by Lisa Bingham
“I’m anxious to see what this place will look like with the boards off and the windows cleaned,” Susan whispered into the comfortable silence. Daniel’s arms tightened in response. “We’ll be happy here. We’ll have a home that’s safe and full of love.”
Love. That word scared the hell out of Daniel. And after the events of the day, he wasn’t so sure he could keep Susan safe, either.
A frown marred Susan’s brow as he pulled away from her and stood. He strode across the room, stopped at one of the windows, and braced himself against the wall.
Susan climbed to her feet and walked toward him, laying her hand on his arm. The muscles were tense, taut. “What’s wrong?”
“I failed you today.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t keep you safe.”
“You couldn’t have prevented what happened.”
“But I should have! Don’t you see? I should have taken care of you!”
Susan sensed that something more than the Dooleys lay beneath his tension. “What is it? Something else is bothering you. What?”
“Nothing.” The word was formed on a single breath of air.
Susan forced him to look at her. His eyes were dark, tormented.
“Tell me,” she urged softly. “I hate to see you so worried. I told you my secrets. I told you everything.”
Silence blanketed the room, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire in the grate. Daniel’s head tilted back, and he held his breath in his chest.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.
“Nothing will happen. I lo—”
He placed his fingers over her lips. “Don’t say that!” He caressed her mouth. “Please don’t love me, Susan.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone who has ever loved me has died, Susan. And I won’t have you die.”
Susan would have smiled at the idiotic statement if he had not remained so solemn.
“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”
“You never knew how I came to be at the orphanage, did you, Susan?” He backed away, releasing her. “By all the rules of heaven, I never should have been an orphan.” He laughed, and the sound was bitter. “I was the ninth child in a family of ten. My father was a drunken bastard who couldn’t leave my mother alone long enough for her to be out of the birthing bed before he planted another baby in her.”
Susan winced at Daniel’s crude words, but did not interrupt.
“Every baby was a boy. After I was born, Mama thought she’d had her last child. Until Annie. Little Annie.” His voice grew gentle. “Damn, she was pretty. From the very first. But Mama never really knew.”
Daniel took a deep, tormented breath. “I was the only one home when she began to bleed. I tried to help her, but there was nothing I could do.” He swallowed. “I promised to take care of Annie,” Daniel said quickly, clearing his throat.
“After Mama died, my father grew worse and worse. When the war broke out, most of my brothers ran off to join the army. One day I walked into the house to find my father shaking Annie and making her cry. I yelled at him and kicked him. After that, I wouldn’t leave her alone with him. I took her everywhere with me. About a month passed. Then Pa took us into town and told us to wait for him there. He never came back.”
Daniel’s head dipped. “We went to Bentonburg. For a time we stayed in one of the brothels. The daughter of one of the women there hid us, but when we were discovered, we had to leave again. One night I went to find us something to eat. I’d hidden Annie in a basket in the bushes outside of town. She was sleeping. I knew I could return and …”
Susan steeled herself against the pain in Daniel’s voice. She had to let him continue. She had to let him purge himself of the hurt inside just as he had allowed her to purge her own guilt.
“A couple found her there. They took her home, thinking she’d been abandoned. When I discovered where she’d been taken, I decided it would be … best … to let them have her. She was just a baby … a baby.” His hands grew rigid, the knuckles gleaming starkly in the firelight. “Two nights later I found her battered body in the street. They’d beaten her and left her for dead.”
Susan fought back a cry of distress. How had Daniel borne this for so long? How had he shouldered the pain and guilt that must have crushed his young soul? He couldn’t have been much more than a baby himself.
Susan circled his waist with her arms, resting her cheek on his chest. He returned the embrace, but his body remained tense. She never would have guessed at the burden he’d carried … and continued to carry.
“Annie needed me. Annie loved me. And I let her down, just as I’d let Mama down.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. She lifted her head. “Do you hear me, Daniel Crocker? It wasn’t your fault your sister died, just as it wasn’t mine that Mama died. You taught me that. You aren’t cursed or damned, or whatever you want to call it. Your love did not kill your mother or your sister.” When he tried to back away, she would not release him. “And your devotion will not kill me.”
He turned his head, but she made him look at her. “I love you, Daniel Crocker,” she stated slowly, emphatically. “And I will spend the rest of my life loving you. A long and happy life.”
Chapter 28
Daniel’s body remained tense, alert. A muscle flexed in his jaw.
Susan stepped back. “Believe me, Daniel.” There was no hesitation, no nervousness, no fear, as she slipped the top button of her suit free. “I love you, Daniel.”
She faltered only once, then slid the second button loose, exposing a wedge of creamy feminine skin.
Daniel swallowed. “Susan, don’t you see—”
“I love you.”
The next button nudged through its hole. Daniel gaped at her in astonishment. He’d grown so used to being the partner in control, the tempter, he had never thought their roles would ever be reversed. The mere idea of being seduced by his own wife caused a licking heat to begin at his nerve endings and work its way to the very core of his body.
“Susan,” he moaned, incapable of saying more.
With each inch of exposed flesh, she told him of her love, her trust. Soon the basque jacket yawned open, revealing the undergarments beneath. A delicate batiste corset cover hid the rigid stays of her corset. But Daniel could see firsthand how the foundation garment cinched her waist and pushed her breasts against the fragile restraint of the tatted yoke of her camisole.
Then she pushed the bodice from her shoulders, exposing the bare flesh of her arms and shoulders. She stood still, her head proud, her eyes glittering with lines of molten gold and green.
“I won’t leave you, Daniel. Ever.” The bodice dropped from her fingers to the floor.
Susan knew by his expression that Daniel had assumed she would stop here. He was sure her courage would flag. But Susan continued to undress. Her nimble fingers worked the fastenings of her corset cover. As each shell-like disk slipped free, she could see the hurt little boy buried inside Daniel being taken over by the man he’d become.
The soft batiste garment fell to the floor. As Daniel stared at the fullness of her breasts, a spark of fear deep inside Susan’s head threatened her courage. But it was quickly doused by her overwhelming desire to be loved by her husband. Daniel needed her. She needed him. Their lovemaking would be beautiful, exciting, and rich. She knew he would be gentle, and she wanted to surprise him with the depth of her own passion.
Sinuously she pushed her skirts and petticoats down over her hips. One by one she released the metal hooks on her corset, exposing the wrinkled fabric of her camisole beneath. “Tonight you won’t get out of your husbandly duties, Daniel.”
Daniel experienced a flare of heat at her words. She was so delicate, so beautiful. Yet, who would have thought she could become such a siren. This was how Adam must have felt. If Eve had looked at him with half the urg
ency and love he saw shining from Susan’s eyes, he would have taken the apple much more quickly.
“You make me feel things I didn’t know were possible, Daniel.”
A sensuous coil tightened low in his belly as she toyed with the satin ribbon woven through the crocheted beading that edged the yoke. He could only watch as that ribbon slipped free, so slowly, so teasingly, that he thought he would die from the suspense.
Didn’t she know what she was doing to him? Didn’t she know his control was threatening to explode?
“Tell me you love me, Daniel.” Susan tugged. The ribbon grew taut, pulling the fabric of the camisole away from her chest. With each inch of progress, the material gaped more, revealing the firm swells of her breasts.
“You will tell me one day,” she whispered. “Someday soon.”
A low growl bled from Daniel’s throat. He couldn’t bear any more. She didn’t have to prove anything to him. Not now. Not ever again.
If she had been any other woman, he would have scooped her into his arms and stormed into the bedroom. He would have spent his passion fiercely and quickly. But he couldn’t do that. Not with her.
“Don’t, Susan. You don’t have to do this.” He wished she would stop. Now. While he still had the power to summon some small shred of control.
Susan merely smiled at him. The air had grown so taut, so silent. “Yes. I do.”
He had abandoned all pretense of looking at her face. He was staring at her breasts, making them feel heavy, making them ache for his touch. Susan focused on the warmth his look ignited in her body … and her soul. She wanted him. She needed him. She would have him. Tonight.
Her hands trembled, then lifted to his chest, brushing over the smooth fabric of his shirt and around his neck. Standing on tiptoe, she brought her mouth up until it hesitated only a fraction of an inch from his own. She could feel Daniel’s ragged breath on her cheek.
When he drew her close, she closed her eyelids. “Please, Daniel.” She touched her lips to his. She employed all of the techniques he had taught her about kissing. She sipped, she tasted, she nibbled. And with each kiss she felt desire grow and blossom inside her. Her body arched against him until Daniel took her weight, melding his hips to hers so she could feel the evidence of his arousal.
Groaning in painful delight, she forced herself to back away. Not in fear this time, not in haste, but in a tormenting feminine invitation.
Smiling, she backed toward the bedroom. Her skin was feverish, her face flushed. Knowing what it would take to push Daniel over the edge, she lifted her arms and began to unbraid her hair, totally aware of the way her actions caused her breasts to lift in a brazen manner.
“Make love to me, Daniel,” she murmured huskily. “Please.”
Not waiting to witness the answer in his eyes, she turned, affording him a glimpse of her delectable backside through the slit in her drawers. Daniel moaned aloud when the camisole dropped to the floor behind her as she disappeared around the door.
He couldn’t resist. Heaven help him, he knew she might lose her courage again, but he couldn’t back away.
“Sweetheart?” He strode into the hall.
Her pantalets lay on the smooth pine boards halfway to the bedroom.
Daniel hesitated. His heart was pounding with a murderous force, its beat centered somewhere in the base of his loins. He wiped his hand nervously over his mouth, then stepped into the bedroom.
The lamp was low. Susan lay on the bed, the covers drawn over her breasts. He could tell some of her bravado had slipped by the way she trembled, but she still gazed at him with blatant hunger.
Daniel cleared his throat, unable to turn away. He wanted to know what she looked like. Beneath the covers. Bare. The mere thought aroused him to the point of pain.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
“Please make love to me.”
He could only nod.
“When?” she asked, repeating the question she’d asked so many times.
“Soon.”
“When?”
He pulled the shirttails from his trousers, striving to leash his passion just a little longer. “Now.”
As she had the night he’d bathed, Susan watched him strip the shirt from his shoulders. He bared himself much more quickly than she had done in the other room. He tore his arms from the sleeves and dropped the garment on the floor. In the dim light the bandage gleamed starkly next to his skin. Swiftly he began unbuttoning his trousers.
“Essie said that a man could—”
“Damn, I don’t want to hear what Essie told you,” Daniel bit out between clenched teeth.
Susan giggled nervously. “Why not?”
“Because she apparently told you too much.”
At the sound of her silky laughter, Daniel tore the buttons loose, wondering how long he would last. Each time he looked at his wife, all his passions raged. But he had to hold on long enough to bring his wife to an answering pitch of ecstasy.
With a self-consciousness that he found disconcerting, Daniel pushed his trousers to the floor. Then he approached the bed and sat on the edge. When he reached out to turn down the wick of the lamp, she stopped him, her fingertips feather-light on his arm. The blanket slipped, and Daniel felt her breasts rubbing his shoulder blades. He fought to think of something—anything but the pounding urgency of his own body.
“No, leave it,” she murmured in his ear.
“I don’t want to frighten you.”
She grew still against him, and he could feel a shiver course through her. Nerves or anticipation? he wondered. But soon she pressed her lips to his skin and smiled. “You won’t ever frighten me.”
Uncertainly, Daniel unbuttoned his underdrawers and stood away from the edge of the bed. From behind, he heard her settling back on the pillows, but he could feel her watching him as surely as if her scrutiny were a hot finger tracing the crease in his spine.
He slipped the woolen underdrawers to the floor, then stood with his back to her, praying he would not shock her when he turned around. For he was more than ready for her.
“Daniel?”
“What?”
“Come to bed.”
He debated his choices. He could turn and have her stare. Or he could sit down on the mattress and hope that he could cover himself before she got an eyeful.
“Daniel.”
Daniel sank down on the edge of the bed. He reached blindly behind him for the covers. He encountered a bare arm, the skin soft and smooth and utterly feminine. He twisted in surprise. As he had feared, her eyes immediately dropped to look at him.
“Oh.” The word was only a whisper of sound, but it clearly revealed her thoughts.
Her gaze bounced back up to his face.
“Maybe we should wait, Susan.”
Her fingers covered his lips. “Shh.” Her hand slid around his neck, and she pulled him down until he lay half over her body. He groaned silently at the contact of her breasts on the muscles of his chest, her knee to his hip.
“Make love to me, Daniel.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
The last was a hungry growl of impatience.
Knowing he must touch her or die, Daniel swooped to take her lips in a searing kiss. She tasted of peaches and passion. As his tongue swept into the velvety hollows, she clutched at his shoulder, trying to draw him closer, to absorb him into her very flesh.
He lifted his head, gasping for breath, trying to tear his mind away from the innocent torment her fingers aroused.
“Daniel?”
“Mmm?”
“Touch me.”
He rubbed his thumb over her jaw. “I am touching you.”
She shook her head. “Not my face.”
At her words the fire inside him exploded into a raging inferno. He burned so hot that he feared his touch would sear her. But then her small fingers curled ar
ound his wrist, guiding his hand down her chest and filling his palm with her breast. Her eyes flickered closed, her head dropped back on the pillows in open delight.
“Essie was—”
Daniel crushed his lips to hers. He didn’t know how much longer he could wait. She was making him crazy. Unwittingly Susan enticed him to the melting point by testing her courage. Yet, if he didn’t take the time to ensure that she was ready for him …
Susan moaned, her hips straining. Slowly, carefully, Daniel stroked her and loved her with his hands and mouth, bringing her to a fever pitch, all the while attempting to ignore his own pain. He had to make this night one she would remember with pleasure, not with fear.
“What, Daniel? What do I do next?”
Her warmth and the sweet innocence of her responses were his undoing. Her hand curved around his hip to settle in the hollow of his back. He clenched his jaw, willing himself not to think of the overwhelming delight she brought him.
He framed her face with his hands. “Trust me?”
She nodded.
“I’ll try to hold off until …”
“Until what?”
Despite his torment, Daniel grinned. “Evidently Essie didn’t tell you everything.”
Slowly he settled himself between her thighs. She was so small, so tiny, he feared she would not be able to accommodate him. His knees nudged at her legs until they parted.
Unable to say the words of love that trembled on the tip of his tongue, Daniel dipped his head to kiss her eyes shut so that she would not watch.
His hand swept down to stroke her gently into readiness. Then, carefully, he entered her a little way only. Susan gasped, shrinking away. Daniel withdrew.
“No,” he groaned. “Lie still. You’re so tight.”
Her hands clung to his shoulders. Her nails bit into his skin. Once again Daniel entered her, thrusting a little farther into her warmth, this time allowing her to adjust to his body. Then, in one smooth movement, he plunged into the velvet softness and broke the barrier between them.
