Howard Haskell Takes A Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch Book 0) (6 page)

“Of course.” Howard grinned. “Every conflict can be solved in the age-old manner of competition. The Ancient Greeks had their games, medieval warlords had their jousts and tournaments. Even the heathens of the Dark Ages solved their disputes with trial by combat. Competition is the only way to ensure that the strongest, most clever man emerges victorious.”

“Are you proposing that beating each other to pulps will decide who is the more gentlemanly of the two of us?” Jonas balked.

“No, sir.” Howard send him a condescending smile. “I am suggesting that through competition, we can decide who of the two of us would make the better husband for the peerless Elizabeth.”

“What?” Mrs. Ayers gasped.

“Oh, here we go again,” Virginia sighed.

“Explain yourself.” Mr. Ayers crossed his arms.

In his element, Howard adjusted his stance and squared his shoulders. “I propose a competition, a test of strength, endurance, and mettle, between myself and Mr. Armstrong here. The winner, the man who proves himself most worthy, will be granted the prize of Miss Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.”

“My hand?” Elizabeth’s glance fluttered anxiously between Howard and Jonas.

Howard did his best to silently reassure her that there was no possible way he could lose any competition against Jonas Armstrong.

“What sort of feats did you have in mind for this competition?” Mr. Ayers asked.

Howard grinned from ear to ear. Mr. Ayers was entertaining the idea, which meant that he would be easy to persuade. And that meant that the competition would take place, Howard
would
win, and Elizabeth would be his with her parents’ blessing.

“Why, in the manner of those Ancient Greeks, it should be a contest of strength and endurance,” Howard began. “I propose a race.”

“A race?” Jonas straightened from the sulking hunch he’d dropped into. “What kind of race?”

Howard shrugged. “Running, swimming, riding, any of it.”

“All of it.” Jonas broke into a cunning grin. He must have thought he had a chance.

“Howard.” Elizabeth’s anxious whisper turned Howard’s head. Her eyes were wide, her face milk-white in the moonlight. She shook her head. Evidently, she thought he had a chance too.

Howard winked to reassure her. “What do you say?” he asked both Jonas and Mr. Ayers.

Mr. Ayers rubbed his chin, the lines in his face deep as he mulled the idea over. “Running,” he said at last. “Followed by swimming, followed by a steeplechase on horseback.”

“Carl.” Mrs. Ayers put a hand on her husband’s arm, brow creased in worry. “That is hardly a fair competition. You know that Jonas is—”

“It was his idea,” Jonas cut her off before Mrs. Ayers could reveal more.

Howard didn’t need her to reveal anything. He could piece the truth together as well as anyone. But however athletic Jonas Armstrong was, he utterly underestimated Howard.

“I welcome any challenge,” Howard answered, feigning ignorance of Jonas’s implied skills. His confidence wasn’t the least bit feigned, though. “You set the date and location, and I will be there.”

“And you will absolutely agree to leave Elizabeth alone and depart from Cincinnati forever when you lose?” Jonas sneered.

“I will do you one better.” Howard smiled at him. “Whether I win or lose, I will leave Cincinnati forever.”

Jonas blinked in confusion. “But—”

“I will leave either way,” Howard confirmed, “but if I win, I leave with Elizabeth.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. She still appeared anxious, though. There was no way to convince her how fool-proof this plan of his was in present company, but he would find a way.

“Thursday,” Mr. Ayers said. “The race will start at the grove where Mill Creek meets the Whitewater Canal. You’ll race from the woods to Mill Creek Road, dive from the bridge to swim up creek, then emerge at Coleman’s estate, where you will ride across town to Mt. Auburn.”

“Agreed,” Howard answered with a nod.

“Agreed,” Jonas echoed, his grin sly. “I’ll even shake this blackguard’s hand to seal the deal.”

Without hesitation, Howard held out his hand. Jonas took it and squeezed in a grip calculated to impress. Howard squeezed right back, wiping the smirk from Jonas’s lips. He let go at last, giving the man something to think about.

“And now, seeing as my sister, my friend, and I were not invited to this sparkling display of hospitality, we’ll go.” Howard bowed graciously to Mrs. Ayers and nodded with respect to Mr. Ayers. He sent Jonas a warning look before turning, gesturing to Virginia and Cyrus, and starting off.

They made it about ten yards before Elizabeth called, “Wait,” and ran after them.

Howard turned in time to catch her as she flew to him.

“Oh, Howard,” she breathed in a panic. “You cannot lose, you simply cannot lose.” Her eyes were bright with fear, even though they had crossed out of the light cast by torches for the party. “I will not marry Jonas, I would rather die first.”

Howard laughed—a sound that rumbled through his chest with amusement and confidence. “My dear heart, you will not have to. Did I not tell you that I have a plan?”

“Yes, but Jonas is strong. He’s an excellent swimmer and runner,” Elizabeth argued.

“Elizabeth, come back here at once,” Mrs. Ayers called.

Howard’s grin widened. “He may be all that, my darling, but I have one attribute that he does not.”

“Elizabeth,” Mr. Ayers called.

Elizabeth ignored both of her parents to ask Howard, “What is that?”

Howard caressed her face, brushing a thumb across her cheek. “I am in love with the prize” he said. “And I make my own rules as I go along.”

A
s the first
fingers of dawn peeked through Elizabeth’s curtains on Thursday morning, her frazzled nerves were busy bouncing back and forth between emotions. Ever since the soiree and Howard’s bold suggestion of a race, her heart had flown wildly between despair and elation, hope and doom, excitement and dread. If anyone could win such a grueling race as the one that had been suggested, Howard could. But Jonas was a tough competitor, and if Howard did manage to lose, she would be forced to marry the blackguard.

There was no way under the heavens that she would marry Jonas Armstrong now. But what could she do to ensure she didn’t have to? Howard was the cleverest man she’d ever met, but in all honesty, she hadn’t known him long enough to know that he would prevail. She could only wish that he would.

She tossed in her already rumpled bed, where she had lain awake all night thinking about things. A headache squeezed around her temples, and her thoughts refused to settle. What would she do if Howard lost the competition?

She would flee, that’s what she would do. No matter what her mother and father said, she was going to leave Cincinnati with Howard. If she had to leave the city in disgrace, never to see or speak to her family and friends again, then so be it.

She sucked in a breath, staring up at the canopy enclosing her bed. Could she really do it? Could she really run away with a man she’d known for a week, had barely been able to have a full conversation with? Could she forsake her entire life to start again in the wilds of the western frontier?

Yes. Yes, she could. It was by far a better option than staying meekly home and marrying a man who was as like as not to raise his hand to her. Someday, when she had a daughter, she would encourage her to do the same thing—to be bold and brave, to throw caution to the wind, and to defy the strictures of society if it meant she could be happy and follow her heart.

As thoughts of her future daughter and all the adventures she would have spun through Elizabeth’s restless mind, an odd, pinging sound came from the window. She ignored it at first, so wrapped up in fantasies of the brave, strong children she would have with Howard that the sound hardly reached her ears. But it came again, then again, then again.

At last, Elizabeth sat up with a frown, listening. The pinging came a fifth time, and with it a tiny crack. A muffled curse sounded outside.

Elizabeth gasped. “Howard.”

She threw her tangled bedcovers aside and leapt out of bed, running to the window. Sure enough, a tiny crack split the glass near the bottom. She ignored it, unlatching the window and throwing it open. A blast of cool, morning air swirled around her, sending gooseflesh along her skin and tightening her nipples against the flimsy cotton of her nightgown. Or perhaps that tightening was because of the sight of Howard standing in his shirtsleeves a few feet below her window.

“What a heaven-kissed vision,” he murmured at the sight of her. “It is as if the vales of night have sighed with pleasure and produced a goddess from their mist.”

Elizabeth was so relieved to see him—arms outstretched below her—that she could only giggle in response to his flowery language. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, brushing her unbound hair back from her face with both hands.

“Do not hide your midnight tresses from me, my love. I long to bury my face in them, to breath in your Elysian fragrance, and to lose myself to the bliss of your loveliness.”

“Howard.” She scolded him with a laugh, shaking her head, although the very ridiculousness of his honeyed words caused a distinct ache to pulse in delicate places.

“I would ask you to toss your hair down to me so that I might climb up to your tower, like a prince of old, but I fear time has not given you a chance to grow it long enough yet.” The dawn light may have been dim, but there was enough to see the sparkle of teasing in Howard’s eyes.

A bump sounded from somewhere deep in the house. Elizabeth straightened, pulling back into her room and turning to glance over her shoulder at the door. When no other sound followed, she thrust her head and shoulders back out and whispered to Howard, “Stay right there. I’m coming down.”

“Yes, my love.”

She shut the window before he could go off on another flowery tangent, and skittered to her bedroom door. It wasn’t until she made it downstairs and across the hall to the library, then out through the library door and into the dew-wet garden that she realized she’d forgotten slippers or a wrap. Her nightgown was barely enough to cover her. The greater shock was how delicious it felt to be all but naked as she skipped across the damp grass to Howard.

Sure enough, as she emerged around the corner of the house and beckoned him to follow her to a more secluded part of the garden where they could talk, his eyes shot straight to the curve of her breasts pressing against the thin cotton. Imagination wasn’t needed to see the morning chill in the buds of her nipples.

“My darling, you are ravishing,” Howard growled, his desire as undisguised as any of his other emotions, once they were safe behind the tool shed.

Elizabeth exhaled on a giggle and stepped into his embrace as soon as they stopped. “No, I suspect it is you who would like to be ravishing right now.”

“Damned if you’re right.” His arms snaked around her, one hand lowering to squeeze her backside.

With nothing but cotton between them, his touch felt as fiery as if it was flesh to flesh. Elizabeth gasped as he pulled her against him, her inner muscles quivering with expectation. He swooped in to kiss her with raw carnality, and heaven help her, she loved it. His mouth was fierce and demanding over hers. His tongue invaded, taking and tasting. His free hand spread across her back, coaxing her to press her breasts firmly against his chest, and the hand that had captured her backside lifted her to grind against the bulge in his trousers.

She was not naïve enough to mistake his intentions. Howard Haskell wanted her in the most sinful…no, the most
delicious
way possible. He held and kissed and grasped her not as a dainty, ladylike flower, but as a woman of flesh and blood and caverns that he longed to fill. Every naughty whisper she’d ever shared with her friends and their older, married sisters about the things that went on between men and women flared to vivid life.

“Oh, Howard,” she sighed, loving how wild and sensual his name sounded on her lips.

“Elizabeth,” he rumbled.

He abandoned her backside to raise a hand to the collar of her nightgown, and with one quick tug had the ribbon holding it closed loose in his hand. Another fluid flick of his wrist, and he tugged the cotton down, exposing her breast to the morning mist and to him.

Howard drew in a breath, then paused, eyes darting across their surroundings. A heartbeat later, he lifted her to straddle his hips, took a few short steps to the tool shed, and pressed her back against it. Balancing her against the wall at a height to match his, he bent over and flicked his tongue against her already pert nipple, then closed his mouth around it and sucked.

A cry ripped from Elizabeth’s lungs that shocked her with its wantonness. She writhed against him, wriggling her hips in an attempt to cause friction where it would do the most good. Her nightgown slipped off of her other shoulder in the process, exposing her other breast. Howard’s mouth was hot and damp as he kissed and suckled first one, then the other. The fire of an impending explosion began to build inside of her. If she could only angle her hips just so, undulate against him just the right way—

“We must stop.” He peeled back from her, panting heavily.

“No,” Elizabeth mewled. “No, I don’t want to stop. Take me, Howard, finish me now.”

He growled, his brazen, teasing mischief transformed into molten desire that was almost fearful in its intensity. Still balancing her against the wall, her legs spread open over his hips, he reached for the hem of her nightgown. His fingers brushed against her leg, following the line of her muscle up to the juncture of her thighs.

Elizabeth gasped as his fingers slid against the slick folds of her women’s flesh, and she arched her head back as much as she could against the shed.

“God, you’re wet,” Howard hissed, his fingers playing against her.

His touch felt so good that sweat broke out along her skin, and when he slipped two fingers inside of her, reaching deep, she felt as though she might leap out of that skin. She cried out, and he along with her, as his thumb found the nub of her pleasure and began to circle it. His fingers played in and out, stretching her, coiling the fire inside of her tighter and tighter. Her breasts swung free, nipples tight, as dawn light and Howard’s gaze caressed them.

Knowing he was looking at her in desire, feeling him stroke pleasure from her, was too much. She burst apart, inner muscles squeezing and releasing so hard and fast on his fingers that her explosion spurred her on to more and more intense pleasure instead of releasing the pressure. She rode his hand shamelessly until the throbbing softened to tremors, drawing out to sated bliss.

It was only as her body began to drift down from the heaven Howard had sent it to and her senses returned that she realized she must look like a shameless wanton, with her nightgown well below her breasts and hiked high above her hips, exposing the dark curls between them, Howard’s hand still buried in them. Her black hair was wild around her and she felt how pink and hot her face must look. Her restless panting emphasized how dark and tight her nipples were. Howard continued to stare at them.

“You must think me—”

“Absolutely exquisite.” Howard snapped his eyes up to meet hers, power and possession in his gaze. “You, my dear Elizabeth, are not only breathtakingly beautiful, you are astounding and magnificent. I am on the verge of unmanning myself in the presence of your passion.”

Indeed, she could still feel the stiffness of his manhood, trapped inside of his trousers, against her leg. She wanted him to unpin her from the shed wall so that she could reach her hands inside of his trousers and release the power of his masculinity. Oh yes, she and her friends had learned all about a man’s greatest glory and most inescapable weakness from the married sisters as well. In fact, she had long wanted to see for herself the fountain of a man’s seed as it was spilled under her touch. She wriggled her hips to grind against him.

But Howard continued to hold her with unquestioning mastery against the wall.

“Later, my love,” he whispered against her ear as he withdrew his hand from the place where it belonged and eased her to the ground. “I promise you that later, once my plan has begun to unfold, I will show you everything you want to see, carry you to the highest levels of bliss, and fill you with—” He paused, and she held her breath, meeting his eyes with expectation. Wickedness glittered through his expression. “Forget the fancy language. I’ll fill you. How about that? I’m large too, so I will fill you well and deep. You may even cry out as I sink home.”

His language was so blunt and scandalous that she wanted to laugh and squirm and get to it right then. “If I cry out, it will be for more.” Her smile lit with challenge as she met and held his gaze.

“Oh, Elizabeth,” he sighed. “I knew we were meant to be.”

“Of course we were.” She slid her arms along his shoulders, burying her fingers in his hair.

“And when we are together, I am going to do such naughty things to you.”

She caught her breath.

He leaned closer. “I am going to do things to you that are so scandalous you will faint if you catch yourself thinking about them in public.” His hands slid up her sides to grasp and squeeze her breasts. “And you will adore every one of them.”

She laughed, the sound breathy and dangerous in her ears. His hands felt perfect on her breasts, owning her. She surged into him, tilting her head up to kiss him, pouring every bit of her unstudied desire into the meeting of their mouths.

There was a fair shot that kiss would have evolved into more and broken every bit of Howard’s resolve if the sound of a door shutting from the direction of the house hadn’t intruded on the moment. Elizabeth gasped and tightened. She became aware all over again of her nightgown sagging all the way down to her belly. If not for the sleeves caught at her elbows, the garment would have fallen off.

Howard leaned back and broke their kiss, though his hands remained around her breasts. “We don’t have much time.” In a flash, he’d switched back to business.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

“My plan,” he began. “It requires a secluded spot. A place where the two of us can be…alone.” He pinched both of her nipples.

Elizabeth gasped, the ache between her legs flaring to life again. “Alone,” she repeated with all the heat Howard had put into the word and more.

“Yes.” He kissed her briefly. “Very much alone. And it may be to your benefit to have cushions or blankets on hand.”

Her insides quivered. The fire in his eyes left no question about what he planned to do in that secluded place with cushions. But how that was meant to help him win a race was a mystery to her. Did men gain some sort of supernatural ability after losing themselves in a woman?

“Anything,” she breathed out, not caring. “I’ll do anything for you.”

Howard flickered an eyebrow. “I’m hoping that you’ll do anything
with
me, my love.”

His throaty laugh was interrupted by the sound of Trudy greeting the chickens at the other end of the garden. “Monrin’ sweeties. Let’s see if you’ve got some eggs for me.”

“It’s our maid,” Elizabeth whispered. “She can’t see us like this.” She broke free of Howard and pulled her nightgown up over her shoulders.

Howard tilted his head to the side, considering her statement for a moment. At last, he shook his head and said, “You’re right. No sense in springing the trap before it’s ready.”

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at him as she started back to the house. “Before it’s ready?”

He caught up to her and swept her into his arms for one more kiss. “You’ll see, my dearest heart. I told you that I had a plan that will ensure we will be able to spend the rest of our lives together in wedded bliss.” His expression was so full of mischief that she believed he was every bit the devilish rogue her father had said he was.