I saw some open seats a few rows ahead and assumed we’d stop there next to an older couple who looked friendly, but Roy walked right on by. As we moved up the aisle and from car to car, passengers smiled and wished us well.
“Roy, you can put me down. Don’t we need to find our seats soon?” There was only one car left before the imposing door of the first-class compartment. I could see it looming and there were only a few vacant seats and not all of them were together. Why didn’t he even pause?
My heart raced and panic fluttered through me. What on earth did he have in mind? I closed my eyes and held my breath.
When we stopped moving, I opened one eye and peeked. Just as I’d suspected, it was the door to first class. Which was very clearly labeled ‘First Class Passengers Only.’
Oh mercy. We were going to be in big trouble. The train was starting to pull away from the Juniper Junction station. Would they throw us out of a moving train?
The door opened and a uniformed porter glanced at Roy and then me, then back to Roy. “May I help you, sir?”
“We are Mr. and Mrs. Roy Gantry.”
I stifled a tiny squeal. Something bad was going to happen. I just knew it.
The porter smiled broadly, stepped back and bid us to enter. “Welcome aboard, Mr. and Mrs. Gantry. I take it you are newlyweds? We’ve been expecting you.”
Much as I had been highly uncomfortable with Roy carrying me all this time, I had to admit it was a good thing because otherwise I might have fainted dead away. As it was, my head felt a bit light but when I glanced up at Roy, he beamed.
“Surprised you, didn’t I, little Minnie?”
“I feel like I don’t have any idea what is going to happen next.”
“Good. That was my goal. To keep my new wife on her toes.”
The porter showed us to a settee, much more elegant than what I’d been expecting. Roy set me down upon it, but despite the beauty of the piece of furniture, sitting upon it made me very uncomfortable indeed.
Roy must have noticed.
“Minnie,” he said, his face full of concern, “are you unwell?” He sat down next to me and took hold of my hand. “Some water, please,” he said to the porter who hurried off to do my husband’s bidding.
Roy seemed quite at ease giving directions to servants. This was a side to him I’d never seen before.
It made me wonder what else I might not know about my husband.
But then I looked into his eyes and saw everything that mattered. He loved me. That was clear from his touch and his gaze. And I loved him.
However, I did not love being in the first-class car of a moving train.
“Roy,” I whispered, looking around at the opulent surroundings, “what are we doing in here?”
“Why, we’re traveling first class, Mrs. Gantry.” He took the glass of water from the porter and held it to my lips. “Drink,” he ordered. The water was cool against my lips and felt good. It had been a hectic day
“Thank you,” I said.
Roy nodded to the porter, indicating that his services were no longer needed. When we were alone, he set the glass on a small table near us and then turned to me, taking my hand in his again.
“This is much more comfortable than those seats we were in on the trip out here, don’t you think?”
I had to smile at that. “Yes, they are. But I was so excited, I didn’t care.”
“That’s because you took up the entire seat when you slept and I had to scrunch up next to the window.”
I laughed. “Roy, you’re exaggerating.”
He took hold of my chin and tipped my face up to his. “That’s when I fell in love with you, my little Minnie. You were so brave and determined to get to your friend. I admired your loyalty.”
“It’s one of my better qualities.”
“I also admired the nice curve of your derriere,” he whispered in my ear.
Gasping, I tried to pull away from his grip on my chin. I glanced, as best I could, from side to side to see who might have overheard his scandalous talk. Roy was certainly in a playful mood today.
“Tell me, sweet Minnie. When did you fall in love with me?” He let go of my chin and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Was it when I rescued you from Chester the bull?” He kissed the tender flesh beneath my ear and goosebumps broke out across my throat. “Or maybe before that, like when we arrived in Juniper Junction and found your friend Elizabeth?”
I remembered all those things and so many others. “It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly when I fell in love with you, Roy,” I said, shyly. “But I believe that when you kissed me for the first time, the day we arrived in Juniper Junction, I knew there could never be another man for me.”
He drew me closer to him, if that was possible, on the delicate settee. “And there never will be,” he growled.
His possessiveness did funny things to my insides and I melted against him, happier than I could ever remember being in my whole life.
I sighed.
“Are you happy, Minnie?” he asked. He’d stopped nuzzling me and we sat together watching the countryside pass by out the window.
“I was just thinking that I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I was happier.” I smiled at him and hoped it conveyed the depth of feelings I had for him. “It’s like you can read my mind.”
“It’s because I’m very happy too,” he replied.
The other passengers in the first-class car tried to pretend they were too sophisticated to care, but I still noticed one or two of them smiling at us.
Everyone loved a wedding.
The train chugged along toward Black Clover and to my surprise, I felt a bit sad to be leaving Juniper Junction.
“Why the face, Miss Minnie?” Roy asked, concerned. He didn’t miss even the slightest change in me.
I gave him a small smile. “I just realized that I feel a bit sad leaving Juniper Junction. I know we’ll be back in just a few days, but it’s become my home now. The people there are my friends. My family.” He took my hand and raised it to his lips, placing a kiss on my knuckles as though I were royalty.
I was his royalty. His queen.
“We are family now, sweet Minnie,” he said, his eyes dark with emotion. “But I understand what you are saying. I hadn’t planned on staying in Juniper Junction even this long. But, something about the place seemed to grow on me. Or maybe it was someone.” With gentle fingers he turned my hand over and placed a kiss on the center of my palm.
Heat flushed my face and I wiggled my toes as warmth gathered in different parts of my body.
Roy’s kisses were like something magical that did wondrous things to me.
And tonight was our wedding night.
My pulse raced and I had a bit of trouble taking a deep breath. I knew that things happened between men and women when they were married and I had a fairly good idea what that involved, at least technically. But no one had ever explained to me about the sensations my body experienced when I was in Roy’s arms, let alone when he kissed me or whispered in my ear.
Oh mercy. Just thinking about it started the pulses between my thighs again. It seemed to happen more and more lately.
Most of the time when Roy and I were together, others were around. It wouldn’t have been proper for us to be alone for long. I worked for Mrs. Campbell and until recently Roy had been one of her boarders. Though she encouraged young love, Mrs. Campbell was also very strict about what took place on her premises. She strove to have the best boarding house in the territory and did what was needed to maintain her stellar reputation.
“A boarding house is just a few tawdry incidents away from becoming a whorehouse,” she’d said to me once when she’d been nipping in the cooking sherry. “And I’m too old to be a madame.”
I considered it a major feat of self-control that I didn’t burst out laughing at the time. I’d also refrained from sharing this little gem with any of my friends, not even Lizzie. Discretion was an important part of being a mai
d, whether for the high and mighty like the Pendletons of St. Louis, or the hard-working and occasionally pious like Mrs. Campbell.
I was fond of Mrs. Campbell and owed her a great deal more than my discretion for giving me a job.
I’d wanted to ask Lizzie about the things that married people did together, but I lost my nerve. It was too embarrassing. Besides, each time I was on the verge of bringing it up, baby Daniel fussed and needed his mama’s attention. I’d often noticed glances between her and Matt that felt intimate and knowing.
Would Roy and I have that? I sure hoped so.
Roy and I sat together on the small sofa, just big enough for the two of us, our sides were pressed together along the lengths of our bodies. His powerful leg rubbed mine and I swallowed hard.
“You seem rather quiet, Minnie. Is anything wrong?”
I gazed up at him, it wasn’t just the newly awakened feelings in my body that had me on edge. I hated to sound ungrateful but when Roy gave me his no-nonsense stern look, I knew I’d better tell him the truth.
“This is all really wonderful and thoughtful of you,” I gestured toward the first-class surroundings. “But to be honest, being in the fancy car brings back memories of my time in the Pendleton household in St. Louis and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Of course, if I hadn’t worked there, I wouldn’t have been a lady’s maid to Miss Elizabeth and if I hadn’t followed her to Juniper Junction, I wouldn’t have met you.”
I peeked up at him from beneath my lashes. “So, I can’t be too upset about all of that.” He smiled at me and my heart melted.
“But, still, I feel as though at any moment someone is going to come in and yell at me for sitting on the furniture.”
Glancing uncomfortably around the first class car, I looked up at Roy. “Are you sure we ought to be here? It’s just a short ride to Black Clover. A regular seat would have been just fine.”
Roy leveled a stern gaze at me. “Mrs. Gantry,” he said, and my tummy flipped, just like it did every time he used that name for me, “just fine is not good enough for my sweet bride. I want you to settle in and get comfortable. You deserve to have first class everything.”
My heart pounded, but this time it wasn’t so much due to Roy’s looming presence, though that never disappeared from my mind as his face hovered close to mine.
“I-I guess you’re right, Roy. But it feels funny to me. I-I’m j-just a maid, you know.”
His gaze turned fiery and I gasped. “No, you’re not a maid anymore. You’re my wife. I’m proud of you and you should be proud of yourself too. You’ve got as much right to be here as anyone else.”
I worried my lip and peeked past Roy to the uniformed porter. Though he’d been pleasant when we’d entered, I was sure he’d come over and tell us to get out of first class. Make a scene and order us back with the riff-raff where we, or at least I, belonged.
I wanted to believe Roy, but a whole lifetime of being ordered around every waking moment of every day was hard to overcome. Sure, things had been better since my arrival in Juniper Junction and Mrs. Campbell was a much better employer than Lizzie’s father.
But Roy didn’t see me that way.
No, when he looked at me, I saw something else entirely in his gaze. And now, that something else seemed to have even more heat added to it.
“You’re blushing, Minnie,” Roy whispered before running his tongue around the delicate shell of my ear. I stifled a whimper and glanced around the car to see if any of the fancy passengers had noticed his scandalous actions. “Tell me what you’re thinking about, little bride.” His hot breath spread goosebumps all over my flesh and the pulses in my lower parts sped up.
I squirmed in the seat and stifled a moan of pleasure. “Roy,” I whispered insistently. “What are you doing?”
“I’m nuzzling my wife. Can’t you tell?”
“We can’t do that here.” Panic built within me, though truthfully I didn’t know if it was due to being in public or simply the feelings Roy brought out in me.
Until now, we had always held our passions in check. A few kisses here and there, maybe a stolen moment where we pressed our bodies together and I was left in no doubt about Roy’s desire for me.
Even those bits of intimacy were scandalous and Roy had insisted on not going any further, no matter how badly we both wanted more. Oh, so much more. “You’re a lady, Minnie, don’t you ever forget it. And I intend to treat you as such. We’ll wait until we are married,” he had decreed.
Well, we were married now and it seemed that all the passion we’d been holding back was about to burst forth. Right there in the first-class train car.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re thinking about,” he teased. He stopped the torturous kisses along my neck and sat up straight. “You can tell me all about it later. When we are alone in our room.”
I whimpered again.
* * *
Roy
Good Lord. I was acting like a crazed animal. A bull in rut. That was the effect Minnie had on me. Ever since the first moment I saw her at the train station in St. Louis trying to talk her way onto a train.
And now she was my wife.
I didn’t want to just fuck Minnie—though I was determined to do that in as many ways as I could think of over the next three days—I wanted to hold her and protect her. Cuddle her in my lap and listen to her tell me about her day. Everything about her fascinated me.
I’d never met anyone like her. She seemed to constantly get herself into scrapes. With anyone else my patience would have run out long ago, but with Minnie, I had a fierce determination to keep her safe. Protect her from her own questionable decisions and any danger lurking elsewhere.
But right now, all I could think about was sinking balls deep into her tight virgin pussy.
She’d been squirming next to me as I’d run my lips across the tender skin of her throat. Now it was my turn to squirm, adjusting myself discreetly to accommodate my rock hard cock.
It seemed I’d been in a state of high arousal or high alert since I’d met her, wavering between my animal instinct to mate and my desperate need to keep her from hurting herself.
Between being stranded on a barn roof or cornered by a bull, it felt like hardly a day went by that she didn’t have some sort of mishap.
The girl needed a protector. A keeper. She needed me. Till death do us part.
I’d never intended to marry. Hadn’t planned to stay in Juniper Junction more than a few months, long enough to merit a good recommendation from Sheriff Watson and move on to a bigger city.
All that changed the first time I looked into her big brown eyes. I’d been a goner ever since.
Chapter 5
Minnie
“Holy smokes!” I swiveled my head and gazed all around the luxurious interior of the Grand Hotel in the very center of Black Clover, the nearest big town to Juniper Junction. Though the folks in Juniper Junction considered it a metropolis, compared to St. Louis it was tiny. But it was still big enough to boast a first-class hotel.
I grabbed Roy’s arm, new panic surging inside me. “I’ve never stayed in a hotel before. I don’t even know what to do.”
“You just relax and let me take care of things. Take care of you, sweet bride.” He squeezed my hand.
“Bu-but, Roy. I’m not supposed to be here. This...this is for...other people. Not people like m-me.” I worried my lip and avoided meeting his gaze.
He took hold of my chin and tilted my face up, forcing me to look into his very serious eyes. “This hotel is for anyone. Including you. Especially you.” He kissed the tip of my nose, then gestured with his head toward a wooden chair with a straight back. “If you don’t behave yourself, I’m going to sit in that chair, lay you across my lap, raise your skirts and spank your bare bottom right here in the lobby where everyone can see that you are a naughty wife. And if they ask why I’m spanking you, I’ll say that it’s because you didn’t think you deserved to be here.”
It f
elt like my eyebrows rose all the way to my hairline and maybe beyond as I gaped at him.
“I mean what I say, Minnie. You know that. We talked about this and when you disrespect yourself, you’ll be punished. No matter where we are.”
I continued to gape and thought that if it weren’t for him holding my chin so tightly, I might actually crumple to the floor in a heap of shock and mortification.
“So,” he said, releasing my chin, “I expect you to behave yourself. And the best way to do that right now is to come with me.” He tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and we strolled all around the room, like we were sightseers. Which, I guess we were. Or I was, at least. I did my best not to gawk, but this place made the Pendleton house look like a chicken coop.
I wished I could believe what Roy said, but this still felt extremely uncomfortable. Very awkward. Like every eye was staring at me, even the paintings and statues, and they were sure I didn’t belong.
I was sure too. But Roy seemed so certain.
“Can we afford this?” I asked, then realized how rude that was and wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
Based on the stern look he gave me, he thought so too. “What did I tell you about worrying about anything?” Then he leaned close and whispered in my ear, “You are being very naughty, Minnie. Very naughty, indeed. I believe I am going to have to spank your pert little bottom very soon if you do not behave yourself.”
My backside prickled at the thought and I glanced toward the wooden chair he’d mentioned just moments before. “Please, Roy,” I whispered desperately, “I’ll be good.”
I didn’t want to be spanked and most definitely not in the middle of the largest hotel in Black Clover.
Yet, the flutters in my tummy started up again as did the pulsing between my legs. No doubt my cheeks were flushed as well.
A uniformed waiter approached with a silver tray containing glasses of lemonade. “Welcome to the Grand Hotel. Would you care for a glass of lemonade?”
I nearly fainted. No one had ever offered me food or drink from a silver tray. Never. Oh, I’d carried plenty of the heavy-laden trays myself, but I’d never been on the receiving end.
Cowboy’s Demands: Brides of Juniper Junction, Book Five Page 4