Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings (5 page)

Her emerald eyes blazed into his.

She turned to the barkeep. “A whiskey, please.”

The bartender coughed softly. “Ma'am, I don't rightly know if you've seen what kind of place this is—”

“Are you refusing to serve me, sir?”

“Why, no, of course not, ma'am. A, er, whiskey, coming right up.”

It was Blade's deal. He was moving the cards through his fingers too slowly. It didn't matter, though. The rest of the players had seen Mrs. Jessica Dylan, and they had forgotten the game.

They all stared at her, gaping. Then they regained their manners and closed their mouths. The Easterner stood first, tipping his hat to her. The cattle herder leapt up next, and then the miner close behind.

Blade gritted his teeth, black eyes locked with hers, and stood. Roxy made some small noise behind him. If Jessica Dylan gave any notice to Roxy at all, she gave no sign.

“Gentlemen,” she murmured softly.

“Ma'am!” It came in a chorus from the lot of them, only Blade remaining silent.

“May I join you?”

The cattle herder cleared his throat softly. “Why, ma'am, we aren't playing parlor cards.”

“It can be a rough game,” the miner added.

She smiled very sweetly. “Nevertheless, gentlemen, I'd love to join you. It is an honest game, I believe.”

“Dead honest,” Blade promised her. He had sat down at last, and stared into her emerald eyes once more. What was her game?

“Then, if you all don't mind …”

The miner hurried to the next table to draw a chair for her. The cattle herder cleared room for her whiskey. She sat and looked at the table. “Someone has called someone, so it seems.”

Blade flipped over his cards, showing three tens. The pot was his. The deal passed to his left.

To Mrs. Dylan.

She picked up the cards and shuffled them like a professional cardsharp. They flew around the table. “Let's make it five-card draw, gentlemen. Jacks or better to open. Dollar ante.” She was swift, and she was all business.

The men at the table were suddenly moving very fast.

Roxy made another of her
tsking
sounds in the background. “Need another, hon?” she whispered huskily to Blade, pointing at his glass.

Another? He needed the whole damned bottle. He nodded. Roxy filled his glass. He gulped down the amber liquid, staring at Jessica Dylan. “How many cards, Mr. McKenna?”

He slid one across the table. “One.”

Luck was with Blade. One card completed his straight. She had bet against him and lost.

The next hand, the miner's deal, Mrs. Dylan took with a full house.

The game progressed. Mrs. Dylan proved that she was a good player, never showing her cards when she didn't have to, seeming to know when to fold, when to hold, when to cut her losses, and how to win.

The cattle herder fell out first, the well-dressed man next, then the miner. That left only Blade and Mrs. Dylan.

The hour had grown incredibly late. Even Roxy sighed in a pique and joined the few remaining men in the room at the bar. It didn't matter. Blade hadn't even managed to look at Roxy in hours. He'd barely heard her voice. She had paled away, faded like an old photograph.

Perhaps that would happen to any other woman with Jessica Dylan in the room.

Blade kept his black-eyed stare hard on her.

She kept her emerald gaze equally strongly upon him. She was playing way more than a card game here, and he knew it. She had tried to do a lot of gambling with him already. What was she after with this? Trying to make him lose all his money so that he would be forced to enter her employ? He didn't know. He was suddenly determined to win the game.

She was capable of a good bluff, he had seen that already. He began to call her bluff, time and time again. At first, between the two of them, the wins and losses still seemed about even. But then he managed to get her to keep up with his raises on a pat hand—three aces, two kings. She couldn't beat it, and she didn't. Next hand he was amazed to see his cards fall in every bit as nicely. Draw poker. He held two queens. She opened. And then she dealt him another queen and two aces, and asked for three cards.

“You opened,” he reminded her.

“So I did.” She shoved her coins on the table. “Fifty dollars.”

“A hundred.”

“I see your hundred. I raise you a hundred.”

“I see your hundred—and I'll raise you two.”

She started to push in the coins, then bit her lower lip in irritation. She seemed to be a few short.

“I can write you a promissory note—”

He shook his head. “Whatever we're gambling for needs to be on the table. Right now.”

She looked at her cards. They must have been good. As good as his? He didn't know.

But he was a gambler. Was she? he wondered.

“I have my earrings,” she said, reaching for them. But her ears were bare. “Oh!” she murmured, lashes sweeping downward. “I left them right across the street in my room. If you'll just—”

“No.”

“What kind of a gentleman are you?” she demanded irritably. “I can make good on any of my bets! If you'll—”

“No,” he said flatly, leaning forward. “All bets on the table. Here and now.”

She stiffened. “And just what is it you want on the table?” she inquired coolly.

He shrugged. “I'll take—you.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “I've offered you myself before, if you recall.”

He shook his head again. “Not for any business deal, Mrs. Dylan. Just for the night.”

Her eyes burned. Her fingers were itching again, he knew. She'd love to slap him. She'd really love to whack him across the face. She was so determined, and so desperate, it seemed, at times.

“And what do I get in return?” she asked.

“Might I remind you, my money is all on the table.”

“It's not enough,” she insisted.

He lifted his hands, palms up. “You can fold,” he reminded her politely.

Her teeth gnashed together. “I want more!” she insisted.

She was a fighter, he thought, and he was startled by the sudden emotion he felt for her. She didn't quit.

And she hated like hell to lose.

He leaned forward. “All right, let's lay it all on the table. If I win, I get you for the night. No strings attached. If you win, you get me. In your employ. For free. For, let's say … maybe a month. How's that?”

She was breathing very hard, he could see. Her breasts were rising and falling swiftly.

“Is it a deal?”

“Deal,” she said very softly. He started to turn his cards. Her fingers fell over the back of his hand. “How do I know you won't renege?”

“You'll have to trust me.”

But she stopped him again. “How do you know I won't renege?”

He smiled. “Because I won't let you,” he assured her confidently. “I collect on all debts owed me.”

His black eyes met her emerald ones. And once again, he began to turn his cards. He started with an ace, another ace, a queen.

“Two pairs!” she exclaimed, her triumph sliding into her voice. She laid down her hand.

It was a good hand. Three jacks, two kings. A damned good hand.

But not good enough.

She started to reach for the pile of coins on the table. He cleared his throat loudly. “Ahem, Mrs. Dylan.”

She stopped, freezing with her palms around the coins, staring at him.

He laid out his last two cards. “I've a full house, too, Mrs. Dylan. And mine is queens high.”

“Oh!” The sound escaped her. And once again, those elegant, blazing green eyes were on him. His fingers fell upon hers, curling hard when she would have wrenched her hand away. “You're mine, Mrs. Dylan—for the night. And thank the good lord! The night is still young!”

He let her snatch her hand free. She started to rise.

“Reneging, Mrs. Dylan? Don't forget, I collect on all debts owed me.”

“No! I'm not reneging!” she snapped back. “I pay all my debts,” she assured him. And her voice was suddenly husky, he thought. Feminine. Vulnerable. Enticing him to a new hunger. “Just not here!” she whispered. Her eyes were on his. Unblinking. “I'll be waiting to pay. The—the doors connect,” she reminded him.

Then she turned. And, head held high, she fled gracefully from the Jackson Prairie Bar and Saloon.

Chapter Five

M
rs. Peabody's was very quiet when Blade returned. He heard a clock strike. It was one a.m.

He came into his room and leaned against the door. Inhaling, exhaling. What did he think he was doing? Taunting her, trying to torture her into going home? Why the hell did he care what happened to her?

He gritted his teeth. He did care. Maybe it was the first time he'd cared in a long time, and maybe it was damned hard to have to feel again instead of move on, seeking nothing but a vengeance that had now turned ice cold, but all the more determined. Why her?

There were no answers. Hell, maybe there were, he thought again. All he had to do was look at her, watch her, hear her voice. He'd cared when he'd followed her to begin with. He'd cared because he hadn't wanted to see blood running against her marble flesh, because he hadn't wanted to hear her scream.… Because once he had seen her, he hadn't wanted to imagine another man touching her, hurting her, having her.

He pushed away from the door. He wasn't going to demand anything from her. The poker game had been his bluff. She needed to go home, whether she saw it or not. It was his last chance to convince her. He could never really touch her. She would be like a taste of honey, sweet, beguiling. She would make him hungry, again and again.

The door between the rooms was closed. He stared at it for a long moment, then angrily crossed to it. He threw it open, certain that he'd find her still defiant—or gone.

But she was not gone.

She was there. She stood before the window with the curtains in her fingers, drawn back slightly. Her lower lip was caught between her teeth. She was in a silky gown of soft, sheer blue. It molded over her breasts, fluttering against the length of her. Her flesh was just visible beneath the sheer fabric. She had stood there, watching the road, waiting for him. Miserably, from the look in her eyes and the way she chewed on her lip. But determinedly. He had told her that he collected on debts.

She had told him that she paid them.

She spun around, staring at him, her fingers falling uneasily over the fabric of her very sheer gown as if she just realized how translucent the gown was, how very much she had given away.… And longed to cover once again.

He closed the door between the rooms, narrowing the space between them. He leaned against it, crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her, eyeing her slowly, from the tip of her golden head to her bare toes. He tried to still the thunder that suddenly began to beat within him.

“Go home,” he told her softly. “Go home.”

“I cannot go home,” she insisted.

“Go home, and we'll call off this stupid wager.”

There was moisture in her eyes. It made them dazzle like gems against a night sky. She seemed very vulnerable then, and he didn't want her hurt. He'd put her on some kind of damned pedestal, and he'd be happy if she'd just go home. East. Where the world wasn't great, he thought, but where the dangers weren't quite so many, quite so fierce, quite so constant, either. Away from warring Comanches, Apaches, Comancheros. Away from bitter half-breeds, longing for a touch of paradise against the anguish and emptiness.…

“Do whatever you want,” she told him. “I cannot go home.”

With an impatient sound he was across the room. He gripped her soft smooth arms tightly in his hands, shaking her hard. “Don't you understand what you're going to find here? I'm not invincible! I'm flesh and blood. Even if I stayed with you, I'd probably die with a bullet or an arrow in my heart.”

Her chin was high, her head back. She hadn't made a sound, not a single protest against the rough way he held her. “You told me you were good,” she reminded him. “So damned good.”

“But I can still die—and leave you alone, don't you see? And if you think I can be a bastard, lady, you haven't seen anything yet.”

“I have to stay!”

“Can you really pay the price to do it?” he lashed out.

“Yes.”

No, damn her! She didn't know what she was saying, what she was offering.

“All right,” he whispered fiercely. “All right, have it all your way. And pay up, lady, pay up!”

His fingers moved over the soft, sheer fabric that so barely covered the beauty of her body. With a narrowly controlled burst of violence, he grabbed the fabric, ripping it from throat to floor with a soft hissing sound that seemed as loud as a gunshot in the night. She gasped, her fingers reaching for the split sides.

“No,” he warned her, shaking his head. “You want to pay your debts, time to pay them. You want to take chances with savages, well, Mrs. Dylan, fine. Start with me.”

He still never meant to hurt her.… Never meant to touch her.… Not just for her, for himself. Because he dared not take that first sip of honey.…

But at the moment, none of it mattered. His hands were upon her, he was drawing her to him, sliding away the last of the silky blue fabric, finding her naked flesh. It was smoother than any touch of silk. Jesus. He crushed her against him, feeling the rise of her breasts, stroking his palms and fingertips down her back, seizing her lips with his own. He felt her trembling beneath him. Her hands fell upon his chest.…

Her lips parted beneath his. Sweet. A taste of honey, he thought. He plundered her mouth deeply, ravished it. She clung to him, accepting the onslaught, her heart thundering as his lips came from hers at last, touched upon her throat, her shoulder, down to her naked breast. She was beautiful, perfect, her breasts hard and firm, the nipples an exquisite rose shade, puckered now, and hardening against the harsh lave of his tongue. Her breath caught. Another gasp escaped her. Her fingers curled into his dark hair, into his shoulders. She stood trembling still, damn her, not fighting him yet. He pushed himself against her, touching her flesh, savoring it with his fingertips, with his lips, with his tongue.