Broken Vows

by Shirl Henke

  Rebekah repeated the words, her voice sweet and clear in their moon-dappled chapel. When she had finished, he kissed her fingers, lingering over the third one of her left hand. “I only wish I had a ring. One day soon I will, I swear it, Rebekah—a gold ring.”

  “Oh, Rory, I love you so!” She reached up and caressed his cheek as his hands once more moved to her shoulders to slip the nightgown from her body.

  Slowly, reverently he peeled it down, kissing her bared flesh. She grew bold and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it open and tugging it free of his pants. He helped her, shrugging it off, then watched as her gown floated to the earth, puddling around her knees. Willing himself to go slowly, he laid her back on her robe and then disentangled her gown from her lower legs. Leaning over her, he gazed down at her as she looked up into his eyes, her expression worried and uncertain.

  “I'm too thin—”

  “You're perfect. Women with too...too much go to fat, but a slender body like yours...you'll always be beautiful, Rebekah.” He leaned over and trailed kisses from her brow to her eyelids, down to her lips and throat, then took her breasts, teasing and suckling them until she arched up in his embrace, whimpering as her nipples hardened and thrust into his mouth.

  When his hands swept lower, curving over her hip, then up across her belly, he could feel her tense. “Don't be afraid, Rebekah. I'll go slow. Let me touch you.” He felt her relax as he held one warm palm on her flat little belly, then ever so slowly, in soft gliding circles, moved lower to the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs.

  The sensations his hands and mouth were creating in her body rocked Rebekah to the core of her soul. Heat, shimmering and flashing, combined with a building ache that seemed to move downward from her breasts, and his hands followed as if he knew her most secret place that had suddenly come to life. She could feel the tingling frissons of pleasure when his fingertips grazed her nether lips and came away damp. Shame flooded her. What was wrong with her? But he seemed pleased, smiling and kissing her, whispering love words, praising her natural passion. Was it supposed to be like this?

  “I can't wait any longer, Rebekah,” he whispered as he sat up and began to yank off his boots and breeches.

  Every nerve in her young body was thrumming with an unfamiliar hunger while he undressed before her. She had seen his naked backside that day in the river and had often lain awake at night imagining how the rest of him looked.

  But he gave her no time to look as he rolled down at her side and took her in his arms. As he pressed his lips to hers again in a searing kiss, she could feel that hard, mysterious male part of him, no longer confined by his breeches, but hot and probing, pressing against the softness of her bare belly. His tongue tasted her, teasing her on to answer. When their kisses grew fevered and fierce, he took her hand and guided it slowly over the sinewy muscles and hair of his chest and belly, then lower to touch the heat, the hardness of his male member.

  At first she flinched away in surprise. He murmured soft love words, coaxing her gently until she again let him place her palm around it. The sleek length was hot and velvety, like nothing she had ever felt before. She squeezed and he moaned; but when she let go, afraid she had hurt him, he urged her to continue, showing her how to stroke as well as squeeze, until he was trembling and crying out her name. She realized for the first time the power a woman had over a man.

  Never before had a woman's touch made him respond like this, not even as a green, sixteen-year-old boy. Rebekah was reticent, constrained by a lifetime of modesty and religious scruples that had no doubt instilled in her the idea that love between a man and a woman was something ugly and sinful. But she was naturally passionate, already wet and creamy with wanting him; and she did not even know it. If only he could keep control and not spill himself before he brought her along with him.

  “Now, my darlin', now...” he breathed against her mouth as he rolled her onto her back and positioned himself between her thighs, using his aching staff to spread the moisture across her velvety, swollen petals, easing his entry into her virginal sheath. Sweat beaded his face as he fought back the urge to plunge headlong into the softness beckoning him. Instead, he moved with agonizing slowness, letting her stretch to accommodate him until he encountered the barrier of her innocence.

  Rebekah felt the heat and the strange sense of being filled, yet not fulfilled, of reaching for some elusive need that burned brightly, coiled deep within her. When he stopped and grew still, she could feel his whole body trembling. She opened her eyes to stare up into his face, which was contorted as if he were in agony. Sweat beaded his brow, and she reached up to stroke it. Her slightest movement caused him to shiver anew and emit a low growl.

  Yet she could not fight the instinctual urge to move, to arch up toward his invasion of her body, wanting to meld their flesh together even more completely. Her hips undulated upward, and he gave in with an oath that sounded more like an endearment as he thrust downward.

  The sharp sting of pain took her by surprise. Her eyes met Rory's, and she knew why he had hesitated. But the pain brought with it a desperate sweetness that drew her to writhe against him.

  “Don't, Rebekah,” he gasped, breathing heavily, trying once more to hold still, buried so deeply inside of her. “Give yourself a little time, and the hurting will stop.”

  “No, no time—I can't wait,” she cried, her voice muffled against his shoulder as she clung to him, willing him to assuage the ache, somehow knowing that when he moved, it would be so.

  And it was.

  He felt the sweet heat of her enveloping him and was lost in her cries of surrender as he began to move in deep, slow thrusts, stretching her untried young body, feeling an answering hunger in her that he had never imagined. He encouraged her with love words, instructing her how to wrap her legs higher and lock her ankles behind his back so he could penetrate deeper. They were drowning in the vortex of ecstasy that seemed to be drawing them both under its spell.

  She felt the low, stretching ache change as they moved, mysteriously building to a pleasure so intense it robbed her of speech, of every thought but that it continue. Yet she needed something more, something just out of her grasp, which beckoned her as she ascended to the heights of passion, making low, incoherent noises that she was unaware came from her own lips.

  Rory struggled to hold on for her; but she was like a lioness, his wild golden love, so fierce in her demands that he felt himself toppling over the abyss, unable to stop the swift, boiling surge of glory in those last hard strokes as his seed spilled deeply within her.

  Rebekah felt the change in his body, the stiffening of his muscles and the sudden swelling of his staff, as he drove into her with such splendid fury. The hunger that had been so elusive, so compelling, suddenly shimmered and burst deep inside her. Wave after wave crashed over her, convulsing her flesh, touching her very soul. All she could do was hold tightly to Rory as he collapsed on top of her.

  The weight of his long, hard body pressing her to the warm, fecund earth felt right and good in spite of the discomfort. When he shifted and began to pull away, she clung to him. He rolled to his back, holding her nestled on his chest. Their legs were still entwined as he rained soft, light kisses over her forehead and stroked the silky cascade of hair falling around his face and shoulders.

  “Ah, Rebekah, I love you more than life itself,” he whispered. “I didn't mean to hurt you, but—”

  She raised her head and gave him a tender kiss, interrupting his protest. “You didn't hurt me—at least, only for a tiny bit.” Her eyes gleamed like emeralds in the moonlight. She felt wantonly bold enough to say, “It didn't matter, for what came after...is it always like that?”

  Rory stroked the side of her face tenderly. “Not the pain. That only happens once—the first time for a woman—but the rest...it's always pleasurable, but never anything like what we just experienced. In fact, I doubt many men and women ever feel what we did.”

  “And will again?” She felt the he
at flood her face. “You must think me shameless. Good women—”

  “Good women love their husbands. We're pledged to each other, Rebekah, in love. There's no shame in that, no wrong in our coming together. Only beauty, what's natural and good. What God intended.” He tilted her chin so she had to meet his eyes. “Do you love me?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. More than anything, but...” She struggled to find the right words.

  “But your family will never approve of an Irishman—and a penniless Irishman at that. Is that it?” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice.

  She bit her lip. “They'll fear for my welfare, yes. Somehow, I have to make them understand.”

  He could see that she was close to tears. “Don't cry, Rebekah. I never meant to hurt you. I'll make them understand that we love each other, that we're going to wed.”

  She shook her head and held him tightly, suddenly afraid for the enormity of what she had just done. She had given herself to him and knew in her heart that she'd do it again. She was weak and immoral. “You can't just walk up to Papa and ask to marry me. He'll refuse.”

  “And then you'll have to choose, won't you, darlin'? Him or me?” His voice was laced with scorn as he rolled up, disentangling her arms and setting her aside. She clutched for her nightgown, which was lying in a crumpled heap, and began to pull it over her head as he seized his breeches and donned them with swift, angry movements. He pulled on his boots and reached for his shirt and hat as he stood up. Planting the hat on his head, he began to button his shirt and tuck it roughly into his trousers.

  Rebekah sat huddled on her robe, looking like a forlorn wraith in the moon-dappled, voluminous white cotton gown. She hugged her knees and hid her face as sobs racked her slender shoulders, all the more poignant for their silence. “I—I can't choose. Please, don't ask me. I'm so confused, Rory.”

  Sighing, he reached down and pulled her into his arms. “Rebekah, think of us, of what we've shared, of our love. Surely, it's stronger than your family's prejudices against me.”

  How could she explain her father's unreasoning aversion to the Irish when she did not understand it herself? Rather than admit her beloved father was flawed, she seized on the more explainable, pragmatic objections of her mother. “They'll want me to marry someone who can take care of me, who has—”

  “Who's rich like Amos Wells,” he snapped, his arms dropping from her abruptly.

  “It's not the money—it's security.”

  “You'll have to make up your mind what's more important for you. Being secure”—he ground out the word contemptuously—“or being loved. I'll not keep skulking around in the night after you, Rebekah. Either you love me or you don't. You decide!”

  Rebekah stood hugging herself, suddenly cold in spite of the warm night air. He spun around and stalked away. She watched him go, a black-clad figure vanishing through the dark bowers of the orchard. Tears streamed down her cheeks in silvery rivulets, but she made no attempt to call him back.

  * * * *

  Virginia City

  English Annie pasted a vapid smile on her carmined lips and swished her ample hips seductively as she walked across the bedroom. Her kohled eyelids drooped over unfocused blue eyes, an aftereffect of the opium she smoked regularly. All of Sauerkraut Schnell's girls used the drug to help them endure life in the sordid bordello he ran above the Howling Wilderness Saloon.

  Annie really was English, from the Yorkshire countryside, but her wholesome good looks had begun to fade. Her brassy yellow hair was bleached, and her pale flesh grew more flaccid with the passing of each brutal winter in the mining camps.

  “So, you came back to Annie, luv. See, didn't I say you would?” she whispered seductively in her heavy accent. She slid her hands beneath his jacket and began to unfasten his shirt. “I can do it for you, luv, you know I can,” she crooned, pulling him toward the bed as her busy hands undressed him with practiced ease.

  Her customer remained silent, letting her do all the talking as she plied his tense body with skilled fingertips and that eager red mouth. Ah, the things she could do with that mouth. He threw his jacket and shirt onto the chair by the bedside, wrinkling his nose at the sickly sweet smell of her opium pipe. Then, when she opened his fly and took out his phallus, he sucked in his breath, forgetting the squalid surroundings, the unwashed smell of the woman's body drenched in cheap perfume.

  If only she could do it again. The others had failed. Every whore here knew it, whispered about it, laughing behind his back. It was all her fault, that icy bitch of a wife. She had done this to him. He forced himself not to think of her but to concentrate on what English Annie was doing instead.

  She helped him off with the last of his clothing, and he stood naked before her. He had always been vain about his looks, his well-proportioned body and handsome face. Gazing in the wavy mirror on the wall, he studied himself and the whore in her garish red-sequined gown. She was overripe, going to fat but not quite there yet. Large white breasts spilled out of her black lace corset when she unhooked the top of her dress and let it fall to her waist.

  She held up a doughy breast in each hand, preening for him, but he simply snarled, “Get on with it,” and lay back on the bed, impatient for her to complete her strip and join him.

  Annie sighed to herself as she peeled off the scanty dress, revealing black fishnet stockings held up by the garters of her black corset. She wore no underpants, but in this case it did not matter anyway. She would earn every dime he paid her and then some, but he did pay well. So far, she had been able to satisfy him, even if it took more than the minimal effort she was used to expending. In a wilderness where any female was a rare commodity, Nevada men were normally randy and eager for a woman's touch.

  She began her performance, admiring his body, oohing and aahing as she ran her fingers and lips across his skin, teasing him as her mouth drew nearer and nearer his sex. In spite of her nakedness, her breasts brushing across his chest, her hands and lips caressing him, his staff remained flaccid.

  He seized a fistful of greasy yellow hair and forced her head down to his groin. “Get on with it, dammit!”

  Annie began by stroking him with her hands, using every technique in her considerable repertoire; but she could quickly see that it was doing no good. He growled in frustration, his fists pounding the mattress. “Annie'll take care of ya, luv, never fear,” she crooned in a singsong voice, her breath hot on his staff. She took it into her mouth and began to ply it with teeth and tongue.

  He let out a few whimpering moans as the old familiar sensations danced at the periphery of consciousness. Almost. He was almost there. His hips began to arch up, jerking convulsively in a desperate attempt to speed the process along.

  Annie increased her efforts, lips and tongue busily at work. Her hands cupped his testicles and he let out a strangled sob and surged to life for one fleeting moment. Then, it was over. For that, at least, she was grateful.

  “See, luv, I told you English Annie could do it for you,” she said. She rolled from the bed and began to dress, turning her back on him. The whore did not see the murderous look burning in his eyes as he watched the jiggle of her fleshy body.

  * * * *

  Henry Snead stood in the Flying W office, staring broodingly out the bay window at the vast empire of Amos Wells. The mountains were a hazy pinkish-gray on the distant horizon. The flat, grassy basin land shimmered in the afternoon heat as a zephyr blew in sudden gusts, stirring up dust and making the grass lie flat to the earth. He had been summoned by his employer and told by the housekeeper to wait in this lavishly appointed room.

  Letting one large hand glide over the gold-embossed leather volumes that lined the wall, Henry thought about the future. He was general foreman now, and Wells had been pleased enough with his work to bring him into the management of his silver interests. Hard-rock miners and cowboys were not all that different to handle. All it took was a few brains and a lot of grit. Henry Snead possessed both. Someday, he would own
a fancy house like this, and Leah would have all the silk dresses and fancy rigs she was always mooning about. Maybe, it was time to ask Wells for another raise. Maybe not. More stock might be a better idea. Yes, that was definitely a better idea. In a few years, Henry Snead planned to be a silver baron, too.

  Wells entered the room, nodded affably to Snead, and motioned for him to have a seat. He slid into the big leather-upholstered chair behind his desk.

  “You wanted to see me about something, Mr. Wells?”

  Amos Wells steepled his fingers in front of his face, studying the younger man with cool, calculating gray eyes. “Yes. We've already discussed my calling on your sister-in-law.”

  “Yes, sir, we did.”

  “How does your wife feel about her sister becoming my wife?”

  Snead suppressed the consternation he felt. He stroked his mustache, then said carefully, “Leah would be delighted to have you in the family, of course.”

  “Apples never fall far from the tree. Rebekah and Leah are sisters. If I'm going to marry into the Sinclair family, I want to know what sort of people they are. Tell me about your wife. Is she biddable?”

  Henry spread his hands over the smooth chair arms. “Leah's dutiful, a good cook and housekeeper, although I have hired a Johnny to do the heavy chores for her. Those Chinese work really cheap. That seemed to please Mrs. Sinclair. My mother-in-law always wanted help, but with her husband being a preacher, well, they just couldn't afford it.”

  “So, the Sinclairs want better for their daughters, do they?”

  “I expect all parents do,” Henry replied reasonably, keeping his voice noncommittal. The last thing he wanted to discuss was Leah! Or the way the sisters detested each other.

  “Well, considering the limited circumstances in which the Sinclair daughters were raised, they should both appreciate the niceties that prosperous husbands can provide for them. You do see the obvious advantages of the two of us being brothers-in-law, Henry?” Amos asked gently.