Claire, Angela - Heart of Stone (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Angela Claire

  She should wake him up. Jake. Even if she was just being silly, something might be wrong. He could laugh at her in the bright of day, but for now, she felt she just had to trust her instincts, off-kilter as they may be out in this wilderness. She glanced down at her serviceable white nightgown. For heaven’s sake, it covered her from head to toe. No need to be squeamish now. She crept into the hallway and felt her way along in the darkness. When her hand felt the cold brass of the doorknob to Jake’s room, she turned it open and went through.

  She approached the bed, and for a moment, she thought he wasn’t in it. All she could see was a jumble of covers. But then she heard something, a sleepy murmur.

  “Jake,” she whispered. “Mr. Stone.” She couldn’t afford to speak too loud for fear that whatever, or whoever, she’d heard at the front door would hear her. When she was right up next to the bed, she realized he must be burrowed under the covers. She reached to pull them back.

  * * * *

  He was having the sweetest dream. A faceless naked woman was pulling the covers of his bed back, kissing him, and climbing into bed with him. Her soft, warm arms encircled him, and his cock was hard as a rock. He moaned and reached for her, pulling his sweet phantom down to him and then rolling over, pinning her beneath him.

  His hands felt shapely hips, but what was all this cotton she was swathed in? She was naked, wasn’t she? He reached down to free her and was rewarded with soft, warm limbs, long and silky, entwining with his. He flexed, pushing her legs wider with his own, and ran his hands greedily along a tiny waist and up towards soft, full tits. His mouth opened over his dream girl’s, his tongue plunging inside.

  She moaned and writhed beneath him. He reached down and palmed one soft thigh, inching higher. Her skin was still a little chilled, but she was heating up just fine. When he felt the soft curls right at the juncture of her legs, he dipped one finger over that taut little bud and then slipped it into her. She was tight, but moist, and he groaned. He was going to enjoy this…

  The slap, delivered sharply and precisely as she wrenched away from his kiss, stopped him cold. What the fuck? His eyes shot open, and he jolted wide awake at the same time. Just in time to realize that he had a sputtering, horrified, young miss pinned beneath him on his bed. Holy shit. What the hell was his little orphan doing in his bed?

  Disoriented, he fumbled to keep her still. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Get off me!” she sputtered.

  She was struggling furiously now, and his already hard cock got even harder, what with her long legs all mixed up with his and her hips bucking. If he closed his eyes, he just might convince himself they were doing what he’d dreamed they were doing.

  “Why the hell are you climbing into my bed?” he demanded instead. He tried to sound outraged, but that was damn difficult given how good she felt.

  “Get off of me!”

  He tried again. “When you come into a man’s room and peel back his covers and climb into his bed—” He didn’t mention the kissing, figuring that may have been the dream. “—that only means one thing, girl.”

  “I didn’t climb into bed with you. You yanked me into it. And I peeled back your covers only because I couldn’t find your head, you dolt. Get off of me!”

  He considered it.

  “Is that so? Could be I was having a dream, but still, what are you doing peeling anything back in my room?” He managed the outrage this time. After all, what was all this maidenly squealing? She was in his room in the middle of the night, wasn’t she? Maybe Lil’s matrimonial plan had involved resorting to drastic measures right off. No teasing him or tempting him, just climbing right into his bed. And he had almost fallen for it.

  Damn. Who was he kidding? He had fallen for it. Almost without volition, he flexed his hard cock against her delectable warmth and dusted a lingering kiss along her silky, smooth jawline. They could sort all this out tomorrow. Right now, a man could only go so far and stop, and they’d gone a might bit farther than that. His sleep-addled, lust-addled brain wasn’t up to the challenge of considering the implications of going the one necessary step further, given that all the blood in his whole body had rushed down to his cock.

  He lifted his weight off her and tugged her gown up farther. If he was going to do this, she was goddamn well going to be naked or as good as. He registered her high, full, completely exposed breasts with almost reverence and leaned his mouth down to press it against one hard pink nipple.

  “Never mind,” he muttered. “I don’t care why you’re here or what you think you’ll be getting out of this.” He took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, hard for a moment. “But you’re going to get this, that’s for damned sure.” He grabbed her hand and brought it down to his aching cock, which was pounding frantically to be let out of his smallclothes. “I wanted this from the first time I laid eyes on you.” He pressed her hand against him.

  His reward, though, wasn’t a stroke or a squeeze. On the contrary, she pulled her hand swiftly out from under his as he tried to press it to his cock and, gaining momentum, looked to be about to deliver an even harder slap to his face. His defenses, fully awake now, kicked in, and he caught her hand before she managed it this time. She wrenched her hand away and settled for planting two, actually pretty strong, palms against his shoulders, trying to push him off her. He pulled back to look at her, and, well, he had to admit she looked spitting mad. Reluctant as he was to roll off her, well, a gentleman had no other choice, for now at least. She darted off the bed the very second she was free of his weight. Her arms, swathed in cotton just as he’d felt in his dream, crossed over that luscious bosom, which really he hadn’t given enough time to kissing when she was beneath him.

  “I came in here because I heard a sound at the door to the outside,” she whispered.

  He sat up. His rifle was by the door to his room, so he got up and grabbed it quickly. “Stay here.”

  He ventured into the front room carefully, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dark even though the flames in the fireplace had been banked and moonlight was noticeably absent. He always did see pretty well at night anyway. In this case, however, there was nothing to see. The front room was modest enough that he could scan it in a few seconds. It was empty. For all that Miss Melinda was just about too pretty to be a nursemaid, she did fit the bill otherwise. That is, she seemed too sensible a girl to fret about non-existent bumps in the night, and clearly, her reaction just now to his unwitting advances meant she hadn’t come into his room to seduce him. So she must have truly heard something. He went to the window and peered out. Sure enough, there he was. Or she. Just about the biggest grizzly Jake’d seen in these parts, at least so close to the house. Even as he watched it, though, the bear was loping off back up the mountain. Probably pawed the door a time or two and then wandered back to more familiar territory.

  He wasn’t sure that was going to pacify Miss Melinda, though. Probably the fact that it was a grizzly trying to get in would not exactly come as welcome news. He went back into his room, where Melinda huddled against one wall, as far back from the bed as she could get and still be standing in the room. She’d lit a candle too. Big mistake. Now he could actually see her in her nightgown, which, for all its modesty, was still a nightgown, and her firm young body was unbound underneath. In addition to still being stunned from the encounter with her on his bed, he had quite an imagination and could almost feel what it would have been like to plunge between those thighs outlined in the light.

  He stood the rifle back up against the wall. It went over the fireplace during the day, but he liked to have it with him at night for just this kind of quick access.

  No easy way to say this, so he just said it. “It was a grizzly.”

  He waited for the maidenly back-East faint, the kind Victoria certainly would have treated him to if he’d announced such a thing so bluntly. Or maybe an ear-splitting shriek was in order. Maybe that was more his little orphan’s style.

  But neither came.<
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  Instead, there was an audible heave of that sweet little bosom. “Thank heavens.”

  He was confused and must have looked it.

  “What I mean is thanks heavens it wasn’t a cutthroat or an Indian or someone trying to get in.”

  “But a bear doesn’t bother you.”

  “Well, certainly it bothers me, but not unduly so when there’s a locked door between me and him. In fact, I’m glad I wasn’t just imagining it, what with me barging in here and all.”

  She seemed to have lost her earlier outrage, but the fiery cheeks signaled she was embarrassed as hell by what had just happened. No matter. A lesson was in order here nonetheless.

  “Yeah, about that, Melinda…” He scanned down her white-clad figure without even meaning to and felt an involuntary pang. Thank God he’d started sleeping with smallclothes on when Ginny was born. He reached for a shirt from the hook on the wall, though, and shrugged into it. It suddenly occurred to him his little dreamlike episode with Miss Melinda could’ve been a lot worse. If he’d been naked, he wasn’t so sure he could have stopped, grizzly at the door or not. “I’m a pretty heavy sleeper, but a shout out from the doorway is like to wake me up just fine. No need to come in and try to shake me awake.”

  “I’m sure, but I couldn’t make that much noise. I didn’t know what was out there.”

  She really was a sensible type. Problem was a sexy woman leaning over him when he was sound asleep was about as far from sensible as she could get, as events had just proven. Miss Melinda needed to understand that a little more clearly evidently.

  He tried to get at it the long way. “There aren’t many women out here, Melinda. I’m sure you know that. Them that are here are either new brides for the most part or whorrrr…ah…” He shut his mouth abruptly. When had he gotten so out of practice talking to respectable ladies? Or maybe it was just her. Maybe those soft, wide eyes and pillowy lips just meant sex to him, and he couldn’t look her in the face and not feel the effects of it such that words like whores, as he’d been about to utter, just naturally fell from his lips. Not to mention they were still alone in his bedroom in the middle of the night.

  “Let’s go into the front room. I don’t want to wake Ginny.” When he had her in front of the smoldering fireplace, he put a hand on the mantel. He would just have to try harder. “What I mean to say is most are either new brides or not really suitable to be, ah, around, ah… What I mean to say is there aren’t many women around these parts, which is why I sent for my aunt. But now that she’s sent you instead, well, we’ll just have to work the mechanics of this out.”

  Christ, he hadn’t even got near to the point. She was likely to fall asleep on him before he did. As for him, he was wide awake now, more parts than one, wide-wide awake. He continued, “So I can’t get a chaperone to stay with us. If I could, I wouldn’t need you here, then, would I?”

  “I’m well aware that I’m not your first choice for this job, but I thought with dinner and all, that we’d gotten past that.”

  “We have. I mean, I have. But the fact is we’re here, together, alone and unchaperoned.”

  She looked at him blankly. She couldn’t really be so clueless, especially since he’d as good as almost fucked her not two minutes ago. “What I’m trying to say is I guess you’re probably shocked by what almost happened in there, but ah, men don’t always think so clearly with a pretty woman around, and when they’re half asleep, never. So the fact is I could have really done some damage in there if you hadn’t brought me to my senses in time.”

  “Really, no apology is necessary.”

  “I’m not apologizing. What I’m saying is just don’t be coming into my room at night or walking around me in your nightclothes.” She glanced down at herself and, dangerously, so did he. “In fact, maybe I should sleep in the barn for a spell.”

  “No. Please don’t do that. I’m not fainthearted or anything. I swear I’m not. Every little noise at night isn’t going to shake me. Honest. But I’d just feel better if Ginny and I weren’t alone in the house at night. I understand what you’re saying, and I completely agree. Of course. I’m sorry about tonight, Mr. Stone. I really am. It won’t happen again.”

  The anxious tone in her voice was starting to make him feel guilty now. Hell, she’d heard a grizzly at the door her very first night. That’d give even the steeliest of back-Easters pause. She’d done what she needed to do. Wasn’t her fault he was so goddamn horny. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Melinda. And it’s still Jake, not Mr. Stone. We just need to be realistic.”

  “Of course. Of course. I’ll just get back to bed now.” She scampered away.

  Well, that’d gone about as well as expected. First, he accosted her, and then he nearly embarrassed her to death. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he could wipe the memory of kissing her away. He was going to have to forget all about this, treat it as if it’d been a dream. Even as he wiped, though, he caught a sweet smell of her on his finger from when he’d stuck it into her. Lord, before he could stop himself, he licked his finger, tasting her.

  Oh, he was in trouble, he was. He went back to his solitary bed.

  * * * *

  Alone in her bed again, Melinda hugged the covers to her and lamented how she had almost ruined everything after she had worked so hard with the dinner and Ginny to prove to him that she could handle this job. Next thing she knew she’s running like a scared ninny to his bed at the very first bump in the night she hears. No wonder he was leery of her.

  Frankly, just about now, she was leery of him as well. For try as she might to block the memory out of her head, it was there alright, strong and vivid. The memory of his heavy weight pressing into her, his leg nudging her thighs open, his hot lips, scruffy with the beginnings of a beard wandering down her neck. Then that one wicked finger thrust into that place she tried not to think about and touched as little as possible. She’d fought to bring him to his senses, sure she had, but not because she hadn’t liked what he was doing. Lord, if she hadn’t feared who-knows-what was bursting into the front room, she may have even let him continue with his dreamy, adept seduction.

  That was just what he was afraid of, plain as day, and frankly so was she now. She’d kept her expression blank with all of his fumbling explanations, both at dinner and just now, but she was no babe in the woods. It was impossible to have been one what with all the talk in and around the orphanage. She knew when a man wanted her, marriage or not. Hadn’t that been why she avoided one after the other of them back home, from the old despicable doc to that lusty husband of a trustee. She had learned to recognize the signs early—the glaze in a man’s eyes, the clenching of his teeth or biting his lip, the wandering of his gaze down her body, and, of course, the impossible to ignore bulge that would eventually appear in their trousers. But ignore it she did if she knew what was good for her. The lesson that half the little babes in that orphanage were there because one woman or another had gotten herself into trouble with a man was not lost on Melinda. She vowed she was smarter than that. Hadn’t that been part of why she was so happy to escape here, to get away?

  Well, as they said, out of the frying pan and into the fire. What she had apparently not understood all this time was that a woman could want the trouble a man offered.

  * * * *

  The cowboy hung back as all the lights went out in the ranch house. Man, if only that damn grizzly hadn’t caused such a racket. He might’ve seen a little more of the show. ’Cause they was sure going at it when he peeked in the window, the girl with the long blond hair and Stone. She was writhing underneath him. Mighty fast work, this being her first day and all. That was just what the old man was worried about when he’d heard tell of the gal’s arrival.

  Oh well, looked like grizzly had ruined the mood, and they was both back in bed. Alone. If Stone wasn’t such a big fella, and the old man wasn’t so protective like of him, he might have thought about creeping into the gal’s bed and having a little of what sh
e was giving Stone. But hell, she’d probably holler her head off and the old man would be mad as hell if he got himself caught here.

  He might as well head back and report now. Old man was so agitated about the gal he was sure to be still awake and pacing. And you didn’t make the old man wait. Put him in a bad mood.

  Chapter Three

  Jake rode out early the next morning, somewhere on the ranch he’d told her, to meet a few of the hands and fix some fences that needed mending. He’d be back at sundown or so and had asked her if she could feed the lot of them, just this once. These men were apt to be around the place now and then, and it was best she meet them, he said. Fine with her. She’d made a healthy inventory of the kitchen the day before, and she knew she had supplies enough for the three or so boys he’d bring back.

  She timed it just about right with the biscuits warm out of the oven when she saw the dust clouds in the orange light of evening signaling that the men were back. Ginny on her hip, she went to greet them on the porch, smiling politely as Jake made some gruff introductions.

  “Melinda, this here is Ike and Ed and Jesse.” The three men behind Jake nodded in time with their respective names, with each piping out a “ma’am” and swiping off their dusty cowboy hats. Melinda smiled and waved them in, a little surprised by the assortment. Ed looked like he was about a hundred years old, until he moved. He moved like a young man, spry and easy. Both Ike and Jessie were young men. But Ike was black as coal with white teeth, and he smiled as he moved by her. Melinda was glad that Jake hadn’t mentioned this fact to her. It said something, like maybe he felt the same way about skin color as she did, that it was a fact and not a judgment. A man, or a woman for that matter, should be judged on their character and not on their color. She had known a lot who felt that way back in Boston, but she wasn’t so sure about out here. She was glad to see it seemed to be so with Jake as Ike pulled a chair up to the table, same as the other boys.