The Lawman's Bride (17 page)

“How old were you?” he asked, his deep voice troubled.

“About fourteen.”

He looked up and met her eyes with dark emotion in the depths of his. “He forced himself on you?”

The memory of Garret’s hands on her body still turned her cold inside. The way he took her in insensitive greed, all the while telling her she belonged to him, always boasting that he owned her and convincing her she was no more than a possession made the shame fresh. “I submitted. I stayed alive.”

His gaze touched on her hair, and she felt his compassion like a warm wave of sensation. She held in the cry that threatened to spill from her throat.

“It was another six years before I got away,” she finished.

Clay got up and walked to the window where he pulled aside the plain muslin curtain and stared out at the sunny afternoon.

Sophie’s body trembled as she studied his rigid posture, trying to gauge his reaction.

He clenched and unclenched his fists. “What’s his name? Where is he?”

“He’s not worth it,” she told him.

By keeping Garrett’s identity a secret, she was preventing Clay from having to choose the law over her. By sharing only this much she could have now. Today. Just enough so that he knew she cared for him and was willingly choosing him. “I’ve never told anyone. I made up a family and a story because I was ashamed. I’m sorry, Clay. Sorry I wasn’t strong enough. I tried so hard to keep to myself and keep my secret. Secrets are so consuming. And I’m tired of keeping things…from you.”

“
Where
is he now?”

Forcing out a lie now would be a backward step in the progress she’d just made. “It’s over,” was all she said.

He turned to look at her, and she could feel the nervous vibration of his anger in the air between them.

“I understand if you’re disgusted,” she told him. “I know I’m not worthy of the kindness you’ve shown me.”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Stop blamin’ yourself for somethin’ that wasn’t your fault. You sayin’ you don’t know where he is?”

“I got away from him in Boulder. That was two years ago.”

“Let me find ’im.”

“No.”

“He should pay.”

“No.”

Clay came to where she sat and encircled her wrists in a gentle grasp. “What he did was a crime. What if he’s doin’ it to someone else right now?”

Sophie’s heart ached.
He is! He is!
Clay was right, Garrett deserved to pay. She would have to tell the rest eventually. She would have to protect Amanda, no matter how much she implicated herself. But not yet. Not like this. Not until she’d known a bare measure of goodness.

“No more,” she whispered. “Not now.”

The pain in his eyes was so fresh and deep she recognized he would take all the hurt from her if he could. If she would let him.

“What we have is the best thing I’ve ever had in my life,” she told him with a trembling voice. “If I’ve lost that because of the truth…because of him…I don’t know what I’ll do.”

He brought her hands to his lips and kissed the backs of her fingers. She recognized the sting of tears forming behind her eyes and closed them so he wouldn’t see. This man’s touch was her salvation, his love a flood that could wash her clean of all the ugliness. She needed him more than she needed her next breath. Was this what love felt like?

At that moment Garrett’s threat rose in her mind, and she was afraid for Clay. Afraid to lose him. Afraid to tell him the rest. Her secret was a burden of guilt that hurt inside. Love shouldn’t be as painful as hate, should it?

“I’m so sorry, Sophia. Sorry you had to learn the hard side of life. Especially the dark side of a man. You shouldn’t have had to feel trapped and alone.”

Clay recognized the shame she’d accepted as her own. All the times she’d avoided him, all the questions she’d sidestepped made sense now. Little inconsistencies in her stories were accounted for. That feeling he’d always had that there was so much she wasn’t saying had been right on the mark.

Her insistence on making her own decisions was perfectly understandable. She’d been some man’s property growin’ up. Sophie needed choices.

He remembered the day she’d asked to kiss him. Just kiss him. And how she’d enjoyed it. She’d discovered the wonder in
choosing
to receive a man’s affections. He’d asked her what she wanted and she’d said she wanted to decide things for herself. It was all clear now.

“When you’re through decidin’ what you want…I hope it’s me.”

“You’ve shown me true strength,” she told him. Her lower lip trembled. “You taught me kindness. You allowed me to discover who I was.”

Sophie cradled his cheek in her palm and studied his face, tenderness evident in her eyes. Clay had a lump of hurt in his belly for the child she’d been, for her suffering and loss.

“I’m not anything special,” he denied.

“I can’t agree with that,” she told him. “I’ve had so few good things in my life, and I can’t be sorry for wanting the best thing I ever knew. I’m not ashamed of wanting you.”

“I’m willin’ to wait for you. As long as it takes ’til you’re ready.”

“I’m not. I’ve waited long enough. I want to know why I get this feeling when you’re near me. Why your kisses turn me to jelly. I need to know kindness. I need you.”

Clay didn’t require any further encouragement. Meeting her desires would be the best thing that ever happened to him. He kissed her, and the emotion he felt in her response assured him of her willingness.

“Remember where we were before?” she asked.

It took him a second to comprehend. “I do.”

He reached to find pins in her hair and let down the tresses.

She raised her hands to the row of buttons at her collar. When she had them undone, she reached to her side to unfasten her riding skirt and stepped out of it. He helped her ease the shirtwaist from her shoulders and arms, then draped it over the end of the bed. She took the initiative to sit and remove her ankle-high boots and black stockings. She stood in her prim drawers and chemise, her bare toes white against the dark wood floor. The scent of lilacs enveloped him. So feminine. So sweet.

“I’ll wash,” he said.

She stepped against him and touched her nose to the fabric covering his chest. “I like you just the way you are.”

Clay was awed by her lack of hesitation, her eagerness for his touch. Knowing all he knew now, he hesitated for fear of stepping over an invisible boundary that would frighten her or remind her of the treatment she’d endured.

Her nimble fingers made quick work of his shirt, and it landed on the worn wood floor with a soft tick of buttons. She kissed his chest and his neck, and his blood pounded.

Sophie raised her face, and he kissed her reverently, as tenderly as he knew how.

She untied the ribbons that threaded through eyelet lace to hold her chemise together in front. The dainty garment gaped open, revealing pretty rose-tipped breasts. He was glad for the daylight.

“Beautiful,” he managed, his throat dry with desire. Every breath he took held the scent of lilacs. He wanted to know the warmth and silkiness of her skin so badly his fingers tingled.

She glided her palms over his shoulders and neck, and still he didn’t touch her. Despite her eagerness, she seemed so small suddenly, so fragile and vulnerable. Desire pounded everywhere.

He raised his knuckles to her delicate cheek in wonder, stroking as though she were made of spun glass.

Sophie let the chemise drop to the floor. Her shoulders seemed so small, her body so slim.

He swallowed hard. Kissed her gently.

She let her head fall back so he could press his lips along the column of her neck. She released a breathless sigh, and he wanted to take her right then and there, but held himself in check. The shame in her voice when she’d told him what had happened had made him want to erase her past with new experiences. The thought of that nameless, faceless man forcing a helpless young girl to submit made him sick at heart.

She had always seemed so strong and confident, so sure of herself. What she’d revealed today gave him a glimpse of a completely different side. He marveled at her power to overcome and thrive.

She was so beautiful, her features incredibly delicate and feminine. A knot formed in his chest at the image of someone mistreating her. Using her body.
Breaking her spirit.

She raised a hand to his neck and pulled herself up into the kiss, which pressed her naked breasts against his chest. At the titillating contact he sucked in a breath.

Clay took his mouth from hers to keep his senses. He kissed the shape of her ear.

Sophie eased away, and he let her go. She took a step back, her lovely breasts rising and falling. He devoured her with his eyes.

Hers held dark concern. “Are you…do you feel disgust for me?”

It took his brain a minute to catch up with her words. “What?”

“Do you find me…repulsive now that you know my story?”

She was exquisite. “Hell no.”

“You’re holding back. It feels different.”

“I—I…” He jammed his fingers into his hair and tried to find words.

“I’ll understand,” she told him. “If your perception of me has changed and you don’t feel the same.”

“Shut up a minute.” He stood staring at her, his chest heaving with what he felt and what he wanted to say. “I don’t wanna push myself on you. You should have…choices.”

The sharp defensiveness in her expression dissolved. “I made a choice to come here. I made the choice to tell you about my past so you wouldn’t feel cheated afterward.”

“I’m not cheated, Sophie,” he assured her. “I’m honored.”

“So am I, and this is my choice.
You
are my choice.” She gestured with both palms toward him. “I need something that’s mine. Something I want.” Her fingers curled into her palms.

Her voice came out a whispered plea. “Don’t hold back. Don’t cheat me.”

Chapter Fourteen

H
e reached her in one stride, picking her up and falling onto his bed with her beneath, his arms solid on either side of her. She grasped his bicep, touched his face and dropped her gaze to his mouth.

In a kiss hotter than the Kansas summer, his tongue probed the succulent recesses of her mouth. Palms on his chest, she splayed her fingers wide, her nails scraping his skin, and he understood. Understood that she needed this experience for herself.

It was his privilege that she’d selected him. He kissed both corners of her lips, her chin, the column of her neck and the hollows in her collarbone. He began a sensory discovery, inhaling her soft feminine scent as he pressed his lips along her silken flesh all the way down to her belly and back up to the pebbled tip of one breast.

He took her into his mouth and she trembled.

“I have shivers through my whole body…” she said on a sigh.

He captured her mouth in a kiss once more, then slid the tip of his tongue to her other breast.

It occurred to Clay that he still wore his boots and trousers, so reluctant had he been to miss one second with this woman now in his bed. He drew to the edge where he perched to remove them.

As though she was equally as unwilling to miss a moment together, Sophie raised to her knees behind him and pressed herself against his back. The crush of her soft, damp breasts set him on fire. She kissed his neck, touched her tongue to his ear and a shudder coursed through him.

Clay turned and urged her onto her back, finding the ribbon that tied her drawers and tugging them down her legs. With one knee on the mattress he leaned over her and pressed his face to her soft belly and cupped her hips. She threaded her fingers into his hair. She was in his head now, filling his senses, pumping through his veins.

Divesting himself of his trousers required releasing her, but he kicked them to the floor and stretched his body out half over hers, his burning skin sliding against her soft contours.

She cupped his cheek and offered a smile of sincere enjoyment. He tucked a tendril of dark hair away from her temple. Catching his hand, she pressed her lips into his palm. “I’ve never felt like this,” she told him. “I never knew how right it could be.”

He’d never known he was so lonely until now. Until she filled up all the missing places inside him with her sweet smile and inflaming kisses. Until she’d trusted him with her dark, paralyzing secret, trusted him to know what to do to blot out that part of her past.

Breathless now, a burning need pulsed low and heavy in his body. She acknowledged his arousal by rubbing against him.

With his face buried against her throat, Clay spoke encouragement with soft senseless words, stroking her limbs and testing her readiness. Sophie clutched him to her with surprisingly fierce strength. He rose over her and kissed her, his chest tight with emotion.

“Say my real name,” she whispered.

“Sophia. Beautiful Sophia.”

She stifled a sob by catching her lower lip with her teeth while her eyes pleaded with him to continue.

He lowered his weight, eased himself inside her and shuddered with the sheer pleasure of being one with this woman. Perfection. Completion. He never wanted this moment to end.

If he was interpreting her eager movements and rapturous sighs, Sophie wasn’t ready to be patient. Determined to be everything she needed, he gritted his teeth against the intense pleasure. “Patience, Sophie.”

“May I kiss you?”

“What a thing to ask.” Realizing then that a lover’s kiss was far from her experience, he lowered his head.

She touched her tongue to his lower lip, parted her lips and met him with a kiss so intense and deep, his heart threatened to stop. “You’re going to kill me, woman.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“You do everything so right I can’t breathe.”

“And you want me.”

“I—want you. Sophia. Beautiful Sophia.”

Her body grew taut beneath his. Perspiration made their straining bodies slick. Sophie held her breath and closed her eyes and her body convulsed around him. Clay took his own fulfillment more leisurely, but afterward she didn’t release him.

“Don’t move,” she said.