Caine's Reckoning (33 page)

That she did believe. His eyes searched hers before sliding down over her face, her chin, then lower. “If you’d relax those neck muscles, sweetheart, you’d be a whole lot more comfortable.”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head and the amusement in his eyes migrated to the creases beside his mouth. “Much more fine and you’re going to get a permanent charley horse right…about…here.”

His index finger pressed on the spot where she felt the strain the most, sending a sharp stab of sensation shooting down her spine. Her gasp faded to a moan as that finger rubbed, soothed. Pleasure chased the pain. Before she realized it, she was leaning into his hand, accepting his support. How did he do that to her?

One quick jerk showed there was no going back. While she’d been wallowing, he’d moved into her space. As she absorbed that fact he pressed his chest along hers, the heat from his body seeping through her nightgown, warming her skin before sinking deeper, driving home the truth she’d been skirting. More than she feared disappointing Caine, she feared the mysterious power he had that made her want to crawl under his skin and curl up next to his strength. He made her want to depend on him, and that would never do.

She cut a glance to the side. The floor was only eight inches away. If she couldn’t go up, maybe she could go over. As if he’d read her mind, the mattress dipped and his leg straddled hers, fencing her in. Against her hip, his cock throbbed. For all his easygoing claims, part of him was serious. His mouth brushed her temple. A kiss or an accident?

“Just stay there, Desi, and let me take care of you.”

A kiss, she decided as he did it again—definitely a kiss. And from a man who saw her as needy rather than strong. She shoved at his chest. “I don’t need taking care of.”

Her hardest shove merely dislodged his smile, which wasn’t what she was going for.

“That’s too bad, because I have a need to care for you.”

His mouth moved down the side of her face, as soft as his drawl, reflecting the slow easy rhythm of his speech, grazing her skin in a butterfly caress that raised goose bumps and shivers she couldn’t explain, luring her into relaxing. She stiffened her spine. He made everything seem so easy. “Too bad for you.”

His chuckle wafted over the curve of her ear. A sharp sensation shot straight to her groin, riding the shiver that started between her shoulder blades and lodged in her pussy, so foreign it took her three seconds to realize it was pleasure. He was making her feel good, when she was supposed to be making him feel good. She turned her head away.

“No, baby. Let me pleasure you. That’s all I want.”

His thigh slid between hers, and his chin nudged her gown aside as his mouth tasted the skin between her neck and shoulder.

That would be all he wanted until he got mad or frustrated with her response. The familiar surge of anger wove through the spell he was casting like a lifeline. Familiar, dark and cold, it countered his heat, his temptation, with the brutal reality she understood. He’d be satisfied only as long as she gave him the response he was looking for, but as soon as she read him wrong, he’d strike, and she’d be defenseless. Vulnerable. Her fingers went instinctively to her wrist, finding and pressing into the ridge. Did he think she was too stupid to understand how it would be? She wanted to hit him, hurt him, rage at him, anything but sit here suffering feelings she didn’t understand. “Fine.”

He drew back, his smile fading as he looked at her face. Her heart took another plunge toward her toes.

Caine didn’t know what meaning Desi had attached to his words, but he was reasonably sure it wasn’t the one he’d meant. Anger, resentment and fear were written all over her as she lay in the big bed, dwarfed by its size, face as white as the sheets, fingers rubbing a spot on her wrist, fighting like hell for a poker face she didn’t have a prayer of achieving. The only hint of the emotion he sensed coursing through her was revealed by the flickering of her eyelids as he moved his hand.

“Easy, Desi.”

He didn’t really expect her to settle, but the way she jumped and then went board-stiff when he shifted his grip pissed him off. “Look at me.”

She did, her blue eyes huge in her pale face, her expression waffling between resentment and anger.

“You need to get used to the fact that I like spoiling you.”

“But you’ll get bored.”

She said it as if it were the worst thing ever. “That will never happen.”

She didn’t look convinced. He tried to imagine how she felt faced with a man’s strength and determination. She was just a bit of a thing, the size of her spirit dwarfing the reality of her build, but not replacing it. No matter how hard she fought, if a man wanted her down, she’d go. If he wanted her legs spread, they’d spread. He wrapped his hand over hers, tucking his thumb under hers, feeling the betraying ridge. And if a man wanted her bones to break, they’d snap.

You won’t even have to hurt me to make it seem more real.

Anger roughened his voice. “How’d your wrist get broken?”

Her tongue licked at her lips, but by the second pass it was clear she didn’t have the spit to do the job. She finally gave up and shrugged. “I was careless.”

She didn’t have a careless bone in her body, but she had pride, a lot of it, and she had it running full out now. Chin up, shoulders square, she met his gaze dead-on, daring him to believe her, daring him to call her a liar.

Son of a bitch.

Caine stood, bent and scooped her up, quilt and all. Her startled gasp burrowed into the hollow of his shoulder as he yanked the folds free of the foot of the mattress. Her nails clung to his neck as he sat back down on the bed with her in his lap, a stiff unyielding weight. He held her like that, rubbing his hand in light circular motions over her shoulder, the circles decreasing in size until his palm nestled into the curve of her spine like it was made to be there.

The hiss of the oil lamp blended with the ragged rasps of her breath as she fought for the control that was so important to her. Her lashes fluttered as she took sneak peeks at his face, no doubt waiting for him to pounce.

He didn’t break the silence with words. What would be the point? Some realizations a person just had to work out in their own way. She took a breath, her ribs pressing against his chest, the bones feeling about as substantial as a bird’s wing. He closed his fingers around her upper arm. They met easily. He remembered her face as she’d fought off the outlaws, the expression fierce and primitive, determined to fight to the end. She’d be a hell of an asset to any man out here. And she was his. The sense of pride took him by surprise. “You did good out there with those outlaws.”

She let her breath out on a controlled exhalation as she followed his leap of subject.

“Thank you.”

He released her arm. “If those other women had jumped in and fought with the same determination, you would have had those boys running for cover.”

She was back to staring at his chest. “They were waiting for rescue.”

Whereas she hadn’t expected anyone to come after her. Had been banking on it, he bet. Admiration cozied up to pride. “Whereas you had the good sense to know the best bet is to always help yourself.”

A log popped in the small potbellied stove. Caine absorbed her start into his palm, keeping her put, resuming his rubbing because it seemed to relax her.

“What are you doing?”

He stroked his fingers down her arm, the heat of her skin seeping through the linen gown. “Making conversation.”

“Why?” Her question packed more wariness than a preacher opening the door to a soiled dove.

“Because I figure it’ll make you more comfortable.”

She looked at him, opened her mouth, closed it and then shook her head. He’d give his last dollar to know what went on behind those big blue eyes.

“What?”

She didn’t answer immediately. She just became still in that way that told him she was building to something, coiling into herself, bracing herself. He held her wrist, his thumb on the old break, his finger on her pulse.

“I’m not a child.”

He curled his fingers under on the next pass, letting his nails drag down the sleeve of her nightgown in a slow caress, eyeing the thrust of her breasts beneath the white material. “I’m aware of that.”

“I don’t need to be soothed before I get fucked.”

Caine had no doubt the crudity was deliberate. He didn’t have to apply pressure to get her to look at him. She did that of her own volition, her eyes narrowed, her expression set, her spine braced. He tugged her lower lip free of the upper, slipping his thumb along the inner lining, the dryness belying the militant set of her chin. She was scared spitless, but not of him. Which only meant what she feared was herself. Or how he made her feel. Either of which he could work with.

He bent his head, running his tongue along the soft expanse, moistening the flesh before taking it between his teeth, accepting her gasp, her fear, her suspicion, holding it as he held her, gently, firmly until the tension between them arced to the breaking point. He allowed her to pull back a hairsbreadth before cutting off her retreat by the simple act of curving his fingertips into the back of her neck. He released her lip. Her hand came between them, fingers touching the spot where they’d been joined, staring at him as he ran his tongue over his lips, searching for her taste, finding it, sweet, tangy and salty. Totally feminine. He drew her closer, needing to feel her curves against him. “I told you before, you’re my wife.”

She curled her fingers into a fist. “So?”

He had to admire the way she so foolishly stood her ground, tossing out invites to battles she didn’t have a prayer of winning. She had guts. He leaned in, holding her gaze, taking the rapid puffs of her breath as his, pressing his hand into her hips, holding her close to his strength. “So my wife doesn’t get fucked.”

Desi blinked, her pupils dilating with shock, her full lips parting on a gasp before that chin went up, those gorgeous eyes narrowed and she was back to her fighting self. “What does she get then?”

He brushed a kiss over the part in her hair, feeling the quiver go through her, admiring her more for the guts that kept her put when she obviously wanted to run. “Me.”

Someday, he meant for her to see that as a good thing.

The shake of her head was almost imperceptible. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Pretending we’re married. Pretending that this is real.” A sweep of her hand encompassed the entirety of their situation. “That it matters.”

A tug on her hair had her head tilting back and her gaze meeting his. “It does.”

“Why?”

“Because you want it to.”

She blinked rapidly. If she cried, he was going to put his fist through the wall.

She didn’t cry. Her palm flattened on his chest. “Please don’t.”

He covered her hand with his. It was cold and trembling, imperceptibly belying the calm she projected. “What?”

“Don’t dress it up in pretty words. Just leave it like it is. No pretense. No hope for more. We got married because we had to. I’m comfortable with that.”

“That’s a damn bleak way of looking at things.”

“I’m realistic.”

That wouldn’t be what he’d call it. He turned, lowering her to the mattress, bracing himself above her, being careful to keep his weight to the side. She was so damn fragile he felt like he’d squash her flat if he wasn’t careful. “So I take it you just want me to get on with it?”

“Please.”

“Now that, wife, is a word a man likes to hear in bed.”

H
ow could a man so hard, so dangerous, kiss so softly? Desi lay beneath Caine, surrounded by his heat, his power, holding her breath as the mattress creaked when he leaned in, releasing it on a startled gasp as he fitted his mouth to hers, edge to edge, exerting the slighted pressure, holding himself there, seeming in no hurry, though she could feel his cock pressing into her side through his denims. His lips—so different from hers…firmer, wider—touched the other corner of her mouth in a caress similar to the one he’d just finished.

“What do you want from me?”

His mouth left her ear, drifted downward. “Right now, or just in general?”

His lips found a spot they seemed to like, just under her ear. Instead of moving on, they pressed, opened, sucked. Another streak of sensation followed the first, racing down the now familiar path, making her jerk as it landed hard on the first, the repercussions reverberating outward in a wave of tingles that had no mercy. It spread to her breasts, her thighs, her lungs, making her “Now…what do you want from me, now” more gasp than demand. Her determination was buried under a wave of heat.

He didn’t take his mouth from her skin as he answered, just let his words bleed into the caress, fortifying the tingles and creating an ache in her pussy that pushed her hips up into the power of his. Searching for more.

“I want whatever you feel, good or bad, no pretending and no faking.” Another kiss—longer—followed by a strong suction that ended in an acute sting that had her gasping and arching. Then the soothing pass of his tongue over the spot. Once, twice and then again. Every stroke finding that sweet spot that magnified all pleasure and made it more than it was, more than she could bear lying still. Her heels dug into the mattress. His hand came under her hips, opening over the curve of her buttock, each finger imprinting demand into her flesh like a brand. Up. She needed to move up. She followed his lead, canting her neck into the press of his lips. His cock brushed her mound and in a splinter of feeling, she found the cure for the aimless aching hunger writhing inside.