“Hannah?” he called softly when he got no response to the knock. “Open the door.”
Maybe she wasn’t here. Maybe after she’d run from him she’d kept on running. Through the garden, away from town. He didn’t think so, but the very thought of her standing out there in this wind, alone and upset, chilled him to the bone.
He laid his hand on the doorknob and turned. It wasn’t locked. The door swung open to reveal Hannah, sitting on the bed with her head down and her hands clasped in her lap, a half-packed trunk at the side of the bed and a bulging smaller tapestry bag at her side. She’d been packing, getting herself ready to keep on running.
Closing the door behind him, Jed placed her cane aside, leaning it against the dresser near the door. He never took his eyes off Hannah, and she didn’t lift her head.
He lifted her tapestry bag and placed it on the floor, noting as he moved it aside that her things were stuffed and dropped into the case with no care at all, as if she’d thrown her belongings into the bag in a panic, frantic to get away.
Maybe she was frantic to get away, but not like this. He wouldn’t have it. He sat on the bed beside her, placed his hand on her chin and forced her to look at him. She didn’t resist.
Hannah’s gray eyes were filled with tears; her face had gone deathly pale. Her lips trembled when she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her head against his shoulder. “You don’t have to apologize to me, darlin’.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I... why I got so...”
Rocking gently on the bed, he comforted her. She relaxed against his chest, eventually. Wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight.
He could let it go, could pretend nothing had happened back at Cash’s place. Holding Hannah, comforting her, would be enough. But he had a feeling—no, he knew—that if he didn’t take care of this problem here and now it would continue to come back and haunt them. Again and again.
“You said Richard didn’t force you,” he said lowly. “Son of a bitch, I’ll kill him.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t. He just...” She sighed, took a deep breath, and expelled it against his chest. “I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want... I did tell him no, at first. But he told me he loved me, and at that moment I wanted to be loved more than anything in the world, so I... I didn’t say no again. I stood there with my back against the wall and let him do exactly what he wanted because I was such a pathetic, lonely, wretched...”
“Stop it,” Jed ordered in a low voice.
Hannah took another deep breath. “Of course he was lying,” she continued, her voice calmer. “He wanted to marry my father’s fortune, and I guess he thought if we’d sealed our betrothal with an act of intimacy there was no way I or my father could refuse him.” She shuddered. “He was wrong.”
Jed tightened his arms around her. She had never seemed so tiny to him before, so fragile. Not his Hannah.
“When he walked away,” she whispered, “I felt like the world was crumbling in on me. Nothing happened the way it was supposed to. And then my father had to have his say. He looked at me and knew what had happened.” She sniffled and buried her head against his chest. “I decided it was better to let him believe I was a slut than to allow him to find out what a desperate misfit I had become.”
Her hair was in a tangle, so he let it down, taking out one pin at a time. “You are not now, nor have you ever been, a desperate misfit,” he said angrily. He combed out the dark red tangles with his fingers. “I’d still like to kill Richard, that lyin’, scheming, sweet-talking son of a bitch.”
Hannah lifted her face to look at him. Her eyes were still damp, but no more tears fell. A touch of color had returned to her cheeks. More than anything, he wanted to take away the pain he saw there.
“I don’t know what happened to me back there,” she whispered. “That night is just a bad memory. I never think about it, I never dream about it, but... but today I smelled the stables when you touched me, I heard the horses, and when I looked at you I didn’t see you. I saw him and I panicked.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she answered quickly, a hint of anger creeping into her voice. “I’m not supposed to have any weaknesses. I’m not supposed to be deathly afraid of something that happened eight years ago.”
He held her head in his hands. “You don’t have to be fearless, Hannah,” he said, watching her eyes closely.
“I do,” she breathed.
He lowered his head to kiss her softly, gently, his mouth barely brushing hers. “Then be fearless,” he whispered. “I love you.”
She stiffened, but didn’t bolt off the bed.
“See? That wasn’t so bad.” He threaded his fingers through her long hair.
* * *
Hannah shook her head gently, in denial. Jed couldn’t love her. He might like her on occasion, and he did want her, but he couldn’t possibly love her. She waited for the onslaught of panic, the assault of odors and noises that did not belong in this time and place, but all she smelled was Jed, the scent of his skin near her nose; all she heard was the wind buffeting the hotel.
“What if it doesn’t stop?” she whispered.
“We’ll make it stop,” he said, leaving no room for argument.
“But...”
He silenced her with a kiss, and her heart lurched. All her life she’d been hiding from this, afraid of surrender, afraid of offering her heart to be battered and broken. And cherished. “I love you, too,” she whispered when he took his mouth from hers. “So much.”
Jed smiled at her, and she knew, at that moment, that he wasn’t lying. He truly thought he loved her. She was still afraid.
“Make love to me,” she whispered.
He answered with a kiss that shook her to her bones, a deep, searing kiss that sealed their vows of love indelibly.
They fell back on the bed, kissing, touching, taking it slow. Everything—every touch, every kiss, every heartbeat—was slow and sweet. Her body pressed against his, and still she was unable to get close enough.
Jed laid his lips on the pulse at her throat, holding his mouth there, sucking gently while his hands danced over her body. He knew where to touch her—a flick of his fingers here, a heated brush of his palm there. Soon her body cried out for his, tingling and reaching.
But the memory of the moment in the hall stayed with her. She couldn’t completely shake off the panic, the disorientation. The terror of being yanked back to another time and another man.
Slowly, she disengaged herself from Jed’s warm embrace, pulling back her arms, rolling back her legs, scooting off the bed. Jed didn’t try to drag her back. He just watched with smoldering eyes as she lifted her skirt and unbuttoned the drawers, letting them fall to the floor to be kicked aside. She crooked her finger at him, and he came.
She took his hand and led him to the wall beside the dresser, placing her spine against the wall, pulling him in to her, and lifting her face for a kiss.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he whispered.
“Yes.” He said she didn’t have to be fearless. Deep in her heart she knew that wasn’t true. She did have to be fearless. Brave. She could harbor no weaknesses. How else could she survive? If anyone could exorcise this particular fear, it was Jed Rourke.
Jed kissed her again, deep and arousing, while he lifted her skirt. He slipped one hand under her thigh and lifted it, hooking her leg around his thigh, bringing them closer together. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall, as he kissed and touched her. His hand caressed her hip, her thigh, and then he laid his fingers on her intimately, stroking gently until her body cried out for him to join with her.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered hoarsely.
She obeyed, looking up into the fiercest, most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen.
“If you feel even one second of doubt, all you have to do is say stop,” he said, his voice low and rumbling. “I don’t
care where we are or what we’re doing. You say stop and it’s over.”
She nodded.
Jed lowered his head to kiss her neck tenderly again, sucking against the flesh until her entire body throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Warm and gentle, tenacious and tender, he aroused her more with every touch, with every seductive brush of his lips. There was nothing so beautiful as the feel of his mouth against the side of her neck, nothing so fine as the way he sucked and nibbled and kissed the column of her throat.
The hand he caressed her breasts with was demanding without force, stimulating with every stroke. Her nipples hardened at his touch, her breasts grew heavy and tender. He unfastened the buttons of her bodice and slipped his hand inside to touch her bare breasts, and she sucked in her breath at the sensation of those large, tender hands caressing her. Arousing and readying her.
He lifted her skirt to her waist, shoved it impatiently aside. His arousal pressed against her belly. He made sure she felt it as he freed himself.
With a gentle heave he lifted her off her feet, dragging her up and across his hard body. She wrapped both legs around his hips. The arms around his neck tightened as she held on. His erection touched her. One small push and he would be inside her. But he looked her in the eye and waited.
“I love you, Hannah,” he whispered.
She smelled his skin and hers, felt their heartbeats increasingly pounding, heard the sounds of their labored breaths mingling. Nothing more.
“I love you,” she answered, threading her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, holding on for dear life.
He pushed inside her, and she dropped down slightly in response. His unhurried penetration stretched and filled her, took her breath away.
She held on tight and swayed in to him, as he made love to her. Slow and sweet at first, hard and fast when her body rebelled and she could take no more of his gentle restraint. There was love here, yes, but there was also an unleashed primal force that ruled their bodies. Love, and power, and need. An aching, urgent need that only Jed could satisfy.
She grasped him even tighter when the climax undulated through her body, then grabbed her so hard she cried out. He moaned and shuddered in her arms, pressed her hard against the wall and buried himself deep inside her as he found his own release.
Urgency gone, need satisfied, she expected Jed to let her go, to gently place her on her feet and step back. But he didn’t. He held on to her and crushed her body against the wall as he gazed unflinchingly into her eyes and said it again.
“I love you.”
And she believed him.
* * *
“You’re not wearing that,” Jed said in horror, as Hannah laid a white silk dress on the bed. Even spread innocently across the bed he could tell it was low-cut, and the skirt was too short, and... and it looked like something a New Orleans hooker would wear.
“Of course I am,” she said, not so much as slowing down as she collected stockings and a white garter from her drawer.
“You are not,” he said again.
Hannah turned about to smile at him. “Are you putting your foot down?” she asked sweetly.
He narrowed one eye. “Well, no.” That hadn’t worked well the last time. “It’s just... just... Hell, Hannah, that dress is downright decadent. I don’t want you showing everything you’ve got to Virgil Wyndham or anyone else.”
“All right,” she said, giving in much too easily. “If it truly bothers you I’ll find something else to wear.”
“You will?” he asked suspiciously.
“Lily loaned me a few things. I’m sure something else will suffice.”
She went to her wardrobe and removed a selection of unsuitable gowns. They were all too low cut and decadent, and he found himself scowling down at the colorful options spread across the bed. He finally chose a green silk gown that seemed to have a longer skirt than the others, and he rummaged in the wardrobe until he came up with a concealing shawl she could wear with it.
He sat in the single chair in the room and watched her dress. “You sure caved easy on that one,” he said suspiciously.
She smiled at him as she pulled on one black stocking, chosen to match the black lace in the green gown. “Which gown I wear is not terribly important, and I don’t want to purposely annoy you.”
“Since when?” he asked with a grin.
She ignored him. “But if I wear my usual clothing in Cash’s saloon tonight, I won’t exactly blend in.”
“You’ll be the only woman there,” he muttered. “There’s no way you’ll blend in.”
She pulled on the other stocking and secured it with her red garter, giving him a seductive smile as she slid it into place. “Besides, I think it’s rather sweet that you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous,” he said, sounding peevish.
“Protective, then,” she offered, crossing the room to sit on his lap and wrap her arms around his neck. Wearing a corset and those stockings and that damn red garter. And nothing else.
“We’re going to be late,” he whispered.
“We have plenty of time,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him.
“Not if you don’t get off my lap, we don’t.” He pulled her close. “As a matter of fact, I think we should let Cash and Nate and Sullivan corner Wyndham. What do they need us for?”
She slithered off his lap, trailing her fingers over his neck as she withdrew. “I figured out who did it; I get to catch him,” she said.
Jed leaned back and watched her slip into the green gown. As it fell into place and she began working the fasteners up the side, he was distressed to see that even though the gown he’d chosen was more demure than the others, it still offered a view he’d rather not share. The swell of her breasts, the column of her throat, the feminine and alluring curve of her bosom to her waist.
It occurred to him that she was being awfully agreeable tonight. What did he have to lose?
“What if I put my foot down and order you to stay here tonight.”
She came closer and leaned forward. Damn, he definitely did not want another man getting this view! He’d never felt proprietary about a woman before, and he found it was an oddly helpless feeling.
“I love you,” she whispered. A grin bloomed on her face. “But don’t push your luck.”
Chapter 21
There was a small commotion going on, as he stepped down the stairs and into the hotel lobby. The kids were running about, excited about the Christmas Eve feast Eden had prepared and the Christmas morning that would soon arrive. Reese and Mary were there, with their little girl, and so was a familiar young lady, surrounded by luggage and a mob of people, Rock Creek citizens who remembered her well.
“Josephine,” he said with a grin as he recognized her. “Hell, you’ve grown up.”
Jo Clancy, the Reverend Clancy’s daughter, stepped away from the crowd to give him a hug and a small smile.
“I came as soon as I heard the news about Father.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a sad thing to happen.”
Jo knew what her old man had been like, but he was her father, nonetheless. He could see the grief in her eyes, but there was a touch of relief, too. To be home, maybe. To be free of Maurice Clancy’s direction and discipline.
“You look wonderful,” she said warmly.
“So do you.” He returned the compliment with a friendly wink, noting the unusually short length of her dark hair. “Who gave you permission to grow up?” Jo was still a little thing, delicate and pretty, but she wasn’t a child any longer.
“Who gave you permission to cut your hair?” she asked with a grin.
“We’ll call it even,” he said softly, leaning down slightly.
“Where’s Nate?” Jo asked, her eyes widening, her voice a little too casual. “I’ve asked around, but no one seems to know where he is.”
Jo had always had a soft spot for Nate, their own fallen preacher. There had been a time when she’d practically followed
him around like a lost puppy. She hadn’t been much more than a kid at the time, as he remembered.
“I might be able to round him up.”
“Thank you,” Jo said softly, just before yet another old friend arrived and she was swept away.
When Hannah came sauntering down the stairs, Jed almost picked her up and carried her upstairs to change clothes. Shawl or no shawl, she looked too damn good. He didn’t want any other man to see her this way. But when she smiled at him, it didn’t matter anymore. She was his, and his alone. She loved him. He had no idea where they would go from here and at the moment he didn’t care. He only cared that the woman he loved looked at him this way, her heart and passion for him lurking in her eyes.
Jo had been swallowed up by another round of newcomers who’d heard of her arrival, so Jed took Hannah’s arm and escorted her from the hotel. There would be time for introductions later.
The afternoon wind was calmer than it had been in the past few days, but the chill remained. Hannah clung to her shawl for warmth as they hurried down the street. Down the way and across the street, before the newly opened Rogue’s Palace, Nate was saddling up his horse.
Together, he and Hannah increased their pace.
“Where you headed?” Jed asked.
“Don’t know,” Nate said, without looking up from the task of filling his saddlebag with a bottle of whiskey.
“You can’t leave right now,” Jed said. “Jo’s here. Jo Clancy.”
“So I heard,” Nate mumbled.
“She wants to see you.”
Nate stepped into the stirrup and lifted himself into the saddle. “Maybe next time.” He tipped his hat to Hannah and, without another word, turned his horse about and headed out of town. At a walk at first, then at a gallop. What the hell was his hurry?
“How odd,” Hannah said as Jed led her into the saloon and out of the cold.
Jed stepped back and glanced down the street, narrowing his eyes, but Nate was already long gone.
* * *
Rogue’s Palace. It was the perfect name for the perfect venture. His own place, at last. He’d need new furnishings, some paint, and nails, and more wood, but eventually... Eventually this saloon would be home. He hadn’t had a place to call home in so long, he could barely remember what it felt like.
Jed (The Rock Creek Six Book 4) Page 23