Authors: Stolen Ecstasy
Hannah Howell (20 page)
. Setting his now empty glass on the bedside table, he lay down, turning on his side to look at her. “What’s troubling you, Leanne?”
Briefly she was tempted to tell him the whole truth—but only briefly. They were not facing death crouched behind some pathetic barrier now. Her pride reasserted itself. She would not bare her heart and soul to him, not when he told her virtually nothing of his own feelings.
“Nothing really. I’m just tired.” She was not surprised when he cursed softly but viciously, for she knew she sounded far less reassuring than she had intended to.
Standing up, Hunter yanked off the rest of his clothes. He could hear the polite, evasive lie in her voice. It infuriated him. He wanted to banish that quiet, sad-eyed mood, but unless he knew what fed it, he was helpless. Slipping into bed at her side after dousing all the lamps save the one by the bed, he took her into his arms. Although she felt soft and pliant, he sensed a holding back in her, a hiding. He hated it.
“I never thought you a secretive person, Leanne.”
“Everyone is a little secretive at times. But what makes you think I am now?”
“Maybe your saying nothing’s wrong when I can clearly see that something’s troubling you.”
“Well, I guess I’m just suffering a mood. Women are prone to such things.” She hated spouting such nonsense but hoped Hunter would accept it.
“Don’t take me for an idiot. We’ve been as close as two people can be for weeks. You’re not given to moods.”
She sat up and eyed him crossly. “Will you stop telling me what I am or am not.”
“What you are now is difficult. In this I know what I’m talking about. You’re not secretive and you’re not given to moods. I want to help, Leanne, but I can’t do that unless you tell me what’s bothering you.”
Sighing, she lay down, staring morosely at the flickering patterns of lamplight on the ceiling. “Owen was most pleasant. He is also only one of your large family.”
Beginning to see what might be nagging at her, he slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her closer, kissing her cheek. “The others will be just as easy to know and just as accepting.” Deciding that now was the best opportunity to warn her of his mother, he added quietly, reluctance weighting his voice, “There is only one who might prove—well, difficult. My mother had, and according to Owen still has, some set ideas of what a suitable marriage for her son would be.”
“A suitable marriage for the son of a prominent, maybe a little powerful and perhaps not too poor, rancher?”
“Why did that just sound like an accusation?”
“Well, when you told me who you really were, spoke of the ranch and all, you didn’t really weight the revelation down with many details. There are many different sorts of ranchers. You are clearly not some simple cowboy grazing a few hundred head of cows.” She frowned up at him, debating just how annoyed she should be over his reticence.
He brushed a kiss over her frowning mouth. “I hope you’re not thinking I’ve been lying to you.”
“No. Simply not very forthcoming. I am not quite sure what I pictured about your home and family, but I was obviously off the mark or the half-facts I picked up while you and Owen nattered away would not have bothered me so much.”
“Why should those things bother you? It should simply be a comforting reassurance of my ability to care for you.”
“Are you being purposely obtuse? You are from a wealthy, or near to, family and they obviously carry some weight in this area. I was tossed out on my ear wearing onlý a nightgown and cloak. The nightgown ended up wrapped around Jed’s foot, and the cloak is in sad shape. I have no money. I have no real family. The only one I can refer anyone to is Charity, and she does not qualify as a glowing recommendation. I was hardly aristocracy before, but now I am little more than white trash.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew all too well how his mother would view her.
She ignored that. “I don’t even have a good name now. I’ve spent far too long running over hill and dale with five men and no chaperone. I’ve been marching about in men’s clothing. And we are not fooling anybody by having these two rooms side by side. That tidbit of gossip has certainly been added to by the news that you have had to buy me every little thing I wear.”
“All of which is nobody’s business.”
“That won’t stop anyone from discussing it—or your mother from hearing about it.”
“The talk will die out.” He saw no point in denying that there would be talk, that the whispers had already begun.
“Oh, most certainly, if your mother does not collapse from apoplexy when you appear on her doorstep with me in tow.”
“Leanne, I’m marrying you, not my mother. I’d like to say she’ll be gracious and accept you, but that would be a lie. My mother has some set ideas, ones she’s been trying to ram down our throats all our lives. Those ideas have finally set. her and my father as far apart as a man and wife can be.
“Yes, we have money, enough to carry us through the inevitable lean years, and we are not without some power and influence. Mother has always tried to make more of that than there is. Except for my sister, none of us pays her any heed. We are what we are and we’ll never be society like she knew in New Orleans. We don’t want to be.”
“I understand all you’re saying,” she sighed, “but I do not relish being a bone of contention between you and her.”
“It’ll just be another in a long line of them. We’ve never seen eye to eye and probably never will. The final break came when she turned her back on me the moment scandal touched me. She didn’t seem to care that I was unjustly accused or concerned about the trouble I faced. All she worried about was the scandal.”
“And now you’re bringing home another load of scandal—me.”
“I’m bringing home the woman I plan to marry. If worse comes to worst, you can do what the rest of us do.”
“What’s that?”
“Step around her. Truth is, I don’t think she’ll be a problem for too long. She and Pa have grown so far apart, they don’t even try to hide it from us anymore. I really think she’ll take herself back to the New Orleans she so reveres.”
“I’m sorry, Hunter.”
He shrugged. “It may sound heartless, but. I think it would be for the best. She’s not happy. Pa’s not happy. She has little to do with her sons and we try hard to keep it that way. Don’t get me wrong. I love her, I just don’t like her much. Our housekeeper, Molly Pitts, has been more a mother to us boys than our real mother ever was.”
“And you don’t think it can ever get better?”
“Don’t see how. I think my sister was the result of a last gasp in a dying union. I wasn’t very old before I saw that matters just weren’t right between my parents. My mother married Pa with the intention of molding him into what she really wanted. It didn’t work. All she has managed to do is push him away.”
Suddenly she more fully understood his hiding the truth about himself. It was not just because so many had turned against him when he had been accused of the crimes Watkins had committed. He might not see it, but she felt certain that the state of his parents’ marriage had also prompted him. After all, if she accepted him as an outlaw on the run, the chances were slim that she would play the sort of games his mother obviously indulged in.
“You’ve gone very quiet.” He smoothed his hands over her back, slowly pressing her body closer to his.
“Just thinking on all you’ve said.”
“If it’s any comfort, until I get my name cleared, my mother will be seeing me as a scandal on two legs.”
“So we can be united in diversity?”
“Something like that.”
“No, it’s not much comfort.” His caresses grew a little bolder and she found it difficult to keep her mind on their discussion. “I hate to be the cause of strife in a family.”
“The strife is already there. Look, I’ll make a deal. If it grows to be too much, we’ll move out. There’s a small cabin just south of the main house. It was Pa’s first shelter. It’s been kept together to be used for extra hands or guests. My mother usually knows when to give up, but if she doesn’t leave you alone after a while, I promise we’ll move into the cabin. A little distance can solve a lot of problems. Just tell me when you can’t stand it any longer.”
“It’s a deal then.” She murmured her pleasure when he gave her a hearty kiss. “I put up with Charity. Your mother should be no real problem.” She did not believe it any more than he appeared to, but he was kind enough not to question her boast.
After unbuttoning several of the buttons on the front of her frilly but modest nightgown, he brushed a kiss over the fresh scar on her shoulder. “It healed well.” He gently pushed her onto her back. “So, no more undemanding, solicitous gentleman.”
“Is that what you were trying to be? You were acting curiously.” She made no protest as he tugged off her nightgown.
“Restrained, you mean.” He crouched over her, admiring the slim lines of her body in the lamplight.
“It builds character, you know.” Sighing with pleasure, she wrapped her arms around him when he lowered his body onto hers and tilted her head back slightly to give him better access to her throat. Her desire for him flared quick and hot. She doubted he could have found the restraint required while her wound healed any more frustrating than she had. That time had been added to the time of deprivation enforced upon them by the race from Mexico to Little Creek. She felt starved for a taste of the passion they could share.
It quickly became clear to her, however, that Hunter planned to dawdle. He ignored all her subtle urgings to hurry toward the gratification she craved. If it were not for the strong passion revealed in his face and body, a passion he was rigidly controlling, she would have thought he did not feel the same fierce desire she did.
Hoping to keep her passion in pace with his, she tried to think of all the things she did not like or found distasteful. Even that trick failed when he teased her inner thighs with warm kisses and strokes of his tongue. When he touched his mouth to the very heart of her desire for him, she cried out in a mixture of protest and pleasure. He caught her by the wrists, holding her hands to the bed when she tried to reach for him to tug him away.
She grew very still, caught up in shock and wonder. It felt as if every fiber of her being was centered there. His intimate kisses, the strokes of his tongue, worked to pull at her every thought and feeling. Pleasure flooded her. She gave a soft, low moan as she opened to him, arching with mindless greed toward his mouth. He growled his approval and released her hands to slide his beneath her backside, to knead and stroke and hold her in place. Past all thought of modesty, she burrowed her hands in his thick hair, caressing the shape of his head, neck, and shoulders. She was but faintly aware of his questions, of the half-coherent answers she gave and of his soft, erotic flattery as he drove her towards completion.
When her passion crested, she tried to pull him into her arms but he eluded her. She then clutched at him blindly as her release tore through her. Rationality was but a flicker on the horizon when he began to restir her needs. This time he answered her plea to join her, his possession of her fierce. She cried out her delight and responded with a ferocity of her own. They found satisfaction together, clinging tightly to each other as it shook them.
With her body sated and her mind clear of desire’s haze, Leanne felt embarrassed. She could not look at Hunter as he eased away from her to straighten the covers they had tangled in their lovemaking. The way she had carried on, with no sense of modesty or restraint, troubled her. Somehow, it did not seem right to be so controlled by her physical desires.
After tugging the covers over them, Hunter pulled her into his arms. He felt the tension in her and half-smiled. If she thought to withdraw with some mistaken idea of decorum, he would soon disabuse her of that notion. When her passion ran hot, she was glorious, free, and abandoned. He would not allow her to even try to shut that part of her away.
“Ah, Leanne, you’re glorious.”
Pressing her face against his chest, she muttered, “Shameless perhaps.”
“Passionate.”
“Lewd.”
“You’re trying to talk yourself into feeling ashamed of what we just enjoyed.”
“Wrong. I didn’t have to try.”
“Darlin’, you’re hot and fine in bed. There’s nothing wrong in that. We’ll be spending a hell of a lot of our married life in bed. We’ve got something special between us here. Don’t try to make it something to be ashamed of. Thinking like that could kill what we can share.”
Slowly her discomfort eased. He was right. If she kept thinking like she was, she would soon believe it gospel and would turn from what flared between them.
“You didn’t see me acting this way after you pleasured me like that.”
Lifting her head, she eyed him with mock disgust and amusement. “I always knew you had no shame.”
Knowing she had listened and accepted the truth of his words, he grinned at her. “Honey, you’ll soon see just how shameless I can get.”
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