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As Eden’s fingertips brushed his chest, Raven began to pluck the pins from her hair. While her words were insulting, her actions were so seductive he did not know what to make of her mood now. “Give me an example.”
His shirt was now unbuttoned, and Eden laid her palms on his chest rather than attempt to move back when she knew he would surely follow. “My father knows he’ll face financial ruin if the South loses the War. So when he questioned your motives, you responded by offering him the money he’ll need to remain in business. That would certainly silence his objections, and it would also make it impossible for me ever to leave you.”
Scattering her hairpins in a dozen different directions, Raven reached out to grab Eden’s upper arms with enough pressure to lift her clear off her feet. “Is that what you really think, that I want your father in debt to me merely to prevent you from divorcing me? Is that what you and Michael Devane were talking about? Did he beg you leave me and marry him? Well, did he? If I loan your father money, will it put an end to those plans?”
Raven had again unleashed the violence of his temper, and Eden was more than merely frightened. “Put me down,” she requested with a calm born of stark terror. To her utter amazement, Raven set her down gently, but he did not release his hold on her, nor did his hostile expression soften.
“I’m not in love with Michael.”
That was not the answer Raven longed to hear. “He did ask you to leave me, didn’t he?”
“What are you going to do? Go down to the Southern Knight and beat him senseless for having such childish dreams? Don’t bother, Raven. He understands that I plan to stay with you.”
“Is it impossible for you to believe that I’d want to help your father simply because he’s your father? Or that any man would be as offended as I am if another man tried to seduce his wife?”
Eden found it difficult to accept Raven’s assertion of innocence when he continually forced choices upon her she would never make on her own. “You’ve nothing to worry about, Raven. Michael’s talents at seduction do not even begin to compare with yours.”
That was a challenge Raven could not ignore. While his dark eyes still smoldered with anger, after a moment’s pause his grasp became gentle rather than confining and he began to trail light kisses from her temple to the throbbing pulse in her throat. He retraced that tempting path, straying this time to her earlobe before reaching behind her to unfasten her gown. Eden stood quietly in his arms, fighting him with neither words nor actions, and he continued to lavish tender kisses on her cheeks and throat as he slid her gown off her shoulders. She pulled away for a moment then, but it was only to cast aside the elegant dress, not to escape him.
There were buttons, hooks, ribbons, and he undid them all to strip her nude and the whole time his lips caressed each tantalizing inch of newly exposed flesh. Finally he dropped to his knees and rubbed his cheek against her stomach, whose smooth flatness still gave no hint of the child growing deep within. Her flawless skin held the delicate fragrance of her perfume, and her body’s own far more enticing scent. When Eden leaned against him and drew him close, he rose and carried her to the bed but this time rather than laying her on it, he sat her on the edge.
As he again dropped to his knees in front of her, he turned his attentions first to the elegant line of her right leg and then her left. Slender and shapely, her legs were perfect from toe to hip and he spread adoring kisses along them, all the while listening to her breath quicken until it echoed the rapid rhythm of his. He slowed his pace then, savoring the tender flesh of her inner thighs with slow, deep kisses until she could stand no more of his erotic teasing.
He felt Eden’s hands move over him then, her nails raking his shoulders, her fingers tangling his curls. She wrapped her legs around his neck and pulled him down into the depths of her sweetness, but in driving her mad with desire, Raven had also sent his own passions reeling. The kisses he gave her now were as fevered as his blood, and seared the delicate recesses of her body with a tongue of flame.
As Eden writhed beneath him, Raven felt her whole body tremble first with the need for release from the unbearably sweet agony of desire, and then with endless waves of ecstatic deliverance. He moved over her then, pulling her up on the bed where he barely had time to free himself from his clothing before he sought his own release embedded deep within her. Her velvet soft center was wet and hot, and enfolded him in convulsive tremors that cost him the last of his sanity. He had never made love to another woman with such untamed abandon but the thrill they had shared was too exquisite to claim as a defeat for either of them.
Still flooded with her warmth, when at long last Raven could again think rationally, he rolled over on his back and brought Eden atop him where he could hold her in his arms without crushing her with his weight. She was completely relaxed now, languidly draped over his chest, her fair curls spilling over his shoulder, her hands resting lightly on his arms. He
did not want to talk, and was grateful when she fell asleep without murmuring a word of protest at the way he had chosen to make love to her.
Then with a sudden chill of recognition, Raven recalled there had been no hesitancy in Eden’s gestures. She had not been in the least bit demure or shy, but instead demanding and eager for the intimate kisses that had given them both such intense rapture. A wicked grin graced his lips then, for he had not even suspected Alex would have been that bold with his delicate bride, but obviously the man had taught Eden more than Raven had guessed, and he had taught her well.
Raven stroked Eden’s curls as he tried to force the image of her lying in Alex’s arms from his mind. To him, his actions had never been devious, but all too painfully obvious. He had fallen in love with his wife, and there was nothing he would not do to keep her. He was not the conniving bastard Eden and her father seemed to see, but merely a lovesick fool who would die for a woman who did not love him, and probably never would.
When Eden awakened the next morning, the sky was overcast and gray. Raven was seated near the window, his chair tipped back, his foot resting on the sill. While she felt wonderfully rested, he looked as though he had been up all night. He was clad only in a pair of tight-fitting black pants, and the long red trails her nails had cut in his shoulders were clearly visible. She winced when she noticed them.
Raven glanced toward her then. “There’s another storm brewing. Your father’s gone, but we’ll wait this out before going to Kingston. If the storm’s another bad one, the Jamaican Wind will be better off on the river than in a crowded harbor.”
He had thoughtfully placed her silk wrapper across the foot of the bed, and Eden donned it before going to him. “I understand. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I’d scratched you so badly last night. Do you have anything to put on those cuts?”
Raven looked up at her, his stare curiously blank. “Look on the washstand. Yadira makes an herb cream that’s good. It ought to be in a green jar.”
“Is there anything Yadira doesn’t do well?” Eden asked in an exasperated sigh. Finding the cream exactly where Raven had said it would be, she removed the lid and sampled the aroma. Surprisingly, the thick herbal remedy had a fragrance as light as spring rain. “Well, it smells good at least.”
Raven was wise enough not to comment on Yadira’s talents and he kept still as Eden began to smooth the cool salve on the deep scratches. Her touch was light now, without the urgency that had caused her to use her nails on him. When she apologized again, he refused to accept it. “Look, it was my own fault, so stop blaming yourself. A scrape or two won’t kill me.”
“It was most certainly not your fault, Raven.” Eden coated each of the cuts with the salve, then leaned down to kiss his right shoulder, which was still bruised from one of her father’s many blows. When he reached out to catch her wrist and pulled her down on his lap, she did not fight him. It was easier to concentrate on replacing the lid on the jar than on her husband’s face and Eden took her time with the task.
“Look at me, Eden.”
He had not combed his hair, nor bothered to shave as yet, but Eden thought him incredibly handsome. She wanted to snuggle against him, to make love slowly, and this time on her terms rather than his. She let neither of those thoughts show in her expression though. “Yes?” she asked sweetly.
Raven rested his forehead against hers and was silent for a long moment before he finally spoke what was on his mind. “To hear you and your father talk, I’m some hideous spider who’s trying to ensnare everyone in my web. I know you don’t love me, but the very least I expect from you is more loyalty than that.”
That so astonishingly attractive a man would describe himself as a spider appalled Eden. That he would demand loyalty when in her opinion she had shown him an enormous amount was even more upsetting. But most troubling of all was when they made love, all trace of Alex’s touch was gone from her memory. She responded solely to Raven now, and in ways she had never thought possible. Was that being disloyal to Alex? she wondered fretfully.
“I have given you my loyalty, and if it doesn’t seem so to you, then I am truly sorry,” she explained hesitantly. “I never gave any thought to why a widow waits a year to remarry, but now I think that custom is a wise one. Had we not gotten married, we’d not have half the problems we do.”
