Page 50 of Sweet Savage Love
50
O n March 12, 1867, the last shipload of French soldiers left Vera Cruz harbor, and on the same day Steve Morgan came back to the Hacienda de la Nostalgia.
He was wearing a uniform—it was the first thing Ginny noticed when she came running down the steps. She was still damp from the bath she had just taken—wet curls pinned carelessly on top of her head, her skin still glowing with moisture.
He was just dismounting from his horse when she stopped abruptly, not two feet away from him, teeth worrying her lower lip, green eyes starting to shine with anger as she remembered how enraged with him she was.
“Well?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Well! Is that all you have to say? It’s been almost a month, and all the word you’ve bothered to send me was that—that note that said nothing, which you might as well have written to Salvador!”
“Since it made you so angry, I’m sorry I didn’t tell Manolo to hand it to Salvador instead.” He stood looking down at her, a strange, hard smile on his mouth, his blue eyes blazing with some kind of emotion she couldn’t fathom.
“Well, at least Salvador has been bringing me news of the war,” she said sulkily, adding almost unwillingly, “I see you’ve joined the real army at last! When did that happen?”
“A couple of weeks ago, after we wiped out a troop of counter-guerillas who had been bothering us.”
He turned away from her rather abruptly and began to take his saddlebags from the horse, and she noticed that he moved one arm rather stiffly, as if it hurt him.
Her anger evaporated immediately and she ran to him, eyes wide with concern.
“Steve! You’ve been wounded, haven’t you? Oh, for God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me know?”
Her arms seemed to fly up around his neck, and the sarcastic comment he had been about to make died under the sweet, familiar pressure of her lips. He dropped the saddlebags and began to kiss her roughly, savagely, as if he had to seal his possession of her. There was only one thing to do, he found himself thinking crazily, and that was to take her to bed. He had had too much time alone with his thoughts, there was too much bitterness, like poison, collected inside him.
They did no talking in the bedroom afterwards, except for the occasional, half-breathless words of love and passion that came quite naturally as they rediscovered each other’s bodies and their capabilities.
He wanted her! In spite of the note of harshness in his voice and the sarcastic twist of his lips when he had first spoken to her; once she was in his arms he had held her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. And in spite of the grinning, watching faces of old Salvador and the peons who had come up to greet him he had carried her in his arms and straight into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him with a bang that they must have heard outside.
Drowsily content, Ginny lay with the weight of his body still pressing hers down as he lay half-asleep, his breathing slowly becoming more regular. He had come back to her after all, just when she was beginning to despair that he ever would. Her fingers gently stroked the ridges of scar tissue on his back, moved to touch the bandage that he still wore, wound tightly around his chest and shoulder to keep the thick wad of dressing in place. He had been wounded—he must have been in some battle he hadn’t yet had the time to tell her about. She had started to ask him about it when he had crushed her words into silence with his lips.
That’s why he didn’t come before, she thought, and in spite of the terrifying knowledge that he might have been killed without her even knowing it, she was somehow glad that it was his injury, and not his indifference, that had kept him away so long.
The patterns made by the late afternoon sun as it slanted through the window she had left half open for coolness were beginning to look faded, like the old-gold roses on a damask curtain she had seen once. In the kitchen, Salvador would be preparing dinner, his old, seamed face probably sour as he wondered if they would eat it or not.
Ginny hadn’t been eating very well lately, but now, suddenly she felt as if she had been starving for weeks. And Steve must probably feel the same way too. He looked thinner, and his face had tired, tense lines in it she hadn’t noticed before. And he had had a haircut too—she touched the back of his neck with her fingers, discovering where his hair was just beginning to grow long enough to curl slightly.
His face had been buried in the curve of her shoulder and neck, in the masses of her hair, but now he suddenly turned it so that his lips grazed her cheek.
“You’re restless, chica. What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I was only wondering if you were hungry,” she confessed shamelessly. “I haven’t been able to work up an appetite all week, and now suddenly I feel as if I could eat anything! A mountain of tortillas—two bowls full of chili, oranges and papayas—and oceans of wine to wash it all down with!”
He began to laugh softly.
“That’s a hell of a thing to be thinking of in the position you’re in! What a set-down you’ve given me, especially since my hunger at present is all for you—you tempting little baggage!”
Holding her pinned down he began to nibble at her breasts, his lips and tongue teasing her nipples until she began to writhe under him, moaning helplessly.
“Oh, Steve! Oh, Steve—yes!”
“What does that mean? Have I really managed to arouse some other hunger in your wanton body?”
He rolled over onto his back, grinning at her, while she almost cried with frustration, her fingers clawing at his chest.
“Oh damn you, Steve! You can’t do that to me! I won’t let you!”
“As a matter of fact, I’m rather tired—and now you’ve mentioned it, the thought of food does sound mighty tempting.”
“You—you brute! You horrible wretch! You’re saying that on purpose to tease me!”
She squirmed over on top of him and began to pummel at him with her fists until he caught them.
“Hellcat! What are you trying to do—open up that wound of mine again? I can think of better ways for you to work up an appetite once more.”
Suddenly catching his meaning she began to frown with anger and then dissolved into helpless giggles until he pulled her face down to his and began to kiss her, his hands moving to caress her body until desire made her almost mindless and she did exactly as he wanted.
They ate their dinner very late, after all, because Steve had insisted on taking a bath and she went to find some fresh clothes for him in his saddlebags, which were still outside in the living room where Salvador had put them.
Ginny had resisted the urge to peek—to go through them to learn what he was carrying and where he had been, but the only thing she could find was lying right under the clothes he had asked her to bring him, and she stared at it, frowning, for a few minutes. An Arkansas “toothpick”—a knife she was only too familiar with, but which it was strange to find Steve carrying about with him. He preferred a Bowie knife, and had often told her it was the only knife worth carrying. “You can find all kinds of uses for a Bowie,” she remembered him telling her once on their travels. He had used his for cutting branches to make shelters for them; for skinning the animals that he had shot. And she had once stabbed him with that same knife.
She longed to pick the new knife up and examine it carefully, for it looked strangely and almost ominously familiar, but something stopped her, and with a shudder she left it where it was. No—let Steve tell her if he wanted to—she was not going to let him think she had been prying.
Ginny chattered almost nervously right through their dinner, longing to ask him questions but afraid to do so in case she brought that sarcastic, almost hateful look back to his face. She told him about small things—unimportant things—the repairs she’d made to the estancia, the herb garden she had begun. And all the time she sensed that he was watching her—even when he gave her a lazy smile occasionally and told her politely to go on, he was interested in her doings.
At last, when she had lapsed into an uneasy silence and began to drink her wine too fast, he leaned back in his chair and began to scrutinize her openly, as if he’d only met her a few hours ago.
“Domesticity certainly seems to agree with you, love. And I like that tan you’ve acquired. It gives your skin a certain bloom. You remind me of a peach—all over.”
Memory of the afternoon they had just spent in bed, thoroughly enjoying each other, suddenly made her blush and lower her eyes. Why did he look at her so strangely, almost as if he hated her, even while he was paying her compliments.
“What a shy, innocent look you can put on sometimes!” he went on. “Who, looking at you now, would think that you were once a whore?”
The suddenness of his attack made her flinch visibly, even while she raised her eyes challengingly to his.
“Oh God! What kind of cruel game have you decided to play this time?”
He shrugged coolly, his eyes capturing hers with their hard, inquiring look.
“Why should I want to play a game with you? It’s just that I ran into a friend of yours a few weeks ago, and his conversation about certain incidents in your past was most enlightening.” She gave a gasp, and his voice hardened into what was almost a snarl. “Tell me—what did Tom Beal usually charge when he rented you out to his friends? How many others did he share you with for free?”
Her voice was an agonized whisper. “Oh no—no!”
“You didn’t tell me everything, did you? You didn’t tell me he sold you to any man who could afford a few pesos to sample your charms.”
“Stop it!” She jumped to her feet, hands pressed over her ears. “Stop it—I don’t want to listen to any more!”
Like a panther he came at her with one long stride; catching her wrists, pulling them downward until he held them imprisoned before her.
“Goddammit, you will listen—at least until I’m through! How do you think I felt—to hear your sordid career discussed so casually in front of a roomful of gaping men? Your friend Matt Cooper—the same one who taught you to use a knife so well—he hadn’t forgotten you—nor how good you were. In fact, he and a friend went back to look for you, after they’d heard how you killed Beal. Oh Christ! ” He flung the oath in her face savagely, his fingers tightening around her wrists until she screamed with pain and fear. “Why didn’t you tell me? What kept you from the truth? And how many other incidents like that are you still hiding?”
Suddenly she threw her head back, her eyes streaming with tears, but still able to glare defiantly at him.
“Isn’t there something that you’re hiding from me? Some—some incident so horrible, so impossibly vile that you can’t even bear to think about it? You have no right to sit in judgement over me—you’re not a woman, so you can’t possibly understand what terrible degradation a woman can be forced into—you can’t understand how it felt to be—to be exhibited like an animal to all those men—their eyes staring, their mouths open with lust—staring—yes, and screaming obscenities while he—while he told me I had to undress so that they could see what they were getting! And then when I wouldn’t—I couldn’t —he started to—to hit me and rip that rotten, sleazy gown he made me wear off my body—and all the while they were throwing money—it came at me from everywhere—money, to see the clothes torn off me as if I—I went crazy then! I remembered I had the knife—I didn’t even know what I was doing when I plunged it into his throat and heard the awful noises he made, with the blood spurting everywhere—everywhere!”
Her voice rose into a tormented scream, and she hardly realized that Steve had released her abruptly and was staring at her, his face whitening under the brown of his tan.
“Ginny.”
She thought he was going to sieze her again and backed away from him, her eyes staring.
“No—I don’t want you to touch me—not now—I’m dirty, remember? I’m a whore—dozens of men have used me—and you’ll never forgive me for that, will you? Not even if it wasn’t my fault—because I survived, even though I wanted to die—because you want to be the one to destroy me, where they couldn’t—and you know why you can, Steve? Do you know?”
“Shut up! Damn you—is that what you’re trying to do now? Make me feel guilty for the things you did?”
“Stop it!” She shrieked the words at him, panting with the force of her emotions. “Haven’t you been human enough to suffer from beatings and starving and—and torture until—until you’d do anything, anything, just to go on being alive? Have you never known what it was to be forced to do things your mind shrank from, because you had gone past the point of caring? I was a body, that’s all—a thing, to be used, to be sold—I was dead inside, and I stopped caring what happened to me, because you were dead—because I had loved you, and they had killed you, and nothing mattered…” She began to laugh wildly with the tears still slipping down her cheeks. “I used to tell myself that, all the time—like a litany of hopelessness—‘it doesn’t matter—it doesn’t matter—nothing matters any more.”’
“You’re hysterical. Can’t you see there’s no reason for you to cry?” She was suddenly in his arms, feeling their hardness like steel bands around her, pulling her against his body. She kept sobbing helplessly, her tears soaking his shirt.
“Listen to me,” he was saying in a strange, expressionless voice, “he’s dead. Do you think I could let him live after what he said?”
“Steve,” she tried to pull away from his encircling arms, but he only held her more tightly, pressing her face against his shoulder.
“I was in Orizaba looking for those damned counter-guerillas who had been giving us such a bad time. I ran into them—and him —your Matt Cooper. I waited for him outside in an alley. I knew where they were staying—they told me, the damned careless fools! There were three of them—two more than I expected, but at that point, I didn’t care—the thought of you has always managed to chase away all the caution I’ve ever possessed! There was quite a battle, I can tell you—but I’d taken their guns first—they thought I wanted their money, the bastards!”
“Don’t—don’t!” she began to whisper. “I don’t want to hear it.”
His voice became harsh. “Why not? Don’t you want to know that you were revenged? That I was man enough to kill at least one of your lovers? The other two were easy—they were too drunk to put up much of a fight, but Matt Cooper—I’ll say this much for him, he’s a fighter. He went for his knife—and he knew how to use it. That’s where I got the new wound you were so curious about! But I’ll take a Bowie any day. I had to kill the others very quickly, so they wouldn’t make too much noise and bring everyone running, but I took my time with Cooper—I told him why I was going to kill him, and he fought like a lion—silently, too, as if he knew he’d had it coming a long time.”
“And you killed him. It was his knife I saw in your saddlebag.”
“I thought maybe you’d like a souvenir, baby.”
She said very quietly, “Oh—dear God!” And he laughed, a short, bitter sound in his throat.
“I admit it was a stupidly reckless thing to do. I was only supposed to find where the counter-guerillas were, and in which direction they were going next. But as things turned out, we fixed up a nice little ambush for them—that’s when I took a stray bullet in the shoulder. It was worth it, though, because we wiped them out.”
As if she hadn’t heard him, Ginny whispered, almost to herself, “You killed him—because of me! Poor Matt—he was the only one who was kind —he protected me from Beal, when he was sober.” She felt his arms tighten with the anger she could sense in him again, and said in the same husky whisper, “But why? Why did you bother, Steve? You’ll never forgive me—you’ll never forget what I became—you don’t even care about me any longer, if you ever did! So—why?”
“Why do you think I’m here? You’re right, I can’t forget any of it—it’s been like a festering, cancerous sore ever since you came back—your past! But all the same, I want you—you’ve become like a drug, like a sickness I can’t shake off—I want to punish you for what you’ve become, and still, at the same time, I want you!” His voice became hoarse, she felt his hands move slowly up her back, caressingly, until his fingers caught in her hair, grasping handfuls of it. “I crave your flesh, and your softness, and your firmness and the feel of your hair like silk under my hands—I want to hear you scream softly under me—to bury myself in you—I’ve never encountered another woman who’s satisfied and tormented me as much as you have. For God’s sake, woman, isn’t that enough for you? What else do you want of me, except the same thing I want from you?”
She began to sob again, and to beat at him wildly with her fisted hands.
“It’s not! It’s not that way! You talk as if I’m your whore, not your wife!”
In spite of her fury he lifted her easily in his arms, slinging her roughly over his shoulder when she continued to fight him.
“What’s the difference? Why not my whore for a change? And if you really want to feel like a wife, then you’d better start acting like one—there’s one wifely duty at least that you perform extremely well!”
“Oooh!” she screamed aloud with rage and frustration as he started to carry her off into the bedroom. He began to laugh.
“You want Salvador to think I have to rape my own wife? Be sensible, Ginny! After all the only way we really seem to hit it off together is in bed—why can’t we make the best of it?”
He laid her none too gently on the bed and lay over her, his eyes blazing down at her with passion and hate and desire—everything at once—until, as he knew they would, her struggles stopped. Still sobbing, she put her arms around his neck.