Charlotte Boyett-Compo- Wyndsheer (4 page)

“I’m hungry,” she heard herself say.

He made no reply to her statement as he lifted the skillet and turned its contents into a plate. She watched him cross the room toward her with the plate in one hand and a fork in the other. Her head fell back to keep him in sight as he towered over her for a moment before sitting down on the edge of the bed. She swept her gaze over his face as he scooped eggs onto the fork.

Handsome really could not describe the sheer male beauty of his face, she thought as he thrust the fork slowly to her lips. His looks mesmerized her, fascinated her. They were so rugged, so masculine, yet so beautiful to look upon she found she could not tear her gaze from him. It was like looking at a stunning sunset or a beautifully painted portrait come to life.

“Eat,” he ordered.

She opened her lips to take in the lightly scrambled eggs, chewing thoughtfully as she let her eyes continue roaming over his features.

His dark brown hair was pulled back sharply from his face and secured carelessly in a ponytail. At his temples there were lighter patches of gray. His light green eyes were framed with long, thick lashes beneath perfectly arched brows and his nose was straight and well-defined, very masculine in shape and length. He had full lips that had a distinctive bow to the upper, a clean jaw line though it was shadowed with at least a two-day growth of beard. Broad shoulders sloped into thickly muscles arms the biceps of which rippled as he fed her. She could feel the hardness of his thigh against her own as he sat there and through the opened V of his shirt, she saw a crisp mat of hair.

“Know what happened?” he asked her as he scraped the egg around in the plate, then scooped another bite up for her.

She thought about it for a second, curiously unconcerned, and shook her head. Lifting the cover, she peered down at herself--embarrassed a bit that she was naked beneath the sheets.

“Remember anything?”

“No,” she said, lowering the sheet. She obediently opened her mouth to him as he pushed another spoonful of egg toward her, her eyes never leaving his remarkable face. She drank him in, absorbed him, knowing she would venture to the well many times over to experience the pleasure just looking at him gave her.

“Do you know who you are?” He appeared to be a man of few words and those he spoke seemed to be pulled reluctantly from him as though he were unaccustomed to speaking aloud. His gaze was as steady on her face as hers was on his.

She half-laughed at the question and started to answer but then realized with a start that she did not. The knowledge hit her like an ax between the eyes and she just stared at him--her eyes wide, lips parted, hands clutching the sheet to either side of her hips--as she tried to dredge up a reply, but nothing came. It was as though a black, swirling mist obscured the response and would not allow it to surface. Her mouth worked but no sound came out.

She watched him get up and move away, taking the now empty plate with him. “Why can’t I remember?” she croaked, struggling to push up in the bed.

“Concussion,” he said as he placed the plate into a basin. He took up a potholder and reached for an iron kettle on the stove then poured hot water into the basin.

She put a hand to her head and felt around until she found a spot that was very sore. She winced as she felt what must be stitches running along her scalp.

“I sutured it,” he said.

Her head ached even worse as she sat there trying to dredge up what had happened from the murky well of her memory, but it refused to come. Everything was a complete blank and when she tried to remember her own name, she couldn’t. Tears swam across her eyes.

“I don’t know who I am,” she said, her lips trembling.

He looked around at her soft cry and removed his hands from the dishwater, took up a towel to dry them as he came back to the bed. He flung the towel over his left shoulder then sat on the edge once more.

“Mairi,” he stated—pronouncing the name as mah ree—then reached out to run his fingers down her cheek. “Your name is Mairi.”

His hand was warm and she turned her face into the cup of his palm, feeling the roughness of calluses against her flesh.

“And who are you?” she whispered, staring into his gentle eyes.

There was a moment’s hesitation then he lifted his chin. “Jamie,” he answered. “Jamie MacGivern.” The right side of his mouth hitched upward more with a spasm than a smile. “Your husband.”

There was a quickening in the lower part of her body as her womb clenched at his words. “M … my husband?” she questioned, hearing the blood pounding in her ears.

“Aye,” he said then got up from the bed to go back to the basin.

Something elemental twisted inside her and she smiled. This handsome, sensual man with the sexy green eyes was her husband? It went a long way in explaining what she was doing naked in his bed, allowing him liberties like bathing her without protest.

“How did I hurt my head?” she asked.

“Fell,” he told her and he took up the cast iron skillet and wiped it clean with a rag.

“Oh,” she said, trying to remember.

“You were out three days,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “Three days?”

“Fever,” he said as though that would explain everything and with the way she felt, she accepted it at face value.

Jamie was watching her from the corner of his eye. He had kept her drugged for three days while the searchers combed the mountainous terrain searching for her. He knew when they had passed within fifty feet of the outcroppings that hid the cave and he knew they were still about, hoping to find her even though he’d methodically pointed all clues to her whereabouts toward the jagged cliff overlooking the river.

In those three days he had bathed her and cared for her, drizzled the potent narcotic down her throat, and slept with her naked body pressed firmly to his. Time and time again he had taken her—as he would again this night—but this time, she would be aware, would experience the heady delight he intended for her to enjoy.

“My head hurts,” she told him.

He nodded and reached for the bottle of aspirin he kept on the shelf. There would be no more of the narcotic to dull her senses unless she proved to spurn his advances and should that happen, mixing that same narcotic with a bit of goat’s milk would insure her ready participation.

She took the two aspirin he shook into her hand from the plastic bottle and accepted the glass of water he held for her. Smiling her thanks, she took the analgesic and most of the water.

“Lay down, lass,” he told her, taking the glass from her.

She slid down in the bed though she never took her gaze from his face. As their eyes met, she felt her womb twist for he was looking at her as though he wanted to devour her. And she was shocked to find she wanted him to gobble her up.

“Jamie?” she questioned--caught and held by his lustful look.

Jamie put the glass on the nightstand and sat down on the bed. He leaned over and took her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue deep between her parted lips and when her hand curled around his neck, he deepened the kiss, slanting his mouth forcefully over hers. Her tongue met his and he groaned, his hand going to her breast to knead it firmly, his thumb rubbing briskly over the nipple.

She arched toward him, ignoring the pain between her temples. Nothing mattered but feeling his firm body covering hers. She wanted him naked atop her. His weight was delicious as he pressed her into the mattress, his mouth sweet and warm, the stroking of his hand at her breast sending waves of sheer pleasure rippling through her. When he pulled away from her, she whimpered and reached out to him.

“Wait, lass,” he told her and he sprang up from the bed, practically ripping the shirt from his body. Buttons flew as he jerked the garment over his head.

Moistening her dry lips she stared at a perfectly honed chest with sharply delineated muscles that undulated from rock-hard looking pecs to a flat belly that tensed as he tore at the fastening of his jeans. A wide mat of curly brown hair covered his upper chest and ran in a tight little tiger line from his deep-set navel into the darker pelt of hair between his legs.

And that was where her attention stayed for it was an enormous, jutting brute of a cock that leapt out of his jeans the moment the zipper went down. Dark ridges of veins curled around that glorious tool and the head was so broad, so shiny with juices she trembled just contemplating the way it would stretch her cunt.

“Oh, my God,” she breathed as his thigh muscles contracted when he kicked away the jeans and came at her, his eyes intent, his cock as straight as an arrow. She trembled again as he flung the cover aside and it went sailing across the room, tearing her attention from his shaft to the stark hunger in his eyes. Her lips parted, her eyes widened, and she felt her heart begin to race.

He put his right knee to the mattress and swung the other leg up to wedge it between her, gently lowering himself atop her instead of falling on her as he wanted to do. He shifted his weight so the majority of it was on the left side of her body as he swooped down to claim her mouth once more.

His kiss curled her toes and made her world spiral out of control. She wrapped her arms around his neck, the fingers of one hand raking through the dark hair of his ponytail. She ground his mouth against hers and arched her lower body up to meet his, wanting him desperately, needing the piercing of his tool within her.

Jaimie's back sent violent stabs of pain all the way down his hip, but he chose to disregard it. He wanted this woman so badly he would have walked over burning coals to have her stretched out beneath him. His cock was stabbing against her thigh, the head oozing, and he reached down to guide it into her velvet warmth. The moment the tip touched the spiky curls between her legs he growled and thrust deep into her, growling again when her left leg came up to arch over his hip.

She felt his lips slide from hers and down her cheek, coming to rest in the hollow of her shoulder. Her arms were tight around him, her leg capturing the lower part of his body as he rocked against her, driving into her so forcefully he grunted and the top of her head struck the headboard. His fingers were under her—digging firmly into her rump to lift her for his strokes—and she wound his ponytail around her hand and held on.

“Mairi,” she heard him say over and over again and he drove into her.

“Jamie,” she whispered in his ear and felt his shiver as his penetration stretched her, his thick cock filling her completely.

Their climaxes started at the same moment—his, a wild pistoning of his flesh against hers and hers, a rippling wave of tight little flexes that drove him wilder still. He hissed as he ejaculated and let his head fall back to howl with the release of the pleasure that claimed him. He barely felt her fingernails raking his shoulders, jerking at his hair. It didn’t matter. Pain was pleasure to him. Pleasure was pain.

When he was spent he sagged against her, his hot breath fanning across her sweaty throat for his cheek was on her shoulder, his lips at the base of her neck. She kept him imprisoned in her firm hold and yet he did not mind the restriction for once. If anything, he rejoiced in that tight embrace. He closed his eyes to the delight that had invaded his very soul.

“My husband,” she said with wonder and reached up to smooth the damp hair from his forehead.

He opened his eyes and for just a moment the enormity of his lie flowed through him but he pushed it aside. “Aye,” he said.

“My love,” he heard her whisper.

Those words made the lie bearable for no one had ever loved him. No one had ever dared to love him. He knew he would do anything for this woman, suffer any torment to have her at his side for the rest of his unnatural life.

Chapter Three

“Well, there’s a man who lives up in the mountains who knows the terrain better than anybody else but I don’t know that he’d help you,” Sheriff Olson Spence told the man sitting across from him.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Federal Agent Cody Wendt inquired.

“Don’t like folks bothering him for one thing,” Spence replied as he leaned back in his chair. “And though there's been those who’ve gone up there looking for him, ain’t a one of them ever found his cabin. He don’t take to strangers and if he don’t want to be found, he won’t be found.”

“You say he’s a good tracker, though?” Wendt’s partner, Jake Hobart, pressed.

“The best there is around these parts,” Spence told him.

Wendt frowned. “Is there any way for you to get in touch with this guy? Does he have a cell phone? Can you call him?”

Spence and his deputy, Nick Tolliver, exchanged an amused look. Spence shook his head. “Mister, he don’t even have electricity or running water up there on Aonair Ridge. As for a cell phone ….” He chuckled. “The closest tower is over to Rayford and even if MacGivern had one in his damned backyard, he wouldn’t answer it.”

“Not damned likely,” Tolliver agreed.

“Then how do I get to him?”

“Well, whenever he’s got money coming to him for a sale, old lady Beaufort runs a green flag up the pole at her place and he’ll eventually come down when he sees it.”

“Money from selling what?” Hobart questioned.

The sheriff pointed at a carved eagle in flight that was perched on a stand across the room. “He did that.”

Wendt and Hobart turned to look at the carving. It was an intricate, exquisite rendering that--had it not been fashioned from polished wood--would have seemed all too real.

“Beautiful work,” Hobart proclaimed.

“If this Beaufort woman hoists the flag, how long will it take the tracker to come down?” Wendt demanded.

Spence hooked a finger down his nose. “That might take days, even weeks.”

“Agent Groves doesn’t have weeks,” Wendt snapped.

“From everything I was told, it looked like your law woman went over the ledge and into the river,” Spence said. “What makes you think she didn’t?”

“I’d know if Allison was dead,” Wendt said, a muscle flexing in his jaw.

“Cody,” Tolliver said softly with a slight shake of his head.