His Tempting Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch - Spicy Version Book 5) (12 page)

“First things first.” Cody swept one of the fur-lined cloaks off the horse’s back. He shook off the snow it had collected on the trip, then walked over to Miriam to wrap it around her.

“Won’t the horse be cold?” she asked, teeth chattering.

“He’s bigger than you are and has been walking or running for almost two hours now. He’s still got one cloak, and even though it’ll take a while for any fire to heat the place up, he’ll be fine.”

Miriam could only manage a nod in response. As Cody set to work lighting a fire in the cabin’s large fireplace, she searched the room for lamps, finding and lighting those. It was still frigid, but the cabin walls were sturdy and kept the wind out. The fire took, and within minutes Cody had it going at a cheerful blaze. The room would take much longer to warm up, but at least they weren’t in immediate danger of freezing.

The only thing left to do was for Cody and Miriam to cuddle up together on the moth-eaten old couch across from the fireplace.

“Should we ask the horse if he wants to join us?” Cody joked, removing Miriam’s boots so she could tuck her ice-cold toes against his marginally warmer thighs.

Miriam laughed. “Don’t give him ideas. He might.”

They chuckled together as Miriam snuggled closer and Cody wrapped his arms and the cloak around them both. “Remind me to thank Wendy for being smart enough to give these to us, even if we’re not using them for their intended purpose.”

Miriam tensed in his arms. “I’m scared, Cody. I’m so scared for Meizhen and Meiying. What if they didn’t find a cabin like this? Even if they did, I don’t know if they know how to light a fire.”

He tightened his arms around her and kissed her head. “We just have to pray that the good Lord is watching out for them.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “I suppose so.” She only paused for a moment before saying, “I just can’t stop imagining them all alone out there in this blizzard.”

“Sweetheart, there are any number of people in these parts who might have seen then and given them shelter.” That much was definitely true.

“Are you sure they’re nice people? That they wouldn’t take advantage of two women alone?”

Cody’s heart squeezed for her and everything she’d been through. “Yes, darling, I’m sure.”

“But what if they fall into the wrong hands? What if someone takes advantage of them?”

There was more than just concern for her friends in Miriam’s voice. She was speaking from experience—experience she’d begun to tell him about before the day had turned upside down.

“What if they come to harm?” she fretted on. “There are worse things than death, you know, what if—”

Heart aching for her and everything she’d been through, Cody stopped her worrying the only way he knew how—with a long, passionate kiss.

Miriam’s swirling, anxious thoughts stopped completely. She’d kissed Cody before in her hotel room, but that had been expected. This kiss took her by surprise. In more ways than one. As his lips caressed hers, his hand smoothing along the chilled lines of her face and neck, the flurry of panic in her heart stilled. His warmth surrounded her, softening the jagged edges of her thoughts.

Her body sang to life, wanting to be one with his. Her heart beat so desperately it was painful. She wanted nothing more than to lose herself to him, to toss all her cares aside and focus on pleasure, hers and his. But a spark of conscience held her back.

Cody ended their kiss, tipping back with a lazy smile. “There. That’s better.”

He surged forward, stealing a second, less fiery kiss.

Miriam let out a breath. She wanted him so badly on so many levels that her eyes stung with tears. But her heart was not his entirely.

“I’m afraid,” she whimpered, clutching him around the waist under the cloak wrapped around them. “For them. I’m afraid for Meizhen and Meiying.”

Maybe it was her words, or maybe it was the tiny, fractured sound of her voice, but Cody nodded. He brushed his fingertips under her chin, tilting it up so that she couldn’t help but meet his eyes.

“I know you’re afraid, sweetheart.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’m worried about them too. But I think you’re afraid for more than just your friends.”

Miriam swallowed. She couldn’t look down, but she could look away at the fire snapping away nearby, trying hard to fill the frigid room with warmth and comfort.

“We never finished our talk,” Cody went on. “You were just telling me about how some manipulative bastard lured you into doing things you didn’t want to do.”

A stab of shame hit her heart like a knife. She turned her head to tug out of Cody’s grasp and lowered her eyes. “No, it wasn’t like that,” she whispered. “Because I
did
want to do all those things.”

Every muscle in her body hurt, and every beat of her heart sent needles through her veins, but she had to be fully honest with Cody. They’d gone well past the point of no return.

“I was young,” she confessed in a voice that was softer than the snap of the fire. “I had no one growing up. You don’t know what orphanages are like. Too many children and not enough people looking out for them. No one there to hug them and hold them and tell them they’re special. No mothers, no fathers, no one.”

She dragged her gaze up to meet Cody’s puzzled one. “I was very young, and for the first time in my life, people, men, wanted me. They wanted to touch me and kiss me and tell me I was beautiful. I’d never had anything like that before. And I would be lying if I said being with them wasn’t pleasurable.”

She looked away again, her shame too potent to keep eye-contact.

“You don’t understand what it’s like to go your whole life without affection, and then to suddenly have it by the bucketful.”

“But…but was that really affection?” Cody frowned, but not in disapproval. He was trying to understand, trying so hard it squeezed at Miriam’s gut.

“Of course not.” She laughed, softly but bitterly. “It sure felt like it for a while, though. Then I found out Ulysses was taking money from the men I entertained.” She flickered a glance up to check what Cody thought, even as her skin crawled over her former actions. “I was seventeen at that point, but I wasn’t ignorant enough not to know what that made me. Especially when people I shared the stage with started calling me ‘whore’ to my face. Which was blatant hypocrisy on some of their parts,” she added with a flash of indignation. “We all knew what went on backstage.”

“Is that so?” It was still hard to tell what Cody was really thinking, even if he made his comment with a grin.

“Women who make their living on the stage have a terrible reputation for a reason,” she answered, arching a brow.

It could have been the memory of all the chorus girls and leading ladies that she’d known backstage over the years, the certainty that none of them were any better than her, that trickled confidence into her veins, but for the moment, she didn’t feel as miserable about her past decisions as she had when she started telling the story. She sat a little straighter, leaning into Cody a tiny bit more, and went on.

“I ended up with child.”

Cody tensed, his jaw clenched in anger. It didn’t feel as though it was directed at her, though, so she went on.

“Only for a few weeks. I lost it when we were on the road, traveling toward Pittsburgh. I can’t prove anything, but I suspect Ulysses was feeding me something that caused it to go away. I was devastated.” She laughed suddenly. “Imagine that. I was devastated over losing a bastard child when I could never even know who the father was.”

“You’re a caring person,” Cody replied, voice hard.

Miriam shrugged. “Like I said, I was young.” More memories squeezed at her, and the waves of guilt returned. “The second time it happened, I was nineteen and far less quick to brush it off and go back to doing everything Ulysses wanted me to do.”

“He did that to you
twice
?” Only then did Miriam realize how strong and possessive Cody’s arms around her had become. His fingers pressed into the flesh of her back as though he’d never let her go.

“I can’t prove anything,” she answered in a whisper. She swallowed and went on, more than ready to reach the end of her pathetic and sordid history. “We were in Nashville, performing in a traveling review, the first—and only—time he hit me.”

Cody’s body went rock-hard with fury. “He hit—”

“Shh.” She stopped him, wriggling her arm free of the cloak and his embrace to touch her fingers to his lips. “Yes, but by that point, I’d long since had enough. None of it was fun anymore. The nights with strange men had grown tedious and…unpleasant. I could barely stand the sight of Ulysses anymore. I could barely stand the sight of my own reflection.” She let her hand drop from his lips and lowered her head. “And I couldn’t fill the hole in my heart where those two babies I should have had could have been.” She huffed a bitter laugh. “And I kept telling everyone who asked that I didn’t want babies, that I didn’t want to settle down with one husband.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “I was wrong.” Her lower lip trembled as she squeezed those words out. “So much of my life before I ran away from Ulysses that night and found myself at Hurst Home was so, so wrong.”

“All of it,” Cody ground out. “It was wrong that you grew up alone. It was wrong that no one hugged you and sang you to sleep at night when you were a little girl.”

The image that blossomed in her heart—not of herself, but of a daughter being sung and rocked to sleep in Cody’s arms—sent tears spilling down Miriam’s face.

“I thought I had a chance to start over when Mrs. Breashears said there was a man in Wyoming looking for a bride.” She swallowed and looked down. “And then, when I was almost here, I was terrified at the thought of what would happen.”

“You mean, that I would found out about the way your life used to be and that I’d reject you?”

Miriam shook her head. “No, I was terrified that all those feelings I’d had before my life went sour would come back. I was afraid you wouldn’t be enough, that I might look for other men to love me too. Sometimes the pit in my soul that needs to be loved seems bottomless, like there will never be enough to fill it up.”

Cody’s arms tightened around her. “Only you know if that’s true, sweetheart, but right now, what I feel for you could fill up the Grand Canyon ten times over.”

With a strangled cry, Miriam flopped against him, letting him encompass her with his loving arms to the point where she couldn’t breathe. No one had ever said anything like that. She’d never expected anyone to. She’d never expected anyone to love her at all, let alone that much.

“I…I think you would be enough, Cody Montrose,” she declared in a wispy, uncertain voice. Saying it aloud was like blowing a warm, spring breeze across a barren field. Tiny shoots of new growth, new life, began to grow. “I think that if you loved me like you say you do—”

“I do, Miriam. I absolutely do.”

“—then I would never need anyone else. I would never be tempted to look for more. I…I don’t think I would need to keep running from who I used to be.”

“Don’t leave too much behind you.” He cradled her face, kissing her gently before adding, “I love you just the way you are.”

Her heart felt so light that she giggled. “You mean you like who I am now.”

“No.” He shook his head, kissing her again. “I love you, Miriam Long. I love all of you—this woman here in my arms, the wild, wanton woman who needed a man to protect her instead of exploit her all those years ago, and the lonely girl who needed someone to rely on. I love all of them, because all of them are you.”

He wasn’t squeezing her tight anymore, but Miriam still couldn’t breathe. “Oh, Cody.” Those were the only words she could manage. For the first time in her life, her soul felt clean, joyful. Not only was she absolutely certain Cody would catch her if she should ever fall, the fact that he loved her for her wanton past and not in spite of it was too precious a gift.

She surged against him, capturing his lips with her own, sliding her arms fully around his back. It didn’t matter how cold the cabin was or how far the fire still had to go to warm things up, she was burning with desire. This was a new passion, a passion that was so much more than skin deep. She wanted Cody with more than just her body. Her entire being called out to him.

“Make love to me, Cody.” She rolled her hips against his, twisting together with him so that he could settle between her legs. “Make love to me not like a man looking for fun, but like a husband loving his bride.”

“Like you got off that train back in November,” he agreed. “Like we’ve been married for all these months.”

Under the cloak, he stroked the lines of her body, looking for the fastenings of her skirt and blouse. Miriam sighed, lips and tongue tangling with his, and did the same. She found the buttons of his shirt and fumbled through them as fast as she could. As he loosened her skirt and petticoat and pushed them down over her hips, she undid the front of his trousers, reaching in to wrap her hands around him.

“I’m sorry.” She slowed the heady momentum they’d been building with the softly-whispered words.

“No.” He shook his head, tipping her back further until she lay on the couch, then tugged her skirts all the way off. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, sweetheart.”

He shrugged out of his coat—still managing to keep most of their swiftly-heating bodies wrapped up in the cloak—and Miriam pushed the suspenders from his shoulders. His trousers sagged loose, and she pushed them down, tugging up his shirt and spreading her hands across the hard muscles of his abdomen. Her body cried out for him, but she still hadn’t said everything she needed to say.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get off the train that day.” Her heartfelt apology was delivered between tender kisses. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust that you would be a good man who would love me for who I am.”

“You didn’t know me.” He worked on the buttons up the front of her shirt. “All you knew was that I’d done something wrong.” Constricted as they were, he couldn’t push her blouse all the way off her shoulders. He could unhook the front of her corset, however, and in no time he was also able to tug her chemise up to free her breasts. “I wasn’t exactly a trustworthy man at that point either,” he continued, panting as he caressed one of her breasts, flicking his thumb over her nipple.

Miriam groaned at the shock of pleasure his touch shot through her. The old, familiar urgency to react to him in ways that would heighten the pleasure for both of them returned, but it was different—so different—than it had ever been. She had been with men before, but she would never be with another man besides Cody ever again. Every wicked thing she’d learned in the mixed-up days of her youth was now his and his alone.

She arched her hips up into his even as she raked her hand down his back and over his backside. He growled at the sensation of her nails across the firm muscle of his backside, then gasped as she explored further, brushing across the sensitive and oft-forgotten skin where his legs joined to caress his sack.

“That’s different.” He gulped, widening his stance and swiveling just enough for her to caress him more fully. She giggled low in her throat, teasing her fingers up to play across the puckered flesh of another spot men like Cody often ignored. He jerked in surprise, and his penis jumped as it pressed against her thigh. “That’s really different.”

“Do you like it?” She couldn’t resist sending him a coy grin and pressing against the pucker as if she might plunge in.

A shudder swept through him, but for a moment, he didn’t seem to know what to do. Miriam wasn’t surprised. Most men she’d known didn’t even know how sensitive their own bodies could be, were unaware of their own hidden wonders. The prospect of teaching Cody those things had Miriam squirming with desire. But that could all wait.

“I like this,” Cody answered at length, squeezing her captive breast. It was her turn to gasp in surprise as he lightly pinched her nipple. “I like all of it.”

He shifted their position, the pressure of his hips between hers spreading her legs farther. She drew her hands up his back, pulling him closer for another, long kiss. They had so little room to maneuver with the cloak wrapped so tightly around them for warmth, but it hardly seemed to matter. She was aching with the need for him to fill her already, and the short, urgent thrusts Cody made against her thigh proved just how hard and ready he was.