Ethan licked the blood, her blood from his thumb.
“Oh, honey, then you’ve never been loved the way a woman should be loved.”
She knew that was true.
Like a wanton, she pulled the string on her pantalets and shimmied out of them, leaving them under her like a small blanket.
Ethan watched, smiling in pure pleasure as she revealed herself to him completely. His hand caressed her lightly, from hip to breasts to belly to thigh. At each flash point, she moaned with delight and reached to stop his hand and hold it there, reveling in the touch.
Then she reached for him, covering his chest with the flats of her hands, rubbing hard as she let them slide upward to his shoulders and then around his neck. With a woman’s unique ability, she pulled him to her.
“Then show me again how a woman should be loved.”
Ethan drew his fingers over her sweet womanhood once more, feeling the slickness, the invitation as her body moved to greet his touch. Molly gasped and it excited him all the more watching her, knowing that now this time he would have her completely.
“There’s so much I want to show you, to share with you,” he said, his voice raspy with emotion.
Her arms slipped around his shoulders and she pulled him to her, wanting him, all of him, wanting this time together. His knee pressed between her legs and she opened them. She felt him poised at her entrance and every nerve in her body, every fiber of her being seemed focused on the hot, throbbing demand that pulsed between her legs. Her pulse raced, her breathing came in short shallow gasps as her body, eager for the pleasure she knew awaited, strained toward him.
“Please,” she entreated.
“Yes, sweet Molly. Yes.”
It was his last coherent thought before need, demanding and insistent, consumed him. He eased into her waiting body, slowly, wanting to feel each delicious inch as she enfolded him in her sheath. She was tight, the way a woman is who has been a long time without a lover, and he was glad.
As he lay buried deep inside her, he stilled, rising up on one elbow to look down into her passion-flushed face. Her blue eyes glistened and he kissed her cheeks lightly, tenderly. And then he began to move in her.
He took his time, wanting to please her again, wanting to bring her to lush completion again and desperately wanting to be inside her when she reached that point again.
Slowly, he withdrew, then slid in with a lover’s care, letting her warmth wrap around him, so hot and slick it nearly drove him mad with desire.
She was all he’d imagined, every erotic fantasy he’d ever had and more, so much more.
Molly reveled in him, in having him inside her. It was right. She loved him and this was right. She was sure of it—as sure as she was of her next breath.
With Ethan it was as though she finally understood what love could be like between a man and a woman, what so many sought and so few found.
He whispered to her as he moved, words of promise and of explicit invitation, words that inflamed and excited her beyond all thought or reason.
He stroked and fondled, kissed and teased, as she could do no more than cling to him and be carried along on the wave. His rhythm was slow and steady, like a heartbeat, never faltering, never ceasing, never relenting. With each stroke, the demand that thrummed in her increased again and then again until she was in a pleasure-driven agony so powerful she thought perhaps she would die before she found the release she so frantically wanted.
So she met him stroke for stroke, urgent and wild.
Her nails dug into his back like claws of some fierce cat. “Ethan, please help me. I want it,” she pronounced through clenched teeth. She arched and writhed under him, feeling his body slick with perspiration sliding against hers, his chest pressed hard against her aching breasts, his hips grinding against hers.
Release. Relief. Were the only thoughts and they no more than flashes like lightning in her brain.
It was there. She knew it, felt it like a violent storm moving fast to overtake her. She raced to meet it. Unafraid.
Ethan increased the pace; with each thrust he pushed harder, faster, deeper.
“Yes,” she groaned. “Yes! More! Again!”
Suddenly she felt her body arch and dissolve in a liquid rush between her legs as she convulsed again and again around his hardened shaft. Pleasure. Pure and blinding. Carnal and licentious. Bliss.
Breathing hard, Ethan poured himself into her warmth, exalting in the release she had given him. The world and all its troubles disappeared, simply melted away to nothing, like snow in July. Never in his entire life had he felt this good, this complete, this glorious.
In a heartbeat he knew he’d found what had always been missing in his life. Molly Murphy.
He rolled over onto his back and pulled her into the curve of his shoulder, holding her close, feeling her hair pooling on his chest like silken fire.
He wanted her for his own.
He wanted her for now and more.
Forever.
He held her, reveling in the feel of her naked flesh against his. He didn’t speak because there were no words to describe the bliss he felt.
He toyed with her hair while, with his other hand, he caressed her arm from shoulder to elbow and back again. Her skin was soft, smooth, and then he felt her tremble.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
Molly didn’t answer, just sat up and reached for her clothes. The night was dark and there was a sudden chill in the air that she hadn’t noticed before.
“Molly?”
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.” She stood and began to get dressed.
He sat up beside her.
Molly kept getting dressed. All the while the truth of what she’d done kept going around and around in her head. She’d made love with the one man she could never have, should never want. Ethan wanted her land. He’d made that perfectly clear and still she’d…she’d…Shame flooded her. She had vows to honor, a commitment, even if her husband was less than the man she’d hoped for…less than Ethan.
“It was not a mistake,” Ethan said. “I love you.”
Molly was stunned by his statement. “No,” she said, backing away. “You can’t.” It was wrong, all wrong, and yet for some fleeting moment his words, being here with him, felt so incredibly right she had to fight the urge to relent.
“I do mean it.” He stood and started getting dressed.
Shaking her head in denial, Molly pulled on her skirt, then stockings then shoes. When she looked at him again he was fully clothed, just fastening the buckle on his gun belt.
He was there, close in front of her. “Molly,” his tone was hushed, “I do love you. I think I’ve always loved you.”
“No. No!” She shook her head adamantly, refusing to accept what he was saying. They could not be in love. They could not be together.
“Stop saying that.”
“You love me, too.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Look at me and tell me you don’t love me,” he ordered.
She couldn’t. Head down she said, “Don’t you understand? I can’t love you.”
He pulled her into his embrace, the clothes she held a small pillow between them. Ethan rested his cheek on the top of her head. The sweet fragrance of rose shampoo wafted up to his nostrils. He held her close. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. We’ll live in Cheyenne. We’ll—”
She pushed free of him. “What are you talking about?”
“Cheyenne. As soon as we’re married, we’ll—”
“I am married,” she muttered in a cold and stark realization…and yet, was she? Could she have made love with one man if she thought she was married to another?
“Not for long. You’ll help me get your husband to sell the land. Then you’ll get a divorce and we’ll get married.” He said it so simply, so easily. It made perfect sense to him.
It didn’t make perfect sense to Molly. “Sell the land! Sell the damned land! That’s all you think about
, isn’t it?” Her gaze met his directly. “You’d do anything to get this land, wouldn’t you?”
It took a few moments for her words, her meaning to sink in.
“No! Are you crazy? Do you think that I…That we just…”
“Sell the land, you said.”
“Of course. I want you with me and we can’t stay here. It’ll take a little work, a little maneuvering. I’ll call in a few favors and see if I can hurry things along. In the meantime, you’ll live in my house and—”
“For how long?”
“What do you mean, how long?”
“I’ll live in your house and what, be your mistress?”
“Certainly not.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me!”
“What are you talking about? I’m telling you that I love you, that I want to marry you as soon as—”
“As soon as I help you get this damned land.” She saw it all clearly now.
“Woman, have you lost your mind?”
“No! I think I’ve just found it.” With that, she stormed away, the hurt and realization almost too much to bear. Tears threatened and she fought them back, refusing to give in to them or him, never to him.
Ethan watched her go and watched his world crumble as she did.
Chapter Fourteen
The moon was still visible in the sky as the first light shone on the horizon. Blackness gave way to gray and then to pink, and finally morning shoved the night aside.
Molly wished she could shove her feelings aside as firmly. She couldn’t. She was seated on the bench at the back of the house looking out over her garden. The early light caught the new green leaves of the beans where they started their climb up the row of poles she’d set out. Next to them were the cabbages, tiny now but in a couple of months they’d be large and fat. There were rows of squash and corn, only a couple of feet high now but soon…Her garden. She’d worked so hard putting it in. She could remember every miserable day, trying to break the sunbaked earth with a shovel. A wry smile and a derisive chuckle punctuated her thoughts. The first time she’d hit the ground with the tip of that shovel the thing had actually bounced as though she’d hit granite. She’d thought she had. She’d hauled water and more water, softening the ground for days, dug with pick and shovel and hauled more water until she’d gotten a half a foot of ground turned over. Then fertilizer. The chickens and horses had provided that.
Her garden.
She leaned back against the cabin, the rough bark of the cottonwood logs poking her through her dress.
Her cabin.
Her home.
She’d worked so hard to make a home here, her first. Katie’s first.
They had roots. They had a purpose. They had a place.
Oh, granted it wasn’t much of a place, but it was hers and she was defying logic when she said she didn’t want to give it up.
She sighed.
Her eyes drifted closed and instantly she saw him, them, as they’d been only a few hours ago. It had been heaven being in his arms. No man had ever touched her the way that Ethan had. No man had ever made her feel the things that Ethan had.
Almost from the first, she’d been attracted to him. She’d fought it, struggled against it. She knew he was the enemy, her enemy and yet, she also knew that, Lord help her, she was in love with Ethan Wilder.
It was late afternoon when Molly heard the horse lope into the yard. For an instant she thought perhaps it was Ethan, that perhaps he’d come back and…And what?
Wiping her hand on the towel, she turned just as the door to the cabin opened. A man’s silhouette filled the doorway and then he said, “Well, Molly. What? No welcome for your husband?”
Jack Murphy walked into the room. In what seemed like one motion, he kicked the door closed with his booted foot and tossed his hat then saddlebags on the table.
Molly stood there staring at him. He’d never been all that tall but he was a lot thinner. His brown hair was matted and hung to his shoulders and his beard was streaked with gray. His red shirt was faded and nearly as threadbare as his denim trousers. It didn’t take a genius to figure that Jack hadn’t found that mother lode.
“You’re dead…?” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
Her husband was home. She should be glad. She wasn’t. Thoughts of Ethan and their lovemaking fluttered like frightened butterflies in her stomach.
“Not hardly,” he told her as he dropped down in a chair. “What’s the matter? Ain’t you glad to see me?”
“You can hardly expect me to be glad when you’ve been gone six months leaving me and Katie here to—”
“Who?” His brows drew down.
“Katie.” Good God, the man didn’t even remember the child. She wasn’t his but you’d think he’d at least remember her name.
He nodded. “Oh, yeah.” Arms on the edge of the table, he glanced around. “Where is she anyways?”
“Out playing with some new kittens.”
“New kittens, huh? Sounds real nice.” He rubbed his stomach. “I’m starving, honey. Can you feed a hungry man?”
Feed him? That was it? No questions about how she’d been, how she had managed while he was off chasing dreams? Yet he was her husband, a thought that made a knot in her stomach.
Too bad you didn’t remember that pledge last night.
She stoked the fire in the wood-burning stove then dragged the kettle of soup to the front burner. As she stood there stirring the thick brown liquid to keep it from burning, she admitted she wasn’t glad to see Jack Murphy at all. More than that, she wasn’t sorry about making love to Ethan Wilder. Now, for the first time in her life, she understood what making love was supposed to be like, giving, sharing, pleasing. Not the crude, harsh encounters she’d had with Jack. His body crushing her into the bed while he penetrated her quickly and was as quickly finished before rolling over on his way to sleep.
Steam rattled the lid of the soup kettle and snapped her back to the present. Covertly, she glanced back over her shoulder to take another long look at Jack, at her husband. Muscles clenched in her stomach at the thought of sharing a bed with him again, and yet she knew she would have no choice.
Jack looked tired. His head down, he said, “That soup ready yet?”
“Yes. Don’t get your tail in a knot.”
“I’m not. I’m just asking is all. It’s been a while since I had a decent meal.”
She supposed that was right but it was also his fault. She took a bowl from the cupboard, ladled up a hearty helping and carried it over to him.
“So,” she said, putting the dish down in front of him. “Did you find that gold you were so sure about?” She knew the answer even as she asked the question, but she took pleasure in the asking. A sort of “I told you so.”
Jack was busy shoveling in the soup. But her question evidently touched a sore spot.
His expression was hard when he looked up at her standing there next to him.
“No.” His voice was whiny and mocking. “I didn’t find the gold.” He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “But I’m close. Real close. I was starting to see a little color up in a canyon and I’m the only one what knows about it, so as soon as I get another grubstake…” He shoveled in another couple of spoonfuls of soup. “This is good.” He grabbed her around the hips and pulled her close to him so that her hip was against his shoulder. “You feel good, too,” he added in a tone that made Molly shudder. She twisted free. Frowning, he watched her take a seat at the opposite end of the table.
“There’s no gold out there, Jack. You’re wasting your time. We could use you here.”
“There is!” he shouted defiantly. “I’m close, I tell you. A couple of more months, maybe weeks and—”
“You can’t mean to go back out there again?”
“Of course I do. Whatcha think?”
“Where is it?” She braced her hands on the table top.
“What?”
“This ‘little color�
�� you found.”
“I spent it on supplies.”
“I see,” she muttered, and she did. She remembered all the times her father had come in from a day of mining, excited over a few glinting flakes of gold, barely enough to see let alone make the months, the years of deprivation and eventually her mother’s life worth the cost. Anger welled in her, not just at Jack, but at what this craziness had cost her.
Jack kept eating as though he hadn’t seen good food in twenty years. He probably hadn’t, at least for the time he’d been gone. Gold camps, especially new ones, were notoriously wet and cold in winter and hot in summer and there always seemed to be some disease like cholera or fevers. They were miserable places which was why she’d insisted on taking Katie out of there.
“More?” she said, already walking to the stove.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Jack agreed, with the first smile she’d seen from him.
This time she carried the pot to the table and let him help himself. Two more bowlsful and he finally seemed satisfied. Lounging back in the chair, he rubbed his belly and let out a big belch that in times past hadn’t bothered her. Now, well, it seemed crude. “You always was a good cook, Molly,” he said, his smile broadening.
It was the first kind thing he’d said since he’d walked in.
Jack continued, “Among other things.” That smile of his had turned to a sort of leer that left no question what he was hinting about. Molly busied herself with putting the soup away and cleaning up the dish and spoon. She had no intention of tumbling into bed with Jack, not now. Eventually she would have to, she knew, but not now.
“Where’d you say the kid was?”
“She’s outside but she’ll be back any minute,” Molly lied, having no idea when Katie would come barreling in the door.
“Well, we could always put the lock on,” Jack said.
“No, Jack, we couldn’t.” Molly remained at the sink.
Jack’s smile faded. “Look, Molly, a man gets lonely and—”
“And nothing. You’ve been gone six months. You never once wrote to say if you were living or dead. More than that, you never once cared if I—we—were living or dead. Did you?”
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