Her breath was ragged, and with that he couldn’t hold back any longer. He pulled her to him. As soon as their bodies touched, her fingers fisted in his shirt as if she were afraid to let go, her forehead pressed hard against his chest.
“I love you with all my heart,” he said, “as I have never loved anyone before.”
Tilting her chin so he could see her face, he looked into her eyes, bright and green, desperate. He lined her jaw with his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead before his fingers slid back to tangle in her hair.
“Finn,” he breathed against her ear.
Tears burned in her eyes.
“Isabel will always be a part of you, Finn. But don’t lock everyone else out.”
“You don’t understand.”
His grip grew firm, intense. “Then explain it to me.”
She stared at him, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. He could tell she was afraid. But he didn’t know of what.
He started to push back, but her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t leave me. Not again.”
His heart slammed against his chest as he remembered the jungle. And when she reached up to him and whispered, “Hold me. Please,” just as she had that day, he pushed answers and explanations from his mind.
He held her fiercely, and when he brushed his lips over hers she was lost. She clung to him, returning his kiss. Fiercely. Desperately. As if she couldn’t get close enough.
“Sweet Finn.”
His hands coiled in her hair, gently pulling her head back. He opened his mouth on her neck as his strong hands slipped down her spine, cupping her hips, pulling her up to the hard rigidness of his manhood. “I want to be inside you.”
Her eyes flashed open, but he only swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Gently but firmly he laid her down. “I’m going to make love to you, Finnea. I’m going to fill you as I was meant to.”
Her eyes filled with trepidation, and she started to protest. But the words were cut off and her mouth fell open in a silent gasp when he grazed his fingers across the rosebud tips of her breasts, bringing them to taut peaks beneath the thin material of her gown.
“Let yourself feel,” he said, his own urgency flaring at the banked passion he saw in her eyes.
And suddenly, it was as if she could do nothing less. He grasped her wrists and pulled them above her head as he lowered his head to her breast, brushing the peak with his lips.
With maddening determination, he worked the fastenings of her gown, one by one, then started on her chemise when her gown had been discarded on the floor. He removed her clothes with slow, sensual strokes, lingering over the high, round breasts, the small, delicate waist, and the golden triangle of curls between her legs, bringing a sweet mewling sound from her lips.
“Finn,” he murmured, his voice sounding hoarse and raw even to his own ears.
But he said nothing else, simply came over her and kissed her with the fierceness of long-held desire set free.
She gasped when his hard chest brushed ever so lightly against hers. He trailed his lips down her cheek to her neck, to her breasts. He palmed the fullness, then pulled one nipple deep in his mouth.
Her body trembled. “Matthew,” she whispered.
“Yes, Finn.” He said the words and trailed his lips even lower, letting go of her wrists. He kissed the outline of her ribs down to her abdomen. Then lower, pressing his lips to every inch of her body, until he stopped abruptly.
Unlike the day he shattered her control, he hadn’t left any of her underclothes on. And he saw.
His body grew tense, and when he looked up her eyes bored into him, questioning. Vulnerable.
“Dear God,” he breathed as he carefully, reverently touched the jagged proof on her inner thigh that she had been in the train wreck.
Instantly she tried to cover herself, but his large hands captured hers and moved them purposely away. With his throat oddly tight, he leaned down and pressed his lips to her scar.
She inhaled a sharp breath.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed against her skin.
He came up over her, lying on top of her, his weight supported by his elbows, his palms cradling her head as he looked deep into her eyes.
She turned her cheek into the mattress, but he wouldn’t allow it. He framed her head in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “We belong together. Do you understand that? Do you understand that it is all right to love again?”
He kissed her again, on her cheeks and eyelids and lips and ears, and she returned his kisses, matching his intensity.
Their love turned frantic. Her hands ripped at his belt and at the fastenings of his trousers. She gave a soft cry of frustration when her attempts were unsuccessful.
Another time he would have chuckled, but this time he was nearly moved to tears by her desire for him—the past giving up its strangling hold on her. He could feel it. Could feel the passion that the past had not allowed until now.
He kissed her again, smoothed her hair back from her face, and met her eyes. There was so much he wanted to say. His throat burned with the words he held back.
“Love me,” she whispered when he did nothing more than look deep into her eyes.
With that he was lost. Her lips parted as he kissed her. He traced the line of her mouth with his tongue, savoring her sweetness. He kissed her again, hard and deep, his mouth slanting over hers. Pulling at his clothes, she groaned until he stepped away and freed himself from his trousers.
But when he started to come back to her, she shook her head no. He stood naked before her, his brow furrowed, his shaft thick and swollen with wanting her. She scooted to the edge of the bed on her knees so that she faced him.
“Let me touch you,” she said.
Just as he had uttered to her.
And she did. Reaching out to cradle his sex.
He inhaled sharply, his eyes boring into her as she began to stroke the length of him. His body began to quiver as her hands grew bolder. Exerting every ounce of willpower he possessed, he held his body in check as he touched her cheek, slowly trailing the tips of his fingers down her naked flesh. He didn’t stop until he came to the juncture between her thighs. This time she inhaled on a sharp breath when he slid his finger deep into her moist opening. And stroked. Slowly.
“Do you feel that, sweetheart?”
She caught a sob in her throat when he slipped two fingers inside her, filling her, nudging her thighs farther apart. And when he was sure she was ready and he knew he couldn’t take much more, he gently pushed her back into the coverlet.
When he lay on top of her, their naked bodies pressed together, he grew still. She looked at him, her eyes questioning.
“We belong together,” he whispered.
Then, with one powerful surge, he embedded himself fully inside her.
She cried out his name and he stopped, afraid he had hurt her. But she’d have none of that. She moved her hips, sending shivers of pleasure through his body the likes of which he had never experienced. He held her fragile form, carefully, moving slowly, until she urged him faster. Their hips came together, again and again, and he no longer thought to hold back.
Their lovemaking was primal, harkening back to Africa. The wildness. The passion. They tried to lose themselves in each other until they were lost, sensation coursing through each of them and they cried out.
For long minutes they lay entwined in the tangle of sheets. He kissed her forehead, then rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him. Matthew marveled at how content he was, how at ease, how whole he felt with this woman in his arms.
Silence surrounded them, perfect and complete.
But just when he thought she was asleep, she spoke. “I was about to be married.”
“Ah, Finn. You don’t have to say anything. I don’t need to know any more than I do now.” And he realized it was true.
“But I need to tell you. I believed Gatwith loved me, and I gave in to him the night before the wedding. I was young and swept away by his charm and dazzling smile.”
He saw her angrily dash her tears away.
“I was a fool. After he satisfied his need, he went to my father as if nothing had happened. Can you imagine?” she said bitterly. “He actually slipped out of my room, then sat down with Father and sipped brandy as if earlier he had been doing nothing more than playing checkers with the natives.” She looked away. “That night as a wedding gift my father gave Gatwith three highly valuable varieties of rubber tree saplings. All of us could see that Gatwith had become a sort of son to my father. Gatwith took advantage of that. The valuable trees were all Gatwith needed to start a rubber plantation of his own.” She shook her head. “That’s what he wanted all along. He had asked to buy them when he first arrived because Father’s variety was far superior to any in the world. God, how stupid I was. Gatwith didn’t want me. He wanted to find a way to get the saplings. And once he had those, he had no reason to stay. He slipped away that night without a word. And there I stood the next day, dressed in a beautiful gown the tribes-women had made for me, a garland in my hair, my father at my side, and not a groom to be found. He left me at the altar, he embarrassed my father, and when it became apparent that I was with child, I was shunned by everyone but Janji and his family. I could no longer go into town, where the Europeans were, and the missionary wouldn’t let me go to church. I was an outcast. But worst of all, when Isabel was bora, she was an outcast, too.” She pressed her eyes closed. “She hardly seemed to notice. She had known nothing else. But I knew and it killed me inside.” Her tears choked her, rage and despair strangling her.
“You must have hated Gatwith.”
“Hate him?” Her eyes opened. “How could I hate the man who gave me Isabel?”
“You don’t have to hate him—just hate what he did to you.” He rocked her in his arms. “You are a better person than most people ever think of being.”
“Isabel made me a better person. Isabel was so good and kind. You can see wisdom in a child if you really look.” The words brought more tears. “I want her with me, here and now.”
“She’s always in your heart.”
“But I want to see her. I want to see her burst of red hair and big green eyes. And the tiny freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose.”
“She sounds like a tiny version of you.”
He felt her smile against his chest. “That’s what everyone said.”
“Then she was a beauty.”
“But she’s gone,” she finished on a whisper.
Gone, like so many people in her life, Matthew realized.
He stroked her hair. “I’ll never leave you,” he said solemnly. “You know that, don’t you?”
He could tell she didn’t believe him, but how could he blame her. “Time will prove me right, Finn.”
She pressed close as if seeking his soul, and before long he could feel the even breathing that said she was asleep. The contentment that had filled him began to change. His heart began to pound with intensity. He wanted to paint. Needed to paint, and felt for the first time in months that he could, as he was meant to.
With a gentle kiss to Finnea’s forehead, Matthew slipped out of bed. He threw on his clothes and went to the garden room in the darkened house. After shutting the door, he turned on the lights—every one of them, until every nook and corner was illuminated.
He pulled out a canvas, then tore through his tubes of paint until he had what he wanted. He began to work, without thinking.
He began to paint. No sketching. No preparation. Only the swift strokes of brush to canvas.
The movements were different, at first awkward and stilted. He realized in a startled space of time that despite how much progress he had made he would never paint the way he had before. But he realized as well that it didn’t matter. He found a new rhythm. A new way to bring life to paint and canvas.
The world fell away and color sang in his mind. Images danced to life beneath his fingers like warriors dancing around a fire.
He worked for minutes, or maybe hours. He didn’t know. Didn’t care. He painted until he was finished—and knew that truly he was healed.
Finnea woke, the hint of morning touching the dark sky beyond the window.
She moved, just barely, and winced. She was amazed to find herself in a bed, not on the floor. And she had slept. Truly slept.
Last night came back to her with the tenderness from lovemaking—and joy. Her body shimmered with feeling, for Matthew, for his daughter. For the possibility of moving beyond the past—without feeling as if she were somehow betraying Isabel.
She had told Matthew of her shame, told him her secrets, and had seen no condemnation in his eyes. He only loved her more for having shared her burden.
A stab of sadness snaked through her as she thought of her child.
Tears threatened. But she wouldn’t let them come. Not after what she had shared with Matthew. She wanted to be with him now. To ensure that she had not imagined his love.
Wrapping herself back in the discarded clothes from last night, she went in search of Matthew.
The door to his bedroom stood ajar. But even in the early morning darkness she could tell he wasn’t there—and that he hadn’t slept in the bed.
Instinctively, she went downstairs, straight to the garden room, and found him, much as she had that first day on the train. Standing, staring out a window. But this time there was a bone-deep peace about him that had been missing before.
His beauty struck her. A beauty of soul and appearance, even with the scar. Or perhaps because of it.
She hadn’t noticed last night that the swelling of his face had gone down, the redness subsided. But there had always been a fierceness that she hadn’t realized wasn’t part of his looks until now—now that it was gone. A tension caused by pain.
How had he withstood it?
Sudden uncertainty raced down her spine at the sight of him, this wonderful man whom she had loved for so long but had been unable to give in to. What if he regretted last night?
Fear raced through her. She wasn’t ready for his response. She didn’t think she could take another rejection.
She started to turn away.
“Come here,” he said, his voice like gravel.