Chapter 17 #2
“Don’t,” she commanded softly.
He raised his gaze to meet her eyes. There was so much understanding, so much compassion in her face, it seemed to smother what was left of his anger, the anger he held on to for dear life.
He didn’t want her compassion, dammit. Or her pity. He thought about walking away, as he had before, but that would be admitting that she’d hit a raw nerve. Hell with it. He would give her what she wanted, and perhaps then she would stop probing into places she didn’t belong.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said shortly, and started for the woods. He knew she would follow him.
Though she had won this particular battle, it felt good to be wandering these woods again.
It felt … soothing to have her with him, even behind him.
Just knowing she was near, hearing the soft sound of her boots against the pine needles, was a fine thing, no matter how much he tried in his mind to color it with anger.
If there had been any wildlife at the pool, it had scattered by the time they reached the lake.
The water that fell from the rocks above seemed to glisten with sunshine, and the blue seemed purer than before.
Rafe wondered whether it was Shea’s presence that seemed to make colors more vivid, more fanciful.
She was absorbing them with a delight that never stopped surprising, and touching, him.
The simplest of things seemed to make her happy, like a child, and yet there was also a maturity about her that complemented the innocence that mesmerized him.
It had been a long time since he’d experienced innocence.
He turned around abruptly. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
“Don’t go.” Her voice was soft but determined.
He glared at her. “Don’t play games with me, Miss Randall. I’ve been in prison a very long time. I warned you before what that does to a man.”
“Rafe.” Her voice caressed the name. He didn’t know whether she meant to do that or not, but the effect was the same. It was like lightning running through his veins. It was also like a leash pulling him to her. He fought against it—but in vain.
“What do you want, Miss Randall?” His voice was harsh with wanting, with frustration.
He saw her swallow. “I don’t know …”
“You’d better decide,” he said roughly, “or you won’t have a choice in the matter.”
Shea felt the lump in her throat swell. She didn’t have a choice in the matter.
She hadn’t since that kiss three nights ago, since that flash of agony crossed his face, and she’d recognized his complete loss of any kind of hope or dream.
She hadn’t entirely understood until then, until that spurt of anguished despair revealed the depths of what had been done to him.
He had appeared so strong, so confident, even prideful, that she hadn’t realized how much his core had been eaten away by injustice, an injustice she no longer doubted.
She wanted to heal him. That was part of it.
But it wasn’t all. She had meant what she said about the brand not making a difference to her, not now that she knew him.
She ached to have him touch her again, with that same gentleness he had before.
She had never known anyone could touch like that, the very restraint vibrating between them, stroking sensations like a fine violinist coaxing music from his strings.
Shea didn’t answer but instead moved toward him.
“Shea?” His voice was ragged.
The fingers of her left hand reached up to his mouth and closed off any further protest. She didn’t let herself think about what she was doing. Instincts guided her. Feelings. Emotions.
With a groan he lowered his head, and his lips met hers.
They were tentative at first, even though she had issued an invitation. It was as if he didn’t believe it, couldn’t accept it.
But Shea felt every part of her respond to him. She felt his pain, his uncertainty, his pride. She felt the rawness inside him and made it hers.
She looked up and saw those guarded sea-colored eyes of his, but now they weren’t at all guarded. They were desperate and wounded, so full of dark despair that shudders ran through her.
His lips left hers, and he stepped back, as if certain those shudders meant revulsion rather than the uncontrollable response of her body to his. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered.
“You don’t know—”
“I know everything I want to know.” That wasn’t true.
It was, in fact, the greatest lie she’d ever told, but there was no guilt in her when she saw him relax.
His lips returned to hers, this time with a need that shook her down to her toes.
Heat pooled inside her as his body touched hers, and she felt him harden against her.
His hands went down, encircling her hips, pulling her up until the swelling at the apex of his legs matched the crevice at hers, and she felt that heat inside her turn into hot, throbbing rivers of desire, painful in intensity.
Shea had never felt such longing, such yearning, in her life. She wasn’t sure what that longing reached for, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to touch him, to feel that gentleness that said so much more than he would say.
She heard the quick intake of his breath as his lips pressed hard on hers, taking now, because he sensed that she needed, wanted, this as much as he. But even then, he tempered his moves, the strain of doing so obvious on his face.
“Oh, Shea,” he said, his voice breaking as he moved an inch away from her lips, his face taut with wanting. “This is …”
He stopped. She didn’t know what he’d started to say. That this was impossible or ridiculous or insane or all of these things.
“Right,” she finished for him.
“Nothing about this is right,” he whispered, but then he belied those words, kissing her again with a desperation that said something else altogether.
Shea put her arms around him, carefully so she wouldn’t hurt the wound on his arm. She welcomed the feel of his lips on hers, and she opened her mouth to him under the gentle prodding.
She had never been kissed like this, and she was startled that his exploring tongue could set aflame so many other places in her body. Then she stopped wondering and could only react. Her own tongue instinctively stroked his, and she felt him go rigid as a low groan rumbled from deep inside him.
His hands left her hips and moved up and down her back in sensuous strokes.
Her body stretched to feel his hardness against the core of her; astonished at a need so compelling, she couldn’t stop herself.
She wondered at the way his body, his hands, made her quiver with expectation.
She had never thought she would welcome such an invasion, but now she craved more and more and more.
His lips left hers and moved along her face with feathering caresses. She closed her eyes. She just wanted to feel and savor. To memorize. To remember.
Rafe unbuttoned her dress, and his hands slipped inside her chemise.
She wasn’t wearing a corset; it had seemed foolish to endure the discomfort up here in the mountains, and now she was glad, for his hand easily found and touched, almost reverently, her breast. She felt it swell and grow taut and tingle.
And ache. Dear God, how it hurt. And then the other breast. She thought she would burst with feeling, with all the new sensations ravaging her body. New and wondrous and exciting and needy.
Her body pressed even closer to his, seeking something she didn’t understand, seeking to unite. Her hands had climbed up the back of his neck, tickling and playing with his thick, curling hair, twisting it in her fingers.
In response his hands moved from her breasts and tangled in her hair, freeing it from the ribbon holding it back, and she felt it fall over her shoulders and breasts.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. The words sounded almost worshipful, and she felt beautiful. For the first time in her life she felt truly beautiful.
Mindless of his wound, he swooped her up in his arms, and she linked her hands around his neck.
He carried her several feet and then laid her down on a bed of pine needles, soft now from months of exposure.
He knelt beside her, his face strained as he watched hers, and she knew he was waiting for her to say no.
She couldn’t say it. She didn’t want to. She wanted him in a way she’d never wanted anything before in her life. She wanted to see his eyes thaw, and his mouth smile, and the hard, set lines of his face ease. She wanted to hear him laugh.
She wanted to love him.
But that was something she couldn’t tell him.
Only with her eyes could she let him know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
His eyes didn’t relax, nor did his lips smile, or his face ease, as his hands lifted her dress and chemise over her head and tugged the pantalets down.
He did all those things with the same intense concentration he’d used when training his horse, or doctoring the cub, or cutting wood.
She wondered sadly whether there was any joy left in him at all.
As if he knew what she was thinking, his hands hesitated as they pulled the last garment from her.
They rested on her thigh for the briefest of moments, then his right hand turned over her right one, and he studied it.
She no longer wore a bandage, and the blisters were healing.
It was still sore, though, and he ran his thumb over it so lightly that it teased rather than hurt. “I’m sorry for that,” he said.
Shea gazed at the two hands together, hers white and slender, his tanned and large. He was not wearing his glove, and the brand was stark on his skin, but he didn’t try to hide it. It was as if he were reminding himself, or testing her.
She hated that mark for what it had done to him. Her hand went down to it, her fingers running along it. She wished that she could absorb some of the pain he must have felt when it was done to him.