Teresa Medeiros (33 page)

She had never imagined a man like Billy Darling straddling her naked body, his golden grace even more striking in the pool of lamplight. Her breath quickened as he shrugged out of his shirt and reached for the buttons of his trousers. Although her first instinct was to burrow beneath the quilt to smother a shriek of nervous laughter, curiosity kept her riveted. Her mouth went dry when the fabric parted to reveal that his arousal was just as long and golden as the rest of him.

She stretched out her hand, daring only to brush her fingertips across its velvety tip in a butterfly’s caress.

“Find what you’re looking for, Duchess?” he drawled, deliberately echoing the words he’d said to her during his bath at the ranch. Only this time his jibe was punctuated by a hoarse groan.

Esmerelda snatched her hand back, mortified by her boldness. “Am I hurting you?”

He recaptured her hand and folded her fingers firmly around him. “You’re killing me.”

Encouraged by his rapturous expression, she tenderly traced the length and thickness of him before giving him a wide-eyed look. “And Virgil dares to call you his
little
brother?”

Although his teeth were gritted, Billy still managed a cocky grin. “Why do you think Jasper was always so darned jealous of me?”

Sobering, Esmerelda reached up to gently cup his face between her hands. “Because you were everything fine and decent that he never tried to be.”

A strange expression crossed Billy’s face—half pleasure, half pain. “And you, Duchess,” he said, lowering himself into her arms, “are everything I ever wanted.” Kicking away his trousers, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Remember in the barn that night, when I told you it
sure would be nice if you’d let me put my mouth everywhere you let me touch you?”

How could she forget? A delicious shudder raked her, born of both memory and anticipation. But no amount of anticipation could prepare her for the tender shock of Billy’s lips gliding down her body, leaving a trail of pleasure wherever they went. He cupped her buttocks in his hands and lifted her to his mouth, drinking from her forbidden sweetness like a man who’d been wandering in the desert all his life and had suddenly come upon a fresh spring bubbling out of the sand.

She whimpered a protest, moaned a denial, but her instinctive shyness melted beneath the hot, sweet flame of his tongue flickering over her. She tugged helplessly at the wheaten silk of his hair as ripples of delight fanned out from her womb to engulf her entire being. She might have been able to endure that exquisite torture if he hadn’t begun to probe her throbbing core with one of those long, large-knuckled fingers of his. She cried out, pulsing to rapture against his mouth.

When Esmerelda drifted back down to earth, Billy was there, softly kissing her mouth while he laved his rigid length in the rich cream he’d coaxed from her pleasure-sated body. The sensation sent delicious little aftershocks through her. So delicious that she almost didn’t notice when he stopped rubbing against her and started easing his way into her.

He must have felt her stiffen. He must have heard her squeak.

Holding his body in ruthless check, he peered down into her face. She forced a smile, hoping he would mistake her agonized whimper for one of pleasure.

“What are you doing, sweetheart?” He looked even more distressed than she felt.

“I’m not crying,” she blurted out, bravely trying to sniffle back a sniffle. “I know how you hate to see me cry.”

“Does it hurt?” he gently asked.

She nodded, chewing on her lower lip in an effort not to burst into tears.

“Well, then you just go ahead and bawl all you want, honey, and I’ll see what I can do to make it nicer for you.”

As he’d proved in the past, Billy was a man of his word. Esmerelda barely had time to work up a heartfelt sob before the stabbing pain began to give way to languid pleasure.

“Better?” he murmured, burying his face in her hair.

“Oh, much,” she gasped.

He took that as his cue to lengthen and deepen his rhythmic strokes, sending waves of delight shuddering through her. She’d been astonished by the pleasure he’d given her before, but there was something even more miraculous about being joined with the man she loved. She was soft where he was hard. Giving where he was driven to take. As his strokes quickened to furious thrusts that seemed to fill her to overflowing, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, clinging for dear life. When his body went rigid and he tore himself from her with one last mighty groan, the tears that came spilling from her eyes were tears of joy.

Esmerelda sat in the rocking chair, cradled on Billy’s lap. He’d wrapped the quilt around them both, enfolding them in a cozy cocoon. The soothing motion of the rocker created an exquisite friction between their naked, sweat-dampened bodies.

By the waning light of the moon, Billy looked troubled, like a man who’d suddenly discovered he had something to lose.

Esmerelda longed to make him smile again. She ran her fingertips along his jaw, hoping to soften its stern set. “You
always call me ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart’ or ‘angel,’ ” she whispered, “but you never call me ‘darling.’ ”

He slanted her a wry look. “Maybe I was just waiting until I could call you
Mrs
. Darling.”

Warmed by his unspoken promise, she gave him a tender kiss and rubbed her breasts against his chest. The coarse coils of his chest hair made her nipples throb and tingle. She moaned a faint protest when he gently resituated her on his lap, turning her so that she faced away from him. He used his big hands to drape her legs over his own splayed thighs, leaving her utterly vulnerable to his touch.

Esmerelda melted into a puddle of delight when those clever fingers of his parted the dewy petals of her body, seeking the tender bud nestled within their folds. She turned her head, blindly seeking the sustenance of his mouth. He rewarded her with a taste of his tongue, then eased her hair aside and began to scatter damp kisses on her nape and throat.

As the tender flick of his fingertip sent molten pleasure cascading through her veins, she became keenly aware of the demanding weight of his arousal pressing against the cleft of her buttocks.

The very next time the chair rocked up, then down, he slid into her, just as neat as you please.

Unprepared for the shock of being so deliciously impaled, Esmerelda nearly swooned. Groaning his own delight, Billy rocked himself deeper into her with each rhythmic rise and fall of the chair.

Not sure just how much pleasure she could endure without dying, she whimpered an entreaty, urging him to go faster. But he kept up his leisurely pace, stroking her inside and out, until she was sobbing with rapture. Dark shudders of ecstasy wracked her body and soul, leaving her limp in his arms.

Only then did he take his own pleasure. When he was done, he lifted her in his arms like a child and carried her to the bed, where they fell into an exhausted slumber, their bodies nested together like two spoons in a cupboard drawer.

When Esmerelda awoke again, Billy was already inside of her. She slipped out of one delectable dream into another, a dream where Billy kept one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, all the while gliding in and out of her in long, honeyed strokes. Esmerelda arched against him, purring with pleasure. When he could no longer contain the driving rhythm of his thrusts, he urged her over to her stomach and rode her the rest of the way home.

Morning came too soon.

Sunlight filtered through the window beneath the attic eaves, bathing the bed in warmth. Esmerelda tried to resist its gentle persuasion, longing only to rock the day away in the sweet cradle of Billy’s arms. When she finally pried open her eyes, it was to discover that she was sprawled on top of him with her head pillowed on his chest and her thighs straddling his lean hips. From the devilish light in the eyes sparkling so near to hers and the persistent nudge of his body, she gathered that waking up and staying that way hadn’t been a problem for him.

“Mornin’, Duchess,” he drawled, greeting her just as he had that long-ago morning at the hotel.

“Mornin’, cowboy,” she replied. She could not resist a diffident sniff. “If you’re ready to hit the trail, just leave your silver dollar on the bureau on your way out.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Just one dollar? By my accounting, I owe you at least three, along with a fifty-dollar gold piece for …” He pressed his mouth to her ear, whispering
something that made her both giggle and squirm. She could hardly believe herself that the haughty Miss Esmerelda Fine from Boston had dared something so deliciously bawdy.

It seemed that loving Billy had made a hoyden of her. A hoyden who delighted in the faint whisker burn on her chin, the moist tenderness between her legs. She ran her tongue over her kiss-swollen lips before pressing them to Billy’s. He cupped her rump in his hands, holding her astride the instinctive buck of his hips and making her moan with anticipation.

The inviting sound was drowned out by masculine shouting, feminine squealing, and the thunder of footsteps on the stairs.

Billy rolled her off of him, instantly alert. He listened for a second, his brow creased in a frown. Then, throwing the quilt over her, he bounded out of the bed.

“Stay here, sweetheart,” he commanded, jerking on his trousers. “One of the girls must have a rowdy customer.”

Before he could get them buttoned, the door flew open, leaving Billy standing behind it.

Squealing in alarm, Esmerelda snatched the quilt up to her chin. The man who stood in the doorway didn’t look the least bit rowdy. He certainly didn’t look capable of causing the sort of commotion they’d heard. With his double-breasted frock coat and pinstriped trousers, he looked as if he’d just come from a formal ball. He wore a gray felt top hat and clutched the brass grip of a cane in his liver-spotted hand.

It wasn’t his elegant attire, but the tenderness that softened his eyes when they lit on her that made Esmerelda’s throat tighten with a curious mixture of awe and apprehension.

He propped his cane against the wardrobe and drew off his hat, turning it over in his trembling hands. “I would
have known you anywhere, Esmerelda. You are the very image of your mother.”

He didn’t have snowy white hair or a bristling mustache that would tickle her cheek when he hugged her. He was as bald as a billiard ball and his square, ruddy face was clean-shaven. But the pugnacious jut of his jaw was unmistakable.

“Grandfather?” she croaked.

He beamed at her. “Ah, my sweet child, it would make this cold and unforgiving ogre ever so happy if you would consent to call him ‘Grandpapa.’ ”

Paralyzed with shock, Esmerelda kept a death grip on the quilt as he came limping over, folded her into his arms, and gently stroked her tousled hair just like the grandfather of her dreams.

“There, there, my darling,” he murmured. “You’ve done the very best you could for yourself, but it’s time to come home now and let Grandpapa take care of you.”

As she met Billy’s stricken gaze over her grandfather’s shoulder, Esmerelda would have been hard-pressed to decide which one of them looked more horrified.

Her grandfather continued to murmur endearments and stroke her hair, seemingly oblivious to the stream of people who came pouring into the attic room. Sheriff McGuire staggered in first, followed by a woman Esmerelda didn’t recognize, the rotund Miss Mellie, a flock of her half-dressed girls, and a handful of their gawking patrons.

Flushed with mortification, Esmerelda considered dragging the quilt over her head. Billy remained frozen behind the door, looking as if he’d like to slink out the nearest window himself.

Blood trickled from a shallow wound on Sheriff McGuire’s temple. The petite, gray-haired stranger stood on tiptoe to dab it away with a lace handkerchief.

“Who is that woman?” Esmerelda whispered.

“Oh, that would be my sister.
Your
aunt Anne,” her grandfather explained, favoring her with a tender smile. “She’s the very soul of gentility.”

“If you’ll stand still for a minute, you overgrown oaf,” the woman snapped. “I might be able to stop the bleeding.”

McGuire sneered down his nose at her. “I wouldn’t be bleeding if you hadn’t coldcocked me with the butt of my own pistol.”

“How else was I to get the keys to my cell?”

Esmerelda gasped. “You arrested my aunt?”

McGuire turned his sullen gaze on her. “You needn’t look so shocked, lass. I did it for your own good. She and this loco brother of hers had taken it into their heads to go searching for you. I didn’t arrest them. I simply provided them with accommodations during their stay in Calamity. Free of charge, I might add.”

The woman snorted. “Even if you did allow us separate cells, your hospitality left much to be desired.”

“If you don’t like it,” Drew snarled, pointing at the man cowering behind two scantily clad young women, “you can take it up with the mayor.”

Esmerelda’s aunt spun around, clapping a hand over her heart. “Why, Mr. Stumpelmeyer!”

The mayor, banker, postmaster, and justice of the peace of Calamity was wearing nothing but a pair of spectacles and a pair of drawers. He lifted his bony shoulders in a sheepish shrug. “I’ve been a widower for nigh on two months now, Miss Hastings. I have my needs.”