Heaven in His Arms (19 page)

Who are you, Genevieve?

The question rang in her ears. Andre gripped her shoulders, willing her to answer him. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to scream, I am Genevieve Lalande. She wanted to pour out all of the grief, all of the suffering, all of the desperation that had brought her to this man and to this place in the Canadian wilderness. She wanted to be held and kissed and told that it would never be like that again—that he would give her a home, that he would protect her from the world.

She scanned his face, the fine, straight nose, the dark brows, the dark, scruffy growth that covered his cheeks and chin and could now be called a beard. The dusky predawn light cast pale blue shadows on his skin and gilded the streaks in his shaggy, sun-washed hair. He was strong. Stubborn. Determined, capable. Secretive, evasive, half-wild. Handsome. . . . He was more than she had ever expected to have in a husband; he was more than she had ever dared hope. How well she had played her part! His eyes were full of confusion, of wonder, of desire. He thought he had married the finest daughter of the petite noblesse, impoverished but well-bred, orphaned but protected by the Crown. Now he had caught her with a rabbit, a rabbit whose neck she had twisted with her bare hands, yet he still didn't suspect the truth. From his expression, she knew he was bemused and amazed that a woman of her kind "adapted" so well to the wilderness.

Genevieve should be relieved that he had not guessed the truth; she should be praying thanks to God. Instead, she ached to cast aside this disguise and tell him everything. She wanted him to want her, not Marie Duplessis.

But Genevieve was the daughter of a murdered courtesan. She was a thief, a pickpocket, a poacher. A liar. A bastard. A whore.

Yes, a whore in all but deed—for she'd taken the money, she'd sold her soul for a bite of bread. The remnants of the honor-price still jingled in her case. That day, she'd realized that she'd been destined for this fate all her life: What's in the marrow will always come out in the bone.

She turned her face away. She was a fool—a sentimental fool. Those years in Paris should have sucked her dry of sentiment, not left her with this tiny pocket of hope. If Andre knew the truth, all that wonder would disappear from his face. She couldn't bear the disgust, and more, she wouldn't suffer the consequences: an annulment in the spring, the frantic search for another husband, the threat of being sent back to Paris. She was acting like a besotted young girl to consider risking everything she'd worked for just to be comforted in this man's strong arms.

"Look at me, Genevieve."

His voice was ragged. She met his tawny eyes and a frisson of something glorious quivered up her spine. She thought, This is how Maman must have felt when she looked at Hamlin. This is why she was so willing to throw away all modesty, all care, for the love of Armand. Perhaps a woman would do anything—risk anything—for the chance to be loved.

No. She gasped as he raked his hands through her hair and dragged her against his body, solid, full demanding. She couldn't tell, him the truth. Fifty years from now, she wanted to wake up next to this man and still find him staring at her . . . just like this, just like this, just like this. . . .

There was only one way to keep him. There was no place for sentimentality in her world—there hadn't been, not since the day her mother was murdered. She had come to Quebec to start a new life. She had left Genevieve Lalande behind—forever. Whatever the cost, he must never know the truth.

She gripped a handful of deerskin fringe and softened against him. "Everyone has secrets, Andre."

"Tell me yours." He squeezed her body, as if he could force the truth from it. "Tell me which is the real Genevieve: the one who swears like a drunken seaman, or the one who stitches the men's shirts like a girl out of the convent?"

"Neither—or both." Too close. Too close to the truth. "They never could make a lady out of me at the Salpetriere."

"A lady doesn't belong here in Quebec." He buried his fingers in her loose plait. "You should have stayed safe from swine like me in Paris."

Genevieve fluttered her eyes closed against the truth. "Make me your wife, Andre."

"Damn you." His fingers tightened in her hair. "Damn you."

"Andre . . ."

"Be quiet and let me kiss you." He kissed her. Ah, the kissing. She'd never get enough of this, never in a hundred years. The sweet, hard merging of lips and bodies and souls into one— so pure, so powerful, overwhelming her senses so she could not think. This was lovemaking. This was the meaning of the feelings that had surged within her from the moment they'd met. When the kiss ended, Genevieve clung to him as if the earth had fallen away beneath her feet.

She pressed her cheek against the warm curve of his neck. Her heart pounding hard in her chest, she wrapped her arms around his wide shoulders and waited for her body to stop trembling. Her toes skimmed the forest floor.

His breath, fast and hot, warmed her hair just behind her ear. "It's useless, isn't it?" "What is?"

"Fighting you." Hungrily, he kissed the line of her jaw. "I'm damned tired of trying to swim upstream against the rapids."

She arched her neck, giving him access to the tender skin of her throat, but he wanted something else. He kissed her again, nudging her lips apart, tracing the line of her teeth, seeking the warm, honeyed recesses of her mouth. Genevieve surrendered herself to him, tilting her head at his urging, opening her lips wider, welcoming his tongue and his hands in places where she had never wanted any man to touch her. His caresses were magic, pure and heady, swirling a fog in her head until all she could think about was lying with this man under the open sky and giving him anything—anything—he demanded.

Andre lifted her off her feet. She felt the gentle prick of nettles against her back as he lay her down on the damp forest floor, on top of her makeshift net. His body fell atop hers, heavy and large. She softened beneath him, for the feel of his muscled limbs, of his long, strong form covering her like the warmest blanket, was the sweetest sensation she had ever known. He released her lips to kiss her temple, to breathe warm, moist air into her inner ear, and then to bury his face in her hair.

He tugged anxiously on the ties of her bodice. Genevieve tried to assist him, but her arms were like leaden weights and her fingers were clumsy and uncertain. She had always wanted him like this, since the first day she had seen him in Montreal. There was no sense to it. She had only known him for a few weeks, yet he filled her every thought, he haunted her every dream. He had become as necessary to her as food and water and air. Then realization struck her, as clear as a bright winter morning.

Genevieve blinked open her eyes and stared sightlessly at the latticework of boughs above her head, at the few soggy amber leaves still clinging to the black branches. Of course. She should have guessed sooner; there was no other reason for these feelings. Her heart trembled in sudden fear.

She was afraid to love. To love was to hurt and to die a little.

The thought scattered away as quickly as it came, as he pushed her bodice apart, lowered his head, and engulfed one sensitive, aching nipple in his hot mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, to think that for fifty livres she'd been willing to give this away. . . .

The past was gone . . . gone. He continued, relentlessly lathing the peak of her breast, drawing it deep into his mouth, holding her still beneath him, coaxing another and yet another moan from her until she was arching against him, weaving her hands in his silky hair, kissing his head, smelling the scent of damp river water in the long tresses. It no longer mattered that the earth was cold and damp against her back, that heavy drops of rain pattered around them, falling from the trees. All that mattered was the touch and taste and smell and sight and sound of him, poised over her body, hungry and wild.

Genevieve squeezed her eyes shut as he released one breast to taste the other, and the cool air chilled her nipple to hardness. She was no longer the master of her own body, for it writhed and arched beneath him, communicating in a language she had only begun to understand. She didn't care. She helped him rearrange the cloth of her skirts, which were twisted and tangled beneath her legs. She welcomed the feel of his callused fingers on her calf, encouraging his touch as his hand rose past where the threadbare stocking was gartered above her knee, to scrape the bare flesh of her inner thigh. She felt so vulnerable, so dependent, so tiny against his bulk, all her senses following the trail of his fingers with trembling anticipation. A wonderful, alien sensation throbbed through her limbs, growing stronger as his hand slid between her legs. He nudged her thighs apart, then he touched her, masterfully, and her entire body jerked in response to the waves of pleasure reverberating through her form.

Unconsciously, she closed her legs tightly.

"Let me touch you, Taouistaouisse.'' His voice was soft but urgent. "Let me feel you against my hand."

Andre gazed down upon her, his tawny eyes bright, his breath coming fast between his lips. She opened herself to him again. He pressed a knee against her thigh and stroked her. She arched as the sensation shot through her anew.

"Genevieve ..."

She couldn't seem to catch her breath. His kisses stole it from her mouth, his tongue tracing her lips as his fingers conjured powerful magic in her body. She wrapped her arms around his neck to hold on to him, for he was the only thing that wasn't whirling madly about her. His stroking continued, endlessly, creating a bubble in her abdomen that grew tighter and thinner and tauter, threatening to burst.

"Please ..."

She didn't know what she was asking for. She didn't know what she wanted—except that she wanted for him to continue touching her and kissing her, murmuring nonsense in her ear, moving his great, large body over hers, protecting her with his warmth. The stroking of his fingers grew rougher and Genevieve broke away from his kisses, gasping for breath. She found the fringed hem of his shirt and plunged her hands beneath it to feel the warm skin of his back. His tumescence strained against the deerskin of his breechcloth as he pressed urgently against her thigh.

Then his finger slipped inside her, almost but not quite, breaking the bubble of anticipation that had stretched to unbearable tautness in her body. Genevieve arched up against him and felt his finger slip still deeper. She released a ragged moan.

"Oh, God, Genevieve . . ." He spoke against her cheek, his breath coming fast between his lips. "You're ready for me."

Yes.

Suddenly, the bubble burst. She cried out against his chest, digging her fingers into his lower back, arching up against his hand until the throbbing passed and she was left breathing as heavily as if she had run the length of a rocky portage, pressing her forehead against his soft deerskin shirt.

***

Swine. Andre squeezed his eyes shut. No, he thought, he was lower than swine. He was a snake, slithering around on his belly like the devil in the garden of Eden.

She trembled in his embrace. Her ragged fingernails still dug into his back, anchored firmly in his flesh, though her body's intimate throbbing had long faded. He focused on the meager pain and the guilt roaring in his head, for both prevented him from taking what every muscle and every sinew in his body screamed for: final release in the soft, willing moistness of her womanhood now quivering in the palm of his hand.

His lungs screamed for air. He couldn't move, because he knew that if he attempted to roll away from her, he would instead roll upon her, push aside her lithe thighs, and thrust into her eager, supple body. He tormented himself with the feel of the silken tresses on his cheek. He wanted this woman as he had wanted no other in a long, long time. Sacre, she was as warm and responsive as a well-trained courtesan, yet as innocent as a lamb, for as he touched her, he had felt the tight restriction of her maidenhead, that thin, fragile piece of flesh that proved to the world she was not yet his wife.

And she must never be.

Andre forced himself to think of the consequences. A wife would expect him to buy three by forty arpents of Canadian land for a few coppers and a couple of chickens a year, to give up fur trading and spend his time tilling the rocky soil. A king's girl would expect him to fill their house with furniture and earthenware and linens imported from the motherland, to drape her in lace from Brussels and silk from Lyon, to clutter his life with more things than any one man could carry. But he had grown up on the edge of the settlements, within easy reach of the bountiful forests, and saw no need to buy a plot of land when the whole uninhabited world stretched westward; he saw no need to fill a house with clutter when all a man needed was a sharp knife, a keen eye, and quick wits to thrive. He'd tried that once.

Never again. Never.

Yet he had taunted her, teased her, tempted her with all these things even though he knew he would never have another wife, not even the impetuous, passionate one purring in his arms.

Damn it, why couldn't she have been like every other Frenchwoman he had ever known? Why couldn't she have collapsed in exhaustion before they ever reached Long Sault? Any other Frenchwoman in her situation would be sobbing at the sight of her own ragged dress. Any other Frenchwoman would have demanded to be sent back to Montreal at the first sight of a savage. This one bargained with one for her shoes. This one hunted geese and rabbits. This one grew lean and strong and rosy-cheeked and beautiful from the fresh air and the exertion.