Promises Reveal (18 page)

“I don’t need anything except to be left alone.”

The look Brad sent her clearly said, “Shut up.”

She gave an experimental tug. There was no breaking his grip.

“We’ll be discussing what you need when I get you home.”

Herschel collected his dignity from whatever corner he’d stashed it in, straightened his vest, and pulled himself to his unimpressive height. “Good morning, Reverend.”

“Morning yourself, Herschel. Thanks for taking the time to answer my wife’s questions. What do I owe you?”

“Not a thing.” Herschel came halfway around the desk. He had delicate hands, almost feminine. They trailed along the wood surface. “New brides are often subject to fits of nerves.”

Herschel lived with his mother, had never been looked upon with favor by any of the women in town, despite the stability of his financial position, yet he stood there on the other side of that desk talking as if he were an authority on wives and women? Evie wished she’d dumped the ink on his head.

Evie jerked her arm. She might as well have been tugging against iron. “I’m not hysterical.”

Brad, darn his hide, just kept smiling that same pleasant smile he’d been wearing since he walked in the door. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He still didn’t look at her. “And, Herschel?”

“What?”

“You touch my wife again and I’ll kill you.”

For a moment Herschel and Evie had something in common. Utter shock. Herschel recovered quicker.

“I was only—”

Brad cut him off, still talking in that easy drawl. “I’m aware a man can fool himself sometimes with the ‘onlys.’ That’s why I gave you the warning.” He tipped his hat. “Have a good day.”

While Evie gaped, Brad spun her toward the door so fast, her satchel flew outward. She relaxed her muscles, letting centrifugal force propel it into the tall, overloaded bookcase on the adjacent wall. It hit and snagged. The bookcase teetered, groaned. Brad glanced back before yanking her forward two steps. The heavy piece came down where she had been standing. Hershel swore. Brad pushed her out onto the wooden sidewalk. Evie blinked against the brightness of sunlight. Behind them Herschel yelled. Beside her Brad sighed.

“Guess we’ll have a long ride to the next lawyer if we have the need.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“You didn’t behave much better.”

“You didn’t give me a choice.”

“Only because I knew you were on the verge of getting hysterical.”

“I’ve never had a hysterical day in my life.” His much longer legs ate up distance faster than hers. She had to skip to keep up. “And what were the threats all about?”

For the first time, Brad looked at her. His blue eyes were icy. Anger etched the lines bracketing the sides of his mouth. A chill went down her spine.

“I don’t make threats.”

She stopped tugging on her arm. The man was furious. “Preachers don’t kill people.”

“No one touches you.”

It was probably completely wrong to find that statement arousing, but she did. To the point that more of her own anger slid aside. No man was that possessive over a disappointment. “Not even you?”

His nostrils flared and he came to a stop. People turned and stared. Evie didn’t care. For once, she was seeing the real Brad, the one who kept emerging in her paintings. Deeply elemental, primitively masculine. Exciting. She shivered in a purely feminine reaction. Brad’s gaze narrowed as he followed the betraying gesture. He pulled her up onto her toes against the solid strength of his body. “You, Evie darling, are going to wear my brand all over that sweet little body.”

Her knees gave out. “Oh.”

The right corner of his gorgeous mouth tipped up. “Anything else you want to know?”

She shook her head.

“Good.” Stepping down into the street, he switched his grip to her waist and swung her down beside him. There wasn’t a thing improper about the way he did it, but everything in her snapped to vibrant, yearning attention. She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth. “Where are we going?”

His arm came around her waist. “Home, so I can deal with your hysteria.”

She planted her feet so hard dust rose up. “I am
not
hysterical.”

“Trust me, you want me stewing on the fact you’re hysterical rather than the fact that you have just, for the third time in twenty-four hours, humiliated me.”

His arm tightened and he propelled her forward. The satchel bumped awkwardly against her knee. “Me? Humiliate you? You’re the one who took off in the middle of the night.”

“For a damn good reason.” He steered around Homer and Brian where they sat outside the now quiet saloon. “Morning, gentlemen.”

“Morning, preacher.” The only greeting they gave her was a reproving glare.

She glared right back. “For your information, he’s the one in the wrong.”

Homer spat tobacco juice to the side. “You don’t say? The preacher?”

Brad didn’t slow down for the conversation, forcing her to yell over her shoulder, “Yes!”

“I don’t think they believe you,” Brad grunted, as he waited for her to step back onto the high wooden walk. “Must be your reputation is worse than mine after all.”

That stung. The church loomed before them. She blinked rapidly to keep the tears out of her eyes, not wanting him to see. One got past her control. She rubbed at it with her shoulder. Brad would choose precisely that moment to look down.

“Shit.”

He reached for the doorknob of the church door. She braced her feet. With a simple heft, he popped her off the ground. In the space of a heartbeat, they were inside. The dark interior was cool compared to the heat outdoors, the sudden dimness blinding. Evie only had a second to register the place was empty before Brad hefted her up onto the small table just inside the door. With a push of his hand he tumbled her back. There was barely enough time to catch her weight on her elbows before her skirts flew up over her face. As she fought to push the material aside, Brad’s hands smoothed up the inside of her thighs. Her breath lodged in her throat. With a frantic look at the door, she gasped, “What are you doing?”

His drawl was as deep as his touch was potent. Last night had trained her in many things, including what that low rumble meant. His fingers flirted with the slit in her drawers. Inner muscles contracted in delight before relaxing in anticipation. “Curing your hysterics.”

She shoved the skirt down, managing a swat at his head before she had to brace herself again. The table rattled. Brad chuckled. “For the last time, I’m
not
hysterical.”

His “I disagree” was muffled under the folds of material. The rasp of his morning beard against her inner thighs stole her argument. The instant his tongue touched her flesh, hot and moist, fire licked across her nerve endings, racing up her spine, spreading to her breasts, raising goose bumps, anticipation, before plunging back down to gather in her core. Her nails scraped across the polished wood as he dragged her forward. The satchel hit the floor with a loud thud.

Another pass, another gasp. “This is the cure for hysteria?”

She was sore, but he was tender, laving her gently, finding those spots he’d trained to respond to him last night, stimulating them, her. His shoulders wedged beneath her thighs. “Only one known for the female variety.”

It was only natural that her legs draped over his shoulders, that her ankles crossed, that her knees spread wider. Natural that she gave him greater access. Even more natural that he took complete advantage of it.

Cotton tore again as he made room for the press of his mouth. The church door rattled under the breeze. She almost jumped out of her skin. From the corner of her eye the cross over the altar loomed.

“We’re going to hell for this.”

His tongue slipped between her folds in a leisurely pass. “It’ll be a fun trip.”

“You’re angry at me.”

“Getting less annoyed by the minute.” His tongue laved, lips kissed, teeth nipped.

She gasped under the searing bolt of lightning that shot deep. “Someone could come in.”

“Then you’d better pay attention and get over your hysteria fast, because I’m not stopping until you do.”

The door shifted again. Dust motes drifted in the thin beam of light. She knew how they felt. Ever since she’d met Brad she’d been floating along, subject to forces she didn’t understand. Still was, because despite the fact that she just knew somebody would come in that door and catch her with her legs spread and her husband kneeling between them, desire outgrew caution. “Someone will see. It’ll be humiliating.”

The cool silk of his hair slid up her right thigh as his mouth pressed against her left. There was a slight suction and then a sharp stab of pleasure, which left her gasping and clutching his head to her long after he ended that particular kiss. “No more humiliating than my friends thinking I’ve got a penis the size of a smidge or the whole town thinking my wife wants a divorce because I didn’t satisfy her in bed.”

“No one thinks that!”

“The hell they don’t.” He didn’t sound angry. Why didn’t he sound angry? Working his hands under her buttocks, he lifted her to his mouth, each word a heady invitation to the joy only he offered. “Now, I want you to concentrate on coming for me.”

“I can’t,” she gasped, her eyes locked on the door.

His tongue flicked over that high point at the top of her mound that held all the sensation in the world. Desire shot through her again like lightning across the summer sky, flashing and flickering.

He rubbed his chin against the flesh he’d so recently kissed. Lightning turned to fireworks at the delicate scrape. “Then I guess I’m going to have myself a long, leisurely lunch.”

Another breath-stealing pass of his tongue. “Oh God.”

“God’s not going to help you here, Evie. I’m all you’ve got to hold on to, so give me what I want. Give me those sweet little cries as you come.”

She didn’t have a choice. Where before he had been gentle, now he was voracious, a predator intent on devouring his prey, stalking her response, tracking every catch in her breath, herding her desire into a tight ball that pulsed and expanded with each lap, each nip, adding the rasp of his beard, the edge of his teeth, until she was twisting on the table, pulling him closer with her legs, trying to get the pressure where she needed it, craved it. “Brad!”

“Right here.” His fingers slipped inside the aching emptiness of her pussy, first one and then another. “Come, now.”

She did, reality splintering away on the next thrust, hurtling her out of herself into the wildness beyond.

It could have been seconds or minutes later that she became aware of her surroundings again and blinked. She was facedown over the table. The weight of her skirts were piled on her back and her legs dangled off the edge, her toes just touching the floor. The table creaked as Brad’s hand came down beside her cheek. As the palm flattened on the smooth surface, his cock pressed intimately. Her muscles clenched. With her passion satisfied, she was once again aware of the precariousness of their location. She closed her legs, trapping the hard ridge of his cock between.

“Brad . . .”

A hot sting spread through her right buttock in a burning heat. “Open for me.”

She reared up. Her hair fell over her face as she tried to look over her shoulder. “Did you just spank me?”

A foot kicked hers apart and she lost her leverage, falling forward over the table. “Yup. And if you play your cards right, I’ll do it again.”

She didn’t know if she wanted him to do it again. “We can’t do this.”

“Too late.” The small, sweet sting came again, but this time the heat went deeper, lingered in her womb before spreading to her clit, and she had her answer. Again was shockingly good. “This is already happening.”

And it was. In a slow steady glide, his cock parted her swollen tissues. The burn was delicious, the mixture of pain and pleasure almost too much for her mind to absorb. Her muscles clamped down. Brad grunted. This time he didn’t stop at one spank. There were two, three, four, and with every spank came the pulse of pleasure, the mesmerizing prelude that melted her resistance until she couldn’t remember why she’d been fighting.

She pushed back. “Oh heavens.”

The next spank came hard and hot on the heels of the previous, ripping through her resistance as the force of the following thrust shot her forward again. The table hit the wall. His thighs hit her buttocks, his cock a depth she didn’t know was possible. Her shriek was little more than a tangle of sounds. He didn’t back off, just held himself there, as his big body came over hers. His hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. His lips grazed her cheek, the corner of her mouth, the line of her jaw. “More?”

Oh God, she couldn’t take more. He was so deep. She shook her head.

He growled. “Yes.” His mouth closed over the chord of her neck, sucking hard. “All of me, Evie.”

Everything in her responded to the primitive declaration, rose to the challenge. The tendons in her neck strained to improve the angle of his kiss, the muscles in her thighs struggled to push her hips higher, her pussy ached to stretch wider, to take that last inch . . .

A knock came at the door. “Evie?”

Oh dear heavens.
Her mother! She tried to twist away.

Brad held her firm. The door rattled, hit something. “No.”

His foot, she realized. He was holding the door shut with his foot. She tried to remember how big his feet were. He pulled out, the thick length of his shaft caressing every nerve along the way, and she gave up. They had to be big enough. He forged inexorably back in, the force dragging her clit across the edge of the table. She bit her lip on a small cry.

“Yes,” he muttered, tilting her head back a fraction more, watching her expression as her muscles rippled around him. “Take me just like that.

“My mother—”