Chapter 10 #2
She shrugged. “Dillman was being odious at some social event, and Colonel Trelawny, who is certainly powerful in political circles—Dillman even respected him—came along and insisted on my taking him out onto the porch to tell him about the flowers in the boxed gardens.” She smiled suddenly, wrinkling her nose.
“I didn’t have to see Dillman again the entire afternoon. ”
Sloan smiled. “Well, I’m glad to hear that my grandfather was of service. By the way, he’s a general now and he sent you a gift.”
“He sent me a gift?”
“As my new wife. Shall I get it now?”
If he got the gift, he’d have to stand up naked. “That was very kind of him, but I’m sure it can wait for a more convenient time.”
His eyes sparkled, as if he knew exactly why she wanted to wait, but he didn’t argue.
“My grandfather’s service in the military is why I exist—why my mother happened to be on the plains when she was abducted by the Sioux.”
“She must have been terrified. She must have hated them.”
He shook his head, then shrugged. “Maybe, at first. But she adored my father. She brought me home when he died, and we lived some of the time in Georgetown—or else with her father at his various posts. She served on committees, went to parties, rejoined society—but she never married again.”
“Is she…?”
“She passed away about five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. She was a great lady.”
“You must remember her better than you remember your father.”
Sloan shrugged. “Naturally, she lived a lot longer.” He hesitated a moment, then shrugged.
“There’s a misconception regarding the Plains Indians in the East. They aren’t constantly on the lookout to kill, rape, and plunder.
In all honesty, many of the Indians were intrigued by the Whites and were ready to lend them a helping hand on the way west. My father was Sioux, his brothers were Sioux; they were a large family.
Those who are still living have gone their separate ways.
Two of my uncles live near the Red Cloud Agency; two of my cousins ride with Crazy Horse, and an old uncle of mine has been following Sitting Bull for many years.
My maternal grandfather was also very good friends with Hawk’s father, so any tour of duty out here included time spent at Mayfair, and for Hawk and me—and David, when he was in the States, as well—it meant riding out to find our Sioux family, wherever they might be hunting.
Actually,” he murmured softly, his dark eyes strangely tender for a moment, “I imagine my upbringing was a bit more normal than yours.”
Startled at the change in the conversation, Sabrina shrugged, wondering why she felt so quickly on the defensive. “Oh, it was normal enough.”
“Your stepfather killed your father. And nothing you and Skylar could do would convince anyone else of that truth. That had to be very hard.”
“We hated Dillman but learned to live around that fact.”
“Do you hate me? And will you learn to live around that fact?” he inquired.
“I don’t hate you,” she told him.
“Careful,” he teased, “I may take such generous words far too seriously.”
She ignored him and quickly touched another scar, a thin white slash on his shoulder.
“Where did that one come from?”
“The War Between the States. A Marylander with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. I should learn to be careful of folks from Baltimore, hmm?”
Sabrina shrugged. “Maybe. I haven’t given you any scars.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Where?” she challenged.
He smiled, rolling a shoulder toward her. There were a few tiny white scars on his back. They did look newer than the others, as if they still might heal.
She looked at him skeptically. “And when did I give you those scars?” she demanded.
He smiled. “The first night we met. In Gold Town. When I thought that you had come to the Miner’s Well as one of Loralee’s girls from the Ten-Penny Saloon.”
“Oh!” she murmured and flushed. “I think you’re making that up just to goad me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that you marred me intentionally.”
“I was…startled, to say the least.”
“Umm. I might say that I was stunned by your behavior.”
“But I didn’t come into your room seeking to claw you—”
“Oh, the scars were well worth the evening,” he said, his voice so husky and taunting that despite herself, she felt her temper flare.
And she very nearly struck him.
Except that he was prepared and caught her wrist. She lost the modesty of her blanket in the bargain.
She bit into her lower lip, fighting to remain silent. Her lashes shading her eyes.
“I’m really sorry. But I did think you were a whore, and you didn’t inform me otherwise,” he reminded her.
She kept her lashes lowered. “Would it have made things any different?”
“You know that it would have.”
“And you know that I didn’t dare trust you!” she whispered.
He was silent, and she raised her lashes at last, startled by the way he looked at her. He brushed his knuckles lightly against her cheek, a feathery caress, and she felt her breath catching. His eyes were steady on hers, intent, probing.
“I’m sorry that you didn’t dare trust me,” he whispered softly.
She felt a subtle tightening within him, and her gaze slipped again, and she felt a new sensation of panic as she realized how aroused he had become.
A trembling started to rake through her.
A warmth. There was something very pleasant about his nearness.
And something more. Something that teased, tempted… seduced.
She raised her eyes to his.
“We should probably get dressed and start riding,” she said. Oh, God, her voice was just a whisper.
He smiled. “Should we?” he queried softly.
She nodded strenuously, trying to forget that her breasts were bare, and to ignore the way he was leaning against her, so that her nipples were brushing his chest. She could feel him…
where he wasn’t even quite touching her.
Heat suffused her. Color flooded her cheeks.
She was incredibly aware of every inch of his body, aware of his eyes, the beating of his heart.
The quickening of his breath.
The hardening of his…body.
Their position was all but unbearably intimate.
Then he spoke. Softly, almost tenderly. “Do you really think that you can deny the inevitable, Sabrina?”
Deny the inevitable...
She had been trying to do so.
“And it’s really rather like falling off a horse,” he said, a flicker of amusement in his dark eyes.
“I beg your pardon? hi…”
“Making love.”
“Oh, my God. You’re comparing—” She couldn’t quite manage to say the words.
“Making love,” he supplied.
“With riding horses?”
“Well, you were hurt once. So it’s like being thrown. If you don’t get right back on, it will be more and more difficult with every day that passes.”
She stared at him incredulously, wondering whether to laugh or scream.
“I’m willing to take my chances!” she assured him.
“I’m not so sure that I am,” he whispered very softly in return.
And then he had her wrists, his fingers wound around them, and he raised them over her head as he leaned over her, his eyes intently upon hers as he came closer and closer.
His mouth moved over hers, hot, open, and persuasive.
She felt his tongue, thrusting in a sweet, seductive invasion.
And she felt the force of his muscled body against her own, his sex so hard against her thigh.
Hot streaks of sunlight seemed to ripple and cascade into her. She wanted to close in on herself and escape, but she couldn’t possibly do so. It was frightening to be so quickly tempted, to feel the questing, the wanting…the seeking. It was frightening…to want to be touched, to want to touch him.
Oh, Lord, she wanted to protest, but she couldn’t quite do that, either.
She wanted to deny that she felt…a sweet, shimmering stirring of fire deep inside of her, but that was there, too, inevitably.
His mouth was alternately light…and forceful, teasing and then demanding, until she realized she was returning his kiss…
seeking it. But then his lips left her, and his body hiked low against her own, and his tongue teased her navel, and his caress nuzzled the soft flesh of her abdomen until he shifted again.
Her hands were free, she realized. And her fingers were in his hair, and she was touching the dark length and texture of it…
His hand curved around the fullness of her breast, cupping it as his thumb grazed her nipple to a hardened peak just before his mouth closed around it. He teased with his tongue…sucked, laved…
Heat, like the pure blaze of the sun, swept through her. She shuddered, her fingers winding into his hair. She clenched her eyes, remembering the ecstasy of the feeling…
And the humiliation. He had thought he’d been taking a common whore.
She twisted within his embrace, suddenly determined that she’d not be seduced again so easily…
despite the fact that he was her husband.
Because he was her husband! Because he was a practiced lover…
and this all came so very easily to him.
He’d known so many women. He was good. Always good.
Just as he had been with her that night. He seduced but gave nothing of himself.
She risked so much with him. Perhaps, in some ways, she had been spoiled, just as, in other ways, she had lived the most bitter life.
She had always been confident in her poise and independence; she had learned to keep her own counsel and to trust only in her sister.
But she had learned to flirt and tease and manipulate, in the manner of the very best of Southern womanhood.
She was the one who charmed, not the one who was so easily seduced. ..