Schulze, Dallas (21 page)

His mouth caught her soft cry of surprise as his fingers slid
through the soft thicket of curls, finding the damp heat of her.

Bishop felt the slick moisture of her arousal against his fingers
and groaned softly. She was incredibly responsive, like a fine instrument tuned
to his touch. The lightest stroke of his fingertip had her arching against him,
a whimper of pleasure leaving her throat. It was like holding a flame in his
hands, her skin burning to his touch. She whimpered again and his control
snapped.

He lifted himself over her, his legs sliding between hers, opening
her to him. His arousal pressed against the silken nest of auburn curls and
Lila went still, her green eyes staring up at him, wide and full of sudden
uncertainty. Every nerve in his body screamed for him to complete their union,
but he forced himself to stillness. Though she carried his child, she was far
from experienced. Bracing his weight on his elbows, he wound his fingers into
her hair, his eyes holding hers.

“Look at me,” he said.

As if she could do anything else, Lila thought dazedly. He filled
her vision. Lost in the brilliant blue of his eyes, she forgot how to breathe,
forgot how to think. Forgot everything but the slow, steady pressure of him
easing into her body. This was what it had been like before—the sensation of
emptiness filled, of being completed, made whole in a way she’d never known
possible. This was what she’d been afraid to remember.

Her body gloved him as if made for him alone, Bishop thought as he
sheathed himself with her. He closed his eyes for an instant, gathering the
tattered threads of his control. This was the way it had been the first time,
this feeling of coming home to the place he’d always been meant to be. It had
haunted all too many of his dreams and filled him with a sense of loss he
hadn’t been able to shake.

Lila’s hands clung to his back, feeling the dampness of sweat and
the ripple of muscles as he began to move over her. Instinctively she echoed
that movement, her body arching to welcome each thrust. The soft drag of
withdrawal was an exquisite torture only partially soothed when he filled her
once again. Tension coiled within her, growing tighter and harder each time the
pattern was repeated.

Her entire world was reduced to this room, this bed, this man. Her
vision was filled with Bishop’s face, with the searing blue of his eyes. Layers
of sensation built one upon the other, each more exquisite than the last, each
adding to the tension spiraling inside her. Her movements took on a frantic
edge, her breath coming in soft little pants. She was striving toward
something, something she had to have, had to have now.

“Please.” She couldn’t have said what she was asking for but she
knew it was within his power to give it to her. “Please,” she whispered again.

Looking down at her, Bishop felt a purely masculine sense of
triumph. Her face was flushed as if with fever and her eyes were a deep, smoky
green, unfocused and looking inward as her slender body strained toward the
peak that lay just beyond her reach. At another time, he might have slowed the
pace, drawing out the moment. But he’d spent too many months thinking about
her, too many nights wanting her. His patience was gone, his self-control
stretched thin.

He slid one hand beneath her bottom, tilting her to receive him
more fully. He thrust once, twice. Her eyes widened, the breath catching in her
throat as she reached the goal toward which she’d been striving. Bishop felt
her body tighten around his, delicate contractions gripping him, dragging him
into the maelstrom of her climax. With a groan, he gave into his own burning
need. His body arched into hers, shuddering as the heavy pulse of completion
took him.

Joined together, they tumbled headlong into pleasure. Bishop’s
only coherent thought was that she was his. Finally and completely his.

Lila stepped out of the hotel and onto the boardwalk. Twilight
pulled a dusky veil over the town, softening the harsh edge of reality and
lending an air of solidity to the false-front buildings that daylight refused
to grant them.

“You seem to be in something of a hurry,” Bishop said as he
stepped through the door behind her.

“It’s impolite to be late.” She pretended to be absorbed in
arranging the strings of her reticule just so around her wrist.

“It’s no more than five minutes away, even if we crawl.”

“That would make something of a spectacle, don’t you think?” It
was a humorless response to his light comment, but she wasn’t in the mood to be
amused. At least not by anything her husband had to say. And he was her husband
in every sense of the word, she thought, memories of the afternoon sweeping
over her. She’d been quite thoroughly made a wife, not just once but twice.
Worse than that was the fact that she’d been an eager participant both times.
And as if that wasn’t enough, there was the fact that Clem Lyman had come
looking for Bishop and found him in her room.

“Are you still upset about me answering the door when Clem
knocked?” Bishop asked, reading her thoughts with disturbing accuracy.

“I don’t know what he must have thought, finding you in my room
like that,” she muttered, still fussing with the strings of her reticule.

“I doubt he thought much at all. I was dressed. And even if I
hadn’t been, I don’t think he’d have been too shocked. We
are
married,”
he pointed out.

As if she could forget, Lila thought. There wasn’t an inch of her
that didn’t bear the stamp of his possession. She was tender in places she’d
been taught not to think about, aware of her body in a way she’d never
imagined. After he’d left in response to Clem’s summons, she’d taken a sponge
bath, using her cold bathwater, but it would take more than soap and water to
wash away the memory of his touch. And her own passionate response.

“Considering you’re the one who told me about Mr. Lyman’s
propensity for gossip, I should think you’d be more concerned with his reaction
to finding you in my room,” she said, aware that her tone verged on prissy.

She jumped when Bishop caught her chin in his hand, tilting her
face up to his. Even in the dusky light, the vivid blue of his eyes was clearly
visible. “You’re the only one who thinks my presence in your room is news. If
anything is likely to excite comment, it’s the fact that we’re in separate
rooms. If you’re so concerned about the possibility of gossip, maybe we should
put the children in my room and I could move into yours,” he said softly. He
brushed his thumb across her mouth, which was tender and slightly swollen from
his kisses. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about what Clem would think if he
found us in the same room. Or in the same bed.”

There was an unmistakable sensual threat in the words. His touch
was a reminder of how little she’d objected to his presence in her bed just a
few hours ago. Lila stared up at him, mesmerized by the look in his eyes, her
entire being concentrated on the light pressure of his thumb against her lower
lip. She felt herself leaning toward him, her body going soft and pliant as
hunger stirred deep inside. It took a conscious effort to drag her gaze from
his and turn her face away from his touch.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to change our
arrangements,” she said breathlessly. “The children are nicely settled. There’s
no sense in moving them around.”

It was a thin excuse at best but, to her intense relief, Bishop
accepted it without argument. “We’ll be moving soon enough” was all he said.

“Good,” Lila said without conviction. Living in the hotel meant
that her every move was under the scrutiny of Clem and Dottie. But moving into
a house would mean sharing a room with Bishop. After this afternoon, that was a
prospect fraught with even more hazards than she’d realized. It was one thing
to resist his desires, something else altogether to resist her own. She didn’t
like the fact that, with little more than a look and a touch, he could make her
forget everything but the need to have him hold her. She’d never felt that way
before, not even with Billy. And she had loved him.

They didn’t speak again during the walk to the Sundays’. They
passed a few people on the street but no one showed any inclination to stop and
talk. Most of the businesses had closed for the day, except the saloons, and it
would be a couple of hours before they hit their full stride. The town was
quiet, at peace. Lila wished she felt the same.

The minister’s home in Paris was a far cry from the elegant stone
rectory occupied by Reverend Carpenter back home in Pennsylvania. The white
paint had begun to fade and one of the green shutters hung at a drunken angle,
courtesy of Bridget’s oldest son who’d attempted to climb onto the roof using
the shutter as a ladder.

Reverend Carpenter had taken considerable pride in the beauty of
the gardens surrounding the rectory. They had been started by one of his
predecessors and had been admired even before he took over the ministry, but
he’d taken it upon himself to improve upon them, installing a sunken rose
garden and an elegant allée of maples leading up to the rectory itself. All for
the glorification of the Lord, of course, he’d insisted modestly.

Joseph Sunday was also a plant lover, but he preferred to study
them in their natural element. Spring through fall, he spent a great deal of
his spare time tramping through the local mountains, sketching the native
plants and observing their growth habits. Bridget had proudly shown Lila some
of his drawings. She’d been impressed by his ability to re-create every detail
of leaf and bud, making the black-and-white sketch seem almost alive. But he
wasn’t much inclined toward planting and tending gardens of the traditional
sort. The closest the Sunday home came to a formal garden was a somewhat
scraggly rosebush that occupied pride of place next to the front gate, and that
was Bridget’s doing.

The rose was the offspring of cuttings Bridget’s mother had
brought all the way from Ireland. Bridget, in her turn, had hand-carried
cuttings from Boston to brighten her home in the untamed West. The rose’s
survival in its harsh new environment made Lila feel better about her own
chances. Since Bridget had told her the story of how the rose had come to be
where it was, Lila had felt a certain kinship with the shrub and had made it a
point to bestow a fond smile on it whenever she passed by.

But tonight she barely glanced at the plant. Tonight her attention
was all for the man at her side. Bishop pushed open the gate and stood back to
allow her to enter first. Lila walked past him, trying not to allow even her
skirt to brush against him. If he was aware of her attempt to keep distance
between them, he ignored it, setting his hand against the small of her back as
the gate swung shut behind them.

The light touch seemed to bum right through the layers of her
clothing, making her skin tingle with awareness. She was grateful when, just as
they reached the front step, the door burst open and two children tumbled out.
One of them was Bridget’s only daughter, Mary. The other was Angel. Mary was
five, and with her red hair and sparkling hazel eyes, she was the spitting
image of her mother. She looked like a mischievous sprite next to Angel’s
golden curls and soft blue eyes.

Lila used the children as an excuse to step away from Bishop’s
touch, bending down to hug Angel. The child returned her hug with gratifying
enthusiasm and Lila felt some of her tension ease. In the confusing tangle of
her life, Angel was a bright and shining exception. She’d grown to love the
little girl as if she were her own. Gavin kept her at arm’s length and viewed
her with, at best, a certain wary acceptance. And Bishop ... Well, she couldn’t
even begin to define her relationship with her husband. But Angel had accepted
her new stepmother completely, treating her with a sweet affection that was
impossible to resist.

“Did you have fun today, Angel?” Lila asked as she straightened.

“Yes.” Angel nodded enthusiastically. “Mary and me played with
dollies.”

“Mary and I,” Lila corrected as she brushed a stray curl back off
the child’s forehead.

Angel frowned in confusion. “But you wasn’t there.”

“Weren’t there, darling. You
weren’t
there.” Lila
straightened the sash on Angel’s russet-colored dress.

“I was too there,” Angel said, giving her stepmother a look that
suggested doubts about her intelligence.

Bishop’s snort of laughter made Lila decide that the grammar
lessons could wait for another time.

“Of course you were there,” she said briskly. “And I’m very glad
you had a good time this afternoon.”

“I did.” Angel gave her a solicitous look. “Did you have a good
time too?”

It was a perfectly innocent question but remembering how she’d
spent the afternoon, Lila felt her cheeks flush. She was careful not to look at
Bishop but she couldn’t shut out the sound of his voice.

“Did you, Lila? Have a good time this afternoon?” His tone was
full of wicked amusement, as if he already knew the answer. And he undoubtedly
did, blast him. Considering he bore the marks of her nails on his back, she
could hardly pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. There was
no safe answer to his needling question so she chose the only reasonable option
and ignored him.