Captive Read Free Page A

the second you set foot in this territory. Damn you, you should have gone away then!”
    “Go to hell!” she cried to him.
    “I think I shall get there soon enough,” he assured her.
    She’d scarcely been aware that he’d moved, but he was close in front of her once more. His hands were on her shoulders once again. He was still moving, backing her along the riverbank, until she was forced against an old, gnarled cypress, and as he spoke, the hot whisperof his words came from lips just inches away from her own. “Weren’t you sufficiently warned that there was a war on here? Didn’t you hear that we pillaged, robbed, raped, ravished, and murdered? That red men ran free in a savage land?” His voice didn’t rise. The depth and emotion within it deepened. “Didn’t you hear? Or didn’t it matter? Was it tantalizing to play with an Indian boy? Touch, and back away, before you got burned?”
    “Anyone who touches you is burned!” she cried out. “Burned by your hatred, your passion, your bitterness. Anyone is burned—” She broke off with a gasp, for he suddenly jerked her shoulders and jerked them hard. The fierce blue of his eyes sizzled into her heart and mind. And the words he spoke then were but a whisper, vehement in their warning—or promise.
    “Then, my love,
feel the fire!”
    His hands then were upon her bodice. She fell back against the tree as she heard the rending of fabric, and felt the fire indeed, the sweeping liquid inferno of his lips upon hers, ravaging, demanding. Her lips were parted by the force. His tongue filled her mouth. She wanted to hate him, rake his eyes out. She wanted to scream and shout and cry and never surrender, for he never would, he would die before he accepted any terms of surrender. And she tried. Tried to twist from his onslaught, tried so very hard not to feel the fire that ignited within her, scalding the blood that surged throughout her like a river, seizing sweet, mercurial hold of her limbs and being. She fought like a tigress, in fact, bringing her arms up between them, pelting him with her fists. But she found herself plucked up and slammed hard to the ground, where her fall was barely cushioned by layers of pine and moss, and where the rich, verdant scents of the earth arose to encompass her with new sensation.
    He straddled her, caught her wrists. And she ceased to struggle, but stared with hot fury into his eyes, her fight and accusation now eloquently silent. And her hands were suddenly free, yet still she didn’t move.
    “What in God’s name am I going to do with you?”he demanded very softly, and she lay still as she felt the stroke of his fingers upon her throat, the caress of his hand pushing away torn fabric to close over her breast, the palm rotating over the hardened peak of her nipple.
    She knew. She knew exactly what he was going to do with her. Knew that his lips would be tender now when they touched hers, coercing them to part, demanding still, but so seductive. Indeed, she felt the fire. It burned her heart and mind, seared her flesh, ignited her soul. His lips descended upon hers once again.
    “Bastard!” she charged breathlessly.
    “Perhaps. But tell me to leave you be. Say it with your eloquent words, and mean it with your soul!”
    The earth could cave in, and she would not want him to leave her now.
    “Bastard!” she repeated softly.
    “I know, I know,” he moaned, his lips finding hers once again, his fingers threading into her hair. Once again the sheer force and hunger of his kiss seduced her. Then she felt his lips upon her throat, his hands upon her torn clothing. His mouth closed over her breast, his tongue played over and savored the nipple, and once again a scalding seized her, liquid fire coursing from that intimate spot he touched, filling her limbs and core. She cried out incoherent words, her fingers tearing into the ebony length of his hair. His hands and mouth continued a wild ravishment upon her. She heard again the