"And you're nothing but a cheap piece of snatch," he said. "A whore without a price tag."
She slapped him so hard that the blow sang up her arm and her palm burned like live ash. In one explosive move, Jimmy Lee was on his feet, his hand thundering down to return the slap. It snapped her head back and the split that had knitted together along her bottom lip cracked open, instantly filling her mouth with the sharp, thick taste of her own blood.
As if a door had been suddenly thrown open inside her, all the restlessness, the recklessness, the wildness rushed out on a wave of hate. Hate for him, hate for herself, an all-encompassing, drenching, drowning hate that washed away control, compunction, restraint. And all of it-the need, the hate, everything-glowed in her eyes as she turned her head and looked up at Jimmy Lee Baldwin.
He stared down at her for a long while, feeling again that strange kinship between them. Something dark, something evil. And it stirred arousal like nothing else he'd ever known. Desire rose up like a beast inside him, wild, rabid, unchained. A sound of animal need rose up the back of his throat as he pulled Savannah roughly against him and crushed her mouth with his.
She fought his embrace-not to escape, just to fight-but all her hands could grasp was the fever-hot, sweat-slick skin of his chest and upper arms, and she groped and clawed and pinched as the ripe male scent of him filled her head and his tongue filled her mouth.
Behind her back, his fingers worked frantically at the zipper of her dress. He pulled the tab down a few inches, then curled his fingers into the opening and tore it the rest of the way. He worked it past her shoulders and lower as he dragged his mouth from her lips to her throat. He grasped the neckline of the dress in both hands and jerked it down, hunger snarling inside him like a wild dog as her breasts sprang free, full and firm. He bent over and caught one turgid peak in his hot, avid mouth, sucking hard, wringing a frantic sound from her… and another and another. Winding his hand into her pearl necklace, he rubbed the cool, satiny beads across her other aching point.
Unsure of whether she wanted to hold him to her or push him away, Savannah shoved at his shoulders, tangled her hands in his slicked-back hair and pulled. This was a battle for her mind, for her soul, and desperation gripped her throat at the idea that she stood no chance of winning. This is what you were born for, Savannah. Don't try to deny it…
For an instant she was back in her room at Beauvoir, and the man sucking greedily at her breast was her stepfather. She cried out, not at the assault of her body, but at the conflicting feelings that assaulted her. Her body responded to his touch, tingled and burned and ached. In the beginning she hadn't liked it, but over time she had come to see that Ross was right-this was what she was made for, this was what she was good at. But the pleasure that ribboned through her body brought with it a wrenching shame. She was a whore. That was all she would ever be. That was all any man would love her for-sex.
She sobbed a little, feeling trapped, but she cast aside the sensation and let Ross's words balm her ravaged heart. "You're so beautiful, Savannah. You're so much more woman than your mother. I want you all the time. Sometimes I think I'll go mad with need of you…"
Need of her. He needed her. He wanted her. The words gave her a sense of power, and she grasped it and hung on.
"You're wicked, Savannah," Baldwin muttered, trailing his mouth down the slope of her breast, over the quivering muscles of her stomach. "You're a witch the way you make a man want you."
A wild, bitter laugh tore from her. She braced her hands against the window frame as Jimmy Lee went down on her. He caught the hem of her dress and shoved it up past her hips, so that it bunched around her waist. The strand of pearls hanging down between her breasts, she teetered on her red high heels, feet braced apart, head swimming dizzily, drunk on a mix of need and hate and self-pity and self-loathing and rapacious, insatiable arousal.
Jimmy Lee devoured her, as greedy and ravenous as a glutton at a feast. His tongue teased and flicked and probed, bringing her to the edge of orgasm but never beyond, never granting her satisfaction, only pushing the pain of unfulfilled arousal to its outer limits.
"I hate you, Jimmy Lee!" Her voice was little more than a rasp, as tormented as the rest of her body, as seized by desire and frustration. "You're a son of a bitch."
He tumbled her back across the creaking, sagging mattress of the old bed, falling across her, pinning her arms above her head with one hand. She struggled beneath him as he reached down with his free hand and stripped his belt from his trousers.
"You're nothing but a pervert, Jimmy Lee," she taunted, her heart racing as he bound her hands to a rail on the iron headboard.
"It takes one to know one," he growled.
She laughed, a throaty, seductive laugh, her cool, she-wolf eyes glowing with hunger and anticipation as he sat back, straddling her thighs, and unfastened his trousers. He didn't bother to take them off, but he did bother to protect himself, pulling a condom out of his pocket and slipping it on with practiced efficiency.
"Can't be too careful these days," he said. He braced himself above her on his elbows and stared down at her, his breath coming in hard pants. "My adoring public wouldn't take it too kindly if I caught something nasty from some alley cat who spreads her legs for every man in town."
Savannah glared at him. "I'll be sure to tell them you said that."
"Who'd believe you?" he asked, contempt for her festering inside him like a boil. "I'm their savior. You're just a bitch in heat."
"Don't bother telling anyone, Savannah. No one will ever believe you… They'll see you for what you are-little slut, little prick teaser… You're a bad girl, Savannah, and everyone knows it… There's no use telling. We both know you seduced me…"
She closed her eyes as the voice played in her head. She raised her hips as Jimmy Lee thrust into her… and hated herself.
The midnight moon cast a silvery sheen down on the trees, and the mist crept, soft and white, across the surface of the black water.
A lot of women were afraid of the swamp. A lot of men were afraid of the swamp. It didn't frighten Savannah. She felt something other than fear out here. Something ancient. Something that called to her and stirred her blood.
This place had always been her escape. This was where she and Baby had run to get away from home and the unhappiness there. Out here she felt free. She felt like a part of the swamp, like an animal-a deer or a bobcat or a copperhead snake. She wanted to take her clothes off and be naked here, be a part of it, a creature of the Atchafalaya.
Giving in to that primal desire, she slipped off the dress the Revver had ruined for her, tossed it on the hood of the car, and slicked her hands down over the curves of her naked body.
For a moment she closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like to lie down here on the mat of dead leaves and welcome her lover into her body beneath the light of the bayou moon. They would mate as all animals mated, without guilt, without inhibition, glorying in the pure excitement of it. She would scream out in ecstasy, her cries mingling with the eerie cacophony that carried across the swamp at night.
The mental image wrung a low moan from her, made her ache with need, a need Jimmy Lee hadn't been able to assuage no matter how many ways he used her-and he had used her in every way a man could use a woman. This was a need no man could quench, a need that was rooted deep in the core of her.
She threw her head back, lifting her face to the moon, tumbling her wild hair down her back. The restlessness stirred harder, hotter. The wildness pulled at her, drew on something deep within. She needed… needed… needed…
Need drives the predator. Not the need for food, but for sustenance of another kind. A need for blood, a taste for death. A need to punish, a desire to inflict pain. To watch pain grow like a cancer, from a simple response into something all-consuming. A need to control. To play God.
To play. A game. The thought brings a smile. The smile brings a chill to the prey. For every game there is a loser. The one bound and held captive knows the outcome before the game begins. For the victim there is no game, only anticipation, pain, terror, and, she prays, death. Please, death. Soon…
No one hears her screams. No one comes to her aid. There are no saviors in the swamp. Cruelty here is a way of life. Death as commonplace as snakes. Danger hidden in beauty. No salvation. No justice. Life. Death. The hunter and the hunted.