Twelfth Moon (10 page)

There was no coherent thought, no logical sense of right or wrong, just the primal instinct to mate. Her body was in total control now, had taken over in a mindless need to assuage itself, to complete its one and only purpose. And Jonah was just as bound to the moment as she. Once mating begins, her body emits a special scent most males cannot resist. Only a man with a strong will could withstand her allure.

Eager to fulfill her primary goal, she shamelessly pulled her legs up and spread them, resting them against the outsides of his thighs. The roughness of his trousers teased and tantalized her sensitive skin.

Jonah sucked in a breath at her bold invitation. He looked down at her, open and glistening…beckoning to him…waiting for him. He could smell her desire…her arousal, and he wanted nothing more than to drive into her with a ferocity that was overwhelming.

His heart hammering in his chest, he ripped at the fastenings on his trousers and shoved them down his hips. He fell on her, his mouth claiming hers in a mad frenzy to have her…to claim her. He reached down and grasped his cock, placing it at her hot, slick entrance. The impulse to plunge deep and hard was so strong…so intense, it made his temples pound. It was like a fever…in his brain…in his body…in his cock. All craved one thing and one thing only – to possess her, to take her, to thrust into her like an animal.

Nothing else mattered.

Nothing else existed but her.

He looked into her eyes, pausing for a breathless moment. In the golden light of the lamp, he caught a flash – a strange glimmer. Her eyes seemed to glow with an iridescent sheen, like an animal’s – like a cat’s eyes. It suddenly reminded him of that night when she’d been handcuffed to the tree. Her eyes had glowed like that. He’d thought he’d imagined it, but the proof was now literally staring him right in the face.

With a curse, Jonah flung himself away from her and off the bed. He quickly drew his trousers up, panting, his chest heaving as he labored to draw air into his lungs. His body was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration, his limbs trembling from the effects of unfulfilled lust.

He glared accusingly at the woman on the bed. She was beautiful…unearthly. Her shirt –
his shirt
– was bunched at her waist, leaving the rest of her deliciously naked.

Jesus!

This woman killed Robert.

And if it had been in self defense as she’d claimed, how could it be that she’d welcome Jonah into her body after what his brother had done to her?

And he’d been willing – eager – to oblige her.

“What the hell!” he shouted hoarsely. Her green-glowing eyes had turned dark, were still glazed with passion, enticing him to return to her. He shoved his fingers through his hair, squeezing his own eyes shut to block out the temptation. Dropping his hands to his sides, he shook his head before looking at her again.

Her wide eyes registered her shock. With a strangled sound, she scrambled to cover herself, jamming her arms through the sleeves of the shirt. She pulled the edges up and over her shoulders, and then jerked the hem down as far as it would go. And as if that weren’t enough, she dragged the sheet up to her chin.

“What did
I
do to
you
?”

With an impatient gesture, he accused, “You did something to me. I’ve never felt this way before – I’ve never completely lost control like that.”

“And that’s
my
fault?”

Cadence fought to subdue her body’s will, tempered it, pressed it into a tight ball, forcing it back, deep inside. It worked – for now. The closer she got to Twelfth Moon, the harder it would be for her to control the inevitable. Her pulse slowed, her breathing steadied, her mind coming back into sharp focus. She must not give in to the temptation to tell him who – and what – she was.

“It must have been a trick of the light,” she suggested, hoping he would believe it.

Her eyes followed Jonah’s fingers as he raked them through his hair again. She was beginning to know him well enough to recognize it as a sign of his frustration.

He sighed. “A trick of the light, I reckon…and the shock of discovering you’re a woman.” He was working to convince himself. Then he looked up at her. “An extremely beautiful woman. And it’s been a long while since I – of course that’s no excuse for my behavior. I just don’t know what came over me.”

Cadence listened while he reasoned it out. He didn’t understand, didn’t know what forces he was up against. If he knew, at least part of her secret, he might be able to take measures, be better prepared to resist her. If she were to make it through the next few days without becoming irrevocably bound to him, they would both need their wits about them.

He searched for his shirt, found it and began slipping it back on.

She made a decision she hoped wouldn’t turn out to be the biggest mistake of her life. It was imperative that they make it back to New Orleans so they could go their separate ways. “Jonah,” she said quietly. When it appeared he hadn’t heard her, she said it again, but louder this time. “Jonah.”

Cadence hesitated, fear seizing her throat. She cleared it, feeling like she’d swallowed a shovelful of prairie dust. “There’s something you should know about me. I – I’m not like other women.”

Cadence took a deep breath to fortify her courage. “The women in my family—” Oh, how could she explain this without it sounding silly, without telling
why
she suffered this affliction! She began again. “For generations, the women in my family have been afflicted with a certain…condition. It culminates once a year, during a time we call
Twelfth Moon
.”

“Twelfth Moon?”

“The twelfth full moon at the end of a year’s cycle,” she clarified. “During which we experience the irresistible urge to—” Oh, God. “Mate.”

“Er…control
myself
.”

Did he hear, or even understand what she’d just said?

“Right now, that male would be you, specifically.”

It took him a moment to respond. “What the hell are you talking about?” Jonah snapped. “I could swear you just said you get hot and horny once a year and that you have no control over it – yourself.”

“That’s not
exactly
what I said, but yes.”

“Why?”

His expression showed his disbelief. “I can’t explain all the details. What I can tell you is that it’s passed only to the females in my family – from a spell cast long ago.”

“A spell…affecting only the females…
right
.” He rubbed his face with his hands, and then dropped them, standing abruptly. “Well, I’d say that is the biggest piece of hogwash I have ever heard!”

He was angry.

Not surprised, but startled by his reaction, nonetheless, Cadence threw his words back at him. “You just told me – accused me – of doing
something
to you,” she hissed. “You said you felt like you had no will, no control.”

“It’s true,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I did feel that way – but a spell, for Christ sake? You’ve got to be joking…or just plum crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” she said through clenched teeth.

“And I’m no chaste priest. I’m a man. When I see a beautiful – and naked – woman, there are other parts of my body that do the thinking for me.”

“I wouldn’t have been naked if you hadn’t taken my clothes off!”

“And if you’d told me the truth to begin with, we wouldn’t be talking about it now,” Jonah said irritably.

Cadence expelled a sound of disgust. “In which case, your
body parts
would have been doing their
thinking
a whole lot sooner.”

“My body p–” Jonah stalked to the side of the bed, looming over her. “Listen, lady,” he ground out, “you’re the one who said any male within a mile of your high-and-mighty presence wouldn’t be able to resist you.”

“Oh, I can resist your charms, missy. Whether this malarkey about a spell is true or not, I won’t have to worry about it. The fact still remains that you killed my brother.”

She gasped softly.

He sneered nastily at her. “All I need to do is think about that and my dick will shrivel in disgust. So no matter how much you beg me to relieve your…sexual urges, nothing can change what you did.” He turned on his heel, tucking in his shirt and threw on his gun belt, buckling it so it sat low on his hips. He then snatched the half-full bottle of whiskey on the dresser and slammed out of the room.

Tears blurred her vision. How could she possibly imagine he would want to do
that
with her given the fact that she’d murdered his brother? She dropped her face into her hands and wept. She wept for having taken a life. She wept for her lost virginity. She wept for the loss Jonah and his family had suffered at her hands. But mostly, she wept for her own selfish reasons that had nothing to do with her gift and everything to do with her heart.

After a while, she felt spent, wrung out, exhausted, both physically and emotionally. With a huge sigh, she fell back, resting her head on the pillow.

Of course she was a fool to hope that Jonah might want her for herself and not because he was under the influence of the spell. How could he? How could any man? But she could no longer deny her attraction to Jonah. She wanted him. It may be that the approach of Twelfth Moon intensified her emotions, her desire for him, but something deep inside her recognized him as the one for her – her true mate.

Her destiny.

She admired his sense of honor, his strength, and commitment to duty. And there were those moments when he revealed a tender side. It was evident in the way he’d wrapped her wrists with a bandana before binding them, how he’d tended to her wounds from the hanging. He’d shown consideration by allowing her to relieve herself in private, even though he’d thought she was a boy at the time. All these things added up to the sum of his character, giving her a glimpse of the man hidden behind the rough edges.

It was just her dumb luck that the man she chose would completely despise her.

Night had fallen sometime between her waking,
almost
making love with Jonah, and their argument. The room was dark, except for a weak glow coming from the lamp on the bedside table. She turned her head in that direction and thought maybe she should extinguish the lamp. It would serve him right to come back to a dark room and bang his shin on something – preferably something sharp! But her limbs felt too listless. She was unable to summon the ambition to do it, so she just closed her eyes instead.

Her thoughts drifted and she wondered where Jonah had gone off to. Didn’t he fear she would try to escape? Right now, he was probably too angry to care. She could hardly blame him. He was, after all, an unwilling participant in a situation beyond his control.

But his will was strong, as was his hatred of her.

Once she was in the full peak of Twelfth Moon, she would be at the mercy of her body’s commands. In the days to come his fortitude would be tested to its limit. He may be the one she’d chosen to bind herself to, but she’d be damned if she would force a union that would be only one sided – would try her best to avoid it.

Eight

JONAH STOOD JUST outside the door, listening to the muffled sounds of her weeping. His words had been cruel, lashing, like the angry strikes of a whip. But it had been a gut reaction, a response to the red haze of fury that had overpowered his good sense.

From the moment he’d discovered she was no boy, but instead a beautiful woman who happened to be put together more perfectly than any other he’d ever seen, he’d been unaccountably drawn to her. It was as though his body already knew her, had already taken and enjoyed, slaked itself inside her, only in some other place – another lifetime.