"No, princess. God, no! Thinking I could kiss you once, then turn my back on you... that was my mistake. I've learned my lesson, though. I know better now. Once won't be enough for me. Not with you." He hesitated, willing himself to continue when he'd rather have kissed her again. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Amanda?"
She nodded, but it was an unconvincing gesture. Jake's frustration mounted. Somehow, he had to make her understand the rules of this newer, more dangerous game they were playing—rules he wasn't sure he understood himself—and he had to do it quickly, before things went any further between them.
"I'm only a human, lady. I can't... not just once... not with you... Damn!" For the first time in his life, Jake was tongue-tied. Jesus, the depths he'd sunk to! Maybe if he came right out and said what was on his mind? To hell with trying to coat the truth in sugary phrases. He'd never been good with words. And the way Amanda was gazing up at him, her lovely green eyes shimmering with sweet confusion, wasn't making this any easier.
His grip on her tightened as he pushed the truth harshly past his lips. "I'm going to have you, Amanda Lennox. There's no stopping now. I'm going to do things to your body that you'd be too embarrassed to dream about. And you're going to do things to mine. We've both wanted this too long and too badly to hold back. The problem is... hell, what I'm trying to say is that one time with you isn't going to be enough for me. I'm going to want you in my bed again. And again. And I will have you there, again and again, for however many times it takes to work you out of my system. You have to know that up front. You have to go into this with those beautiful green eyes of yours wide open... the way I intend to go into you."
Her hands lifted. She blanketed his roughened knuckles with her trembling palms. "What about me, Jake? Don't I have any say in this?"
"No." The way he said it made Amanda think he acknowledged his answer only as he mouthed the word. "I don't think you do. I don't think I can let you have a say in it."
"Pity. I'll have my say anyway." She hesitated, rolling her lips inward. Jake swallowed back a groan, knowing she had no idea how provocative the gesture was to him. "Did it never occur to you, that I might want you again?" Her gaze burned over his lips, her eyelids thickened slumberously. "And again?" Her lips parted oh, so softly, oh, so invitingly. "And again?"
Her words rustled like a sweet summer breeze in his ears. It wasn't the prissy, sensible answer Jake had expected, had prepared himself to hear. His entire body convulsed, as though he'd sustained a crushing blow. His gaze shifted to where his fingers curled over her shoulder. Her neck was a mere fraction away from his fingertips. The contrast in color and texture—satin-soft and sandpaper-rough, burnt-copper and milky-white—was jarring. What he couldn't figure out was why, why that wasn't the stumbling block it should be?
His eyelids hooded but in no way blotted out the intensity of his gaze. "It's wrong," he whispered, and the words felt like they'd been torn from his throat. It cut him up inside to think them, let alone say them aloud. Not that it made a difference. No matter what he said to Amanda now, no matter what she said to him, it wouldn't matter. Words couldn't stop him. He was beyond caring about logic and consequence. The sharp edges of reality had blurred to the white-hot need sluicing through him. "It's wrong for us to be together. You know that, don't you? Jesus, lady, tell me you know that!"
"In your mind, Jake. Not in mine." With the tip of her index finger she ironed out the creases between his brows. His skin felt warm and smooth and wonderful. Would the rest of him feel this good? Amanda suspected it would, and she had a desperate need to prove the theory out. "The way you make me feel is right, Jacob Blackhawk Chandler. Very right. Very good. That's all I know, all I want or need to know."
His spine went rigid. His jaw jutted up at a proud angle. At that moment, his silver eyes shimmering with restrained passion, his expression tight, Amanda thought he'd never looked more like the proud, untamed savage. The observation frightened her, but in a way it thrilled her, too.
His gaze sliced downward. Steel grey meshed with luminescent green. "I want you," he said simply, harshly, as if those three words were all that mattered to either of them.
They were all that mattered to Amanda. I want you were three words no one had ever said to her before. There were three other words she'd never heard, even from her father, but she knew instinctively that this man would not be the one to say them. Jake wanted her physically, the way she wanted and needed him, but that was all he wanted. It would have to be enough. He wouldn't give her more, and her pride demanded she not ask it of him. Because if he refused her, if he rejected her again...
"Show me," she d
emanded huskily, even as she curled her arms around his neck and tugged. He remained stiff, unmoving, but only for a second. His posture loosened, and he bowed over her, around her, as though sheltering her with his body from the drizzling rain. His cheek caressed her temple. His hot breath blasted raggedly in her ear. The heat of it, of him, seeped into her skin, warming her flesh to a feverish degree.
His hair fell forward over his shoulders. The damp, dark strands grazed Amanda's jaw as she turned, her mouth searching out his neck. She nuzzled the warm, earthy scented skin with her lips, and whispered huskily against it, "Show me how much you want me, Jake. Please, I need you to show me."
Jake didn't need an invitation to take from this woman what, to his mind, had been his from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her. But now that she'd given her permission, it dawned on him that he wasn't taking anything from her. At least nothing that wasn't freely given. It brought a subtle change to his perspective, added a complex aspect to an act that in past had always been very, very simple; an act that had once been driven only by physical necessity.
Amanda Lennox wasn't for sale. What she offered, she offered freely. Damned if that gesture didn't touch Jake deeply.
He slid from the white, still cradling Amanda close. His movements were slower, gentler than they would have been a few passion-fogged minutes ago. He carried her to a spot where two fallen tree trunks crossed, sheltering the earth beneath and keeping it relatively dry.
Amanda sighed, and curled comfortably within the safe harbor of Jake's arms as he kicked prickly twigs and rocks aside. His heart drummed a wild beat beneath her ear. His breaths burned over her hair, seared into her scalp.
Ingrained morals said she should be protesting right now, not surrendering. But Amanda was honest enough with herself to admit there would be no sense to that. She wanted this—wanted Jake—too badly to give social standing and racial barriers a thought. How could she? Jake's arms were cradling her to his hard chest, pinning her to him gently, as though she was a priceless, fragile piece of art that needed sheltering and protecting. His tenderness, so unexpected, touched her.
When the hard ground came up to meet her back, Amanda knew she'd never in her life felt a bed so wonderful, or a blanket so warm and inviting as the virile body that eased itself atop her.
They met chest to chest, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Jake's elbows flanked her ribs, supporting the majority of his weight. Amanda's hands were free to test the tautness of his waist, to slip behind and glide up the corded musculature of his back. His shirt moved with her, gliding over his skin, until she could almost feel his sleek, unpadded flesh beneath her fingertips.
He was hard. Not an ounce of fat clung to his lean frame. He was warm—tantalizingly hot, actually. His body felt so good and perfect molded atop hers that it made Amanda's breath catch.
Jake's attention snagged on the choppy little sound. His gaze shifted, spearing into hers. His eyes were hot with the build-up of three hellish days and nights of denied passion. His body remembered vividly every second of denial, and now it was humming for that time to be over.
His attention settled on her lips. Her mouth looked moist and swollen, well-kissed. Her lips parted. Her lower lip trembled, inviting him closer, teasing him to take another taste.
His restraint snapped.
With a groan, Jake's mouth crashed down on hers. Instead of protesting, as he'd half expected her to do, Amanda flowered open beneath him. Her fingers curled inward, tunneling through his shirt, digging into the warm skin beneath. She clung to him, arched beneath him, and pressed her body hungrily against his.
There was nothing gentle about this kiss. It was savage and thorough, hard and demanding. Devouring. Give and take manifested into a white-hot need for immediate satisfaction. Their tongues warred and tasted, plundered and claimed. No one led, no one followed. Desire kindled, fanning the flame burning inside them both. Mutual need flared to demanding life.
Jake wanted to go slowly with her this first time. But then Amanda snuck her sweet, distracting little tongue into his mouth, and urged his to join in a primitive mating dance. A surge of heat blasted up his spine when she sucked his tongue into her mouth.