«I know.» He took a deep breath and tried to tell Willow about his dead sister and the man who had seduced her, but Caleb could no more force himself to speak and destroy the light in Willow’s eyes than he had been able to prevent himself from taking the gift of her untouched body. «After we find your brother, you’ll understand.»
The questions Willow would have asked were scattered by Caleb’s kiss. She didn’t understand the yearning in him, or the darkness. She didn’t understand the unhappiness she sensed in him when she spoke of love, yet she knew all of those things existed as surely as did the stirring of his body within hers once more.
What Willow did understand was that she wanted to bring Caleb ease and laughter, to be the sunrise banishing darkness from his life.
Reluctantly, Caleb ended the kiss. «If you don’t get off my lap,» he said, biting Willow’s lips just a bit fiercely, «my good intentions will go to Hell in a handcart.»
«What good intentions?»
«I’m trying not to seduce you again.»
«Ever?» Willow asked, unable to conceal her dismay.
Caleb closed his eyes and silently conceded that it would be better if he never pressed into Willow’s soft body again, sinking into her, losing himself in the baffling, overwhelming currents of passion that flowed between the two of them. But the thought of never taking her again was unbearable. He had never known anyone like Willow. She satisfied him as no other woman ever had, teaching him how hungry he had been before he had found her.
And he had just begun to plumb the depths of the passion in her.
«I’m trying not to seduce you right now,» Caleb said, his voice thick.
«Why?»
«It’s too soon for you. I don’t want to hurt you.»
Willow smiled slightly. «You aren’t hurting me.»
«I’m not moving in you, either. But I will be real quick if you don’t get up.»
Caleb put his hands around Willow’s waist and began lifting her from his lap. The feel of her gliding over his hardening flesh took his breath away. He heard her stifled gasp and his hands tightened, testing the sleek resilience of her waist. The gasp became a throaty sound of pleasure.
«Stop it,» Caleb said, bending until he could bite the smooth skin of Willow’s shoulder.
«Stop what?» she murmured as she threaded her fingers through his hair.
«Making me want to stay in this pool and take you until I’m so weak I drown.»
«Weak?» Slender hands kneaded Caleb’s shoulders and the thick muscles of his biceps. «You feel about as weak as a mountain.»
«Didn’t you know? Being with a woman weakens a man.»
Willow laughed and moved her hips, frankly measuring him. «Do tell. When?»
His breath came in hard.
«When does it weaken you?» she repeated as she moved her hips again.
Caleb’s slow smile made Willow shiver with anticipation.
«You’ll be the first to know,» he promised. Then he set his teeth and lifted her free of his aroused flesh, biting back a groan as he did so. «After you, the water feels cold.»
When Willow understood the meaning of his words, she took a quick, broken breath. «And I feel empty. Is it — is it natural to want you like that, to want to stay that way forever?»
Caleb’s tawny eyes changed as the heat of his body redoubled, set afire by the knowledge that Willow truly enjoyed having him inside her.
«How did you stay innocent so long?» he asked.
«I didn’t feel this way with other men. Only you,» Willow said simply. «Even my fiance. When Steven held my hand or kissed my cheek, it was nice, but it didn’t make my heart run away and my chest so tight I couldn’t breathe.»
«Your fiance?» Caleb said harshly. «Are you engaged?»
«He died three years ago.»
Visibly, Caleb relaxed. «The war?»
Willow nodded.
«Do you still love him?»
«No. I know now that I never loved him. Not really. Not the way I love —»
Caleb’s quick, fierce kiss shut off Willow’s words. «Out of the water, woman. My good intentions are shrinking by the second.»
«Shrinking? I would have said the opposite,» she muttered beneath her breath.
There was a crack of surprised laughter from Caleb, followed by a single word. «Out!»
He emphasized his command by putting his hand on Willow’s smooth bottom and giving her a boost. Just as his palm fell away, his touch changed to a caress that traced the shadowed curve between her hips.
Breathlessly, Willow scrambled out of the warm water and picked up the cotton blanket she had left on the rocks. She turned around just as Caleb emerged from the pool. Silver rivulets poured from his body, highlighting every texture of his masculinity. The blunt thrust of his arousal was startling.
«Too late to run now,» Caleb said dryly, watching Willow’s eyes widen as she measured him. «We fitted together like a hand in a velvet glove and you loved every bit of it.»
She swallowed, flushed scarlet, and said in a faint voice, «I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare at you.»
«You’re still staring.»
«Oh.» Guiltily, she closed her eyes.
Caleb took a step forward, bent, and kissed Willow’s cheek lightly. «Look all you like. I’m just teasing you. You’re so sweet to tease. Like licking honey.» He leaned over, scooped up his razor and his own blanket, and held out his free hand to her. «Come on. I promised to brush your hair dry.»
Her eyes opened. «And you always keep your promises, don’t you?»
«Always. Even the ones I don’t want to.» Caleb’s mouth flattened into a grim line. «Especially those.»
An eye for an eye.
«You don’t have to brush my hair if you don’t want to,» Willow said hesitantly. «I know it’s a lot of trouble getting all the tangles out.»
Caleb smiled and threaded his fingers more deeply between hers. «I love brushing your hair. It’s like brushing sunlight.» He saw her shiver and squeezed her hand. «Come on. It’s warmer in the meadow.»
Ishmael’s head came up the instant they stepped from the cover of the trees out onto the grass. The stallion watched for a few moments before he returned to eating.
«He’s wary for a horse that’s never run wild,» Caleb said.
«That wariness saved my life during the war. He’d smell the soldiers coming and set up a ruckus. Mama and I would run for the forest if she was well enough, or the cellar if she wasn’t.»
Caleb’s hand tightened. He brought Willow’s fingers to his mouth and stroked across them with his mustache.
«I don’t like thinking about you being in danger, being hurt, being scared, being hungry.» He hesitated, baffled by the fierce protectiveness he felt toward Willow. «It unsettles me.»
«Lots of women had a worse time of it than I did. I was lucky. The only soldier who ever found me looked the other way.»
«Maybe he had a sister.»
Something in Caleb’s voice reminded Willow that he, too, had a sister. «Maybe he did. Like you.»
«Rebecca is dead.»
Willow flinched at the barely repressed savagery she sensed beneath Caleb’s words. «I’m sorry.»
«She was seduced and then abandoned by a man. I went out looking for her lover to bring him back to marry her. She died of childbed fever. Her baby girl died a few hours later. I didn’t find out for a month.»
«Dear God,» Willow said. «I’m so sorry, Caleb.»
He looked down into her clear, compassionate eyes and wondered what she would say if he told her that the baby who had died was her niece.
«I swore to kill him,» Caleb said evenly. «When I find him, I will.»
Willow looked at the bleak expression in Caleb’s eyes and had no doubt that he would do just that. She remembered her first impression of Caleb. Dangerous. And her second. An implacable, dark angel of justice.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.
A chill moved over Willow’s skin, roughening it. There was an intensity and a power in Caleb that was almost frightening.
«You’re shivering,» Caleb said, frowning. He wrapped his blanket around Willow’s shoulders, led her across the meadow, and spread the cotton blanket she was carrying. «Lie down here. You’ll be warmer next to the grass where the breeze can’t get to you. I’ll get your brush and comb.»
Caleb left before Willow could tell him that she wasn’t cold, not in the way that he had meant. After a moment, she stretched out on her stomach on the blanket, trying not to think about the sister Caleb had lost and the man he had sworn to kill because of it.
Very soon, Willow realized Caleb had been right about getting warmer out of reach of the breeze. Before he had gone the hundred feet to camp, she pulled off the wool blanket and tossed it aside. The fine cotton and lace of her underwear dried quickly in the direct sun. Within minutes, heat infused her, making her feel languorous. She stretched luxuriantly, smiling at the sheer pleasure of being alive.
«You look like a kitten that’s just discovered cream,» Caleb said.
«That’s what I feel like,» Willow admitted.
She opened her eyes as Caleb knelt beside her. A single glance told her that he was still as naked as the sunlight, still powerful, still potent. When her eyes returned to his, the smile he gave her was both amused and rueful.
«You have a pronounced effect on me,» he said.
«I noticed.»
«Not frightened anymore?»
She shook her head.
«Embarrassed?»
«Well…» But she was unable to deny the blush that crept up her body.
Caleb laughed softly and brushed the back of his fingers over Willow’s flushed cheek. «You’ll get used to me, little one. Just like I’ve gotten used to being naked with you.»
She gave him a puzzled look.
«In some ways,» he admitted, «I’m as new to this kind of play as you are.»
Willow blinked. «You are?»
Caleb hesitated, wondering how to explain something he wasn’t sure he understood himself. He wanted Willow to know this was the first time he had found a woman whose sensuality increased and enhanced his own, each driving the other higher and then higher, teaching and learning with every touch, every cry, every kiss.
«None of the women I’ve known made me want to be buck naked with them in a sunny meadow,» Caleb said finally. «I doubt if any of them would have wanted to be naked with me. Not one of them could make me hard with a look, a word, a casual touch.» He made a baffled sound and added ruefully, «It’s damned unsettling, if you want the truth. You reach places inside me I didn’t know were there.»
«You do the same to me.»
Willow’s husky admission made Caleb want to ravish and cherish her at the same instant. The force of the conflicting urges held him motionless. Letting out his breath in a soundless curse, he picked up the wool blanket and began drying Willow’s hair, working quickly yet gently, touching her in the only way he would permit himself.
Soon Willow’s hair was lying in a rippling, shining fan over her shoulders. Long after the strands were dry, Caleb continued brushing, sifting through her hair, loving the feel of it caressing the sensitive skin between his fingers as he worked.
«You have the most beautiful hair,» Caleb said, finally setting aside the brush.
Willow sighed and stirred, sitting up with a fluid movement, her legs curled to one side. The wild electricity of her hair made it cling to her even as it divided over her breasts and fell to her hips. Caleb stroked a flyaway handful back from her face. She kissed the masculine fingers that were gently tangled in the golden strands.
«Thank you.» She smiled, remembering what he had once said. «In spite of your disdain at the idea, I think you would make a wonderful lady’s maid.»
Caleb’s smile flashed beneath his mustache. «Southern lady. My God, what a surprise you were,» he said huskily.
«Not southern,» Willow said. Then she looked down at the fine lace clinging to her body, clothing whose dampness emphasized rather than concealed her breasts, her waist, the shadowed secrets at the apex of her thighs. «And not a lady.»
«Hush,» Caleb said, putting his fingers across Willow’s mouth. «What happened wasn’t your doing. It was mine. But I can’t feel ashamed of what we did. It was too good for shame or regrets. Even if I could give you back your innocence, I wouldn’t. I’ve never been given a gift half so sweet. Don’t belittle yourself because of it.»
Willow’s smile was as beautiful and haunting as her eyes watching the man she loved, the man who had yet to talk of love to her. Yet Caleb was very gentle with her despite the harshness she knew he was capable of, a dark angel of justice, dangerous, deadly.
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