A Lady of the West Read online

  He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. For the first time Victoria actively fought him, trying frantically to get away. She felt painfully exposed, so much at the mercy of his much greater strength and rampant sexuality that she lost control. She kicked and hit at him, trying to pull free and throw herself off the bed. He subdued her easily, catching her hands and pinning them over her head, controlling her legs with his powerful ones.

  “Easy now,” he said soothingly, his breath warm against her face. “Don’t be afraid, honey, you have no reason to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was low and reassuring, and he bent his head to brush his mouth across the tender joint of her neck and shoulder.

  The hot touch of his mouth on her bare skin made her jump, and with an incoherent cry she strained upward again. He held her down, wondering why she was so frightened. Surely she knew he wasn’t going to hurt her. But maybe her experiences with the Major had been even more unpleasant than he’d thought, maybe she truly expected the worst of him. His body was screaming for him to take off his pants and enter her now, but relief wasn’t all he wanted. Victoria was so much a lady, but she was also a woman of passion and he wanted her to give him that passion. He wanted her to cling to him, her body arching to receive him rather than trying to throw him off; he wanted to feel the soft internal clenching of her release.

  “Victoria. Look at me, honey. Stop fighting and look at me.”

  “Get off of me,” she cried in a stifled voice.

  “No, I won’t get off.” He shifted control of her wrists to one hand, and with the other caught her chin and turned her head toward him. Her eyes were wet with tears, he saw, but she hadn’t allowed them to fall. He kissed her temple in appreciation of her pride, then moved his lips to her cheek. “You don’t have to be afraid,” he repeated softly, and brushed a kiss at the corner of her mouth.

  “Don’t do this, please don’t do this to me.” The words burst out, and she was dimly appalled to realize she was begging. She’d sworn she wouldn’t do that, but the stark reality of being stripped naked had also stripped her of pride. She would grovel if it would stop him from hurting and humiliating her this way. “I’ll leave, I promise I will. We’ll leave in the morning if you want—”

  “Now, why would I want that?” he murmured, the corners of his mouth kicking up in amusement. He leaned over her and lightly rubbed his chest against her nipples.

  The contact, light as it was, rasped across her delicate flesh. She inhaled with a quick, shallow gasp, her concentration splintered. Her nipples were burning, tightening. He did it again, this time increasing the pressure a little, and the traitorous warmth in her began to blur the edges of her fear.

  He kissed her, opening his mouth over hers. He probed her mouth with his tongue, kissing her in the slow, sure, purposeful manner of a man who knows he isn’t going to stop at kisses. She made a muffled sound of protest but he kept on until her lips softened, until he felt some of the tension ease out of her muscles and she began to respond to him.

  She didn’t want to respond; she tried to fight it, only to find herself undermined by her own emotions. When everything was said and done, she loved him. Even knowing he didn’t love her, that his taking of her was part of his hatred for the Major, she couldn’t stop the warm tide of feeling when he touched her. She couldn’t stop herself from welcoming his small invasion with her own tongue and drawing his taste deep inside.

  He stroked his hand in one slow motion from her chin to her throat, and downward to cover her breast. She jerked in shock, alarmed by the first feel of a man’s hand on her bare breast. His palm burned her, and the tightening sensation in her breasts intensified. He gently kneaded, then rubbed his thumb around and over the nipple in a circular motion that made her moan aloud. She tried to jerk her mouth free of his, but Jake deepened the kiss, holding her while he transferred his attentions to her other breast.

  She began to tremble, but no longer from fear.

  He finally lifted his head and looked down at the soft, pale mounds of her breasts, at the tightly beaded nipples. His sinewy, darkly tanned fingers were a rough contrast against her delicate skin. “You’re so damn pretty,” he said, and bent his head to her breasts.

  His mouth closed hotly over her nipple. Victoria cried out, the sound strangled in her throat. Pure sensation jolted her and she arched again, but was still held pinned by his controlling hand and legs. She had never imagined he would use his mouth on her in that way, never anticipated the searing wet heat, or the prickling pressure as he sucked strongly, his cheeks flexing with the movement. His tongue flicked and rolled around her nipple, and she began burning, the heat twisting downward to pool between her legs. She whimpered, aware of the shameful undulation of her hips but unable to do anything to stop it.

  “That’s right, honey,” he whispered. “Let me feel you move.” He shifted his mouth to her other breast, awash in her taste, giddy with the sweet scent of her breasts and the feel of her nipples. She gave another little cry, the sound making him shiver with need.

  He slid his hand down her belly and pushed it between her legs.

  She jerked wildly, shock overcoming pleasure. “No,” she cried, shaking. “Dear God, no!” Her hips bucked as she tried to dislodge him.

  Jake caught her mouth with his, silencing her protest with long, deep kisses. She strained against him, but he kept kissing her until that storm of resistance, too, had passed. When she was limp and shaking, he lifted his mouth.

  “You feel so good, sweetheart. Open your legs for me, let me touch you.”

  “No, it isn’t right, you shouldn’t do that—” She remembered the pain when the Major had shoved his fingers so roughly into her, and she shrank from the memory.

  “Yes, it is right,” he interrupted in a low, warm tone. His eyes were intensely green, burning, and—tender. “I want to touch you, I want to feel how soft and wet you are.”

  She shuddered. “You won’t hurt me?” She wanted his touch. Her body was aching shamelessly for him, but the remembrance of her wedding night kept her from obeying.

  His face tightened. “No, I won’t hurt you,” he promised, and wished bitterly that McLain could come back to life so he could kill him again for daring to hurt this woman. “Open your legs, Victoria.”

  She did, finally, her thighs relaxing enough to allow him to move his fingers. He did so gently, parting the lips of her sex and opening her to his caresses. Victoria shuddered again, acutely aware of the embarrassing moistness she knew he could feel as he lightly stroked her. But this wasn’t like what the Major had done, she thought dazedly. He wasn’t hurting her, he was rubbing her, exploring the sensitive folds with tender fingers, and he was breathing hard as if touching her there excited him beyond bearing.

  “You’re going to like this,” he said, and brushed his thumb across the small nub at the top of her sex. An exquisite pleasure, so intense it was almost painful, shot through her body. She moaned, unaware that her legs opened wider as she arched against his hand.

  He continued using his thumb, drinking in the small sounds she made, loving the way her hips were moving. The scent of her body was hotter, more intoxicating. There was fever in her now, the fever he had craved from the time he had met her, burning high to match his. Soon, very soon, she would be his. She was wet, he thought wet enough, but to make certain he slowly slipped one finger inside her.

  Victoria stiffened when she felt her body penetrated, dazedly bracing herself for the pain, but instead the heavy, burning ache inside her intensified. No, it wasn’t an ache, it was intolerable pleasure. She didn’t know, didn’t care. Her entire body was throbbing. She turned her head against his shoulder as he began moving his finger in and out, the motion enticing her hips into an undulating movement she couldn’t control.

  Jake groaned aloud. She was so small and tight he knew he’d have difficulty entering her, no matter how ready she was. She was so wet, trembling on the verge of satisfaction, that there wa