When the door didn’t open, it took him a moment to realize that she’d locked him out of their bedroom.
Anger rolled through him and his reaction came without thought. He took a step back and, without a second’s hesitation, slammed his booted foot into the door just above the latch. The wood splintered but held, and it took a second kick to complete the job. The door slammed open with force enough to send it careening back. Bishop stepped into the opening, putting out one hand to block the door as it bounced off the wall.
Lila stood next to the bed, tall and slender in her white cotton wrapper, her hair falling over her shoulder in a thick, flame-colored rope. With the lamp behind her, her face was in shadow, making it difficult to read her expression. But he didn’t need to see her face now. He’d seen it this afternoon, seen the loathing in her eyes. His anger disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving him unbearably tired.
“I told you once before that I won’t tolerate locked doors between us,” he said quietly, reminding her of their wedding night.
Lila started to speak but before she could say anything, Gavin was there, darting past Bishop and into the bedroom. He placed himself between them, facing his father, his eyes bright with a mixture of determination and fear.
“Leave her alone! I won’t let you hurt her.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, broken by Lila’s shocked exclamation. “Gavin!”
She hurried forward and put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. He was rigid with tension, his attention never wavering from Bishop. Father and son, they confronted each other. Bishop looked as if he’d just been kicked in the chest, all the air knocked from him.
“I...” He shook his head slightly, like a fighter who’d just taken a solid punch to the jaw. When he spoke, his tone held a deep weariness that went straight to Lila’s heart. “Go back to bed, son.”
“Leave her alone,” Gavin said again. Beneath her hand, Lila could feel him trembling. She had to put an end to this confrontation before irreparable harm was done to his relationship with his father.
Stepping between them, she forced Gavin to look at her. “Your father would never hurt me, Gavin.”
“He broke the door.” The boy’s eyes darted to the shattered lock.
“That was my fault for locking it. He had every right to be angry.” She realized as she spoke that she’d wanted to make Bishop angry because dealing with his anger would be easier than dealing with the wild tangle of emotions that churned inside her. “He would never hurt me.”
Gavin shot Bishop an angry look past her shoulder. “He murdered that man today.”
“No, he didn’t!” It would have been difficult to say which of the three of them was most surprised by Lila’s quick defense of Bishop. “He acted in self-defense. That man wanted to kill him. It was a terrible thing that happened, but it wasn’t your father’s fault. You saw what happened. What do you think he should have done?”
Gavin looked at her uncertainly. “I don’t know,” he admitted slowly, suddenly looking very much like the boy he was rather than the adult he so often seemed.
“It’s been a long day for all of us,” she said softly. She dared to reach out and brush back a lock of silky black hair that had fallen onto the boy’s forehead, her smile tender. “Go back to bed now. Things will seem clearer tomorrow.”
Gavin hesitated a moment longer, glancing uneasily between her and his father.
“Go on, son,” Bishop said tiredly. “I won’t lay a hand on her.”
Contradictory as it was, his father’s words seemed to be the final reassurance that Gavin needed. With a last uncertain look at Lila, he slid past her and Bishop and left the room. Lila turned to watch him go. The barely audible snick of his bedroom door closing seemed unnaturally loud in the silence he’d left behind.
CHAPTER 19
Alone with Bishop, Lila’s voice deserted her. She wanted to explain Gavin’s feelings, but how could she when she didn’t understand her own? Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dobe Lang’s look of surprise when the bullet found him, the horrible boneless way his body had fallen to the dirt. And Bishop’s cold, still expression as he watched him die.
She hadn’t believed any of the stories she’d heard about her husband. She’d dismissed young William’s awestruck admiration as a case of somewhat misplaced hero worship. The boy’s father was a banker. While it was a perfectly respectable profession, it wasn’t the kind of thing that was likely to excite a young boy. But a dark and dangerous lawman was something else entirely. She’d assumed that William had simply exaggerated Bishop’s reputation to fit his own notion of excitement. And when other people had alluded to the same things, she’d shrugged it off as part of the peculiar need that westerners seemed to have to emphasize the differences between the “wild” West with the more civilized East. The idea that she was married to a ... shootist was just too ridiculous to entertain.
Yet today she’d seen the lethal speed with which he’d drawn his gun; seen him kill a man in less time than it took to draw a breath. It had frightened her. But what had frightened her nearly as much was the relief she’d felt when she saw Lang fall. When she’d realized what was happening on the street, it had hit her that she might be about to see Bishop die. Hard on the heels of that thought had been a gut-deep feeling of panic. Despite her resentment of his occasionally high-handed ways, he was important to her, an integral part of her life. She could no longer imagine her life without him, could hardly remember what it had been like before she knew him. When the shooting was over, there had been one terrible moment when she’d actually been glad that Lang was dead. Glad because his death meant Bishop’s life. The realization that she’d offered up a prayer of thanksgiving for a man’s death had filled her with self-loathing. And she’d hated Bishop for making her feel that way, for bringing her face to face with a part of herself she’d rather not have seen.
Perhaps Bishop read something of that in her face now because his expression grew even more distant.
“I’ll sleep at the jail tonight,” he said expressionlessly.
He started to turn away and Lila knew, on some deep, instinctive level that, if she let him go now, it would be an end to any chance they might have of making something real and lasting of their marriage. The ties that bound them were too new and too fragile to draw them back together. If there was any chance of creating the kind of marriage she’d always dreamed of having, a marriage based on trust and respect, and, God willing, love, they had to get past this.
“Don’t go.”
Bishop turned to look at her, his expression still and waiting. Lila stared at him, at a loss for words. Her emotions were tangled and confused. A part of her hated him and everything he represented. She’d seen a side of him today that had frightened her. She’d seen a man who could kill with frightening ease. Yet she also remembered the sometimes awkward gentleness he showed to Angel, his patience with Gavin, his concern for her own comfort and safety. Pulled in too many directions, she felt tears start to her eyes.
Bishop saw her eyes fill with tears and felt something pinch tight and hard in his chest. He’d never seen Lila cry. She always faced life—and him— with her chin thrust out, ready to take them both on without giving an inch. Though her stubborn spirit and her temper had, more than once, exasperated him beyond all bearing, he’d much rather have dealt with her anger than her tears.
He started to reach out to her and then realized that he was probably the last person from whom she’d want to take comfort. But a ragged sob broke from her as she came into his embrace. His arms closed around her automatically, drawing her close, feeling the soft warmth of her body against his like a gentle balm to his soul.
“It’s going to be all right,” Bishop murmured against her hair. He’d rather have faced a band of marauding Apaches unarmed than listen to Lila cry. The sound of her tears tore a hole inside him. “Don’t cry. Everything’s all right.”
But his whispered reassurances had no affe
ct. She continued to cry—slow, painful tears that dampened his shirt front and burned like acid against his skin. At another time, he might have recognized her tears for what they were—a much-needed release of tension. But all he could think of was that he couldn’t bear the sound of her unhappiness.
Winding his hand around the thick rope of her hair, he tilted her head back. He caught a quick glimpse of the tear-drenched green of her eyes and then his mouth was closing over hers. He tasted the salt tang of her tears against his tongue, swallowed her soft gasp of surprise. He kissed her as if he could somehow take her pain into himself and make it his own.
He had no thought except to comfort her, but then Lila seemed to melt against him, her fingers clinging to his shirt front, her mouth opening in an invitation Bishop had neither the strength nor the will to resist. The hunger he’d been suppressing for weeks was suddenly a clawing need in his gut. As he opened his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss, tasting the answering need in her, a hunger to equal his own, the last traces of his control shattered.
But he was not alone in his lack of control.
His fingers speared through her heavy braid, loosening her hair until it spilled over his hands and arms in a thick silken curtain. Lila’s fingers were impatient with the buttons on his shirt, tearing one loose in her rush to bare his chest. Bishop shrugged out of the garment and pushed her wrapper off her shoulders at the same time she was reaching for the buckle on his belt.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Bishop recognized what was happening. Death had brushed against them today, laying ghostly fingers on his shoulder, revealing a grim, unsmiling mask to Lila. If he’d been a half second slower or Lang a half second faster, Death could have swung his scythe in a different direction. The elemental hunger that gripped them both now was, in part, a need to affirm life in the most basic of ways—by touch and sight and taste.
But the reason it was happening was not important. All that mattered was the feel of Lila’s skin heating beneath his hands, the moist warmth of her mouth, the gentle yielding of her body beneath his. He had no memory of pushing the ruined door shut behind them and sliding a chair in front of it, no memory of easing her back on the bed. His hands raced over her body, exploring the changes in it. Her breasts were fuller now, filling his hand like the most exotic of fruits, and they’d grown more sensitive. When he bent to taste the pouting darkness of her nipple, she cried out softly, a keening sound of pleasure that went straight to his gut. His fingers gentled as they traced the solid bulge of her stomach. There was something strangely erotic in the thought that his child was cradled inside her, a child created in one night of passion that was like nothing he’d ever known before. Until now.
He wanted to explore every inch of her, to savor the feel and taste of her. But his pulse was beating in his ears, deafening him to everything but the need to sheath himself in her, to feel her body take his into the most intimate embrace possible between a man and a woman. He raised himself over her and Lila’s thighs parted in welcome. A tiny, unwelcome flicker of sanity made Bishop hesitate. He wanted no regrets, no recriminations thrown at him in the morning. If he took her now, this would be the end of all bargains between them and the beginning of a real marriage.
His eyes met hers, electric blue clashing with smoky green.
“Tell me this is what you want,” he said, his voice raspy with need. The feel of him pressed against her was a sweet torture for them both.
Lila stared up at him, seeing the hunger that burned in his eyes, the need that tightened the skin across his cheekbones. She saw, also, the same crossroads Bishop had seen. After this, there would be no going back to the way things had been. He wasn’t going to let her pretend to be swept away by passion. She was going to have to admit that she wanted this as much as he did. Her hesitation lasted no more than a heartbeat.
“This is what I want,” she whispered.
It was all Bishop needed to hear. He completed their union with one slow thrust that sheathed his aching hardness in the yielding warmth of her. Lila arched to take him deeper still, her hands clinging to the thick muscles of his upper arms. She hadn’t realized how empty she’d been until this moment when the emptiness was filled, until she felt herself completed by their joining. This was what she’d been waiting for her whole life.
The hunger was too great to allow for soft touches and gentle sighs. It was hot and hard and fast. They moved together, their bodies in perfect rhythm, one with the other. Lila found herself spiraling upward at dizzying speed, desperate to find the fulfillment she knew awaited her, the pleasure only he could give her.
Though she thought she knew what to expect, she was caught off guard by the power of her own completion. It was like standing in the middle of a Fourth of July fireworks display, lights and sound exploding around her, inside her. Her body arched beneath his, delicate muscles contracting around him, pulling him into the vortex of her pleasure. There was only Bishop, her husband, the father of her child, the man who’d taught her how to live again. Only the two of them alone in all the world.
As she floated slowly back to earth, Lila suddenly remembered the words of the wedding ceremony, words that had filled her with terror a few weeks ago. Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. Listening to the ragged beat of Bishop’s heart against her ear, feeling the heavy weight of his body over hers, she found the words comforting, a promise for the future.
***
The first pale-gray fingers of dawn were sliding through the muslin curtains when Lila woke. Her eyes still closed, she stretched out one hand in sleepy inquiry and found Bishop gone, the linens on his side of the bed cool. She opened her eyes to confirm what her touch had already told her, but before she could decide whether to feel relief or disappointment, she saw him standing near the window, the curtain pulled partially open as he watched the sun edge its way over the shoulders of the mountains. Though the air carried a distinct chill, he was shirtless and barefoot, his only concession to modesty and the temperature a pair of half-buttoned pants that rode low on his hips.
Blinking sleepily, Lila let her eyes linger on the corded muscles of his shoulders and back, the rumpled thickness of his dark hair. Her fingers curled into the cool linens. She knew how those muscles felt beneath her hands, knew the surprising softness of his hair sliding between her fingers. She’d never realized it was possible to know another person’s body better than you knew your own. Certainly Bishop’s hands had mapped her body with a thoroughness that made her blush to remember.
As if sensing her gaze, Bishop turned away from the window, his eyes meeting hers. “Good morning.”
The prosaic greeting surprised her though she couldn’t have said why. It wasn’t as if she’d been expecting a declaration of undying love.
“Good morning,” she responded, pleased that she sounded just as normal as he had. If he wanted to act as if nothing had changed, that was fine with her. She sat up, careful to keep the sheet pulled over her breasts. He might be comfortable standing about half naked, but she had been reared to believe that modesty was an admirable trait.
She watched uneasily as Bishop moved toward her. Surely he wasn’t thinking about climbing back into bed with her. True, it was barely even dawn and there was no reason for either of them to be up so early, but there was something downright scandalous about the idea of him getting back into bed. His hands dropped to the waist of his pants and Lila felt color flood her cheeks.
“I’ll make some coffee,” she said, turning her head away and scooting toward the opposite side of the bed. But before she could get her legs untangled from the covers, she felt the mattress dip beneath Bishop’s weight and then his fingers closed around her arm, tugging her gently but inexorably back into the middle of the bed. Though she sensed that, if she resisted, he’d release her, Lila allowed herself to sink back against the pillows.
“Running away?” he asked quietly. He leaned on one elbow, next to her, his expression shadowed and difficult to re
ad.
“From what?” There was less scorn and more uncertainty in the question than she would have liked.
“From me.” He brought his hand up and brushed a lock of hair back from her face. His fingers brushed across her mouth, touched lightly on the pulse at the base of her throat, and then, in a move that stole her breath, slid beneath the sheet to boldly cup the heavy globe of her breast. “From this.”
“Bishop!” She gasped in shock. “You... We can’t... It’s morning!”
“I don’t know of any laws against a man making love to his wife in the morning.” His thumb brushed across her nipple and Lila felt her bones start to melt. “And if there are, I promise not to tell the law,” he whispered as his mouth closed over her, smothering her already weak protest.
***
The morning was somewhat more advanced and Lila lay snuggled close against Bishop’s side. She told herself that she should get up and get started on the morning’s chores, but she couldn’t seem to find the energy to move. She felt pleasantly tired and drowsy with contentment. Her head on Bishop’s shoulder, she slid her fingers through the thick mat of hair on his chest.
She considered the idea that she was becoming a wanton, but at the moment she couldn’t seem to get up much concern about the possibility. Here it was, with daylight definitely creeping into the room, and she was lying wrapped in Bishop’s arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world, which was how it felt.
“No more talk of separate beds,” Bishop said quietly. It wasn’t a question but Lila answered as if it were.
“No.” The word came out on a sigh. She’d been so sure she was doing the right thing, so sure she needed time to get to know him, time to... To what? She didn’t know anymore, she admitted to herself, though she’d certainly never say as much to him.
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