Trail of Kisses (15 page)

Cade relaxed over top of her with a groan that
rumbled from somewhere deep inside of him. He must have known she
was serious about making love with him. All of his restraint
vanished. He captured her mouth in a kiss that left her dizzy with
desire. It was all she could do not to cry out with the joy of it.
His hand moved to cradle her breast as he balanced himself on one
arm. He rubbed her nipple with his thumb until it stood pert and
tingling. Then he inched down to close his mouth around it and
suckle.

She pressed her lips shut to hold back the
sigh of triumph that wanted to escape from her. Instead, she bucked
against him as his tongue laved her nipple. Just when she thought
the pleasure he was giving her was as beautiful as anything could
get, he brushed his fingers down over her abdomen and into the
curls between her thighs. He sought out the very spot that throbbed
for him to touch it, circling the nub with light
strokes.

His breath came in ragged gasps now, and
tension poured off of him, as though he was trying to slow down and
speed up at the same time. That urgency only pushed her higher. She
pressed herself into the wild sensation his fingers were producing,
like a spring winding tighter and tighter. The ache grew so fast
that when it burst into pleasure all through her, she couldn’t help
but cry out with it.

Before the blissful tremors had subsided, he
positioned himself between her legs and thrust into her. Lynne
gasped as the gentle yet insistent pressure met a fleeting second
of resistance and pain. It was no more than a quick sting that was
forgotten the instant he let out his breath with a sound of such
intense satisfaction that she felt it reverberate in her chest.
That sound alone could send her to heaven and back.

He didn’t stop there. More slowly than he had
thrust into her, he pulled out, then surged to fill her once more.
Lynne clasped her arms around his back as he rocked out then pushed
in again. She curled her fingertips into the tight muscle of his
back, dug her nails into his flesh. Cade responded with a stifled
moan and increased the pace of his thrusting.

It was madness. Utter madness and purest joy.
Lynne didn’t know whether to let her hips relax as he took her or
to hold tight with her outer and inner muscles. She squeezed
herself around him, and when he growled like a wild animal in the
back of his throat, she knew what he wanted. He thrust over and
over, faster and harder, until Lynne felt the uncommon pleasure
building in her again. She thanked heavens for the solid ground
beneath them, because they were off among the stars.

With a pitched moan and a tremor that shook
Cade’s entire body, his thrusts suddenly slowed. He rocked into her
a few more times with increasing tenderness until he loosened and
collapsed by her side. Both of them were left panting and dripping
with sweat. Lynne had never been so happy to be so hot in her life.
She smiled and closed her eyes as her body radiated heat and
pleasure.

Cade’s breathing slowed beside her. Bit by
bit, her heartbeat returned to normal. The air under the wagon was
stifling with all the heat they’d generated. She reached out to
lift the skirt hiding them from the world to let in fresh
air.

Like a crash of lightning, reality slammed
back into her. She yanked her hand away from the thin layer of
fabric separating her and Cade from the rest of the wagon train. It
separated her from certain scandal. Anyone could have heard the
sounds they’d made, even in the middle of the night. Anyone could
know what had happened. Her reputation could already be in
tatters.

What had she done?

Chapter Eight

His great-aunt Elizabeth’s ring would
do.

The thought hovered around the edges of Cade’s
consciousness before he was even fully awake. Not that he’d let
himself fall asleep for more than an hour or so. He’d made that
mistake before. He wouldn’t fall asleep on the job ever again and
he wouldn’t let Lynne out of his sight either. Permanently. His
mother had carried Great-Aunt Elizabeth’s ring all the way across
the prairie from Maine when they had moved west when he was a boy.
It would suit just fine as an engagement ring for Lynne
now.

He stretched and rolled away from Lynne,
fumbling for his clothes in the dim dawn light. Moving slowly so
that he didn’t wake her, he dressed in the clothes he had worn the
day before. It wouldn’t do any good to alert half the wagon train
as to what had happened between them by emerging from under the
wagon undressed. It was wrong. He shouldn’t have let himself get
carried away. But his heart had pushed him forward when his little
head had jumped for joy at her consent.

He would make it right as soon as
possible.

First, there was work to do. He slid to
Lynne’s side and kissed her cheek. If he was a betting man, which
he wasn’t, he would say she was wide awake but pretending to be
asleep. The idea made him grin. She was unique, his soon-to-be
wife. Let her pretend all she wanted to. Let her pretend she was
asleep or that she wasn’t afraid. He would keep her safe either way
and let her keep her pride too.

The wagon train was already up and active by
the time he crawled out from under the wagon and went to rekindle
the fire he’d built the night before. He needed coffee before Pete
Evans pushed them all to keep going. Lucky for him, he’d left the
coffee pot and cups by the fire the night before.

He looked around the camp with a satisfied
smile as he tossed a handful of coffee grinds in the pot and filled
it with water from a cask. It didn’t even bother him that the
general mood of activity around the wagons was tense. The miners
could cause all the fuss and trouble they wanted. The good people
on their way to new, productive lives could get as anxious and
suspicious of the miners as they cared too. More than a few were
busy rearranging their things in the back of their wagons to keep
them protected from thieves. Cade didn’t mind any of it. He was in
love with the most beautiful, passionate woman the West had ever
seen.

The coffee was done when Lynne crawled out
from under the wagon. She only peeked briefly at Cade, her
expression still clouded with sleep, before climbing up into the
back of the wagon. Cade smiled and sipped his coffee. He would fix
a cup for her in a minute to be sure it would still be warm when
she was fully dressed and prettied up. He would make coffee for her
every morning. If she was an early riser, he would find a way to
get up before her every day to make sure breakfast was waiting when
she came downstairs from the house he would build for her. George
Tremaine was sure to keep him on in spite of circumstances if he
was married to the man’s niece. As long as they didn’t go blabbing
about what precipitated the union.

He swallowed the guilt that poked him with a
mouthful of coffee. He shouldn’t have let things go so far, but
what was done was done.

It was a long time before Lynne emerged from
the back of the wagon. She had dressed in clean clothes, or what
passed for clean on the prairie. Her long, dark hair was brushed
and caught up in a pretty style that was just a touch too elaborate
for the trail. Cade liked it, though. He liked how unusual Lynne
was. He took a last drink of his coffee, poured a cup for her, and
got up to take it to her. He should really find a way to make his
proposal special, but he wanted the right to call her his fiancée
immediately. He’d make it up to her with roses and moonlight once
they were in Denver City.

“
Morning,” he greeted her with a
wide smile.

“
Good morning,” she said, eyes
downcast. “Is this for me?” She took the coffee from his hand and
turned away, striding to the fire.

Cade’s smile stayed where it was, but his gut
tightened.

“
You look beautiful.” He followed
her to the fire. “Like an angel.”

“
Thank you,” she said. Two beats
after the fact, she glanced up at him with a weak smile. “For the
coffee.”

That was it. She stepped farther away from him
when he came close, putting a barrel between them, blushing
wildly.

“
You were beautiful last night,
too,” he said, choosing to stand where he was instead of chase her
all around the camp.

“
Oh?” she said over her shoulder,
checking the food stores that had been set out and coming up with a
piece of leftover cornbread. “It was completely dark last night. I
don’t see how you could have seen anything. I didn’t.” She
straightened and stared square at him. “Not that there was anything
to see.”

Cade’s heart dropped to his stomach like a
lump of fool’s gold. “It was dark. You were still
beautiful.”

“
No, I wasn’t,” she mumbled, and
moved to sit on the barrel beside the fire. She didn’t say another
word. She didn’t look at him.

Cade drew in a slow breath and let it out in a
steady, calming stream, forcing himself to take this one step at a
time. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected, and it wasn’t good.
Not one bit. He sat on the other barrel, facing her.

“
Do I need to apologize for
something?” he asked.

“
What? No. Not at all,” she
answered, blushing even more furiously. She took a huge bite of
cornbread.

“
Good, because I’m not sorry. Not
at all. Lying with you last night was the best—”

“
H-have you heard anything more
about robberies?” she rushed to silence him. With her mouth full of
cornbread, her words were muffled and thick. A few crumbs flew from
her mouth and she took a swig of coffee to wash it down.

Cade sat frozen, staring at her, his chest
contracting until it felt too small for his thudding, aching heart.
She wouldn’t be so cruel as to pretend their time together hadn’t
happened, would she?

He shifted on his barrel, cleared his throat,
and said, “Lynne, I—”

“
We should probably start packing
up our things and getting ready to go.” She stood and took another
drink of coffee. “Mr. Evans looks like he’s eager to get
moving.”

Mouth hanging open, Cade glanced across the
circle of wagons. It was true, Pete was already urging people to
yoke up their oxen and move their wagons back into a line. He
searched in the other direction and found Ben out in the field with
several other men, wrangling their oxen.

“
I’ll clean up this mess under the
wagon if you take care of the supplies and the campfire,” Lynne
said.

She ate the last of her cornbread, finished
her coffee, and handed him the tin cup before gliding off to the
wagon as if nothing had happened.

As if nothing at all had happened.

Cade swallowed hard and rubbed his chest.
Mingled with the ache was a fractured sense of helplessness. What
had just happened? His tired mind scrambled to find a way to undo
the last ten minutes. He washed out her cup and emptied the
remaining coffee on the fire, then stamped it out. He then went
through the motions of packing up and storing supplies in the
wagon, all the while watching Lynne. She moved with purpose, taking
down the shelter he’d made for them under the wagon.

He dropped everything when she gasped and
rushed around to the side of the wagon.

“
What?” he asked. “What is it? Are
you all right?”

Lynne stood holding the blanket they’d slept
on the night before at arm’s length. A small, rust-colored stain
marred the center. Cade’s heart flipped over in his chest. He
wasn’t surprised to find out she’d been a virgin last night, but it
made his chest squeeze ten times tighter when she wadded up the
blanket and marched away from him.

“
We’ll have to throw this out and
buy a new one,” she said.

That was it. That was all it took. His
helpless heartache coiled into something very close to anger. He
stomped after her, catching her at the back of the
wagon.

“
You’re not going to pretend this
didn’t happen,” he said, taking the blanket from her.

“
I don’t know what
you’re—”

“
We made love last night, Lynne,”
he said, keeping his voice low. “And you’re not going to pretend it
didn’t happen or that you didn’t like it.”

“
Shh!” She swatted the blanket
away from him and turned her back on him, shaking it out. “People
will hear you.”

“
People?” Cade spread his arms
wide, glancing around. “The only people I see are weary travelers
and miners and folks that are too busy packing up their wagons to
give a fig what you or I did or do.”

She folded the blanket quickly and clumsily,
then spun back to thrust it at his chest. “You may not care about
your reputation, but I do.”

There was something deeper than anger in her
eyes, something darker than worry. The last thing Cade wanted call
it was regret. He stepped closer to her.

“
So you’re just going forget about
it?” he growled. “You’re going to forget how good we are together
because of a bunch of people who you’ll never see again once they
get to their new homes?”

“
I might see them again,” she
argued. “Most of them are going on to Oregon, but a good portion
are heading to Denver City too. I’ll see you again.” Her eyes
flared wide and the color drained from her face. She covered her
mouth with one hand for a moment. “Dear God. I’ll see
you
again. You work for my uncle.”