"Why don't you go back to Mattie's," she said testily, "and stop harassing decent, sophisticated gentlemen in their homes?"
Cass snorted. "Decent my ass. Beans made Wyntir write the bank draft for my $200 finder's fee."
"Two-hundred dollars! That pocket watch was barely worth $20!"
"You can't put a price on sentimental value."
Sadie shot him a withering glare. "No wonder Dante gave you a bank draft. He was hoping some teller would recognize you on a Wanted Poster."
"It takes a crook to know a crook."
"As far as I can see, Dante's only crime has been his kindness to me!"
A muscle ticked in Cass's jaw.
He sidled closer. "Making up is fun, huh?"
"Go away."
"You'd miss me."
"Are you kidding? I can't seem to get rid of you."
"That's 'cause you and I go together," he crooned. "Like sarsaparilla and fizz."
"More like dynamite and a fuse."
"I don't mind." His grin turned wolfish. "I like when your eyes get all fiery with silvery sparks."
Irritably, she pushed his prowling paw off her thigh. "You must be confusing me with some other woman."
"Never."
She retreated as far as the cab's narrow confines would allow. "For your information, my eyes don't have silvery sparks."
"Sure they do. Like a zillion miniature stars, all orbiting the sun. They get glittery, like diamonds, when your volcano heats up."
She felt the tingling flush of lust as he stalked her across the red-leather cushions. He smelled like wind and leather, mountain and sandalwood. The fact that he was right, and she was starting to cream, only made her more irritated, mostly at herself.
"Think right highly of yourself, do you?"
"I am the Rebel Rutter," he said shamelessly. "Which reminds me. Why don't you pull down that shade while you're over there?"
"Hell no."
"How come?"
"'Cause you want me to."
"Then I don't want you to hike your skirts. Or sit in my lap. Or ride me like a demon tornado till you rain fire on my thighs."
"You think I'm an idiot?"
"Naw. I think you're hotter than the devil's pitchfork."
"Which is why you're bird-dogging a 20-year-old heiress?"
His dimples peeked. "See that? You are jealous."
"Dream on," she said loftily.
"I do. Every night. Of you, in all your freckled glory."
"Apparently, you used your best lies in your poems."
When he reached for her curl, she tried a Judo move to numb his wrist. He deftly snared her hand, rubbing her fingers over his beard, pressing wet kisses into her palm.
"You want to start picking your teeth off the floor?" she growled.
He chuckled, biting the mound below her thumb.
"Ow!"
"Sissy."
"That does it, Cassidy."
She took a swing at his nose, but he blocked her jab, seizing her forearm. Her struggles made her toque hat tip, plunking to her nose. She cursed, wasting precious seconds to shake off the hat. He took full advantage of her blindness, stretching her wrists above her. An ominous jingle sounded over her head.
"Cass! Don't you dare!"
She aimed a kick at his crotch, but the force of her blow was dampened by the wad of muslin, lace, and seed pearls sheathing her legs. He pinned her hips with his greater weight. The next thing she knew, furry bracelets snapped around her wrists. She was bound to the leather strap.
"You didn't think I forgot the train, did you, detective?"
She sputtered every expletive she could think of. He gave her a naughty wink, sliding the handcuffs' key into his vest pocket—ironically, the one where he'd pinned his Ranger badge. Then he drew the shade of the eastern window. Midnight-blue shadows slid across his devious grin.
"Comfy?" he asked, removing his Stetson.
"Paybacks are a bitch," she menaced.
"They sure are."
He made short work of the buttons on her bodice and the hooks on her corset. His fingertips were callused but warm as they dipped boldly beneath the lacy cotton of her chemise. Her traitorous nipples hardened, all too eager to jut into his palm.
His breaths tickled her ear. "What do you dream of, Contessa?"
"Nooses." She hated how her skin shivered in a mixture of anticipation and delight as he massaged her thighs. "With your name on them."
"Liar. I bet you dream of great big, Italian pepperonis."
"Then you'll lose every cent."
He chuckled. The velvet depths of his eyes glowed red, mirroring the coals in the brassier. Lucifire lurked in that wicked gaze, and her temperature raised another notch. She licked her lips.
"You want to know a secret?" he whispered, flicking his tongue inside her ear.
She tried to jerk her head away, but he tangled a fist in her hair.
"Let me guess." She sounded much too breathy for a woman who was supposed to deplore the man who'd betrayed her. "You kiss that Ranger badge every night before you fall sleep."
"Nope."
"You kneel before it and chant prayers?"
"When have you ever known me to kneel for anything?"
A knife twisted in her chest as she thought of the marriage proposal he would never give. "A little humility wouldn't hurt you. Especially when it comes to guns."
"Fess up. You like my gun."
With his free hand, he pushed her skirts all the way up her thighs. She gasped as the chill of the Colorado twilight rushed past the slit in her bloomers.
"I don't think we're talking about the same thing," she rallied desperately, her exposed places throbbing with renewed sensitivity.
He nuzzled the corner of her mouth. "We were talking about my gun. And how you downright worship it."
"Like I said. You suffer from delusions—"
She bit back a tiny mew of pleasure as his forefinger snaked past the petals of her femininity.
"You're so wet," he said, supremely smug.
She writhed, and he tipped her hips, wedging her thighs wider for his love play. Her struggles were futile. To make matters worse, they started to resemble an age-old rhythm.
"You like that, huh?"
"I hate you!"
"Not all of you hates me."
"Yeah? Well, just because you think you can make me come—"
"Who said anything about coming?" he taunted silkily.
He tormented her with catlike finesse, stoking her volcano, fanning her need until she fairly dripped with lava. She was panting. He was grinning. And all the while, she teetered on the edge of the bouncing seat, her wrists twisting futilely to break her bonds, her thighs shaking in their obstinate pride not to wrap his waist as her anchor.
"Why must you be so ornery?" he whispered.
It was a rhetorical question, because his tongue began fencing with hers. She sucked him deep into her mouth, and he growled. She heard the chinking of metal from somewhere near his waist. Erotic images tantalized her as only his dancing, darting fingers could. She imagined the glint of moonlight on his uncinched buckle; the tawny man hairs springing through the buttonholes of his fly; the swollen phallus jutting so proudly toward its slick and steamy goal. Her nostrils flared to the delicious scent of sex—his sex—for even though she would rather swallow her tongue than admit it, she had never wanted another man. Not since their ill-fated love affair four years ago in Dodge.
He rubbed and teased. Half in, half out. The perfect angle, the ideal speed. Thrust after maddening thrust, he kept her dripping, quivering, and aching for more. Her nerves were licked by fire. Her senses threatened to splinter. She stretched, but he broke the rhythm, defying her best attempts to control the game. Never in her life had she wanted a man to ride her harder and faster!
"Was that a whimper?" he taunted huskily.
"Never," she panted.
"Never's a long time, kitten." He climbed behind her, hooking her thighs wi
der with his calves. "You won't last another five minutes," he teased, his breaths tickling her ear.
She squirmed, but he had the strength of a man who'd busted broncos and hogtied steers. His steely hands gripped her hips, holding them prisoner, hoisting them just high enough so his slick, swollen head could rub her into a renewed frenzy. Her breaths whistled past her teeth. She squeezed her eyes closed to stop the stars from spinning.
"I know what's best for you," he growled. "And someday, you're going to admit it. Even if I have to hogtie you, row you to a prison island, and lock you in a goddamned dungeon to keep you safe!"
Shivers galloped down her spine. Cass rarely turned Dom on her. He knew better: she would spit and claw and bite his ears off—not to mention what she would do to his private parts. She refused to let a John control her. The bedroom was her realm.
But echoes of pleasure from love-games past reverberated through her smoldering core. He'd fanned her fever to a volcanic pitch. Surely if he kept her smoking, she would explode!
"You wouldn't dare," she wheezed, desperately dredging up a shred of defiance.
"Then you don't know me as well as you think," he retorted. "Bend over."
"Go to hell."
"I did. From August to October."
"What are you talking—"
"Bend," he commanded again.
She trembled.
Her traitorous spine yielded.
He rewarded her with deep, plunging strokes that soon had her writhing, moaning, and hating herself for wanting more.
She was all tiger now, all instinct, lust and need. Above her ripping breaths and the primitive sounds that tore from her throat, she barely heard the deep rumble of his confession.
"When you died, I died. I thought I'd failed you. You. My woman. Do you know what that was like, day in and day out for three months? Torture! It was goddamned torture, Sadie."
Finally, the blissful release came. Only "blissful" was too tame a word to describe the experience. Rapture pounded through her. Ecstasy shattered her mortal restraints. Like a shooting star, she blazed across the cosmos, burning bright enough to rival any sun.
From far away, she heard his vow:
"You will never put me through that hell again."
She lost touch with time. One moment, he was wrapped around her, his heart hammering her spine. The next moment, he was crouching before the limp dishrag her body had become. She blinked, trying to see past the rainbows glazing her eyes. A long, wet trail glimmered on his cheek. Her disembodied mind tried to make sense of the sight. Was that a tear? Cass's tear?
Surely not.
She was spiraling back to earth now, slamming into the fractured feelings and jumbled sensations that her flesh had become. She groaned. Parts that had burned with pleasure only moments ago now shivered with chill and ached with fatigue.
He was tugging down her skirts. "After we find Minx's killer, I'm taking you home to Sterne."
"Sterne?" she rasped. Her tongue felt like sandpaper against the roof of her mouth. "My God. You still think I'm sleeping with him?"
He winced, averting his eyes. "Sterne is as worried about you as I am."
"Get over it! I can handle myself in the field."
"So you've said. And yet, here you are. Handcuffed inside a cab."
"You set me up! Unlock these manacles. Unlock them now!"
"Your Pinkerton days are numbered."
"You have no right," she choked, futilely twisting her wrists. "Crawl back into the slime hole you came from. My life was better—a helluvalot better—before you darkened my doorstep! I had friends. Sophisticated lovers, damn you!"
He gripped her chin with powerful fingers. He forced her gaze to collide with his. She grew worried, then, that she'd gone too far. The dark intent in that relentless, gunfighter's stare chased goosebumps down her spine.
"Just so we're clear," he said flatly. "If Goddard touches you the way I touched you tonight, I'll kill him."
She quailed. Never had she heard more conviction in Cass's voice.
He unlocked her left arm—the one without the pistol strapped to her forearm—and pressed the key into her hand. Then he kicked open the door and whistled. Pancake magically appeared. The cab hadn't been moving fast; perhaps the gelding had been trotting after the vehicle. In any event, the well-trained cowpony drew abreast of the coach. Cass jumped into the saddle.
Her last glimpse of him, before the door slammed, was of his duster, fluttering like the wings of a fallen angel against the rising moon.
Chapter 11
One Week Later
Dolce LaRocca was scheduled to perform before a sell-out crowd of 1,550 Denverites at the Tabor Grand Opera House.
Cass was scheduled to steal her Tiffany reproduction of Mephistopheles's Jewels.
Well, sort of.
Yesterday, he'd secretly conferred with the diva, revealing his scheme to protect her assets. He'd explained how she was in danger from Maestro. He'd insisted that her best protection was to leak to the press some cock-n-bull story about how Daredevil had robbed her of Mephistopheles's Jewels. After Cass turned on the charm and flashed his Texas Ranger badge, Dolce was only too delighted to cooperate. Because she was a foreigner traveling through America, she had no idea his jurisdiction ended north of the Red River.
So kiss my grits, you stinkin' Pinkertons.
In truth, Cass was surprised Mace hadn't approached Dolce with an offer of protection. But then, Mace struck Cass as more of a Can-Can enthusiast. And who could blame him? The only reason Cass was attending Faust tonight was because he was honor-bound to keep Dolce safe from "dastardly jewel thieves and rapacious theater ruffians," which was how the diva liked to describe them. Dolce was blessed with a vivid imagination.
Cass scanned the lobby crowd for suspicious characters. Just beyond the frost-encrusted windows, his gaze lighted on a carriage that bore the Greyfell coat of arms. Wyntir's driver was jockeying through the chaos of private hacks and neighing horses to secure a parking spot by the curb.
The coach's door swung open. Dressed in all his gentlemanly frou-frou, Goddard stepped into the flurry of great, puffy snowflakes, the red-satin lining of his opera cape swirling around his legs. He waved off a valet and offered a hand to Wyntir, who looked especially scrumptious in midnight-blue silk.
Cass's eyes narrowed when he next glimpsed the twinkle of a tiara inside the coach's dim interior. A moment later, a buxom, chestnut-haired beauty extended her white glove into the glow of street lamps.
Sadie.
Cass drew a restraining breath. Beneath her ivory, feather-trimmed opera cape, she was dressed in slinky black damask, whose ruches winked with extra shimmer, thanks to a coiling pattern of jet seed pearls. When she clasped Goddard's hand, she smiled lusciously into the prig's clean-shaven mug.
All right, prig may not be entirely accurate, Cass conceded as he recalled his run-in with the dapper Bostonian three days earlier.
At the time, Cass had been hunting for Boone at the Gentleman's Sporting Club—or more precisely, at its shooting range.
Cass didn't know who'd been more surprised by his chance encounter with the psychiatrist, him or Goddard. Frankly, Cass would never have pictured a fussy, book-learned snob, blasting holes through a bull's eye. But then, Goddard would never have pictured a Texas "exterminator" possessing the pedigree for such a hoity-toity club. The fact that Goddard had pegged him for White Trash made Cass hate him even more.
"You're pretty handy with that popgun," Cass had jeered as Goddard pumped a new round of bullets into his Smith & Wesson. "Practicing to shoot some patients, Doc?"
Goddard's smile was wry. "You do read, don't you, Mr. Cassidy? The Rocky has been reporting almost daily on the dueling jewel thieves, who've been pillaging mansions along Colfax Avenue and Pennsylvania Street. It's just a matter of time before they strike Greyfell Manor. A man has to be prepared to defend his home."
"You mean Miss Wyntir's home," Cass retorted. "Greyfell Manor belongs t
o her."
"Not until Saturday. When my ward reaches her majority."
Turning a chilly shoulder, Goddard leveled his revolver at a fresh target. Cass watched the Yankee drill five additional rounds through the bull's eye without blinking. Even so, Cass wasn't impressed. Any Texas toddler could shoot out a knot-hole at 40 paces. Try hitting a penny, flipping end-over-end in the wind. Now that took real skill.
"You sure do shoot straight," Cass said dryly. "I reckon you'll be able to bag yourself a thief, all right—as long as Maestro's the polite type, who stands still and doesn't shoot back."
A dark flush rolled up Goddard's neck. "No doubt you'd like to show me how a gun should be fired, Mr. Cassidy."
"Naw." Cass winked. "I don't have any quarrel with you."
"Just Maestro."
Cass locked stares with the psychiatrist. Despite the bourbon-smooth quality of Goddard's voice, something about his observation grated on Cass's nerves. It felt like a challenge.
"What makes you think I have a quarrel with Maestro?"
"You mentioned him by name."
Cass shrugged, hooking his thumbs over his belt and instantly regretting it. The habit was a dead giveaway to anyone who knew anything about gunfighters.
"I couldn't let you go on thinking I don't know how to read a newspaper," Cass quipped with practiced jocularity.
"No indeed." Goddard's lips twitched. "So tell me, Mr. Cassidy. Where did you and the contessa first meet?"
Cass stiffened. He hadn't been prepared for that line of questioning. "Who?"
"Who indeed." Goddard's smile was mocking.
"If you got something to say, Doc, spit it out."
Goddard shrugged. "You strike me as a realist, Mr. Cassidy. A man who knows his place in the world."
"And Italy's a long way from home, is that it?"
"Precisely."
Cass had to dig deep to keep his tone light—and his tongue firmly in check. "A man can dream."
"Then he wouldn't be a realist."
Cass kept smiling through his teeth. "Sounds like you got an uncommon interest in the pretty things Italy has to offer. Like the imported treasures at Rothschild's."
To Cass's disappointment, Goddard didn't rise to the bait. He merely holstered his gun and reached for his bowler.
Dance to the Devil's Tune (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 2) Page 15
