by Sandra Brown
"Jake?"
"Hmm?" He was concentrating on the lushness of her breasts, their size, their creamy smoothness and firm peaks.
"I want you to teach me."
"Teach you?"
"How to... you know, how to do things."
Her hand drifted down his chest to touch the copper disk of his nipple. He caught his breath. "Banner, you don't need any instruction."
"Don't patronize me. It's important to me to know how to please you."
Jake had always imagined that Lydia was a loving wife who had never left her husband dissatisfied. Ross had never confided to Jake about his marital bed, but anyone who knew him saw a happy man. Ross Coleman was lusty and virile. Yet since his marriage to Lydia he had never sought another woman. On that Jake would bet his life.
Banner was the daughter of two people who had enjoyed an active marriage bed. Still Jake was amazed at the extent of her ardor. It transcended anything he had experienced from whores, who faked their responses most of the time. Other women didn't even know they were capable of such passionate release.
"I don't want you to go to anyone else for something I'm not giving you."
"Banner..."
"Will you teach me how to love you?"
He touched her hair, sliding his hand down from the crown of her head to her shoulder. It was a damned tempting proposition, but she was still recovering from her surgery. Lord a'mighty, when he thought of the way she had writhed beneath him, arching and... It's a wonder she hadn't popped her stitches. What the hell had he been thinking about?
"Not tonight," he said, easing her off his lap. The round pressure of her hips against him was making it harder to stay resolved. "You look tired. Go on to bed and let me clean up the dishes."
It wasn't tiredness that weighted down her shoulders as she left the kitchen. It was disappointment.
She was still awake when Jake pushed open the bedroom door a half hour later. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."
"I was waiting for you." Her shoulders were bare above the counterpane. The lamp was turned down low. She looked lovely. The bruises of fatigue making violet smudges beneath her eyes only added to their haunting quality.
Jake felt a twinge of guilt for having taxed her strength. At the same time, desire surged through him. "We can't sleep together anymore, Banner. We almost got caught this morning."
"I'm willing to take the risk."
He shook his head adamantly. "But I'm not. For your sake, not mine. I won't have your name bandied about in the bunkhouse."
"Will you at least kiss me good night?"
He smiled, his teeth catching the lamplight and shining whitely in his dark face. "That I'll do."
The mattress sank with his weight as he sat down on its edge. Gravity, and her own desire to be close, dragged Banner toward him. The sheet covering her was pulled aside, so that when Jake gazed down at her after a deep, evocative kiss, he saw one pink nipple peeping at him teasingly.
He groaned softly. "You don't play fair, Banner."
"I've always broken the rules."
He lowered his head. "Why can't I get enough of you?"
His mouth didn't hesitate, but closed around the tip of her breast. He laved it with his tongue. One taste wasn't enough. He moved to the other breast and polished it as well with long, delicious licks that left Banner gasping with desire.
"Please, Jake. Haven't we waited for each other long enough?"
He pondered her. She was so incredibly lovely, with her hair tumbling down over her creamy shoulders. Her breasts, still shining moistly from his kisses, peeped through the wavy raven strands. Her mouth was swollen and red from being well kissed.
Slowly he came off the bed and peeled off his shirt. He unbuttoned his pants. Banner stared, awestruck by his furred chest and the muscles in his arms. Surely no woman was lucky enough to have a lover as handsome as hers. He was lean, every rib pronounced, but the muscles in his stomach were corded and hard. Veins showed in his arms that bunched with developed muscles every time he asked the merest motion from them.
He eased the pants down his hips and legs and bent slightly to pull them off. When he straightened, Banner gasped softly. Her attraction to his nakedness was purely carnal, for he was beautiful with the lamplight gilding his bronzed skin and golden-white body hair.
Her eyes tracked his tapering chest into a flat stomach and narrow hips. His thighs were long and lean, his calves as hard and round as apples. Her eyes fluttered back up to his sex, where the blond hair clustered darker and denser and curlier around his impressive organ.
Jake leaned down and drew the covers back, finding her, as he had thought, naked. He lay down beside her and gathered her close, holding her tenderly, aware of her bandaged incision. But the personality of their kiss wasn't restrained. It was savagely intent, totally undisciplined, passionately unbridled.
He took her breast beneath his hand and loved it, first with his fingers, then with his mouth that followed close behind. His lips skated down between her ribs. He kissed her navel with an intimate introduction of his tongue and a light scraping of his teeth. His lips drifted toward the bandage on her abdomen. He kissed it with utmost tenderness.
The fever in his blood heightened. His heartbeats accelerated and thrummed against his eardrums.
Banner's fingers tunneled through his hair. What would have previously alarmed her, now elicited thrillsthmat rushed through her body as unchanneled as a flooding river. Feeling the foreign touch of his lips on her body was shocking, but his caresses promised only joy and indescribable ecstasy.
He nuzzled her belly with his nose and chin. He kissed the white square bandage again, then moved to the shallow groove between her thigh and abdomen. He dragged his tongue down it.
Raising his head slightly, he focused on the nest of silky black curls. His breath touched her first, then his lips, whispering endearments.
Breathing hard, he lifted his head and gazed up at her. "Banner, I've never done this before, but..." The words hung in the air like an unfinished question.
"Done what?" Her voice was smoky with passion.
Jake dropped to his knees beside the bed. He eased her toward the edge. He kissed the point of the triangle where her femininity funneled together. Her back arched and she grasped the sheets beneath her in restless hands.
Slowly he parted her thighs and draped them over his shoulders. Turning his head he pressed his mouth to the soft inner lining of her thigh. Again. The sweet caresses went on endlessly. He charted the length of each thigh from the knee up with kisses as light and soft as those to the top of a newborn's head.
Then he allowed himself to taste her. He savored her essence, branding it into his memory forever. He covered her with his mouth, softly sucked. His tongue was an adventurous explorer that delved deeply and sweetly. When it withdrew, it glazed the pulsing flesh with swirling strokes that robbed her of thought.
That blessed black velvet abyss yawned wider and drew Banner closer. Sobbing his name, she fell into it, into an explosion of brilliant light. Her whole being was shaken by the ultimate human experience.
Jake had sworn that he wouldn't take her again that day, but he was powerless to resist when her arms came up, searching for him. He stretched above her and buried himself deep.
"Taste how wonderful you are." He kissed her.
Her hips undulated against the thrusts of his body. His climax came quickly, just as she reached another summit. Jake trembled with an outpouring of emotions as his seed tilled her. They clung together, survivors of a turbulent storm.
When at last he regained enough strength to pull away from her, he looked down into her face. He ran a finger along the shadows beneath her eyes, but could feel no regret. The moment had been too precious.
"I never knew..," she whispered.
"Neither did I."
They kissed tenderly. He covered them both and she curled against him. Their bodies fit in a way only heaven could have designed.
As she drifted to sleep, he heard her whisper, "I love you, Jake."
He lay awake for a long time, listening to the soft cadence of her breathing, feeling it fan the hair on his chest where her head nestled.
There was no other decision to make.
Tomorrow he would have to tell her.
* * *
Her eyes took a long time coming open. When they did, she blinked to bring him into focus. The bedroom was foggy with the gray of predawn. "What are you doing up?" she asked groggily.
Jake, fully dressed and geared for a day's work, sat on the edge of the bed. He was winding a strand of her hair around his finger. He had been tickling her nose with it to wake her up. "The men are coming early. We're driving your cattle home today, boss lady." He cuffed her on the chin. "I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye."
Her mouth formed a delectable sulky pout. "I only wish I were going to drive the cattle with you."
"Next time." He leaned down to kiss the end of her nose, a kiss that extended down to include her lips, then her mouth as his tongue slipped inside. "I love waking up with you beside me, Banner."
"Me too."
"But we can't go on like this." He left the bed and went to stand at the window where the gray on the horizon was giving way to pearl pink.
Banner, her heart thudding like a death knell, threw off the covers, groped for her robe and came off the bed. "What do you mean?" She wrapped the robe around her and lifted her hair out of the back of it.
"We can't go on sleeping together. I care too much for you to cheapen you like this. Besides that, I'm lying to Ross and Lydia every time I touch you. They entrusted you to me."
Her heart was pounding at an alarming rate. He couldn't be telling her he was leaving. If he were, she would die on the spot.
Slowly he turned. Nervously he shifted the brim of his hat through his fingers. "Banner, I think..." He stopped to clear his throat. She stifled a sob. "I think we should get married."
Her relief was so profound that she let go of her pent-up breath with one huge gust. She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and showering his face with kisses. "Oh, Jake, Jake. I.. .oh, yes, yes."
"You want to?"
"Good Lord, yes. If you hadn't asked me to be your wife, I would have asked you. I thought you were going to tell me you were leaving."
He grinned at her enthusiastic acceptance. Dropping his hat on the floor, he returned her bear hug. "Careful. You'll pop a stitch yet."
"Oh, Jake, when? When?"
"As soon as possible." He pushed her away from him slightly and peered down into her face, his smile suddenly becoming strained. "Banner, we don't have time for a fancy wedding. I've already got the license. I handled all that the day I rode into town for food. Do you mind if we just find a preacher and get married without the fuss, without even telling our folks until it's done?"
"No, of course not," she answered in bewilderment. "I don't want the fanfare of another formal wedding. But why shouldn't we tell our parents? Why do you say we don't have time?"
He set her from him then, but kept his hands tightly on her shoulders. "There's a baby, Banner." She stared back at him, too stupefied to respond. "You're carrying my baby."
A baby! Jake's child!
"It must have happened that first night in the barn," he went on. "The doctor told me when he was here. That was one of the reasons he didn't want to operate. He was afraid the surgery would endanger the child."
I'm going to have a baby. A baby Jake and I made.
Undiluted joy rushed through her, bubbling and gurgling like a fountain, sparkling through her system like expensive champagne.
But then the impact of what he had said struck her, immediately and effectively damming the rivers of happiness flowing through her. She shrugged off his hands and backed away from him. Her face went from joyful to blank, to angry, to furious. Before Jake could brace himself for it, she let her hand fly and cracked him smartly and painfully on the cheekbone.
"You bastard! I don't need your pity or your charity. Oh, when I think..."
She sputtered incoherently. That he had made love to her, proposed marriage to her out of pity was too humilating to tolerate.
"Pity? Charity? What the hell are you talking about?" he demanded, nursing his jaw.
"Just get out of here and leave me alone. Get out!" she screamed. Jake had seen too many of her childhood temper tantrums to know she wasn't joking. And the choice was laken from him when he heard the men riding into the yard reporting for work.
"We'll talk about this later."
"You go to hell."
He stalked from the house.
Banner followed him as far as the bedroom door, which she slammed with an impetus that made the window panes rattle. Then, covering her face with her hands, she slid down the cool wood until she reached the floor. Heavy sobs wrenched through her.
She felt more humiliated than she had the day of her wedding, more than she had felt after the incident in the barn, more than she had ever felt in her life.
Humiliated and miserable.
TWENTY-THREE
Grady Sheldon had recovered. His ribs didn't knife into his entrails every time he moved or inhaled. The loosened teeth seemed to have reanchored themselves in his gums. The bruises on his face had gone through the various purple hues and were now jaundiced splotches which were detectable only in certain light.
The physical injuries were healing. But the hatred inside him was as raw and oozing as an open wound.
A goddamned cowboy
Ross Coleman had threatened his life in front of the whole town. That had been humiliating enough. But for a chit like Banner Coleman to prefer a saddle tramp to him, Grady Sheldon, was unthinkable. Langston was years her senior. He probably didn't have two nickels to rub together. It wasn't only unthinkable, it was unforgivable.
For days he had hibernated in his hotel room, nursing his wounds and his hatred. The former because it was necessary. The latter because that hatred had become the focal point of his life. They were all due a comeuppance, and if it was the last thing he did, Grady Sheldon was going to see that they got it.
He had terrorized the hotel parlor maids, snarling at them like a beast lurking in his cave every time they knocked on his door asking if he needed their services. He had lived on whiskey, at first to blur the edges of his pain, then out of laziness. He didn't bathe, didn't shave, didn't do anything but wallow in his hate for Jake Langston and all the Colemans.
This day he had awakened from a drunken sleep with a monumental hangover that hurt everything from his hair follicles down to his toenails. He had pulled himself out of the sweat-dampened sheets, requested a bath in his room, and gradually evolved back into a human being.
Now, as he entered the Garden of Eden, he felt confident again. He had had a run of bad luck that rivaled any in the annals of mankind. It would change.
His cheeks were pink with the first shave in two weeks. His checked suit had been sent out and returned to him pressed and brushed. The black youngster who solicited customers on the street corner had polished his shoes. The bowler sat at a jaunty angle on his head.
Grady shuddered at the thought of whiskey, but asked the bartender for a beer. As he surveyed the crowd in the smoke-filled parlors and gambling rooms of the notorious saloon, he missed the bartender's signal to one of the bouncers, who in turn spun around and headed for the proprietress's chamber.
Priscilla responded to the summons by entering the barroom with less theatrical leisure than usual. She had anxiously awaited word of Grady Sheldon's whereabouts. No one had seen him for weeks. She had mailed a letter to Larsen but had received no answer. What she had to tell him wouldn't keep much longer. Now, when she saw him leaning against the bar, sipping the foamy head off his beer, she rushed toward him.
"Grady!" She tapped his arm with her fan. "You naughty thing, you! Where have you been? I've been dying to see you."
He beamed down at her. She
had missed him that much, had she? His heart swelled with pride. He had the most salacious and insatiable whore in the state lusting after him.
"I met with some trouble." For an instant his brown eyes clouded with the memory of every blow he had received from Jake's fist, as well as Banner's final rejection of his marriage proposal. No doubt they had had a good laugh at his expense afterward.
Sensing his troubled mood, Priscilla laid a comforting hand on his arm and pressed her bosom against his chest. "I hope it's over now."
The words came soft and soothing to his bruised spirit. "Not yet." Then he smiled lazily. "But you can take my mind off my problems, can't you?"
Seductively she lowered her gaze to his lips. "You bet I can. I've missed you."
In a way that was the truth. Male companionship had been notably lacking in her life recently. Apparently Dub Abernathy was angry with her and keeping his distance. He hadn't been to the Garden of Eden since she had approached him on the street.
She hadn't had a man since.. . since Jake had rejected her. She called him a filthy name in her mind, but her body flamed hot with sexual hunger at the memory of his long, bard thighs straddling her bathtub.
She arched her neck and gazed up at Grady with smoldering eyes. Her fingers wandered inside his coat and vest to scratch his shirtfront lightly. "Come with me, Grady. I'm going to make you a happy man tonight." She wet her lips with a wicked tongue. "In more ways than one."
She led him toward her private quarters. At the door, she spoke softly to the bouncer who had informed her that Grady was in the saloon. Grady preceded her in, but the moment she closed the door behind them, he turned to face her. She melted into his arms, curving her body against his enticingly.
"God, you look beautiful," Grady said breathlessly when the long kiss was finally reduced to a moist meeting of their mouths.
Her lips lightly whisked his, but her mind was furiously working. "If I did something for you, Grady, would you do something for me?"
"Like what?" he said thickly.
"Oh, I haven't decided yet. But would you?"
"Sure." He would agree to anything while her tongue was lashing at his lips that way. "One favor deserves another."