From This Day Forward (21 page)

"I have something that might take that off," she murmured. "The dye, I mean."

She turned away, quickly donning her shirt, her fingers fumbling on the buttons as she struggled to calm her body's violent trembling. Opening her medical bag, she found a large bottle of witch hazel and a clean cloth.

"Sit," she said, motioning to the cot with a nod of her head.

Jason moved to obey her command, eyeing her warily as he removed his shirt. She hesitated, surprised by his action. "It's everywhere, I'm afraid," he told her.

Caroline felt her face turn furiously red but tried to act casual as she thought of red dots
everywhere.
She stood before him, the top of his head level with her chin. He lifted his face and she dampened the cloth with the witch hazel, willing herself not to think of how her shirt gaped open, to forget that she wore nothing beneath the thin material, to ignore the fire in his light blue eyes that turned her legs to rubber and caused her heart to hammer against the wall of her chest.

Concentrating on his face, she tried not to notice the naked expanse of his chest. Whenever she allowed herself to think of it, a dizzying ripple rose up from her knotted stomach, devouring her, threatening her fragile control.

"I'm sorry I spoiled your plans by not getting on the mail boat," she said, trying to make conversation, to fill the silence with sound, any sound but the fierce drumming of her heart. She massaged the cloth against his skin and the dye dissolved. "But these people need me. There will be another mail boat."

Wiping the rest of the dye from his face, Caroline stood uncertainly, trying to decide how best to approach his chest, how to tame the trembling of her hand. She decided to start at the top, applying her ministrations to a dot of dye on his collarbone.

It was a chest, after all, just flesh and bone, part of a man's body. She'd seen a chest before—many times in medical school or when she would assist her father. But Jason was not a patient or a medical specimen to be dissected and studied.

And he most certainly was not Wade Marshall. Her first husband had been only a few inches taller than she, always carefully manicured, always fashionably dressed. There had been nothing threatening or unsettling about Wade, nothing overwhelming. Still, the marriage bed had been a shock, even with the medical knowledge she'd acquired beforehand—the intimacy of it, the invasion of body and soul, the terrible vulnerability. She had never known another man, but then, could there be that much difference?

Yes, she thought immediately, yes, there could be a world of difference.

"Do you want to leave Brazil?" he asked huskily, his chest vibrating beneath the cloth that separated her flesh from his.

Anger stiffened her spine and blinded her raging senses. "Why do you ask?" she nearly spat, moving her efforts to another circle of dye. "You never have before. I think my feelings have been abundantly clear from the start. Are you trying to humiliate me by making me admit something? What I want or don't want has no bearing on this situation."

"Ouch! Be careful!" he growled, his voice heavy with desire. "You'll rub the skin off."

Comprehension flooded her and Caroline realized she'd been wiping viciously at a dot near his small, flat nipple. She drew back and doused the cloth again, acutely aware of his body and the intimacy of what she was doing. His unwavering gaze searched her face, unnerving her further.

Pressing the cloth against his breastbone, she felt the hard ridge of muscle through the material. Her rapid breathing sounded loud to her ears in the raw silence that connected them, and she wondered if he could hear it, too.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, reaching underneath her gaping blouse, his big hand rough and gentle as he caressed the underside of her breast. The breath caught in her throat at the explosion of sensation along her every nerve ending. Her nipple grew painfully taut, aching for his touch.

She knew she should pull away. He might desire her physically, but he did not love her, and she wasn't sure any longer that the gulf between their hearts could be bridged by their bodies. Still, her body leaned toward him. She braced herself with her hands on his broad shoulders because a terrible weakness had begun to insinuate itself into her marrow and she didn't think she could stand upright under her own power.

"Please don't," she managed to gasp, "not if you don't want me... want me to stay."

A low moan rolled up from Caroline's throat as his thumb teased a taut nipple. Currents of sensation flashed from his hands through her body with the force of a violent thunderstorm. Wade had never made her feel this yearning fervor, this all-consuming hunger.

While his one hand stroked her breast, his other undid the tiny buttons she'd fastened so ineptly, pushing the shirt sleeves down her arms. She gasped, the thought of covering herself gleaming in her mind for an instant. But the feel of his breath, warm and pulsing against her flesh as he b
ent and kissed a swollen nipple
stole her thoughts and the last of her resistance.

"Stay," he whispered against her burning skin, his tongue light and wet on her tumescent flesh. "Stay, Caroline."

His words filled her foolish heart with joy. She seemed to be melting into him, surrendering control of her own body to him as his hand cupped her buttocks and he pulled her close so that she was standing between his legs. He lifted her off the floor, turning her so that she lay on her back on the cot, the swiftness of his actions startling her.

He covered her with his body, his elbows on either side of her shoulders holding his weight off her. His hands cupped her face, massaging her scalp, her temples, her lips, as he planted kisses on her nose and eyelids, filling her with a wild fire, a sweet longing that forced her body toward a swirling tempest.

He stood to finish undressing, and she watched him because she wanted to and he wanted her to, and there was no one to tell her it was wrong. She studied him as she'd longed to do that day at the
beneficio,
memorizing every muscle, every contour of his magnificent body. The thought of unleashing all that male power made her weak inside, her body almost fluid. The raw intensity in his gaze stole her breath.

The reality of Jason Sinclair bore hardly any resemblance to the man she'd expected from his letters. And yet, she would not trade the reality for the fantasy if given the chance. She remembered fearing what he would be like after so long without social contact—savage, coarse, barely human. Now she found that the very wildness she'd feared was the thing that set her heart to pounding and caused the raw yearning deep inside her.

Her mind stopped functioning as she surrendered to passion, swept away by his ardor. He was all over her... his hands... his mouth, touching her, tasting her, robbing her will. His hardness huge and full against her sent jolts of fear and desire pulsing through her body. His profound maleness overpowered her and left her trembling like a maiden. Three years of marriage might never have happened.

One hand cupped her face as he kissed her deeply, possessively. His other caressed its way over her shoulder to her breast, his finger and thumb tugging and teasing her nipple, then moving lower, lower until he found the moist heat between her thighs.

His fingers slid into her and she cried out, arching her hips toward him, panting now with a sweet madness as his lips trailed a path of fire down her neck. He demanded nothing less than total surrender, and her body obeyed, trembling with
fervency
deeper than anything she'd ever experienced or imagined.

He raised his head to look at her, his back bowed so that their faces touched, his rasping breath warm and sweet on her lips. His fingers were gone now, replaced by the velvet hardness that touched the opening to her center.

He whispered her name, his soft, strong voice quivering down her spine as his legs forced hers wider apart.

A ragged gasp rumbled up from inside her, and he hesitated, gauging the cause—pain, fear, passion? When her body arched toward his, it took every ounce of restraint in his being not to take her quickly, forcefully, and end the agony in his loins. But he remembered her reaction to his earlier violence and felt the delicacy of her small, soft body. She seemed so fragile he feared he might crush her if he weren't careful.

He hadn't meant for this to happen when he'd come looking for her, but from the moment he'd walked into the hut and seen her standing there, her breasts barely covered by her crossed arms, he'd sensed a frightening inevitability about everything that had led them to this moment. Still, he would have stopped had she reacted in fear or revulsion, had she denied him in any way. She had not.

He sensed her body opening beneath him, even before he began to press gently into her yielding flesh. Soft moaning sounds rumbled up from her throat as he pushed himself deeper into her, sounds she could not control any more than she could control the way her body clung to his or the way the pulse in her throat beat fitfully beneath his lips.

He wanted to absorb her into himself and make her a part of him forever. He needed to feel her arms, soft and firm, holding him against her warm, willing body. For just a little while, he needed to believe that she was his completely, that nothing could ever drive them apart, that the darkness of the past could be conquered.

She gave a sharp cry as he penetrated her depths, and he went still, though the urge to thrust pounded in his blood. He wanted to savor the feel of her body soft and warm around him, beneath him. Her delicate arms around his back drew him closer, urging him with a longing that shone clearly in her passion- darkened eyes.

She lay still beneath him, connected to his motionless body, perfectly filled with him, fearful of the fire that raged inside her as her body and her soul opened and opened to him.

Finally he moved, pressing deeper into her arched, panting body. A ragged groan escaped his lips as he withdrew, then pushed into her again and again, filling her completely, only to withdraw again.

It was a violent, tender thing, their lovemaking. She clung to him, her body responding to his mounting
fervor
. His fierce strength and unbearable gentleness sent her spinning toward an infinite abyss as he thrust into her, slowly at first, the tempo building to a shattering climax.

Chapter Eleven

A warm hand covered her
naked breast. The heat of a man's body pressed against her back, as she lay enfolded in his large, sinewy form. A long, muscled leg lay over hers, his thigh wrapped intimately around her hips, his supple sex resting against her buttocks. The sound of his rhythmic breathing sent currents of sweet contentment through her languid body.

A sense of peace washed over her as she lay there, cradled against her husband's strong body. She closed her eyes, and the memory of their lovemaking filled her senses and turned her blood thick. He'd been passionate and tender, loving her with a fervor she'd never known.

The fact that women considered sex an unpleasant duty bewildered her. With Wade she had found the act not unplea
sant, if a bit monotonous. But J
ason was not Wade, not by any means. Making love
with Jason was like opening a dam and allowing a torrent of floodwaters through, riding the crest until the powerful tide ebbed.

He hadn't told her he loved her, but he wanted her to stay. That was a start. And before long, he would confide everything about his past, everything that kept him awake at night. Once he faced the ghosts, they would leave him, and the two of them would be able to have a normal, wonderful life together. Think of it—a lifetime of Jason. Truly she must be the luckiest woman in the world.

She moved slightly, her body unfurling, and the flesh against her buttocks responded before his hand tightened on her breast. Desire coiled inside her, her heart thundering in sweet anticipation as the bed shifted under his weight. Groaning low in his throat, he moved to place a kiss on the sensitive place behind her ear.

How had he known? How did he find out that she hadn't gotten on the mail boat? The questions leaped unbidden to her mind and she quieted them immediately. It didn't matter, not now, not while she could feel his ardor building like storm clouds before a hurricane.

Caroline shivered with pleasure, a smile curving her lips as she imagined waking up next to
J
ason every morning for the rest of her life. If only he loved her as much as he desired her. It would come in time, she told herself, giving herself over to sensation, surrendering her body and her will to him.