Two Brothers
Page 30
When he lowered his golden head and took her nipple full into his mouth, she cried out in a sort of exultant protest, plunging splayed fingers into his hair, pressing him closer. He nibbled, then tongued, then suckled her, and when she flung both hands back onto the pillow in surrender, he caught them together at the wrists and held them gently above her head. He made free with both her breasts then, until she was tossing on the mattress, needing more, and still more—without quite knowing what it was that she needed.
He lowered a hand to the nest of moist curls at the apex of her thighs, parted her, and began a light, swirling motion with his fingers. Fire shot through Emily; she might have come back from the frantic stupor he’d induced by enjoying her breasts so thoroughly, but she was utterly lost in that moment.
He buried his face in her hair, his lips close to her ear. “This,” he said hoarsely, “is why it’s worth a little pain the first time. Remember this when I take you, darlin’. Remember how it feels, and how it will be again.”
With that, he kissed his way down her breastbone, pausing briefly at her belly, then proceeded to the place he had awakened to aching alertness. When he took her into his mouth, she was so stunned by the swift, searing pleasure, by the unexpectedness of the gesture itself, that she made a sound as wild and fierce as the cry of a she-wolf, half defiance, half submission.
He worked her until she begged, until she hurled her hips upward off the bed to meet him, until her entire body was slick with perspiration and her hair clung in tendrils to her cheeks, her forehead, her neck. Then, with a few teasing flicks of his tongue, he sent her reeling, tumbling, end over end, into an inferno bright enough to blind her, hot enough to brand her forever, as his and his alone.
For a time, she was one with her own heartbeat, then there came a cataclysmic explosion, following which she was borne skyward upon a pillar of fire, only to descend slowly, slowly, in scattered, burning fragments. During the long fall, Tristan comforted her, held her, whispered sweet, senseless words against her damp temple. Transported, she was at the same time excruciatingly aware of the weight, heat and substance of his body, pressed against hers. Promising other, greater odysseys, deeper mysteries, still more breathless heights to be scaled.
She clung to him and wept, for she had never suspected that such pleasure, such abandon, was possible. He soothed her, stroking her gently along the curving length of her side, murmuring, occasionally kissing her eyelids, the hollow of her throat, her forehead and temples.
After a very long time, she settled back inside her own skin, and Tristan’s shadowed face came into craggy focus. The flame in the lamp on the bedside table was struggling, about to gutter out.
He kissed her mouth lightly, briefly, but in a way that reawakened the needs he had so thoroughly assuaged before. “Well,” he said, in a husky voice, “did it work?”
Emily knew what he meant—he wanted to know if his attempt to seduce her had succeeded. She stretched and crooned, rested, ready for another breathless climb. “Oh, yes,” she said, and wriggled against him, reveling in what she had wrought. He was not the only one who could cause physical havoc, after all; the proof of his desire pulsed between them.
“You understand what I’m asking you, Emily?” he pressed, and she loved him all the more—yes, loved him—for his concern, for his restraint, which she knew was hardwon. “I want to take you, right now, and it’s probably going to hurt some. There’s no way around that.”
“It can’t hurt more than needing you does,” she reasoned, drawing his head down for a hungry kiss.
He positioned himself, paused briefly to give her a chance to change her mind, then delved into her with a long, deep stroke. And there was some pain, though short-lived and, as the friction built, so did Emily’s responses, and soon she had given herself up, once again, to the primitive forces that made her entirely female. Tristan, too, was lost, and as their bodies interlocked in ferocious pleasure, their spirits took wing, like magnificent birds, soaring into the star-speckled sky.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER …
THE BIG HOUSE WAS FILLED WITH LIGHT and music, and while the band—three fiddlers, a piano player and a washboard man—held forth, couples from farms and ranches for miles around danced round and round the big parlor. The furniture that usually graced that room had been carried out into the front yard, under a clear, starry sky, where children of varying dispositions and ages played house, musical chairs and tag.
Folks were still getting used to calling the ranch the Double Crescent, rather than Powder Creek, but all agreed that the place had benefited by changing hands. Tristan Saint-Laurent was making it pay, and to virtually everybody’s relief, the missus had gotten shut of those sheep of hers, in midsummer, selling some, shearing some, and giving the rest to Black Eagle in trade for elk meat, herbal medicines and the odd bit of beadwork. Not that the sheep had really been so bad, for they hadn’t eaten so much as a blade of range grass.
Now that Mrs. Saint-Laurent, she was a pure fascination, just like the marshal’s wife, Mrs. McQuillan. Both of them in the family way and neither one making the slightest effort to retire from public view until their confinement was over. The two women were the closest of friends, but they were also part of the community, speaking up at town meetings and clamoring for the vote.
As for the brothers, Tristan and Shay, well, they were so alike that it was nigh unto impossible to tell them apart. Once in a while, Tristan would put on Shay’s badge and serve a whole week as marshal, with nobody the wiser until they chose to let the word get out. The women, Emily and Aislinn that is, could always recognize their own husbands, and claimed they were as different as any other pair of brothers. Just about anybody else in Prominence, Miss Dorrie McQuillan included, would have disagreed.
There were lots of rumors about Tristan, for by virtue of his growing up away, he was a stranger. Some said he’d been a bounty hunter once, some said a Texas Ranger, and some even maintained that he was one of the worst outlaws ever to strap on a gunbelt. The speculations had spiced up more than one conversation, and made for a favorite topic at the feed-and-grain and around the potbellied stove in the general store. Some of the old-timers said there’d be gunslingers along to challenge him, but so far none had appeared. Most people figured it would take a pure fool to mess with him or Shay, given their obvious prowess with those .45s they always wore. Funny thing, that—the way they’d grown up apart and still turned out pretty much the same.
Now, on the night of the party, the parlor crowd cleared, and Tristan Saint-Laurent and his beautiful Emily took the floor for a waltz, soon to be joined by Shay McQuillan and the lovely Aislinn. They seemed to glow, the four of them, each couple gazing into one another’s eyes, as if oblivious to the rest of the world.
It was enough to make a person believe in fairy tales.
—Rendezvous
“LINDA LAEL MILLER’S TALENT KNOWS NO BOUNDS…EACH STORY SHE CREATES IS…SUPERB.”
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
LINDA LAEL MILLER
(Romantic Times).is “one of the hottest romance authors writing today…Her love scenes sizzle and smolder with sensuality”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Every novel Linda Lael Miller writes seems even better than the previous…. She stirs your soul and makes you yearn along with her characters….encompassing every emotion and leaving you breathless.”
MORE THAN SIX MILLION COPIES OF HER BOOKS IN PRINT!
Table of Contents
Title Page
About the Author
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part 01
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Part 02
Chapter 1
Chapter
2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue