by Jo Goodman
Phoebe didn’t know how she felt about him taking off his shirt, or rather she did know, and was not as against it as she thought she should be. “All right.” When he started to rise, she caught his hand and pulled him back. “Wait. Where’s the rope?”
“Still hanging from Bullet’s saddle. I wasn’t thinking I might need it. Look, Phoebe, I have to check on the horses anyway, make sure they haven’t bolted, and I should bring in more wood while I can. The smokehouse is the structure most likely to float away and take our wood with it.”
Everything he said made sense, but she did not want to be left alone, not in this place, not during this storm. “Let me get dressed again and help you.”
He shook his head but cupped the side of her face to gentle the refusal. “Watch me from the window. You can’t see the lean-to, but you’ll be able to follow me back and forth from the smokehouse. I’ll drop the wood right inside the door, and if you still want to help, you can start stacking.”
It was not a satisfactory answer as far as Phoebe was concerned, but she knew she had to be satisfied. She nodded. Her cheek rubbed against his palm. It was oddly comforting, and she missed it when he lowered his hand and got to his feet.
“I won’t be long,” he said. He pointed to the window as he crossed the room to the door. “Go on. Watch.”
Phoebe waited until the door closed behind him before she swept the tail of the blanket over one arm and scrambled to her feet. She was at the window in time to glimpse him hurrying toward the rear of the cabin and the lean-to. In her anxious mind, he seemed to be gone a long time, but it was probably less than two minutes before he reappeared with a coil of rope hanging off his shoulder. He veered right to the smokehouse and was in and out between two quick lightning strikes. She was at the door to scoop the armload of wood from him before he dropped it on the floor.
They repeated that pattern three more times until she begged him to come inside. Rivulets of water poured from his hat brim when he bent over the stacked wood to add the last load. Without asking permission, she swept the Stetson off his head and beat it twice against her thigh. Beads of water sprayed the stove and sizzled. She tossed his hat beside hers and then got behind him, set her hands flat against his back, and pushed him in the direction of the bed. The frame that had supported the mattress was solid and she jabbed a finger at it.
“Sit. Take off your vest, your shirt, and whatever you’re wearing under it.” She did not wait for him to comply because any reasonable person would, and she judged him to be reasonable more often than he was not. She was kneeling at his feet when he sat. “Boots.”
“I can take them off,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be taking off other things. Slide the left one over here.”
He did. “They’re muddy. Your hands, they’ll get—”
She stopped him with a jaundiced look. “The one thing we have plenty of is water for washing.” She grabbed the boot by the heel and worked it off. She noticed the knife sheathed inside but didn’t comment. He’d been out so long that even his sock was damp, and that was concerning. She stripped it off without giving him a chance to argue. “Other one.” She lifted his foot. “I notice you’re not doing much about that vest. I’ll do it for you if you can’t.”
“I don’t think I noticed before how bossy you are.”
“And single-minded. Go on. The button goes through the hole.”
Chuckling, he began to undress. “Do you want to know that your knot is coming undone? The view from up here is like looking down into the Valley of Elah. I’ve read that’s fertile ground.”
“Not for you, it’s not. And so you know, referencing the Bible will not assist your cause. Look the other way or close your eyes. You don’t need to see to take off your clothes.”
He did neither. “What’s my cause?” he asked, keeping a close eye on the knot. There was definite slippage as she unrolled his sock and tossed it toward the stove. When she looked up and caught his blatant stare, she mocked him with a smile that scolded.
“I don’t think I’m flattering myself when I say you’d like to get me out of my clothes.”
“Huh. What gave me away?”
“It would be easier to tell you what didn’t.”
He laughed appreciatively at that.
Phoebe took his vest when he handed it to her and waited for his shirt. “Isn’t there a woman in Frost Falls in want of your attention?”
“There is, but I have to leave a dollar on her night table when I go.”
She batted his leg. “I believe you, but isn’t there anyone else?”
Remington peeled off his damp shirt as she had done and gave it over. “Why do you think there must be?” Under it he was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt that fit him closely when it wasn’t wet, and since it was, he wore it like a glove. He pulled it over his head when she held out her hand for it.
Phoebe stared at his naked chest. It was not the first one she had ever seen, but it was easily the most appealing. In the theater, she was used to men with pasty complexions managing their figures with corsets and braces. Remington required no such artifice, and for reasons she could not clearly define, that put her out of sorts with him.
Somewhat impatiently, she said, “You have to know that you possess qualities attractive to women.”
“A man doesn’t get tired of hearing them, you know. Start with the A’s. Admirable. Amusing. Articulate. Attorney-at-law.”
And as quick as that, her irritation faded. “Ass. Go on. Go over there and get the blanket around you. Warm yourself before you rig the line.”
He rose, stepped past her kneeling figure, and went to the stove. It was Phoebe who thrust the blanket at him. He pulled it around his shoulders and held it in one fist while she used the time to adjust the knot at her breasts. They stood side by side for a long time. She felt him shiver and found his hand under the blanket. She threaded her fingers in his. Except to gently squeeze her hand in acknowledgment, he didn’t stir again.
It did not happen suddenly, or even by thoughtful design. Phoebe leaned into him, rested her head on his shoulder, and that was fine until it wasn’t. He opened his blanket and she stepped into the curve of his arm. He closed around her, embraced her. It was a light touch, an easy one, full of warmth. There was security, too, and comfort.
Phoebe knew he would not turn her away if she came to him. Did she want to come to him? She had never gone willingly to any man, but that had not necessarily mattered.
Fiona had taught her early that it might not always be her choice, and she had learned the truth of that when she was sixteen, between acts one and two of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a small blessing, she supposed, that she was three years older than Fiona had been when it happened to her. It was Fiona who drove him out when she surprised him in her dressing room. She stuck him with a hatpin to make him leap away and then raised welts on his back and buttocks with his ebony walking stick, the one with the silver-plated lion’s head. He had limped out of the theater by the back door, his shirt in shreds, his back bloody, calling Fiona every vile name he knew. Phoebe recalled quite clearly that Fiona had bested him there as well.
Fiona had been her champion, but it was left to others to comfort her. After all, there were four acts remaining and Fiona had the role of Beatrice. That evening, when they had retired to their rooms, Fiona gave her a revolting concoction to drink saying only that it would prevent the most serious of consequences. Phoebe understood precisely what that meant, and for eight days following the rape, Fiona asked her if she had begun her monthly courses. When she was finally able to say that she had, nothing about that night was ever mentioned again.
It happened a second time, and a third, both with the same man, a suitor of Fiona’s, but Phoebe never told anyone. She couldn’t. Montgomery Hobart the Third, heir to a textile fortune, showed her the diamond-encrusted stickpin in his a
scot and promised—not threatened—to permanently scar Fiona’s face if she spoke a word. So she hadn’t. On both occasions she visited the gypsy witch who had given Fiona the drink that had seemed to be efficacious the first time. She was so sick with cramps that a physician was sent for. He asked her some pointed questions and she lied without the least compunction.
Phoebe made plans to kill Monty Hobart, plans she was certain she could carry out, and there was still some part of her that regretted never having the opportunity to test her resolve, but Monty robbed her of that, too. Two weeks before he was supposed to visit New York again, he died in a factory fire.
Without preamble, she said, “I am not a virgin. Is that something you want to know?”
Remington blinked. “How does your mind work, Phoebe?”
“In leaps and bounds apparently. Are you sorry I told you? Does it make a difference?”
“You should be able to say what you like even if I can’t always—hardly ever—follow the path that got you there. As for it making a difference, it’d be hypocritical for me to say so, don’t you think? Not only am I not a virgin, but I’ve been standing here contemplating a path of my own, the one where I’ll encounter the least resistance getting you on that mattress again, preferably on your back and under me.”
Her throat felt very thick and there was a weight on her chest that made it difficult to breathe. She said, “Oh.”
“Uh-huh. So if you were a virgin, it wouldn’t be for long anyway—if I ever work out the path, that is.”
“Down.”
“How’s that?”
“Down. The path is down.”
“The shortest route, then.”
“Yes. The shortest route.”
Chapter Nineteen
First there was the kiss. Remington opened the other side of his blanket and Phoebe turned, stepped in, and then she was enveloped in his arms, cocooned. His head lowered, hers lifted. Their mouths touched.
Phoebe had little experience with kissing. When Remington had surprised her in the shed, planting that hard, brief kiss on her mouth, she counted it as her first true kiss. It was all she had to compare with what he was doing to her now.
He nudged her lips with his, parting them. She caught just a sip of air before he began to explore the shape of her mouth, and it was warm and musky on her tongue. She realized she had stolen that breath from him. That made her smile.
He felt the change in the slant of her mouth, thought he could actually taste the sweet bubble of laughter that hovered on her lips. He brushed her mouth. Once. Twice. Their lips clung. He touched the tip of his tongue to her upper lip. She shivered. A moment later so did he.
Neither of them was cold.
Her mouth opened under the pressure of his. Her lips were damp, soft, and sensitive, and what he did with his mouth and tongue kept them that way. She moaned because it was not possible to keep that sound trapped in the back of her throat. He made it impossible. It was all right, though, because she meant to give him everything.
The kiss deepened. Every thread of tension that supported Phoebe’s legs snapped. She sagged against Remington, and whatever space existed between them vanished. Her arms were caught at her sides. She wriggled, slid her palms up his chest, over his shoulders, and then folded her hands behind his neck. She kept his mouth to hers. Why had she never known hunger for this until she was starving?
The shortest route was indeed down. With Phoebe’s arms locked around him, Remington only had to lower himself to the mattress. The blanket unfolded as he stretched out and Phoebe stretched out over him. It was not the position he had imagined when calculating his path, but it was a very good one. He was grinning when she lifted her head, and he surrendered that smile when she lowered it again.
She kissed the corner of his mouth, brushed her lips against his jaw. She teased him with tiny tasting kisses along the cord in his neck. He brought her back to his mouth and kept her there with the heat and the hunger.
Without quite knowing how it happened, Phoebe found herself under Remington, not completely, not so his weight was pressing down on her, but covered by enough of him to feel all of his warmth. That was important right now because he was tugging at the knot that kept her blanket closed. This knot did not require the use of his knife. He raised himself on an elbow, watching her, not what he was doing.
The blanket did not fall open at once, but that was because Phoebe was not in charge of this curtain. Remington was. And he damn well was going to take his time. He studied the narrow part in the blanket; or rather he studied the slim line of milky flesh that it revealed. He rested his hand on the flat of her abdomen and then walked his fingers up the part, through the Valley of Elah, and on to the hollow of her throat. He could feel her faint pulse against his fingertips.
Remington bent, kissed her lightly, and then retraced his trail to where the knot had been. He nudged one side of the blanket. Under his fingers, the edge of it climbed up her breast, caught on the stiff bud of her nipple, and then made a rapid descent when he flicked it aside.
He cupped the underside of her breast and passed his thumb across the pink aureole. The little rosebud stood at attention so he gave it his, covering it with the gentle suck of his mouth. Phoebe’s spine arched as if he had pulled hard on a thread. She found support by driving the heels of her hands between lumps in the mattress. She pressed her head back and felt the line of her neck stretch taut. It drew him there. He left her breast and set his lips against her throat, her neck, and when he came to the hollow just behind her collarbone, he used his teeth to make his mark and his tongue to lave it.
She wanted to weep with the pleasure of it. She whimpered instead.
He followed the same path he had walked with his fingers but used his mouth this time. The blanket no longer covered her—the lift of her arching spine had taken care of that—and Remington now gave attention to the breast he had ignored. She did not react as if she were going to come out of her skin, but she did clutch his shoulders and make small crescents in his skin with her nails. Remington took that as a sign of her approval and stayed where he was until she reversed the pressure and pushed him away.
Raising his head, he searched her face. Her eyelids were heavy, but her eyes were alert. She had pressed her lips together and was breathing shallowly through her nose. “Too much?” he asked. His voice was rough, like gravel, but the whisper softened it.
“Mm. A little.” She whispered as well and was barely able to hear herself above the sound of the rain hitting the roof. “And not quite enough.”
The corners of his mouth turned up in a shadow of a smile that was equal parts regret and empathy. “I understand. Perhaps I should return the reins.”
She didn’t know what he meant until he was once again on his back and she was stretched along his length. He slipped a hand under her upper leg and lifted it across both of his. It was natural for her to rise up on one elbow and set her gaze on him. She ran the back of her hand along his jaw. The brush of his stubble was a pleasant sensation against her knuckles. She tapped his chin once with her forefinger before she slid it up to his mouth and rested it against his lips.
“I’m not shushing you,” she said. “I’m letting you keep your secrets.”
Because she did not raise her finger, he said, “Mm.”
“You have the kind of mouth they hide behind, the kind that rests easy on your face, seems open, friendly, but then it twists slightly, reveals the wryness and says there’s something you know that I don’t, that maybe no one does. I like it.” She raised her finger but not so he could comment. She kissed him on that beautiful mouth and whispered, “Perfect,” against it.
She moved her hand to his chest, rested her palm over his heartbeat, and felt its thrum. Much as he had done, and because he had shown her how to do it, Phoebe walked her fingers to the flat of his belly and then spread them across it. His skin r
etracted under her touch, and she felt a sense of, if not quite power, then control. Somehow he had known she needed that before she recognized the same, and he gave it to her without hesitation, never risking the possibility that she would not ask for it. Where she was concerned, his instincts were flawless.
It was the same with the horses.
She was able to swallow her chuckle but was unsuccessful biting back her smile. It was not the thought that tickled her, not exactly. It was because she had thought of it now.
“What is it?” he asked.
She sighed. “Of course you would notice.”
“Phoebe. You are lying beside me in what anyone would say is a provocative state of undress, and you—”
“Half-naked,” she said. “That’s what anyone except you would say, although it was nice of you to add ‘provocative.’”
“And you,” he went on as if she had not interrupted, “are smiling as widely as the Cheshire cat. It’s disturbing.”
She did laugh, then, and showered him with the sound of joy.
Remington let her fumble with the buttons on his fly until she asked for help between gulps of air. She surprised him by not trying to work his trousers over his hips. Instead, she attended to the fly on her trousers. She began to wriggle out of them, which made her breasts bounce in a most appealing way. She stopped, though not, it seemed, because he was ogling her.
It was a matter of her boots. She took back the leg he had pulled over his and sat up. “I forgot about these,” she said. “There’s an order, isn’t there, when you want to get out of your trousers?” She bent one knee, pulled up her calf crossways, and wrestled the boot off.
Remington watched her toss aside the boot and then begin to contemplate her sock. It would have been amusing if his cock were not as hard as an iron bar and pressing with some urgency against his drawers. He almost groaned with relief when she decided to keep the sock on and turned her attention to the other boot.
