She really didn't think he would, but Evie clung to the notion as Tyler moved around the room while she cautiously unfastened her shirtwaist. He handed a pitcher of steaming water around the dressing screen, and it looked inviting enough to encourage her to wash. She had heard of marriages of convenience. Perhaps that was what Tyler intended. She felt better just imagining it.
As she washed, Evie threw a dubious look at the high- necked linen nightgown she usually wore to bed. She wasn't at all certain that she could step out from behind the screen wearing that. Perhaps she ought to keep on her chemise and corset and pantalets. Sleeping in a corset sounded highly uncomfortable, but to allow herself to be unfettered beneath a thin piece of linen seemed a wanton thing to do in Tyler's presence.
She compromised and wore just the chemise and pantalets beneath the gown. It was going to be infernally warm that way, but she couldn't just go about practically naked.
Emerging from behind the screen, she saw Tyler had stuck the flowers in china teapots and crystal vases and laid them in gravy bowls. He had unfastened his tie and thrown off his coat and waited in shirtsleeves with his hands characteristically shoved in his pockets as he leaned against the door. His gaze drifted over the loose linen of her long gown, then came back up to meet hers.
The disappointment she had first thought she'd seen in his eyes was carefully replaced now by a neutral expression.
"You're going to be warm in all that gear. I won't object if you want to make yourself a little more comfortable while I wash." Unfastening his shirt as he went, Tyler disappeared behind the screen.
He was good, too good. Without giving an order or voicing a protest, he had told her that he didn't want her wearing all these clothes. He had also shattered her brief illusion. Cheeks flushing, Evie stood in the middle of the braided rug and tried to decide what to do next. She didn't want to wear all this gear, either, but she remembered all too clearly what Tyler could do if she didn't. To take it off would make it seem as if she wanted him to do that again.
She didn't. What they had done had been dirty, painful, and embarrassing beyond recall. There had been blood and stickiness. They had behaved like animals. He needed to be reminded that she was a lady. And since she was already pregnant, what was the purpose of repeating the act? Perhaps she wouldn't have to.
Relieved by that thought, Evie climbed into bed. It wasn't exactly a romantic marriage bed. The iron bars had been painted a white that had yellowed with age. She had left her own linens on it, however, and she was grateful for that. It seemed more civilized to sleep on linens embroidered with her initials and edged in lace.
Her initials. Evie glanced worriedly at the EPH neatly scrolled in antique white embroidery thread on each pillowcase. What would she tell Tyler if he asked about the H?
Her stomach tensed again as she heard the unmistakable sounds of water splashing from behind the screen. Was Tyler standing there with all his clothes off? What if an intruder came in and she screamed right now?
That irrepressible thought sent Evie off into a fit of giggles she tried to muffle in her pillow. This was the most awful night of her life, and she was laughing at the thought of the grand Tyler Monteigne rushing into the room stark naked and carrying a six-gun. She must be losing her mind.
Stripping off his pants to bathe, Tyler heard her giggles and felt a sudden quenching of his ardor. The sound of giggles in the boudoir could have that effect on a man, he reflected as he scrubbed at his face and wished he had his razor. What in hell could the little witch find to laugh about at this hour? He half expected to walk out and find her waiting with a shotgun.
The thought of emerging from behind the screen presented certain other problems. Whatever else she might be, Evie was a lady who knew nothing of the physical side of men except what little he had forced on her. She would most likely go into shock should he walk out in his birthday suit as he was inclined to do. If she was already waxing hysterical, he couldn't afford to send her over the brink.
There was no doubt in Tyler's mind what he meant to do with his wedding night. A man had only one wedding night, and he was meant to enjoy it. He wasn't accustomed to the long drought from feminine companionship he had endured since being dragged here, and he was looking forward to a little relief. On the morrow he would be confronted with the responsibilities he had shackled himself to, but not tonight. Tonight he meant to teach one Evie Maryellen Peyton Monteigne what it meant to make love. With any luck, there would be a permanent end to that drought. Marriage had at least one advantage.
Remembering the glimpses he'd had of firm white breasts and slender curves and long legs, Tyler felt a surge of desire so strong that he stared at himself with incredulity. Evie would jump out of her skin if he entered their bed looking like this. Regretfully, he reached for the lamp and blew it out. He would have to save the looking part until morning, when she'd had time to get used to the marriage bed. At least this way, he could leave his clothes off.
Evie clutched the top sheet, pulling it up to her neck when he crossed to the bed. "Tyler." There was a question and a warning in her voice.
Tyler threw back the quilt but left her the sheet as he climbed in next to her. The bed sagged beneath his weight.
"Tyler, I don't want..." She bit back a gasp as he captured her waist, and pulled her against his bare chest. "I mean, if I'm already pregnant..."
"Hush." He closed his mouth over hers, wide-open and demanding.
Evie gasped as Tyler's tongue plunged between her teeth. A flickering of the pleasure she recalled from before prevented her from jerking away. The questing touch of strong fingers against the side of her breast made her moan in despair.
She remembered this part all too well. Her toes tingled. The tips of her breasts grew tight and painful waiting for him to find them. The sensation grew stronger and moved downward as his tongue plundered and did sweet things to her mouth. She didn't know how to respond, but Tyler didn't seem to care. He was decimating all her defenses very effectively without her help.
His hand slipped inside the gown he had somehow unfastened already. He cursed against her mouth at encountering another barrier. He halted his kisses to raise himself over her, and Evie wondered what expression was on his face.
"From now on, I don't want you wearing anything in bed. I can keep you warm, so you don't need this folderol. Help me get it off of you."
Evie surprised herself by lifting her hips so Tyler could pull the nightgown up, then lifting her arms so he could pull it over her head. He rewarded her with a kiss that sent more than her toes tingling, and she was reluctant to remove her lips from his when he reached for the edge of her chemise. Obligingly, Tyler held her mouth captive as he rolled the thin cloth upward, until her breasts were bare to the damp night air.
Evie emitted a kitten's mew as his fingers plucked her nipple. Tyler touched his tongue to this responsive tissue, and she literally jumped in his arms. Within seconds, the chemise lay tangled somewhere among the sheets, and Tyler's kisses moved unhampered over her skin.
Evie dug her fingers into his hard shoulders in a vague attempt to halt this assault on her senses, but even this grip bombarded her with strange sensations. He wore nothing, and her fingers dug into hot, smooth skin and taut muscle. Instead of pushing him away, her hands clung there, smoothing the rippling muscle as he bent over her, riding downward as he lifted his head to tease her lips with kisses. She didn't dare go farther than his waist, but even that held a strange fascination t. He was narrow there, but she could feel the cords of muscle jerking at her touch. She liked knowing he was responding to her.
She didn't like it when she felt Tyler's hands pulling at the drawstrings of her pantalets. She tensed, and this time, she did pull away. Tyler kissed her again, murmuring soothing phrases, but she was too terrified to respond. She knew what would happen when he had her undressed.
He loosened the strings but didn't immediately pull the fabric away. Instead, he bent his head to suckle at her breast u
ntil Evie was whimpering for more, while his hand stroked her abdomen and then moved lower.
She didn't want to feel this way. She didn't want to feel every nerve end drawn to the man hovering over her. But she was awash with heat and desperate for his kisses and her skin craved his touch as if it were a balm to all her fears. When Tyler's hand slid inside her pantalets, the craving went with it, centering where she didn't want it the most.
"I'm going to make love to you, Evie," Tyler whispered as he nibbled his way to her ear. "I'm going to put myself inside you and make you my wife and show you how much pleasure there can be in this. Tell me you'll let me show you, Evie. I won't hurt you again."
She was even ready to accept the pain again. His words were an incitement as surely as the fingers now touching her where she had been afraid to touch herself. Evie bit back a cry as Tyler's fingers entered her, but his mouth was smothering hers, swallowing all the cries and whimpers, taking her response and giving it back to her in the magic of his fingers.
She was weeping for more by the time he rolled the linen off her hips. His kisses moved inexorably downward, pressing her breasts, roaming lower, while his hands played along her thighs, pushing away the hampering material until nothing lay between them but the air and their need. When Tyler touched her again, Evie nearly rose from the bed.
She shuddered as Tyler tenderly parted her legs and bent them so she could receive him more easily. She shuddered. She didn't want him to do this, but she didn't want him to stop either. She felt hollow and scared, and the pleasant sensations were rapidly receding as Tyler moved between her legs and she felt he hot iron-like rod brushing against her.
But Tyler teased at her lips again, parting them with his tongue, inciting her to match his movements until she was writhing with hunger. His hands circled both of her breasts, caressing, kneading, tantalizing the tips until Evie cried for more and raised her hips to the rhythm he created.
Gently caressing, he slid his hands to her buttocks, lifted, and shoved into her. He caught her cry with his mouth, held himself still while she adjusted, and moved slowly when she shuddered with the need. She was too tight for him to fit easily, too scared to encourage him, but he seemed to understand. He moved gently, until she began to respond, and he kissed her.
Evie couldn't believe he was doing this to her. She couldn't believe she was letting him. The intimacy was incredible, overwhelming, but she didn't even know this man. She had a stranger's body inside hers, filling her until she felt stretched at the seams, retreating until she grabbed his shoulders and asked for more. She couldn't bear it when he withdrew. Her hips followed his, and he began moving faster.
This was Tyler Monteigne, the gambler, the ladies' man. He was using her as he had used countless other women, and she was letting him. She was more than letting him. She was wrapping her legs around him, raising herself to him, and begging and crying for more as he plunged in and out until her head spun with desire and her body was out of control and there was nothing more to this world than their two bodies joined as one.
He gave a harsh cry and drove deep inside, but even as his body rocked into hers, his hand slid between them to caress the aching bud there. The unutterable pressure in Evie's womb gave way to uncontrollable quakes of pleasure beneath his expert touch. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she clung to him, tightening around him while he buried himself deep and exploded beneath her touch.
It hadn't hurt, and it had been more pleasurable than Evie had ever imagined. Why then, did she feel such terror when Tyler kissed her and moved inside her again?
"You're my wife now, Evie," he whispered against he ear. "You're mother of my child."
Just the words enhanced her terror.
"When are you going to stop lying to me?" he demanded.
His eyes seemed to glow golden in the darkness above her, and Evie had all she could do to keep from screaming as she felt that man part of him stir to life within her again.
He wouldn't stop until she told him. She didn't know if she ever wanted him to stop.
Chapter 17
It was nearing dawn and they lay entangled in sweaty sheets. Evie couldn't move if she wanted to, and she didn't have enough energy left to know what she wanted. She liked the slick sheen of Tyler's hair-roughened leg against hers. She couldn't imagine her breast without his strong fingers wrapped around it. Idly, drifting in and out of sleep, she tried to imagine him lifting his hand away from her, and all she could envision was cold and loneliness.
Whatever they had just done was better than cold and loneliness. She was vaguely aware that she was sore. Tyler was large, she was inexperienced, and they had done "that" more times than she could count. Once they had just lain joined, too exhausted to do more, until their bodies had rebelled and rocked them together and exploded within minutes of their first movement. Another time they had woken from sound slumber and rolled into each other's arms, and instead of sliding back to sleep, had found themselves rolling across the bed again. Where they should have been oil and water, they were fire and kindling. Evie definitely didn't feel cold or lonely anymore.
Or not cold, anyway. With the coming of dawn, the loneliness began to form like ice around her heart. She couldn't remember the first time she had felt its sting. She supposed when she was very little she had just assumed that Nanny was her mother and never questioned her lack of father. It was only later that she questioned why Nanny wasn't called Mama and asked why she didn't have a father like the other girls had. Nanny hadn't told the whole truth, but she'd never lied.
But Evie did. When she was fourteen, she had told her friends that her father was a railroad baron who spent all his time riding the rails, seeing that his trains ran properly. She had her mother dying of some romantic illness that made him incapable of ever loving again.
By the time she was eighteen, she had become a little more subtle. Her wealth was obvious, so she made Nanny into her maiden aunt and invented a story of her wealthy father's enemies wanting to harm him through her, so he had to hide her. The romantic illness served just as well this time around.
But Nanny never lied, so all the neighbors knew Evie and Daniel were "adopted." That was a polite euphemism for saying they had no parents who would claim them, and Nanny was being paid to do so. There weren't many reasons why parents didn't claim their children. Everyone could see why Daniel's parents hadn't wanted him. He was a cripple, lame for life, and when he was born, it was thought he would never walk upright. Evie had only been two years old when they'd brought Daniel to Nanny's house. She didn't remember his parents, but she remembered his infant screams. He had screamed night and day for months.
Although Evie had always kept the hidden dream that her parents would claim her someday, the realization that they were paying Nanny to keep her away had shattered that image. Lying there wrapped in Tyler's arms, Evie tried to imagine how to tell her husband that even her parents didn't want her. It was much easier to say they were dead.
But that wouldn't explain why she was here.
Rain clattered against the roof again. The gray light of dawn was erasing the darkness. Evie wondered if she had the courage to turn over and really look at her husband. She knew what he felt like. His hand on her breast was long-fingered, not callused, and stronger than she had ever imagined. The broad chest pressed against her back had a light mat of hair that tickled and made he want to touch him there. The man part of him made her curious, but she was uncertain as to whether she wished to explore that curiosity any further.
The hand on her breast began to move, the thumb scraping lightly up the side while her traitorous nipple hardened and surged against his palm. Evie could feel Tyler's warm length all down her back and wrapped around her legs. He was very definitely awake. Defiantly, she turned on her back to look at him.
The rain pounded overhead as she studied the man hovering over her. In the shadows of dawn, she could discern the rough stubble of beard on his lean jaw, the tousled curl of golden hair as it fell ove
r his face, and the faint lines drawn by years of pain along the sides of his mouth. He wasn't as shining handsome as he could be when he put on his happy face, but he was more real this way, more man than she was prepared to encounter.
"Did you know you have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life?" Tyler murmured, looking down at her as she stared up at him.
The compliment startled her. She had received enough flattery in her lifetime to start a book of poetry, but none quite like this. Tyler had already had what he wanted of her, and still he took the time to say something nice. That ought to count for something. She was ready to build a life out of any small thing he handed her.
"Did you know you have the most silver tongue of any man I have ever known?" she replied wickedly, not yet ready to give him more than that. He had too much control in his hands. She would retain what she could.
Tyler grinned and applied his silver tongue where it would do the most good. When Evie finally gasped for air, he relented and returned to resting on one arm while he studied her.
He cupped his hand around her breast as if to test its weight and flicked the rosy tip with his fingers, watching with growing hunger as it responded to his touch. Evie watched him warily through shadowed eyes, however, and he satisfied himself with kissing her there.
"If you're too sore, just tell me, Evie. A man and wife ought to be able to tell each other these things."
She found little relief in his words. How did she tell him she didn't know what she wanted? Yes, she was sore, but that didn't stop her from aching for more now that he'd aroused her again. Biting her tongue, she studied him. The bare arm resting above her was rounded at the top with an alarming amount of muscle. If she'd seen men with their shirts off, she didn't recall them to any extent. But she would remember this one. The hair on Tyler's chest was little more than a light brown fuzz that arrowed down to his narrow waist, but the sheet rested there and she couldn't see farther. She could feel, however. He was as aroused as she was.
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