A Wild Yearning, page 17
Love for him exploded inside of her with such force, Delia was surprised she didn't die of it.
Ty lay stretched out on the ground on his back, his breath coming in heaving bellows. His whole body felt leaden, as if he'd been beaten with something thick and heavy. He didn't even have the strength to open his eyes. Jesus, he thought. Oh, sweet Jesus.
He felt her stir beside him and reached out blindly, meeting her elbow and moving down her arm until he found her hand. Her hand always felt so damn small. It brought a tight, poignant ache in his chest. Mortified, he realized he was close to tears and he didn't understand why.
He summoned the strength to roll up onto his side. He looked across at her and smiled.
She lay still and silent as her gaze wandered over his face. Then she traced his lower lip with her finger. "I love ye, Tyler Savitch."
He dipped his head, avoiding her eyes, uncomfortable with the depth of emotion he saw revealed in those tawny depths. He inched his lips closer and kissed her nose, and because that felt so good he kissed her cheek and then her mouth. She sighed and her lips moved with his, warm and moist and easy, as if they had been created by God just to give him pleasure.
He pulled away from her. Hitching his butt up, he yanked his breeches over his hips, fastening them. Her words hung in the air between them as if they had taken shape. I love ye, Tyler Savitch. Christ, he didn't want that.
He turned around to look at her. She lay sprawled on the ground, gloriously naked, looking wanton and abandoned and oh so damn desirable. Their eyes met and they shared the memory of what had passed between them. Suddenly, she sat up, snatching at her petticoat. Covering her breasts, she tucked the folds of the skirt securely beneath her arms. Her face was shiny red with embarrassment, and it almost made him smile, this belated sense of modesty.
"Delia, why didn't you tell me you were a virgin?"
Her eyes closed a moment and he saw her swallow. Her cheekbones were still bright red, but the skin around her lips had turned white. When she opened her eyes he saw they brimmed with tears. "I told ye that first night we met that just 'cause I worked in a grog shop, it didn't make me a whore. I knew ye didn't believe me."
Ty couldn't deny it, but he didn't want to spoil the pleasure they had shared so he slanted his lips into a teasing smile and stroked her cheek, tilting her face up. "I should have figured it out though, what with all that virginal resistance you put up every time I went near you. Do you have any idea of the hell you've made me suffer these past weeks?"
She laughed, sniffled. Her lower lip trembled and he couldn't resist flicking his tongue across it, sucking it into his mouth. But she pulled her head back out of his reach. "It wasn't all that pleasurable for ye, was it? Me bein' a virgin and not knowin' what I was supposed t' do."
"Aw, Delia..." He cupped the back of her neck, giving her a gentle shake as he smiled down into her solemn, beckoning eyes. Poor brat... Here she was worried about whether she'd pleased him, when it could hardly have been a very satisfying or pleasurable experience for her. "I'm the one who made a mess of things," he said. "It probably hurt like hell—"
She shook her head. "Oh, no, Ty—"
He put two fingers across her lips. "It hurt. I know it did." He drew her to him, pressing her head against his shoulder. "Christ, but you were so small and tight. I shouldn't have gone thrusting into you like that, like some damn lusty bull."
She made a muffled protest against his chest. "It only hurt at the beginning. Afterward, I liked havin' ye inside me, Ty. Oh, it felt so fine!"
"It felt fine being inside you, too," he said, and realized the words were a puny way of expressing the sensation of filling her hot, tight wetness. Fine? My God, it had been the other side of ecstasy.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back so that he could look into her eyes. "Out by the cannon we were so hot for each other. I thought you'd want it hard and fast and now."
"But I did want it that way, Ty. Just the way ye said. Hard an' fast an' now." The way she said it, in that rough, throaty voice of hers, was so erotic it caused a feeble stirring of his exhausted manhood. Hot wasn't the word for what it had been like between them, what he had felt for her. He had been ravenous.
He kissed her again, a light, teasing kiss that just started to turn into something more before he ended it. "Next time I make love to you, I'm taking it slow and easy, the way a man should make love to a beautiful, willing virgin."
"Next time..." Joy blazed out of her face, bright and intense. "Oh, Ty, does that mean ye'll be wantin' me again?"
He drew her tightly against him, nuzzling her neck with his lips. "Hell, yes, I'll be wanting you again. And again and again and again..."
Smiling with delight, she fell back on the ground, drawing him down with her. "Now?"
Laughing, feeling wonderfully happy, he kissed her hard on the mouth before whisking away the intruding petticoat. "Greedy brat. A man needs some time in between. We have the rest of the afternoon and all night. But in the meantime I can begin to get you"—his lips moved down and captured a nipple, drawing it immediately into a hard point—"ready. And teach you how to make me"—he released the nipple, trailing his tongue around the underside of her breast, licking her and tasting salty sweat and crushed pine needles and a little of himself—"ready."
She sucked in a sharp breath and tangled her fingers in his hair. "Ty, what are we goin' t' do now about Mr. Parkes?"
His tongue drifted lower down her stomach and he felt his manhood begin to stiffen. Perhaps he wouldn't need to wait quite so long after all. "Um?"
"Mr. Parkes. What are we goin't' tell him?"
But Ty had forgotten all about Nat and he certainly didn't want to think about him now, not with the delectable Delia warm and fast becoming ready in his arms. "... won't tell him," Ty mumbled, delving into her belly button with this tongue.
She squirmed, twisting her hips sensuously, and he smiled to himself. Perhaps he hadn't been such a failure after all in initiating Delia McQuaid into the joys of lovemaking.
"But we got t' tell him somethin', Ty," she said, panting a little. The skin beneath his mouth quivered. "Won't he be angry with ye when he finds out it's you who'll be marryin' me now, 'stead of him?"
Ty's tongue stopped in its downward journey. Suddenly it was so quiet he could hear the wind-tossed cry of a gull and the distant sound of someone shouting below on the wharf of Falmouth Neck. The breeze felt cold against his naked back.
Rolling off her, he sat up. He forced himself to meet her startled eyes and felt a sick clenching of self-disgust deep inside his gut. The pressure in his chest was so fierce he could barely breathe.
Reaching down, he drew her up so that they were sitting across from each other, knees touching. In this position she seemed so small and vulnerable, barely older than a child. Hell, she was barely older than a child, a girl—although no longer a girl in one very important way, thanks to him.
He could see the fear building behind her eyes. Steeling himself, he drew a deep breath. "I'm not marrying you, Delia."
She jerked her head back and forth, once, and her mouth slanted up in a funny, twisted way. "But ye said ye loved me."
"I never said that."
"But ye did! D' ye think I would have let... Oh, God!" She pounded her thighs with her fists. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. "D' ye think any of this would have happened if I hadn't believed ye loved me? But ye gave me things—the clothes and the horse. An' the moccasins, Ty. Y-yer m-mother's moccasins."
"Delia—"
"And out there by the cannon, ye said ye loved me. Otherwise I wouldn't never have let you, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have... But I love ye. So much, don't ye see? And ye said ye loved me."
Had he said those three damning words in the heat of the moment? He was sure he hadn't.
She was crying now, choking, heaving sobs, gulping in drafts of air. He couldn't bear it, but at the same time he felt suffocated by her emotions, trapped. "I'm sorry this happened. I never set out to hurt you, please believe that—"
"Liar!" He reached for her, but she twisted out of his grasp, jerking to her feet. She snatched up her shift, pulling it over her head. Ty stood up now as well. The sickness in his gut had spread to his limbs, making them feel heavy, and he swayed a little on his feet.
He held his arms out from his sides. "It's just that I'm not ready for marriage now. My God, what I think I want out of life changes depending on which side of bed I roll out of in the morning. How can I be expected to know what I want in a wife?"
She clutched her petticoat in a fist in front of her. Suddenly she dropped it and fell to her knees before him, wrapping her arms around his thighs. "Oh God, Ty, don't do this to me. I love ye so much an' I will be so good t' ye, Ty. The best wife ever—"
He reached down and pulled her back on her feet, shaking her. "Damn it, Delia, stop it! I'm not marrying you!"
Her sobs ended suddenly, as if someone had choked them off. She shuddered once and pushed her hands up over her face, through her hair. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean t' embarrass ye. Or shame myself."
She moved away from him and finished dressing. He felt he should do something, say something, explain... "If I had known you were a virgin and that you fancied yourself in love with me, I would never have allowed things to go so far—"
She whipped around and it was the old Delia back—proud, angry, fighting him. "Is that what ye think it is I feel for you— a fancy?"
"What else could it be? We barely know each other."
She finished lacing her short gown and came to stand before him, uncomfortably close. She stared hard at his face until he wanted to look away. "I guess ye figured ye knew me well enough for beddin' though. Or is it a game t' ye—seducing poor innocent girls?"
"Innocent!" He laughed once, hard and harsh. Then he closed his fingers tightly around her scalp and brought her face close to his, close enough that he could see his own breath stir the dampened wisps of her hair. "Virgin or not, you knew damn well what you were doing, Delia-girl. And if you think now you're going to use the loss of your precious maidenhood to trap me into marrying you, think again."
Her chest jerked with her efforts not to sob, although she couldn't stop her eyes from becoming brimming golden-green pools of hurt. Or her lips from trembling open. He came within a hair's-breadth of crushing his mouth down over hers. Never had he wanted to kiss a woman more in his life and he almost hated her for it. That she could make him want something so badly, and so beyond his control...
"I d-didn't d-do that, Ty," she choked out. "I didn't t-try f trap ye, I swear—"
"Didn't you?" He let her go so abruptly that she stumbled back a step. "Christ, just look at yourself! You were nothing but a ragged, filthy tavern wench the night I found you... in my bed. Nobody would ever blame me for thinking you were just a two-shilling tart all hot for a little roll—"
Guilt and fear had sent the lacerating words spewing from his mouth, but he shut them off at the sight of what they had done to her. The blood had drained completely from her face, as if he'd torn open her heart. Her eyes fluttered and she swayed. He reached out a hand to steady her.
"Ah, God, Delia. I didn't mean—"
She shuddered violently. "Let go of me," she said, her voice hoarse and strained.
He dropped her arm. Jesus, Savitch, what kind of bastard are you?
Ty made himself face her, feeling low and small and mean. He wished she had hauled off and slapped him, or screamed that she hated him. But he could tell by the way she let her gaze roam unselfconsciously over his features, as if she were etching them onto her heart, that she didn't hate him, no matter how much he deserved it. She loved him and the knowledge terrified him. He didn't want such power over another human being and he certainly didn't want to give someone that power over him.
"I never set out to hurt you, Delia."
Her hand started up to his face, but she let it fall without touching him. "Oh, Ty, I know ye didn't. The whole thing was all my fault, wishing for somethin' I couldn't have an' lettin' myself believe..."
Oh, Jesus. "Delia, don't—"
"That first night when I saw ye an' ye touched me, I thought there never was anythin' in this world more wonderful than you. I fell in love with ye then, Tyler Savitch. But I shouldn't have given up my honor t' ye like that. I shouldn't have let ye take me like a whore."
She turned then and walked away from him, and he came so close to calling her back, to begging her to forgive him, even, for Christ's sake, to promising to marry her. But although he thought he would do almost anything to wipe the torment from her face, he knew that in the end calling her back would only hurt her worse. For what she wanted from him was love, and that he couldn't give.
He stood in one place for a long time after she had gone. Then, slowly, he bent and picked up his shirt. He started to put it on when he saw that it was stained with blood. Her blood.
He walked out of the forest, down the long path, around to the sea. He knelt in the sand beside a tidal pool and immersed the shirt. He watched the bloodstain seep out of the cloth and mingle with the water, becoming steadily weaker until it had dissipated altogether. Somehow, it seemed that with her virgin's blood he was washing away something within himself, something that had been such an integral part of him he hadn't even known it was there until now, when he missed it.
Then he realized what it was. It was joy. For the last three weeks, since she had burst upon his life, he had felt unbounded joy just on waking up in the morning and knowing he would see that impish, smiling face, hear that husky voice. She had made him laugh and she had made him angry, but above all she had made him glad to be alive. She had made him want her with a hunger unsurpassed and still—damn her and that damn consuming, sensuous body of hers—unsatisfied. Yet he couldn't find within him the courage to let himself love her, and so he cast her aside.
Taking his joy with her.
Chapter 11
The pretty, beaded moccasins lay on top of his haversack, looking forlorn, the toes touching and the heels slightly apart. Ty squatted and reached out to pick them up. For a moment his hand hovered as if he couldn't bring himself to touch them, then with a snarl of anger he snatched the moccasins and shoved them deep inside the haversack and out of his sight. "Goddamn you, Delia McQuaid."
He stood up, draping the haversack over his shoulder, and walked out of the trading post and into the bright morning sun. Susannah Marsten was in the yard waiting for him.
"I wish you could stay longer," she said, blushing slightly as he walked up to her.
He shifted the pack on his shoulder, met her eyes, and then looked away. After edging up to it for months, Susannah Marsten had finally invited him into her bed last night. He'd at least had the decency not to take her up on it. Still, not going had turned out to be almost as hurtful to her as his going would have been. Within the last twenty-four hours he had managed to hurt two fine women, and all in all Tyler Savitch wasn't feeling particularly good about himself this morning.
"I'm going to have to turn right around and come back again next week," he said. "There's a woman expecting over at Cape Elizabeth. She's so tiny it's going to be pure hell for her and I promised I'd be on hand in case something went wrong."
Susannah twisted her fingers in her skirt. "Well, then... you're welcome to stay the night here. On your way."
Ty managed to nod noncommittally, while saying nothing.
They stood beside the big black kettle in her yard. The fire was out; the soap lay half-congealed in the pot. They looked down the slope toward the pier where Delia and the Hookers watched while the oxen were being coaxed up a gangplank onto the schooner that would take them to Merrymeeting. Caleb pointed out something to Delia and they heard her delighted laughter carried to them on the morning breeze.
"Are you thinking of marrying that girl yourself?" Susannah asked, trying for teasing nonchalance and failing miserably.
Ty's eyes had been on Delia, but now he pinned them on Susannah and they darkened with sudden anger. "I have no intention of getting married. Not now. Not ever."
Her face paled and the fingers she had tangled in her skirt trembled. Ty regretted the blunt cruelty of his words, but he didn't regret saying them. He wanted no repetition of what had happened yesterday.
He clenched his jaw, glowering at the dark-haired slip of a girl on the dock, the real cause of all the turmoil, frustration, and guilt he was feeling. Dammit, take a woman to bed, even think of taking a woman to bed, and the next thing you knew she was talking about marriage and humming lullabies.
Delia would have had to turn around to see that Ty watched her. But she didn't need to do so for she could feel those intense, dusky blue eyes boring into her back. The throbbing ache between her thighs, though fading now, reminded her of what had happened between them yesterday—as if she could ever forget. She knew she would have to face him eventually, talk to him... But not, please God, just yet.
Delia felt something brush her arm and she turned to look into Elizabeth Hooker's concerned face.
"Delia, are you all right? You look as if... well, as if you've been crying."
"I guess I'm a little homesick," Delia lied. "An' maybe a little nervous, too. About meetin' Mr. Parkes today an' all."
That certainly wasn't a lie. Letting herself fall in love with one man while promising herself to another, giving herself to
Ty like that, so wantonly—Delia was sure her shame was etched in letters on her face for all the world to see. She had thought Merrymeeting would be a new beginning for her, a life of respectability. She didn't deserve such a life now, and poor Nat Parkes and his daughters, they hardly deserved the likes of her.
Caleb boarded the schooner to ensure his precious oxen were properly secured in the hold. Elizabeth watched her husband walk across the deck and disappear down a hatch, then she took a step closer to Delia, lowering her voice. "Are you sure you should be marrying Mr. Parkes? What about Dr. Savitch? It seemed you and he... well, that you two were..."
