When Wolfe’s nails scored lightly inside Jessica’s thighs, the fiery net tightened around her in a rush that made her moan. His hand flattened as his fingers spread wide, then curled around the curve of her inner thigh. He caressed her slowly with his palm, easing between her legs. This time she didn’t resist the inevitable parting of her thighs beneath his touch.

«Jessi,» Wolfe breathed, shaken by her unspoken trust.

His palm skimmed over the dark curls he longed to comb with his fingertips, seeking the scented softness he knew ached for his caresses. Gently he pressed his hand between her legs. His fingers cupped around her softest flesh as his palm rubbed languidly over the mahogany curls that no longer concealed Jessica’s sultry core.

When she felt his touch, her breath came in with a sound like silk tearing. With great care he traced her layered softness, coaxing each petal into quivering life.

«Such a beautiful flower,» he said huskily. «Is there nectar within?»

Jessica didn’t know what Wolfe meant until she felt herself being softly parted. The gliding penetration of his finger should have shocked her, but shock had no chance against the bubble of sensation expanding through her, bursting softly, drenching her in pleasure.

«Wolfe.»

«I know,» he said hoarsely. «I can feel it, hotter than my dreams.»

His hand moved again, slowly, and her response spilled over, burning both of them with the softest kind of fire. She made a sound deep in her throat and lifted against his hand, needing to feel the sweet movement within her once more. He felt the frailty of her maidenhead, cursed, and began to withdraw from the satin sheath he wanted more than he wanted breath.

«Please,» Jessica whispered, trying to keep him within her body. «Touch me.»

«Not like that.»

«Does it…don’t you…do you…dislike it?»

Wolfe laughed deep in his throat and returned to probe lightly, hungry for the moist, clinging heat. The sound Jessica made told him that her eyes were open and what she was seeing both shocked and set fire to her.

«Yes, Jessi. Watch and think what it would be like to feel my kisses like a warm rain over every bit of you,» he shuddered and whispered, «and you a warm rain over me.»

Something both beautiful and faintly frightening swept through Jessica. She tried to quell the feeling, but might as well have tried to turn back the sun with a sigh.

«What is happening to me?» Jessica asked. «What are you — I can’t — Wolfe.»

Jessica moaned his name as her body convulsed softly around him, caressing him secretly, drawing him more deeply into her while passion’s sultry rain licked over his hand.

Need clenched savagely in Wolfe, making him groan as he withdrew from Jessica’s body. With leashed urgency he smoothed the heat of her response over her most sensitive skin. When he caressed the nub of passion he had called from her, she cried out with surprise and violent pleasure. His fingertips circled her aroused, sensitive flesh, tugging at her, holding her captive for the hungry testing of his thumb.

Jessica arched in elemental abandon as Wolfe taught her that pleasure could be so intense it was more vivid than pain, more elemental, a sensual lightning burning her to her soul.

Wolfe’s dark glance swept over Jessica, memorizing her body as it was transformed by the ecstasy he had given to her. He wanted to be within her again, to feel her release shivering around him, caressing him with sultry velvet wings. He knew he shouldn’t risk tearing the fragile veil of her chastity, yet he was unable to resist.

His hand shifted as he glided very carefully into her body once more. The slow penetration drew a shivering cry of completion from her.

«Your maidenhead is so frail.» Wolfe whispered. «It tells me I could take you in every way I’ve ever imagined and you would know only pleasure.»

Wolfe’s thumb moved slowly and Jessica moaned as sensuous lightning searched through her once more.

«I won’t take your virginity,» Wolfe said hoarsely as he bent down to her, «but I will know you in a way I’ve never known any woman.» He shuddered and caressed her intimately, dragging his mouth over her. «Give yourself to me, Jessi. Let me taste ecstasy.»

Pleasure seared through Jessica. With a rippling cry she gave herself to Wolfe, sharing ecstasy with him as his mouth moved over her with a hungry intensity, knowing her in a silence that burned, not stopping until she lay spent and shivering between his hands, her every breath his name whispered in wonder.

Then Wolfe held Jessica very hard and told himself how many kinds of fools he was. He had discovered the intense passion of an aristocratic girl who could never be his true mate. He wanted her more than ever, not less; yet he could not have her. He must not.

They were still all wrong for each other. Nothing had changed.

Bad to worse. That’s a change.

It was a long, long time before Wolfe slept.

14

«It doesn’t sound like spring out there,» Willow said, rubbing her lower back absently. «First it thaws, then it freezes, then it snows, then it thaws, and now it’s clear and wind is screaming down out of the north. Hear it?»

«It would be hard not to,» Jessica said.

The long wild howl of the wind was as savage as anything Jessica had ever heard as a child in Scotland. Yet even as her fingers closed automatically around the locket with Wolfe’s picture inside, she realized the wind no longer had the power to make her soul shiver in terror. She might never enjoy the anguished keening of a storm, but she wouldn’t whimper in fear any more. She finally knew the difference between reality, nightmare, and a child’s terrible memories.

I owe that to Wolfe.

Memories of the past night rippled through Jessica, leaving a breathless kind of fire in their wake. She had never dreamed that the ability to feel such pleasure existed in a woman’s body. No longer did she believe all children except the first were forced upon unwilling wives by rutting husbands. The risks of pregnancy and childbirth were real, but so was the ecstasy.

She knew. Wolfe had shown it to her. Then he had held her until the last ecstatic tear was spent and the last shivering had left her.

Wolfe has given me so much, and I have given him…nothing.

«What an uncertain spring,» Willow said, sighing as she looked out the window.

Jessica looked past Willow. Patches of grass showed through half-melted banks of snow. Bushes and trees blushed in shades of green. The creek in the ravine behind the barn was a silver rush of energy despite the wind-chilled air.

Neither the cold remaining in the ground nor the wild cry of the wind had troubled Jessica last night. She had known the burning that brings pleasure rather than pain, and then she’d fallen asleep locked in Wolfe’s arms, her face pressed against the hot skin of his chest. The elemental scent and taste of him had permeated her dreams, sinking past all fears into her soul.

Intimacy. Mercifulheaven.Jessicashivered with wildmemories.Inever even guessed the meaning of intimacy until last night.

«Jessi?»

She blinked and focused on Willow. «Yes?»

«Don’t brood about last night.»

For an instant, Jessica thought Willow had somehow guessed what had taken place in the hushed silence of the bedroom. A vivid blush colored Jessica’s face before she remembered what else had happened last night — Wolfe’s icy, public enumeration of her faults as a woman.

«Wolfe apologized to everyone this morning,» Willow continued, «so I assume heapolygized to you last night.»

«Handsomely,» Jessica said, knowing she was blushing.

Willow smiled despite the tension drawing her mouth into unaccustomed flatness. «That’s the joy of marriage. Apologies as passionate as the arguments.»

«Do you and Caleb argue?»

«Don’t sound so surprised. Surely you’ve guessed by now that my husband can be as stubborn as a frozen boot.» Willow smiled slightly. «Of course we argue.»

«You, of course, aren’t stubborn at all,» Jessica said wryly.

«Of course not,» Willow said with wide-eyed innocence. «I’m a fragile little flower of woman-hood. How could I ever be so foolish as to disagree with that oversized gunfighter I married?»

Jessica laughed. «Ah, if only Caleb could hear you.»

«Yes. If only.»

The intensity beneath Willow’s light words caught Jessica’s attention.

«Is something wrong?»

«The wind. The cold. The calving could begin any moment. Caleb said last night the mares were on the edge of foaling as well.»

«I know. Wolfe woke me before he left. He said something about the animals drifting in front of the storm. He was worried about the pregnant mares.»

«We haven’t had time to fence the horse pasture,» Willow said, frowning at the untamed land. «Ishmael, my stallion, has been keeping the mares safe. But he was raised in barns and paddocks. The country just south of here is wild and broken. If the mares are pushed there by a storm, we’ll have a devil of a time finding all of them. The wind is icy. If the mares begin foaling…»

Willow’s voice died. Saying nothing more, she stood in front of the window and watched the invisible violence of the wind.

Jessica went over and put her arm comfortingly around Willow. «The men will find your mares.»

«The mares, the cows, the yearling steers. We could lose everything to this damned wind. I wish I were out there working beside Caleb. We need every hand we can get. I feel so useless. I —»

Willow’s voice broke as she dragged harshly at air.

At first, Jessica thought tears had taken Willow’s voice; then Jessica felt the forerunners of childbirth’s primal contractions ripple through Willow.

«How long has it been going on?» Jessica asked urgently.

«The storm? Since last night.»

«To blazes with the storm! How long have you been having pains?»

«Off and on since midnight.»

Jessica’s eyes closed for an instant. When they opened, they were clear and very intent.

«Did you tell Caleb?»

«No.» Willow’s voice was tight, flat. «My mother told me that first babies are unpredictable. Labor can begin and fade and then begin again many times.» Willow took a deep breath. «We need to save our animals more than I need Caleb to hold my hand through false labors that could go on for days.»

Despite the brave words, Jessica could see the uneasiness in Willow’s wide hazel eyes. She would have liked the comfort of her husband’s presence.

«Is this the first time you’ve felt pains?»

«They’ve come and gone for almost two days,» Willow admitted. «But that last one was different.»

«May I?» asked Jessica, putting her hands on the mound of Willow’s womb.

Surprised, Willow simply nodded.

For a time, there was silence broken only by the wail of the wind. The more Jessica gently probed, the more fearful she became. The baby wasn’t moving. According to the books she had read, once the proper birth position had been achieved, even the healthiest of babies became quiet in the hours before labor.

So did babies that were no longer alive. Jessica had acquired that bitter knowledge watching her mother’s futile labors.

«Tell me when the next one comes,» Jessica said with a calmness that went no deeper than her smile. «In the meantime, you can finish hemming the receiving blankets you made.»

It was half an hour before another wave of contractions swept through Willow’s body. She looked up from the receiving blanket she had just folded.

«Jessi!» she called.

«Now?»

«Yes.»

Jessica dropped the pump handle and ran from the kitchen into the living room where Willow was sitting. When Jessica put her hands on the mound of Willow’s pregnancy, the muscles were quite hard. Frowning, Jessica probed carefully yet thoroughly. She had read enough about false labor to know that it rarely involved the woman’s body to this extent. Nor had the baby changed position.

After a long count of three, Willow’s muscles relaxed.

«The clenching — did it go all the way around your body?» Jessica asked, straightening.

«It began in back and then came forward,» Willow said, demonstrating with her hands.

«Can you stand?»

«Without my husband’s strong arm to drag me upright?» Willow asked dryly. «We’ll find out.»

When Willow was standing, Jessica bent and moved her hands over the swollen abdomen. The baby was definitely riding lower than it had been, though not so low as in the drawings in Jessica’s books showing women on the verge of labor. On the other hand, first babies were…first babies. Unpredictable.