Read The Savage Heart for Free Online Page B

Mulhaney’s return, he closed the door and then matter-of-factly began taking off Tess’s jacket.
    She was panting, but not from the pain. “Matt, you…mustn’t!” She feverishly tried to stay the lean, strong hands that were unfastening her blouse.
    His black eyes met hers with a faint twinkle. “Feeling prudish, Tess? You saw as much if not more of me after I was shot at Wounded Knee.”
    â€œI was fourteen then,” she said, aware even as she spoke that it was a nonsensical answer. “And you mustn’t handle me…like this.”
    â€œWhere are all those slogans you were spouting about a woman’s rights?” He glanced down again at the buttons. “Don’t your more radical sisters even advocate free love?”
    â€œI am not…that radical! Will you please stop undressing me?”
    He didn’t even slow down. “With the best of luck, it will take the doctor a little time to get here,” he said as he worked buttons through the dainty holes. “I smell the blood.”
    She started, having forgotten about Matt’s remarkable sensory powers, honed from childhood. If he’d ever been a child. Sioux males trained to be warriors from a very early age, learning the knife and bow and horsemanship as young boys, and getting a taste of battle by accompanying war parties as water carriers.
    â€œMatt…” she protested, both hands going to the buttons to stop him.
    He brushed her fumbling fingers aside. “I never imagined you to be such a prim woman,” he chided. “You and I know more about each other than many husbands and wives do.”
    That was true. Intimacy had been forced into their relationship because she nursed him so long after his devastating wounds. Not that her father hadn’t had many qualms. It violated his sense of morality and decorum, but he had been unable to withstand her tearful pleas to be allowed to help.
    â€œBut this is…different,” she tried to explain.
    His hands stilled for an instant while he looked into her eyes and saw the shyness there.
    â€œI would do the same for anyone,” he said evenly.
    She bit her lower lip.
    He moved her hands aside very gently. “No one will ever know,” he said softly. “Does that reassure you?”
    It was odd that she trusted him so much. The thought of any other man’s hands on her was sickening. But not Matt’s. They were immaculate hands, always clean and neat and so very strong, yet gentle.
    The problem was that her heart reacted violently to the touch of those hands on her bare skin over her collarbone. She ached for him to do more than unbutton her clothing, though she couldn’t imagine what that “more” might be.
    He pretended not to notice, and unbuttoned the last of the buttons on her blouse. Visible beneath it was a whale-bone corset and, above that, a lace-decorated muslin chemise. At the sight of the dark points of her nipples through the muslin Matt’s hands stilled. A faint glitter claimed his dark eyes for an instant.
    â€œYou mustn’t stare at me like that,” she whispered.
    His eyes lifted to hers. “Why not?”
    She wondered that herself. While she was struggling for a rational reason, his eyes went back to her bodice and seemed bent on memorizing how she looked.
    â€œOh, this is very unconventional,” she protested weakly.
    â€œAnd wickedly pleasurable,” he murmured. His hand slid from the buttons of her blouse to the edge of the muslin and she jumped as if his lean fingers burned her soft skin.
    â€œYou rake!” she gasped, catching his hand.
    â€œAll right.” He chuckled, letting her move his curiousfingers back to the task at hand. “If I had any lingering doubts about your modern ideas, they’re gone now.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” she asked indignantly.
    â€œAll that talk about free love and liberated morals,” he chided.