Holt's Gamble

by Barbara Ankrum

  Bledsoe's mouth was bleeding and he hauled himself up on one elbow, shaking his head back and forth to clear his vision. He tested his jaw with his hand, then staggered up from the ground, ready to take his assailant on. Clay's hard-bitten words stopped him.

  "Get near my wife again, you bastard, and I'll kill you." Clay's voice was low and deadly.

  Kierin sucked in a breath. He'd called her his wife.

  Luther staggered unsteadily and touched his thumb to the corner of his bleeding mouth. His gaze traveled back and forth between Clay and Kierin. "Wife?" he said in a low mean voice. "She didn't mention no husband to me, Mister."

  Clay's eyes flashed for a split second to Kierin's. She didn't miss the uncertainty she saw there.

  Nor did Luther. A small, victorious smile curved his bloodied lips. Foolishness made him carry it one step too far. "You better keep a better eye on this one. She was askin' me fer i—"

  Clay's knife flashed from its sheath and its tip was at Luther's throat before he could finish the word.

  "I could kill you now for saying that, you stupid son of a bitch," Clay ground out, his face only inches from Bledsoe's.

  For a moment, Kierin thought he would. She'd never seen him so close to losing control. "Clay," she warned, "don't-"

  "It would give me a lot of pleasure," he went on, ignoring her, "to serve you up in little pieces to the fort's commander for attempted rape."

  Sweat broke out on Bledsoe's forehead and his eyes widened with fear. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat.

  "Do you have something to say to my wife, you bastard? Or," he asked, twisting the knife under his chin, drawing a bead of blood, "shall I show you how the Cheyenne deal with men who rape women?"

  "Ow! No—" Bledsoe squirmed, with his head tipped back. "I—I'm sorry, miss. I m-mean, ma'am. I didn't mean you no harm."

  Clay's knife point lingered at the man's throat. "Good. Consider yourself warned. Get near her again and you're dead." He lowered the blade and stepped back away from the bleeding man.

  Bledsoe swiped angrily at his mouth with his hand, slid one last glare at Kierin, and turned, disappearing into the darkness.

  Only after he'd gone did Clay sheathe his knife and turn back to her. She wasn't prepared for the anger she saw in his eyes. He grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her back between the buildings, away from the music and dancing.

  "Clay, you're hurting me," she cried as he pushed her up roughly against a wall. She could smell the bourbon on his breath and wondered briefly if he was drunk.

  "Damnit, Kierin—" His face reflected his frustration. He spun around and paced a few steps away, then turned on her. "What the hell do you think you were doing back there? Do you have any idea how dangerous a man like that could be?"

  Affronted, she drew her lips into a thin line. "Of course, I do. I didn't-"

  "You sure as hell didn't," he said, picking up his pacing again. "This isn't the Independence, Kierin. You don't have your friend Lily here to protect you from men like that. He could have killed you without blinking an eye."

  "I can take care of myself."

  "Is that right?"

  "So, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have walked out alone in the dark. But if you're implying I somehow encouraged that—that—"

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Did you?"

  "Damn you," she whispered, too choked with anger to scream at him.

  His temper flared unchecked. He swung around on her again with an angry laugh. "Damn me? Oh, that's a good one. I'm afraid it's too late for that, Princess. This farce of a marriage wasn't my idea in the first place. But you seem to remember it only when it's convenient for you. And then I find you out here in the dark, kissing—"

  She slapped his face hard, catching him off guard. He staggered back a step in shock. His hand went to the stinging red welt coming up on his jaw.

  Tears burned the backs of Kierin's eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks, but she held them back. "Kissing? I wasn't willingly doing anything with him. But you know what? I've had it up to here with your accusations,"—she slashed an angry palm across her forehead—"and your sanctimonious self-righteousness! Just who the hell do you think you are?"

  Clay stared at her—silent, grim-faced.

  "Nothing I could ever say would change your mind about me, would it?" she accused. "About who I am or what I am. Well, here's a piece of news for you—I don't care anymore. I don't give a damn what you think of me. Why don't you just go back and let Rachael Beaker hang all over you again! Perhaps a minister's daughter is virtuous enough for you. J—just leave me alone." Her throat was clogged with captured sobs. "Do you hear me? Leave me alone." She turned and ran off into the darkness before he could see the tears she was about to shed over him.

  "Oh, hell." Clay slammed an open palm against the wall of the building. You bastard. Now look what you've done.

  "Kierin—wait!" He started after her.

  She ignored him and kept up her angry pace through the tangle of long grass. The hem of her dress twisted between her legs and threatened to trip her. She gathered up her skirt on her arm, ripping it from the long spiked thistles that lay hidden in the darkness. She had no idea where she was going. Only that she couldn't bear to be around him any longer. She heard his footsteps behind her and she started to run, but tears blurred her vision.

  "Kierin, stop. Don't run away from me."

  His voice was suddenly close. She felt his hand close around her arm and he spun her around.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  She struggled to get loose of him. "Anywhere!" she screamed, "Away from you—let go of me!"

  His breath was coming hard and fast. "If you think I'm going to let you go running off into the darkness in the middle of the prairie, you're crazy. Now, just... just calm down and let's talk this out."

  "I have nothing to say to you," she gritted out. "And I think you made yourself perfectly clear back there."

  "No, I didn't." He swallowed hard. "I shouldn't have said any of it."

  "But you did, didn't you? You said it and you meant it."

  "No," he repeated, realizing it was true. "I was angry. Damn it, Kierin, when I saw you with him I—"

  "I don't want to hear this," she warned, pressing her hands to her ears.

  "—I wanted to kill him," Clay finished, capturing her wrists. He pulled her clenched fists against his chest, forcing her to hear him. "I wanted to kill that bastard for touching you."

  She tugged futilely against his hands. "At least I knew what he wanted from me," she cried. Tears streamed unfettered down her cheeks. "What do you want from me, Clay?" she sobbed. "W-why are you doing this? Why c-can't you just—"

  "Ah-h, God, Kierin. I'm sorry..." he murmured, tipping his forehead miserably against hers. "So sorry. Forgive me. I don't know what I'm doing around you half the time. I do crazy things. Damn. Maybe I am crazy. I don't know anymore." He stroked her cheek with his thumb, wiping at her tears. "Don't cry," he whispered. "Please, don't cry."

  But she did. Pushing against him with her clenched fists, she turned her face away, ashamed and miserable in his arms. Surrounded by the vacant prairie, he held her that way, allowing her to vent her grief. Her body convulsed with sobs while his hand stroked her hair. He pressed his cheek tightly against it.

  "Sh-hh," he soothed. His heated breath warmed her as he pressed his lips against her hair. "It's all right now... I'm sorry."

  Her hands flattened against his chest, half clinging to him, half pushing him away. She felt the uneven rise and fall of his chest beneath her fingertips, the steady thudding of his heart. Clay's hands moved along either side of her face, and his mouth dipped to vanquish the salty tears on her cheeks. "We can't go on this way..." he whispered hopelessly against her skin. "Not trusting each other. It's... going to kill us both."

  Kierin squeezed her reddened eyes shut. "I know."

  He felt, more than heard her words against his cheek. "Do you have any idea," he murmured
with his mouth against her skin, "what you do to me?"

  How can I hate him and love him so in the same moment? "Heaven help me... I do," she answered, wrapping her arms around his back and drawing him close.

  He swallowed thickly and began to pull away from her. "We shouldn't," he said. "When I'm close to you, I..."

  "Don't go," she said. "Please."

  In his eyes, she saw him reconsider. With a hand on either side of her face, he tipped her head back. His eyes searched hers in the darkness; his catching the silver reflection of the crescent moon. She knew suddenly that he wouldn't seek her permission this time. It was a simple gesture of confirmation. It was, she knew suddenly, a truth they couldn't deny.

  His lips stalked her, brushing the fullness of hers twice before claiming them fully. His kiss—penetrating and insistent—slashed diagonally across hers with an ardor wrought by weeks of denial. She opened to him, meeting his passion with an urgency of her own.

  Clay's tongue traced the inside edge of her lower lip, then invaded her mouth. Kierin's senses were on fire, ignited by the molten flame that leapt between them. She knew he'd felt it, too. He groaned against her mouth and pulled her closer, as if any space between them was too much.

  His hands slid down to her buttocks and he drew her hips up against his, so she could feel his need for her. His arousal pressed against her belly, hard and warm and wanting.

  "I didn't want to share you with anyone else on that dance floor tonight," he whispered. Cradling the back of her head in his hand, his tongue caressed the outer edge of her ear, then wandered with a tantalizing languor across the sensitive lobe.

  She felt a tremor rock her and she swayed against him, suddenly weak-kneed. "I didn't want you to," she answered.

  His hand moved deliberately to her breast, cupping the fullness she offered up. He felt her nipple pucker under the thin cotton gown as his thumb traced its circumference and his mouth captured hers in a fierce kiss.

  In one swift movement, he reached down and swept her up in his arms. "I want you—now," he told her unequivocally.

  She answered him in a fervent kiss that stirred his heart in the same undeniable way she did the rest of him. Carrying her to the base of a gentle swell in the prairie, hidden from view of both the fort and the trains camped down river, he lowered her to the ground.

  She pulled him down to her and he covered her with his weight. Their bodies carved a shallow nest in the soft prairie grass. Kierin trembled in his arms. Fear and need warred for control within her and she wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. The time for thinking was gone. She wanted him as much as he did her. She would meet him as a woman, not as a frightened girl.

  "Show me what you want," she whispered against his hair, while her hands roved across his back and the taut muscles of his shoulders.

  Her words seemed to make him tremble with his need for her. She moved beneath him and the peaks of her nipples brushed against his chest through his chamois shirt. She wanted to feel her skin against his. His fingers fumbled with his buttons.

  "Let me..." she offered, nudging his hand away. He closed his eyes, apparently willing himself to be patient, letting the sensations drift over him. One by one, the buttons released from the straining fabric and she slipped her warm hands beneath the shirt to his bare chest.

  His skin was hot to Kierin's touch. A cloud passed in front of the moon and he became only a pale outline in the darkness. She suddenly wished she could see all of him as she'd longed to do. Her hands became her eyes then, exploring the lean, elegant contours of him.

  Shrugging out of his shirt, he shifted his weight over her from one arm to the other, then discarded it in the knee-high grass beside them. With a low growl, Clay caught her beneath her arms and rolled with her onto his back. He settled her atop him, astride his hips.

  Her eyes widened momentarily and she let out a small gasp at the intimate sensation of feeling him hard and hot at the vortex of her legs. A dash of fear flickered through her body, but she pushed it away.

  "Take off your dress," he ordered softly. His hands circled her waist and his hips tilted up reflexively to meet her softness.

  She smiled and watched his face as her fingers worked the tiny buttons at the bodice of her dress.

  Flick. The first pearly fastener eased out of its home. With instincts ancient and primal, she moved her hips against his and heard him moan.

  Flick. His eyes drifted shut and he clamped down on her waist, pulling her against him more fully.

  Flick. Flick. His fingers moved up impatiently to help her. The tapered bodice of her dress fell away from her shoulders. His flattened palms slid up over the whalebone stays of her corset and across the curve of her camisole-covered breasts.

  "Now, the rest," he told her, skimming a finger across the scalloped edge of her camisole, teasing the fullness of her breast.

  Her skin quivered in response. She raised her arms obligingly and he drew the camisole over her head. He dispatched the fasteners on the front of her corset with the same unhurried expectancy. As the constraint slipped away, his heated gaze fell on her breasts and he fitted one in the curve of his palm as if it had been designed for that purpose.

  She drew in a breath when he touched her, stunned by the exquisite sensations his caress evoked. A spiraling ache spread upward from her thighs to the center of her womanhood. What we're doing must be wrong she thought abstractly. But could something so wrong feel this wonderful? Regrets be dammed, she thought, closing her eyes to the thoughts as if she could chase them back with utter darkness. His fiery touch burned away all rational thought once more and she tipped her head back, arching into his hands.

  "You're so beautiful..." His voice was low and intimate, roughened with desire. His thumb drew tiny arcs around the crest of her nipple. Dropping his hands to the waistband of her dress and petticoat, he swept them over her head. They spread like a billowing sail, over the grass beside them. "...but you're too far away." He rolled her onto her back again, capturing her beneath him.

  His mouth found hers again before she'd fully reached the ground, his tongue exploring the smooth surface of her teeth before leaving her lips to trail moist circles down the length of her throat.

  "Shall I taste you here, now?" he asked, devilishly fingering one dusky-crested nipple.

  She wasn't sure what the etiquette was in matters such as these, but her entire body throbbed with wanting and his tone seemed to require an answer.

  "Yes... please."

  Clay's eyebrows went up fractionally in amusement. Yes, please? Was she always so polite in bed? There was something so deliciously innocent in her hushed reply, it made him hesitate for a moment before dipping his head in compliance. A hint of vanilla lingered enticingly on her skin. Her taste filled his senses as he took the fullness of her nipple into his mouth, stoking it with his tongue. She cried out softly and plunged her fingers through the dark waves of his hair, pulling him closer.

  Any wishful thoughts he might have had about taking her leisurely disappeared with that cry. She was like a fever in his blood. His need for her was hot, compelling, and raw with unsated hunger, like a man who'd gone too long without food to ever again believe excess was possible.

  Kierin was lost in a haze of sensation and was only vaguely aware when he caught the drawstring at her waist and slipped her pantalettes down her thighs. Realizing only that they impeded her movement, she kicked them off and wrapped her bare legs around him. His mouth continued to tease her breasts with soft, sucking bites, spinning her headlong into a blissful daze. For the first time in her life, she felt reckless. Free. She didn't want to question what was happening. She simply allowed it to be.

  Every muscle in her body quivered as his fingers made the long, delicious descent to the soft V of curls at the apex of her thighs. But as his fingers slid against the slick warmth there, she gasped and reached down, stopping him with her hand. It was all so intimate, so unfamiliar. She just needed a moment to...

&nb
sp; Clay turned a heavy-lidded look of inquiry on her and smiled. He recognized that hesitation for what it was, but he was in no mood for delays. He quickly dispatched the row of buttons on his trousers and slid them down his legs. Taking her trembling hand in his, he guided it against his hot length, and released a shuddering breath. It had been too long. He felt his control slipping, and having no desire to embarrass himself, he forced himself to go perfectly still when her fingers curled around him.

  Experimentally, Kierin slid her fingers up and down, exploring the hard length of him, its velvety texture an intoxicating surprise. She heard him groan against her shoulder.

  His fingers caressed her satiny warmth, and this time, with her hand still closed around him, she arched into his palm like a cat being stroked. He felt the whispering heat of her breath as she sighed into his ear, an acquiescent purr.

  He slipped out of the rest of his clothes without ever completely leaving her. Then, he lowered his primed body over hers, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. His blood pounded in his ears as he guided himself into her. Kierin's arms tightened around him as he surged forward. He heard her cry out when his first thrust met with an unexpected barrier.

  Impossible.

  Stunned and too aroused to believe the indisputable evidence of her virginity, he rocked against her again. Her cry this time was muffled against his straining shoulder.

  "What the hell..." he groaned, slumping against her.

  "It doesn't matter," she urged, begging him with her hands to go on. She needed him desperately, wanted him in ways she'd never even imagined before. "Please..."

  He raised his head and searched her eyes in the darkness. All the denials and words flung, all the angry bitterness—it had never occurred to him that she could have escaped that brothel unscathed. He shook his head in disbelief. "Doesn't mat—?"

  "Clay—I'm asking you..." She tilted her hips up wantonly against his. Her eyes met uncertainly with his. She was willing to risk everything—her pride, even her dignity, to have him. "Make love to me. Don't make me beg."