Caleb lay with one arm across his face, still trembling from the force of his release. “If you ever do that again,” he managed, in a mock-threatening tone of voice, “I swear to God I’ll sign over everything I own and let you lead me around like a lap dog.”
Lily circled one of his taut nipples with the tip of her finger. “Your warning has been duly noted—sir.”
Caleb laughed. “Vixen.”
She replaced her finger with the tip of her tongue. “Tit for tat, you might say,” she teased.
He laughed again and entangled both his hands in her rich, tumbledown hair. In one deft and painless motion he brought her to lie on top of him, her chin touching his. Tilting his head to one side, Caleb kissed her.
As the seconds passed the kiss grew more demanding, and Lily marveled to feel Caleb growing hard against the soft flesh of her stomach.
Presently he turned her swiftly onto her back and placed himself between her knees. His shaft was straining to sheathe itself in her, and she closed her hands around it.
Caleb watched her face with a fierce expression in his eyes as she let her fingers play over him. “This time,” he said gruffly, “I’m taking no prisoners.” He took both her hands in one of his and guided his manhood inside her with the other.
Lily felt a wave of sweet heat roll over her as he teased her, giving her only an inch of himself. He stretched her hands above her head, and wide of it.
“Say it, Lily,” he whispered. “I see it in your eyes, but I want to hear you say it.”
Lily turned her head from side to side, not in denial, but in fever. She desperately needed all of him, but he was still withholding all but an inch. “I want you,” she gasped.
“And?” Caleb prompted.
“I need you, you bastard!”
He gave her another inch. “Is that all?”
“I love you,” Lily whimpered.
Caleb was satisfied, and he treated her to a long, deep stroke, then nearly withdrew. She begged, with her body and her mouth, until he filled her again, and because he deliberately prolonged the process, Lily’s release was a slow, searing explosion within her. It buckled her torso, stole her breath, and wrung a shameless cry from her throat, and it seemed to go on forever.
She felt Caleb finish and expected peace. Instead her climax heightened, flinging her high up on the backs of her heels and making her clutch at the bedding in an effort to keep from soaring away.
When she finally was permitted a tremulous rest, Caleb laid a hand on her stomach and with slow, lazy strokes let her know that more still would be asked of her that night.
“Let me sleep,” she said, pouting.
“And interrupt the taming of Lily Chalmers? Absolutely not.”
“I’m tame,” Lily insisted in a whimper as the circle of his hand widened, and something deep within her began to stir from its stupor of satisfaction.
“Far from it.”
“Caleb, it’s late, and I’ve already had a difficult night.”
“The night hasn’t even begun,” Caleb replied. He was caressing her breast now, his thumb shaping the nipple.
Lily summoned up enough defiance to try to rise off the bed, but he only brought her back with gentle force, and her small insurrection was punished by a series of moist nibbles at her breast. Her right knee drew up, and her hand went to his hair even as she protested. “Is this what I can expect if I marry you?” she demanded.
Caleb stopped his suckling long enough to reply, “Oh, no. When we’re married I won’t be nearly as careful about where I have you, or when.”
Lily blushed, even though she’d already done so many scandalous things in this man’s arms. “Where?” she asked, and the question made him laugh.
“On my table,” he answered. “You’ll bring my supper in, as any good wife would, but what I’ll be having is usually served on a pillow, not a plate.”
Lily flushed even harder. She wondered that even her hair didn’t turn red. “You are utterly impossible!”
“And insatiable,” Caleb agreed.
In the mirror Lily could see her legs parting at his silent bidding, see his fingers dancing up the inside of her thigh even as she felt them. “Oh,” she groaned softly, bracing herself. “Caleb, I can’t bear any more—I really can’t.”
He ignored her, settling down to enjoy her breast with a contented moan even as he played her private place like some rare and delicate instrument. He drew moist music from her, symphonies made up of sighs and whimpers and muted cries, and, true to his word, he kept her thighs thrashing upon his mattress until the first rays of sunlight cracked the broken black sky.
Lily awakened long past midday, climbing out of her stuporous sleep like a drunk ascending toward sobriety. Caleb was gone, though the sheets still bore his distinctive scent, as did Lily’s flesh and hair.
She sat up, grumbling, and immediately fell back to the pillows. Every muscle in her body was limp as melting butter, and a lush feeling of well-being divested her of all ambition.
There was one need she couldn’t ignore, however, and she got up and peeked behind a nearby door. To her vast relief, there was a commode inside, and she used it, but she still felt too languid to get dressed.
Lily washed herself at the basin on the stand across from the bed, then staggered back to bed and tumbled between the sheets. She was hungry, but her sated muscles would not carry her out of the room.
As if in answer to a silent summons, Caleb opened the door and stepped inside. He was wearing the usual uniform trousers and shirt, and his butterscotch hair glistened with cleanliness. In his hands he carried a tray.
“Sit up, sodbuster,” he ordered with a broad grin.
Lily scowled at him, but she shimmied up so that the pillows and the mahogany headboard were at her back, and she pulled the covers over her well-tended breasts.
Caleb set the tray in her lap, and the scent that rose from it made Lily’s empty stomach rumble in anticipation. He’d ladled chicken and dumplings into a big crockery bowl, and there was a cup of steaming tea, too.
He didn’t need to tell Lily to eat; she was ravenous.
“You quite wore me out last night,” she complained when she’d tucked away every scrap of food and sunk back against the pillows. “I feel as if I could sleep for a week.”
Caleb grinned. “You can only sleep until I decide to come back to bed,” he corrected her. He made a great business of pulling his watch from his trouser pocket and consulting it “Which will be in six hours, approximately.”
Lily glared at him and folded her arms across the part of the sheet that covered her breasts. “I’ll be long gone by then, Caleb Halliday,” she said. “You needn’t think you’re going to use me at your convenience, like some concubine in a harem!”
He laughed and gestured toward the door. “Go ahead and leave, Lily. Nobody’s holding you captive.”
Lily yawned. She still felt too languid to move, and the food had heightened her laziness, not dispelled it. Although she wouldn’t have admitted it, she wasn’t looking forward to walking out of that house and facing the rest of Fort Deveraux, either. “I’ll go in a little while,” she said as Caleb took the tray and set it on the washstand next to the pitcher and basin.
He watched her settle in, and she saw his throat move as he swallowed. “Be my guest,” he said hoarsely.
Lily made a little crooning sound as she wriggled deeper into the pillows and the feather-filled mattress. A delicious weariness moved over her like a cloud covering a too-bright sun. When she turned onto her back she felt the sheets slip down, uncovering her breasts.
Before she could cloak them again Caleb bent over her and placed her own hands over them. They were warm and plump beneath her fingers, and she felt the nipples harden against her palms. She smiled, half-asleep, half-drugged from a night of almost ceaseless loving.
The covers moved down further and further, and Lily felt Caleb’s fingertips coursing gently over the tops of her thighs. With
a little sound of impish enticement she parted her legs.
Soon she was soaring again. She didn’t know what Caleb was doing to her, and she didn’t care. She only wanted it to continue.
She slept when he left her, a deep, consuming sleep, and when he returned she was once again in his power. She submitted joyfully, exulting in the feel of his driving shaft as he made her his own, and she became the temptress in her turn, sending Caleb into a delirium of surrender as she drew his essence from him.
When the clock downstairs struck midnight they wre both asleep, entwined in each other’s arms, their exhausted bodies clinging to one another in spent passion.
Chapter
16
Lily came suddenly and violently awake a few hours later, and she stared up at Caleb with wide eyes as he held her in place on the bed, her hands pressed into the pillows.
“Who was it?” he demanded.
Lily knew he was asking who had attacked her in her cottage the night of the fire, knew he wouldn’t wait any longer to be told. Still she hesitated, not to protect Judd, but because she feared what could happen to Caleb if he took his revenge. “Judd Ingram,” she said quietly.
Caleb swore, and the look in his eyes was murderous.
“He didn’t hurt me, Caleb,” Lily reasoned hastily, grabbing at his upper arm with both hands. She was under no illusion that she could restrain the major if he chose to pull away, but she held on with all her might just the same.
“Why are you defending the bastard?”
Lily sighed. “I’m not, Caleb—he can burn in hell for all I care. It’s you I’m worried about.”
Caleb relaxed a little and let his forehead rest against Lily’s. “I want to kill him,” he breathed. “I want to gut him like a trout and feed his insides to the crows.”
“I know,” Lily said gently, her hands moving soothingly on his tense shoulders, “but you mustn’t take the law into your own hands. We’ve got trouble enough, Caleb, without your being hanged for murder or confined to a federal prison for the rest of your life.”
He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “You’re right,” he conceded after a long moment.
“You could have Judd thrown out of the army, couldn’t you?”
Caleb nodded grimly. “Yes. But if I did that, he’d be free to hang around this part of the country. If you should end up on that homestead of yours, you’d be vulnerable to him.”
Lily’s face fell at the prospect.
“No,” Caleb went on, “I’ll have him transferred. Say, to Fort Yuma. He’ll feel right at home there with all those other scorpions to keep him company.”
Lily sighed. “Suppose he attacks somebody else, Caleb? Suppose they don’t get away like I did?”
Caleb’s hands were gentle on her shoulders. “I’ll make sure Ingram’s commanding officer knows what kind of man he is, Lily. Don’t worry.”
With that subject out of the way, Lily announced, “I have another problem.”
Caleb’s grin was at once endearing and obnoxious. “You’re naked in my bed, and you don’t own a stitch of clothing in the world,” he agreed.
“You needn’t look so pleased about it!” Lily snapped, drawing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. She was very careful not to let the covers slip away from her breasts.
“Not only that,” Caleb went on, as though she hadn’t spoken, “but the whole fort is talking about us. Speculating on what’s going on right here in this room.”
Lily flushed. Now that she could see things in better perspective she was furious with herself for giving in to Caleb the night of the fire. If she’d gone to Mrs. Tibbet and asked for a place to stay, she could have avoided this problem.
She let her forehead rest on her upraised knees. “I’m just like my mother,” she despaired.
Caleb made her lift her head. “No,” he said softly. “She gave up, and you don’t have the first idea how to do that. I don’t mind telling you that sometimes I wish you did.” He paused. “You’re still going to move onto your land, aren’t you?”
Lily swallowed. “Yes,” she said, because Caleb was right. She didn’t know how to give up on her dream. She’d had to struggle for everything all her life, and she’d never learned to walk away from something she wanted.
The major rose from the bed, gazing distractedly toward the window. Lily knew he wasn’t seeing the fluttering lace curtains, which needed washing, or the blue of the sky. Presently he spoke, his voice hoarse and so low that she had to strain to hear it. “I guess there’s no point in talking about it anymore, then. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some clothes.”
Caleb’s loving had affected Lily like a dose of opium, but now she was fully awake, and having to stay in bed was like being held prisoner. “Mrs. Tibbet may still have some of Sandra’s things around,” she suggested.
Caleb didn’t so much as glance in her direction. “Right,” he answered, crossing the room and pulling open the door.
“Caleb, wait!” Lily cried. “You can’t just walk out and leave me here like this—I need to know how soon I can expect you back!”
He let his head rest against the doorjamb for a moment, and his shoulders, always so straight and strong, looked slightly stooped to Lily. “Half an hour,” he said, and then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind him.
Lily scrambled out of bed the moment she heard his bootheels on the stairs and looked at herself in the tall mirror. She was a sight, with her hair all sooty and tangled, and there were even smudges of black on her skin. She went into Caleb’s bathroom and started water running in the tub.
She washed her hair and bathed quickly, not wanting to be indisposed when Caleb returned. If he decided to make love to her again, she might still be lying around in bed come Judgment Day.
Lily wrapped one towel around her torso and twisted another about her head, turban fashion. Caleb was sitting on the edge of the bed when she stepped over the bathroom threshold. There was a parcel beside him on the rumpled covers.
“Here,” he said. “I hope it fits.”
Color spread from Lily’s toes to the roots of her hair. “Oh, Caleb, you didn’t! Tell me you didn’t walk into the general store and ask for a dress that would fit me!”
He shrugged, looking as dispirited as before. “It’s no secret that you’re here,” he reasoned.
“But you could have gone to Gertrude,” Lily insisted, mortified.
“I wasn’t in the mood for a morality lecture,” Caleb answered. “Put these things on, and I’ll go down and make something to eat.”
Lily waited until Caleb had left the room, then tore open the package. It contained a simple blue and white calico dress, a muslin petticoat, and a camisole and drawers, along with a packet of hairpins. Lily’s cheeks flamed as she imagined Caleb buying those things; by now everyone on post probably knew about the purchase and all that it implied.
Hastily Lily dressed herself, braided her still-damp hair, and wound it into a circumspect coronet. When she went downstairs Caleb was in the kitchen, stirring something at the stove. It smelled wonderful.
“I’ve never known a man to cook so well,” she remarked, feeling strangely shy for a woman who had tossed and moaned as she had in Caleb’s bed.
Caleb shrugged and grinned at her over one broad shoulder. “I like to avoid eating in the mess hall whenever possible,” he replied, and his golden eyes moved over Lily with amused appreciation. “Pull up a chair.”
Obediently, for she was hungry, Lily took a seat at Caleb’s round oak table. He set a bowl of savory stew before her. Even though she felt like consuming the stuff in two bites, Lily waited politely until Caleb had joined her.
After a few spoonfuls, however, she stopped eating to gaze at Caleb. “What am I going to do?” she asked softly. “Where am I going to live?”
Caleb set down his spoon. “You already know my answers to those questions, Lily,” he said reasonably. “And you don’t like them, remember?”
&nbs
p; Lily propped her elbows on either side of her stew bowl and covered her face with her hands for a moment. She sighed as she lowered them to look at Caleb. “You’re so much smarter than I am, Caleb. So much stronger and so much more persuasive. If I married you, I wouldn’t be myself for very long. I’d soon become the person you want me to be.”
He sat back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. “I wouldn’t change you for the world,” he protested quietly.
“Yes, you would,” Lily insisted. “You’d make me into a china doll, overseeing tea parties and embroidering samplers and gazing at you in worshipful adoration. And eventually you’d get tired of me, Caleb, and take a mistress.”
He glowered at her, as though insulted. “I would never betray you.”
“Oh, no? What about when I’m pregnant, Caleb—all fat, with swollen ankles and a chronic case of the weeps. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t turn to another woman for the comforts you so obviously need?”
“I’d find you more attractive than ever,” Caleb answered with annoyed certainty.
Lily picked up her spoon, then set it down again. Her hands knotted into fists in her lap. “You weren’t faithful to Sandra. Why should I fare any better?”
“Because I love you, for one thing. And I explained before—I didn’t sleep with Sandra.”
“I might not feel like sleeping with you, either—if I happened to get pregnant, that is. What would you do then, Caleb?”
“Wait,” he answered. Then a slow grin spread across his face. “And do my damnedest to seduce you. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty good at that.”
Lily flushed and squirmed a little, remembering. There was no denying his assertion: Caleb could practically tumble her onto her back with a look or a touch. The fact tormented her, for she couldn’t discern whether it was because of some special skill on his part or because she was basically a loose woman like her mother. “I’ve noticed,” she admitted.
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