The Last Renegade (27 page)

Her breathing quickened, and sounds that she meant to swallow would no longer be contained. She cried out softly. She lifted. Stretched. Pleasure alighted briefly, skipping across her body like a hot spark. She felt it at her breasts, at the hollow of her arm, skimming over her belly, and then suddenly, finally, settling with certainty in the nub of flesh that Kellen’s dedicated attention had made slick and swollen and sensitive.

Pleasure spread from the center like a prairie fire. She was not meant to escape it, rather to embrace it. She did, absorbing the shiver that rolled through her instead of shaking it off. She wanted the memory of so much pleasure to go deep into sinew and marrow, to be there for recall when she was alone and comfort was a hug that she had to give herself.

In spite of her wish for it to be otherwise, pleasure passed. Her body quieted, her breathing slowed. When Kellen raised his head and shrugged off the blankets, she had a weak, crooked smile for him but no words to accompany it.

“We’re not done,” he told her.

“Mmm.”

He took that as agreement and settled himself between her thighs. He lifted her hips and tilted his own. He told himself that he would be careful, not gentle perhaps, but careful, but it was only a fleeting thought, not a plan, and when Raine’s hand found his cock and circled it with her fingers, there was no thought at all, not even a fleeting one.

She was ready for him or believed she was. Certainly she wanted him. When her fingers closed over him, the hot pulse and hardness made her hesitate. She stared at him. His face was already taut with pleasure denied. A muscle jumped in his cheek. His eyes were dark and focused and naked in their need. He wanted
her
.

His hips jerked. She gave herself over to instinct. They found their way together.

Kellen’s first thrust met resistance. Raine bit down hard on her lip and made no sound that might cause a decent man to reconsider. She breathed again when he was deep inside her. Her hands cupped his buttocks, held him close. Her ability to accommodate him was a revelation. Without quite releasing her lip, she managed a tentative, wary smile and nodded faintly.

Kellen had had women who offered more encouraging signs, but none that were more sincerely given. He lifted his hips, withdrawing just enough for Raine to sense the loss before he rocked forward again.

There were initial moments of awkwardness when Raine tried too hard to help, but he was patient, watchful, and he knew the exact moment that she stopped thinking about what she was doing and gave herself over to it. Her trust was absolute, in herself certainly, but also in him.

It only took time to find the rhythm that suited them, and Kellen would not be hurried. Their movements were easy at first, carefully measured, but eventually they were more deliberately accented until the cadence beat a steady tattoo, and offered Kellen no choice but to surrender to it. His body demanded that he give in. Raine demanded it as well. She held him so tightly, so warmly, that being inside her was deeply
satisfying while leaving her made him ride the sharp edge of a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.

He wanted both to last, and he fought the quickening, but his thrusts came sharp and shallow in spite of his efforts, and tension seized the muscles of his neck, his back, and his thighs. The contraction held him immobile for long seconds before the trigger was pulled. The kick and shudder rocked him, and when the vibration left him, it went into her.

Raine absorbed all of his fierce energy, locking her legs around his hips and not allowing him to pull away when he would have done so. From the beginning, perhaps from the first kiss, she knew that accepting this experience meant accepting all of him.

He caught himself before he collapsed on her, rolling slightly to one side and anchoring her with one of his legs. Or maybe, he thought, he was anchoring himself. He’d always believed he traveled with purpose, but what if he had merely been drifting?

His breathing slowed. He watched the rise and fall of her chest as hers did the same. She caught the slant of his gaze and reached for the blankets. He laid a hand over hers and shook his head.

“You’re lovely.” He smiled then because she blushed. She couldn’t seem to help herself. For all the straightforward, give-no-quarter staring that she turned on him to pin his ears back, Kellen liked knowing that he could rattle her with a sideways glance. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“You never slept with your husband.”

“No. I never did. I told you that. Not the way…” She hesitated. “We didn’t. Couldn’t. I’d rather not…”

“You don’t have to say anything.” He slid his leg away from her, searched for his nightshirt with his toes, and flipped it toward him with a sharp jerk of his foot. He caught it neatly in one hand, shook it out as he sat up, and pulled it over his head and arms. He levered himself over her and climbed out of bed. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

He thought Raine might ask him where he was going, but
she either wasn’t interested or she knew. His absence presented her with an opportunity to make a grab for the covers, and she was cocooned before he reached the door.

Chuckling too softly for her to hear, Kellen made for the bathing room. He ran the hot water but ended up washing while it was still only tepid. He collected a basin of warmer water for Raine, tossed in a sponge, and threw a towel over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure that she knew that she needed all of it, and she might very well flee to the bathing room on her own, but he could not think of a more delicate way to broach the subject.

Holding the basin carefully in front of him, Kellen headed back. He hadn’t reached the door to Raine’s bedroom when he heard her coming at a run. He stepped aside, gave her plenty of space to charge past him, and simply shook his head as he watched her go. He could hardly fail to notice that she was clutching an armful of bed sheets against her chest. This particular embarrassment had not put color in her face. She was as pale as the shift she was wearing.

Kellen changed direction and followed at a slower pace. She kicked the door closed just before he got there. He stared at it at close quarters for several moments until discomfort with his own indecision forced him to action. Balancing the heavy basin with one hand, he rapped on the door with the other.

“Go away.”

Kellen recognized that this was a command, not a suggestion. He ignored it anyway. “At least take this bowl of water. You’ll probably want the sponge, and I have a towel.”

“Go. Away.”

He didn’t move. He heard her turn on the taps in the tub, and he had to speak over the sound of running water. “Some women bleed more than others the first time.”

There was a pause then her voice came to him from directly on the other side of the door. “Stop. Talking. Go. Away.”

He nodded. “I’ll wait over by the bed.” He didn’t know if she heard him because she didn’t answer. He forgot himself and shrugged. The movement caused water to slosh over the rim of the basin and puddle around his feet. He expelled a soft curse because the moment seemed to call for it, and he felt
marginally better afterward. The curse wasn’t directed at himself anyway. Neither was it meant for Raine. Lately, all of his curses were variations on a theme.

Damn it, Nat Church. Christ, Nat Church. Hell and Jehoshaphat, Nat Church.

Kellen wondered if Nat Church ever suspected he’d be cursed roundly and regularly, and if he’d suspected, would it have made a difference?

Kellen moved aside some items on the night table and set the bowl down. He used the towel to swipe at the water on the floor. Raine would shoot him where he stood if she slipped on her way out. She deserved a dignified exit.

He tossed some coals into the stove, warmed himself in front of it for a while, then sat down on the bed and hooked his heels on the frame. It was tempting to go after her, tempting to believe she did not know what she wanted, but being raised by a mother whose equal rights rallying cry was that women
did
know what was good for them, Kellen thought he should honor Raine and his mother by staying put.

Goddamn it, Nat Church.

Kellen could feel himself beginning to nod off. If she meant for him to fall asleep while he waited for her and thus avoid a confrontation, it was a respectable plan, even a diabolical one. He determined he could wait her out.

Raine approached the bed quietly when she saw he was sleeping. She took a woolen blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed and drew it over him. She was just tucking it around his shoulders when his hand slipped out from under it and caught her by the wrist. She gave a slight tug, not enough to pull away from him, but enough to see whether or not he would let her go. He didn’t.

“You were sleeping,” she said.

“And now I’m not.”

She thought he looked unnaturally alert for someone who had been breathing so deeply moments earlier. He didn’t even yawn. “I’m sorry I woke you. You can sleep here. I’ll stay in Ellen’s room. I’m not going to put fresh linens on your bed tonight.”

“That’s fine except for the part about you going to Ellen’s room. Stay here. With me.”

Raine spared a rather longing glance at the bed and did not refuse him out of hand. “I don’t know if that is a good idea.”

“I’m sure it’s not. But it’s what I want, and if you’re being honest, so do you.”

“You’re not much for sweet talk.”

“No.”

“It’s probably just as well. I’d be suspicious.”

“That was my thinking.”

She nodded and looked back over her shoulder. “I need to tend the lamps.”

“Leave them.”

“Move over.”

Still holding her wrist, he inched backward. Raine peeled back the covers and slid between cold sheets. She left it to him to decide if he was going to stay on top or join her under them. By the time she settled in, he was ready with his decision. As soon as he released her, Raine held up the blankets so he could slip under. She warmed her bare feet by rubbing them against his legs.

“Better?” he asked when she was finally still.

“Yes.” She turned on her side and faced him. Their knees bumped. It felt comfortable rather than awkward. “I don’t know what you thought earlier, but I wasn’t without some understanding of what might happen…you know, afterward.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she could not quite meet his eyes. “Of what
did
happen.”

“Afterward.”

“Yes.”

“Because you ran through here like your hair was on fire.” His fingers sifted through the heavy lock of coppery hair that had fallen forward. “But then, your hair always looks as if it’s about to spontaneously combust.”

Self-conscious now, Raine swept her hair behind her. She thought he would leave it there, but he reached over her shoulder and drew it back. He wound part of it around his finger. “You know that belongs to me,” she said.

“Only because it’s still attached to your head. I have it in my mind to cut it free, press it between the pages of a book, and keep it with me always.”

“And people say you’re not much for sweet talk.” His secretive, sensual smile made her heartbeat falter. It also raised her suspicions. Her eyes narrowed. “What book?”

“
Nat Church and the Raine of Fire
.”

“There’s no such book.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Wait. Is that ‘reign’ as in the Reign of Terror, ‘rein’ as in a leather ribbon, ‘rain’ as in water falling out of the sky, or ‘Raine’ as in Lorraine?”

He shrugged.

“Then you admit there’s no such book.”

“Maybe it’s being written right now.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” she said dryly. “Perhaps you should consider relating your plan to Max McCartney since he figures so prominently in it.”

Kellen absently wound more of her hair around his finger. “Max McCartney?”

“The author.”

“Oh,
that
Max McCartney. No one ever mentions him.”

She chuckled. “Did Rabbit and Finn finally convince you that Nat Church is flesh-and-blood real?”

“Something like that.”

She took his hand to stop him winding in one direction and gently nudged him to circle the other way. “You were coming back to the bedroom to take care of me, weren’t you?”

“If I say I was, are you going to level that accusation of decency at me again?”

“No, I won’t do that.”

“All right. I was. It seemed the decent thing to do.”

Smiling, Raine gave him a little poke in the chest. “Did you always suspect that I’d never been with a man?”

“I suspected that your experience was not the equal of your enthusiasm.”

“I see.”

“You had…have…a great deal of enthusiasm.”

“It would be better if you stopped talking now.”

He changed the subject instead. “Why didn’t you sleep with your husband, Raine?”

Her eyes slid away from his as she considered what she might say and whether or not she wanted to say it.

“Was it really because of his illness?”

She contemplated the easy lie and did not like the taste of it on her tongue. “No,” she said at last. She met his gaze squarely. “I didn’t sleep with him because he wasn’t my husband. Adam Berry was my brother.”

Kellen wished he could see her face more clearly. “Your brother,” he repeated. “And Ellen?”

“She’s my sister,” she said. “And Adam’s. Our half-sister. Her father is Andrew Wilson. Ours was James Berry.”

“I know that name,” he said. “Andrew Wilson, not James Berry.”

“I thought you might.”

He waited for her to help him out with a prompt, but she made him arrive at it on his own. “Coastal Railroad. San Francisco to Seattle. Paper mills and the timber route.”

“That’s right. He’s a robber baron. One of the lesser ones, to be sure, but rich is merely relative when you’re seated in the company of Leland Stanford and James J. Hill.”

“What you told me about how you acquired the Pennyroyal, was it true?”

“Most of it. Adam did win it in a card game, but the stake that I told you that Adam used to get into the game wasn’t parlayed from earlier winnings. He stole it from our stepfather. He used Andrew’s money to win this place and a good deal more besides.”