Slicked with her moisture, his fingers moved, knowing intuitively where to please her, manipulating the pressure and maintaining the slow rhythmic in and out motion of his finger and where to apply it. Drawn taut as a bow-string, quivering from his onslaught. Breathing hard, he watched her, luscious, sensual, gauging her response, and waiting for her rapture, his fingers stroking in time with her thrusts.
In that instant, he felt her thighs tremble, her belly shudder, and heard her keening cries as her hips rocked and her womanhood tightened in a convulsive movement, the heady perfume of her feminine essence washing over his hand. Letting out a breath, Joshua held her close, reveling in the feel of her as he cradled her yielding body with his. He dropped a soft kiss on her forehead, cherishing the rapid beat of her heart against his chest, and closing his eyes to the searing agony of self-denial.
“Joshua?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder yet tentative.
“Hmm?”
She took a deep breath. “Did you?”
He nudged his chin into her silky hair. “What do you think?”
She pulled her doeskin dress to cover her and nestled closer to him. Cradled above in the boughs of an oak came the rich and low song of an Indigo bunting called to its mate. “This is new…I had no idea. I believe you made love to me. But it seemed a bit…one-sided. Perhaps I should—”
“Oh, Juliet. What you have experienced is a sample of desire.” He played idly with the beads on her dress, telling himself to quit touching her. That it could go no further.
“I am curious why a trained midwife did not know what occurred between a man and a woman.”
“I have led a sheltered life, protected fiercely by Moira and not privy to intimacies. Do I—” He could see her holding her breath, waiting for him to declare his feelings, silently begging him not to hurt her.
“Juliet, I gave you a little taste of what it is meant to be a woman. The rest will be supplied by your real husband when you marry.”
She turned to her side and stared straight into his eyes, searching so deeply, he felt certain she could grasp the shaking soul he concealed beneath his sham veneer.
“I don’t believe what you are saying. I know you have feelings for me.”
He looked away, down the infinite river and beyond, anything to escape her accusatory gaze.When I see you, I smile. When I touch you, I feel. I love you, Juliet.“No, Juliet. You are wrong. I have a fondness for you, but do not mistake—”
She struck him on the chest, forcing his gaze back to hers. “Damn you. Damn you to hell a thousand times. You mislead the truth to cover—”
He thrust her aside and jumped to his feet. “You make much when this was a trifling undertaking.”
“Trifling?” She sat up and drew her knees to her chest.
“Insignificant,” he said, shifting and attempting not to scowl at the mocking throbbing in his loins. “Inconsequential.”
She angled her head, glaring holes in him. “After what happened just now, I will never look at you again—at myself in anyway unaffected. You call that trifling?”
“Yes,” he snapped. He snatched his sack and slung it with his powder horn over his shoulder. In truth, he wanted her so much that his blood was aflame. He was so hard that it created a burning pain in every nerve and fiber of his being. “You have to go to England. The frontier is no place for a woman. The vows we took were a means to an end. I have no interest in making the kind of promises you require.”
“What is it you hide so neatly?”
His nostrils flared. “That is none of your affair.”
Oh, it is my affair. After what we just did, I am owed an explanation.”
“Damn you,LadyFaulkner. Damn you for seeking meaning where none was intended.” He would not look at her as he stalked from the river, yet he slowed on the path until he perceived her behind him. He did not want to see her face, for he knew she would read the lies in his own.
She stepped on his heels, struck him on the shoulder. He pivoted and swore. She raised a hefty branch, her arc high, ready to do more damage. Before she struck him again, he ripped her weapon from her hands, and threw it against the trunk of an oak where it broke apart.
“There is a war going on in case you haven’t noticed. I could not protect her. I cannot protect you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Back on the river, Juliet stared at Joshua’s back as he paddled, each stroke deep and purposeful. There’d been a change in him. Now his eyes held neither hunger nor hostility when he looked at her. Those emotions had been replaced by a distant courtesy. She swallowed past an unexpected heat in her throat. He was living the memory of a deceased loved one.
Tears? Where did they come from? She wiped them away; committed not to shed one more. No sense wasting time thinking of a man who neither wanted her nor had a place in her life.
Yet deep in her heart, she grasped he had lied to her concerning his feelings. No man could bring a woman so close to the stars and feel nothing himself.
