet torture. She felt strung as tightly as a Muskogee bowstring drawn back the full length of an arrow, poised to be released, to fly free, heavenward, up, up, until it vanished in the blueness of the sky. Then his tongue touched her there, pressing, rolling. Every nerve in her body centered in this one tiny place.

  She exploded. Her cry was high, keening, like an animal in great pain—or the greatest pleasure ever experienced. He felt the hard rhythmic spasms and gloried in what he had done. She was his and his alone. He could give or withhold...except that he knew he could never again leave her untouched.

  As the rush of madness from that intense climax ebbed gradually, he raised himself up with his arms braced on each side of her hips, looking down at the rosy flush staining her belly and breasts, watching it climb to her throat and face. Silently he willed her to look at him and she did at last, her lashes fluttering open and those wide blue eyes staring up into his face.

  Joss was robbed of all coherent thought. Never had she imagined such a thing as this was possible. She needed him as she needed air, sunlight, water. No matter his sins or faithlessness, she would love him always. Nothing mattered but that he return to her after he strayed, that he hold her and let her make believe that he really did love her. But she could not make herself say the words.

  He broke eye contact and rolled down beside her, running his hands over her flushed breasts, caressing her arms, nibbling kisses, soft and wet, at her throat, slowly rousing her satiated body to want more. When he felt her begin to respond, that sense of heady pleasure in possession swept over him once more. He took pride in her passion, murmuring low, wicked love words to her, his prim little bluestocking, wanting her to rise again to the feverish peak of desire that still burned unquenched in him.

  Joss clung to him, letting her hands, her lips, her whole body say what she could not put into words, that she loved him, needed him...forgave him. When her hand brushed against the rock hardness of his staff, he let out a guttural oath of need and she became emboldened to circle it, squeezing experimentally. Perhaps she did not need all that much instruction, she thought when he stiffened in her arms and went very still except for his ragged breathing.

  Quickly, lest he spill his seed like a green youth, Alex covered her busy little hand with his, holding it motionless for a moment while he gathered his control once again. Then he showed her how to stroke his staff and caress the heavy sac that hung below it. She was the most gifted student he'd ever taught.

  When he removed her hands, Joss expected him to enter her as she lay back, but obeyed when he commanded her to roll over and kneel on her hands and knees. Then he moved behind her. When he squeezed her buttocks in his hands, then thrust into her tight wet sheath, the sudden new pleasure of it almost sent her sprawling flat on her belly.

  He caressed her breasts as they hung suspended like ripe fruits in the palms of his hands. His lips nuzzled her spine tenderly while his hips pounded a slow savage rhythm against her derriere, filling her deeply, harshly, wonderfully.

  He gritted his teeth, waiting for the signs of her crest before he gave in to the hot, urgent desperation of his loins. When he reached between her legs with one hand and pressed the small bud of her desire, she spasmed and he quickly followed her over the abyss to that bliss beyond all else.

  When they collapsed, he on her back, sweat soaked and panting in satiation, Joss expected it to be over. But she was wrong. He rolled them over, locking them tightly hip to hip, chest to chest, caressing her and murmuring low, urging her to touch him in ways she never had before until the hard proof of his renewed desire pressed into her belly and her own feminine parts were swollen and eager once more.

  Through the night they alternately loved and slept, then awakened to begin the sybaritic rites all over again. He showed her positions that she had never dreamed anatomically possible; he coaxed forth responses she never dreamed her body capable of giving. It was wicked. It was delightful. It was utterly exhausting. Near dawn she finally fell into a
deep sleep, curled securely against the protective warmth of his body.

  Alex awakened as a pale golden shaft of light crept over the window. Violet and crimson faded to blue and pink as the sun rose. Gently he disengaged himself from his sleeping wife, careful not to awaken her. She was curled on her side with her hair spread across the mattress in a tangled silken skein. He had used her hard last night. Faint dark smudges circled her eyes, and her mouth was bruised and swollen from his kisses. Whisker burns abraded her milky skin. He lifted the sheet from where it lay tangled at the edge of the pallet and covered her with it, then slipped into his clothing and left their bower.

  * * * *

  Alex and Devon had not been able to catch up with Wilbur Kent and the Red Sticks led by McQueen, but they had some success with the miccos in several of the larger towns, who agreed to refuse a British alliance. Still, as long as Kent was distributing weapons and riling the Upper Creeks, the Blackthornes had to continue their search for him. It was time for them to gather fresh horses and more supplies and strike out once again. He was grateful for the excuse to leave behind his troubling and unresolved relationship with Joss.

  Within an hour, Alex was ready to leave. He and his father had agreed to split up. Eight warriors rode with him, including his uncle, Tall Crane. Another nine would go with Devon, including Pig Sticker. Alex headed to the towns farther northwest on the Coosa River, his father southwest down the Altamaha, where William Weatherford lived. Devon hoped to convince his old friend to abandon his pact with the British. With luck, one or the other of their parties would cross Kent's trail along the way.

  As the men in the square discussed last-minute plans and agreed upon a rendezvous site several weeks hence, Peter McQueen observed them from his hiding place in a thicket of possumhaw near the river. A slow smile edged his thin lips. The fools. They would scour the ridges and river valleys, following the false trails Wilbur Kent laid, leaving their own town almost defenseless.