«The lord. My father. Everyone else was dead or dying. I tried to help him, but finally the wind took him, too. I think…I think he welcomed it.»
Wolfe made a low sound. «You were so young. It tears my heart to think of you alone and frightened.»
«I’d always been that way,» Jessica said matter-of-factly, «until you came. I tried to keep you from seeing what a coward I was, but you knew anyway.»
«Hush,» he said, kissing her eyelashes. «A coward would have run from the house and left Willow to bear her child alone. You didn’t. Despite your horrible memories, you stayed by Willow’s side and kept your fear to yourself. Caleb said you were as calm as a doctor.»
«Fear would only have made it more difficult for Willow. I couldn’t do that to her.» A sound came from Jessica that wasn’t quite laughter nor yet tears. «You were right about her, Wolfe. She is a rare and wonderful woman. Sharing her son’s birth made me…less fearful.»
Smiling, Wolfe stroked the back of his fingers down Jessica’s cheek. She turned her head slowly until she could catch his index finger between her lips. The swift intake of his breath as she tasted his skin told her that she had his full attention.
«Caleb taught me something, too,» Jessica said.
«Did he?»
«Mmm.»
The soft warmth of Jessica’s tongue between Wolfe’s fingers made him forget to breathe.
«Seeing Caleb with his son,» she said, «made me realize there is more to having heirs than passing on titles and estates.»
Wolfe barely registered the meaning of the words. Jessica was biting him so delicately that he might have imagined it, but even in his dreams he hadn’t felt the tiny serrations of her teeth caressing him.
«You taught me something, too,» Jessica continued.
«Again,» he whispered.
«What?»
«Bite me again, elf.»
Smiling, she dragged her teeth lightly down the sensitive edges of his finger. When she reached the base, she thrust the tip of her tongue between his fingers.
«I didn’t teach you that,» he said huskily.
«No, you taught me something much more important.»
«Did I?»
«Yes,» she whispered. «I saw the awe and the hunger in you for a child of your own. Let me give you that child.»
He became utterly still.
«Love me, Wolfe. Let me love you. Let me give back to you just a part of the beauty you’ve given to me.»
«Jessi,» he whispered, stopping her words with a gentle pressure of his thumb. «It’s all right. You don’t have to repay me that way.»
«I want to.»
He smiled sadly. «You woke up terrified by old dreams.»
«Not old dreams. A new one.»
«Do you remember it?»
«Dear God, all too clearly. You were gone and I was alone and the wind was taunting me with my worthlessness as a wife, as a woman…»
Wolfe’s arms tightened. «You aren’t worthless.»
«Then why won’t you make our marriage a valid one?»
«Jessi…elf…»
She waited, watching him with hope burning in her eyes like dawn.
«Sweet girl,» Wolfe whispered, kissing Jessica between words, «it has nothing to do with worth or lack of it. There is no future for a Scots aristocrat and ahalfbreed bastard. You were not born for the Western wilderness. I was. I was not born for the elegant drawing rooms of London. You were. You need a husband more civilized than I am. And I…» His voice died. «Someday you’ll admit our mismatch and ask for an annulment.»
When Jessica opened her mouth to object, Wolfe took it in a deep kiss that made her moan.
«But until that day,» he whispered when he finally lifted his head, «we can enjoy each other in ways that will leave your virginity intact for the lord whom you will finally accept as your husband in every sense of the word.»
«I’ll never accept any man but you.»
«Yes, you will,» Wolfe countered softly. «You have too much passion in you to live a nun’s life, and you know it now. God help me, so do I. I’ll die remembering your scent, your taste, the sounds you made when you burned beneath my mouth.»
Before Jessica could speak, Wolfe kissed her deeply, seducing her with hot movements of his tongue. When he cupped her breasts in his hands and drew out the velvet peaks with his circling thumbs, she made a broken sound at the back of her throat. Reluctantly, Wolfe lifted his head, afraid that he had frightened Jessica with his ardor.
«Fear or pleasure?» he asked huskily.
«What?» she asked, dazed by the heat splintering through her.
His hands moved, and the heat became a sweet burning that made her arch toward him. Small sounds rippled from her lips. One of those sounds was his name.
«Wolfe?»
«Never mind,» he breathed. His fingers caressed the hardened tips of Jessica’s breasts, drawing her nipples into proud, hungry crowns. «Your body is telling me everything I need to know just now.»
Her thoughts came unraveled as a golden incandescence splintered through her. She felt the warm wash of Wolfe’s breath over her nipple and knew in another instant he would draw her into his mouth and she would be lost.
«Wait,» she said breathlessly. «I want…»
When she tried to speak, she couldn’t find the words for what she wanted to say.
«It’s all right,» Wolfe murmured, rubbing his lips over the velvet hardness of her nipple. «I know what you want. I want it, too.»
«Do you?»
The real question in Jessica’s voice stopped Wolfe. Slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head from the sensuous temptation of her nipple.
«Didn’t you know?» he whispered. «I like this as much as you do.»
«Not quite.»
«You sound positive,» Wolfe said, amused.
Jessica’s cheeks were flushed with more than dawn, but she spoke anyway, for a need greater than the pleasures of the moment was driving her.
«If you keep caressing me, you’ll give me the sun,» she said.
The sensual promise in Wolfe’s eyes was as dark and hot as his smile. «I hope so, Jessi. I love watching you burn.»
«But I don’t know how to give the sun back to you.»
For a moment, Wolfe said nothing. He couldn’t. His heart was threatening to close his throat.
«Do you want to know how?» he asked finally.
«Is it possible? Can I give you the sun?»
«It’s not only possible, it would be so damned easy. Just the thought of your hands…» A primal tremor of response raked through Wolfe.
«My hands? Where, Wolfe? How? Teach me.»
The temptation was almost overwhelming. He had spent too much time on fire for Jessica. He didn’t think he could feel her hands on him without losing control. Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of repulsing her at the very instant he was feeling the greatest pleasure.
«My response might…disgust you,» Wolfe said simply. «You don’t have to, elf. Despite our complaints, no man has ever died of sexual frustration.»
«Did my response disgust you?» Jessica asked curiously.
His smile was slow and lazy, yet his eyes smoldered with memories. «I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you burning.»
Jessica’s hands slid into Wolfe’s hair, pulling his head down for the kind of kiss he had taught her both to enjoy and to need. He responded with a searching hunger that aroused her as much as his hands on her breasts.
«Teach me how to make you burn,» she breathed.
Wolfe drew her hands from his hair, kissed her palms, closed his teeth over the edge of her hand almost fiercely, and let out a harsh breath.
«I think we had better go slowly. That way you may stop any time you want.» Wolfe looked up, pinning her with eyes that were clear and dark. «I mean it, Jessi. The thought of disgusting you is unbearable to me.»
Tears burned in Jessica’s eyes as she understood once again how badly she had wounded him by saying that his touch disgusted her.