He cocked his head slightly in a way that most women probably would have found attractive. In fact, Katherine did find him attractive. In a self-destructive way that she was too smart to let sway her.
“I knocked,” he said, his deep, smoke-roughened voice filling the tiny space.
“I didn’t answer, but still you entered.”
“I told Seth I’d check on you.”
“Does that make you a dutiful friend or a curious interloper?”
“I lope pretty well. Or rather my horse does.” He closed the door and took a step closer.
Close enough for her to see the hint of humor in his eyes, which she noticed were the color of smoke. What an odd thing to notice when she was about to be violated.
At least she assumed her time had come. Men who dealt with death so cavalierly surely would have no qualms about committing rape.
But his attempt at humor confused her.
“What is it you want, Mr….?”
“Jack will do.” He looked around. “Small place. Cold, too. You should have better. Maybe if you had a husband. A family.”
“I had a family. They died. If I had a husband, he’d have probably caught gold fever by now and be up some gulch with a pan and a rocker.”
His gaze returned to her and he studied her as intently as he had her accommodations. She employed all her resources to keep from squirming like a bug being tormented by a bully. No, she thought, that was the wrong analogy. His gaze wasn’t harsh or dissecting. It took her apart but not cruelly.
“Rocks—even the kind with gold in them—aren’t something that holds my attention. Learned that a long time ago. If I’m gonna gamble my time away, I prefer to do it with cards. The odds seem a little more even.”
“Why?”
“There are a lot more rocks than there are cards in a deck.”
She couldn’t help but smile. But she wished she hadn’t when he seemed to take her expression as an invitation to move closer. He was only a step away from where she was sitting. The room, which served as bath and kitchen, as well as sleeping area, was totally inappropriate for entertaining. Especially for a single woman and a man who was not a family member.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said as teacherly as possible.
“I know. But I find I’m powerless to make myself leave. Until today I hadn’t realized how beautiful you are. And strong-minded. You didn’t approve of how Seth and I handled the situation with that body, did you?”
“I did not. You treated the deceased with less respect than most people would have given a dead dog. Your attitude has made me reconsider my place here. If the town’s elected officials—”
“Nobody elected me to nothin’,” he said, his voice rising. “We saw to the body as best we could. Did we wring our hands and mutter a prayer for his soul? No. Because, frankly, that body is the fifteenth I’ve helped Seth deal with since I got here. Old. Young. Sick. Gunshot. Murdered. Hung. Run down by a wagon. Every death—friend or stranger—adds another layer between you and fear. It’s the only way to keep the blackness at bay.”
Strangely, she understood. She’d cried when her mother passed. After giving birth five times, Mama’s body had been the most worn down and susceptible to the fever. But as the others succumbed, Katherine had slipped a sort of fine kid glove over her heart. Layer by layer until she didn’t feel any pain. Or anything at all.
She couldn’t say how it happened, but wordlessly, she rose and went into his arms. Strong, sinewy arms barely cloaked by the coarse material of his coat. He smelled of snow and smoke. He smelled like a man. It had been so long since she’d inhaled those scents up close. They carried with them powerful memories. Her father washing up after a day of working the earth. Her brother sneaking in after courting his beloved Isabeth. Her mother handing her the baby to dry off after he tumbled in the creek behind their home.
She’d missed the touch of these strange male creatures. Her father’s hand of support on her shoulder. Her brothers’ hugs. Men had courted her, at times. She’d held hands with one or two and danced her share of reels. She’d even kissed Jeremiah Conroy before he headed west to seek his fortune. But she’d never felt drawn like this—a horse to the proverbial water. And she knew, deep down, that she would drink as much as she could take in.
“You are soft in all the right places,” Mad Jack told her, his hands taking liberties no man had taken before.
“And you are not. But I sense a softness in your heart that I expect very few people see.”
His low chuckle made a shiver course through her body, opening wells of feeling she’d never known existed. Her mind, thankfully, had stopped thinking about all the bad things that could—and probably would—come of this encounter. Propriety and honor were words that lived outside this moment, outside this room.
What mattered now was the roughness of his beard against her palms as she framed his face with her hands. He’d shaved that morning. She could tell. But the outline of stubble told her he was the kind of man who could grow a beard in a week, if he were so inclined.
“How is it that you don’t favor a beard in winter?” she asked, bringing her cheek to his. She rubbed back and forth, enjoying the sharp but soft bristles.
“I do when I’m away from camp, but barberin’ seems right when you’re seeking the company of a lady.” He reached behind her, his fingers skimming lightly over the pins that held her tightly twisted bun. “May I?”
She nodded. The only answer possible and one that seemed silly, given how many rules she’d already broken. But the moment his fingers scraped upward, loosening the heavy mane from its braid, her fate was sealed. The pleasure was instant and overwhelming. She put her lips to his. Primly. Puckered. The way she’d learned that one other time.
His answering touch was so different, so powerful and invasive, her heart stopped as his tongue parted her lips and entered her mouth. Was this normal? But the question barely had time to cross her mind before she answered back, her tongue seeking, tasting, exploring.
She was so preoccupied with the sensations she was experiencing in this new and strange arena, she didn’t notice at first that he’d managed to remove her outer jacket and was working on undoing the buttons of her shirtwaist. “Oh,” she said with a small gasp. “Of course.”
He looked at her with a dangerously handsome slant to his mouth. Did he expect her to push him away? That would be the smart choice, but it was not her intention.
“My mother explained that when a man and woman have physical relations, men often prefer the woman to disrobe.”
He threw back his head and let out a roar of laughter that both pleased and mortified her. She felt the heat that had been in other places flood her cheeks. She turned away, but he caught her shoulders and made her face him. “You are the most honest, forthright woman I have ever met, Miss Katherine. You don’t belong with a man like me, and I’ve spent every day since you arrived in this godforsaken place trying to stay away from you. But we’re here now, and I want you to know that you can trust me.
“I might not have much in the way of land or goods, but I have my honor. My reputation. I don’t cheat at cards. I don’t shoot men in the back. And I don’t lie to women.”
“You didn’t laugh because I’m naive and unworldly?”
“No, ma’am. I laughed because you are real and good—two things I never expected to find in this godless land, much less touch.”
She finished unbuttoning her shirtwaist and went on to remove her skirt and the extra layers of petticoat she’d added for warmth. Her small stove was almost out of coal, but the instant his hands touched her, the heat within her body more than made up for the room’s chilly temperature.
He shed his clothes just as fast and pulled back the quilts on her bed. The mattress was lumpy but the sheets fresh from her Sunday washing. He climbed in first and pulled her down so her body was stretched out atop him. She felt exposed and awkward. Her buttocks bare for the world to see—if the world had
been looking. But then his large, rough hands covered her nakedness, squeezing her flesh in a way that sent liquid desire to a very specific crux between her legs. She wriggled in response.
“Not too much movement too fast, my pretty kitten. I haven’t been with a woman in a long time. We don’t want this to be over before we start.”
“I don’t know what to expect exactly or what’s expected from me,” she admitted, sharing a confession she’d never said aloud before, even though there had been so many times she’d doubted her abilities, her intelligence, her right to call herself a teacher.
“That’s how we learn, my dear, and I would be honored to be your teacher.”
So, she became the student. He slowly explored her body and taught her to trace the same map across the hollows and valleys, plains and hills of muscle and bone of his. He touched her in the most intimate way possible and showed her how to experience pleasure she’d never expected.
“Oh!” she cried when he touched the pulsing, engorged spot in the mound of her feminine seat. That was what Mother had called it, but Mother hadn’t said anything about the intoxicating—almost painful—release that came from a steady manipulation of the tiny button. “No more. I don’t think I can stand to go there again. Beautiful though it was.”
He smiled and gave her a look that nearly stopped her heart. “Honey Kat, that was the outer door. Beyond lies another world you’ll want to visit time and again.”
She didn’t believe him. If that were true, her female friends would have talked about it. Her mother would have said something. Unless she’d never visited such a place. Maybe you only reached that world with someone like Mad Jack. A rogue. A scalawag. A—
Whatever other name she’d been about to call him was lost the moment he flipped her on her back and pressed himself against her. His male part was touching her female part at almost the exact placement of her lovely little button. She tested the fit by wiggling her hips.
The corners of Jack’s mouth curled upward. “Now you can wiggle all you want, love.”
“Except you’re heavy.”
He raised up slightly, but that lessened the pressure on her new favorite place. She reached behind him and put her hands on his buttocks. The muscular mass flexed and he shifted forward slightly. “Good,” she said, closing her eyes.
She focused on the feelings, not the mechanics, and the voice in her mind that seemed to know what came next told her to open her legs. She did, even though that meant Jack’s manhood fell between them. But opening wider solved the problem. He pumped his thighs slightly and the obstacle in question found an opening made for it.
“This might hurt for a minute.”
He sounded so apologetic she started to say, “It’s okay.” But before the words could form on her lips, he gave a quick, solid push and was inside her. There might have been pain, but she was too startled to think about it. The sensation of a foreign body sharing space with hers was too unnatural, too frightening.
“Easy, there, love. It’s okay. Trust me. Everything starts to get better now. Rock against me. Move a little and you’ll feel it.”
She did trust him. Enough to shift her hips.
“Uh. Oh. Yes.”
He nodded in agreement but his eyes were closed and he appeared to be concentrating very hard. So she closed her eyes, too, and focused on what she was feeling. Color. Heat. Need.
The latter urged her on, searching for something she couldn’t name. She moved with an urgency that didn’t seem natural until suddenly it was as natural as breathing. And her breath was gone. Lost in an explosion of sensation that left her panting.
He’d told the truth. A door had opened to a new world of wonder and hope. The kind of place you prayed you’d go to when you died.
Maybe that was why he’d been so cavalier earlier about the dead man. Because Mad Jack knew there were alternatives to living. Some were just more permanent than others.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACK AWOKE incrementally, and not without some regret. Damn, he’d had a great dream. He couldn’t remember all of it, but certain images were crystal clear. The sex. He couldn’t name another time he’d come that hard. And the woman in his arms had enjoyed it, too. No faking of that orgasm, he thought with a satisfied sigh.
“Umm-um…”
He opened his eyes at the unexpected sound, which hadn’t come from his lips. His heart rate sped up as he looked around, trying not to make any movement.
Strange ceiling. Room-darkening curtains that cried cheap motel room. Extra-firm mattress that didn’t feel familiar. And a warm, naked body curled up beside him.
He turned his chin to the left, halfway expecting to see long blond curls. But no. The head resting on his outstretched arm belonged to a real woman. Not the schoolmarm in his dream. This bed-head coif stuck up in every direction. She looked so adorable he couldn’t help but smile.
Kat.
Even though he wasn’t sure how she’d gotten from the other bed to his. Or wait. Had he been the one to switch?
He looked to his right. “Oh, crap,” he muttered softly.
A second messy bed—the one he’d started the night in—was just beyond his fingertips. A cold shiver passed through his body. There was going to be hell to pay any minute.
As if picking up his disquiet, his bedmate stretched and wriggled in a way that made him horny as hell. For half a second. Then, she opened her eyes and blinked.
He felt the instant she realized where she was and that another person was right beside her.
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, scrambling sideways, dragging the covers with her.
Her look of abject horror was so obvious Jack felt naked and exposed as the sheets slipped off his body. Rather than fight her for control of the covers, he vaulted into the second bed and yanked the comforter to his waist.
His reaction pissed him off. That was exactly what Jack Treadwell would do. Mad Jack, the person he’d been in his dream, probably would have stood up and proudly walked to Kat’s side to calm her down and maybe make love to her again.
He looked across the distance between them to where she sat, pulled into a tight ball of knees and eyes that had the proverbial deer-in-headlights look—right after making contact with a bumper. Too wide and not quite believing what happened really happened.
“Kat, I’m sorry.” He wasn’t. Not really. But it seemed like the right thing to say. “I don’t know what happened. Or how. Exactly. I mean…I don’t remember crawling into your bed. Maybe the meds…”
“I…We…Oh, shit. We did more than sleep together, didn’t we?”
He nodded, praying the sense of jubilation he still felt didn’t show on his face. “Yeah, we did. Although…” He shut his mouth. Telling her that he’d actually made love to another woman in his dream probably wasn’t a good idea. “I…Um…We…I’m sorry?”
She didn’t appear to be listening to his pathetic apology. She pulled the sheets away from her chest and looked down, as if checking to see that her body was in one piece.
Jack couldn’t help feeling a little offended. “It was straight sex. Nothing kinky. Just ask my ex. I’m as white-bread boring as it comes. No pun intended. I didn’t hurt you. Did I?”
She looked at him, her face screwed up in either pain or horror. He wasn’t sure which. “I can’t believe I did this.”
“We,” he corrected. “We did this. There were two of us—at the very least,” he added under his breath.
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, that is so typical. Sex is just sex to guys, but I am not in the habit of jumping into bed with strange men. Or—” she whipped her index finger back and forth between his bed and hers “—letting strange men climb into bed with me. How did this happen?”
He could mention his dream, but he didn’t think she’d buy his excuse that he wasn’t himself. That he’d become an Old West gunslinger named Mad Jack. “Like I said. Maybe the drugs. I could have been sleepwalking.” With a six-gun on my hip.
A
laugh percolated upward, but he tried to cover it with a cough.
“Do you think this is funny?”
“Um…no? No. I don’t.”
She put her head in her hands and groaned. “Oh, God, not again. Please. Not this time. Not this man. No, no, no. It can’t be.”
“Hey, Katherine, I mean, Kat. Is your real name…? Never mind. Um, look, I know you’re upset, but would you please not act like there’s a dead body on the floor?”
She looked up sharply, her hands falling to her lap. The sheet dipped slightly, making it hard for him to remember what he was supposed to be saying.
He cleared his throat and made himself look into her eyes. Her clear, blue, gorgeous eyes that were swimming with tears. He wished he could hold her and comfort her, but he knew she didn’t want that. “Kat, what happened was a mistake. Unplanned. Unpremeditated, I promise. But it’s not a huge deal, right? I mean, we’re both single, and I can fax you my clean health record when I get home. I had a full workup a couple of months ago and haven’t been with anyone since. Until last night.”
She used the corner of the sheet to wipe her eyes. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you get a full checkup?”
“I wasn’t sure I could trust my ex-fiancée.”
“Because you thought she might sleep with a stranger? Like I just did?” Her voice cracked, and he acted on his impulse to comfort her. Mad Jack would have.
Leaning between the beds, he spotted his navy blue shorts and quickly pulled them on. Advancing one knee at a time, he approached her. “Kat,” he said softly, lightly touching her arm. “I don’t remember exactly what happened. How we got together. How I came to be in your bed. In fact, the last thing I remember clearly is watching you read. Your lips make this kind of fishy look. It’s cute.” He tried to demonstrate.
Her upper lip quivered in a near snarl and he stopped.
“But the parts I do remember are really good. Hot and passionate. Like an X-rated movie, only with a plot.”
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