Chapter 9
The resulting silence was terrible. Gene stared into his coffee cup and fidgeted in his chair. Alice studied her hands, composed but embarrassed. Aislinn's eyes were riveted to the top of Tony's head while color rose high in her cheeks. Only Lucas seemed unaffected by his bold declaration.
"Do you need anything out of the truck?" he asked, scraping his chair away from the table and standing.
"The small suitcase and Tony's bag," Aislinn replied in a low voice.
"Mother, can you fashion Tony a crib out of a drawer or something?"
"Yes of course. Come on, Aislinn," Alice said, laying a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Let's get Tony settled for the night."
"I'll help Lucas." Gene seemed grateful for something to do. He followed Lucas from the kitchen.
The bedroom into which Alice led Aislinn was small, having room for only an old-fashioned vanity table with a padded stool, a chest of drawers, a nightstand, and a double bed.
"These drawers are empty," Alice said, taking one out of the chest of drawers. "I cleaned everything out after Father died."
"I didn't have time … before … to tell you how sorry I was," Aislinn said.
"Thank you. It was inevitable. He was old. He didn't want to linger for years in a hospital or nursing home. It happened just as he wanted it to. There, do you think that will work?"
While they were talking, she had lined the bottom of the drawer with a quilt, folding it several times in order to make it fit and to form soft bedding for the baby.
"That will be fine. For now. In another month or two he'll be kicking the sides out." Aislinn hugged Tony affectionately and kissed his temple.
"Oh, by then I'll have bought a crib. I'm counting on you to bring him to see me often."
"You don't mind about Lucas and me?" Her eyes shyly sought Alice's.
"Maybe I should be asking you that. Do you mind about Lucas and you?"
"At first, yes, very much. Now, I don't know," she said honestly. "We hardly know each other, but we both love Tony. The quality of his life is extremely important to us. On that basis, we might make the marriage work."
"Life out there on the ranch will be far different from what you're accustomed to."
"I was sick to death of the life I was accustomed to, even before I met Lucas."
"It won't be easy for you, Aislinn."
"Nothing worthwhile is."
The two women stared at each other, the younger with determination, the other with skepticism. "Let's make up the bed," Alice suggested quietly.
Once the clean sheets had been smoothed over the bed, Aislinn realized how narrow it was. How would she get through the night sleeping there with Lucas? He had come into the bedroom to deposit the bags she had requested from the truck, but had immediately gone out again. She could hear him conversing with Gene in the living room.
"I'd better leave so you can get some rest," Alice said. "Besides, if I don't say a special good-night to Gene, he might think I've deserted him in favor of Tony." She leaned down to kiss the baby who was lying contentedly in the makeshift crib. Before she left, she took Aislinn's hand. "I'm very glad to have you in the family."
"Even though I'm an Anglo?"
"Unlike my son, I don't harbor a grudge against a race for what a few have done."
Without thinking about it, Aislinn kissed her new mother-in-law on the cheek. "Good night, Alice. Thank you for your kindness to Tony and me."
When she was alone, Aislinn fed the baby, hoping he would sleep straight through till morning and not disturb Lucas. She rushed him along, hoping she could get done with the nursing before Lucas came in. She wanted to spare herself another scene like the one earlier in the pickup.
There was only one bathroom in the house. It was located in the hallway between the two bedrooms. Aislinn took her turn as soon as she put Tony to bed. When she came back into the bedroom, there was nothing left to do but get undressed.
Officially this was her wedding night, yet the nightgown she took from her suitcase wasn't exactly bridal. This was its second summer season, and though it was soft and the fabric sheer against the light, its modest, scooped, elasticized neckline wasn't sexually enticing. In fact it looked rather dowdy and plain.
She was sitting at the vanity table, smoothing lotion on her arms when Lucas came in and closed the door behind him. Aislinn fumbled with the bottle of lotion. She told herself that her clumsiness was due to the fact that her hands were slippery and not because she was facing a night alone in a bedroom with Lucas Greywolf.
Had she been looking at herself in the mirror rather than at her husband, she would have seen that her eyes were wide and apprehensive. They made her appear very young and innocent. In contrast, her hair fell around her shoulders seductively. Her lips were soft and dewy and naturally rosy. The nightgown looked maidenly. The total package, especially seen through the eyes of a bridegroom, was sexy.
The lamp on the nightstand was turned down low. The shadow that Lucas cast onto the walls and ceiling was long and ominous in the small, square room.
"Is Tony asleep yet?" he asked, his hands going to the buttons of his shirt.
"Yes. I don't think he minds sleeping in a bureau drawer at all."
In the mirror, Aislinn saw Lucas smile as he bent over the drawer, which she had placed on the floor near the side of the bed. Her heart fluttered at the way his face softened when he looked at his son. It would be very easy to fall in love with a man who could feel that kind of tenderness for a woman.
Mentally she jerked herself erect. Tender emotions like that would be foreign to most of the men she knew. For Greywolf, they would be impossible. As though to sweep the ridiculous musings from her mind, she picked up her hairbrush and began pulling it through her hair, though it already crackled with life.
Lucas sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged off his boots, dropping them to the floor. "Gene told me tonight that he's glad we got married."
It was so unlike him to initiate a seemingly innocuous conversation that her arms fell still and she looked at his reflection in the mirror. "Why?"
He chuckled. Another phenomenon. "He's been trying to get my mother to marry him for years. He made her promise she would when I got out of prison." He stood up and unbuckled his belt. "Our getting married was his ace in the hole. Now she really doesn't have any excuses left."
"He seems like such a dear, kind man. How can she help but want to marry a man like him?"
"A man so unlike your husband."
She was laying the hairbrush aside, but at his words, her eyes swung up to meet his in the mirror. "I didn't mean it that way."
"It doesn't matter what you meant. I'm the husband you've got."
She swallowed a knot of apprehension as he came toward her with a stalking, sauntering gait. He epitomized a confident male animal on the scent of a female. He had stripped down to his jeans. The fly was unbuttoned. Aislinn's eyes unerringly went to that narrow V that yawned open just below his navel. Her heart leaped with a mixture of desire and trepidation.
In the dim lighting, his skin took on a deep copper hue. His dark body hair was limned with golden light, especially that which spun around his navel. His cheeks were shaded by the drastic projection of his cheekbones, which were striped now with the long shadows of his eyelashes.
His gray eyes were trained on her like an eagle's on weakened prey. They seemed to penetrate the layers of her skin and see straight inside her. His look was hot. It seared her, but she shivered.
"Lucas?"
"You have beautiful hair."
He came to stand directly behind her, putting her shoulders on a level with his hips. Against the brown expanse of his hard stomach, her hair looked incredibly fair. It rippled like golden threads in his hands when he lifted bunches of it off her shoulders. Idly he let the heavy strands sift through his fingers.
Aislinn was entranced by the sensuous sight. And even though it was happening to her, she forced herself to become strictly an observer, to pretend that it was happening to someone else. That was the only way she could survive it.
Otherwise, when he spread a handful of her hair over his belly and rubbed it around and around like lather, her heart would have drummed its way out of her body.
If she let herself admit that she was actually participating in such a visually erotic act, she might turn around and kiss that taut stomach. She might treat her lips to a journey around the thin slit of his navel and down that strip of jet-black hair that fanned wide in the opening of his jeans. She might dampen that hair with soft, kittenish licks.
He let her hair fall back to her shoulders and closed his hands loosely around her neck. His fingers strummed it lightly. "Why does your white skin appeal to me so much?" he asked raspily. "I want to hate it."
He touched her earlobes, feathered them with the pads of his fingers, softly pinched them between his thumbs and index fingers. She made a whimpering sound. Against her will, her neck gave way and her head landed against the hard plane of his stomach behind her. Mindlessly, she rolled her head from one side to the other. She watched her hair swish across his dark skin and thought that, together, they were very beautiful.
His hands coasted over her shoulders and slipped beneath the lacy elastic top of her gown. Her eyes, which had been half-closed, opened and met his in the mirror.
"I want to see my hands on you," he said.
She watched, hypnotized, as his strong, tapering, wide-spread fingers slid down her chest. No protest broke across her lips when they moved lower, taking the gown down with them. Her breath rushed into her lungs when his palms slid down over her breasts. He pressed. He massaged. He rubbed.
Her body responded.
He cupped the undersides of her fully aroused breasts and lifted them, lightly whisking the crests with his thumbs. She moaned, grinding the back of her head into his belly' which was rising and falling with each of his rapid breaths.
Their eyes never wavered from the mirror. They were mesmerized by the contrast of his large hands, such testimonies to his masculinity, moving over the soft, velvety mounds of her breasts. He knew just how much pressure to apply to give her optimum sensation. His fingers played delicately with the dusky tips until they throbbed with a pleasurable pain.
Deep inside her, another ache was becoming unbearable. Her womanhood felt feverish and heavy as it flowered to readiness. Only one thing could ease that special kind of ache.
And that was impossible.
The realization struck Aislinn suddenly and she threw off his hands. Springing off the stool, she pulled her nightgown up over her breasts and, turning to face him, said "I can't."
The sound that emanated from his throat was that of an attacking mountain cat. He gripped the upper part of her arms and yanked her hard against him. "You're my wife."
"But not your possession," she flared. "Let me go."
"I'm entitled."
He tunneled his fingers through her hair, pressed them against her scalp and drew her face beneath his. Reflexively she reached up to ward him off. Her hands landed on either side of his torso, just under his arms. His skin was smooth and warm. The muscles were so hard they begged to be explored and admired. She wanted to sink her teeth into them. Her determination wavered.
But this wasn't right. They were married, yes. With that marriage license came certain privileges, yes. But shouldn't love be involved? And if not love, at least mutual respect? She knew that Lucas had only contempt for what she was and where she had come from. She refused to be merely a vessel for his lust.
And even if the wrongness of it weren't enough of a reason to discourage him, there was the other. Since it was the most expedient, that's the reason she would use.
A heartbeat before his mouth ravished hers, she said, "Think, Lucas! Tony is barely a month old." He paused. She saw his gray eyes blink with misapprehension, so she hurriedly clarified her point. "You asked me today if you had hurt me before, and I said you hadn't. That was the truth. But if you … if we … do this, you could hurt me. I haven't had time to completely heal."
He stared down into her face, his hot breath striking her in steady pants. When he had finally digested what she was telling him, he glanced down toward her middle.
Gradually his grip on her arms relaxed and he set her away from him. Nervously she wet her lips with her tongue. "For christsake don't do that," he growled. He ran his fingers through his hair, then covered his face with both hands. He pressed his fingers deep into his eye-sockets before slowly dragging his hands down his cheeks. "Get into bed."
She didn't argue. After quickly checking on Tony to make certain he was sleeping soundly, she slid between Alice Greywolf's sunshine-smelling sheets and pulled the top one over her. The air conditioning even required the light blanket.
She closed her eyes, but knew when Lucas peeled down his jeans and stepped out of them. Through the screen of her lashes, she saw his nakedness. Long limbs. Wide chest. A shadowy triangle between powerful thighs. And an aroused virility. Then the room was pitched into darkness when he switched out the lamp.
All she could think about as he lay down beside her was that he was naked and that he was hard. Though they didn't touch at any point, she could feel his body heat. It scorched her skin. The rhythm of his breathing both electrified and soothed. She held her body rigid until his weight shifted and she knew that he had turned away from her.
Only then did she relax enough to eventually fall asleep.