Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

Jules came abruptly awake. She heard Michael’s voice repeating a name. Not her name. Jane. She was suddenly aware that a man, a huge man, was covering her, pressing her down into the mattress, and she cried out, her mind, blurred with sleep, thinking it John Bleecher or Jameson Wilkes. Then something deep within her cried out, refusing to accept the terror of a dream. No, she was with Michael. It was he covering her, pressing against her.

She tried to rise, bewildered, not understanding. She heard him moaning deeply, telling her between gasping breaths to relax, to give in to him. But something was terribly wrong. Telling Jane to relax! Suddenly she felt his hand probing against her, felt that male part of him pushing forward against her.

Saint felt wild with need, frustrated and angry that he couldn’t enter her body. He felt Jane trying to push him away; then he heard a sharp cry of pain.

“Michael! No . . . please!”

He came awake with jolting awareness. “Jane,” he said stupidly, then drew in his breath sharply. In the dim light of dawn, he saw Jules sprawled helplessly beneath him, and he was trying to force himself inside her.

“Oh God, no!” He pulled himself up and rested on his haunches, his head in his hands. He’d very nearly forced his wife without realizing what he was doing.

Jules lay very still. He was on his knees between her widespread legs. “Michael?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, hating himself more at that moment than at any other in his entire life. “I’m sorry, Jules. I didn’t hurt you, did I? Are you all right?”

She frowned at him, uncertain, becoming more bewildered by the moment. “I don’t understand.”

He retreated quickly, rising from the bed and shrugging into his dressing gown. Of course she didn’t understand. Lord, it was difficult enough for him to comprehend.

“Who is Jane?” he heard her ask.

He turned slowly to face her, and was relieved to see that she’d pulled down her nightgown and was leaning against the pillows.

He walked to the bed and sat down beside her. “I know you don’t understand, Jules.” He paused a moment, uncertain what to say. Finally he continued. “I was dreaming, a result of all the damned whiskey, I suppose.” Liar! You’re randy as hell and supposed to only sleep with your wife, not rut her! “I didn’t realize what I was doing. Jules, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Jut a bit. I was surprised. Who is Jane?”

He slashed his hand through the air. “It’s not important. Look, sweetheart, I can’t continue sleeping with you. I can’t trust myself not to . . . well, take advantage of you. You were frightened, weren’t you?”

Of course she’d been frightened! What could one expect? But he hadn’t been trying to make love to her; it had been another woman he was dreaming about. She closed her eyes against the awful hurt. She turned her head away from him. She had to know, even though it hurt so much. “Who is Jane? Who is this woman you were dreaming about?”

How could he tell her that in a dream he could act out what he wanted, that his immense desire for her, to be justified even in the recesses of his mind, had to transfer itself to another woman, a woman he wouldn’t hurt, a woman he knew wanted him?

His head was aching abominably, and he needed to clear his mind. He rose and began to dress. He knew Jules was watching him, he could feel her eyes on him, but he said nothing. All his concentration was on escaping, both from her and her question and from himself and his repehensible behavior.

He sat down in the single chair and pulled on his boots. “I’m going out for a while, on deck.” He was out the door and gone before she could gather two words together.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t do anything, save lie there looking up at the darkened ceiling of the cabin. He didn’t return by the time she fell asleep, the sun rising brightly in the morning sky.

Jules saw him immediately when she came into the dining room late that morning. He’d returned to bathe and change while she’d still slept, she realized from the wreckage in the cabin. He was avoiding her.

Who was Jane?

She drank a cup of coffee and nibbled on a slice of bread and butter. He made no move to separate himself from his cohorts and come to her.

Saint was aware of her the moment she walked into the dining room. She looked a bit pale and tired. He himself felt like the proverbial piece of cow dung, but he’d refused to dose himself to ease the hangover. God, he deserved every shard of pain that sliced through his damned head. This can’t continue, he thought sometime later, so weary of pretending to listen to his fellow passengers that he couldn’t bear it. He rose finally and managed to escape. He made his way to their cabin. She wasn’t there.

With a lagging step he went on deck, finding her seated beneath the mainsail on a pile of coiled rope.

“Jules,” he said, greeting her.

She looked up at him but only nodded.

He ran his fingers through his windblown hair. “Look,” he said abruptly, “I’ve come to . . .”

“To apologize?” she supplied when he faltered. “You have already apologized. It isn’t necessary for you to do so again.”

“Perhaps ‘explain’ is the more apt word.”