Out of a strong sense of self-preservation he denied the feelings. What he felt for Serena was desire and nothing more, he told himself. A desire that seemed insatiable. It stirred in his gut again like the glowing coals of a fire that could be banked but not extinguished.
He bent his head and brushed his mouth against her cheek and her temple. «Can I have you until it's over?» he murmured, his hands moving restlessly upward, over her ribs and stomach to her breasts.
Serena shivered from the heat of his touch and the coldness of his words. No pretense of love or affection. Just the bald, blunt truth. She tried not to let it bruise her heart. Lucky was no man for a long-term commitment. If she wanted him at all, she would do well to take a page from his book and see it as an opportunity for great sex and nothing more. An adventure, an odyssey she could look back on later when she returned to Charleston and sanity, and marvel at the recklessness of it.
At any rate, she didn't think she had a choice. She wanted him whatever way she could get him. Her body was responding to his now as if they had been lovers for weeks instead of hours. Heat rose inside her, inflaming the tips of her breasts as his fingers rubbed them through the soft cotton of the T-shirt. It seared her core as she felt his erection press into her back and throb relentlessly in the tender flesh between her legs. He turned her in his arms, pulling the T-shirt up so she would fit against him skin to skin.
«I can't get enough of you, chere,» he whispered, tasting her lips with soft, ardent kisses. «I want you again.»
Serena ducked her head against his chest. «I don't think I can.»
Lucky hooked a finger under her chin and tipped her head back. What he saw in her face wasn't rejection but embarrassment, and he smiled softly in understanding.
«Me, I've got just the thing for that, sugar,» he said seductively, leaning down to nuzzle her cheek. «Come on back to bed and let ol' Lucky kiss it and make it better.»
They left for Chanson du Terre while the mist still hovered over the bayou like thin wisps of cotton batting, giving the swamp its most primitive air. It looked like the dawn of time, when the earth was still cooling beneath the waters. Dinosaurs would not have appeared out of place.
It was easy for Serena to imagine they had slipped through a hole in the fabric of time and had fallen into earth's prehistory, that she and Lucky were the only woman and man on earth. It was an uncharacteristically romantic notion, but she didn't try to chase it away.
She took in the scenery silently as Lucky poled the boat. She still wasn't comfortable with the swamp- she doubted she ever would be-but her perceptions had changed subtly after having seen Lucky's paintings of this place. She glimpsed it now a bit through his eyes, and she tried to understand both the swamp and the man better.
Both were filled with secrets. Both were cloaked with an air of mystery and shrouded in isolation and loneliness. It was no wonder Lucky had taken refuge here; the swamp understood him. Serena wondered if she would ever be able to comprehend him fully, if she would ever be able to unlock his secrets or if he would remain as much a puzzle to her as the swamp.
The yearning to know more about him yawned inside her like a sudden crack in her block of knowledge that needed filling with details. She wanted to know what he'd been like as a boy, why he'd left college, what incidents had sown the seeds of cynicism in him. The questions buzzed on the tip of her tongue, but Serena didn't give them voice. It was foolish to encourage the desire to deepen their relationship. Lucky had set the bounds very clearly and concisely: they could share each other's bodies for the duration of her stay, offer the rudiments of friendship on occasion, but nothing more.
«What are you thinking?'
Serena jerked her head up in surprise, looking at Lucky with what she supposed was an unfortunately guilty expression.
«Nothing,» she mumbled. She wasn't much of a liar. The word was probably emblazoned in red across her cheeks. Lucky frowned at her and she changed the subject before he could comment. «I'm not looking forward to dealing with this situation at Chanson du Terre. I don't feel it's my place to interfere.»
He planted the push-pole, and the pirogue slid forward. «You said yourself, you don't have a choice.»
«I know, but I don't have to like it or feel comfortable doing it. I feel like an outsider butting in. Shelby is going to resent it in a big way.»
«There are more important things at stake here than Miz Shelbys feelings,» Lucky said acridly.
Serena twisted around on the seat of the pirogue to get a better look at him. His jaw was set, his eyes trained on some point in the middle distance. His face gave nothing away.
«Is your family close?» she asked. Lucky flinched inwardly. Was his family close? Oh, yes, they were close, like the woven threads in homespun Cajun cloth… with one exception-him. He had kept his distance since returning, though he knew it puzzled them and hurt them. They were good people, his parents, his brothers and sisters, too good to risk tainting them with his experiences and his problems. He visited his parents dutifully if not often, and he saw the others from time to time, but he remained the loose thread in the fabric of the Doucet clan. The one that had come unraveled, he thought with bitter humor.
«Lucky?»
«Oui,» he said shortly. «They're close.»
«I've never been fortunate enough to say that about my sister and me. What's going to happen with the plantation isn't likely to help matters in that respect.»
«As I said, cherie, there are bigger things to consider.»
He steered the pirogue to the shore. Serena looked around them. They were in what seemed to be the heart of the swamp. There was no sign of civilization, certainly no sign of their destination. There was nothing much visible except black water and dense forest. She lifted a brow in silent question when Lucky glanced down at her.
«I need to show you something.»
He hopped out of the pirogue and pulled the nose ashore. Serena remained stubbornly in place as he offered her his hand.
«Where is this thing you need to show me?' she asked suspiciously.
«Down this path,» he said, motioning toward the woods.
Serena saw no evidence of Lucky's path. All she could focus on was the wild tangle of trees and underbrush and the knowledge of what might be under the underbrush. The old fear rose to the surface of her feelings like oil.
Lucky gently cupped her chin in his hand and turned her face up so she would look at him instead of the forest. «Don' be afraid of this place, chere,» he whispered. «You're with me. You're mine now. I won' let anything hurt you.»
Staring up into his hard face, Serena felt a strong elemental connection with him, a bond that had been forged without their knowledge or consent as they had come together in passion. She was his, Lucky Doucet's lady, bound to him in the most fundamental of ways. He would protect her as well as possess her, as males had protected their females for eons.
«You trust me, cherie?»
«Yes,» she answered. With my life if not my heart.
She trusted him. It would have been unthinkable just two days earlier. She would never have believed a man who seemed so unscrupulous, so untamed, a man who defied authority and solved his problems with violence would be trustworthy on any count, but she knew now that there was so much more to Lucky than what met the eye. He was like a diamond in the rough-hard and dark on the outside, a multitude of facets within.
She took his hand and allowed him to help her from the boat. As soon as her feet touched shore he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the place he wanted her to see. The path he followed was overgrown with ferns and thorny dewberry bushes and crowded on both sides by trees. The swamp was doing its best to eradicate the evidence of man's past intrusion. For the most part, Serena saw no trail at all, but Lucky walked on as steady and sure as if he'd been strolling down Main Street in town.