Stacey Kayne Read online

  “Yosemite,” Rachell murmured, his massaging hands draining all of her tension and her energy. “I’ve heard of them. I hope I’ll get the opportunity to see them.”

  “They’re not but a day’s ride from the Double D. You ask me real nice and I might be persuaded to take you.”

  Rachell lost all thoughts of waterfalls as Jed’s hands worked down her calf until they slipped beneath the water, working further up her leg. She gasped his name as his left hand smoothed as far up her inner thigh as it could go.

  Jed froze, his wrist remaining pressed against the sensitive juncture between her legs, his long fingers wrapped around her thigh.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  Unable to speak, she shook her head.

  “You sure?” he asked, his hands again kneading the taut flesh of her leg, each subtle movement piercing her body with jolts of lightning.

  Rachell fought to keep air in her lungs as he washed her leg clear up to her hipbone. Her heart pounded painfully against the wall of her chest.

  “I…can’t breathe,” she rasped.

  Jed laughed low in his throat. “If that were true, you couldn’t be talking,” he reasoned. He released her leg, re-soaped his cloth then waited.

  It took Rachell a few moments to gather enough muscle control to shift position and lift her other leg. When he washed her thigh, her reaction was no different. When Jed’s palm slid across her stomach she nearly leapt off his lap. Again he waited for her approval before continuing.

  His slow ascent up her body nearly drove her mad. Once he reached her breasts, he spent a good deal of time washing them in the same fashion he’d washed the rest of her. One hand massaging, the other scrubbing. She leaned against him, her eyes closed, dizzied by what he was doing to her.

  Again he stopped, rinsed the cloth and reached for the pink bar of soap. Rachell’s breath grew choppy, knowing where he planned to wash next.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered against her ear as his hands slipped back under the water.

  “I know,” she gasped as he ran the cloth over her. “You’re killing me with tenderness.” She whimpered, arching back against him as he plied his sensual technique of bathing, liquefying her bones with rippling currents of fire. Just when she was sure she would cry out from the intense pleasure, he drew his hands away. His arms coiled around her waist, keeping her limp body from sliding off into the dark pool.

  “Rachell?”

  “Jed?” she replied in a scarce breath.

  “I believe you’ve been thoroughly bathed.” His teeth grazed her neck.

  “Oh my,” she gasped, while tilting her head to give his delightful lips and teeth further access. “It seems I was wrong.”

  “About what?” he asked, his hand stroking her outer thigh as he treated her to another bite.

  “Your bite is far more devastating than your bark,” she answered, shivering.

  Jed’s rumble of laughter churned the swirling heat inside her belly. “Does that mean you won’t protest if I turn you back around?”

  “Yes, I mean, no!”

  “Which is it, honey?”

  “I want you to kiss me,” she said, trembling as she twisted, reaching for his neck, aching to be held by his strong arms. “And I want to kiss you.” She threaded her fingers into his hair as he gazed down at her with hypnotic silver eyes.

  “My God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered as he lowered his head, meeting her kiss.

  She felt him shudder as her tongue grazed his. His hungry kiss sent her mind spinning back into a haze of passion. He lifted her, repositioning her until she sat astride his hips. When his hand closed over her breast, she welcomed the familiar caress. She was lost in his taste, his touch, the fiery sensations swelling inside her.

  “This is madness,” she gasped, thinking aloud.

  “But you like it,” Jed said, hearing the proof of her pleasure in her soft moans.

  “You’ve impaired my sanity,” she accused, meeting his gaze with a seductive smile that told Jed she more than liked what he was doing to her.

  Sanity be damned, Jed thought as he lifted her again until the tips of her breasts rose from the misty veil of water. He’d waited too long to taste the satin and velvet secrets of her sweet body. With a low groan of repressed hunger, he dipped his head and took a rosy peak into his mouth.

  The sweet taste of her washed through him in a giant wave of pleasure. Rachell cried out as her body arched. Her hands gripped his hair, holding him captive in paradise.

  Jed’s body strummed with wild desire, consumed by the need to devour every last bit of her. “Perfect,” he whispered, inspecting the tight velvet bud he’d just enjoyed. “Sweetheart, put your knees on my thighs.”

  Rachell did as he said, releasing a strangled cry as his hands slowly smoothed over her hips.

  “Jed, I’ve never…” her voice trailed as she watched his lips brush over the peak of her other breast. She shivered with pleasure, moaning his name as he took her into his mouth.

  His tugging caress made her feel beautiful, complete in his arms.

  His hand had slid between her thighs, jolting her with a shivering rush of pleasure at his slight penetration. Transfixed by his rhythmic caress, she clung to him as the shimmering heat welling within her burst, shaking her with a rush of intensity. Her sharp cries echoed off the canyon walls as he continued to caress her in a way she’d not experienced before.

  Rachell’s wild response to his touch filled Jed with a passion he couldn’t contain. The thought of pulling her down on his lap and pushing into the tight heat of her body was nearly enough to undo him. He had to be inside her. Soon. But she was so small, he wasn’t sure he could take her without causing her some initial discomfort.

  That wasn’t good enough. Needing to be certain she could receive all of him, he deepened his caress. Easing into her sleek heat, he discovered the tight passage was…blocked.

  What the hell?

  Chapter Seventeen

  She can’t be!

  Jed couldn’t believe what he felt. She was so hot, so sensual—so tight, his mind reasoned.

  He had never wanted so badly to be inside a woman, but…he couldn’t.

  The hell I can’t! She’s my legal wife!

  She’s also supposed to be a widow, his mind shot back as he continued to caress her delicate core. Her passionate response was tearing him apart. He forced himself to stop.

  Released from his sensual hold, Rachell collapsed against his chest. She clung to him, the hard peaks of her breasts brushing against him with each short, ragged breath, torturing his body with agonizing need.

  “Rachell?” he rasped, sucking in a steady breath. His hands helplessly caressed her slender back in long strokes. Soothing her violently aroused body, and taunting his. “How many men have you been with like this?”

  “I’ve never…no one has…” She leaned her head against his shoulder, trembling as she struggled to catch her breath. “Only you.”

  “Oh hell,” Jed breathed, her fragmented words registering a shocking truth he still struggled to believe. He put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away from him. “You’ve never even been touched before, have you? My God. Why did you let me touch you?”

  Rachell stared up at him, her eyes dazed and confused. “Let you? I can’t think with what…you were doing to me.”

  “What I was doing to you?” She was killing him!

  “Yes. Why are you shouting at me?”

  “Because you’re a virgin!”

  She blinked several times as her face fixed with shock. “You could tell?”

  Good God. She was as virginal as a woman could be. “You’re a widow, are you not?”

  “Legally…yes.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She flinched at his harsh tone, and Jed groaned. He hadn’t meant to shout at her, but damn it, she wasn’t supposed to be a virgin!

  “James was my second cousin and a close friend. I’ve alr
eady told you he married me for protection.”

  “It wasn’t a true marriage,” he said, realization washing over him like a bucket of cold water.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Does Elizabeth know this?”

  “No one knew except James and my brothers. They all died in the war.”

  “Is there anything about you that isn’t a lie?” Jed asked, seething with frustration and feeling downright cheated.

  “I have never lied to you!”

  “No? I was sent to fetch a widowed boardinghouse keeper from Kansas but find instead a virgin showgirl from Missouri!”

  Tormented by her hurt expression, he pinched his eyes shut and leaned his head back against the rock, trying not to focus on the feel of her petal-soft skin pressed against his thighs.

  “I couldn’t tell my sister I worked in saloons. I haven’t seen her for so many years. I was afraid she wouldn’t want me to come to California if she knew. I saw the way respectable women looked at me on the street. I couldn’t bear for my sister to look at me with such scorn. She would. Your poor opinion of me is proof of that.”

  “Honey, I don’t think poorly of you because you sang in saloons. Hell, decent folk do a lot worse to survive.”

  Rachell’s hands lightly stroked his chest. Jed was stung by an intense pleasure no other woman had ever evoked in him with such a small caress. “Then why do you?” she asked.

  He opened his eyes, disturbed by the sadness in her tone, only to see the reflection of that sadness in her glistening eyes. He lifted a hand from the pool and grazed her cheek with the back of his fingers. “I don’t think poorly of you, Rachell.” He was afraid to admit just how much he thought of this woman.

  “Then why are you mad at me?”

  Her somber expression tore at his chest. He was mad as hell because he knew he couldn’t take her the way he desperately wanted to. Damnation, he nearly had.

  “Honey, I could have hurt you,” he reasoned. “Damn it, Rachell, I never guessed you’d be a virgin. I would have taken you, and you would have let me!”

  He cringed at the thought of the pain he could have caused her if he had hastily sheathed himself inside her delicate body. “You do know the first time can be painful for a woman?”

  Her startled expression answered his question. She didn’t have a damn clue. “Damnation,” he groaned.

  “But… I liked it.” Her cheeks flushed with her admission. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  She’d never seemed younger to him than at this very moment.

  Jed’s skull cracked loudly against the rock as he leaned his head back. “You’re as ignorant as a newborn chick.”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Jed, but there wasn’t an abundance of virgins in the saloons to compare notes with!”

  Great, now her temper’s flared.

  Of course her temper’s flared, you dumb jackass! You just took her to the edge of one hell of a climax, left her aching for fulfillment and then insulted her. Real smooth, Jed!

  “Rachell,” he said, grasping for all the patience and reasoning he had left. “I just don’t see how a beautiful woman like yourself can get to the age of twenty-three without being touched by a man. Those schools back east are designed to pair up attractive young woman with wealthy men.”

  “Because I never wanted a man, that’s why!” Water sloshed between them as she angrily crossed her arms. “I decided I’d rather die a spinster than be auctioned off like a brood sow to some sonnet-spewing, flower-picking dandy! If my brothers had seen the fumbling aristocrats Miss Abigail had arranged as suitors, they’d have laughed themselves stupid! But they didn’t see them,” she said in a softer tone.

  Jed saw the anguish in her expression before she lifted her leg and turned, putting her back to him.

  “Nobody came to see,” she said after a moment. “Because nobody cared who I was married off to, so long as I was somebody else’s problem.”

  When Jed touched her shoulder she flinched away from him. “Rachell, you’ve been widowed for five years. I can’t believe you haven’t had suitors.”

  “There’ve been more randy men after me than you could shake a stick at! Not one of them suited me.”

  “You would have given yourself to me,” Jed said with certainty.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Yes,” she answered, looking into his eyes with a tenderness that stung his soul.

  Damn his ignorant hide. He should have realized she was seeking more than physical fulfillment. But, he never imagined the extent of her innocence. “Sugar, you barely know me.”

  “That wasn’t stopping you a moment ago,” she said in a dull tone.

  “A moment ago I didn’t know—”

  “I do recall, Mr. Jed. It started with me being a virgin.”

  She tried to push away from him. Jed reached out, gripping her small waist and pulling her securely onto his lap. He ground his teeth as she trembled from his touch. “No. But I do have a problem with a certain imp regretting a brash decision and being stuck with a husband she doesn’t want.”

  She met his gaze with sad eyes and a tight stubborn jaw. “When did I ask for a promise of marriage?”

  The question shocked him speechless.

  “I’m not baiting a trap for you, Jed. You can still get the annulment. I won’t protest it.”

  “Rachell, any man worth the title makes a wife of the woman who gives him her virginity.”

  “Then do tell, where do all the whores come from? Surely they too had been virgins at one time or is that something the Lord sorts out beforehand?”

  “You’re not a whore,” Jed bit out through clenched teeth.

  “No, Mr. Jed, I’m a virgin widow. As such, who besides you and me would ever know that it was you and not my late husband who took my sacred virginity, or that I offered it up as the kind of divine sacrifice you make it out to be.”

  Lord, he didn’t know whether to shove her sassy ass into the water or end his throbbing angst by accepting what she was offering. He didn’t have to marry her for making love to her, she was already his wife!

  If he truly believed that, he’d have bedded her weeks ago. And if this were just a casual exchange of physical pleasure, he’d probably not be having these reservations. But it wasn’t. He knew Rachell hadn’t been showered with affection in her lifetime. It was when he was kind that she had been the most wary with him.

  She was confusing gratitude and physical attraction for love. An illusion that would wear off the moment they arrived in California and she was surrounded by young prospective husbands.

  “Rachell, you don’t love me.”

  “That’s not true.” She lifted a hand from the water and brushed her fingers across his chest. “But I suppose it doesn’t really matter when you don’t want me.”

  “The hell I don’t!” he shouted with exasperation. The woman was pushing his patience and his body to their outermost limits. “I’ve never wanted a woman more!”

  He saw the hurt in her eyes and knew she didn’t believe him. “I’ve got hard proof, honey,” he said, snatching her hand from his chest. He slid her small palm over the length of his throbbing flesh, simultaneously sending his breath hissing through his clenched teeth. He instantly regretted the rash move and pulled her hand back up to his chest.

  “Sugar, we need to get out of here,” he said in a strained breath.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jed didn’t know whether to curse or laugh as he watched her lips curve into a seductive smile. He had time for neither. Her hand returned, moving over him in a light caress that had him swearing in several languages.

  His eyes clenched shut, his entire body tensed as he strained for control, something he severely lacked when he was around this particular tiny woman. He opened his eyes and found her watching him with smoldering green eyes as she discovered and caressed, turning his blood to fire. “Rachell…honey… Stop!”

  “Why? Am I hurting you?” She lowered her lips to his neck, pressi
ng her breasts to his chest.

  “Rachell—”

  She measured him again, breaking the firestorm of his release. He cupped her face with his hands and took her mouth in a deep kiss. Rachell continued to explore and caress as waves of pleasure pulsated through him, shaking him.

  By the time he forced himself away from her lips, his body was once again aching as though he hadn’t known release in months, not just minutes. If they stayed in this position much longer, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from pulling her down onto his lap and binding their marriage.

  “Hold on, honey,” he said, lifting her into his arms as he climbed out of the warm pool. He wouldn’t take her virginity, but he’d sure as hell give her back some of the pleasure she’d given him.

  He felt her skin prickle as the cold air touched her sensitive wet flesh. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll warm you up.”

  “You will?” Her eyes widened with surprise as he placed her on the white linen.

  “I will,” he agreed.

  Although she shivered from the cold night air, silvery white vapors rose from her flushed, heated skin. Rachell was mesmerized by the mist rising into the sky from Jed’s broad shoulders as he tenderly dried her with the sheet.

  “Aren’t you cold?” she asked in a trembling voice.

  “Not a chance. I’ve been on fire for weeks now.”

  He tossed the end of the linen away from her body, letting it float down to the ground around her. “Sweet lady,” he whispered, his husky voice sending a new wave of tremors across her body. “How can you think you are anything less than perfect?”

  Rachell’s eyes opened wide as he moved over her, easing her down onto the sheet.

  “Are you afraid now?” he asked, his body hovering inches above her, his legs straddling her hips.

  Rachell slowly shook her head.

  “You should be,” he said with a slow smile. He kissed her lips as he ran a finger down the center of her soft body. “You don’t have a clue as to the type of torture you’ve been putting me through these past weeks. But you will,” he said before claiming her mouth.

  Jed’s hands and lips roved Rachell’s body, caressing her from her forehead to her fingertips to the tips of her toes, everywhere except the places she ached to be touched.