She flung her head back and fought to speak against the hunger pulsing in her blood. “When do you plan to end this?”
“Darling, this is only the beginning.” His drawl was very thick.
She shot him an incredulous look, then thumped her head back against the pillow.
“We haven’t even started to explore the delights below your neck.”
“What?” Holbrook had never gone below her throat.
Justin’s hand cupped her breast and squeezed lightly. Charlotte arched into him and moaned. Dear Lord, her breasts were so agonizingly sensitive and he felt so wonderful.
“That’s my sugar,” Justin crooned and slipped his hand inside her nightgown. He caressed her again, plucking and teasing her nipple. Everything centered there—sensation, yearning, pulses of lust between her breast and her heart—and she sank her hands into his back to encourage him.
How could so much of herself have become such a giant, throbbing ache? Even when she was alone and played with herself, she’d never felt anything so intense. Oh, dear heaven, but she was wet.
And when he switched to her other breast but continued to tease the first, it was better still. “Oh, Justin, Justin.”
“Sweet, sweet darling, you truly don’t know what to do, do you?” he muttered somewhere near her ribcage. She ignored him in favor of rubbing herself over his leg. It wasn’t enough for satisfaction but it allowed her hot, aching core some relief.
His big hand stroked the outside of her thigh. She sighed happily and her hips soon matched his rhythm. His fingers shifted to the inside of her leg and slipped higher, teasing and stroking. She tried to thrust down on him but he grunted disapproval. She stopped, disappointment burning hotter than her pulse.
“Good girl,” he crooned. He shifted and suddenly his thigh was outside hers. His warm hand cupped her mound, heating it like sunshine on a winter garden. Even breathing was almost too much to bear when her hips wanted to hurl themselves into his grasp.
She fought for words to plead with. The bedding was long since banished.
“I, ah—oh, Justin!”
His fingers slid in between her legs and he fondled her. He teased her folds, playing with them as if furling and unfurling them was his greatest joy.
“Justin . . .” Charlotte helplessly opened herself completely to him. He rumbled praise and need burned brighter in her.
All that mattered now was feeling his hands and mouth on her, the soft kiss of his clothing when he shifted position over her, the honeyed incitement of his voice building the fire in her blood.
Her hips rocked closer and closer to him. The first blunt finger to enter her was all joy, while the second came with extra cream and teasing.
He thrust his fingers into her hard again and again and her pearl was so sensitive. The brink was so very close.
“More, please more,” she sobbed and ground herself down on his hand.
He rubbed her clit hard and simultaneously nipped her shoulder.
Charlotte shrieked and tumbled into rapture, as if she hurled herself down the finest sledding run in the world. Ecstasy flashed through her and her body shook over and over around his hand.
She could barely manage to kiss his shoulder in thanks afterward before she dropped into a sound sleep, just as if she’d trudged home from a long day’s sledding.
One eyebrow askew, Justin tucked the bedclothes around his oblivious—Lover? Protégé?
He was the man who’d put that sated look on her face, not her so-called lover, not the idiot who’d ruined her reputation and earned her the title of
adulteress
. No matter what had happened during those days—or hours?—it hadn’t taught her body anything about the pleasure to be found with a man. Or perhaps even touched her heart.
She wouldn’t forget Justin Talbot.
Somewhere deep inside, his heart shouted
Huzzah!
just as when he’d celebrated more than one cavalry victory during The War.
He had to protect her, for so long as the storm lasted and she was trapped here. But perhaps there’d be opportunities for fun too.
What else could he teach her? What more could they enjoy together? He could stamp himself on her so thoroughly she’d always think of him, no matter whom she was with.
She gave a contented little snore and her fingers curved over his arm. His cock twitched happily.
Justin promptly slid under the covers beside her, a smug grin lurking on his mouth.
Chapter 6
“G
ood afternoon.” Justin nodded to the dozen men crowded into the Crystal Saloon’s back room. Its abundance of leather armchairs, red wallpaper, mounted longhorns, and brass spittoons testified to its title of Unofficial Mayor’s Office.
He’d dressed up a bit for this call, choosing his best black Stetson and the frockcoat a British tailor had deemed suitable for London’s finest clubs. It also hid all his weapons.
“Greetings.” Johnson lifted his drink in a polite salute. Nine-Fingers Isham came to attention behind him, quivering like a bulldog eager to fight.
The regulars gaped at Justin over their glasses of beer and whiskey and his eyes narrowed. Damn it, did they think yesterday’s quarrel had broken up his partnership with Johnson? It would take more than a few harsh words to destroy ten years of friendship.
“Any other urgent business with the mayor, gentlemen, before next week’s council meeting?” Justin swung the door back and forth through a small arc, as if he was playing with a hatchet.
The town councilmen shifted in their seats and glanced uneasily at each other. Drinks slammed down onto tables. Johnson froze with his glass halfway to his mouth, then finished swallowing.
“No? If not, I’m sure you’re very busy men, who have many important things to attend to.” Justin held the door wide and stood aside so Johnson’s sycophants could depart. No audience needed if he was to hear the truth about what had happened between Charlotte, Johnson, and Simmons.
His saddle-partner shot him a hard glare, then rose to shake hands and make polite farewells.
Justin ignored the sideways looks directed at him. Most of Wolf Laurel’s so-called
moneyed elite
still hoped to either bribe or intimidate him. Isham departed last, after a final, insolent scan of Justin’s weapons.
Their mayor locked the door behind them. “You shouldn’t have chased them out like that.”
“Thought you’d be bored by their constant prattle about the poker tournament’s profits.” Justin swung a side chair around and straddled it. “That’s in the bag now, since you collected the entry fees yesterday.”
“Crap. How’d you know?” His old friend let out a rough bark of laughter and Justin joined in, glad to share a joke.
“Where’s Moreland?” The question echoed like an officer’s parade ground command. “I thought she’d join the tournament, since she paid the fee.”
“No, she’s at the Palace’s standing poker game, down in the basement.” Johnson’s intensity made Justin’s laughter fade into the same polite wariness he’d show a stranger.
Heavy footsteps moved away from the other side of the door.
Justin cursed the departing eavesdropper privately, then added a warning to his old friend. “She’s more than holding her own against the regulars. Half my bouncers are down there enjoying the show and ready to protect her.”
The only other genuine Confederate officer in Wolf Laurel looked him in the eye, then folded his lips and walked over to the sideboard. “What’ll you have to drink?”
“The usual.” There had to be something left of their friendship.
Johnson handed him a glass full of rye whiskey. “Here’s to the blue-belly soldiers, without whose attempt to bushwhack you and steal your horse, we’d never have met.”
“Here, here.” They clinked glasses in their oldest of toasts and drank.
Christ, he hadn’t much cared where he went or what he did that autumn when he returned from surrendering to the Yankees. Not after seeing his home’s blackened rubble and sere fields, empty of life except vultures and shifting shadows.
He’d spent a few minutes at his father and brothers’ graves in Charleston but shrugged off any condolences from their admirers. He had no need to remember bullies and demagogues, who’d spent years stealing their wives’ money and whipping up rabble then hiding from the resultant fight. Even at eighteen, he’d been cynically amused that he was the only Talbot to go off to war.
His hand tightened on his glass and he drank again, to honor his English mother. She’d been his closest friend during childhood, even through his wildest escapades. In return, he’d tried to protect her from the world she loathed—where a wife had to make way for her husband’s concubines in her house and live with bastards who resembled her husband far more than his legitimate children. Where chains and whippings and screams sounded through the landscape as often as the clink of tea cups settling on fine porcelain and violin music drifting out of the ballroom.
Justin had learned to be glad death had sent her to a better world. The only time he’d almost wished to join her was after he left her grave to head south and west. Surviving five years of war was easier than traveling that wasteland.
He cocked an eyebrow at his old friend.
“Ten years since you first saved my life back in Georgia.” Johnson’s vitality had shaken him back to life and given him a new purpose.
“Done the same for any other scarecrow in a gray uniform.” Johnson slid the bottle down the table toward Justin and opened another for himself. “You’ve returned the favor a dozen times since, in good times and bad.”
“As have you. Remember that flood on the Rio Grande, back in the San Luis Valley? I thought we’d never get out.”
“Or that brawl in Abilene.” Johnson whistled. “I remember it every day when we practice gunplay together. An hour or two disappears mighty fast when measured against surviving fights like that.”
Justin nodded agreement and took a small sip of whiskey. The bottle must have been a gift, since his friend normally preferred far better brands.
“How’s the hotel business?”
“Couldn’t be better.” Johnson glanced at him in surprise. “Between it, my two saloons, and the dry goods store, I should make back my investment within two years.”
Too damn slow for a mining town that was likely built on a glory hole and would disappear the moment the ore did.
“Hey, pardner, if you need a loan to tide you over—”
“No!” The word rang through the room, sharper than an ice saw.
Justin rocked back in surprise, then leaned his arms on the chair back to study his old pal. They’d shared cash through good times and bad before. What was the difference now?
“No,” Johnson repeated more politely but his eyes were still angry and ashamed. “Some members of the town council gave me a loan months ago to cover everything I lost in the ’73 Panic.”
“But—”
“I was doing well before then, beating the damn Yankees at their own moneygrubbing games. Taking back everything and more than they cost me when they burned my farm.” He laughed bitterly. “From now on, maybe I’ll use your tactics—kill them in their tracks wherever I can.”
“Johnson, you know damn well that’s not what I do!”
“You’re fucking efficient at killing, Talbot, just like everything else.”
Shit, what did Johnson think he was?
Justin pulled his temper back and tried for sanity.
“You know there are too many Yankees to kill them all. You can’t turn a wave by yourself. You have to make peace with it.” The way he laid flowers at a church every year on his mother’s birthday, in honor of everyone he’d left behind in South Carolina. Or drinking sherry every Christmas, in hopes one day he’d be respectable enough to celebrate it again with his mother’s cousins at Chillington Castle. Keeping the present alive and building for the future was more important than taking revenge for the past.
“I want to use the bastards like manure, Talbot. Spread them like shit over my fields.” Johnson splashed more whiskey into his glass.
Justin went back to cash, his saddle-partner’s favorite subject.
“Everything you lost in the Great Panic? Look, you know we’ve shared the shirts off our backs before. Let me give you the money to cover that and you won’t have to worry about repaying strangers.”
Johnson told him the amount.
Justin gaped at him. “That’s enough to buy half of Denver.”
“Certainly all of its saloons.”
“I can still give you the cash.” He’d have to sell—Christ, what wouldn’t he have to sell? But Johnson had been more of a big brother to him than his long-dead blood kin had ever bothered to be.
“No, I don’t have to make payments on the loan until next year. Just shut up and listen to me, will you?”
Justin glared at him. Inside, he kept on calculating how to pay off his friend’s debts.
“Talbot, you’re always so damn conservative.”
“Am not!” He slapped his thigh for emphasis.
“Are so—at least when it comes to making sure no fool can ruin your property.”
Justin flung up his hand in agreement.
“We invested our money separately and I put mine with the fancy folks on Wall Street. Bragged, too, about how well it was doing—until the Panic hit. And every penny vanished.”
Justin couldn’t deny that. He was still glad he’d kept quiet back then, too.
“Didn’t know what I was going to do until after we’d been here a few months.” Johnson broke the awkward silence. “A delegation from the town council offered me the job of mayor with the loan to clear my mind. Said they wanted somebody who’d stick around for a while and I said yes.”
“You never told me.”
“Didn’t think you’d like me making a deal that I could get out of just by watching the town melt into the hillside when the ore gave out.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.” He’d have done his best to wring Johnson’s neck.
“Yeah, sometimes that Palmetto Aristocracy upbringing gets in the way of your common sense.”
Justin took another small sip of whiskey. Did the glass’s jagged pattern reflect his old friend’s true personality? “What did your new pals think I’d say to the deal?” he asked when he could trust his voice again.
“Why would they worry about that?” Johnson stared at him over a fresh drink. “We’ve always worked together. I do the talking and you help carry the deals out. You’re more valuable than dudes like Isham because you frighten people better.”
Shit. Justin closed his eyes. His reputation yawned before him, more appalling than an ice fall’s thousand-foot drop.
“What about our talk of retiring someplace where guns are not necessities?” he asked, when he could trust his voice better.
“That silly daydream? I always told you that if you stuck with me, I’d build you an empire, not castles in the air.” He raised his glass to an engraving of a Confederate veteran’s shattered farmstead. Then he poured the golden liquor down his throat, his eyes shut in ecstasy.
Justin drummed his fingers for a moment, then shoved the decanter away. Neither memories of his childhood home’s burned-out remains, nor alcohol, spurred him as much as today’s problems. And honor.
“When will you hand the woman over?” Johnson caught the decanter easily and refilled his glass.
“I won’t.” Justin put down his glass, careful not to break the fragile crystal. Now they were getting down to this conversation’s true meat. Just a little longer and he could ask what had happened when Charlotte met Simmons.
“I thought we just agreed that neither of us like big fights.” Johnson’s Georgia drawl grew thicker.
“We did. But she’s a woman and I won’t let Simmons have her.” Shit, Simmons had hit her, and she hadn’t even been with him five minutes.
“I don’t understand you. It’s not as if your morals are sunshine bright when it comes to bed partners.”
Justin gritted his teeth and reminded himself to stay calm. He and Johnson never had the same tastes, which was why they didn’t share the same whores. “All of my lovers were willing. Miss Moreland is a lady and wishes nothing to do with Simmons.”
“It’s only for a few days.”
“She’d be lucky to stay alive. No.”
He watched his friend rapidly swirl his drink in his glass until it resembled an abyss, rather than a lamp-lit cloud.
“Why are you doing this, Johnson?” Justin dropped his voice to a lower pitch, as if his old friend was a skittish horse to be coaxed through a winter pass. “Why are you pushing so hard to get Simmons’s attention?”
“I told you—he can make Wolf Laurel the county seat.”
“Yeah, half the council is parading for his attention. If it happens, hordes of miners will come here to register their claims and spend their money.”
“They’ll use my hotel—and visit your Hair Trigger Palace. We’ll be rich. Even after mining dies out, loggers and ranchers will spend fortunes here.”
“But Sweetwater is a better bet to become county seat. It’s on the other side of the pass and it has better roads. The railroads already love it so its citizens have more money for bribes and chicanery in the legislature. How can you stand against it?”
“By giving Simmons the only bribe he can’t find anywhere else.” The veteran fighter’s jaw set hard. “A beautiful white woman he can seduce—”