Her eyes flew open again. There was a shimmer of fury deep within them. 'Malachi!' she whispered tensely.
'Now…' He lowered his head to hers once again, and a ruthless grin touched his features. 'Tell me what you want me to do.'
She stared at him in astonishment, and a flush as crimson as the sunset touched her cheeks and seeped over her breasts. He couldn't bear it much longer. He had to have her soon. But they had always waged war between them, and this one, at least, he would not lose.
'Tell me what you want.'
'No…'
'It's easy.' She started to press against his shoulders. He caught her hands, and he laced his fingers with hers, and he drew them high over her head. 'Say that you want me. I want you, Malachi.' He kissed her. He slid his tongue into her mouth and withdrew it and then raked it along her lips. He drew her hands down and held her firm as he moved low against her, lazily taking her breast in his mouth again, slink-ing lower and lower against her. She escaped his grasp, and her nails raked into his shoulders. He heard her gasp and felt her fingers on his head when his kiss teased her belly.
She was alive with passion. Her head tossed and her hips moved, and she whispered something, moistening her lips. Her eyes were closed again, and her face lay to the side. They were both entangled in her hair.
'I can't hear you, Shannon.'
'I—I want you.'
'I want you, Malachi.'
'I want you… Malachi.''
Her voice was breathy, barely a whisper. It was all that he wanted, all that he needed. She moved against him with grace and exquisite sensuality, and a burst of triumph and fever took hold of him as he shifted, touching her, thrusting deep, deep inside her.
She stiffened, and screamed, and he realized then that he had believed her experienced because he had wanted to believe it. He had been deceived, but only because he hadn't wanted to think…
But he felt. He felt the tear within her body, and the constriction of pain, and the trembling that filled her. He started to jerk from her, but her hands pulled him back.
Her eyes were open now. Tears touched them, but they met his with a curious honesty. 'No, no—I said that I wanted you. I said I want you…Malachi.'
'Damn it, you didn't tell me that you were a—'
'You didn't ask,' she reminded him softly. 'Please…'
Her voice trailed away. He realized that it was too late to undo any harm, and yet perhaps not too late to recapture the magic.
He began to move very carefully. Slowly he entered fully within her, and just as slowly he withdrew. Then he plunged again, slowly…slowly.
Minutes later she cried out, straining high against him.
Innately, she seemed to know the craft of womanly art Supplely, exquisitely, she moved beneath him. He matched his rhythm to hers, to the soft magic of the evening. The breeze rustled the leaves and silently caressed them. Birds cried out, and the water rippled and dazzled still. Malachi cried out hoarsely, giving himself free rein at long last, burying himself again and again with speed and fever within the moist and welcoming nest of her body.
The pressure built in him explosively, and still he held himself in a certain control, whispering to her, touching her bare flesh with kisses, urging her ever onward.
She cried out, straining hard against him, collapsing.
He allowed his own climax to come, and when it seized him it was sweet and violent; he shuddered as wave after little wave of pleasure shook him, and rippled anew. When he had finished at last he gazed down at her.
Her eyes were closed again, her lips were parted, and her breath still came swiftly…and he felt the little tremors that touched her. She seemed white, very pale.
'Shannon?' He stroked her hair, smoothing damp tendrils from her face. She moved, trying to free herself from the burden of his body. He shifted his weight, and she curled against him.
'Shannon—'
'Don't. Please, don't…not yet,' she whispered.
While the twilight darkened, he held her, staring at the trees and watching the silhouette of the leaves against the sky until it was too dark to see them.
Then suddenly, in silence, she pushed away from him. She rose, and her hair fell over her eyes, obscuring them. She walked quickly to the water, and did not pause at the edge, but hurried to where it was deep, and ducked beneath it. Malachi watched her pensively, thinking that the action wasn't much different than the one she had taken that morning when she washed her hands and face as if to wash away the scent and memory of Justin.
He rose and followed her into the water. 'Shannon!' She ignored him, and he caught her arm, turning her around. She jerked away from him.
'Shannon, what are you doing now?'
'Nothing.'
'Then why won't you talk to me?'
'I don't want to talk.'
'Shannon, what just happened—'
'Shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened!' she repeated fiercely. She sat in the water, pursing her lips, scrubbing her thighs and behaving now as chastely as a nun. She sank even lower into the water until the surface rippled against her breasts, and for some reason, the sight irritated him more than her perverse denial.
'Shannon—'
'Malachi, damn you! Could you at least have the decency to leave me alone now?'
'Could I have the decency?' He caught her elbow, pulling her to her feet. He was furious and she was distant. And yet, something was irrevocably and forever changed between them. It seemed natural now to hold her this way, to have her against him sleek and bare and intimate. She couldn't make love the way that she had and pretend that the moments hadn't existed.
'Decency?' he asked sarcastically. 'Oh, I see. It was all my fault—'
'I didn't say that.'
'It's what you mean.'
'Well, you're just one hell of a Southern gentleman! You know something? That's what Kristin always called you. You were the perfect Southern knight, the hero, the magnificent cavalier! Riding to a lady in distress! Well, she's wrong; you're no gentleman. You may have seen me bathing, but you might have turned your back.'
'Oh? And you, I suppose, were the perfect lady? Naked as a jay and strutting like a dance-hall girl out there —'
'You could have turned around. I thought that you were a gentleman!'
'Don't ever think, Shannon. Every time you do, someone gets into trouble. And don't you ever deny me, or —'
'Malachi, it was your fault.'
'My fault. Right I didn't exactly drag you screaming from the water.'
She lowered her head.
He caught her chin, lifting it. 'You just wanted to indulge in a little fantasy. You never made it into bed with the Yank when he was alive, so now you're willing to take on a Rebel captain just to see what it might have been like—'
She struck out at him like lightning, slapping his cheek with a stinging blow, then ducked, afraid that he would extract retribution. Every time she had touched Malachi in anger before, he had repaid her in some way.
But that night, he did not. He touched his cheek, then spun around. 'You're right, Shannon. It never should have happened.'
He sloshed through the water to the shore and, ignoring her completely, dressed at his leisure. He heard her,
