To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers #4)(62)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

He ground into her, pushing his hips until she felt the press of his balls against her wetness, until she was stretched wide open and waiting for his next movement.

“Please,” she whispered brokenly.

“Hush.” He took the lobe of her ear between his teeth and bit in warning, just as he withdrew and slammed into her again.

Her breath caught, and her heart stopped—perhaps it broke.

He twisted into her, large, male, demanding, and he slid his finger against her engorged clitoris, rubbing, pressing.

She couldn’t stand it. She was going to explode, fly apart into a thousand small pieces that would never be put back together in this lifetime. She’d never be the same again. She shook her head, sobbing into the pillow, pressing her cheek against their clenched hands.

“Beatrice,” he crooned, deep and seductive in her ear. “Beatrice, come for me.”

And she did, crying, shaking, her body hot and needing more. Needing him even if he didn’t need her.

He used his cock on her like a battering ram. Thrusting, pounding hard, and sparks of pure delight went off in her body, traveling through her veins, illuminating her limbs, shining like a sun within her.

He bit her shoulder and shuddered heavily against her, and she felt his fire flood her, joining and mixing with her light, combining to become an inferno.

THE SUN SHONE through the windows when Beatrice next woke. She lay and watched as Reynaud washed his face in the basin on the dresser. He’d donned smallclothes but nothing else yet, and the muscles of his back flexed as he moved, making the scars ripple.

“You haven’t told me how you managed to escape your captivity,” she said quietly.

Did it matter anymore? She didn’t know. Perhaps not, but she still needed to know.

He turned, unsurprised, at the sound of her voice. “You’re awake.”

“Yes.” She drew the covers up over her chin. It was warm, and the bed smelled faintly of their combined intimate scents. She rather wished she could spend all day in it and never have to get up to face her realities. Right here, right now, she could pretend she had a loving marriage.

“Will you tell me?” she asked softly.

He faced the dresser again and she thought he’d refuse. He took up a razor and a strip of leather and began stropping it. She’d noticed that although he had a very competent valet, Reynaud liked to do most of his dressing himself. Perhaps he hadn’t yet gotten used to a personal servant.

“Many Indian captives never go home again,” he said quietly. “They die in captivity not because their masters are so strong but because the prisoners no longer try to escape.”

“I don’t understand,” Beatrice said.

He nodded. “It doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. I told you before that the Indians in that part of the New World adopt their prisoners into their family to take the place of family members who have died.”

“But you said they weren’t truly regarded as family. That their role was symbolic.”

“Mmm.” He finished sharpening his razor and laid it aside. “That’s more or less correct. The prisoner takes the place of a working member of the family—say a hunter—so those skills can be fulfilled.”

“But there’s more?” she asked.

“Sometimes.” He lathered his face with some soap from a dish. “I suppose that it’s only human nature to become fond of a person one lives with day in and day out. One hunts with members of the band or family, eats and sleeps with them. It’s a very intimate living arrangement.”

She was silent as she watched him pick up the razor and make the first pass through the foam on the side of his face.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the captive becomes a true member of the family. He may take a wife and even have children by her.”

Beatrice stilled. “Did you take an Indian wife?”

He rinsed the razor in the basin of water and looked over at her. “No. But it wasn’t because I couldn’t have.”

“Tell me,” she whispered.

He tilted his head and shaved the area next to his ear in short, careful strokes. It might’ve been her imagination, but it seemed to Beatrice that he took overlong at it. “After Gaho spared my life for the second time, she became rather fond of me—whether because of myself or because of her dream, I’m not sure. But, in any case, she determined that I should be content living among them, and she knew that if I had a wife and family, I would have reason not to try and escape.”

“She meant to tie you to herself,” Beatrice said.

He nodded and tapped the razor slowly against the porcelain basin. “Exactly. But Gaho had a problem. Both her daughters were already married, and although sometimes men of their tribe would take a second wife, the women never take a second husband.”

“How unfair,” Beatrice said drily.

A smile flickered across his face and was gone. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“Humph.”

He turned back to the mirror over the dresser and said, “I spent that next winter recovering from my illness and injuries. In the spring, Gaho took me and tattooed my face with the image of one of her gods. She pierced my ear and gave me one of her own earrings. In this way, she signified that I was a good hunter, part of her band, and that she valued me. Then she sent word to another band of Indians whom she wanted to befriend. She sought to arrange a marriage between me and the daughter of a warrior.”

She saw the muscle in his jaw flex. “In this way, the two bands would make peace and become allies.”

“Was the girl pretty?” Beatrice asked before she could stop herself.

“Pretty enough,” he replied, “but she was very young, not yet sixteen, and I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t want a wife and children who would bind me more firmly to Gaho and her band. I wanted to come home—it was the only thing I thought of.”

“What did you do?”

“I found a way to talk to the girl myself. It was forbidden in theory, but since we were supposed to be courting, the elders looked the other way. I found that the girl already had a secret beau, a slave like myself but from another tribe. After that, it was simple. I gave the other man everything of value I had, what furs and little trinkets I had saved up in two years’ captivity. The next night, my prospective bride disappeared with her lover.”

“That was kind of you,” Beatrice said.