I do, I do, I do

by Maggie Osborne

  When he stood, she saw that he'd chosen a dark wool suit and waistcoat for tonight. His shaggy gold hair had been trimmed and somewhat tamed. He smelled of bay rum and sweet cigars and the outdoors. He was one fine-looking man. So handsome that she couldn't take her eyes off him and didn't want to.

  "Well," Clara said, realizing they were standing near the draft leaking around the door. "Shall we—?"

  "Where are my manners! Come in, come in. Welcome to my Lake Bennett place. It's small, and I don't imagine you think much of the decor," he said, smiling. "I built it just for me. You're the only woman who's been inside."

  "Then I'm flattered," she said, moving to the billiard table and running her palm across the green felt. "How in the world did you get this over the pass?"

  "I had it brought in by the overland route. My Lord, you look beautiful! You make me think of peaches and honey. Good enough to eat with a spoon!"

  Blushing again, she wandered toward the fire and tilted her face to examine the animal heads. "I imagine there's a story behind each of these trophies."

  He followed, standing so close behind her that Clara felt his heat and massive size. "Not stories fit for the delicate ears of a lady."

  Ja, they would have to have a talk.

  "So. Are you ready for our rematch?"

  Turning, she gazed into his brown-bear eyes. "I concede. We don't have to arm-wrestle. You win. I'd like to have some of that ale and talk for a few minutes."

  Alarm flared in his gaze. "You're changing the plan!"

  My heavens, he looked good. A golden giant. Clara studied him and genuinely could not imagine why every woman he met didn't throw herself at him. She especially liked the small scars on his face. They gave him character and distinction, and before tonight ended she hoped to know the stories behind them.

  "I'm not changing the plan, except to dispense with the match, just rearranging it a bit. We can talk again after dinner like you intended."

  Suddenly she understood his plan for what it was, a schedule that relieved his endearing anxiety about entertaining a lady. That he was nervous made her smile. Lifting on tiptoe, Clara brazenly brushed her lips across his clean-shaven cheek. Instantly, he went rigid and stared at her with narrowed eyes.

  "You fetch us some ale, and I'll wait for you by the fire."

  After touching his cheek, he gazed at the hills of peachy breasts rising above her bodice. Then he nodded and hurried toward the kitchen without a word.

  Clara considered the distance between the chairs he'd placed before the fire, then moved them closer together. Exercising a woman's prerogative, she chose one of the small tables scattered about the room and set it near the chairs. Stepping back, she studied the arrangement. Much better. More intimate and cozy.

  Bear noticed immediately. He looked at the chairs, then slid a glance at her before he placed the bottles of ale, and a glass for her, on the table she'd chosen.

  "I thought you'd want a glass tonight," he said. Gripping the back of a chair, he started to slide it back.

  "Why are you moving the chairs apart?"

  "Honey girl, I can hardly keep my hands off you as it is." He gave her an apologetic look. "I want tonight to be perfect. I don't want a big uncouth lummox forgetting himself and doing something to offend you."

  Clara tossed the fountain of curls and drew herself up with a glare. She flung out a hand and pointed to the chair. "Sit!"

  "What?"

  "Right now."

  He hesitated, then sat. He reached for the ale bottle and took a long swig, watching her while he swallowed.

  Clara sat on the edge of the facing chair and folded her hands in her lap. She hadn't worn a corset in so long that she had forgotten how uncomfortable they were and how they restricted relaxed movement. If she had leaned back in the chair, the steel bones would have pinched her waist.

  "It's true that I am a respectable woman," she said finally.

  "Oh, hell. If you feel you have to point that out, then I've already done something to offend you. I'm sorry." Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his knees, the ale bottle dangling between two fingers.

  "Bear, you haven't offended me. But we need to talk about this."

  He didn't seem to hear. "There's something I planned to tell you later, after we'd enjoyed the evening. I should have told you long before now." Throwing his head back, he took another deep pull on the ale bottle and drained it before he placed it on the table and raised his head. "My mother was a whore, Clara. I don't know who my father was. I grew up in a Chicago brothel."

  "Oh, Bear." Sympathy widened her eyes, but he waved it aside with a quick gesture. And suddenly she understood why she seemed to make him so uncomfortable at times.

  "All in all I had a good childhood. My mother and her friends fussed over me, saw to it that I had everything I needed. When most children were tucked in bed, I was wandering the neighborhood, pitching pennies with other boys who were free to roam the night. I learned to fight, learned to take care of myself, learned a lot of things that aren't taught in books. It was a childhood most boys would envy."

  "Bear—"

  "Wait." He held up a big hand. "My mother and her friends were kind, generous, honest in their own way." His expression challenged her to disagree. When she said nothing, he continued. "But even as a boy I understood that most of the world didn't live like we did and didn't approve. I knew my mother and her friends were reviled, often by men who later came to the door. I won't say that I was ashamed of her. I wasn't. But I knew that she and I lived on the wrong side of life."

  "Your mother—"

  "My mother was everything you aren't. She perspired, swore, drank like a man, and made no apology for her pleasures. She wasn't a dainty person, cared little for proper manners. Her idea of culture was enjoying a bawdy melodrama at Basker's Lyceum."

  Clara was beginning to understand. He believed respectable women were the direct opposite of his mother in every way. And he'd placed respectable women high on a pedestal.

  "When I meet women like you, Clara, I lift my hat, nod, and walk on by. A lady isn't going to approve of where I came from or who I am. And she's right. As hard as I try not to, I'm still apt to swear or scratch or make an inappropriate remark. Look how many times I've offended you. And believe me, I've tried not to."

  "If you don't feel a respectable woman could see anything admirable in you, then how do you explain me being here?" Clara asked softly.

  He frowned. "You didn't know how I grew up."

  "Whatever else your mother was, I applaud her for raising a fine son. You're ambitious, successful, honest, generous, and you have a zest for life. You try to be the best at everything you do, and you don't do anything halfway. You could be a bully, but you're not. With your background, you could have ended with a lot of unsavory qualities, but you didn't."

  "You're different," he said finally. "You don't see things the way most other women do. I didn't know that at first, so I tried to stay away from you. I figured there was no sense setting us both up for disappointment. But I couldn't stop coming around you, and you gave those little woman signs that said you didn't mind seeing me."

  "I'm not different, Bear."

  "Yes, you are. Everyone who meets you knows you're a respectable woman who's had a gentle upbringing." He smiled. "And then you show up at the tournament and win it. And you're right there in the middle of a brawl, laying men out all around you. You have amazing flashes of behaving like a real person."

  She laughed. "A real person? Just what do you think a respectable lady is?"

  He answered promptly. "She's led a sheltered, protected life. She's modest to a fault. She's always feminine and dainty. Her reputation is impeccable, and she doesn't associate with disreputable folks. She doesn't swear. Her morals are the highest in the land. She's a refined person with cultural tastes. She—"

  "Bear, respectable women swear, sweat, work, argue, and lose their tempers just like anyone else. Just like your mother and her fri
ends. There are good-natured respectable women and mean-spirited respectable women. Respectable women in business. Respectable women who drink straight from a bottle, who wouldn't know a fish fork if it stabbed them in the hand. Respectable women who wouldn't turn up their noses at a man like you."

  "Clara."

  "Let me finish. Respectable women live by a code of conduct that is often constraining, restrictive, and artificial. Parts of the code are exemplary, good for the woman and good for society. But parts of the code are just plain silly. I mean, why should it be scandalous for an adult woman to travel unaccompanied? Why must we sew weights in our hems to prevent a glimpse of ankle? An ankle! Why should it be shocking for a woman to arm wrestle if she wants to? Or to own a business? Why should it be more respectable to marry a polished man who is a liar, a thief, and a womanizer than to marry a man who grew up in a brothel?"

  He stared at her, listening to every word.

  "I'm not different from other respectable women, Bear. Maybe it only seems so because you haven't known that many respectable women. We're just people with the same thoughts and feelings that everyone has. And Bear…" She leaned forward and gazed deeply into his eyes. "Respectable women have needs just like the women you grew up with."

  He sucked in a quiet breath and the empty ale bottle slipped from his fingers. His gaze dropped like a rock to her impressive cleavage. Then he swallowed hard and jumped to his feet.

  "I'll get us another bottle of ale."

  Sighing, she watched him flee. Maybe he had accepted what she had said. More likely she'd put only a small dent in an idealistic way of thinking that had formed in his childhood.

  She would have to take matters into her own hands.

  Standing, she began to take off her clothes.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  Bear walked out of the kitchen carrying two bottles. "I think I know what you're saying, but—" Sucking in a sharp breath, he stopped in his tracks. The bottles dropped from his hands and spun on the planks, spewing foam and dark ale. "Oh, my God!"

  She stood before the fire wearing nothing but dark stockings, white flannel drawers, and a lace-edged corset that propped up her generous breasts. Brilliants sparkled in her hair and at her ears. And she wore a sultry expression that no man alive could have mistaken.

  Bear took another step into the room and then stopped as if his knees were too wobbly to proceed. "Oh, my God," he said again, his voice as ragged as sandpaper. Without taking his eyes off her, he slowly removed his jacket, exposing a white shirt that pulled tight across his large shoulders.

  "I don't think you've really listened to what I've been saying, Bear Barrett. So it seems I'll have to show you that respectable women are made of flesh and blood."

  His gaze traveled up her legs, curved around her hips, dipped to her waist, then rose to her breasts and stayed there. He cleared his throat with a hoarse sound. "Honey—show me."

  "Get ready, because here I come. Brace yourself."

  If he thought he was going to give her a kiss that she'd remember all her born days… well, she was going to give him a night he'd never forget if he lived three lives.

  In for a penny, in for a pound. Clara had made up her mind that if she was going after Bear while married to the weasel, she wasn't going to let guilt inhibit her. If she cried in her pillow about this later, it wouldn't be because she had any regrets or because she hadn't given all she had.

  She drew a deep, deliberate breath, letting her breasts swell. Then she focused on his mouth and raced across the room. At the last second she gathered herself, jumped up on him, wrapped her legs around his waist, and wound her arms around his neck.

  Her momentum carried him backward, and he crashed against one of the small tables. The table splintered and shattered to the floor in pieces, and one of the photographs popped off the hook when Bear bumped the wall. Dimly, Clara was aware of breaking glass as the photograph hit the planks.

  His big hands cupped her buttocks, the heat scorching her flesh through her flannel drawers. He swung her around and pressed her between his body and the wall, then his mouth came down on hers, hot and hungry and possessive. He kissed her like there was no tomorrow, and Clara dug her fingers into his hair and kissed him back like a sinner seeking salvation.

  To her joy, her desire was intense and instantaneous, and so was his. She could feel her immediate future pressing against her drawers, and she almost swooned. She gripped him harder and kissed him again and again, nipping at his lips, sliding her tongue across his mouth, pulling his hair, stroking his jaw, unable to get enough of him.

  "Lord, woman!" Gasping and wild-eyed, Bear raised his head and looked around, his gaze fixing on the billiard table. Carrying her to the table, he sat her on the side before a wave of his hand sent the billiard balls flying off the felt and rattling across the floor. Frantically, his eyes ravaging her, he tore at his clothing. His waist-coat sailed toward the kitchen. He ripped a sleeve while getting out of his shirt before hurling it aside.

  Clara's heart leaped when she noticed the mat of fine golden hair glistening on his broad chest. He was a Viking. A shimmering gold giant of a man with flaring muscle and tight sinew. A man with no soft parts—except his heart.

  Before he climbed up on the billiard table, she saw the golden hair on his calves and thighs. His manhood stood in a thick soft nest. She stared at that rampant manhood for a moment, and her eyes widened. "Oh, heavens," she breathed happily, fanning her face with her hand. "My, my, my."

  Then Bear was on the table and lifting her up next to him. First he kissed her so hard and deep that she went limp with sensation. She was unable to move, unable to breathe. All she could do was feel. Feel her heart pounding against her ribs, feel the fire in her belly. Feel the heat and unyielding power of his big barrel chest hot against her body. Feel his thighs against hers, and feel his stiff length hard against her stomach.

  Then she wrapped her arms around him and pressed against him as hard as she could while hot wild kisses rained over her face, her throat, the hills of her breasts. She rolled on top of him so she could shower kisses on him. Kisses on his shaggy flying hair. Kisses on the scar that tracked through his eyebrow. Kisses on his ears and the sweet corners of his mouth, kisses on his throat and the pulse throbbing at the dip of his collarbone. And oh, the taste of him. He tasted like salt and soap, an odd combination that drove her crazy with wanting him.

  When her mouth and tongue had him groaning and gasping, he grabbed her, intending to roll on top of her. Locked together, they rolled across the billiard table and right off the edge, hitting the floor with a crash that jarred the whole cabin. A series of secondary thuds shook the planks.

  "Are you all right?" Bear asked, blinking up at her.

  "I landed on you. Are you all right?" Tomorrow they'd both have a few bruises from this fall, but that was the last thing on her mind.

  He grinned. "Take off those drawers, and I'll show you how all right I am."

  "What were those thuds?"

  He lifted his head and peered through the legs of the billiard table. "The bear, two elk, and the wildcat fell off the wall."

  "We've got a broken table, broken photograph, ale and billiard balls on the floor, and animal heads are falling off the walls. Should we—?"

  "Never mind that, honey girl. We're busy." He rolled over her and kissed her hard and urgently again and again until they were both gasping for air, slick with sweat, and totally unaware of their surroundings.

  When Clara thought she would die, would surely die if she didn't get her drawers off and jump on this man, when she thought she would shake apart, she was trembling so violently, he pulled her to her feet, scooped her into his arms, and carried her into his bedroom.

  He placed her on the bed, and his big clumsy fingers fumbled at her laces, tugging and pulling until he'd loosened them enough for Clara to wiggle free.

  "Honey girl," he said in a hoarse voice of wonder, "if you only knew how many times I've
imagined this!" Sitting beside her, looking at her like she was a banquet, he drew his fingertips down the sides of her breasts, then gently rubbed his forefingers across the stiffening buds at the tips. He filled his hands, then bent his head and kissed and licked and nibbled and sucked until a half scream built in her throat.

  Dropping back on the bed, she arched her body and whispered urgently. "The drawers. Help me with my drawers."

  He tore them off and sent them flying over his shoulder. Then he just looked at her lying before him naked. "You are magnificent," he breathed, his brown-bear eyes soft. Almost reverently, he placed his hand over the triangle of curly red hair between her thighs. The heat of his hand sank deep into her, like a brand.

  "Come here," she said in a throaty voice, opening her arms.

  The hard, hot length of his body covered her, and he claimed her lips with his mouth, his fingers in the tangled fountain of curls. He kissed her breath away, kissed her senses away. And she loved the silky touch of his chest hair on her breasts, loved how their frantic heartbeats pounded as one and their legs wrapped together and their urgent hands found the right places.

  Her fingers curled around him, and he dropped his head to the pillow with a low groan. "Clara, Clara."

  Stroking and teasing, she turned her head and breathed in his ear until his member jumped in her hand and she felt him trembling.

  Then he rose above her and gently guided her knees up. Leaning over her, he kissed her long and deep before he entered her. Slowly, carefully, watching her, he moved within her, and she sighed and arched to meet him. Joy lit his eyes, and he paused to clasp her in his arms. "My beautiful little Clara."

  If there were no other reason, she would love him because he thought she was little. She grabbed his face and pulled his mouth down on hers, putting her heart and soul into a kiss that shook her to the center.

  Passion exploded between them, a passion that demanded deep hard thrusts and the oil of sweat and cries of rapture. The powerful passion of gods coupling on Mount Olympus while lightning flashed and the heavens quaked.