Dillon groaned. “You ask a lot of a man, Grace,” he said, but he stood, holding her body against him, and lifted her into his arms. She was so small, so light, as he carried her through the dining room and up the stairs, bending his head to kiss her throat and then her lips, unable to keep his mouth away from her skin.
They were near the top of the staircase when she spoke again. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said in a small voice, breathless and hesitant. “About those other men…”
Dillon silenced her with a kiss, then lifted his lips slightly from hers. “It doesn’t matter.” And he didn’t want to hear it, either.
“But I never—”
Dillon covered her mouth with his and pushed open the door to her room. It was closer to the stairway than his, and therefore the only choice.
He laid her on top of the bed and shed his trousers quickly. It was pitch black in the room, with no light other than the scant moonlight that broke through the window.
“But, Dillon,” she protested weakly. “You should know.”
“It can wait, can’t it?” He asked as he lowered himself over her and took a nipple in his mouth. She ran her fingers through his hair and held him to her. Her breath was coming in short gasps, and her heartbeat was racing.
He slipped his fingers between her legs, and she cried out, a faint cry in the night. “Yes, Dillon,” she said weakly. “It can wait.”
He couldn’t stand it any longer, and he positioned himself between her thighs and pushed inside her. She was so small, so hot and tight, he had to enter her slowly. Her body adjusted to his, molded to his, and with an impatient thrust he found what she had been trying to tell him, but it was too late to stop.
He was inside her, above her, afraid that if he moved he would hurt her, afraid that if he didn’t he would die right there.
Grace lifted her hips slightly, rocked against him, and that was all it took. He withdrew slowly, and then thrust to fill her, and again, stilling her cries with his mouth. And then the strong spasms rocked his body and drove away everything but the body beneath his.
She was breathing raggedly, whispery gasps in his ear. He could feel the tension in her body, in the arms that still circled his neck, in her lips as he kissed her.
“For God’s sake, Grace,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…I tried,” she stammered. She sounded as though she were about to cry, and Dillon felt a wave of guilt. He’d never taken a virgin before, didn’t know what to do, or what to say.
All he could do was comfort her, and show her that there was more to making love than the pain she had just experienced.
So he kissed her again with a hesitant tenderness. Some of the tension left her body, and he cupped her breast in one hand and ran his thumb over the dark nipple. It hardened to his touch, but Grace protested.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Not again,” even as he touched her there where he had fit so perfectly.
“I won’t hurt you again, Grace,” Dillon said, refusing to slow his tender assault on her body.
“But it did hurt,” she argued weakly, her body betraying her with its reaction to his touch.
Dillon felt his own rising desire, and knew she wouldn’t have long to wait. “I won’t hurt you again, Grace,” he repeated. “Trust me.”
“I do,” she said huskily. “I do trust you.”
Dillon threw back the quilt that covered her bed and placed her between the sheets. He asked her to trust him, and she wasn’t lying when she said she did. Dillon was the only man in the world she trusted, with the possible exception of Billy. But it was Dillon she would trust with her heart and her body. With her very life.
She still hurt a little, but that pain faded with every kiss Dillon gifted her with, with every touch of his surprisingly gentle hands.
She had known, when she’d seen him standing in the shadowed doorway, that this was going to happen. And she’d wanted it to. She’d wanted Dillon to hold her and stoke the fire he’d ignited within her.
His eyes were on her face as he moved to tower above her again, his weight on his forearms at her sides. She could feel him pressing into her moist center where she throbbed for him, and she slipped her hand between their bodies to guide him inside her.
The sensation of having him there took her breath away. He filled her completely, and made her anxious for…for what? For more. She lifted her hips as he slid in and out of her, driving her toward some elusive end. Something she had never even dreamed of.
It built within her, that driving need, and when it burst upon her, shattering her body and soul, she was certain that this was some kind of death…a beautiful death to be certain, but life as she’d known it ceased to exist.
Dillon whispered her name, and found his completion as she had, driving into her so hard and so far that she knew he was a part of her. That she would feel him within her even when he was no longer there. A warmth filled her. Love for Dillon, for what they had found.
She snuggled against Dillon as he rolled away from her, and he gathered her in his arms, kissing the top of her head and rubbing his hands over her arms.
She wondered if he would tell her that he loved her. Surely it would be best for him to say the words first. But they both remained silent, finding peace in one another’s arms.
When Dillon finally spoke, his words were truly unromantic. “I’m starving,” he whispered as he nibbled her ear.
In response, Grace’s stomach growled, and Dillon rubbed his hand over her belly. “You, too?”
“A little,” she conceded.
Dillon stepped into his trousers and left her lying in the warm bed. The room was empty without him, hollow and lonely. But he was back in minutes, two huge slices of cake in one hand, the lamp she had left burning in the kitchen in the other. He nudged the door shut softly and set the lamp on the bedside table.
Grace could only smile up at him, at the supremely satisfied look on his face, at the hair on his chest…hair that narrowed and disappeared into the sloppily fastened trousers he wore.
“What are you looking at?” Dillon asked as he sat beside her on the bed. It creaked softly under his weight.
“Nothing,” she said innocently.
“Well.” Dillon broke off a piece of Olivia’s white cake and popped it into her mouth. “It may be nothing right now, but give me a little while.”
He fed her cake, and dutifully kissed away the crumbs he dropped on her chin, her chest, her breasts. “I’m glad I decided to keep you,” Dillon whispered as he licked a dab of frosting from a hard nipple. She had decided that it was no accident that he tended to drop bits of cake there.
“Oh, are you?” Grace asked with a tender smile. “And when exactly did you make that decision?”
“When you threatened to throw a vase full of flowers at my head.” He towered above her, his gray eyes misty with desire as he removed his trousers. Grace reached out to douse the lamp at her bedside, but Dillon stopped her, a gentle restraining hand over hers.
“I want to see you, Grace. I want to see your eyes, and the beating pulse at your throat, and my hands on your skin.” His voice was husky, and Grace knew she couldn’t deny him anything. Ever.
This time she watched his face as he entered her, watched the fire in his eyes and the slight tremble of his lips just before he kissed her. And only then did she know that she had claimed him, just as surely as he had claimed her.
Dillon was gone when Grace woke, but she could still smell him on the bed and on her skin. She was tender, maybe even sore, but she didn’t regret anything that had happened.
She had a whole new life, away from the lying eyes of shallow men and the strict rules of English society. Texas was another world, and Dillon was not of the same cut as the men who had tried to buy her with rubies and gold.
Olivia looked at her strangely, and asked if she felt all right, when Grace apologized for sleeping late. The tub was gone. Billy had agreed to haul th
e heavy tub outside and dump the soapy water when he found it there in the morning. The water she had dripped onto the floor and then lain in with Dillon was gone. Dried without a trace. Grace felt a strange warmth steal over her. A warmth that came from deep inside her, where she kept a piece of Dillon.
She didn’t even mind the thought of milking the cow, or feeding the ungrateful chickens, and she left the house with a smile on her face and a fullness in her heart.
And that was why she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her, not until a black-clad arm encircled her waist and a gloved hand covered her mouth. She kicked at her attacker, but her efforts were futile. He merely clucked at her as he pulled her into the barn where no eyes from the house would see them.
“Shh, señorita,” a silky voice cooed into her ear. “Be still.”
Grace recognized the voice and stopped struggling. A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the way the man had looked at her.
With a gentle black-gloved hand he turned her to face him, and the grip over her mouth eased. When she showed no indication of screaming for help, that hand dropped away. He smiled down at her, a completely nonthreatening grin that made Grace relax.
“Buenos días, querida,” he whispered.
“Good morning, Renzo.”
Chapter Eleven
He stepped away from her, but her back was to the barn and there was no escape but around or through Renzo. If it had been any one of Renzo’s men she faced, Grace would have been screaming at the top of her lungs, but it was difficult to be afraid of a man who smiled so openly. Renzo’s eyes twinkled like the eyes of a happily naughty child.
“How did you find me?” she asked uncertainly. “And what are you doing here?”
“You’ve been preying on my mind, Grace Cavanaugh. And you were most easy to find. A beauty such as yours cannot be hidden, and as I had your name, and your Becket’s name…” He shrugged his shoulders. “It was a simple matter to locate you, querida.”
A warning trickle traveled up her spine. Renzo was every bit as tall as Dillon, and he moved with an easy strength. If he decided to hoist her over his shoulder and carry her away, there would be little she could do to stop him.
He must have sensed her fear, because an almost tender light flickered in his black eyes, and he backed away from her one single step.
“Are you content here, querida? Or are you ready to come away with Renzo?”
It was an offer, Grace realized, and not a threat. “I…I’m happy here. You shouldn’t have come. If Dillon were to see you…” She shook her head. “He was furious with you and your men. If he sees you he will probably shoot.” Grace knew, as she warned Renzo, that she didn’t want to see the charming bandit bleeding in the Double B dust.
Without warning, Renzo reached out and grabbed her arm. His touch was light, but she opened her mouth to scream and he clamped a hand over the lower half of her face, cutting her scream to a muffled cry. She knew then that she should’ve screamed when she had the chance.
Renzo half carried and half dragged her to the back of the barn. He was whispering for her to be still and quiet, but she barely heard him. What would Dillon think when he found her gone? Would he think she had run away from him and what had happened between them? Would he even bother to look for her?
They rounded the corner of the barn, and Renzo stopped suddenly. He held her tightly, one arm around her waist as he continued to muffle her protests with a gloved hand.
“Now will you be quiet?” he whispered.
Grace finally saw what was awaiting her, what Renzo had done, and she was still. The hand at her mouth loosened and slowly moved away, and Renzo released her.
Her trunks. All of them. They were covered with mud that was dried and hard. The trunks that had once had locks had been broken open and secured with a crisscross of heavy rope. But they were all there.
“A woman should not be deprived of her belongings,” Renzo said as he stepped around to face her.
He was so obviously pleased with himself, so delighted with her stunned reaction, Grace found herself returning his smile. The bandit Renzo looked like a little boy who’d just gotten away with a mischievous prank.
“I would have carried these trunks to your door, but what you say is true. It would not do for your Becket to see me here. But”—Renzo took her hand and bent over it with a courtly bow, every bit as chivalrous and charming as the lords of London—“when I looked inside the trunks and saw the beautiful things there, the silk and the lace, the slippers and the stockings, I knew it would be a true crime for any woman other than you to wear them.”
“This is very sweet of you, Renzo,” Grace said as she eyed the baggage. She stepped around him and laid a hand on top of the largest Saratoga trunk. They were her things, but they seemed very unimportant at the moment. Silk dresses she could never wear. Lace fans that were all but useless against the Texas heat. But still, there were a few items among the frivolous that she could use.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “Thank you so—” Grace spun around, and closed her mouth abruptly. He was gone. Gone without a word or even a cloud of dust to show that he had been there.
Once she’d finished helping Olivia in the kitchen, Grace ran up the stairs to ready herself for supper. Once or twice, during the long day, she’d wondered if Olivia could see that she was changed. Love had turned her into a silly girl, laughing at everything and finding beauty everywhere she looked. The incredibly blue skies, the thriving plants in Olivia’s garden, Dillon’s horses prancing in the corral. All beautiful.
It had meant crossing an ocean and forsaking everything she’d believed important: money, position, society. Dillon made her realize what was really important. What really mattered. She didn’t care if she never left the Double B.
Her newly unpacked gowns were strewn around the room, over the bed and the single chair. Slippers, more than one woman could possibly need in a lifetime, it seemed, were scattered across the floor.
Maybe tonight Dillon would propose. The thought made her head swim. Happiness. She’d never been happy before, and she felt absolutely light-headed. It was as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her, and each and every step was lighter, easier.
She bathed as best she could with the basin of water in her room, and brushed her hair until it shone. She piled it on top of her head, but let loose tendrils frame her face and fall down her back. The gown she had chosen to wear—for Dillon—was a pale rose, simple and elegant. She couldn’t imagine Dillon caring much for lace and frills, so she chose a gown that had none.
But it fit her perfectly, hugging her arms and her torso, flaring at the hips. The scooped neckline was modest, and for once Grace decided to leave the flesh there bare. Tonight she would wear no jewel that had been given to her by another man. No pendant or choker, no bracelet or ring. She would go to Dillon unadorned.
It occurred to her, as she fastened the last buttons at her cuff, that her father had finally given her a gift. He’d been free with his money, even to the last when, she now knew, his financial situation had been bad. Birthdays, Christmas, special occasions such as her graduation, had been commemorated coldly, with cash. Buy yourself something, he would write in his small, neat script.
But he had never chosen anything for her. Not one single gift. Until now. He had chosen Dillon for her, and for that she could forgive him anything.
Dillon watched Grace as she came toward him, down the stairs and across the room as elegant as any princess. He had to force himself to stay in his seat and not stand and go to her. To hell with food. He wanted her.
But Billy was seated beside him, and Olivia was bringing the last of the meal to the table. Surely they would be able to tell that something momentous had happened. He could see the truth in Grace’s face—in her smile, in her eyes. Surely Billy and Olivia could see it, too.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting for me,” Grace said as she took the chair across from him. He could hardly stand to look at
her, she was so radiantly beautiful. So he kept his eyes down, trying to look tired, which he was, and uninterested, which he wasn’t.
“No,” Olivia assured Grace as she took her seat closest to the kitchen door. “You’re right on time.”
They fell into their usual, relaxed mealtime conversation, most of which Dillon didn’t hear. He heaped his plate high, and then regretted it. How could he eat with this damn lump in his throat?
When he lifted his eyes just enough to see Grace’s plate, he saw that she was moving her food around but eating very little. She didn’t have any more of an appetite than he did.
What had he gotten himself into? He couldn’t possibly have fallen in love with her. It was too soon, too fast, and besides, he didn’t believe in love. He believed in lust, and he believed in commitment. He just didn’t believe the two were compatible.
“That’s a right purty dress, Miss Grace,” Billy said, and Dillon lifted his eyes to look at her. He hadn’t even noticed the gown she wore. He had been too busy either looking at her face or avoiding her completely. But he realized, now, that it was something new she wore.
“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “That’s such a pretty color on you. Is that one of the things you brought in this afternoon?”
Grace nodded her head. “Yes, it is, actually.” There was hesitation in her voice.
Dillon frowned and set his fork aside. “What things?”
“Is that why them trunks are in the barn?” Billy asked before Grace could answer the question. “I thought I recognized them, but they’re such a mess.”
“That’s why I didn’t bring them into the house. They’re ruined, I fear, but practically all the clothing is fine. A bit of mud seeped into one of the smaller trunks, but—”
“Your trunks?” Dillon asked sharply.
Grace nodded.
“The ones I left by the side of the road?”
She met his eyes then, and he saw there the same hesitation he had heard in her voice. “Yes. They were delivered this morning.”
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