Amanda snapped her mouth shut.
So did Jake, but only long enough to draw in two deep breaths. "Cynthia, as you've probably guessed, didn't love me, but she sure as hell loved what I could give her." His nostrils flared and, if possible, his expression hardened. "I'm not just talking about what I gave her between the sheets, baby. She wanted adventure. A taste of the wild and savage. She told me once she wanted to tame me... at least, she wanted to try.
"I knew the kind of trouble her sort would bring me, so I made it my business to stay clear of her. The problem was, the lady didn't take no for an answer. Cynthia was a spoiled white princess, used to getting everything she wanted before she wanted it. What she wanted was me. It was inconceivable to her that I would refuse. Which I did. Often. Hell, she was the boss's daughter. Off limits for that reason... and others.
"I wouldn't give her what she wanted, and that made her want it even more. She started to flaunt, to tease. I wish I had a greenback for every button on that girl's blouse that found it's way undone because... Lordy I'd be a rich man right now!
"After a few months of hell, I'd heard her silky love-words so many times I started to believe them. I really thought it was me who made her hot, not what I was." He sneered, caught up in the memory, and in the pain of betrayal that still sliced through him like a knife. "I took her to bed. I figured, what the hell? It was what she wanted, what she'd been begging for. And by then, it was what I wanted too. So badly I ached."
"You m-made love to her?" Amanda asked weakly, her mind spinning. Why, why did the thought of Jake Chandler with another woman hurt so badly?
"No, Amanda, we had sex. There's a difference. One I don't feel like getting into with you right now. Let's just say I gave her what she'd been begging for. Twice over and then some.
"The rumors started before the sheets were cold. It took a couple of months for them to drift back to me. Cynthia liked to brag that she'd bedded a savage and lived through it, scalp intact. Unfortunately, she talked too much, too loudly, to all the wrong people. It didn't take long for her daddy to find out his baby had been making it with a breed. Do you want know what he did? Do you?!"
"H-he beat her?"
"Nope. His sweet little girl had been taken advantage of by a filthy savage, you see. Wasn't her fault, of course." Jake gritted his teeth, and his breathing turned ragged and hard. "No, he didn't beat her. He beat me. Repeatedly. With a shovel... until I couldn't see, couldn't walk, couldn't goddamn think!"
Jake saw a flash of sympathy flicker in her eyes, and his entire body hardened against it. There was something else in her gaze. A question. He answered her ruthlessly, knowing Amanda didn't ask because she was afraid of the answer. And wasn't that a shame? Because the fact was, she'd started this, and now dammit, he was going to finish it. It was vital she know how poisonous this situation could become if things ever got out of hand between them. "Her daddy didn't cut me, Amanda. She did."
"What?" Amanda gasped and sagged weakly against the tree.
"I made it back to the bunkhouse somehow, and planned to gather up my things and get the hell out. She was there waiting for me. The cut wasn't meant to wound, lady, it was meant to kill. You see, by that time Cynthia had realized just how big a mistake she'd made. She took it upon herself to rid the world of one more breed, and in the process rid herself of a problem that wasn't going away fast enough."
"But you just said you were going to leave the ranch! Did you tell her that?"
"Yup."
"And she didn't believe you?"
He shrugged tightly. "I don't know if she did or not. If so, she didn't care. She told me she had a reputation to protect, said no one would believe a word of her story if she didn't try to retaliate in some form or another."
"So she tried to kill you?"
"Tried being the operative word there. Of course, even if she'd been lucky enough to succeed, it wouldn't have mattered much. She was a good little white girl. I was the dirty breed who'd forced myself on her. She had every right, Amanda. I, on the other hand, had no rights at all."
Her eyes misted with tears—for him, for his pain. Her voice cracked. "I... Oh, God, I'm sorry, Jake. I didn't—"
"Don't you dare!" If his shout hadn't clogged the words in her throat, the molten fire in his eyes would have. That, and the way his grip on her jaw turned savagely tight. "Save your pity for someone who gives a damn, because I don't."
When she flinched, he jerked his hand away from her. His voice harshened as he glared down at her. "I learn from my mistakes, lady, and I damn well don't repeat them. If you're smart, you won't ask me to again."
Jake shoved away from the tree. He didn't go far, just far enough to put some needed distance between them. His lungs were filled with the flower-soft scent of her, while his mind was filled with the bitter memories this woman had made him dredge up. The duo was potent—it tore clean through him—and his reaction to it was unnerving.
He pulled in a ragged breath and again felt himself being seduced by the clean, womanly smell of her. The way her scent merged with the piney aroma of the woods made for an erotic combination. It was a fragrance that Jake felt a sudden, overpowering need to run from—fast—or risk drowning in. And he couldn't do that. It wasn't allowed.
Jamming his hands in his pockets, he spun on his heel. The uncertainty in Amanda's tone made him hesitate.
"I'm not like her, Jake. I've never asked a man to kiss me before," Amanda said shakily. Until yesterday, men hadn't interested her. Then she'd met Jacob Blackhawk Chandler. His complexity fascinated her—she didn't know why, it just did. So did the passion his touch unleashed in her, the pain his grudging admission kindled deep in her soul. Pity was not the only thing she felt for this man—her respect for him was far stronger—but she didn't dare tell Jake that. She doubted he would listen even if she'd tried. "I... I just thought you should know."
His hair curtained his face and shoulders as only his head came around. Though he studied her closely, Jake detected no telltale color in her cheeks. Her green eyes were dark, shimmering with a sincerity he found hard to look at, let alone believe she felt. Was she telling the truth? Jake didn't think she was capable of it—she'd lied to him so many times already—but it was a possibility. One of several.
"Never?" he asked, agitated. She shook her head, and Jake felt his heart skip a beat and a small sliver of his pain fade. There was a part of him that didn't want to know the answer to his next question. There was stronger part of him that demanded he know. "But you asked me to kiss you. Why?"
Admitting all this to Jake's back had been one thing. Admitting it while staring into those probing eyes of his was something else again. Her hands moved backward, and her palms stung when she pressed them hard against the gritty tree bark.
She shrugged and looked away. "Last night, when you kissed me, you said it was to end the suspense, so we could get it off our minds and put it behind us. It—it didn't work. Not for me, it didn't. I—" She rushed on before she lost her nerve. "I can't forget what it feels like to kiss you, Jake. And I can't forget about how badly I want you to kiss me again."