The Gunslinger's Vow

by Amy Sandas

  She’d never known anyone like Malcolm Kincaid. He made her feel so many things without even trying. He warmed her with a glance, amused her with his perpetual scowl, made her so angry and frustrated sometimes that she occasionally wanted to hit him upside the head.

  And she couldn’t imagine anyone else kissing her with as much passion.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed.

  When she’d accepted Peter’s proposal, he had sealed the commitment with a kiss. A gentle, dry little press of his mouth to hers. The experience could barely even be called a kiss now that she knew better, and her realization of the difference only added further confirmation that she was right to call off the engagement. At her first opportunity, she would write Peter and explain that she could not marry him…that she did not expect to ever return to Boston.

  She never should have accepted him in the first place. She could not be happy living as his political and social ornament.

  When she married—if she ever married at all—she wanted to feel what she’d felt minutes ago.

  With a shake of her head, she acknowledged that one kiss from Malcolm did not equal a proposal. He’d uttered no promises, and no words of love had left his lips.

  She couldn’t say with certainty what it was that had been building between them. But it sure as hell was something. And she was just bold enough to admit to herself that she wanted to feel more of it.

  She looked at the closed cabin door.

  He’d been gone for a while. Long enough to have checked on the horses and fetched more than one bucket of water from the creek.

  She crossed to the door and opened it to stand on the threshold.

  The night was quiet and dark. Clouds blocked most of the stars in the sky and filtered the moon’s light to a faint glow. Listening, she heard the occasional movement of the horses behind the cabin and the rush of night wind through the trees. The chirp of crickets and the trickling sound of the creek layered in a soothing song.

  But there was no sound of Malcolm.

  She stood there for a while, her arms wrapped around her middle as she grew chilled. Her gaze remained steady as she searched the darkness.

  He wouldn’t go far. Not so far that she wouldn’t be able to call for him if she needed him. But he likely wasn’t planning on coming back to pick up where they had left off.

  Part of her wanted to strike out and hunt him down. The more rational part had her turning back into the cabin and closing the door behind her.

  But it was a brief retreat.

  She knew what she wanted now. Or at least, she knew for certain what she didn’t want: the pampered life of a Boston lady of privilege, the fearful uncertainty of a woman unwilling to trust herself.

  And she was finished with running away.

  Twenty-Nine

  Malcolm released a ragged breath. One more minute, and he would have stepped from the shadows and swept her back into his arms. One more minute, and he would have had the taste of her on his tongue again, the feeling of her softness sinking into his soul. One more minute, and he would have let himself believe he could have some of the happiness she urged him to claim.

  But he couldn’t.

  Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  Turning away, he strode silently into the night. He needed more distance, more obstacles between him and her. He had no idea how long he walked through the darkness, but after a time, the worry of leaving her alone outweighed his concerns with being near her.

  When he entered the cabin, he was relieved to find her sleeping on the edge of the bed. The fire had died to a low flicker, and the chill of night had her curled tightly on her side, with her legs drawn up close to her chest and her hands tucked between her knees.

  Malcolm added a few small pieces of wood to the fire before he eased himself onto the bed beside her, making sure not to wake her.

  He lay on his back with his body tense and his eyes staring. Even unconscious, she got to him. The rhythm of her breathing, the soft sighs of sleep that escaped her perfect lips, the warmth of her body so close, sparking the urge to hold her.

  He denied the desire to turn and take her in his arms. Denied it until his jaw ached.

  Until she stirred.

  With a gentle sound, she turned, rolling toward him in the narrow bed.

  He knew the moment she woke. Her body stiffened with awareness, and her breath caught for a second before releasing again. She obviously knew he was there, but she continued to turn until she lay facing him.

  He should have pretended to be asleep. Should have closed his eyes the second he felt her moving. Though it probably wouldn’t have kept him from feeling that soft blue gaze searching his face in the dancing shadows.

  For what?

  What did she want from him?

  He had nothing. His life had become barren and harsh since Gavin’s murder. The guilt and regret had done their job in erasing what gentleness he may have had when he was younger. His anger had smothered any bit of hope for a life outside of the burning ambition to see justice meted out to his brother’s killers by his own hand.

  It’s all he had known for a long time.

  He had nothing this woman should want.

  He’d tell her as much, but the words wouldn’t force their way past his clenched teeth.

  She shifted beside him.

  His tension sharpened, but he kept his gaze focused hard on the wooden slats of the ceiling. He ached from head to toe, but it was not from pain. It was something deeper than pain, more unsettling than desire.

  Then she reached for him. Her hand settled naturally over the fierce beating of his heart.

  Maybe she’d be content with that. Maybe she’d close her eyes and drift back to sleep, leaving him to deal with his discomfort in solitude.

  She didn’t.

  After a few minutes, she eased her hand up along the side of his neck, her thumb brushing over his jaw, her fingertips reaching into his hair.

  Against all internal warnings, he turned his head to look at her. She was too close and so damn beautiful in that flickering semidarkness.

  He should say something to discourage her, to convince her he couldn’t give her whatever it was she was seeking. But words were nowhere to be found. Not when he gazed into those eyes and saw the truth.

  She wanted him. Maybe even needed him as much as he needed her.

  Bracing her elbow beneath her, she leaned over him. Just enough to place her lips within a breath of his as her breasts pressed against the arm lying between them like a final, inconsequential barrier.

  Then she paused. Her gaze flew swift and gentle over his face. Her expression was quiet and more serious than he was accustomed to. The moment felt weighted and uncertain.

  With a flutter of her eyelids, she pressed her mouth to his.

  Desire slammed through him at the tentative kiss that quickly grew bolder when he did nothing to stop her. His better judgement lost, he eased his arm beneath her, curling her into his embrace, pulling her half on top of him as he nudged her lips apart to taste her with his tongue.

  She was so damn sweet. When her tongue slid eagerly along his, he was lost.

  A moan rumbled through his chest, and he brought his right hand up to push into her thick, dark hair, cupping the back of her head as he kissed her with the full force of the passions running wild inside him.

  She answered every thrust of his tongue with one of her own. When his hand slid down to grasp the curve of her buttocks so he could hold her more securely against him, she gasped and moaned into his mouth, her body soft yet demanding as she moved against him.

  With a harsh breath, he broke from the kiss and pushed her to her back as he rose over her. She looked up at him with her breath coming swift and shallow between parted lips. Her hands gripped his biceps, as though she feared he’d leave her
.

  “Malcolm,” she whispered on a ragged breath.

  Nothing else. Just his name.

  Despite his raging physical need, his fierce desire to take possession of all she offered, he held himself still and unmoving. Meeting her shining gaze, he muttered the deepest words of truth he’d ever spoken. “I can’t make any promises for tomorrow.”

  Her lashes fluttered, and her fingers tightened, curling into the muscles of his upper arms. “I know,” she replied, but he wasn’t confident she understood.

  Heaviness settled across his brow, and he couldn’t stop it. “I’ve got no tenderness in me. No sweet words of courtship.”

  She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping him from saying more. Her voice was low and calm when she spoke, like the current of a deep, flowing river. “It’s all right,” she assured him. “I’m not looking for forever.”

  He didn’t intend to ask, but the words came out anyway, escaping against her fingers in a hoarse whisper. “What are you looking for, Alex?”

  She did not reply right away. On a sigh, she curved her hand around the back of his tensely corded neck. “I just want to be me. In the most true and honest way possible.”

  Malcolm frowned. He didn’t understand her answer. Didn’t see how it had anything to do with him and what was happening.

  He released a ragged breath and bowed his head. His forehead nearly rested against hers, and he closed his eyes to block the light of her gaze. He was prepared to roll away—knew it was the right thing to do—but she tightened her grip on the back of his neck, drawing him in. It didn’t take much for their mouths to meet. A silent breath of desire and a gentle, urgent press.

  She felt so good beneath him. Sweet, warm, and welcoming.

  More than welcoming.

  Her body lured him. The soft arch of her back and the press of her lovely breasts, the restless shifting of her legs beneath his, and the fisting of her hand in his shirt. The more he kissed her, the more she seemed to demand he go further.

  He still believed he could resist going too far.

  Until she slid her hands beneath his shirt and swept her palms up the length of his back.

  He wanted more. He lifted himself away so he could remove the shirt altogether, tugging it off over his head rather than wasting time on the buttons. The sound of satisfaction and anticipation that purred from her throat fired his blood, but not nearly as much as her confident caresses when she smoothed her hands over the surface of his chest.

  He stilled, holding himself unmoving as she explored the contours of his torso, shoulders, and arms. Her eyes, as they followed the path of her hands, were lit with wonder and longing. She rolled her lips in to meet her tongue, then parted them to whisper on a sultry sigh, “Will you touch me like I am touching you?”

  The request nearly broke him. He growled his response. “Sweetheart, there’s a hell of a lot more than touching I want to do to you.”

  She smiled, and it was all he could do not to explode right then and there.

  “All right,” she murmured.

  Thirty

  Alexandra held her breath and waited to see what he’d do.

  She wasn’t sure she’d survive if he denied her this when she wanted it with everything she was made of.

  Her past still had to be reckoned with, and her future remained as uncertain as it had ever been. But right now, Alexandra experienced a need stronger than anything she’d ever felt before. It was a need that went beyond the sensual craving of her body, which had admittedly risen to a fever pitch. It was deeper than the longing to know who she was and where she belonged.

  This was an elemental need. Intrinsic to life. As necessary and indelible as the beating of her own heart. And she refused to deny it. Despite uncertain consequences and no knowledge of where she’d be a month from now, or a week.

  The only thing that mattered was this man. This harsh and competent man with his unwavering strength and rugged nobility, and his own silent pain. This man who admitted to a lack of tenderness even as he made her feel more cherished and safe than she’d felt in a very long time.

  A man who couldn’t look to the future until the demons of his past were resolved.

  In that, they shared a kinship. Though there were no guarantees that either of them would find their peace, in each other’s arms, they could at least have some of the pleasure life had to offer.

  Framing his face in her hands, she drew his mouth to hers. She kissed him. Drawing on his tongue, scraping his lower lip with her teeth. She kissed him with every ounce of truth and passion he inspired, with every drop of the yearning inside her.

  When he reached for her, his large hand gripping firm to the curve of her hip, she pulled back. Sitting up, she released the top few buttons of her shirt so she could lift it over her head as he had done his. She was left with only the thin linen of her undergarment to shield her breasts from the hunger in his gaze.

  Alexandra would have continued undressing—was suddenly quite desperate to bare her skin and feel his nakedness pressed to hers—but he had another idea.

  Scooping his arm around her waist, he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him until she lay sprawled on his chest, her lightly clad breasts hovering inches above his face. She planted her hands on the mattress to keep herself from falling on him completely.

  At the same time, he smoothed his hands over her shoulders, dragging the lacy, beribboned straps down her arms. As the material slid past her breasts, he lifted his head to take one peaked nipple harshly into his mouth. He suckled hard on her flesh, as though he had been dying for the taste of her.

  Alexandra’s arms stiffened, holding her in place as a luscious moan of pleasure eased from her throat. The feel of his mouth on her was intense. His tongue swirled over the sensitive peak of her breast. The heat of his mouth consumed her. Her belly erupted with wild, fluttering anticipation as the reactions within her body deepened with each pull of his mouth, until she could feel every tug deep in her core.

  He switched his attention to the other breast. While he tugged sensually at her breast with his teeth, then laved the flesh with his tongue, Alexandra melted over him. Her legs parted around his, her belly softened, and her back arched in a taut curve.

  He moved his hands to her buttocks, gripping her rear firmly as he moved her over the ridge of his erection. When his hardness made contact with the apex of her thighs, tingling sparks of sensation flew through her deepest core. Wanting more, she bent her knees around his hips, opening herself to him.

  His groan of appreciation barely registered, because he was moving her hips over him again. Her gasp at the more intimate contact dissolved into a moan as melting heat softened the flesh between her legs. The third time he slid her along his length, he simultaneously suckled hard on her breast.

  Alexandra’s strength evaporated. She dropped to her elbows, and her breasts flattened against his chest as she brought her mouth to his in a desperate, open-mouthed kiss. Fierce and passionate.

  Her rolled her onto her back, breaking from the kiss to reach for the makeshift belt holding up her borrowed pants. Within seconds, she was helping him shove the pants past her hips and down her legs until she could kick them away. She quickly released the tiny buttons of her single-piece undergarment and then that too was removed, leaving her fully naked beside him.

  She expected him to take her up in his arms again. She nearly shook with the desire to have his hands on her while his mouth moved hungrily over her breasts.

  But he chose that moment to slow down.

  Braced on his elbow, he gently cupped one breast, which rose and fell with her harsh breath. Then he slid his hand down the center of her body, past her sternum, over her belly, and down the length of one thigh. Curling his fingers around her knee, he bent her leg until the sole of her foot pressed into the mattress.

  She wasn’t sure
what to do. Her hands lay at her sides in tight fists. She wanted to reach for him, wrap her arms around his shoulders and draw him down to her until his heat and weight covered her from head to toe. She was desperate for the feel of his bare skin against hers.

  But she remained still, her eyes tightly closed.

  Because the tantalizing sensation of his large, rough hand moving so slowly, so deliberately over her body was a torturous pleasure unlike anything she could have imagined. The sudden patience in his touch when she wanted nothing more than for him to hurry, gave rise to an anticipation so intense it stole her breath.

  As his hand slid down the back of her raised thigh, she arched, thrusting her breasts up as her hips tilted and pressed down into the mattress. And when she felt the tips of his fingers easing ever closer to the wet heat at her center, she opened her eyes to find him staring down at her, his expression so beautifully dark with his deeply creased brow and tight jaw.

  He was as tortured as she was. Yet, he prolonged the moment for her. Despite the passion raging through them both, he took it slow for her sake.

  Lifting her hand, she slid her fingers into his hair, cupping the back of his head to draw him down to her. The kiss began with a slow, sensual brush of their lips. But it was clearly not enough for either of them, and when his tongue swept out to tease the corner of her mouth, she opened to him.

  As the kiss deepened, he slid his hand down between her thighs, easing two fingers along her aching folds.

  New sensations spread through her body. Alexandra gasped into his mouth. She bloomed beneath his hand. All she wanted was to open herself to him even more. While her tongue tangled wildly with his, she parted her legs and lifted her hips. He responded with another, deeper stroke of his fingers.

  Wrapping both arms around him and tucking her face into the curve of his neck, she breathed in his scent, drawing the essence of him into her own body. His mouth fell to her shoulder while his fingers caressed and teased, gliding slick along her heated folds before circling with increasing pressure over the swollen bud at the apex. The pleasure built, tension and wonder spread through her limbs, taking over her awareness until everything she knew was a shimmering, seething flow of sensation.