Caden's Vow (13 page)

She wanted to bite his lip. “Then you need to find one.”

“I know.”

He pushed her camisole down off her breasts, exposing her
puckered nipples to the warm air. She didn’t know whether to cover them or
flaunt them.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he told her as he unbuttoned his
shirt and pushed it aside, ignoring her struggles because, well, they were
nothing compared to his strength. His chest was well muscled, darkened from the
sun, enhanced by a light growth of dark hair. In short, beautiful. “But I need
to know what those pretty breasts feel like against my skin as we kiss this
first time. Just that, honey.”

She bit back a moan. “We’ve already kissed.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been coaxing you, but we haven’t
gotten to the kissing yet.”

She lifted her chin. “Fine.”

He laughed and shook his head, a stray kiss landing on the tip
of her nose. “Maddie, Maddie, Maddie. This isn’t me using you. This isn’t you
using me. This isn’t you enduring. This is a husband showing his wife how he
feels about her.”

“You think I’m a whore.”

“I think you’re sweet.”

“You’re punishing yourself.”

“I’m rewarding myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I can.”

That
she believed. “I don’t want to
be your reward.”

“I don’t want to be your punishment,” he countered.

“So where does that leave us?”

“Sitting here sparking in the sunshine.”

“We’re in the shade.”

“So we are.” He eased her forward until her breasts flattened
into the hair-roughened skin of his chest. “Are you done arguing?”

Heat. Pressure. Beauty. She had to clear her throat before she
could demand, “Are you going to give up on this ridiculous notion?”

“No.”

“Fine. Then I’m done.”

But he wasn’t going to get anywhere. He could take what he
wanted for a kiss, and just because he could force her to sit there didn’t mean
he could force her to accept it or to like it.

“Good.” Pressure on her back urged her forward. It was just a
scant inch for his mouth to meet hers. She had to shift or fall forward. She
chose the former. His cock settled deeper between her thighs, dragging across
that so-sensitive spot before throbbing against her pussy. The ache in her
breasts spread downward, and that slight pressure became so much more
significant. She rocked her hips. Caden moaned. A sound she never thought to
draw from him. She liked it.

Her breath caught as his mouth pressed against hers with those
chaste little kisses that she knew were a lie, but he wouldn’t stop. He just
kept kissing her as they sat groin to groin, chest to chest, lips to lips.
Gentle, tender kisses until she couldn’t hold on to her rancor because this
moment with him was sweet. And tender, and after five minutes or so a little
boring. She relaxed further, his cock pressed harder, and it was her turn to
groan.

“Done fighting?” he asked again.

What was the point in lying. “Yes.” There wasn’t really
anything to fight.

“Good.”

He continued touching her, but something within that touch
changed. Something that found that womanly part of her and dragged it forward
with a harsh gasp as his hips pressed up and his tongue slid between her lips,
teasing the moist inside, and she knew then, right then, why whores never
kissed. Because kissing was a window to the soul. It allowed a man in, gave him
access to things they had no business touching. It gave him access to her
heart.

Too late she tried to push away, but it wasn’t Caden that
stopped her. It was her foolish love for him. It wanted this. It took control
the way her pretend never could. Absolutely, completely, melting her against
him, making her pliant and responsive where she should have been mad and
hateful.

“Good girl.”

Oh, God, when he spoke to her in that voice, common sense left.
It made her want to give him her heart, her soul, everything just so he would
say it to her again in exactly that tone. He nibbled at her lips, smiling when
she rocked against him, not saying a word, just letting her feel.

His kiss, his smile. She didn’t know what to identify as his
emotion. The only word that came to mind was
tenderness.
But men weren’t tender with her. Caden had never been
tender with her. Cautious, careful, yes, but not tender. But he was tender now
and it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She reached down between them. He caught
her hand in his and put it back around his neck.

“I want my kiss, Maddie.” The words flowed into her with her
next breath.

“We don’t have to just kiss.”

“I’m the husband and I want my kiss.”

She was kissing him. “I am kissing you.”

“Mmm, you’re starting to.”

Starting to? What the heck did he want from her?

“Then show me what you want.”

“I am.”

“Now.”

He laughed. “You greedy woman. I’ll get to it at my own pace,
thank you very much.”

She wanted a faster pace. She didn’t know if that was because
she wanted it over or if she wanted to find out what was beyond this tenderness,
but in the end it didn’t matter. She just wanted his hands on her body, his
mouth on hers. She wanted his taste, his scent, his passion, and the more he
kissed her, the higher that want went until she was the one who parted her lips,
until she was the one who ran them over his mouth, until she was the one who
made him gasp.

“Oh, yes,” he drawled in a deep voice that was just one more
stroke of pleasure. “Now you’re starting to kiss me.”

“You wanted me to be in charge?”

“No, honey. I wanted you to want.”

And with that, the kiss changed again. It became hotter, more
insistent. His hand slid down her back toward her buttocks, feeling like a brand
against her hip as his fingers dug in and pulled her up into his embrace. His
tongue slid inside, finding hers. She could feel the passion behind the slow,
gentle gesture, feel it raging, and knew that this tenderness wasn’t what he
wanted, either, but he was giving it to her. A gift she couldn’t comprehend.

“I don’t understand.”

He shook his head slightly. “And that’s the shame of it. Just
hold on to this. I like kissing you, Maddie mine. I like hearing you gasp. I
like feeling your lips flutter against mine. I like that little sound you make
in your throat when I touch my tongue to yours. I like the way you make me feel
when you come alive in my arms.”

Come alive. What an apt way of putting it because she did feel
as if she was, for the first time in her life, alive. She rocked her hips on his
and he stilled them, not letting her move.

“No. We’re just kissing, Maddie. There’s no need.”

“It’s not like I’m not—”

His lips bit at hers, cutting the rest of the statement, and
his tongue thrust into her mouth, finding hers, tangling with it, teasing it,
luring it until she was digging her nails into the nape of his neck and kissing
him back. Then it was her tongue in his mouth and her lips on his making the
demands, and he chuckled and let her. His hands skimmed up her arms, over her
shoulders and down her back and then back up, skimming the side of her hips, her
waist, her breasts, just a light caress that made her kiss him harder, press
against him more firmly.

She couldn’t rock on him. She couldn’t do anything with her
body. She only had her mouth to share how her body burned and ached in this new
way, to beg for him to make it go away, but he had no mercy. He just drove the
feeling harder. His kiss so skillful she wanted to cry. Not because of how he
yearned but because he was taking care to show himself to her, his passion and
desire. His caring.

“This is how a man kisses a woman he respects,” he told her.
“This is how a man kisses a woman he cares for.”

The kiss deepened, burned out of control, destroyed time until
there was only flesh on flesh, lip on lip, passion on passion. Finally, when her
nails were digging into his neck and she was moaning incessantly, he pulled
back, kissing her left cheek, her right cheek, her nose, and then finally
pressing his mouth to her forehead as his chest soughed in and out against
hers.

“That, Maddie mine, is how a man kisses a woman with whom he
intends to have a future.”

It took the longest time to make sense of the words, and as
their meaning sank in, all that lovely heated passion chilled to ice. Maddie
scrambled off Caden’s lap. How dare he offer her her dream, make a mockery of
reality, treat her like a child? Maybe now, in this moment, he was thinking of a
future, but tomorrow or next week, the first time somebody recognized her and
sneered at him, that pride of his would rear its head.

He sighed. “Maddie.” She shook her head and retied her
camisole, grabbing her dress. Kissing was dangerous. It made her so weak she
wanted to believe the lunacy he spouted against all common sense.

She remembered back to when she’d been twelve and had been
sweet on a boy and the other girls made fun of her. She’d run home looking for
sympathy, and Hilda, the girl she thought of as her best friend at the time, an
older whore, had looked at her and asked her, “What did you expect? Whores are
for fucking. Nothing more.”

And that reality was never going to go away, would always stand
between her and anything she wanted.

“Whores are for fucking,” she told him. He winced as if she’d
struck a blow. “So if you want to fuck me, feel free. I’m your wife and I can’t
stop you, but I don’t want to hear fairy tales and I don’t want to hear promises
that won’t hold water.”

“Goddamn it, Maddie.”

“No, goddamn you for thinking I’m stupid enough to believe a
lie.”

He sighed again, drawing up his knee and resting his arm across
it, watching her with eyes that saw too much. “Why would I do that, Maddie?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you just need to feel like you win.”

“And for that to happen, you have to lose, is that it?”

She shook her head and repeated, “Whores are for fucking.
There’s no losing.”

“You say that one more time, I’m going to wash your mouth out
with soap.”

“You kiss me one more time and I’m going to cut off your
cock.”

His eyebrows rose at the harsh language. She didn’t care.

“Are you, now?”

She turned on her heel and stomped away. He had no right to
take away her safety.

“Count on it.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

C
ADEN
WANTED
TO
follow Maddie, needed to, actually, but he held himself back. He wasn’t
a man known for rushing his fences, and he wasn’t going to start now. He’d much
rather see her vague and smiling, making up fairy tales, than see that wall of
hurt rising around her. Yet another thing he hadn’t recognized. How much he’d
come to rely on her hiding to shield herself from hurt. He rubbed his wrist,
breath hissing in as he reopened the tears from the rope. It was going to take
some getting used to the fact that Maddie didn’t run away anymore, that she
stood her ground and hurt just like the rest of them. He’d have to be more
careful.

Hell. He ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the mud and
leaves clinging to it. Grimacing, he shook his head. For a man who came to the
swimming hole to cool off, he’d ended up a whole lot more hot and bothered. He
shucked out of his wet pants. His cock fell hard and hungry into his hand, so
sensitive the warm air in itself felt like a caress. Stroking his thumb across
the tip, he imagined the kiss of Maddie’s sweet pussy and shivered. He just knew
her pussy was going to fit him like a glove. Everything about the woman was made
for him, from the softness of her breasts to the softness of her nature. Another
stroke of his thumb, another shiver of sensation. It would be so easy to seek
release this way, thinking of her, but he wouldn’t. Not until Maddie was ready
would he come. And then they’d come together. It was a form of atonement she
probably wouldn’t appreciate even if she were aware of it, but it mattered to
him that they share something, even if it was just frustration. With a groan and
a muttered “Fuck,” he jumped into the water. It felt like heaven to his
overheated senses. He stayed under until his lungs felt as if they would burst,
trying to will the fire in his blood to cool. He had marginal success. He broke
through the surface, shaking his hair out of his eyes. A few laps across the
pond took the edge off his hunger. Swimming back to where he could stand, he
dunked his head and combed his fingers through his hair.

“You should have brought soap,” he heard from the bank.

“What the hell do you want, Ace?”

Ace walked a coin across his fingers, looking as though he
hadn’t a care in the world. In some ways Ace was a master of illusion. “Well, I
would say a better result than you got here, by the look on Maddie’s face when
she came back to the camp.”

“But?” He knew that tone of Ace’s. It always heralded
trouble.

“But we’ve got trouble.”

“Shit.” He stood up straight. “Culbart?”

“In a way.”

“Don’t be beating around the bush.”

“One of his men rode in to give you a warning.”

“Dickens?”

“No.”

“About what?” If Culbart thought he was going to dictate to him
anymore, he had another think coming.

Ace pushed his hat. “Injun trouble. They’re on the rise, burned
out a settlement a few miles beyond Culbart’s.”

That had to be New Haven. Ten families had banded together to
build that town. It was remote but well armed. If the Comanche had taken that
out, they were serious. “Shit.”

“He sent a message, said it’s not safe for us to stay here,”
Ace added.

Caden didn’t kid himself that Culbart had any fondness for him,
but he clearly still saw Maddie as his concern. First chance he got, Caden would
disabuse the man of the notion, but in this case, Culbart was right. It wasn’t
safe for Maddie here anymore. If it ever had been. Caden combed his hair back
from his face, sloughing the water from it with his palms. “How long ago?”

“Three days.”

It was a two-day ride back to Hell’s Eight. A day’s ride to
Culbart’s and an equal distance to the town of Simple.

“Culbart says you can leave Maddie at his place,” Ace
added.

Culbart had a lot of men, but if the Comanche were truly rising
up, all the men Culbart had would be nothing. And point-blank, he didn’t trust
anybody else with Maddie’s safety.

“No, she’s not going there.”

“It’s a two-day ride back to Hell’s Eight.”

“I know.”

“We might be able to make it.”

“Maybe, but that’s straight through hostile territory, and you
said you saw Indian sign earlier.”

Ace nodded. “A lot of riders moving fast. Likely that war party
that took out New Haven riding through.”

“Any indication they know we’re up here?”

“I think it’d be foolish to think they didn’t.”

Yeah, it was. He wasn’t a foolish man, and he wasn’t taking
chances with Maddie. “Simple’s only a day’s ride away.”

“That’s big enough the Comanche won’t raid there. They might
hit a few settlers on the outskirts, but they’re not going to take a chance on
that many white men.”

“True.” But that didn’t mean that one of the other threats
wasn’t lying in wait.

Caden ran his hands through his hair. He couldn’t leave the
claim. Hell’s Eight needed that gold to survive. He’d promised away the foal to
Culbart, which meant he was going to have to stay, and Maddie was going to have
to leave. “I’m going to have to send Maddie to Simple.” Stash her in the hotel
and hope like hell she stayed low.

“She’s not going to be happy.”

“I know. She’s been avoiding going to town ever since she came
to Hell’s Eight.”

“Can’t really blame her for hiding out.”

No, he couldn’t.

“When do you want to leave?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“When are you going to break it to her?” Ace asked.

Caden sloshed out of the water and grabbed his clothes,
shrugging his shirt on over his wet shoulders, shoving his hands into the
sleeves, yanking at them when they stuck.

“First thing in the morning.”

Ace laughed. “Either you’re a chicken or you’re hoping to make
some progress.”

Caden buttoned his shirt. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m going to be on guard duty tonight.”

“I want to move the campsite to that holler in the ledge. At
least that way nobody will be able to sneak up on us.”

“I already have Maddie packing.”

“Does she know why?”

“She assumed because the claim jumpers had found us.”

Caden didn’t know whether to smile or sigh that Maddie was so
flustered. “They’re dead.”

“That’ll occur to her eventually, but right now she’s peaceably
packing up the camp, getting ready to move to a different location.”

“She scared?”

“Not that she’s admitting to. She didn’t run and hide.”

Caden tugged on his pants. It was hard work getting the cotton
up over his wet thighs.

“She doesn’t do that so much anymore.”

“No?”

Caden shrugged. “I guess she’s outgrown the need.”

“I gotta admit it’d be easier right now if she’d just slip away
into some compliant fantasy.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Believe it or not—” he grabbed his boots and socks, tugging
one onto his left foot first and then his right “—I like her angry.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do.” There was a lot of passion in Maddie and he
enjoyed all its manifestations.

Ace tossed the coin in the air and caught it with a subtle
flourish. “Should I be checking you for fever?”

Caden smiled. “No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Help her get packed.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know.”

Ace chuckled and tossed him his hat. “It’s good to know you’ve
got a plan.”

He settled his hat on his head. “I’ve always got a plan,” he
lied.

Ace’s laughter followed him up the trail.

* * *

W
HEN
C
ADEN
GOT
back to the campsite,
Maddie had it pretty much under control, which shouldn’t have surprised him.
Looking around, he saw all that was required was for the packs to be wrapped and
tied. And to soothe Maddie if the nervous glance she cut him from under her
lashes as she motioned to the gear was anything to go by.

“I don’t know how to tie it.”

And that explained the nervousness. Maddie always worried about
doing things right. Likely because there hadn’t been a lot of tolerance in her
past for mistakes. “It’s all right. I’ll show you.”

She scooted quickly over when he hunkered down. He pretended
not to notice. “You do it like this.”

Taking the corners, he folded them into the middle before
rolling it up over the rope and then tying it off into a finished package.

She frowned at him. “That’s it?”

“We’re not going that far. I’d do it a bit differently if we
were putting it on the horse for the long haul.”

“Ace said we had to move because the claim jumpers found
us.”

“I’d feel better with a wall at our back. It’ll be hotter
’cause the cliff blocks the breeze, but it’s safer.” It wasn’t strictly a
lie.

Maddie licked her lips. Caden couldn’t take his eyes away from
the moistness of her tongue as it passed over. He actually saw her breath catch.
He looked up. She was watching his mouth. He smiled. She was as aware of him as
he was of her.

“You’re sweet to kiss.” He said that just to rattle her more,
but it was the truth. “Sweet Maddie mine, never been kissed.”

Until him.

He started on the second pack, letting her silence linger
uncontested. She broke it with “I’m not a virgin.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how many men used you,
Maddie. To me you’re a virgin. No one’s touched your heart. No one’s brought out
that passion in you.” He finished tying up the second pack and moved over to the
first. She was still standing in the same spot, staring at him, but now her
hands were clenched at her sides. “The part of you that matters is untouched,
waiting for the right man to bring it to life.” He met her gaze. “I’m going to
be that man. The one who makes you burn from the inside out. The one you can’t
look at without getting wet. The one who makes you scream with pleasure.”

She looked away. “I know how to fake it.”

She was firmly on the defensive. “Do you? Let me hear it.”

“What?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Let me hear you fake
it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious how a woman who’s never felt pleasure
imitates it.”

“Here?”

“What’s wrong with here? It’s not real, so what does it matter
where you do it?”

She looked distinctly uncomfortable, and she should be. As
defenses went, that was a pretty poor one.

“I don’t want to.”

“Why? Afraid it’s not going to sound real to me?”

“I just don’t want to.”

“Because you can’t.”

“I can.”

He smiled and took a step forward, expected her to take a step
back. She didn’t, and for some reason that made him smile bigger. Maddie was
determined to find her feet, and he wasn’t going to get in her way, but he’d be
there to catch her if she fell. In time she’d come to understand she wasn’t
alone anymore. It was easier than it should have been to slide his fingers over
her cheek, to hook them behind her neck, to draw her up into his embrace, easier
and beyond sweet.

“What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing. What’s more, you want it.”

“No, I don’t.” She whispered the denial against his lips.

He smiled his acceptance against hers and then he kissed her
the way he kissed a woman that he wanted: deeply, hotly, passionately,
separating her lips with a thrust of his tongue, coaxing hers into play with
his, tickling the inside of her mouth until she couldn’t help but smile, keeping
that smile as his own, tempting her more until she moaned and leaned in, taking
her passion as the gift it was. His poor sweet Maddie.

He didn’t pull back until she was breathless, and then he
rested his forehead against hers and smiled into her eyes. She looked stunned,
like a wild creature surprised from the safety of its nest, and he guessed that
was what Maddie’s little pretend world was: her nest. Without it, life was just
an onslaught of experiences with which she didn’t know how to cope.

“I tell you what.”

“What?” she asked in a husky voice that stroked along his cock.
He wanted to hear her say his name like that, preferably when his cock was
sliding inside her that first time. He was going to make it so good for her.

“Tonight when we’re lying down together, I want you to show me
how you fake it.”

“I don’t lie down with you. I sleep.”

“All right, tonight when you’re lying beside me, trying to
pretend that I’m not there, I want you to show me how you fake it.”

“No.”

He kissed her mouth, running his tongue on the underside of her
upper lip, stroking his fingers along the nape of her neck.

“Yes. And, Maddie?”

“What?”

“Next time I kiss you—”

“There’s not going to be a next time.”

He had to smile at her stubbornness. He tapped his finger to
her cheek, drawing her eyes to his. She was so cute. “Breathe through your
nose.”

* * *

M
ADDIE
WAS
AS
NERVOUS
as a cat all afternoon, watching the sun like a
doomed man watched a scaffold. Caden shook his head again. What did she think
was going to happen? That he was going to turn into some monster intent on
hurting her? He shook his head. Clearly he had a long way to go to gain her
trust. And now that supper was over, the dishes had been scrubbed and the fire
banked down, and Ace was off on guard duty up on the ledge above, he had his
first opportunity to start building it. Standing, he brushed off his pants.
Maddie jumped so fast to her feet, her skirts swung about her ankles. He
remembered how pretty her legs were with the slim calves leading to plump thighs
that ended at delightfully full hips.

“I’m going to make a pass around and make sure everything’s
fine.”