Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by Jennifer Ashley

  He was testing me. I swallowed and nodded. “For us. If it meant you’d see us safely back to civilization.”

  “What if that man was me?”

  My eyes widened as he stepped closer still. The hand that clutched the blanket around me was white-knuckled, but I didn’t back up. If I gave an inch to him now, he would ride off and leave us. Just like that. I felt my breath coming in short bursts, but I didn’t move, even when his hands settled on my arms.

  “What if that man was me, Ella?”

  I tipped my head back so he could see my determination, but the sight of those hazel eyes so close, so turbulent, and filled with swirling need, wiped the rebel from me. I watched as if hypnotized as he lowered his face—watched and did nothing to stop him. His lips touched mine, and the shock of it went through me like the bullet had last night. Only pain didn’t follow. Heat did. It raced through my veins and lit a fire within me, burning like it had that day so long ago in town. My world had been different then, but not the sensations he caused. Not the spiraling tightness inside me.

  A part of my mind spoke in warning, even as my body responded. Suddenly, life had come so close to the edge of death that right and wrong no longer seemed valid. I’d killed a man last night. This morning I was in another’s arms. It didn’t seem real, and yet every touch, every sense told me it was more real than anything I’d ever experienced.

  Sawyer tasted of power and potency. He’d drunk coffee with sugar and it was on his lips, hot as the feelings moving inside of me. My hands let loose the blanket, and it slipped to my feet as I moved my arms up the wall of his chest to wrap around his neck. It never occurred to me to push him away.

  His hands slid across my back to the curve of my spine, and he hauled me up hard against him. His mustache was soft against my skin, and his mouth felt like heated satin. His tongue touched my lips, teasing and insisting until they parted and I opened for him. He deepened the kiss, moving his tongue against mine in a caress more intimate than anything I’d ever known. Low inside me everything became hot and liquid. I curled my hands into his shoulders and held on as I rode the wave of feeling that washed over me.

  When his hands began to roam again, I didn’t protest. My body became a stranger that welcomed any touch he offered. His fingers slid up my ribs and then closed over the soft flesh of my breasts. I caught my breath and held it as awareness emptied me of everything but feeling.

  The sound I made stilled him, and for an instant, we were like statues, frozen in a moment of intimacy. Then slowly, he lifted his head and looked into my eyes. I saw wonder and need in the deep flecked swirls, but then it changed and became something else. He pushed me back roughly, glaring at me as his chest rose and fell with his labored breathing. I staggered and caught my balance, looking at him with hooded eyes. I knew my lips were as red and full from his kisses as his were from mine. But the look he gave me was angry, and I felt the need drain as red heat climbed my neck.

  “I don’t need a whore,” he said coldly.

  The words whipped through me, and I couldn’t conceal the sting they left behind. I wanted to hide my face from him. I wanted to snatch up the blanket and huddle beneath it so he couldn’t see me. Once again I lifted my chin and stared him in the eye.

  He turned his back, picked up one of his bags, and threw it across the camp with a low rumble of anger. “Damn it,” he growled.

  The muscles in his shoulders bunched tightly as he cursed more under his breath. But I wasn’t afraid. It was foolish to believe, but I sensed that I was winning. He quieted, shook his head, and made a sound of laughter, though nothing was funny. Finally, he turned around and looked at me, still shaking his head.

  “Wake ’em up,” he said. “Before I change my mind.”

  CHAPTER 17

  May 1896

  Colorado

  I was trembling as I moved to the slumbering women and bent to gently wake them up. When I reached Athena, her eyes were wide and black in the glowing light of dawn. She stared hard at me, backing me up as she sat.

  “You think you in charge of us now? That what you think?”

  “No—”

  “No? You makin’ deals wit Captain for us. I hear you. What happen to killin’ him? You sure changed from killin’ to kissin’ quick enough.”

  “What you talking about, Athena? Who kissin’?” Chick asked.

  “Ask her,” Athena said, bottom lip protruding and eyes hard like ball bearings.

  I looked at the expectant faces, some still heavy with sleep, some wide-eyed and waiting.

  “Look around you,” I said. “Do any of you know where we are?”

  Chick frowned and shook her head. “We never do.”

  “But you always have someone guiding you.”

  “Or dragging, more’s the like,” Meaira said.

  “She gone and tol’ Captain we work for him,” Athena said.

  Meaira’s head snapped back.

  Honey said, “Is that true?”

  I caught my lip between my teeth as I nodded. “Aiken is gone, and even if he does come back, I don’t think any of us wants to be here. The Captain was saddling up; he was going to leave us. Leave us here with nothing but a wagon, a horse, and a good wish. At least if we go with him, we’ll end up at a town. Someplace we can find our way home from.”

  “This wagon my home,” Chick said.

  “She tell him we his,” Athena said.

  “You’d planned to go when Aiken was taking you,” I told them. “The only difference now is we go with the Captain. You think he’s a good man. Honey, you said he was, didn’t you?”

  Honey nodded, watching me with narrowed eyes.

  I shrugged. “You’ve been doing ... what you’ve been doing for Aiken and you haven’t gotten anything but more of the same for it. Isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right,” Honey said.

  “With Sawyer—the Captain—you’ll have a choice. You’ll have a chance to make some money. Money that can help you start over if that’s what you want.”

  “How ’bout you?” Athena demanded. “What choice you get?”

  I held my head up. “The same as you.”

  “You gon’ work for Captain?” Chick exclaimed.

  “She gon’ work under Captain. She kissin’ up with him.”

  Honey’s eyes rounded. “You were kissing the Captain?”

  My face was burning, but I nodded. “I had to prove I meant what I said. I told him we would be an asset.”

  “He know we got asses.”

  Meaira snorted. “That he does.”

  “Well, now he knows I have one, too.”

  “And you gon’ use it?” Athena said with disdain.

  I thought I might throw up. I found myself repeating my words to Sawyer. They tasted no better with time. “I will do what I must to survive.”

  They exchanged glances in silence.

  I was banking that somewhere in Sawyer was a man whose honor wouldn’t allow him to use me that way. I was betting that he’d put me on the first train east. But where would I go? I had no family. No money. All I could do was return to Alamosa and give myself to the charity of the people there. I thought they would take me in, but what if Jake Smith decided to hunt me even there?

  I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to get beyond this moment, this day, this problem.

  “We need to hurry,” I said. “He’ll leave us if we’re not ready.”

  They jumped up and began gathering things together. By the time Sawyer had returned from watering the horses, the women were up and ready. He gave them each a steady look, ending with me.

  “I’m not your babysitter,” he growled at them. “I’d as soon as part ways here. Any of you want that, you just say so.”

  “Ella say you gon’ let us work in your saloon and keep some of our money,” Chick said, her voice high and thin and clear.

  Sawyer looked at me with an expression of such disbelief that I might have laughed.

&
nbsp; “That’s right,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

  I was as surprised as they, but I didn’t let it show.

  “But there’s no guaranteeing Aiken won’t be in Diablo Springs by the time we get there. If he is, you’re on your own.”

  He gave a nod that spoke the rest. I could see from their faces that none of the women needed it spelled out. They’d said it themselves: they belonged to Aiken. Sawyer wouldn’t fight for their freedom. That they had to do alone.

  Sawyer’s eyes lingered on me for another moment, and just that one look brought a fresh wave of awareness to me. An anticipation I was ashamed to feel but couldn’t deny. How I’d gone from wanting him dead, to begging for help, to hoping for his touch, I didn’t know. But there it was.

  He tossed Athena the harness. “You gotta earn your keep, though. Not waiting for none of you. You fall behind, I leave you.”

  The last he directed at me. He couldn’t have been much clearer than that. Once again, he didn’t need to be. We all understood.

  “Would you like some breakfast before we go, Captain?” I asked sweetly.

  He stood, hands on his hips, looking as if he wanted nothing less.

  “And some coffee,” Honey said with her pearly smile. “A man needs his coffee in the morning.”

  “You sit by the fire, Captain. Just go on,” Chick said. “Athena and me, we get the horses ready. We get it all ready. Ain’t that right?”

  Athena was still glaring at me. “What she gon’ do?”

  “She gon’ take care of Captain’s breakfast. Make sure he don’t need nothing.”

  I swallowed. “That’s right. I believe we still have bacon, Captain. And biscuits. May I bring you some?”

  He looked as if he’d been poleaxed. “You going to shoot me with my mouth full?”

  “What would be the benefit of that? We need you, Captain McCready.”

  I couldn’t make out the words he said under his breath, but I was sure they were curses. Reluctantly, he let Chick take the saddlebags from his hands, and Meaira and Honey set about packing things up as I prepared a quick breakfast, served without hesitation.

  CHAPTER 18

  May 1896

  Colorado

  With Sawyer hurrying us, we left just as the sun rose up over the horizon in a brilliant shower of reds and gold. It chased back the violet of predawn with a radiance that brought hope. Still, we could not ignore the anxious watch Sawyer kept at our back or the way his gun stayed close at hand. I was worried too. Though Lonnie Smith had been the leader of their gang, Jake was the one most feared. I was sure it was Jake who had violated my mother before shooting her. I was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me or the others.

  Chick drew near me and paced me in silence for a while. We had yet to speak of what had happened last night. I didn’t want to talk about it now, but I could see she wouldn’t let it go.

  “Thems last night was who got your family,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “They done shot holes through everything. We’s lucky we was low. Your shoulder hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’s glad you get Captain to take us. Athena, she just mad. She just mad ’bout a lot of things. She glad, too.”

  I glanced back at Athena on the wagon bench, stern and straight and looking like she might not have ever been glad about anything.

  “I wish Aiken got shot,” Chick said softly.

  I had to agree, though not out loud. Justified or not, I had enough blood on my hands without wishing for more.

  Honey stepped in time with us. She smiled at me and said, “That was brave what you did.”

  “I didn’t even think first. All I knew was what I’d seen him do to my family.” I looked down. “I’ve never killed anyone—anything—before. Not even a chicken.”

  Honey took my hand in hers. Chick took the other. “You did what you had to. That’s not what I was talking about, though,” Honey said. “What you did with the Captain. It was brave. But don’t worry, Ella. You won’t have to make good on it. I’ll see to that.”

  “How?” Chick asked before I could.

  “I’ll do her share.’`

  “Me, too,” Chick immediately agreed.

  “I can’t ask that,” I said. “I made the bargain.”

  “You didn’t ask. And you don’t have a choice. You find yourself something useful to do when we get there, and I’ll take care of the rest. Something that doesn’t involve the men. Can you cook?”

  “Not like Athena. And I don’t think she’d let me in her kitchen anyway.”

  Honey nodded.

  “I can sew.”

  “She good at that,” Chick said.

  “And I know cards.” The last was true, but surprising to be offered as a skill. Though as soon as I said it, I realized it might be my salvation. I could play as well as any man.

  Honey raised her brows. “Can you deal?”

  I smiled and nodded. “I’m quite good, actually.”

  “Let me tell the Captain,” Honey said. “I’ll tell him tonight.”

  Something in the tone of her voice implied the conversation would take place under intimate circumstances. A stab that could be nothing but jealousy hit me at the thought of Sawyer and Honey locked together. Of his lips on hers, of his tongue tasting her the way he’d tasted me.

  When I looked back at Honey, she was smiling. “Like that, is it?” she asked softly.

  “Like what?” Chick wanted to know.

  “Don’t worry yourself. I see the way he watches you. Even when you’re trying to stick him like a pig.”

  I knew my face had turned an ugly shade of red.

  “Like what?” Chick said again.

  “Like things are looking up for us, Chick,” Honey said. “Maybe Aiken will get lost or shot somewhere.”

  Chick giggled. “I say my prayers.”

  The sun felt good on my skin, and the companionship of Chick and Honey warmed my heart. I was moved by their generosity and caring.

  “Honey,” I asked, “how did you come to be here?”

  Once, the question might have held a hint of censure. Most likely, that note of disapproval had been there when I’d asked Chick, but just this morning I had joined the ranks of those whose fate was decided for them. I understood that choice did not always make itself available.

  It took a moment for Honey to answer me. She looked down at her feet as she gathered her thoughts.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not my business.”

  “You have a right, I think,” she said. “You may wish you hadn’t asked, though, once you hear it.”

  She seemed to be waiting for something, and I nodded. She nodded back, as if we’d sealed a pact.

  “Used to be I lived with a white family. My grandma had been their slave, though they were kind and fair. When my momma was born, they raised her with their daughter. And when Miss Hazel grew up and got married, my momma went with her. Even after the war was over, my momma and daddy kept working for them. I was born the same year Miss Hazel had Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I were brought up like sisters. We shared everything. When her tutor came to teach her, he taught me, too. I loved her, and she loved me.”

  Honey’s voice was low, and it seemed to vibrate with pain as she spoke. Chick and I stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue.

  “Miss Hazel died when I was twelve. She left my momma and daddy part of her land to work for their own and a house to live in. Her husband, Mr. Walton, asked my momma if she would let me stay with him and Elizabeth. She agreed, and I was happy to stay. Mr. Walton used to take me and Elizabeth everywhere. We were like dolls that he’d dress up and parade around. He never got over losing Miss Hazel, but he poured all his love into me and Elizabeth. I remember once we went into a restaurant and they wouldn’t serve Negroes. I told Mr. Walton I’d wait outside, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He was like that. I was a person to him.”

  She grew quiet, and I thought perhap
s this tale was too painful for her to continue.

  “We were in Atlanta where Mr. Walton had frequent business when Aiken saw me.”

  “I remember,” Chick said. “First time he lay eyes on Honey, he say, I gon’ have her.”

  “How old were you, Honey?”

  “I was fourteen. He arranged to meet with Mr. Walton and then casually commented on his beautiful daughter and his Negro. Mr. Walton took offense right off. I was not his Negro. I was his daughter’s cherished friend.” She paused. “Aiken talked circles for a time, trying to find out just how it was. He figured Mr. Walton was doing dirty by me and using Elizabeth to hide his deeds. But Mr. Walton was a pure man. I’ve never met another with such honor. Aiken offered money for me, and Mr. Walton told him I wasn’t a possession to be bartered or sold.”

  “I ’member Aiken come back and he so mad he spittin’,” Chick said.

  Honey looked down. “I don’t think I slept right until we left Atlanta. I knew, even then, that Aiken wouldn’t take no for an answer. A few weeks later, we returned to Atlanta and it was as if Aiken had been lying in wait for us. Once again he approached Mr. Walton and made pleasant small talk. He then invited us to dinner. He said his sister was in town, and it would give him great pleasure to entertain us. He felt badly for causing offense, so he said, and wanted to make it up. Mr. Walton was too polite to decline, though I knew he would have liked to.”

  Chick squeezed Honey’s hand gently.

  “We met at a restaurant and had a fine dinner. Aiken’s sister was quiet and subdued. She seemed almost unaware of us and barely touched her food. Later I would learn her name was Meaira, and she was not his sister. I’ve seen her many times after her dose of laudanum, but she’s never been as gone as she was that night.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Honey went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “The next day Elizabeth became ill. We called the doctor who couldn’t determine what ailed her. Her lips turned a dark purple and her skin so white she seemed to glow. I stayed by her side, but there was nothing I could do. She was taken by fits and then she died.”

  The silence that followed those words was deafening. “What did she have?” I asked.