Just This Once (34 page)

“He
raped
you?”

The murderous fury blazing in Ethan’s eyes
terrified her almost as much as the prospect of having him thrust
himself into her had.

“It wasn’t that exactly—not the way you
think. He forced me, yes. I hated him, but... we were married.”

Josie felt her heart pounding so fast, she
thought she would pass out. “Ethan,” she pleaded brokenly.
“I...”

“Let me get this straight. You married an
outlaw who beat you and forced you to—”

“He forced me to marry him.” Shame flooded
through her, hot and scalding. “I didn’t want to, but he would’ve
killed Pop Watson if I didn’t—and Pop was the closest I ever had to
a father! Ethan, don’t be angry with me. It was only for two weeks.
Then I ran away. Pop was dead and... I never loved Snake, I’ve only
loved you. I’ll try. I’ll try to let you do it to me and to like
it. I will.”

“Josie!”

She never wept openly before anyone, hadn’t
for as long as she could remember. Only in private—hot secret
tears, secret sobs. Now, though, tears burned her eyes, spilled
out. Her shoulders shook with pain-racked weeping.

“Please don’t stop loving me because I
married a man like him!” she gasped.

This time as he gathered her close he could
feel her entire body quaking—not with desire, he realized, but with
anguish that she might be rejected, thrust away yet again as she
had been over and over in her life. His arms enfolded her, holding
her against him as if he would never let her go.

“Shh, sweetheart. Shhh.”

She clung to him and sobbed, her face buried
in his chest.

“Cry it out then if you have to,” he told
her grimly. Female tears usually left him unmoved, but these burned
into him like scalding bullets. “It’s behind you now. It’s all
behind you.”

He thought of the life she’d known, the
loneliness, the thankless work, the scraping to get by and stay
alive without a home, without family to love or shelter her and at
last he thought of the desperation she must have known finding
herself at the mercy of a brute like Snake Barker.

A dam of pity and love burst inside him,
burst so fast and furious and icy cold, it rushed over him like a
Rocky Mountain falls.

“I’m going to go back there one day soon,
Josie, and hunt that animal down and send him straight to hell.”
His voice was a harsh cracked whisper against her hair. A vow. “But
before I let him die I’m going to—”

He broke off, deciding it was better she
didn’t know what he was going to do to Snake Barker before he
finally allowed him to die. A woman shouldn’t have to think about
such things.

“No, Ethan, don’t go near him!” Alarm chased
away the last of the receding sobs, and she lifted a pale,
tear-streaked face to his and threw her arms around his neck.

“You don’t know Snake—you don’t know what
he’s capable of. I don’t want you near him, anywhere near him!”

He was both touched and amused by her
concern for him. He had a mean reputation in the West and too many
notches on his guns to count. And he’d taken on enough vicious men
to understand how they thought, enabling him to predict their
actions ahead of time, which gave him a keen advantage. But he
didn’t want to upset Josie now by promises of revenge, especially
if she was going to worry about him.

It had been a long time since someone had
worried about him.

His hands curved around her nape and gently
massaged the tense muscles of her neck. “I’m not going anywhere
yet. Not till we’ve settled one or two more things.”

“What things?”

“Your marriage to this hombre. It was
legal?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Justice of the
peace. Just like ours.” She took a breath. “I wore that gingham
dress, the same one I had on when I picked your pocket.”

The misery in her eyes almost made him cut
short the questions, but there was more he had to know. “And did
you end it legal?” he asked carefully.

She shook her head.

Ethan’s breath whistled out sharply. “So,
damn it, you’re not even my wife.”

“But Ethan, we can still—” She stopped and
reached out, touching his face. “I feel like your wife. Lord knows,
I never felt like anything but a cook and a pack mule and a whore
to Snake Barker.”

She dropped her hands and swallowed back
another sob, covering it with a gasp and a sniffle. Then she pushed
back her hair, suddenly aware that she was buck naked and so was he
and they were half sitting, half lying on the bed, their bodies
curled together, brushing....

“Josie, what Snake did to you—it wasn’t
making love. You didn’t want him. It was rape.” The coldness in his
eyes now came from a place deep inside himself, a place she
couldn’t go. “And in the very near future,” he said softly, “I’m
going to kill him for it.”

As she started to protest, he placed a
gentle hand across her lips and smiled very tenderly but with great
firmness down into her eyes.

“No need to discuss that right now. It can
wait. Right now I’ve got some real good news for you.”

She moved his hand away, clasping it tight
in hers. “What news, Ethan? I could use some good news right about
now.”

“What you and Snake did together in your
marriage bed is nothing at all like what you and I are going to do
on this bed.”

As he spoke he eased her down across the
wide, fluffy bed, smoothing her hair out on the lace-edged pillow
and gazing down at her with a calm certainty that nearly burst
Josie’s heart in two with wanting him.

“We’ll do whatever you want,” she agreed
instantly. “The kissing part was just wonderful, and the touching,
and I can learn to like the other....”

He started to grin, then stopped himself,
and cupped her chin in his hand. “Do you trust me, Josie?”

“If I didn’t, do you think I’d have let you
take my clothes off and come this close to me after what I went
through with Snake?” she demanded softly, breathily, and then her
eyes met his and she spoke with fervent conviction.

“Yes, Ethan, I trust you.”

He drew a hand lovingly through her curls.
“Then believe me when I say I won’t hurt you—I’d never knowingly
hurt you.”

This time as his mouth descended on hers,
she met his kiss with eagerness, leaning forward, lips parted and
soft. She pulled him down atop her and stroked her hands through
his hair.

“I believe you,” she whispered against his
mouth.

Then her lips moved against his. Her breath
warmed his mouth, her tongue met his in a teasing, delectable
dance. With moonlight streaming over their coiled bodies, she slid
her hands across his shoulders, down his splendid back, inviting
him nearer, drawing him to her with magic, yearning touches.

The complete trust in her eyes, in her
yielding body as it melted against his, was like a jackhammer
through his gut.

“Josie, I’m going to love every inch of you
until you know the truth about what should be between a man and a
woman.” His mouth scorched a reckless path of kisses down her
throat. He found the trembling pulse in the hollow of her neck, and
brushed his lips against it, feeling it stir and flutter.

He vowed to find the strength to go slowly,
to cool his own rampaging want of her enough so that when he
claimed her, she would know nothing of pain, only ecstasy.

“I’m going to make you forget everything and
everyone,” he promised, and could have sworn he heard her whimper
with pleasure.

His hands were thumbing her nipples, doing
wondrous things to her breasts, while all the while his eyes
gleamed knowingly down at her and his lips dipped down her flesh to
nibble with tantalizing kisses and gentle bites.

“Please... do,” she managed to gasp before
he caught her mouth again and she had no breath left with which to
speak, no space in which to doubt.

And then the kisses deepened. And he began
to stroke her belly, her thighs, the soft, dark bed of her
womanhood, his hand steady and slow and deliciously arousing. Josie
was lost. Deliciously, intoxicatingly lost.

She made a mewing sound, low and soft and
female, deep in her throat, and saw him smile.

His hands kneaded, caressed. He was
awakening sensations that made Josie blink and gasp with wonder.
Moaning, she lifted her hips, shifted, and felt her breath stop as
his fingers slid inside her. Soft, velvet fire licked through
her.

She clung to him, inhaling the scent and
warmth and strength of him as his mouth trailed lower, exploring
uncharted paths.

Sensation after sensation swam through her.
She shuddered beneath the onslaught of his hands, his lips, his
teeth, and heard herself begging him, though she knew not for
what.

Certainly not to stop.

The marvel of it enveloped her as he slowly,
relentlessly aroused every inch of her vibrating body. What was he
doing to her? In the name of heaven.

Heaven. That was it, Josie thought, with the
last shreds of reason fleeing her spinning mind.
He’d abducted
her to heaven.

When he took her hand and moved it lower, so
that she touched the hardness of his shaft, she felt her fingers
tremble. But there was no fear in her, only longing, a ragged
longing as she stroked him and explored.

Ethan knew when she was ready, and he knew
when she had reached the point of nearly unbearable pleasure. His
own heated need had been doused in patience, but now it was flaring
like a torch. He wanted her so badly, he ached in places he’d never
ached before. Her damp, flushed skin and glazed eyes beckoned him,
her luscious body, slick and welcoming, was about to discover the
difference between a clumsy brute who used an unwilling woman for
his own pleasure, and a man who knew how to drive a woman he loved
to the edge of distraction, to the very brink of out-of-control
desire, and then tip them both over the cliff into a plunging
delirium.

“Ethan, oh, Ethan.” Her mouth was muffled
against his shoulder as he shifted his weight, levering himself
with his arms.

“Scared, Josie? Don’t be, sweetheart. I
won’t hurt you.”

“Scared... ummm...” she gasped, wrapped in
fire. “I’m scared you’ll stop. And scared where this... is
headed.”

“It’s time you found out where it’s headed.
Where we’re both headed,” he whispered, his eyes glinting down at
her with fierce love. He lowered himself to the willing, arching
warmth of her and felt her trembling welcome as he slid inside.

He felt her every quiver, absorbed every
moan into his pores. Her eyes were shining with need, bluer than
any ocean. Her skin was damp and fragrant like an awakening flower,
and as he plunged in deeper, and plunged again, taking all of her,
becoming one with her, their hearts began to race in unison.

And they began to soar. Faster and faster,
higher and higher, crashing through space and time and the
boundaries of joy. With her arms enfolding him, clinging to him,
and their lips seared together, they flew through sweet chaos, past
aching, explosive need, beyond what either had known of desire.

Josie felt her senses reeling. It was like
plummeting down a tunnel. Nothing at all like before.

This was sheer raw pleasure, soaring
rapture... this was love, love, love....

Then she could think of nothing as sensation
after sensation caught her up in a delicious whirlwind. Her legs
wrapped around him, gripping him with frantic urgency, her hips
arced and writhed. The earth rocked and the world fell away, and
she and Ethan spun into midnight blackness and dizzying blinding
light and heaven was a glimmer at the end of the tunnel and she was
flying toward it, crying and thrusting and rejoicing.

They slammed into that glimmer and exploded.
Together—breathless and shuddering and holding to each other for
dear life—they embraced the wonder of the moment. Their separate
selves joined and clung and then in unison shattered—shattered into
a glorious shower of sharp, bright, and radiantly falling
stars.

* * *

Josie awoke to a seashell-pink dawn floating
through the last shadows of night. Creamy light stole through the
window of her room and across the pale carpet. It touched the bed,
bathing her and Ethan in a delicate morning glow as they lay
peacefully entwined.

Her head rested against Ethan’s broad chest.
Their legs were tangled, and the bedclothes were scattered wildly
on the floor.

Josie had never felt so comfortable.

Beside her, Ethan’s skin felt smooth and
warm. She remembered all that they had known together here
throughout the night, remembered every joyful moment, and she could
no more keep from smiling than she could stop herself from drawing
breath.

She let out a sigh of pure contentment,
thinking Ethan asleep. But his leg immediately draped over hers
when she let out that sigh, as if to keep her there, close, and she
knew instinctively he, too, was awake.

“Ethan?”

“I’ve been thinking.” He spoke quietly, his
breath ruffling her hair. “You’ve kept a lot of loneliness locked
inside you, Josie. A hell of a lot of pain. With everything you’ve
known and had to go through, I don’t know how you’ve kept such an
open heart.”

“You have one too.” She pushed herself up on
an elbow and smiled at him. “I knew all along that you were just
trying to appear tough and mean and ornery on the outside, but that
deep inside you were a little itty-bitty pussycat—oh!”

She gave a stifled shriek as he tugged her
over and down atop him, wrapping his sinewy legs about her so she
couldn’t escape.

“Maybe more like a tiger,” she gasped
laughingly as he placed one hand behind her head and pressed her
face down toward his. He savaged her mouth with a long, devouring
kiss that left her mouth bruised and aching for more.

When he let her breathe again, she leaned
both palms on his shoulders and nipped softly with her teeth at his
dark-stubbled jaw.