High Plains Bride

by Jenna Kernan

  “No longer.” She granted him a smile and laid a hand on the broad muscle of his chest.

  His breath caught as she stroked him.

  He reached then and dragged her against him, savoring the sweet pressing of warm flesh as their bodies came together.

  Her moan of pleasure brought an answering growl from deep in his throat. He lifted her chin to give her a gentle kiss, promising himself that he would not rush as he had when they were so young. This time he would savor her sweetness and draw out their pleasure.

  His intentions dissolved the instant her tongue flicked out and stroked his. His grip tightened about her and he dragged her to the bed where they fell side by side, their legs sliding and gripping, bringing him to contact with the hot, wet core of her.

  “Too fast,” he breathed.

  But Sarah’s greedy fingers gripped him, guiding him as she lifted her hips in invitation.

  No man could resist such a bold entreaty. He thrust home, sliding deep within her sweet flesh. He gasped as she rolled upon him as if he were her mount.

  Rocking her hips, she sank even farther upon him, taking him to the hilt. Her tight, slick body squeezed, urging him onward.

  She fell forward, flattening herself to his chest and then rubbing against him like a cat, her taut nipples dragging against him in exquisite torture.

  He reached, stroking the soft outer flesh of her breasts, and then flicked his thumbs over her nipples. She moaned and tossed back her head, sending her wild hair brushing his thighs. He sat up beneath her, swinging his legs off the bed while Sarah stayed locked to him. She rocked against him, renewing her rhythm. He needed to stop her or she’d have him undone. She slid against him and, as she hovered near, he captured one of her nipples in his mouth. She stilled, crying out as she gripped his head, pressing him to her sweet flesh. She gasped as if relishing the sensation of his tongue on delicate flesh. He moved to her other nipple as his fingers stroked the wet tip of the first.

  She arched, sending her body still closer to him. Then something snapped in her and his Sarah turned wildcat, bucking and straining against him. Her strong legs gripped as he moved to kiss her throat.

  Her cry told him she had found her release. A moment later her body quaked about him, gripping and squeezing his erect flesh. The sensation was like nothing he had ever experienced. To feel her satisfaction rippling past his turgid flesh was the most erotic experience of his life. The knowledge of what caused this exquisite torture, coupled with Sarah’s body open upon his, was more than he could stand. He flipped her to her back and pressed himself deep, taking her in wild thrusts. The gripping escalation robbed him of thought as he strove to his summit. It came with explosive force, sending him toppling upon her as if shot in the back.

  After a time he became aware of himself once more. He almost smothered her beneath him, yet she stroked his back. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand.

  “I thought nothing could match our first time,” she whispered.

  He nodded his agreement. “We’re magic together, you and me.”

  He eased off of her and she nestled against his side, throwing a long leg over his hips. The curling smoke of desire roused a sleeping ember, but he was too exhausted to fan the fire. He guided them to lie in the conventional direction on her narrow bed, with one goose down pillow shared beneath both their heads.

  “I want to do that again,” she whispered, her fingers stroking the shell of his ear.

  He chuckled, capturing her hand.

  “Soon,” he promised and dragged the blanket over their cooling flesh. His body twitched as sleep came to steal him away from his Sarah. He turned his head and pressed his lips to her temple. It was there that sleep captured him.

  Sarah drew lazy circles upon his chest. She inhaled the familiar scent of him and breathed in the fragrance of her body upon his fingers. How could it be that with all the pain and sorrow that had passed between them, they should meld so perfectly, as if they had been separated by only one day?

  She leaned close and whispered into his ear.

  “Thomas, damn your stubborn hide, I still love you.”

  Drawing back, she saw that her words gleaned no reaction. That was best. For now she would keep her own counsel on this matter. She did not know if he could forgive her for her marriage and worried about the secrets he kept.

  Why would he not confide in her?

  Still, with all their troubles, they had a connection even time could not destroy. Their lovemaking proved that. But was it enough to keep them together?

  In her dreams, it was always his hands, stroking, possessing. Only this man filled her with desperate longing and made her blood race as if she were still that young girl with all her dreams intact.

  Could they regain that joy? Perhaps it only comes once in a lifetime—a transient passion, not meant to last. But passion was not all that connected them. There was Lucie.

  When they found her, he would see this connection made flesh and he would not leave this time. They could be a family. Until this moment she had only dreamed such things might be possible. Now her heart clung to that hope.

  Sarah turned to Thomas and pushed a lock of hair from his forehead. Her dreamy state gradually ebbed as the sweat cooled upon her body.

  Reality returned as she watched him sleep. He meant to leave her already, to run off into the waving grass and leave her to watch and wait. She felt in her heart that if she let him go, he would not come back.

  As for tonight, she would take the joy that had always been denied her. Tonight, she would sleep in Thomas’s arms.

  She closed her eyes and did not rouse until she heard the bugler blow first call. Thomas slipped from the bed. She dozed again and when she opened her bleary eyes, he stood pouring water into the bowl and washing with one of the soft flannel cloths she kept on the nails above the basin. She watched the efficient stroke of the rag with sleepy eyes, wishing that the washstand had a mirror so she could see the front of him, as well. When he finished, he retrieved his razor.

  She smiled and closed her eyes, listening to the scraping of the blade across his chin. Samuel’s lie had stolen these moments of quiet intimacy from her.

  She dozed, dreaming of swimming in a deep pool. She dove and the weeds at the bottom tickled the sensitive skin of her thighs and belly.

  The sensations grew more arousing until she realized it was Thomas stroking her body from neck to knee. His feathery touch drew her from slumber and into a state of high excitement. His clever fingers moved between her legs to the folds that protected her secret places as he leaned to take her nipple into his mouth. Quaking sensations built within her belly, radiating outward. She breathed his name as she anchored her fingers into the hair on his head.

  He chuckled against her, his breath fanning her breast. How dare he laugh when he tortured her so?

  No more time for thought—the bud bloomed, sending her arching back to the mattress, as the sweet contractions rippled outward. Her body went from taut to exhausted collapse in one blissful moment.

  She lay helpless in his arms as he stroked her. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring.

  “I’ve never seen a sweeter sight.” He nudged her thighs apart with a knee.

  She welcomed him into the lea of her legs.

  “Last night, I meant to watch you when you found your pleasure, but I couldn’t control myself. Today, I’ve had my wish.”

  “Then you’ll be granting me the same pleasure.” It wasn’t a question, so much as a demand.

  His breath stopped for a moment as he stared down at her. “You want to watch me reach my—”

  She nodded, grasping his shoulders.

  He propped himself up upon his hands as she guided him home. She stared in wonder as he moved, his attention never leaving her. His pace quickened and a crease formed between his brows. His expression grew tight as if he felt some great pain. She stroked his cheek but resisted kissing him, unable to draw her gaze from the riv
eting picture of him thrusting into her as the muscles of his chest and shoulders bulged.

  He stared at her in wonder as his body pulsed within her. She squeezed and he moaned as he collapsed beside her. She stroked his fiery hair as if comforting a child, words of love perched upon her lips. She didn’t speak them.

  The knock upon the door came as an unwelcome intrusion. Thomas groaned.

  “Mrs. West?” A pause. “It’s Corporal Abby. I found the trader, like you asked.”

  Thomas rose upon his elbows and glared at her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sarah scowled back at Thomas as he drew away, breaking the connection between them.

  Abby continued talking in a raised voice outside the door, as if she’d answered. “I told him you wanted to see him right away. He’s waiting at the mess.”

  “Go away,” bellowed Thomas.

  There was a long pause. “Mr. West, sir? I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “Then get away from the bloody door.”

  Another pause. “Yes, sir.”

  Thomas swung from the bed and snatched his long johns from the chair, thrusting his legs into them. Then he jerked into his dungarees and boots.

  Her outraged voice followed him. “How could you do that!”

  “How could I…? You—you went behind my back.”

  “And you just let the entire camp know I’m sleeping with you.”

  It was true. “Sarah, I’m sorry.”

  She swung her legs to the floor and reached for her camisole, sliding into it like a fish into water. As she drew on her bloomers and petticoats, he stared at the delicate pink ribbon threaded through lace to dangle at the cleft between her breasts.

  “Thomas, I have no wish to quarrel,” she said. “We’ll go see the trader together.”

  Thomas reached for his shirt. He knew he was in for a fight, but it was a fight to keep Sarah in a place where the Indians couldn’t burn her wagon around her.

  “No, Sarah.”

  She did not disagree, as he expected, but rather took a step forward, bringing a palm to rest on the naked flesh over his beating heart. Her lips parted as her gaze locked with his.

  “Thomas, please.” Her fingers stroked his fevered flesh, branding him with their heat and setting off a pounding ache farther south. When it occurred to him what she was about, his excitement vanished like a flash of powder in the pan.

  He gripped her wrists. “Is that what this was?”

  Her smile faded. “Is that what what was?”

  He pointed at the bed. “This! You trying to get me to change my mind about taking you? Is that why you slept with me?”

  She recoiled. “Let go of me.”

  He did and she stepped back, her face flushed and her brow descending dangerously over her lovely eyes.

  His naive illusions crumbled to dust. He thought their night together had been the truest act of devotion. But in the glaring morning light, it seemed something tainted. “Damn it, woman, you planned this seduction.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down as she pinned him with an icy glare. When she spoke her voice did not rise in anger, but came in low and frigid tones. “I thought there were two of us in that bed.”

  He buttoned his shirt. “I didn’t use you.”

  “Didn’t you? Then I missed your honorable proposal.”

  He stood there panting with fury.

  “You said you knew what you wanted.”

  “That was before you took what happened between us and turned it into something dirty.” She gave him her back. “Get out, Thomas.”

  Just like a woman to blame a man for something that she had done, he thought. He grabbed his gun belt and hat and stormed from the room.

  There he halted, breathing hard as he grappled with his disillusionment.

  She had used him and then denied the whole thing.

  Thomas paced up and down before her room, his boots pounding the planks. He gripped the brim of his hat.

  “Damn it!”

  He flung his hat and watched it spiral out into the road, skipping like a stone on water before coming to rest beside a pile of fresh manure.

  Movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention, and he turned to see Mrs. Corbit pressed against her door, her whey-faced baby upon her hip.

  His scowl sent her gaze to the planking.

  He strapped on his gun and retrieved his hat, brushing off the evidence of his temper tantrum. Sighing deeply, he tugged the thing low over his angry eyes.

  Sarah had cut him deep. He didn’t know how it had happened. One minute he was kissing her, feeling himself deep inside her, and the next he was shouting.

  Had he guessed correctly—that she was trying to coerce him into taking her along, just like the last time she had slipped into his bed? Had she really ever wanted him or had she just wanted a way out of her father’s house?

  Blackness coated his insides like tar as he stanched the urge to vomit right there in the street.

  How had it started?

  Sarah had licked her lips. That was all. One small gesture and he erupted like some ancient volcano. He should have known he had no power to resist her. No other woman had ever manipulated him this way.

  Why couldn’t he control his lust for her?

  The little voice in his head spoke with certainty. Because it isn’t lust, you damn fool. It’s love.

  He made it to the horse rail as a wave of dizziness swept through him. He pressed a hand to his mouth as beads of sweat erupted on his forehead.

  No. He couldn’t love her, not when she so obviously did not feel the same.

  There was no controlling his feelings for this exasperating woman. That was why he’d never found a wife, why he kept her damned picture by his bedside and why he jumped back into her bed the minute she crooked her little finger.

  Thomas leaned heavily upon the rail. She only wanted to come with him. But he feared losing her, as he had lost everyone else he loved. Was it so wrong to want to keep her safe?

  He shivered in the November wind.

  Had she ever cared for him?

  His chin sank to his chest.

  Not the way he loved her, not the way he wanted to love her. She used him. He knew it and it still didn’t stop him from loving her.

  After all he’d done to her, he should count himself damned lucky he had something she needed. As long as he did, Sarah would stay.

  What would happen when he had nothing to offer?

  He swallowed his dread. Losing her once had nearly killed him. He didn’t think he could stand it a second time.

  Sarah sat upon the rumpled bed sheets. Humiliation burned in her face and neck as she realized that Thomas thought no better of her than the town gossips she so despised. Had he not just accused her of sleeping with him in order to trick him into taking her along? It was true she wanted to go, was near desperate to go, but she had taken him to her bed because she loved him. Thomas’s kiss made her forget all her fears of scorn and consequences.

  Now in the harsh morning light the world looked very different. Her fears returned to plague her, accompanied by more regrets. She had only wanted to talk about Hyatt. When Thomas had said she was acting just like his little brother, he could have knocked her over with a feather. She never guessed that this was the reason he was so insistent that she remain behind.

  And then another revelation—Hyatt had followed Thomas. She’d always been told that Thomas had lured him from the safety of the farm. Now she saw another piece of the puzzle fall into place.

  She knew Thomas carried a back-bending measure of guilt. Now she understood why. For some reason, he felt responsible for poor Hyatt’s death. What else could he have meant when he said he had enough blood on his hands?

  Sarah reached for her dress.

  Why couldn’t he tell her about Hyatt?

  Thomas did not trust her. That much was obvious. If he did, he would not have been so quick to accuse her. Without trust, he would not confide his secret
s, and nothing she might say would sway him otherwise. Without trust, there was nothing between them.

  She pressed her hands to her face, wishing to vanish like a wisp of smoke.

  Corporal Abby had heard Thomas. Who had seen him storm from her room?

  She scowled past her headboard, to the adjoining wall she shared with Captain and Mrs. Corbit. She tried to recall her angry words. What had her neighbors overheard? Experience had taught her that women relished such gossip. A groan escaped her as she fell back upon the bed. Her life was repeating itself in a terrible cycle of shame and humiliation. She drew the pillow up over her head.

  Nothing in this world could force her to leave this room. She would stay here until she dried up and blew away.

  She huddled in the covers, suddenly freezing. The fire had gone out and the room was cold enough to see her breath.

  Where was her child right now?

  She remembered finding one of Lucie’s shoes and pictured her child barefoot on this cold autumn day. Sarah bolted upright. She rose, fastening the eyelets on her bodice.

  The one thing strong enough to bring her to face the self-righteous stares of her tormentors was her love for her daughter.

  Sarah emerged from her door a few moments later to find Mrs. Chastity Corbit holding her toddler over her shoulder.

  The woman and her husband, the requisitions officer, had two rooms adjoining Sarah’s northern wall. Had she seen Thomas’s exit a short time ago?

  “Morning, Sarah,” said Chastity.

  Sarah’s cheeks heated as she nodded her hello.

  “Baby’s colicky. Been up most of the night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chastity brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  Sarah stiffened as another notion sprang up in her mind like a frog from a pond. Had this woman heard their lovemaking? Mortified, she could only blink. The answer she feared came a moment later.

  “If you are looking for Mr. West, he’s over at the mess hall.”

  Sarah turned to go.

  “He seemed mighty hot under the collar.”