From This Day Forward

chapter Eleven



A warm hand covered her naked breast. The heat of a man's body pressed against her back, as she lay enfolded in his large, sinewy form. A long, muscled leg lay over hers, his thigh wrapped intimately around her hips, his supple sex resting against her buttocks. The sound of his rhythmic breathing sent currents of sweet contentment through her languid body.

A sense of peace washed over her as she lay there, cradled against her husband's strong body. She closed her eyes, and the memory of their lovemaking filled her senses and turned her blood thick. He'd been passionate and tender, loving her with a fervor she'd never known.

The fact that women considered sex an unpleasant duty bewildered her. With Wade she had found the act not unpleasant, if a bit monotonous. But Jason was not Wade, not by any means. Making love with Jason was like opening a dam and allowing a torrent of floodwaters through, riding the crest until the powerful tide ebbed.

He hadn't told her he loved her, but he wanted her to stay. That was a start. And before long, he would confide everything about his past, everything that kept him awake at night. Once he faced the ghosts, they would leave him, and the two of them would be able to have a normal, wonderful life together. Think of it—a lifetime of Jason. Truly she must be the luckiest woman in the world.

She moved slightly, her body unfurling, and the flesh against her buttocks responded before his hand tightened on her breast. Desire coiled inside her, her heart thundering in sweet anticipation as the bed shifted under his weight. Groaning low in his throat, he moved to place a kiss on the sensitive place behind her ear.

How had he known? How did he find out that she hadn't gotten on the mail boat? The questions leaped unbidden to her mind and she quieted them immediately. It didn't matter, not now, not while she could feel his ardor building like storm clouds before a hurricane.

Caroline shivered with pleasure, a smile curving her lips as she imagined waking up next to Jason every morning for the rest of her life. If only he loved her as much as he desired her. It would come in time, she told herself, giving herself over to sensation, surrendering her body and her will to him.

Kneading her breast softly, he nuzzled her neck, his lips trailing down to the hollow that connected her neck to her collarbone. His hand slid underneath her breast and down her ribcage, and she gasped at the fiery sensations evoked by his touch.

Those hands possessed so much strength, yet he caressed her with such gentleness. Gentle yet demanding. Always demanding. Always urgent.

How had she ever thought him inelegant or unrefined? The elegance of his touch took her breath away, and at the moment, she didn't give a whit for refinement.

A low animal growl rumbled up from deep in his chest, vibrating where his lips touched her shoulder, his teeth gently grazing her flesh, sending threads of desire pulsing through her pliant body. Her breathing turned shallow, her heart hammering erratically as his hand moved beyond her ribcage, over the slope of her hip, downward into the nest of curls between her thighs.

Her body convulsed beneath his burning caress. The heat of his loins against her backside, the terrible agony of passion evoked by his hands, the sensation of being surrounded, devoured by masculine strength, pushed her beyond reason, beyond anything she'd ever experienced.

He controlled her body, there was no denying it. Her powerlessness frightened her, exhilarated her. His strong, gentle hands molded her into a mindless animal she didn't recognize, a needful beast that only he could satisfy.

By the time he turned her gently onto her back, her body had given way completely to a fierce passion. He took her quickly, his thrusts deep and powerful, his body demanding an explosive response from hers. A bottomless eruption racked her in spasm after spasm of exquisite madness that left her physically drained and emotionally raw.

Slowly his rapid breathing returned to normal. Rolling onto his back, he carried her with him. She lay her head on his broad chest, his heart strong and steady beneath her ear. His arm around her made her feel cherished, and she wished she could stay like this forever, wrapped in the safe haven of his arms and his body.

Had she cried out? She thought that she had. Loudly. Embarrassment suffused her body as the lingering effects of euphoria wore off.

She had responded like a wanton. Nice women weren't supposed to cry out, were they? She hoped that he had been too absorbed in his own passion to notice, but she remembered how he'd skillfully played her body like a master musician, and she knew that he had been aware of her every gasp, her every reaction.

Trembling, she nuzzled even closer to him, wanting to absorb him. He'd mastered her body, made her utterly his in a way that Wade never could have.

Compared to Jason, Wade had been nothing but a boy, a soft, pouty boy without the slightest idea how to please a woman. But then, pleasing a woman in bed, especially a man's wife, was not something to be sought after or admired in polite society. She wondered vaguely if Wade had been different with the prostitutes he'd frequented.

And to think, she might have died not knowing the heights of pleasure to be found with a man, not knowing the great disparity that could exist between men. What a pity that would have been, she thought drowsily as sleep reclaimed her.

* * *

"You know, it just occurred to me," Caroline said later that morning as they dressed, trying to sound casual when her blood ran cold in anticipation of what she was about to do. "We've never really talked."

They'd argued, they'd fought, they'd made love, but they'd never talked, really talked beyond the casual conversation one might have with a stranger. It was time, whether he realized it or not. The time had come when he would have to unbend a little and let her at least glimpse the man inside his defenses.

"Of course we have," he insisted, facing her with a guileless, open expression she'd thought never to see on his handsome face. She cherished it, whispering a silent prayer that she would see it more often.

"I mean really talked." Though she warned herself to proceed cautiously, Jason's inviting, almost carefree attitude heartened her. Maybe today, maybe now he would talk to her, tell her about his past, his feelings, his secret soul.

"What do you want to talk about?" He stood close by, shrugging into his shirt. Caroline repressed the urge to run her hand over the hard planes of his chest, experiencing a twinge of regret when he buttoned his shirt.

"You."

The word brought him up short. Tension radiated from his body, his demeanor no longer open but carefully guarded. Normally the glint in his eyes would have been enough to quell her curiosity, but if they were to have any kind of relationship, he was going to have to let her inside that carefully guarded heart of his.

"Why did you leave New Orleans?" she asked, starting with something relatively safe.

With a false casualness, he bent down and placed a tender kiss on her lips. Her body sprang to life under the firm, gentle touch of his mouth. For a moment, she forgot what she'd been saying, diverted from her purpose by a spontaneous sexual hunger that stunned her with its power.

"I wanted to go to a place where I could build something with my own hands and not have to work for someone else all my life."

"Why Brazil?" she asked, struggling for control of her senses when every fiber of her woman's body ached to rekindle the passion of a few hours ago.

He released an impatient sigh. "Coffee. I worked for the coffee company and most of our coffee came from Brazil and Colombia. I decided I wanted to be on the production end instead of the distribution end. It was a logical decision."

"Derek says that your father died under somewhat mysterious circumstances." She spoke the words quickly, as if by doing so she could soften their impact. I think you killed your father, she wanted to say, but of course she could not. That was something he would have to admit on his own, and she wasn't sure if he ever would.

"We have to get back to the fazenda," Jason said sharply, putting an end to the conversation. His closed expression and rigid stance convinced her not to push him further.

"But what about these people?" she asked. He appeared calmer now that he knew she wasn't going to pursue her questioning.

He didn't have to touch her; she only had to stand next to him to feel her body melting, her heart thundering so loudly she was sure he could hear it. He only had to look at her with those slate blue eyes to start a fire smoldering inside her.

"I can't stay here, you know that," he said, lifting her chin with a gentle finger so he could look into her eyes, "and I'm not leaving you behind. We'll arrange something. You have no idea how dangerous it is for you to come here. These are slaves, runaway slaves. Aiding them is a serious crime. We could lose everything."

"Well, it's a stupid law," she argued, her mind registering the fact that he had said "we."

"You said that your treatment wasn't working. Why not show Ines how to do what you've been doing. She can stay a day or two until she's convinced they know how to administer whatever treatment you recommend. Maybe in a week or two you can come back and check on them."

"Maybe?" Caroline asked with a wry smile.

Jason smiled in return, and Caroline couldn't remember ever having seen a genuine, guileless smile on his handsome face before. It transformed him and touched a tender place in her heart. The Jason she longed to reach shone through clearly in that candid, almost angelic expression. If only she could reach him, pull him out from behind the emotional wall that always surrounded him.

"All right," he conceded, "you can come back. But I want you to bring several armed men with you next time. Now, let's get your things together."

"I need to check on my patients first," she insisted. Several of them were very ill, and she wanted to assure herself that she had done all she could before heading back to the fazenda.

Jason glanced around the small room. "There doesn't seem to be much. I'll pack while you see to them." He lifted the bottle of witch hazel from the table beside the cot. "I hope we don't run out of this stuff," he said with a lascivious grin.

Caroline smiled in return, her face growing crimson as she turned to go, wanting more than anything to stay with Jason for the rest of the day, but knowing that there were people who needed her desperately.

A sweet soreness lingered between her thighs as she moved through the morning. It was hard to concentrate when her every thought was filled with her husband. The wanting never dimmed.

Vaguely she wondered how he had become such a consummate lover, locked away in the Amazon jungle as he had been for most of his adulthood. She didn't want to think of him with another woman, other women. Had he been as tender, as passionate with them as he had been with her?

Closing her eyes tightly, she forced herself not to dwell on the past. They were together now, she and Jason. No matter what had come before, they were man and wife, bound together for all time.

They would be all right, she and Jason. He hadn't said he loved her yet, but that would come in time. He desired her; he'd asked her to stay. She had an inkling what that one request had cost him. To admit that he wanted someone in his life must have taken a great toll on him emotionally.

Every time he'd ever expressed a need or desire or affection for anything, his father had taken it away from him or found a way to use it against him to manipulate him. Jason had grown up believing that the best solution to the problem of not knowing whom to trust was to trust no one. He had just taken one small step toward trusting her. That, in itself, was a miracle.



#####

Jason carried the bottle of witch hazel to the medical bag on a table in a corner of the room. Caroline had been right when she said she hadn't brought much with her. He could well imagine that she had acted on impulse, on the whim of a moment, running off into the jungle without regard for the dangers she might encounter.

He should be furious at her for defying him. But to his astonishment he found that her willful independence delighted him. It was so much a part of who she was. Would he ever get used to her capricious, headstrong nature? He doubted it, but he didn't doubt that he'd enjoy the effort.

He smiled to himself, then frowned as fear rocked his composure. When had he lost the restraint he always exercised over his emotions? She made him happy, made him glad to be alive, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He hadn't let another human being into his heart since Peggy. He'd vowed never to do so, and he'd kept that promise for twenty years—until now, until Caroline.

In truth, he hadn't let Caroline into his heart. She'd burrowed through his defenses, despite all his efforts to prevent it. Now he found himself thinking about her when he wasn't with her, craving her touch, yearning to tell her that he loved her and hear her say that she loved him, as she had in the dream. But the risk was too great. What if he opened his heart to her and she rejected him? If he admitted he cared, she would want to delve deeply into his soul, and he could never allow that.

Yes, he wanted to be near her. Yes, he wanted to hear her laugh and smell her perfume and make love to her. He wanted to know her deepest thoughts, the desires of her heart, but he couldn't do that and keep her at arm's length at the same time.

She stirred his blood like no woman he had ever known. Her outer confidence housed a deep well of vulnerability, along with the core of strength that made her who she was. The combination of the two—vulnerability and strength—made her feminine and independent at the same time. He wondered if she needed him nearly as much as he needed her, and the thought stilled him.

When had he come to need her? How? He had to stop this, stop it now before she betrayed him, as she was bound to do.

He opened the medical bag to put the bottle of witch hazel away. A bundle of papers caught his eye—letters. He hesitated, a twinge of guilt piercing his conscience. These were private, none of his business, but whatever they were, whoever they were from, they meant enough to Caroline that she'd brought them all the way from New Orleans. She kept them in her precious medical bag, of all places.

Curiosity stirred inside him. These letters might hold the key to knowing her as deeply as he desired without having to reveal anything about himself. Glancing furtively around the small room, he fought a moral battle within himself. She wouldn't be back for some time; she'd never know.

No, he wouldn't. He couldn't read someone else's mail.

But he couldn't help lifting the bundle of papers out. They were letters all right, but they weren't addressed to her. Without warning, his heart began to pound as a chill crawled over his body.

They were addressed to Derek. What in hell was she doing with letters addressed to Derek? As shocking as that discovery was, there was something else, something just beneath his consciousness.

The writing, the script. It was his own handwriting.

Realization dawned. Somehow Caroline had acquired private letters he'd written to Derek. But how? Anger and confusion suffused his brain, both giving way to humiliation as he realized that she must have read them, and he remembered some of the things he'd told Derek in those letters.

For reasons he didn't understand any more now than he had at the time, he'd written those letters with more candor than he'd shared with any other person in his life. He'd written of things he hadn't meant for anyone else to know, certainly not his curious, meddling wife who thought she could come into his world and change it and him.

Of all the emotions vying for dominance in his soul, fury won out, a blinding, boiling fury that coursed through every nerve in his body.

How, damn it? How had she come by these private letters? The question rolled over and over in his mind, pushing all other thoughts out. A part of him realized that the how didn't matter, not really. No matter how she acquired them, she'd read them, and in doing so, she'd glimpsed a part of his soul he never meant to share with another human being. Still, it gave him something to focus on, something other than the humiliation of having all the layers of his soul peeled away. It gave him a target for his anger.

The medical bag in one hand, the letters clasped tightly in the other, he stalked from the room, intent on finding his deceitful wife and wringing her neck.