by Shirl Henke
He growled low in his throat as he pulled her up against him, cupping her silky little buttocks in his hands while he continued kissing her feverishly. Rebekah felt his hands gliding all over her wet, slick body. In spite of her leaving the warmth of the water, the heat was building beneath her skin. His heavy robe was sopping wet in front and the wine-red velvet covered with a fine froth of bubbles.
She suddenly felt the urge to see those tiny glistening spheres in the dark pelt of his chest hair. Her hands slid down to the belt at his waist and tugged it free. He obliged her instantly by shedding it with one swift shrug.
She reached down into the pile of bubbles surrounding her hips and brought a handful up to his chest, blowing them onto it.
“So, you want me dressed as you are,” he whispered seductively. Before Rebekah could do more than press her hands into the hair on his chest, he kicked away his robe, then climbed into the big tub facing her. “I always wanted to do this in this tub; but I must confess, I never thought of using bath salts.”
He reached for fistfuls of billowy white froth and began to pile them on her shoulders, working the glistening stuff down over her breasts, pausing to expose the hard pink nubs of her nipples by blowing on them. His hands glided lower to the curve of her hips.
Rebekah responded, playing in the dark hair on his chest with a foaming lather, then moving over his broad shoulders and down his biceps. When her hands shifted back to his torso and followed the black arrow of hair in its descent over his belly, she felt him tremble. Then, she felt the hardness of his staff brush her thigh and instinctively sought it, taking it in her hands and stroking it in her slick palms until he cried out her name and pulled her against him for another fierce kiss.
“Faith, keep that up and I'll be adding more oil to the waters,” he murmured raggedly into her mouth. He lowered them into the froth and laid her back against the rim of the tub. Kneeling between her thighs, he raised one leg and kissed the knee, then the other. When he took her mouth again, she clung to his shoulders, returning the kiss. He cupped her buttocks and raised her lower body to meet his thrust. She locked her ankles behind his back and held on as he impaled her with the hard length of his phallus.
Rebekah thought she heard him murmur curses, or love words, as he trembled, buried completely inside of her. His invasion stretched her, filled her, yet she craved more, clinging to him and crying out, unable to stop the writhing undulations of her body as he began to thrust in and out. Even with her eyes squeezed shut in bliss, she could picture the glitter of bubbles on his staff as he stroked her aching flesh.
Her velvety sheath contracted around him the instant he penetrated her, wet and eager, yet so small and tight that the pleasure nearly drove him over the edge. He steeled himself to keep control, then felt her arch against him, rolling her hips hungrily. Red exploded behind his eyes in a haze of ecstasy. His body pummeled hers with swift, hard thrusts, oblivious to anything but the blind drive to climax.
His desperation mirrored her own as she moved with him in the wild, sweet dance, drawn to that burning culmination awaiting her just another stroke away, and another.... Each one grew more fierce until she thought she could endure no more of the frenzy, the pain-pleasure of her hunger. Then his staff swelled within her on one final, deep thrust and he shuddered, holding her tightly against him. In that instant, the dam broke and a hot surge of shimmering, breathless ecstasy inundated her, releasing her body and soul.
Rory could feel her body clenching rhythmically around his, squeezing out every last drop of his seed in her own fiercely sweet completion. Her flexing sheath added to and prolonged his violent explosion until he was utterly drained and weak. He fell back onto his heels, holding her against him. They were both oblivious to the water, which had now grown chilly.
Her head fell against his shoulder, the golden curtain of her hair shrouding them both. She had lost the pins during their wild coupling. He reached up with one dripping hand and touched a shining curl, sighing her name.
“Tis fearful cold in here, darlin', and getting cramped,” he finally managed, lifting her away from him so he could stand and climb out. He reached down and swept her out of the tub, depositing her on the carpet.
Rebekah stood still, suddenly aware of her nakedness and the chill air as goose bumps rose on her skin. She shivered. He immediately wrapped her in a large towel and massaged her dry. She felt too shy to say anything, so she just stood there, clutching the towel around herself. When he took another and dried himself off, she did peek from beneath the shield of her lashes, watching the smooth ripple of his lean muscles. He finished quickly and tossed the towel away. Then, he picked her up and carried her to the big bed, where he pulled back the coverlet and had her recline in the center of a pile of pillows.
Without hesitation, he climbed onto the bed beside her and lay looking down at her with troubled eyes. Slowly, reverently, he pulled away the towel shielding her nakedness. He was becoming aroused again. She could feel the tumescence of his erection pressing against her hip as his hands glided over her cool, damp flesh. His touch quickly began to warm her.
‘‘You're so beautiful...and you're mine. I can't bear the thought that a pervert like Wells ever touched you.” The words slipped out before he even realized what he had said, but at once he could feel her stiffen and pull away. “Rebekah—”
“You can't bear it! How do you think I felt?” She pulled the sheet up, covering herself, placing a barrier between them. She shivered in revulsion as the memory of her first wedding night returned. “I was terrified to have him touch me.” A small hiccup of hysterical laughter bubbled up in her throat. “But you don't have to worry that you've bought damaged goods—Amos never consummated our mockery of a marriage. He couldn't, although he humiliated me enough in the trying that awful night.” She buried her face in the bunched-up sheets and cried. “That's why I had to tell him I was pregnant. I married him to protect my baby, and it was all for nothing!”
Her muffled words seared his guts like acid. “You said he never hurt you or Michael,” he whispered brokenly, afraid to touch her, to offer comfort or apology.
Her shoulders stopped shaking and she raised her head. Her eyes met his squarely, coldly. “If he had hurt Michael, I would have killed him, but he never did. He needed an heir to prove his virility. As for me”—she shrugged stiffly—“mostly he paraded me around like an ornament, or ignored me.”
“That isn't how you got that bruise on your cheek,” he said softly, reaching out to brush it with gentle fingertips.
“If you hadn't come back into my life, he wouldn't have reacted as he did.”
“He knew Michael was mine—that you were mine. No man could ever forget that. That's why he sent Michael so far away to boarding school.”
“I couldn't stop him. He owned my son. Now you do.”
There was a dare in her voice, and it nettled the guilt buried deeply inside him, along with his own righteous sense of betrayal. “I won't be spendin' the rest of my life doin' penance for the sin of losin' you and Michael eight years ago, Rebekah.” Anger brought back the brogue he had spent years erasing. “Neither of us is to blame. Your family separated us—”
“You keep accusing my father of manipulating our lives,” she lashed out. “What are you doing now? You've forced me to marry you. You have legal control of Michael. Amos is dead. What more do you want?”
“I'll show you what I want—what you want, too, only you're too stubborn to admit it.” He seized the sheet she clutched to her breasts and yanked it away with an oath, then covered her body with his.
His mouth ground down on hers, demanding a response. At first she resisted, but when his hands caressed her breasts and glided over her hips, his lips gentled and his tongue danced along the closed seam of her mouth. With a small cry, she opened for his kiss and her arms pulled him closer. Her thighs parted and she welcomed him, but Rory did not plunge in as he knew she expected.
Instead, he trailed hot, wet kis
ses from her mouth to her throat, then lower, pausing to suckle and caress her breasts as she writhed, calling out his name, digging her fingers into his night-black hair. His head moved down to her belly. His tongue dipped into her naval; then his lips continued on their downward course. When she realized his destination, she tried to pull him away; but he nuzzled the silky gold curls at the juncture of her thighs.
‘‘No,” she protested weakly, but the heat of his mouth found her and she lay still, paralyzed by the shocking ripples of pleasure his caress called forth. This was unnatural, surely sinful, wicked...bliss!
Rory sensed her acquiescence, then the increasing tension of renewed hunger that his gentle licks and kisses were eliciting. Her body arched taut as a bowstring. He felt the first rhythmic swelling of her orgasm. Her cries were sweet to his ears as he laved her with kisses, then raised his head to watch soft pink stain her skin from her face and throat across her breasts and belly. “Look at me, Rebekah,” he commanded as he positioned his hard, aching staff at the still quivering portal of her femininity.
The keen breath-robbing release ebbed slowly, and Rory's voice, low and hoarse, brought her back to earth. Dazed green eyes fluttered open and she gazed up, meeting the hungry intensity of his dark blue gaze. What had he done to her? It was unimaginable. The look of utterly male possessiveness on his face was tempered only by his own stark hunger. Instinctively, her hips arched up, welcoming him inside her body, wanting to claim him as he had her.
But his desperation quickly dissipated as he slowed the rhythm of his thrusts, holding her hips and molding them to him in lazy, languorous strokes. “We have all night,” he whispered hoarsely.
She did not answer with her voice, but the building heat deep inside her compelled her body to answer for her. Gradually, she came alive under his caresses; and his thrusts grew in response, deeper, swifter, harder until they were both lost in the maelstrom once again.
When it was complete, he gave her no chance to move away, but rolled them to their sides, holding her closely to him, and yanked the bed covers up over them. Feeling the softness of her body melded against his, he quickly fell asleep.
Rebekah stared out across the room, her eyes wide open. The hard muscles of her husband's arm held her fast, and a slight rasp of his whiskers grazed her shoulder as he moved in his sleep. This is the first time we've ever spent a night together. We 're really married. At last...
But why had he married her? He lusted for her, but did he love her? He loved Michael, and he had married her. Perhaps, she should be satisfied with that much and leave the rest to sort itself out. Someday, the three of them might become a family to make up for the one he had lost as a child.
* * * *
Carson City
Patrick received Rory's telegram that evening and read the terse message with incredulity. “That damned fool! He's let that woman get her hooks into him just because of the boy.” Of course, he had to admit that if Rory was right about the resemblance, there could be no doubt of his paternity. But Patrick Madigan had no reason at all to trust Rebekah Wells. She had far too strong a hold over his brother for him to like this sudden marriage, even if Rory had been the one to force her into it—especially because he had forced her.
Early the next morning, he would go to Virginia City to meet his new sister-in-law. He had a number of things to tell Rory that he dared not send over the wire. Their day of reckoning with Ryan's murderers was at hand.
Just after dawn the next morning, Patrick walked out of the hotel, deep in thought as he headed down Musser Street toward the livery. When Rory had not returned from his early morning visit to the Wells residence the day before, Patrick had been worried about his brother and had gone to investigate. Upon his arrival at the mansion, he was informed that Amos had been murdered and the sheriff had evidence that Mrs. Wells was the culprit. But Rory had provided her with an alibi—one Patrick knew to be a blatant lie. Wells' death greatly complicated matters. If his cohorts wanted him dead, might they not want Rory dead as well?
Patrick did not like the way things were developing, not one bit. So engrossed in family problems was he, he almost did not see the glint of the shotgun barrel in time. Just as the blast belched forth from the alley, he dove into the dust, rolling as he pulled a stubby .41 caliber pocket revolver from inside his suit jacket. When he heard the second barrel of the shotgun being cocked, he fired in the direction of the sound before he could even see enough to take aim.
The second blast from the scatter gun went wild. Patrick's slug had hit the assassin squarely in his chest. He dropped the shotgun and slid down against the rough cedar planks of the building, where he lay slumped on one side in the narrow alley. A stray beam of sunlight penetrated the gloom, revealing his straight red hair and a thin hatchet face frozen in a death grimace.
Patrick leaped to his feet and scrambled over to examine the man, then cursed when he realized the killer was dead. When a crowd quickly gathered and Sheriff Sears elbowed his way through it, Madigan swore some more. This would really delay his ride to Virginia City if he did not do some fast talking.
* * * *
Virginia City
Rebekah awakened, disoriented at first. She felt the heat of Rory's body cocooning her. He lay beside her with his head propped up on one hand, staring possessively down at her. My husband. Remembering the wanton passion he had unleashed in her last night, she felt her cheeks flame with heat. In all the times they had made love, he had never done that to her. And she had allowed it—no, she had loved it, every shocking, thrilling moment of it.
As if reading her mind, he grinned and winked. “Top of the morning, darlin'. I trust you slept well. I sure did.” He touched her bare shoulder and let his fingers trail down to the tip of one breast, which rewarded his boldness by puckering into a hard little nub.
She tried to squirm away. “Rory, we have to talk.” His hand trespassed further, while his other arm held her fast.
“We can talk later,” he said as he leaned down and claimed her lips in a languid good-morning kiss.
By the time they had finally risen from the badly rumpled bed, there was a commotion from downstairs. Rory threw on a pair of denims and a shirt. “Peal should be here with bathwater for you in a few moments. We need to get back for Michael,” he said as he pulled on his boots.
Just then a sharp rap on the outside door drew his attention. “What the hell—”
“Rory—it's Patrick. I have to talk to you,” his brother's muffled voice called through the heavy oak door.
“Wait here while I see what's wrong,” Rory instructed Rebekah.
She paled. Patrick was the one who had first uncovered Amos' involvement in their brother's death. How would he feel about Rory's hasty marriage to the Widow Wells? Somehow, she knew his reaction would not be favorable. There was so much left unsaid and unsettled between her and her husband. We need time.
Rory vanished out the door, and the hulking black man arrived a few minutes later with buckets of fresh hot water.
While Rebekah performed her morning toilette, Rory took Patrick downstairs to his office and ordered coffee for the two of them. Then, his harried brother explained about the attempt on his life earlier that morning.
“You think it was Sheffield's doing?”
Patrick shrugged. “Sheriff identified my assailant as one Chicken Thief Charlie Pritkin. Quaint, isn't it?”
Rory swore in amazement. “Pritkin was a drunken hard case from Wellsville. He used to hang around the glitter district. I saw him a lot when I worked at Beau's livery. I wonder...”
“You think he was involved in the assault on you eight years ago?”
Remembering a dark hotel room above the Bucket of Blood Saloon, Rory nodded. “Too bad he isn't alive to tell us.” He added with a grin, “Not that I'm unhappy you proved a better shot than he. I'd hate to be the one to have to face your wife—”
“Speaking of wives, let's discuss yours. I know you wanted the boy, but couldn't it h
ave waited?”
“Yesterday morning Sears was going to arrest Rebekah. You know I couldn't let that happen,” Rory replied defensively.
Patrick studied him with intent blue eyes. “You're still in love with her after all these years. That's dangerous, Rory. Maybe she did kill Wells.”
“Don't be an imbecile. Leave that to the sheriff. Rebekah and I will work out our problems ourselves.”
The finality in Rory's tone made it clear that the discussion about Rebekah was closed. “There is another reason I came here.”
“I had hoped so, since I scarcely expected you to join us on our honeymoon,” Rory replied dryly.
Patrick ignored the jibe and explained. “Before he was killed, Hobart gave a satchel full of papers to one of my men. I finished going through them yesterday. We have enough evidence to arrest Sheffield and Bascomb right now. If only that snake Hammer was around.”
“Nothing on him?” Rory leaned forward across his desk.
Patrick ground his teeth in frustration. “No. But I think he may not have left Nevada. He could be hiding out in Carson, waiting to see what happens when the dust clears.”
“What have you done about arresting Sheffield and Bascomb? That might flush him out.”
“As you've made abundantly clear, the local sheriff in Carson is not reliable. I'm afraid I need your help, Rory. Who can we trust to round up these weasels before they slip the trap? After the attempt to kill me this morning, I'm afraid they're already wise.”
“I know people in the capital. I'll talk to the governor. He can order the federal marshal and his deputies to arrest Shanghai Sheffield and Hiram Bascomb while I nose around for Stephan Hammer. Where is Hobart's evidence?”
“In our safety deposit box in the First National Bank in Carson,” Patrick replied, handing Rory a key. “As soon as I looked through it, I knew not to take any chances with it until I could locate you.”