by Paige Tyler
As he rubbed her casually, as if he had every right to touch her in such a familiar manner, Mary Rose tried to keep it in her mind that it was better him than either of the others. But that was cold comfort, indeed.
Rafe was finding himself a little too involved in watching that delightful bottom. He stood up abruptly, spilling her off his lap and into a crumpled heap at his feet, saying, “Get your clothes off. You’re sleeping in bed with me tonight.”
Mary Rose got up slowly, automatically pulling up her undies, despite his words. Even though she had just agreed to obey him, she was in no hurry to comply with that particular order. She didn’t want to be naked in front of him. She didn’t want him naked—or nearly naked, as he was—in front of her. He scared her. The though struck her that she would have been scared of him—well, highly wary, at least—even if they’d been introduced by her parents in the front parlor of her home in Virginia. He struck her as the type of man who would never allow himself to be manipulated as she and Uncle Shep had done to her other suitors. If he had agreed to have dinner with her, then he wouldn’t put up with Uncle Shep coming along, nor would he tolerate any sort of conversational shenanigans. There would be no turning him away at the door afterwards, either. This was a man who would not be toyed with. It was in his speech, his manner, in the very air he breathed.
He would not—could not—be handled. He did the handling.
Still, she wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible, and, even though there was only really one button left on the front of her shirt, she was taking her sweet time undoing it—until he gave her that same icy stare he’d used on Hernandez. Mary Rose had to look away—there was too much in that gaze; it was too knowing, it saw too much.
Like her peaked nipples.
He took his pants and arranged them by the side of the bed that was closest to the door so as to put himself between her and harm, putting his gun belt on top of them but removing the gun to place it on the nightstand where it would be close at hand. Mary Rose didn’t need to ask if it was loaded. It was. There was no doubt in her mind.
Rafe relaxed back onto the bed—as much as someone in his position could relax—his fingers laced behind his head, one eye open to keep track of his reluctant companion’s progress in divesting herself of her garments. He had to smirk to himself. If she kept up that pace, they’d all be dead before he’d seen the barest hint of naked flesh—and he’d already seen—and touched—a lot more than just a little of her, and he certainly had liked that. Rafe would be very glad to see any and all parts of her that he could.
She was small and rounded—exactly the way he liked his women to be. She felt wonderfully right beneath him for that short time—his body and hers just seemed to fit perfectly together. He was mildly alarmed at how romantic he was sounding. Anything in a skirt—except, perhaps, for a Scotsman—would have felt terrific beneath him. This dame was nothing special. She was just close at hand.
She was finally down to just her sleeveless chemise and split-crotch bloomers, and he found himself wondering which she would remove first. He lost when she took off the chemise, carefully keeping herself turned away from him so that he didn’t even get so much as a glimpse of her breasts. But when those knickers fell to her ankles, parts of him stood at full attention in salute to what he could see of the beautiful sweeping line of her back. The rest of it was covered by a magnificent fall of blonde hair that looked like a golden river as it spilled to the middle of her back.
By now completely naked, Mary Rose just stood there, her back to him, as if she was hoping that when she turned around, he’d be gone. Aching as he was, he could barely scrape out, “Get over here.”
“N-no.” Her rebel yell, as rebel yells went, was puny. Barely more than a mewl.
Rafe’s eyebrow kinked. “Do you need more of an incentive? Was I too easy on you just a few minutes ago—“
“No!” Mary Rose replied hastily. She definitely did not want a second trip over his lap. She didn’t want to be within two counties of him, much less have him whacking away on her bottom like he just had. “No,” she repeated, a little more calmly. “I’m coming.”
Seconds ticked by.
“What’s your name?”
His question made her jump and, of course, forget her name. “Uh—my name—my name is—”
“Is the question too hard for you?”
Dear God, not only was he humiliating her and terrifying her in the extreme, he was insulting her, too! “Mary Rose,” she whispered.
“Well, Mary Rose, I want you to get your luscious little butt over here, pronto.” She couldn’t see him, because her back was still to him, but she could hear him patting the bed.
Still, she dared to obey him as slowly as was humanly possible. He was still debating about whether or not he was going to punish her for being such a slowpoke when her delightfully dusky bottom touched the sheets, then she was next to him, on her back, covered up to her neck by sheets and quilt.
Rafe, who rarely slept with anything over him and had not one modest bone in his body when it came to nudity, rolled towards her to lie on his side. She was lying there with her eyes squinched tightly closed, breathing raggedly and trembling. He had to consciously stop his hand when it was already halfway to her arm to pat and stroke it. He wanted to soothe her, even though he had to acknowledge that there was really no way to do it.
“Do I need to tie you to the bed, or will you stay here if I fall asleep?” There really wasn’t an “if” about it—his eyelids were already drooping. He had a roof over his head, he was on a comfortable bed with real linens and there was a warm soft female body next to him.
Mary Rose’s eyes snapped open at his words. “I’ll stay here.”
Rafe looked into her eyes for a long moment. They were clear, but troubled. “You’d better. There’s nothing Hernandez and Toze would like better than to snag a little morsel like you.”
“I won’t go anywhere.”
“Is there anything else in this room that could be used as a weapon?” he asked, wondering if she would really tell him the truth.
She looked like she was really thinking about her answer. “I don’t believe so, but nearly anything could be used as a weapon, if need be, c-couldn’t it?”
Rafe nodded slowly. “How did you come to be out here all alone, the two of you?” he asked, already knowing most of her answer from having cased the joint before they raided it.
“Stu—the—the bartender didn’t come to work. I should have just closed down for the night, but I didn’t want to turn away any potential business.” Her voice was breaking; she was seconds from tears and hating herself for showing that weakness to this man. “I—I should h-have just closed up.”
God, he hated a woman’s tears! At one time, it was the surest thing to reduce him to a bleeding idiot trying to rectify whatever it was that was making her cry. But not anymore. She could cry all she wanted to and it wouldn’t make a whit of difference to him. He was surprised that she hadn’t had a hysterical fit by now. Most women would have.
Instead, he saw her do what she’d done before: she cleared her throat and marshaled her feelings after only a few seconds of tears. His admiration for her grew by leaps and bounds. “Where’s the owner of this establishment? In town? He should be shot for leaving you two out here unprotected.”
“I’m the owner of this establishment.”
Rafe snorted, causing her to open her eyes only long enough to glare at him balefully. “You? Run a saloon and inn? By yourself?”
“Yes,” Mary Rose answered with as much dignity as she could muster in the face of his obvious amusement.
“You’re too young. You should still be living with your parents—or married with a passel of kids clamoring around your skirts to keep you busy and out of your husband’s hair.”
“For your information, women can do anything that a man can do. And in most cases, they do it better.”
Well, she was spouting absolutely preposterou
s folderol, but at least she wasn’t trembling any more. “Why aren’t you married?”
That got her dander up. “Because I don’t need to be. I own the saloon and the inn. I’m the proprietor, like it says on the sign: M.R. Caldwell.”
He had read it wrong, thinking it said “Mr. Caldwell.” She was gutsy, he had to give her that, trying to make a go of it in a boomtown, all by herself. A thought struck him. “Do your parents know you’re out here?”
She huffed. “Yes, of course they do.” She didn’t need to tell him any more than that—that her father had sent a letter demanding that she return to Virginia immediately once he’d been notified of Shep’s death, and that she had stayed in direct defiance of him, because she wanted to make her own way in the world.
His hand reached out to stroke a wisp of hair off her forehead, and he was half-asleep as he murmured, “I bet you were a handful as a little girl.”
The next thing Mary Rose heard was a very loud snore, aimed directly at her left ear. At this rate, she was going to be stone deaf by morning. She twisted her hips, turning away from him, and he snapped awake, one arm snaking around her waist to pull her back against him. “You’re not going anywhere, Miss Mary Rose.”
“But I wasn’t trying—“
“Shhh. Go to sleep.”
And, just like that, she did, as if she were safe in her own bed.
Chapter 4
Mary Rose awoke slowly the next morning, trying to roll onto her back and indulge in an all out stretch. But something heavy was preventing her from doing that. She didn’t remember her quilt and sheet being quite this heavy …
She opened her blue eyes only to stare into a corresponding pair of startlingly deep, unforgiving black ones. Mary Rose quickly looked away, but there didn’t seem to be a safe place to set her eyes on—she was surrounded by naked male flesh—bulging here, rippling there. His two arms were planted one on either side of her, and she could see—up close—the bronze tan of his complexion. He had an unsettling face—one that matched his personality—that was all lines and angles, and his full lips seemed out of place above his rigid jaw and snubbed chin. He had longer and fuller lashes than a man should be allowed, lavishly framing those omniscient black orbs.
He was lying on top of her—the sheets and quilt she had used as armor last night had disappeared somehow. She could feel every inch of him against her own nudity and her blood ran cold. He was going to rape her—she knew it.
Rafe had awakened fully aroused and had naturally rolled over onto the warm female next to him. His manhood found the notch of her femininity as if it had always belonged there and was just now coming home from a long time away. It took everything in him not to plunge himself into her as his body was clamoring for him to do. But he hadn’t descended quite that far, and he didn’t intend to. She was not his to take. She was under his protection.
The question became, then, who was going to protect her from him?
Her eyes opened just as he was asking himself that question, and he could see the fear and loathing in them. Wisely, she kept still—he wasn’t sure it was because she knew to, though, or just out of instinct, like a rabbit that knows it’s been spotted by a coyote doesn’t move and hopes to blend in with the landscape.
She was much too beautiful to blend in—her golden hair spilling out onto the pillow beneath her, her cheeks suffused with that rosy sleep-glow that brightened into an intense blush as soon as she realized the situation. But then those blue eyes filled with a fear he wished he’d never seen—although the hard reality was that, before he saw less stark fear in her eyes, he was going to see more.
They stared at each other for a long moment, each opponent’s body tense but for very different reasons. Mary Rose was trying to ready herself to fend off any attack he might make—although she wasn’t exactly sure how she would be able to do that; he had all of the advantages—strength and weight, and he was already crushing her into the mattress. But she would die, if necessary, defending her honor.
For his part, Rafe was wondering why he was lying here torturing himself, except that it felt so damned good to be this close to a sweet smelling, soft-skinned woman, however unwilling she was. He was no angel, but there was a distinct difference between giving in to his rampant urge and paying a whore and lying here with this angelic looking young woman beneath him. He had more than the usual male urges, but he always resisted paying for it because the transaction generally left him with a bad taste in his mouth. So he generally kept his urges to himself, no matter how rampant they could sometimes become.
But lying here with her like this made him ache in more places than just his loins, although they were sending up enough of a clamor. Finally, he levered himself off her with a low growl and shrugged into his union suit, standing next to the bed and looking down at her angrily, as if it was her fault that he was aroused. “Get up and get dressed. ” He didn’t add, although it was in his mind, that she’d better do it quick or she’d end up getting exactly what she feared the most from him.
He didn’t have to ask her twice. She rose, keeping the sheet carefully wrapped around herself. He was almost amused at that—he’d seen all of her while she was asleep and had kicked off the sheets. She was sheer perfection—and definitely not for the likes of him. Especially not like this. He just hoped he could keep himself in check long enough …
His erection tented the front of his jeans even after he buttoned them up. Darned if he wasn’t a determined little cuss, Rafe thought, almost smiling. Then he checked out the window as discreetly as possible, turning to lean back against the wall and watch her as she contorted herself every which way trying to get dressed but keep a stranglehold on that sheet at the same time.
He knew it would probably frighten her a little, but he couldn’t keep himself from asking softly, “I’ve already seen everything you’ve got. That sheet doesn’t make any difference.”
He knew that her instantaneous blush extended much further down than her neck, and wished fervently that he could follow its outline with his tongue.
Mary Rose wondered if she’d ever not be shocked by something this man came up with, but she knew she’d been as careful as possible about not letting him see her when she’d sidled her way into bed last night. How else could he have seen her?
The puzzled look on her face prompted him to inform her in a subdued but gleeful tone, “You kicked the covers off last night. I woke up before you, half on top of you. You’re a gorgeous, amply endowed woman.”
He’d seen her naked. While she was sleeping. Was that all he’d done? The fear flashed through her mind. Had he touched her? The uncertainty and tension of the past hours conspired to flood her eyes with tears that she staunchly refused to shed, but they spilled over anyway, falling down her cheeks like summer rain off a rose petal. She clutched the sheet more tightly around her, just staring at him.
“Do you want me to help you?” He took a step towards her, and she jerked herself back so quickly that she just about fell out the window behind her.
“No! No!” Mary Rose put up her hand to ward him off, not that she thought that was really going to deter him. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Well, hurry up then, woman. We haven’t got all day.”
Her jaundiced glare had much less to do with apprehension than annoyance, and Rafe caught himself almost smiling again.
She managed to get the job done with a minimum of nudity, feeling instantly safer just being fully clothed. Mary Rose crossed to the door, but halted at the sound of his voice.
“Stop. I’ll go first. You can never tell what you’re going to see from the two of them after a night of carousing.” He opened the door just a little, then slid like a ghost into the hallway, whispering back fiercely, “Stay here until I come for you.”
Mary Rose didn’t make him any promises, but he hadn’t bothered to ask her. She stood behind the door, getting more and more nervous and imagining all sorts of terrible things. As her mind threatened to ru
n amok with the vivid, gory pictures it was flashing to her, she opened the door and slipped through it, just in time to see him disappear down the stairs, gun in hand.
She made her way cautiously down the hallway to the top of the staircase. Deep voices drifted to her ears, but they were too soft for her to understand what was being said. She was concentrating so hard on trying to decipher something—anything—from the conversation that she didn’t notice that he was standing at the bottom of the stairs until he said firmly, “I guess I’m going to have to teach you a lesson in obedience.”
Mary Rose put a foot back, ready to run. She had a pretty good inkling what form that lesson was going to take, and she didn’t want any of it.
He merely crooked his finger at her. “If you make me chase you, you’ll get it worse, I promise you.”
Both Toze and Hernandez came upon this scene at that moment, and Hernandez chuckled. “Having a hard time tamin’ the little filly, boss man? I’d be glad to help you, ifn’ you ain’t got the cajones—“
Rafe didn’t bat an eye at the other man—his gaze was locked on Mary Rose. “Come down here, now. I won’t say it again.” He hoped to hell that she complied. He didn’t look forward to chasing her all over kingdom come, but he would do whatever was necessary to establish to her that obeying him was always the best thing to do.
Her feet started moving her down the stairs all on their own, which was a good thing because her brain was trying to organize a revolt. She didn’t want to do it, but somehow she arrived on the bottom step, right in front of him. Rafe grabbed her arm and dragged her into the nearest vacant room—which happened to be the kitchen—and closed and locked the door behind him, which was a good idea because seconds later she could hear the doorknob rattle.
“Aw, c’mon, Boss! We just wanna watch!”
“Toze, you go check the horses. Hernandez, scout around and make sure there’s no one else around here. You’ve got first watch.”
