"Can't you follow simple instructions? Do you always have to defy me?"
Noelle's eyes flashed golden currents of belligerence even as one part of her registered how achingly handsome he was-head thrown back, legs spread wide apart, hands resting in fists on his hips.
"How dare you come in here accusing me! I don't follow orders that have no explanation."
"I don't need to give you any explanations."
"By not telling me that was swampland, you put my life in jeopardy."
"You put your own life in jeopardy and the life of my friend with your damned knife!"
"Your friend," she scoffed. "That savage attacked me!" This was not only unfair, but untrue, and Noelle knew it. Still, she did not take back what she had said, because she saw the words had fallen on him like the lash of a whip. A terrible excitement built within her at the dangerous narrowing of his eyes. Propelled by loneliness, by a bedroom door whose latch was never tested, by an unspeakable yearning for something more than distant politeness from this man, she deliberately pressed him.
"You sicken me with your talk of how persecuted the Indians have been. If this is a sample of what happens when they live near the white man, I think the government is right to move them all away." Lifting her chin, she walked toward him with measured steps, calculating her words as she went. "They're filthy savages, Quinn, no matter how you try to disguise it. They're a threat to every white woman who strays farther than her front porch."
"So, the little guttersnipe who cheated and lied her way out of the slums is now judging other people!"
"People!" she jeered, her moist lips trembling with the danger and excitement of what she was doing. "They're animals!"
"Are we, now?"
Her breath caught in her throat. "What are you saying?"
"If I'd realized it was so important to you, I'd have told you long ago that I'm Cherokee, but, frankly, it didn't occur to me."
"I don't believe you!" It was a lie. She did believe! Amanda's portrait had already told her the truth, had already warned her of the madness of inciting him.
"You don't want to believe me because you're afraid."
"I'm not afraid!"
"You should be," he sneered, his mouth thinning into an ugly line of contempt. "You've heard what Indians do to white women."
Jerking the towel from her head, he entangled his bruising hands in her mass of damp hair. "Does it frighten you now, Highness, having a savage so close to your beautiful hair? Can you taste the fear in the back of your mouth like cold metal against your tongue?"
He twisted his fingers around the long piece of silken hair growing from her crown and yanked on it until her eyes teared with pain. "This is where the Cherokee takes a scalp. Only this place. Sometimes the victim even lives to tell about it."
"Get your hands off me," Noelle cried out.
"It's too late for that."
Dropping her hair, he pushed her back against the wall and split the fragile silk of her robe. The fabric fell to her waist, where the knotted sash kept it from going farther. His eyes raked her nakedness, then he slid his hands roughly down her neck, past her shoulders to her breasts.
"Look at my hands on you. See how white your flesh is against mine. Even your nipples aren't as dark as my skin."
She shuddered as she looked down at his massive dark hands and watched the calloused palms knead her tender tips.
"It's not just the sun that has stained my skin. It's the blood of the Cherokee."
She swung out at him with her fists and began spitting out inflamed, exciting oaths until his mouth clamped down hard on hers, and he parted her lips with a tongue that was unwilling to please but eager to punish. Like a vixen, Noelle bit down. When he jerked back from her, his eyes black with fury, she ran, knowing that no matter how swiftly she fled, he would catch her.
He tore off the sash of her robe when he spun her around, and the fabric snared her ankles, sending her naked body sprawling to the floor. Before she could bring herself up, he deliberately stepped down on her hair, moving his leather boot close to her scalp. Pinned down with her cheek pressed into the carpet, she listened helplessly as he removed his clothing above her. He had told her she should be frightened of him, and now, too late, she was.
He moved his foot. His arm grasped her around the waist and hurled her to the bed. She thrashed helplessly under him while he foraged her mouth in a crushing assault filled with the passion of rage and tasting of the blood she had drawn when she bit him. His legs pried hers open, and then he reared back and poised himself to enter her. As she felt him ready to ram his anger deep within her, tears clouded her vision. How ugly this had become, this wild assault she had led him to.
Closing her eyes, she turned her head to the side and braced herself for the searing pain of an entry for which she was not yet ready. He was suddenly still, and the room echoed with the sound of their ragged breathing. Instead of the brutal invasion that she feared, his hands found her breasts, and her tears began to dry as, despite her fear, the coral buds hardened under his rough caress. She felt his touch slide down her sides and brush through the soft, tight triangle at the juncture of her thighs. Then she moaned as he invaded her with his touch, testing her desire in the only way he could trust.
His lips began teasing her nipples, then biting them, bringing her such agonizing pleasure that she thought she would go mad. His mouth moved on to her smooth belly, her thighs, cutting into the tender skin, biting and sucking at her flesh. She cried out his name as, intimately, he violated her with the wrath of his tongue.
He brought her to the brink of fulfillment and then pulled away, leaving an aching void that yearned to be filled. Their eyes clashed -locking, hating, wanting. Imperiously she arched her hips, and he drove himself into her with all the remaining force of his anger. Wrapping her legs tight about him, she strained against his body, pulling him down and parting her lips so she could taste the rugged planes of his face with her tongue and teeth. She was barely conscious when she sobbed her fulfillment, and he shuddered convulsively within her.
Later, when he sat up and dropped his legs over the side of her bed, she reached out a restraining hand and touched his arm. "Quinn, I didn't mean what I said earlier," she whispered miserably. "I've guessed for some time that you were Indian from Amanda's portrait and the silver disk you wear. I'm sorry. I deliberately goaded you. It was wrong of me."
Without a word, he disappeared into the dressing room.
Noelle fell back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. What devils had driven her to that desperate madness? It had been insanity to incite him as she had. Suddenly she began to shiver. Turning on her side, she drew up her knees.
From his bedroom, Quinn heard her moan. He rushed in to find her huddled in a tight ball under the covers. Her hair was a tangled mass, and he carefully brushed it back from her ravaged face, then he eased the blankets from her body. He sickened as he looked down.
"My God, Highness." His voice was ragged. "Look what I've done to you."
Even as he tucked the covers back around her, he couldn't erase the memory of the bruises that were already marring her beautiful flesh. "I should never have brought you here. We're poisoning each other."
She turned her face into the pillow and began to sob. He slid his arms under her and gently carried her in her blanket cocoon to a chair, where he held her in his lap and stroked her hair. After a while, he began speaking softly to calm her, first talking about everyday things and then telling her stories of his boyhood. He spoke of treasure hunts, of teasing Emily and taking his lessons with Julian, of Amanda climbing trees with him, fishing, teaching him to track and use a bow and arrow, of everything except the feelings churning inside him.