Fire Along the Sky
Page 35

Then his fingers wandered down and down to work the ties on her chemise and his tongue touched hers, hesitantly at first and finally with purpose: to claim her, once and for all.
“More bumps,” he said, and slipped away from her to press his face to her breasts and then to suckle them, his mouth greedy now, pulling sounds from her that no lady would make. Sounds that she had never imagined she had inside her.
It went on and on, the kissing and touching and peeling away of clothing, so that Jennet slipped deeper and deeper into such terror and joy that she shivered with it. Luke soothed her with his smile and voice, words whispered against her ear, hush, and hush, and come now.
But even his touch could not stop the things that were flashing through her mind, odd, disjointed images and words, bright and brighter still until her mouth opened and they spilled out.
“Why?” she whispered to him. “Why now?”
She could feel his flesh all along her own, his wanting just as immediate as the ache in her own body, but the question had come out of her mouth and he heard it and he stopped and seemed to wake up.
For a moment he looked at her blankly and then he pushed out a sigh and he rolled over on his back and slapped at a mosquito on his neck and another on his shoulder. Finally he came up on an elbow to look in her face.
“I was going to come to Scotland,” he said. “When I got word that Ewan had died, I was going to come to claim you.”
This admission took her by surprise, filled her with a stunning happiness and confused her all at once. He wiped her cheek with his thumb and she realized that her face was wet with tears.
He said, “Then the war started.”
When it was clear he wasn't going to say anything else, Jennet pushed herself up on one elbow. “But I came to you,” she said. “I came to you and you acted as if you didn't want me.”
He flipped her onto her back with such sudden force that she hiccupped in surprise. Above her Luke's face was contorted with frustration and anger.
“Of course I want you,” he said. “I always have. When I saw you on that dock—” He stopped and his mouth tightened.
Jennet said, “When you saw me on the dock you looked as though you wanted to beat me. I could barely breathe for the joy of seeing you but you turned and walked away.” Her voice caught, remembering the terrible disappointment of that moment and the taste of it, bile and blood.
He pushed out a heavy breath. “I was angry, yes, but beating wasn't what went through my mind at that moment.”
Very quietly she said, “You might have made me feel welcome.”
“Jennet,” he said, pulling her face to his and looking at her with such intensity that she must believe him. “Listen to me now. When I saw you standing there, my heart leapt in my chest.”
“You don't have to sound so very put out about it,” she said. “If you care for somebody, if you . . .” Her voice trailed away, because she could not say what she was thinking, not even now.
He said, “No matter what I felt, no matter what I feel, I can't ignore the fact that there's a war, and I'm stuck in the middle of it, and your welfare is my responsibility.”
She put a hand on his chest to feel the beat of his heart against her palm. “So you pushed me away.”
“You call this pushing you away?” He drew back a little to frown into her face and with one hand he pulled her to him, lifted her leg over his hip, and poised there at the quick of her, he paused.
She swallowed the sound that wanted to come out of her throat.
“You were going to come to Scotland to marry me, were you no?”
His face tightened ever so slightly, but he nodded. Jennet wondered if he had ever used those particular words to himself when he was thinking of making the journey and claiming her, and decided that he had not.
“And the war stopped you, aye, I can see it. Then I came to you, but you still haven't spoke to me of marriage. In spite of . . .” She hesitated. “This bump business. So what am I to understand? You do want to marry me? You don't want to marry me, but you'd still like to—”
“Don't say it,” he said roughly. “Don't even think it.”
“Then explain it to me,” she said, a little breathlessly because he was rubbing against her in a way that distracted her from even this most interesting of subjects.
Luke was built like his father, long boned and lean, but muscular in the way of men who must be quick as well as strong. Wicht and braw and bonnie, the Carryck girls had called him. Look at the hands on him, they had said knowingly, when Jennet was too young to really understand. Look at the breadth of his wrist. He had spent time with some of them, but never enough so that any lass could lay claim. How they had all mourned when he went away without a wife.
Jennet roused herself suddenly.
“Luke.”
He collapsed onto his back. “Yes. I wanted to marry you. I still want to marry you, but for the war. Or I'll say it this way: I'll want to marry you the day the war is over.”
She wanted to ask him about all the lost years, and if he regretted the decision he had made when he left Scotland without her, but now she realized that the question must wait. It would lead to nothing but more arguments, while the issue at hand might go in a very different direction. And there was the matter of his hands and wrists and fingers so strong and clever . . . she swallowed again and turned her hips away.
“Married men don't go to war?”