The Bride Lottery

by Tatiana March

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Afraid?”

  She shook her head. “I know you won’t hurt me any more than is necessary.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Jamie bunched the worn cotton in his hands and slowly eased the dress up over her head. Miranda helped by lifting her arms, and he pulled the garment away. Taking a step back, Jamie dropped the bundle of fabric to the ground and let his gaze drift over his naked wife.

  She was shapelier than he’d expected from having seen her fully clothed, her breasts fuller, her hips more rounded. Her skin glowed pale in the shadows, making her look like a marble statue of a Greek goddess.

  “You’re too beautiful for words, Princess.”

  She reached down to his waist. “My turn to see the rest of you.”

  With fumbling hands, she unfastened his trousers. Jamie sucked in a sharp breath. Was he dreaming? Then a fingernail scraped his skin and the flash of sensation drew a smile to his lips. It was no dream.

  Miranda tugged his trousers downward, her fascinated gaze lingering on his erection. Encouraged by her boldness, Jamie lifted up his feet, one at a time, and kicked away the last of his clothing.

  Bending down, he scooped Miranda into his arms and carried her over to the big oak bed. Twilight, so brief in the desert, was already giving way to darkness. Jamie straightened by the bedside and surveyed Miranda as she lay naked on top of the covers.

  “Shall I light the lamps, Princess? Or would you prefer the room dark?”

  “I’d like some light.”

  Jamie moved around, lit the lamp on the table and two more in wall brackets. The golden glow bathed him as he went about the task. He could feel Miranda watching him.

  “I hope you like what you see, Princess.”

  “I like it exceedingly well.”

  Jamie had never given much thought to his looks, apart from how they reflected his Indian heritage, but now it pleased him to know his wife found him an appealing sight. He returned to the bed stretched out next to Miranda. “I’ve dreamed about doing this until I thought I was going mad.”

  Gentle and reverent, he set out to possess her body, his lips and hands tracing the smooth, fragrant skin. He kissed the side of her neck, the edge of her shoulder, the hollow between her collarbones, slowly making his way down toward her breasts.

  When his mouth closed over one puckered nipple, Miranda let out a husky moan. Guided by her response, Jamie sought out the spots on her body that gave her the most pleasure, keeping up the quest until he felt her hips undulate against him in a restless rhythm, asking for more.

  He settled over Miranda, his legs sliding between hers. For a moment, Jamie stilled, their gazes locked. He had expected to give her the words later, as they lay side by side, sated and complete, but something compelled him to say them now.

  “I love you, Princess. Have from the beginning. Maybe from the first moment I saw you in that saloon, sitting in a rocking chair, looking like an angel.”

  Miranda reached up and traced his features with her fingertips. “I love you, too, bounty hunter. Maybe not right from the start, but when I saw how deeply you cared for Nora. When you held me through my grief. When you kept me safe on the trail.”

  Not taking his eyes from hers, Jamie eased inside his wife. Hot and tight and slick, she closed around him, making him quiver with a mix of pleasure and restraint. When the pain came upon her, he could feel her flinch, but she made no sound.

  He lowered his head for a gentle kiss. “My brave wife.”

  Jamie waited until he could feel her relax again, and then he rocked his hips in a smooth, controlled motion. After a while, Miranda wrapped her legs around his waist, anchoring him close, and tentatively she began to meet his movements.

  Slowly, Jamie let the tension build between them, holding back until he could tell Miranda was with him. Only when she was writhing beneath him, her hips rising and falling, her body restless with the need for completion, did Jamie increase his pace and force.

  Arching beneath him, Miranda cried out, her eyes closed, her body pulsing around him, and Jamie took his own release, burying himself deep inside her. As the waves of pleasure rolled over him, he thought his heart might shatter. He pitied any man who had only known the tawdry imitation of love bought from a saloon girl.

  Later, as they lay together, their breathing gradually slowing, the trembling in their bodies subsiding, Jamie braced up on one elbow. Twirling his wife’s golden tresses in his fingers, he studied her flushed face. “Sometime soon, I want to take you shopping in San Francisco.”

  “You don’t have to buy me things.”

  “I’d like to. My mother and my sister lived in poverty and I can’t help them anymore. Let me spoil you. To start with, I have a very special wedding present for you.”

  He handed Miranda a small velvet pouch. Curious, she loosened the drawstring at the top of the pouch and shook the object inside onto her palm. Jamie watched her eyes widen as she inspected the ruby-and-diamond-studded jewel.

  “Mama’s brooch.” She breathed out the words, then glanced up at him. “How did you get it back?”

  “I made inquiries with the railroad company. It seems the conductor who arrested you on the train was a stickler for rules. He recorded the woman’s details.”

  Jamie gave a teasing tug to the strand of golden hair he’d wrapped around his finger. “At first, I considered buying the jewel back for you, but it occurred to me you might resent paying for what was rightfully yours. So I went to San Francisco and showed the woman our marriage certificate with the name Fairfax on it and told her the brooch belonged to my wife. She could either hand it over or accompany me to the nearest law office and explain how she got it.”

  “And she handed it over?”

  “With such haste she pricked her skin when pulling the brooch from her chest. I left her sucking at the bleeding finger, looking sour, as if it was lemon juice running through her veins.”

  Miranda hooted with delight. “Oh, Jamie, you’re wonderful. The best husband a girl could have.”

  She scrambled to lie on top of him, gave him a big smacking kiss on the lips and wriggled downward along his body. She scattered kisses on his chest, then moved lower still, her mouth burning a trail on his belly. Jamie held his breath. The lust that had a moment ago seemed spent surged to life again.

  His voice was rough. “Miranda, what are you doing?”

  His innocent virgin wife craned her neck to look at him. A wicked smile flashed across her patrician features. “The saloon girls told me there is one thing men ask for more than anything else.”

  And she lowered her mouth to him and completed her kissing journey. Jamie closed his eyes. His breathing grew ragged. A harsh sound tore from his throat as his wife once again proved her wild, reckless streak. It was a glorious, decadent thing for a gently bred woman to do, and Jamie knew the moment would remain in his memory forever.

  Afterward, as they lay in each other’s arms, Jamie thought he might never have the strength to move again. Outside, the night had thickened. One of the lamps had guttered out, but he felt too lazy to get up and deal with it.

  They talked. To Jamie’s surprise, the words came easily now. Perhaps talking was like shooting or riding—with practice you became better at it.

  As they shared confidences in the shadowed room, their passions ignited all over again. When the dawn painted the sky pink, Jamie did not awaken beside his naked wife. Instead, he drifted off to sleep, exhausted and languid, his wife tucked into the curve of his body, his arm anchoring her close, one hand cupping her bare breast.

  * * *

  Miranda yawned and stretched beneath the covers on the big bed in their private railroad car, listening to the noises outside. Hooves clattered on timber as the horses came down from the freight car. Metal clunked as the cou
pling fell down. The iron wheels churned and the engine pulled the rest of the train away, leaving the private car on the side spur.

  And finally, footsteps thudded up and the door opened and closed, and Jamie strode in. She never got tired of looking at him. He wore tall boots in polished black leather, fawn riding breeches, and a white shirt hanging loose. He was wiping his hands on a rag. He never let anyone else deal with the horses or the mechanics of their private railroad car.

  “What does the town look like?” Miranda asked.

  “Like all of them. Has a post office, though.”

  “It is wonderful to go from place to place and still have your home comforts,” Miranda remarked with another luxurious yawn. They had been traveling along the railroad from Denver toward Salt Lake City, exploring the towns along the line.

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said, deadpan. “I was kind of used to the oilcloth lean-to.”

  Miranda laughed. She swept her gaze around the mahogany-paneled walls and red velvet sofas and brass fittings and the fully equipped kitchen and the door that led to the bathing room. She gave a lazy wave to encompass it all and Jamie within it.

  “You fit in here. You look like a Spanish grandee. Or an Italian prince. Or a French count. Or an English duke with a dash of exotic blood in him.”

  “How about a part-Cheyenne former bounty hunter?”

  “That, too.” She fell silent, then mouthed I love you.

  “Doesn’t work.” Jamie walked over to the bed, bent down to kiss her. “You have to wait until I’m ready.”

  The night when he came to find her at the Drunken Mule, the night they finally made their marriage complete, had been the first time he’d told her that he loved her. Since then, he had told her again twice, at random moments.

  Once, he’d greeted her with the words as she woke. Another time, he’d scraped them in the sand while they sat out having lunch. She had become greedy and impatient, trying to tease the declaration out of him by telling him every day, as if she could make the words echo back from him. But Jamie could not be shaken out of his reticence.

  “Did you stop by the post office?” she asked.

  Jamie nodded. “No telegrams for you. Sorry.”

  Miranda bit her lip. She tried not to worry. The Pinkerton detectives still hadn’t located Annabel. They were looking for Cousin Gareth, too. Miranda couldn’t help thinking there might be a connection, that somehow Cousin Gareth might be to blame for Annabel going missing. She wished now that she had told him the truth, had helped him to recover his memory.

  Her attention scattered as Jamie stripped out of his shirt to change into a fresh one. Lean muscles rippled on his belly. Heat suffused Miranda as she thought of how at night she ran her hands along his skin, and how he did the same to her.

  Would she ever get used to him? Would she always feel breathless and quivery at the sight of him? Would his touch always make her ache with desire?

  Miranda recalled her parents, how they had remained besotted with each other even after gray streaked her father’s temples and crow’s-feet surrounded her mother’s eyes. Would it be the same for her and Jamie? Would the magic between them last?

  “Will you still love me when I’m old and gray?” Her question was only half in jest.

  Jamie came back to the bedside and smiled down at her. “Of course I will. You are a good investment, and good investments grow and multiply with age.”

  She sent him a puzzled frown. “I am an investment?”

  Jamie bent to press his mouth to her ear, the way he liked to do when he wanted to tease her. “Princess, you were a bargain,” he told her. “The best ten dollars I ever spent.”

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, make sure you check

  out the first book in Tatiana March’s

  THE FAIRFAX BRIDES trilogy

  HIS MAIL-ORDER BRIDE

  And don’t miss these short sexy reads

  by Tatiana March

  THE VIRGIN’S DEBT

  SUBMIT TO THE WARRIOR

  SURRENDER TO THE KNIGHT

  THE DRIFTER’S BRIDE

  Keep reading for an excerpt from CLAIMING HIS DEFIANT MISS by Bronwyn Scott.

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  Claiming His Defiant Miss

  by Bronwyn Scott

  Chapter One

  Preston Worth might very well die this time. Liam Casek stripped off his shirt and tore away a wide strip with an efficiency born of too much experience—he’d patched up Preston more than once. But tonight might be the last time. He pressed the wad of cloth to the gash in Preston’s chest, alarmed by its location so near a lung and alarmed by the size of the crimson spread. It was too much for a mere strip of linen to staunch.

  ‘Case!’ Preston groaned with hoarse urgency, frantically grabbing at his arm to make him listen. ‘Leave me, they might be back.’ ‘They’ being the ambushers who’d come upon them on the road at dusk. There’d simply been too many to fight off, yet they had succeeded, at the price of Preston’s wound. It might have been Preston’s wound that saved them. The ambushers had retreated, perhaps convinced the natural course of events would finish off their prey.

  ‘Be still,’ Liam growled, all gruffness as he tied another strip around Preston’s chest to hold the bandage in place. ‘We have to get you stitched up.’ But the bleeding had to stop first. He racked his brain for a plan. The nearest town was two miles back. ‘Cover the bandage with your hand and press hard.’ Liam got his hands under Preston’s armpits. ‘We’re going to get you to the verge.’ He hated moving Preston, but the middle of the road was no place for a wounded man in the dark. It made an easy target for careless carriages and returning thugs.

  Preston grunted against the pain as Liam hauled him to the side, no easy feat considering Preston was as tall as he was—a few inches over six foot, and nearly a dead weight—hopefully not about to become more dead. Liam propped his friend against a sturdy tree trunk and examined the bandage as best he could in the fading light. It would be entirely dark soon. Damn winter! There was never enough daylight and Liam desperately needed some now. He could feel rather than see the blood soaking the bandage.

  ‘I hurt, Case,’ Preston admitted and there was the briefest flicker of fear in his eyes.

  ‘Pain is good,’ Liam offered encouragingly. ‘You’re doing great. You’re co
nscious, you’re talking, you’re not numb.’ Numbness was what Liam feared most, a sure sign of impending death. He’d seen it too often in the wars. He was no doctor, but he was a veteran of battlefields.

  ‘Those men,’ Preston ground out, ‘Cabot Roan sent them.’

  Liam nodded, too busy with his triage. He was not surprised. The attack tonight confirmed what they’d feared. Cabot Roan was a wealthy businessman suspected by important men in both the Home and Foreign Offices of leading an arms cartel. The cartel was made up of wealthy, private citizens who had manufactured arms for England during the recent wars and were missing their incomes now that the wars were over and there was no need for arms contracts. Now, those businessmen were selling arms to various revolutionary efforts across Europe. It went without saying that many of those efforts did not necessarily align with the British Empire’s own foreign-policy aims, which made these men traitors. But proof was needed that Cabot Roan was behind the arms deals. That was Preston’s job. If the ringleader was indeed Roan, the man was to be discreetly stopped. That was Liam’s job.

  ‘The hunches must be right, then. That’s good news. Roan wouldn’t have sent his thugs if there was nothing to hide.’ Liam kept talking, kept smiling. He didn’t want Preston to panic. He thought the bleeding might be slowing down at last. There was still too damn much of it, though. He couldn’t wait any longer to get help. ‘Do you think you can ride? Just a couple of miles?’

  Preston nodded. ‘Even if I can’t, we have to try. We can’t stay here and this is serious. You’re going to need light to work by, Case.’ As opposed to the other times Preston had been shot, knifed or otherwise needed his attentions, Liam thought wryly. If the situation wasn’t dire, he would have laughed. As it was, Liam thought he needed a sight more than light to make Preston right again.

  Liam moved to help him rise, but Preston stayed him with a hand. ‘Wait, before you do that I have to tell you something.’ Liam heard the unspoken message. In case I become unconscious because moving hurts too bloody much. Which was better than the other unspoken message: In case I become unconscious and don’t wake up. Ever.