Merline Lovelace (13 page)

If Andrew’s quarters were any indication, they lived as austerely as the rest of Fort Laramie’s residents. The quartermaster had obviously furnished the cast-iron stove and wood plank table, but Andrew had supplemented the government-issue furnishings with pieces of his own. A thick buffalo skin rug covered the floor. Crossed sabers hung on one wall, and a framed print of West Point on another. Folding cam
paign chairs provided more than adequate seating, while shelves held a collection of leather-bound books and mementos.

One in particular caught Julia’s eye. Moving closer, she peered at the exquisitely painted miniature. The woman in the oval portrait had Little Hen’s dark hair and eyes, matured to a stunning sensuality. Yellow Buckskin Girl, Julia guessed, oddly disconcerted at putting a face to the legend.

Creaking floorboards in the hallway warned her of Andrew’s approach. She turned, swiping her palms down her skirt front. Sudden nervousness attacked her. She should have delayed this visit, she thought. Taken more of the time Andrew had insisted she’d needed.

No, time would change nothing, except perhaps to dull the aching emptiness in her heart. She couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting for that to happen. Mentally, she rehearsed what she intended to say to the major in her mind, but the man who entered the room a moment later looked so little like the officer she’d grown used to seeing that the words fled.

He still wore his boots and blue uniform pants with the cavalry stripe down each leg, but his suspenders stretched over an undyed broadcloth shirt. Open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves, the well-washed fabric molded his shoulders. Small swirls of chest hair showed above the unfastened top buttons of the shirt, russet-dark against his tanned skin.

He closed the door behind him, his blue eyes searching her face. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Better than I was the last time we talked, anyway.”

She drew her tongue along lips gone dry with nervousness. It had just occurred to her that this was the first time she’d been alone behind closed doors with Andrew since their wedding night so many years ago.

Dear Lord in heaven! How could she remember that night in every, searing detail, yet struggle to recall Philip’s face? Racked by the guilt that heaped onto her shoulders once more, she plunged into the matter that had brought her there.

“You were right, Andrew. I wasn’t thinking coherently that day in the library.”

“That’s understandable given the circumstances.”

“I can’t seem to think any more coherently even now.” Twisting one end of her shawl around her fingers, she played with the black fringe. “I’ve been walking down by the river, trying to decide what I should do.”

His expression became still and watchful. “What did you decide?”

“Nothing yet. I—I needed to talk to you first.” Gathering her courage, she lifted her chin. “You said there were matters that needed saying between us. I need to hear them, Andrew. Now, before I can determine what I must do next.”

He was silent so long her nerves came close to unraveling. She was considering a bolt for the door
when he tossed the challenge she’d thrown at him back at her.

“Do you want it straight out?”

Her heart pounded so hard against her ribs she was sure he could hear the thuds. “Yes.”

He moved toward her then, one slow step at a time. His intent gaze raked her face. “I want you, Julia. In my arms. In my bed. Despite the years and the hurts that lie between us, I want the woman you’ve become as much—no, more than I ever wanted the girl I knew in New Orleans.”

It was what she’d expected. No more. No less. The truth, without paint or varnish. He wanted her. The blunt admission demanded an equally honest answer. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she forced her reply through stiff lips.

“I don’t love you. I’m not sure I can ever trust you again, but I…”

A muscle jumped in the side of his jaw. “You what, Julia?”

“I…”

So much for her noble intentions! She couldn’t lay herself bare, couldn’t admit that she needed him, that she craved his touch and his strength. That she longed to lose herself in the desire he made no effort to disguise. For just a moment. Just a night.

For Suzanne’s sake, she’d struggled for so long, held her head up proudly when she wanted to slink away and hide. For now, for this small bite of time, she needed someone stronger than she was, someone
who demanded nothing more from her than what she was willing to give.

What she
wanted
to give, God help her!

Mercifully, Andrew didn’t seem to need to hear the words. A fierce light sprang into his eyes. She recognized it immediately for what it was. A mix of triumph, of satisfaction, of male desire so raw and potent Julia’s womb clenched.

She barely had time to absorb the shock before he closed the distance between them. She felt his heat, the tension that leaped from his body and hers. Then he curled a hand under her chin and tipped her face to his.

A
ndrew intended only a taste. Just enough to satisfy the ache that threatened to leave him permanently crippled.

He recognized his folly the instant Julia wrapped her arms around his neck. Like a tumbling mountain stream swollen by early spring thaws, the feelings he’d tried so hard to keep locked away burst their chains.

This was Julia pressed against his chest and groin and thighs. Julia whose mouth opened so urgently under his. The woman he’d come as close to hating as he had to loving. The wife he’d done his damnedest to forget.

She didn’t love him. She didn’t trust him. But she wanted him with the same raw hunger he wanted her. He could feel it in the way she strained against him, taste it in the greedy tangle of their tongues and teeth.

He told himself to go easy. Actually believed a mere kiss would satisfy the ache. Like a fool, he even
tried to draw back when he hardened with swift, painful intensity.

“No. Don’t pull away. Please, Andrew.”

Half whispered, half moaned against his lips, the plea shattered any thoughts he had of sparing her or himself.

She didn’t love him.

She didn’t trust him.

But she wanted him.

Widening his stance, he wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her body hard against his. He’d handled her so gently the first time. Taken such care not to bruise her creamy skin or give her any hurt after the first, hard thrust. This time, the need to claim her, to leave his mark, roughened his mouth and his hands.

She welcomed his assault with a fierceness that matched his, as if she, too, wanted no reminder of how things had been before. This was no sweet, tender exploration, no slow fanning of the flames. This was a flash of heat, a greedy match of mouth to mouth and hip to groin.

Twisting her flowing hair around his fist, Andrew dragged her head back. Her neck arched. Her hips canted even more intimately into his. He felt the swell of her mound against his groin and had to tear his mouth from hers or he would have dragged her to the floor then and there. His eyes raked her flushed cheeks, the slant of her coal-black brows.

“This is how I remembered you,” he growled,
more to himself than to her. “When I let myself think of you at all.”

He hadn’t intended it as a barb, but she flinched and opened her eyes. Old angers and hurts shaded them to dark purple.

“If we’re to talk of the past, I should tell you this is
not
how I remember you.”

With a wry smile, Andrew shifted her in his arms, just an inch or two, only enough to rock her mound against his corded thigh.

“Then we’d best not talk, Julia.”

“No,” she gasped, the heat rising in waves in her throat and cheeks. “No talking.”

She was panting when he brought her head up and her mouth to his again, but the touch of their lips was no longer enough for either of them. Her hands clutched his shoulders, her fingers dug into his muscles. His tangled in the fringe of her shawl. Impatiently, he yanked it off and unhooked the bone fasteners that closed the collar on her blouse.

Holding her head anchored by that heavy twist of hair, Andrew trailed kisses down the underside of her jaw to her throat. Her skin was hot under his lips. The scent of starch and eager woman filled him with an immediate need to rid her of the rest of her clothes. He went to work on the next button, but the hand she slid down his chest to the flap of his trousers shoved the breath back down his throat and destroyed his coordination. His whole being was centered on the press of her fingers against his hard, ridged flesh.
Within seconds, her busy hand came damned close to destroying his command over his own body.

With a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, Andrew caught her up and carried her to the back room. Like the front, it was sparsely furnished, boasting only a bed, a washstand and a clothes press. Pegs held his dress saber in its silver-tipped sheath, a cartridge box and Colt pistol in its leather holster. His hunting and sporting rifles were mounted on pegs above his military-issue Sharps carbine. Another buffalo hide rug covered the wood plank floor.

Andrew had spent his first years on the frontier battling the barbs and fleas that inhabited the straw-filled ticking furnished by the quartermaster. It had cost a month’s pay, but he’d had the sutler freight him in a mattress sewn with horsehair and stuffed with goosedown. He gave fervent thanks for that extravagance now. In a fever of anticipation, he envisioned Julia’s soft, sinuous body sprawled across the imported mattress.

As matters turned out, they never put it to use. Lowering her to stand on the curly-haired buffalo rug, Andrew set about removing her clothes. Each layer revealed another smooth curve of flesh, another soft target for his kisses. Her blouse yielded the slopes of her high breasts. The half corset, her narrow waist. Mercifully, she wore only two petticoats under her skirt, but the strings knotted under Andrew’s impatient fingers.

Interspersing kisses with curses, he went down on
one knee to tug at the damned knot. It finally gave and the petticoats fell away, leaving only the barriers of her cotton underchemise and the drawers riding low on her waist. He couldn’t resist the patch of bare skin peeping between the two. Curling an arm around her waist, he drew her closer.

At the touch of his tongue on her belly, Julia jumped. She stood awkwardly while he used his tongue and his lips and his hand to smooth and stroke and arouse. Her heart stuttered and skipped. Her breath came in little pants. She looked down at his dark head, at his broad shoulders, and ached to put her arms around him and clutch him close. It was so intimate, this moment, so incredibly tender.

Then his hand found the slit in her drawers and all thoughts of tenderness fled. Gasping, she tried to jerk away from his touch. He held her easily, murmuring assurances between the kisses he dropped on her breasts, her hips, her belly. All the while his skilled fingers probed intimately between her thighs. Within moments, she was groaning. Moments more, and she gushed hot and wet.

Her knees gave out then, or perhaps she just dropped. Julia didn’t know and didn’t care. All she wanted, all she needed was the feel of his body on hers. In hers.

Knee to knee, mouth to mouth, she yanked down his suspenders and attacked the buttons on his shirt with the same urgency he ripped away her chemise and drawers. When they were naked enough for flesh
to meet flesh, Julia fell back atop the scattered clothing, dragging him down with her. They rolled onto the buffalo rug, legs tangling, hips grinding. She felt him stiff as a pole against her belly. Wiggling, she wedged a hand between their straining bodies.

He filled her fingers, thick and hot and bone-hard. Two strokes and his panting grunts matched hers. Four, and the velvety head dewed in her hand.

She’d been married long enough to recognize the urgency of his need even before he rolled her onto her back and thrust a knee between her legs to pry them apart. A part of her cried with want, with an intense longing for just a few moments more of this pulse-pounding play, but she opened for him and prepared to satisfy his need.

The muscles of his forearms tightened as he positioned himself. She felt the head lodge, felt his buttocks clench under her fingers, but the hard thrust she expected didn’t come.

“Open your eyes.”

The hoarse command dragged her from the feverish depths. She blinked, surprised and questioning. With her legs spread wide and his body penetrating hers by only a maddening inch or two, she felt so vulnerable, so…so trapped.

“I want to watch you when the pleasure takes you,” he growled.

She arched her back, every nerve in her body screaming as he pushed in another inch. Only another inch. Her head went back. Her womb clenched. She
tried to squirm down, to impale herself. He moved with her, giving her only that part of him already inside.

“Look at me, Julia,” he ordered again, his muscles quivering.

His intent burst on her feverish mind. He wanted her to see him, to know who it was whose body claimed hers.

“For God’s sake, Andrew!”

Half angry, half insane now with her own need, she writhed under him. Either the sound of his name or her fierce urgency satisfied him. Whatever the cause, he flexed his buttocks and thrust into her, not hard and fast, as she wanted so desperately, but slowly, deliberately.

Julia had never experienced such intense desire, never felt so wholly and completely at the mercy of her own raging need. Nothing in her marriage to Philip had prepared her for this. No remembered moments from the times she’d bedded with Andrew could compare.

With each slow push, the muscles low in her belly clenched. With each withdrawal, her mind screamed in protest. When she could stand no more, she wrapped her legs around his corded thighs and set her own pace.

Any thoughts Andrew had of holding back, of watching Julia’s pleasure take her before he attended to his own, disintegrated at that moment. He drove into her, his hips ramming into hers. She arched under
him. Head back, hips lifted, she bent like a young sapling, ready, quivering. A raw groan ripped from far back in her throat.

“Andrew! Now, Andrew. Please!”

With a growl that matched hers, he fastened his mouth on hers and slammed into her again. He felt the hot spurt come and pulled out, spilling his seed onto her belly. With so much yet to be resolved between them, he couldn’t ask her to bear his child. Yet.

Julia lay limp and unmoving long after her waves of pleasure faded. Gradually, other sensations besides the pulsing of her own blood intruded on her senses.

Andrew’s sweat-slicked body weighted her down. Stiff, curly buffalo hair tickled the skin at the small of her back. Wadded clothes formed an annoying lump under one shoulder.

Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move. A thousand emotions held her pinned to the rug. Fierce satisfaction. Joyous relief. Wonder. Guilt.

It was an odd sort of guilt. More remorse over the fact that she didn’t feel more disloyal to Philip’s memory than true regret for having dishonored him by lying with another man.

No, not with another man. With Andrew.

Frowning, Julia squirmed. The inert weight atop her shifted immediately in response.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, rolling over. “I’m too heavy for you.”

Arms and legs still entangled with his, Julia rolled
with him and landed on his chest. She raised her head and saw something of her own contradictory emotions reflected in his face.

He wore the look of a well-satisfied male. But she couldn’t interpret his crooked smile when he lifted a hand to tuck her tangled hair behind her ear.

“Don’t look so worried, Julia. We’ve just proved we can contrive well enough without love or trust.”

She reared back, stung by the echo of her own words. Her mouth opened, but a sudden hammering on the door cut off her reply.

This time it was Andrew who frowned. Easing Julia aside, he rolled to his feet and tugged his pants from under her.

She should have looked away. Despite this frenzied coupling, the years had made them strangers. Yet she found herself unable to turn her head. His muscled arms, so tanned where rolled-up sleeves had bared them to the sun, held her gaze. As did his flat belly and lean, muscled flanks…until he angled his hip and stepped into his trousers.

“Dear Lord!”

Her horrified gasp stilled his fingers on the button flap. She’d never seen such brutal scars. Puckered ridges crisscrossed his thigh where it joined his hip, some white and faded, others still brownish-red.

She had imagined what he must have suffered, first from the bullet her uncle put into his thigh, then from the rifle butts Private O’Shea had said the guards at Andersonville slammed into him.

Her imagining had come nowhere close to reality. Stricken, she raised her glance to his.

“Andrew, I—I—”

What could she say? After all the years and all the hurts, what on earth could she say that would in any way make up for the pain he’d suffered?

Once more, the urgent pounding on the door in the other room relieved her of the necessity of saying anything. A muffled call accompanied the round of knocking.

“Major Garret, sir? Are you in quarters?”

“Yes. I’m coming.”

He closed the door to the bedroom behind him to shield her from curious eyes. The rough plank door gave her privacy to dress, but didn’t block the hurried exchange in the other room.

“Colonel Cavanaugh’s compliments, sir. He’s received a telegraph from Fort Phil Kearny.”

“Regarding?”

“He didn’t say, sir, but he requests your presence immediately.”

“All right. Tell the colonel I’ll report as soon as I pull on my uniform.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julia had scrambled to her feet and dragged on her drawers by the time he returned. Unaccountably shy, she pulled her sleeveless chemise over her head and thrust her arms through the openings before turning to face him.

“Wait for me,” he instructed, yanking on a boot. “We need to talk.”

Julia borrowed the phrase she’d just overheard. “Regarding?”

He shoved his other foot into a boot. The heel thudded against the bare planks as he stomped it in place. Snatching his uniform shirt from a peg, he jerked it on as he crossed the floor.

“Regarding us.”

With that succinct reply, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close for a swift, hard kiss.

“Wait for me,” he ordered again.

Grabbing his leather holster and cap on his way out, he left Julia in the middle of the room. The outer door slammed a moment later. The uneven flooring in Old Bedlam’s long hallway groaned under his footsteps before all sounds faded away.

Julia stood where he’d left her, her bare toes curled into the buffalo hide. The most ridiculous urge to cry suddenly gripped her.

As Andrew had pointed out, they’d just demonstrated they could contrive well enough without love or trust…on either side.

Angrily, she bit down hard on her lower lip. What had she expected from him, for pity’s sake? Flowery phrases? Passionate declarations? She’d come to him, hadn’t she? As brazen as any whore at one of the hog ranches scattered around the post, offering herself in exchange for…