The Lawman's Bride (Harlequin Historical Series)

by Cheryl St. John

  “I’ll wash,” he said.

  She stepped against him and touched her nose to the fabric covering his chest. “I like you just the way you are.”

  Clay was awed by her lack of hesitation, her eagerness for his touch. Knowing all he knew now, he hesitated for fear of stepping over an invisible boundary that would frighten her or remind her of the treatment she’d endured.

  Her nimble fingers made quick work of his shirt, and it landed on the worn wood floor with a soft tick of buttons. She kissed his chest and his neck, and his blood pounded.

  Sophie raised her face, and he kissed her reverently, as tenderly as he knew how.

  She untied the ribbons that threaded through eyelet lace to hold her chemise together in front. The dainty garment gaped open, revealing pretty rose-tipped breasts. He was glad for the daylight.

  “Beautiful,” he managed, his throat dry with desire. Every breath he took held the scent of lilacs. He wanted to know the warmth and silkiness of her skin so badly his fingers tingled.

  She glided her palms over his shoulders and neck, and still he didn’t touch her. Despite her eagerness, she seemed so small suddenly, so fragile and vulnerable. Desire pounded everywhere.

  He raised his knuckles to her delicate cheek in wonder, stroking as though she were made of spun glass.

  Sophie let the chemise drop to the floor. Her shoulders seemed so small, her body so slim.

  He swallowed hard. Kissed her gently.

  She let her head fall back so he could press his lips along the column of her neck. She released a breathless sigh, and he wanted to take her right then and there, but held himself in check. The shame in her voice when she’d told him what had happened had made him want to erase her past with new experiences. The thought of that nameless, faceless man forcing a helpless young girl to submit made him sick at heart.

  She had always seemed so strong and confident, so sure of herself. What she’d revealed today gave him a glimpse of a completely different side. He marveled at her power to overcome and thrive.

  She was so beautiful, her features incredibly delicate and feminine. A knot formed in his chest at the image of someone mistreating her. Using her body. Breaking her spirit.

  She raised a hand to his neck and pulled herself up into the kiss, which pressed her naked breasts against his chest. At the titillating contact he sucked in a breath.

  Clay took his mouth from hers to keep his senses. He kissed the shape of her ear.

  Sophie eased away, and he let her go. She took a step back, her lovely breasts rising and falling. He devoured her with his eyes.

  Hers held dark concern. “Are you…do you feel disgust for me?”

  It took his brain a minute to catch up with her words. “What?”

  “Do you find me…repulsive now that you know my story?”

  She was exquisite. “Hell no.”

  “You’re holding back. It feels different.”

  “I—I…” He jammed his fingers into his hair and tried to find words.

  “I’ll understand,” she told him. “If your perception of me has changed and you don’t feel the same.”

  “Shut up a minute.” He stood staring at her, his chest heaving with what he felt and what he wanted to say. “I don’t wanna push myself on you. You should have…choices.”

  The sharp defensiveness in her expression dissolved. “I made a choice to come here. I made the choice to tell you about my past so you wouldn’t feel cheated afterward.”

  “I’m not cheated, Sophie,” he assured her. “I’m honored.”

  “So am I, and this is my choice. You are my choice.” She gestured with both palms toward him. “I need something that’s mine. Something I want.” Her fingers curled into her palms.

  Her voice came out a whispered plea. “Don’t hold back. Don’t cheat me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  He reached her in one stride, picking her up and falling onto his bed with her beneath, his arms solid on either side of her. She grasped his bicep, touched his face and dropped her gaze to his mouth.

  In a kiss hotter than the Kansas summer, his tongue probed the succulent recesses of her mouth. Palms on his chest, she splayed her fingers wide, her nails scraping his skin, and he understood. Understood that she needed this experience for herself.

  It was his privilege that she’d selected him. He kissed both corners of her lips, her chin, the column of her neck and the hollows in her collarbone. He began a sensory discovery, inhaling her soft feminine scent as he pressed his lips along her silken flesh all the way down to her belly and back up to the pebbled tip of one breast.

  He took her into his mouth and she trembled.

  “I have shivers through my whole body…” she said on a sigh.

  He captured her mouth in a kiss once more, then slid the tip of his tongue to her other breast.

  It occurred to Clay that he still wore his boots and trousers, so reluctant had he been to miss one second with this woman now in his bed. He drew to the edge where he perched to remove them.

  As though she was equally as unwilling to miss a moment together, Sophie raised to her knees behind him and pressed herself against his back. The crush of her soft, damp breasts set him on fire. She kissed his neck, touched her tongue to his ear and a shudder coursed through him.

  Clay turned and urged her onto her back, finding the ribbon that tied her drawers and tugging them down her legs. With one knee on the mattress he leaned over her and pressed his face to her soft belly and cupped her hips. She threaded her fingers into his hair. She was in his head now, filling his senses, pumping through his veins.

  Divesting himself of his trousers required releasing her, but he kicked them to the floor and stretched his body out half over hers, his burning skin sliding against her soft contours.

  She cupped his cheek and offered a smile of sincere enjoyment. He tucked a tendril of dark hair away from her temple. Catching his hand, she pressed her lips into his palm. “I’ve never felt like this,” she told him. “I never knew how right it could be.”

  He’d never known he was so lonely until now. Until she filled up all the missing places inside him with her sweet smile and inflaming kisses. Until she’d trusted him with her dark, paralyzing secret, trusted him to know what to do to blot out that part of her past.

  Breathless now, a burning need pulsed low and heavy in his body. She acknowledged his arousal by rubbing against him.

  With his face buried against her throat, Clay spoke encouragement with soft senseless words, stroking her limbs and testing her readiness. Sophie clutched him to her with surprisingly fierce strength. He rose over her and kissed her, his chest tight with emotion.

  “Say my real name,” she whispered.

  “Sophia. Beautiful Sophia.”

  She stifled a sob by catching her lower lip with her teeth while her eyes pleaded with him to continue.

  He lowered his weight, eased himself inside her and shuddered with the sheer pleasure of being one with this woman. Perfection. Completion. He never wanted this moment to end.

  If he was interpreting her eager movements and rapturous sighs, Sophie wasn’t ready to be patient. Determined to be everything she needed, he gritted his teeth against the intense pleasure. “Patience, Sophie.”

  “May I kiss you?”

  “What a thing to ask.” Realizing then that a lover’s kiss was far from her experience, he lowered his head.

  She touched her tongue to his lower lip, parted her lips and met him with a kiss so intense and deep, his heart threatened to stop. “You’re going to kill me, woman.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “You do everything so right I can’t breathe.”

  “And you want me.”

  “I—want you. Sophia. Beautiful Sophia.”

  Her body grew taut beneath his. Perspiration made their straining bodies slick. Sophie held her breath and closed her eyes and her body convulsed around him. Clay took his own fulfillment more leisure
ly, but afterward she didn’t release him.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  “I’m not in any hurry,” he answered, resting his weight on his elbows and kissing her moist neck, then her swollen lips.

  She pushed damp hair from his forehead, then let her arms go slack so he could move. “Let’s cool off.”

  “Sorry I got you sweaty.”

  “Horses sweat,” she informed him. “I’m glowing.”

  With a grin Clay found his shirt at the end of the bed, dried her glistening torso before wiping his face and chest. He stretched out beside her, and the breeze from the open window wafted across their cooling bodies.

  After several minutes of silent communion she sat up, bringing her knees up in front of her and wrapping her arms around them. Her dark hair was a mass of damp tangles. He admired the line of her slim back, the curve of her hips and the curvaceous side of her breast. He drew his finger up the bumpy ridges of her spine, then splayed his palm against her back, his tanned hand dark against her white skin.

  She turned to him, her expression undecipherable.

  Sophie studied Clay’s relaxed features, the defined outline of those lips that gave her such pleasure, the breadth of his shoulders and chest…and marveled at his restrained strength. How any woman could have rejected this man she couldn’t understand.

  “You and Susan,” she asked. “Did you ever…?”

  “No.”

  Of course not. His fiancée had been a respectable young lady, and gentleman that he was, he hadn’t compromised her reputation. “Who then?”

  He peered at her through slitted eyelids. “You wanna know?”

  She nodded.

  “Dance hall girls mostly. A widow lady west of here I visit now and then.”

  She hadn’t expected to feel jealousy, but here it was in all its unpleasant glory. She recognized it as a feeling of resentment and possessiveness. Was this what love felt like? “No wonder they’re willing…with you, I mean.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “I didn’t know it could be…special.”

  “It’s usually just ordinary,” he told her. “Not like that.”

  “No?”

  He moved his head slowly from side to side. “No. It’s not.”

  Sophie couldn’t resist stretching out along his side, her cheek against his chest. This man had done something no other had been able to. He’d made her feel things. Things intense enough to frighten her.

  “I bought you somethin’.” She felt the rumble of his deep voice against her cheek.

  “You did?” She raised her head to look at him. “A gift?”

  He nodded.

  “Where is it?”

  He untwined their legs so he could perch on the bed’s edge and reach for his trousers. He pulled them on and caught a clean shirt from a drawer to toss to her. She shrugged into it and rolled the sleeves back.

  Clay padded out of the room, and Sophie tried to imagine what kind of gift he’d buy for her. She’d pretend to like it no matter what it was. Candy? Ribbons? No, she would love it.

  He returned with a small wooden box. Sophie saw the paper label on top. Whatever he’d bought her was small enough to fit in a cigar box.

  The mattress dipped as he handed it to her, joining her again.

  “It’s heavy,” she said. She studied his expression a moment. His face gave nothing away.

  Sophie opened the lid.

  Her gaze rested upon row after row of slim, perfectly rolled cigars. The tantalizing aroma reached her, and she blinked.

  She met his eyes.

  The corner of his mouth inched up. He produced a tin and flint from his pocket and extended them.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “They’re your favorite,” he answered.

  Something in her heart swelled to exquisite fullness. “How would you know that?”

  He grinned. “I’m the law, Miss Hollis. I have my ways.”

  “But how did you…?”

  “You carry a cigar to the park when you take a walk.”

  Sophie wrapped her mind around his acceptance of her eccentricity. The feeling in her chest was so intense it was almost painful. She adored his gift because it wasn’t a bribe. Nor was it something he wanted her to have. She loved him, this man who wanted only to give to her. “You truly don’t mind?”

  “I’ll try one with you. That is if you don’t mind sharin’.”

  She grinned and plucked out two cigars. Clay lit them both and they propped pillows against the headboard and watched smoke rings curl into the air toward the pine ceiling. Sophie felt young and happy for the first time she could remember.

  “Mrs. Winters would have a fit of apoplexy,” she commented with a contented sigh.

  “Over the cigars or over you bein’ naked in my bed?”

  Sophie coughed and he pulled her forward to pat her back.

  “Both,” she answered.

  “It’ll be our secret,” he said with a grin.

  Several minutes passed and Sophie enjoyed the quiet and the sense of well-being.

  “Sophie,” he said finally.

  “Hmmm?”

  “When you’re deciding what you want, maybe you’d give a thought to marryin’ me.”

  She stared at him.

  “I’m not proposin’ or anything. I wouldn’t lay that burden on you. I’m just sayin’ I’d be more than willin’ if you wanted. That’s all.”

  Sophie’s head rang with those words. If she didn’t have an even bigger secret hanging over her life, she would love nothing more than to marry Clay. To spend the rest of her life basking in the warmth of his goodness.

  “You know I have a Harvey contract,” she said.

  He held up a hand. “Don’t make any excuses,” he told her. “Don’t say more. Just store the idea up here.”

  He tapped her head with a gentle finger.

  She’d choose him over life if she had the option. Even if his acceptance of her was all based on a lie, Clay had become her heart’s most compelling desire.

  But she couldn’t make a decision like that. She didn’t have the right. Nor did she have the right to love him. There was still another shoe waiting to drop; there was still Garrett to deal with.

  The day’s pleasure evaporated into the sultry air as thoughts of the man who meant to control her by any means possible returned. Something had to be done about him. And about Amanda before Sophie could think of herself again. This day had been purely selfish. Purely a greedy taste of what life might have been like.

  Her love for Clay was another one of her secrets now. All along Sophie had been thinking of herself. Now she had more to think about. Being Sophie Hollis wasn’t about pretending anymore. It was about caring. She had to protect Clay from himself. If he learned, he would have to make a choice. His feelings for her weren’t good for that purpose.

  “I’d better get back,” she said finally.

  “Like to bathe? I’ll fill the tub and wait outside.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Be pleased to.” He got up and left the room. Minutes later she heard the scrape of the metal tub as he set it on the floor in the kitchen.

  She padded out to watch as he poked kindling into the stove.

  “It doesn’t need to be warm,” she told him. “Cool will feel good.”

  He pumped several more buckets full and brought her soap and toweling. He took a step back.

  Sophie sensed his intent to leave the room. Once again he was seeking her pleasure and comfort. “You don’t have to go unless you have something you’d rather attend to,” she told him.

  He grinned with the cigar held between his teeth and remained.

  She draped his shirt over the back of a chair. Clay’s appreciative gaze swept over her, and he took a long stride forward to take her hand as she stepped into the water.

  Sophie settled down into the cool water and leaned her head against the tall back. Puffing on her cigar,
she blew smoke rings into the air. “You certainly know how to treat a lady, Marshal.”

  Clay sat backward on a kitchen chair to watch. “Wanna go riding next Sunday, too?”

  It was late afternoon by the time Clay brought Sophie back to the dormitory. She ate supper in the employees’ dining hall, thoughtful and subdued while the others chattered. She kept going over her poor selection of options. The most appealing was to buy a gun and shoot Garrett in his black heart. Tempting. But she didn’t have it in her. She was a lot of bad things, but a murderer wasn’t one of them.

  She could march down to the jail and tell Clay the truth right then and there, let him deal with Garrett and put himself in the position of arresting her alongside him. Not tempting.

  She had nothing to hold over Garrett’s head, nothing to scare him off. He held all the cards.

  She could tell Amanda the truth and pray she’d listen and not turn her in.

  She could pack her things and run. She wouldn’t get far, but she could spare Amanda, because Garrett would follow. Clay wouldn’t understand, though. She’d be another woman who didn’t want him enough to stay, enough to choose him.

  If her options were cards, she’d shuffle them and see which one came out on top. She wasn’t playing a game of chance, however. More than her own life was at stake.

  She couldn’t forget that Garrett had threatened Clay’s life. Now that she’d sealed a relationship with the marshal, Garrett would have all the more reason to want him out of the picture.

  The most palatable of all the options was telling Amanda. As evening arrived and the girls settled into their various activities in the sewing and courting rooms, Sophie thought the idea through.

  Finally deciding, Sophie called Amanda aside. “I need to talk to you.”

  Amanda followed her to their room. “You look so serious, Sophie. What is it?”

  “I have to warn you about something, so there are things I need to tell you.”

  “Warn me? What’s this about?”

  “It’s about Mr. Morgan.”

  Amanda bristled. “Are you going to lecture me again?”

  Sophie took her arm. “I knew him before I came to Newton. I knew him for several years actually. We were together.”