Claudia Dain (37 page)

"They said... they said 'it' was just like kissing, only..."

"Only what?"

"Only better."

He opened up his shirt and without any fuss, pulled out his shirttails. He was tanned brown from living outside for so many years; some women liked a man like that, some didn't. He hoped Anne liked what she saw. He threw his shirt on the floor in the corner. Her eyes flickered up to his waist and then hurried back down to his boots. And then flickered up again to his chest. And then dropped back down to his knees. Progress.

"That's no lie," he said, sitting in the room's only chair, a rocker, to kick off his boots. The first one was the hardest; it fell with a thud to the floor and he kicked it out of the way. The second one slid off more easily and he dropped it on top of the first. "But they didn't tell you near enough, did they?"

"No, at least, I don't think so."

She was still holding on to her throat, as if she wanted to squeeze the air right out of herself, but her breath was coming on strong anyway. And real fast. Yeah, she liked what she saw.

"Well, I wish they would have, but I'll fill you in. If you want."

His socks he tossed on top of his boots. They were clean, so he didn't worry about the smell. He'd washed up good and proper before this wedding, wearing the best clothes he had, getting a shave and a haircut.

He stood up and eased open the top button on his pants. Her eyes jerked up to focus on his waist as if he were the only thing in the room. That was good. That was just where he wanted to go.

"You know, men and women, they're put together different," he said pleasantly.

"I know that much," she said with a scowl. He stood with his hands on his hips and that's where she was looking. That was fine with him. More than fine.

"Well, that's good, Anne." He grinned. "I never did take you for a half-wit."

"Now I'm the one who's not going down that trail again," she said with a little smile. He smiled back. This was going better and better.

He undid another button. Anne stopped smiling. She also stopped strangling herself; instead, she crossed her arms over her breasts and swallowed something that sounded like a moan. He hoped that meant she liked what she saw.

She did. He was corded with muscle, lean muscle riding his belly and sitting on his shoulders, rippling with the smallest movement. It was mesmerizing. She couldn't stop looking at him. His chest was near hairless, but a line of brown hair traced its way down his belly to land somewhere below his partially opened pants. He was a hard man, looked rock hard every square inch of him, but it was the kind of hard that compelled. She wanted to press up against him like she had before, but against that skin... she just knew he'd be hot. Hot and smooth and hard. It wouldn't be like before at all. Everything was different now.

"You don't notice it much, the difference, in kissin', but it gets real noticeable... later. Can't hide it then," he said.

He wasn't going to be able to hide it much longer now, the way he was talking. He didn't know how he was going to get his pants off without Anne running from the room, or else dropping in a dead faint. The thing to do was distract her and he knew just the way she liked best.

"Like what?" she asked, her voice curious even if her posture was guarded.

"Like..." He shrugged. "Like we don't have the same parts and your parts and my parts, they just sort of... blend. It's like when we kiss; your mouth and mine, touching, blending, opening..." Lord Almighty, he was a fool to talk like this when Anne wasn't near ready to help him out of the hole he was digging for himself.

"I like the kissing," she said softly. She wanted him closer, wanted to touch the muscles on his arms and chest. She could do that if they kissed. And kissing was safe; she knew about kissing. She could manage the kissing, but the rest of it? She didn't want any man to get that close. Or she hadn't. Until Jack. Until now.

"Don't I know," he said, shifting around in his pants. "How about you come over here and let me kiss you?"

"Dressed like this?"

"You wanna take it off?" He smiled.

"No!"

"Then come as you are," he said, hooking his thumbs in at the top of his pants. Anything to keep from grabbing her and pushing her to tears. He wasn't going to start his marriage like that.

He gave her credit for guts; she came on. Or maybe it was just that she liked his kisses too much to turn one down. It didn't much matter, as long as he coaxed her within range.

The lamp was on the table behind her as she walked slowly across that bare wood floor; he could see the outline of her through the white cotton. Lord, she was shapely, even without a corset. And she was scared, her body was trembling and she was chewing her lip. It was going to be a long night.

"Come on, Anne, you've got nothing to worry about. You know what this is like."

"But what about what comes after?" she said, looking up at him with both fear and trust.

"It'll come when it'll come; let it take care of itself."

"But—"

"You know I won't hurt you, don't you?" he whispered, running his hands over the dark length of her hair. "I'll never hurt you."

"It's just that, Sue Ann told me—"

"Never mind what anybody else says, just listen to me," he said, stroking her back and turning her face up to accept his kiss. He kissed her on the corner of her mouth and she trembled at the tingle it caused. "I'm your husband. My job is to take care of you and I'm going to do it, every day of my life I'm going to do it." He kissed the very top of her cheek and felt her eyelashes brush down as her head tilted back. "You can trust me, can't you?"

"I want to," she breathed, her eyes closed.

"Then do what you want. Do what you want with me, here, now. Go on, Anne. Don't hold back. Not now. Not with me."

He kissed her then, his hand going up her back until he cupped the back of her skull. She was so delicate; the slightest pressure would break her neck. She relaxed into the kiss, her breath coming out as a sigh and her trembling easing off as her fear lessened. With his other hand, he undid the very first button, the one that lay just on top of the pulse point in her throat.

His hands skimmed, as light as goose down, over her breasts. She pulled herself away from him. He pulled her back and kept kissing her. He plunged into her mouth with the most gentle of persuasions, twining tongue with tongue, sharing breath.

He unbuttoned the second button.

She didn't seem to notice. Or maybe it was that she didn't care. Or maybe, just maybe, she was trying to trust him.

His hands came up again to brush against the peaks of her breasts. When she moved her body away from him this time, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, pressing her breasts up against his bare chest as he kissed her. She didn't fight him off. Progress.

He trailed his mouth down the side of her throat while his hands traced her hips. That second button hadn't opened up much more of her than neck and throat, so he kissed her at the opening and then nibbled his way up, where he sucked and bit the soft, supple skin of her throat. It'd leave a mark, sure, but he didn't care. She was his woman. And she liked it. He'd make sure she liked it.

With one hand, he lifted a breast, enjoying the soft weight of it in his hand, and when she would have protested, bent down and flicked her nipple with his tongue through the thinness of the cotton.

She moaned and leaned into him, gripping his hair with her hands.

"Anne? Are you all right?" Miss Daphne demanded from the hall side of the door.

Anne jerked like a calf when the slack's played out of a lasso and her eyes flew open to stare at the door.

"She's fine," Jack said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. The mood sure was broken now.

"Anne! Answer me!" Daphne barked.

"Yes," Anne said. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Well," Daphne said crossly, "I thought I heard something and just wanted to be sure. Is there anything I can get you before I go to bed?"

"No, no," Anne said, blushing and running her hands up and down her thighs in nervous agitation. "Good night."

"Good night, Anne."

They could hear her door close and then there was quiet. But she was right next door and they both knew it. Damned if he was going to wait; Anne needed some good, hard kissing to make her forget that her family was perched all around her like a flock of vultures. It was his wedding night and he was going to have one, no matter who came knocking on the door.

The time for talk was over.

Before she could say a word, he pulled her to him and kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth before she could think to protest. He rubbed his hands against her breasts and when she acted like she was going to pull away, he pulled her right back and caressed her breasts like they were meant to be touched; gently, relentlessly, and, God willing, eternally. It didn't take more than a few seconds for her to stop fighting him. She sure wasn't much of a fighter.

That was when he backed her up so that she'd fall down on the bed. She looked like she was going to say something, so he kissed her, quick, and undid that next button. It opened the fabric that covered her breasts. Pushing it aside, he licked her, kissing her there the way she liked to be kissed on her mouth. She thrashed beneath him, but she didn't fight him. That was good.

"It's good, isn't it? You want this."

He moved his other hand up and thumbed her nipple while his tongue played hard on the other. She moaned and put her hand over her mouth. So, she wanted to keep quiet; he had Daphne to thank for that.

He undid another button.

Now he had enough play in the gown so that he could ease it off her shoulders and down her arms. Lord, she was a beauty. Smooth skin, soft as brushed flannel, and white as bleached linen. Breasts full and round and topped with nipples of baby pink. And all that dark hair spread beneath her, deepest black in the light of that one lamp. She was like something you hear about in stories, something you'd never expect to find and actually be able to hold. And she was his. His woman. His wife.

She couldn't fight him much now, not with her arms pinned to her sides by the gown; not that she looked like she wanted to. No, she looked like a woman far gone in passion, tossing her head and looking up at him with eyes dilated by desire.

He undid the next button and pushed aside the gown.

He looked at the mound of her belly and the jut of her hipbones and the beginnings of the black hair that marked her womanhood. He ran his hand over her, touching only what he could see. Anne lifted her hips slightly off the bed and whispered, "Kiss me."

He did, palming her breasts and playing with her nipples as he took her mouth with his own.

A drawer slammed next door. Anne jerked her mouth from his, froze, and then tried to cover her nakedness with her hands.

"Hell."

He ripped through the rest of the buttons, sending them flying to the floor, where they hit and rolled. Anne jerked to a sitting position and tried to crawl under the blanket she was lying on. It didn't work. He made sure of that.

"Trust me," he whispered, touching the coil of curls that shielded her, pressing her down against the bed, kissing her savagely. She pressed against his shoulders a bit, trying to lift him off. He wasn't going anywhere and it was his job to make sure that she didn't want him to. He kept kissing her, his tongue like a knife that stabbed and twirled without leaving any blood. No blood, but lots of heat. He bit her neck again while he flicked her nipples and was rewarded when she lifted into his hands and her arms, still trapped in the sleeves, clutched at his back.

He slipped a knee between her legs. She was tense at first and then she relaxed. He kissed his way down her, first one breast and then the other; she was soft and sweet, like peaches or thick cream. He couldn't get enough.

He slid a hand down to cup her and felt the hot wetness of her passion. Anne bucked, trying to get his hand off her.
Like hell.
He stroked her gently, learning her, teaching her what passion felt like. He could feel her bud rise up, stiff and small against his finger, and he started to flick it gently, so very gently, with his fingertip.

Her moan of pleasure about set the curtains swinging.

There was the bang of a door and then pounding on the door to Anne's room. Jack didn't need to guess who it was. He was clear out of patience.

"Anne! What's going on in there?"

Jack leaped out of bed, threw his discarded shirt over Anne to hide her nakedness, and opened the door.

Daphne looked real surprised to see him.

"What's going on?" he repeated coldly. "I'm pleasuring my wife. Now, if we can't get any privacy here, we'll go out on the prairie. It's not my first choice; a woman's first time should be in a bed in a room with a locked door, but one way or the other, I'm going to pleasure her."

Daphne, it appealed, had nothing to say. She looked a little gray around the edges, in fact.

"Understood?" Jack said, all his banked fury in that one word. "You stay in your room and keep your nose in your business and we'll stay in ours. And that goes for anyone else in this house who wants to knock on my door tonight."

Two doors clicked closed at that.

"Good night, Miz Todd," he said, his eyes relentless. He wasn't going to give her the grace to walk back to her room without his watching her every step of the way. She made it; she walked back to her room without another word spoken, and it was the first time he'd seen her that her spine wasn't as stiff as a broom handle.

Jack closed his own door and turned to face his wife. She looked pitiful; she was trying to organize the twist of fabric her gown had become and get it back on her. It was not going to happen, not if he had his way, which he would.

"I don't think we should do this," she said, not looking at him, trying to line up her buttonholes with her buttons.

"Anne, if you think that, you really are a half-wit," he said.

When she looked up at him in instant irritation, he stripped off his underwear. She didn't have a word to say after that.