“Yes you can,” came his husky response as he expertly and gently undressed her, opening her like a flower, revealing each petal of her femininity to his gaze, his touch, his kiss. Until finally he was kneeling before her, his hands spread on her bare back, his mouth capturing first one budded nipple and then the other. The sensations that rippled through Glory made her throw her head back, made the back of her throat dry and feel thick with need. She felt the cascade of her hair caress her bottom, felt the burst of desire in her belly when Riley all but raised her off her feet to kiss the soft, dark curls that covered her woman’s mound.
A crying sound she’d never before made in her life rang out into the silent air of the room. On its echo, Riley stood up, and with Glory’s fevered help, divested himself of his boots and clothes. In only moments, he stood before her in his naked glory, proud, aloof, and yet totally wrapped around her finger, his heart in her hand.
Glory realized that … and accepted it. This man was hers, given to her by God. She could uplift him. Or destroy him. Looking deep into his eyes, seeing his soul mirrored there, Glory lifted her arms up to him, invited him into the center of her womanhood, gave him the gift of her heart.
“Oh, Glory.” He sighed. And again he lifted her, gently laying her on the bed. He joined her there, lying half atop her, half beside her, his leg thrown over both of hers, as he smoothed his hands over her body. Near to writhing under his touch, so intense was the pleasure, so close to actual pain were the sensations he wrought, that Glory sought to pleasure herself with the feel of him. He was like warm marble, like a pulsing sculpture under her hands.
“You are so beautiful, Glory,” he breathed, even as he shifted, moving over her, moving down her, his hands and lips playing her body like a harp.
“So are you,” Glory answered him, running her hands over his shoulders, his neck, and clutching at handfuls of his thick, dark hair just as he—her breath caught, her muscles tensed—kissed her there. An aching cry of primal pleasure tore out of her, but she was helpless in his hands, forced to absolutely surrender against his mouth. Riley sipped and swirled, kissed and prodded. Glory’s every nerve centered on the throbbing between her legs. “No,” she murmured. “No.”
But her mouth slacked open, her eyes squeezed shut. Time ceased to exist. Only Riley populated her world. Glory had to wonder why people the world over ever did anything but this, so good did it feel. It was her last thought before his ministrations brought her to the peak and tipped her over the edge. A throat-tightening, guttural cry escaped Glory as she rode the crest of her climax, as she undulated with a soft violence against Riley’s mouth, as her body opened fully to his onslaught.
Clutching at handfuls of the quilted bedspread under her, as breached and vulnerable as any woman ever could be, Glory didn’t even move when Riley kissed his way back up the length of her and settled himself in the saddle of her hips. He gathered her in his arms and took her mouth in the same way he just had her core. “This is what you taste like. This is who you are,” he told her. “This is what I think of when I think about you. This and so much more.”
Lost, undone, Glory arched her hips against Riley’s powerful legs. She wrapped her own legs around his hips, pushed on his shoulders. He answered her by probing her opening, by unerringly finding her center, and slipping inside her. As if the mere contact with her innermost self was more than he could stand, he jerked, lowering his forehead to her shoulder. A ragged cry, some jumble of words that Glory didn’t catch, accompanied his rapid breathing.
And then … they were one, in perfect union with their souls, with their love for each other. Riley rocked his hips against her, Glory met each thrust with one of her own. In this way, she struggled to express the depth, the force of her love for him. She wanted to show him that she was the woman for him, that she was his match. That her love could equal his. And the only way she could do it at this moment was to use her body as a vessel, to offer it up, to allow him into the secret places of her heart.
And to hope that, in the coming days, in the coming trials, this love she had for him would be strong enough to survive.
Chapter 16
The old buckboard wagon, pulled by the obedient roans hitched to it, clattered over the rutted grooves of the trail that connected the Thorne land with the Lawless boundary. Above it, the winter sun bathed the dun-colored hills and browning tallgrass in its weak morning light.
Glancing at the huge and steadily rising sun, Biddy huddled in her cloak and threaded the reins through her fingers. Then, dividing her attention between the horses’ plodding pace and Louise Thorne at her side, Biddy said, “’Tis sorry I am to be dragging ye out in this cold. But ’tis glad I am ye would come with me this morning. I’m near to being out of me mind with worry for Glory. I only hope she survived the night, what with the truth of that journal staring her in the face.”
Louise Thorne reached over to squeeze Biddy’s cloak-covered arm. “Now, don’t you fret none, Biddy. You did the right thing staying overnight with me. You couldn’t see your way home in the dark, and Glory’s smart enough to figure out that you’d stay. Besides, what with Ben and the boys being out with the cattle, and me all alone, I was glad for the company.”
“It was nice, wasn’t it—just the two of us?” Biddy was quiet a moment, but then added, “I’m hoping yer menfolk get them cattle back onto Lawless land before Mr. Rankin finds them gone. There’d be no end to the troubles.”
Louise shook her head, disturbing the trailing bonnet ribbons tied under her chin. “Don’t I know it. You’re right, too—about them trackers you spoke of last night. Because someone’s taking pains to make us Thornes look like rustlers of Lawless cattle. I’d bet the same man who tried to hurt Glory is behind this—and wantin’ us all at each other’s throats. It makes sense. I swear, I told Ben no good would come of all them meetings about the danged Lawlesses—”
Biddy cut her gaze over to Louise, saw her wide-eyed, guilty stare, and encouraged, “Go on. ’Tis all right.”
“I’m sorry, Biddy.” Louise slumped with her words. “Sometimes I forget.”
Biddy pursed her lips. “’Tis easy to do. But still, yer menfolk are going to miss ye. And they’ll not be happy with where ye are.”
Louise waved that away with a brush of her hand. “They don’t tell me what to do. Besides, it’ll do ’em good to fend for themselves a day or two. If we don’t pass ’em on the way to your place, they’ll see my note when they ride in. I’m not worried about them.”
Biddy nodded and smiled, spared her friend a glance. “Yer a good woman, Louise Thorne. A fine and loyal friend.”
Louise brushed that away, too, with a hoot of laughter. “I just do what I have to, Biddy, what I feel in my heart. And don’t forget, my firstborn is tied up in all this, too. I’m thinking of him.”
Biddy adjusted the reins in her hands and forced a light note into her voice. “Ye know, he and Glory have been … alone now this past night.”
She didn’t have to say more. Louise shifted about on the buckboard seat, her weight rocking it. “I know. I reckon Riley, being the man he is … that he and Glory, umm, know each other by now. You suppose?”
“That I do.” Biddy was silent for a moment, as she considered the implications of Glory and Riley’s aloneness, but then she said, “I’m only hoping that me Glory hasn’t figured out yet that she’s Beatrice Parker. We should have known—all of us—that the truth would come out. But I never thought it would be like this. Or at this time, when we’re still so raw from the murders and all. Mark me words, Louise—all these happenings are for one and the same reason.”
A serious expression rode Louise Thorne’s broad features. “You think so? J. C. and Catherine being gunned down? The unrest over the land? That attack on Glory? The cattle showing up on our land? How could they all be related? That’s a big stretch, Biddy.”
Biddy firmed her lips. “I just know what I feel. But worryin’ me most right now is this journal showing up a
fter all these years. Poor Jacey. She had no choice but to pass it along. And now … poor Glory.”
Louise put a work-roughened hand to her lips. Her frown dipped her eyebrows low over her nose. She lowered her hand to say, “I swear if this don’t beat all. At least Glory’s not alone. Riley wouldn’t let the first thing happen to her. Why, that tracker, if he’s still about, would have to kill him to get to her.”
“Aye, and well I know that,” Biddy agreed. “But the troubles I mean are of the soul. When that child learns she’s not a Lawless at all … well, I…” Biddy’s voice trailed off with her mounting sense of impending doom.
“Biddy, you listen to me,” came Louise’s strong, kind voice. “No matter what happens, no matter what Glory learns, Riley is right there with her. He loves her, and he’ll see her through.”
Biddy nodded, blinking back sudden tears. “Yer right, of course. But with everything against them, I only hope that their love is enough. For us all.”
Louise stared at her a moment and then pulled a hanky out of her coat pocket and dabbed at her own eyes. “Look what you’ve done. Now I’ve gone to blubberin’ like a baby—”
“Louise,” Biddy cried, cutting off her friend’s words. “Look over there. Two riders comin’ this way—and fast, as if the devil himself is on their tails. I’m not likin’ the looks of this.”
While Biddy managed the horses, Louise straightened up and looked in the direction she’d indicated. Louise didn’t say anything, but she wadded up her hanky and fumbled in both pockets. Biddy eyed her efforts and asked, “What are ye looking for?”
Louise turned her serious, brown-eyed gaze Biddy’s way. “I forgot my pistol. You got a gun on you or in this wagon?”
Biddy’s heart picked up its thumping pace. She gaped at the looming riders, heard their horses’ hooves pounding the ground, and then shook her bonneted head at Louise. “No. I left in such a hurry yesterday that I never gave it a second thought. Oh, dear Lord, I’m only hopin’ that whoever they are, they’re friendly.”
Louise shook her head. “I don’t think so. They just pulled their guns.”
Biddy frowned, joined her friend in staring at the menacing presence of the horses aiming straight for them, like arrows shot out of a bow. Like bullets speeding toward their targets. “Hold on. I’ll try to outrun them.”
With that, she snapped the long reins over the broad backs of the roans hitched to the Lawless buckboard. “Hiyah! Git up with ye.”
* * *
Why, it’s nearly lunchtime. Where did the morning go, Glory marveled as she stretched like a lazy cat and eyed the mantel clock. Dressed still in her chemise and morning gown, and seated cross-legged on the leather couch in the great room, she grinned as she turned her attention to watching the play of muscles across Riley’s back. Clad only in his combination suit and denims, he crouched in front of the huge fireplace, working at rekindling the blaze—the one in the grate—that he’d started a few hours ago before breakfast.
As she watched every movement of his with the keen intensity only a lover can muster, Glory reflected over the changes in herself. When Riley’d arrived last evening, she’d been a lost and crying little girl, absolutely torn up about her true identity. A sudden clutching in the pit of her stomach told her she still hadn’t dealt fully with that knowledge. But look at me now, she rushed on. I’m sitting here all calm and collected, like the lady of the house with her man home for the day.
That thought made her cock her head wonderingly at Riley’s back. She’d slept all night with this man. Well, not all night. Not slept, anyway. A guilty grin tugged at her lips as she bit at her bottom one. But still, did that explain the person she was today? Maybe. Glory shied away from that hesitation to say it was so, settling instead for acknowledging that she now knew every inch of Riley Eugene Thorne. Every finely honed and muscled, masculine inch.
She shook her head in appreciation of all that he was, from his thick and wavy black hair, down that broad back of his, to his narrow hips and long legs. A sigh escaped her. Papa’d kill him, if he was here, for having slept with me.
The errant thought jerked Glory upright, causing a sharp rustling sound of her skin across the soft leather of the couch. Riley pivoted to face her, his own face aglow with reflected firelight. “What is it?”
Glory shook her head, smiled. “Nothing. I was just … I was … Nothing.”
Riley’s neutral expression bled into a frown. He studied her face, nodded his head. “All right.” But continued to stare at her. And to wait for her to explain, she just knew it.
“I just—” The words spurted out of her on a guilty thrust. She swallowed, shrugged her shoulders, looked down to consider her fingers knotted together and resting on her lap. She then glanced up at Riley, saw he hadn’t moved … or let her off the hook. Every line in his body said he was waiting. Glory took a deep breath and decided to try again. “I was just thinking that if … Papa was here, he’d kill you for having … slept with me.”
Wide-eyed with her own words, she looked away from his unblinking brown-eyed gaze, looked down again at her fingers. But even so, and as if she could read his mind and know his thoughts, Glory knew he waited to hear what she thought about that. And so, she sought Riley’s eyes, and admitted, “I wouldn’t let him. He’d have to go through me to get to you.”
Riley stared a moment longer, as if unwilling to proceed through time until he’d absorbed her words, until he’d clarified for himself this underlying shift in allegiance, this new willingness of hers to fight for him, for what she felt for him. After a moment, he grinned broadly, showing white and even teeth as he chuckled and looked away from her.
Glory’s mouth opened with happy surprise. She’d embarrassed him. What a revelation. That he—so big and capable and strong—could be undone by simple words from her. There it was again—that heady feeling of power that she’d sensed last night with their lovemaking. And again this morning.
Feeling suddenly warm all over, and knowing it had nothing to do with the fire in the grate, but more with the man in front of it, Glory soaked up Riley’s presence. This perfect moment between them couldn’t last, she knew, but lost in its exquisiteness, she gave herself over to enjoying it to the fullest. As if he felt something of the same, Riley ran a big, square hand through that black hair of his, and stared at his feet, telling them, “I’d never ask you to take a bullet for me. And I’m glad it won’t have to come to that.”
There it was. All that was and remained between them. It couldn’t come to that, to her throwing herself between Riley and her father, because Papa was … gone. Both Papa and … her father. Two different men, but each one responsible for her life, for her being here to think and to feel these things. And both denied to her by murderers’ foul deeds. Glory sucked in a deep breath through her pinched nostrils. And stared at Riley.
Bracing his palms across his knees for support, he stretched up to his full height and grinned. “But I appreciate the thought,” he added.
Just seeing him smile banished her sad thoughts. Glory chuckled and held a hand out to him. Riley took a step toward her, but that was as far as he got. Because a fierce pounding on the front door shattered the cocoon of quiet surrounding them. And jerked her and Riley’s attention in that direction.
Shocked into rigid reaction, Glory stared at the door and then twisted to see Riley. She caught his reflexive motion, the putting of a hand to his hip, only to realize that it was devoid of gun and holster. He jerked his attention back to her. “That doesn’t sound like anything but trouble.”
Despite the fear that chased across her nerve endings and goose-bumped her skin, Glory began scooting off the couch. “I’d better get it before they break the door down. It’s probably Smiley or some of the hands.” Standing now, she looked Riley up and down, seeing him as half-dressed and not belonging here. At least, according to the Lawless hands. “Maybe you’d better go upstairs.”
Riley stared at her a moment, then shifted as
he apparently took her meaning. “No. If it’s your hands, they already know I’m in here. I rode right past two of them last night at the gate. And the others will have seen Pride in the barn by now.”
In her mind’s eye, Glory again saw Riley leaving her briefly last night to stable his gray gelding. Only now, though, did she appreciate what her men’s reaction, in the morning light, to that horse would be. “That’s exactly what I mean. They know you’re in here.”
Riley stilled, stared at her, looked somehow diminished by her wanting him to hide. Ashamed of herself, Glory looked away from his face. Only moments ago, she’d as much as told him she’d fight Papa for him, but now, when faced with the reality of that conviction, she was asking him to hide. No wonder he looked at her with all the disdain that Skeeter did his supper plate. Clutching handfuls of her morning gown, Glory said, “I’m sorry, Riley. I didn’t mean—”
The front door was kicked. Gasping, Glory spun to face it, saw the lock splintering in its wood casing, saw the door give some, heard men yelling. Riley stalked past her—weaponless but jaw seriously clenched—and put a shoulder to the door, forcing it back in its jamb as he worked the tortured lock and then jerked the door open. As if the suction surrounding the opening of the door drew them inside, Ben Thorne and his four other sons poured into the room.
Right behind them were Heck Thompson and Pops Medley. Heck sought her gaze. “We tried to stop them, Miz Glory, but it was either shoot them or—”
“It’s okay,” Glory cut in, raising a hand to stop the man’s tirade before he could bring them all to gunfire.
Heck clutched his long rifle with both hands, his knuckles white around the weapon. “You want me to get Mr. Rankin?”
Her heart knocking against her ribs, Glory eyed the Thorne men. Armed to the teeth and looking grim yet haggard, as if they’d ridden all night, they eyed her right back. Determined to show no fear, she angled her chin up and shook her head. “No. I’m sure there’s no need.”
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