Midnight Lover (33 page)

And he also knew beyond doubt that she was a virgin. That no man had lain between her legs. That no man had touched her the way he already had.

He would be the first.

And, even though this marriage would end as soon as they each had what they wanted, he was going to give her the wedding night she deserved. Grabbing the spray of flowers he'd taken from the Willoughbys' garden, he went upstairs to woo his wife.

#

"Car-o-line."

She'd been dozing in the window seat, drifting in and out of strange and wonderful dreams, when the sound of his voice penetrated her sleepy brain.

"Wake up, darlin'."

Her eyes fluttered open and there, towering over her a benevolent god from the Greek myths she'd learned in school, was Jesse Reardon.

Her husband.

Panic rose up inside her breast and she skittered to the other end of the window seat.

"Don't look so frightened, darlin'." He held out a spray of daisies and babies' breath. "I don't bite." He paused. "Leastways only sometimes."

Her eyes widened and a most inappropriate giggle escaped her lips. "You're terrible," she said, laughing despite herself.

"Not what I've heard, Car-o-line."

Her face flamed and her gaze darted toward the window.

"Look at me, darlin'."

"I'm afraid," she whispered.

He bent down and tilted her chin until her eyes met his once again. "So am I."

A smile trembled on her lips. "I find that hard to believe. Certainly you've had more than your share of romantic escapades."

"There you go with all those fancy words again."

"You know what I mean, Jesse."

"I suppose I do at that, darlin'." He took her hands and she rose to her feet. "We got one thing in common though: ain't neither one of us had a wedding night before."

Against her better judgment she met his eyes. "I'm glad."

"So am I."

She swallowed hard. "Most young women spend an inordinate amount of time dreaming about their wedding day but I—" Jesse's hand covered her mouth.

"No more talk, Car-o-line."

He lowered his head and his mouth found hers. His tongue lightly played against her lips then plunged into her mouth as if he'd always had that right. A trembling began in her legs and moved throughout her body and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep from swooning. His large hands spanned her waist then moved upward over her ribcage until they rested just beneath the swell of her breasts; the heat from his body burned through the fragile fabric of her dressing gown and she gasped as his fingers undid the sash then eased the gown from her shoulders.

"Please," she whispered, shy and proud and thrilled all at once. "I—"

"Hush, darlin'." He kissed each place bared as the robe fell away from her. The hollow of her throat; the curve of her collarbone; the fullness of her breasts—

"Oh, dear God...Jesse..." His tongue found her nipple, flicking lightly back and forth until she grew aware of a deep throbbing sensation spiraling outward from the place at the juncture of her thighs. "I am feeling lightheaded..."

Before her words faded from the air, Jesse swooped her into his arms and carried her toward the huge feather bed. The quilt felt cool and soft against her skin as he put her down and she reached to wrap it around her nakedness.

"Don't." His voice was gruff, thick with emotion. "Let me look at you, Car-o-line."

Trembling she lay there, completely exposed to him in ways that went so far beyond the obvious that she still did not realize all she was offering to him. He stripped off his clothes and a delightful rush of heat roared through her blood at the sight of him naked. She had never seen a man unclothed before and she felt a fierce, almost primitive sense of pride that such a man would want her. Laying down next to her on the bed he began to pay homage to her body, staring at her eyelids and her temples; moving down her throat to her breasts; diving low over her flat belly and curving hips and the juncture of her thighs.

"Jesse..." she breathed, suddenly embarrassed that so intimate a part could merit such adoration. "Please..." But her words died in her throat as his fingers caressed her while his lips—dear God, his lips and tongue seemed to light fires he could never quench.

She felt as if she were standing at the edge of a cliff and it seemed the better part of madness to jump. He moved back up her body, his mouth gleaming in the moonlight, and she tasted herself on him, sweet and slippery and so ready...

He raised himself up over her and she saw the magnificent swelling of his erection. Fear and delight battled inside as he met her, pressing against her wetness, until she opened like a night
-blooming flower and welcomed him inside her body. He hesitated a moment and a searing shaft of pain sliced through her, only to be replaced by a sense of fullness, a deep throbbing brilliance that made her pity the girl she'd been just minutes before.

And then he began to move inside her, a fiery lover's dance, and she matched his movements and called out to him and gasped in wonder as the stars outside came to rest in their bedroom on the second floor.

For Caroline it was a glimpse of heaven.

But for Jesse it was simply a miracle.

The taut and trembling barrier of flesh had surprised and delighted him and he'd been profoundly pleased to be the man to bring her into womanhood. He'd both given and received pleasure a thousand times before but, this time—for the first time in his life—Jesse brought his heart into the act of love.

The sweet taste of her, the soft sound of her cries of pleasure, the deep intimate joy he'd taken in bringing her to a shattering climax—these things would be with him forever, even if she was not.

But, sweet Jesus, what would it be like to spend a lifetime in the arms of a woman like Caroline Bennett, a woman who gave as good as she got, who fought as well as she loved, who wasn't afraid to look him in the eye and speak her mind.

Soon enough the mine would reopen and the money would be made and spent; her Crazy Arrow Hotel would be filled with anxious spinsters and her bank account would grow, and their marriage would be nothing but a memory.

But for now, however, she was his wife and she was there in his arms and he wasn't fool enough to leave paradise a second before the devil called him home.

"Jesse?" she whispered in the darkness once their desires of the moment had been met. "Tell me what you're thinking."

He stroked her golden hair with his palm. "I was thinkin' I ain't never expected to have me a wife."

Her laugh was soft and delicate, sweet smoke curling itself inside his ear and moving toward his aching heart. "And I surely never expected to be one. Marriage has never been something I sought."

"Life dealt us one hell of a hand, didn't it, darlin'?"

"That it did, Jesse," she said, her hand tentative and warm against his belly, "but I am so glad it gave me you."

The moon raced across the sky as they loved, then talked, and loved again. She told him of the schools she went to, the parties she'd danced at, the deep aching void of loneliness that always filled her heart.

"Part of livin'," he said, holding her close in the heart of the night. "I been alone since they tossed me out when I was a seedling and it ain't ever goin' to be no other way."

"You have friends, Jesse, people who care for you. Why this town is at your beck and call."

Long-buried pain tore at his gut and he willed away the memories of fear and abandonment that were always a heartbeat away. "Can't count on no one but yourself, Car-o-line. That's the way it's always going to be."

She fell silent and he knew he'd hit a nerve. Hell, he didn't want to hurt her but he was sure that damn fool daddy of hers had never taken time to teach her how to make her way in the real world. If he did nothing else for her during this make-believe marriage, maybe he could do that.

And so he talked into the night; the words tumbling out of him, stories about his childhood, his father's death, his mother's treachery, the tragic loss of his brother. An endless stream of words that came from some wellspring of emotion he'd managed to keep under control until now.

This is for you, darlin'. Ain't nothin' in all this talkin' for me. Listen to his pain; learn by his mistakes; take some of the hard wisdom he'd come by and use it when he'd no longer be around to protect her.

She listened quietly, stroking his hair, murmuring her comments, and when he was finished she kissed his mouth. For once his beautiful, talky woman said nothing at all and only the shimmer of tears in her blue eyes let him know she'd heard and understood the things he couldn't say.

And to Jesse's surprise, he realized he wouldn't have traded that one single moment for all the silver in Nevada.

Drawing Caroline into his arms, he fell into a deep sleep and all his dreams were of his wife.

Chapter 19

Jesse was gone in the morning as Caroline knew he would be, but on the pillow next to hers was the spray of carnations and babies' breath he had brought to her last night. She rose slowly, her body seeming new and different, responding with a languorous grace she would not have imagined herself capable of.

But then before last night there had been much, indeed, that she could not have imagined.

She moved through her morning ritual in a fog, hands drifting across her body as she bathed as if she were learning a different terrain. Where before she had accepted her beauty as a fact of life, now she reveled in it for last night she had seen the joy it could bring to a man. To Jesse. Smiling, she donned her undergarments then carefully chose a pale ivory shirtwaist and deep blue skirt, the color of his eyes. What would it be like to see him now that they were truly man and wife? Would she feel awkward standing before him, painfully aware that he knew her body intimately as she now knew his? Would she run to him the first moment they were alone and fling herself into his strong arms, willing to relinquish the last vestige of her hard-won independence?

That thought brought her up short. She may be married before God and man, but the marriage was still a temporary affair, destined to come to an end the moment the mine breathed its last, and she would do well to keep that fact in mind before she found herself doing something foolish and dangerous.

Like falling in love with her own husband.

No, that could not happen, Caroline thought, as she stripped her bed of its linens then deposited them in the laundry chute in the hallway. Jesse Reardon was in little danger of losing his heart to her and she would do well to follow his example. She was legally married and thus entitled to explore the joys of the flesh but when the marriage was dissolved and Jesse moved on to new and greener pastures, she must make certain he didn't take her heart and soul with him.

At least, their secret remained intact for, except for Abby, no one in Silver Spur knew of their marriage; and—thank God!—not even Caroline's headstrong maid knew that Jesse had shared her bed.

Girlish laughter and the sound of Abby's lilting voice as she told one of her many tall tales floated through the hallway from the kitchen at the rear of the house. Caroline paused at the doorway, took a deep breath, then strolled into the room.

"Good morning, la—" She paused and looked at the six faces staring back at her, one looking more guilty than the other. "Is something wrong?" She glanced down at her attire. "Have I forgotten to fasten my stays?"

The Wilder sisters, blushing as red as their hair, looked down at their bowls of oatmeal and giggled, while Margaret and Betty McGuigan glanced at one another, eyes wide and knowing.

Caroline turned toward Abby who stood at the wood stove, frying thick slabs of ham for the paying boarders. "Is there something I should know about, Abigail?"

Abby started to say something then suddenly dissolved into a fit of laughter.

And that's when Caroline knew her secret was no secret anymore.

"How?" she asked, sinking into a maple chair at the huge breakfast table. "Dear God, how on earth could you possibly...?" Her voice trailed off in an agony of embarrassment and disbelief.

"'Twas Mr. Reardon," said Abby, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "Yes, indeed, 'twas Mr. Reardon himself what told us."

"I don't believe you! He wouldn't say such a thing." Jesse was not a Boston-bred gentleman, it was true, but Caroline didn't think he would announce their intimacy to the world.

"Didn't have to, miss," said Abby, grinning widely. "'Twas written all over his face, it was."

"I saw him in the hallway this morning as he came out of your room, Caroline," Sarah Wilder piped up. "He was smiling from ear to ear."

"I heard him whistling in the kitchen," Jenny offered. "Moment I heard it, I knew."

"Now, really, ladies," Caroline said, trying to gather her wits about her, "don't you think you're jumping to conclusions? Whistling in the kitchen and smiling hardly amount to evidence."