He didn't want to watch it. He didn't want to see the same glint in her amber eyes that he saw in other women's: the calculation, the coy flirtation, the greed . . . as if she were estimating the extent of his wealth, the size of his cock, and speculating how to turn both to her own advantage.
That was reason enough not to enlighten Jessica about his financial status.
"I take it you don't like rich men any more than you do gamblers?" Devlin said instead.
"I despise rich men. They're every bit as bad as gamblers. They both live off other men's honest sweat and blood—" She stopped, as if recalling his profession. "Present company excluded, of course."
"Of course," Devlin drawled. He didn't care at all for her characterization of "his kind," or being lumped in the same category as Burke, even if she wasn't aware she was doing it. "Not all rich men are alike," he said in his own defense.
"All the ones around here are. Burke just happens to be the worst. Not only is he greedy and heartless, he's made it his personal goal to use his power against my father. For the past twenty years, he's done everything he could to make it hard on Riley. The other silver kings aren't much better, though. They've made their money off all the poor people who work for them. You should see how the big mine owners treat their employees. They don't give a single thought about safety. If an accident occurs, it's your fault. If you get sick, you're out of a job. They let men die; they watch them get maimed all the time without raising a finger to help. They turn whole families out of their homes—"
Realizing how strident she sounded with her fervent argument, Jess took a calming breath and lowered her voice. "At least Riley doesn't run our mine that way. That's one of the reasons he never has been successful. Profit isn't the only thing he cares about."
Devlin drew his lips together in a frown. Unwilling to believe that she truly put so little value on wealth, he refused to let the subject drop. "What would you do if you were rich?"
"I'd make sure Riley had the capital to work the Wildstar until he made his big strike," she answered without hesitation. "And I'd fight Ashton Burke on his own terms—keep him from hurting all the little people around here."
"And after that, what then?" Devlin prodded, intent on proving she was no different from all the other women he'd known. "You wouldn't want anything for yourself?"
"Oh, yes. I'd pay off the mortgage on our boarding-house."
"That's it? Is that all you want out of life? Just to run a boardinghouse?"
"No, that's not all. I'd like to have a family someday." "Marriage and children." His tone held scorn.
"Yes." She glanced at him curiously. "You don't want a family of your own?"
He didn't answer right away. Once, naively, he'd wanted the same things she did, marriage and family. But he no longer was sure marriage was even possible for a man in his situation, at least not the kind of marriage he wanted, one that was strong and enduring, based on mutual love.
Enduring love. He'd never had that in his life. Not from his mother, or his fiancée, or any of the countless, nameless women in his past, either ladies or ladies of pleasure. A few might have been able to see past his bank account and the dazzling prospect of becoming Mrs. Garrett Devlin, millionaire, but he'd never given them a chance. Perhaps he was overly mistrustful, but the one time he'd given his heart openly, it had been sliced to ribbons. He wasn't about to lay himself open to that kind of pain again.
"I've never met the woman whom I'd want to bear my children," he said finally in answer to her question.
Jess was a bit surprised by his soft vehemence, and his lack of interest in having a family. But then the things a man put store in weren't the same as a woman's choices.
"You really don't want to be rich?" she heard him ask in a doubting tone.
"Well . . ." She pursed her lips in thought. "It might be nice to have a fine house in Georgetown like Burke has . . . and maybe go to the opera sometimes and keep a carriage. But I'd settle for hot running water in the kitchen and bathroom." She gave a small laugh. "I'd have a giant tub with a pound of perfumed bath salts and no interruptions and nothing to cook for an entire day. I swear I would sit and soak until I turned into a prune."
Giving her an odd look, Devlin suddenly leaned across the short stretch between them to capture her hand. When Jess would have drawn back in surprise, he refused to let go. Assessingly, he turned her hand over, palm up, tracing the calluses and rough lines in her skin.
"Your hands are red and raw. You should take better care of yourself."
Jess flushed in the darkness and pulled her hand from his grasp, linking her fingers in her lap to hide them from his critical gaze. "I don't have time to pamper myself."
"You should make the time. You could be quite beautiful."
"It doesn't matter to me how beautiful I look."
Devlin raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean to tell me you haven't a trace of feminine vanity?"
"Of course I do. Do you think I like having chapped hands? Not being able to afford beautiful dresses and perfumed baths? Cooking and caring for rough men who don't have the manners or morals of a jackass?"
"I think," Devlin said gently, "that you work far too hard."
"Well, some of us don't have the luxury of choosing our livelihood."
"I also think that running a boardinghouse isn't a job for a lady."
Misunderstanding his concern, Jess took offense. "I know how to act like a lady, Mr. Devlin! I went to finishing school for nearly two years to learn how. But knowing how to pour tea and to balance a book on your head doesn't put food on the table or pay wages for a mine crew. And the fact that I do what I do doesn't make me any less a lady!"
"I never said you weren't a lady, sweetheart. I said you didn't know how to enjoy being a woman, feeling a woman's passion. There's quite a difference."
His half-lidded gaze was amused, Jess saw. And this subject was becoming highly dangerous. Devlin's expression had lost that grim edge, and he was grinning with a slow laziness, looking more like the handsome devil she'd come to know over the past week.
Deliberately, she averted her gaze, and her attention was suddenly caught by a bright silver-red flame streaking across the sky.
"Look!" she exclaimed in a hushed voice, as much to provide a distraction as in awe. "A falling star. We should make a wish."
She was silent for a moment, watching until it plunged beyond the horizon. "My mother would have called it a wild star," Jess said, half to herself. "That was how the Wildstar mine was named. One fell over the mine the first time Riley took her to see it." Her voice dropped to a murmur, sounding distant and yet dreamy, as if she was recalling fond memories. "Mama said that sometimes love was like trying to catch a wild star . . . elusive . . . always too far away. And if you did somehow manage to get hold of it, maybe you'd find out it wasn't what you wanted after all."
Devlin could find more than a grain of truth in that theory. He'd once been in love, but it wasn't anything like what he'd wanted or hoped for. He'd known the hungry yearning that love aroused, the confusion, the excitement, the joy, the fierce ache . . . the desperate hurt of having his love rejected. The mortification of knowing his prospective inheritance was his prime attraction. The blind determination afterward never to repeat his folly.
He no longer believed so blindly in love. Love made a man a fool, sapped him of wits and pride—and he'd sworn never to be played for a fool again. If his life was sometimes barren and lonely, if at times he still dreamed about finding a woman who could fill the emptiness . . . well, his wealth might be cold comfort, but it was good for something at least. He usually was able to find consolation in a pair of scented arms, between a pair of soft thighs.
The silence lengthened.
"What did you wish for?" Devlin murmured finally.
The sensuous, whisky-rough quality of his voice stroked all the feminine nerve endings along Jess's spine, as provocatively as a lover's touch.
Against her will, she turned her head and her gaze tangled with his. His smoke-gray eyes were fastened on her with an impact that made Jess catch her breath. There was a primal quality of seduction in Devlin's gaze that left her utterly weak. He couldn't help it, she was certain. Looking at a woman that way, as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world, was as natural to him as breathing.
She didn't want to succumb to him, though. The man who claimed her ought to be her husband and no one else. She had high standards for the man she would marry. She wanted a good man, someone kind and tender, one who was willing to work hard, who wasn't afraid to face tough odds. She wanted to be able to look up to him the way she did her father.
Garrett Devlin most certainly didn't fit that bill. Devlin was a gambler, a hired gun. The kind of man who lived off other men's sweat, whose loyalty could be bought . . . Well, maybe that judgment was a bit harsh. Devlin had taken on her fight against Burke, Jess reminded herself, and he was helping her now, tracking the gunmen who'd shot up the Wildstar and nearly killed Clem. He'd proved he was better than most of his kind. Yet he was still too self-indulgent, too sophisticated, too attractive for her taste. And he certainly wasn't the marrying kind. She knew better than to fall for his practiced charm.
Still, that didn't help her find him any less appealing, or make it any easier to forget the devastating kisses he'd given her yesterday . . . or allow her to resist his touch now. He had taken her hand again, and was holding her fingers firmly in his grasp while his thumb intimately traced the sensitive center of her palm. She couldn't have pulled away if her life depended on it.
"Wh-what did I wish for?" she repeated falteringly, her own voice sounding absurdly breathless. "The same thing I've wished for every day since this trouble started. That Burke would get his comeuppance."
Devlin looked down at her slender, work-worn hand with bemusement. He should have expected that answer; all she cared about was saving the Wildstar mine for her father. But it surprised him, the sting of envy he felt. What would it be like, being the object of such devotion? Having a woman care for him that much? A woman who put every ounce of energy and determination she possessed into seeing you fulfill your dream? A woman who wanted you for yourself, not for the depth of your pockets or your sexual prowess in bed? Someone to ease the loneliness—
"What did you wish for?" Jess asked, trying to sound normal.
He hadn't made a wish. He didn't believe in such foolish superstition. But if he had, Devlin thought silently, sentimentally, he would have wished for a woman who existed only in his deepest fantasies . . . one who would love him for himself, one who would give her heart to him totally, without regard to wealth or position. He'd never known a woman like that. He'd thought she didn't exist. He still didn't believe it. Jessica Sommers was no fantasy; she was a flesh-and-blood firebrand who was too hard-headed, too independent, too capable to appeal to a man who wanted yielding softness and sensuality in a woman.
Who are you trying to fool, Devlin? He couldn't possibly deny he wanted her, regardless of all her toughness. He wanted to taste her again, wanted her moaning with pleasure beneath him, wanted her long legs wrapped around him as he drove himself into her. Just the thought of it had the power to arouse him.
Devlin felt himself tugging gently on her hand, drawing Jessica's wide-eyed face closer. He knew damn well he shouldn't touch her. Especially now, when he was alone with her in a dark wilderness, with a crackling fire casting a golden glow over her skin. Especially when Riley had pleaded with him to take care of his stubborn daughter. Especially when his control was so tenuous. It could easily get out of hand. . . .
And yet he knew damn well he would touch her. If only to make certain her kisses held the same sweet innocence they'd held yesterday. To see if her lips possessed the same bold honesty that her words had tonight when she'd professed to scorn riches and rich men.
With his free hand, he reached behind her neck, wrapping his fingers around her nape. She was acting just like a skittery mare, nervous and wary. But he could read past the uncertain light in her tawny eyes. He'd been on the receiving end of enough sultry looks and honeyed kisses to know when a woman was interested in him and ready to be aroused, and Jessica most definitely was ready. Just now her lips were parted, her breathing shallow. He was certain that if he placed his hand over her breast he would feel her heart racing in anticipation.
"Jessica?" His voice was low, muted, and sleekly velvet as the night.
"Wh-what?" she stammered. Her tongue flicked out to wet her dry lips, drawing his gaze to her mouth.
"You have the power to grant my wish, sweet Jessie."
Slowly Devlin lay back on his bedroll, gently pulling her with him. Jess felt herself being drawn down, down, into his arms, into his gaze. His eyes were a lazy, fathomless gray-black, and she wondered fleetingly if it were possible to drown in a man's eyes, to faint from just the wanton feel of him. She lay draped across Devlin's chest, hard against soft, soft against hard. Her breasts felt heavy and tight as they thrust against him, while the rest of her body felt weak and aroused.
"Sweet, sweet Jess," Devlin repeated in a husky whisper as he drew her lips completely down to his.
She thought she knew what to expect. He'd tutored her enough yesterday for her to be prepared for the devastating effect of his mouth . . . his wet heat, his thrusting tongue, his sheer seductiveness. . . . It was all intimately familiar to her. What was new was the overpowering need to get closer to him. His kiss filled her with such a fierce yearning she couldn't begin to name all the sensations she felt. They all merged into a persistent hot ache deep inside her that somehow began and ended with Devlin.
Blindly Jess's hands sought his thick black hair, while her mouth feverishly tried to fuse with his. She couldn't remember ever feeling so alive, so reckless, so free. Her body quivered at the wild storm his kiss was causing. When finally he broke off and let her up for air, she didn't want to let go.
Her breath coming in soft gasps, she gazed down at him with dazed yearning. "Devlin?" she whispered, not knowing whether she was protesting the cessation of his kiss or pleading with him to fulfill the nameless longing.
"Hush, sweet," he replied, silencing her.
His eyes were hot and smoky, like haze from a wildfire, as he rolled over with her, pressing her back against the thick yielding mat of pine needles between their bedrolls.
His mouth ate hers in small, tantalizingly brief nips as he pulled at the pins in her hair and freed the silken mass for his fingers to cherish. "Beautiful . . ." he murmured.
Jess stirred restlessly beneath him. She could feel his thigh pressing between her legs, making the ache there almost unbearable. Without volition she arched her hips, hardly aware that the soft whimper she'd heard came from her own throat.
Devlin took advantage of her dazed state; his dexterous fingers pushed aside the lapels of her bolero, working at the buttons of her shirt.
"Devlin," Jess said shakily when she felt his fingers brush against her breasts.
"Hush, darlin'. I won't do anything you don't want me to do."
His lips found hers again, driving away thoughts and fears. His tongue was like a hot brand in her mouth, marking her as his . . . demanding, possessing. She closed her eyes, unable to think about the danger of what he was doing to her, with her.
She had left off her restrictive boned corset but wore a camisole under her shirt. Carefully, with a gentleness bordering on reverence, he pushed up the soft fabric and bared her beautiful breasts to his gaze. They were high and full and taut, the pink nipples already budding with arousal.
Bending his head, he pressed his lips against one distended peak. A surprised gasp erupted from deep in Jessica's throat.
A grim smile of satisfaction curving his mouth, Devlin brought his hand up to cup the heavy underside of her breast and flicked his tongue over the swollen bud. Her gasp turned into a soft moan, while her fingers dug into the muscles
of his shoulders.
Devlin took it as an invitation to continue. Both hands came up to hold her breasts prisoner to his pleasure.
His hot mouth showed no mercy, his velvet-rough tongue doing shocking, wanton things to her breasts that Jess had never even dreamed about . . . licking, stroking, suckling. He seemed intent on driving her wild.
Even when her breath began coming in shallow gasps, Devlin wouldn't give her a moment's respite. His right hand moved downward over her body to close possessively beneath her buttocks and draw her tightly against him. Erotically he rocked her, making slow, lazy circles with his lean hips, letting her feel the hard length of his arousal.
His passion-edged voice came to her through a dim haze of sensation. "Jess . . . what do you want me to do, honey?" His tongue traced the aureole of her nipple with tantalizing slowness.
Jess tossed her head feverishly. She didn't know what she wanted. She only knew the hot ache inside her had grown till she felt she was on fire.
Devlin experienced no such ambivalence; he knew very well what he wanted. He wanted her passionate and writhing. He wanted to show her the meaning of pleasure. He wanted to be the man to awaken her, the one who would set her free.
Devlin groaned at the image. He could almost feel himself sinking into her hot welcoming flesh, feel the exquisite pleasure of her slick heat enveloping him.
The angry whip of a bullet at first didn't penetrate his overheated senses; it was sheer instinct for danger that made Devlin fumble for his rifle as the gunshot exploded in his ears. He felt Jess stiffen beneath him and fear clutched his heart. There was no time to ask if she'd been hit, though; in the golden light of the campfire, they made prime targets.
Grabbing desperately at the rifle with one hand, holding on to Jess with the other, Devlin prayed and started rolling . . . over and over, pulling her with him, toward the woods, away from the deadly light.
Wildstar Page 13
