Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, drawing pain that only set his ravaged nerves to a precipice he could barely control.
His fingers didn’t leave her folds, continuing their strokes, and her breathing evolved into panting—desperate moans escaping with every exhale. “Let me lower, Rorrick.”
“You don’t need my permission, Cass.”
Her eyes widened at his words, a whole new revelation racing through her brain. It took only a moment, and she smiled, Amphitrite and her band of nymphs suddenly understanding the power they held over men.
“Truly?”
“I am going to pull you back down in a second if you don’t do it yourself, Cass.”
Her eyes in awe, she locked her gaze to his and lowered herself.
He saw it all speed across her face, the pleasure, the rush of control, how it made her gasp for breath, yet she only wanted more.
Her backside pressed into his lap and then she lifted herself, slow, tortuous. He would never have to instruct her again. No. Cass knew exactly how she wanted this. And he wanted nothing more than to give it to her.
Up and down.
Well past his breaking point, he latched his lips onto her breast, desperate for something—anything to help steel himself against her assault.
Yet he held, refusing to surrender, refusing to break this moment for her.
Her scream started low, almost a wounded animal, until it morphed into his name. Rorrick. Over and over. His name at her lips until words could not form on her tongue, only a scream of release echoing through the room as her body shuddered violently above him.
Her hips dug in, worked along his body hard, wanting more and more of him, deeper into her. He offered her the only thing he had left, his cock swelling, exploding with seed deep inside of her.
Exactly what she needed. She jerked, a second wave of release hitting her, her body collapsing, throbbing against him in spent satisfaction.
Hell. He hadn’t wanted to do that to her.
He had planned to pull free. Had planned to give her every bit of pleasure she could take before withdrawing. He had been nothing more than a voice-cracking whelp that couldn’t control himself.
But if there was a child, he would marry her in a heartbeat. Earlier if he could convince her of it.
The thought echoed, bounced around in his skull. Not for one second did he cringe at the idea. Not for one second did he attempt to fight it, to come up with a thousand reasons that it was a bad idea.
He wanted her. Not just her body. Her mind. Her heart.
His brain never stopped, never quit its constant frenzy. But with Cass, the quiet assurance of calm that permeated her being managed to still his mind, slow his constantly madcap thoughts until they were tamable.
It seeped into his mind in that moment, the intangible thing he hadn’t been able to place about how he wanted her.
Hope. Family.
He had long since forgotten what both of those things were. But with Cass, she made him want to hope—hope for a family. Hope for a family with her.
The thought sank into his chest and his arms tightened around her.
He had known within the first two weeks that she was his. Right or wrong and her opinion notwithstanding. She was his.
Yet that didn’t mean she agreed to carry his child.
His hand went to the back of her head, his fingers burying deep into her dark hair. “Cass, I’m sorry. I meant to pull out. I did not intend to risk child.”
Limp, she didn’t move a muscle, only her chin bobbed against the back of his shoulder as her voice came out in a lazy whisper. “It is not likely. I do not believe my body is meant for offspring.”
“I will mar—”
She jerked upright, setting her face in front of his, though her eyes were cast downward. “No—do not, Rorrick. Do not speak another word. I refuse promises. I do not…I do not want you to be like…”
“The Italian?”
She nodded.
“You realize I am nothing akin to that bastard?”
She nodded.
He opened his mouth, ready to push for more. But then her amber eyes met his.
His mouth closed.
No matter the thoughts going through his own mind, she wasn’t ready. She was ready for this, yes. But for more. No. Not by far.
She trusted him to find Ashita.
She trusted him with her body.
But nothing more.
~~~
The horses readied to leave, Rorrick stepped in from the cold to find a pile of folded blankets now neatly stacked on the table. Rather than starting another fire in the bedroom last night, Cass had suggested bringing a slew of blankets down into the main room to sleep on.
It had taken him years to learn how to sleep in a bed as an adult. He hadn’t bought a bed for this place until he had added the second level above. And here she was asking to curl up onto the floor with him. She had surprised him again and again, most of all in that she was nothing like the other Englishwomen he had met. Cass held no airs—no need for fine crystal at her lips and luxurious pillows beneath her head.
She only needed his chest to sleep.
And to be satisfied several times a night.
In between bouts of their bodies meeting, of him splaying her out naked by the fire, they had slept nestled between the table and the hearth. And he couldn’t remember ever sleeping as peacefully as he had last night, with her naked skin entwined with his, the stiffness of the floorboards beneath his back, his toes warmed by the fire.
If heaven ever made it to earth, it came wrapped in porcelain skin and the darkest tendrils of hair.
“The horses are ready?” Cass paused on her way down the open staircase at the rear of the main room, looking at him. A glow of excitement radiated from her honey-brown eyes. She wore the dark grey wool habit he had insisted on in Charleston. The separate jacket and skirt, both simple in design, would be warm and not draw any undue attention to her. He hoped.
The glow in her eyes he would like to take credit for, but he suspected it had much more to do with their upcoming journey across the northern valley and up the mountain to Widow’s Creek.
“They are ready.” He pointed to the bundle she held in her arms. “What do you have?”
“Smaller blankets—and another cloak.” She descended the few remaining stairs and walked across the room to him. “I rummaged through the guest rooms and found them. If I can convince Ashita to come with us, I do not want her and the boy to be cold on the ride back here. Will the wives of your business associates mind that I pilfered these from them?”
“I doubt they will even know they are missing.”
She stopped in front of him, hugging the bundle as she looked up at him. “Rorrick, truly, thank you. I cannot believe I am finally—after all these years of disappointment after disappointment—going to find Ashita. My chest is about to burst with the anticipation of it.”
“You are not nervous?”
“Nervous—yes—absolutely I am. Terrified, actually, as I am sure she despises me.” A smile set onto her lips, widening. “But none of that matters. I will talk to her and I will apologize and beg for forgiveness for what I did to her and she will find it in her heart to listen to me. Whatever it takes to make the past right by her, I will do it.” Cass shook her head in amazement. “I had just begun to believe I would never get the chance to make amends—and now it is here.”
“You are ready to leave, then?”
“I am.” She moved past him toward the door.
Rorrick turned, watching the slight hop in her step and his feet froze in place.
Cass set the bundle onto the floor while she grabbed her cloak. She set it about her shoulders and tugged on her gloves. After picking the bundle up, her hand went to the doorknob, turning it before she realized he wasn’t directly behind her. She turned back to him. “Rorrick? Are we leaving now?” Her eyebrows cocked. “What is it?”
“Cass…I didn’t want to tell you, I thought we
could just go and you would see. But you are so…hopeful.”
Wariness set into her eyes. “I am too hopeful? What are you not telling me, Rorrick?”
“I am not sure what we will find in Widow’s Creek.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a mining town, Cass.”
“So?”
“So they are not always the kindest of places.” His look dipped to the side as he ran his hand along the line of his jaw. He looked back to Cass. “I don’t know why that town would have been Ashita’s destination, especially with her son in tow. The landlady said Ashita met a man that promised her honest work in Widow’s Creek.”
Cass’s hand dropped from the doorknob and she took a step toward him. “But you do not think that was the man’s intention?”
He shook his head. “There is no honest work in a town like that.”
“You know this how?”
“Because Johnny and I lived in a mining camp before we moved to the shack we built at our mine.” He took two steps toward her, his voice hardening. “And no one survives a town like that unscathed. No one.”
Her head jerked back, her eyes wide.
“I didn’t—don’t want to scare you, Cass, but you need to know what we are walking into.”
“I…” Her voice trailed, a disheartened nod the only thing she could offer.
Rorrick had to look away from her crestfallen eyes. She had held such hope only seconds before and he had been the one to put that crushed look on her face.
He sighed, walking to her and ushering her out the door.
They were halfway down the mountain in silence, the horses picking over the frost-covered rocks along the trail, when her voice cut through the still air.
“You lived in one?”
He looked back over his shoulder, watching her for a long moment. She sat her horse well, her body fluid with the mare’s steps—not an easy thing to accomplish on the steep angle of the trail. “A mining camp?”
She nodded.
“Yes.”
“And did you land back in one after the vein you were working was taken from you?”
Rorrick held his answer until his horse took the last few strides to where the trail widened and flattened out into an open field. He set his horse alongside hers. “No, I actually didn’t land anywhere. After I deserted Johnny in that mine, I left the area and drifted, town to town. I honestly didn’t care whether I lived or died.”
“I cannot imagine you like that.” She looked over at him, the thick wool of her dark cloak tight around her face a stark contrast to her flawless skin. “So what did you do?”
He looked forward, eyeing the flock of blackbirds swooping down into the leafless tree line in front of them. “It just so happens that there is a lot of work available for men that don’t care whether they live or die.”
“Such as?”
“It started with the explosives. They need lots of it in the mines for blasting deep into the rock. But the devil’s powder is a shrew to work with. One wrong measurement and you are exploded into a thousand pieces. No one wants the job. So I took it. I got good at it.” He shrugged. “And then I made enough money, had enough work that I could hire other men that could care less on their lives. And then I started to transport the gunpowder as well. From there, it just…happened. One day I was setting the explosives, praying I didn’t kill anyone, and the next”—he snapped his fingers through his thick gloves—“my men and I were hauling ore from the mines down to the smelters and then hauling goods from the cities to the camps on the return trips. The work expanded, and expanded, and expanded.”
“You must have an intelligent eye for business.”
He looked to her. “Common sense, mostly. All I ever did was be honest with everyone that hired me. I never tried to cheat anyone. I hired only people I could trust. I paid everyone well.” His gaze drifted forward. “It was odd, the day it happened, when I didn’t need to set off the explosives anymore. My men won’t let me, as a matter of fact.”
“Smart workers.” She smiled. “I can see that in you—how you would inspire such loyalty.”
He looked at her, his eyebrows lifted in question.
“Rorrick, I have not seen you treat one person without respect. From the lowliest deckhand, to the captain of our ship—you respect everyone equally.”
“I suppose I do.” He agreed with a humble nod. “I suppose I am never too far from that six-year-old boy picking through refuse piles, searching for something to sell, to eat. I remember the feeling all too well—how people would discard my presence—my very existence—just because of my lowly status. What I have built comes from that time, I imagine.”
She gasped, a thin grin tightening her lips. “I need to amend my statement. Me. You did not treat me with the slightest bit of respect when you first met me.”
He choked a cough. “I didn’t?”
Her head swiveled to him, her chin low as she glared at him through upturned eyes. “You know full well you didn’t. Unless you consider calling me a whore respectful?”
He shook his head, his eyes begging forgiveness. “I was hoping you would forget that particular transgression on my part.”
“Forgive—yes. Forget—never.”
He stared at her. She had said the words with a grin. A grin that shielded the very truth of the statement.
She had an amazing capacity to not hold ill will against those that had wronged her—to truly forgive. But she didn’t forget—she hadn’t forgotten any one of those moments in her life that had wounded her so deeply that she still, even after last night, could not look at him without a modicum of suspicion lacing her eyes.
Bastard husband. Bastard Italian.
He cleared his throat. “You are telling the truth on that score, aren’t you?”
She looked to him, visibly startled by the vehemence in his voice. She eyed him for a long breath. “You are worried I don’t trust you?”
“I am.”
A smile, soft, half-broken came to her lips. “I trust you, Rorrick. I do. As much as I can.”
He took her words with a nod.
It was enough.
For now.
It had to be.
{ Chapter 12 }
The wind whipped against her cheek, the beads of ice pelting like hundreds of needles into her skin. Cass tugged the hood of her cloak to the side, blocking the sleet.
Swathes of grey clouds had crowded the sky halfway to Widow’s Creek, and a drizzle set in before they had started to ascend the mountain road to the town. Drizzle had turned into sleet with the wind picking up an hour before they arrived.
Now this—angry shards of tiny ice whipping sideways through the air as the little light that managed to glow through the heavy clouds disappeared, night descending.
Sudden noise made her peek out the side of her hood. Flapping. Fast, rhythmic, angry. The bottom corner of a canvas tent stretched tight across a makeshift frame thrashed in the bitter wind as they passed it. Unending, the racket from the wall tent beat through the storm, enough to drive a person mad.
Cass attempted to ignore the sound as she followed as closely as she could behind Rorrick. She huddled along the back of his long black overcoat, the breadth of his wide shoulders shielding her from not only the wind, but also from the atrocity of the town around her. Dirty, unkempt men fumbling drunk along the street. Ladies in bright red corsets bellowing down from balconies. Miners fighting, rolling in the gravel. The storm didn’t hinder any of them from their daily business.
The long tail of fabric on his overcoat blew out to the left, and Rorrick’s arm swung out, clasping it back to his body. Even with the bitter wind, Rorrick kept his overcoat open as they moved through the town, his two pistols in holsters low along his hips in full view.
She had seen the rifle on his horse, but she hadn’t realized he had brought two pistols as well—hadn’t realized just how important the show of them was to walking about in a town such as this.
O
nce they had arrived in Widow’s Creek and secured their horses at the blacksmith’s, Rorrick had demanded she stay close to him, within an arm’s reach at all times.
She had no plans of being further than a hand’s width away.
Concentrating on the dark wool of Rorrick’s coat in front of her, Cass bumped into his back when he stopped suddenly. She caught herself on his waist, not letting go of his overcoat as they ducked through the opening flap of the next tent.
Thirteen of these wall tents they had visited, scattered along the edge of town. Town—as if seven solid buildings, four of which were saloons with whorehouses atop and the other three a bank, a blacksmith-goods store, and a claims office—constituted an actual town. But the array of wall tents spreading out from the buildings was unending, each tent holding squalor, desperation like she had never seen.
Stepping into the tent, Cass peeked around Rorrick’s torso. A woman was hunched over a wash basin, her hands and forearms deep into a launderer’s tub. She looked up at the cold blast of air, the intrusion not giving her the slightest pause in her work. Her left eye was covered with a black patch, the strings holding it in place disappearing under a dirt-splotched red handkerchief that wrapped her head. Her hands didn’t stop moving, scrubbing with vigor a white cloth against a metal washboard.
The woman, gaunt and worn beyond all measure, glanced with her one good eye to the opening flap behind them, waiting until it fell closed and the wind stopped whipping into the tent. Her eye went to Rorrick as her hands stilled. “Wha’cha need?” Her toothless mouth slurred the words together.
His voice kind, Rorrick was already extracting coins from his pocket. He looked at the woman directly, a sincere smile breaking through his cold-weathered skin. “Just your ear and your memory for a moment of your time, ma’am.” His look dipped to the washboard angled out of the basin of water. “And it appears as you have much work on hand tonight, so please, don’t stop working on our account.”
Cass stepped slightly to her left, her right hand still gripping the back of Rorrick’s overcoat. The laundress looked from Rorrick to her and then grunted with a nod. Her thin hands, nearly transparent, plunged into the dingy water, fishing out the white shirt. She went back to scrubbing as she looked up at Rorrick with what was almost a smile on her face. “Ask yer questions, then.”
Of Risk & Redemption: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 11
