Caden's Vow (14 page)

She looked at him.

“Maddie—” he shook his head at her wide-eyed stare “—I’m giving
you time to do whatever a woman does before her lover comes to her.”

“You’re my husband.”

“And your lover.” He wanted to shake his head again. “You’d do
well to remember that.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“What do you mean you don’t—” That pulled him up short,
have anything.
“It’s okay, I don’t need scented creams
and ribbons.”

She blinked as if he was speaking another language.

“What do you think you need that you don’t have?”

She shook her head, and he had to think about it a bit and
still he couldn’t come up with anything.

“Maddie?”

“I don’t have my—” And her jaw set in a way that told him she
wasn’t going to tell him. He supposed he could push, but what did he care?

“Then we’ll just do without it.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“I assure you, the lack of whatever it is is not going to stop
me.”

She licked her lips again and folded her arms across her chest,
hardly the image of the eager bride. “I can’t prevent a baby.”

The answer left him stunned and then a little excited. He’d
love to make a little red-haired baby with Maddie, to see her grow round with
his child. “Who said I wanted you to?”

“It’s just, I mean, I’m—”

He cut her off. “My wife,” he finished for her before adding,
“and, Maddie, I’d take you right now, as you are, and be delighted at the
possibility of a child, but I’m being a gentleman.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve kindness and consideration.”

She shook her head. A wave of her hand dismissed the higher
feelings he was trying to give her.

“Why would you take me now?”

“Because I desire you. Why does any man?”

She shook her head. “What is it about me that makes me
desirable to you?”

She wanted to know what he saw in her. A very reasonable
request from a woman feeling very skittish.

“You’re beautiful, Maddie.”

“I’m plain. I have freckles.”

“You’re beautiful, Maddie. Inside and out, and if you’d come to
us any other way than how you did, I’d have been on your doorstep courting your
favor, but for a long time you were healing and I didn’t let myself see you
until it got to the point I’d learned to do some pretending of my own. And then
Culbart had you, and I had to come get you. I expected to find a shattered
woman, lost in fantasy, the same lost child you were when you came to Hell’s
Eight. Instead, I found a strong woman playing at fantasy, doing what she had to
do to get us all out of the situation. And the fantasy I protected you with
shattered.”

She wrung her hands until the knuckles were white. “I didn’t
know he was going to make me marry you.”

“I know, and it’s occurred to me that one of the reasons you
might have gone along with it is because any bullheaded thing I might have done
could have gotten me killed.”

She looked stunned at the revelation.

He pretended not to notice. “I do think sometimes, Maddie. Not
always before I talk, but I do work on things until they make sense. Your going
along with him to marry me, to betray Hell’s Eight? You, who has a deeply
ingrained sense of loyalty?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“And because of that, now you want to have sex with me?”

“Don’t make me come over there, because if I do you’re not
going to get the time you need to be comfortable.”

She took a step back. He stepped forward, grabbed her hand and
pulled her precisely the same distance back toward him.

“One of the lessons you need to learn is the difference between
a threat of passion and a threat of danger.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The first one should make you smile.”

She licked her lips. “You want me to like this, I know.”

“I do.”

“I don’t like this.”

He smiled, slid his finger up her neck and along her jaw, up
over her lips so he could tap her nose. “Then, I’m giving you permission to show
me how you fake it.”

“But now you know I can fake it.”

“Honey, every man knows a woman can fake it.”

“They do?”

“It’s part of the challenge, to see if you can get them past it
to the real thing.”

“And you think you can get me past it to the real thing?”

“I don’t know if I can tonight, but I’m hoping. There’s so much
passion and beauty in you. But if I can’t, I’m going to do my best to prove to
you that what we have is good.”

“I don’t know what we have.”

“We’re husband and wife. We have the future that builds for
us.”

“You said you’re going to get rid of me.”

“I changed my mind.”

He ignored her “Well, maybe I haven’t” and turned away, a smile
tugging at his lips.

She really wasn’t that good at faking it.

* * *

M
ADDIE
STOOD
AT
the foot
of the bedroll and concentrated on breathing. Five minutes. He was giving her
five minutes. Five minutes to remember—no, not even to remember, to
learn
how to be a wife. What did he want from her?
He’d talked about her as if she was a virgin, but they both knew she wasn’t.
She’d been with men who wanted her to pretend they were her first. Was that what
he wanted her to do? She could probably do that with him. He made it so easy for
her to feel...new.

The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed.
Playing the virgin wasn’t that hard. Men had firm ideas how virgins acted, clear
preferences in what they desired.

Let me loosen your hair.
First she
needed to braid her hair. Not too tightly. They might want her to look virginal,
but men also wanted the hint of passion. Men who liked virgins liked to loosen
her hair from that braid, the same way they liked to think they loosed her
passion.

Don’t be shy.

And they liked to undress her, too. Liked to think they had the
power to make her lose any inhibitions she harbored.
Don’t
be afraid.
More voices popped into her head.
Just be still. I know what to do.
Just lie there.

She took a breath and put all that together in her head until
her confidence came back. Caden was a man like any other, and she knew what men
wanted from virgins. She knew what Caden wanted. Taking her brush out of her
pack, she ran it through her hair, pulling it back into a sloppy braid.
Untouchable, yet available was what men wanted. One of her clients talked a lot
about seeing her pulse pound in her throat. He liked the fear and he had been
someone to be afraid of. He hadn’t been a gentle man. She unbuttoned the top two
buttons of her bodice. Well, she couldn’t remember back to when she’d actually
been a virgin; those early years had just been so painful she’d fought to
forget, until now it was as if they didn’t exist anymore. Whoever she had been
before her customer didn’t exist, either.

She heard Caden’s steps. A twig snapped as he came closer. She
settled herself on the bedroll, fluffing her skirts around her, smoothing them,
settling her hands on her lap, straightening her spine, looking as prim and
proper as she could. She didn’t have to fake the fear. She was very nervous and
very afraid. She didn’t want to disappoint him.

He stepped into the faint light of the fire, shadows casting a
more sinister aspect, until she looked at his face. There was no anger in his
eyes, just softness. She didn’t know what to do with softness, didn’t know how
she was supposed to take it, but it was better than hatred, so she smiled at him
timidly, not having to fake the shyness, either. It was strange to think of
bedding Caden, stranger still to think of him as her husband. She knew this
wasn’t going to last, that this was just a game that he wanted to play as all
men did, but it would be a memory she would have to hold on to in the years to
come, and she wanted it to be a good one.

“Hi.”

He looked at her and frowned. “This is you ready?”

“Yes.”

He sighed. “Maybe you’d better fake it for me after all.”

The panic clotted her stomach. “I don’t understand.”

He sat down beside her, and her breath stuck in her throat. He
was displeased. He kicked off one boot, then the other, the second being a
little more stubborn than the first.

“Maddie?”

“What?”

He looked over at her, his expression unreadable. “How do you
think things are going to go tonight?”

“I’m going to pretend to be a virgin.” The words
and you’re going to pretend to be happy
stuck in her
throat.

“That’s what you think I want? Pretense?”

“You told me to fake it.”

“You know damn well I was being sarcastic.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything.” She clenched her
fists in her lap, the rage coming out of nowhere. “You seem to think I should
know everything when I know nothing. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know
how you want me to be. I don’t know how long this is going to last. I don’t know
how I’m going to survive it when it ends, and I—”

His arm slid around her shoulder and he pulled her against his
chest. She wanted to smash her fists into his shoulder. Instead, she just opened
her palm and laid it over his heart, feeling its steady beat, feeling the warmth
of his body seep into hers.

She closed her eyes, unable to resist the hug. There’d been so
few in her life. It threw her off balance every time he did it. His lips brushed
her hair.

“Maddie?”

She was beginning to not like the way he said her name. It
always led to more probing, more pain, more revelations of the person she was
but didn’t want to be.

“What?”

“I want to make love to you, not...fuck you.”

She’d had men that liked that, too.

“Just tell me how you want me to be and I’ll be it.”

“I don’t want you to be anything.” He tipped her chin up. She
couldn’t see his expression clearly in the shadows, but she was pretty sure he
could see hers from the way they were sitting. “I want whatever happens between
us to be honest. If you feel nothing, then just lie there like a blob.”

“Men don’t like that.” Well, unless they wanted her to pretend
to be dead, but that just made her skin crawl.

“I don’t like pretending to be dead,” she told him.

He drew back. She could tell she’d shocked him.

“What the hell makes you think I want that?”

“You said you want me to just lie there and—”

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Maddie.”

“What?”

“Can we start with a hug?”

She could do hugs. She nodded.

“Good.”

He lay down and she lay beside him. He waited a minute and then
sighed and put his arm out. “Come here.”

She went as she always did and rested her cheek on his
shoulder. She couldn’t seem to breathe until his arms came around her, and once
her body was touching his, the panic inside her melted away. He didn’t do
anything except hold her and rub his hand up and down her back.

She was so nervous she didn’t think she could take her next
breath. She couldn’t take the waiting, the pressure of the silence; as a result
she just blurted out, “Do you want to hear me fake it now?”

He laughed and squeezed her tight, shaking his head, and wonder
of wonders, she felt the tension leave his side.

“I think I’ll save that for a little bit later.”

Wonderful.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

D
O
YOU
WANT
to hear me fake it
now?

Caden shook his head. How could the woman lie in his arms as
soft and as sweet as a dream and ask such a ridiculous question? He didn’t want
her to fake it at all, but judging by how stiffly she lay there in his arms, he
had a feeling telling her that wasn’t going to get him to where he wanted to go.
And he very badly wanted to get there with Maddie.

He kissed the top of her head and ran his fingers down her arm,
and she pressed closer. She gasped. He reached for the top button of her dress,
and she stopped breathing altogether.

Rolling her over, he propped himself above her. He could still
see her face in the dying light of the fire.

“What exactly do you think I’m going to do, Maddie?”

“I don’t know.” He felt her shrug up the length of his body.
“Whatever makes you happy.”

The plan was to make them both happy. And soon. His cock was so
hard his pants were an erotic chafing.

“Do you think I’m so different from other men?” He winced and
wanted to kick his own ass. The one thing he didn’t want Maddie thinking about
was her past experiences.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then why are you so scared?”

“I don’t know what pleases you.”

“You don’t think I can tell you?”

She shrugged again. He stroked his fingers down her cheek,
brushing his thumb across that spattering of freckles.

“I’m your husband, Maddie. Nothing that happens between us is
going to shame you or hurt you or make you cry.”

“You don’t know that.”

He cocked his head to the side and pulled her braid over her
shoulder, sliding his hand down, his knuckles brushing the side of her
breast.

“Of all that, which is the one you think I don’t know?”

“Whether I’ll cry.”

He supposed she was right. “Well, if you cry, you can take me
out to the shed and shoot me.”

“You don’t have a shed.”

“Then behind the rock yonder.”

Not even a smile.

“Is there anything I can say to calm you down?”

She shook her head.

“In that case, maybe I should just do what I do, and we’ll see
how it goes.”

She nodded. “Oh, please.”

Not the hottest invite he’d had into a bed, but it was still an
invite. He leaned up over her.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought I’d have a kiss.” He considered it a victory she
didn’t remind him that she didn’t kiss. Leaning down, he gently brushed his lips
across hers, rubbing them softly, licking at them, bussing the corners and the
middle before fitting the edges together. And she lay there and let him.
Obviously he was going to have to bring his patience along with his best
tonight.

Sliding his palm back up her side, he cupped her breast through
her dress. He took her gasp to his soul. Maddie, the hardened prostitute who
gasped when a man touched her breast. He shook his head. Such a crime she’d
known so little pleasure. Keeping the pressure light and easy, he teased at her
lips until they parted, inviting his in. With the same gentle persistence, he
coaxed a response from her, keeping his hand on her breast, his thumb on her
nipple, not forcing anything. He let her get used to the weight and feel,
searching for that passion she’d felt before that, right now, was buried under
so much fear.

It took a few minutes of soft kisses, delicious kisses, sweet
kisses, Maddie kisses, for her muscles to relax. Caden smiled at the subtle
shift of her body into his hand. He killed the instinct to squeeze and fondle.
It was too soon. But damn, he wanted to. Maddie had the sexiest body, plump,
delicious, soft, curved in all the right places. A feast for a man’s senses.
His
senses.

He kissed her again, pulling back just a little, seeing her
eyes open, smiling down into her face.

“Hello, Maddie mine.”

She blinked and smiled back.

“You feel up to giving me a hug now?”

Another blink. Then those little hands came up around his neck
and pulled him down, holding him incredibly tight, clinging to him as if he was
her sanity.

“That’s it, Maddie. Hold on to me.”

Her mouth worked and he shook his head, forestalling whatever
it was she wanted to throw between them. “You don’t need to say anything,
honey.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“You want wild and exciting.”

He kissed her quiet. “I want you, Maddie. However it is between
us. You can lie there stiff as a board and it’ll be all right.”

She frowned at him. “You’re lying.”

He shrugged. “A little. But the truth is, this is just the
first time. It’s not every time. It’s a beginning, not an ending. I’m going to
make love with you as sweet as I can, and I’m going to give you as much pleasure
as I can.”

He could tell from the look in her eye she had no idea what he
was talking about.

“And when it’s over, I’m going to hold you and fall asleep with
you in my arms a happy man. And when you wake up in the morning, I’m still going
to be here, holding you, waiting.”

She looked at him as if she wanted to hope, shoving the pain
from her eyes. He wanted her to start thinking in give-and-take and not just him
taking and her giving, but both of them together.

“What would you be waiting for?” she asked.

He could tell she already knew, but if she wanted to hear it,
that was fine with him. He’d tell her every day how much he wanted her kiss if
that’s what it took. “For my morning kiss.”

Moisture gathered in her eyes.
Shit.
If she cried, he’d lose his hard-on for sure. But she didn’t
cry and she didn’t run away to that place she escaped to. Instead, she scooted
closer and lifted her face to his. “I’d like that.”

Ah, his Maddie was one in a million. “Good.”

This kiss wasn’t as shy, but he liked that, too. Cupping the
back of her head in his hand, sliding his fingers gently over the sides of her
breasts, he tilted his mouth to hers.

“Like this.”

She not only followed, but she participated, too, copying his
moves, sliding her tongue across his, tickling the insides of his upper lip,
biting at his lower one, her nails digging into the back of his neck. And it was
his turn to moan, her turn to smile. She liked pleasing him the same way he
liked pleasing her.

“Shit, you are one hot woman, Maddie Miller.”

She jumped at the sound of her married name. He smiled at it.
He liked that she was his, wore his name. If he had his way, he’d put his brand
all over that hot body.
His.

He kissed his way across her cheek to her ear, catching the
lobe between his teeth, biting gently. She shivered from head to toe and gasped
and then did the most incredible thing: she turned her head a little, inviting
him to do more.

“Ah, Maddie. You are so mine.”

He did it again, obliging her, running his tongue behind her
ear, nibbling his way down her neck, walking that delicate line between passion
and calm because this was new to her. He could tell. It was there in every
hesitant sigh, every pause before every action. She’d have him believe she’d
done it all, but what he saw was a woman trapped in memories, trying to break
free, and he wanted to be there to catch her when she did, to bring her into the
sun, to teach her to fly, to watch her burn in his arms.

“I can’t imagine going to bed without you in my arms,” he told
her, unfastening the buttons on her dress as he kissed the hollow of her throat.
“To wake up in the morning and not have your hug, and not hear you laugh, to not
see your smile, I don’t want to know what that feels like.”

But he would because tomorrow he was going to drop her off in
town. It wasn’t safe for her here. And that was going to kill him.

“I’ll never leave you,” she told him, her fingers twisting in
his hair, her body twisting under his mouth, her legs parting unconsciously. He
settled himself between, his cock throbbing, his pulse pounding. His balls
aching. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, imagining what it would feel
like to slide his cock into that pretty mouth.

“Say you’re mine.” He needed that at least.

She sighed into his mouth. “Yes.”

The buttons on her dress gave easily. So did Maddie, lifting
her breasts into his hands, the tension in her fingers telling him what she
wanted to do.

“Go ahead,” he said. “You know you want to.”

“What?”

“Invite my mouth to your breasts.”

She shook her head, bit her lip.

“I’m not going to do it if you don’t ask me, Maddie. Nothing’s
going to happen tonight unless you ask me.”

She moaned and looked around. “Ace.”

“Ace is on guard duty.”

She moaned again.

“What do you want, Maddie? This is for you. Tell me what you
want.”

Her fingers grazed his lip. It was enough. He undid the ties on
her camisole, pushed it down beneath her breasts. Such beautiful breasts. He
wanted to see them in daylight, but this wasn’t bad. Pink. Her nipples were the
palest pink set atop high, white breasts. Plump, soft nipples he wanted to feel
harden against his tongue. Her hand slid between them. He shook his head.

“No, honey.” Taking her hands in his, he pinned them over her
head beside her shoulders before taking her nipple into his mouth. He sucked
softly, gently, the same way he kissed her, teasing and coaxing until he got the
response he wanted and it hardened on his tongue. On the flick of his tongue,
her breath stuck in her throat.

He let go of her hands. They didn’t move and he smiled. Cupping
her left breast in his hand, he rubbed his thumb over that nipple as he sucked
the right one. He started out light, very light, just the barest of sensation.
He could tell it wasn’t enough.

“Ask me,” he told her, giving her just a little bit more
pressure, letting her sense what could happen if it was just right.

“Oh.”

He’d give her anything she wanted, but she had to ask. He
wasn’t going to force her, and he didn’t want her looking back thinking she was
forced.

“Caden...” The throaty purr in her voice made his cock throb
and jerk against the inside of his pants.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“What?”

Her fingers yanked in his hair. “I don’t know what.”

He hadn’t considered that.

“Would you like it harder, Maddie mine? Do you need me,” he
asked against her nipple, “to suck your breasts harder?”

“Yes.”

“Then ask me.”

There was only a slight hesitation. “Please, do it harder.”

At last, the permission he wanted. He took the tip of her lush
breast in his mouth, plumping the nipple against his tongue, settling his teeth
slightly around it, feeling her arch immediately. Fear, not passion. He stroked
his finger down her cheek, catching it on the corner of her mouth, sliding it
inside.

“Easy, baby. This isn’t about me taking or you hurting. This is
about a husband showing his wife how much he appreciates her and making her feel
good.”

Her start at the word
wife
was a
mystery until she whispered, “I’m supposed to be making you feel good.”

“What makes you think this doesn’t?”

“I’m not touching you.”

“If I’m not enjoying myself, then explain to me why I’m about
to come.”

She didn’t have an answer for that, and it was just as well. He
was about out of sensible talk.

He unbuttoned her dress the rest of the way.

“Lift up.” He tugged it down her hips. She lay before him in
her pantaloons and camisole, lush and beautiful, everything he wanted.

“Do you mind if I undo this braid?”

She looked up at him. “I did it so you could.”

It took him a minute, busy as he was at her breasts, to process
that.

“Maddie, you aren’t by any chance playing a role for me, are
you? Slipping into your fantasy?”

“I’m not pretending.”

“But you are playing a role for me.”

“You said I was a virgin. You know I’m not.”

Yes, he did. “Honey, I said you were a virgin in the context of
you don’t know what this is all about.”

“I know what to do.”

He took one of her hands, clenched as it was beside her head,
and brought it to his lips.

“You don’t know shit. You know what it’s like to be taken. You
know what it’s like to be forced. You know what it’s like to service a man, but
you don’t know shit about how it should be between us.”

“Should it be different?”

“Between us it needs to be natural, an even give-and-take of
pleasure.”

She was licking her lips again, a sure sign she was
nervous.

“What now?”

“I don’t feel pleasure.”

How the hell could she have? No one had bothered to give it to
her. “No reason you should up till now. But now is different. Now is us going
forward.”

“Making our own life,” she said, her tone lightening.

He could tell she liked that. “Yes. Making
our
life.”

Her expression grew serious. “What do you want me to do?”

He’d say
nothing,
except he had a
feeling that wasn’t going to get him where he wanted to go.

“I want you to close your eyes and relax, and every time it
feels good, I want you to let me know.”

“How?”

Screaming, biting, scratching, all those came to his mind. “How
about giving me one of those little sighs and smiles I like so much.”

She nodded. “All right. But what if it doesn’t feel good?”

“Then I’m going to have to change my technique until it does.
That’s all. Nothing too difficult about that.”

He touched his tongue to her breast and looked up. He had to
wait a heartbeat and give it a little wiggle, but then he got that smile he was
looking for.

“You like that.”