A Husband Returned: Men of Wicked Sorrow, Book One

by Wynne Roman

  “The truth?”

  “I was doing things to punish myself. But they were hurting me. And others,” he added as he worked at the tabs of her petticoat until it pooled on the floor with her dress. “Especially you. It had to stop.”

  He held her hand, drew her forward to step out of the puddle of fabric, and then released her as he bent down. He collected her clothing from the floor, draped it over the nearby chair, and finally turned back to face her.

  “Now, I would like to earn your forgiveness. I want to give you the tenderness I’ve never given another woman. I want us to begin again.”

  Begin again. It sounded so promising, if impossible.

  “What does that mean?” She had to ask.

  He gave her a deliciously mysterious smile. “Let me show you.”

  He took up a washcloth, wet it in the warm water, and brushed it over her face, her neck, her throat. Finishing, he dropped the rag back into the water and went to work on her hair. He pulled pin after pin from her coiffure, dropping each on the dresser top, and then combing his fingers through the length of her raven tresses.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered before he turned his attention elsewhere. To her camisole, specifically, and in moments he had peeled it over her head and dropped it on the chair with the rest of her clothes.

  He stared at her long enough that her nipples peaked with nervous excitement. Her breathing had gone surprisingly ragged, and he released a satisfied smile. “Your breasts are exquisite.”

  He reached for the washrag again, wrung it out, and then used it to caress her shoulders, her arms, her hands, and, finally, her breasts. He took his time there, stroking over and over, and tautening her nipples to even tighter points.

  When he had apparently decided her skin was clean enough, he bent down to kiss the rise of her breast. She drew in a ragged breath, almost forgetting to release it when he turned his attention to her nipple. He licked her, took her between his teeth for a quick nip, licked again, and then he suckled with apparent delight.

  “Nathan,” she breathed, and shoved her fingers into his hair, holding him close.

  “You like that, don’t you?” he whispered against her skin. He turned his head to treat the other breast to the same caresses, and she felt that place between her legs grow wet and aching. He had already taught her that was a good thing, and she couldn’t stop a mewling sound that came from deep within her.

  Despite everything, he knew her body so well.

  He toyed with her breasts, teased her nipples, licked and bit and sucked until she felt the edges of her sanity crumble. “Please, Nathan,” she begged.

  “What is it, honey?” He straightened and shot her a lusty glare. “What do you want?”

  Her head moved from side to side, though she didn’t recall wanting to shake it. “Oh, God. I don’t know.”

  “I do.”

  He pulled her close and caught her mouth with his. He parted her lips and pushed his tongue forward. She opened for him, accepted him, welcomed him. He urged—no, demanded—her response, and she had no thought to deny him. She kissed him back, engaged his tongue, licked his mouth, lost everything she was to him and his desire.

  Nathan pulled back, his breathing as harsh as hers. She looked into his face, tried to read something there, but his attention was focused downward. He was busy untying her pantalettes.

  Mariah swallowed and allowed him his pleasure. She stepped from the drawers, left them where they’d fallen, and then simply stood waiting as he wrung out the washcloth again.

  He sank to his knees, stroked the damp cloth over her stomach, her hips, down her legs, behind her knees. She nearly buckled at that but managed to balance herself with her hands on Nathan’s shoulders.

  He shocked her then when he leaned forward and dropped a quick kiss above her mound. Nathan swiped the damp washrag between her legs, from her ankles to just shy of that womanly place. Her breath caught, but the husky sound of his voice distracted a portion of her attention from what he was doing.

  The washcloth suddenly slid up to the seat of her femininity, and he stroked back and forth. She moaned and found herself pushing against his hand.

  Oh, dear God. Her body had taken control of her thoughts, her restraint, transforming her into a complete wanton.

  He gave her one more kiss, this one a little farther down her mound.

  He stood, dropped the cloth into the washbowl, and took her hand. He led her to the bed, seated her on the side, stood staring down at her. He pushed his suspenders from his shoulders and started to unbutton his shirt. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” she hissed.

  He grinned, shrugged from his shirt, pulled his undershirt over his head, and tossed them both on top of her pantalettes. “Good, because I want you,” he murmured silkily as he turned to his trousers, finishing quickly with the buttons, and shoving them down. He kicked them aside, and then he was as gloriously naked as she was.

  “Now.” He went down on his knees again, pushing between her thighs. “Let me taste you.”

  “Ta-taste me?”

  Mariah blinked, confused, until clarity overwhelmed her when he licked her! Between her legs!

  Nathan had put his mouth on that private, feminine place!

  “Nathan!” She tried to squirm away, but he held her in place with one palm over her stomach.

  “Mmm.” He did it again, stroking his tongue over that place where he shouldn’t put his mouth. It had already been wet, and this was just—wrong! “You taste good.” He grunted. “Like . . . woman.”

  “Oh, God,” she breathed.

  Shame and excitement warred within her. How could he do that? It just seemed completely brazen and shameless.

  But you like it, a distant voice was quick to remind her.

  She did. God, she did, and even if it was wrong, she didn’t know if she could stop it.

  The words kept disappearing with every swipe of his tongue, but she had to make one last grasp for sanity. “I don’t think . . . people are — oh!”

  He slipped his tongue directly into her opening, earning that startled gasp, and she lost all semblance of coherent thought. He did it again, and she found her hands in his hair without knowing she’d moved.

  Did she want to hold him close or push him away? “Nathan?”

  He didn’t answer at first, too busy stroking his tongue up and down, around her folds, and then slipping it inside her again.

  She gave in to his desire. “Please,” she breathed raggedly, reveling in the sensations he awoke within her.

  “Do you like it?”

  He continued his devotion, and she realized that the place he was so lovingly caressing was becoming somehow heavy. Tight. Something. When he took her into his mouth and sucked, he excited that same bundle of nerves he’d found before with his fingers.

  “Oh!” She clutched his hair again and pulled him close this time. “Please, Nathan. Oh, God, please!”

  He did it again. “Please what, honey?” He stabbed the tip of his tongue straight at that special spot and sent her hips thrusting toward him.

  “I don’t know. It’s just . . . what are you doing to me?”

  “Pleasuring you.”

  He did it all again, using his mouth and tongue expertly, and pushing her to the brink of that amazing place where only he took her. An orgasm. Until he’d returned home and actually made love to her, she hadn’t known such a thing existed.

  Distantly, she realized that he’d shifted his body, and then his hands were on her breasts. He plucked her nipples, rolling them between his fingers, and she lost all ability to speak or even breathe. Release found her as he laved her feminine core, and she tumbled over the edge of pleasure.

  “Nathan!” She called his name and surged against him. His mouth closed over her, hard this time, and he suckled her. Her whole body quivered in response.

  Satisfaction drained her, and yet it urged her to seek something . . . more. She panted, searching for unders
tanding, and the instant Nathan surged inside of her with one hard thrust, she knew.

  She needed him.

  “Oh, my love.” The words were torn from her without thought. His mouth had been wonderful, earth shattering, but having the most male part of him inside of her was exquisite.

  “You feel so damn good, Rye,” he groaned against her mouth and kissed her.

  He tasted different. Elemental. Spicy. Like she must taste? It was a naughty idea that gave her a whole new awareness of their bodies and how they had learned to share them.

  “Nathan,” she breathed, arching her hips to meet his.

  “That’s it, honey.” He shifted until her legs draped over his arms. “I need to go deeper.”

  “Yes.”

  The new position changed the angle at which he entered her, and she shivered in response. He was so big—long and deep—that she felt him everywhere. Her highly sensitized flesh felt every movement, every brush of his skin against hers.

  “Ah, Rye,” he groaned. “You are so goddamn tight, honey.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Yeah. Oh, yeah.” He let out a guttural sound that might have been a chuckle. “That’s so spectacular.”

  He pushed her legs up farther toward her shoulders as he pumped in and out of her, and the sensations in her body electrified every nerve ending. The place he’d taken her once already beckoned, promised, and everything feminine within her promised that it was more. Stronger. Deeper. All consuming.

  “Nathan!” she called. “Ah, God, what are you doing to me?”

  His pace quickened, his breathing went ragged, and her body began to tighten around him. “Ahh, God,” he grunted. “Yes!” And then, an instant later. “That’s it, honey. I’m coming right behind you.”

  His manhood seemed to grow bigger, harder, triggering her into orgasm. Her body pitched over the edge into pure physical reaction. She tightened around him—she felt it—and a moment later he shouted his own release.

  He thrust, again and again, until finally he collapsed on her. She held him, cradled him warm and tight, and lost awareness of everything except the man in her arms.

  28

  Satisfaction filled Nathan when he reflected back to that night and realized his marriage to Mariah had changed afterward. They had begun to speak easier with each other, talking more freely about their time apart. Nathan kept his stories to less-than serious tales about life in an army camp, while Mariah spoke of some of the lesser hardships of civilian life during the war. They discussed the Sangre Real and Double C almost as true husband and wife, he thought more than once.

  And they were. The new freedom in their lovemaking proved it.

  Nathan had taken to smiling to himself whenever he thought of their nights in bed. That’s what it was now. Making love. The pleasure made it all worthwhile.

  It came as a stark contrast to the strain of the ongoing problems of the Sangre Real. Cattle continued to go missing, and another skirmish had flared up between the rustlers and the vaqueros. Wylie had been injured, and they suspected one of the rustlers had been injured when they found traces of blood.

  Much to Nathan’s satisfaction, Tristan had finally decided on a plan to put the trouble to an end. They were to cull a few head of cattle from the herd, allow them to graze along the creek that served as a water source for both the Sangre Real and Double C, and lie in wait for the thieves. The creek had several crooks and turns where mesquite, huisache, and Texas persimmon trees grew, and they would provide clever cover.

  It was a solid plan—and Nathan chose to keep the details from Mariah. Guilt scored his common sense, surprising him, but he knew it was the better choice. He trusted her to know but didn’t want her to worry over it.

  Instead, he made love to her with as much tenderness as he remembered ever having shown her. Afterwards, they would lie together, kissing and whispering and laughing as they had never done before.

  As he had not even imagined they would.

  Though she had never quite said the words, Nathan knew that Mariah loved him. Was he starting to fall in love with her?

  He shied away from the question. After his mistakes with Susannah and Wren and the other women he’d let touch him, he simply wasn’t ready to even consider it.

  One thing had begun to trouble him, a question for which he had no answer. Though he would never admit as much to Mariah, he had begun to wonder about it after reading Wren’s letter. He had worked the question in his mind for several days before he posed it to Mariah.

  They lay in bed together, Mariah curled up against him. Her head rested on his chest, and her legs tangled with his. He had linked their fingers as well.

  “Why didn’t we start a family when we were first married?” he asked softly.

  She stiffened in his arms to the point that he thought she would pull away, and he tightened his hold. After a tense moment, another, she took a ragged breath and settled back against him. She didn’t relax completely, and so he stroked his free hand through her hair.

  “Rye?”

  She breathed heavily enough that he felt her breasts move against him. “You used to say that you didn’t want children if you couldn’t have them with Susannah.”

  Had he said such a thing? He didn’t remember it, but he couldn’t discount it, either. He knew damn well he’d been that much of a son of a bitch.

  But what could that mean in actuality? He considered the question. “Did you do something to stop it?”

  “What!” This time she did jerk away. She shot to her knees and was crouched next to him before he quite realized that she’d begun to move.

  “Shh, honey.” He tried to soothe her by stroking a hand down her arm. She flung herself away and would have none of it.

  “How could you say such a thing? Of course not!”

  He sat, eliminating any disadvantage he might have felt, pushing up until his back rested against the headboard. The bedroom was dark, but he could see well enough through the heavy nighttime shadows to spot exactly where Mariah crouched. He took care of the distance in an instant, and before she could do more than squeal his name, she was on his lap, cradled against him.

  “Nathan!” She squirmed.

  “Hush.” He tightened his embrace. “Settle, honey.” He deepened his voice and spoke sharply enough to gain her cooperation.

  “There.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ve heard there are ways to do that. To either prevent pregnancy or eliminate it all together.”

  “What?” It came as a demand this time, sounding entirely horrified. “I can’t even imagine doing something like that.” She turned her face into his chest and whispered, “I would give anything to have your child.”

  Her ragged-sounding words went straight to his heart. He had the sudden image of Mariah swollen with a baby they had created. It warmed his heart with surprising sentimentality—and hardened his cock in an instant.

  “But you never . . .” He hesitated. How did he ask such a question? “You were never in the family way?”

  “No.” Humiliation thickened her voice.

  “Oh, honey.” He held her against him, rocking her in comfort.

  “I’m so sorry, Nathan,” He didn’t miss the sound of tears in her voice. “I would do anything to give you a child,” she repeated, “but it never happened. Even when we were together so often in those first few months.”

  “Shh.” An unexpected helplessness settled over him. Children remained something of a foreign idea to him; the disorder of life around him had robbed him of such family thoughts. He couldn’t quite say how he felt about it.

  “I’ve never spoken of it,” she admitted so softly he wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t been listening for something. Anything. “I can only assume that I’m barren.” The word was nothing if not a tortured whisper.

  “What does Doc Parker say?”

  “I haven’t seen him. What can he say? That it’s God’s will, and I—we—will be blessed in His time.”

  Na
than snorted. It sounded more like something a preacher would say, but he supposed a doctor with no answers would rely on the Bible, as well.

  “I spoke to your mother once,” Mariah added after a few silent moments. “She merely reminded me that Sarah and Abraham were eventually rewarded after years of longing for a child. She believes it was not yet my time.”

  The advice sounded like a worthless platitude, and yet they rolled through Nathan’s mind with insidious perception. As surprising as it may seem, his mother may have actually voiced the wisest advice available.

  Nathan shifted Mariah on his lap, turning her until he could cup her face between his hands. He couldn’t see her expression, couldn’t share his, but he held her as though he could. “My dear Mariah,” he said tenderly, “she may actually have been right. Had you borne our child before now, you would have been left to raise it alone. Or with Jordan and Carolyn’s interference.”

  He smiled to himself, hearing her sharp intake of breath. Having grown up under the tutelage of both his mother and father, he knew the disappointments of their parenting. He would have never allowed a child of his to suffer the same fate.

  “Now,” he reminded her softly, “you have me.”

  “Oh, Nathan.” She pressed herself against him, holding him so close, he could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He anchored her there with steely arms around her back.

  “What do you say we practice for the day when you will quicken with my child,” he murmured, his lips tickling the shell of her ear. “Then the world will be right with us.”

  He had no time to wonder about her approval of his suggestion. For the first time he could remember, she took his mouth with hers, slipped her tongue between his lips, and made him hers.

  Mariah pulled a pan of oatmeal cookies from the oven, placed it on the stovetop, and then slid another dotted with the last of the unbaked dough into the oven. Oatmeal cookies were a favorite of Nathan’s, and she’d decided to make them as a treat. He’d been spending most of the last several days out on the range, and she wanted him to come home to something special.