A conspiratorial smile was passed from husband to wife as Gloria rushed out to retrieve a bottle of antiseptic and cotton. Lauren shyly walked toward Jared’s back and settled her hands on his shoulders. She eased the shirt off his back as he unbuttoned it and painfully pulled it away from the skin on his chest. The drying, congealed blood made the fabric stick, and the wounds reopened and bled profusely.
Gloria virtually threw the medicine at Jared when she returned. Pulling a gawking Rudy out of the room, she said, “Take your time. Maria and I will get dinner. Jared, you should lie down and rest. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
The door was drawn shut and the two were left alone.
Lauren dropped the blood-soaked shirt on top of her own soiled blouse. Silently, together, they watched fabric settle against fabric.
Stirred into action, Lauren crossed to the wardrobe, intending to get another blouse and don it quickly when she turned her head slightly over her shoulder and asked, “Does it hurt too much?” She drew her breath in sharply when she saw the oozing puncture marks on Jared’s chest and the rivulets of blood that ran through the thick mat of hair. “Oh, Jared,” she cried, rushing toward him, suddenly not caring that she was clothed from the waist up in only her sheer, lace-edged chemise. She had taken Elena’s advice and stopped wearing a corset every day.
“Here, sit down,” she directed, taking his hand and leading him to the small vanity stool Gloria had provided for her. “Let me wash you off so we can see how bad it is.”
“It’s really nothing,” he said again, and she wondered at the low, uneven sound of his voice. Was he in that much pain?
She poured fresh water into her washing bowl and dipped a clean towel into it. Her hand paused over his naked chest. She drew a long, shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Then she touched him, dabbing at the hair-matted skin with the absorbent towel. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she murmured.
Jared gritted his teeth, not in pain from his chest wounds, but in agony from having her this close to him. The skin of her creamy white throat was scented with lavender and the fragrance intoxicated him, making him dizzy. Or was that light-headedness caused by loss of blood? It didn’t matter, the result was the same. He could feel her breath, like a cooling balm, fanning his face as she exhaled.
Of their own volition, his eyes lowered to her breasts. His jaw clenched reflexively when he saw them swaying slightly under the soft fabric. It took every ounce of willpower he could garner not to reach out and touch them, peel away the diaphanous cloth and learn the true color of her nipples, which were only vague shadows, elusive and bewitching.
His physical desire was becoming painfully manifested in the tight pants. He diverted his eyes to her hands, which dipped the towel into the washbasin and wrung out the excess water, staining the bowl with his blood. Think about the blood, he commanded himself. Think about the pain you felt when the wire slapped into you. Think about anything but—
“There, I think that will do for now,” she was saying. Her voice was soft and low, caressing his ears. “Those punctures are deep. Didn’t you have on that cowhide vest you usually wear?”
“No,” he answered, glad they were talking. Anything helped. “I took it off because it got too hot. If I had left it on, I probably wouldn’t have been cut.”
“This is going to hurt, too,” she apologized softly as she soaked a piece of cotton with the foul-smelling medicine out of the corked blue bottle.
“I’m tough,” he said, and looked up at her with a mischievous smile.
Both were momentarily mesmerized by the other’s nearness. Their eyes locked in a silent communication and the message transmitted struck each of them in the heart and was startling in its impact. Lauren tore her eyes away first.
“I’ll try not to hurt you anymore,” she said as she delicately touched one of the wounds. He sharply sucked in air between his teeth, making a whistling sound. Beads of perspiration popped out of his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she quickly dabbed the other punctures. Then, to his agonized delight, she began to blow on the stinging wounds. From the angle at which he looked down at her as she leaned over him, her eyes appeared to be closed. Violet shadows tinted her lids, and her black lashes contrasted with the delicate cheek on which they seemed to rest. He looked along the slender length of her nose to her mouth. The lips were moist, pink, slightly parted, and bow-shaped as her breath passed through them and teased his fevered skin. It stirred the hair on his chest and cooled the burning sensation from the punctures, but ignited a fire in another part of his body.
“Oh, God,” he groaned deep in his throat. He stood up abruptly, upsetting the cushioned stool, and clasped her in his arms. He pulled her toward him with such force that the breath whooshed out of her body from the impact. The mouth that took hers was avaricious, parting her surprised lips with a thrusting tongue. Yet when the treasure had been discovered, that plundering invader became gentle and savored what it had found.
His hands slid along the bare skin of her arms, as smooth and cool as satin, and lifted them around his own neck. For a moment, they lay there, unpracticed and still. Jared’s breath was expelled in a relieved sigh when he felt her hands lock behind his neck and her fingers plow through his thick, unruly hair. He brought her closer by applying pressure with the hand on the small of her back. His legs straddled hers, molding them into an ageless position as she curved up against him.
Lauren became aware of a foreign hardness spearing into her belly and was both alarmed and intrigued. Responsively she moved against the intruder and felt a melting warmth in the pit of her stomach that rendered the rest of her weak.
Jared’s hand moved between their bodies and fear and desire combated in her brain when she realized the direction it was taking. She was wanting something she couldn’t name. Did it have anything to do with his hand that hovered near her breast?
He wouldn’t touch her there. Would he? No. She didn’t want him to. Did she? Yes. Yes, please, she cried silently, not examining where such a wicked thought had originated, but dimly aware that it had something to do with the hard strength of his body pressed against the harmonizing softness of hers.
Jared’s mind was reeling. No one felt like this. No mouth had ever tasted this good, he thought as he savored her lips. His hand slid over the soft mound of her breast and pressed gently. It was as firm and full in his palm as he remembered from their brief contact the day he had surprised her in her room. Under the steady, coaxing movements of his fingers, her nipple responded, becoming a firm bud of passion, eager to bloom.
In unguarded and introspective moments, Jared had hoped that somewhere there would be a woman like this. Uniquely his. Different from all others. Hadn’t Ben told him—
Ben!
The name screamed through his mind, ricocheting off the walls of his brain with a cacophonous echo. Ben! Had his father held her this way? Had she responded in kind, murmuring that low purr deep in her throat?
He pushed her away from him with such force that she fell across the bed, looking up at him with rapidly blinking and uncomprehending eyes. Her hair tumbled across her shoulders and fell onto the creamy, rose-tipped breasts left partially bare from his caress.
He pointed an accusing finger at her. “I told you to stay away from me!” he shouted. His breathing was a harsh rasp. “You’re beautiful. I’ll give you that. And you’re softer and taste sweeter…” His voice dwindled to an anguished whisper. “God!” He slammed his fist into his palm. The pounding demand in his loins was unbearable. With her sprawled across the bed, looking up at him with such absolute innocence, his organ answered with an excruciating throbbing.
He ought to take her now, conquer her once and for all. He longed to flip up her skirts and see if her thighs were as smooth as he had imagined them to be. Then he would ram himself between them, thrusting until he found release from the desire that had stalked and haunted him for so long.