She smiled, hugging herself. It was a decision she must set aside for now, with the knowledge that the morning was fast approaching and Max would rise early to await Nicholas’s arrival with the stallion. There was much to be done to prepare for the breeding process, and she set her chin, aware that she would not be involved this time.
Let the men handle it. She would comfort the mare afterward, as she had the last time, currying, brushing and spending long minutes with her.
For now, she must seek her bed and close her eyes.
Breakfast was a silent affair, Max eating steadily, thanking her nicely for the meal, then leaving the house without explanation as to his whereabouts or intentions. Nicholas had given him instructions yesterday, and he sought out the mare, checking her once more for her readiness.
He led her to the corral, fixing two ropes in place so that she would be tied to opposite sides of the enclosure once the stallion arrived. Then, covering her with two heavy blankets, he fastened them beneath her belly with big, metal safety pins, to ensure that the stud didn’t mar her glossy coat with his urge to bite the mare he mounted.
Max had never been a part of such a procedure, yet Nicholas seemed to know what he was doing, and Max was willing to bow to the man’s greater knowledge in this case. He’d barely fitted out the mare and secured her as Nicholas had directed before he heard the trumpeting sound of the stallion from the yard.
Max grinned. It seemed Goldie’s scent carried to where the horse waited, and he’d be willing to bet that Nicholas was having a hard time holding the stallion down. Leaving the mare where she stood, Max passed through the barn to the front door and greeted the neighbor.
“I heard your stud. He sounds impatient,” Max said with a grin.
“You don’t know the half of it. I think he knew when we left home what he was going to find here. He about wore me out, holding him to a nice, steady canter.”
The sorrel stallion tossed his head, flecks of foam flying, and his eyes were wide as he whinnied again. Nicholas undid the cinch and slid the saddle to the ground, standing it on end near the barn door. “I want to pad his hooves out here,” he said. “He was a little rough last time we tried this, and Faith will have a fit if her mare gets marked up.”
“I’ve already covered her the way you told me,” Max said, in awe of the magnificence of the animal before him. The stallion was big, his haunches thick and powerful, and his red coat gleamed in the morning sunshine. His neck was arched and his mane flew as he lifted his head abruptly, nostrils flaring as if the mare’s scent was carried on the wind.
Max looked toward the house and saw Faith in the kitchen doorway. She seemed small and delicate from this distance, and he thought of the mare he’d just spent half an hour preparing for the taking by this mighty horse before him. The mare, too, had seemed smaller than usual, somehow. More vulnerable, tied in place, with no chance of escape once the stud was brought to her.
The urge to conquer was inbred in all male creatures, Max decided. For as he watched his wife, he felt a surge of lust that had nothing to do with his usual desire for the woman. He looked away, shocked by his own emotion. He’d tried to be a gentleman with Faith. Perhaps she, like the mare awaiting the mating ritual—
He shook his head, setting aside the thought that had provoked the blood to rush to his loins. There was work to be done.
When all was said and done—when the breeding had been accomplished, with only a few seconds of peril to the mare as the stud rushed his fences at the last moment—Max felt exhilarated. And it was obvious Nicholas shared his thoughts. His grin was wide as he led his stallion from the corral and through the barn.
The mare was turned out to pasture after a quick grooming, and Max watched as the other man saddled his horse, preparing to leave.
“Tell Faith it went well,” he said, climbing into the saddle. “I suspect she was upset this morning, wasn’t she?”
Max nodded. There was no point in elaborating on the issue. Surely Nicholas was familiar with women’s moods, and if Max was any judge of things, Lin stood to be rushed into a private place once Nicholas arrived back at his home. There was something about the whole situation that called for action, and Max wondered glumly how he would handle his own problem.
He watched Nicholas ride off, one hand lifted in a quick wave toward the house. And then Max turned toward the woodshed, ostensibly to check on the hen and her clutch of chicks in the enclosure beside the structure. In reality, he knew there was merit in the idea of staying removed from Faith for a while, at least until his male impulses were under control.
He stood at the chicken wire fence and watched as the hen dusted her feathers in the dirt and pecked idly at a bug that had ventured too close, providing a part of her breakfast. Perhaps Faith was intending to bring feed to them. With a quick movement, he went to the henhouse and found the pan she used, filled it partway with chicken feed from the barrel and returned to the little family.
He tossed handfuls through the wire fence and watched as the hen clucked to her little ones, calling them to the breakfast table. They responded like small, walking balls of yellow fluff, and he grinned at the sight as they scampered around, pecking and squeaking like miniature wind-up toys he’d seen in an exclusive toy store in Boston.
“They need water, too,” Faith said from behind him, and as he turned to her, she undid a piece of the fencing to bend low and enter the enclosure. The shallow pan of water in her hand was placed in a secure position, and the hen went to it, dipping her beak in the water, then tipping her head back to swallow. He watched in amusement as the chicks followed her lead, and chuckled as they backed off when the water splattered them.
“Now you’re going to tell me you’ll butcher these cute little things and put them in jars to eat next winter,” he said, humor lacing his words.
“Only the roosters,” she said. “The pullets will be laying hens next spring. One rooster is all any henhouse needs on hand. And even one is too much sometimes.”
“You don’t hold your resident rooster in high esteem?” he asked, grinning at her.
“Right now, I’m not too fond of any male creature,” she said sharply, turning aside to stalk back toward the house.
She’d apparently not gotten over her snit from the night before, and he considered her back as she stiffened her shoulders and held her head high. Her hips swayed a bit beneath the drab dress she wore and he wished for a moment to see her without the heavy, unattractive garment.
As if called to attention, he felt the same heated response he’d struggled with earlier. Noted its rise as it claimed him once again, and his lips thinned, even as heat climbed to burn his cheekbones. The breath he sought did not come easy, and he felt his nostrils flare with the effort. She was bending over now on the porch, sliding off the work boots she wore while in the yard or tending to her chores.
Bare feet entered the kitchen and the door slammed behind her.
Without thinking, acting as might an adolescent boy, he stalked across the yard, took the steps with one long leap and followed her inside. She turned quickly to aim a startled glance at his face, and he thought her face became pale, except for two bright spots of color high on her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” she asked sharply, her hands busy untying the apron she’d worn during the morning’s work. She hung it on a handy nail near the pantry, her gaze trained on him, her look wary.
And well she might be, he thought. He’d kept his hands off long enough. He’d played the part she seemed to have cast him in, given her the room she needed in order to reacquaint herself with him again. And for what? She looked at him as if he were an interloper, a stranger, a man she barely knew.
“I think you need to go back outside and find something to do,” she said quietly. “I’m going to change the beds and sort out the washing for tomorrow. I have the cream ready to churn, and I’m certain you can find chores enough to keep you busy for the rest of the morning.”
“I�
��ve already decided what I plan on doing for the rest of the morning,” he said, his voice almost unrecognizable as the words poured forth in a harsh utterance.
She backed against the wall, her hands flat on either side, and her chin rose in defiance. “I think not,” she said, the words clipped and cool. And yet within the depths of her eyes he saw a flash of heat, of promise, and he advanced on her steadily.
“I can’t believe you’re going to force me to do this,” she said, her words delivered from between lips that barely moved. Her hair was caught high on her head with a ribbon, and as he paused before her, he reached for it, tugging it free and allowing the heavy, golden fall to cover her shoulders and breasts.
“I don’t intend to force you,” he said. “I remember too well how you clung to me, Faith, how you made soft, pleading sounds when I loved you. I have no need of force with you, sweetheart.”
Her voice was a whisper, her words a litany of appeal, as if she beseeched him for mercy at his hands. “I’ve never asked you for much, Max. But I’m begging you now not to do this to me.”
“I’m not going to do anything to you, sweetheart. I’m going to do it with you. And therein lies the difference. You’ll have a choice. Will it be your bedroom or the one I’ve been sleeping in? I warn you, the bed you allotted me is too narrow for comfort for what I have in mind. You might do better to allow me into your virginal chamber.”
She shook her head. “You sound foolish, Max. I’m not a virgin, not by a long shot. And even though the law stands behind you in this, I won’t agree to submit to your highhanded methods.”
“I don’t want you to simply submit,” he said, and recognized that truth even as he spoke it aloud. Total surrender was what he was after. The giving of herself, the opening of her body to his claim, the submission of her will to his. And he would use all of the skill he’d set aside over the past three years to bring it about.
A sound from her throat called to his senses, a whispering murmur he could not ignore and he reached for her, holding her curves against his straining body. She was all that was warm and beautiful in his life, and even as he looked down into the brilliant blue of her eyes, he thought of the mare he’d held steady as the stallion staked his claim.
There was much the same acknowledgment of her fate in Faith’s gaze as he’d seen in the dark, soft eyes of her mare. Even her hair clung to his skin as had the mare’s mane clung to his hand as he’d held her halter, tossing her head in a final burst of defiance at the breeding she was being prepared to endure.
Except that he would be certain Faith did not merely endure, but would lift to his touch and exult in the joining of their bodies. He took her mouth in a kiss that brooked no denial on her part, his lips parting over hers, his tongue claiming the soft parts of her cheeks and the tender tissues inside that dark cavern wherein lay a member much like his own. She was slow to respond, her tongue battling with his as if she would force him to abandon his game.
And then she slumped against him, as though she knew defeat at his hands, allowing him to plunder the depths, opening for his advances. Her fists were clenched against his chest, her eyes closed, and as he lifted his head to look down at the flushed features of the woman he had chosen to wed, he saw slow tears wash the rosy hue from her cheeks.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he whispered, knowing the words resembled nothing so much as the begging he’d vowed not to stoop to. He would take her to bed, claim her as his own and then set about the process of carrying her back with him to the home that waited them in the city.
“Max.” She spoke his name, the single syllable a pleading note that touched him as could no other word she might utter. And then she opened her eyes, and the fear and disgust he’d thought to find there did not exist. Instead, he recognized a depth of desire he could barely countenance.
He lifted her in his arms, carrying her with a lack of delicacy through the kitchen and into her bedroom. The bed was made, the quilt pulled taut across the feather tick, and big, fluffy pillows were propped against the tall headboard. The open window allowed the morning breeze to drift across the room, the white curtains billowing as a draft of air caught them, tossing them adrift.
She was light in his arms, her weight not nearly that of the woman he’d married, and his hands were impatient as he stood her beside the bed and began removing her clothing with swift skill. The buttons gave way to his practiced fingers, and he slid the dress over her hips to settle on the floor.
She wore a petticoat, and he untied the tapes, watching closely as it followed the dress to circle her with a cloud of creamy fabric. Beneath it she wore drawers, the hems trimmed with lace—lace he recognized from the emporium in town; drawers he’d purchased for her use. Through the sheer material of her vest, he saw dark circles where her breasts pressed tautly against the fabric to gain his attention, the crests already puckered and visibly taut, moving as she caught her breath.
He closed his eyes, fearing the rush of blood to his arousal. It was almost more than he could cope with, this sight of the woman he’d allowed to walk away, the wife he’d come to love over the past weeks with a passion he hadn’t known himself capable of.
His hands trembled as he lifted the vest over her head, eschewing the tiny buttons as too much of a good thing. Next time he’d spend long moments undressing her. Later on, he promised himself, he’d give her more of the attention she deserved, noting each inch of skin as it was exposed to his avid gaze.
For now, he could only remove her clothing as quickly as possible, and watch her as he stripped off his own shirt and trousers, tugged his drawers down and stepped from them as her eyes traveled his length to settle there, where he was most vulnerable.
She shivered before him and he stepped back, viewing the slender lines she’d developed since their last such encounter. Slim and supple, her breasts formed before his eyes into two spheres of rounded temptation he could barely resist. Her hands rose, her arm crossing to cover herself, and he growled out a warning.
“Don’t do that. You’re beautiful, Faith. I want to look at you.” Surprised at her slow obedience to his words, he enveloped her with his gaze, pleased at her acquiescence. Arms falling to her sides, her fingers lax, she lifted her chin, holding it high as if she invited his scrutiny.
The sunlight bathed her, the breeze touched her hair and as she lifted a hand to brush it from her face, he was stunned anew at the beauty before him. He’d thought her lovely, had been proud of her appearance in those days of their early life together. Now he recognized a depth of character, a strength of purpose she had not owned as a younger woman.
Pride filled her bearing, and he delighted in her obedience to his wishes. She chose to do as he asked, giving him the right to love her. Exultation filled his veins, heating his blood and bringing him to full arousal. His hands were firm, yet gentle as he lifted her, placed her in the center of the wide bed, then stepped back.
Flinging his boots from his path, he tossed his clothing from the floor at his feet to the general vicinity of the chair. And then he bent over her, more aware than ever in his life of the size of his manhood, proud and prominent as he knelt beside her on the bed.
The soft mattress gave way beneath his weight and he recognized her scent, the warmth of it rising from her body as he lowered himself against her. She was at once soft and yet gifted with the resilience of well-toned muscles and the long sleek lines of a woman who knew hard work and did it well. Her arms were strong as they circled his neck, and the fine, womanly shape he settled against fitted itself to his longer, larger frame.
He brushed back curls and waves from her face, gripping with both hands the abundant golden locks, watching as tendrils wrapped around his fingers and clung to callused flesh. “I’ve always loved your hair,” he murmured. “When you used to wear it up for evenings out, I’d imagine pulling the pins loose, thought about it falling to cover your back and your breasts.” His smile felt taut, straining against his teeth. “There were times
I barely made it home without undressing you in the carriage.”
“I never knew you thought those things,” she whispered, one hand lifting to touch his cheek. “You were always so…well-behaved.” Her mouth curved in a secret smile and he bent to touch it with his own.
“I was a fool,” he muttered. “I never let you know how much I wanted you. I didn’t want to frighten you, I think.”
“I’m not frightened now,” she said, catching her breath in a sudden gasp as he leaned closer, pressing against her breasts. Her mouth was open a bit, as if she must take in long, slow breaths and he lifted slightly.
“Am I crushing you?” he asked, and wondered at the stark harshness of his voice. His jaw was clenched with the effort he made to keep from seeking out the heated flesh he yearned to touch.
Wait. Wait. The words hummed in his mind, and he fought to set reins on the passion flowing throughout his body.
She was warmth and fire beneath him, and his masculine need was urgent against her belly, yearning to encounter the warmth she sheltered between her thighs. As though she knew, as though she sought to please him in this, she moved her legs, opening to him, allowing him space to settle there.
Yes. As if he’d arrived home after an endless journey, he fitted himself against her, then bent to take her mouth. His kiss was openmouthed and avid, taking the blend of lips and teeth and tongue with the skill of a conqueror long denied his rights.
She cried out once, a keening moan, and he lifted from her. His eyes narrowed as he sought the source, only to find her eyes closed, her hair a golden cloud about her head and her mouth swollen from his attentions. Her lips parted again and a murmur escaped, a whimper as she tugged at his shoulders, shivering at his touch.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, and again barely recognized his own voice, so harsh and driven were the sounds coming from his throat.
Texas Gold (Mills & Boon Historical) Page 14
