The Emperor's New Clothes

by Victoria Alexander

  “No, Tye, really.” She clasped her hands together and shook her head. How mortifying. Had she ever been so embarrassed? “I didn’t think anything. Nothing at all.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. Unrestrained mirth filled the room. Well, she thought as she released a breath she didn’t know she held, at least he wasn’t mad. He laughed, and tears glimmered in his eyes. Her chagrin faded. Honestly, it wasn’t that humorous. How was she to know he wasn’t that kind of man?

  “Good Lord, Ophelia.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and sat down beside her. “I haven’t heard anything so funny in years.”

  “I’m delighted to have provided so much entertainment.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now if you would kindly leave my room?”

  “I don’t think so.” He chuckled again. Could any man’s laugh be quite so annoying?

  “And why not?” she said coldly.

  “Because, my love.” He leaned forward abruptly and kissed the tip of her nose. She jerked back and glared. “We have yet to check on that ankle of yours,” he said.

  “I’m certain my ankle is fine.” She clenched her jaw and nodded at the door. “Now get out.”

  “No.” He stared her straight in the eye. Determination glimmered there, and a subtle challenge. “I’m taking your boot off.”

  She lifted her chin in defiance. “You’re not taking my boot, or anything else, off.”

  A wicked smile quirked the corners of his lips. “Oh, no?”

  The realization of exactly what she’d said flashed through her, and heat rushed to her face. Still, he would not get the better of her this time. And she was keeping those blasted boots on.

  “Get out, Mr. Matthews.”

  “I’ll make you a little deal, Countess.” Tye rose to his feet and with a leisurely gesture pulled a deck of cards from his back pocket.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What are those for?”

  “You seemed to have had such a good time last night settling your negotiations with my uncle with a mere draw of the cards, perhaps we can settle our little dispute the same way.”

  “We don’t have a dispute. I have a boot. I want it on. You want it off.” She shrugged. “My boot. My foot. My choice.”

  “Oh, come now, Ophelia.” He sat down on the bed beside her legs and shuffled the cards methodically from one hand to the other. “You seem to me like a woman who enjoys a bit of chance. What if, say, we draw cards. Winner decides if the boot stays on or comes off.”

  She stared at him for a long, considering moment. When it came right down to it, what harm would it do anyway? If she lost, he would take off her boot and she’d pretend pain in her ankle. Not that it was all that farfetched. Her little tumble had left her whole body aching, but with her luck lately, her ankle would be completely unscathed. And if she won, he’d get out of her room and leave her alone. Exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  “Very well.” She heaved a sigh of resignation. “But you go first.”

  He raised a brow. “Ladies first.”

  “My boot. My foot. My choice.” She gritted her teeth. It was superstition on her part, but she always seemed to do better when she went last. She’d ignored that with Big Jack and lost the draw, even if ultimately she’d won the contest. “Go ahead.”

  He shuffled the cards in a manner slow and almost seductive. His long, tanned fingers seemed to caress each pasteboard like a teasing lover. Ophelia pulled her brows together and stared, mesmerized. She’d seen a lot of men deal a lot of cards in a lot of different ways, but she’d never yet seen anyone make the process look, well, suggestive. Her gaze rose to meet his, and he lifted a brow. He couldn’t possibly know what she was thinking, could he? His hands never halted. His arrogant smile never faltered. His gaze never left hers.

  “Cut.” His voice, just like his actions, was provocative and personal and thrilling.

  She glanced at the deck, picked it up and expertly split it with one hand alone. It was a trick she’d learned as a child. One she rarely used. It was never good to let other gamblers know just how skilled you really were. But somehow, with Tye, at least for a moment, she wanted very much for him to realize he was not dealing with a mere pretty face. She doubted she was like any other woman he’d ever met. And right now, she wanted him to know it.

  He raised a brow in grudging admiration. “Very nice.”

  “Thank you.” Her gaze met his. “I believe it’s your turn, Mr. Matthews.”

  He picked a card from the deck, his gaze locked on hers. “Now you.”

  “But you haven’t looked at your card.”

  He shrugged. “I can wait.”

  “Can you?” she said softly. “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze from his. His eyes, deep and endless and dark as eternity, held her captive, and an ache she’d never known before shuddered through her. She drew a deep, steadying breath and pulled a card. Without looking, she flipped it face up on the bed.

  She glanced down and her stomach knotted with disappointment or…anticipation.

  The two of clubs lay on the coverlet.

  “It looks like I’ve won.” His voice was heavy with a meaning she didn’t dare explore.

  “Not yet, Mr. Matthews. Your card?”

  He tossed it toward hers. The pasteboard fluttered through the air with an almost insolent indifference as if the card and the man were partners in this curious contest where she suspected the stakes were much higher than the removal of a mere boot.

  The card settled next to hers.

  The king of hearts.

  She could have laughed at the irony, but any amusement died in her throat. She stared into his eyes and read a promise of desire that stole her breath and her will.

  “Like I said, I won. Now, lay down.”

  “Very well.” Her stomach fluttered, and she sank back onto the pillow. Why was it so warm in here all of a sudden? “You may remove”—she swallowed hard and stared at the ceiling—“my boot.”

  He slipped one hand beneath her left heel, his other reaching under her skirts to grip the top of the boot that stretched nearly to her knee. Why on earth were these boots so high anyway? Slowly, he pulled the leather footwear downward, gently sliding it off her foot with a surprising ease.

  Tye pulled his brows together. “Well, there’s your problem, Ophelia. It’s no wonder you fell. These boots are definitely too big for you.”

  “Really?” She widened her eyes in feigned surprise. “I shall have to chastise my bootmaker the moment I return to London. He has my measurements. I can’t imagine why he’d make such a—oh, my goodness!”

  Tye’s clever fingers carefully probed and explored and massaged her silk-covered ankle. What a unique sensation. How personal. How exciting. How intimate. He shook his head. “I don’t see any swelling.”

  “Well…” She sighed. “Now that I think about it, the problem could be with…the other ankle.”

  He quirked a brow. “The other ankle?”

  She cast him a look of innocence. “I may have gotten confused.”

  A spark of sin gleamed in his eye, and her heart thudded against her ribs. “May I check that ankle or do I have to draw for the honor first?”

  “Why, Mr. Matthews, I admit you won. I scarcely think it would be in the proper spirit to make you select another card.” She nodded firmly. “Please, proceed.”

  The corners of his mouth tilted upward as if he was hard-pressed to contain a smile. She squeezed her eyes shut. At this particular moment, she didn’t really care about the flicker of triumph in his eyes. She’d never known the touch of a man’s hand on her leg, or anywhere else, before. A touch that was quite remarkable in the delightfully terrifying emotions it aroused. A touch she wanted to experience again.

  He repeated his actions with her other boot, his movements even slower and more deliberate than before. Again, he pulled the boot off with no difficulty and checked her ankle with fingers w
arm and clever and knowing. His hands circled her leg, his touch through her silk stocking a mere whisper of intoxicating sensation that climbed upward from her limbs through her body and her soul. His fingers traveled higher to her calf, and then the back of her knee, and she lost herself in the sheer bliss of his caress.

  How had he gone so far? Her breath came faster. She really had to stop him. Soon. A tiny moan escaped her lips. Definitely, she must put an end to this. Any moment now.

  Abruptly, his touch vanished and she snapped her eyes open. His face filled her vision.

  “I believe”—he’d settled himself on the side of the bed and sat leaning over her—“your ankles are uninjured. In fact, I’d say they’re really quite lovely ankles. In damn near perfect shape.”

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

  “But I am still concerned. You took a nasty fall.”

  “Oh, I’m quite certain I’m fine.”

  “You can never be too sure.” His voice was low and deep with meaning she feared and wanted. “For example, it would be a real shame if, say, that lovely neck of yours was damaged in any way.” He bent over a surprisingly sensitive point, just below the lobe of her ear, and kissed the spot gently.

  She gasped. “I didn’t fall on my neck.”

  “Still…” His mouth traveled lower to meet the top of her buttoned jacket at the base of her throat. “One can never be too careful about injuries incurred in a fall.”

  Gad, if she thought his touch on her ankle was exquisite, it was nothing compared to his lips on her neck. She struggled to get the words out. “I suppose not.”

  Dimly she heard the pop of her buttons, and the jacket loosened around her. His mouth nudged the collar of her blouse, and at once cooling air and warm breath sent chills scampering across her exposed skin. Heavens, when did he unbutton her blouse?

  “Tye, I don’t think—”

  “Ophelia.” His voice was firm. “We have to make sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m…all…right,” she said in a voice weak with arousal. What was he doing to her?

  “No, no.” His voice was muffled against her skin. “I’m not completely confident of that yet.”

  His lips drifted lower, pushing aside the flimsy protection of her chemise, to breasts supported by a corset she hadn’t realized was far too confining until now.

  “Tye! I don’t—”

  “It’s your lungs, Ophelia,” Tye murmured against skin that burned with the merest graze of his lips. “You could have damaged your lungs.”

  “My lungs?” she whispered in a haze of desire that scrambled her senses and dazed her mind. His mouth fastened on her breast, the nipple tightening at his touch. She arched upward with an involuntary jerk of sheer pleasure at the shocking feel of his tongue on her sensitive flesh. She clutched at his shoulders and marveled at the overwhelming rush of elation and need and heat that surged through her.

  So this was what women found in the arms of a man! This was what they sacrificed their honor and virtue and very souls for. At once she understood the glory and the wonder and the sheer joy that was worth whatever sacrifice it asked, whatever price had to be paid. Whatever the cost, it was nothing compared to what was to be with this one man at this one moment.

  No!

  The word screamed through her head in a final effort to affirm all she’d ever been or wanted to be or refused to become. She would not be like those women who hung on her father’s every move, or the pathetic creatures who waited at clandestine late-night suppers for actors who swore undying love and fealty. She would not be the plaything of any man. Not even a man who made her body ache and her heart sing.

  Not even Tyler Matthews.

  “Tye.” She gasped, and her arms flailed out at her sides in a desperate attempt to sit up. He seemed not to notice or not to care, and she realized with a newly sharpened instinct he was as overcome as she was, or at least, as she had been a moment ago. Her hand hit the washstand beside the bed, and she fumbled with the drawer until it slid opened.

  “Tye,” she said again. “Stop. Please.”

  “You don’t mean that, Ophelia,” he murmured.

  “But I do.”

  Tye raised his head and his eyes widened, passion fleeing in the wake of surprise and possibly amusement. She aimed her derringer at a point right above, and a few mere inches away from, the bridge of his nose, smack dab between his eyes. His delicious, chocolate eyes.

  “I suspect this means you’re feeling better.” A wry note colored his words.

  “Yes, thank you.” There was an annoying breathless quality to her voice, and she fought for control.

  “Your hands are trembling,” he said calmly. “Perhaps if you’d point that a bit to one side or the other, it won’t discharge accidentally and shoot my head off.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Matthews, I won’t shoot you by accident.”

  “Ophelia, I told you last night you were a bad liar.” He heaved a sigh of regret and straightened up. “The way you’re shaking, that gun could easily go off at any minute. And even as small as it is, it would probably kill me, and I can’t believe you really want that.”

  She pulled herself up to a sitting position, all the while keeping the barrel leveled in his direction. “You don’t know anything about what I want.”

  “Oh, but, Ophelia, I do.” His gaze trapped hers, his eyes simmering with a need she shared, his voice low with a truth she could deny to him, but not to herself. “I know exactly what you want,” he said.

  “And what do I want?”

  He reached forward and gently clasped her shoulders, ignoring the gun now pointed straight at his chest. Did he really believe she wouldn’t shoot? Or was he the biggest fool she’d ever met? “You want to lose your senses and your mind in my arms” he said. “You want to feel sensations and emotions you’ve only begun to explore. You want to surrender to the ache crying inside you for release.”

  “Do I?”

  “You do.”

  “And what do you want?”

  “I want you, Ophelia.” He pulled her to him—the gun in her hand pressed against his heart but he ignored it—to crush his lips to hers. How could he trust that she wouldn’t shoot him right here? Right now? The answer sank into her like a stone. He was right. She did want him and everything he offered. But heaven help her, she wanted more.

  “Ophelia!” Jenny’s indignant voice sounded from the doorway.

  Instinctively, Ophelia and Tye sprang apart. The derringer jerked and fired. Ophelia stared in horror.

  “You shot me!” Tye’s voice rose with disbelief.

  Blood oozed from the top of his shoulder.

  “Damnation, Ophelia, did you kill him?” Jenny cried.

  “Don’t curse,” Ophelia said without thinking, and winced at the red stain spreading across his shirt. “Of course I didn’t kill him. If I killed him he wouldn’t be sitting up.”

  “You almost killed me!” He glared accusingly.

  “I did not. Honestly, it’s not even serious. If it was serious it would be spurting. It’s just, sort of”—she wrinkled her nose in disgust—“flowing. A trickle really.”

  “A trickle? It doesn’t feel like a trickle. It feels”—he paused dramatically—“fatal.”

  “Well, it’s not. It’s a trickle. And it appears to be stopping at any rate.” Now that the initial shock had passed, she realized he was scarcely hurt at all. “Here.” She snatched up a towel from the washstand and tossed it at him.

  It slapped across his face and he glared, clamping it on his wounded shoulder.

  “And look.” She pointed to a small nick in the wall near the ceiling. “See? Right there? That’s where the bullet hit. It just grazed you.”

  His mouth dropped open as if he couldn’t believe her apparent disregard for his injury. “It hurts!”

  “Are you sure you didn’t seriously injure him?” Jenny asked anxiously.

  “Of course she seriously injured me. She shot me. That’s
serious.” Tye stared at Jenny. “Who in the hell are you?”

  “Who am I? Who are you? Who is he?” Jenny planted her hands on her hips and glared.

  “This is my sis—my maid, Jenny.” Ophelia gestured at her.

  “Oh.” Tye brightened. “You’re the one Zach was talking about.”

  “Who is he?” Ophelia pulled her brows together.

  “He’s one of the hands,” Tye answered. “Actually, he’s lived here at the ranch since he was about fourteen, when his dad died.”

  Ophelia stared in confusion. “I thought the Matthewses raised you.”

  “They really are nice people, you know,” Jenny said to Ophelia.

  “We’ve established that. It’s the best part,” Ophelia said under her breath. “Do Big Jack and Lorelie take in all the homeless waifs in the area?”

  “Not really. Just me and then Zach.” Tye laughed, then cringed. “Ouch. I’m really in a great deal of pain. Are you going to do something about this?”

  “You must be Tye.” Jenny smiled shyly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “How do you know this Zach?” Ophelia scrambled off the bed.

  “I think I’m bleeding to death,” Tye said, craning his neck to peer at his shoulder.

  Jenny shrugged. “He’s teaching me to ride.”

  “Yep.” Tye heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m dying, all right.”

  “A horse?” Ophelia gasped.

  “My life is flashing before my eyes,” Tye said.

  “Of course a horse. What else?” Defiance colored Jenny’s voice.

  “I’m getting weak.” Tye groaned.

  “But horses, Jenny.” Ophelia shook her head. “They’re vile, nasty creatures. Big and huge and always laughing.”

  Tye pulled his brows together. “I’ve never heard them laugh.”

  “Well, they do,” Ophelia snapped.

  “I really don’t think they laugh.” Jenny said.

  “Nope,” Tye said. “They definitely don’t laugh. They’re good and loyal beasts. For example.” He stood and clasped his hand to his shoulder. “Your horse would never shoot you.”

  “She would if you were trying to seduce her.” Ophelia glared.

  Jenny gasped. “He tried to seduce his horse?”