"Why'd you do it, princess? Dammit, why?"
She could have asked, "Do what?" but it would only have stalled an answer, not avoided it. Amanda knew what the question was, just like she knew it had been only a matter of time before one of them came right out and asked it. Should she tell him the truth, even knowing she'd risk opening herself up to a world of pain that far outstripped anything she'd felt in the past? On the other hand, could she lie to him—again?
Yes, she realized suddenly, she could lie to him if forced. But she wouldn't. If she did, she wouldn't respect herself for it. And Jake would hate her. Because it would be yet another in a very long list of little "white" lies.
The fingers banding her arms tightened. He turned and maneuvered her backward, until the gritty trunk of a pine tree was biting into her back. And Jake's hardness was molding into her front.
They met thigh to thigh. Hip to hip. Soft, feminine curves to lean male hardness. She felt the breaths sawing in and out of his lungs. Their ragged rhythm matched her own.
"Tell me, Amanda. Why? I... dammit, I need to know."
Not half as much as she needed to say it, Amanda realized abruptly. Her hands came up, splaying his chest. Her fingers curled inward; she gripped his worn flannel shirt in tight, trembling fists.
Her gaze was trained on the inky hair that fell over his shoulder, on the braid and the small feather that rested against his chest. Slowly, her attention lifted, scanning his neck and noting the bruises Tom or Henry's hands had left behind.
She met Jake's gaze unflinchingly, she wasn't sure how, and was reminded of the first time she'd ever seen him. Those silver-grey eyes of his had had the power to shake her world even then. Now, they had the power to break her in two with just one glance.
"Why, Amanda?"
Her gaze lowered, locking onto the tight line of his mouth. She released the breath she only now realized she'd been holding. Her lungs burned when she dragged in another. So did the tips of her breasts. Every breath she drew put her into sizzling contact with the solid planes of Jake's chest. "I..."
"Say it," he growled. Was it by intent or accident that his hips moved, crushing her against the tree? And did it matter? No. Either way, her response was the same... breathless, hot, nerve-shattering sensation. "Tell me, damn you! Why the hell did you—?"
"Because he was going to kill you!" The high, panicky, and sharp voice, that echoed in Amanda's ears was barely recognizable as her own. The enormity of what she'd just said, what she'd almost admitted, hit her like a slap. Her reaction was three times more devastating. She'd been shaking before, mostly on the inside. Now, her entire body began quivering with a force that stunned her. Her knees felt weak, watery. If not for the tree—and Jake—she would have collapsed.
Amanda would always wonder where she found the courage to continue speaking. It didn't matter that her voice came out as a hoarse whisper; one she could barely hear herself. The bands of muscles she cushioned beneath her fingertips rippled when she spoke, telling her that while Jake might have to strain to hear her, he was absorbing every word. "He was going to kill you, Jake. I couldn't let that happen. It would have... "
"What?" he asked, his voice low and raspy, filled with an emotion that it took supreme effort to keep out of his eyes and his expression. He stared down at her, stared into her, as though willpower alone could drag the words from her creamy white throat. "What would it have done?"
"It would have killed me," she admitted softly, and her chin lowered, her voice weakened. "A part of me would have shriveled up and died right along with you."
Jake's pause was long and tense, filled with the crackling of the campfire and the give and take of two equally ragged breaths. "Because you love me?"
His gritty tone made the words more a raw statement of fact than a question.
Amanda answered him anyway. She had to. "Yes, because I love you."
"Son of a bitch."
The response, uttered through gritted teeth, surprised her. It wasn't what she'd expected, wasn't at all what she'd wanted to hear. But then, what had she expected? That Jake would say he loved her, too? That he couldn't live without her? That he'd do whatever it took to keep her by his side. There was no denying that was what she wanted to hear... just as there was no denying that Jacob Blackhawk Chandler wasn't the type of man to say such a thing. Not to a white woman. Not ever.
He leaned closer and rested his forehead against hers. Both were beaded with nervous perspiration. Jake's eyes were pinched tightly shut, as though there were emotions swimming in his gaze that he didn't want Amanda to see and that he was having the devil's own time controlling.
"What's between us..." he said finally, hoarsely, "it won't work, you know. It can't. They won't let it."
"They? Meaning other white people?" A drop of ange
r warmed Amanda's blood. She focused on it as though it was a chunk of driftwood and she was drowning. In a way, she was. Only not in water. She was drowning in the ache of rejection. Again. "What people—no, what white people—think of you is very important to you, isn't it, Jake?"
"Yes." The pained way he said it told her this was not only the first time he'd made such an admission to another person, it was also the first time he'd confessed this to himself. His body tightened beneath her hands, humming with furious confusion. Amanda had a feeling Jake had surprised even himself. He surprised them both when he added huskily, "You don't know what it's been like for me, lady. You have no idea, couldn't even begin to understand…"
"Then explain it to me, Jake." Her fingers uncurled from around his shirt. She wasn't aware of when her hands traveled up his chest, over his shoulders. She was, however, excruciatingly aware of when her fingertips grazed, then traced, the puckered scar on the back of his neck. "Make me understand."
"No."
"But—?"
"No." His hand came out of nowhere, his fingers manacling her wrist, yanking her hand away. He moved back far enough to settle her arm between them and then he pressed in on her again. His body molded into hers; the fit was perfect. The feel of his hard, muscled length pressing her back against the equally firm tree hit Amanda like a wave of white heat. "Leave it alone, princess. I put that part of my life behind me years ago."