Page 13 of Sweet Savage Love
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S onya had meant to talk seriously with Ginny, but with a cunning she would not have believed the girl capable of, her stepdaughter managed adroitly to avoid it.
Ginny was asleep, or pretending to be, when Sonya entered the wagon, after spending a good half hour pacifying Carl Hoskins, and Sonya, who was rather tired and depressed herself was almost glad to postpone their talk. The next morning, when they broke camp at about five o’clock, Ginny took the reins, advising Sonya cheerfully to get some more sleep while she had the chance.
But when Sonya woke up later on in the morning, still feeling unaccountably weary, only Tillie sat on the high seat, clucking at the mules. Ginny was gone.
Questioned, Tillie said rather sullenly that Miss Ginny had gone riding—she had said she wanted to see the cattle and the wagons travel through the pass.
“But—she surely didn’t go by herself? Good heavens, there may still be Indians around!”
“No, ma’am, she didn’t go by herself. Mr. Morgan, he came by, and she went along with him. Said they was going to ride up into the mountains a ways, an’ catch up with us later.”
“Oh, no!” Sonya’s china blue eyes mirrored not only dismay but a kind of anger as well.
She bit her lip to keep back the words she wanted to blurt out—it would never do to let Tillie know how she really felt! But she was uncomfortably aware, as she climbed up beside Tillie, that the brown eyes studied her slyly. It didn’t matter, of course, what Tillie thought, but it really was thoughtless and quite out of character for Ginny to act so—so sneakily!
Her own venom surprising her, Sonya thought viciously, “damn Steve Morgan!” Why did it have to be he William hired? And after all these years? And what was he doing with Ginny?
Steve Morgan was wondering the same thing, when they stopped for the second time to rest and water their horses on the long, steep slope that led down from the hills.
Why had he been crazy enough last night to promise he’d bring her up here? No one knew better than he that there might still be a few stray Apaches around, and with a woman along, especially one as inexperienced as Ginny Brandon—he told himself grimly that it must have been that rotgut Paco called whiskey. But then, what had gotten into her?
The waterhole was really no more than a seep—a small underground spring he’d found under a huge, overhanging boulder. In spite of the fact that she’d sensed he was in a hurry to move on, Ginny had dismounted, and seated herself deliberately with her back against a smaller boulder, pretending that the long ride had tired her. She had pulled the hat from her head and was fanning herself with it, eyes closed; but she was well aware, all the same, that her companion was studying her, his face morose and unsmiling. She had asked herself all morning why she had come with him, and now, why she was here, but womanlike, she did not want to find the answer. She wanted—she didn’t know what she wanted! She was here—let him make the first move.
So far, he had been polite—answering when she spoke to him, occasionally advising her to be careful when the trail they had followed grew narrow. Unlike Carl, he made no attempts to press his leg against hers when they happened to ride side by side. She had flirted with him last night, and he had responded, but this morning everything seemed changed. What was he thinking?
“We’d better get started. It’s going to take all of two hours to catch up with the wagons as it is.”
His voice came from somewhere above her, and Ginny pretended he had startled her.
“Oh! Is it really such a distance down this side of the mountain? It seemed to take much less time when we were climbing!”
An unwilling smile twitched the corner of his mouth.
“If you’ll recall, ma’am, I think I told you that this trail we’re following now kind of skirts around the hills. Takes longer that way.”
He reached his hand out to her and she took it unwillingly, scrambling to her feet when he tugged.
“Ma’am! Why do you keep calling me that? You make me sound like an old married woman.”
“Well, what would you rather I called you, Miss Brandon?” he said dryly, and something about the way his eyes looked her over, coolly and appraisingly, made her flush with embarrassment.
“You really are a very exasperating man!”
Ginny pulled her hand from his and walked over to her mare, turning her back on him.
“Ginny Brandon.” His voice held an undertone of laughter now, as she felt him come up behind her. His hands touched her shoulders, turning her around gently to face him. “Why am I so very exasperating? What did you expect from me?”
She had to force herself to meet his eyes.
“I don’t know. Honesty, perhaps. Most men are not honest with women, you know. They pretend and play-act and force us too into playing a role.” Her voice faltered for an instant, and then gathered strength. “Perhaps, Mr. Morgan, you—intrigued me because you are different from the other men I have met. You give the impression that you say what you feel; do as you want. You are not afraid of what people may say or think, are you? I don’t know if I should be frightened of you or—”
His fingers bit into her shoulders and she winced. The laughter had gone from his eyes and they looked hard and bleak.
“For God’s sake! You find me intriguing because I mistook you for a whore the first time we met—and treated you like one? If you want the truth, you’ve intrigued me ever since—particularly since I could have sworn you kissed me back. But I learned a long time ago to run like hell from panting little virgins, full of curiosity and teasing little tricks.”
“Ohh!” Her gasp was full of outrage, but he went on inexorably, his hands bruising her shoulders.
“No, don’t try to pull away, I’m not through yet! You wanted honesty, remember? I want you, Ginny Brandon—I have from the beginning, and I’m sure you’ve known it. But I’ve tried to stay as far away from you as much as possible, because you’re the worst kind of poison. A nice girl, a Senator’s daughter, and by God, a virgin. I’ve not been respectable for most of my life—I’ve wanted women and taken them and never bothered too much with preliminaries. What I’m trying to tell you, I guess, is that this whole thing is crazy—I had no right to ask you to come up here with me, and you—damn your green eyes, you should have known better than to come!”
“Why not?” The same green eyes he’d damned flashed defiance at him. No, this time she would outface him, she would not back down. “You are right, you know, I am curious. And why should I not be, merely because I am what you call a ‘nice girl?’ I’m a woman, Steve Morgan, and you look at me as if I were a woman, and yet there are so many things I do not understand! You told me you want me, and I don’t even know what that really means, or what I am supposed to feel! When Carl kissed me, I—”
His fingers bit into her shoulders and she gave a small cry of pain.
“So you’re a virgin who plays at passion?” he said brutally, “and this, no doubt, is in the nature of an experiment? Very well, Miss Brandon, I’ll try to oblige, just so you’ll have a basis for comparison the next time you kiss Carl Hoskins.”
Before Ginny could speak or move he had pulled her against him and his mouth came down over hers in a hard, angry kiss that took her breath away. There was no gentleness in him, no tenderness. His arms held her pinned against the length of his body, and he kissed her savagely and thoroughly, his tongue raping her mouth until she felt she would swoon, felt her legs become weak, felt a strange, feverish pounding in her temples that seemed to spread through her whole body and engulf her.
Without knowing why, or what she was doing, her arms lifted, went around his neck and clung. She felt his hand move slowly and caressingly up her back, then tug impatiently at her hair, loosening it from its tidy, coiled braids. She felt her hair tumble down over her shoulders, and his mouth made a burning trail from her parted lips to her earlobe.
“Ginny—Ginny—” the words sounded like a groan, and a shiver of apprehension went through her as she felt his fingers start to unbutton the thin silk shirt she had worn with her riding skirt.
He mustn’t—she mustn’t let him—but his mouth found the hollow at the base of her throat and she made a little, helpless sound; feeling the shirt open under his hands, his fingers burn against her breast.
He held her close against him, one arm supporting her weak, trembling body, and when she would have protested against the liberties he was taking, his lips covered her open mouth, taking possession of it, stifling the words she tried to utter.
Ginny’s head fell back and she began to whimper in the back of her throat. She felt drained of thought and will.
Suddenly, he had bent his head, he was kissing her breasts, his tongue tracing light, teasing patterns over their taut, sensitive peaks.
She struggled then, but only half-heartedly; both his arms imprisoned her again, she closed her eyes and let him have his way, feeling the desire to struggle or even to protest slipping away from her to be replaced by something else—something that grew like a tight, hard knot inside her belly, spreading a burning flush over her whole body.
He must have sensed her sudden, abject surrender. From somewhere far away she heard him laugh softly, and then, catching her roughly against him, he was kissing her again, his hands slipped under her shirt to caress the bare skin of her back.
This time Ginny arched up against him, half-sobbing, not yet understanding the strange new emotions that he had awakened in her body. She was all too conscious of the pressure of his long, hard-muscled legs against hers, of the feel of his shirt against her bare, tingling breasts, the crisp feel of his hair under her clutching fingers.
Somewhere in the recesses of her mind was the thought: So this is how it feels—like a fever, like a coiled snake in the belly, growing, spreading heat like honey in her loins, rendering her incapable of everything but feeling, needing, and yet not wholly understanding what it was she needed from him.
It was only—as she was to realize later—only the sudden intrusion of a distant shout, from somewhere far below them, that stopped whatever was building up to a climax between them.
Ginny could feel the instant stiffening of his body against hers, the stilling of all motion, as if they hung suspended in space, and then she was free, standing on her own trembling feet as his hands fell away from her and he moved backwards.
“Oh Christ!” Steve said disgustedly as the same voice shouted again—
“Hola up there! Can you hear me, Steve?”
Ginny sank to her knees, her breath still catching in her throat, hands going up to touch her burning, flushed cheeks.
“It’s only Paco,” he said unnecessarily, and then, his voice tight with frustration, “tactful, isn’t he?”
He cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled back.
“We’re coming down, hold your horses!”
Already, Ginny was beginning to fumble with the buttons on her shirt. Sudden embarrassment kept her from looking at him. Oh, God, how could she ever face him again? How would she face the others?
He hunkered down beside her and, brushing her shaking fingers aside, began to fasten up her shirt, quickly and efficiently.
“It’s just as well he called out when he did,” Steve said quietly. “You know that, don’t you? And I guess I should say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” He put his hand under her chin and turned her unwilling face up to his.
“Don’t mess with me any more, Ginny Brandon. I’ve no time for romance and gentle kisses! I’m not used to curious virgins.”
Something drove her to flare up at him. “Is that why you were so—so rough? Did you mean to scare me off, Mr. Morgan? Have you never been tender or even kind to a woman?”
He was already pulling her back onto her feet, but he shot her a look that was almost surprised before he masked it with coldness.
“To tell the truth, when I’ve been with women before we’ve known what was coming. There’s been no need to waste time on silly games. Take my advice, Miss Brandon, and forget what happened just now. I’m sure you’ll find Carl Hoskins much better behaved, and more to your taste as a lover.”
“You make it very easy to hate you, but I’m sure you know that!”
Pulling the shreds of her pride and dignity about her, Ginny mounted her horse, ignoring the hand he stretched out to help her.
They rode down to meet Paco in stony silence, and Ginny did not know whether to feel relieved or guilty when she saw that Carl Hoskins was with him, his face hard with suspicion.
Only Sonya Brandon’s pleading and her extraction of a reluctant promise from him made Carl control his anger.
Steve Morgan’s face told him nothing, but Ginny—surely her cheeks wore an unusually high flush, and her hair, he noticed, had been clubbed together in an untidy braid that swung over one shoulder. He had opened his mouth to say something when he met her eyes, and the almost defiant look in them made him clench his jaws with helpless rage.
“Mrs. Brandon was—quite worried when she woke up and found you’d gone riding,” he said stiffly when the girl had cantered up abreast of him.
“I’m sorry,” she said sullenly. “But I didn’t want to wake her, and I did tell Tillie—”
“If anyone’s to blame, I guess I am,” Steve Morgan said pleasantly. “I asked Miss Brandon if she’d care to go riding with me, and it took longer than I thought it might because we had to stop and rest the horses a few times.”
“I would think you could have been more thoughtful, Morgan—after all it was you who warned us all about Indians!”
There was much more Carl might have said, but the suddenly cold, warning look in Morgan’s eyes stopped him.
Paco Davis said quickly and pacifically:
“Well, now that Hoskins can escort Miss Brandon back to her wagon, I think that you and I, amigo, should find out what happened to all those Apaches your friends run off.”
“Miss Brandon—my pleasure, ma’am.”
Forcing herself to meet Steve Morgan’s eyes, Ginny nodded coolly.
So it was to be over, before it had started? He thought he could flirt with her and kiss her in that savage, almost animally passionate way, and put his hands on her body so intimately—and then pretend that nothing had happened?
You’ll not get away with it quite so easily, Steve Morgan, Ginny vowed silently. He had already ridden off with Paco, their horses half-obscured by dust, and she didn’t realize that she was staring after them until she felt Carl Hoskins’ hand on her arm, his fingers hurting her.
“What happened up there? What is there between you? By God, if he touched you, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, Carl? Will you challenge him to a gun fight?” A cruelty she had not realized she possessed made Ginny’s voice and words deliberately taunting, and she saw Carl’s face redden.
“What has happened to you?” His voice sounded disbelieving, it shook with the frustration he was trying to control. “You’ve been with him twice, and suddenly you’re not the same girl! What has he done to you?”
Tired of him, tired of his questions, Ginny pulled her arm from his grasp. Her green eyes looked hard, unsympathetic.
“Nothing! Nothing happened at all! Does that disappoint you? But I’m sick of being treated like a child, sick of your questions! And if Sonya is so worried about me, perhaps we’d best hurry back to her.”
Without glancing at him again she wheeled her mare around, kicking the startled animal into a fast gallop. Not knowing what else to do, Carl followed her.
The hours that followed Ginny’s defiant return to the wagon seemed interminable to them all. Ginny refused to be questioned, refused to speak to Carl. To Sonya she only said shortly that she had wanted to go riding, and had done so; and that she would ride with whomever she pleased when she felt like it.
Finally, Sonya decided to hide her agitation and leave the girl alone until she was in a better mood. She took the reins from Tillie, leaving Ginny lying on the small bunk with her eyes obdurately closed, and could not stop herself from wondering what had really happened. Steve Morgan was capable of anything, hadn’t she sensed that at the very beginning? And she had been foolish not to warn William against hiring him, but what could she have said without giving herself away? She had thought that perhaps the years had changed him—he hadn’t tried to touch her, nor to remind her about the past, not even when he had asked her to go riding, and she had been alone with him. Why hadn’t he? Was it because he wanted Ginny?
I don’t know, Sonya thought miserably, I’m not sure of anything any longer! All these years, she had felt so safe with William, so secure—almost, she had made herself forget what had happened that long ago spring in Louisiana. And then he’d come back—acting for all the world as if he had forgotten too, but had he? I should talk to him, she thought; ask him—no, tell him to leave Ginny alone. But he wouldn’t listen, it might make him want her more. Or he might think—hastily, she shut the thought away, concentrating on familiar, safer things. Plans for the new house William had built in California, waiting to be furnished. Plans for an empire, waiting to be taken.
Sonya shuttered and screened her thoughts, filtering through only those things about which she wanted to think. Ginny, moving restlessly in the uncomfortably narrow bunk, wondered what might have happened if Paco Davis had not chosen that particular moment to call out. Her thoughts were a mixture of anger and humiliation and yes, she had to admit it, curiosity.
“A curious virgin” he had called her mockingly. He had sworn at her, been deliberately rude to her, but he hadn’t been able to hide the fact that he wanted her, had wanted to kiss her. Would he have stopped? Could she have stopped him?
That strange, half-weak, half-feverish feeling that had taken possession of her, making her helpless, was that desire? She shivered, wondering if it was always like that. So frightening, to lose control of one’s emotions, to actually want a man to do with her as he had done. His lips on her breasts, burning into them, his tongue exploring her mouth, the taste of his kisses—it hadn’t been that way with Carl. No, Carl would never treat her that way.
The wagon creaked and rumbled beneath her, tossing her, keeping her awake when she needed to sleep. She found herself wondering if Steve Morgan would come into camp tonight, whether he’d look at her differently. He will, he will, she thought stubbornly and her heart pounded, so hard she thought she would faint.