Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(26)

The embers of pleasure glowed for a long time afterward, while he held her trembling body against his and drew her head onto his shoulder. Celia was too weak to move. She felt herself slowly drifting into an exhausted slumber. Then for a few moments she felt the deepest peace she had ever known, but it was soon eclipsed by shame. She could not deal with such feelings now though; she was too tired. She did not move from the warm circle of his arms, only rested more fully against him and let sleep overtake her.

Much later she was aware of a river of darkness that cradled and carried her in its slow current. Unable to decide if she was awake or lost in a dream, she abandoned herself to the sensation. Stealthy hands swept over her with devastating tenderness. A hard, expert mouth slid across hers. Her knees were parted easily, and she lay relaxed and drowsy as the force of him moved over and inside her.

Softly she moaned his name, unresisting as he pulled her legs up to his waist. Understanding her needs with terrifying accuracy, he adjusted his rhythm to accommodate her body, building and stoking the fire until her desire matched his. Later she would despise herself for letting it happen again, but for now there was only feeling, only sweet forgetfulness…and she craved it as she had craved nothing else in her life.

It was early in the morning, yet already the day was still and sultry. Celia crept outside cautiously, clasping the detested black shirt around her body. She kept quiet for fear of waking Griffin, who was still sleeping in the cottage. She had neither the strength nor the nerve to face him yet. As she made her way to the edge of the lake, she felt an unfamiliar soreness between her legs. The reminder of what had taken place last night caused her face to flame scarlet.

Nothing she had ever read, no gossip she had overheard, no religious doctrine, nor medical knowledge her father had imparted, nothing had prepared her for what she had experienced last night. There were many who believed that a decent woman should not feel pleasure even in union with her husband. Certainly there was no excuse for her to have responded to a stranger as she had. And not only was Griffin a stranger, he was a pirate, a scavenger who killed and stole and ravened the wealth of others. She felt sick with guilt. It was incroyable that she should sink to such depths, not three days after Philippe had been murdered. She had never imagined there might be a bestial side to her own nature, and she hated herself for it—even more than she hated Griffin.

Celia found it difficult not to cry as she dropped the black shirt at the lake’s edge and scooped water on her bloodstained thighs. But she no longer had the right to tears—she would not allow herself that luxury anymore. She was responsible for what she had done last night, and she doubted that even a lifetime of remorseful prayer would ease her sin and shame.

Philippe, she thought in agony, I am glad you never found out what kind of woman I really am.

Unsteadily she washed herself, her remorse doubling with each scrape and bruise she discovered on her pale skin. Griffin had made those marks. Remembering the way she had pushed her body up at him and writhed underneath his hands, she bit her bottom lip.

There was a rustling sound behind her. She whirled around to see him standing there. He was clad only in his worn breeches, his hair-covered chest left bare and his long hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He looked at home in their primitive surroundings—far more at ease, she suspected, than he would be in more civilized circumstances.

His gaze wandered over her naked, glistening body, his interest undiminished even when she snatched up the discarded shirt and covered herself. “Don’t go anywhere without me again,” he said.

She stared at him with swollen, reproachful eyes. “I’ll do what I wish,” she dared to say.

“You’ll obey me if you prize your neck. We’re not in New Orleans yet.”

The threatening softness in his tone sent a cowardly chill of fear through her. “D’accord,” she agreed, the word sticking in her throat. She inched away from the edge of the lake, holding the shirt tightly closed.

Griffin lowered himself on his haunches and scooped several handfuls of water over his face and chest. Droplets glittered like diamonds on his sun-darkened skin. He turned to glance at her through narrowed eyes. “Why were you still a virgin?” Tactfulness was a quality he had discarded long ago.

A searing blush covered Celia’s body. Although she had been more intimate with him than with any other man in her life, she knew nothing about him. It was nearly impossible to confess such personal things to him. Still, if she did not reply willingly, she knew he would force her to. “Philippe was a gentleman. He…he said he would wait for me to feel comfortable with him before he required me to…to perform my duty as his wife.”

“‘Perform your duty,’” he repeated mockingly. “No wonder he didn’t press the issue, if that’s how you regard it. And at your age—what is it, twenty-three, twenty-four…?”

“Twenty-four,” she muttered.

“In New Orleans you’d have been considered a full-fledged spinster. At your age you should have welcomed Philippe into your bed with cries of gratitude. But you asked him to wait.”

“I wish I had not,” she said under her breath, but he heard her clearly.

“So do I. God knows I never expected you to be a virgin.”

“If you had known, would you have left me alone?” she asked bitterly.

He held her gaze for a long moment. “No.”