Caine's Reckoning (26 page)

“And today you found someone who can find her.”

Her lip slipped between her teeth. There was a pause. “And yesterday I found you.”

“I believe the right of that is that I was the one who did the finding.” He motioned to the plate. “Eat before your food gets cold.”

She eased sideways in the chair. A dainty, elegant movement that even he could see spoke of breeding. Desi removed the napkin and placed it on her lap. Her fingers curled around the fork. “When will Tracker start looking for Ari?”

“A couple weeks. We’ve got some things to settle around here first.”

She picked up the knife and fork and with a smooth movement that was almost too pretty, scooped a bit of stew onto the tines. In a slow, measured move, the food traveled to her mouth. Her lips parted, surrounded the morsel and slid it off the fork. The utensil returned to hover at the side of her plate. With equal care she chewed. The whole process was so innately feminine his cock went hard in a rush.

“Damn, sweetheart, mealtimes are going to be embarrassing.”

She stopped chewing. Her eyebrows rose in query. No doubt it was impolite to speak with food in her mouth. He took the napkin out of her lap and wiped a nonexistent smear from the corner for the simple reason that he wanted to touch her. “You make eating a peep show.”

She blinked, but she didn’t get angry, and her cheeks didn’t flush. She had no idea what he was talking about. “You eat very prettily.”

A tinge of pink did dust her cheeks at that. She swallowed, and he watched the fragile muscles in her throat work. He even found that seductive.

Caine put the napkin back in her lap. She dipped that fork again. He sat back in his chair and just let the ache spread through him as she repeated the seductive process. Bite after bite. Swallow after swallow. When she started on the tortilla he had to take a break. “I’ll get you some water.”

“Thank you.”

He was halfway to the back door before he thought to offer her anything else. “Unless you’d rather have coffee.” There was always coffee simmering somewhere on the ranch.

A little shudder went through her. “No, thank you.”

He grabbed the pitcher off the edge of the counter. “I’ll get you fresh.”

If he didn’t get to a place where he could adjust his shaft, the damn thing was going to break in two. No doubt she’d consider it another sign of disrespect. As soon as he was clear of the door, he let out the breath he’d been holding and adjusted himself. Neither the cold air nor the extra room did anything to cool his lust. If Desi always ate like that, he was never making it through a meal with her without sporting a hard-on. No doubt, he thought with a wry smile, she’d consider that a sign of disrespect, too.

He tossed the water into the yard and went to the pump. As he primed the mechanism, he looked around. Everywhere he looked there was evidence of the plans he and the others had, of what they intended this place to be. The Hell’s Eight stronghold was a fortress and built to last. The houses, set against the cliff wall as they were, could take an attack without crumbling. Made of rock and adobe, they couldn’t be burned out. The only luxuries the place sported were the barns, the well pump and the escape tunnel that cut back through the canyons. That might have to change. With two women on the place and maybe children down the road, more softness was going to be needed.

Especially for a woman who’d apparently grown up with everything. He didn’t doubt Desi’s claim that she came from a much better background. If her speech and manners weren’t enough to give a clue, the way she ate cinched the deal. Class was in every gesture. Worry about appearances steeped in every measured chew. Only those with nothing better to do had time to worry about inconsequential things like that. He sighed.

Her past meant he might have to adjust the way he dealt with her. He filled the pitcher, remembering the way she’d burned for him earlier. Maybe.

When he went back inside, Desi was wiping her mouth and the plate was shoved aside. She’d eaten half. As she set the napkin by her plate, she flicked the corner of her mouth with her tongue. The flash of tempting pink made mincemeat of his efforts to cool off. Caine snagged a cup from the hook on the wall and placed it before her. Standing as he was and sitting as she was, there was no way to hide the effect she had on him. Her cheeks flamed as red as a woodpecker’s head and her thanks was strangled.

Caine leaned his hip against the table. “While I was outside I got to thinking about what you said.”

“And?”

Game as always, she took her drink in small sips that had her swallowing in even pulses, the way she would if she were taking his seed. Caine ground his teeth. Son of a bitch. She was burning him from the inside out and she didn’t even know.

“I’ve decided you’re just going to have to adjust to the husband you have.”

She blinked in that way she had when absorbing information. “Why?”

He hitched his hip up on the table. If they were more settled, she more comfortable, it would have been easy to draw her mouth to his cock, let her lips play over him in a soft caress through his pants, teasing them both with the sensual prelude. The blush on her cheeks burned brighter, but she didn’t back away or down. He cradled her blush into the palm of his hand. “Because you have a very strong effect on me, and I’m too old to be trying to hide it like a green kid catching peeks through the door of a bordello.”

“But I’m your wife.”

“And considering that means you’re the only woman I’ll be coming for over the next fifty years, I don’t see where that’s a complication.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“What?”

“If you felt that way with other women.” A little wave of her hand filled in the blanks.

She was telling him he could have other women with her blessing. Caine laughed. Who did she think she was fooling? “Yes you would. You’d be mad enough to chew lead and spit bullets. Fortunately, I wasn’t raised that way. One man cleaving unto one woman until death do you part.”

Her grip on the metal cup turned white-knuckled, but her voice remained calm. She pulled her cheek away from his hand. “But that’s for couples who love each other. There are no illusions between us.”

He followed the heat of her skin. “Just the ones born of your imaginings.”

Blue eyes flashed a wary exasperation. “Which would be?”

Damn, he liked it when she challenged him. “The ones that say I’m going to disappoint you.”

“I never said that.” She took a sip of her water. “I don’t have any expectations of you at all.”

He gave her chin the shelf of his hand to rest on. Not that she needed it. Annoyance was doing a pretty good job of keeping the elevation of that particular body part just so. He tapped her nose with his thumb, smiling when her eyes crossed trying to follow the movement. “Now that lie you’re going to have to make up to me.”

“It’s not a lie. I don’t expect anything of you at all.”

He stroked his thumb across her lips, watching the frown form between her brows and the tension take up residence in her gaze. “You expect me to turn on you every second of the day like some rabid skunk. You expect me to throw in your face the events of the last year every time I get close. You expect me to use it as a license to hurt you, to humiliate you whenever you let down your guard.”

He touched his fingertip to her ear, letting his thumb slide down the ultrasoft skin of her cheek. “It’s just not going to happen, Desi.”

“Bull.”

So much mistrust fed by so much pain.

He bypassed the temptation of her ear to cup her skull in his palm. “I get that it’s my job to prove it, but it’s also your job to keep open to the possibility that I’m not the skunk you’re afraid of finding.”

She cocked her head back, challenged him eye to eye. “So things will be easier for you?”

“I was thinking on it being easier for you.”

“I just bet.”

He blew out a breath and considered the wall she’d built around her trust. He bet it rivaled Hell’s Eight for impenetrability. “I can see you’re pretty set in your beliefs.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Her expression said it all. “So here’s the deal. It’s not my way to hide things or wrap things up fancy. You’re pretty as a picture and the fire in you calls to me. I wanted you earlier. I want you now. And I’m going to want you later. I wasn’t taught the right and wrongs of pleasuring a wife. That being the case, there’s no disrespect meant when I let you know how you make me burn. It’s just how I am, and you could consider the fact that at least you’ll always know where you stand with me.”

“Even if I don’t like it?”

“It’s my job to ensure you like it.”

“It’s not fair.”

He shrugged. “Life rarely is, but the fact is, there’s nothing you or I could ever do together that’s not right, so when I ask you for something just hold that thought tight.”

“What about what I want?”

“There’s nothing I won’t give you in bed. You just tell me what it is, and you’ve got it.”

“I want to be left alone.”

Quiet and despairing, the statement drifted between them. He sighed and stroked her cheek twice with his thumb before killing off the remnant of hope. “Except that.”

It didn’t take much pressure from his fingers to turn her head. As soon as she caught a gander of the bulge in his pants, he met resistance. He had more strength in his wrist than she had in her neck. He turned her head until she was flush with his cock head.

“That’s what you do to me, sweetheart. Just watching you eat gets me hard.”

“I don’t do it on purpose.”

“That just makes it all the more special.” He hitched his hips forward, every nerve ending centering on the tip of his cock, every sense tuned to bridging the gap between her full lips and his body. “Put your mouth on me.”

She jumped. He didn’t know if it was because of his word choice or what he required. Pressure from his fingertips on her nape got her moving. Barely. She stopped a hairsbreadth from contact. Hot, moist breath seeped through the cotton of his pants, searing his flesh in sensual blows. “That’s it, just like that.” He rubbed his fingers through her hair. “Let me feel those sweet lips, Gypsy girl. Just give me this one little kiss….”

He held there for an instant as her lashes fluttered down on her cheeks, her mouth parted, her breasts rose and fell. With a nudge, he closed the gap. Agonizing pleasure shot up his spine as his shaft absorbed the softness of her mouth. Her lips parted farther, stretching the material against his sensitized flesh, her mouth moving, manipulating…

Biting.
Agony lanced up his spine.

“Son of a bitch!” Caine dug his fingers into Desi’s jaw, releasing her teeth from his shaft, holding her in place as he rode the hurt out, clenching his teeth as nausea pitched in his gut. When the first wave of blackness receded, he opened his eyes. She was staring at him, her cheeks bulging around his grip, mutiny and terror identical twins in her eyes. It took everything he had to loosen his grip as another sick wave passed over him. When he could trust his voice he said, “I don’t recall asking for a bite.”

“I improvised.” The taunt was muted by her inability to shape her mouth around the words.

He unbuttoned the flap of his pants, watching her eyes follow every move of his hands, watching her swallow. She damn well better be nervous, pulling a stunt like that. There was many a man who would have killed her for it.

“And now you’ll make it up to me.”

He took out his near flaccid cock and pulled her forward. Her eyes widened at the sight. He was used to that. He was a big man, even soft. Then they narrowed and the smile she shot was a teeth-baring event. She leaned in.

“Don’t even think about biting me again.”

Three short breaths slid over the sensitive crest like moist silk and then she nodded. He lifted his cock and drew her in. Her glance flicked to the windows. The shutters were drawn back. Anyone could see in. He was pissed enough not to care. “What are you waiting for?”

Tears welled in her eyes. He steeled himself not to care. He was her husband. She was his wife. And only one of them was the boss.

She leaned forward. A sob lurched through her, catching on his conscience, dragging it forward.

Still, he might have held on to his anger if he hadn’t widened his perception to take in the whole picture—her fists clenched in her lap as she prepared to take him in her mouth, the tears in her eyes and the flicker of acceptance in her gaze.

Ah, hell! He was an ass. The woman expected to be treated like this. The bite had been a test. And he was failing it. Failing her. His wife. The one woman who should never have to fear him. Son of a bitch. Caine slid out of her mouth, off the table. His cock throbbed in the cool air, not caring about honor or pain, just wanting more of Desi’s incredible mouth.

And Desi; she just sat there staring at him, all emotion drained from her face except for blank acceptance. Caine cursed and shoved his penis back into his pants. He expected an abused horse to test his leadership, why the hell hadn’t he expected it from her?

Desi didn’t resist when he pulled her into his arms. Didn’t scream or fight. Just let him do what he wanted. He tugged her face into his chest, his reasons purely selfish. He didn’t want to see the pain in her eyes, or worse, the knowledge that he’d proven himself to be the son of a bitch she had expected. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”