And One Rode West (8 page)

But when she started walking, Jeremy caught hold of her arm, spinning her back in such a way that she plowed right into his arm, her fingers splayed upon his chest while his hold then encompassed her. Her eyes widened with protest, but before she could speak, Jeremy did so, tauntingly. “No, no!” he warned softly. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I—I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Just like that?”

She stared at him and shook her head blankly. “It’s over now.”

“Over? It’s just beginning! You’re not going anywhere.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to bed.”

He smiled slowly, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

Christa pursed her lips, feeling her temper flaring. “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re not my brother, or my father—”

“But I am your husband now!” he snapped. “Dammit,
don’t you even remember what you did? You married me!”

So this was the way that he wanted to play it. She’d cajoled him into it, and he just wasn’t going to be a gentleman about the whole thing. He wanted to make her suffer. Somehow. It was payback time.

Her temper flared. She was ready for battle again. “If I choose to go to bed, sir, I will do so!”

“Always the princess!”

“I’ll do what I damned well please!”

“Have it your way, then,” Jeremy said softly, and his eyes seemed very silver, cutting into hers like sword blades. “You will go to bed, Christa. But not alone.”

“What?” she whispered in return, stunned. “What?” she repeated, both her amazement and her fury clearly discernible in her tone.

“Lady, you forced me into this. You were willing to sell everything, both of our souls, for Jesse’s house. Well, we saved it. Jesse will come back to claim it. But you forced me to be a husband. Now, Mrs. McCauley, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to force you to be a wife!”

Her eyes widened still further. She wanted to strike him. Slap that taunting, mocking curl from his lip, the hard silver glitter from his eyes.

She pressed with a greater fervor against his chest. “Don’t be absurd!” she hissed. “You can’t mean—”

“Oh, but Christa,” he interrupted her. His voice was low and husky and filled with a ring of steel. “That’s exactly what I mean!”

Suddenly his fingers were threaded through her hair, pulling her head back, forcing her eyes to his. She saw the hard, handsome cast of his face, the rock-firm set of his jaw, and a sudden chill seized her.

“You married me, Christa. Marriage! It was a serious step. I warned you. As the saying goes, madam, you’ve
made your bed. You’re going to lie in it. You understand what I mean, Christa. I know you do.”

She shook her head violently, freeing her hair from his fingers. Yes, she knew. She just couldn’t believe what he was saying. Leave it to a Yankee! He couldn’t just be pleased that they had saved the house. Oh, no. He wanted a real marriage. It was impossible. For many reasons—not excepting the fact that they could scarcely stand being in the same room with one another!

She swallowed hard and grated her teeth. “Leave it to a no-good Yankee varmint of a man to try to take the term ‘husband’ literally!” she whispered furiously. “This has to be a marriage in name only. I accept Jesse because he’s my brother, but on the whole, Jeremy McCauley, I can’t abide Yankees, and even if you weren’t a Yankee, I’m not so sure I could abide you! All that aside, you’re still in the cavalry. You’ll be riding west.”

“Then, Christa, my dear wife—and, yes! I do take that term literally!—then you will lie with me in the West.” His face lowered toward hers, the silver gray of his eyes alive in a taunting sizzle. “I have a bad time abiding certain Rebels, Christa, and I’d have to say that you’re right there among them. But this isn’t going to be a marriage in name only.”

She stared into his eyes and something hot raced through her. Something that seemed to touch her inside and out. Something that made her knees feel weak and her lips go dry. He meant to touch her. To have her. To do all the things that husbands and wives did together. Tonight. She was quite certain that she hated him, but suddenly she was imagining his bronze hands against her bare flesh. That hard, taut-muscled body against her own. Those curving, sensual lips pressed to her throat.

She couldn’t breathe. Her heart beat painfully, and
fire seemed to rage throughout her. She caught his gaze upon her, and suddenly she knew that he felt it too. It was hatred, it was anger, she thought.

It didn’t matter what it was, it was explosive and it was frightening.

She shook her head again, desperate to find words. “No!” It should have been a cry of defiance and of rage.

But she hadn’t the breath for it. It was a whisper. Barely a protest.

Because those silver eyes were on her. He spoke again in a voice that was shiver soft, and with an underlying current of rock. “Let me remind you. You did this. You begged, pleaded, and cajoled me into marrying you. I have done so. You said that you would pay any price. Well, my love, it’s time to pay that price!”

She found her strength at last. Found strength and courage.

“You must be insane!” she hissed. “I am not bedding down with any Yankee vermin!”

“Even the vermin who saved your precious house?”

“The war is over!” she said desperately.

“No.” He shook his head. There was challenge in his eyes, a wry grin that bitterly mocked them both curling into his lips once again. “No, Christa, you insisted on drawing fire. This war has just begun!”

Before she knew it, he had swept her into his arms. He carried her up the steps of the porch and burst through the front door. He reached the grand staircase leading to the second-floor bedrooms before she realized that he really intended to carry her up.

“Put me down!” she gasped, trying hard to struggle within his arms. “Dammit, I don’t know what is the matter with you Yankees. You’re done, you’re finished, don’t you understand!”

Done and finished? Jeremy wasn’t really sure what he had been intending himself. Just a delivery to her
bedroom door, perhaps. But suddenly all the anger that had been simmering inside all day came swiftly flying to the surface with her curt dismissal. All he knew at the moment was that Christa wasn’t walking away from what she had done by throwing a blanket at him.

He was dimly aware that they passed the portrait gallery at the top of the stairs. Generations of Camerons looked down upon him. If he could have thrown a blanket somewhere, he would have liked to toss it over those faces.

He didn’t need to hesitate in the hallway. He’d been a guest here three times now. Jesse and Kiernan’s room was at the top of the stairs. Daniel and Callie’s was farther to the right. The nursery was down at that end.

Christa’s door was to the left.

Her fingers were burning into his arms as he kicked the door open with a boot. She was struggling so fiercely that he felt as if he was carrying a squirming greased pig.

She was going on and on, with every single word she uttered feeding fuel to the flames of his temper. She called him a small-time farmer, no-account white trash, and of course the very worst of them to her—a Yankee. “Who on earth would even think—oh! Leave it to a Yankee! Leave it to a Yankee!”

He didn’t need light in the bedroom. The gas light poured in from the hallway, and a full moon was still up, casting a golden glow upon everything in the room. It was the first time he had actually entered the regal sanctity of Christa’s room—the first time he had ever thought to do so.

It was beautiful. The bed was canopied with a white curtain and spread. There were huge wingback chairs by the sheer drapes that fluttered by the windows. A
beautifully polished cherrywood writing table gleamed in the moonlight.

He walked her across the room suddenly aware that she had been pummeling and clawing him all the way. He tossed her down on the bed, leaning over her and pinioning her there.

Her eyes with their glittering blue fire and ice met his with a wild fury.

Her mouth was opening. She was going to say something about Yankees again.

“What?” he thundered before she could speak. “Rebels don’t sleep with their wives, is that it, Christa?”

Her eyes widened. For once she seemed tongue-tied.

But only momentarily.

“You’re no better than that fur-faced blue-belly who came here—”

“The one you said you’d be willing to marry?” he demanded quickly.

Even in the moonlight, he saw the flush steal over her face.

“If you don’t let me up—”

“Oh, you’re going to get up,” he assured her. His hands were on her waist and she was on her feet. He spun her around, his hands on the tiny hooks at the base of her spine. “I just sold my soul. I want to see what great and outstanding Rebel beauty I’ve achieved for my efforts.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted, and he wasn’t sure himself exactly how far he meant to go with her. Maybe he had just intended to remind her that she was living now on his bounty, and that if she was lucky, he would be magnanimous.

But he never had a chance to be magnanimous.

She jerked violently away from him. It was her mistake. The worn fabric of her day dress ripped with a loud tearing sound and came away in his hands. She
hadn’t been wearing any of her multitude of petticoats that day, nor a corset. Her torn day dress slipped down the length of her one undergarment, a soft chemise left over from the days of glory. The fabric was cotton, elegant, sheer cotton. The straps were wispy and it was ribbed with lace. It molded her breasts, a garment that was soft, elusive, sensual, clinging to her waist, then flaring free—and sheer—to the floor. It did little to shield the rouge-colored crests of her nipples, nor did it do anything other than add mystery to the ebony-dark triangle at the juncture of her thighs. It emphasized her slender beauty in the glow of the moon. For a moment he stood still, looking at her.

It was impossible not to want her. She might have indeed been a goddess, created to be desired.

He started, drawn instantly from such retrospect as her hand cracked hard across his jaw. The sound echoed and echoed in the night.

Even Christa seemed surprised by it. She backed away from him, stumbling over the dress that had fallen to the floor.

“I—I—” she gasped, then she cried out, “You are a detestable Yank! Even married couples use dressing screens. Men turn their backs for their wives to change. They maintain decorum—”

“Decorum!” Jeremy interrupted. Despite the nagging pain that still stung his cheek, wry amusement tinged his anger. “You think that your brother makes love to my sister with decorum? For her sake, I hope the hell not!” With those words, he traveled the two steps between them. He didn’t know what he was after.

He caught her shoulders, drawing her to him. He lifted a hand to her chin, cupping it.

His lips touched hers.

You may now kiss the bride
.

The words echoed mockingly in his mind, then faded away. Christa protested. A strangled sound escaped
her. She struggled against the rock-hard hold of his body.

In all his years of warfare, he had never felt more merciless. She’d married him. She could damn well kiss him.

But that wasn’t why he had touched her. And it wasn’t why he kept touching her.

Her lips were full and beautiful, the taste of them was sweet. More than that, the passion that filled her trembled there, within her lips, her mouth. Maybe it was the passion of hatred. That didn’t seem to matter. Maybe it was the passion of his own anger. That didn’t matter either. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to taste that sweetness. He didn’t give a damn if she was protesting. His fingers curled into her hair, holding her to his will. His tongue broke through the restraint of her lips, forced her teeth, discovered the fullness of her mouth. Still the taste was so sweet. It seemed the smothered protests were being swallowed away as he held her.

Maybe it was more than her lips that spurred him on. The first time that he had seen her, he had been startled by her beauty, perhaps even a bit captivated by it. He could remember just staring at her and forgetting where he was and what he had come for.

Once again, he discovered himself startled, captivated.

Beneath the sheer fabric of her ribbed and laced chemise, he could feel the sensual curve and shape of her body. Full breasts crushed against his chest. Despite them, he could feel the wild pounding of her heart. Her legs were long and shapely, nearly entwined with his. He could feel the flatness of her stomach, and even the rise of her femininity, for he had crushed her very hard against him. The taste, the scent, the feel of her, all were suddenly blinding.

And suddenly so arousing that he could think no
more. Her hair was silk to his touch. Her body was fire. He could forget pain touching her. He could forget the war. Forget love, and the dreams that had been cast to ashes. No matter that it was a passion born of anger, Christa seethed with it. She was raw and exciting to touch. More than her beauty made her arousing. The electricity that shimmered from her and around her evoked a shattering burst of desire within him. It made him long to drink and drink of her lips. To savor the sweet taste of her mouth. To delve further and further within it. As the seconds passed it seemed that she ceased to protest. Perhaps her body yielded to his. Perhaps her lips surrendered, parted of their own accord.

Let her go! he warned himself.

His mistake. He should have never come so far. Kissed her so. Taken her so into his arms.

She broke away from him suddenly. The back of her hand flew to her swollen lips. Her blue eyes were liquid as she gazed at him.

“You’ve no right!” she choked out.

He shook his head. “No, Christa. You had no right to slap me. I have every right to be here. You married me, remember? You insisted on it.”

She bit her lower lip. Blue flames seemed to leap from her eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest. He might have been amused if he didn’t feel as if he were suffering all the torments of hell.

“But you can’t mean—”

“I don’t know what I mean. I just want to see this incredible piece of southern fluff I’ve acquired.”