The Last Renegade (26 page)

Kellen cocked his head so he had a better view of her expression. In profile, she gave nothing away. “Raine?”

She turned her head and looked at him.

“You know we won’t really be married.”

“Of course I know.”

Kellen raised his hands, partly as an apology, partly to ward off an impending attack.

Raine snorted and focused her attention on the quilt, tugging on it impatiently while she drew her legs up and folded them tailor fashion.

Kellen gave her another moment to settle. “Are you regretting telling them about our counterfeit marriage?” When she did not answer, Kellen interpreted her silence. “You are.”

“No, I am simply confused. I thought I would be able to defend you by telling them you were with me all night, but when Dan Sugar turned malicious and the Davis boys looked at me as if I were a disappointment, the rest of the explanation tumbled out. I suppose I care more for my reputation than I’d imagined.”

“We discussed it,” he reminded her. “We planned for it. You have to live in this town. It’s better this way. Frankly, I was concerned for a while that you
wouldn’t
say it.”

“Is that why you pressed me?”

“Did I do that?”

“Yes.”

Kellen shrugged. “There was my own reputation to consider.”

“You don’t have a reputation here.”

“I would if everyone thought I had ruined the virtuous Widder Berry.”

Raine’s mouth quirked. “Debaucher.”

“Something like that.”

“You
are
the black sheep, aren’t you?”

“In my family. In every other circle, I’m quite ordinary.”

She looked him over. “I doubt that.”

“Flattery?”

“It was not a comment on your appearance, although I’m sure you know you look well enough.”

“Definitely not flattery.”

“I meant that if Nat Church chose you to accompany him, he must have had confidence in your skills. Those skills don’t make you ordinary.”

“Unless I’m sitting at a table with Wyatt Earp, Tom Horn, and the Dalton brothers.”

“Oh.” She frowned a little. “Have you ever sat at a table with them?”

“Not together.”

“Well, even separately, it’s extraordinary company.”

“I’ll give you that.”

She nodded faintly, turned away to face the far wall, and fell silent.

Kellen studied her profile. She looked pensive. She raised one hand to her throat and lightly stroked it while she thought. His fingers twitched once. They had their own memory of curling around her slim, warm neck and supporting it when it seemed that she could not. Kellen glanced at his hand when it twitched again. He flattened his hand over his knee to keep from reaching for her.

Raine idly fingered her neckline. “Do you know where Nat Church is buried?”

Kellen was glad he had not spent a moment trying to divine what she was thinking. He had made better use of the time staring at her neck. “They took his body off the train at Westerville. I understand the town has an undertaker.”

“Do you know if the railroad paid the expenses?”

“Who else would have?”

Raine looked at him sharply. “That’s not an answer, is it? Yes or no would be an answer. It seems to me that you tiptoe past a lot of doors you don’t want to open.”

“I’ve never tiptoed in my life.”

“Did you pay for Mr. Church’s burial?”

“Why would you think that?”

Raine’s blue eyes were at once brilliant and cold. She dared him to avoid her again.

“Yes,” he said. “I paid the fees to make sure he had a good box and decent service. Why is that important to you?”

“I’d like to reimburse you. If the U.P. had paid, I’d want to do the same.”

“I don’t want your money. Not for that.”

“All right. Maybe I can arrange for a headstone. Unless you specified differently, he probably only has a marker.”

“Why do you want Church to have a headstone?”

“Because he’s alone. He had a wife once, and it’s likely that he had a different name, but he was put in the ground separated from both. It seems as if he should have something more permanent to show for his life.”

Kellen felt his throat thicken. It surprised him, this sudden surge of emotion for a man he hadn’t known at all and for a woman he wanted to know better. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. He invited her to sit beside him, first by patting the space at his right, then by holding her gaze with eyes that slowly darkened.

Raine’s uncertainty kept her motionless while her heart beat hard against her chest. She pressed her lips together, nodded faintly, and then released the quilt so she could untangle herself.

Kellen threw back the covers to give her an opening. She scooted across the bed until she was beside him, and then he drew the sheet and blankets over both of them. She took the extra pillow and pushed it behind her back. She wriggled into place, drawing her knees close to her chest once she was comfortable. She thought that she and Kellen looked like a pair of slightly mismatched bookends.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked.

“Yes.” There were points of heat where they touched. Shoulder to shoulder. Arm to arm. She felt as if she had brushed up against the stove. “Why did you call me virtuous?”

“Hmm?”

“You called me the virtuous Widder Berry earlier.”

“Oh, that. Well, aren’t you?”

“I value honor and honesty, but I don’t hold myself out as a model of those virtues. I told more lies this evening than I can properly count, but they’re hardly the first ones I’ve ever told. You cannot ruin me in that regard.”

“Perhaps there’s another regard.”

“That would lead to my ruination?” She smiled wryly. “I don’t think so. I thought I made my bargain with the devil. Imagine my astonishment when I realized that I made it with a decent man.”

“You’re talking about Nat Church.”

His voice lacked inflection. Raine truly could not tell if he was pretending to be obtuse or sincerely believed what he said. “I’m talking about
you.
”

“I’m not decent.”

“And I’m not virtuous.”

Kellen said nothing for a moment, then a soft, husky chuckle rose from the back of his throat. “Decent. Virtuous. They are not precisely stains on a person’s character, are they?”

Raine’s quiet laughter mingled with his. Her head dropped to his shoulder and rested there. Her smile lingered for a long time after her laughter trailed away. “It’s a considerable burden to be so damn upright.”

“Puts a crick in my neck.”

She sat up. “Show me.”

Kellen leaned forward and placed one hand at the base of his neck. “Right here.”

Raine brushed his fingers aside and replaced them with her own. “Here?”

“Mmm.”

She massaged the spot with her fingertips. “Most people don’t appreciate that being so decent can put your muscles in a bunch.”

He rolled his shoulders.

“There, too?” she asked.

Kellen nodded. “All across my back.”

Raine nudged him forward then she got up on her knees and moved behind him. She laid her hands on his shoulders and pressed her thumbs into the taut muscles of his back. She made circles with her thumbs, kneading coils of tension. She pushed, but there was very little give. She curled her hands into fists and used her knuckles to glide up and down on either side of his spine. He arched a little, but not in a way that suggested he wanted to escape. If she had any doubt about it, his soft groan was proof that he was grateful.

Neither of them spoke while she worked. Raine’s approach was methodical. What relief she gave him on the right, she also gave him on the left. He began to anticipate where her fingers would alight, and sometimes he sighed when her hands were only hovering.

Raine tugged on his nightshirt. He shifted his weight so she could pull the tail free. He felt her gather it in bunches and raise it to his shoulders. He ducked his head and she pushed the shirt over and off. She released it and let him decide what he wanted to do with it. What he did was pitch it to the foot of the bed.

Raine laid her palms flat against his back. A shiver somersaulted down his spine. Her thumbnails followed that trail until they came to rest at the small of his back. She pressed to keep him leaning forward and massaged the area all around the twin dimples near the base of his spine. She slowly worked her way up his back until she reached his neck.

Kellen expected to feel her fingers slide into the curve of his neck and shoulders. What he felt, though, was her mouth, and he thought he might slip into liquid at the pleasure of it.

With her hands still warm on his back, Raine pressed kisses across his nape. Her lips followed the line of his shoulder. His skin was warm, and in spite of that, she felt him shiver again. It was a proud, powerful thought that she was the cause of it.

No, she was not virtuous.

Lowering her head, she whispered that truth in his ear.

Kellen gave her no time to reconsider her confession. He twisted, pulled her around, and put her flat on her back before she finished drawing her next breath. She stared up at him but not in a way that reflected surprise. No, Raine’s steady regard held more than a hint of humor, and what remained after that was all heady satisfaction.

“And I’m not decent.”

“Thank God,” she whispered.

He kissed her hard. In any other circumstance it might have been a punishment, but now it was about need. His and hers. Desire was a flame that flickered, licked, and then burned steadily between them, hot and bright. He caught her wrists, pinned them to the bed, and ravaged her mouth. She offered no resistance, but then he had not captured her to win concessions. He held her because he could not imagine letting her go.

He was naked. She was not. He flanked her and threw one leg over both of hers, careful that he claimed without crushing. His open mouth worked over hers. They shared a breath. He caught her full lower lip between his teeth and nibbled. His tongue swept the sensitive underside. She challenged him, pushing at him with her tongue, spearing him. They battled for a while, fiercely at first, then more slowly, altering the deep rhythm of the kiss to something that vibrated through them with the heavy resonance of kettledrums. Their hearts pounded. Blood roared in their ears.

Raine’s hips bucked. She felt his groin hard and hot against her. As thin as the fabric of her shift was, it was still an irritant and a barrier. Her fingers curled. She wriggled, trying to work the shift up her thighs. He chuckled against her mouth, maddening her at first, and then calming her with a kiss that eased into sweetness.

He released her wrists, and she stretched her arms as wide as a pagan sacrifice before lifting her hands to the back of his neck. She stroked his nape, wound her fingers around the curling ends of his hair, scored his skin lightly with her nails.

Kellen’s hands fisted around her shift and began to tug. He had to lift himself away from her to pull the shift above her knees and over her thighs. Raine lifted her bottom and felt the
whisper of soft muslin sliding past her hips. He let go when it bunched around her waist, and she took over, brushing his hands out of the way. She shimmied out from under him, sat up, and pulled the shift over her head. He made a grab for it as it sailed over the edge the bed, but his fingers only clutched air.

“I’m not crawling out of bed to get that for you later,” he said as Raine scrambled under the covers.

“If you keep me warm, I won’t need it.”

Beckoned by Raine’s husky voice, Kellen joined her. In moments his body was flush to hers. He hovered over her, supporting himself on his forearms. “Warm? That would satisfy you?” He kissed her before she could answer, and as long as the kiss went on, and as thorough as it was, he left her wanting something more. One of his eyebrows kicked up as he looked down at her.

“I could stand warmer,” she said.

He lowered his head as if he meant to kiss her again, but at the last moment, he ducked under the covers and found her breast with his mouth.

Raine did not recognize the strangled sound that lodged in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes, dug her heels into the mattress. Her fingers curled like talons into the sheets. When his tongue darted across her nipple, her skin ignited.

Kellen poked his head out long enough to reveal a wickedly amused smile. When he disappeared, it was to give equal time and attention to her other breast.

Raine released the sheet and made deep furrows in Kellen’s thick hair instead. He laved her aureole, drew her nipple between his lips. Even the slightest tug made her womb throb.

She ground against him, lifting, pressing, circling. There was no consciousness behind it. Need guided her. When he left her breast a second time, she expected him to come back to her mouth. What he did was go lower. The damp edge of his tongue made a trail down the center of her abdomen. He dropped kisses like breadcrumbs along the way. Her skin retracted under his touch. Sometimes he made her breathing catch. Sometimes he made her lips part and breath left her as quietly as a departing thief.

She raised the covers when his mouth drifted even lower. “What are you—” But then he
was
, and the point of asking the question seemed absurd. She was on the cusp of whimpering and pressed her lips together to silence it. She inhaled sharply. He pushed her knees up and apart, making a tent of the blankets. She released them and looked for purchase by pressing her palms flat against the headboard.

It banged the wall, startling her and making the bed shudder.

The next time she started and shuddered, it was because of what Kellen did to her. His darting tongue was like a dancing, licking flame. His breath fanned the fire. A rosy flush stole across her skin, climbing up her chest and throat and coloring her cheeks. Her arms and legs prickled with sensation and grew taut. She arched her neck, closed her eyes, and felt every muscle grow taut.

Pleasure hovered, teasing her. It was always within her grasp yet eluded every attempt she made to embrace it. This, too, was Kellen’s doing. He maddened her with his mouth, the change in rhythm, the deep caress, the exploration that was so intimate that she would have called it a violation before it was done to her.