True to the Law (34 page)

Cobb turned on his good side and slipped one arm under his pillow. “They do now.”

Tru realized this was the one she was not going to win. She surrendered, although not gracefully. She made the mattress bounce as she jostled for position under the covers and lay back hard. When she glanced over at Cobb to see if he grasped her point, she caught him alternately laughing silently and grimacing with the pain of it. She supposed there was more than one way to exact revenge.

“I’ve missed you too,” she whispered. She found his hand and wrapped her fingers around his. Turning on her side, she backed into him and drew his arm across her waist. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“No.” He amended that after a moment in which she settled her bottom firmly against this groin. “Not my side or my ribs anyway.”

Once Tru was quiet, she felt his penis stirring. “Is that a good idea?”

“It doesn’t know good from bad. It only has the one idea.”

Tru could not quite suppress her laughter. She thought it sounded, if not precisely evil, then definitely a little wicked. Demonstrating significantly more care for his welfare than when she lay down, Tru turned over to face him. “Show me what to do.”

In answer, Cobb palmed her thigh and drew her leg across both of his as he lay on his back. Tru edged closer and when he turned his head, she kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, soft, more like a whisper across his mouth.

The care she took with it made him smile.

Tru drew back. “What?”

“I didn’t injure my lips.”

She tapped his mouth with her fingertips. “Don’t tempt me to rectify that.” She kissed him again, this time with more passion than prudence. One of her hands rested on his chest. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. That hand slid lightly over his bruised ribs and skirted his injury and finally stopped level with his navel. She deepened the kiss while her thumb repeated a pass across his taut abdomen.

Tru heard the hitch in Cobb’s next breath, felt his wince, and lifted her head a fraction to look at him. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

“That’s a gross misuse of that passage.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“In that case, pay no attention to the flesh.”

She ran her hand over the arrow of hair below his navel and circled his erection with her fingers. One of her feathered eyebrows kicked up.

“All right,” he said. “You can pay attention to that flesh.”

Tru snorted. “What if I do this?”
This
was sitting up and straddling Cobb’s thighs.

“It’s a good beginning.”

She released his cock and leaned forward, bracing her arms on either side of his shoulders. He untied the ribbon at her neckline and then tugged on the one loosely binding her hair. As a favor to him, and maybe to herself, Tru shook her head. Her hair cascaded forward, long curling strands dripped over and between his fingers. He sifted through her tresses until she sat back and shrugged out of her nightgown. When the fabric pooled around her waist, his fingers drifted to her breasts.

Cobb’s hands were familiar with her in a way that his eyes were not. He knew the curve of her breasts, the weight and firmness of them in the cup of his palms, but had never seen the color of her aureoles. In the glow of lamplight, they were coral. In the full light of day, he thought they would be shell pink. He would ask her to ride out of town with him, all the way to Hemlock Lake, and he would find a place to lie down with her in the tall Wyoming grass. It would be spring by then, maybe summer. When he came west from Chicago, he couldn’t imagine that he would want to stay in Bitter Springs beyond a week. Now, because of Tru, he couldn’t imagine that he would want to leave it that long.

Tru saw the tilt of his mouth, the promise of a smile in the curve of his lips. Her hands closed over his, held them still on her breasts. The warmth of his palms slipped under her skin and cradled her heart.

She bent her head slightly and whispered, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking about your breasts.”

“Oh.” Tru was more curious than astonished. “What about them?”

“The tips . . . they’re coral.”

Tru lifted his hands and looked down at herself. “So they are. It must be the lamplight.”

“And that flush washing up from your chest to your face? Is that the lamplight, too?”

“No,” she said smartly. “That’s me. You make me brazen when I’m actually a very modest woman.” As evidence of this point, she covered her breasts with his hands. “See? Modest.”

Cobb made a pass across her nipples with his thumbs. She arched her spine in response and thrust her breasts into his palms. “And brazen,” he said. “I see that now. That’s quite a war you’re waging with yourself.” She whimpered softly as he drew her down and took the tip of one breast into his mouth.

Tru hummed her pleasure as he suckled her. Her fingers curled in the pillow under his head. She lifted her hips, teased him with the damp cleft between her thighs, and then slowly lowered herself onto him. She took careful, measured breaths until she was seated and then for a long moment, she didn’t breathe at all.

Cobb abandoned one breast to give attention to the other. He felt Tru contract around his cock. She held him fast, released, and held him again. The rhythm matched the suck of his mouth. He drew on her. She drew on him.

Tru sat up suddenly, shuddering. She rolled her shoulders; her hair spilled down her back. Placing her hands on her thighs, she rose up on her knees and then lowered herself again. After that it was only her hips that lifted.

Cobb palmed her bottom as she rose and fell. He guided her, keeping her steady, urging her to slow down when that was what he needed and letting go when it was better for her.

Her long strokes quickened. Her pelvis rocked. One of his hands slipped between her thighs. He rubbed her clitoris and watched her eyes close. The tip of her tongue appeared at one corner of her mouth. She was perfectly concentrated on her own pleasure when Cobb’s hips bucked and thrust and almost unseated her with the strength of his climax. She clutched his shoulders and held on for the ride and then finished it as hard and as wild and as abandoned as he.

Tru eased off of him and allowed herself to simply topple sideways on the bed. She was deliciously boneless and told him so. When he didn’t respond, she looked sideways and saw that he had clapped one hand over his bruised ribs and was investigating the condition of his injuries.

Throwing a forearm across her eyes, Tru said, “I told you the flesh was weak. Did the stitches hold?”

“They did. Kent does good work.” Cobb ignored the ache in his chest as he sighed feelingly. “So do you.”

Because it was his uninjured side that was parallel to her, Tru felt no compunction about jabbing him with her elbow. When he didn’t ask why she had done it, she gave him full credit for understanding.

They lay side-by-side in companionable silence while their heartbeats quieted and the soporific effects of the carnal act ebbed and flowed. When Tru thought she could move without her legs folding under her, she sat up and addressed the condition of her nightgown before she climbed out of bed. She washed at the basin with the same consideration of her modesty as she had before.

Cobb watched, still fascinated. “War’s over. Is that it? Modesty won?”

Her smile was both prim and sly. “For now.” She wrung out the washcloth and laid it over the edge of the basin before she clambered back to bed. Cobb was already sitting up by the time she was snuggled in. “I could have brought the basin to you,” she said.

“I know. I didn’t want you to.”

Tru gave him more privacy at the washstand than he had afforded her, although occasionally she observed him through lowered lashes. Whether it was in consideration of her or because of his own reserved temperament, Tru noticed that he did not make a bold presentation as he washed himself.

She had seen Cobb reveal caution in his vigilance. At other times his caution was an exercise in patience. But here, now, it seemed that he meant to be respectful. She liked that. When he turned toward the bed, she was smiling.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She shrugged a little awkwardly. “Just things.”

“All right.” He crawled into bed when she lifted the covers and lay on his back. She moved close enough to rest her head in the curve of his arm and shoulder. It did not go unnoticed by him that it was the first time she had done that. “I lied to you,” he said.

“You’ve lied about a few things.” Her voice held no rancor. “What one are you talking about?”

“The one when you asked what I was thinking earlier and I told you I was thinking about your breasts.”

“You weren’t?”

“I was. But that was just a starting point. After that my thinking . . . drifted.”

“Drifted?”

He nodded faintly. “I thought about riding out to the lake with you and finding a proper place where we could be together. Just us. Alone. There would be sunshine. Lots of sunshine, and you would be golden. It couldn’t be now, of course, so I thought it should be in the spring, maybe early in the summer, and that was when I knew I’d still be here, not in Chicago, and that I would be here because it’s where you are.”

The ache in Tru’s throat kept her from saying a word. Tears pressed at the back of her eyes, but she held them at bay.

“You’re going to have to marry me, Tru. You told me that if I proposed to you, you’d have to understand the urgency and know my purpose. I haven’t forgotten. The urgency is no different for a drowning man than it is for me. I want to breathe the same air you do.”

Tru lifted her head to search his face. “And your purpose?”

“Besides the fact that I love you?”

“Besides that,” she whispered. She could hardly hear herself over the pounding of her heart. “If there’s something else, I’d like to know what it is.”

“Well then, my inalienable right to pursue happiness.”

Her heart still thumped, but his answer made her smile. “Very well said. Have you been practicing that?”

“Did it sound as if I have?”

“No, actually it sounded as if you’ve always known it and finally had reason to say it. It’s a noble pursuit.”

“I think so.” He raised his head so he could kiss the crown of hers. “So is loving you.”

“Oh, Cobb.”

“You don’t have to give me your answer now.”

“What about the urgency of a drowning man?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d help me keep my head above water until you’re ready.”

“How do I do that?” she asked. “You already have bed and breakfast privileges.”

“Tru.”

“I’m sorry.” She returned her head to his shoulder. “I want to say yes. I
do
.”

“But?”

“It makes me afraid. You don’t. Marriage to you does. I think I would be endangering you.”

Cobb thought he finally understood. “This is about Andrew Mackey.”

“Yes. Of course it is. There’s something wrong there. I know it. So do you. He’s had several chances to ask me about his grandmother’s brooch, and it’s never come up. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand why he wants to marry me when I have so little in common with the other women he’s been engaged to. And now Frank’s coming, and Andrew hurries here to tell me but seems more interested in proving that there’s someone in my house. Cobb, if I’m right that he’s a dog in the manger, then he won’t allow you to stand in his way.”

“Maybe I want to.”

“I
knew
it,” she said. “
There’s
your urgency. You’re looking for a reason to call him out.”

He did not deny it. “It doesn’t mean that I’m not drowning.”

Tru said nothing for a long time. Finally, “I don’t want to argue.”

“All right.”

The ease with which he conceded to her should have been a balm. Instead, it irritated her. “Maybe I want to argue a little.”

“All right.”

She blew out a breath hard enough to stir the fringe of hair along her forehead. “Do the women in your family ever throw things at your head?”

“It’s happened.”

“I thought so.”

Grinning, Cobb carefully stretched out an arm and reached for the oil lamp. He turned back the wick. “Pleasant dreams.”

He thought that she might have growled just then, but he preferred to believe she purred.

* * *

It was still dark when Tru woke. She did not have to make a sweep with her hand to know that she was alone in bed, nor wait for her vision to clear to know Cobb was not in the room. She cocked her head to one side to catch the noise coming from downstairs. It sounded like a chair scraping against the floor.

Tru moved quickly. She left her robe at the foot of the bed but put on her slippers. The location of the shotgun made her hesitate until she remembered that she had placed it on the floor on her side of the bed. She found it more under the bed than beside it. Carrying it pointing down and crosswise in front of her, Tru started down the steps and followed the dim glow of a lamp to the kitchen.

Cobb had taken a seat at the table to pull on his boots. He looked up when she came in and just shook his head when he saw the shotgun.