He paused, looked at Luke. Then at her. Before she knew what he was doing, he glanced down the alley. His breath drew in. His brows snapped down when he studied her face.
Her smile faltered.
“Son of a bitch.”
She would have fallen if Luke hadn’t caught her, so strong was her fear.
Ace propped her against the wall with a “Stay put” before turning back to Luke. “Why do I get the feeling you were going to spread that cheer without me?”
“My gift to you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ace, it’s not—”
“I know exactly what it is.” He stepped down off the walk, stopped and turned back. “Did he touch you?”
She shook her head. “Just blocked my way and said—”
“I can guess what he said.”
“But—”
She started to follow to do what she didn’t know. Stop Brian from spewing his filth, stop Ace from hearing it...
“Don’t.” Luke caught her arm. “It’s his right.”
Brian, the fool, didn’t even have the sense to run. The fight was short. Bloody and vicious. Brian landed one blow before Ace flattened him with a right to the face.
“That cost him some teeth,” Luke observed, not sharing her disquiet at all.
Her stomach heaved when Ace dodged Brian’s kick and grabbed his arm. Dropping to his knee he bent the appendage over his thigh.
“He’s not going to...”
In the next breath there was a crack, and Brian screamed. Ace had broken his arm.
“I’m going to be sick.”
Luke put an arm around her waist and guided her over the edge of the walk. “The bastard knew what he was inviting when he touched what belongs to Ace.”
Her stomach heaved but wouldn’t empty. “He’s a fool,” she gasped.
“A fool who won’t be insulting you again.”
She wiggled out of Luke’s grasp. “All done being queasy?”
“I hope so.”
“Me, too. Puke’s a bitch to get out of leather.”
“You were worried about your boots?”
With the slightest of smiles, he nodded. “Yup. Look lively now, here comes Ace.”
She tried, but from the look on Ace’s face, she didn’t succeed.
“You all right?” he asked, stepping up on the walk beside her.
He wasn’t even winded. “Yes.”
“If he bothers you again, you tell me immediately.”
There wasn’t anything else to say but “All right.”
“You two go on and get that sweet roll.” Luke tipped his head in the direction of the alley. “I’ll clean up this mess.”
Luke’s casual tone put a chill down Petunia’s spine. Ace tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “He’s not going to kill him.”
Luke smiled and tipped his hat. “I have a rule against murder before dark.”
Was she supposed to believe that? “I would hope so.”
With subtle pressure on her arm, Ace guided her down the walk.
Guided, Petunia realized. Not forced. Protected. Not exposed. It was an oddly sheltered feeling to have for a woman who’d grown up under the umbrella of her father’s money and influence. But this was different. This was personal in a way that went beyond her experience. And landed straight in her long-denied expectations, she admitted. Every woman wanted a man who could hold her safe. Every woman felt they had to behave a certain way to make that happen. For her that had always been impossible. But with Ace... She sighed to herself. With Ace she got to be someone else. She simply got to be herself.
His grip tightened subtly in a warning when they approached a rough part of the walk. She always liked that about Ace. He had a way of controlling any moment in a way that allowed her to relax. Like she was now. For no reason. The man with whom she was feeling so safe was also the man who’d disappeared for the past week without a word.
Using the next gust of wind as an excuse, she freed herself from his grip to smooth her hand over her hair. She looked up at him. She wanted to ask where he’d been. She wanted to not have it matter.
“Why this sudden urge for my company?”
His brow cocked up. “What makes you think I was ever without it?”
She hated how he answered a question with a question. “I haven’t seen you for a week.”
A very long week in which his parting words had teased and titillated her desire and festered in her insecurity.
You’ve simply been waiting for the one man who can make you burn.
Who said that to a woman and then just ran off for a week? A week in which she’d found herself watching the door and then the street out the window, looking for him. Waiting for him to act upon that ever so subtle threat. The letter in her pocket rustled. She should have mailed it a week ago when the school board turned down her request for reinstatement. But standing here in the street and looking at Ace she knew why she hadn’t. She’d been hoping for just this moment. For him to notice she still existed. For him to see her standing on her own against the tide. For him to see her again as strong. Lord, she was becoming pathetic.
“Then you’d be leaping to assumptions.”
He caught her elbow again.
“I got a telegram from Caine relating to some activity around a claim that was filed recently,” Ace explained. “Luke and I had to check it out.”
“Assayers check out claims?”
“This one does.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “I see.”
It didn’t explain why he hadn’t said goodbye.
He shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder what you do see.”
The bakery was only half a block away. There were a few people out and about. Petunia could feel the stares like weights on her feet, imagined the speculation. She kept her gaze straight ahead. “I see a man who doesn’t feel he owes me an explanation.”
“It came up sudden.”
Ace shortened his steps to match hers. Their boot steps fell in tandem, the sound blending together. It was a seductive way to look at them. A silly way. Ace was who he was. A gambler. A lawman. A womanizer. She remembered him pinning her hands above her head, kissing her as his hard body pressed against her, holding her where he wanted her, as he wanted her... And mostly, she remembered the thrilling joy that reveled deep inside when he did.
She pushed the envelope deeper in her pocket. “Well, I’m happy that something occupied your time beyond loose women and gambling, but I’m not a toy you can pick up and put down on a whim. Nor am I a child to be appeased by a sweet treat.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “Never thought you were.”
It was a bold move. It was an Ace move. And she couldn’t find it within herself to resent it. “Uh-huh.”
“It really bothered you I left, huh?”
“Only for a minute, so you can stop your smiling.”
They reached the bakery. The sweet scent wrapped around them. “That minute’s got me fair optimistic.”
“Oh, please.”
With a chuckle, he reached around and opened the door. The little bell jangled. Maddie appeared from the back room. The polite smile of greeting on her face widened when she saw them together.
Before she could get the wrong idea, Petunia shook her head. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s everything you think,” Ace countered.
Maddie tilted her head to the side. From the sparkle in her eyes, it was already too late for a protest to take hold.
Petunia blew out an exasperated breath. “I will not be with a man out of guilt.”
“Good,” Ace retorted, “because I wouldn’t want a woman for anything less than passion.”
/>
“I don’t—”
It was Maddie who interrupted. “No sense finishing that sentence. There’s no one in this room that will believe it.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Maddie shook her head and put a cinnamon bun in a piece of brown paper and pushed it across the counter. “I know it was going to be something stupid.”
“What makes you so sure?”
With a jerk of her chin that sent the curls escaping her braid bobbing around her face, Maddie indicated Ace. “That knowing smile of his.”
Petunia turned, and Ace was indeed still smiling. It did funny things to her insides. “Stop it.”
His thumb slid across the back of her hand. “You don’t give me orders.”
The tingles started immediately, blending with the warmth of his touch.
She tugged at her hand. “You need to go away.”
He turned back, roll in hand, fragrant and rich. Dangling temptation just a few inches away. “I already did, and it wasn’t to your liking.”
“I could develop a taste for it...”
It was his turn to say, “Uh-huh.”
Maddie wrapped up another roll. “You want one, Ace?”
“No, thank you, Maddie. We’ll share.”
Oh, no, they wouldn’t. “I don’t share my cinnamon buns.”
He shook his head. “Always so quick with the no and so lacking in the trust.”
“I do not lack trust.”
His “mmm-hmm” made her want to smack him. “Hold out your hand.”
If it had been anything other than a cinnamon roll, anyone other than him, she wouldn’t have obeyed. But it was him and it was a cinnamon roll, so... She grudgingly stuck out her hand.
He placed the roll in it with an air of satisfaction that should have annoyed, but didn’t. “Good girl.”
A shiver went down her spine. “You are a most impossible man.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a most possible man.”
He was that. She eyed him from head to toe, taking in the breadth of his shoulders, the narrowness of his hips, the scuffed toes of his boots. Gamblers were supposed to be smooth and fashionable. Ace was rugged and hard. Compelling. Openly sexual. She remembered that night. Infinitely satisfying.
Breaking off a piece of the roll, he held it up to her lips, brushing the treat against the soft surface. Desire whipped through her as lightning shot from his fingertips. Within her the storm built. She was always such flotsam to his desire.
“Open your mouth.” She did, hopelessly, helplessly, willingly. Sweetness and desire flowed over her tongue.
His fingers lingered then withdrew. Slowly. Pleasure filled her. Cinnamon. And man. The flavors mingled. And then there was the sweet aftermath of the glaze. Her knees quivered. She couldn’t look away. She was in so much trouble.
“I’ll wrap a few of these for you to take back,” Maddie said.
“Thank you, Maddie.”
Petunia glanced up, only to find him watching her with a gaze so hot her toes curled in her ever so proper shoes. Her appreciation was a barely audible, “Yes, thank you.”
“You’re both very welcome.”
The curtains rustled as Maddie left the room. They were alone. Catching her hand, Ace pulled her close. Hip to hip, chest to chest. The clothing that should have been protection was an annoying barrier. His arms came around her. A haven within the chaos of emotion she didn’t know how to handle. She stood there awkwardly, holding the cinnamon roll to the side.
Ace didn’t seem to expect her to do anything with the energy pulsing between them. He just held her there in that shop, for that moment, the only privacy provided by the time of day and the half curtains covering the window. And just...held her while her fretting turned to wonder and wonder to confusion.
Resting her forehead against his chest, she whispered, “I don’t know what you want from me.”
It was another one of those betrayals she couldn’t contain.
His lips brushed her cheek. The shadow cast by his hat provided an illusion of cover. “I want you, exactly as you are. All of you—mind, body and soul.”
His voice was low. His touch gentle as he tipped her chin up. The emotion in his eyes surrounded her in a hug she wanted to believe. “I want your surrender.”
Another shiver and another realization. He terrified her on a level that went past the physical right to her core. She opened her mouth to say—she didn’t know what. His thumb straddled her lips, stealing the impulse. When his hand slid between the frogs on her cloak and cupped her breast, she flinched. She had so little to offer in that department.
“You are a very beautiful woman, Pet.” The softness of his tone pulled her gaze up.
“Everything about you is shaped to please.”
His hand didn’t move; he didn’t move. It was as if she realized studying his expression, he, too, needed that connection.
“What do you want from me, Ace?”
He took the roll from her hand, allowing her arms to relax. “Everything you’ve got to give.”
“What if that’s too much?”
It was her deepest fear.
“I’d never ask you for more than you had to give.”
She believed him. It felt so natural to put her arms around his waist. To cling to him. To breathe deeply of his scent. The heady aroma wafted all around, cocooning her in its comforting embrace, offering as much support as his arms around her back and his heart beating beneath her ear. She shouldn’t feel so safe here with the threat of him lingering. Because it was a threat. A threat to everything she’d created to believe in. She snuggled tighter against him.
His lips brushed her temple. “Did you truly think I wasn’t coming back?”
She shrugged. “You’d had what you wanted.”
She felt the shake of his head. “You have no idea what I want.”
That was probably true. “Then why don’t you tell me?”
“I already have. You’re just not listening.”
It was another of those explanations that wasn’t an explanation.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand you.”
“Try harder, then.”
“I am.” As much as she could without actually having to. He stepped away, depriving her of his warmth. His hand lingered on her breast, his thumb pressing against the hard nipple. He smiled and stroked the tight bud. She couldn’t suppress her gasp. His smile broadened. “I like that.”
“That’s just the sin of lust.”
“Because between us the only sin is not giving in to the passion.”
He said that so persuasively. She found the strength to take a step of her own back. From where she didn’t know. The man might be a gambler, but he was also part sorcerer, and whatever spell he’d cast over her bound her will tighter than chains ever could. “That goes against everything I’ve ever been taught.”
She flinched when he reached out. He paused, eyes narrowing. And then slowly took her left hand and put the cinnamon roll in it.
“And what I’m doing goes against all I believe.”
“What does?” She tugged her coat closed, that niggling sense of not good enough rising fast. He made her feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“Claiming you.”
He wanted to claim her? “Why?” Was she too old, too plain, too flat-chested?
“Because you deserve better.”
Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But he was what she wanted.
The thought sent her forward a step. He stood there with all his usual confidence. And yet, somehow, so alone. This time she put her right hand on his chest, over his heart, feeling it beat. Solid and steady. She spread her fingers wide. “Maybe you do, too.�
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His head tilted to the side; his smile was slow coming, slow finishing. But sincere. “I know what I want. And who.”
What was she supposed to do with such honesty?
Nothing, apparently. Ace nodded to the pastry she was still holding. “Ready to share?”
“I’m not sure.”
His stomach rumbled. He pulled a pathetic face.
She sighed and shook her head. He wasn’t that good with pathetic. “You have no conscience when it comes to getting your way, do you?”
“Not a bit.”
She couldn’t help it. She chuckled. “Well, just so you know, looking sad isn’t your best ploy.”
He cocked his head. He did do endearing well. “Does that mean you’re not going to share?”
She pretended to consider it hard. “It’s a cinnamon roll.”
“I saved your life.”
She looked up at him under her lashes. “But it’s a cinnamon roll.”
“I’ve still got scars.” He showed her the darkened scars on his knuckles. She wanted to kiss every one. The ones he got from saving her and the ones he got from saving everyone else. He could have the whole roll if he wanted.
She went to hand it to him. He shook his head. “Tit for tat.”
She knew what he wanted. She broke off a piece. Her hand trembled as she held it to his mouth. His lips parted, but his gaze didn’t waver. Slipping the pastry between his lips, she gasped as they tickled her fingertips. His tongue came out and rubbed against the sensitive pads. She shivered again and leaned against him. He was just going to have to support them both.
Ace had no problem supporting them, standing steady when she came up on her tiptoes. His breath caressed her fingers. His eyes caressed her face. His chest expanded against hers. She wished she wasn’t wearing the heavy cape. Biting her lip, she fed him the next piece, suppressing a moan as he nibbled at her fingers.
Ace's Wild (Hqn) Page 27
