Rexanne Becnel (32 page)

Slowly he pushed in, stretching her, filling her until she thought he would tear her apart. She wanted to make him stop. He was too big. She couldn’t do this.

But his kiss kept her still. His tongue delighted and distracted her, and with every stroke of his tongue he also stroked a little deeper into her down there. Then his hand slid between their two sweat-slicked bodies to tease and please that other secret place as he’d done before, and she felt a shameful rush of moisture low inside her. Only then was he able to slide fully inside her.

It hurt, but just a little. He lifted his face and cupped her head with both hands now, simply resting inside her for a long moment. It was the most intense emotional connection that she’d ever experienced. They were physically joined together, as God intended man and woman to be joined. But Abby had never figured on the purity of such a connection. The bone-deep rightness of it.

Their gazes met and clung. He smoothed a bit of hair back from her brow as his eyes searched her face. Then he moved ever so slightly, just the merest shifting of his hips, and Abby moaned in involuntary pleasure.

“Oh, Tanner …”

“Tell me, Abby,” he whispered as he moved again, just a little more than before. “Tell me. Do you like this?”

She nodded, scarcely able to breathe as he did it again.

“Slower? Faster?” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, then dipped it into her mouth, wet it, and rubbed her moisture over her own lips.

“Both,” she breathed, unable to be logical under such a sensual assault. She ran her hands down his side, tracing the bone and hard muscle with fleeting touches. When her hands reached his buttocks, she hesitated only a moment before sliding them there too.

At once his thrusts grew harder, and she gasped in blind pleasure. It was as if their passions each fed upon the other. She touched him and he responded, then that forced her to some new level of excitement, which in turn drew from him an even more urgent response, until it seemed they were gripped in a race. Thundering together in a great, heaving effort. Coming stroke upon stroke. Until once more that wild peak raised before her. Wilder. Higher. She could never make it—

But then she did in a frenzied burst, their sweaty bodies doing together what they could not do alone. Into a fiery heaven they leaped together. Her body shook in violent tremors. His heart thundered against hers. His big body plunged again, then once more, but less forceful.

The energy left them both, fled as fast as it had come, leaving in its stead an incredible weakness and warmth. But it was good, too, perfect in its own right.

Tanner’s head rested in the curve of her neck and shoulder. His body shuddered from his effort as he sucked in great gasps of air.

Abby’s hand slid along his back, feeling the dampness, measuring in her dreamy state every breath he took. So this was what the joys of the marriage bed were. She smiled to herself as the wonder of it sank home.

No wonder they hid this truth from unmarried maidens.

S
HE’D OVERSLEPT
.

Abby’s mind came awake abruptly. The sun was well into its climb across the sky. The fire hissed low and steady, a sign it had burned awhile. Why hadn’t anyone awakened her?

When she stretched, she had her answer. She was naked beneath a well-worn woolen blanket. Under her was another blanket of the same vintage, and then a bed of grass and earth. A small gasp of realization caught in her throat, and her heart quickened in panic—or was it remembered passion? She was naked. Her hair fell loose and tangled; she’d not even braided it for bed.

She closed her eyes and fought the urge to pull the blanket over her head. Bother her braid. She’d lain with a man last night in the way a woman lies only with her husband. Only he was not her husband.

She took a fortifying breath and felt the odd sensation of the coarse blanket pulling across her bare skin. Dear God, she’d truly done it now.

Only where was Tanner?

It took all her courage to open her eyes and warily glance about. She lay below the outstretched branches of two monstrous cottonwood trees. The welcome smell of coffee wafted to her from the nearby fire. Tanner had been busy, it seemed. But where was he? Then again perhaps she should consider his absence a blessing.

Acting on that thought, she sat bolt upright, snatched up her chemise and petticoat, which lay forgotten in the grass beside her and in an instant donned them. Her blouse was next, though it sported dried wisps of last year’s grasses and the silver threads of a spider’s web. She had only one arm in the sleeve of that rumpled garment, however, when Tanner suddenly came into view. Upon spying him she froze in place.

He froze, too, or rather he paused for one long moment. Then with a carefully blank expression on his face he continued toward the fire, carrying water in two tin cups.

Abby could have died of humiliation. She would willingly have sunk down into the ground—all the way to China, as he’d teased her the very first time she’d met him, when he’d plucked her out of the mud. The Song of Solomon had not forewarned her. How did one handle this most awkward of moments on the morning after?

Tanner set the cups down slowly, keeping his face averted. Giving her time to dress, she belatedly realized. She jammed her other arm into the second sleeve, then hastily stepped into her skirt and pulled it up. But even her garments seemed to conspire against her, for the skirt twisted backward, and the unbuttoned ends of the blouse would not cooperate when she tried to tuck them in. Her fingers trembled to the point of complete clumsiness and her cheeks burned hot with shame.

It took forever. Eventually, however, she managed to get herself decently covered, though
decent
was a relative term, she understood when she finally looked up at him. He was decently covered too. His denim trousers and chambray shirt were just as they should be. But he was different to her now. She knew about the warm skin beneath that well-mended shirt. She’d felt the hairs on his chest against her own smoother flesh and the bunched power of his buttocks as he’d moved over her.

Her skin burned with heat to remember such things, yet Abby could not look away from him. She knew him now, in the biblical sense. And he knew her. So how were they supposed to behave toward each other?

It was the same question that had bedeviled Tanner since he’d risen at dawn.

How was he to behave toward Abby now that he’d taken her innocence? For all the women he’d bedded in the fifteen years since that very first time, not one had been a virgin. Not one had been a schoolteacher, either, he realized. Nor had any of them been churchgoers. Certainly none of them had been the sought-after daughter of the richest man in Illinois.

But when he’d awakened with her beside him, sweet and warm, fast asleep between his two blankets, he’d been hard-pressed to think of all the reasons why she should not be there. He’d remembered instead that for all her innocence, she’d been a surprisingly passionate lover.

No, not so surprising. He’d seen flashes of it before. In their brief kisses. In her temper. She’d been innocent of a man’s touch, true. But she’d been more than ripe for it. But now that he’d touched—and tasted, and more—how was he supposed to treat her?

She fancied she was falling in love with him. He knew it and in too many ways he’d encouraged her. But the fact was she’d turned to him in fear last night. She’d needed comfort and he’d wanted to give it. In the light of day, however, when cool heads could prevail, their differences had never seemed greater. He was a hired killer. Women like her had no future with men like him. He knew it. Her father had known it. And Willard Hogan would know it too.

“There’s coffee,” he said, more curtly than he needed to.

She swallowed. He watched the convulsive workings of her smooth throat and the rapid rise and fall of her chest, all the while damning himself for a fool. First he bedded her. Now he treated her as if it had meant nothing to him.

But then, it
didn’t
mean anything to him, he reminded himself. It couldn’t. And it shouldn’t mean anything to her either.

He gestured to the dark enameled pot propped up in the fire. “Better wash up and get something to eat. We’ve got to get going.”

He watched her draw herself up, as if it were a painful act just to take a deep breath and straighten her back. Then she blinked and turned abruptly away from him.

Tanner nearly went after her. He was hurting her, when that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. But going after her would only make it worse than it already was; he knew it even though he hated it. He spun away, not able to bear the stiffness in her slender back, the jerky stride as she made her way toward the stream. He strode past the fire, then slammed his fist into the trunk of one of the trees.

The sharp pain that shot from his knuckles up his arm helped. A little. Pain at least helped him face reality. Pain was a constant in everyone’s life. You learned to live with it or you died.

Every woman he’d ever slept with had been a survivor. Most of them used their bodies to bargain their way through life, and if it pained them to do it, well, at least they were alive. By contrast Abby had lived a painless existence. Loved and sheltered by her parents, it wasn’t until her mother had died that she’d known any pain at all. Then her father had died—just two days ago. And now she’d lost her innocence to the wrong man. He stole a glance at her. She was in pain now, but it was for the best, he told himself. She’d better get strong now, or she wouldn’t survive later.

It was as simple as that.

Abby walked on bare feet to the edge of the rain-swollen creek, then followed it upstream until the scoured-out bank hid Tanner from her view. Only then did she allow a pent-up sob to escape—and then it was repressed and very small. Last night he’d made her feel …
cherished
was the only word that came to mind. He’d protected her from those horrible men, then made love to her in the most thrilling and yet tender fashion imaginable. She’d known he didn’t love her. But cherish her? Yes, that was it.

Now, though, he acted as if he didn’t give a damn about her.

Yet what did she truly expect? He’d been manipulating her from the very first. Lying to her—or at the very least misleading her. Using her. Last night he’d just used her again.

But even she couldn’t blame last night’s events entirely on him. She had wanted him desperately. She still did. Oh, but she was a fool.

With steely resolve she quelled any further hint of tears. Instead she lifted her bedraggled skirts and waded straight out into the narrow, rushing stream.

The shock of the ice-cold water on her flushed skin brought a sharp gasp to her lips. But she lifted her skirts higher still, past her knees, and waded in farther.

As cold as the surging waters were, Abby was suddenly obsessed with the idea of a bath. All the warm feelings she’d felt for Tanner now seemed a bad joke. Now she just felt dirty and abandoned. And stupid. What was wrong with her that he always managed to make her behave so stupidly?

A jolt of anger prodded her to action, and with a yank she pulled her skirts over her head and tore them free. Her blouse came next, minus a button or two. But she didn’t care. With one furious movement she threw both garments to the shore, then, without a second’s thought, sank up to her chin in the torrent.

For a day that promised to be blisteringly hot, the water was frigid beyond all expectations. Yet Abby didn’t care. She took a few short breaths, trying to get used to the freezing cold, then dunked her head.

By the time she’d scrubbed her hair, her face, and her entire body with the ragged end of her chemise, Abby was no longer so cold. Her self-esteem was marginally restored as well—or so she thought as she wrung out the drenched length of her hair. But as she sat on the grassy bank, clad only in the wet chemise, finger-combing her hair as best she could, Tanner appeared. Whatever composure she’d recovered fled at his first glance.

He held her comb and brush in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. When he spied her, however, he stopped so fast, the coffee sloshed over the rim and onto his hand.

Abby glared at him. What difference did it make if he saw her now? she asked herself. He’d seen more. He’d seen everything—she’d made certain of that, fool that she was. She lifted her chin and gave him her coldest, most condemning stare. What further did she have to lose?

Tanner gaped for a moment, then lowered his eyes to his hand. He’d scalded his fingers with the steaming coffee.
Good,
she thought uncharitably.

“I … I’ll leave your … your things here,” he muttered. Before Abby could wonder why he’d followed her—and why he’d bothered to bring her hairbrush and comb from her wagon in the first place—he set everything down, spun on his heel, and strode away.

At once Abby’s resolution dissolved. What in heaven’s name was he trying to do to her? How could he be so charming and yet deceive her about his true purposes? How could he seduce her so passionately, then freeze her out the next morning? And now to be so thoughtful of her needs …

But then, that had always been his way, hadn’t it? He’d kept her in a constant state of turmoil, luring her closer, then pushing her away. Then last night … last night she’d gotten way too close.

“Dear Father in heaven,” she whispered the prayer. Then she realized what she’d said, and all her misery seemed to become compounded. God the Father was in heaven, but so was her own dear father. To whom did she make her desperate plea, her tearful confession?

Her father had warned her about Tanner, but she’d been too smart, too sassy and sure of herself, to listen. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she murmured, her head bowed in desolation. Slow, hot tears leaked from beneath her eyelashes to splash on her tightly clenched fists. “I’m so sorry.”

She sat that way a long while, praying. Apologizing. Resolving to learn from this terrible mistake. By the time she squared her shoulders and looked about, the trailing ends of her hair were drying, lifting in the slowly heating breeze. Her chemise, too, was dry on her shoulders and the upper swells of her breasts.