Midnight Lover (32 page)

"I don't want anything from you, Reardon," she snapped, tring desperately to retain her composure. "I simply want you to release me."

His hands slid down her back and came to rest at her waist, fingers splaying out over the rounded curve of her hip. "Come on, darlin'. You can do better than that."

But she couldn't. Her brain seemed incapable of thought while her emotions took control of her heart. Dangerous...this is dangerous... She'd waited so long to find a place for herself in the world that she dared not risk it by falling in love with the one man who could take it away from her.

She rested her forehead against his shoulder. "Let me go, Jesse," she whispered. "Don't play this game with me."

"Then tell me, Caroline. Tell me you want me to kiss you."

"I don't." Her voice was soft as the moment between them as he drew her yet closer, molding her belly and legs against his. She looked up at him, into those midnight blue eyes and a shiver of anticipation rose up from her soles to her crown. "Yes..." He brought his mouth down toward hers. "Oh, yes..."

His lips met hers, lightly at first, and she breathed deeply of his smell. She lifted her hands, which until now had rested awkwardly at her sides, and ran her fingers across his chest, his shoulders, following the curve of his ear, until they plunged into the thick shock of dark hair that felt like raw silk to her touch.

"Open for me, darlin'. Let me taste you." He nipped at her lower lip; she moaned and in that instant his tongue slid inside, a hot and powerful force that drank of her and demanded still more.

A thousand sensations battled inside her. The faint taste of cherry tobacco and brandy. The slippery glide of his teeth across her skin. The way he smelled of soap and hair tonic and male desire. The thudding of her heart in her ears as she struggled to hold onto her sanity before the wild look of desire in his midnight eyes.

His hands moved lower still, caressing her, cupping her bottom and stroking her with a circular motion that brought an answering thrust of her hips against his. He matched her thrust with his tongue and instinctively she slid her own tongue down its length then closed her lips over him and sucked.

His response was violent and immediate. He swelled even larger against her belly, hard as the rock she leaned against and his hands traveled across her hips and up her belly until they closed over the softness of her breasts. Dimly she heard the scrape of delicate fabric against his roughened skin and she jerked suddenly as her nipples drew into tight buds that seemed somehow bound to the pulsing, rhythmic sensations inside her belly and between her thighs.

Thunder rocked the cavern, matching the untamed sensations inside her body, and she blinked, as if awakening from a dream, when Jesse broke their kiss.

"Gettin' dangerous in here, darlin'," he said, brushing her hair back from her face. "I think we'd better move out."

"Please, Jesse, I—"

"Leave your door unlocked, Car-o-line," he whispered against her lips, "because tonight's going to be the night."

#

Jade stretched out in her elaborate copper bathtub and let the water lap over her breasts and throat. It was late afternoon and already she'd put in a full day's work, what with seeing to the paperwork and overseeing the bar, and taking care of a few of her favorite customers who'd traveled all the way from St. Louis for what she had to offer.

Her body had been pleasantly used and, at least for awhile, she'd been able to dodge that empty feeling that had been with her since that Bennett gal came to town with her shiny yellow hair and her high-falutin' ways. Things were going too fast for her taste; she'd seen Jesse come and go with a hundred other women since they'd first hooked up together back in San Francisco and it had never put an end to what they shared.

Gal looked too stiff and unfriendly for Jade's taste and she would bet a hundred dollars gold that Jesse hadn't found anything new between her legs. When it came to pleasuring a man, Jade was second to none. She'd built a life and a business on that one fact alone.

Jade knew men and she knew miners. Sending Old Tom out to the Rayburn site had been inspired thinking. She'd only wanted him to plant a skull and crossbones near the marker monument; never in a million years had she expected little Miss Caroline Bennett to be poking her snooty nose into things at the mine. Scaring her off with a few bullets was better than she deserved—and it served Jade's plan just as well. Gal was sure to be a talker; Jade was dead certain the news would be all over town before nightfall. The more near-disasters that happened out there, the less likely it was that Morgan and Taylor and the rest of the bunch would be willing to throw in their lot with Jesse and his ideas for re-opening.

Miners were a superstitious group and the shadow of death already hung like a black cloud over the site. First old man Rayburn had met his Maker after a swift and deadly bout with a mysterious illness that not even Doc Willoughby's potions and powders could remedy. Then that fool easterner Bennett had gotten the idea into his head that he'd not only be a saloonkeeper, but a miner, as well. A bullet had put finished to that plan. Jade had kind of liked Bennett's slick ways; killing him hadn't come any easier than killing Rayburn had, but she'd always been a woman who did what she had to, to get on in this world.

Now Jesse was fixing to pick up where the others left off. It wouldn't take more than two days work for him to discover the treasures she had stashed deep inside the mine. Her only hope was to keep the miners so spooked that he couldn't get a big enough crew together to even get started. A few months back she'd thought of telling him all about the cache of gold and silver bullion she had hidden deep inside the bowels of the mine, but once that yellow-haired gal came into town, things hadn't been the same. Jesse'd become distant, keeping himself away from her as if he were finding pleasure someplace else. An ache grew between her legs and her fingers absently trailed down her belly to cup the heated flesh. It had been a long time since she'd held him inside her, felt his heat and his power surge into her, opened herself for his hands and lips and tongue.

A vivid picture of Jesse, naked and sweating, while he thrust his length into that yellow-haired bitch seared her brain as her fingers sought to ease the emptiness inside that even the hungry men from St. Louis hadn't been able to fill.

Only Jesse, she thought, as she reached a shuddering and shallow climax. Only Jesse could make it happen.

And she'd kill Caroline Bennett before she'd share him with her. One way or another, Jade was going to win.

Chapter 18

Caroline looked up from her mending that evening and took in the tableau of domestic tranquility arranged before her in the parlor of the Crazy Arrow. Abby sat by the window polishing the cutlery. Betty McGuigan and her sister Margaret were busy sewing new bindings onto the edges of a stack of blankets, while the Wilder girls bickered good-naturedly over the latest issue of Godey's Lady's Book that featured the very newest in winter wearing apparel.

One big happy family.

She could not stand it another moment. Yawning theatrically, she stretched and put her sewing back into the basket by her side then stood up. "If you'll excuse me, ladies, I believe I shall retire for the night."

Abby raised an eyebrow in question. "'Tis early, miss," she said, a note of curiosity in her voice. "Not even half past nine."

"I am quite aware of the time, Abigail. I have had a busy day."

"I thought we would be discussin' the wall paper for the foyer."

"It can wait." Good Lord! Why had she never realized just how bossy the young maid was?

"If you don't mind me sayin' so, miss, it seems you been saying it can wait for some time now."

"Abigail." Caroline forced her voice down into a more authoritative low register. "I am tired and I am retiring for the night. No further discussion is warranted."

Abby's hazel eyes glittered with defiance. "As you say, miss. Would you be needin' help turnin' down your bed?"

Caroline was uncomfortably aware of the full attention of the other girls in the room and she sought to ameliorate the situation. "Thank you for your consideration, Abby," she said easily, "but I can manage quite well."

Abby mumbled something beneath her breath that Caroline deemed better not repeated. With a smile and a nod of her head toward her employees, she glided from the room in what she prayed was a regal, carefree fashion. Somehow Caroline managed to keep her emotions under control until she reached the privacy of her bedroom but once she locked the door behind her, the facade of composure collapsed.

Abby couldn't possibly suspect anything, could she? It seemed as if the knowing look on the face of the young maid had followed Caroline all the way up the stairs and into the room. Swiftly Caroline shed her clothes and stood before the washstand to splash cool water on her throat and breasts in an attempt to lower her soaring temperature.

"It's my imagination," she said aloud as she slipped into a dressing gown of pale yellow silk and tied the sash closely about her slender waist. There was no way on earth Abby could know about the sparks she and Jesse Reardon had generated this morning in the abandoned mine. Abby might know about their marriage, but the powerful attraction that blazed between them remained their secret.

If Caroline was sure of anything, she was sure of that.

Perhaps if she hadn't been as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, Abby wouldn't have been watching her with such a curious eye.

Perhaps if you didn't feel so frightened and guilty and thrilled, you would stop smiling at your reflection in the mirror like some lovestruck schoolgirl...

Was it any wonder Abby had been suspicious? A blind woman would have seen the look of excitement in Caroline's eyes.

Sitting down on the edge of the feather bed, she drew her brush through her long golden hair and tried to slow the rapid pounding of her heart. It was the deep solitude of the mine, that was all. Her relief at feeling Jesse's arms around her when she thought a storm was raging outside. She'd never known such security in all her life. There had to be some logical reason for her violent and terrifying reaction to the touch of his hands upon her body, the feel of his mouth on hers, the sound of his voice saying things no well-brought up young woman should hear...

But, dear God, how his words had thrilled her! Even now, hours later, she had only to call up the low timbre of his voice, the sensual implication of his words, the promise inherent in his touch, to feel blood and magic and life itself course through her body and race through her veins.

Once again she had seen a glimmer of something else behind his desperado posturings, a deeper understanding, a compassion that belied the tough and angry stance he took against the world. From the first moment she had laid eyes upon him from the stagecoach, her destiny had been carved in stone; it could no more be denied than the sun could be stopped from rising over the eastern hills each morning or sinking in the west each night. Their coming together was inevitable.

She got up and unlocked the door then sat down by the window to wait for her husband to come and take her to bed.

#

Jesse lingered on the front porch of the Crazy Arrow for a long time, his cigar the one pinpoint of light on the dark and quiet street. Even the Golden Dragon seemed quiet and subdued; the only sounds were of faint piano music and a woman's laugh, high and sweet, on the night air. His hand shook slightly as he brought the cheroot to his mouth and inhaled deeply of the pungent and deeply satisfying smoke.

You're killin' time
, he thought. Upstairs on the second floor Caroline waited for him and for the first time in his life he found himself reluctant to take a woman to bed. His body tightened, hardened, as he recalled the sweet taste of her mouth on his, the smell of violets that blossomed around her each time she drew a breath, the urgent swelling of her breasts as he felt her heart fluttering like a captured bird beneath his hands.

"Damnation," he muttered, tossing his half-smoked cigar into a puddle and listening to it sizzle, then go out. Any other time, with any other woman, he would have taken her right there in the mine, in the dirt and the dust, lifting her skirts and thrusting into her until his passion was spent and she lay gasping beneath him, a faceless, nameless vessel made to serve a man's needs. Hell, he would have seen to it she had her share of fun, but it wouldn't really matter that much to him if she hadn't.

But this was Caroline. His wife. She had opened her soul to him each time they talked, and he couldn't look at the woman without seeing the lonely child who had come before. Instead of taking a gal into his bed, he would be taking a flesh-and-blood woman. A woman with a mind and heart and dreams that matched his own.

The thought scared hell out of him.

He groaned as he remembered the pagan sensuality she'd showed when she molded her ruby lips around his tongue and damn near drove him wild with wanting her. Her bottom had been round and firm beneath his probing fingers and he knew beyond doubt she'd been wet and ready, open and hungry and his for the taking.