Beyond the Sunrise (20 page)

She made a kissing gesture with her mouth. “I am that irresistible?” she said. “I told you you would fall in love with me, Robert.”

He unpacked their food without either replying or looking at her. There had been definite advantages to that prison cell, he thought. Despite the daily beatings, he had had long hours alone with the peace of his own thoughts.

S
HE
had dozed and woken again. But she knew that she must sleep. She was unaccustomed to the life of Joana Ribeiro, and the first few days would be tiring, she knew. More so than usual—there was not usually quite so much traveling as there was likely to be in the coming days. And the traveling would be filled with tension, for they would be journeying not only
to
various places but also
from
the pursuit of Colonel Leroux and his company.

Colonel Leroux, she thought. He must come. He must find their tracks and follow. And she must be ready for him when he came. It struck her suddenly how suicidal her plan was and how dangerous for Robert. She might as well have killed the colonel in Salamanca, where only her own life would have been forfeit as a result. But for some reason she had wanted him on her own territory. She wanted him in the country where Miguel and Maria had died.

But she would need her weapons. They were in the back corner of the cave with his sword, though his rifle, she knew, was at his back, within his reach. She could reach none of them, imprisoned as she was. One of his arms was beneath her head and curled about her shoulder, a comfortable-enough pillow but really only a chain of captivity. The other was firmly about her waist. One of his legs was thrown over hers. He would awaken, he had told her earlier when she had protested, if she moved so much as a muscle during the night.

It was hard trying to sleep on a stone floor without moving a muscle.

There was no way she could get to her gun or her knife without waking him. And even if she could, she would never get away without being caught by him again. She thought with some indignation
of her belt binding her wrists and attached to his belt, and knew without a shadow of doubt that that would be her fate if she tried to get away. She would never get to her gun again if that happened.

No, she would have to have patience and await her chance. It would come. She had never wanted anything that she had not got. And he could be made to fall in love with her. Despite everything, she could have him wrapped about her little finger within days if she tried. She clamped her teeth hard together when she recalled the scorn with which he had greeted her attempt at explaining the truth to him. Not that she had tried very hard. It went against her pride to beg and plead. If he chose not to believe her, then so be it.

But she could still make him fall in love with her if she so chose. They were kindred spirits, she and Robert Blake. They sparked desire off each other, and yet neither would ever fawn on the other. She knew she could never make him her slave, and she exulted in the knowledge, difficult as it made her task. If she ever called him bastard again, then he would call her slut again. He would give insult for insult. He was not a gentleman and did not know that one did not insult a lady no matter what. She was glad he was not a gentleman.

She lifted one hand to rest against his chest, and his boast proved to be no boast at all, but the simple truth. He had been fast asleep just a moment before. Now he was looking down at her. She knew it even though she did not tip her head back to look.

“It is impossible to lie still for a whole night without moving a muscle, Robert,” she said with a sigh. “Especially when you have me in such close embrace. But of course, it is not an embrace, is it? It is captivity.” She tipped her head back and looked up at him. There was moonlight coming into the cave. Even so, she could sense him more than see him.

“It is captivity,” he said. “Do you want to turn onto your other side?”

“No,” she said. “I am quite comfortable as I am. One has but to have a powerful imagination. A feather mattress. A pile of soft blankets. Feather pillows. Mmm. Can you not feel them?”

He caught her wrist in a tight grasp as her hand slid downward from his chest to his waist.

“Cut it out, Joana,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

“You would have me believe that you are made of stone like this floor?” she said. “I know differently, Robert. Do you not desire me even just one little bit?”

“You will be sorry,” he said, “if you continue this. I warn you, Joana, that you will not be able to control the situation if you continue to play the tease. And I will not even try to do so. It is a while since I had a woman and I am hungry.”

She could hear her heart beating. She could see it pulsing behind her closed eyes. Luis had bedded her six times in all—she had counted—each more horrid and nauseating than the one before, until she had told him that if that was what marriage was all about, she would rather do without it, thank you very much. He had not even been offended. Relieved was more the word. She had discovered why later.

And Robert talked of hunger!

But she had never deliberately pressed flirtation beyond the point at which she could control it. And even with Robert on those two occasions there had been no great danger. But this time she knew he spoke the truth. They were alone together—very alone in the middle of the night and very close to each other because he thought there was the necessity of guarding her from flight. And perhaps he was right too.

She felt him relax. He thought she had gone back to sleep. But how could she sleep now that her blood had been aroused? More to the point, how could she back off when he had issued such a challenge? It was not in her nature to resist a challenge, much as she feared picking it up.

“Is it food you need, then?” she asked, her voice low. “I am hungry too, Robert. Do you have food? Shall we share it?”

He swore, a word she had not heard in the English language
before, though she had heard its Portuguese equivalent among Duarte's men.

She thought he was going to unleash his anger on her in words. She braced herself for the tirade, prepared herself to give as good as she got. Instead he pulled her against him with such force that she felt the breath slam from her body, and found her mouth with his, forcing it wide with his own, plunging his tongue inside so that she was sure she must choke.

And she knew the terror of helplessness, of having unleashed a passion that she could in no way control and that would violate her and perhaps hurt her before it was sated. But terror could be fought, she thought while she still could, and a fight could be fought even if it was to be inevitably lost. She had fought such a fight for her knife. Now she would fight for her very self.

She sucked inward on his tongue, pulsed her teeth against it, pressed herself to him, rubbed her breasts against him, twisted her hips, wrapped her free arm about him, pushing it beneath his coat, dragging at his shirt so that she could touch the bare skin of his back. And when he rolled her over onto her back, her other arm joined the first in its task.

He had pulled her belt free and flung it from them, and her dress came up with one jerk of his hand to her breasts and above. Other garments came down over her legs and feet and were flung to join the belt. She felt cool night air against bare skin for a moment before the weight of his body became her blanket.

His hands were between his body and hers, on her breasts, moving hard over them, squeezing them, his thumbs rubbing roughly over nipples that were hard and tender. His mouth was at her throat and moving below her bunched dress to her breasts, his tongue
taking the place of his thumb at one nipple, his lips surrounding it. He sucked inward as he worked his knees between her legs and pushed them wide, lifting himself to a kneeling position.

The only thing to do with her legs was lift them and twine them about his. The fabric of his trousers was rough against the soft skin of her inner thighs. His mouth on her breast was driving her to madness. But her hands were up inside his shirt and moving from his back to his sides to his chest, as her palms pushed over warm ribs and chest muscles and her fingers sought his own nipples.

She could hear the rasping of both their breathing as he lifted his head again, twined his hands painfully in her hair, and brought his mouth to hers again. He lowered his weight once more and she could feel between her legs the hardness and hugeness of his arousal through his trousers. Her whimper of fright and desire took her completely by surprise.

His hands moved from her hair down her sides and beneath her buttocks to lift her against him. He ground himself against her. And she drew up her knees and hugged his waist with them. The aches, the blood pumping through her, were equal parts terror and desire, she knew, pushing her hands up between them to undo the buttons of his coat and wrestle it open. But she would not give in to the terror. She was going to be taken. Nothing could stop that now. But he would not take her, for all that. He would never be able to boast of that. She would give herself, and then she would be as much the victor as he.

But he went still suddenly, and as suddenly rolled off her to lie on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. He was panting. “No!” he said. “No, I will not give you the satisfaction of ravishing you, Joana. That is what you want, is it not? The joy of knowing yourself irresistible even to a man who despises you?”

She lay for a moment bewildered, stunned, humiliated, naked from the breasts downward, before surging over onto her side and raising herself on one elbow.

“Bastard!” she hissed at him. “Impotent bastard. Eunuch.”

“Bitch in heat!” he said without removing his arm. “You want it, Joana? You are going to have to take it.”

She stared down at him, her eyes blazing, her breathing labored, taking in the implications of what he had said.

“Oh!” she said then, coming up onto her knees, leaning over him, her hair falling forward over her shoulders to touch his shoulder and his chest. “And you think I will not, Robert? You think I am too timid, too ladylike? You think you can play with me like this and leave me bruised and humiliated and . . . and . . .”

“Unsatisfied?” he said.

“You bastard!” she said. “I hate you.”

“Then the feeling is mutual,” he said.

Her hands opened the one remaining button of his coat and pushed it wide. She undid the buttons of his shirt and opened it wide too after fumbling to remove his stock and throw it up behind his head. And she leaned over to feather her mouth over his chest and down to his waist. She feathered kisses back up again until she found his nipple, and she licked at it and drew it into her mouth.

He was lying quite still, his hands spread flat on the stone floor on either side of him. But she could hear his heart thumping erratically. And she hated him with a passion that pounded in her ears. Her hands went to the waist of his trousers, unwrapped the red sash that denoted him an officer, worked at the buttons.

He did not move until she pulled at his trousers. Then he raised his hips while she drew them downward to his knees—she did not feel equal to tackling the removal of his boots. He still desired her, she saw with satisfaction. And she ran her hand over him lightly and quickly, gasping, and sure that she would never be able to expel the air from her lungs again.

Her eyes had grown quite accustomed to the darkness. He was looking up at her, she saw when she straddled his body and set her hands on his shoulders beneath his open shirt.

“You did not think I would dare, did you?” she whispered to him, lowering her head so that her hair formed a curtain about their faces. “I will dare anything, Robert. Even this. You do not have the courage to ravish me? Very well, then, I shall ravish you.”

And she brought her mouth down to his, at the same moment lowering her body and impaling herself on him.

She could do no more. She was in shock. She was deeply, deeply occupied and waiting for a pain that did not come.

When she came somewhat to herself, he had one hand spread against the back of her head and the other down behind her waist. And his mouth was soft and warm against hers and his tongue licking at her lips and sliding up behind.

She had not panicked, she thought in some surprise. But she did not know what to do next.

She lifted her head. “It's your turn,” she said. “Unless you are afraid, of course. Or do not know what to do.”

She could see his grin in the darkness. His hands moved down to grasp her hips, to raise her a little, and then he began to move in her, his thrusts swift and deep so that she raised herself up on her knees again in panic, her fingertips at his waist, her head thrown back. Every muscle in her body was tightening. Even her own body was beyond her control, she thought with one of the few rational thoughts left to her.

And then even the semblance of control left her, and her head jerked forward until her chin rested against her chest, and all the air whooshed out of her lungs in a long and audible sigh. He continued to move in her while she felt herself begin to shudder, the shock waves spreading upward and outward from the point of his deepest penetration.

There was a blank of time somewhere after that—whether seconds or minutes long, she did not know. But the next time awareness reached her mind, she was lying full-length on top of him, her legs spread on either side of his, her hands and one cheek against his bare
chest. Both his arms and one of their blankets were about her. Their bodies were still joined.