Short Straw Bride (11 page)

“Y
ou low-down, stinking polecat!” Another book sailed across the room to land with a thud against the wall.

There wasn’t a tear in sight, Luke noticed as he dodged the missile. But if looks could kill, he’d have died right where he stood. Since looks alone wouldn’t accomplish the task, Eleanor was apparently more than willing to try direct methods.

A silver-backed hairbrush and matching comb were fired in his direction with the speed and accuracy of a gunfighter throwing lead. Luke winced as the brush bounced off his shoulder.

“You are the most disgusting, filthy excuse for a human being I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet in my entire life,” she told him as her fingers closed around the handle of the wash pitcher.

“Eleanor—”

The pitcher sailed past his head, smashing against the wall and splattering Luke with water and shards of china.

“Stop this right now,” he said. But his stern tone was made less effective by the fact that he was forced to hop to one side to avoid the bowl the pitcher had been sitting in. The sound of shattering china seemed only to fuel her rage.

“I’d have been better off marrying a one-armed leper,” she snarled as she groped for the mirror that matched the brush and comb.

“Don’t you throw that,” he ordered. The mirror just missed his head. “Dammit, woman, stop throwing things and let me explain!”

“There’s nothing to explain.” She’d found another book and sent it hurtling across the room.

“You don’t know what you heard,” Luke protested, dodging the book and starting toward her.

“I may have been dumb enough to marry you, but that doesn’t mean I’m deaf, too,” she snarled. Out of ammunition, she jerked off one of her slippers and threw it at him as she backed away from his advance. “I heard exactly what Daniel said. You married me because you drew a short straw and had to find yourself a wife.
You married me because you lost.
” Her normally soft voice rose to something close to a shriek.

“It wasn’t like that,” Luke said, knowing it had been exactly like that.

“You stay away from me,” she demanded, taking another step back. She brandished her remaining shoe, her dark eyes snapping with rage.

Luke kept an eye on the shoe. She’d proven to have uncomfortably accurate aim.

“You calm down and stop acting like a…a woman,” Luke told her, unable to think of a more suitable comparison.

“Acting like a woman is better than acting like a jackass.”

“Put that shoe down right now.”

Luke edged a little closer. The shoe stayed where it was, her arm poised to throw.

“Stay away from me.”

“If you don’t put that shoe down this minute, I’m going to put you over my knee, I swear I will!” He’d never laid a violent hand on a woman in his life, but he was starting to think he might make an exception for his wife.

“You wouldn’t dare.” She looked more infuriated than intimidated, and the shoe didn’t move.

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’ll treat you the same way.”

“Better a child than a skunk,” she snapped.

“I’ve had just about enough of this,” he warned, and took an authoritative step toward her.

The shoe clipped the side of his forehead, the shock of it staggering him more than the blow itself. The little witch had actually thrown it, despite his warnings. Luke lifted his hand to touch the injured area, drawing away fingers streaked with blood from where the hard heel had cut the skin.

Anger grabbed him by the throat. He lifted his eyes to his wife. Her face was white, as if she were as shocked by her action as he was. Her eyes met his, reading the steely intent in his look. With a squeak of dismay she turned to flee the beast she’d roused.

Luke caught her before she’d gone two steps, tumbling her back onto the bed in a tangle of muslin skirts. She fought like a wildcat, her legs churning as she tried to kick him. She managed to land a few blows but accomplished little more than bruising her bare toes against his shins, which were protected by the tops of his boots. She tried to bring her hands up to strike him but she was no match for Luke’s superior strength, and it wasn’t long before she found herself pinned facedown across her husband’s lap, her legs caught between his, the solid weight of his forearm across her shoulders.

“Don’t you—” Eleanor’s muffled warning ended on a shriek as the flat of Luke’s hand came down across her derriere. The muslin of her nightdress provided little cushioning, either for that blow or the two that followed in quick succession.

Luke’s hand came up, ready to deliver another swat, but with a pitiful little cry Eleanor went limp, her face buried in the covers, her shoulders shaking in an apparent paroxysm of tears. Guilt slammed into him. Good God, what was he doing? He hadn’t lost his temper like that in more years than he could remember. And here he was, losing it with his wife,
beating
her, for God’s sake! He’d reduced her to tears, probably scared the life out of her. Staring down at her trembling back, Luke felt lower than a snake’s belly.

“Eleanor.” He eased his hold, reaching out to draw her up, intending to apologize, to offer comfort.

The moment his grip loosened, Eleanor twisted with the speed of a striking snake and fastened her teeth in the first portion of his anatomy that presented itself, which happened to be his thigh.

If it hadn’t been for the protective denim of his jeans, Luke thought she might have drawn blood, which was what she seemed to be after. Denied that,
she still managed to inflict considerable discomfort.

With a howl of mingled outrage and pain, Luke shot to his feet. Since Eleanor was still sprawled across his lap, his sudden move dumped her onto the floor, breaking her grip on his leg at the same time.

For the space of several heartbeats they stared at each other, Luke’s eyes almost coal black, Eleanor’s brown eyes snapping with a mixture of anger and a touch of fear. Luke was savagely pleased to see the latter. The guilt he’d felt a moment before at striking her had shifted to regret that he hadn’t continued the spanking. The little witch had bitten him!

He bent, reaching for her. Eleanor scrambled backward and stumbled to her feet, hampered by the enveloping layers of muslin. She darted toward the door but his hand closed around her upper arm, spinning her around and tumbling her back onto the bed.

This time Luke felt less hesitant about using his strength against her. The struggle was brief, the outcome clear from the start. In a matter of seconds he’d pinned her to the bed, holding her there with the hard length of his body.

Panting and breathless, she lay beneath him, taut as a fence wire and nearly as full of barbs, Luke thought, feeling the bruises she’d managed to inflict. Her hair had come loose during the wild struggle and now it covered her face, blinding her. She huffed, trying to blow it out of the way.

Seeing her dilemma, Luke caught her wrists in one hand and pinned them against the tangled covers over her head. He used his free hand to brush the hair away from her face. She gave him a glare by way of a thank-you, her eyes no longer the soft brown of a fawn’s but almost black with rage instead.

“Now you’re going to listen to me,” he said sternly.

“You hit me!”

“You deserved it,” he retorted, ignoring the niggling twinge of guilt. “You damn near took my leg off with your teeth.”

“Too bad it wasn’t your head,” she snapped, showing no repentance.

“You’re acting like a child. I don’t know what you’re so fired up about in the first place.”

“Did you draw straws to see which of you had to get married?” she demanded.

“Yes.” There was no sense in denying that much.

“And did you draw the short straw and have to marry me because of it?”

“I didn’t have to marry
you.
I just had to marry someone.” If he’d thought that bit of information would cool her ire, he was mistaken.

“You married me because you
lost.
” She all but spit the last word at him.

“It wasn’t like that. It didn’t have anything to do with you personally. We just figured one of us ought to get married and—”

“Why?” she interrupted without apology.

“Why what?” With her stretched out beneath him, it wasn’t easy to keep his mind on the conversation. His body, tuned to fever pitch by the fight, was starting to occupy itself in other directions.

“Why did one of you have to get married?” Obviously, Eleanor was not having the same problem with her concentration.

“Well, there was the house. It needed a woman’s touch.”

“It needed blasting powder. It looked like a bunch of hogs had been living here.”

Luke didn’t think that was quite fair, but she was angry and he’d allow her the exaggeration. With her eyes shooting sparks at him the way they were and the length of her body pressed to his, he was willing to allow her just about anything she wanted.

“We knew the place needed a woman,” he said, bringing his mind back to the conversation at hand with an effort.

“Why not hire a housekeeper?”

“We thought of that. But we’d had trouble with the last couple of women we hired. A wife seemed a better idea,” he admitted—a mistake, apparently.

“Ooooo!” The sound was somewhere between a wildcat’s scream and a steam whistle, and it was the only warning she gave. She arched abruptly, trying to dislodge his weight. The movement was sudden enough and he’d been distracted enough that she nearly succeeded.

There was a frantic scramble for control with Luke hampered by the need to avoid hurting her. Eleanor felt no such need. A pained grunt escaped him as her knee caught him on the thigh. Considering where she’d been aiming, Luke considered himself fortunate to escape with a bruise. By the time he’d managed to regain control, they were both breathless.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded furiously.

“Get off me!”

“Are you going to stop trying to kill me?” Her eyes gave him the answer and he judiciously tightened his hold on her wrists.

How could he have thought she didn’t have a temper? he wondered, staring down at her flushed face. He’d seen rabid coyotes look friendlier—less dangerous, too, he thought, feeling the assorted bruises she’d managed to deliver. He’d been in barroom brawls and come out with fewer injuries. But then, in a barroom brawl, he’d never had to concern himself with protecting his opponent.

“I don’t know what you’re so riled about,” he said, his exasperation plain. “It isn’t as if we married for love.”

Eleanor had been straining her arms against his hold but, at his words, she stilled. She stared up at him for a moment, her eyes unreadable. And then her lashes lowered, shielding her expression from him.

“No, we didn’t marry for love,” she murmured, the first sign of reasonableness that Luke had seen since he entered the room.

“Then why are you so angry?”

Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “Why didn’t you hire a housekeeper?”

Luke considered the question, wondering if the truth was going to set her off again. But since he didn’t have a plausible lie, the truth was going to have to do. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with the truth, dammit!

“A housekeeper couldn’t give me a son,” he said. “I told you I wanted children, and that takes a wife.”

He waited, wishing he could read something in her expression. But she kept her eyes lowered and her face utterly still, leaving him to guess what might be going on in that female head of hers.

Angry or not, she felt remarkably good beneath him. His body, oblivious to the taut atmosphere, was reacting to the feel of her stretched out against him. Hardly conscious of moving, Luke shifted, his hips nudging more firmly between her thighs so that she cradled his growing arousal against her feminine softness.

He wanted her in a way he couldn’t ever remember wanting a woman before. Dammit all, he didn’t even know what they were fighting about! What difference did it make
how
she’d come to be his wife? She was, and that was what mattered.

Feeling his hardness, sensing the change in his mood, Eleanor went utterly still, like a rabbit sensing the nearness of a hunter. Her eyes met his and
she saw the hunger in the tightness of the skin stretched over his cheekbones, in the way his eyes had darkened to the color of smoke.

“No.” She gasped the word out, turning her head to the side as he bent to kiss her. Deprived of her mouth, Luke settled for nuzzling the taut line of her neck instead.

“You’re my wife.” His breath whispered over her skin. The light touch sent a shiver of awareness through her. He’d taught her too well these past two weeks, she thought bitterly. Her body responded to his touch like a finely tuned instrument to the hands of a master. But she’d rather die than give in to him now.

“You’ll have to force me.” Her voice was hard as tempered steel, not an inch of give in it.

Luke lifted his head to stare down at her, reading the determination in her face. He could make her give in to him, even wring a response from her, whether she was willing to admit it or not. Hell, she was his wife; there’d be no one to blame him if he took what he wanted, willing or not.

But he’d never forced a woman in his life and had nothing but contempt for a man who would do so, whether she was his wife or not. With a curse he released his hold on her, rolling off the bed and out of reach as he did so. If she took another swing at
him, he couldn’t vouch for his temper. The next time she hit him, he’d either turn her over his knee again or flip her skirts over her head and bury himself in the sweet warmth of her.

But Eleanor didn’t try to renew her attack. She was more concerned with pulling her nightdress down over her bare legs as she scrambled off the bed on the side opposite him. She watched him without speaking, her dark eyes wary. With her hair lying in tangled curls on her shoulders and her breasts still heaving with exertion, she might have been a painting labeled Temptation. The thought put an extra edge to his voice.

“Let me know when you’re through with your temper tantrum,” he said coldly. Without another word he turned and stalked from the room, his boot heels ringing on the wooden floor.