Promises Prevail (The Promise Series) (32 page)

“She’s drinking!”

“That she is.”

Jenna’s cheek brushed his as she tried to turn to see him.

“Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for. We’re in this together.”

Another silence as she absorbed his words, and then she relaxed against him, one muscle at a time, cautiously entrusting herself to his care. He eased her a little higher into his lap. The lamp threw the room into a yellow glow, doing little to push away the shadows, creating the illusion of a warmly lit haven comprised of that moment, in that room, in that bed. Clint pulled Jenna a little closer, for the first time holding his wife and his daughter in his arms.

The fire crackled in the small potbellied stove as he stroked his daughter’s flushed cheek while she drank her bottle and recognized a miracle when he saw it. Last week, he’d been trying to think of a reason to keep getting up in the morning. One that didn’t have anything to do with anger or violence. Now, he had two of the sweetest reasons a man could ever hope to have. And they’d fallen into his lap like two ripe plums. If this was the last bit of luck the good Lord threw his way, he’d die a contented man.

He leaned forward to get a better view. The blanket was brushing Brianna’s cheek. He could see from her frown it was annoying her. He inched it away with his fingertip. Over the bottle her eyes meet his, and though Doc swore babies couldn’t see at this age, he knew she saw him. Lord save her, he had the distinct impression she approved. And he got a taste of the uncertainty Jenna lived with daily at the trust and faith imparted with that one glance.

“Does she scare you the way she does me?” he asked against Jenna’s ear.

Her response was a hushed whisper of truth. “She makes me feel like I can conquer the world and at the same time, be terrified of not doing it right.”

That was pretty much the way they both made him feel.

“Guess we’ll have to get used to it.”

Jenna’s fingers dipped down from Brianna’s hip to touch the inside of his knee. It was a fleeting touch, but one of the first she’d ever offered him. The comfort of her touch was almost as undoing as her words.

“You’ll be a wonderful father.”

His drawl wasn’t as smooth as he’d planned. “You basing that conviction on hope?”

She shook her head. “You’re strong and confident and have a very good heart.”

“You haven’t been watching close enough if that’s the picture you have of me.”

And when she did see the big picture, he had a feeling she wasn’t going to be as content with this arrangement.

The bunching of her jaw muscles alerted him to the fact that while she didn’t dispute his claim, she wasn’t agreeing with it. There was something very appealing about a woman with a stubborn streak. Made a man just want to devil her into revealing more of it, and then continue the deviling until he coaxed her around it. Except he didn’t want to devil her into changing her mind. He wanted to devil her into revealing how deep her conviction was, which was a fool’s journey, because her belief couldn’t be that deep.

He settled for the alternative, which was enjoying the view down the loose neck of her nightgown. He hitched his arm up, pressing her breasts higher, deepening that enticing valley. His cock, already hard, surged painfully. Jenna didn’t have any idea what he was doing. How a twice-married woman could be so naive baffled him.

He kissed her ear, feeling her shiver caress his chest. He kissed it again as he brought his hands up to the tiny buttons at the neckline of her gown.

“Would you like to know how I’d be with you Jenna, if Brianna was ours and this was our first time together with our daughter?”

She held still, not looking right or left—not moving. Then, ever so subtly, she nodded her head.

“I’d be so tender, Sunshine. So careful.”

He slid his hands inside the neckline of her nightdress. Her skin was smooth and warm against his fingertips. Very white against the darkness of his hands. He cupped her breasts in his palms. She tensed even as she filled his hands to overflowing.

“Ah Sunshine, you have beautiful breasts.”

“You don’t think I’m a cow?”

The question came out haltingly, revealing a vulnerability he needed to soothe.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big man. A little woman would be lost beneath me.”

“Cougar likes Mara, and he’s as big as you.”

He skimmed his hands toward the tips, keeping his touch light.

“And I like you.”

“Oh.” She clearly didn’t have a rebuttal for that.

He ended the caress with the barest brush of her nipples. He retreated before she could finish her breath. He did it again, sliding his hands outward, pressing a little harder, smiling as she pretended not to notice what he was doing, but was clearly intent on every nuance as witnessed by how still she held herself. And the way she held her breath every time he got near her nipples.

Like now. They were hard and swollen—eager for his touch. He gave it to her, a little harder, rolling the sensitive peaks between his fingers before working his way back to the plump base.

“Sometimes,” he explained, squeezing gently as he had as much of her breast in his hands as he could gather, “when a woman is nervous and her milk won’t come down, her husband can help her by stimulating her.” Her breath shuddered out of her lungs as he massaged the resilient flesh in his hands. “Finding the right stroke and pressure to make her relax.” He tweaked her nipples smiling at her halting intake of breath. “A woman’s milk flows better when she’s relaxed.”

“But I don’t have any milk.”

“But you’re my wife, and this is the first time we’re feeding our daughter together, and I want you to have the full experience.”

He centered her nipples in his palms and pressed. The succulent flesh bloomed in his hands. She sighed and her head dropped back against his shoulder. She was giving him more than her permission, she was giving him her trust. He let his fingers cup the sides of her breasts, controlling the expansion as he controlled the moment.

“That’s it, Sunshine. Lean back and let me take care of you.”

“I’m feeding the baby.”

“And I’m taking care of you.”

He rolled her nipples in his palms, tilting his hand so that her breasts sprang back into his palms. They were heavy and full and if the baby wasn’t in her lap, he would have turned her and tasted them. He resumed the milking motion, increasing the strength of each stroke, taking his cue from her increased respiration until, with the fourth pass, he captured her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezed, increasing the pressure until she moaned and pressed back against him.

“Ah, that’s it then,” he murmured, tucking her shoulders under his arms, keeping her still for the pleasure he wanted to give her. “Right there?”

It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t need verbal proof of her pleasure. The involuntary shifting of her body against his, and her breathless moan told him all he needed to know.

He did it again, hungry for her response, her whimpers of pleasure, holding the pressure for a heartbeat more, reveling in her openness to him. Needing it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brianna turn away from the bottle.

“I think Brianna needs to be burped.” He let the words drift down her neck, the goose bumps that sprang up equally pleasing.

Her head snapped up. “Oh.”

He relaxed his grip, sliding his hands back until they were once again just supporting her heavy breasts. He felt her blush in his hands before he saw it on her cheeks. She carefully sat Brianna up, supporting her with a hand on her chest. Brianna sat there, her big blue eyes full of surprise as if she wasn’t sure how she got there, and then they filled with intelligent curiosity as she viewed her world from this new position. Clint couldn’t suppress a smile. She was such a little dickens.

Three taps on her little back had the child burping loud enough to have Danny lifting his head off the floor. As soon as the noise abated, Brianna’s head jerked and one corner of her mouth kicked up in an unmistakable expression.

“She smiled!” Jenna exclaimed turning to him. “Did you see that? She smiled.”

“She sure did,” Clint kissed the corner of Jenna’s mouth, watching Brianna bob in her blanket, her movements jerky, her pleasure at being able to do them contagious. “And over a belch no less. That child’s going to be a hellion for sure.”

“She is not!” Jenna kissed Brianna on her beaming face as she bucked in her blanket and smiled again, this time getting both corners of her mouth into the action.

“She’s perfect.”

Clint looked at the square little face topped by all that spiky hair and shook his head. The girl had hellion written all over her.

“Now that would be a darned shame.” He tickled Brianna’s cheek. She turned instinctively toward his finger her mouth open, looking like a little bird. “I always thought a little bit of hellion was an attractive quality in a woman.”

Jenna stilled again in that way he was beginning to understand meant that she was thinking.

“It’s a woman’s duty to submit to a man.” She threw that piece of wisdom out like a shield.

His “hmmm” was noncommittal as he kissed the side of her neck.

“In all things to follow his direction.” She was obviously quoting an oft heard dictate.

He pulled the pins from her hair, the heavy mass fell in a silken waterfall between them, pooling where his chest met her back before sliding off to the side. Damn, he’d love to wrap himself in her hair.

“What if the man’s wrong?”

“What?” She sounded shocked.

“What if the man’s wrong?”

There was another of those long pauses.

“A woman must trust and pray God will provide direction.”

If that wasn’t the biggest load of bull he’d ever heard. “Sunshine, I’ve met a lot men in my time, and some of them wouldn’t hear God’s guidance if he boomed it in their ears. What does a woman do then?”

There was defeated pain in her voice as she said, “She prays and does the best she can.”

“Is that what you did with your first husband baby? Pray and endure?”

She shook her head. “I’m not a very good wife.”

He hugged her simply because he’d never held anyone who sounded like she needed it more. “The son of a bitch didn’t deserve you.”

“I was willful and disobedient.”

He’d had a gut full of her defending that worthless piece of shit. “He was a drunk and a bully and a few straws short of a bale.”

“He was my husband.”

“And I for one am glad he’s dead.”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

Brianna screwed up her face, clearly ready to lay into her mother again. Clint gently flicked her cheek with his finger. He couldn’t allow that.

“Brianna wants the rest of her bottle, Jenna.”

She jumped and hurriedly propped Brianna up on her knee. As soon as the nipple touched her cheek the little girl turned and latched onto it, sucking strongly but without that desperate edge, as before.

“She’s a strong eater,” Jenna said, pleasure in her voice.

“Yes, she is.”

It was probably the wrong time, but Clint couldn’t stomach the thought of Brianna growing up to be a shadow of the woman she was supposed to be.