‘I did, though I had no idea—”
“That’s where the trust comes in. Spread for me, wife.”
She bit her lip, her eyes alight with both excitement and trepidation. Her thighs parted barely a half inch.
He grinned. “I need you to be open much wider than that, baby.”
When she shifted again, he caught the slightest glimpse of pink. Better, although still not nearly enough for his purposes.
“Let me show you.” His hands slid along the backs of her thighs and he lifted first one leg than the other over his shoulders, before settling in between. “When I say spread, raring, this is how I want you.”
As he spoke, he let his words and the warmth of his breath flow over her glistening curls and lower lips. Her hips jerked and a low groan rolled up from her throat. Her fingers dove back into his hair and she pulled his face toward her.
Bo chuckled. “Yeah, she understands.” His thumbs slipped inside and exposed her soft center. When all of her shimmering pink flesh was exposed, spread out like a feast before him, the teasing and laughter were gone and his hunger returned. He dove in, and with lips, tongue, and teeth, he devoured her.
“Oh dear heavens, Bo,” she cried as he suckled on the hard nub of pleasure up top, drawing it between his teeth and lashing it back and forth the same way he’d done her nipples. Her response then had been passionate, now it became cataclysmic as she became slick with her honeyed nectar. Her hips bucked and he had to lay a heavy arm across them to keep her in place. Then he felt the involuntary tremors of her release begin. Knowing she was close, he dipped a long finger inside her. Instantly, it became drenched as her hot silken muscles closed around him. He gave her more, sliding in a second digit next to the first. His mouth didn’t let up as he began pumping his fingers slowly in and out of her dripping channel. That’s all it took, before she bucked her hips off the bed and with a flood of wetness, and a groan of pure ecstasy, she came around his fingers.
He wasn’t quite done yet, lapping at her pulsing clit and slipping in and out of her heat as she came back to earth. Then, it was his turn. Pushing up with both arms, he settled fully over her, his hips between her spread thighs as his hard length easily found home. With a raspy moan, he eased into her clingy tightness and reveled in the residual ripples of her pleasure as he sank deep. With a hand on the mattress on either side of her body, he lowered his head and kissed her.
She blinked up at him. “You taste like…”
When she didn’t finish, blushing furiously and hiding her eyes, he did it for her. “I taste of you, sweetheart, and your honey is divine. Sweet like ambrosia as I knew you would be.”
“It’s strange,” she whispered, “tasting myself on your lips.”
“Someday soon, you’ll return the favor.” She gasped, her lashes flying up as she grasped his meaning. “Right now, I need to ride you hard, and claim your body with my own. Wrap your arms and legs around me, Coral, and hold on. It’s my turn to find pleasure in you.”
When she had encircled him, her smooth skin rubbing against the rougher texture of his own, he began to move, withdrawing fractionally, before gliding back in. Gradually, he eased out more, then thrust forward, sinking deeply. Before long, he was almost coming out of her clingy channel, before surging back inside her, hard and deep. And the whole time, she clung to him, her hands running up and down his back, her heels digging into his ass as she pulled him into her, helping him fuck her. It was more pleasure than he’d ever experienced in all his thirty-four years and, although he wanted to prolong it, drawing out the sheer ecstasy of their joining, he knew he wouldn’t be able to last for long. It felt too damn good.
His hands moved down and slid between the mattress and her bottom, cupping a globe in each palm, then he pulled up with each downward stroke, possessing her as completely as possible. A few more enveloping glides in her tight passage and his orgasm was upon him. He didn’t stop as his passion climbed to incredible heights, and then in a burst of sensation, he poured himself into her, growling her name as the power of his climax swept through him. For several moments, he eased slowly in and out of her, savoring the contentment of the aftermath until at last, he relaxed against her. As his reason returned, he rolled them both to their sides, sparing her his crushing weight.
“I didn’t think it could be any better, Bo,” she said with a sigh, wonder apparent in her soft voice. “The fire, the raw passion, it was amazing . Thank you.”
“No need for thanks,” he whispered against her cheek, brushing the damp tendrils of her hair off her warm face. “You’ll give and I’ll take, as much as I’ll give and you take back. That’s what this marriage will be for us, a joining, not just in a legal sense, but also emotional, physical, and spiritual. It’s what I’ve waited for and I’ve found it in you, Coral.”
“I haven’t waited, Bo, because I didn’t know such a thing existed. Now that I do, I don’t ever want to let go.”
“Ah, baby, as if I’d ever let you go. You’re mine, Carissa Anne Magnusson. Now and forever.”
He claimed her lips again and long into the night they held each other, rousing often to partake again and again, in between whispering words of love, of their future, and of the family they both wanted to have.
The sun was peeking over the horizon when at last, with both of them sapped of strength and thoroughly sated, they slept, each basking in the joy of new love, their bodies still humming with the thrill of newfound pleasure. What they didn’t know was their new start wouldn’t be free from more strife or drama, and the well planned future they had woven in whispers, while naked in one another’s arms that night, would soon hang by a thread as more adversity loomed ahead.
Chapter Thirteen
The smoking cast iron skillet slammed with a clatter upon the stove as Coral hissed in pain. Bo, who was walking in from outside at that moment, heard and rushed into the kitchen. He grabbed her by the arm at the same time he drew the lid off the water barrel and plunged her hand inside.
“What happened?”
“I picked up the pan without that quilted mitten thing.” She flapped her uninjured hand at the potholder that lay unused on the counter top. “I’m a terrible cook,” she said with a pout. “You sure drew the short straw when you married me.”
His hand swooped down and clamped onto her behind with a threatening squeeze. “I am wholly satisfied with my bride, and I’ll thank you not to denigrate her in my presence, or ever for that matter. I can cook, I’ll take over that chore.”
“You shouldn’t have to, not after slaving over that hot forge all day. It’s got to be sweltering in there in the summer. You shouldn’t have to come home and toil over a stove because your wife is a ninny-hammer who can’t fry an egg without blistering her hand.”
“Coral,” he said in warning.
“Well, it’s true.”
“It isn’t as bad as all that, besides, it’s quite comfortable in the winter,” he said with a teasing grin as he pulled her hand out and examined it. His grin disappeared and was replaced by a frown at the sight of the large red welt emblazoned across her palm. He dipped her hand back under the water. “Another ten minutes of soaking, then some salve and a bandage. I’m afraid it’s going to blister.”
“I can’t stand around soaking. What about your breakfast?”
He kissed her forehead and moved toward the stove. “How many eggs?”
“What?”
“Two it is. Fried, poached, scrambled?”
“You can make poached eggs?” she asked, feeling like a complete failure.
He shrugged, and she knew he thought it was easy but didn’t want to hurt her feelings more. “If you want to learn to cook, why not ask Nellie at the saloon? I hear she takes on an apprentice now and then.”
“Nettie.”
“Mm,” he agreed as he set water to boiling in a pan. Efficiently, he sliced several pieces of store bought bread and slathered them with butter, both purchased ready-made at Singleton’s Merca
ntile. He then set them on a pan and slid it into the oven. The honey-cured ham was prepared next, in thick hearty slices.
She had to do something. He made it look so easy. “You wouldn’t mind me going back to the saloon?”
He looked up, an eyebrow raised sharply. “My problem was with you working upstairs in that damned red petticoat. Now that you’re married, a pink one is off limits too. But I know you had friends there; I don’t want to take them away from you.”
She squealed and rushed to him. Dripping wet she hugged him around the middle.
“Here, now,” he said, stepping away from the stove and pulling her with him. “First lesson is being careful around cast iron, Coral. It is an excellent conductor of heat.”
“I don’t know what that means. What I do know is that you are the kindest husband ever. I’ll ask Nettie about lessons this afternoon.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the lips.
He blinked down at her a moment before he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and held her there, deepening the kiss. “That’s the first time you kissed me, min skatt.”
“That’s silly, Bo. We kiss all the time,” she replied against his mouth.
He pulled back just a fraction, sky blue eyes meeting vivid green. “Yes, but I have always kissed you, baby, never the other way around.” Suddenly, he released her and moved everything off the heat. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back on the dining table.
“Bo?”
“You’re all the breakfast I want,” he growled, then proceeded to gorge himself on sweet Coral.
* * *
Bo got a very late start that morning. After bringing her to a screaming climax with his mouth and tongue moving shamelessly between her legs, he’d taken his time with her, surprising her by flipping her over onto her belly and driving into her while bent over the table. He’d started out slow, the rough pads of his working man hands abrading her skin as they glided over her bottom, up her spine, and beneath her to palm her breasts, rolling and tugging on her peaked nipples. The whole time, he stroked steadily into her, going deep, again and again while he continued his unhurried caresses. Despite taking her several times the night before, his stamina was unending. She imagined he could have kept at it all day, if she hadn’t become quite vocal with her impatience.
“Faster, Bo, you’re driving me mad.”
His husky chuckle brushed her neck as he bent over her, slipped a hand into her hair at her nape, and with an arm winding beneath her, pulled her upright. He angled her head back and to the side as he caught her lips in a fiery kiss. “My treasure is getting impatient for the big finish, is she?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that, then.” The hand twisted in her hair set her free and stroked down her belly. Dipping between her nether lips, his fingers found the hard bud in front that was the source of endless pleasure. He circled it, rubbed it back and forth, until she moaned helplessly, her hand covering his and pressing it more firmly between her legs.
He flipped his hand over, caught hers beneath it, then guided her fingers with his own until they touched where they were joined. “Feel how perfectly we fit together. It’s as though you were made for me.”
She released a shuddering breath as she felt the hard length of him, made slick from her juices, glide between her fingers and inside her at the same time. It was intensely erotic and she felt she was going to come apart from the beauty of the moment. He withdrew his hand yet ordered her not to. “Keep it there. I want you to feel both of us as I make us come.”
Disobeying never crossed her mind, because what she was feeling was too good to stop. He began to move faster, pumping into her harder as his fingers again found the hard achy bud in front. He pinched and rolled the swollen bundle while his other hand plucked and rolled a distended nipple, and his mouth suckled a spot on the side of her neck. All the sensations combined were too much and she convulsed around him, her body shaking as she again came to a mind-numbing release in his arms.
She cried out, as he lowered her back down on the table, her swollen breasts smashing against the smooth gleaming surface. With a foot, he nudged her feet wider and his hands grasped her hips. He slammed into her then, taking her harder than he had yet. His breathing came faster, the skin of his hips slapping against her taut bottom with each thrust. She knew when his fingers curled into her hips and he growled low in his chest that he was close. She reached back and clasped her hands around his wrists, holding on as he took her so hard and fast that the large heavy oak table scraped across the floor. She couldn’t control the cry of delight as her body exploded once more into climax. As she called out to him, he responded in kind and soared to his own shuddering culmination.
After they’d recovered, and dressed again and smoothed out the other’s mussed hair, they settled for a cold, fast breakfast of apple slices, buttered bread—the forgotten slices in the oven fit for doorstops, not consumption—and cheese. She teased that he wasn’t quite the cook he professed to be, while he countered, accusing her of using her feminine wiles to divert him from his culinary feats to make her own ineptness at boiling water seem not as bad. They’d laughed, kissed in between bites, and playfully fed the other while standing by the cutting board in their kitchen.
In short order, but with the sun high overhead, they strolled hand in hand past the busy, noisy livery on their way to the saloon where he planned to leave her under Nettie’s watchful eye, if she was willing.
Along the way, she fretted that she had distracted him from his work.
“Sweetheart,” he assured her, “I have three apprentices who are well trained and can easily handle things. When I’m gone, Ben Johnson is in charge. He’s been with me for three years and is nearly ready to move on and open up his own shop. He supervises the younger two who both have a year a piece of training with me.”
“What about the stable?”
“I’ve got two experienced hands and an excellent stable master. I pay them well and they run the place as if it were their own. I enjoy working with the horses as a change of pace from the heat of the forge, but mainly I let Ralph be. He’s got ten years more under his belt than I do, and has a gift with the horses.”
“You’re very established.”
“It’s been almost seven years since I opened. The forge first, then as the town grew, I added the livery stable. For the most part, the ironwork keeps me busy. I handle the more intricate, detailed work and let the youngsters do the shoeing and routine jobs. We stay busy as the only smithy in over fifty miles.”
“Can I come watch you one day?”
“You’ll come watch me every day until we find out where Dixon wandered off to.”
She halted abruptly, causing him to pull up short as she looked up at him. “He or my father were never ones to give up easily, Bo. It worries me.”
He pulled her close, no matter that they were on a public street and cupped his hand along her cheek, stroking her lower lip with his thumb. “You let me do the worrying, min skatt. Besides, we’re married now. What can they possibly do about that?”
“You don’t know them like I do. There’ll be trouble.”
“Nothing I can’t handle. Still, I don’t want Harvey bothering you, so you’ll come to work with me, or stay with Nettie for cooking lessons. I don’t want you out of my sight until we know they’ve let this nonsense go. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a serious nod. She didn’t want another confrontation with Harvey either.
“Sir? That’s very formal. I like Bo better, or honey, that sounds sweet coming from your lips. Or even husband.” Then he made a face. “Just don’t start calling me Mr. Magnusson. I don’t like such formal address between a husband and wife. Unless I’m paddling your behind, then maybe sir might do after all.”
“Bo!”
He grinned, bent low to brush her lips softly, but only briefly, considering where they were. With his big hand curled around her own, he sta
rted them along the path to the saloon once again.
* * *
Nettie eagerly accepted a new student and put her straight to work. She promised Bo she’d keep an eye on her, and nodded to the big wooden spoon in a place of prominence on a hook on the wall.
“I’ve paddled many a misbehavin’ gem who doesn’t know how to mind,” she assured him.
Bo looked at his wife with his brows raised in question.
“Not me,” Coral answered. “I’m a good girl. Not even once.”
“You’ll have to give me lessons on how you do that, Nettie. I don’t seem to have the same result.” He held up his spanking hand, the palm of which was much larger than the bowl of the cook’s infamous spoon.
Nettie imitated a spanking action as she replied tongue in cheek, “It’s all in the snap of the wrist, Mister Bo. Keep practicing.”
“Oh my stars,” Coral ground out. “He doesn’t need any advice on technique, I can assure you.”
Nettie looked at her with a knowing grin as Bo’s rich laughter filled the kitchen. Then she shooed him out the door. “Best be on your way, young man. Those beasts ain’t gonna shoe themselves.”
He came to Coral and with his fingers curled beneath her chin, gave her a brief but thorough kiss on the lips. “I’ll come fetch you when we close, or if you get done here, have Gabe arrange to have someone run you down to the livery. Do not go out on your own.”
“I won’t, Bo. If Nettie gets tired of me, I’ll visit with the gems until you come back.”
“That’s my girl,” he said with a tender smile and a soft caress of her cheek with the backs of his fingers. With a nod to Nettie, he was gone.
“He sure is smitten with you, missy.”
Coral couldn’t help the euphoric smile that curved her lips as she met the cook’s eyes. “The feeling is entirely mutual.” She looked around at the well-stocked kitchen and in her eagerness, rubbed her hands together, wincing as she immediately recalled her burn. “I’m not sure what I can do one handed, but I’m ready to learn.”
Claiming Coral (The Red Petticoat Saloon) Page 13