Her timidity didn't last long. Jake was simply too persuasive. In no time she'd joined in the seductive game of thrust and parry, explore and retreat. A shiver bolted through her. Nothing in Amanda's life had prepared her for the first, hesitant feel of her tongue sliding against Jake Chandler's.
Her fingers curled around fistfuls of his silky hair. Her knuckles grazed the thin braid she'd been longing to touch. She touched it now, stroked and fondled it as she arched into him. Her nipples beaded, straining, as though trying to breach the barrier of cloth isolating her flesh from his. In a foggy recess of her mind, Amanda realized she was closer to this man now, physically, than she'd ever been to any man she had ever known.
Jake sensed that, too—and it was for that reason alone he eased away from her. Throughout the kiss, his hands had remained exactly where they'd started; one cupping her chin, the other riding her waist. Except for an occasional twitch, he hadn't allowed them to budge an inch. And for damn good reason! If he moved, he would touch her. If he touched her, just once, he would never stop touching her.
He had known—from the instant he'd crushed her mouth beneath his, the instant he'd tasted her sweetness and captured her airy little groan of surrender with his mouth—that it would be like this between them. He hadn't expected that. Then again, he hadn't expected a lot of things. He hadn't expected Amanda Lennox to surrender so quickly. He hadn't expected to want her to surrender at all. Mostly, what he hadn't expected was that he would want—really want—her so damn badly it hurt.
But he did. He'd wanted Amanda even before they'd kissed. Now, he wanted her with a need that rocked him. His blood still pumped hot. His appetite to possess this woman—this lady—this white lady!—was one of the few emotions that Jake found he couldn't erase from his mind and pretend didn't exist.
His need for her was hot and strong enough to be a weakness. And weakness of any sort—in others as well as himself—didn't please him. Not at all.
Jake waited until his breathing was almost regular before allowing his hands to move. His fingers curled around Amanda's soft upper arms as he pulled back from her, glancing down.
She glanced up. Her green eyes swam with a confusion of desire and self-derision.
In that instant, Jake knew he had to break the thread he'd just woven between them. He wasn't going to be able to put his desire for her out of his mind—or his body—but he saw no reason she had to know that. It would give her a weapon to use over him, a power. He'd be damned if he'd do that.
Amanda felt a sliver of air slip between them. The night felt cold, her body fevered and hot. Her breaths were coming in strangled gulps. Her lips were swollen and slightly bruised, but it wasn't the unpleasant feeling she knew it should be. Quite the opposite; if she'd had her way, she would have tossed away her years of schooling and wantonly molded herself into Jake, begging him to kiss her again. It was a humiliating admission, but it was nonetheless true.
The look in his eyes said that wouldn't be prudent. His gaze was frosty and hard again, his expression carefully blank.
"Gotta say, Miss Lennox, you don't kiss like any society lady I've ever met." The grin he flashed her was boyish enough not to be too dirty. The glint in his eyes... ah, now that was dirty as hell. "I respect that in a woman."
"Really?" she panted, her breathing not close to normal yet. Following his lead, she kept her tone neutral. "How many society ladies have you kissed, Mr. Chandler? It must have been quite a few for you to have gained such a vast, working knowledge of us."
"Nope. Sorry to disappoint you, princess, but you're only the second. And the last."
Her golden brows arched. "You sound very sure of yourself."
"I am," he said. Tightening his grip on her, he removed her from the throbbing heat of his lap. Odd, but he felt no relief.
The empty feeling inside Amanda came back in force. She noticed it the second her bottom molded itself to the hard, lumpy ground. Was it a coincidence that the observation was made in the same instant Jake's body no longer touched hers?
That she'd just been cast aside was obvious. Amanda knew she should be annoyed. No, she should be downright furious. She wasn't, and that worried her.
She told herself he'd kissed her only to prove a point, to satisfy his own curiosity. He'd already admitted as much. But the truth of the matter was, there were a number of things a woman could do to thwart a man's unwanted attentions. Amanda had learned quite a few of them. So why hadn't she used a single one? Probably for the same reason Jake had initiated the kiss to begin with; curiosity, and the appeasal thereof.
While Amanda could lie to other people with ease, she couldn't lie to herself. She had wondered what it would be like to kiss this man. The fantasies she'd entertained for half the day had been enough to drive a sane woman crazy. She hoped now that their curiosities had been appeased, they could do what Jake had suggested earlier: put it out of their minds for good.
She sent him a sidelong glance. In her opinion, it looked like he'd already done so. Ah, now that annoyed her!
"Get some sleep," Jake said as he fished the makings for another cigarette out of the saddle bag close to his hip. "We'll be heading out at the crack of dawn. If you aren't awake when I'm ready to ride, I'll leave without you."
"And go where?"
The fingers deftly rolling the tobacco in paper never missed a beat, though his gaze narrowed. "Where I was heading before you and your cousin detoured me."
"Which is where?" Bending her legs, Amanda rearranged the skirt around her shins and cradled her knees to her chest. They made the perfect shelf to rest her cheek atop. The pain in her ankle wasn't so bad now that her leg wasn't being jostled and now that she had other matters
occupying her mind.
Jake's tongue darted out to lick the paper, sealing it.
Amanda shivered, remembering the sharp taste of him on her tongue. Like the man himself, his flavor was unique, something to savor and never forget. She watched him stash the leather pouch holding the tobacco back into his saddlebag. "Which is where?" she repeated as though he hadn't heard her. They both knew he had.
Jake tucked the cigarette into a corner of his mouth and shrugged. "You're a nosy piece of baggage, ain't ya?"
"So I've been told, though never in such... flattering terms. Where are you heading, Mr. Chandler?"