The Emperor's New Clothes (25 page)

She should have been embarrassed. She should have been nervous. She should have been scared. Instead, with a knowledge culled from somewhere deep inside, she knew this was the moment she'd waited for all her life. Here, under the blue sky of Wyoming, with a stream dancing around her legs and nothing but the vast expanse of this land—his land—as witness, she faced everything that would make her whole and real and live in her soul forever.

The look in his eyes reflected her own. This was more than a mere seduction. She knew it, and so did he.

“Ophelia?” His voice was strained, as if he couldn't bear not to have his flesh next to hers. Neither could she. He opened his arms, and she stepped into his embrace.

His body pressed against hers, the rough hair on his chest arousing and tantalizing the sensitive skin of her breasts. His lips met hers with a fierce demand she recognized and returned. His manhood, solid and strong and not to be denied, pushed against her. His body molded to hers as if made for this purpose and this purpose alone. As if made for her.

Slowly, he pulled her into the water until he sat on the pebbled bottom and she just above him. He pulled her closer and she settled on his lap, the hard, throbbing length of him insistent between them, the water lapping around their waists. Tye cupped her breasts in
his hands and bent his head to lavish attention first on one, then the other. Hot delight shot through her, and she ran her fingers through the gold of his hair. As if he knew when she could bear no more, he pulled his head up and locked his gaze to hers.

“Ophelia?”

She nodded and bit her lower lip, and he sighed as if he had feared her answer. With a gentleness she should have expected, the hot, solid length of him slid into her with a surprising ease, then stopped as if halted by an unforeseen barrier. Damnation, she hadn't thought of that annoying virginity of hers. She clutched his shoulder and thrust herself forward, a keen pain stabbing her. She gasped, and he looked at her sharply. She closed her eyes and threw her head back and rocked and the minor pain faded, replaced by an increasing delight. With every move her pleasure grew, shocking and intense. She urged him to a rhythm she'd never known, but a rhythm as familiar as the breath coursing through her lungs or the blood surging through her body or the very beat of her heart.

They moved together in a play without words, a performance without end, a drama that evoked the essence of life and death and everlasting existence. Two actors in perfect harmony, their roles so entwined neither knew where one left off and the other began. Higher and higher they danced, until their purpose was lost in the sensation and ecstasy and sheer bliss of their joining. And when she feared she couldn't bear the sweet coil of yearning tension within her another moment without madness or death or joy that transcended anything she'd ever known or ever dreamed, he groaned and clutched her tighter as if he too were dying and she alone could save his life or his soul. She cried out and shuddered with an explosion of a thousand footlights or a million stars, in a stunning release
that sacrificed her will and her strength and her spirit.

They collapsed together into the shallow stream. The creek where Tye's father taught him to fish bubbled around them, cooling bodies too heated by desire and too spent by passion to move.

And applause thundered in her ears.

She sacrificed her virtue to him twice more.

Ophelia and Tye lay on the blanket finishing up the last of Alma's tasty supplies. Ophelia never would have suspected seduction worked up such a hunger. And such a lack of concern for propriety. They didn't have a stitch on, and it didn't bother her in the least. It simply didn't seem necessary when this golden glow of heady satisfaction and blissful exhaustion surrounded them. Gad, sin was delightful.

“Bite?” Tye propped his head with one hand, and held a piece of chicken over her mouth with the other.

“Thank you.” Ophelia's manner was as polite as if she was at a ladies tea party instead of lying naked on a scarlet blanket in the middle of Wyoming. She took the bit of fowl as well as the fingers that held it, sucking the last drop of juice from them.

Tye's eyes narrowed with desire. The man was truly insatiable. She liked that about him. Liked as well how
he looked stretched out long and powerful by her side like an untamed beast. Her gaze ran lazily down the strong, magnificent lines of his body and back to his eyes. His delicious chocolate eyes.

“Dessert,” she murmured.

“What did you say?”

“I said dessert.” She lifted up on her elbow and leaned forward as if to kiss him. Instead, she licked a pie crumb from near the corner of his mouth and slowly drew it between her lips. His eyes smoldered, and she flicked a quick glance lower at the rest of him and trembled with her own rising need. “I love dessert.”

“Me too.”

“And I doubt if our clothes are quite dry yet.”

“Probably not.”

She giggled. “I will never forget the sight of you trying to rescue our clothes from the stream.”

He shook his head. “Well, your dress hung up on some rocks, and the buckle on my pants pretty much weighted them down, so those were easy, but that damn shirt.” He laughed. “The current moved it pretty fast, and I was starting to think I'd have to chase it clear into Colorado in my birthday suit.”

“I would have liked to have seen the reaction of the Community Betterment Committee to that. I can hear them now. Isn't that the mayor? Surely he's not bare-bottomed now, is he?”

He grinned. “I doubt if even Dead End would see the humor in that, and it definitely wouldn't be funny in Empire City.”

“No doubt.”

She could lie next to him like this forever. Just the two of them, with no obligations or responsibilities or demands save those of one body for another. Idly, she ran her hand along the firm, solid planes of his chest. His muscles tightened beneath her touch.

“Ophelia.” There was a growl of warning in his voice.

“What?” She widened her eyes in an innocent manner, and bent to flick his nipple with her tongue.

He gasped and grabbed her wrists. “Ophelia.”

She stared straight into his deep eyes. “Tye, you said yourself our clothes aren't dry yet.” She inched closer, her breasts brushing against his chest, and a now-familiar ache shivered through her. “And didn't somebody say something about dessert?”

“Ophelia.” He groaned in surrender and crushed her against him, his body hot and urgent next to hers. She responded with the enthusiastic eagerness of a newly discovered passion, and before she lost herself to the sheer sensation of his touch, a thought fluttered through her mind.

One must always be willing to sacrifice.

 

Damn, if he thought she was pretty naked, the look of her right now, halfway clothed with only those frilly underthings on, was enough to spur him to rip them off her with his teeth and take her yet again. He shifted uncomfortably at the thought. His Levi's were still damp, and fit a bit snugger than they did this morning. It wouldn't do at all to allow images of Ophelia's soft, rosy body writhing beneath him to make his jeans even more uncomfortable than they were.

Not that it seemed he was actually the one doing the taking. No indeed. Ophelia made love with all the enthusiasm and energy of a teetotaler taken to drink or a heathen taken to God. Odd. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on nagged at the back of his mind. Something he'd noted earlier, but that now seemed to have slipped away. No doubt it was just one more truth he had to wring out of her. And he might as well get to it.

“Ophelia?”

She wore some kind of pantelet, and was lacing up a frilly wisp of a chemise. “Um-hum?”

“We need to talk.”

Her hands stilled and she raised a brow. “Do we?”

He drew a deep breath. “Yes, we do.” He stepped to her, grasped her shoulders and trapped her gaze with his. “It's time, Ophelia. I want the truth.”

Her gaze slid from his. “What truth?”

Annoyance surged through him, and he wanted to shake the answers out of her. He clenched his teeth. “You know what truth, Ophelia. Who you are and what you want.”

She shuddered beneath his hands, and for a moment he wished for nothing more than to pull her back into his arms and tell her to ignore his demand. To tell her he didn't care and the truth didn't matter. To tell her all he really wanted was for her to trust him enough to confide in him. Like a wife in a husband.

“I am…” She met his gaze with hers, and defiance flickered in the lush depths of her eyes. “I am the Countess of…of…”

“Bladewater?” he suggested.

“Indeed.” She wrenched free of his grasp, drew herself up and glared. “I am the Countess of Bladewater.”

“And your deceased husband, the count, his name is?”

She furrowed her brows in thought; then her expression brightened. “Adrian.”

“Are you certain?”

“Of course I'm certain.” Contempt at his question rang in her voice. “His name was definitely Adrian.”

“Hah! Since you've been in Dead End, you've yet to call that dead count of yours, who probably never existed in the first place, by the same name twice. Let's see, there's been”—he ticked the names off on his fingers—“Alfred, Albert, Alford, Alphonse—”

“I've always been rather fond of the name Alphonse,” she murmured.

“—Aloysius, Adolph, Austin, Addison—”

“I never called him Addison!”

“My mistake.” He glared and continued. “Alcazar—”

“I like Alcazar too; it has a nice ring to it.”

“—Ambrose, Alvin, and finally,” he finished with an angry flourish, “Addicus.”

She gave him a chilly gaze. “And is there a point to your ravings, Mr. Matthews?”

“A point? A point?” Hell! Was he sputtering? The damn woman had him sputtering! “Of course there's a point. You can't seem to remember the name of your own husband. And do you know why?”

“Of course I know why. Do you?”

“I most certainly do. You can't remember the name of your dead husband, or your own name for that matter—”

“Ophelia?”

“No, not Ophelia.” He clenched his fists by his sides in an effort to keep from strangling the infuriating woman. “Bridgewater! You can't remember Bridgewater!”

“Oh, that.”

“And do you know why you can't remember your make-believe name or that of your fictitious husband?”

She pulled her brows together in a thoughtful manner and tilted her head as if grasping for an answer that lay just beyond her reach. “Grief?”

“No! No, it's not grief!” Why was he yelling at the top of his lungs? He couldn't remember the last time he'd lost control like this. What had she done to him?

“Grief does terrible things to a person's mind, you know.” She gave him a smile of pity, as if he was too insensitive, or just too plain stupid, to know that basic
fact of life, and turned her attention back to her chemise.

“Yes, I know! I also know one can't grieve for someone who never existed.”

“And you claim my dear, dear, dead Avery never existed?” Ophelia finished with the undergarment, plucked her corset off the ground and studied it. “Can you prove it?”

“Prove it?”

“Prove it.” She dropped the corset on the blanket as if deciding it wasn't worth the trouble, picked up her stocking and settled her back against the tree. “You have no proof, Tye.”

“I don't need proof!” Damnation, he'd tried to get proof. But every time he got near her, she distracted him with those feminine wiles of hers. “I have your own words as proof.”

“What words?” She pulled one stocking up a long shapely leg.

“For one thing, every time you talk about your dead husband—”

“Abraham.” A spark snapped in her eyes. Was she toying with him now?

He heaved an exasperated sigh. “Fine, Abraham, he's either young or old—”

“Most people are.” She affixed the stocking to a garter, pulled the pantalet over the top and turned her attention to her other leg. He struggled to ignore the innocently seductive scene she presented.

“—and he's been dead one year or two—”

She rolled up a stocking and held it poised over the toe of a nude limb. For a fleeting second, he wished to be a stocking. She gave him a pleasant smile. “Confusion, brought on by grief.”

“Confusion perhaps, but grief has nothing to do with it. You simply can't remember which lie you've told
from one minute to the next. And I've said it before, Ophelia. You're a bad liar.”

And the most seductive woman he'd ever met. Here he was, more annoyed than he'd ever been in his life, determined to get the truth from her, and all he could concentrate on was the slow, sensual way she unrolled the stocking up her leg and the silk that caressed every curve of her long and lovely limb. Was she even aware of how she appeared? Her every move was enticing, yet natural and almost innocent…. That was it. Innocent.

Ophelia made love with all the enthusiasm and energy of a teetotaler taken to drink….

This very experienced woman was…

…
or a heathen taken to God
…

“Good Lord!”

…
or a virgin
.

“What now?” She fastened the last garter and glanced up at him. Her gaze met his and her expression froze. “Tye?”

He couldn't seem to get the words out. At once everything snapped into place. What a fool he'd been not to have noticed before now. Everything else about her was a fraud. It only made sense she'd lie about this too. He'd realized right away there was no dead count, but he'd just assumed she was an experienced woman. He'd noticed that brief moment in the water, of course, how could be not, but the passion and the intensity and the sheer frenzy of their joining had wiped away all rational thought. Until now.

She'd given herself to him, and there was no way in hell he was going to let her out of his life now.

“Tye?”

His gaze narrowed. His voice was soft. “I have proof, Ophelia.”

A light of quiet triumph glittered in his eyes, and her
heart caught in her throat. What proof could he possibly have? Short of the real countess, there was no way to prove or disprove her act. “I hope you're not planning on using anything I've said against me. I've told you, any discrepancies can be explained by grief.”

“I don't have any need to use what you've said.”

“Then what are you talking about?” Gad, she didn't like the look in his eyes.

“I'm talking about this.” In one long step he reached her side and hauled her into his embrace. Her arms were pinned, his lips crushed hers, and she struggled until the familiar greed for him welled like a relentless thirst within her and warmth spread from hidden parts of her body still aching with the need for his touch. She moaned against his mouth, and he pulled back.

An unnamed emotion simmered in his eyes. “I have been with a number of women in my life, Ophelia. The majority of them quite experienced and very good at what they do.”

“I know, widows.” She glared, her passion squelched. What kind of a cad was he anyway? Telling her about his previous escapades? “And what does that have to do with me?”

“You're nothing like them.”

Panic fluttered within her and she pushed at him, but he held her tight. “Of course I am. I'm just like them.”

“No, you're not.” His gaze burned with an amber fire that glinted somewhere in the depth of his endless brown eyes. “When you touch me, when I touch you, there's a joy that comes from discovery, from the beginning of something fresh and new and never before even dreamt of.”

Her heart stilled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you weren't a widow, you weren't a woman
of experience, and before this afternoon, my fair Ophelia, you were a virgin.”

“I was not!”

Total disbelief darkened his eyes.

“Very well, then, if you prefer to believe that, fine. I know how men enjoy their little fantasies about innocent vir—”

“Stop it, Ophelia,” he said roughly. “And just tell me the truth.”

“You have as little proof for this charge, Tye, as all the others.”

He stared down at her without a word, then released her, combing his fingers through his tousled hair in a gesture of frustration. “You're right. You've got me there….” Abruptly a grin stretched across his face. “Except for one little thing.”

“And what's that?”

“I have, through the years, built up a rather impressive reputation with the ladies.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest in a smug manner that made her long to shoot him again. “If Tyler Matthews says a woman is a virgin, there's not one person in this town, male or female, who's going to dispute it. And virgins are generally not widows.”

She gasped. “You wouldn't!”

“I sure would.”

He had her there, right where he wanted her. She probably should have killed him when she'd had the chance. Now what would she do? Or more to the point, what would he do? “What do you want from me, Mr. Matthews.”

“I want the truth, Ophelia, that's all. Just the truth.”