Promises Prevail

by Sarah McCarty

  “Moan.” He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit lightly. “Moan for me some more, baby.”

  She did, helpless to do otherwise as he sucked at the flesh under his mouth, pulling her hips into his.

  She licked her lips, swallowed twice, and asked him, “Why?”

  Again that start. She felt his smile spread against her neck. “I like you bold, and to answer your question, because it makes me hard.”

  She tucked her chin, trying to see his face, but it was too dark, and his hat brim was in her way. But his lips were hot on her neck, scorching her with the intensity of his want.

  “I’m glad you like me.” He drew back and his gaze was as unfathomable as the night around them. She clutched at his coat. “I mean the way I look. I’m glad you find me attractive.”

  “Good.” His smile was slow coming, but when it did, it was beautiful. She wanted to taste his smile, experience his pleasure. See herself through his senses. She tugged on his lapel.

  “What?”

  “Bend down.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

  “I want to kiss you.” Her voice wasn’t nearly as confident as she wanted. Her cheeks burned so hot that she thought her tongue would burn off.

  “What’s wrong, Jenna?” His eyes narrowed. He didn’t bend down and his smile disappeared.

  “Nothing.” She ducked her head, embarrassment eating her alive. Her breath rose up to mist her face in a mockery of her hopes. He tipped her chin up. His finger held her in place for his scrutiny.

  “You don’t have to be something you’re not for me. If you want or need something, just ask.”

  “Who says I’m being something I’m not?” she muttered.

  The arch of his brow said more than enough. He could never understand if she didn’t tell him. She braced her fingers on his chest, flattening the tips one by one against the soft leather of his coat as she took a slow, deep breath.

  “My whole life men have been telling me I’m sinful.” His chest expanded under her hands as he took a breath to argue. She shook her head, and focused on the pale blur of the collar of his shearling coat. “Don’t say anything, please.” She risked a quick glance. “Just let me get this out.”

  His chest lowered as he released a slow breath. She heard the rustle and saw the sway of his hair as he nodded.

  “That when I look at a man, I tempt him to sin. That my body is the Devil’s playground and that when men look at me, I tempt them to amoral thoughts and acts. That the Devil acts through me.”

  She’d never understood how, but she’d been beaten black and blue more times than she could count for those thoughts in men’s heads.

  “Sunshine…”

  She shook her head, not looking at him. He didn’t say anything more, just pulled her closer, as if his big arms could shelter her from her memories. “You don’t see me like that.”

  “Hell, no.”

  “You like me.” His hand stroked over her hair, sliding into the contained strands.

  “Yes.”

  “I mean the way you feel with me.”

  “That, too.” His hand pulled away and her hair fell down her back.

  “I’m not used to it.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “But I like it.” If she didn’t burst into flames in the next minute, it would be a miracle. “It’s just…sometimes I forget, and I fret.”

  “I know.”

  “It makes it hard sometimes.”

  “Makes what hard?” His fingers threaded through her hair, lifting it to the faint moonlight, working his fingers through the tangles.

  “Finding out who I am…” His hand stopped moving. “With you,” she finished in a breathless rush.

  “You need to be something different with me?” He gathered her hair into his fist. He didn’t sound happy. She was messing this up so badly.

  “Not different, but maybe, for once, me. Does that make sense?”

  “Maybe.” His hand moved and there were a couple tugs at the back of her head that tilted it up. The shadows hid his expression from her view while she was sure he could see every nuance of hers. “How did your husband make love to you, Jenna?”

  The blush drained from her cheeks so fast that she felt lightheaded. She tried to turn away, but he’d wrapped her hair around his hand, and she couldn’t move. She had to stand there, open and vulnerable as he asked her to bare her soul.

  “Don’t hide from me now, Jenna. He’s been standing between us long enough.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “He lives in your mind where I can’t see him, hurting you in ways that I can’t protect you from.”

  “Please.”

  “Draw me a picture of him, Jenna. Show me the son of a bitch so that I can make him go away.”

  “I can’t.” She closed her eyes.

  “Goddamn it, you will. I won’t have the bastard hurting you from the grave.” He shook her lightly. The shaking stopped and then his lips were on hers, hard, possessive, desperate. She didn’t fight him, just opened her mouth for the thrust of his tongue. She was his. Always had been. Even while she was married to another man. God spare her soul. Clint drew back slightly, his breath hitting her moist lips in uneven puffs. “Tell me, baby. Let’s make him go away together.”

  “Here?”

  “Here. Now.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. He turned and took three steps to the left, taking her with him with his arm around her waist. He kept his hand at her waist as he sat. He tugged her down to sit across his lap. “Out here where God can hear every word, let’s send that son of a bitch to hell where he belongs.”

  She remembered the beatings, the humiliation, the pain, the confusion of never knowing what she was supposed to do, what she’d done wrong. The unrelenting knowledge that she was tainted. She buried her face in his throat.

  “I don’t want you to see me that way,” she admitted, inhaling his familiar scent, hugging it to her.

  “What way?”

  “Worthless. Dirty.”

  She was breaking him in two.

  “I could never see you as dirty, Sunshine.” Clint wrapped his arms around Jenna, gathering her softness into him, feeling whole the way he did only when he was touching her, wishing he could protect her from the memories.

  Against his chest she shook her head. “You don’t know how I was.”

  “I know you were sweet and trusting and did your best to please.” She stiffened in his arms as if surprised. Didn’t she know how long she’d fascinated him? “I’ve been watching you a long time, Sunshine.”

  “I was married.” She sounded shocked, as if a piece of paper had anything to do with how he felt about her.

  “And I kept my distance.”

  “I never knew.”

  “There was no reason you should.”

  “How could I not know?”

  “Would it have made a difference?” She didn’t breathe for the span of a heartbeat and then she nodded. “Then I’m sorry.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “I couldn’t have borne it if I’d known.”

  “All you would have had to do was say the word and there wouldn’t have been anything to bear.”

  “You would have fought him?” He couldn’t have meant what she thought he meant. Try as she would, Jenna couldn’t make out his expression in the dark and his body gave her no indication. He was relaxed and calm beneath her.

  “I would have killed him.” The finality in his tone was shocking.

  “You can’t kill a man for how he treats his wife.”

  “It’s been done a time or two.”

  “By you?”

  “Once.” There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in his tone. She pondered all she knew of Clint, what she’d heard, what she’d seen.

  “You’re not a murderer.”

  “Depends on how you define it.” He wasn’t apologizing, just stating the facts.

  “If you killed a man over how he
treated his wife, he deserved it.” She felt that certainty to the soles of her feet. She touched the indentation where his collarbones met.

  “He did.” His fingertips on her cheek were incredibly gentle. Tender. He traced her jaw, the pad of his index finger coming to rest on the point of her chin. It lingered there, stroking as if he couldn’t get enough of the feel of her skin. “Tell me about how it was, Jenna.”

  “It was awful.”

  “How?”

  “There were so many rules.”

  “Name some.”

  “I couldn’t look a man in the face. Couldn’t question an order any man gave. Couldn’t speak unless spoken to.”

  His curse echoed above her. “And in the bedroom?”

  “I just had to do what I was told, exactly how I was told, no resistance and no complaints.” Nausea welled. She buried her face in his throat, breathing deeply of his scent, his strength.

  “What happened if you didn’t?”

  “I got hurt.”

  “How.”

  “I can’t tell you that.” Shame burned deep into her soul, and spread outward.

  “I want him gone, Jenna, so you’ll tell me because you know it won’t change the way I feel about you.” His hand cupped her stomach beneath her cloak. Big and warm, it soothed her. She burrowed deeper, wishing she could climb inside him in that moment, know everything there was to know about him, let him know all there was to know about her. All without having to say a word.

  “It has to.”

  He forced her chin up, tapped her lips with his thumb until she raised her eyes. “It can’t.”

  “I didn’t have any choice…” He held her so hard, she thought her ribs would crack.

  “I know, baby. I know.” He tucked her head into his neck with his chin, bundling her into his heat, his strength. “But you have a choice now and it’s time to lance that boil and let the poison out.”

  He was right. She had choices, and one of them was to stop being a coward. She took a breath, and gathered her courage. Paused. Faltered. Caught herself and his hand in the same breath. She brought his hand to her breast.

  “Remember how you held me the first night we fed Brianna?”

  “Yes.” His breath hissed out from between his teeth.

  “Hold me like that while I tell you. Touch me that way so I remember where I am, who I’m with, and I’ll tell you.”

  He calmly unbuttoned her shirt. A glance at his expression showed the same control. His big hand slid inside her camisole above her corset, and cupped her breast with incredible gentleness. She closed her eyes and sank into the feeling.

  “I love the way you touch me.”

  “I’ll always be gentle with you,” he whispered, his drawl more pronounced. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “It isn’t your gentleness.” His eyebrows rose and his fingers nudged her nipple in inquiry. “You touch me like I matter. Like I’m a person.” She stroked his hair as it lay on his coat, the strands coarser than hers, cool with the night chill. “As long as you touch me like that, you don’t need to always be gentle.”

  “You might be jumping the gun.” His black eyes burned with sudden heat. His grip on her breast tightened.

  She shook her head. “I can’t be afraid of you Clint. No matter what, I know you won’t hurt me.”

  His fingers on her breast paused, and then began the soft stroking motion, from base to tip. Over and over. When he reached her nipple on the forth pass, he skimmed the areola until he captured the nipple, squeezing gently. The pleasure poured through her in a soft surge. She leaned her head back against his shoulder. She couldn’t see his face.

  “Could you take off your hat?”

  He did, revealing the intentness of his expression and the worry in his eyes. Worry for her. She placed her hand over his, holding him and the pleasure he brought her close to her heart.

  And told him what he needed to know.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The bedroom door opened. Jenna’s heart pounded and her throat went dry. Her hand went to the sliding sleeve of her nightdress. This had been a really stupid idea.

  “Son of a bitch, Jenna.”

  “I thought you’d like it.” The heat in her cheeks went to scorching. It was the short nightdress she’d worn the first night, except she’d left the robe off and unbuttoned the first three buttons of the top to expose more cleavage.

  “I like it.” The door clicked shut behind Clint.

  From the other side of the door she heard Danny whine. Clint crossed to the bed, his boots making solid thuds on the hardwood floor until he reached the braided rug at the side of the bed. She didn’t have the guts to meet his eyes. Not because she was afraid, but because being brazen was a little too new to be nonchalant about.

  His hand touched the top of her head, hesitated, and then lifted a strand of hair, rubbing it between his fingers. She waited in vain for him to do more.

  She looked up and caught him staring down at her. For the first time, with indecision. She put her hand over his, curling her fingers around two of his. “What’s wrong?”

  “Believe it or not,” he admitted in a tight voice, “I’m afraid to touch you.”

  “Because of what I told you?”

  “Baby, I don’t know how you survived.” He brought her hand to his lips, his eyes hot and sad.

  “But I did.”

  “Yes.” His tongue touched the center of her palm in a flickering caress. “How the hell can you stand for anyone to touch you?”

  “I can’t.” She shrugged, comfortable with this truth. “Just you.”

  “Remind me to start taking up church-going again.” He pushed the hair off her face.

  She touched his jaw. “I’m glad I listened to the voice inside that wouldn’t let me give up.”

  “If you had told me what he was doing there would have been no need for listening.” His jaw clenched and a muscle twitched under her finger.

  “There’s nothing you could have done. I was married.”

  “Like hell.” His eyes narrowed and under her left palm, his pectorals bunched with tension.

  “If you’d killed him, you’d be in jail. And I wouldn’t have you. This way is better.” She rasped her finger over the shadow of stubble on his jaw. She knew that look. That promise of retribution. It used to terrify her. Now it just made her feel safe.

  He was shaking his head before she was done, catching her finger between his strong teeth, nipping it gently before saying, “Sunshine, we are never going to see eye to eye on that, and if you don’t think I know how to kill a man without leaving evidence, you need another think.”

  Maybe she did, but it didn’t change the truth.

  “It’s better for me, Clint.”

  His hand touched the side of her breast. It wasn’t a caress so much as a reaffirmation of a memory. She held her breath, afraid he was going to press her for the one piece of her past that she hadn’t revealed. But he didn’t. Just shook his head and stroked her gently with hands that always pleasured, and said, “You are an amazingly stubborn woman.”

  “But you like me.” She smiled. This was her man. The one person in this world who saw her for what she was.

  “Yes.” Just one word, but it was said with a hunger that made her burn.

  She waited for the smile that curved his lips to reach his eyes before she asked, “And you’re going to let me play tonight?”

  This time his “yes” was slower, deeper, as if his mind was already going down the path where she wanted to lead him. The hand on her breast clenched with carnal hunger. The other brought her palm back to his mouth. He nipped the base of her thumb. Her knees buckled as her womb clenched.

  “Good,” she breathed, letting her own hunger burgeon and flow. “Because I’m asking favors this time.” Clint froze, his lips on her palm, his melting black eyes locked with hers. She pulled her hand free and stepped back. She licked her dry lips and pressed on.

  “I’ve been p
unished many times for tempting a man, but I’ve never actually done it. I’d like to try…” Oh God, she was going to die if he said no. She licked her lips again. “To tempt you.”

  For a split second he did nothing. Said nothing. Then his eyes seemed to burn from within and a smile—a real smile—spread across his face.

  “Come here.” That drawl, low and deep, slid along her desire, stoking inner fires to flickering life. He caught her hands in his big ones and pulled her to her feet with an ease that still amazed her. He placed her palms on his chest on either side of the button placket, holding her for a second while she steadied. He was always taking care of her.

  “So you want to play with me?” he asked in that same deep, need-spiking baritone.

  “Yes.” She slid her hands up to thread her fingers through the blue-black strands of his hair.

  “Then come play.” The left corner of his sensual mouth lifted higher than the right.

  Such an invitation, given in that raspy tone, backed by that sexy smile and that challenging look encouraged a woman to boldness. And for once, Jenna didn’t back away from the dare. This was her man. Her house. Her marriage, and she wanted joy in all three. She slid her hands to the buttons on his shirt, feeling the increase in his heart rate shaking her palms.

  “You like me like this,” she said as she undid the second button.

  “No lie, Sunshine, this is about my favorite fantasy.” He settled his hands on her shoulders.

  “You’ve had fantasies about me?”

  “For as long as I’ve known you.”

  She’d known him for three years. “Even when I was married?”

  “Yeah.” He nudged the edge of her nightdress so that it slid off her shoulder. She left it there. “But those tended to end as a nightmare.”

  The rules preached into her from childhood chose that moment to pop forward. “It’s a sin to covet another man’s wife.”

  “You were never meant to be anyone’s wife but mine.”

  She touched the scars over his breastbone.

  “No. I wasn’t.” She might have been imagining it, but he seemed to relax slightly with her agreement. She tugged his shirt free of his pants. His heat and scent surrounded her in a potent embrace. She leaned into it, and traced the edge of one of his scars with her tongue. His big body shook. The smile started way down deep inside.