Harlot (8 page)

Caleb’s stepfather, on the other hand, had always made clear that Caleb and his mother were now living in the Durst household and were expected to maintain the good reputation of the Durst name, despite that Caleb had never taken it. The Durst family had never felt like home. But Jessica…she’d felt like his home.

He opened his eyes so he wouldn’t see her in his memory. That smart, beautiful girl.

She’d made him laugh. Blush. Need. Sigh. She’d made him want to be the kind of man his father had been, strong and steady and proud. She’d made him want better.

His mare slowed, so Caleb pulled her back and let her set the pace. The sun was only just touching the horizon. He didn’t need to hurry, but he wanted to.

This arrangement had been meant to punish her. To punish both of them, really. Jessica for the betrayal, and himself for ever loving her. But tonight he wasn’t rushing toward any sort of punishment. He was hurrying toward her body. Toward the awful pleasure of it.

When he finally spied her house, excitement burned his skin as if the sun had reversed course and risen again. Lamplight glowed softly in the window. If he let his eyes lose focus a little, it could be a different house on a different piece of land, and this could be a different life entirely.

But then the big blond man Caleb had seen the first day walked from the back of the house toward the barn. He turned in Caleb’s direction and stared for a while before he disappeared into the barn and closed the door behind him.

Did Jessica take that man into her bed? Did she open for him the way she had for Caleb?

His head ached with tension as he ground his teeth and told himself it didn’t matter. It didn’t. She hadn’t slept with anyone else today. Caleb had told her clearly, and she wouldn’t risk the money.

Eyes narrowed against his jealousy, he tied his horse beneath the overhang of the porch roof and climbed the steps. His knuckles sounded like gunshots against the door.

Tension knotted his shoulders as he waited. When he heard no answering footsteps, he leaned to the side to look through the front window but didn’t spot any movement.

“Jessica?” he called. He tried the door, but it was locked tight. Had she run off? Taken the money and left him behind? The sharp stab of alarm he felt had nothing to do with the gold. He moved quickly down the stairs and rounded the house, passing a sad clump of lilac bushes before he spotted the back door. It was closed. He opened it without knocking.

He heard her sharp breath at the same moment his eyes found her. Then he noticed the sound of water. Water dripping from her body, swirling around her feet. She clutched a sheet to her chest, but her right flank was exposed from the top of her wet hip down to the lip of a metal tub.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, struggling to adjust the sheet to cover her body. “I thought I had time for a bath. The cow got out of her paddock, and we spent an hour after supper trying to catch her. If you…” Her blue eyes darted from the door to the stove to the darkness of the hallway behind her. “I-I need to finish washing up,” she finally stammered, her damp cheeks flaming pink. A strand of red hair fell from the knot she’d tied. It drifted down to stick to her neck.

Caleb stepped in and closed the door, cutting off the sound of the wind rustling the lilac leaves. “All right,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

Her hand tightened around the crumpled sheet she clutched. The water swished around her calves when she shifted. “You’ll wait?”

“Yes.” A drop of water slipped down her hip, drawing his eye to her gleaming thigh.

“I can’t…” In the new silence, he heard her throat work as she swallowed. “I can’t wash in front of you.”

He stared at her thigh for a moment, watching her muscles tense and relax as she pulled the sheet closer. He wasn’t sure why she’d be shy about washing in front of him. He’d fucked her the night before. He’d fuck her again tonight. He’d see it all. Touch it. Taste it. Feel it.

He could make her drop the sheet right now and show him, but he supposed that wasn’t part of the deal. If she’d never bathed in front of another customer, she wasn’t obliged to do so for him. And maybe the reason he wanted so badly to watch was the same one she had for hiding. It felt like a violation. To watch a woman clean her most private parts.

Caleb dipped his head in acknowledgment and took off his hat. “Fine. I’ll wait upstairs.”

Her chin barely moved when she nodded. She eyed him as he walked past, as if she were nervous he’d snatch the sheet away at any moment. But he wouldn’t. If he wanted it off, he’d tell her to shed it. He didn’t want to force her physically. He wanted to watch her make each choice herself, so he could love her less.

He stopped when he got to the hallway. “Don’t bother dressing,” he called before he walked toward the lamp glowing in the parlor. He didn’t want her coming to him like a shy wife. He needed to remember what she was.

The bottle of liquor sat where it had been the night before. Caleb grabbed the whiskey and the lamp and headed upstairs. Her bed had been neatly made up. The room was bare and nothing like her old bedroom had been. One midnight after a dance, he’d sat on her roof. She’d opened her window but stayed in her room lest they get caught together in the night.

Her bedroom had been a warm glow of yellows and happy greens, accented by white lace and too many pillows. They’d talked about music. When he hadn’t recognized a song or composer, Jessica had hummed it for him. Sometimes he’d pretended ignorance, just to hear her sing the tune.

He’d imagined what she must look like once she closed the curtains and opened her high-buttoned wrap. He’d jerked off to that in his bed many a night, praying she’d see no evidence of the guilt on his face the next morning. Even the curve of her bosom beneath flannel had been enough to make him hard. Now he was hard remembering the smell of her wet cunt.

He took a swig from the bottle, then lit the second lamp so he could look over her new room. There were no happy colors here. A bed made up in white sheets and a faded pink comforter. A wardrobe with a crooked door. A dresser topped by a cracked mirror, a jar of cream, and one simple hairbrush. Rough brown curtains on the window. That was all there was.

He took another drink and opened a door of the wardrobe. Some of the dresses had been bright once, but they were all muted colors now. He opened the other door, and his jaw clenched at the sight of a royal-blue sleeve. The cuff was green and blue plaid. He recognized it. He remembered her gloved hand beneath that cuff, her fingers wrapped around his elbow as they walked to church. Caleb shut the doors with a crack.

Pressing his forehead to the wardrobe, he closed his eyes. He’d been a fool. A fool to leave her alone so he could prove himself worthy of her. He should have married her back then. Filled her belly with his seed. Tied her to him forever. Instead, he’d gone off to prove something that hadn’t needed any proving. She’d never been a goddess or a princess or a queen. The woman she was now had always been inside her. If she’d really been a goddess, she’d never have wanted a roughed-up, ignorant ranch hand like Caleb anyway, would she?

The softest sound reached his ears. A scuff of a bare foot against wood. He turned slowly to see her standing there, the sheet still clutched to her body. This time she’d managed to cover up entirely, aside from her naked shoulders and neck. Eyes averted, she waited for something. An order, maybe. Her false modesty filled him with rage.

“Ready?” he asked gruffly.

The tendons of her neck tensed. Damp hair clung to her nape, sticking tight to her skin when she nodded. A long moment passed before she opened her fist and tugged at the fabric. The sheet fell to the floor in a soft collapse of fluttering white. She was naked.

He’d been too hard and hot to truly take in the sight of her last night. Too eager to get his hands on her. But now she was eight feet away and he could muster the strength simply to look. She reminded him of paintings in the museum where his mother had taken him during a visit to Denver. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden or some ancient Roman queen. Her naked shoulders and delicate collarbones and then her lovely, perfect, pale breasts, tipped with pink the same color as her lips. Her nipples pebbled, shaping themselves for his mouth. Whatever vague arousal he’d felt as he’d waited for her to ascend the stairs was eclipsed by the lust that stiffened his cock now.

He could see her ribs beneath the soft swell of her breasts, tapering to her waist and the gentle flare of her hips. Her belly curved down to the triangle of curls that both shielded her pussy from sight and drew his eye to that very spot. Her thighs were long and white and so much smoother than his, the hair there fine and golden.

As he looked her over, her hands tightened into fists at her sides, but this time she didn’t cover herself. She’d made the choice not to. Good.

“Take down your hair,” he said.

She reached slowly toward the knot of her hair, fingers trembling. A twist of it tumbled free. She worked her fingers through it until it cascaded around her shoulders.

Caleb took a deep breath at the sight. Now she looked less a queen and more a concubine.

“Lie down,” he ordered. She padded across the room. “On your stomach,” Caleb decided suddenly.

He was happy for his impulse when she put her knees on the bed and lay facedown. He hadn’t seen much of her backside through all of this, and God, it was beautiful. Full and plump. He moved closer until he was within a foot of the bed, then stared at the soft mounds of her ass as he began to undress. This time he didn’t want to be half-dressed and overeager. He wanted to be as naked as she was.

Jessica lay still, her hands folded beneath her jaw, face turned away, as he stripped down to nothing. When he was finally done, he knelt next to her on the mattress, marveling at the sight of her perfect skin so pale beneath his hard cock. He felt like a hungry animal crouched above her as he smoothed an open hand from the back of her knee up her thigh.

She gasped at the touch, but the breath was cut off when he cupped her ass in one of his hands and squeezed. His grip parted the cheeks of her ass, and just like that, he needed to spread her and see her pussy again.

Caleb put one knee between her legs and opened her. His breath was coming faster already, making him feel like even more of an animal, so he forced himself not to simply slide his hand between her legs. Instead, he put his hand gently to the middle of her back. Her ribs rose as she inhaled, then collapsed slowly as she let all the breath out of her body. She did it one more time, and then Caleb ran his hand down her spine, his fingers dipping down the small of her back before they rose along the curve of her ass again.

His hand looked sacrilegious, his skin tan and scarred against her. His fingers tightened at the sight, pressing into her yielding flesh before he made himself relax. He found the cleft of her ass with his fingertips and slid them all the way down until he touched the warmth of her pussy.

Jessica gasped at the same time he sighed. “Turn over,” he whispered, his voice too hoarse for more. He wanted to see.

He shifted so she could turn. Once she was on her back, he knelt between her legs to keep them open. Now her pussy was spread beneath his cock. Her white thighs and soft belly and dark fur and that pink wetness. All of it right there. Exposed and waiting, and she would let him do anything he wanted.

His body knew what he wanted. Simply to lower himself into her. To take exactly that right now because it would be the best feeling in the world. The knowledge was bone-deep in him and had nothing to do with his memories of last night. He was an animal and he wanted to fuck.

But he needed
everything
, not just that.

“Move up,” he said, wrapping his hands under her thighs to push her higher on the bed. She shifted up then rose to her elbows, watching him carefully, as if she was afraid of what he might do.

Now that he had room, Caleb sat back on his heels to look at her. He’d never seen a woman this way—not more than a glimpse, anyway—and the sight of her entranced him. So different from a man’s body. So completely different.

He let his hands slide up her thighs, his thumbs feathering over the hollows just below her pussy. When she tensed, the tendons there pushed against his thumbs. He did it again, watching the play of her muscles. Then he touched between her legs.

Her stomach drew in. He glanced up to see that she was watching his hands, so he did it again. Her mouth opened on a breath, and when his thumb passed over that same sweet spot he’d stroked the night before, she gasped. Her pussy gleamed wet in the lamplight.

He traced the shape of her folds and leaned closer. Now he could smell her. Oh, God. His mouth watered. His cock throbbed.

This was everything, he realized. Her open sex was everything he could see, smell, feel at this moment. There was nothing else in the world. No past promises. No California. No other men. No mistakes. Just this sweet center and his fingers sliding along the wetness of her. He leaned his head down and kissed her.

Her thighs tried to jerk together, but his shoulders stopped them. “Let me,” he growled.

“Caleb…” She reached one hand out to stop him.

“If you let other men, then let me.”

Her hand paused.

He wanted to taste her, and she had no right to stop him, not after what she’d agreed to. Her fingers curled, and she laid her hand back on the bed. Caleb kissed her again, inhaling deeply, the scent of her pussy filling first his nose and then his whole body. His heart beat harder, the force of his blood stretching his cock until it ached.

He tasted her then, sliding his tongue along her wet folds, filling his mouth with her. She whimpered, but he knew he couldn’t be hurting her. In fact, when he licked again, wetness flooded his tongue, and he grunted in shock. No, he wasn’t hurting her. She liked it. She liked his mouth on her cunt.

He licked up all the way to that spot. When he reached it, Jessica cried out. Her hips jerked toward him, and then she tried to squirm away, but Caleb wrapped his hands under her thighs and held her close.