Chapter Thirty-Two
He shifted off her, onto his back. She could hear his harsh breathing begin to slow, and she could hear hers. She rolled onto her side, sanity flooding her. Oh, God.
She closed her eyes and recalled the magnificence of being possessed by this man.
She had wanted him. She had wanted him with an uncontrollable passion.
She had been mindless beneath his touch, his mouth.
She had enjoyed every minute. No—that word could not possibly convey what she had been feeling.
Ecstasy. Physical ecstasy. What is happening to me?
She had enjoyed a man’s lovemaking, a man who was not her husband and who was half Indian. Oh, dear God. She clutched her hand to her mouth to prevent the choked sound from escaping.
You belong to me.
Mine.
Those words echoed in her mind. They brought a hot flush of shameful elation.
She tried to refute the statement, thinking, I belong to no man—and certainly not to him.
Then she would remember how he had fought Hayilkah and nearly killed him.
She would remember how he had looked at her over Datiye’s head, his face wet with sweat and blood, his eyes hot and proud and vitally victorious.
Then she would remember how he had pulled her down into the dirt, not caring who might see, and driven himself into her, claiming her, again and again.
And she could still hear her own shameless cries of pleasure and surrender.
“Candice?”
His voice was questioning in her ear, his breath warm. His hand closed on her waist. She bit her lip, hesitating, then turned to meet his gaze.
What she didn’t expect was the soft look in his eyes, or the way his hand touched her face tenderly. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek more fully into his palm. She felt lus mouth brush her temple, and then he was standing.
She sat up, holding the torn front of her dress together, blushing.
He was pulling up his pants and tying the drawstring.
She felt the shame again—rutting in the dirt like animals—and looked away.
Her heart had picked up its beat. What should she do?
How should she act? What in God’s name was going to happen next?
What was wrong with her?
“Let’s go back to camp,” he said without inflection, and when she glanced at him, the softness had gone from his eyes. She could not read his expression. His gaze flicked to her torn dress. “I’ll get you a needle and some sinew, thread if I can.”
She blushed more brightly.
He left her with Luz and the other women all day.
Candice helped them to prepare foodstuffs, but with half her attention on what she was doing.
She was utterly distracted. Every time she thought about the morning she grew hot with embarrassment and all kinds of jumbled emotions—including something no lady should be feeling—excitement.
She knew only one thing to be true—she couldn’t wait to get back to civilization. Back home. And what would happen then?
If her reputation had been damaged before, this time …
She didn’t dare think about it.
That night they ate with Shozkay and Luz again.
Candice found herself looking at Jack, looking and remembering.
He didn’t return her gaze. It was almost as if he were avoiding the haphazard meeting of their eyes.
But once, just once, he looked up and their glances caught, held, locked.
The brightness in his eyes almost knocked her backward.
She couldn’t think, just feel. And anticipate.
They walked back to their gohwah in silence. At the shelter he held the flap to let her precede him. She paused, her heart thudding wildly, her skin flushed and warm, and all she could think of—wish for—was that he was going to stay with her tonight—wasn’t he? She turned to him.
He met her gaze fully but didn’t speak. He held the flap open, waiting. She wet her lips nervously, ashamed, and knew she had hopelessly fallen into sin. “Will you come in?”
His jaw flexed. For one instant he didn’t move. “Do you understand what you’re asking?” His voice was husky, and it flooded her with liquid heat.
“Yes,” she breathed. She ducked in, he followed. She hesitated, unbearably shy, but her chest was so tight with wanting him that she thought it might explode. He did mean what she thought he meant, didn’t he? Or should she take her clothes off?
Like some whore.
She grimaced at the ugliness of that thought, and then he touched her.
Gentle fingertips on her shoulders, but it was enough. She spun around in his arms, he clutched her to him. She raised her face, he lowered his. In perfect tandem their lips met, a soft searching before the storm and the thunder.
His lips grew more demanding, he stroked hard hands down her back and buttocks. She pressed herself fully into the large bone of his erection, and moaned into his mouth. He suddenly drew away from her to press his face in the crook of her neck, his breath warm, so warm. “Candice,” he breathed.
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, finding his hair and threading it through her fingers.
“Shijii, darling …” He broke off, a choked sound, and lifted her, laying her on the hides. He knelt on the floor above her, she opened her arms wide. The look of anguished pleasure that swept his face made her want to enfold him to her breast all the more. “Come to me,” she whispered.
He groaned and stripped off his clothes rapidly, clumsily, tripping over one pant leg. Then he was kneeling over her, pulling her into his arms. “This time, shijii, this time,” he promised huskily, raining kisses on her mouth and throat, “this time I’ll make it so good …”
Just having him in her arms, kissing her desperately, his large, swollen member throbbing against her belly, was making her mind reel and her body throb at a precarious pitch.
With his tongue thrusting in her mouth he reached down to slide his forefinger between the swollen lips of her groin, and she gasped, arching. “Jack.”
“Yes,” he said. “I want to watch you, darling, I want to watch you come.” Raising himself on his hands, he began rubbing the head of his penis against her, moving it slickly back and forth as her moans grew. She twisted wildly, beyond control and caring. Panting.
“Jack.”
“Come, baby, come for me.” And he thrust into her, and she came violently, crying aloud.
When she opened her eyes he was lying in her, watching her face with burning eyes, still hard and vitally alive inside her.
He took a hank of her hair in one hand with brute strength, and with his other he captured both her wrists—kissing her deeply, fully.
His legs pinned hers and she couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. Hot sparks flared.
She began moving her hips against his, lazily, but with growing urgency. He withdrew. “Jack.”
He didn’t answer. Still holding her wrists, he forced her thighs farther apart with his powerful legs, keeping her immobile. He was ducking his head to her groin and spreading her flesh, flicking his tongue over it. “Do you like this?”
It took her a moment to realize he had stopped and was waiting for her answer. “Yes.”
“And this?” His tongue traced a delicate route around her swollen clitoris.
She gasped, twitching but unable to move.
He raised his head. “Well?”
“Yes … please …”
“What about this?” He licked her, long and slowly.
“God,” she screamed, sobbing, exploding. She felt him thrusting into her again and again and again.…