The Jewel: The Malloy Family, Book 11

by Beth Williamson

  She sighed and his tongue darted past her teeth. This was a new experience for her and she found she liked it. He definitely knew what he was doing, however, and he moved with a grace he had always shown, this time within the recesses of her mouth. Sweet, languid movements that mimicked what his body could do to hers.

  Isabelle pressed her breasts against his chest, the aching points finding some surcease in the motion. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew she needed more. No wonder couples got married. If she could have this measure of bliss every day, she would very much enjoy having a husband.

  Mason growled. “Tell me to stop.”

  “No.” Her voice was high, breathy, unlike her normal tone. She liked it and the way his kisses made her feel.

  His kiss deepened further, impossible as that might have been. His hands roamed up and down her body, everywhere and anywhere at once. Strong, sure caresses that let her know he was no stranger to the curves of a woman. It didn’t matter, though. Whatever Mason had done or not done in his life had led him to her, and that was all that was important.

  He cupped her behind and pulled her closer until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. His cock had hardened, pressing against her belly. Isabelle had, along with her sisters, received information on mating and all that was entailed with consummation. She had endured Maman’s lectures but had not connected them to a living, breathing man. Until now. Until Mason.

  She knew he would enter her, thrusting deep into her vagina, and that he would plant his seed within. Reproduction was a natural act along with consummation. Everything he was doing was so very different than she imagined. It was warm—hot, even—and full of sensations she hadn’t known existed.

  Maman had been right to make sure her daughters knew what the mechanics of intercourse involved. Isabelle couldn’t help but wonder if her mother intentionally left out the parts about how it would feel deep inside her stomach or between her legs. Some things were better experienced firsthand and could not be explained.

  A heavy pulse thrummed outward from her core and she grew moist with desire. She moaned and he captured it with his mouth, answering with a moan of his own. Isabelle squirmed against him.

  He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against hers. “We need to slow down.”

  “We need to speed up.”

  He chuckled and kissed her quickly. “You don’t know what you’re asking. You’re an innocent, ma belle.”

  She smiled. “I am knowledgeable about what happens next, mon beau. My mother made sure all her daughters were well educated.”

  A pause and then he sighed, a gust of air against her cheek. “You are temptation incarnate. Now I know what caused the fall of all those powerful men throughout history.”

  She kissed him, pulling him back into the swirling maelstrom growing between them. He responded in kind, to her delight. His hands squeezed her behind, pulling her softness against his hardness. She gasped when he thrust between her legs, sliding them apart.

  “Sweet heavens.”

  “You have no idea.” Mason kissed his way across her jaw to nibble on her ear. “It’s as though paradise landed in my arms.”

  “Teach me more, Mason.” She turned and found his earlobe, loving the taste of his skin. Being with him had released any inhibitions she had. Isabelle wanted to open her arms wide and embrace every second in Mason’s arms.

  “If I teach you any more, I will take your innocence. I don’t think that’s the wisest choice, much as it pains me to say so.” Mason traced the shell of her ear with his tongue, raising every small hair on her body.

  “Please. I need, I need, something. I don’t know what it is.” She clutched at his shoulders, desperate for release.

  “Then let me ease your need, ma belle.” His hand crept down between them, finding its way to her pulsing core. He managed to pull up her layers and find the slit in her drawers.

  When his fingers stroked her, she jerked from the contact. Pure, sweet pleasure radiated out through her body. The more he moved, sliding through her slick folds, the sharper her excitement grew. She pressed her mouth against his neck, his life’s blood beneath her lips.

  Although she didn’t know what would happen, she wasn’t afraid. She trusted Mason with her life.

  “Isabelle.” Her name was said with reverence, and something deeper, stronger.

  Her mind couldn’t focus on anything but what he was doing to her body. His thumb landed on the bundle of the nerves at the top of her mound and circled it while his fingers entered her. She closed her eyes and allowed the bliss to overtake her.

  She wound tighter and tighter, moving with the rhythm of his talented hand and fingers. Then his other hand found her breast and pinched the nipple.

  The dry academic materials she’d studied did nothing to prepare her for the loss of control. She exploded in a cacophony of ecstasy and light. Stars danced behind her lids as waves washed over her, dousing her in what her mother had called le petit mort, and it was a little death.

  She could barely catch her breath, but when she did, she was awash in her own scent mingled with Mason’s. It was a heady combination with the languidness that invaded her bones.

  “I am very glad you are the person to teach me what true pleasure is.” She kissed his neck. “What’s next?”

  He chuckled and pressed his mouth to temple. “Sleep, darlin’. Sleep.”

  “But you haven’t, um, received any pleasure.” She didn’t want to feel guilty about taking without giving. Besides, she wanted to feel his body joining with hers, to know what it meant to truly be as one with a man who had found his way into her heart.

  It was not the ideal moment to realize she loved him, but it was true nonetheless. She bit her tongue to keep herself from blurting it out.

  “I will survive. Now, we both need to get some rest. Tomorrow, we need to keep working on Mary and Gunther. Every moment, every word, can help us get out of this horrendous situation.” He tucked her under his chin and wrapped his arms around her.

  Her eyes closed of their own volition. The sound of his heart thumped beneath her ear lulled her until she had no choice but to surrender to sleep.

  “Where the hell is my coat?” Karl’s voice echoed in the darkness.

  Mason tightened his grip on Isabelle, her soft, warm body snuggled up to his as if she belonged there. She had fallen into an exhausted slumber after her release. He grinned at the annoyance in Karl’s tone.

  “Goddammit, and my blanket too? Fucking scavengers in this settlement. If I find those bastards, I’ll cut their balls off.” Karl stomped around in the mud a few more minutes, spat rather impressive-sounding phlegm and then walked off into the night.

  Mason was glad Isabelle had slept through the tantrum, even more glad that Karl hadn’t suspected who had stolen his belongings. It wasn’t a good thing to be in such a settlement, with people who had no home, no roots, but it covered his own perfidy.

  He had to find a way to rescue them from Camille, but the situation was grim. She held all the cards and she had found Isabelle’s weakness—Charlie. If the leader of the Becker gang kept the younger Chastain hostage, Isabelle and Mason had little choice but to cooperate. He would not risk the girl’s life. However, he worried what Camille would force Isabelle to do.

  For now it was singing, but it could lead to more, to darker tasks. He had no proof of it. However, he knew about the greed he saw in Camille’s eyes. There would be no boundaries that she wouldn’t cross. Things would get worse before it got better. That was a grim certainty.

  Mason had been able to give Isabelle a moment of pleasure and relief from the darkness that had them in its grip. She had been exquisite in her passion, which hadn’t surprised him. She approached everything in her life with the same passion, including music. He’d been lucky to be the first to touch her so intimately. His cock would nev
er forgive him for not taking advantage of her offer.

  It would have been the pinnacle of his life to take the innocence of such an angel. Whether it was the highest or lowest point was debatable. If he had accepted her gift, he could have died in the morning and been a happy man. Yet the gentleman he had been raised to be had reared his head and interceded. Nothing had happened to her maidenhead, but she had achieved orgasm. He had achieved blue balls.

  If he grew desperate, he could find a private spot and use his hand to take care of the problem. That was not the desired option, but he wasn’t proud enough to deny himself if he needed to.

  Isabelle now knew how to kiss well, but she was not very experienced. Her movements were clumsy and endearing. She brimmed with such life, he found himself already addicted to being around her. Protecting her would not be a chore. No, he would look forward to waking each morning just to be near her asleep and awake.

  He was pitiful. A man hopelessly in love with a woman to the point he would throw himself on a puddle to save her from getting muddy. The thought made him snort and he pinched himself to stop the foolishness from proceeding.

  She was his. For now. Perhaps forever. If he could manage to right their situation, maybe it would happen. No matter what the future held, he would do everything he could for her, every moment of every day.

  Was this what love was? He had no idea, of course. Mason had spent his life only thinking about one person—himself. Traveling out west to get rich from a gold strike had led him to near death, a penniless existence and a kidnapping. Yet he would not have changed his decision if he had known then what he knew now.

  He would not have given up the pain if it meant he would not have met Isabelle. She had become everything to him. The sun, the moon, the stars, the very air he breathed. Mason wasn’t the type to lose himself over a woman. Hell, they’d thrown themselves at him all his life. Being a cultured, wealthy Southern heir to a cotton plantation had garnered him a lot of attention.

  Now he was on the opposite end of the wanting, the needing, the desperation. He had carelessly dismissed so many women and their fluttery emotions. He winced, remembering what a complete jackass he had been. If he were lucky, the ladies had not suffered permanent damage. His cynical side told him that was not a possibility.

  Mason didn’t want to let himself imagine what would happen if Isabelle rejected him. His entire body tightened at the thought and his stomach churned. What the hell was wrong with him? He had to stop the foolish thoughts and focus on what was important.

  Escaping from the Beckers and not losing their lives in the process.

  He lay there awake, his mind refusing to succumb to sleep. He heard Karl speaking to Gunther and the creak of the wagon as they switched places. The big man was on watch. It was the perfect opportunity.

  Mason extracted himself from Isabelle’s embrace and crept out from beneath the wagon. The cold slithered across his skin. The temperature had dropped to near freezing already. He wasn’t used to the temperatures. It was milder in North Carolina—much, much milder. They rarely had half a dozen snowstorms in a five-year timeline, much less in October.

  A shiver wracked his body and he gazed back toward the warm nest he’d left and the even warmer woman. There would be time for that later. Now he had to work on Gunther and putting a crack in the Becker wall.

  Mason walked with a deliberate shuffle to his step, making enough noise that he wouldn’t startle the other man. The fire had burned down low and Gunther was feeding kindling into the flames. He glanced up at Mason and scowled.

  “I can’t sleep.” Mason plopped down on one of the crates serving as makeshift seats.

  Gunther grunted and turned his attention back to the fire. The big man didn’t speak much so it would take some effort on Mason’s part. He’d already started making headway, but he knew he had to do much more.

  Mason gestured to the coffee pot. “Any left?”

  This earned him a deeper scowl. “You making more if you drink it?”

  “I can try, but I have to admit I’ve never made coffee.” Mason picked up a ratty-looking tin cup and poured himself what appeared to be sludge from the bottom of a creek. Determined, he sipped and swallowed, repeated it once, twice, thrice. By then he had become numb to the taste and convinced himself he was glad for the heat of the beverage.

  Calling it a beverage was stretching the truth a little, but it couldn’t be classified as a food. More of a mud-like something guaranteed to make a spoon stand up in it.

  The two of them sat in silence, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and the low hum of conversation from the settlement nearby. The stars were out in abundance above them, twinkling eyes in the velvet blackness. The moon was absent, giving the night a deeper darkness, one Mason could almost hold in his hands.

  He heard no crickets, katydids or creatures he’d grown up listening to. This was a foreign land and he was a foreigner.

  “Isabelle sings beautifully, doesn’t she? Voice of an angel.” Mason decided she was a safe topic since Gunther had all the signs of an infatuation. She attracted men in droves.

  Gunther grunted again. It was a sign he was listening, anyway.

  “She never had lessons. It’s a God-given gift. She sang a lot as a child.” Mason had heard some of her story. He could make up the rest. “Her parents didn’t want her to sing, so she sang in secret. Today was the first day she sang in front of a crowd.”

  Gunther looked at him now. His craggy face showed interest. It gave Mason an opportunity to study him. Aside from the mud brown, curly mop that had been hacked short, he had whiskers darkening his cheeks and a scar that bisected his right brow. His lips were as large as his other features. Although none of it fit together, there was a symmetry to him.

  There was no resemblance to any of the other Becker family members. Gunther was dog ugly and Mason suspected he’d been treated no better than one.

  “I tell her to sing as much as she can. Something that beautiful shouldn’t be hidden. Don’t you agree?” Mason sucked down more of the coffee mud.

  Gunther let loose another grunt.

  “I won’t let any of those men near her.” Mason’s tone slid from conversational to serious. “I’ll kill them if they try to hurt her.”

  “I will too.” Gunther nodded as though he was making a pledge with Mason.

  “They wanted to take her, and take her goodness, her sweetness and her voice. Those bastards were dirty thieves who wanted her.”

  “You stopped them.” Gunther sounded almost complimentary.

  “I’ll continue to do so. Camille is going to force her to sing every night. You saw how much money she made. She’s hungry for more and she’s going to get it as long as she can.” Mason saw endless days and nights of Isabelle being used like an indentured servant. It fueled his anger anew. “You know that. In fact, I think it’s not the first time, is it?”

  Gunther’s cheeks flushed. “No.”

  “I thought so. You want whatever happened to whomever Camille used previously to happen to Isabelle?”

  Gunther reared back. “No.”

  A premonition of what could happen, would happen, danced on his heart. He hadn’t wanted to believe they would be unable to escape from Camille. Now was his chance to make himself actually believe it.

  “Then help us.” Mason leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Help us change the situation. Camille has to be stopped. She can’t keep using people like they don’t matter. Isabelle matters.”

  “Isabelle matters,” Gunther repeated the words with something like reverence. The big man had a bad case for the songbird. They could commiserate over more coffee mud.

  “She matters more than anything. She and Charlie are all I have.” Mason didn’t realize it was true until the words spilled from his mouth. He had no one left at home. His home had become the two sisters from New York wh
o saved his life, who had shown him who he wanted to be. “Will you help us?”

  Mason held his breath while Gunther stared at him. When the big man looked away, Mason’s heart sank. He thought he’d made headway, but maybe Camille had mentally beaten her “family” into submission. Perhaps there was no chance he could make the crack wider.

  But he damn sure wasn’t going to give up trying.

  “I can’t.” Gunther’s whisper was punctuated with a shake of his shaggy head. “Isabelle matters, but I can’t. I’ll protect her as much as I can.”

  “That’s something. I am glad to have another man by my side who values my wife.” Mason tripped over the word “wife”, but for all the Beckers knew they were married. “She is a good person and so is Charlie. If you can, help us do more.”

  This time Gunther didn’t answer. His gaze didn’t stray from the fire. The silence reigned for another ten minutes before Mason accepted there would be no further conversation that night. If he were lucky, he could sneak out each night and chip away at Gunther’s reluctance. Mason might not have built a bridge but he laid a few planks and moved forward.

  One step, one plank, at a time and he would damn well keep at it. Mason would not fail her.

  Chapter Nine

  Isabelle woke within a cocoon. A very warm cocoon that belied the frigid air attacking her face. She blinked, dismayed to find ice crystals on her eyelashes. Temperatures had plummeted overnight and would only continue to get colder.

  It was already October and from what she remembered reading of the territory, snow flew regularly in November. That was the reason the wagon train had to make it over the Rockies before winter hit. The heavy wagons would not make it through, and neither would the Chastain wagon. Camille was sentencing them to life on the prairie over the winter with no structure to protect them from the harsh temperatures.

  It would be certain death for most of them, especially the weaker and younger members. Time was running out every moment they spent meandering in the wagon. It was an untenable situation and an unacceptable outcome.