“Your mother was a gifted pianist. She was the one who taught you. Your father saved for years to buy her a piano of her own. It was the only thing she ever asked of him.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Jack nodded. His eyes glowed with that same tender fire and smoldered with desire.
Esmaralda’s heart leapt wildly. Her whole body cried out for him. “Jack, make love to me. Make love to me… as, as you would have made love to her.”
“Oh Esmaralda, don’t ask such a thing,” Jack whispered, his voice ragged.
“It’s for you Jack, not me. I have her memories. I lived her life. It’s alright. I understand.”
Jack let out a strangled groan. He set Esmaralda down on the marble floor and began to frantically remove her dress. The bodice was ruined anyway and it was not long before her full skirts tumbled away under his adept hands. His fingers grazed her skin, sending hot trails of lust burning through her.
Jack shed his own clothing and stood gloriously naked before Esmaralda, the light of the overhead chandelier and the scones illuminating his gorgeous form. He was rugged. His body was huge, his chest and abdomen and legs all powerfully muscled. It was the body of a man who had worked hard his entire life.
Esmaralda’s throat constricted at his beauty. This was the man Sadie had loved. This, her husband, the man she had waited her entire life for. She was going to make love to him now.
Esmaralda stood in her stockings and garter, the only pieces of clothing Jack had not removed. She watched his eyes play over her body, watched the gleam of hunger grow there. Her heavy, full breasts ached for his touch. Moisture pooled between her legs, the now familiar ache growing in intensity. She took a step towards him, then another, before she finally knelt at his feet.
His cock stood out proudly from his body, even larger than it had appeared in the shadows of the barn. Esmaralda was hungry for him. For him to be inside of her, filling her. Instead she brought her face forward. She parted her lips moved her mouth over his cock, slowly, luxuriously. She took the girth of his shaft in her hand while she teased the velvet tip with her tongue. He moaned, the sound sending erotic thrills racing through Esmaralda.
She tasted the salty tang of him, tasted the musk of herself on him from the barn. She flicked her tongue around the tip of him, sucked him, and moved to take him further and further into her mouth.
“God Esmaralda,” Jack moaned. “I can’t… stop.” He took her hair in his hand and pulled her face away. She smiled up at him, a heady feeling of power washing over her. She had the ability to bring this man, this huge, strong man to an aching, shuttering climax, as he had done her. She could feel how perilously close he was to losing control.
Jack bent down and hoisted her up, lifting her easily. Esmaralda straddled his hips, wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her over to the piano where he set her down on the row of immaculate ivory keys. She smiled at the dull ping it made where she landed. Jack smiled as well. He reached down and parted her thighs. He stepped between them. She had a leg on either side of his strong waist. Her feet dangled but she lifted them, finding the piano bench with her toes.
Jack took his thick cock in his hand. He looked into Esmeralda’s eyes as he slid inside of her. Esmaralda stared back into his steely depths. She saw the same desire, raw hunger, unsated ache there and she knew her own eyes were a reflection of his.
He began to move, thrusting in and out of her with slow, delicious strokes. Esmaralda arched into him. She opened herself further, took him in right to the hilt. God, he was delicious. Every thick, pulsing inch of him filled her tight sheath, stoking the liquid fires of her passion.
“Look down Esmaralda. Look at me filling you.”
She did as he asked. Her gaze dropped to her legs. She was completely shaved, delicate, creamy skin glistening in the light from above. Jack pulled out, his cock shining with her own wetness. He stared at her for a moment before he slid back in, slowly, achingly slowly. Watching him enter her body, watching his cock slide out slippery and wet only to impale her again, was too much. Esmaralda reached out, caught him on the shoulder and brought Jack closer to her. He leaned down, smothering her mouth with a bruising kiss. Esmaralda drank him in. He made love to her mouth while his cock, his delicious, thick, hard cock thrust in and out of her, building a shattering rhythm that sent Esmaralda into a world of unthinkable pleasure.
She cried out into his mouth, kissed him feverishly as her body shattered around him. He had been waiting for her to come apart. He too cried out his release. He pulsed within her, Esmaralda’s tight, wet core gripping him.
When it was over, Esmaralda rested her cheek against Jack’s chest.
“Come love,” he whispered. “The night is growing late and I still have so much to show you.” He withdrew from her body. Grabbing up his clothing he picked Esmaralda up and carried her from the room.
Jack mounted the grand staircase and stopped only when he entered their bedroom. He placed Esmaralda down gently on the silk covers of their beautifully carved bed. He lit a candle and set it on their bedside table. Esmaralda stared at the hard planes of his face. This would be the last time she would see him. Would he leave her with these memories? Would she live the rest of her life knowing that she had once had a life with him and now no longer would? Was any of this really even real? She had wondered that a thousand times since she had first set eyes on Jack.
“I want to show you something, before the dawn,” Jack whispered. He had the lazy look of someone who has just been well pleasured, all desire sated. He looked like a man completely in love.
Esmaralda’s eyes swept over Jack’s beautiful, hard form. Bathed in the candlelight he was absolutely magnificent. The hard planes of his chest, the defined, chiseled abdomen, and the bulging muscles of his legs… all of it stood out as hard, stark shadows in the soft orange glow. Esmaralda remembered the moment Sadie had first seen her husband’s naked body. She had felt weak that such a man was hers, that his body was hers to love and to pleasure and to take pleasure from.
“What do you want to show me Jack?” Esmaralda asked slowly. She thought that perhaps he would make love to her again but instead he reached over and pulled the bedsheet around her. He stood and pulled on his breaches then held out a hand. She took it, wrapping her own small palm into his giant one.
Esmaralda clutched the sheet to her breast and followed Jack back downstairs. He led her through the kitchen and out into the near dawn of the backyard. The sky was a dark, dusky grey and it broke Esmaralda’s heart to see it. The sun was coming soon. Soon it would all be over.
Chapter 6
“What do you see Esmaralda?” Jack asked. He stood behind her, his large arms wrapped around her smaller shoulders, pulling her and holding her against him. She glanced out and saw only the dark night. There was a nice garden and the barn and outbuildings beyond that. What was she supposed to see?
“I don’t see anything… I mean… the garden and the barn… but that’s all.” Her voice sounded far off, as if it belonged to someone else.
“Look again,” Jack whispered huskily into her ear. She smiled as his beard tickled her neck.
Esmaralda looked out into the yard again. She blinked and was surprised to find it was daylight. She tried to spin around, tried to look into Jack’s face, to ask how he had made that possible, but he held her fast.
“Just watch,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck with the side of his face again.
Esmaralda stared. She saw two small girls, one obviously older, and one a toddler still, come running over the lawn. They were screaming and chasing each other, their dresses flying out in the wind behind them. Their blonde hair was tangled, their clothing stained with dirt.
Esmaralda smiled. She blinked. All of a sudden the scenery shifted. The girls, she recognized them because one of them looked like her, though she was blonde like Jack, and had his features as well, were older now. The older girl had the man who was her new husband with her. She smiled up at him, and
squeezed his hand gently, a look of absolute adoration passing between them.
“Jack…”
“Just watch Esmaralda. We don’t have much time left.”
When she turned her face back to the yard there were children laughing and shouting. She recognized the two women, the older one holding a baby and trying to keep tabs on her two wild boys. The younger woman, the arm of her husband wrapped around her waist, was heavily pregnant. A little boy and a little girl tucked at her skirts, vying for her attention.
The yard shifted one more time and Esmaralda saw these two women as they were when they were old. Their children were grown and their grandchildren ran screaming around the yard. The oldest children were with their spouses, one of the women’s eyes shining with the secret that she was going to bear the first great grandchild of the family.
“Jack… these are… Sadie’s children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.”
“Yes. That’s right Esmaralda. All these people are alive because of you. Because you dared to love me. Because of your bravery and your spirit and your decision to never give up.”
“Your relations are still alive,” Esmaralda whispered. Of course they would be. She should have figured that out before. Turning now, she pulled away and faced Jack. His features were ethereal, otherworldly, his grey eyes glowing in the impending dawn. She knew instinctively she didn’t have much time. The urge to grab Jack and hold onto him was so strong Esmaralda had to ball her hands in the sheet she was still wrapped in.
“Yes. Thanks so you. Thanks to Sadie.”
“How did she die Jack? Please tell me!”
His features crumpled in on themselves, sorrow and grief washing over him and for a second Esmaralda was sorry she asked.
“Sadie always wanted children. Always. Since the first moment we were married. We were elated when she became pregnant but that joy soon turned to grief. She miscarried when she was three months along. Another year passed. She became pregnant again. We were reserved in our joy this time. The baby was lost as well. I begged Sadie to stop. I could see how the lost pregnancies affected her. She thought she was a failure. Worse of all, she feared I would stop loving her. She grieved over all of it. She became so fragile and so pale. I begged her on my knees to stop trying to get pregnant. I told her I thought it would kill her in her poor health. She agreed. After a while we adopted a young girl- the older girl you saw. We were so happy, the house rang with laughter. The last thing I expected was for Sadie to conceive again. She was overjoyed. Every day that passed my fear grew. She carried the baby to term and gave birth to the most beautiful girl on earth. A girl who grew to look just like her mama. She filled me with joy every time I looked at her.”
“What happened to Sadie?” Esmaralda stammered. But she knew. She could see it in her mind, Sadie lying on that bed, so pale, deathly white. She held her baby girl in her arms as the blood pooled around her. The relentless bleeding. She knew she was dying. She had begged Jack to hold her. She told him she loved him. He had wrapped them both in his arms, his new daughter and his frail wife and held her until she breathed her last breath.
A single, silvery tear slid down Jack’s cheek. Esmaralda stood frozen, awed by the pain in her own heart as well. The force of her grief nearly doubled her over. She had seen Sadie’s beautiful girls. She had seen them as adults, with children of their own and later, their grandchildren. She had seen what Sadie would have given anything to see, to have.
Esmaralda covered her face and wept. Jack stepped forward and drew her into his arms. He held her, ran his strong hand over her back. When her sobs subsided he lifted her face and kissed away her tears. Esmaralda reached up and crushed her lips to his. They were salty with the taste of her grief.
“Oh Jack… thank you for this,” Esmaralda whispered brokenly. “Thank you for all of this. I love you… oh my dear I love you so much.”
“I know Sadie,” he whispered. Esmaralda was shocked until she realized it was Sadie’s spirit, or the part of her that had once been Sadie, that had spoken. He stroked his hand through Esmaralda’s dark hair, tangling it there and leaving it. “She promised me she would find me. She would come back and find me. That this wasn’t the end.”
“You’ve waited over a hundred and fifty years for this night.”
“Yes. I’ve finally held you, one last time. I’ve told you that I love you. It’s all I ever wanted. To kiss your lips, to feel the heat of your passion under my hands. To tangle my hand in your hair, to taste you, god, to worship you. It’s all I ever wanted.”
Esmaralda began to cry again. Jack drew her face in, so hers was mere inches from his. Their noses touched and their tears mingled as his lips met hers with the utmost tenderness and gentleness.
The sun came up across the yard, the first orange glow nearly blinding Esmaralda as the clouds parted, giving way to morning. No. Not yet, she thought. I can’t let him go yet.
Jack put her from him slightly. He stood, taking her in before he extended a hand and laid it gently on her cheek. “Goodbye my love. Be free, as I am. Be free and be sure of my love for you.”
Esmaralda closed her eyes against the gathering tears. When she opened them Jack was gone. She could still feel the heat of his touch lingering on her cheek. She stared into the empty yet. Where there had once been beautiful gardens, a barn, outbuildings, there was only empty field and a sea of grass and weeds waving in the early morning breeze.
“No,” Esmaralda whispered. “No. Please no.” She knew a great ache in her heart then, understood grief as she had never known it before. A century and a half ago she had died. Sadie had died and left the man she loved. Just as he had left her now. She had set him free. That knowledge was the only thing that kept Esmaralda from breaking down and weeping in the grass.
She realized she was cold and wet and she glanced down at herself in puzzlement. She was still wearing the sheet she had been before. She was naked underneath, the morning dew and the cool breeze chilling her. Turning, Esmaralda walked back to the house.
Chapter 7
Her clothes were in the living room, next to her sleeping bag. Esmaralda dressed silently. Everything felt so surreal. What if she had dreamed it? All of it? It would explain why her clothes were next to her sleeping bag. She could have easily taken them off in her sleep. She had never sleep walked before, but anything was possible. She probably found an old sheet and wrapped herself up in it and ventured outside.
She went from room to room, exploring the house as she had done the afternoon before. Nothing seemed out of place. She laid her hands down on the keys of the old piano, blushing furiously. In her dream, or whatever it had been, Jack had made love to her here.
If she had dreamed it, it had been real, so vivid, exciting. She could still feel the haunting grief of a love shattered far too soon.
Esmaralda heard a car door slam outside. Turning, she went back through the house, making her way to the front door. She burst out of the house. She assumed it would be Daniel Spurr, the home’s owner, coming to pay her and get a report of what happened.
Shock stopped Esmaralda dead in her tracks. Her feet felt rooted to the porch floor, her heart hammered wildly in her chest. The man making his way through the yard had sandy blonde hair. His lips twitched up into a smile, his thick blonde beard shimmering in the sunlight. He lifted steely grey eyes Esmaralda’s way.
“Jack!” Esmaralda breathed a silent hiss that was barely audible.
“I’m afraid not…” the stranger held out his hand. “Daniel Spurr…. I’m the owner.”
Esmaralda smiled despite the shock. Her heart beat wildly as she shook the man’s proffered hand. An electric current pulsed through their touch, running up her arm. Esmaralda pulled away in surprise. Daniel seemed equally as surprised, and strangely moved.
“You… look familiar. Have we met before?”
“No,” Esmaralda shook her head. “You saw me on TV, in that interview I did. Or maybe… maybe we met in a past life.” She smiled
and Daniel laughed. If only he knew…. Esmaralda thought that this knowledge was somehow unfair to him. That she knew who he was, that things had come full circle and that this was his house
“Did you see anything… abnormal?” Daniel asked, staring at Esmaralda as if he still couldn’t manage to place her.
“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing. But it’s a beautiful house. If you want I could tell you a little about the man who built it… and the woman he loved.”
“Oh. I would like that very much. How… how do you know anything about it?” He glanced at her, stunned by the magnetism that seemed to exist between them.
“I just… read it. I looked up the history before I came.”
“Yes,” Daniel nodded. He motioned Esmaralda into the house.
She trailed after him, staring at the broad muscles of his back, his wide shoulders, narrow waist, and powerful legs. He didn’t know who he really was. But she did. Somehow life, the universe, whatever, had given them another chance at love. A chance she wasn’t going to let pass her by.
“You know Daniel; I think this place could be amazing fixed up. In fact, I know it would be beautiful.”
Daniel turned, a smile on lips that were so familiar. “You’re going to think this is really strange but I’ve been looking for a business partner for a while. Would you… would you be interested?” He looked shy as he asked, wondering himself at the strangeness of his question.
“Yes,” Esmaralda grinned. “Yes, I would like nothing more.” Well, almost nothing. Esmaralda smiled again. She knew a whole new chapter of her life was about to unfold. She was going to live here, she knew that much. She and Daniel would restore this house back to its glory. They would live here and they would love each other with a love that was both tender and fierce. They would have children, they would have the life they had both been denied. They would grow old here, old and very much still in love. She couldn’t say how she knew it, but she did.
Adored By The Rancher: Mail Order Brides Box Set Page 17