“You spend the night in my bed.”
Blood rushed through her head, pounding between her temples. She grew hot on the outside, cold on the inside. She desperately wanted to tell him to go to hell, but the haunting memories of the years her father had struggled to keep this place going, the look on his face the night he signed the papers over, the regret in his eyes tonight—
“You’ll cheat.”
He rolled up his sleeves and held out his hands, palms up, fingers splayed. “How can I cheat when I’m not holding the deck? You don’t even have to show me your card until after I’ve cut for my card.”
Her mouth went dry, her gaze darting between him and the deck. She’d lost her virtue at the age of seventeen. Its value was nothing. But her body. She’d given it to Gerald out of love. To Harry once out of desperate feelings that confused her even now.
That he would consider making this offer made her feel sordid and dirty. A saloon in exchange for her body. It was more than soiled doves were offered. And in the end, she knew it wasn’t the saloon she wanted, but her father’s pride.
She snatched up a portion of the deck, pressed the cards to her chest, and slowly angled them to reveal the top card. A jack of hearts.
“I assume you’re accepting the terms of the wager?” Harry asked.
She glared at him. “Just cut to a card.”
With a smooth fluid flick of the wrist, he tossed the top card onto the table. A queen.
Her heart sank to the floor as she fought to draw in a breath and set her cards on the table face up.
“I realize you might have some concerns over your reputation. You need not come to my room until after Billy retires.”
She stood, shaking so badly that she was surprised her teeth stayed rooted. “You’re so considerate.”
She spun on her heel.
“Jessye?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Be sure to wear your softest nightgown.”
Jessye stared at the door that led into Harry’s room, a room that had once been hers. Strange how she no longer considered it her room.
Pride had forced her to bathe, brush her hair to a sheen, and slip into her cotton nightgown. She would endure the night, but derive no pleasure from it, and in the end, in some warped manner, she’d be able to claim the victory as hers.
She’d prayed that Billy would take all night to finish cleaning the saloon, but she’d heard him enter his room shortly after she’d entered hers. Instinctively, she knew Harry had sent him to bed without finishing up his duties. He’d probably justified excusing him early because it was his first night to work.
It would be her last. Tomorrow she would leave. Kit could send the money from the cattle drive to her. Meanwhile, she’d survive on the pittance she had and be glad of it.
She took a deep, unsteady breath, hating the jitters that cascaded through her. She rapped lightly on the door.
Harry’s low, deep voice bid her to enter.
She opened the door. Harry sat on the edge of the bed wearing nothing but trousers, his bare feet enhancing the intimacy of seeing his chest bare. Her toes curled against the floor.
He gripped one of the bed’s four posters and slowly, painstakingly, pulled himself to his feet. His knuckles turned white, and she saw within the harsh lines of his face what it cost him to remain standing, the shame he felt because he could not come to her. She would have to go to him.
Her heart melted.
She quietly closed the door and padded across the room. She watched his throat work as he swallowed. With his free hand, he cradled her cheek with such tenderness that she thought she might weep. His gaze swept across her face like a lover’s caress.
“Do you remember the exact words of the wager?” he asked quietly.
She furrowed her brow. “I’m to spend the night in your bed.”
His thumb stroked the corner of her mouth. “Listen carefully to the words, Jessye, for they are the key to your deliverance. Spend the night in my bed. That is all that we wagered. I expect nothing more.” He held her gaze. “Nothing more.”
Her stomach felt as though a noose had just been loosened. “You mean you just want me to sleep in your bed?”
He gave her a devilish grin. “What I want does not enter into the wager. You need not touch me. You need not invite me to touch you. Although I shall no doubt attempt to persuade you that you want more than a night simply lying in my bed.”
She knew it would take little to persuade her.
Releasing a groan, he closed his eyes and sank to the bed. She dropped to her knees and placed her hand against his right hip. “You’re in pain. Do you want me to get the salve and work it in—”
“No,” he growled. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her gaze to his. “For tonight, I do not want you to view me as a cripple.”
Her heart very nearly shattered. “Harry, you’re not—”
He pressed his finger to her lips, silencing her words. “Get into bed.”
She glanced past him to the head of the bed, where he’d turned down the covers. She wondered at the effort he must have exerted to make the bed appear welcoming. She rose, walked a short distance away from where he sat, and slipped between the sheets. She scooted over, making room for him to join her. She became aware of an edginess about him, a wariness, and she wondered if he was as nervous with tonight’s arrangement as she was. “I’d forgotten how comfortable my bed is,” she said softly, hoping to ease the tension.
“I never intended to kick you out of your bed.”
“You didn’t. I offered.”
“I doubt climbing stairs will ever again…be my forté, but hopefully, soon, I shall be able to take up lodging somewhere else.”
“I don’t mind you being here as long as you aren’t breaking my things.”
“What about your heart?”
Her breath backed up in her lungs. “What?”
“Do you ever worry that I’ll break your heart?”
“No,” she lied. “You know my heart shattered long ago. It can’t be mended as easily as broken china.”
“Do you think it can be mended at all?”
“I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be getting into bed?”
“Turn down the lamp,” he said quietly, apparently finding the floor more interesting than the woman in his bed. She didn’t want to think of all the women with whom he might have been intimate. The first time she’d set eyes on him, his handsome features had very nearly struck her dumb. The odd thing was that even though she knew him better now, his features still had the same effect on her.
She rolled over and lowered the flame until its muted glow allowed the shadows to flow into the room. Harry became little more than a silhouette sitting on the edge of the bed. He lifted the covers, and in the darkness, she still detected the awkwardness of his movements as he maneuvered to get beneath the sheet. He had yet to remove his britches, and she imagined how ungainly he might appear as he did so.
If only she knew how to convince him that none of that mattered. If only…
Harrison lay in the bed, straining to hear her breathing and inhaling her faint lily fragrance. She’d worn her hair down, brushed until it shone like a liquid flame. He desperately wanted to plow his fingers through it. With any luck, she’d drift off to sleep shortly, and he’d have the opportunity to touch it, perhaps to stroke it across his mouth.
“Harry?” she whispered, as though someone else were in the room to overhear them.
“Mmm?” He continued to stare at the ceiling, fearing that if he glanced at her, his restraint would snap like a brittle twig.
“This is really all you want, for me to sleep in your bed?”
“That was the wager.”
“You risked losing the saloon just to have me sleep in your bed?”
“Why does that strike you as so odd?”
“I don’t know. I just always thought men—”
“How many men have you
slept with?”
Silence stretched between them before she finally confessed, “I’ve told you before. There was that night with you. And of course, the nights with Gerald.”
Both had certainly taken her on a journey through hell.
“’Course, I didn’t really sleep with Gerald. We’d just sneak away for a few minutes—”
“A few minutes?” He rolled his head to the side to look at her. A mistake. Even though she was little more than a shadowy waif, he wanted to touch her.
“We were young, eager.”
He smiled at her indignation, and he thought if he hadn’t asked her to turn down the flame in the lamp, he would see her blushing and angling that cute chin of hers.
“But still, a few moments? Where did you sneak away to?”
“The loft in the livery or maybe we’d just go out beneath the stars—”
“On the ground? The man was a true romantic.”
“You’d never take a woman on the ground?”
He grimaced at the challenging reminder of the night they’d shared. He would take her anywhere he could have her. “You’re right. You deserved better from me that night.”
“How many women have you bedded?”
“Not nearly enough.”
She laughed, a soft, gentle sound that rolled through him.
“Harry, you scoundrel, you’ll have me confessing everything and you won’t reveal anything.”
He rolled onto his side, wincing at the pain that the sudden movement caused. “What do you want to know?”
She shifted so she was facing him. How easy it would be to simply reach out—
“Why did your father send you here?”
He scoffed. “I thought we were going to discuss my paramours—”
“Truth be told, I figure you had too many to keep count.”
“Three,” he said quietly. “The first was blond. The second had hair the shade of a raven’s wing. And the third”—he took a curling lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger and brought it to his lips—“had glorious red hair.”
He took satisfaction in hearing her breath hitch.
“You’re telling me you’ve only bedded two other women?”
“The wooing and courting takes more effort than squatting in the shade. I prefer to expend my energies in other pursuits.”
“Gambling.”
“It is a passion, at times an obsession. And when Lady Luck does not smile upon me, it is a dangerous endeavor. I owed some very unsavory men a great deal of money. Rather than discover his second son drowned in the Thames, my father offered to pay off my debts if I agreed to come here.”
She rose up on an elbow, stirring up her sweet fragrance. He inhaled deeply, savoring the scent.
“But you cheat—”
“You suspect that I cheat. You have yet to prove it. Besides, a gentleman may gamble away his allowance in a number of ways: horses, boxing—”
“You struck me as being smarter than that.”
“Smarter, but not necessarily wiser. I sought to bring shame upon my family’s name as my family had brought shame to me. I expected my father to disown me.” He glanced past her to the shadowed corner. “Instead he sought to save me.”
She cradled his cheek, and he felt the callused pads of her palm and fingers. “You know what your problem is, Harry? You don’t understand your own worth.”
He held his breath as she blocked the pale light of the low, flickering flame, coming nearer, closer, until her lips touched his as gently as a butterfly lights upon a petal. Once. Twice. Her fingers pressed harder against his face as her mouth settled over his.
Groaning deeply, he plowed his hands into her hair, cupping the back of her head, while his tongue taunted and teased until she parted her lips, giving him full access to her mouth. She whimpered softly, and the curve of her breasts brushed against his bare chest.
He pulled her back, angling her head so that the shadows ebbed away to reveal the pale green of her eyes. “Take care, my love, for I will call your bluff.”
“If only I were bluffing…”
The wistfulness in her voice served as a siren song stronger than he’d ever heard. Her mouth returned to his with urgency. Their tongues parried, upping the stakes. Regrets would no doubt be the price they both paid, but he had long ago learned to live with regrets.
Jessye wasn’t sure when she realized that simply sleeping in his bed wasn’t what she wanted, but she knew it with a frightening certainty. She was setting herself up for heartache, and even as she damned herself for doing it, she welcomed the sensation of his fingers skimming along her throat, her collarbone, until they reached the first button of her nightgown. She braced herself over him, each button easily giving way as his hand slowly journeyed to her waist, to the last button.
Only then did he withdraw from the kiss, his breathing labored, his gaze intent. He cradled her face, his thumb tenderly stroking her cheek. “I’ll give you one more opportunity to fold.”
She placed her hand flat on his bare chest, right above his pounding heart. If only it were in the pot…wishful thinking that made no difference to her decision because she’d given him her heart long ago, on a star-filled night. She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m not folding.”
“Sit up,” he rasped in a voice that sounded strangled with emotions.
She did as he bid, tucking her feet beneath her, watching his eyes as they slowly roamed the length of her, warming each place they touched. He lifted his hands to the parted material of her gown. More slowly than she thought possible, he moved the material off her shoulders. The gown skimmed along her back until it pooled at her hips.
“Dear God, but you are more lovely than I imagined,” he said in a low, reverent voice. “I could not see you clearly before.”
He trailed his finger along the curve of a breast, sending warmth spiraling through her. “No freckles,” he murmured as he rose up on an elbow. “I shall be the envy of the sun.”
He folded his hand around the nape of her neck, bringing her closer. He kissed her lips, the sensitive underside of her jaw, her throat. His mouth was hot and moist, gentle but demanding, demanding that her body respond—as though it had a choice.
He moved his hands down, bracing her ribs on either side as his mouth took a leisurely sojourn over the swells of her breasts. Unexpected heat shot through her, melting her limbs, her bones, her very soul until she felt like the molten wax of a candle, giving way so the fire could continue to consume.
It had been too long since she’d felt this way…no, no, she’d never felt this way, as though each second were an eternity. His tongue circled her nipple, and her breathing became shallow, need and desires unfurling. His fingers dug into her flesh as his mouth latched onto her nipple and he suckled.
She released a tiny cry and arched back. She threaded her fingers through his hair. “Harry…”
He rolled her to her back and pulled her gown past her feet, exposing her full body to his perusal. Nothing before had prepared her for the patience this man bestowed upon her now.
His mouth captured hers, hungrily tasting and devouring as though his patience had come to an end, but he swept his hand over her body as though in no hurry, as though he sought to memorize with touch what he was unable to see clearly within the faint light hovering at the edge of the bed.
She pressed her hands to his chest, felt the quivering of his muscles, and only then realized the strain he attempted to hide. Gently, she shoved against him, guiding him to his back. “You’re cheatin’, Harry,” she whispered near his ear before nipping it.
“How so, love?”
“Making me show my hand without revealing yours.” She moved the sheet aside. He grabbed it and jerked it back into place.
“I’ll do it,” he said, his voice strained.
Her heart ached as she pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “That’s no fun.”
His hand came up to cradle her head. “Then douse the flame completely
.”
She lifted her face to his. “No.”
She slid her hand beneath the sheet and unfastened his britches. She felt his gaze boring into her as she eased the trousers past his hips, his thighs, his calves, his feet, and slung them off the bed. She sat back on her heels, giving herself the luxury of looking at him as he had looked at her. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides.
“I know my legs—”
She met his gaze squarely and smiled warmly. “Oh, I’m admiring a great deal more than your legs.” She laid her hand on his flat stomach. “You are fine looking.”
“You are blind.”
She’d often heard that love was—and now she knew it to be true. She kissed his misshapen hip and trailed her mouth along his body until it met his lips. “Maybe.”
She felt the rumble of his chest against her breasts as he groaned, clasping her to him as though she were a lifeline in a turbulent sea. The patience was gone, replaced by an almost desperate need to possess her. He shifted them both until she was again on her back, and he was nestled snuggly between her thighs. His mouth possessed hers with an undeniable urgency. She raised her knees, and he slid inside her with one long, sure stroke.
Nothing had prepared her for this moment of rightness. It no longer mattered that his heart was not hers to heal, for he had somehow managed to piece hers back together.
He rocked against her, increasing her pleasure even as she heard his strangled grunts.
Without warning, he withdrew and rolled off her, gasping for breath.
“Harry—”
“Shh.” He pressed her face into the nook of his shoulder.
“You’re in pain.”
“We can do this another way.” With his hand, he cupped her intimately, his fingers caressing as he sought her mouth.
Even as the sensations mounted, she held back, sliding her mouth from his and pressing her lips to his damp throat. “No.”
She eased him back. Raining kisses over his face, she whispered, “I want you, Harry.”
She straddled his hips. “I want everything you can give me.”
“I wish to God I could offer you more.”
“Why pray for more when I’m content with what you have?” She lifted her hips and slowly sank down, sheathing him like a glove. She ran her hands up and down his chest as she rocked back and forth.
Never Love a Cowboy Page 24