by Sandra Jones
The players leaned back, exchanging looks of bemusement. One shook his head, complaining, “We just got started. No fair.”
The boss squinted, watching her closely. “You don’t waste any time, do you? Is that from your new beau?”
Movement behind her caught her eye. She glanced over her shoulder and found Molly standing nearby, watching.
“No.” Dell peeled off two bills and dropped them on top of Moreaux’s. “There. I’ll save the rest for the next few games.” She returned the wad to her bag and placed it in her lap. “This money didn’t come from Bart. It came from the bank. Rory’s account, to be exact, before I cleaned out the last cent. He never told you about his savings, did he?”
She heard Molly’s soft gasp behind her. Dear God, she prayed she hadn’t made a mistake by divulging Rory’s secret.
“Campbell kept a bank account? In St. Louis?” Moreaux leaned forward, his brows knitting.
“And in New Orleans.” Actually, Rory had only mentioned the one in Memphis, but Quintus needn’t know anything about that.
Molly stalked away in a swish of crinoline, though her hurt and resentment lingered behind, a dark cloud hanging over Dell.
For good measure, she winked at the players and shrugged. “What? It was just sitting in a vault being useless, especially if the captain’s left town. Wouldn’t he be proud to know how well he’s trained me?”
Moreaux studied her for a long moment as the others waited, the dealer holding the deck, waiting for permission. After a length, the boss finally motioned for play to resume. “Indeed, dear lady. I’m pleasantly surprised myself.”
She released her breath slowly as the cards were dealt, forcing herself to be patient, keeping her composure. Only a few hours of the bastard’s company, and then she could see Rory again.
William Pomeroy studied Dell, who was dressed like a derelict figure in baggy clothes and coal-smeared face standing on his doorstep, with great caution, cradling his Hawken rifle. Not until Asa exploded with cackling laughter from the kitchen table behind him did the man seem to notice his visitor’s lack of whiskers, the belt doubled around her small waist, and the fact that she stood slightly askew from the weight of the satchel hanging on her shoulder.
Dell nudged the brim of Rory’s borrowed top hat back off her forehead and gave Mr. Pomeroy a meaningful look. He retreated inside the doorway, and she followed at his silent invitation. A young woman—Mrs. Pomeroy, she assumed—stood by the stove in front of a steaming skillet, a butcher knife clutched in a white-knuckled grip.
“Excuse my appearance.” Dell removed the hat to expose the twist of hair on top of her head to Mrs. Pomeroy and further prove she was female. “I know it’s late, but I was worried I’d be followed.”
The pretty lady, perhaps Dell’s age, sighed and put the knife aside. “You must be the woman the captain told us about.”
“Yes.” Dell’s insides tugged at the mention of him. She dropped her burden on the table and wrapped her arms around Asa.
He laughed and gave her a few brittle pats on the back. “Awright. That’s enough. You look like one of the mates—you smell like one too!”
She grinned, relieved to hear his familiar complaining voice. She pulled back and studied his face at arms’ length. His eyes were bright and full of sleepy mirth, his color normal. The malaria hadn’t resurfaced with all the stress.
“I’ll bring you something to wash up with.” Mrs. Pomeroy left the room.
“Do you think anyone followed you?” The man went to the window and peeked between the curtains.
“No. I had someone watching me this afternoon, but no one since I left the Queen tonight.” She withdrew two bills from her satchel and handed it to Pomeroy. “For the food and shelter.”
She’d brought in four hundred dollars at Quintus’s poker table, and the grateful gambler had surprised her, handing her a percentage of the winnings to add to the money she’d brought. The fact that he’d even allowed her to keep Rory’s so-called savings astonished her. She could only assume he’d meant for her to use the money to make herself more appealing to Bartholomew, her supposed new lover.
Hopefully Rory wouldn’t be too unhappy with her for sharing his real secret about the bank account.
“The Pomeroys let me sleep in my own room,” Asa said between spoonfuls of something that looked like a delicious stew. “Rory’s in the other spare room. He’s been in and out of the house all day.”
“I thought he’d wear the floorboards out.” Mrs. Pomeroy returned carrying a washbowl and towel, which she set before Dell on the table. “He finally went to rest an hour ago.”
Dell wiped her face with the warm, damp towel, and the cloth came away black with soot. Using the rag to refresh her eyes, she tamped down the tender emotions that threatened to undo her. She didn’t give a fig about what these strangers thought of her, but she didn’t want Asa to see how afraid she was.
“The captain was waiting to see you, I think,” Mrs. Pomeroy added gently with a knowing look. “If you’d like to join him, one of us will come get you before sunrise so you can get back to the ship before you’re missed.”
Dell smiled her thanks as the woman took the dirty washbowl away.
At the top of a narrow stairway, Dell tapped lightly on the door the Pomeroys had indicated. When Rory didn’t answer, she turned the metal handle and cautiously stepped inside.
She exhaled with relief, seeing Rory lying on the four-poster bed—all six foot plus of him stretched across the quilt top, wearing only his pants. His gun was an arm’s length away on the braided rug. A dim lantern lit the room—he never slept in total darkness—and the glow made soft shadows on his bare chest and peaceful face. His lips parted in sleep, achingly beautiful beneath the growth of whiskers, and her insides squeezed at the sight. If he was good-looking awake, he was positively breathtaking in his sleep. They had much to talk about, but it could wait. He had trouble sleeping, or so he’d told her, and she wouldn’t impede on his rest for the world.
Dropping her hat and satchel in the chair, she climbed carefully onto the bed to stretch out in front of him, striving not to jostle the mattress. She heard him inhale and sigh heavily. Then the weight of his hand fell against her waist, holding her in his slumber.
Shimmering bliss spread clear to her toes. She allowed her eyes to shut, giving way to fantasies of how they might sleep together without fear someday. A man and woman contentedly resting side by side as lovers. Or…if she dared dream the impossible…as more.
How long she slept she couldn’t be certain before a low rumble awoke her. At first it reminded her of the sound of a heavy tree crashing deep in the forest and ended on a guttural growl just barely human. “Enoughhhh!”
The word vibrated through her, making her realize it had come from Rory’s lungs at her back, though the voice sounded nothing like the man she knew. His hand crushed her waist, unconsciously bruising, then released. She felt the bed rocking as he flung onto his back.
A nightmare.
She rolled over and found him staring at the ceiling, his mouth working yet saying nothing.
“Rory?” She sat up and touched his shoulder.
A tear rolled from his unblinking eyes. “No. No. NO!” His mutters became a harsh cry of rage.
Her heart choked her. “Rory, wake up.” She touched his cheek.
His hand shot out, grabbed her wrist. “Enough!”
He tumbled her backward beneath his weight and wedged a forearm across her chest. His eyes stared down, glazed and unseeing. In the throes of his vicious nightmare, he breathed heavily as if he’d been running for hours.
Blood rushed to her head and face, bones crushed beneath the strength of his muscular arm. She pried at his hold, pushed against him, but he only pushed back.
“Ro-ry!” she managed to puff from her deflated lungs. Tears of pain welled in
her eyes. Wearing his clothes, she looked like a man, felt like a man. How to get him to wake? How to get him up, if she couldn’t move, couldn’t yell?
She twisted her hips beneath him, but that yielded no change in his aggressive demeanor. She could probably wake him with pain from a bite. Angling her mouth to the side of his arm, she kissed his skin. Please don’t make me hurt you.
Her teeth clenched down on his skin, breaking through his violent haze. He hissed and shuddered. She witnessed his transformation—the dark veil lifting as awareness brought life back into those clear green eyes she loved so well.
“Angel?” He blinked. Quick as a shot, he pulled away. “Are you all right?” His hands cupped her face as he searched her eyes.
“I think so,” she strangled out. She sat up and gasped, feeling the air coming back into her lungs. Her ribs ached and her chest burned with each heaving breath.
“Christ!” He rolled away, covering his face with his hands.
“I’m fine.” She rubbed her chest, making sure. Her collarbone appeared to be inside her skin, no jagged pieces of bone popping out. Her breasts might be a little flatter, but other than that…
She looked at him again and found him slumped dejectedly at the farthest edge of the bed. He wiped his eyes with an unsteady hand. This incident likely wreaked havoc on him. She knew he avoided sleeping with anyone at all costs.
Damaged, he’d called himself. Now she knew why.
“How often does this happen to you?” Her voice was hoarse and out of breath.
“Often enough.” He turned to her. “I thought you were a man. I thought you were…him. I could’ve killed you.”
She straightened his shirt over her chest. “I stopped you. It was nothing.”
“Dell, please. You heard me.” He shoved a shaking hand through his tousled hair. “What did I say? Did I threaten you? Say I’d rip you apart? Or worse? I’ve been known to holler, push, hit—”
“But you didn’t.” She swallowed, forcing her expression to remain confident. “You didn’t mean to hurt me, and you didn’t, really.”
“No? You don’t fool me. I know I injured you. And when I think what could have happened because of my brutality…” He reached across the distance, touching her collarbone with his fingertips, tracing the throbbing line where his forearm had crushed her. “I’d rather gut myself with a wooden spoon than harm a hair on your head.”
“I know. I believe you would.” She stood on her knees and crawled closer to him. Yearning to wipe the bleak expression from his face, she put her hands on his shoulders. “But how do you think I’ve endured this day? Knowin’ you were here and I out there on the Queen Helen? I’d risk much, much more than what happened just to be with you now.”
He stared at her for a long moment with something deep and questioning in his eyes. She put her hands behind his neck and caressed his taut muscles. His face, always so expressive—surprisingly so, for a gambler—reflected his struggle with self-loathing. But he couldn’t know that pushing her away from him wounded her far worse than his unconscious tussle. How could he? She hadn’t told him how she felt.
She put her lips to his and kissed him with all her heart. Then she whispered, “Rory, I’ll never think you’re brutal. I lo—”
He sealed her mouth with his, pulling her tight against him, muffling the sound of her words with his kiss.
Words he apparently didn’t wish to hear.
Yet even as her heart constricted, she could no more resist him than she could stop herself from breathing.
His hands sank into her hair and kept her still as his lips stole across hers. He murmured against her mouth, “You’re here now. I’m so glad you came, Dell. That’s all I need. All I could ask for.”
The tip of his tongue passed across her top lip, then the bottom, and when she opened to him, he pushed inside, searing her with his heat. His body rotated to hers, his mouth moving urgently, his teeth grazing softly across her lips, his breath coming more like when he’d been in the throes of his dream. Slowing his pace, reining back his ardor, he eased into a lingering kiss.
His fingertips touched the side of her face, feather light, following her cheekbone, and his thumb traced her eyebrow with breathtaking tenderness.
Then he tugged gently at the man’s shirt she wore and his lips twisted. “No disguise in the world could hide your beauty.” His fingers drifted down to her chin, tilted her head back for a better look. “You’ve no idea how lovely you are. The man who wakes each morning with you in his arms is a very, very lucky bastard. I can’t give you that…no matter how much I want…but I can give you tonight.”
Her heart wrenched harder. Tonight. When had one night become not enough?
“Yes.” She made herself nod. Whatever he was willing to offer, she’d accept.
Giving herself to Rory had always been a risk she was willing to take. She’d known the odds, and now her broken heart was her responsibility alone. She’d gladly trade a lonely life like Rosemary Hughes’s to spend the rest of her days at Rory’s side. Staring into the depths of his sharp eyes, she felt all her secrets exposed.
He tilted her head down and kissed her eyelids as his thumb caressed her cheek. “We have until daylight, I guess, before you’re missed?” He kissed the top of her head, then her temple and finally her mouth. “I’m your first lover, and I’m not lettin’ you leave here until you can say I was your first everything.”
Oh, the sound of that made her quiver. She swept her hand down his chest, and marveled at the way his skin made gooseflesh beneath her fingertips as if he was affected as much as she. “Will you show me how to touch you? How to please you?”
“I’d be delighted.” The corner of his mouth crooked upward. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and hesitated, then said, “But they taught us boys at the orphanage, a gentleman puts a lady first.”
He unbuttoned her shirt. She hadn’t worn an undergarment, as her corset pushed her breasts too high for her to pass for male. Now her breasts stood bare before him, the pink peaks of her nipples straining for his touch.
As his mouth descended and his tongue stroked the curve of her bosom, she ran her fingers through the silky waves of his hair. “I’ve always appreciated good manners.”
“Mmmm,” he purred, coddling her in his hands.
His whiskers brushed her softly, and his rough palms cradled her with delicate care. He’d always treated her like a lady, even as a little girl, lifting her over mud holes and chastising when she attempted to help the boys move cargo on the docks.
Even now, obviously trying to rectify his brutal handling, he kissed lightly along the tender line of her chest where he’d manhandled her.
She ached for more than kisses, to fill the void inside her once again, to take him fully. She didn’t need gentle care. She wanted the full onslaught of everything he held back. His touch was soft, but the same couldn’t be said about the rest of the man, and that was what she wanted. Him—hard, virile and strong. Captain. Pirate. Rory.
She stroked him through his pants and explored the rigid contour of his expanding organ.
Need pooled within her, so ready, but he leaned back. The look he gave her was hard, though his eyes shimmered with heat. “You’re not playing fair.”
He pushed his fingers inside her pants, and slipped into her achy void. She sucked air between her teeth, leaning into his touch. Her knees bent around him. “I didn’t come to your bed to be pampered.” She bit her lip as he thrust his fingers deeper inside her. Sweet heaven, how her body sang in response to his actions, though.
“No?” he whispered as if calling her a liar, then lowered his mouth to one of her nipples, tugging it gently between his lips and licking it so slowly.
“No,” she moaned.
He shucked her pants lower and wriggled his fingers against her warm, wanton flesh. She instinctively rubbe
d against his calloused hand, so wonderful against her damp cleft.
He flashed a brief satisfied smile.
“Well, what would the lady like? Or perhaps since she’s such a novice she doesn’t know what she would like?” His hand moved rhythmically in and out of her, spreading the silky moisture within and without. He made a roguish grin. “She likes this good enough.”
“Ungh.” Dell swallowed a plea. Pressure collected in her core. This wasn’t what she had planned at all. She licked her dry lips and held his gaze. “I want you.”
She reached for him but he leaned back again. “Un uh. Ladies first.”
Heat gathered in her face. She ground herself against the push of his hand, deeper still—yet not enough. She shook out her hair and heard the pins fall as the twisted mass tumbled loose to her shoulders. She glared up at Rory, preparing to give him hell, only to find him staring at her with unguarded adoration. The heart-melting tenderness of his expression only furthered her desire.
She would please him. She would make him feel complete again.
“Know what else I’d like, Rory?” she panted.
“Anything you say, angel.” His lips brushed against hers, and his fingers teased between her cleft, slipping back and forth.
The touch of his hand brought pleasure, though left her wanting. Shaky with yearning, she laid a forceful hand on his chest, pushing him back. “I want to be naked. Both of us.”
That brought another grin. He stood and removed his pants, eying her hungrily as she finished sliding out of the baggy breeches. She slung them aside, and he returned to her.
He kissed her as he climbed over her on the bed, resuming the same position as before, but this time Dell ran her hand down his tight stomach and groin, finally encompassing his thick shaft. He jerked reflexively, groaning into her mouth.
“No, no. I told you, not yet.” His fingers closed around hers, trying to remove her hold.
Unrelenting, Dell swept her thumb across the satiny ridge at the tip, spreading the moisture across the head. “Yes. Do you not like me anymore?”