Chapter 11 #4
He hardly moved as she did the work of tightening around him.
Her legs. Her arms. And especially there, in her warm, wet center.
Neither of them spoke. What they communicated was done with touch.
Her fingers in his hair, ruffling the ends.
His hand on her breast, the thumb tracing the areola.
They might have been resting except for the savoring.
The sole of her foot rubbed the back of his calf. His mouth brushed her shoulder.
She moved, then he did, or it might have been the other way around.
It did not matter. His penetration was deep, full, and the sensation of his erection pressing against her walls made her want to grip him more tightly.
He groaned, closed his eyes. The pleasure of withdrawing was intense, the return even more so.
He made himself go slowly, as much for his pleasure as hers.
Watching her face, the darkening of her eyes, the presence of the tip of her tongue against her upper lip, that was a source of pleasure, too.
Jane did not close her eyes now. She watched him as intently as he watched her, glad for the muted glow from the bedside lamp that put his face in sharp relief.
She fancied that she was reflected in his eyes.
The black centers were like dark mirrors.
She could not penetrate the depths of them, and yet they did not make her afraid.
Once again she found herself skimming the surface of pleasure.
Like moonlight glancing off a pool of water, she thought she would never go deeper, that here was a gentle ripple, satisfying in its own right, and she would simply ride it out.
It was that gentle vision that she had in her mind when Morgan dragged her under.
Jane sucked in a breath, and it seemed forever before she could take another.
There was no shuddering. What he did to her did not make her shudder.
She shattered. If he were not holding her, keeping her secure in his embrace, Jane thought she would never find the pieces of herself.
She recognized it as a physical experience, but understood it was not only that.
It was spiritual, a state of being so light that she felt as if she were floating, drifting, and then falling into herself once again.
Morgan came moments later. He rocked them both so hard the bed frame juddered.
His skin flushed. His spine curved as he lifted his shoulders and pushed into her.
Tension pulled his shoulders taut. At some point he had grasped her by the wrists, and he held them on either side of her head as his orgasm pumped his seed into her.
Outside, the wind howled, but it may as well have been the sound of his release.
It soughed through him, taking his breath and then giving it back.
He collapsed on his back and said the only thing that occurred to him. “Please.”
Jane chuckled softly because this time when the word crossed his lips, it sounded like surrender.
She drew the covers closer with no thought to searching for her nightgown.
She needed to get up and go outside to relieve herself, or use the pot in the washroom’s commode, but moving was not what she wanted to do yet. She waited for Morgan to go first.
What he did was fall asleep, and deeply.
Smiling, she nudged him on his side when his breathing became a soft snore.
She still did not leave the bed, choosing to lie beside him awhile longer and lightly rub his back.
He did not wake. It was a guilty pleasure to touch him in this manner.
His skin was warm and smooth under her palm.
She felt for tension between his shoulder blades with her fingertips.
Exhaustion had erased those taut lines, and she was glad for it.
Sometimes she thought that peace did not come easily to him.
She breathed deeply, letting the scent of him fill her nostrils and then her lungs.
The heady, heavy fragrance of sweat, sex, and man made her womb contract.
She pressed her thighs together and immediately felt a stir of lingering pleasure.
A lovely little shiver went through her, and when it passed, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
Then she climbed out of bed.
* * *
Morgan dreamed of Zetta Lee. Her hands. Her mouth.
She whispered in his ear, “My boy. My sweet boy. Yes. Like that.” She sat astride him, her eyes dark and slumberous, her smile languid.
She manipulated his cock while he lay perfectly still, his hands at his sides.
He was not allowed to touch her. He could watch.
She wanted him to watch. In the beginning, and sometimes afterward, that was all he was allowed to do.
She lifted her hips and guided him into her.
She took her seat slowly. “Don’t come,” she told him.
“It will be very bad for you if you come. Do you understand?”
Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip.
He did not know if he was allowed to nod his head.
He did not know if he was allowed to speak.
She expected him to know, and if he got it wrong she would punish him.
He could not predict the form that her punishment would take.
It might be days or weeks before she invited him to her bed again, and he did not think he could bear that.
Or she might set him up for a series of humiliations that would bring him to the attention of his brothers.
She never struck him. That was what she did to Gideon and Jack when they were out of her graces, and they, in turn, did the same to him.
Morgan nodded and knew he had responded correctly this time when her lazy smile deepened and she began to roll her hips.
“My ginger pie.” Her voice was a husky contralto. The pitch set his nerve endings tingling. “My sweet ginger pie is a man now, aren’t you?”
Was he?
He was twelve.
Zetta Lee Welling had been his lover for a year.
Morgan said nothing. Even in his dream, he knew when to remain silent.
“Morgan?” Jane placed her hand on his shoulder and gently shook him. “Morgan. Wake up.”
He turned on her so suddenly that she had no time to cry out.
It was no less than an attack, and Jane struggled as Morgan lay heavily on top of her and his cock pressed hard against her flat belly.
She sucked in a breath in the moment before his hands circled her throat and his thumbs began crushing her windpipe.
Curling her fingers like talons, Jane clawed at his hands. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell him to stop. She abandoned trying to remove his hands and struck at his head with her fists. It took one solid blow to his temple to knock daylight into him.
Morgan blinked. The bedroom was dark, but he knew it was Jane under him, not Zetta Lee.
He knew it was Jane’s slim neck he held in his hands, her throat that he was closing off with his thumbs.
Morgan reared back. He had no idea that he left her almost as violently as he had turned on her.
He threw off the covers as he rolled away.
He could not leave the bed fast enough. Jane was coughing, trying to clear her throat.
The sound of her labored breathing made him sick to his stomach.
He disappeared into the washroom and braced his arms on either side the basin. He tasted bile at the back of his throat. His stomach roiled. Waves of nausea came and went. His hands curled into fists.
He was peripherally aware of light coming from the bedroom and realized Jane must have lit a lamp.
He could hear her moving around. He imagined she was looking for her nightgown.
He pushed away from the washstand long enough to find a towel and hitch it around his waist. She was holding the lamp in one hand when she came to the doorway, and he was leaning over the basin again.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He laughed, albeit without humor. “That’s the question I should be asking you.”
“Then let me answer it. I am fine. You frightened me, but I am fine. Look.” She parted the neckline of her gown to reveal all of her throat. “See? I looked in my hand mirror. There is not a single mark.”
He did not turn his head. “Show me tomorrow.”
Jane closed her gown. “It does not matter if my throat is purple tomorrow. You were dreaming. You did not know what you were doing.”
“I did know,” he said. “But I wasn’t doing it to you.”
“Morgan,” she said, her tone gently admonishing. “I never thought you were. It happened very quickly. You were talking in your sleep. It woke me, and then I tried to wake you. Perhaps I should not have done. I think I precipitated what followed.”
“It’s not your fault.” He closed his eyes tightly, trying to make sense of what he had been dreaming. It was already vague in his mind, disjointed in the way his dreams often were. He did not know that he talked in his sleep. “What was I saying?”
“ ‘No,’ ” she said. “You were saying ‘no.’ I don’t know how many times you said it before the sound of your voice woke me. I could tell you were troubled. I think you might have been frightened. You said it louder. I thought you would wake yourself. When you didn’t, I tried.”
Morgan nodded slowly. It was coming back to him.
Scenes from his life appeared randomly, the years folding back on themselves.
“She’s still alive,” he said, straightening.
There was enough light from Jane’s lamp for Morgan to see his reflection in the mirror above the basin.
He looked weary, he thought, and older than his twenty-nine years.
His shoulders were hunched from the weight of the secrets he kept.
His own and Zetta Lee’s. He bore them like a punishment, the consequence of being made Zetta Lee’s ginger pie man at eleven.
“The last I knew,” he said, looking at Jane and no longer at himself, “she was still alive.”
“She?”