Colter took his time. But when he finished shaving, he began to think of the news he had brought for her. How was he going to tell her what he had learned so far about James?
Stripped of his uniform, he washed absently, still trying to marshal his emotions into order. Barefoot, he padded over to the bed, tossing aside his shirt and putting on his close-fitting breeches. He carefully brushed the bits of bark that had fallen from her hair and scooped them up with the pine needles that clung to the quilt.
For a moment, he relived terrifying minutes when he first saw her and held her close, fear exploding through him. Fisting his hand around these reminders, he walked back and let them fall into the basin, watching as they floated. Harmless debris, that is all they were, all he must let them be.
And to ensure that, he removed Elizabeth’s hairbrush from her dresser, taking it with him into the parlor.
Elizabeth sat on the carpet before the fire, gilded in its light. Colter paused, studying her profile, his mind making a new memory to replace his earlier one of her. There was something serene in the delicate bones of her features as she contemplated the flames, and he had no wish to make his presence known.
But she turned then, a shy smile tilting her lips. “Come, sit beside me,” she offered, gesturing to one side. “I have your food here.” But she averted her gaze from the sight of his bare chest. “I know you must be hungry.”
Elizabeth felt her ears burn as she heard what she said. The room had seemed restful before he entered it; now it was charged with a current of awareness that made her tense.
Seeking to put her at ease, Colter joined her on the floor, using the settee as a backrest and stretching out his long legs before him. He watched her come to her knees with a graceful move, placing the plate on his lap before she sat on his left, partially turned to the fire.
“What did you eat, Elizabeth?”
She turned quickly, almost losing her balance. “I didn’t eat.”
“I thought as much. Well, you can’t expect me to finish this alone. You’ll have to help me.” Colter offered her a charming smile, meant to entice not to alarm. “Come, lean back here, and we’ll share.”
Elizabeth gazed up at him, finding within the gold flecks of his dark green eyes a reflection of the flames. She gained no insight to his thoughts or his intent. His smile was fixed, and she couldn’t help but respond to it, just as she responded to the promise in his voice to share food. Her conscience had reemerged and she was unsure of what she would do if he asked more of her. Settling at his side, she noticed the hairbrush.
“Why did you bring that out with you?”
“Because there wasn’t time before to untangle your hair.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I doubt it, love, but you will allow me my pleasure, too.”
She accepted a bit of ham from his hand, then shared a slice of winter pear.
“If you want to talk to me, Elizabeth, I’m here for you.” Now, his mind supplied with a bitter lash of guilt.
“Do you make that same offer to your soldiers under fire? To listen, I mean. I don’t know,” she continued in a rush, “if I want to talk about it, Colter. I feel guilty, at fault, and wonder how I’ll cope now that I’m sure Alma has found us.”
“One thing you won’t do, love, is cope with this alone.” An idea began to form, but he wasn’t ready to discuss it with her. Nor was she ready to hear it. But he could lay the groundwork. “You’re isolated here and I worry about all of you. Dobie is good, but I can’t assign another man—”
“How did you manage to have him here?”
“That, Elizabeth,” he chided with a light tap on her nose, “I cannot tell you. I am not denying the Confederate forces of his valuable services.” He glanced away, chewing slowly, knowing that truth lay beneath his lie. Dobie was valuable, and the Confederacy would only waste his talents while he served out his sentence for repeated insubordination, but having Elizabeth know this wouldn’t serve to reassure her. He took her silence on the matter as acceptance.
“To continue what I was saying, I worry. If you had close neighbors, or lived in the city, the attempt to take Nicole may not have been made. It is something to think about.” He felt her shiver and, while he regretted having caused it, knew playing on her fear would eventually help him ensure her and Nicole’s safety.
He tried tempting her to eat more, but she refused and Colter set the plate aside. He thought again of his news. While it was inconclusive, it still offered him hope that he would have an answer soon about James’s fate. If Elizabeth felt out of control, what he had to tell her might give her back a small measure of security.
“Love, you remember I promised to find out what I could about James?”
“Don’t, Colter. Not now.” Elizabeth shuddered. Just his mention of James’s name when she was warring with her conscience jarred her.
Colter sighed, letting the matter drop. Perhaps the timing was wrong. And it wasn’t as if he could say with certainty that James was dead or alive. He brushed a fleeting kiss over her hair and slammed the door on his own conscience.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and leaned back against his shoulder, letting his warmth seep into her own chilled body. But the sights that waited for her behind closed lids were those of looming shadows and massive trees that shut her away from Nicole. Rigid, she jerked forward, panting as she stared unseeing at the fire, willing the flames to burn terror to ash.
With a gentle touch, Colter urged her back against his chest. Her soft wool wrapper brushed against his flesh. He murmured meaningless sounds and as the minutes passed, felt her body soften as her breathing grew even. He rubbed his chin against her hair, feeling the prick of the pine needles and wanting them gone. Using one hand, he eased into the tangle and with long soothing strokes, kneaded the tension from her neck and scalp. Rewarded with her small sounds of pleasure, he continued.
Elizabeth shifted closer to him and her hand brushed the blunt ridge of flesh rising from his breeches. She knew Colter wanted her and couldn’t prevent his desire from showing. But once again, her heart opened to his love, touched by his not pushing her to make a decision when she was still unsure. Her eyes drifted closed and the nightmare was held at bay as she was lulled by his soothing, gentle massage.
Colter watched the delicate shadows created by the twin light-tipped lashes on her cheeks. He kissed her hair, so lightly that she didn’t stir, and then he picked up the brush.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, an intoxicating languor pervading her body.
“I won’t, little fox. I just want to give you more pleasure.” He brushed her hair slowly, stopping to work through knotted tangles, whispering velvet apologies when he inadvertently hurt her. He was uncaring of time, for being near her offered his mind and body the peace they craved. And as her pleasurable murmurs grew and her hair became more softly curled and silky to his touch, he was given a sensual caress against his skin in payment.
Setting aside the brush, he used his hands, his eyelids heavy as he watched the curled strands cling to his fingers like a lover’s teasing strokes. Her lavish appreciative murmurs of his name, whispered over and over as her body relaxed and grew heavy against his, added an exquisite coil of tension that fevered his blood.
The flame heated the spice color of her hair so she appeared seductive, but the curled length fell against her creamy colored, almost virginally cut wrapper, making him think of her innocence.
Elizabeth twisted in his arms, turning to face him. For a moment she stared up at the dark, masculine features that loomed above her. His lips were full, slightly parted, adding to the sensual flare of his nostrils. With her eyes holding his, she reached up to thread her fingers through his hair, longing to return each lavish sensation that embraced her. His eyes were already kindled with an insistent passion that bathed her senses with rapture. Colter’s lips brushed against hers with a delicacy both tender and enticing, and a ripple of desire misted through her. With a sweet gossamer touch, she returned his kiss, feeling her unwanted conscience raise its warnings.
She refused to consider her actions, refused to think of the future. The terror of the day, the desperation of believing their daughter lost, the twists of the past, all proved how uncertain their lives were. No matter how she longed to bury the knowledge, Colter was a soldier at war. He was the only man she had ever loved, would ever love. Acknowledging that simple, unadulterated fact forced her conscience into hiding.
And she flowered under the tender stroke of his hand, which chased knots of tension from her back and replaced them with slender, heated satin threads of passion that spun her into a web of ecstasy.
Colter’s eyes were dark with an uncompromising hunger, but he was solicitous of her bruises as he eased himself down to lie full length against the carpet and urged her to rest on him. The pads of his fingers graced her hips briefly before he raised his hands to hold her head and bring her mouth to his.
“I want to take and take from you, love, all your sweetness, all your passion, all that is mine,” he declared in a hard, masculine voice. “But if you will once more deny me and yourself, say it now.”
With her hands splayed out against his chest, Elizabeth tossed back her head to remove the curtain of her hair so she could see him.
“I cannot deny you, Colter. To deny my love is to deny life and hope, and I will not do that again.” Her body trembled, but her voice was firm with conviction. With her mouth in offering, she leaned down to kiss him.
He took the kiss, using his lips and tongue to evoke memories of the night she had surrendered all that she was to him. He was reminded anew of how soft her mouth was, how sweet she tasted to his tongue, how her own desire grew hungry and her lips parted to get more of him until her body melted against his like warm honey. There was a lush taking and giving to their kisses, as if time had stopped to allow passion to spread through them. And Colter praised his generous lover as his kisses relearned each delicate feature, each velvet shadow that heated to the play of his mouth.
Elizabeth dragged her lips down the corded length of his neck, unwilling to lift her mouth from his skin. Her tongue dipped into the hollow of his collarbone, placing teasing swirls that ended with her own moan of pleasure as Colter returned the caress. She was barely conscious of the slide of cloth over her shoulders, for Colter’s mouth followed, the heat and pliant touch of his tongue soothing and enticing her flesh.
She rubbed her palms over the hard nubs of his nipples, feeling an answering ache in her own, wanting his hands to assuage the swollen peaks.
Her restless move alerted Colter. “What’s wrong, love?” he queried in a passion-taut voice, deftly untying her wrapper and lifting her away so that it fell open. She rose above him, cheeks flushed, lips glistening with moisture, intriguing shadows from the lush fullness of her breasts teasing him through the thin lawn night rail.
He wanted it gone. He wanted nothing but his lips, his skin, to touch her. “Tell me what you want, little fox. Don’t be shy with me. I’ll give you all I can.” He turned his cheek and brushed it against the taut peak of her breast. Her breath shuddered out and her body tremored against him.
“I want you, Colter. I want you now.”
“I know,” he whispered in return, seeing her desire in the dark, dreamy eyes that locked with his, feeling how ready she was by the taste of her mouth, by the sliding caress of her body as he lifted and fitted her over his.
His hands curved over her hips and she arched instinctively into his hands. He pressed her into the cradle of his thighs, proving that he wanted her just as strongly.
Elizabeth lowered her head until her cheek rested on his chest. She rubbed back and forth, loving the feel of his skin, the soft abrading hair that curled on his chest and entangled itself in her own long curls. She murmured her pleasure to him, loving the strength of his broad shoulders and the heat of his skin, and she smiled against his chest to hear the ragged edge of his breathing as his body tightened beneath hers.
She swept her hair aside and trailed her hand down to his narrow hip, pleased she could make him tremble from the light touch she feathered down his thigh.
“When I first saw you, Colter, I was afraid of your power. But you were always so gentle with me.”
“Is that what you crave from me, Elizabeth? Do you need me to be gentle?” he asked, but doubted he could give her gentleness when need clawed his body.
She kissed him just as her fingertips brushed his erect flesh, eliciting a groan of dark need that came from deep, deep inside him.
Lifting her lips a bare fraction from his, she whispered, “No, I don’t want you to be gentle. I want the power of your love and I need the wildness that you once showed me.”
He reacted with a violent shudder as the words exploded through him, almost snapping his control, the last sane corner of his mind reminding him that she was bruised.
But she pressed against the throbbing flesh as if she knew he fought a battle with himself and intended, by scattering sweetly heated strokes of her tongue across his chest, to overcome his will.
“Colter,” she groaned softly, “I need you to love me.” With delicate restraint, she raked her teeth over his nipple, soothing it with her tongue. “I need to love you,” she whispered, her look and voice offering both promise and challenge.
As he eased her arms from the wrapper, the lift and twists of her body as he sought to pull it free fanned a fire, already smouldering, to consume him. He tossed the unwanted cloth aside, stroking the bared length of her thigh until she called his name with impatient sighs. The edge of the night rail was caught between the press of their bodies, hindering him from baring her flesh to lips that hungered to taste her. He caught the length of her hair with one hand, angling her head to the side, his mouth taking hers with a possessive kiss that was primitive in its demand. His arm cushioned her back as he lowered her to the carpet, sweeping the thin lawn cloth up over her hips until the folds rested beneath the lush curves of her breasts.
His tongue laid claim to the secrets of her mouth and now he sought sweeter flesh to worship. Yet, for all his compelling need, he was careful to take time to remove the night rail without hurting her. To his eyes, her body, bathed in the fire’s glow, was exquisite perfection.
“A glorious angel who offers me heaven,” he murmured, lowering his head to graze his mouth over one nipple.
“A fallen angel, if any, my love,” she returned before closing her eyes and letting bliss bathe her senses. When his mouth closed over her breast, suckling on the swollen peak, she cried out softly to feel the tightening in her womb. She pulled his head closer and opened herself to the full force of his passion.
Elizabeth unleashed the wildness that he had held back with every restless move of her body, twisting with slow caresses of her legs against his, and increased his ardor with the tremulous cries from her lips.
Colter pulled back, his breathing ragged, using almost jerky moves to strip his breeches off. His hand shook as he caressed the graceful curve of her calf up to her raised knee. His lips were moist as he kissed her thigh, drinking the tremor from her skin and feeling it deep inside himself. The crease of her leg held a velvet shadow that lured his mouth, and his cheek brushed the soft nest of curls that hid sweeter, hotter shadows.
Elizabeth felt the build of silken tremors that coursed over her body without end. She touched his back, wanting to pull him over her, needing to know again the swift rise to glory that loving Colter would bring, but even her fevered plea would not deter him from the lavish exploration his mouth tendered to her heated flesh.
His tongue dipped with the delicacy of a butterfly’s wing to her navel. She moaned his name. His mouth learned the curve of her stomach and she felt her insides draw tight. In a lover’s coaxing voice, she asked for and received the first touch of his fingers on the soft feminine core that she willingly yielded. She heard with satisfaction the changed tempo of his breathing, and her own rendered shallow drafts of air that brought their mingled aroused scent to her. But when he stroked more deeply inside her, her breath was suspended; she struggled to draw air as knots inside her seemed to coil and coil, tight, and then tighter still.
Colter spoke to her with words that roused and sparked conflagration, with kisses and touches that drove her to exquisite peaks over and over until she lay spent and trembling, cradled in his arms.
Using savage control over his body, Colter brushed aside the damp tendrils of her hair, his lips sealing hers with tenderness that deepened with the potency of his need.
Her flesh gleamed with a passion mist that fed his senses as he positioned himself over her. “Look at me, love,” he urged softly, “watch me make you mine, again.”
Her eyes opened even as she shifted her legs to welcome him. “Now,” she whispered, drawing his mouth to hers. Elizabeth felt him hold back. His muscles etched rigid in the firelight and the sharp features of his face were bronzed and shadowed. Tension caused his body to tremble. “Come to me, love. Make me whole again. Make me yours.”
And in welcome she lifted her hips, taking his mouth in a kiss that reveled in the wanton rapture she felt as their bodies merged into one.
But even as the power of his need called to him, Colter stilled, giving her time to adjust to the hard intrusion of his body. Tiny ripples of her pleasure coursed around his throbbing flesh as she melted against him. His control shredded as she used her body to signal how ready she was for him.
Emotions rioted with passion and Elizabeth let herself be swept away by both. Colter set a powerful rhythm for their lovemaking and she responded with every fiber of her being. Suddenly there were no thoughts as her own hunger reached out for fulfillment.
Colter yielded to her feminine entreaty, slipping his hands beneath her hips and fusing her body to his. He had claimed he wanted to take all that she was, all that she could give, and he reenforced that claim with the hard, driving thrusts of his body that took all she offered to him and dared to demand more.
Her body tightened. Elizabeth knew Colter experienced the same savage need. His mouth joined with hers and the pleasure that coursed through her became almost unbearable. Cries erupted from her throat and he answered.
She wanted…and wanted…and Colter was there, bringing to her an explosive ecstasy that ripped through her a moment before he joined her with racking shudders as he poured himself into her.
Elizabeth drifted in a sweetly sated world. Colter’s half-coherent whispers, lavishing praise, inciting hunger, grew more tender with each kiss he bestowed. She nestled at his side, smiling to feel the possessive move of his leg over hers to anchor her to his body.
Colter braced himself up on one arm, looking down at his lover. Her eyes were closed, and he paid homage to them with gentle kisses. Her hair was spread on the carpet, its spiced warm colors gleaming under the dying light of the fire. His smile was frankly sensual. There was a hint of the erotic in her finely etched profile that drew his gaze. The lush fullness of her lips beckoned and tempted him to taste.
And her whispered “Yes” made him obey.
Elizabeth offered her mouth, and his taking of her lower lip into the heat of his, suckling so tenderly while his tongue stroked with seductive skill, sparked fire inside. She ran her fingers through his hair and trembled to feel his sweat-sheened skin cover hers with a sliding caress of their naked bodies. Desire was not sated, she realized. Passion’s turmoil churned between them once again.
As Colter reluctantly eased his mouth from hers and lifted his head, he was captivated anew by the satin texture of her skin and the seductive glow in her eyes when she opened them to gaze at him. He stroked her slender waist, watching her respond with a natural candor he had never known from another woman. He wanted to drown in her. The full, lush swell of her breast fitted perfectly to his hand, and he gently tugged the sensitive tip until her skin flushed and she shook with the same need that tremored his body.
Colter gathered her body against his. “Love, I want you again.”
“Yes,” she whispered, needing him as badly.
He rose and carried her into her bedroom where he set her down on the bed. “You know there’s no going back for either of us, Elizabeth,” he warned, covering her body with his.
Desire blazed in his eyes, and she gazed at them while her hands framed his face. “I don’t want to go back, Colter. There’s no life, no love waiting for me there.” She kissed him with all the pent-up emotions that were inside her. “Only with you,” she murmured against his lips, “can both love and life be mine.”
“Show me,” he urged with a lover’s silken coaxing, melding his flesh with hers. “Show me.”