Kit Gardner (16 page)

A fate he hadn’t deserved. A blessing wasted on a man like Wynne. “You can’t blame yourself, Jess. You didn’t choose the man to be your husband. Your father did.”

“But I should have known...should have sensed something. When a man doesn’t seek his wife’s comfort, her bed...she should know. Not blame herself for some failing she knew nothing of.” Her fingertips brushed like fire over his lips. “Stark,” she breathed, “forgive me. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a befuddled woman, entirely at odds with myself and all this. But all I ask is just one kiss.”

He caught her hand in his, then pressed his open mouth into her palm. “And if I can’t stop after one? What then?”

“But you will stop. You’re a man of your word.” Her hands pressed against his chest, she arched up against him, and he felt all that was left of his will topple in a whiskey-induced heap. They might, as she’d said, perish in this storm....

“Shall I open my mouth?” she asked, innocent seductress. “Or put my arms around your neck? This is how Louise kisses John. He seems to like it.”

She fit snugly, quite superbly, against him, head tilted to his, lips opening. One kiss. One small kiss was all. Nothing, really, compared to what he wanted to do to her. Harmless, actually.

Who the hell did he think he was fooling? Nothing had ever been so dangerous. Yes, how did a man manage to live with deceit? Perhaps because he knew he would one day walk away from this woman. He had to. He’d never intended to stay...indefinitely. Now what had prompted that thought?

“Stark—” Her sweet breath fanned over him, and then her lips brushed his, so warm, so sweetly tentative, yet with cataclysmic results. “You taste like turpentine. What do I taste like?”

His breath trapped in his chest. Desire raged like a beast suddenly uncaged, vanquishing all reason, all logic. Her body flowed over him and molded to his hands like warm, supple silk. He closed his eyes and fought it all—admirably, actually, considering that her full breasts snuggled against his chest and her soft, dewy kisses sprinkled over his mouth. They might have been the innocent kisses of a virgin, brimming with unspoken curiosity, yet still filled with womanly guile.

“You can just sit here, yes. Do nothing, Stark. You’re quite magnificent. Mmm...you smell like...like I want to crawl into your heat and your skin.” She punctuated all this by nuzzling against his throat and slipping one cool palm inside the top of his shirt. She seemed sublimely content to stroke his chest and burrow there, completely unaware that he retained the slimmest control over his desires—a control unknown to most men, him included—that in another moment, if she wiggled just once more against him, all those self-imposed shackles would split asunder, and the beast would claim her as she’d never dreamed of being claimed.

The unfairness of it all. He stared at the ceiling overhead, felt her fingers working the buttons loose on his shirt, and realized he had no one to blame but himself for all this. This woman hadn’t forced him to ride into her backyard. No, that bit of brilliance was all his.
He’d
chosen to deceive her, dammit. At the moment, the reasons behind such a monumental decision loomed beyond his comprehension. Of course, in coming to that realization, he hadn’t once anticipated his current circumstances.

His shirt fell open beneath her fingers. She murmured something and slid her palm in a slow path down the length of his torso, pausing to stroke his tense belly. Rance could imagine no worse torture for a man.

Indeed, what man could have envisioned such a thing, awash as he’d been in noble thoughts of righting wrongs and injustices when he’d determined to come here? This sort of thing
wasn’t supposed to happen,
dammit, if a man set out with only the most upstanding of intentions, was it? Of all the damned fool’s luck.

“Are you sleeping?” she asked, poised above him suddenly, her hair a wanton tumble about her shoulders, her full breasts just resting upon his bare chest, like firebrands.

“A saint would find sleep well beyond him at this moment,” he growled, lifting her from him before he went out of his mind. “This isn’t a good idea, Jess. Not at all. And I’ll tell you why.”

“I know why.” She sat back on her heels with a subtle toss of her head. “You think I want some sort of declaration of honorable intent from you.”

“Well, actually—”

“I don’t. No, not at all.”

“I see.”

“Not that I don’t think you’re a fine man. Yes, you’re quite beyond a girl’s expectations in most regards—”

“Thank you, Jess.”

“But I know too little about you to even entertain such thoughts—”

“Except kissing, of course.”

“Well, yes, but those just sort of pop into my head. There’s not much I can do about them. Really quite illogical.”

“My point precisely. When it comes to kissing, Jess, we men are rarely content with simply that. We find ourselves overtaken with thoughts, illogical thoughts, I might add, of doing things that...that would be upsetting to a woman like you. We can’t control these thoughts, Jess.”

“You would never upset me, Stark.” Her voice had taken on a gentle slur, and her eyes were half hooded. “Not at all like my husband Frank did. I would imagine you would be quite gentle in that regard, no matter where your thoughts might lead you.”

Something fierce stirred deep in Rance’s chest. “He wasn’t gentle with you.”

“It’s rather a dim memory. Funny how the more unpleasant ones seem to fade all on their own. Then again, it was so quick...over and done with before I even realized.” She bit her lip, as if only now mindful of where she had ventured, yet unable to stop herself. She turned to her sleeping son and caressed his cheek. She wore her love now like a beacon, unfettered of all her self-imposed shackles. The power of it shook Rance. “But he gave me Christian,” she whispered finally. “And for that I am eternally thankful. He’s my life. I would die for him.”

Rance fought the sudden urge to sweep her into his arms, to comfort her, to caress her, to make slow, gentle, deeply passionate love to her, over and over, until she cried out to the heavens and begged him to stop. That this woman had never experienced anything more than one swift and fleeting unpleasant memory of intimacy with a man stirred so powerful a regret in him that he nearly shouted with the injustice of it. She deserved so much more...beautiful memories to treasure, the secret intimacies he could only imagine existed between a husband and wife.

“Gentle,” he heard himself say, his voice hoarse. He stared at the delicacy of her profile as she watched her sleeping son. She might well have been a virgin, pure, untouched. Entirely inexperienced. “But passion can still be frightening.”

She gave him a curious look, so forthcoming in her honesty. “I can’t imagine that you would ever frighten me. I feel so safe with you, which is quite illogical in itself. Somewhat instinctive, you know. Just as I somehow know that I must be on my toes whenever Avram is about. He lacks that awareness you seem to possess at all times. Probably even when you sleep. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I truly believe that if we were beset by ruffians, Avram would wait for me to grab the rifle. Whereas with you— Good grief, I really don’t think I should speak of Avram and kissing you all in the same breath. I’m supposed to marry the man in less than five months. It makes little sense. None of this does.”

She stared at her hands, clasped in her lap, resigned to her fate, it seemed. Decidedly untroubled by it all, uncharacteristic as it was. A most peculiar woman. And then she lifted half-hooded eyes up...up...over his belly, lingering upon his chest, her lips parting beneath the whisper of a sigh...and his mind filled with the image of her half-naked in her camisole.

“The storm is subsiding,” Rance said, getting to his feet and drawing her up with him before she could stop him. “I’m going back to—”

“No.” She clung to his forearms and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her breath was hot upon his skin, coming swift, deep. “I’d much rather you remained here. With us. Watch over us, Stark, till morning. Please. I’ll ask nothing more of you.”

Damn his traitorous soul to hell, but his arms swept about her, despite the clamoring of conscience. What man possessed the will?

“Whatever you want, Jess,” he murmured into her hair. “Whatever you want.”

* * *

Someone had stuffed a dry rag in Jessica’s mouth that tasted suspiciously like turpentine. And whoever had done that had also somehow affixed her to her bed by placing heavy logs over her legs. And then there was this ringing in her ears.

Something very warm and large splayed over her belly, then moved slowly over her ribs, as if molding them, and cupped her breast. More torture. Her eyes flew open, then snapped shut beneath the ferocious glare of morning sunlight streaming through her bedroom window. Pinpricks of pain fizzed through her head, and she forced a thick tongue over her dry lips. Turpentine...

Her fingers lightly touched the hand resting upon her breast. The hand moved in a caress that sent heat and life coiling through her, clear to her toes. And it wasn’t a log trapping her limbs. It was Stark’s denim-clad leg, and that was
his
thumb brushing once, twice, over her nipple, until it swelled and throbbed to life.

She barely breathed. Memory fought against fog in her mind. Yes, she’d imbibed a good bit of the turpentine last evening, diluted by Stark with water to relieve the burn. Rather foul-tasting stuff. Better suited to cleaning Avram’s shoes, she reflected. Good only for getting her foggy and so blasted drowsy she couldn’t recall even removing her gown and tumbling into bed. Yet here she lay, definitely in her bed and clad only in her cotton camisole and pantalets, with her slumbering farmhand beside her, taking all sorts of liberties she seemed inclined to allow him. A dim recollection of Christian snuggling beside her during the night drifted through her mind and was instantly gone when Stark mumbled something in his sleep. Then, with one flex of his arm about her waist, he swept her beneath him, and his mouth descended over hers.

His lips moved with infinite leisure upon hers, savoring, parting, caressing, nipping, all the while this seductive murmuring rumbling through his chest. She barely had a moment to gasp for air, for some sort of realization that surely the man still slept...that he didn’t quite realize what he was doing, trapped as he was in the throes of some dream, that this somehow gave her ample reason to endure it all without any sort of fuss...and then his mouth moved along her throat, and his hands...

She felt the straps slip from her shoulders, felt the heat of his hands and his mouth upon the high curves of her breasts, then penetrating the insufficient cotton covering her nipples.

A sound not unlike the whimpering of an animal in pain came from her parted lips, and yet she could do nothing but sink her fingers into the tousled mane of blue-black and arch her back, offering herself without reserve. Yearning, so deep and mysterious, roused like something that had lurked undiscovered for centuries within her. Instinct parted her thighs, brought her hips up against his, seeking something she knew nothing of. Fabric spilled over her flesh, then cool air, and then his bearded face, branding her his. He took her nipple deep into his mouth, and all air left her in one sweet breath, only to catch again when his palm flattened over her belly, then swept between her legs, claiming her.

A soft cry escaped her lips, and then he was above her, very much awake, very much aware. His face tightened with strain. A certain agony simmered deep in his eyes.

Nothing. No words could form. She felt the entire rigid, swollen, pulsating length of him against all of her. The agony of it all— She wanted so much more, she nearly cried out with it.

“Jess...” he whispered, his voice full of regret, full of resignation, full of passions unfettered... What? Would he leave her here, aching with need, or would those hands resume their magic, his mouth closing over hers?

“T
hunderation, Jessica, have you any idea what your son is doing? Jessica? Are you here?”

Halsey, his voice booming with its usual puffed-up indignation. Rance wasn’t certain whether he should thank the man or throttle him. Then again, confusion was insinuating itself quite comfortably with him of late. Nothing like finding oneself in a woman’s bed, making love to her in his sleep, to start a day off in utter pandemonium. And her so damned responsive, so warm and soft against him... It was all he could do to keep himself from picking up where he’d left off, somewhere in the vicinity of her swollen, pink-tipped breasts.

“Avram, I’m in my bedroom,” she called out, in a voice that squeaked an octave above her usual tone. She pressed trembling fingertips against Rance’s lips, and he moved his teeth over them with a frustration like nothing he’d ever known. “I—I’ll be right out, Avram.”

“Lying abed, Jessica?” Avram mused, his tone brimming with barely concealed agitation. “And the sun nearly to its zenith? Nothing simmering on the stove to break the fast, I see.” His polished heels clicked upon the floorboards as he moved hither and yon about the kitchen, no doubt never once entertaining the thought of venturing anywhere near her bedroom, or the door, which stood ajar a good five inches. More than ample room for Halsey to achieve a good eyeful—were the thought to enter his mind, of course. “Not even coffee brewing. My dear, you grow lazy in your old age. And careless. As we speak, your son is astride that great black beast that belongs to your lackey. By the by, where is the brute? Catching his breakfast somewhere out on the prairie and eating it raw? Baby rabbits, perhaps?”

“He’s—” Jessica stared up at Rance in complete indecision then flushed and attempted without much success to sit up, disentangle her limbs from Rance’s and readjust her camisole. Awash in noble intent, Rance swept her fumbling fingers aside and took up the task, enjoying it immensely, of course. She gave a huge huff—so typically female in such a sticky situation—and made a great show of staring over his shoulder out the window, cheeks flaming scarlet, while his fingers took their time about sliding the straps back to her shoulders and tying the thin ribbon binding the camisole. She was astonishingly beautiful, bathed pearly and lush by the morning sun, smelling of warmth and sleep and passions newly roused.

His thumbs brushed over the taut peaks of her breasts.

Her eyes flew to his.

He arched a wicked brow, caught up in his mischief of the moment. “Why don’t you tell him what I’m doing, Jess?” he whispered, his hooded gaze upon her thrusting nipples.

Like a startled rabbit, she scooted from the bed and glared at him, hands on her hips. “You’re enjoying this,” she hissed with a glorious toss of all those curls and a furious glower.

He sat poised at the edge of the bed, hands gripping his thighs, and feasted upon her from tousled head to bare toes and back. The pantalets formed nothing but a thin, transparent film over her shapely legs, revealing the dusky blond shadow at the apex of her white thighs. He barely heard Halsey resume his characteristic monotonous discourse as he paced about the kitchen, providing an alarming contrast to Rance’s carnal thoughts. “Yes, Jess,” he murmured softly in reply. “I am enjoying myself. Immensely, as a matter of fact. Then again, I don’t know of any man who wouldn’t be all but bursting with enjoyment, given these circumstances. You’ve got the most exquisite breasts—”

“Stop,” she rasped, jabbing one finger in mute defense at him when he made as if to lunge at her.

“What was that, Jessica?” Halsey bellowed. His footfalls crept closer into the hall, then paused. “Jessica?”

Rance crossed his arms over his chest and couldn’t help but arch a devilish brow. He was beginning to enjoy flustering her, particularly when she wouldn’t possibly give him away.

Jessica paled and gulped and looked so utterly ravishable that Rance almost bellowed for Halsey to come right in and get himself a good eyeful.

As if privy to such thoughts, she spun about, yanked open her armoire, and pulled out the first gown her fingers touched, a bedraggled gray muslin. “I’m simply dressing, is all, Avram,” she called out, shoving her legs into the dress, then shimmying it up in a manner that captured Rance’s full attention. She poked out her rounded backside, wiggled once, twice, then gave a slight hop that set her breasts to bouncing like overripe melons. Rance ground his teeth and felt the next little shimmy of her backside like talons clawing at his gut.

“Do go outside and see to Christian for me,” she called out, stuffing her arms into the sleeves and giving Rance a meaningful glare, as if entirely unaware of the agony she inflicted upon him with her slightest movement.

“Outside? I most certainly will do no such thing,” Avram replied, punctuating this with a solid scraping of chair legs upon floorboards and a deeply felt whoosh as he no doubt settled himself for a good long while at the kitchen table. “They’re—why, they’re galloping about as we speak, kicking up all kinds of mud clumps. My tolerance for the laxness that has beset this household is due solely to the fact that you will be my wife and that scruff-muggin out there under my rule in but a few months’ time. Really, Jessica, must you ask more of me than my tolerance to allow all this? To venture outside, and me with the wedding ceremony to perform today? Ha! Can’t abide the dirt, not to mention the horse smell, on my best morning suit, Jessica. You
did
remember Dolly Terwilliger’s wedding? We must leave in less than an hour. Chop-chop, I say.”

Jessica closed her eyes and commenced removing the gown in much the same manner she’d donned it. She left it in a heap on the floor and rummaged again inside the armoire. This time she drew forth a simple gray cotton, and for several moments she simply stared at it.

“What is it?” Abandoning his prison, Rance moved to her. She seemed so fragile, suddenly, head bowed over the dress she clutched to her belly. And then she lifted wide eyes shining with tears. Rance felt his gut constrict and all mischief leave him.

“It’s wrinkled,” she said softly. “And...it—it’s old, and the color is truly awful. My hair is a mess. My...my life is a mess. My betrothed sits in my kitchen, and I stand all but naked in my bedroom with another man, a man I awoke with in my bed, no less, and still I cry over an old, wrinkled dress.”

She melted into his arms the moment he touched her shoulders. “Beautiful Jess...” He stroked the tumbled blond curls and brushed the tears from her cheeks when she tilted her face to his. He needed no further encouragement. His lips tasted the tears on her cheeks, then moved slowly over her mouth, drawing her sweet breath deep into his lungs. “I’ll buy you a dress,” he rasped against her parted lips. “A hundred dresses, in every shade of blue. Just don’t cry. Kiss me, Jess...”

He drowned in the surrender of her entirely against him. So good...so right...so damned natural for her arms to clutch about his neck, for this ache to burgeon in every fiber of his being for her. So easy it was to forget all the reasons he had to stop it now....

“Oh, and Jessica...” Halsey called out, sounding to Rance as though he were deep inside a very large drum. “You’d best find that Stark fellow something to wear. God help us all, but it seems he’s invited to the wedding, as well.”

She twisted free of Rance with a shuddering breath and backed away from him when he advanced upon her, step by slow, determined step.

“Hear that?” Rance murmured huskily. “We’re going to a wedding, Jess. Are you going to dance with me? What do you say we scandalize the whole damned town? C’mon, Jess. Tell Halsey he can go to hell.”

Frantically she shook her head. Her gaze dropped to somewhere in the vicinity of his turgid male muscle, rather boldly displayed by his tight denims. She gulped, gripped the dress closer over her breasts, only to gasp when she backed right into the bed.

“Oh, lest I neglect to mention it...” Halsey mused so casually, Rance almost found humor in it, even as he advanced yet another step upon his prey. Halsey’s voice—so damned annoying a background. “Jessica, I’ve a pocketful of invitations addressed to you from every society matron and who’s who in town. Tea, soirees, and other nonsensical drivel. You will, of course, decline them all. Nothing like an overindulgence in idle female chitchattery to spawn skulduggery and prurient thoughts. I’m quite certain you agree. Jessica? Are you dressing?”

“Yes!” she shrieked when Rance snatched the dress from her arms, slid one hand about her waist and yanked her against him.

He stared into those fathomless sapphire pools and valiantly fought a battle he had no prayer of winning. And suddenly he knew it, sure as the sun would set in the west this eve.

“I can’t do it,” he rasped hoarsely. His fingers molded her jaw, brushed over the lushness of her mouth, sank into the silk of her hair. “I’m not man enough to fight it any longer. You come anywhere near me, you look at me, and I want to devour you. All of you. I can’t deny it and I can’t fight it, even with him—in there. I need—” His hands caressed the sweep of her back, swept over the voluptuous curve of her buttocks to cup her and lift her pelvis high against the painful swelling in his loins. A groan of the purest agony sliced through his chest and cleaved his soul. “I need you... I want to—”

The back door slammed.

“Oh. You’re still here.”

At the sound of Christian’s voice, Jessica at once went stiff in Rance’s arms.

“Of course I’m still here,” Halsey huffed. “I’m waiting with an ever-dwindling patience for your mother.”

Rance took the only course left him, given that Jess had taken to shaking uncontrollably. Halsey was one thing, but Christian...

He whisked the discarded dress from the floor, shoved it over her head, spun her about and set his fingers to an endless row of tiny buttons designed solely to frustrate any such attempts by male fingers.

“Where’s Mama? Is she still in her bed with—”

“I’m here!” Jessica shrieked, lunging toward the door and skidding around the jamb, skirts flying. “See. I’m here. Right here. Just dressing, is all.”

“You look a fright, my dear,” Halsey offered.

“Thank you, Avram.” She all but beamed at him, her chest heaving with her every laborious breath. No doubt great effort went into the serene smile she’d managed to paste on her face. The same sort of Herculean effort Rance was employing to keep silent, standing like a fool in her bedroom, fists balled uselessly against his thighs as he watched her.

“Good heavens, Jessica,” Halsey spouted. “You will, of course, do something with your hair. Can’t have the reverend’s betrothed bounding about like some prairie-spawned Lady Godiva. Stuff it beneath some nice bonnet, and let’s be off, shall we?”

“Yes, Avram.” Hers was the smile of a woman with much to hide. “Whatever you wish.”

“Mama, is Logan still sleeping in—”

“No!” she cried over a forced laugh, as she took several precious steps farther into the hall. “Enough of this worrying over Mr. Stark.”

“Good heavens, Jessica, I can see your—that is, you’ve nothing on your feet. Quite out of the ordinary, my dear.”

“But, Mama, isn’t Logan in your—”

“In my? My what, pray? Hopefully the man is in the barn, where he belongs.”

“He’s not, Mama. That’s because he’s still in your—”

“Good heavens, Christian, dreams sometimes have a way of staying with us throughout the day. Hasn’t Mama told you that?”

“But, Mama, this wasn’t a dream. I was sleeping between you, and—”

“It was a dream, dear. Now wash up.”

“No, it wasn’t. Logan was in your—”

Again, she laughed, half of it seeming to stick in her throat. “Do forgive him, Avram. To a small boy, a man like Mr. Stark epitomizes the sterling qualities of self-reliance, bravery and resourcefulness. He can become somewhat of an idol to a young child. An obsession, if you will.”

“A pity.” Halsey sighed. “As the man will soon be packing his rotting saddlebags and riding away, if I have my say.”

“He will not!” Christian yelled.

“Jessica, your son insists upon raising his voice at me,” Avram barked, his chair scraping against the floor as he surged to his feet. “You seem oddly content to abide such an abomination, but I will not have it, I tell you. Respect your elders, young man.”

“I hate you!” Christian yelled all the louder.

“Christian.”

Tiny feet shuffled down the hall, and then, half buried in skirts, came a mumble: “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Ha!” Halsey crowed. “Sorry isn’t good enough, you guttersnipe.”

“Avram, I forbid you to speak that way.”

“
You
forbid
me?
” Halsey bellowed. “I say, woman, know your place, and that of your son! A sound thrashing is what he deserves, and you—”

“And me what, Avram? A good thrashing for me, as well? Will that set me soundly in my place?”

A moment of deafening silence, and then: “Now, Jessica, calm yourself. No hysterics—”

“I was not yelling, Avram. You were.”

“A laudanum, perhaps, to soothe your nerves.”

“My nerves will be quite fine, Avram, once you stop speaking to my son in that manner.”

“He needs discipline, Jessica, something he has sorely lacked without a father’s firm, guiding hand. As a female, you can, of course, only be expected to provide the kindness, the nurturing, though you’ve been a bit zealous in your application of both. Downright neglectful in all other regards, but this can be helped. Don’t look so aghast, my dear, you know I only want what’s best for both of you. I always have. I wish only to be a good husband and father, someone you can rely on at all times, something you both need, quite desperately, I’m afraid. Need I recall the past for you, my dear?”

“You needn’t, Avram.”

“Good. Now, enough of this, my dear. Christian, what say you apologize to me, and then I will take you about the yard in my curricle.”

“Logan lets me drive out into the prairie,” came Christian’s muffled voice.

“Perhaps Avram will also allow you—”

“I most certainly will not, Jessica. Managing a finely made vehicle such as mine is a delicate art, requiring skill, patience and, above all, a firm, knowing hand. Not the sort of thing for a child barely able to run about on his own. Come along, Christian.”