"Oh." She blushed. She drew a shuddering breath. "Um... okay. I mean, I promise."
"There's just one other thing," he said softly, but the thread underlying his tone was pure iron. "I want no misunderstanding between us. Come sunrise, I'm riding out of here."
Her heart kicked hard with foreboding. "To track Ben's bushwhacker?"
"For now."
"When will you be back?"
"Uncertain."
"You are coming back, though, right?"
"To turn in my badge."
She bit her lip. He'd left no room for compromise. That much was certain.
"Well, if you don't want to be marshal, Jesse, then you shouldn't have to be. You shouldn't ever feel like you're being forced to do something that hurts your spirit. Even for me. I want you to be happy. I would never stand in the way of that."
A muscle in his jaw began to twitch. She sensed he was girding himself against something. Some painful feeling, perhaps.
Then one of his great paws smoothed back her hair, plucking out a strand of straw. "Hold onto the rings," he whispered huskily. This time, the gleam in his eyes was more plea than command.
Shivering with anticipation, she obeyed.
"If you ever let another man touch you—outside of your marriage bed—the way that I'm about to touch you," he said, his voice vibrating with feline menace, "I shall break both of his hands and rip out his tongue."
"Now that sounds a little harsh."
He smirked, the possessive panther once more.
"Kiss me."
And she did, eagerly, until he tore his mouth free to nip and lick the tender hollow where her neck joined her shoulder. Goosebumps galloped down her spine. She tried to raise her shoulder, to shrug him off, but he was ready for her.
He tightened his grip on her hair, imprisoning her head so that he could next torment the tender flesh beneath her jaw. Tiny, electrical pin-pricks of delight made her want to crawl out of her skin.
"Are your hands on the rings?" he demanded silkily.
"Are you testing me?" she panted.
He chuckled, biting her earlobe with catlike delicacy. "Maybe."
She heard the distinctive sound of buttons rasping against denim. He was unbuttoning his fly. When she tried to sit back and watch, he caught her head with his other hand, forcing her to gaze into his eyes.
"I've been wanting this for a long time, Sera," he murmured. "I've been wanting you."
Her heart swelled. She would have drowned happily in the bottomless oceans of those eyes. Only inches away, she could see all the shades of green in his hungry stare, from pine, to jade, to emerald, bursting outward in concentric starbursts from their smoldering, coal-black core.
"I want you too, Jesse."
His lips curved, wistful. More than lust glowed in that mesmerizing stare now. There was a soulful yearning in the shimmering, green fathoms, and it touched her deeply.
"Thank you for believing in me." His thumb brushed her cheek—the barest caress—but it conveyed volumes of meaning.
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
He nuzzled her lips. His love play was gentle now, coaxing, giving much more than he took. She didn't protest when he tugged her corset free, tossing it aside. Nor did she resist when he tugged the chemise over her head, baring her torso to the moonshine that spilled through the window over their heads.
"Beautiful," he crooned, massaging away her goosebumps with the raspy tenderness of callused palms.
"Your turn," she said huskily.
He raised both eyebrows.
"I've always wanted to see you naked again."
"Is that a fact?"
"Uh-huh," she crooned. "If I don't get to touch you, then I get to look at you. Those are the rules."
"A new deal, huh?"
"That's right."
His smile was swift, sinful, and thoroughly male.
Testing her resolve, he used his thumbs to tease her nipples. They jutted, aching for his mouth. When she gasped, he smirked, lowering his head.
But she twisted away.
"No peeking, no touching," she insisted breathlessly.
His feral teeth gleamed. "You drive a hard bargain, angel."
"Devil's child," she countered.
He chuckled, relenting. When he shrugged off his shirt, she was certain she purred. The vision of all those rippling sinews and corded planes was almost as intoxicating as his kiss.
"You need to take your shirt off more often," she drawled. "For me. And only for me. If you let some other woman feast her eyes on that magnificent chest, I'll claw out both her eyes."
"You don't say?"
"And break both her hands..."
She slid forward on her knees, pulling herself closer with the rings. When she reared up, swaying her hips provocatively above his lap, his eyes dilated.
"And rip out her tongue," she growled, letting the pouty globes of her breasts hang as ripe as peaches above his mouth.
He grinned. He didn't disappoint her.
She was gasping when he'd finished, her breasts flushed and tingling. No amount of calico or lace could have disguised the lightning charge that sizzled between them when he locked his thighs around her hips, when he buried her nipples in the silky fur of his chest.
She shimmied closer still, eager for the intimacy. She delighted in his dominance, reveling in the way that he dug his fingers into her scalp, plundering her mouth. Eddies of pleasure pooled in her belly.
Soon he was kneading her buttocks with a catlike paw, dragging them lower, so he could rub his hot, thick shaft against her Venus mound. Fire shot straight to her nub. She moaned.
The sound that rumbled in his own throat was primitive, more beast than man. He gripped her hips tighter with his knees, positioning the opening to her volcanic heat precisely above his shaft. He thrust harder, deeper into the yielding fabric between her thighs. That barrier was an agony of inconvenience, even as it protected her. Kept her chaste.
But there was nothing chaste about the way she felt. Sparks were showering her nerves. Waves of desire were drowning her senses. She'd been raised with horses and dogs; she'd seen them copulate. Ultimately, she understood what Jesse wanted to do, what he would do, if she let him seize her bloomers and start shimmying the fabric over her fanny and out of his way. The fact that she wanted him to do it—wildly, desperately—was almost as shocking as the way that her body writhed and twisted with a will of its own, seeking a release from the tension coiling between her thighs.
The hand that was tangled in her hair imprisoned her cheek against his. His breaths were hot and ragged against her ear.
"Your bottom itches, doesn't it?" he whispered, his voice deeper, huskier, more growly than she'd ever heard it before. "I can make that itch go away, darlin'. These dark fingers of mine can make your sweet little bottom dance with delight."
He laved the tender hollow of her ear.
Goosebumps erupted, replacing the sparks. She gasped, trying to jerk her head free, but he tightened his grip on her hair, sucking and teasing her ear. The ticklish pleasure was almost more than she could bear.
"Jesse, please," she panted.
"Are you giving me permission to touch you there?"
She shuddered, biting her tongue.
"I know how it feels," he whispered, the very devil again. "Hot... Fevered... You want to explode. Bet your daddy never told you how good sin feels."
She half laughed, half sobbed.
His strong, dark hands began kneading her thighs through her bloomers and stockings.
"Trust me," he breathed. "I know what you want, angel. Even more than you do. Raise your hips a bit. Let me pleasure you."
His thrusting became insidiously slow. Tantalizing. The hot hardness of his arousal was so achingly close to the place where she needed to be rubbed. She squirmed, but he locked his ankles mercilessly over her buttocks, holding her just where he wanted her. Just where the pleasure gave her the greatest agony of wanting: more p
ressure, more speed.
She whimpered. He silenced her with a toe-curling kiss.
"Tell me what you want, kitten. I need to hear you say it."
When his forefinger skimmed the slit between her thighs, a tremor wracked her length. When his fingertip dipped ever so slightly into her milky heat, she bit back a squeak. He continued to tease, rubbing his thumb just shy of the opening where she needed him to... to...
"Say it," he growled.
"Please," she breathed, lost in the flames of those soul-searing eyes. "Touch me."
A smile of triumph spanned his feline face.
"My pleasure, darlin'."
When his finger entered her, she bucked. The intimacy was too disconcerting. But he soothed her with throaty murmurs and scintillating kisses, locking his legs around her hips, wooing her femininity with that persistent, sliding finger.
Dimly, it occurred to her that this shocking, secret intimacy must be what had transformed Eden from prim, strait-laced maiden into a lusty siren. A heartbeat later, there was no room for Sera to worry about such dangers. Instinct surged through her, fired by the pleasure that rippled through her center. Of their own accord, her hips began to thrust, keeping time with Jesse's sinuous, snaking rhythm.
"Imagine," he rasped, "the fullness of me inside you. Imagine the pleasure you'd feel, if only you would open yourself wider."
A throttled groan ripped from her lips. He kissed her deeply, demanding more of her mouth. His tongue thrust and teased, mimicking his artful stroking.
"Spread your thighs," he crooned. "That's it. That's it, angel. You feel like smoking honey. I bet you taste as sweet."
Was he sliding his torso under her body? His petting was so delicious, that her spinning senses resisted her commands to focus on anything else. Still, she managed to raise her heavy eyelids to half mast. That was when she realized he'd disappeared. Not entirely, of course. He still petted and kneaded her with those velvet cat's paws as she knelt above him.
But her lust-fogged brain registered the oddest situation: his head and shoulders had somehow vanished beneath her skirts. She struggled to make sense of this predicament. She tried to convince herself that her laggardly brain was conjuring nonsense.
Then his hot, steamy breaths caressed her maidenhood.
Her eyes flew wide.
"Jesse," she gasped, disbelieving.
He didn't give her time for another protest. With a strength that was impossible to resist, he locked an arm around her hips and did the unthinkable: he anchored her femininity to his wickedly mobile mouth.
Her hands flew off the rings, but it did her no good. He simply chuckled when she clutched and clawed at his arm. She had a sense that he'd been plotting this dastardly assault from the beginning. If she hadn't been so scandalized—and so desperate to keep her balance—she would have retaliated.
But layers of petticoats conspired against her. He was thoroughly protected from her wild, primal desire to scratch his face and pull his hair.
With a throaty rumble of impatience, he knocked her knees wider. Helplessly, she sank, muttering half a curse, half a prayer when her maidenhead was bared for his plunder. He feasted with lusty relish, making her nerves smoke and her senses spin out of control.
Merciless in his pillage, he sucked and licked, rubbing with his finger where his tongue couldn't reach. Jolts of pleasure streaked to her toes. Above her ripping breaths and hammering heart, she could hear him growling with a primitive, predatory pleasure. No matter how she writhed, he refused to set her free.
His hunger for the taste of her fired her bestial instincts. She begged him to release her from the violent wanting that his plunging finger induced. Ever tighter, ever faster, that wild yearning coiled like a cyclone of sparks, building at her core.
She whimpered. She panted. She yowled.
And just when she thought she must go stark raving mad, it happened. Just like he'd promised it would. His name ripped from her lips in an ecstatic scream. Wave after wave of molten fire pounded through her body. She thought she'd died and gone to heaven.
Somehow, during the dizzy, spiraling aftermath, she returned to earth. She dozed. At least, she thought she must have, for she jolted into full awareness to feel his breaths, hot and gusty on her throat. Her spine was pressed to his naked chest. That velvet paw was working its magic between her thighs.
More trusting now, she purred, opening herself wider. He kissed her hair and licked her ear, his leisurely nibbles eventually giving way to suckling growls that shot tingles straight to her throbbing nub.
Eventually, after his wickedly, persistent petting had her begging for kisses below the waist, he made her combust in a volcanic rush that filled her head with stars.
His third assault—which he launched with prickling nibbles inside her thigh—came about the same time that Venus reached its zenith. Longer and more insidious than any of his previous lessons, he concocted a "punishment" because she'd broken her promise and had tried to peel back the waistband of his longjohns.
And what a punishment it was! For nearly 20 minutes, he had her hurtling through a galaxy of suns.
Collapsing in a sparking puddle, she dragged her knees to her quivering belly. He'd finally, reluctantly released her.
"I'll never walk again," she groaned, half-believing it.
"How you suffered."
She swept aside her hair to glare over her naked shoulder at him. Like her, he was lying on his side on his bedroll. However, he was completely clothed (as part of her punishment), and his hand, which bore three of her scratches, was propping up his smug face.
"Just wait 'til I get my hands on you, Quaid. You are so going to regret hogtying me with your bandanna."
He chuckled, twirling one of her long, midnight-blue curls between his fingers. "You haven't seen hogtied yet, pet. But that can be arranged."
"Beast."
"Siren."
"I have half a mind to tell the mayor what a dastardly debaucher his new marshal turned out to be."
"Think Walter will increase my pay?"
She smothered a yawn. "Think right highly of yourself, do you?"
"It comes and goes."
She grinned, rolling over to snuggle against his warmth. "I like when you're all growly."
"I like when you're untamed."
She sighed lustily, tracing a finger along the placards of his chastely buttoned shirt. "I don't think I could bear going a whole 'nother round without touching you."
He was quiet, his steady, even breathing filling the night. In the dark, distant world beyond their love nest, she heard a cock crow. She hoped that Jesse didn't hear it; in fact, she tried to distract him by nibbling his jawline.
She should have known better, of course. Jesse's ears were as keen as his eyes.
"You need to get dressed," he told her.
"That's what I said the last time. And the time before that."
Amusement flickered over his features. That, and something else. Something that he barely gave the ghost of a chance to possess him—like yearning. Or maybe it was pain.
But whatever the emotion was, he clearly didn't want her to know about it. He hid that feeling the way he hid all his secrets: behind a mask. Jesse had a lot of masks: Gambler. Cherokee. Gunfighter. Lover.
"I'm agreeing with you now, temptress," he told her.
She kissed his mouth. "Good. I like a man who agrees with me."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?"
He reached to smooth back her hair, seemed to think better of it, then tucked his fingers beneath his chest. The barrier of his elbow, positioned over his heart, prevented her from hugging him against her breasts, which she'd planned to do as her next distraction.
She pouted.
"The house will be stirring soon," he said.
She grimaced. She didn't want to leave their bed of leather and straw. She didn't want to think about leaving. She imagined waking up beside Jesse every morning and falling asleep in his arms every night
. Now she had an inkling of why Michael and Eden liked to retire so early. Or perhaps she should say, why they looked forward to bedtime each night!
She smirked.
The morning star grew a tiny bit dimmer in the leavening sky.
"You don't want Michael to find you out here naked," Jesse prompted this time.
She wrinkled her nose at the reminder. Tracing the silver points of his badge with her fingertip, she indulged in a tiny, catlike smile. "Michael has no right to say anything about my state of dishabille. I saw him ravish Eden as a maid, just like you did to me. Except, of course, that he didn't get quite as far before he had to marry her."
"Sera." The thread of iron had crept back into Jesse's voice. "This is not a game."
"Well, I know that, silly, but—"
"Don't play with me."
She winced to hear the accusation in his tone.
Rolling to his feet, he padded to her ball of a chemise, which she'd dropped in the general vicinity of her corset, blouse, skirt, shawl, and boots. The only things that Jesse had allowed her to keep wearing were her stockings and bloomers.
Not that those maidenly unmentionables had been a deterrent to his determined hands and mouth.
"Get dressed." He dropped the muslin in her lap. With those cobalt spears of lightning flickering to the east, behind his shoulder, he loomed over her like a veritable Thunder God.
Disconcerted by the hard, square set of his jaw, she sat up. She dragged his blanket to her breasts. Without his chest to braze them with warmth, her nipples felt chilled and painfully taut.
"You don't have to get all grouchy about it," she told him in sulking tones. "We still have time. Trust me. I know. Michael will make the headboard thump as long as Eden will let him. Besides, you started this whole devil's bargain, remember?"
His face grew even darker at the reminder. "If that helps you sleep at night."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Do I have to spell it out for you?"
Dread wormed its way into her heart. And anger, too.
"For a man who demands a straight answer to a straight question, you're not very forthcoming."
His lips twisted at her challenge. "I was careful to return after midnight for my belongings. After I thought the house was asleep. Instead, I found you waiting up for me, in the stall where you know I keep my bedroll."
Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3) Page 15