“I can.” He began to rub her back and forth, in unhurried strokes.
She knew things weren’t going to be any different this time. How could they be? She was feeling the same swirling sensations as before. And before she’d been let down by her own body. She wanted to hold back. She tried. But he kept touching her; that intimate part of her that was exposed and sensitive. He stroked her faster until her entire being was on fire. The flames fanned across her skin, assaulting her with a tide of heat that radiated from her every pore. She squeezed her legs together and grabbed for Frank. Her fingers gripped his waist while she struggled to capture and unleash the feeling that was at the threshold of her senses.
Just when she felt the first waves, he took his hands away.
She might as well have fallen off the bed when he ceased. “Why did you stop?” she panted. “I think I could have . . . I would have . . .”
“You will.” The caress of his lips on her parched mouth didn’t make her feel any better. “We will together.”
Frank unfastened his trousers, pulled them down over his hips and kicked them off his legs. He wore white drawers. The crotch was tight, and the finely combed cotton cupped him like the palm of a glove. Her mind burned with the memory of seeing him in a pair similar to these with the buttons undone and fitting him so snugly, they stayed up.
Using just his right hand, he popped open the three pearl fasteners with his thumbnail. The first time they’d done this, she hadn’t seen anything. She’d only felt him.
A dark wedge of tight curls contrasted next to the snowy band of his drawers as he slipped them lower. Before she could even think to breathe, he pushed his underwear off and pitched it over the side of the bed to the floor.
She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes again until his low voice melted through her. “Look at me.”
She gazed at his face, cast in half shadow, unable to look any lower. His chiseled expression encouraged her to explore. She didn’t dare. Instead she said in a tiny voice, “Maybe if you kiss me . . .”
“Where?” he asked, changing the position of their legs and separating her thighs with his knees. “Where do you want me to kiss you?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
He held his upper body over hers, keeping his arms straight so the flat of his belly didn’t touch her. His mouth came down on hers, his teeth nipped at her lower lip. “Here?” He bent his head lower, his tongue flicking over one of her nipples. “Here?” He moved between her breasts and kissed her breastbone. “Here?” He went lower and she suddenly realized his intentions.
“No! Not . . . no!”
“Don’t you want to feel what it’s like to be kissed . . . here?” His hands spread her inner thighs wide, his knuckles brushing her skin until they reached between her pliant legs.
“No . . . I . . . it’s too . . . no. Don’t.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to.” His fingers began to move over her nest of hair the same way they had before. He made swirling patterns with his thumbs, over and over, that made her blood pound in her head.
She braced her hands on his chest, her palms on his rigid nipples.
“Come apart, Amelia,” he directed. “Let go.” Sweat bathed his face, the hair crowning his forehead. The veins in his taut arms stood out on his tanned skin. She could see he fought to control the rhythm that was sending her over the edge. She struggled to take what he was giving her. She began to unravel; her desire overrode everything else.
She gasped when his fiery heat probed her entrance. He burrowed into her, and she waited for the discomfort. There was a moment’s dull pain, but he kept massaging her, making her feel so good, she didn’t recognize the soreness. He thrust again. She tried to keep her hips on the bed, but in an instinctive movement, they raised to meet him.
He fit neatly into her this time, rocking her against him. The friction of his movements, his body and hands, undulated through her. Each time he withdrew, he went deeper when he settled back inside.
It was his hoarse voice that finally broke her down. He kept urging her, “Let go. Let go. Let go,” between the chanting squeak of the bedsprings.
At last, her breath came in long surrendering moans. His seduction had worked. He freed her in a bursting of sensations. She fell into a vortex of light, an explosion of dazzling color that had showered the Fourth of July night.
He lowered his head, kissed her hard, catching her sighs on his mouth. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. Groaning, he pushed hard, clinging to her. She felt the muscles on his back bunch and strain as he shuddered.
And then he stilled.
The tiny bedroom was filled with the sounds of their heavy breathing and rampant heartbeats; with the musky scents of their sex-spent bodies.
To Amelia’s utter chagrin, she started quietly crying.
* * *
“You’re not going to run to the water closet again, are you?” Frank had withdrawn from her and put the bulk of his torso on his elbow, his face creased with concern.
She shook her head no, but she was thoroughly shaken.
“Then why are you crying?”
She blinked her lashes, hot tears spilling into the shells of her ears and tickling them.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Frank pushed her rumpled hair from her brows. “Jesus. I didn’t hurt you again, did I? I thought . . . ah, hell. I felt you . . . so I . . .”
She gulped loudly, trying not to outright sob.
“Amelia, Amelia, Amelia,” he shushed. “Don’t cry.”
“I can’t help it.” She gazed into his eyes. “It’s just that . . . I love you, Frank.”
He stared at her, speechless.
It wounded her that he didn’t say the words back, but she wasn’t sorry she’d said them. “I just wanted you to know . . . that’s all.”
A tender smile lurked on the corners of his mouth as his thumb wiped her tears from her skin. “I’m glad you told me.” His lips touched hers. Softly, warmly, barely brushing. Then he laid on his side, put his left hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. His fingers stroked her arm, caressing, cuddling.
The light from the lamp silhouetted him from behind. His hair appeared darker than pitch and fell over his neck. The shadow of his beard put a rugged strength on his face that she appreciated. The full lines of his brows bridged his mellow blue eyes. Within their depths, she saw fragments of all the emotion-charged expressions he’d ever given her.
It was easy to get lost in the way he looked, and it was no wonder every girl in town thought he was handsome. She felt a glorified sense of satisfaction knowing that when they stared longingly at him now, they’d be staring at her man.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” she said, reaching out to him, too tempted by his disordered hair not to touch the cool thickness.
“What?”
“How did you get the middle name Wolfgang?”
He laughed with a dry and mildly humorous sound. “That’s what the Rev wanted to know when he asked me for my full name.”
“Well?”
“Have you ever heard of the poetic drama Faust?”
“Is it about someone who enters a pact with the devil?”
“Yes. A magician, to be exact.” He inhaled, his nostrils flaring. His deep breath sounded more like a shiver of vivid recollection. “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote Faust. My parents were performing the play at the Haymarket Theater in San Francisco when my mother went into labor.” His gaze lowered, as did his voice. “I was born in the orchestra pit. As my mother told it, my father cursed her ill timing and would have nothing to do with my delivery. So the conductor shouted for something to wrap me in. He was handed his stack of sheet music, and I was swaddled in the melody he’d written for the performance. For all I know, he was the one who named me,” he said, trailing his fingertips down her forearm and raising her gooseflesh.
“Hmm.” She longed to ask him other questions—persona
l ones about his childhood, why it had been cut short, and more about his parents, about Harry. She sensed his mother and father held the key to why he’d said he didn’t care either way about children. She didn’t want to believe he wouldn’t desire a child because she so hoped to have one with him.
Although she wanted to know all about Frank, she feared any interrogation, no matter how subtly phrased, would ruin this precious moment. Instead, she contented herself to touch him, learn him on the outside; touching and learning him on the inside would come later.
Her hand in his hair slid to the hard curve of his shoulder and down his solid bicep. The light covering of hair on his forearm didn’t disguise the crescent-shaped scar that marred him. She ran her finger over the small protrusion. “Did a piece of the moon really come out of the sky and cut you on the arm?”
“No.”
“So the rock in the saloon isn’t from the moon?”
“No. I found it in the bottom of a Mojave crater.”
She traced the mark on his skin. “Then how did this happen?”
“In a bar fight. A guy used my arm to shatter a liquor bottle.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“A woman.”
“Oh.” She was sorry she asked.
“I can’t remember her name. I was drunk. I don’t do that much anymore.”
“What?”
“Get drunk.”
“Why not?”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Because I own a drunkard’s haven.”
She grew thoughtful for a moment before sitting up. She would have been self-conscious of her nakedness if she hadn’t had her hair to hide her breasts. She used the long brown waves to cover herself as Frank rolled onto his back. His hand came toward her and he playfully tugged on the ends of hair that fell to her waist. “Where are you going?”
“You reminded me of something.” She tried to disengage her wrapper from them, but Frank was resting on most of it. He had no problem lying there completely nude, but she wasn’t used to his lack of clothing. She kept an unwavering gaze on his face, certain he could tell it was no accident she didn’t move her stare lower.
“Lift up so I can get my wrapper,” she directed when he didn’t budge.
“What for? I like you wearing just your wedding ring.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I could be more than that if you give me a minute.”
Through the din of his implication, she breathed one word. “Again?”
“Oh, yeah.”
A new and unexpected warmth surged through her. “Could we wait until after I give you your present?”
“We have all night, sweetheart.” Then his eyebrows slanted in a frown. “What present? You’re going to make me feel bad I don’t have anything for you.”
“You’re wrong. You already gave me my present.” She held up her hand. “My wedding ring, silly. And besides, my present really isn’t a present. It’s more like a symbol that seals our vows. So let me have my wrapper and I’ll go get it.”
Frank lifted his hips and she pulled the gown free. When her arms were in the sleeves, she attempted to climb over him. He brought her down against his chest and kissed her soundly on the lips. “I don’t want you going far.”
“I’m not.”
He released her and she left the bedroom, tying her wrapper as she walked. She went to her aunt Clara’s room, opened the dusty, mirror-backed bureau, and sorted through the linens. When she found what she was looking for, she padded quietly back to her bedroom.
Frank rested his head on his folded arms, one long leg bent at the knee. He’d undone the bedclothes, the end of the bleached sheeting draped across his middle. She went to him, and he slid over enough for her to sit on the side of the narrow bed.
“I have something for you.”
“What?”
She held out her closed fist. “Open your hand.”
He did. His palm was wide and large, and she dropped her gift into it. He stared at the brass key, then up at her.
“It’s a key to my house,” she said proudly. “I have a key to your saloon. But now that we’re married, both the house and the saloon are ours. Everything we have, we have together.”
He closed his fingers around the key. “I guess that means you finally own that piano, huh?”
She bit her lip to downplay her grin of delight. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Am I going to find it missing one day and discover it in the parlor downstairs?”
“No. Things seem to be working out at the Moon Rock, so I think I’ll keep it there until our other one comes.”
“I appreciate that.”
She smiled, so happy she was beside herself.
He smiled back and let the key drop out of his hand. It fell silently to the floor on his discarded shirt. “Come here.”
She went into his arms, and he brought her back to his side. As they faced each other, he gave her a kiss on the tip of her nose. “You know, this bed isn’t going to work out too well. My feet are hanging over the edge. I guess we’ll just have to stay up all night so I don’t have to figure out how I’m going to sleep in it.”
“I don’t want it to be morning yet either.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I don’t want you to see me in the light of day. Not after . . . you know.”
“You mean not after you saw Red Devils?” he teased.
Groaning, she buried her burning face against his chest, but he wouldn’t let her hide. His fingers captured her chin, and he made her look into his eyes. “Don’t, Amelia. Never feel like what we do is something you have to be embarrassed over. You’re beautiful, and I intend to show you how much. Over and over.”
Her arms went around him, and she pressed her cheek to his. “Do you know how happy you’ve made me? I never thought I’d get married. I never thought I’d have somebody like you.”
“Me neither,” he whispered in her hair.
For a while, they held each other in the drowsy warmth of the bed, both quiet and thinking.
“Amelia?”
“Yes?”
Several mindful seconds later he said, “My parents aren’t dead. At least I don’t think they are. I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in twenty years. Not since they dumped me in an orphanage when I was nine.”
“Oh . . . darling,” she sighed, her heart breaking. She wasn’t really surprised to hear his confession echo in her thoughts. Having his parents abandon him would explain a lot. “Do you ever want to find them?”
“No.”
She lifted her head, feeling such a love for him it almost troubled her. “Then I’ll be your family, Frank. I don’t have anybody else, either.”
Chapter
20
Frank hadn’t told Amelia he loved her.
His inability to utter those three words stemmed back to his childhood. He’d never had the endearment spoken to him, nor had he said them to anyone. Not even to Harry, who he had loved.
His brother had viewed the world through uncomplicated eyes and wouldn’t have understood the emotional meaning behind the words. Their communication had been based on a simple level of language, mostly centering around the subject of water.
Ever since Harry could crawl, he’d been infatuated by the water in the Frisco harbor, by the ships that moored and sailed. Growing up, the sun-glistened bay had been the mainstay of their conversations and the site of many visits before they’d been disposed of at St. John’s Orphanage. Once in the home, late at night in their cots, they’d whisper quietly about what they would do when they got out. Harry always said he’d walk straight to the ocean and stare at it.
In those unlit hours when the barracks were immersed in a black as dark as the nuns’ habits, and when those inmates who were ruffians by day wept openly in their beds at night, Frank had vowed to see his brother through the misery of it all.
As a means of telling Harry how he’d felt about him, he’d shown hi
m in ways Harry could grasp. By looking after him. By taking licks for him. By keeping him on his knees in the chapel during mass when the sisters were watching. By silently swearing to God during the long litanies in Latin to hate Jack and Charlotte, not for what they’d done to him—for he could have tolerated being abandoned—but for deserting Harry. For that, they deserved to be damned. Harry, who’d never cried, not even the day he was born, had been special and needed their love more than Frank ever had.
His little brother’s boyish and blameless smile had been the only display of love Frank had ever been given. He’d grabbed onto it, like a dog starved for a bone, burying the gift deep inside of him. When the day came that he was released from the orphanage, without Harry’s shadow trailing beside his, his most precious possession in the world had been hidden in his heart.
It went unsaid how they’d felt about each other. The need for words had never been there. And so he’d never learned to speak them. But he knew Amelia wanted to hear what he could not say.
His feelings for her were profound and unlike the unconditional bonds between brothers. Consciousness of being in love was different. He had no experience with that. There was no other passion that produced such contrary effects in so great a degree. He’d paid for love in the brothels, but he’d never had it given to him without a price. Never had the words been spoken to him from the cry of a soul, and Amelia’s touched him deeply.
She loved him.
He hoped she would accept his silence, for he would show her how he felt, just as he had shown Harry.
The beat-up coffeepot behind Frank sputtered on the burner, pulling him from his thoughts. He turned away from the bar and poured an early afternoon cup to drink while he finished filling a box with his baseball equipment and fishing tackle. Right after the ceremony yesterday, he’d only taken the bare essentials to Amelia’s house. Today he was moving in all his sporting gear. Tomorrow he’d tell Richard Hartshorn, the manager of the bank, his permanent address would be on Inspiration Lane with his wife.
His wife.
The dawn was barely discernible when they’d opened their eyes to each other early this morning. His stiff joints had felt the consequences of his cramped sleeping arrangements, but seeing Amelia first thing had made the kinks bearable. Half awake, he’d lifted her into the cradle of his arms, one palm on the soft cheek of her bottom—bare as a baby’s.
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