Teresa Medeiros (27 page)

The downward flick of his gaze warned her that she’d succeeded in doing nothing but drawing attention to her own attire. Or lack of it. The wind licked hungrily at her nightgown, cupping the threadbare muslin to her breasts. Her first instinct was to fold her arms protectively over her chest, but the challenging glint in Billy’s eyes kept her standing straight and proud, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Not much danger of that, now, is there?” he said softly. He took a step toward her, his grin softening into a quizzical half smile. “You keep nagging me, honey, I just might think you care.”

His words struck a raw nerve. “Then you’d be sorely mistaken. I just don’t want you lolling about in bed when you could be out looking for my brother. I hired a tracker, not some glory-seeking gunslinger.”

She expected him to snap right back at her and would have felt better if he had, but he simply nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Miss Fine. A man in my weakened condition shouldn’t be partaking of tobacco or the night air.”

He started for the porch. Esmerelda was still gaping with surprise at his amiable surrender when he hesitated and began to sway. She scrambled down the rotting steps to grab him. Stricken with guilt at her shrewish behavior, she searched his features for any hint of returning pallor.

As quick as that, in a move more graceful than any waltz, Billy reversed their positions, wrapping his arms around her.

Thrown off balance by the return of his wiry strength, she glared up at him. “You, sir, are a rascal.”

“And you, ma’am, are entirely too gullible.”

“Your mother—” she protested, squirming frantically.

“Works like an ox and sleeps like the dead.”

As if to underscore his words, a blissful snore came floating out of the darkened house.

Billy’s stern frown was softened by the hint of a dimple in his cheek. “I warned you back at the bank that I might have to arrest you. And as I recall, you promised to surrender yourself into my custody.”

His teasing words took all the fight out of her.

Horrified to realize she might yet burst into tears, Esmerelda turned her face away and whispered, “Don’t trifle with me. It’s too unkind.”

Billy’s grip gentled. He cupped her chin in his palm, coaxing her into meeting his gaze. His eyes were as sober as her own. “Ah, but trifling with you, Duchess, would be such a pleasure.” As if to prove his words, he lowered his head to graze her temple, inhaling deeply. “Did I ever tell you what my favorite kind of pie is?”

As he brought his lips to bear against the downy softness
of her cheek, languor melted through Esmerelda’s bones in a sensation so delicious that she no longer struggled to escape, but simply to stay on her feet.

“Ummmm … apple?” she ventured, swallowing hard.

He shook his head. His mouth followed the curve of her cheekbone down and around to the tingling shell of her ear. “Not blueberry either. Oh, I like apple and blueberry just fine, but the one kind of pie I never could resist was …” Catching her earlobe between his teeth, he whispered, “peach.”

She gasped as his heated breath sent a ribbon of anticipation curling deep into her womb.

“Whenever Ma baked a peach pie, I’d swipe it off the windowsill as soon as she set it out to cool. I knew she’d have cut me a piece if I’d have asked real nice, but nothing whets a man’s appetite more than forbidden”—his lips just barely grazed the corner of her mouth, tantalizing a dreamy sigh from her parted lips—“fruit.”

By the time Billy’s mouth covered hers, Esmerelda was nearly dizzy with anticipation. So dizzy that she didn’t stop to think of the consequences when she parted her lips for him, offering up a delicacy moist and luscious enough to tempt the sweet tooth of any man.

As Billy sank his tongue into her, his growl didn’t come from his stomach, but his throat. The primal sound was tinged with raw hunger. When Esmerelda had first wandered onto the porch, stealing a few kisses from a pretty girl in the moonlight had seemed a harmless enough pursuit. But he’d forgotten just how dangerous Esmerelda could be. Beneath her prickly exterior lay the vulnerable innocence of a woman, tender and sweet and ripe for the plucking.

His fierce desire to do just that only served to remind him that he was still a Darling at heart. He’d never learned how to court a woman who couldn’t be bought.

For a brief moment, he almost regretted that she hadn’t been Fine’s woman instead of his sister. Everything would have been so much more simple between them. She would know what he wanted and he would know what she needed and he wouldn’t be standing there in the weeds, rigid with desire and giving her a kiss he had no business giving a virgin.

He was so distracted by the unspoken promises of her mouth that he barely felt the first raindrops strike his back. Rain was a rare and marvelous thing in New Mexico, but not nearly as rare or marvelous as the yielding softness of Esmerelda in his arms.

A sharp clap of thunder heralded the arrival of a genuine downpour. They clung to each other as the rain washed over them, neither wanting to be the first to break away. But when Billy felt a violent shiver wrack Esmerelda’s delicate frame, he drew back, gently chafing her shoulders.

“Come out to the barn with me,” he blurted out.

At least she didn’t slap him right off. She simply blinked up at him, her eyes dark with uncertainty. She couldn’t know how delicious she looked with that worn-out old nightgown plastered to her breasts and her lips still glistening from his kiss. Billy barely resisted the urge to drop to his knees and beg.

“I swear on my pa’s grave that I won’t compromise you,” he vowed, brushing a raindrop from her silky lashes. “I just want to hold you … touch you.”

Esmerelda’s breath caught in a tremulous sigh. She could hardly believe she was actually pondering Billy’s bold proposal. But there was something so tender in his touch, so earnest in his eyes. It tempted her to trust him with both her virtue and her heart. Tempted her to believe that William Darling was a man of his word.

It was that hope, however foolish, that prompted her shy nod.

As if afraid she would change her mind, Billy wasted no time in scooping her up in his arms. She curled both arms around his neck and buried her face against his breastbone, taking care not to disturb his bandage. He covered the distance between house and barn in long, urgent strides. As he shoved open the door with his foot, the animals within greeted them with curious whickers and a plaintive lowing. Leaving the barn door half-open to beckon in the brilliant flashes of lightning and gusts of wind, he deposited Esmerelda on a bed of clean hay.

He followed her down, cupping her face between his hands with fierce tenderness. Rain beat like a sonata against the tin roof, indistinguishable from the painful stammer of Esmerelda’s heartbeat.

“If you don’t want me to,” he whispered hoarsely. “I swear I won’t lay a finger on you.”

“Well, maybe …” Esmerelda swallowed hard, wondering just what manner of wanton spirit had possessed her. “… just one?”

A thoughtful grin spread across his face before he reached up to tip an imaginary hat. “Very well, ma’am. I aim to oblige.”

Oblige her Billy did, using a single fingertip to gently trace the arch of her brow, the flare of her cheekbones, the delicate bridge of her nose, until she had no more pride left than Sadie rolling to her back to beg for a belly scratch. Esmerelda had always lavished hugs and fond caresses on Bartholomew, but since he’d grown too big for such embarrassing displays, there had been no one to hug or caress her. She hadn’t realized how starved for affection she was until that very moment.

Her hunger sharpened as Billy used the calloused pad
of his finger to explore the softness of her lips. After a moment of such delicious torment, they instinctively parted and closed around his finger, drawing him into her mouth. He let out a tortured groan of his own.

He laved her tingling lips with honey from her own kiss until they were primed for more of his kisses—a hot, wet feast for the senses that left Esmerelda so sated with delight she barely felt that same sly finger loosening the sodden ties at the throat of her nightgown.

The caress of his breath against her naked shoulder gave her a start of panic. She struggled to sit up. “Billy!”

“Mmmm?” he murmured, stroking the sensitive skin over her fluted collarbone.

Even as she pushed at him, Esmerelda knew she wasn’t playing fair. After all, she was the one who had set the rules of this game, a game at which Billy was already proving himself to be a master. A game she was no longer sure she wanted to win.

Fisting her hands in his damp hair, she forced him to meet her gaze. “You won’t cheat, will you?”

“I make it a habit never to cheat at cards.”

“We’re not playing cards,” she reminded him.

His wink was pure devilment. “Then you’ll just have to take your chances, won’t you?”

Esmerelda despised games of chance, but something told her that if she didn’t take a chance on this man tonight, she might very well regret it for the rest of her staid, lonely life. She’d long ago resigned herself to spending her life without a man, but spending this one night without Billy seemed intolerable.

So she sank back on that sweet-smelling bed of hay and surrendered herself into his custody. He hooked his finger in the bodice of her gown and tenderly peeled the wet fabric from her skin.

When a flicker of lightning limned her naked breasts in quicksilver, she might have cringed with embarrassment if he hadn’t breathed a reverent sigh into her ear. “Peaches, angel. The prettiest ones I’ve ever seen.”

Indeed, the breasts she had always considered so woefully inadequate seemed to swell and ripen beneath his touch. He kissed her softly on the mouth while that deft, wise finger of his traced ever-narrowing circles around the tender globes. He resisted the greedy thrust of her nipples for so long that when his finger finally brushed one of the aching buds, as if by chance, Esmerelda cried out at the raw wonder of it.

He captured her cry with his lips, flicking first one distended nipple, then the other. Tremors of pleasure cascaded through her, forcing her to clamp her legs together against a rush of yearning. It was almost as if he’d touched her somewhere else—somewhere dark, lush, and forbidden.

Esmerelda had struggled not to feel for thirteen years, but beneath Billy’s skillful coaxing, her dormant senses came alive with a vengeance. She could smell the sharp musk of his own desire, taste the mellow hint of tobacco on his tongue, hear every nuance of his husky drawl as he murmured that it sure would be nice if she’d let him put his mouth everywhere she was letting him put his finger.

Esmerelda didn’t really grasp the shocking implications of that proposal until she felt his finger slowly inching up beneath her gown. Even through the modest cotton of her drawers, it felt like a live fuse winding its way between her trembling thighs toward the narrow slit in the fabric. The explosion was inevitable. The instant his fingertip brushed that soft thatch of hair, her legs simply fell apart, yielding all to his touch.

She must have whimpered. She must have moaned.

“Shhhh, sweetheart,” he murmured, “I can’t hurt you with just one finger, can I?”

It wasn’t pain Esmerelda was worried about, but pleasure. A pleasure so thick and sweet it seemed to dribble through her veins like wild honey, melting her resistance to his will. Billy might not mean to hurt her, but he was breaking her heart with nothing more than the tender probing of his fingertip.

She gasped into his mouth as he fondled her passion-engorged flesh, the grace of his gunslinger’s hands serving them both well. He sought the taut bud nestled within her silky folds, stroking and rubbing until she was panting with delight. Only then did he dip his long, blunt finger into the nectar welling from her throbbing core.

“Peaches and cream,” he groaned against her lips, making her shudder with primal longing.

To Esmerelda’s dismay, she discovered that Billy was a man of his word. Although she arched her back, desperately trying to press herself into his palm, he prolonged her delicious torment by using only his calloused fingertip to tease her into a frenzy of ecstasy.

“Please,” she choked out, burying her burning face in the crook of his throat. “I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the court.”

“No mercy,” he breathed into her ear before deliberately splintering her into a thousand glittering shards.

Esmerelda cried out her astonishment as all the pleasure she’d denied herself for the past thirteen years seemed to swell through her body in one devastating surge that left her limp and trembling in its wake.

She lay steeped in a haze of wonder until the ragged rasp of Billy’s breathing coaxed her eyes open. He was no longer holding her, but sat a few inches away with his
elbows propped on his knees and one of those long-boned wrists of his gripped in his other hand. His knuckles were stark white.

The rain had stopped and a shaft of moonlight pierced the musty gloom, illuminating the raw beauty of his profile. A muscle beat beneath the taut skin of his jaw. Esmerelda glanced down, seeing herself as he must see her—a wanton stranger with her breasts bared to the kiss of the moonlight, her nightgown twisted around her waist, her legs sprawled apart in reckless invitation. Shame flooded her as she realized just how generous he’d been and how selfish he’d allowed her to be.

She scrambled to a sitting position, jerking her bodice up and her gowntail down. “Oh, Lord, Billy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Hush,” he said harshly, still not looking at her. “You don’t owe me anything. Especially not an apology.”

He looked so rigid that she was afraid he might shatter if she dared to touch him. But she dared anyway, running her fingertips over the day’s growth of golden bristle that shadowed his jaw.

He caught her wrist with the grace of a striking rattler, then turned her hand to press a rough kiss to her palm. Before she could recover from her breathless shock, he swept her up in his arms and started for the barn door.

“Where are you taking me?” she blurted out, struggling to clutch her bodice to her breasts and cling to his neck at the same time.