Violet Fire Read online

  Shannon’s fingers crept into Brandon’s hair, tentative in their touch. Afraid to hold too tightly. Afraid to let go. His mouth on her skin evoked a tingling that rippled through her, swelling her breasts and causing an unfamiliar ache between her thighs. She stirred restlessly in his loose grasp, feeling a certain longing that stretched wide and deep within her.

  Shannon’s movement brought her breasts in contact with Brandon’s chest. He eased his weight down upon her while one hand left her waist to cup the underside of her breast. Shannon sucked in her breath and Brandon’s hand stilled.

  “Shannon?” His mouth hovered above hers.

  “It’s all right. I—” She could not make the words come. Instead she slid one of her hands from Brandon’s hair and placed it over his, then drew his palm over her breast. Her eyes pleaded for some elusive, nameless thing she could not voice.

  Brandon relented, kneading her breast with his palm, feeling the tip of her nipple harden and blossom beneath his touch. His fingers manipulated the laced bodice of her gown before he released her breast to the hot suck of his mouth.

  Pleasure spiraled through Shannon like a pinwheel of fire. The intimacy of Brandon’s touch held a certain awful fascination, appalling as it was appealing. She bit her lip, holding back the gasp that wanted expression, embarrassed by the desire that held her captive in Brandon’s embrace.

  Brandon’s tongue stroked the creamy swelling of Shannon’s breast, dipped into the valley of her flesh.

  Her heart thudded against his mouth. His lips traced a lazy circle about her other breast, teasing, taunting, and finally tugging at the rose peak. She arched against him, seeking, but not knowing what she sought. He felt her shock as a tangible thing when her thigh came in contact with his hard arousal.

  Brandon pulled back abruptly, sitting up on the blanket with his back to her and his knees folded against his chest. His breathing was harsh and he laid his forehead across his arm, struggling for control. Behind him he could hear Shannon righting her bodice and modestly covering her bare legs with the folds of her skirt.

  Shannon’s hands were trembling as she fumbled with her bodice laces. She was wicked and deeply ashamed because for once she did not despise the wickedness in her. She was everything her stepfather had named her: witch, temptress, the devil’s handmaiden. She was the cause of Brandon’s distress, and that knowledge brought an ineffable sadness to her heart.

  Even knowing who she was, all that she had done, Brandon had allowed her to remain in his home. More than that, he had entrusted her with the care of the person he loved best in all the world, his daughter. Shannon did not regard that trust lightly, and now she felt as if she had betrayed it, proving to him that she was no better than she ought to be, certainly all the things Thomas Stewart had called her.

  “Shall you punish me now?” she asked quietly, a tremor in her voice.

  Brandon’s head shot up and he turned on her, horror clear in his eyes. “No!” Then more softly, “Is that what Stewart did to you, Shannon?”

  She plucked at one corner of the blanket. “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I was wicked, as I’ve been now. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

  Brandon’s brow drew together. “You allowed your stepfather to touch you?”

  “No!”

  “But he did anyway. He forced himself on you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And later, he beat you?”

  “Yes. He was always able to turn away from me, like you just did. It proved he was stronger than the temptation, he said. Then he punished me for it.”

  Brandon frowned, trying to make sense of what Shannon was telling him. Stewart’s twisted reasoning eluded Brandon. “Did you want your stepfather to turn away from you, Shannon?”

  “I prayed for it,” she said fervently. She hugged her knees to her chest and spoke as if to herself. “I did not want him to touch me. I hated his kisses, his groping.” Tears welled in her eyes, then dripped silently over her pale cheeks. “The beating was better. It was always over quickly. I did not mind it so much.”

  Brandon ached for her. Wanting nothing more than to comfort her, he moved, pulling Shannon into his arms, fitting her curled form between his thighs, her back flush to his chest. His arms circled her lightly and his cheek rested against her hair. He rocked her gently, soothing her much as he would his daughter, whispering words of comfort in her ear. “None of it was your fault, Shannon. None of it. If you believe nothing else I have said or will ever say to you, believe that. You don’t have it within you to be wicked.”

  “But-”

  “Shh. I’m telling you the truth.”

  Shannon knuckled her eyes and then accepted the handkerchief that Brandon offered her. “Th-thank you.” This further example of his kindness had the effect of making Shannon more miserable. If he did not want to punish her, then the question of what he wanted still remained. In her heart Shannon felt Brandon was wrong about her. At the core of her there was an emptiness waiting to be filled, a desire to be touched and held and loved. She was wicked. She wanted these things from Brandon Fleming: the touch of his hands, the comfort of his arms, and love in whatever form he wished to express it.

  Shannon turned in his arms and tilted her face to him. Her mouth was a breath away from the hard line of his jaw. She could feel the tension in him, the rigidity of his posture, and knew that she was to blame for the faint white lines at the corners of his mouth, the proof of his self-denial. If he had asked her for more than a kiss, if he had put his desire into words, she would have said no. But he didn’t. To Shannon’s way of thinking it was another demonstration of his tender sensibilities, his innate gentleness, and it made her want to return a kindness in the only manner she thought was acceptable.

  She touched her mouth to his chin, drawing her lips along the line of his jaw.

  “Shannon. Don’t.”

  Shannon heard the warning in his tone, yet she also realized he was making no move to stop her. It’s all right, she wanted to say. I want to give you what you cannot bring yourself to ask me. It is a small price for what you have given me. She thought these things, but said nothing. Her hand turned his face toward her. Her mouth brushed his for one sweet moment and then she was lost to the sweeping command of his desire.

  The part of Brandon’s self that warned him to stop was silenced by Shannon’s huskily murmured encouragement. The kiss that she began as an inquiry, he answered with a passion and forcefulness that left little room for turning back. He twisted her in his arms, laying her down on the blanket, and followed with his body, never breaking the kiss. He was afraid to speak, afraid she would change her mind if she realized the depth of his need.

  His fingers tugged at her bodice laces, hastily this time, and when he exposed her breasts, he simply stared for a long moment while one hand whispered across their fullness. Shannon’s hands fluttered on Brandon’s shoulders as his mouth teased her flesh. A tiny gasp was forced past her lips. Her throat arched and her eyes closed. She felt the hem of her gown being drawn upward, baring first her calves, then her thighs to the palm of his hands.

  Shannon’s clothes were an obstruction not to be borne. Brandon wanted to make love to her, not merely toss up her skirts as if she were some common whore. He paused long enough in his exploration to divest himself of his boots, stockings, and shirt before he returned his attention to Shannon. Except for following his action with her eyes, she had not moved.

  He closed her wary eyes by first kissing one, then the other. He stilled her tremulous mouth by covering it with his own. And while he quieted her fears with nearly incoherent murmurings, his hands were busy pushing her gown past her waist and narrow hips, removing the remainder of her garments with an urgency that clearly spoke of his quickening desires.

  In spite of his need, or perhaps because of it, Brandon forced himself to go slowly with Shannon. Now that he was certain of having her, he felt as if time stretched infinitely before him. He
nuzzled her neck as his fingers drew lightly across the flat plane of her stomach. He felt her drawing in her breath as the heel of his hand pressed close to the tuft of dark curls at her thighs. He retreated immediately, brushing the tips of his fingers across the soft flesh of her inner thighs.

  “Touch me, Shannon,” he urged, bringing her palms flush to his chest. He turned on his back, pulling her with him so that she covered his body with hers. Brandon caressed the back of her thighs and then palmed her buttocks, holding her securely in the cradle of his hips.

  Shannon discovered that Brandon’s breeches were no real barrier against feeling the hard outline that defined his arousal. Panicking, she pressed her palms against his chest, pushing to escape him, and found the point of escape had long since past. Her movements, ineffectual as they were, only served to make the contact at their hips more intimate.

  Sensing her fear, Brandon released his hold and placed his hands over the back of hers. “Touch me,” he repeated.

  The choice was once again hers, and Shannon chose to follow the prompting of the desire blossoming within her. Shyly at first, her hands slid from beneath his and traced the taut planes of Brandon’s smoothly muscled chest. Her nails flicked across his nipples, and she discovered there was an echo of the response her own body had made. She felt him strain, moaning deeply in his throat, as she placed her mouth against his shoulder and, with a boldness unknown to her before, slipped her fingers along the edge of his breeches.

  “Oh, sweet Shannon,” Brandon said, bringing her mouth to his. Her lips parted without any urging from him. He rolled them again on the blanket and felt the sun at the small of his back as he removed his breeches. He wondered at her reaction to seeing him in the full light of day. What if she was repelled? Did he have the strength of will and body to call a halt?

  But Shannon was not repelled. She was simply too stunned to register any reaction save astonishment.

  She was unprepared for the raw beauty of Brandon’s body and, much to her embarrassment and his amusement, found she was incapable of looking away. As if the sun were already not hot enough, Shannon was burning from the inside out.

  Brandon nudged Shannon’s thighs apart and knelt between them. Slipping his hands beneath her hips, he raised her to him. Shannon shut her eyes. She thought: He will find out now that I am useless to him, that what he wants will be as nothing. He will surely want to beat me then. A wave of pure misery swept over her, tempering the pleasure that had coursed through her earlier. She was tight and unready for Brandon’s entry.

  She cried out, then brought her hand to her mouth, biting into the fleshy pad of her palm as Brandon thrust into her. “N-no.” Her head moved from side to side in negation of the pain. “You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.

  Sweet Jesus! She was a virgin. Brandon’s body stilled even as his thoughts rioted. He had known she was innocent of love’s pleasures, but nothing had led him to believe she was a virgin. “Stewart was impotent, wasn’t he?” he asked more roughly than he intended.

  “Please. Let me go.” She arched, trying to move away from Brandon, and felt him go deeper inside her.

  Brandon leaned forward, supporting himself on his forearms. “Don’t do that,” he whispered. God, she was like warm, moist velvet. His hips ground involuntarily against her. Beads of perspiration collected on his upper lip as he strained for control. “He was impotent, wasn’t he?” he ground out again. “He never touched you this way.”

  “Never,” Shannon said on a fragile thread of sound. She was becoming accustomed to the feel of him inside her. It distracted her. She tried to concentrate on the muscle working in Brandon’s cheek. “I tried to explain. I told you he turned away from me.” She couldn’t help it. Her back arched again, lifting her hips, as a frisson of heat rippled through her.

  He felt her shudder. His hands had folded into white-knuckled fists. “And it was then he punished you,” Brandon finished slowly, finally understanding the true nature of what had passed between Shannon and her stepfather. “I’m sorry, Shannon. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, frowning slightly as the focus of her concentration wandered to the point of their joining. Unwittingly, her muscles contracted around him.

  Brandon felt her tighten. “Forgive me, Shannon. I can’t…” He withdrew slightly and then thrust deeply. “…can’t stop.”

  Shannon didn’t want him to. Not then. Not ever. Her hands slid along his back until they rested lightly on his taut buttocks. She watched his face, awed by the naked expression of need in his darkly polished eyes, never suspecting her own face mirrored the same need.

  Brandon’s husky reassurances fed Shannon’s soul, filling the emptiness until she felt whole. Pleasure tugged at her senses as he taught her how to move with him. His hands guided her, sliding silkily over her pliant flesh. The exact nature of what either of them sought eluded Shannon, yet she felt as if she were being led toward the same goal that was Brandon’s. Shannon felt an urgency build within her, an intensity of sensation that held her captive until, without warning, its frantic energy exploded.

  The earth is flat, Shannon thought, clutching at Brandon’s shoulders. I know because I am falling over its edge. Her taut muscles shivered in reaction and Brandon’s name hovered on her lips. She stared at him, stunned by the enormity of what he had made her feel.

  Brandon wanted to shout his joy when he saw the perfect surprise on Shannon’s face. She could almost make him forget his own needs. Almost. The thrust of his hips quickened and Brandon buried his face in the curve of her neck as his body shuddered its satisfaction.

  “Sweet, sweet Shannon,” he murmured, his senses filled with the fragrance of her hair and the aftermath of her precious gift to him. It was some time before he realized she was sobbing. He rolled away from her and sat up, watching in amazement as Shannon began to gather her discarded clothes. “Shannon? What is it? Why are you crying?”

  Shannon shook her head, unable to speak and unable to look at him. Her hair fell like a dark, heavy veil across the side of her face. Her fingers fumbled with her dress and she pulled it over her head hastily, making a tangle of the laced bodice.

  Brandon reached for her wrist but Shannon pulled back sharply, a wounded cry coming from her lips. “Dammit, Shannon! What is it? Did I hurt you?”

  Hurt her? Would that he had, Shannon thought. She could have accepted that. What she could not accept was the pleasure he had given her. Instead of punishing her for her wantonness, he had celebrated it. The things he had made her feel were wicked. She was wicked. She shouldn’t have enjoyed it. He shouldn’t have made her enjoy it. Shame flamed her face. With a low moan of frustration, she gathered her undergarments and her shoes and pressed them closely to her chest in the manner of protection. Brandon was collecting his own things now, and Shannon could not face the inevitable confrontation that would occur once he was dressed. She swept aside the curtain of willow branches and ran toward the folly as if the devil himself were her shadow.

  Brandon had one leg in his breeches when Shannon fled. “Shannon! Come back here!” He saw her hesitate slightly, then run even faster in the direction of the house and the safety of her room. He swore softly and eloquently as he wrestled with the rest of his clothes. A low growl of frustration worked in his throat. What the hell had happened?

  That question would not be silenced, and it nagged at Brandon’s thoughts continuously. He could have forced a confrontation with her, but he doubted it would have resolved anything. Instead he allowed her to seek the sanctuary of her room and permitted her the protection she used in later days by going nowhere without Clara. Brandon sought the protection of his work, spending long hours in the fields and in his library. He avoided even going near the clearing by the river where they had made love, afraid the bitterness he was trying hard to quell would rise again. He knew only that lying with Shannon had easily been the most beautiful experience of his life. That it had ultimately given her a disgust of him made hi
m feel less than human, like some savage beast that could not control its own carnal impulses.

  Once Brandon saw Shannon speaking with Cody at the edge of the fields. She had Clara in her arms, and they were both petting Cody’s bay mount. He saw her tilt back her head and laugh at something his brother said. Her laughter cut him raw, and he felt only numbness when she glanced in his direction a moment later and visibly paled. Afterward she quickly took Clara back to the house. He watched her until she disappeared before he laid his crop across his horse’s flanks and headed hell-bent across the countryside.

  On another occasion Brandon crossed Shannon’s path in the stables where she and Clara were playing with the kittens in one of the stalls. They were whispering like conspirators, naming the animals, when Brandon came upon them. He leaned against one of the supports, his arms crossed in front of him, and wondered how Shannon could look so completely happy while he was bleeding inside. When Clara saw him she brought him into the conversation, oblivious for once to the thickness of Shannon’s silence and the odd tenor of her father’s short replies. Brandon tried not to look at Shannon, tried not to notice the bits of straw nesting in her dark hair or the way she avoided his eyes by snuggling the kitten she held at her breast. After a few minutes he left, his shoulders hunched as if supporting a great weight. God, how she must hate him.

  “How long has it been since you’ve gone to town?” Cody asked Brandon one morning at breakfast.

  Brandon was not deceived by the indifference in Cody’s tone. “To town or to a second-floor chamber in Redheart’s?”

  Cody cleared his throat as Brandon’s dark eyes speared him. “Well, since you brought it up,” he said conversationally, “Annie’s been asking for you. She mentioned it’s been quite a while since you visited her.”