His Dangerous Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch - Spicy Version Book 2) (6 page)

His groans turned into a long series of ragged, wolf-like rumbles as he lost himself to the rhythm they created together, faster and harder and primal. She knew he was close when his muscles began to tighten, and when his groin and backside clenched in time to a long cry of pleasure that flared excitement through her, she knew he’d spilled his seed inside of her. She’d never let any man do that before, no matter how good they were. That was for Luke and Luke alone.

With a few more sated thrusts, he stilled and collapsed on top of her, completely spent. Grinning from ear to ear, Eden rolled him to the side, keeping her leg thrown over his hip and his shrinking length inside of her. It felt so uncommonly good that she didn’t fight the laugh that bubbled up from her gut.

“What?” Luke panted, an edge of worry in his voice, even as his arms closed around her.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “You’re mine now, whole and complete, and we get to do this whenever we want to from now on.”

He blinked, held his breath, and then he pressed his head back against the pillow and laughed in triumph.

Chapter Five

As morning sunlight filtered through the curtains in the windows of the Hen House, Eden drew in a deep, contented sigh. Coming awake to find herself in bed next to a handsome man who was her husband was better than being in a dream. If she wasn’t careful, she might just lose her heart to the beauty of that safe, strong man. She stretched, humming, then curled herself around Luke’s well-muscled body. A body, it turned out, he knew how to use. Whether he had any experience or not, he’d known just how to move, just how to kiss, and with a little guidance, just how to make her feel like the luckiest woman alive, last night. Several times.

And here Brent had told her that no man would ever want her. Well, her brothers were hundreds of miles away now. Brent’s threats meant nothing. They could risk their lives and shoot up as many banks as they wanted. She was free of them forever, safe in the arms of a real man. Brent didn’t have the first clue where she was.

Eden was close to drifting back to sleep on the cloud of joy that those thoughts brought her when Luke stirred. He flexed his muscles, groaned as if some of them were sore, then lifted a hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. Eden grinned and snuggled closer to him, thinking to herself, “Mine, all mine.”

For a moment, Luke held his breath. Then he puffed it out in a hurry and sat bolt-upright.

“What time is it?” he hissed.

Only a little concerned—her brother Braden used to wake from a sound sleep and jerk to his feet, looking for trouble, before he was all the way awake—Eden rested a hand on his back. “I don’t know, sweetie. There doesn’t appear to be a clock in here.”

Luke only grunted at her answer, jumping out of bed and dashing over to the bureau. Eden nestled back against the pillows, drinking her fill of his powerful body as he yanked open the top drawer of the bureau and started pulling out clothes, sniffing them to make sure they were clean. The broad lines of his back and thighs were beautiful, and the curve of his backside and dangly bits in front had her biting her lip.

He was halfway through tugging his trousers up when he glanced to her. He froze, raking her with a sultry gaze. She hadn’t bothered pulling up the bedcovers to hide herself when he leapt out of bed, and was more than a little pleased at the sight she presented to him.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” She propped herself up on one arm, giving him a “come hither” stare.

Luke’s jaw fell open. That was a finer reaction than the most flowery compliment he could have come up with. Well, that and the way certain dangly parts of him twitched to attention. Eden laughed low in her throat, shifting to her back, fully expecting her new husband to change his mind and rejoin her in bed.

Instead, Luke shook his head and tugged his pants up with a wince. He fastened them, then threw his shirt over his shoulders. He did a few buttons, then strode over to the bed, bending over to plant a kiss full of longing square on Eden’s mouth. She reached for him, but he straightened and took a step back.

He rubbed his face, breathed out a heavy sigh. “I had no idea it would be this hard.”

Eden’s mouth twitched and her eyes dropped to his trousers. It would be too easy to twist his words into a teasing comment. “What would be hard, sweetie?” She opted for a straight question instead.

“Leaving you.”

Eden’s grin dropped, and with it every bit of humor and contentment she’d enjoyed a moment before. “What?”

Luke growled like a wolf torn between attack and retreat. He rubbed his stubbly chin and shifted from one foot to the other as he watched her, brow furrowed. The longer Eden stared at him, the worse his struggle seemed to be. Where in heaven’s name did that sort of torment and guilt come from?

Her silent question was answered a second later when Luke said, “I’ve got a cattle drive to lead.”

Eden blinked. “A cattle drive?”

“Yeah.” Luke continued to sway in his spot, grimacing as if he was being pulled apart. “I didn’t realize how much I’d want to stay.”

“Then stay,” she said, voice flat.

He leaned toward her, then snapped back, shaking his head. As he marched around the foot of the bed to the door, he said, “I can’t. I got people depending on me. This is my big chance.”

“Big chance for what?” Eden leapt out of bed, ignoring her state of undress, and followed him to the main room.

“My big chance for the promotion I’ve been trying for all year.” He gathered his boots from the middle of the floor, where they’d ended up last night, and sank into the sofa to put them on.

“What, right now?” Eden planted her fists on her hips, sure she looked a sight.

Luke glanced longingly at her, his flush deepening as his eyes lingered on her breasts, but he force himself to concentrate on getting his boots on, then stood and strode to the rack where a leather vest hung.

“I’ve been working on Howard Haskell’s ranch since I got here when I was seventeen years old,” he explained. “I learned the business, learned all there is to know about cattle. I was hoping I’d move to a position where I could do more, lead men, a couple of years ago, but Howard hired the Montrose brothers instead. They had more experience running things, but I knew I could be in charge too.”

“So, why aren’t you?” As far as Eden was concerned, her husband was a natural leader.

Luke shrugged and winced, marching toward the door where his hat hung on a peg. “Franklin said he wasn’t convinced I was serious enough. I told him I’d prove I was.” He nodded to her.

Eden opened her mouth to make a comment about how ridiculous it was for anyone to think he was anything but serious. She stopped. The truth dawned on her. He’d sent away for her to prove he was serious. She clamped her mouth shut, not sure if she was offended by that or if Luke was damn clever to think of it.

She shook her head to clear away that conflict. “And you have to leave right this very instant or you’ll never get a second chance to move up?”

She meant her comment to be sarcastic, but Luke answered, “Yep,” with dead certainty. “I’m sorry that I had to marry you and run. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. If all goes well, sooner.”

That was it. With a sharp nod, he turned and scrambled out through the door. It banged shut behind him.

“Well, I’ll be a turkey’s tail feather,” Eden cursed under her breath. She sank her weight to one hip and shook her head. That was it? That was all the explanation he had to offer?

She wasn’t going to stand around and take that. With a burst of energy, she rushed back into the bedroom. It would be worse if Luke abandoned her the day after their wedding without a care. At least he had looked troubled about it. That would keep her from slapping him into next Sunday when she caught up with him.

She splashed water from the pitcher on a side table into its matching bowl, soaked a cloth, and went to work washing up as fast as she could. Her mind bustled with calculations. It couldn’t take that long to get everyone organized for a cattle drive. They’d seen the cattle themselves waiting in the field the day before. Chances were that the whole operation was ready to set out. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to jump into action with no time to spare.

It was a good thing she’d unpacked and put everything away just so the day before. She threw open the middle drawer of the bureau and pulled out the narrow, split skirt she used to wear when riding with her brothers and tossed it on the bed along with a simple blouse, a chemise, and drawers. There was no time for a corset on the open range, and in truth, she was tired of wearing one just to fit in.

She dressed in less than a minute, then dropped to a crouch and reached under the bed. Good thing Luke had been too busy with everything going on
in
the bed to question if she’d hidden anything
under
it. She slid out the long, heavy, flat case that had been at the bottom of her trunk and moved it to the jumbled and bunched bedcovers on top of the bed.

With a quick glance around to make extra sure no one was watching, she flipped open the case. A grin spread across her face at the sight of her old friend, her Winchester Model 1873 repeating rifle, with its twenty-four inch octagonal barrel that she’d had inscribed last year.

“Hello, you beauty,” she hummed to it, lifting it out of the case, kissing the casing.

With swift, sure hands, she clicked it open, checked the magazine. Everything was still clean as a whistle. There were plenty of bullets in her case, but rather than load the rifle, she transferred a couple of boxes to the hidden pockets in her skirt. She set the Winchester down for a minute while she drew her gun belt—with its pair of Colt Peacemakers—out and fastened it around her waist. Lord, it felt good to have that weight across her hips again.

The last thing she did before snatching up her Winchester and rushing out the door was to braid her hair. She could brush it later. Right now, time was all that mattered. Time and the fact that there was no way in hell she was going to let her new husband leave her alone in the Hen House for a couple of weeks right after marrying her.

Luke shook his head as he marched into the paddock where his horse stood waiting along with the others. Travis and the boys were deep into preparations for the drive. Franklin Haskell sat atop his horse—where he was most mobile—overseeing everything and answering questions. It was uncanny how every last thing he’d ever been told about women suddenly made sense all at once. They were sweeter than honey and could make a man lose his head. They were the most frustrating creatures God ever invented, but a man couldn’t live without one. There was no sensation more right and more glorious than having a woman wrapped around you while you sheathed yourself inside of her.

But more than everything else, he suddenly understood how a woman could be a man’s sweetest source of joy and his most acute source of pain. As much as he’d wanted to hop back in bed with Eden that morning in an attempt to figure out how many times a man could lose himself in one day without passing out—or, hell, dying—he had a job to do.

“Told you you should have waited until after the drive to send for that wife of yours,” Mason Montrose ribbed him as Luke reached to help him saddle the horses.

“Shut up,” Luke growled. “Franklin wouldn’t have let me lead this drive if I hadn’t sent for her when I did.”

“What makes you say that?” There was humor in Mason’s voice.

Luke took it as teasing. Worse than teasing, laughing. He scrunched his face into a defensive frown and shot his friend a sour look. He was surprised to find Mason grinning at him with nothing more than friendly ribbing and a touch of genuine concern.

Still, Luke went ahead and said, “I know what you all think of me.”

Mason’s expression twitched to confusion as he threw a saddle blanket over Cody’s horse, Buford. “What do we think of you?”

Luke grunted. He fetched Travis’s saddle from the rack and walked it across to Archer, Travis’s horse. He would have let the question drop, but as he tightened the buckles, he noticed Mason standing and staring at him with crossed arms.

Maybe Mason wasn’t laughing at him, but Luke wasn’t going to take being stared at and judged lying down. He straightened. “You all think I’m only good at leading saloon fights and card games, that I’m too much of a fool to take on any real responsibility.”

Mason chuckled and shook his head. “No, Cody’s the fool who can’t handle responsibility.” He headed for the rack of saddles, slapping Luke’s arm as he went. “You just can’t handle your liquor.”

Luke wasn’t sure if that was friendly teasing or an insult. Either way, he turned to Mason, intent on defending himself.

He stopped cold at the vision of Eden marching into the yard beside the corral. His jaw dropped at the sight of her—slim skirt that kicked like trousers when she walked, her dusty travel jacket, a belt with two revolvers on her hips, and a well-worn Winchester slung over her shoulder. All those heady, carnal feelings he’d had in her arms last night slammed back into him like riding a horse plumb into a wall.

“Luke Chance,” she hollered, searching around. Luke jerked straight, and when she saw him, her eyes narrowed. She stomped toward him, demanding, “What the
hell
makes you think you can traipse out of here without me the day after marrying me?”

Hot and cold rushed through Luke at once. Mason nearly dropped the saddle he’d hefted into his arms, and his eyes went wide. Across the corral, Cody and Travis, Billy and Lawson stopped what they were doing and gaped. Franklin turned his horse so he could see what was going on too.

Luke gave Travis’s saddle strap one last tug, then quick-stepped over to his wife. “What are you doing here?” he whispered.

“We just got married.” She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

Luke ran a hand through his hair. He noticed Travis leaving what he was doing to march toward them, and Franklin nudging his horse to join them. Just what he needed, the men he was trying to prove something to witnessing him getting dressed down by his wife.

“I’ve got a job to do, Eden,” Luke rushed on, trying to get things taken care of before anyone else got involved.

“I understand that, sweetheart,” she said, far more gentle than he expected. “But I’ve got a job too—that of being your wife.”