Rocky Mountain Wife (18 page)

“It’s been a long time for both of us.” He helped her, giving a long golden lock of hair a shove as it lay against the creamy curve of her full breast. He just wanted to suckle it. “I’m just grateful because it’s a shame for a man to last, what, two minutes?”

“Yes, you should be very ashamed.” A slow smile shaped her mouth, a mouth he hadn’t kissed nearly enough.

Maybe he should fix that. He leaned in, caught her lush lips with his and kissed her gently. First with a light brush of lips and tongue and then hard, hungry. His cock still resting inside her leaped, thickening. A groan vibrated low in her throat—a satisfied, sexy sound—and she gripped him hard, there, where they were together. He could feel the wetness they’d made, her dew, his sperm. It felt natural, it felt reckless, it felt like abandon. He ran a fingertip down her throat, across her breast to fill his hand.

“I want to make things right, make up for my speed.” He gave a chuckle as she pressed her flesh against his palm, at the same time tipping her hips so that his half-erect cock slid deep, snug against her womb. His voice was husky, betraying him. “Let me take you upstairs and mate with you the right way.”

“Mate with me?” Her voice broke, breathless. Her body gave an involuntary pulse, a ripple of pleasure that quivered around his shaft.

“Isn’t that what sex is?” He nibbled his way to her other breast. Growling, he licked his tongue over her pebbled nipple and drew it into his mouth. Desire raged through him, consuming him like a firestorm. He let go and straightened so he could look her in the eye. “Look at what I’ve put in you. That’s mating.

“It’s a little late to think about the stuff you just put inside me. Your seed.” Her eyelids fluttered, as if she was trying to keep her head clear, but he was intent on taking away every single rational thought. His cock was strumming now, engorged and longer and he shifted, trying to stroke in and out just enough to make her eyes glaze over.

“If I knew this was going to happen, I would have been prepared,” he admitted, watching her sigh.

“I have a cervical cap but it’s too late to do any good now, tonight.” She shuddered, leaning back, planting her hands on the floor at his knees and arched her back.

She probably had no idea how desirable she looked, lustful, taking her pleasure from him. And taking her like this—without caution—and all this talk about his seed was driving him crazy. Hell, he was going to blow soon—fast, fast, fast—if he wasn’t careful.

“We’ll worry about that tomorrow.” He lifted her off his cock, ignoring her moan of protest. He was wet from their lovemaking, and so was she. They weren’t done yet. “One night isn’t probably going to matter in the long run.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, standing up. “It took six months of really trying to get my daughter.”

“Then we’re safe.” His chest tightened. It was like a punch in the stomach to see the slickness against the inside of her slender thighs. He could smell his semen on her, and the wild thought of her pregnant and carrying his child raced through him. He wasn’t a family man, but he did want it. His balls contracted. He was deeply aroused.

“Come with me.” He took her by the hand, led her upstairs and laid her across the pristine white sheets of her bed.

In the dark, he rose over her, fit his cock to her tight damp heat and filled her. He rode her as she bucked beneath him, drawing it out until they were both dying and desperate. She came so hard, the powerful ripple of her orgasm pulled him under too. Then there was nothing but pleasure, the sweet fragrance of her skin against his and the spurt of his seed as he came one last time. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against his chest.

In the dark, his heart began to feel things it had never felt before.

She awoke in his arms. Claire opened her eyes slowly, as sleep released its grip on her. Dawn’s first light had swept into the room, chasing away the deepest dark. For a moment, she didn’t think, she just enjoyed the comfort of Joshua’s big body spooned around hers. His erection was hard against the backs of her thighs.

Last night’s behavior came back to her. How she’d rubbed herself against him, straining for her first orgasm. And how greedily she’d gone after all the others. She should be embarrassed. What had she been thinking? She could get pregnant, she certainly had destroyed any good opinion Joshua had of her, and certainly that had been no way for a decent wife to behave. Clay would have been shocked and appalled had she behaved so sexually with him.

Clay. Her heart contracted. She felt cold, when she should feel so warm. She’d been so desperate for a man’s touch, for his tenderness and passion in the night, she hadn’t even realized she’d asked another man into their bed—her and Clay’s.

She closed her eyes, wishing she felt more ashamed at what she’d done. But she wasn’t. She would have done it again. The hurt she’d been carrying around, thinking it was grief. Now she suspected maybe it hadn’t been grief at all. Perhaps it was loneliness, the pain of living year after year, clinging to the love of a man who had stopped returning her affection.

“Claire?” Joshua’s voice vibrated low, raspy with sleep. The covers rustled as he propped up on his side, studying her with a frown. Concern lit his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat. All that emotion had wadded up there, refusing to move. His hand curved around her shoulder.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No.” She looked up into his eyes and saw hidden pain. “It’s just different having you here. I’m trying to get used to it.”

“That sounds like you might ask me back.” His hand trailed down her arm, beneath the covers to rest on her hip. His fingers, like a brand, burned her skin.

Her blood stirred. A frisson of desire curled through her womb. “Now that we’ve started this, I don’t see how we can stop. I want you that way, Joshua. Not, like, you know, love, but Clay never—he didn’t—” She nearly choked on the words. “He didn’t want me enough.”

“You said he was—”

“Impotent, yes,” she interrupted, nodding, turning to face him. She liked that his hand tightened on her hip, pulling her into the cradle of his hips where his erection nudged into her bush, searching.

She hitched her hip upward, laying her knee over his thigh, opening to him. A big, beautiful erection like that should not be wasted.

Joshua’s arms came around her, enfolding her with an unspoken tenderness. The head of his penis traced along the seam of her feminine lips to where she was open and wet for him. So, so ready. He eased into her, stretching that sensitive rim of her opening around him. He kissed her forehead, her nose, her mouth as he surged into her so slowly, he brought tears to her eyes.

“He refused to touch me. Ever,” she confessed in a whisper, against his neck.

Joshua brought their bodies fully together, her breasts against his chest, their stomachs touching, buried so deep the thick base of his shaft stretched her and stroked her. Her hips moved, seeking more pleasure. She loved that he tightened his arms around her, hugging her so tight that it was hard to thrust. So he rocked her to a slow, sweet orgasm.

“I’ll touch you,” he whispered when the last exhilarating throb of his climax was done. “Always.”

His words made her
feel.
The place that had been wounded and empty in her heart ached like a shattered bone. She held onto him tight, refusing to let him go, keeping him inside her body. She ached with need.

His breath was warm against the top of her head. “Anything you need, I’ll do. All you have to do is ask.”

“Oh, Joshua.” At least now, at this moment, she no longer felt as if she’d betrayed Clay. She’d gone without this kind of intimacy, without a woman’s need to be held and cherished, to be lost in a physical bond with her husband for far, far too long. Clay had been the one to push her away. He’d abandoned her. He’d turned their marriage into a platonic partnership, all the while she’d clung to her love for him. She’d clung so hard that even when he died, she’d refused to let go.

“You’re crying.” Joshua rolled her onto her back, his heavy, hot body covering her, his touch tender as he thumbed away her tears. “What did I say that was wrong? I do that sometimes. I don’t have much experience with this kind of thing. I mean well, but I say something, and it’s very wrong. You just have to tell me, and I’ll do better next time.”

The empty, wounded place in her heart ached more. He dried her tears with tenderness, as if she were so precious to him. And unfamiliar feeling swept through her. It wasn’t lust, it wasn’t love, it wasn’t even sexual—but it was caring.

“It wasn’t anything you said,” she told him, kissing the pad of his thumb, then cupping the side of his jaw with her hand. His whiskers felt coarse and masculine against her palm, and she rippled deep inside where he still was.

“I’m so glad you were the man. I’m so glad it’s you in my bed. In my body.” She shifted her hips to accommodate his swelling penis. He was getting hard again, and she wanted to give him pleasure.

So much pleasure.

He’d slept hard. Joshua frowned at himself in Claire’s bureau mirror. It wasn’t like him to sleep late, but dawn had come and gone and hours of early morning work with it.

Still, it hadn’t been all bad, he thought, remembering how he and Claire had spent an hour in bed. A smile touched his face, remembering how she’d worn him out. He’d had no choice but to go back to sleep. He rubbed a hand over his whiskers, vowed to shave later, and finished buttoning his shirt.

He wandered out of her bedroom, following the scents of coffee and breakfast downstairs.

“Good morning.” She looked up from the ironing board laid out on the tabletop. “There’s coffee on the stove for you.”

“You’re an angel.” He wasn’t used to going without so much sleep at night. He’d thoroughly and magnificently enjoyed every single minute of sex with Claire, but he was a hard-working man. He was behind and wanted to get going. “Coffee will help me prop my eyes open.”

“I kept you from your beauty rest, did I?” She set the iron down on the edge of a seam and pressed it flat. “I’m not sure if I should apologize or ask for compliments.”

“Definitely compliments.” He crossed the kitchen, resisting the urge to go up behind her and wrap his arms around her sweet body. He wanted to feel her curves against him, to tuck her bottom against his hips and hold her close. Instead, he went to open a cupboard.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Satisfied with her ironed seam, she set the iron aside. “Sit down. You do not serve yourself in my kitchen.”

“Oh.” He jerked his hand back, crestfallen. Maybe he’d been wrong to make himself at home.

She marched past him with a rustle of petticoats, her sky blue dress hugging her slender shape—a body he now knew so well. Her hair was in a single thick braid, falling straight down the middle of her back, swinging just above her bottom. She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. “It’s my job to serve you. Now go sit down.”

Her kindness got to him. It made his heart twist and his eyes sting. His knees were unsteady as he pulled out a chair and sat down at the clear end of the table.

“I kept this warm for you, too.” She set a plate full of food in front of him and a steaming cup of coffee, dark and black just the way he liked it. He wasn’t a man fond of sweetness. Or at least, he never thought he was until now.

“I know you like my scrambled eggs.” She moved away as graceful as a song and returned to her ironing board.

“It’s because you put little pieces of bacon in them.” He took a slurp of coffee and picked up his fork. “What’s not to like?”

“I noticed you were fond of bacon.” She shuffled the dress she was making around on the board until she found another seam to press. “So I stocked up.”

She shrugged one slim shoulder, acting like it was no big deal what she’d done. But to him it was. He felt a part of him that had been cold and hard just melt away. The fork loaded with scrambled eggs stayed in mid-air, and his coffee remained untouched as he tried to draw in a breath. But his lungs were tight, his ribs had cinched up.

The world fell away—the sun, the house, and the table in front of him—until there was only her. Only Claire. The way tendrils of gold escaped her braid to curl around her face. The way her gentle hands worked the fabric before she set the iron to it. Her kissable mouth pursed as she concentrated, unaware of the tenderness inside him. She’d put that there. She made it swell until there was no room in his chest for anything else. Not one thing.

Overcome with these new and fragile feelings, he could only stare at her. What was coming to life inside his heart was dangerous. He was feeling this for a woman who didn’t love him. Who’d sworn to him that she never would.

“Is something wrong?” She studied him with a crease of concern between her eyes. “The eggs didn’t dry out, did they? Do they taste funny?”

“No. Just caught up in a thought.” He forked the food into his mouth, and the look he gave her came straight from his freshly unburied heart.

He didn’t know he could have this much softness in him. He breathed in, savoring the faint, faint scent of lilacs and lemons that came from her, wafting to him on the breeze. Behind her the curtains danced in rhythm to the wind and she gave a hmm of satisfaction as she set down the iron and inspected the dress.

“This turned out just fine. I think my boss is going to be pleased.” Claire gave the garment a shake before folding it up for transport. “Do you need anything in town? I’d be happy to pick it up.”

“No, not this time.” He cleared his throat, but the emotion stayed in his voice. Raw. Gruff. “Guess I should get to work.”

“It’s about time.” Her eyes sparkled. “If you keep sitting there for much longer, I might find something else to do with my hands, that doesn’t involve sewing or housework.”

She winked, turning pink.

He blushed a little too. In the light of day, thinking about all that they’d done, how he’d taken her against the wall and let her ride him on the floor. And all the hours of sex they’d had together upstairs in her bed. She did have talented hands.