Jodi Thomas - WM 1 (42 page)
Read Jodi Thomas - WM 1 Online
Authors: Texas Rain
Travis didn’t move.
“Suit yourself,” she finally said as she lifted her skirt and pulled the key from deep inside her petticoat pocket.
When she looked up, he seemed totally surprised and embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know ladies’ underwear had pockets.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did you McMurray men split one brain evenly among yourselves, or did you get short-changed?”
He grinned. “Maybe the widow’s right. Maybe I don’t know much about women. Sage usually wears trousers and when she does wear a dress, she has no use for a place to put a key.”
Rainey unlocked the door and he pushed it open, brushing her shoulder as he walked in ahead of her. “Lots of room,” he mumbled as he took one step and bumped into the bed.
“It’s plenty of room for me.” She gathered up a change of clothes. “I can go downstairs to change.”
“I’ll turn around.” He shifted until he was looking out the window. “I don’t want you that far away in case there’s trouble.” He tested the bed. “Mind if I sit down?”
Rainey bit her lip. She wanted to say that nothing had happened all day, surely she’d be all right in the bathroom. The hip tub and washstand wouldn’t harm her. “Suit yourself,” she finally answered.
She unbuttoned the buttons at her throat and hesitated. “I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered. “Not with you so near.”
He looked back at her. “Don’t you trust me?”
“I do. But this isn’t proper.”
“And sleeping with me in your nightgown is?” he questioned, then turned back to the window. “Forget I said that. Just get changed.”
She unbuttoned her blouse as he opened the window. He hadn’t shown any interest in her all day; why should she think he’d change suddenly?
“What was the first sign you saw or heard that told you trouble was near the other morning?”
She slipped out of her skirt. “We heard the four horses in the alley.”
“Four?” He glanced back at her, then raised one hand as if to say he was sorry and returned to stare out the window. “I thought there were three men.”
Folding her skirt and blouse, Rainey tried to remember. “Three men came into the house. One was killed in the foyer, two rode away with me. But . . . I remember looking down and seeing four horses.”
Excited, she leaned one knee on the bed beside him and gripped his shoulders, turning him to face her. “Travis. Why would they bring four horses?”
Travis frowned. “Maybe they planned for Sage to ride one? No,” he answered his own question. “You said they put a bag over you. They would have had to take the time to tie you up if you were riding alone.”
“Maybe there was another man out front.”
“Maybe, but why didn’t he ride off with them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember them saying anything about anyone but Haskell and Frank, the brother in black whom Dottie shot.” Rainey moved closer and asked, “What happened to Haskell?”
Travis turned to look at her. “They brought him in to question. He said he planned to hold Seth at gunpoint and get the reward, but when he saw them all at once he chickened out. All the money he got was the double eagle they offered him for calling the slave over.”
He looked past her toward the door. “You’d better get dressed. The extra horse could be nothing, but it’s a clue. We probably need to tell Dillon. If there was someone with them, who knows what extremes he’ll go to keep quiet.”
She looked down, realizing she wore only her undergarments. Travis wasn’t even looking at her. She had a feeling if she stripped down to her skin, he’d probably jump out the window to get away from her.
She stood, walking right into his range of vision.
He looked back toward the window.
“How long until we need to be at the judge’s?” she asked.
“It’s another hour until dark. The judge likes to dine late in southern style. We’ve probably got a few hours if you want to go by the station first.”
Rainey studied his profile. Her man of oak. How could he have held her so tenderly last night and not look at her now? She guessed it would be a waste of time to ask him what was wrong. He’d never tell her.
She touched his shoulder. When he turned to see what she wanted, she moved between his knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. If he was no longer attracted to her, he was about to have to prove it.
For a moment he didn’t move.
She leaned into him, letting her body make contact with his as her cheek pressed against his hair.
When he looked up at her, she held his face in her hands. She could think of nothing funny or smart to say. She voiced the only thing on her mind. “Don’t you want me anymore?”
He snapped. His arms circled her waist and he crushed her to him. He buried his face against her throat and breathed deeply. “Want you,” he finally said in an angry rumble. “I haven’t been able to breathe with the need for you all day.”
Twisting, he lay her on the tiny bed and pressed her to the mattress. When they came face-to-face, he kissed her hard with a hunger that shocked her.
She shook with the sudden flood of feelings volting through her body.
Travis pulled an inch away, breathing heavy against her ear. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Rainey. I think I’ve answered your question; now answer mine. Do you welcome my advance?”
Trying her best to stop shaking, she whispered, “Yes.”
He kissed her gently then, as he had the first time. Slowly he lowered his body over her, allowing her time to welcome him.
She lay her hands back on the pillow above her head and invited his advance. When he finished kissing her lips, he moved to her throat as if he were dying of thirst and she was his only drink. She could feel his breathing as his chest pressed against her breasts, and his warm breath tickled the flesh he’d left damp with kisses. Any doubt that he wanted her was erased as his hands moved over the cotton of her underthings, feeling, exploring.
“You feel so good,” he whispered. “So soft. I’ve been starving for the need to touch you since the minute you left my bed last night. If I could have, I would have climbed the stairs to you.”
She let out a small cry of pleasure when he covered the camisole over her breast with his hand.
“And this,” he added against her ear, “feels better than anything I’ve ever held in my hand.”
She turned her head away, trying to remember to breathe. When she looked back, she saw only worry in his dark eyes. “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you?” His hand still lay on her breast, but he was no longer branding her with his touch.
She smiled. “No, you didn’t hurt me.” She wanted to ask him why he’d been so cold all day. Why he hadn’t touched her or even kissed her when they were alone. But his actions now told her all she needed to know.
She tugged his hand away. He watched in silence as she untied her camisole and let the cotton fall open. Then, she put his hand back on her breast with no material between them.
“Continue,” she whispered against his ear.
He laughed. “I always follow orders.”
A few moments later she cried again in pleasure as his kisses moved down her throat and found the breast he’d already warmed with his hand.
She rocked gently in paradise as he explored her body, kissing and tasting. The gentle warrior she’d seen before returned as he touched her in places no man had ever seen. It crossed her mind, as his fingers molded into the flesh at the back of her leg, that maybe she should be shy, or even hesitant, but Rainey could never pull off such a lie.
He took his time showing her that he thought she was beautiful, and with each touch, each kiss, she wanted more.
As the room darkened into shadows, her underthings fell one by one to the floor of her tiny room and she was wrapped in his warmth. He took great care in moving his hands from her hair down along the center of her back to her hips, then he’d turn her to face him and kiss her until she felt she was floating. While she drifted, he explored, gently pulling her legs apart until she felt a fire of need build deep in her belly.
When she stretched like a cat across him, he whispered, “I want you, Rainey. I want to watch the graceful way you move all day and hold you like this every night. I want to move inside you so deep that we won’t even know where I end and you begin. Marry me.”
“No,” she answered, no longer angry at him because he asked. “I can’t.”
He pulled her close. “And I have to have you.” He spread his hand wide across the inside of her thigh and gripped her flesh. Covering her mouth with his, he caught her sigh of pleasure and tasted deeply as she pressed her body gently against him in wave after wave of sensations.
She wanted to feel his flesh against hers, but when she began unbuttoning his shirt, he stopped her.
“I have about one ounce of self-control left, my fairy, so don’t push this further. I have to think of your safety and be ready to act without having to look for my clothes first.”
She laughed. “But it’s not fair. I have nothing on.”
He kissed her hand. “I agree it’s not fair, and believe me I’m fully aware you have nothing on.” He ran his hand along the curves of her side stopping to grip one hip.
Fisting his other hand into the curls of her hair, he pulled her head back. “You have no idea how perfect you are.” He kissed his way down to her breasts. “I’ll never again look at you clothed without seeing you like this.”
Rainey hardly noticed the room slip into darkness as she drifted on wave after wave of pleasure. She knew there was more to lovemaking, much more, but she felt she might go mad if he went further. She’d simply float off the edge of passion and shatter into a million tiny drops of paradise.
They lay together for a long while. His hands slowly circled over her body, exploring, getting to know every curve, learning how she liked to be touched. She wanted to tell him that he could have her if he wanted. Hadn’t she already made it plain that she wanted him? But she didn’t talk, for she knew if they did, they’d only argue. For now maybe it was enough for both of them to hold each other. She’d start believing in marriage when he started believing in love.
The opening of a door sounded from floors below.
Travis brushed his fingers across her mouth and pointed at her clothes. She stood, fumbling in the shadows, and dressed. He shifted and lit a candle without making a sound. She could still see passion in his eyes, and when his gaze moved down her dress, she knew what he was thinking.
Silently she packed her few things and followed him down the stairs.
Mrs. Vivian sat on the last step of the stairs in the foyer when they reached the bottom. Rainey expected the woman to yell at her for having a man upstairs, but she stared at them with glazed eyes.
Travis touched her shoulder. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
She looked up. “I’m finished. I’m bankrupt. No one will ever rent from me again.”
“Folks have short memories,” Travis said. “They’ll forget in time.”
Rainey wasn’t so sure. They were still talking about the French girl from years ago. “The women will come back.” She tried to sound hopeful. “You can cover the outlaw’s bloodstain with a rug and his death will become part of the legend of this place.”
Mrs. Vivian shook her heard. “I tried to keep it going. I tried everything. But now I’m finished. When my husband comes back, he’ll blame me for not keeping the house.”
Travis shrugged at Rainey, but tried again. “Rainey’s right, a rug would cover it up.”
Mrs. Vivian looked at them with vacant eyes. “And who will cover the woman’s body on my back porch,” she asked as if they had the answer. “Who will wash up her blood?”
CHAPTER 31
TRAVIS HELPED RAINEY GET MRS. VIVIAN INTO HER room. The scarecrow of a woman seemed nervous that they were in her private quarters. Travis figured it was because she had enough furniture for five rooms crammed into the space. She’d even suspended drapes in places where there were no windows to give the look of tiny rooms within the area. He felt like if he breathed he’d knock something over. He stopped about three feet inside and watched the landlord crumble into a chair by the window.
“Lock the door when I leave,” Travis whispered to Rainey. “Will you be all right in here?”
“I’ll be fine.” Rainey didn’t look too sure.
He turned at the door and took one last glance at the woman he knew very well by touch. Rainey looked so beautiful when she was trying to be brave, he thought.
“I’ll not open the door until I hear your voice on the other side,” she whispered, and he fought the urge to return for just one last kiss before the world stepped between them.
Travis looked over at Mrs. Vivian and decided he had the easier job of going to look for a body. Rainey had to deal with her.
He stepped to the front porch and yelled at the first rider passing to go to the Ranger station and tell anyone there that McMurray needed assistance at Askew House. The young kid of about fifteen galloped away, excited to help.
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