Susan Phillips - Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

She lay still as he separated the dark, silken threads with his fingers. His wild rose of the deep wood. Petals within petals. Protectively folded around the heart of her. His stomach knotted at the sight. He knew from the afternoon at the pond how small she was, how tight. He was flooded with a damning sense of tenderness.

From the corner of his eye he saw one delicate hand curl into a fist on the counterpane. He waited for her to swing at him, to fight him for what he was doing. Wished for it to happen. But she didn't move, and her very defenselessness undid him.

With a groan, he lay down and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling. Guilt as powerful as his desire ate at him. He'd never treated a woman so callously. This was part of the madness that had claimed him. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

He held her against his bare chest and stroked the damp locks of her hair. As he soothed her, his own desire raged, but he didn't give in to it, not until her trembling finally stopped.

Cain's arm felt solid and ironically comforting around her. She heard his breathing slow, but she knew he wasn't asleep, no more than she was. Moonlight silvered the quiet room, and she felt a strange sense of calm. Something about the quiet, something about the hell they'd been through and the hell that no doubt lay ahead, made questions possible.

"Why do you hate me so much? Even before the cotton mill. From the day I came back to Risen Glory."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he answered her. "I never hated you."

"I was destined to hate whoever inherited Risen Glory," she said.

"It always comes back to Risen Glory, doesn't it? Do you love this plantation so much?"

"More than anything. Risen Glory is all I've ever had. Without it, I'm not anything."

He brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. "You're a beautiful woman, and you have courage."

"How can you say that after what I did?"

"I guess we all do what we have to."

"Like forcing this marriage on me?"

"Like that." He was still for a moment. "I'm not sorry, Kit. No more than you are."

Her tension returned. "Why didn't you go ahead and do what you were going to? I wouldn't have stopped you."

"Because I want you willing. Willing and as hungry for me as I am for you."

She was too conscious of their nudity, and she turned away from him. "That won't ever happen."

She expected him to get angry. Instead, he propped himself up on the pillows and gazed down at her without attempting to touch her. "You have a passionate nature. I've tasted it in your kisses. Don't be afraid of it."

"I don't want a passionate nature. It's wrong for a woman."

"Who told you that?"

"Everybody knows it. When Mrs. Templeton talked to us about Eve's Shame, said that-"

"Eve's what?"

"Eve's Shame. You know."

"Good God." He sat up in bed. "Kit, do you know exactly what happens between a man and a woman?"

"I've seen horses."

"Horses aren't humans." He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. "Look at me. Even though you hate me, we're married now, and there's no way I'm keeping my hands off you. But I want you to know what's happening between us. I don't want to scare you again."

Patiently, in language that was simple and direct, he told her about her own body and about his. And then he told her what happened when they were joined.

When he was done, he got out of bed and walked naked over to the table where he picked up his brandy glass. Then he turned and stood quietly, letting her satisfy the curiosity she wouldn't confess to.

Kit's eyes drank in his body, so clearly illuminated in the moon-drenched room. She saw beauty of a kind she'd never before witnessed, a beauty that was lean and muscular, that spoke of strength and hardness and things she didn't entirely understand. Her eyes went to the center of him He quickened under her gaze, and her apprehension returned.

He must have sensed her reaction, because he set down his glass and returned to her. This time his eyes held a challenge, and even though she was afraid, she'd never refused a challenge, not when it came from him.

The corner of his mouth twisted in what might have been a smile. Then he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. His touch was feather-light and soft, his mouth closed. There was no hard, probing tongue to remind her of the other, less friendly invasion that would soon take place.

Some of her tension dissolved. His lips found a path to her ear. He kissed the valley below it and then took the lobe with its tiny, silver stud gently between his teeth and teased it with his lips.

Her eyes drifted shut at the sensations he was arousing in her, then snapped open again when he clasped her wrists and stretched them above her head.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered, trailing his fingers down the soft underside of her arms. "It'll be good. I promise you." He paused at the crook of her elbow, brushing his thumb back and forth across the sensitive inner surface.

Everything that had passed between them should have made her wary, but as he traced delicate circles in the quivering hollows under her arms, she found the past evaporating and the exquisite sensations of the present taking her prisoner.

He slid the sheet to her waist and gazed at what was revealed. "Your breasts are beautiful," he muttered huskily.

A more gently reared woman would have lowered her arms, but Kit hadn't been gently reared, and modesty didn't occur to her. She saw his head dip, watched his lips part, felt his warm breath on her tender flesh.

She gave a moan as he circled the small nipple with his tongue. He transformed its softness into a tight, pulsing peak. She arched her body, and he opened his lips to encompass what she offered. Tenderly he suckled her.

She found herself lifting her arms to cradle the back of his head in her palms and pull him closer. As his mouth tortured one nipple, he attended to the other with the tough, callused pad of his index finger, teasing the tip and then catching it with his thumb and squeezing it ever so gently.

Not knowing men, she couldn't understand what a tight rein he was keeping on his own passion as he pleasured her. All she knew was that the pull of his mouth on her breast was firing nerve endings deep inside her.

He pushed the sheet away and lay next to her. Once again his mouth found hers, but this time he didn't have to coax it open. Her lips were already parted for his pleasure. Still he took his time, letting her become accustomed to the feel of him.

As he played at her lips, Kit's own hands grew restless. One of her thumbs settled over his hard, flat nipple.

With a groan he plowed his hands into her damp, tangled hair and drew her head up off the pillow. He plunged his tongue into her mouth and took possession of the slippery-hot interior.

The wildness that had always been part of her nature met his passion. She arched beneath him, splaying her fingers over his chest.

The last vestige of his self-control snapped. His hands were no longer content with her breasts. They moved down her body to her belly and then into the dark, silky triangle.

"Open for me, sweet," he whispered huskily into her mouth. "Let me in."

She did open. It would have been unthinkable not to. But the access she offered was still not enough for him. He stroked the inner surface of her thighs until she thought she would go mad. Finally her legs were splayed wide enough to satisfy his desire.

"Please," she gasped.

He touched her then, his wild rose, the center of her. He gently opened her so it wouldn't be so difficult, taking his time even though he was nearly crazed from needing her as he'd never before needed a woman.

He moved on top of her, kissing her breasts, kissing her sweet young mouth. And then, unable to hold back any longer, he poised himself at the very center of her and slowly entered.

She stiffened. He soothed her with his kisses and then, with one smooth thrust, he broke through her maiden's veil and put innocence behind her.

She plummeted back to reality at the small, sharp pain. Until now, there had been only pleasure. This felt like a betrayal. His caresses had lied to her. They'd promised something magical, but in the end it had been a devil's promise.

His hand cupped her chin and turned her face. She glared up at him, too conscious of what was buried deep and massive inside her.

"It's all right, sweet," he murmured. "The hurt is over."

This time she didn't believe him. "Maybe for you. Get off!"

He smiled a smile that was deep and smoky. His hands returned to her breasts, and she felt the melting begin again.

He began to move inside her, and she no longer wanted him to leave. She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders and buried her mouth in his neck so she could taste him with her tongue. His skin was sea salt and clean, and the stroking inside her was moving deeper, piercing womb and heart, melting her bones, her flesh, and even her soul.

She arched and strained and let him ride her through day and night, through space itself, clinging to him, to the sweet male of him, the hard shaft of him, driving deeper and deeper into her, carrying her higher, flinging her into the blinding brightness of the sun and moon where she hung for eternity and then shattered into a million slivers of light and darkness, answering his great cry with her own.

Katharine Louise

was alone in the great rumpled bed when the noise in the hallway awakened her. She blinked against the sunlight, then bolted upright as she realized where she was. The sudden movement made her wince.

Sophronia rushed in without bothering to knock. "Kit! Honey, are you all right? Magnus wouldn't let me leave, or I'd have been here earlier."

Kit couldn't meet Sophronia's eyes. "I'm fine." She pushed back the covers. Her robe lay across the bottom of the bed. Cain must have put it there.

As she slipped into it, Sophronia stiffened. Kit saw her staring at the pale stain on the sheet. "You stayed with Magnus last night?" she said quickly, trying to divert her.

Sophronia pulled her gaze away from the bed and said unsteadily, "The major didn't give me much choice. Magnus slept on the porch."

"I see." Kit headed into her own room, just as if everything were normal. "A nice night for sleeping outdoors."

Sophronia followed her. Kit began to wash in the water Lucy had left for her. The silence hung heavy between them.

It was Sophronia who broke it. "Did he hurt you? You can tell me."

"I'm fine," Kit repeated, too quickly,

Sophronia sat down on the side of the bed that hadn't been slept in. "I never told you this. I didn't want to, but now…"

Kit turned away from the washstand. "What's wrong?"

"I-I know what it's like to be… to be hurt by a man." She twisted her hands in her lap.

"Oh, Sophronia…"

"I was fourteen the first time. He-he was a white man. I wanted to die afterward, I felt so dirty. And all that summer he'd find me, no matter how hard I tried to hide. 'Gal,' he'd call out. 'You. Come over here.' "

Kit's eyes filled with tears. She rushed to her friend's side and knelt beside her. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to."

She drew Sophronia's hand to her cheek. "Couldn't you have gone to my father and told him what was happening?"

Sophronia's nostrils flared, and she snatched her hand away. "He knew what was happening. White men always knew what was happening to the slave women they owned."

Kit was glad she hadn't eaten, because she would have vomited. She'd heard stories, but she'd always been able to convince herself that nothing like that could ever happen at Risen Glory.

"I'm not telling you this to make you cry." Sophronia took her thumb to one of Kit's tears.

Kit thought of the arguments about states' rights she'd made over the years to anyone who said the war had been fought over slavery. Now she understood why those arguments had been so important to her. They'd kept her from confronting a truth she hadn't been able to face. "It's so evil. So wicked."

Sophronia rose and moved away. "I'm doing my best to put it in the past. Right now, it's you I'm worried about."

Kit didn't want to talk about herself. She returned to the washstand, acting as if the world were just the same as it had been the day before. "You don't have to worry about me."

"I saw the expression on his face when he carried you into this house. It doesn't take much imagination to know you had a hard time of it. But listen to me, Kit. You can't keep all that ugliness stopped up inside you. You have to let it out before it changes you."