Copper Fire

by Fayrene Preston

  He rode her with a powerful rocking motion, expertly finding all the nerve endings inside her, until she felt as if she were going to go up in flames. Wes’s lovemaking was like dying of pleasure, but the death went on and on. And God help her, how she craved that death.

  In the end Anna frantically grasped the spool-turned spindles of the bed’s headboard. Wes’s hands slid under her and took hold of her bottom, pulling her hips upward so that he could plunge deeper, and then deeper still. His muscular body contracted as Anna felt her passion soar, and each of them, separately, yet somehow strangely together, reached with their entire being for the blissful, rapturous release.

  A long time later, Wes felt Anna stir beside him. “Don’t go yet.”

  “I have to. Papa will be home soon.”

  “You can tell him you went to see Rebecca Hunter’s baby.”

  “At this time of night? He would never believe me.” She eased out of his arms and climbed from the bed. Unconsciously, she sighed at the sight of their clothes heaped haphazardly where they had been dropped earlier.

  Wes rearranged the pillows behind him and sat up. Reaching over to the bedside table, he gathered the makings of a cigarette, then noticed that Anna was washing herself.

  “If you’ll come back over here, I’ll do that for you,” he said softly.

  Color flooded Anna’s fair skin, and, embarrassed, she turned away to dress. “Someday someone is going to kill you,” she said dully.

  “Erase that thought from your mind, Anna.” He struck a match and held it to his cigarette, then gazed at her through a veil of smoke. An ironic smile curved his lips. “After all, how could I allow something to happen to me when I have you to look forward to? I rode my horse flat out so I could get here by Thursday night, the night of your father’s choir practice.”

  She buttoned the lace-edged neckline of her camisole, then hesitated. “It would kill my father if you called in his notes of debt. You won’t, will you?”

  His smile widened, becoming slightly cruel. “I’ve taught you so much, haven’t I? I've taught you pleasure, but I’ve also taught you to distrust.”

  “And to lie to the person I love most in the world.”

  “Lies are nothing, my sweet.”

  “They are to me.”

  He exhaled a long stream of smoke. “I know they are. And to answer your question, no, I won’t tell him – not as long as you come to me when I ask you to.”

  Reassured, she slipped her dress over her head and let it settle down around her. Walking around the bed, she sat down with her back to Wes and pulled the entire golden length of her hair forward over her shoulders. “Could you do me up, please?”

  He ground out his cigarette and took the two edges of her dress in his hand. “You wear such simple dresses. I wanted to bring you a dozen of the most beautiful ones I could find from Washington.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You know I couldn't wear them.”

  “That’s why I didn’t bring them to you,” he said, and began buttoning her dress. When he got to the last button, he murmured, “Stay with me.”

  She shifted her position on the bed so that she could look at him. The light from the lamp played over his beautiful brown body, and against her will her eyes strayed downward, past his hair-rough chest, to that part of his body that could so capably drive her to such heights of erotic pleasure. Abruptly she stood up. “I can do the last button.” At his dresser she picked up his hairbrush, and with sweeping strokes began to put her hair back into some semblance of order.

  Wes looked on, gaining the same pleasure he always did – watching her brush her hair. Although he kept a box of hairpins for her, he had refused to buy her her own hairbrush. He liked the fact that she used his. And after she left him he would go to the brush and find her golden strands. He kept them all and would pull them through his fingers, sometimes until he fell asleep.

  She was putting the last hairpin into place when she heard him say, “From now on, find a way to come to me on Monday nights.”

  Her back stiffened, and she whirled around. “That's impossible! Papa doesn’t go out except on Thursday and Saturday nights. You know that!”

  “Encourage him to increase his social life. Thursday-night choir practice and Saturday nights playing cards with his friends just isn’t enough.”

  “I can’t! I won’t!”

  “Find a way, Anna,” he said very gently.

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, Wesley.”

  Sloan stretched out on the velvet sofa in Brianne’s room and shut his eyes. On his face he could feel the light breeze that floated in from the open window and knew that it would be gently undulating the apple-green bed draperies behind her head. The green bows on her gown would be tied demurely across her breasts.

  Brianne. He wanted to savor her like a gourmet meal. He wanted to drink of all her juices, taste of all her flavors. Even now he could feel the saliva in his mouth begin to flow at the thought of her wonderful breasts, their taste, their feel.

  But it was the puzzled expression in Brianne’s emerald eyes that kept his own shut.

  If he were to tell her he had found her brother, he would most certainly have her tonight. Then he could take her, and keep taking her until neither one of them would be able to move. But at sunup it would all be over. And that was what kept him from telling her that Patrick had been found.

  “You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you?”

  Sloan opened his eyes and saw her propped up in bed. “What could I be keeping from you?”

  “That you’ve found Patrick and that he’s dead.”

  A smile slowly curved his lips. “Where is that brave young woman who told me her brother was not dead?”

  Brianne threw up a nervous hand. “It’s just that he’s been gone for so long.”

  “Five days is not long, Brianne, not in these circumstances. The kidnappers aren’t going to harm Patrick. They want the money.” At the sight of the hope that sprang into Brianne’s eyes, Sloan experienced a twinge of an emotion so strange, it took him a moment to identify it as guilt. He shifted uneasily. It had been many a long year since he’d felt guilty about anything. But he didn’t change his decision. Having Brianne to do with as he desired each evening was too great a pleasure.

  He stood and walked over to the bed. Sitting beside her, he softly repeated Patrick’s words, if not exactly, then in spirit. “Your brother’s fine, and you are going to see him soon.”

  Brianne’s smile was weak. “You’re right. It’s just that it’s hard, not being able to do anything for Patrick.”

  “But you are doing something. You're carrying out your part of our deal so that I will continue to carry out my part.”

  Brianne didn’t need the reminder of their deal to make a heated surge rush through her. That had happened the minute Sloan had walked into her room. And when he had sat down beside her, the side of his hip pressed against the side of her hip, her skin had begun to quiver with the anticipation of what would come.

  “Untie the bows on your gown, Brianne, and from now on don’t bother tying them. That will save us a lot of time and trouble.”

  As she raised her left hand to the top bow, the ruffle at her wrist fell back, exposing part of the scar.

  “Wait.” Sloan grasped her arm and pushed up the gown's sleeve. “How did this happen?” Bending his head, he studied the puckered white marks that marred the perfection of her skin.

  She had been so intent on what would happen after she had finished untying the bows, his question startled her and she blurted out, “A wolf attacked me.”

  “A wolf! How did it happen? When did it happen?”

  “It happened years ago, when I was a young girl. One day when I was out riding, I saw this animal caught in a trap. His leg was bloody and exposed to the bone. I thought I saw something in his eyes, like a plea for help.”

  He uttered an oath, but his fingers were stroking with supreme gentleness back and forth a
cross the scarred surface of her forearm.

  Defiantly, she stared into the golden eyes that so reminded her of the wolf’s. “The wolf was accepting my efforts to help him, and it would have been all right, except a distant sound startled him. In his fear, he turned on me.” Her voice held sadness as she remembered. “That distant sound was Patrick riding toward me, and he had to shoot the wolf to save me.”

  “Thank God for your brother.”

  “If only the wolf had known that he could trust me not to let anyone hurt him.”

  “You mean like Henrietta, Phineas, and Kam have learned.” He shook his head. “I’m surprised you didn’t find another needy person to take under your wing while I was gone today.”

  The disapproval in his voice almost made her smile, and she didn’t want to. “The only new person I met today was a man named Wes McCord, and I never saw anyone less needy than he.”

  Sloan went strangely motionless. When he spoke, the sound of his words reminded Brianne of the growl of the long-ago wounded wolf. “Where did you meet Wes McCord?”

  His reaction to her simple comment had Brianne puzzled. “At Nilsen’s Emporium. Anna Nilsen introduced us.”

  “Stay away from him, Brianne.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said quite simply, “I’m going to ruin him, and then I'm going to kill him.”

  Brianne shouldn't have been shocked. All along her intuition had told her that Sloan was an inherently dangerous man. Yet she was shocked. She shook the feeling off. “Why?”

  “Because fifteen years ago Wes McCord left me and my brother to die on the hellish plains of West Texas.”

  “But you’re alive.”

  “My brother isn’t.”In a much softer voice he added, “David was only fourteen years old.”

  “George’s age,” Brianne murmured. She understood so much now. Sloan was more like that wolf than she had thought, except Sloan’s wounds were on the inside, and they had never healed. Could she take it if, like the wolf, he turned on her? The thought made her uneasy. Sloan meant nothing to her. She was just using him, that was all.

  Then she remembered the way the hair at the back of her neck had prickled when she had first seen Wes McCord. He was not a man to be taken lightly. Under any circumstances he would be a formidable opponent, and if Sloan intended to go up against him, Sloan would surely be putting himself in danger.

  And she supposed that was why she was shocked. As hard as it was for her to believe, she was actually worried about Sloan’s safety.

  Unsure of what she wanted to say, she resorted to the mundane. “So you’re not from New York after all, you’re from Texas.”

  “My formative years were after David’s death. I left Texas and never went back. During the Civil War I was a blockade runner, one of the best. I made a fortune, which I took to New York and doubled and tripled many times over. And now, finally, what I’ve lived for is about to happen. I’m going to avenge my brother’s death.”

  She fought to keep the dismay she was feeling out of her voice. “Revenge won’t bring your brother back to life.”

  “No, and it won’t bring my own life back to me either. But it doesn’t matter, because for now I’ve found something that at least tricks me into thinking I’m alive.” He yanked the ribbons of her bows until they were all undone, then roughly pushed the gown aside. “Your breasts in my mouth as I suck them make me feel as though your life is flowing through my veins.”

  Brianne went hot and weak. She would have liked to have been able to convince herself that she hadn’t been waiting since last night for this moment, but she couldn’t.

  “Sloan, I'd like to talk some – ”

  “Not now,” he whispered harshly, and grasped both of her breasts, one with each hand. Slowly, he ran his palms around and around them, feeling their identical fullness, weight, and firmness. “Look,” he murmured. “I haven’t even touched your nipples yet, but they are already pointing for me.”

  Brianne did look down and saw that the tips of her breasts had become taut.

  “See. They want me to suck on them, don’t they?” Cupping the sides and bottoms, he gently pressed the malleable flesh so that her breasts thrust upward and outward. “Brianne? They do, don’t they? They want my mouth badly, don’t they?” His thumbs eased to the now throbbing crests and pressed. Her breath caught in her throat. “Don’t they?” he asked quite gently.

  “Yes,” she admitted with a small cry.

  He released the pressure on the nipples, only to lightly graze the pads of his thumbs across them, making the sensitive nerve endings feel as though they had been scraped by sand and fire.

  “Yes!”

  “Good.” He lowered his head and drew one aching tip into his mouth. Greedy, hungry sounds began coming from his throat.

  Her fingers dug into his hair, and Brianne threw back her head as ecstasy seared from her nipple, down her belly, to between her legs. Instantly, she made the decision to enjoy, telling herself that she could delight in Sloan’s attentions without fear that he would take full advantage of her. The two of them had made a deal that included everything but actual lovemaking. That meant she could allow herself to relax and soak up this wonderful new world of feeling he was introducing her to without fearing that she would lose her virginity. And so she did.

  Sloan changed to the other breast, this time, though, instead of immediately seeking the nourishment, he laved his tongue across the stiffened nub, then took the point between his teeth and rolled it back and forth.

  “Oh, Sloan!”

  “What?” he asked, her nipple still caught in his teeth, his warm moist breath fanning her skin.

  “That feels so good.”

  “Do you want more?”

  “Yes.” Her hand stroked across his cheek and stopped at the corner of his mouth. One thumb dipped just inside his opened lips and rested. “Oh, yes.”

  He rolled her nipple again, and she felt the serrations of his teeth even as the muscles in her stomach clenched. “Ohhh!”

  “It hurts good, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded, but he didn’t see because he was licking at the throbbing crest.

  “I just want a little more to keep me until tomorrow night.” He drew her back into his mouth.

  She cradled his cheek with her palm, feeling the muscles move as he sucked. Powerful feelings were building inside her, yet she was so empty. She wanted to be filled. Ever so slightly her hips began rising and falling.

  Without taking a breath, Sloan left her breast, went to her lips, and pulled her tongue into his mouth. With the heel of his hand he pressed hard on the soft mound just above her legs.

  A fierce jolt of pleasure leapt downward, so powerful she was left shaking.

  “You're pure fire, redhead,” he murmured, easing his mouth away and looking down into her bewildered, passion-fogged eyes. “I can’t wait until tomorrow night.”

  Chapter 10

  As Sloan had sat on the porch of the hotel and watched wagons and men head out of town, he had carefully noted the direction they had taken. As a result, a little before noon Sloan reined Demon to a halt atop a rise that overlooked a small city of tents. The hard lines of his face settled into an expression of satisfaction. This was what he had suspected all along.

  Most men would have waited until after they had received government approval for the railroad to mass together the workers and equipment they needed. But Wes hadn’t. He was a greedy man who obviously didn’t want to waste any more time than was necessary. In this case, he was going to play right into Sloan’s hands, because greedy men always wanted more and greedy men always made mistakes. The mere presence of the tent city below him all but testified to that.

  In the center of the little city a large tent had been put up, no doubt the kitchen and dining tent. From there, tents spread out in an orderly fashion, tempo- rary homes for surveyors, graders, engineers, and rail workers.

  For the moment, anyway, there didn’t appear to be
much activity. Men milled about, some playing cards, some lounging beneath trees, some sleeping on bedrolls out in the open. One tent was set up away from the others, and it had a score of smaller tents surrounding it. Here Sloan could see women, women brought in, he guessed, to keep the men entertained until work could begin.

  Remembering that this morning he had seen Wes go into his office back in Chango, he slowly headed Demon down the far side of the rise toward the tent where he had seen the women. Men wouldn’t reveal secrets to other men, but they would reveal secrets to women. If Sloan could just find the right woman.

  Sitting outside her tent trying to put a hem into a new dress, Janice pricked her finger with the needle. Cursing, she brought the bleeding finger to her lips. Maybe if she’d listened to her mama and learned how to sew, she thought in frustration, she wouldn’t get such sore fingers whenever she tried anything more difficult with a needle than threading it. But then again, if she had listened to her mama, she would be some dull farmer’s wife with a brood of kids and a tired back instead of being in on the excitement of the actual building of a railroad!

  The sound of a horse had her turning her head, and at the sight of the man riding the big black stallion, she jumped up, her new dress and sore finger forgotten. “Sloan, I mean Mr. Lassiter, what are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Janice.” He stepped down out of the saddle. “And do call me Sloan, and I might ask you the same thing. What are you doing here?”

  “Things were kinda slow at Lucky’s” – she cast him a sly glance through her lashes – “especially since you didn’t come back. A friend convinced me I should come out here.”

  As he studied the encampment, he asked, “Do you know who’s in charge here?”

  Her forehead pleated while she gave his question some thought. “I suppose you mean Mr. McCord.” The wave of her hand encompassed the tent city. “All of this is his.”