Foxfire Bride (25 page)

"There's something in your story that I'm curious about."

Instantly a frown puckered her brow. The last thing she wanted to talk about tonight was her own history. "What is it?" She hoped he heard her reluctance.

"How did you discover what your stepfather had done?" Reaching for the jug, he poured more coffee into their cups. "And how old were you when you found out?"

A sigh lifted Fox's shoulders. "Me and Peaches ran away when I was a month short of thirteen. We just left one day and didn't go back. We lived by doing odd jobs in the mining camps. Sometimes we returned to San Francisco and worked on the wharves."

Dropping her head back, she looked up at the velvety sky. More stars had appeared. Their nest felt snug and hidden from the world.

"Not long after I turned seventeen we were in San Francisco, and one night I was reading the newspaper to Peaches and ran across an article about my stepfather. I recognized his name." The article had announced that wealthy entrepreneur Hobbs Jennings was moving his headquarters to Denver in the Colorado Territory. But she didn't tell Tanner that part.

"Go on." Tanner stretched out on the blanket and propped his head in his hand.

"I'll make this short. I was curious. Me and Peaches went to the newspaper office and spoke to the newsman who'd written the article. He knew all about my stepfather. Told us the tragic story how my stepfather's wife and daughter had died within a day of each other." Her lips thinned and she paused before going on. "Told us how my stepfather's inheritance was the beginning of a great fortune. He hadn't had much money of his own, not until he married my mother. But her money built him an empire."

"Did you go to the authorities?" Tanner's voice emerged stiff with anger.

Fox shrugged. "Do you think anyone would have believed me? A seventeen-year-old runaway traveling with a black man? Living hand to mouth?" She shook her head. "I tested my story on the newsman and he just laughed. Told me to think of some other scheme, that one wouldn't work. He didn't believe for a second that I was the long-lost daughter come back from the dead. He thought I was an adventuress posing as the true beneficiary of my mother's fortune."

The shock of discovering she'd been cheated had made her wild inside. "I went back to Mrs. Wilson's place, hoping maybe she had some proof I could use. My mother had written her a letter explaining that in the event of my mother's death, my stepfather would be my guardian and manage my fortune until I came of age. If my stepfather died before my mother, Mrs. Wilson was to become my guardian since she was the only other family I had, and Mrs. Wilson was to hire a bank to manage the money."

"But the letter no longer existed," Tanner guessed.

Fox nodded. "Mrs. Wilson had seen no reason to keep it. She believed my stepfather when he claimed the money was gone and he could not afford to raise me nor did he think it proper when I had blood family to do the job." A shrug twitched her shoulders. "So no proof existed. A year later Mrs. Wilson died. After that, there was no one but Peaches who could swear I was who I said I was. No one would have believed either of us."

Tanner moved up beside her and pulled her into his arms, stroking the rigid muscles along the valley of her spine. "I'm sorry, Fox. You got a raw deal."

She turned her face into his collar, inhaling the fresh soapy scent of his skin and noticing that he'd patted good smelling lotion on his jaw. Lord, Lord. There was nothing better than a good-smelling man.

"I don't know if it's any comfort, but I believe we all pay for our sins. If not in this life then the next." He tipped her face up to gaze into her eyes. "That bastard will pay for what he did."

She stared into his eyes shining in the light of the lantern. "Oh, I know he'll pay. There is no doubt about that." She would see to it by shooting a bullet into Hobbs Jennings's black heart.

She also knew that she'd had as much conversation as her nerves could stand. Overcome by impatience, she shoved Tanner down on the blanket and climbed on top of him.

"I don't mean to sound bossy, or maybe I do, but it's time to stop this blathering and start, well, you know."

His eyes sparkled and he wore the expression that came over him when he was trying not to laugh.

She narrowed her eyes and tried to find the anger that helped her through vulnerable moments. "I mean, that's why we came here, isn't it?"

"Are we running behind schedule?"

Her cheeks heated. "You're teasing."

Sitting up, he leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose. "I like the way you're wearing your hair tonight. Piled on top of your head. You have beautiful hair."

"Oh. Silly talk." This was more like it. "I enjoy the silly talk. It's funny and nice." And it sounded like events were finally moving in the right direction.

After kissing her lightly on the mouth, a tease, he removed her hairpins and waves of red hair tumbled to her shoulders then spilled down her tack almost to her waist. Fascinated, Tanner caught a long coil and rubbed it against his cheek.

"Like silk," he murmured.

The heated look in his eyes stifled Fox's laugh. Her throat went dry and hot and she felt the first tremor of what she suspected would soon erupt into an earthquake deep inside.

He guided her into his arms and kissed her deeply, letting the hunger grow and build in one heated kiss after another. Fox felt his hand cupping the back of her head, buried in her hair. She had never touched a man's tongue before but did so now, and a jolt of lightning scorched through her body. He tasted of smoke and coffee and something sweet, and she wanted more of him.

When they were both breathing raggedly, Tanner ran his hands over her shoulders, pushing her fancy waistcoat down her arms. Gazing into her eyes, he tossed it aside and opened the first button on her oversized shirt.

Fox swallowed. "I have freckles on me."

"I guessed as much," he murmured, his voice husky. His fingers brushed her breasts as he opened more buttons.

No one had undressed her since she was a child. The idea of it was strange. She felt like a lump sitting there, letting him open her shirt, and she didn't know what to do with her hands.

"Should I be unbuttoning your shirt, too?"

"If you like." Leaning, he kissed her throat as her collar fell away. Now the top of her chemise appeared and Fox would have traded ten years of her life for a bit of lace trim.

Seizing on the task, she unbuttoned his white shirt with trembling fingers, suddenly yearning for another glimpse of the hair on his chest. Once she had enough area exposed, she flattened her palm on his skin, drawing a sharp breath. The just-right hair on his chest felt softer than she had expected. And Lordy his skin was hot.

When he'd taken off her shirt, he gazed at her a long moment with an expression that told her he was not disappointed. Relief emboldened her and Fox pushed his shirt off of muscled shoulders and waited while he pulled his arms out of the sleeves. His skin was tight and his muscles well defined and hard. There was no give when she poked him with a finger.

She expected him to slip off her chemise, but instead he untied the thin rope at the waist of her trousers. When he started opening her trouser buttons, she felt dizzy and tingly all over.

Did she dare? She decided she did. With fingers that fumbled and stumbled, she managed to open his belt and unhook the top button on his trousers then she brushed his arousal and snatched her hands back with a gasp.

An embarrassed pink flared on her cheeks. A woman her age ought to be more experienced than this, shouldn't be as skittish and unnerved as she was feeling. She started to say so, but Tanner covered her mouth with a kiss and a flood of sensation made her forget everything but the hard pressure of his lips and his big hands on her bare shoulders. She felt the calluses on his palms, would have sworn that she felt his very fingerprints.

"Oh," she breathed when he released her, the air running out of her body. Tanner had now kissed her more times than she'd ever been kissed in her life. And his kisses had aroused a stronger response than any kiss she had previously experienced or dared to imagine. She stared into his dark eyes with surprise and confusion and waited to discover what amazing thing he would do next.

He brought her foot up between his legs and tugged on her boot, tossed it aside, then kissed her toes before he reached for her other foot.

He kissed her toes! Fox could not believe it. Her mouth fell open and she stared. This was the most erotic event that had ever happened to her. Who would even think of such a thing? Only Matthew Tanner. She was positive no other man had ever kissed a woman's toes, for God's sake. Holding her breath, hardly daring to move, she waited to see if he would do it again. And he did. He kissed the toes of her other foot and she dropped back on the blanket, blinking at the starry sky and thinking she would surely faint for the first time in her life.

She might have except then he tugged on her trousers and she was astonished to notice that her hips lifted of their own volition to help slide the trousers off and down her legs. And there she lay, sprawled on the blanket in her chemise and pantaloons, one thin layer of material away from being buck naked.

When she finally raised her head to see what he was doing, she sucked in a deep breath and held it until she thought her chest would explode. Tanner stood above her, naked as the day he was born, holding out a hand to her.

Fox had seen naked men, but in bits and pieces, never all at once. She had seen bare chests and bare butts. Had seen legs and had even glimpsed the working part between a man's thighs. But never on the same man at the same moment.

He was absolutely beautiful. Like the statues outside the library in San Francisco. The soft spill of lantern light glowed on his skin like the gloss on marble. His thighs were muscled and taut, his stomach rippled. Somehow he seemed larger than when he was dressed, a force of nature that made her feel small and vulnerable.

When her gaze dropped and she saw the rampant state of his arousal, a great weakness spread through her limbs and her bones melted. Oh Lordy.

Gently he drew her to her feet and into his arms where he proceeded to kiss her like she had never been kissed before. Deep hungry kisses that ignited her body and soul. Kisses that made her forget where they were and why, kisses that spun all thought out of her mind until she trembled with pure sensation.

She hardly noticed when he drew her chemise over her head and dropped it, and it was she who pushed down her pantaloons and kicked out of them. She wanted, no needed, needed to feel skin against hot damp skin, needed to know the touch of him with no barrier between them. For the first time she wanted a man's hands on her body, raising shivers of anticipation with each stroke, each caress.

Locked in a kiss, they sank to their knees. Fox touched his hair, his face, his shoulders. She felt his chest hair on her breasts, felt the dampness of his skin and her own. And when he eased back to look at her, she felt an agony of embarrassment followed by a soaring elation of pride as she watched his expression tighten and heard him murmur hoarsely, "You are so beautiful. So perfect and beautiful."

She wasn't, but it thrilled her to hear him say the words.

Gently he cupped her full breasts and brushed his thumbs across nipples so hard they ached. Fox closed her eyes and arched her spine. Her head fell backward and a low moan issued from her lips. The earthquake gathered strength in her lower belly.

When she opened her eyes, they lay together on the blanket, and he stroked her, following the curve from breast to waist to hip. She trembled beneath his palm, opened her lips to his kisses and wanted him in a way she had never experienced. Felt a damp emptiness that yearned to be filled.

"Tanner, Tanner." His name burned on her lips and she writhed beneath his hands, her hair twisting across the blanket. "Please"

As he rose over her, her fingers flew over his chest, tugged at his hips as her body lifted to meet his thrust. And a tiny scream of relief and ecstasy broke from her lips as he entered her.

Bracing on his arms, looking down at her, he moved slowly in long even strokes until Fox was wild beneath him, thrashing, lifting, urging him with hands and body. Only when she felt half out of her mind did he unleash his own hunger and urgency and increase the tempo, taking her higher and higher, building a tension that confused and almost frightened her in its intensity.

And then, when she thought she would surely explode, it seemed that she did, felt as if she soared outside herself, expanding toward the starry night then contracted back into herself. Weak and spent, she wrapped Tanner in an embrace as he collapsed above her and sank to the side, pulling her into his arms.

They lay together, panting for breath, slick and shiny with perspiration, grateful for the cool air rising from the river.

"Never in my whole life" Fox whispered when she could speak. "I never even imagined"

Tanner lifted a wet tendril from her cheek and smoothed back her hair. "You are wonderful."

She didn't know what to say. Something had happened to her that surpassed any effort to describe or explain. That such passion and rapture could exist between a man and a woman had never entered her thoughts. She would have laughed and dismissed outright any claim to such nonsense.

Rising on an elbow, Fox gazed down into Tanner's face, wishing she possessed the eloquence to tell him what a miracle he'd wrought and how awed she was by it. After a moment she gave up and simply said, "It wasn't awful."

Laughing, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, her chin. "Would you like some cold water?"

"I would crawl over loose shale for some cold water."

Fox sat up and was admiring the lantern light on his buttocks and thighs when they heard the first shots. Tanner spun toward the sound and they stared at each other.

Then Fox jumped to her feet and she and Tanner collided in a frenzy of searching for pants, shirts, boots. Tanner remembered to extinguish the lantern before they burst out of the willows and raced toward the campsite.