She gave him a quizzical look. “Plowing? Farmers?”
“Look, Cat, you told me you were plannin’ on gettin’ married…maybe even next week. I don’t know how things are in Italy, but in California, it ain’t right to make love to another man’s wife.”
“But I might never get married.”
“Oh, you’ll get married. A lady as pretty as you?”
“Maybe I do not want to get married.”
“Well, if you don’t want to get married, then why are you so eager to have sex?”
She smugly crossed her arms. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Chapter 18
Drew sat forward and pressed hard at his temples. Catalina was taxing his brain. But she had a point. Men were like bees, flitting around from woman to woman, while women were supposed to save themselves for marriage. It didn’t exactly make sense.
“Fair enough,” he told her. “And I don’t have a good answer. That’s just the way it is and the way it’s always been.”
It wasn’t up to Drew to change the morals of society. It was hard enough being a half-breed. He didn’t need to add seducer of virgins to his list of liabilities.
“So you are turning me down?” she said.
“That’s right,” he said, though every nerve in his body was screaming at him for it.
“Fine.”
“Glad that’s settled.” He threw back her side of the covers and patted the mattress. “Now why don’t you be a good girl and come to bed?”
“If you do not wish to make the sex with me, then maybe I will go downstairs and find a man who will.” She moved toward the door.
“Wait! What?”
She paused.
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“I am very serious.”
“You’re makin’ a big mistake, Cat.” He couldn’t believe she’d actually consider sleeping with one of the rowdy brawlers in the salon. “Did you take a good look at ’em?”
She shrugged. “One of them looked very gentlemanly.”
He racked his brain. She must be talking about the man who’d come to the defense of the saloon girl. If that dandy had any experience at all with women, Drew would eat his Stetson.
She took another step toward the door.
“Hold on!”
She hesitated.
She had to be bluffing, didn’t she? Just two days ago, she’d blushed to be seen in her underthings. Was she honestly planning to open that door and put herself on display for the whole Parlor?
“I don’t think you want to be doin’ that,” he told her.
“I think I do,” she mused. “In fact, I am certain of it. I will just ask Miss Hattie which man she thinks would be the second best to—”
“What?” He practically leaped out of the bed. “Are you crazy? You can’t go out there and parade yourself in your unmentionables in front of all those men.”
She shrugged. “Why not? The other ladies do it all the time.”
“You’re not the same as the other ladies,” he argued as definite panic rose in his chest. “They’ve got experience. You don’t know what you’re doin’. They’ll eat you alive, Cat.”
“I have to learn somehow. And if you are not wishing to make the sex with me…” She turned again, stepping toward the door.
“Wait!” He bit out the foulest curse he knew under his breath. “Will you just listen to me?”
She turned back and crossed her arms. “I am listening.”
He rubbed his palm across his mouth. How could he convince her not to do this? He’d played cards all afternoon, earning enough money so he could claim her for himself and prevent this very thing.
“Look, Cat, I spent my hard-won silver on this room and your company, and I’m not givin’ ’em up.”
“Miss Hattie will give you back your coin. I am certain one of the other ladies would be happy to—”
“I don’t want one o’ the other ladies. I want you.”
“But that is the point,” she said, looking miffed. “You do not want me, not in that way.”
He couldn’t argue with that. It was what he’d said. But it sure as hell wasn’t what he meant.
“Cat, you don’t know what you’re gettin’ yourself into. I can’t let you throw away somethin’ as precious as…as your virginity…to some fumble-fingered roughneck. I just can’t let you do it. I won’t let you do it.”
He could almost see steam coming out of her ears.
“You are not my father,” she bit out. “You do not get to do the bossy with me. I am my own woman. I will do as I wish.”
She wheeled with a sassy flip of her hair. When she reached for the doorknob, he panicked and did the first thing he could think of to keep her from opening the door. He threw a pillow at her.
It hit her square in the back of the head.
She gasped in outrage.
His jaw dropped. Shit, had he actually just thrown a pillow at a woman?
Before he had a chance to say he was sorry, she picked up the pillow and flung it back at him.
He got a face full of cotton before the pillow slid down his chest and onto the floor. Stunned, he bent to retrieve it, formulating an apology in his head. “Aw, Cat, I’m so sor—”
He never got to finish it. Like a mountain lion, Cat charged at him, giving him a hard shove that knocked him backwards onto the bed.
But she wasn’t done. She snatched the pillow out of his hands and began battering him with it.
“Wait!”
The pillow hit his shoulder.
“Cat!”
It hit his chin.
“Hold—”
It hit his nose.
He defensively threw his hands up and, after the fourth blow, dug his fingers into the fabric. When she yanked it back for another attack, the seam split.
Downy white feathers spilled forth. Still she continued to pummel him with what was left of the pillow, strewing feathers everywhere.
He sneezed, startling her for an instant, but she immediately resumed her punishment.
He finally grabbed the second pillow from the bed and defended himself. He caught her on the hip, then the shoulder, then the head. Each time she squealed with rage. But still she fought.
“Stop!” he finally commanded. It was clear she wasn’t going to win this fight. She was almost out of feathers. “Stop it, Catalina!”
“No!”
She tried to seize his pillow then. For one moment, they engaged in a fierce tug-of-war. Then the seam on the second pillow burst. Feathers filled the air like a hatching of white moths.
Still stubbornly clinging to the weapon and vying for ownership, they tore the pillow in half, continuing to flail at each other with the scraps of cotton.
Drew finally decided to put an end to the fight, mostly because he knew who was going to have to clean up the room. While she continued to beat at him, he dropped what was left of his half of the pillow and seized her by the wrists.
“Let go of me!” She twisted in his grasp.
“Not unless you promise me you won’t go out there.”
“Do not bossy me!”
“Fine.” He continued to grip her wrists.
Compressing her lips, she reared back her foot. He could see the kick coming. So he hauled her forward, turning her and pinning her on her back to the bed. When she tried to knee him, he threw his leg over hers to hold her still.
She spit out a long string of what he guessed were Italian swear words as she tried to work herself free.
“You are a bad man,” she spat.
“Am I?” He leaned in close to her until their faces were almost touching. “Because if you think I’m bossy, you don’t know anything about men. Those gentlemen downstairs? If they had you on your back like this, they’d do whatever they wanted to you, whether you liked it or not. At least you know your virtue’s safe with me.”
Catalina glared into the dark, burning eyes of her captor. As he loomed over her, she felt anyth
ing but safe. She was breathless from the pillow fight. Her blood was running hot. And the pressure of his thigh across hers was doing strange and lovely things to her.
Of course, she’d been bluffing all along. She had no intention of striding out onto the balcony in her camisole and drawers, much less inviting any of the men downstairs to join her in bed.
She’d only wanted to prove to Drew that he did feel something for her, even if it was only jealousy.
But things had gotten out of hand. True, he had thrown the first pillow. But she could have laughed it off. Instead, she’d let her temper get the best of her. In a childish fit of fury, she’d escalated the fight.
She should have realized it was a fight she couldn’t win. Now she was at his mercy.
Yet that wasn’t at all how she felt. She didn’t feel threatened in the least. On the contrary, she felt empowered. Though she was trapped like that mindich in the snare, her quickening pulse had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with excitement.
She lowered her gaze to his mouth. She wanted to kiss that mouth. And she was feeling bossy enough to do it.
She craned up her head, pressed her lips to his, and stayed there.
He didn’t move away. But he didn’t respond either. At least, not at first.
But as she pressed softly against him, remembering how he’d taught her, he gradually grew more receptive. She tentatively opened her lips to him.
“Oh, Cat, what are you doin’ to me?” he murmured against her mouth.
His words thrilled her. A heady rush of desire coursed through her veins. She might be pinned beneath him, but she felt intoxicated by her own power.
His mouth slanted against hers as he deepened the kiss. When his tongue touched hers, a current of lust sizzled through her like lightning. She moaned as fire seemed to lick her nerves to life, culminating in a bright point of flame between her legs.
His grip loosened around her wrists. But the instant he released her, she reached up to delve her hands into his hair, holding his head still for her eager exploration.
The thick black waves, strewn with white feathers, curled around her fingers as she traced the shells of his ears. Her thumbs rasped over the coarse stubble in the hollows of his cheeks. His breath blew hot across her face as she tasted him again and again.
Then he lowered his body gently to hers, taking her breath away. His hard male body pressed against her like a hot iron on cloth, smoothing away her rough edges and making her feel beautiful. She arched toward him, and he slipped his arm beneath her, pulling her even closer.
The need she felt was stronger than hunger, more intense than thirst. The sharp craving between her thighs transformed into a dull ache in her belly. She wanted him there, deep inside her, filling her.
As if he understood her silent plea, he moved one hand to the very spot of her longing, all the while raining kisses over her cheek and along her neck, nuzzling her ear with sensuous whispers, words she didn’t recognize.
His fingers found her through the thin cotton, and she pressed up against his palm, gasping at the divine sensation.
He responded with a soft, rueful chuckle. “Is this what you want?” he murmured.
“Si,” she begged. “Yes.”
When he slid his fingers away, it was only to untie her drawers and slip his hand inside, against her skin. She held her breath as she felt his warm fingertips glide downward over her abdomen, through her curls, parting her to nestle with reassuring pressure on that throbbing part of her.
“Like this?” he said softly.
She closed her eyes, bit her lip, and nodded.
He began moving his fingers over her flesh with a delicate precision that defied his brutal strength, eliciting a new and strange sensation in her. It seemed as if he summoned forth a goddess hidden within, for Catalina sighed and mewed and purred in a language unfamiliar to her before now.
More and more he gave her, driving her to new heights of passion. And when she didn’t think she could reach a higher plane of ecstasy, he murmured tender words in his breathy tongue, sending shivers into her ear.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
She clutched desperately at his shoulders.
A silent scream built inside her.
And then, it was as if her tight corset strings had been cut loose all at once. Crying out in relief at the welcome liberation, she arched and trembled under his touch. He groaned in empathy, and the pressure of his palm was like a soothing final kiss.
She let her eyes drift open. He was gazing down at her.
What she saw in his eyes was impossible to define. They smoldered with yearning, but there was a tenderness cradled within that desire. Sweat beaded his brow. His nostrils flared with arousal. Yet his restraint was clear in the clench of his jaw. And it was this—the gentleness that tempered his lust—that moved her beyond words and made her feel irreversibly connected to him.
Her eyes filled with tears of wonder. Incredible, life-changing words—words she’d never said to a man before—rose to her lips.
Ti amo, I love you.
But just as she would have given voice to them, the loud shatter of a glass bottle against the door split the air, splitting them apart as well.
And the moment vanished.
Chapter 19
Hours after Catalina—as content as a kitten with a dish of cream—had drifted off to satiated slumber, Drew still stared up at the ceiling. Not only was his body tormented by frustrated desire, but his mind felt like a battlefield of conflicting notions.
He’d been a “tumbling rock,” as Cat had called him, for so many years, it seemed impossible to change. But he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving and losing the adorable, maddening Italian lady to anyone else.
Once he was out of the picture, she’d be free to court and kiss and—he thought, grinding his teeth—sleep with whomever she wanted. Would he be able to blithely hit the trail, knowing she might be cozying up to another man?
He rolled toward her, gazing at her moonlit profile. She was beautiful, breathtaking, unforgettable, in spite of the feathers littering her dark hair.
But Drew had met lots of beautiful women.
Cat was more than that. She was brimming with fire and spirit, ambitious, clever, witty and wise yet sweet and innocent, worldly and full of wonder all at once.
After he’d pleasured her, when she’d looked into his eyes, he’d felt a connection he’d never felt with a woman before.
He didn’t want to lose that connection. Damn it, he wanted to feel it again…forever.
The way he saw it, he had three choices.
He could continue fleecing the folks of Paradise for twenty dollars every day and buy Cat’s company every night for the rest of his life.
He could steal her away like his ancestors had with women of the neighboring tribes and take her back to Hupa.
Or he could do the right thing and marry her.
Ordinarily when he thought about marriage, it was with a nasty taste in his mouth, as if he were thinking about swallowing a spider.
But this time, the idea seemed as appetizing as a cool swig of manzanita cider—sweet, comforting, and slightly tart.
Marrying Catalina wouldn’t signify the end of his journey, after all, but the beginning of a new adventure. And he had to admit it seemed like an adventure worth undertaking.
As he lay basking in the midnight moonlight, listening to the soft sounds of her breathing, he let his brain get used to the idea of having a wife.
He imagined seeing Cat’s smile first thing every morning, watching her put on all those intriguing layers of clothing, sitting together at breakfast, sharing a cup of coffee with her.
He imagined coming home in the evening to a cozy house with a white picket fence, swapping stories beside the fire, snuggling with her under the covers and “making the sex.”
He imagined having a whole brood of little Hawks that looked just like her, celebrating birthdays and going on picnics
and visiting Grandmother Mati and Grandfather Sakote in Hupa.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that maybe it was time. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to settle down. In fact, after a good hour of pondering, he decided that marrying Miss Catalina would be a change for the better and the best bet he’d ever made.
His mind made up, he smiled over at his dozing bedmate and whispered, “Good night, Mrs. Hawk.”
He kissed her temple. She smiled and sighed in her sleep.
Then, filled with new energy and purpose, Drew stole out of bed and quietly dressed. If he wanted to marry this prize of a woman, he had to earn not only her affections, but her trust.
He’d promised her he’d help her clean up the mess downstairs. From the sound of things, the brawl was long over. He might as well get an early start on getting The Parlor back in order.
Catalina was awakened shortly before dawn by a soft knocking on her door. When she opened her eyes in the dim room and saw the empty, feather-littered mattress beside her, she gasped in disappointment. He’d left.
Before her disappointment could bloom into full heartbreak, the knock came again.
“Just a moment,” she croaked out.
She climbed out of bed, snatching up her loose drawers before they could slither down to her ankles, and then giving them a hasty tie. She snagged her wrapper from the wardrobe and staggered through a sea of feathers toward the door. The impatient knocking returned as she slipped on the wrapper.
“I’m coming,” she muttered with a frown.
When she cracked open the door, Jenny stood there, shaking, her face obscured by her hands and strands of her tangled hair.
Without a word, Catalina immediately widened the door and ushered her in, closing it carefully after her.
Jenny began sobbing at once.
Catalina narrowed her eyes in concern. “What’s wrong?”
When Jenny lowered her hands, Catalina could see her swollen, bloody lip and the bruise on her cheekbone.
She gasped in shock, and her gaze was drawn lower, to the tear in the beautiful yellow gown she’d altered for the girl.
Native Hawk (California Legends Book 3) Page 13