Pieces of Dreams (12 page)

All that was left was instinct. It was that alone which set him in motion finally, only that which guided him as he reached to draw Melly to him. Some part of him looked on with remorse but lacked the power to stop him. Only one thing could, now.

“I want you,” he whispered.

“I—know.”

The catch in her voice shook his heart. “Tell me to stop.”

“I would,” she said, her gaze fastened on his in fearful honesty, “if I could.”

“Please. I don't want to hurt you.”

Her smile was both tremulous and pitying. “You couldn't.”

He could, he knew, and so easily, though it would be against his will. Still, he could not resist the lure of her trust. “If I do,” he said in low entreaty, “will you tell me?”

“Yes. If.” The soft words were a promise as well as unspoken permission. They were proof that she knew him from his twin, wanted him for himself.

Her skin gleamed with the soft luster of the pearls of the Far East. It was smooth and firm and warmly resilient under his hands. Her kiss as he took it tasted of the sweetness of the Spice Islands, and was as layered with wonders. He marveled, yet restrained the wild urge to plunge in and take everything at once. He wanted her to know every delicate sensation of which the flesh was capable. That would be his gift, one directed by the force of his deep, abiding love. She would, he vowed to himself, have no regrets.

He knew full well that his own would come soon enough. But he would save them for the time when they were all he had left.

The ground near the fire had been cleared of sticks and debris but was still muddy and wet. He cushioned it with his trousers and shirt, hastily removed, before he laid her back upon it. Then he eased down beside her and drew her against his aching body.

Melly closed her eyes tightly, losing herself in the mindless pleasure of the moment. She would not think, but only feel. She touched her fingers to his flame-gilded shoulders, enjoying their warm, hard shaping, sensing the strength he held so carefully in check. No, he would not hurt her.

Under her hand, she felt his muscles bunch and shift as he began to open the buttons of her bodice. One by one, they gave under his fingers, allowing the cloth to fall away. He skimmed over her rib cage to cup her breast. She ceased to breathe for long seconds as his gentle kneading sent magic sensations tumbling through her. Only as he drew her camisole aside to take the nipple into his mouth did she let the air in her lungs escape on a soft, strangled sigh.

He knew exactly what he was doing. More than that, he meant to enjoy all the small, encroaching preliminaries. Secure in that knowledge, she felt the release of the stiffness in her muscles.

She wanted to learn his body as he explored hers. She yearned to thread her fingertips through the whorls of golden brown hair on his chest, touch the small nubs hidden in it so they knotted as her own were doing under his ministrations. Her fingers trembled as she brushed them across his chest.

Sensing her need, he gave her access, guided her hand to him, then left her free to do as she pleased. She accepted the invitation, timidly at first then more boldly.

As he nuzzled the small hollow beneath her ear, she sighed and arched her body toward him, nestling her breasts more securely in his hand. Accepting that mute gesture of need, he cupped their fullness, suckled them, draped them in long, cool strands of hair and licked the pouting rose-red nipples that peeked through. Face absorbed, he surveyed his handiwork. And he smiled.

If this was loving, she knew why everyone tried so hard to keep it from young women. They could grow too easily to crave it, following mindlessly after the man who could make them feel such splendor. There was no embarrassment in it, only voluptuous, spreading wonder.

Entranced by Conrad's deftness and her own tingling reactions, she barely noticed as he drew off more layers of clothing like shucking an ear of corn to reach the tender kernels. He tasted her as he might a freshly roasted ear also, nibbling as he went, gathering her flavor with his tongue.

Amazement rasped in her throat. She writhed, a movement that parted her legs to give him greater access. With a soft groan of wonder, he took it, penetrating to her silken, pulsing core. She cried out, pleading, reaching convulsively for him. Her fingers pressed into his shoulder until her nails bit the skin.

He answered her need, enclosing her in the protection of his arms even as he slid between her thighs. For an instant her tight, desperate constriction prevented entry. He did not force it, but aided her with gentle stretching until she could accept him. Even then, he eased inside by heart-melting degrees of advancement and retreat, filling her so slowly that her veins pounded with the maddening escalation of glory.

She wanted, needed, all of him, and could not bear to be denied an instant longer. Sliding her hands down the powerful curve of his back, she pressed the palms of her hands to his hips as she arched against him.

The pain stung. It was so unexpected that she fell back, taking him with her to impossible depths. He made a short, winded sound in his chest and was still. He hovered above her, and she heard him grit his teeth, felt the slow bunching of his muscles as he fought for control. A moment later, he put his hand under her and lifted her, tilted her hips a little while he eased from her, then lowered himself into her again with shuddering slowness.

The abrupt beatitude was so overwhelming that a soft sob rasped in her throat and tears streamed from her eyes into her hair. And suddenly nothing was too deep or too hard or too much. She clung to him with desperate yearning. It was not mere lust but something deeper and more elemental, a passion for love and the life that he could give her by kindling it inside her.

She moved with its ancient rhythm, hesitant and awkward. He felt the tentative accommodation, took it, molded it to his own efforts. As he drew back to carry her higher, she opened her eyes and looked into his face.

The firelight in his eyes was echoed in her heart. She loved him, and spoke the words though her lips did not move and she made no sound. Never would she forget this moment. Never, not even when she was old and gray and had dismissed all else from memory. In this eternal instant he was hers and she was his, and nothing could ever take that from her.

Then he sank into her, banishing thought with his surging power. Together they moved, rising, falling, while their skins glowed with the fiery heat of their blood and their hearts beat in thudding syncopation. Her very being rose to meet him, rushing toward him, pouring out to him like the river that coursed past where they lay. Higher it flooded, deeper, wider. She took his strength and gave him hers until their two beings were merged, so tightly and deeply mixed that there was no way to tell where one ended and the other began. No way, ever, to wrest them apart again.

And abruptly she was caught in the surging tide, racing with it, flowing in a run for the sea. She reached its depths and spread, voluptuous, serene. Home. He pressed deep as he came to meet her, welcoming her with hard, enclosing arms.

Afterward, they held each other, staring wide-eyed and desolate into the encroaching darkness as they stroked, touched, soothed, sought answers that could not be found. They did not move until the fire died.

Later, when it was no more than a bed of orange-red coals, they rose and struggled into their clothes, tried as best they might to make themselves presentable. Conrad searched out more wood to build up the flames again.

They were leaping high, burning in hot tongues far up into the dark heavens, when Caleb found them.

<< >>

“Fight! Fight!”

Melly heard the cries from the street as she emerged from the semi-detached kitchen at the back of the boarding house. She had been heating water, getting ready to launder her petticoats that had been so mistreated the day before. She abandoned the task as the yelling broke out, and sick dread sent her hurrying toward the front porch.

Sarah was standing outside the mercantile with a shopping basket on her arm, shading her eyes against the morning sun as she stared toward the river landing.

Glimpsing Melly as she moved out onto the porch steps, the other girl swung toward her. “It's Caleb and Conrad!” she called, her face as green and pale as a patty-pan squash. “They're killing each other!”

Melly had suspected as much, but the anguish of it washed over her in a wave. It was her fault, it must be. She had to stop them. Or at least she had to try.

Picking up her skirts, she began to run. Sarah hesitated only a second before she pounded after her.

There was no way they could miss the confrontation. The shouts and whistles, the cries of encouragement, and the barking of excited dogs carried plainly down the street. Some idiot carried away by excitement was even ringing a bell as if the fight was a spectacle for all to come and see. Gray-beards, farmers, drummers in flat-crowned hats, and gentlemen wearing tailored frock coats gathered around the combatants in a wide circle. Some were laying bets while others spat tobacco juice and showed their companions how they had dealt with past opponents themselves. Several boys crowded between them, though one enterprising tow-head stood on a hitching post for a better view over the shoulders of his elders.

Melly did not pause but waded into the men with Sarah behind her. There were some scowls and mutters, but they made way for her. Every single one of them knew she was embroiled in this dispute between brothers.

Yet to call what was taking place a fight was totally wrong; the contest was far too one-sided. It was, instead, a punishment. One brother was dealing it out, the other taking it.

Caleb, his face a mask of rage, was pummeling Conrad with his fists. Conrad weaved and ducked, blocking the blows when he could, rolling with them when he couldn't. It was apparent that more than a few had connected for there was a spreading bruise on his cheekbone and a cut at his brow that streamed blood into his right eye.

“Stop it!” Melly cried out above the noise. “Conrad! Caleb! Stop it this instant!”

If either of the two heard her or noticed her presence, they gave no sign. They circled, one advancing, the other retreating, each identical gaze intent on the other's face. It was disorienting and even macabre to see them, like watching a man battle his mirror image.

“Stand and fight like a man!” Caleb growled, his expression twisting in frustration as he stalked his twin.

Conrad kept moving, his eyes watchful as he spoke. “What I did was wrong, and I've admitted the fault. If you want blood for it, fine. But I won't make a brawl out of it.”

“It never stopped you before.” Caleb's scorn was plain.

“I don't have anything to prove.”

“I think you do. I think that's why you took Melly out on the river, to spite me.”

Conrad shifted from his brother's path in a glide of well-oiled muscles. “Taking Melly off was a tom-fool trick that went wrong, nothing else.”

The last words were laced with pain and self-blame. Melly thought they were for her, that at least Conrad was aware she was witnessing their dispute.

“Oh, I don't think that was it at all,” Caleb growled, swinging a hard right as he moved in on his brother. “You're a man of the sea with a trained eye for weather. You saw the storm signs and took advantage. You know water, read landmarks, remember things like the island because your life may depend on it. You knew exactly where you were going yesterday.”

Clasping her hands tightly at her waist, Melly frowned. Could Conrad have known there would be a storm?  Had he planned from the first to land on the island, arranged for the loss of the raft?

Caleb was right in one thing. Conrad he was a seaman, and a good one. Surely he should have known better than to lash the raft to so flimsy a support? Did it follow, then, that her seduction had been planned?

Conrad, watching Melly's face, took a hard punch squarely over the heart. He gasped, reeling with the blow, but the worst of the pain was in his mind. He could not allow Melly to think what they had shared had meant so little.

Lashing out at his brother with words in place of blows, he said in breathless derision, “It's not really Melly you're concerned about, is it? If it was, you wouldn't be making such an almighty noise about what happened.”

“What I'm doing is teaching you a lesson!”

“Are you now? And what kind? To watch out for bad luck? Or would it be about brotherly love?”

“To leave what's mine alone!”

Conrad laughed, though his ribs hurt where Caleb had pounded them. “Here I was thinking it might be respect for the lady.”

“Melly will be my wife in a few days. That's all the respect she needs.”

The arrogance of that riled Conrad's temper. “You think so? How generous, giving her your precious name after such a terrible disgrace as being caught in the rain with another man. But I'd say something more is needed if she's to be happy.”

“What do you know about it? Nothing, and never will! I'll give her everything she needs—home, children, a good, solid life at my side all the days of our lives—and nights.”

Caleb meant the last as a death blow. Against the pain of it, Conrad said, “She might prefer just to be loved.”

“By you, a shiftless sea rover?” Caleb grunted his disbelief as he jabbed at his brother.