Sera nodded reluctantly. Love was the answer to all things. Even Henry had told her that.
Closing her eyes, she began the slow, steady breathing that she liked to initiate before prayer. It calmed her. It helped to clear her mind.
She asked the angels to let her see only what would help Jesse—nothing more, nothing less. She didn't want to pry into private miseries that he hadn't asked her to see, like the blacksmith.
Timidly, she closed her fingers over the brass buttons of his dungarees. Nothing happened. Fighting a frisson of frustration, she kept breathing. She imagined her mind was an artist's virgin canvas, completely receptive to fresh colors, new pictures, lofty ideas.
She didn't know how long she sat there, breathing in and out, swaying back and forth, until the first splash of color swirled into her mind. Red, followed by black. Gold, followed by gray. She struggled to push back the shadows, to let the rainbows pour in.
Suddenly, the smoke parted. She recognized the tell-tale glimmer of amber whiskey bottles beneath a sprawling mirror. She was in a saloon. A fancy one, judging by the red velvet and gold gilt that predominated in the decor.
A raucous crowd was present: shouting cowboys with gunless holsters; scantily clad hurdy-gurdy girls with drooping, crimson plumes in their hair. The swinging, ruddy light overhead made their faces garish and distorted as they betted and chugged liquor.
A craps table swam into view. Its red and yellow numbers, painted onto its field of green baize, looked just as fuzzy as the bettors. Dice tumbled, smacking against the sides of the table, dividing into four dice. Then eight dice. The scene was so surreal!
She shook her head, trying to clear it of the blur. Only it wasn't her head, she realized dimly. When she blinked down the length of her body, she saw a cartridge belt riding low across her hips. Her Justin boots and silver spurs were stumbling across heaving floorboards.
Somehow, she'd gotten inside of Jesse's head.
Even as this bizarre realization hit her, she realized he was drunk. She—or rather, he—was climbing a poorly lit stairwell. His head was spinning. His stomach was roiling. She thought she might be sick when a room with a black number—2—lurched into view.
He called out a name. It sounded like Molly. Or Polly.
He was angry with this woman. Polly had stolen something from him. But he was being cautious, too. He stumbled to a halt. He strained his ears. He could hear no panting or mattress creaking coming from Bedroom #2.
But he smelled tobacco smoke near the door.
Something isn't right, the thought pounded in his brain—her brain.
She didn't want to go inside that room. Neither did Jesse. He reached for his holster, but it was empty. Like the other patrons, he's surrendered his weapons to the doorman before entering the casino.
He swayed on the threshold, trying to clear his vision. His body wasn't responding the way it normally did. The liquor had slowed his reflexes and dulled his reason.
He thought about turning around and finding somebody named Cass.
That was when the door creaked open. Slowly, inexorably, that crack in the night grew wider. In the eerie glow of a stark white, winter moon, she glimpsed a rumpled bed and a limp body. Red hair. Naked breasts. Bruised throat. Blue lips.
Sera thought she really would be sick, then. Even before Jesse lurched into the room, even before some faceless lurker struck his head with a gun butt from behind, Sera knew that Polly was dead. That Polly had been murdered.
"I don't want to see any more," she gasped to Hiawassee.
"Remember face."
"No, please..."
But Hiawassee didn't show her the corpse. She showed her a man: gaunt and unattractive, with dark, cruel eyes, iron-gray mustachios, and a sneering slash for a mouth.
Sera shuddered violently. She knew she would never, ever forget that face. The face of Polly's killer.
"Cass knows this man." Hiawassee's voice was beginning to fade from Sera's mind. "Tell Jesse."
Sera jolted and gasped, dragging shuddering breath after shuddering breath into her lungs. The familiar colors of the stable swam before her eyes: the faded blue of Jesse's dungarees. The pale yellow of the straw. The midnight-colored flanks of her nickering filly.
Silhouetted against the electrical, blue flickers of the storm, a lean, broad-shouldered man stood on the threshold. When the lightning spat, illuminating the rugged, sun-blackened features beneath his hat brim, the star on his left breast flashed silver.
"Jesse," she breathed, relieved that he'd come back to her all safe and sound—until she spied the cold, green glitter of outrage in the stare that locked with her own.
Chapter 9
"Jesse! I... I was afraid that you'd been shot. Or that you'd decided to spend the night with... er, I mean, in town..."
He arched a coal-black eyebrow.
Her cheeks flamed.
She tried to lighten his mood with humor. "You're not going to arrest me, are you?"
"Are you doing something illegal?"
"Of course not."
"Just immoral, huh?"
She hiked her chin. "If worrying about you is immoral, than I'm guilty!"
He didn't look amused as he doffed his hat and stepped inside the building. "Lucky for you, snooping's not a hanging offense."
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be."
He hung his Stetson on a nail that jutted from a support beam. Then he dug his matchsafe from his dungarees' front pocket.
The uneasy silence lengthened between them as he went through the ritual of lighting a kerosene lamp. As the wick spat and flared, his thinly veiled anger was illuminated in the stark light. Then he blew out the match. Muted shades of red and brown rushed to mask his ire.
"So." He bent at the waist, treating her to the profile of a firm, round derriere and thighs that looked stronger than oak trunks. He was removing his spurs. "What did you learn about my crotch?"
Honestly. Could she turn any redder?
"Are you finished? Enjoying my embarrassment, that is?"
"I reckon." He straightened, ditching his spurs. When he began strolling toward her stool, he adopted that soundless prowl so reminiscent of a jungle cat's. "I can think of a couple of things I'd enjoy a whole lot more."
He squatted before her, the manly aroma of tobacco and leather wafting over her. Her heart quickened its nervous tattoo.
"Can I have my pants back?" A wicked dimple flirted with his lips.
"Maybe." She narrowed her eyes at this bawdy show of humor. "Are you going to pack them in your bedroll and ride?"
"Now that's an interesting question, coming from a maid."
"That is not what I meant!"
"Isn't it?"
Those strong white teeth flashed in a feral smile, one that wasn't entirely pleasant. "It seems to me a young, unmarried woman shouldn't be visiting her hired hand's digs in the middle of the night. Unless, of course, she has a certain kind of pleasure-riding on her mind."
Sera's jaw dropped. She couldn't believe he would think such a thing about her!
Well, okay. Maybe she had imagined stealing into the stable a time or two, kissing him with a reckless abandon that would make his pants bulge and his breaths rip.
Maybe she'd imagined stripping off his shirt to feast her eyes on his rock-ribbed planes and the downy trail of fur that marched beneath his belt to the mysterious nether region beneath his fly.
And maybe she'd even dreamed of snuggling in his arms all night long, while his great, gentle hands smoothed the tangles from her hair.
But was that such a crime? Imagining?
"Why are you being so contrary?" she demanded in wounded tones. "I thought we were friends."
"So did I. Until I caught you trying to use your half-sight against me."
She sucked in her breath. "Jesse, I swear. That is not what I—"
With a speed reminiscent of his quick-draw, he ripped the denim from her hands and caught her wrists.
>
She shivered a little when she recognized the hunger lurking in his jewel-colored stare.
"You also swore you would never take your gloves off around me again. Remember?"
Tears pricked her eyelids. Why was he acting like this?
"That didn't seem to bother you in the kitchen."
"In the kitchen, you weren't trying to betray me."
Alarm crept into her heart.
"But Jesse, I only wanted—" She bit her tongue.
"Yeah?" Those inky black lashes fanned lower, veiling the raw, primal emotions that sparked in his gaze. "Tell me. What do you want?"
She tried to tug free. He merely tightened his grip—not hurting her, but not yielding a hairsbreadth, either. His long, sun-blackened fingers could easily have wrapped around one-and-a-half of her wrists.
"I-I don't like you this way!"
"No?" It was the barest of whispers. Something like self-mockery flickered over his shadow-etched features. "What do you like, Sera? This?"
His lips brushed her cheek.
"This?"
His mouth nuzzled the corner of hers.
She shivered, half wanting his kiss, half afraid to risk it. Despite what Jesse clearly believed, she'd never ventured into a beau's sleeping quarters before. She'd never trusted any sweetheart the way she trusted Jesse—or at least, the way that she trusted Jesse of the Sun-dappled Daisy Pasture and the Bowl of Cinnamon-flavored Oatmeal.
But this Jesse of the Moonlit Storm wasn't as reassuring. He radiated a primal hunger, and he'd tethered it on a short, fraying leash. She didn't know how much longer that leash would hold, or what eventually might snap it. All she knew was that he'd grown dangerous—the way that a feline's paws were dangerous, when they kneaded an unguarded lap.
Not now, not ever, had Jesse been a domesticated breed of cat.
"Jesse, please don't be angry with me—"
"I'm not angry, Sera. This is lust. I want to do forbidden things to you. I want to do scandalous, bawdy things that would make you pant and gasp and shake with the sheer, wild pleasure of my kiss."
Sera's insides heated at his husky promise. She recalled last Independence Day. The scandal that had lead to Michael's shotgun wedding. Sera had gone picnicking with Henry by the river with several other couples. They'd spied Eden stretched out in the wildflowers, writhing beneath Michael's naked chest. As if it were yesterday, Sera could remember how Michael's arm had been buried up to its elbow beneath Eden's petticoats; how Eden had panted; how his bicep had pumped in time to the wild, erotic rhythm of her hips.
Jesse wasn't a medical doctor, but... Did he know how to touch a woman that way? Could he really make her, Seraphina Jones, throw all caution to the wind? Wheeze like a bellows because his hand was doing some mysterious thing beneath her skirts? Reduce her to a helpless, moaning frenzy that no longer cared about her reputation, her wedding night, or the passage of time itself?
Rather than be appalled by her wanton curiosity, Sera found herself licking her lips.
"That's it," Jesse crooned. The devil was dancing a jig in the smoky depths of that burning, green stare. "You know what you want, Sera."
"But I've never—"
"I'll teach you," he breathed, his tongue tracing her bottom lip, tenderly probing, patiently coaxing an invitation.
She quivered as he licked and sipped. A moist heat was pooling in her secret, female places.
"Tell me what you want, Sera," he murmured against her throat, pressing wet, leisurely kisses along the arching column.
Once more, she tried to twist her hands free.
Again, he held her fast—only this time he gently, insistently, forced her arms behind her back, imprisoning her wrists in one, giant cat's paw near the curve of her spine.
"Why won't you let me touch you?" she whispered uneasily.
"Because I want to touch you," he purred.
He tugged the comb from her hair, inhaling as he smoothed back the curls. When he tangled his hand in the mass, massaging the hollow where her head and neck joined, the cries of her maidenly inhibition began to grow weak. Muffled. A warm, heady languor was spreading to her toes.
"I would never betray you, Jesse."
"Uh-huh."
Of its own volition, her body started to sag forward, sinking into his chest. Beneath her ear, she could hear a life-affirming rhythm. It sounded like a drum. The symphony of a river. The pulse of the earth.
"I think I'm in love with you," she whispered.
He grew still—stone still—except for the wild cadence of his heart.
An endless moment dragged by.
He didn't draw a breath. He didn't say the magic words.
Uneasiness began to puncture her languor.
But when she would have raised her head, that strong, pleasurable kneading began again behind her neck.
Pressure, release.
Pressure, release.
He was holding her cheek fast, to his chest. She sagged a little lower. The tension in her muscles relaxed. Thinking became such an effort.
"I'm not the man you think I am, Sera."
She smiled dreamily. Of course he was. He was her best friend. The answer to her prayers. And someday—after Sheriff Ben got better—Jesse was going to marry her. Just like Michael had married Eden. That's why it was all right for Jesse to... well, to do what he had promised.
"I shouldn't be marshal," he whispered, rubbing his cheek against her hair. "I'm the wrong man for the job."
"I believe in you, Jesse. I know you'll catch Ben's ambusher."
"I'm a bad man, Sera."
She smiled a little at his insistence. Yes, he was. The bulge straining his fly was proof-apparent.
She wriggled closer, lifting her chin so she could press her mouth to the hollow where his neck and shoulder joined.
When she sucked, he quivered.
When she nipped, he growled.
He squeezed a pressure point, making her neck tip back at his command. She gasped, and his lips swooped for hers. There was nothing civilized about Jesse's kiss. It was pure predator. Pure jungle cat. When his mouth slanted, demanding a response, she gave it to him, wildly, recklessly, exhilarated by the firecrackers that were exploding in her brain.
"Sera," he panted, his breaths harsh and ragged against her lips, "tell me to stop."
And all the while his tongue was thrusting and plundering, daring her to be the first to desist, to deny the bonfire that was burning in her brain.
"I don't want you to," she gasped when he finally let her draw the breath to speak.
His eyes slitted in their catlike way.
She locked stares with him. Her wrists were still imprisoned in his hand. Her lips felt swollen. Her nipples chafed against the edge of her corset, longing to burst free.
His smoldering gaze swept lower, watching the lace heave between her breasts.
His nostrils flared, as if scenting the perspiration that misted her décolletage. His head lowered, seeking. His fingers joined the quest. Soon her half-bust corset parted, and she felt the chill of the night gust over her tingling breasts. She arched her spine, helpless to do anything but gasp and squirm as that chill was replaced by the moist heat of his tongue and lips.
He teased a sensitized nipple, licking and laving, making it jut into his mouth. When the sharp little nibbles began, she whimpered, feeling the pull all the way to her groin.
"Why won't you let me touch you?" she groaned.
"Tempting."
"Why?"
"Because you won't like the visions that you see."
"I didn't see anything this morning," she insisted, pleading.
He growled something that she couldn't quite hear, since his words were muffled by her breasts.
Meanwhile, he was pushing her buttocks to the edge of the stool. Her eyes widened when she thought she might slide off, but his flanks pressed forward, stabilizing her hips even as they spread her knees wide.
"Your first lesson, angel," he whispered, his
breaths hot and gusty by her ear, "is how to stay a maid and still feel like a woman."
His free hand was gathering up her skirts, easing the tension in the fabric between her thighs. With every inch of calico that slackened, he pressed closer, until his hot hard shaft was wedged against her female heat.
"Tell me to stop," he demanded again.
She was trembling. Even though her stockings and bloomers were bared up to her hips—and the slit in the twin fabrics made her completely vulnerable to his arousal—she staunchly shook her head.
His eyes gleamed, full of challenge. "I'll make you scream."
"Will it hurt?"
"I would never hurt you."
Reassured, she licked her lips.
The smoky promise in his eyes made her thighs quiver like jelly.
"Grip my hips with your knees. Cross your ankles behind my buttocks. That's it. Don't let go."
Her eyes widened when he heaved, standing just long enough to turn around and collapse on a mound of straw with his back against the wall of the stall. She plopped down on his rock-hard abdomen, wisps of straw floating around her. He chuckled at the bemusement on her face.
"You see those halter rings up there, behind my head?"
She nodded uncertainly.
"I'm going to trust you enough to let go of your hands. But only if you hold onto those rings. No matter what I do, you hold onto those rings. Got that?"
"But—"
"If you don't," he interrupted silkily, "I'm going to stop doing whatever I'm doing. And you're not going to want me to stop, I can promise you that. Do we have a deal?"
Exasperated, she tossed a curl out of her eyes. "How is that supposed to be fun?"
"You want to go back to your bedroom, this minute, all alone?"
"No," she admitted sullenly.
"You want me to tie you up?"
"No!"
His dimples peeked. "Well, then. Deal or no deal?"
She blew out her breath.
"What are you so worried that I'm going to see?" she hedged.
A wicked little smile teased the corners of his lips. "I'm not worried about your visions anymore."
"You're not?" Hope filled her heart. "Then why—"
"Because, Precious, if you touch me, the way I'm going to touch you, you will not be a maid in the morning. Do I make myself clear?"
Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3) Page 14
