Claudia Dain Page 27

  "I was the same," Nell said, "but folks don't see that. They see you as being the same as the man you marry."

  "That's not fair," Anne grumbled.

  "Life's fair?" Nell said, smiling. "Maybe I'm not saying it right. It's not that they see you the same, but that they respond to you the same. You and your man, you're one. You share more than a name, you share your life."

  Share her life? With Jack? Jack was just for now. Jack was kisses that made her drunk. Jack was safety and passion and laughter. Until he left her. Or she left him.

  "Until he leaves," Anne said aloud as her dress fell to the floor in a delicate heap.

  "Until he leaves?" Nell asked. "What are you talking about?"

  "Men. Husbands. They never stay. They leave," Anne said, looking down at the floor and the flattened heap of her dress.

  "Anne, that's not true," Nell said heavily.

  "Yes, it is." Anne looked at her mother, her arms crossed over her breasts. "It's always true."

  "No, it isn't. Look at the Holts."

  "Miss Daphne says it takes thirty years to see if a marriage will stick." Her granddaddy had left after twenty-seven.

  "But that's—"

  "That's the way it is. That's the way it's going to be. One way or the other."

  And it would be her way. She'd leave him before he could leave her. She'd pick the time and the place. She'd move on, make a new life, start over. She'd be the one to leave.

  Nell stood and held Anne in her arms, rocking her gently to and fro. Her ma hadn't done that since she'd had been a child, right after her father had left. That pain was behind them. She'd made sure of that. That pain wasn't ever going to touch her again.

  "You don't marry a man thinking he's going to leave you, Anne. Only God knows what's coming. Maybe I made a poor choice in a man. God willing, you made a better one." Nell kissed Anne's cheek. "Enjoy every day you've got, not because you're afraid he'll leave, but because every day's a gift." Nell rocked her daughter and kissed her temple, smoothing the hair away from her face. "I don't have the best judgment in men, but I don't think Jack'll leave."

  Sarah opened the door and hurried in; she'd escaped from Miss Daphne, for the moment.

  "He won't leave until he's taken advantage of his marital privileges," Sarah said, misinterpreting what she'd heard. Nell and Anne didn't correct her; their conversation had been too private to share, even with Sarah. Nell patted down Anne's hair and bent to pick up Anne's dress.

  "What exactly does that mean?" Anne said, crossing her arms over her suddenly sensitive breasts.

  "You're her mama, you want to tell her?" Sarah asked Nell.

  "You want to tell her so bad, you go ahead," Nell said, hanging up the dress in the wardrobe.

  "You know those kisses he's been handing out?"

  Anne was sick of blushing, but she did it anyway. "Yeah?"

  "Like that, only everywhere. If you're lucky," Sarah said. "With Jack, I think you're going to get lucky."

  Chapter 22

  "I never figured you to marry," Grey said.

  The porch was shadowed in twilight, a wind kicking around the corners, pulling at the flaking paint. The rest of the wedding guests had gone on home a while back. They were alone, except for the women in the house.

  "I never figured it either, but here I am," Jack said.

  Why tell them that he'd never thought a woman would have him who didn't have to be paid for it first? That was nobody's business but his own. That he'd come by a woman like Anne, well, that just proved that God looked kindly on fools and sinners.

  "What you gonna do with her now?" Blakes asked.

  It was a question. He couldn't take her with him when he hunted bounty; that was no life. He'd have to leave her. At least he'd be leaving her safe. No married women had been killed; he was going to have to count on that.

  "I'm going to do my job and leave her to do hers," Jack said. "She's safe now. I can finish this thing. It needs doing and I got to get to it."

  "Whoever he is, he's been pretty slick," Grey said, leaning against the post.

  "Yeah, well, I can handle it. Once I get hold of him, he's not going anywhere."

  "The trick is to get hold of him," Grey said.

  "Yeah," said Blakes.

  “Yeah," said Jack. “You thinking I'm not up to it?"

  "Nah, just that you might need some help."

  He didn't like the idea of help. Help could leave you flat and worse off than if you'd done it alone. Except now he had Anne and her family to think about. He didn't like the idea of leaving a houseful of women to fend off whatever came in from the prairie.

  "Sure," Jack said, accepting the offer.

  The two men shifted their weight and exchanged a glance.

  "What?" Jack asked, watching them.

  "That gal sure has softened you," Grey said. "You never was so easy as this before."

  Jack just grunted, sure Grey meant it as a joke. Well, pretty sure.

  It was near dark when he went upstairs. He'd finished his cigar; that was more than enough time for her to get herself ready for her wedding night. He was more than ready.

  When he got to the top of the stairs, he realized that he didn't know which room was hers; all the door were closed against him. He knew that Daphne and Nell and Sarah were downstairs, because he could hear the sounds of women softly talking over the equally soft clink of china submerged in water. It was a nice sound, real homey. But even though they were downstairs, he didn't want to open up the door to any room that wasn't Anne's. The way Miss Daphne had looked at him all day, she'd most likely accuse him of stealing and he didn't want a thing in this house. Except Anne.

  "Anne?" he called softly.

  "Yes?" he heard after a bit of hesitation.

  The sound came from the right, but there were two doors on the right and he couldn't tell which one had her voice behind it.

  "You going to invite me in?" he said.

  After a longer hesitation, the door nearest the stairs opened, just a crack, but a crack was all he needed. He pushed the door open with his fingertips and eased in. She was wearing a gown of thin cotton that had buttons all the way down the front; all those buttons... he got hard, then and there. She must have sensed it because she backed up real quick and banged her hip against the base of the bedstead. It must have hurt, but she was too scared to say anything. She stood there, staring at him as if he were going to kill her, rubbing her hip with her hand.

  For a cigar's worth of waiting, Anne didn't seem too ready.

  "You're beautiful, Anne," he said, his voice gentle and even. He used the same kind of tone when he was getting the feel of an unfamiliar horse; seemed like the same kind of situation. But Anne didn't need to know that. "That's a real pretty gown."

  "It's nothing special, nothing new, I mean."

  "Doesn't need to be new to look good on you. You'd look good in a saddle blanket. At least to me."

  "Thank you. I think."

  Her eyes were wide and open, the whites showing clearly in the dim light from the single lamp. She looked ready to bolt.

  He moved toward her, hand outstretched and palm up, offering her his hand, offering her his touch. She backed up and put her hand to her throat.

  "Come here, Anne. I only want to kiss you."

  She pressed her lips together and kept her distance.

  "Don't you want a kiss?" He smiled, taking off his rifle. She watched him carefully, completely, silently. “You're my woman. I want to kiss you, to feel you in my arms, pressed up against me, with your mouth hot on mine. Don't you want the same?"

  He took off his holsters, one at a time and laid them on the floor next to the bed. His rifle he laid atop the dresser. He took off his belt and watched her turn white as flour.

  "Didn't they tell you nothin'?" he asked softly.

  "They told me some things," she whispered back, her eyes on his boots, where she could watch him without meeting his eyes.

  "What things?" He unbutton
ed his shirt, slowly, just the way he was going to unbutton all those little white buttons that ran from her neck to her feet. One small button at a time.

  "They said... they said 'it' was just like kissing, only..."

  "Only what?"

  "Only better."

  He opened up his shirt and without any fuss, pulled out his shirttails. He was tanned brown from living outside for so many years; some women liked a man like that, some didn't. He hoped Anne liked what she saw. He threw his shirt on the floor in the corner. Her eyes flickered up to his waist and then hurried back down to his boots. And then flickered up again to his chest. And then dropped back down to his knees. Progress.

  "That's no lie," he said, sitting in the room's only chair, a rocker, to kick off his boots. The first one was the hardest; it fell with a thud to the floor and he kicked it out of the way. The second one slid off more easily and he dropped it on top of the first. "But they didn't tell you near enough, did they?"

  "No, at least, I don't think so."

  She was still holding on to her throat, as if she wanted to squeeze the air right out of herself, but her breath was coming on strong anyway. And real fast. Yeah, she liked what she saw.

  "Well, I wish they would have, but I'll fill you in. If you want."

  His socks he tossed on top of his boots. They were clean, so he didn't worry about the smell. He'd washed up good and proper before this wedding, wearing the best clothes he had, getting a shave and a haircut.

  He stood up and eased open the top button on his pants. Her eyes jerked up to focus on his waist as if he were the only thing in the room. That was good. That was just where he wanted to go.

  "You know, men and women, they're put together different," he said pleasantly.

  "I know that much," she said with a scowl. He stood with his hands on his hips and that's where she was looking. That was fine with him. More than fine.

  "Well, that's good, Anne." He grinned. "I never did take you for a half-wit."

  "Now I'm the one who's not going down that trail again," she said with a little smile. He smiled back. This was going better and better.

  He undid another button. Anne stopped smiling. She also stopped strangling herself; instead, she crossed her arms over her breasts and swallowed something that sounded like a moan. He hoped that meant she liked what she saw.

  She did. He was corded with muscle, lean muscle riding his belly and sitting on his shoulders, rippling with the smallest movement. It was mesmerizing. She couldn't stop looking at him. His chest was near hairless, but a line of brown hair traced its way down his belly to land somewhere below his partially opened pants. He was a hard man, looked rock hard every square inch of him, but it was the kind of hard that compelled. She wanted to press up against him like she had before, but against that skin... she just knew he'd be hot. Hot and smooth and hard. It wouldn't be like before at all. Everything was different now.

  "You don't notice it much, the difference, in kissin', but it gets real noticeable... later. Can't hide it then," he said.

  He wasn't going to be able to hide it much longer now, the way he was talking. He didn't know how he was going to get his pants off without Anne running from the room, or else dropping in a dead faint. The thing to do was distract her and he knew just the way she liked best.

  "Like what?" she asked, her voice curious even if her posture was guarded.

  "Like..." He shrugged. "Like we don't have the same parts and your parts and my parts, they just sort of... blend. It's like when we kiss; your mouth and mine, touching, blending, opening..." Lord Almighty, he was a fool to talk like this when Anne wasn't near ready to help him out of the hole he was digging for himself.

  "I like the kissing," she said softly. She wanted him closer, wanted to touch the muscles on his arms and chest. She could do that if they kissed. And kissing was safe; she knew about kissing. She could manage the kissing, but the rest of it? She didn't want any man to get that close. Or she hadn't. Until Jack. Until now.

  "Don't I know," he said, shifting around in his pants. "How about you come over here and let me kiss you?"

  "Dressed like this?"

  "You wanna take it off?" He smiled.

  "No!"

  "Then come as you are," he said, hooking his thumbs in at the top of his pants. Anything to keep from grabbing her and pushing her to tears. He wasn't going to start his marriage like that.

  He gave her credit for guts; she came on. Or maybe it was just that she liked his kisses too much to turn one down. It didn't much matter, as long as he coaxed her within range.

  The lamp was on the table behind her as she walked slowly across that bare wood floor; he could see the outline of her through the white cotton. Lord, she was shapely, even without a corset. And she was scared, her body was trembling and she was chewing her lip. It was going to be a long night.

  "Come on, Anne, you've got nothing to worry about. You know what this is like."

  "But what about what comes after?" she said, looking up at him with both fear and trust.

  "It'll come when it'll come; let it take care of itself."

  "But—"

  "You know I won't hurt you, don't you?" he whispered, running his hands over the dark length of her hair. "I'll never hurt you."

  "It's just that, Sue Ann told me—"

  "Never mind what anybody else says, just listen to me," he said, stroking her back and turning her face up to accept his kiss. He kissed her on the corner of her mouth and she trembled at the tingle it caused. "I'm your husband. My job is to take care of you and I'm going to do it, every day of my life I'm going to do it." He kissed the very top of her cheek and felt her eyelashes brush down as her head tilted back. "You can trust me, can't you?"

  "I want to," she breathed, her eyes closed.

  "Then do what you want. Do what you want with me, here, now. Go on, Anne. Don't hold back. Not now. Not with me."

  He kissed her then, his hand going up her back until he cupped the back of her skull. She was so delicate; the slightest pressure would break her neck. She relaxed into the kiss, her breath coming out as a sigh and her trembling easing off as her fear lessened. With his other hand, he undid the very first button, the one that lay just on top of the pulse point in her throat.

  His hands skimmed, as light as goose down, over her breasts. She pulled herself away from him. He pulled her back and kept kissing her. He plunged into her mouth with the most gentle of persuasions, twining tongue with tongue, sharing breath.

  He unbuttoned the second button.

  She didn't seem to notice. Or maybe it was that she didn't care. Or maybe, just maybe, she was trying to trust him.

  His hands came up again to brush against the peaks of her breasts. When she moved her body away from him this time, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, pressing her breasts up against his bare chest as he kissed her. She didn't fight him off. Progress.

  He trailed his mouth down the side of her throat while his hands traced her hips. That second button hadn't opened up much more of her than neck and throat, so he kissed her at the opening and then nibbled his way up, where he sucked and bit the soft, supple skin of her throat. It'd leave a mark, sure, but he didn't care. She was his woman. And she liked it. He'd make sure she liked it.

  With one hand, he lifted a breast, enjoying the soft weight of it in his hand, and when she would have protested, bent down and flicked her nipple with his tongue through the thinness of the cotton.

  She moaned and leaned into him, gripping his hair with her hands.

  "Anne? Are you all right?" Miss Daphne demanded from the hall side of the door.

  Anne jerked like a calf when the slack's played out of a lasso and her eyes flew open to stare at the door.

  "She's fine," Jack said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. The mood sure was broken now.

  "Anne! Answer me!" Daphne barked.

  "Yes," Anne said. "Yes, I'm fine."

  "Well," Daphne said crossly, "I though
t I heard something and just wanted to be sure. Is there anything I can get you before I go to bed?"

  "No, no," Anne said, blushing and running her hands up and down her thighs in nervous agitation. "Good night."

  "Good night, Anne."

  They could hear her door close and then there was quiet. But she was right next door and they both knew it. Damned if he was going to wait; Anne needed some good, hard kissing to make her forget that her family was perched all around her like a flock of vultures. It was his wedding night and he was going to have one, no matter who came knocking on the door.

  The time for talk was over.

  Before she could say a word, he pulled her to him and kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth before she could think to protest. He rubbed his hands against her breasts and when she acted like she was going to pull away, he pulled her right back and caressed her breasts like they were meant to be touched; gently, relentlessly, and, God willing, eternally. It didn't take more than a few seconds for her to stop fighting him. She sure wasn't much of a fighter.

  That was when he backed her up so that she'd fall down on the bed. She looked like she was going to say something, so he kissed her, quick, and undid that next button. It opened the fabric that covered her breasts. Pushing it aside, he licked her, kissing her there the way she liked to be kissed on her mouth. She thrashed beneath him, but she didn't fight him. That was good.

  "It's good, isn't it? You want this."

  He moved his other hand up and thumbed her nipple while his tongue played hard on the other. She moaned and put her hand over her mouth. So, she wanted to keep quiet; he had Daphne to thank for that.

  He undid another button.

  Now he had enough play in the gown so that he could ease it off her shoulders and down her arms. Lord, she was a beauty. Smooth skin, soft as brushed flannel, and white as bleached linen. Breasts full and round and topped with nipples of baby pink. And all that dark hair spread beneath her, deepest black in the light of that one lamp. She was like something you hear about in stories, something you'd never expect to find and actually be able to hold. And she was his. His woman. His wife.