Broddock-Black 05 - Force of Nature (9 page)

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Seated cross-legged on the bed a few moments later, Flynn’s rare fit of introspection and Jo’s testiness supplanted by more pleasant activities, they ate the food and drank the lemonade and kissed occasionally with coconut frosting on their lips and talked of the most casual, nonsexual things like painters they liked or books or horses or plays or people who made them laugh or who didn’t. No longer troubled with obsession, or inclined to debate internal issues having to do with discretion versus spontaneity, they were past the point of caring, more intent on enjoying the wonder of their mutual and highly charged sexual appetites.

They paged through Flynn’s portfolio of Utamaro’s colorful prints that depicted the wonders of love with great beauty and charm. The set of shunga prints from 1660 that Flynn owned, showing the forty-eight sexual positions he’d spoken of, was extraordinary, imaginative and breathtaking.

And when they’d finished eating and drinking and their bodies were revived, they took pleasure in recreating a goodly number of those impassioned couplings—with intoxicating rapture and wildness, with irrepressible delight.

W
aking at dawn, Flynn carefully eased himself from bed. Jo was deep asleep and if he didn’t have a point of honor to deal with, he would be as well. After quickly washing and dressing, he walked the few blocks to Hazard’s home and entered through the kitchen door. Waving away the few servants who were up, he made his way to Hazard’s office at the back of the house. Hazard was an early riser; anyone who had done business with him knew that.

Outside the closed door, Flynn ran his hands over his still-damp hair, straightened the cuffs of his shirt, and briefly wished he’d thought to put on some cologne. The scent of sex was still pungent on his skin.

But he was here now; it was too late. And gossip concerning Jo’s whereabouts last night would have reached Hazard long ago.

Raising his hand, he rapped in a brisk tattoo and opened the door without waiting, without checking to see if Hazard had company or more aptly a gun pointed at his head.

A fact he took note of a moment too late.

“Shut the door,” Hazard said, brusquely as he entered the room, the weapon in question pointedly within reach of Hazard’s clasped hands resting on his desktop.

“She’s safe.”

Hazard’s brows rose infinitesimally. “I would hope so.”

“She’s sleeping. She didn’t want me to come.”

“But you were more sensible,” Hazard murmured, his eyes flinty hard.

It wasn’t an adjective often used to describe Flynn. “Yes.”

“You sobered up?”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

Hazard tipped his head in the merest of movements. “I’m relieved.”

“She asked me, not that I’m trying to avoid responsibility. I just wanted you to know I tried to say no. I actually did say no.”

Hazard didn’t answer for a very long time, his dark gaze unreadable. Then he unclasped his hands, leaned back in his chair and said with a soft sigh, “I gathered as much. Trey told me.” He indicated Flynn sit with a jab of his finger at a nearby chair. “She’s of age,” Hazard noted with another small sigh, “and outside my control. That’s not to say, I’m still not concerned about your . . . er . . . friendship”—his brows arched faintly—“for a variety of reasons. I think you know what most of them are as well as I do. The question is, what are you going to do now?”

“Make peace with you.”

Hazard wore a white linen shirt open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up, well-worn cavalry twill trousers and moccasins. But regardless of his casual attire, no one would mistake him for anything but a man of authority. “And what about Jo?” he asked, flatly.

“I’ll marry her if you wish.” The answer slipped out, capricious and unforeseen, shocking Flynn as much as Hazard.

But Hazard’s voice was mild as he spoke and his expression gave nothing away. “It’s not what I wish. It’s what Jo wishes. Did you ask her?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

Perhaps still infatuated with the events of the evening past, Flynn heard himself say, “I wouldn’t be averse.”

Hazard’s mouth quirked faintly. “She may not find that reason enough to marry you.”

Reminded of the necessary courtesies, Flynn tipped his head. “I would, naturally, express myself in more suitable terms.”

“I sure as hell would hope so.” Hazard shoved the handgun aside and leaned forward slightly. “How long have we known each other—ten, fifteen years?”

Flynn nodded. Hazard had helped his father as well run off intruders on more than one occasion.

“I’m not saying I’m happy about what happened—with gossip being what it is in a small town. But Jo has a mind of her own as you may have noticed, she’s a grown woman and I can’t tell her what to do. If she wants to marry you after knowing you for less than a day, fine.” Hazard smiled. “I rather doubt she will. But don’t hurt her or you’ll hear from me.” Sitting back in his chair again, the man whose power extended throughout the territory, spread his hands wide in a benevolent gesture. “That’s all I have to say.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”

The men were a generation apart, but they shared an understanding that the world was far from benign if your skin was a shade different from the norm. And they’d fought to hold what was theirs for as long as they could remember. Both were well qualified to allocate lesser concerns to their proper place.

Flynn’s relationship with Jo was not life or death.

And neither man was vulnerable to gossip.

“So you don’t think she’d say yes?” Although Flynn had always prided himself on avoiding entanglements, he found himself mildly chagrined at Hazard’s assessment.

“Don’t take it personally.”

“How else should I take it?”

Hazard looked at him from under his brows. “You don’t seriously want to marry, do you?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Whatever you say,” Hazard observed, kindly, knowing what it felt like to want what you want. “Why don’t you go home, and bring Jo back for breakfast or lunch if you like. If you have an announcement to make, I’ll be the first to congratulate you.”

“She might not want to come.”

Hazard’s dark eyes were suddenly very direct. “Really.” “She said she wanted to stay with me as long as she could. She wants to come back to the ranch with me.”

“Impossible.” Hazard’s tone was curt.

“I agree. I told her it was too dangerous.”

“Those Empire boys are out for your skin,” Hazard declared, brusquely. “I don’t want her mixed up in that.”

“Nor do I.”

Hazard inhaled deeply, then spoke in a brisk, sharp cadence. “Bring Jo to dinner tonight.” His gaze was chill. “Consider it a command performance. If she doesn’t wish to come, bring her anyway. I want her to understand she is not to travel north with you under any circumstances. In all else, I’ll indulge her whims. Are we clear on that?”

“Perfectly.”

Hazard tapped his fingers on his desktop. “Good. Dinner’s at eight.”

"
Y
ou were where?” Jo exclaimed when Flynn returned to A bed. Coming fully awake, she pushed herself up on her elbows and glared at him. “How dare you! I’m not some ingenue who needs protecting! I can take care of myself!”

“It was a courtesy call. I’ve known your father a long time.”

She looked daggers at him. “And you men had to discuss my life as though I wasn’t capable of making a decision without you. God, I hate that! As if my actions require male approval!”

“Calm down. We have an invitation to dinner. No one’s upset.”

“Fm upset in case you didn’t notice! I’m bloody damned well upset! I don’t want you interfering in my life!”

“You didn’t seem to mind last night,” he said with a faint smile.

“That’s completely different and you know it.” It wasn’t fair that he was so flagrantly virile and so delectably naked; it made it so much harder to focus on her resentment.

“Darling, no one has to be angry about anything.” He shifted slightly, half-turning in a tantalizing display of rippling muscle and long-limbed grace. “We’re all alone; I sent the servants away this morning and if you get hungry”—his smile held a lush insinuation that had nothing to do with food— “Cook left some fresh blueberry scones and a lemon cake.”

“Blueberry scones?” Jo murmured, wavering between possible gratifications. “Hot?”

“Hot,” he whispered. “Like someone else I know.”

“Don’t you dare use sex and food to appease me.” But the petulance had vanished from her voice.

“Which do you want first, as if I can’t tell.” He was already rising from the bed.

“Bring the lemon cake, too.”

He turned back, magnificently nude, magnificently aroused, his brows arched in query. “All of it?”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, feeling herself open in welcome, suddenly beginning to reconsider the importance of food.

His mouth curved upward in a lazy grin. “We don’t have to leave the house until dinner at eight. There’s plenty of time.” “So I can have scones, and then you’ll entertain me?”

“At your service, darling.”

She smiled. “You’re still going to pay for your early-morning visit.”

“We’ll see.”

“No, we won’t.”

“Let’s discuss it after you eat.”

The particular hushed quality of his voice when he said the word eat caused a tantalizing ripple of response deep inside her, as though her ravenous senses were immune to resentment. As though she had no control over her desire when he looked at her like that. “I should say no,” she breathed.

“If you could,” he said even more softly.

She threw a pillow at him, but he caught it deftly and set it aside. “If it’s any consolation, darling, you’re not alone in your feelings; I’m as insatiable. And even if you wanted to go, I wouldn’t let you. That’s why I had to talk to your father.” “And he allowed it?”

“I told him I’d marry you.”

Her surprise almost instantly gave way to a look of displeasure. “Were you planning on asking me or have you men already sealed the bargain?”

“Don’t get ruffled. As a matter of fact, your father said you wouldn’t marry me.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.”

“Do I get an opportunity to voice my opinion?”

“Of course. Would you like to get married? I can be more poetic if you wish or get down on one knee and offer you my heart.”

“It’s not your heart I’m interested in, but thank you.” In some irrational portion of her brain, a little voice was screaming, yes, but she’d not yet lost all sanity. “I have no interest in marriage.”

He should have been relieved; if he wasn’t still in full rut, he would have been. “Why not?” he inquired, gruffly.

“Because much as I adore your accomplished, dare I say, gifted sexual talents,” she declared with lifted brows, “I don’t consider that sufficient reason to marry someone I barely know.”

His smile was wicked. “You know me better than most women in town.”

“Very cute,” she said with a mildness she thought commendable considering her heart was beating so rapidly there was a good possibility it might jump out of her chest. “Nevertheless, my observations on marriage—with the exception of my father and Blaze—don’t recommend the institution. Marriage ensures neither love nor faithfulness and surely doesn’t guarantee happiness, so why bother?”

“How cynical,” he drawled.

She shrugged. “That may be, but you’ll thank me when your brains are less addled by lust. Now, bring me my lemon cake and scones.”

Overlooking the blow to his vanity, she was right, and for a frightful moment, he realized how perilously close he’d come to disaster. “Milk or tea?” he inquired pleasantly, as though they’d been discussing nothing more important than their breakfast menu.

“Tea, please, with milk.” And when he looked pained, she said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t make tea?”

“I’m half Japanese and half Irish. What do you think?”

“I think you like Japanese tea better—without milk. But seriously, Flynn, you can’t mean with lemon cake.”

“With anything, darling.”

“With sex?” He was standing there gorgeously male, and suddenly sex and anything didn’t sound so odd after all.

He grinned. “I’ve found the combination excellent.”

And he was right. In fact, no matter what Jo ate that day and for some reason she was ravenous, sex was the natural accompaniment. They had sex before, during and after their lemon cake and scone breakfast. They had sex with their ham sandwiches at noon. They had sex with afternoon tea although it required a degree of dexterity since they were having tea in Flynn’s splendid large marble tub. And again as they were readying themselves for dinner, although this time there was no food or tea involved. Flynn had sent for a local modiste and selected a gown for Jo despite her protest. His method of placating was particularly heated, and they arrived, breathless at the Braddock-Black mansion, only ten minutes late and only mildly disheveled.