suckle.
Kyndee squeezed her eyes tightly shut and gasped. The movement stopped; presumably he waited to see whether she would object. She continued to lie there, shivering, unresponsive, but not fighting his advance. She was afraid to move for fear of arousing his ire instead of his passion.
As he teased her rose tip back and forth with his tongue, his free hand slid along the smooth skin of her belly, around to her buttocks, and along the inside of her thigh. He wrapped his fingers in her downy curls and massaged her in rhythm with his own harsh breathing. Pushing apart her thighs, his thumb caressed the most sensitive feminine part of her that, until now, had never been touched.
Her eyes flew open with shock at the intrusion; her groping hands gathered the bedclothes into her fists.
He raised his head again and studied her expression while he teased her as if to see what would be reflected there.
Kyndee bit down on her bottom lip and looked away. She felt his gaze boring holes into the side of her cheek. It was as if she were outside of the bed, watching what he was doing to her.
Strange that I should feel no emotion, no delight in his touch. I must truly be dead inside. When Fletcher had touched me, even lightly, I had tingled and craved more. With Buck, it is fear that holds me—and a promise of honor. Oh Papa, what have you asked of me?
Her husband invaded her with his fingers, probing, groaning with a lurid satisfaction that no one had trespassed there before. He suckled again at her breast, tugging harder this time, in cadence with the penetration of his hand, and the stroking of his thumb over her feminine nub. Extending his naked body fully he pressed close to her, his breathing heavy, his turgid need obvious and hard against her.
With a taut and husky voice, he muttered in her ear. "Yes, my dear wife, I can be gentle, but you are a mountain of ice."
He bit her shoulder, gently at first, then harder until it became painful. Kyndee whimpered and curved away.
"Ahhh...the mountain moves but does not melt." His topaz eyes hardened and squinted, and Kyndee felt her blood run cold because his stare held a fire that could have cowered a dragon for the fury that raged there.
"No!" he hissed. "I have tried your gentle method, but you withhold yourself—just as your precious Fletcher withheld his friendship and his respect."
"That's not true!" The retort burst from her before she had a chance to stop it. "Fletcher tried, but it was you who declined him, preferring to stay in the good graces of his parents!" Her hand flew to her mouth as she realized what she had done: she had overstepped by merely uttering the ineffable name.
Buck didn't move. In the faint light he glowered at her malevolently with satanic eyes. The game was over; it was now time for the kill.
She didn't want to quiver. She wanted to look away, to run, to escape, but his evil glare held her frozen.
Caught. Cornered. Helpless.
Despite her sheltered life, she had known there was evil in the world, but she had never known true fear of it until she beheld its corporeal existence in the demon above her. Even so, she hated herself for being a coward.
Her husband meant for her to be afraid; she sensed it. He wanted to terrify her. His kind of evil fed on fear; it gave him power.
And lust.
With amazing speed he straddled her and pinned her to the bed by her shoulders, his tumid arousal pushing against her maiden's entrance as a battering ram ready for siege. Kyndee could feel the trembling in his arms to match the rage in his voice. His chest heaved with harsh breaths, his pale brown eyes suddenly dark and demented.
"To be gentle with you is to be gentle with his memory, and that I will not tolerate. You are my wife—mine—body, mind and soul. I will take you anyway I wish, anytime I wish, and anywhere I wish. I will drive his memory from your mind with my every hot thrust until the only memory you have is of me taking you over and over again."
He fell on her and drove into her hard, quickly, and painfully. She arched and screamed at the impact of his forward thrust. Her fists clenched, but he smothered her loud screams with his mouth, plundering her with his tongue even as he invaded her with his searing shaft. As though tormented he dug his nails into her shoulders, panting hoarsely between jagged gasps.
There was no passion, only burn and pain—in her and around her—tearing, breaking, until she was afraid she would end in fragments, never to be whole again. She had to run, leave this horror. Her mind went into itself, into its center where he couldn't touch her, where there was no pain, no sinister eyes, no ugly sounds of his pleasure.
When it was over and he finally withdrew, she never knew. For as she tiptoed in her mind back into being, she found him asleep, rolled on his side away from her. His back rose and fell with a slow, relaxed rhythm.
Kyndee rose carefully and soundlessly from the bed, went to the washstand and poured water into the basin. It didn't matter that the water wasn't warm; she relished the coolness. She wanted to wash away the scorching feel of his touch, the lingering remains of his scent, and the essence of his seed. On the cloth she saw stains of blood, her own blood and, trembling, she scrubbed herself with renewed vigor.
Her innocence was to have been given. It should have been taken with gentle tenderness and whispered endearments of love. Instead her husband seized her treasure as the ultimate trophy, fueled by his never-ending revenge and resentment of Fletcher. Kyndee grieved for her loss and her plight. Her body protested and ached from his abuse, but her mind hurt with the knowledge that she was pledged to this man forever.
When she finished washing, she curled in a blanket on the chaise and wept silently. The tears dripped from the corners of her eyes to the colorful threads in the angelic scene of the petit point pillow beneath her head.
Courage, Queen Katharine. Courage and honor.
CHAPTER SIX
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Fletcher found it hard to rouse from the unusually deep, sound sleep. Drifting in and out, it took an anxious few moments to convince himself of where he was. Then relaxing in the intricately carved mahogany four-poster bed, he turned onto his side and languidly pulled the mussed pillow farther under his head, curling his arm beneath it. He lay still, drowsily opening and closing his eyes, unwilling to spoil the luxurious moment with the dreary prospect of rising and having to think.
He had deliberately left the draperies open to provide the sun's light and warmth easy access through the window. His gaze followed the path of the rays to where they made prisms of the crystal figurines on the dressing table. Having spent so many years in that dark, dismal place, he constantly delighted in the morning's brilliant sunlight.
He rolled to his back, locked his fingers behind his neck and studied the pattern of the slate-blue fabric in the canopy that arched above him. Sighing, he drew up his leg and locked his foot into the crook of his other knee. The soft down fluffed around him; the silkiness of the bedclothes felt delicious against his skin.
It wasn't home but this was as close as he could be to home. He had slept in this bed times too numerous to count, just as Caleb had slept at Seabrook. In their wild wanderings, they'd seemed to find their way and collapse into whichever beds were closest.
During their mettlesome years, Rachel Jenkins—Caleb's mother and full fledged fire-breathing
