A Contract Bride's Triple Surprise (4 page)

“We need sons to inherit the land. Gil and Prue had a daughter. If our first child is a girl, Nev will marry. He shouldn’t have a problem as he’s good with the ladies. I’m not.” He looked at her though his long hair hid his face. “It’s too late to do anything about it. The MacDougal insists we have a son as soon as possible. I’m ready to start.”

Her chin trembled. He had a destiny, one of vengeance. He didn’t like taking Amelia as a wife just to satisfy their father’s ridiculous requirement. But honesty and respect would get them through. A bit of caring would help, but Nevin would be able to provide it. Hell, Nev might even end up loving her. Then they wouldn’t need him anymore.

“I thought my husband wanted me,” she whispered. Her hands clenched the sheet high under her chin. “The women on the train didn’t know who they would marry or what would happen. I thought I was so much better off. I was already married to my brother-in-law, a man my sister said was kind and gentle. A man who wanted me as his wife!”

Tears glistened in her eyes, but she hardened her voice for the last sentence. After his sister Louisa’s temper tantrums and pouts, he didn’t trust women who used tears to get what they wanted. But though tears slid down her face, she didn’t make a sound. Instead, she gritted her teeth and glared.

He held back a grin of appreciation. This woman would fight for what she wanted. But would she want him? Though near-naked and defenseless, she glared up at him from the bed. She crossed her arms, plumping up her breasts as if to offer them. He wanted them…and her. More, he wanted this small, feisty woman to want him. It was a crazy idea. No one wanted him, other than Gil and Nevin, and Gil wanted him for stud service. There was no reason they couldn’t both enjoy it.

“I want you, but the timing of this marriage is bad. I had to put aside important things.” Did she sniff back tears? No, it was more of a snort. “We’re stuck with each other. We might as well make the best of it, princess.”

“I’m not a princess.”

“You’ve got soft, white skin. You come from the city. Your father had money. That means all you were trained to do was bat your eyes and be pretty. Well, that don’t mean a damn out here.”

She opened her mouth in outrage, but he kept on going.

“I work hard, and I expect my wife to do the same. I want decent hot food, clean clothes, and a tidy home.”

“Are you finished?” Her tears were gone, which meant the snippy attitude was back.

“Couple more things.” He held up his first finger. “When I give an order, you obey it.” Second finger. “I want my wife in my bed, every night.” Third. “I’m big, loud, and ornery.” He let go of his fourth finger. “Don’t expect me to change who I am just because I have a wife.” He opened his palm, holding it up nice and easy as if he was saying “howdy.”

“Does that mean you have a number five?”

“Nope,” he drawled, low and slow. “That’s what I use on my wife when she doesn’t follow the rules.”

She shrunk, wincing as if he’d already hit her. “Prue said MacDougal men don’t beat women!” She stared at his hand.

“I don’t beat women, children, or animals. But I will spank my wife if she needs it.”

She gasped, but not in fear. The sheet rose and fell as she panted. Her nipple buds pushed up the sheet, and her nostrils flared. Damn, did his luck change and he got a woman who liked to have fun?

“I will not let you spank me!”

“You sure about that?”

She sputtered what might be curses. Considering the company she had to keep to get this far, she likely heard a good variety. She’d not be using them on him.

“Are you breathing hard because you’re afraid I’ll spank you?” He lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned closer. “Or are you hot and wet because you want my hand on your ass?”

She huffed and puffed. He’d bet a hundred dollars it wasn’t outrage that riled herit was that he was right.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting an edge of pain with your loving now and then.” Her hands fidgeted with the sheet. “That’s something to work up to, so I won’t be doing that for a while. Are you inviting me to lie down?”

Though he seemed relaxed, he wanted her with a heat he’d never felt before. His patience, honed from listening to the grandfathers speak, from waiting for his dinner to come into his path, didn’t exist with this woman. While he waited for her answer, his body trembled, for God’s sake!

She seemed calmer but still pleated that sheet. She flicked her eyes around the dim room. He made himself give her all the time she needed to come to a decision. It was the most important one of their future life. After swallowing a few times, she exhaled and looked to the shadow where he waited.

“I don’t know,” she finally whispered.

“Say, come to me, husband,” he growled. He listened to her silence with the same sense that kept him alive more than once. She was thinking so hard he could almost hear the gears shift. She twitched.

“Prue said she always felt safe when Gillis held her in the night.”

“Now that you’re married to me, you’ll always be safe. But I plan to do more than hold you tonight.” His deep voice was rough with need.

She panted, the pulse at her throat beating as fast as his own heart. He stood up, tossed off his shirt, and turned back to the bed. She gasped and threw out her arm to point at his feet.

“You’re not going to leave your good shirt on the floor! Someone will have to press it in the morning before we go down to breakfast, and that won’t be me.”

He stared at her frown, thanking the Gods it wasn’t fear that made her gasp. He snorted a laugh. “You already sound like a wife.”

“Your shirt?”

He swept it from the floor and placed it on a peg sticking out of the wall by the door.

“Hang up your pants while you’re at it.”

He stopped with his hand still lifted. He hadn’t planned to strip naked yet. But if the lady wanted to speed things up, so much the better.

“You don’t seem to be like Gillis,” she continued. “Prue said he’s big, wide, red, and hairy. I can’t see you very well, but you’re not wide.”

“Nev and I look a lot alike,” he said as he carefully shucked his pants, “because we have the same mother. Gillis has more of our father in him.”

“Oh. I guess I wouldn’t have recognized you from the window.”

“When did you look out the window?” Had she seen him go into the mercantile to pick up the suit Patsy Tanner pressed for him?

“While I was waiting for my bath to be ready.” She dipped her head as if shy. “Thank you for that. I’ve never had a tub bath. It was wonderful.”

He grunted in reply. Damn good thing Trace bought a tub after they married. No way was he returning the big one the Elliotts gave Prudence as a wedding present. He’d wash Amelia all over, covering her body in rose-scented soap. After rinsing, he’d lick every inch of her dry, inside and out.

He lifted the shirt with shaking hands, hung the pants on the hook, and then placed the shirt over them. He angled his body away from the bed so she’d not catch a shadow of the massive erection pointing forward. He wanted to come in her so bad, right now! But she was a virgin. Do it wrong the first time, and she wouldn’t want a second. Do it right, and he’d have her screaming her release again and again, all night long.

“You ever seen a cock, Amelia?” The silence stretched.

“I don’t think you mean a male rooster,” she finally said.

“No, I mean the man’s part that fits in the woman.”

“Oh.” She fiddled with the sheet, pleating it. “That’s what the man uses to make babies?”

“Eventually, yes,” he ground out.

She was even more ignorant than he expected. Trace had warned him that Eastern women were taught little about sex other than to keep their knees closed before marriage.

“Prue said I would have a home here for as long as I wanted.” He could hear the tension as she struggled to breathe. “You said you need sons. I want a home. Even if making a baby hurts a lot, and you do it every night, I’ll have a place to belong.”

She spoke as if she’d put up with being raped every night just to have a place to live in. He dropped his head back and exhaled. How many women were stuck with that existence? Too many, he knew. He was going to make damn sure she learned about pleasure tonight.

“You have a home now,” he whispered. “And I’ll kill anyone who dares to hurt you.”

The second sentence came out before he knew it. He hoped she hadn’t heard it. He didn’t care about her like that, of course. Everyone knew if he discovered someone hurting a child or woman, they soon wished they were dead. He usually granted that wish, eventually. He looked over when she cleared her throat.

“Can you give me a baby now?”

Christ!
His cock jerked, pre-cum easing out. He thought of how damn cold that stream was in early spring with the snowmelt. Imagined himself sitting in the middle of it, his cock shriveled from the ice. He gripped his fists with everything he had so he wouldn’t rip off her nightgown and plunge deep in her sweet, hot, virgin pussy.

His cock still throbbed. The icy stream wasn’t working. Maybe if he counted backward, by fours. No, that was too easy. By sevens, then.
One thousand. Nine-hundred and ninety-three. Nine-hundred and eighty-six. Nine-hundred and seventy-nine.

He was at eight-hundred and eighteen when he heard the bed move. He used every sense he possessed to discover what Amelia was doing. He smelled the rose scent on her skin as she pushed back the sheet. She waited with just one thin layer between her skin and the moonlight.

“Please, hold me.”

If he could wait all these years to avenge the most horrid crime imaginable, he could hold one small woman for a few minutes without violating her. He eased into the bed. The ropes squeaked a bit as he settled. She lay to his right, her shape outlined. He reached out his right arm and forced out two words.

“Come here.”

She gave a mew like a frightened kitten and snuggled, her left side on the mattress and her right leaning on him. He settled his right arm around her, resting his hand on her waist. Her head lay on his chest, her breasts pressed against his ribs. Her right hip lay to the left of the biggest erection of his life. Her right leg settled between his.

Exquisite agony. He held her for a moment until she relaxed. He, however, was stiff as a board, and not just the part standing at attention near her hip.

“Prue said Gillis is all furry, but you’re nice and smooth.”

She skimmed her palm over his left chest, rasping his nipple with an innocent touch that inflamed him. He put his left hand on top of hers.

“Amelia, unless you stay perfectly still, I won’t be able to just hold you.”
Hell, she’d be lucky to be a virgin for more than two minutes!

She held still while he forced himself to relax. He lifted her left hand, freeing her right. She didn’t move for a few minutes, but he could almost hear her brain working overtime. He was almost under control when he heard her breath catch. A bare whisper of a sound, but when her nipples pressed against him and her sweet perfume rose from between her legs, he knew he had to get out of the bed, the room,
the town
or do something he’d sworn never to do. Unless she wanted him.

She swept her hand down his chest. His heart stopped beating then pumped like a revival organ at full savior mode. His belly rippled when her hand floated past. His cock stood, tall and proud, pointing forward.

“Oh, my. Is this your cock? It’s very big.”

Her fingers touched his hard flesh. Before he could push her away and escape, she gripped him by the hilt.

“No wonder it hurts so much! That will never fit inside me.”

He waited, his whole body tight from eyebrows to toes, but she didn’t release him. If anything, she held him tighter.

“Babies are a lot bigger that this,” she said as if rationalizing to herself. “If you go in and babies come out, I expect I can stretch.” She changed her grip. “You’re fuzzy here. What are these?”

She cupped his balls, squeezing gently. He groaned, loud and long. Before she could release him, he clamped her hand tight.

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m not hurting you?”

“Nope.” Maybe if he came, he’d be able to lie there and not ravish her for at least fifteen minutes.

“Show me what to do.”

With his guidance, she raised and lowered her hand twice. He released her and let her do what she wanted. Luckily, that was what he would walk through coals to feel. The room was hot, but her hand burned. She reached the tip and found his pre-cum. She figured out what to do with it, sliding up and down his shaft. She took to it so quickly he wondered if she was a virgin. If she thought making babies hurt so damn much, why was she all over him?

“Is it bad for me to touch you when I was supposed to marry your brother?”

“Nevin won’t mind,” he croaked.

He didn’t tell her that, either way, they intended share her. If she wanted to, that is. Considering the way she stared at him, licking her lips while driving him crazy with her hand, it would take more than one man to satisfy her.

He slid his hand down her back to her ass. Her nightgown shifted when she moved. It was easy for him to reach between her spread legs and press his finger inside.