McCrory's Lady (36 page)

      
“Well, you've worked enough. I'm taking you to bed—you need some rest,” he amended too hastily. Then, an unwilling smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Doctor's orders.”

      
“And we couldn't disobey Doc Torres' orders, could we?” she asked primly, wiping her lips daintily on her good lace handkerchief, which had to serve as a napkin since every piece of available clean white cotton was being used in the infirmary.

      
Rather than sleep in the crowded attic where the cries of the sick from below and the snores of his men would keep them awake, Colin had appropriated Caleb Lamp's quarters for his family. They walked down the long hall and through an open door. Although none too tidy a housekeeper, the Indian agent had made the spacious rooms quite comfortable.

      
“You can tell these are Lamp's rooms, can't you?” she asked, looking at the ugly oversized horsehair sofa. Cigar ashes spilled over the edge of a fancy glass ashtray placed on the low table in front of it. A well-stocked liquor cabinet in the opposite corner and a large oak desk and narrow pine library table with four chairs completed the sitting room.

      
“I figured since the agent's vacated the premises until the epidemic is over, we might as well use his facilities for the night. There are two bedrooms. Ours is through that doorway. I'm going to talk to Ed and Eden and make certain they use the guest room Potkin slept in last night. I think Lamp's bed is big enough to hold us.”

      
His voice was coolly neutral, but a spark fired Maggie's heartbeat when he spoke so casually. He did not want to sleep without her!

      
“Ed can take care of herself, and Eden will be along when she wants to, Colin. Your daughter's a grown woman now. Doing this work with the doctor has been good for her. It's bringing her out of that shell of isolation.”

      
“Sick Indians aren't going to cast stones at her like the proper folks in Prescott,” he said bitterly.

      
“Maybe, those proper folks won't matter in a bit,” she said obliquely. “Just tell her where she's to sleep. Don't try to drag her back here.”

      
He shook his head. “As if I could. Girl's as stubborn as you are.”

      
“She's as stubborn as her Scots father,” Maggie replied with a smile. “I'll have a little talk with Aaron and see that she's sensible. You be sensible, too. Get some sleep.” Colin closed the door and headed down the hall to search out his daughter and Torres.

      
While he was gone, Maggie decided to take a quick sponge bath. The long, dusty ride had left her feeling decidedly limp and bedraggled. She picked up the kerosene lamp on the desk and lit the wick with a match from the dish beside it, then walked to the door of Lamp's bedroom. Opening it, she saw a large four-poster bed, unmade, and a squat trunk at its foot. Wrinkling her nose at the sheets, she set down the lantern and pulled open the trunk. It was filled with clean blankets of fine quality. “He'd never give anything so good to the Apaches.”

      
Stripping and remaking the bed took only a few minutes. Then, Maggie checked the big pitcher atop the dry sink. Full. Lamp had not struck her as the kind of man who was overly fastidious. Good. She poured a generous amount into the basin and found some towels in the chest, also unused. In minutes, she had discarded her clothes and soaped herself with a bar of spicy lye soap that Lamp must have used for shaving purposes—when he used it at all.

      
Closing her eyes, she began to sluice off, letting the water trickle in cool, cleansing rivulets over her breasts and down the curve of her spine. Heaven. That was how Colin found her when he quietly opened the door to the bedroom. He stood frozen, unable to tear his eyes from the glistening curves of her ripe glowing flesh. The droplets raced over the swell of her buttock and clung to the high upthrust point of her breast as she stood in profile with her head thrown back and those thick dark red lashes fanned down over her cheeks. She had tied her mass of auburn curls in a loose topknot. Damp tendrils caressed her face, and she blew one away from her lips as she raised the sopping cloth to squeeze it over one shoulder.

      
His mouth went dry and his heart hammered in his chest. He felt the blood rushing lower to pool in his aching groin. Hard and persistent, the thick length of his staff pushed against his fly until he was mindless with wanting her. Colin forced himself to wait a moment, bringing his body under control while he feasted on the glorious beauty of his wife at her bath.

      
Then he could wait no longer. Crossing the floor in a couple of swift, silent strides, he gently took the cloth from her hand. “Allow me.” His voice was low and husky as he squeezed the water from the rag, letting it trickle across her back.

      
Her eyes flew open and she gasped softly. “I didn't expect you back so soon,” she whispered.

      
“The hell you didn't,” he replied, his voice rough but his hands gentle as he ran the cloth over her back. His fingertips followed in its wake, gliding across the wet slippery flesh, caressing the delicate bones of her spine, grazing her soft, rounded buttocks.

      
He moved around to lave the front of her. His hands spanned her waist, glided over the slight swell of her belly. Irresistibly drawn, they moved higher, cupping her breasts until she let out a low moan. He could feel her nipples hardening into even tighter points. Her whole body trembled, yet she stood very still as if waiting to see what he would do next.

      
“Undress me, Maggie. I need a bath, too.” His voice murmured low, softening the command seductively.

      
Taking a ragged breath, she complied, unfastening his heavy cartridge belt with clumsy fingers. He took it from her hand and tossed it onto a chair as she began to unbutton his shirt and pull it from him. He shrugged out of it, his breathing labored now as her small soft fingers buried themselves in the pelt of dark hair on his chest. Her hands moved lower, slowly inching their way past the hard flat plain of his belly to tug at his belt.

      
Colin pulled it free and tossed it onto the growing pile of clothes as she worked the buttons of his fly. When his straining phallus was free and he could feel her cool soft hands gliding over its heat, he pulled her against him, burying his face against her throat with muttered curses that sounded more like words of love.

      
Maggie could feel his tongue, hot and slick as it caught the beads of water pooled at the hollow of her throat. His whiskers, in contrast, scraped roughly as his head moved lower. Then, he took one nipple between his lips and rolled it around. She clutched his shoulders and clung to him as his tongue circled the wet hard point with velvety persistence, sending jolts of raw pleasure throbbing through her.

      
Colin took the other breast in his mouth and heard her moan his name. Her hands were sliding down his chest and tugging at his denims, pulling them open. He picked her up in his arms and strode to the bed before her busy hands could touch him again and send him spiraling over the edge.

      
“I'll get the blankets wet,” she whispered as he set her on the bed.

      
“We'll generate enough heat to dry them,” he said with a rough laugh. “We always do.” He yanked off his boots and slid the tight pants over his hips, kicking them away.

      
“I haven't bathed you,” she said, looking at his hard, sweaty body. The tangy smell of honest male perspiration and heady male musk overpowered her senses. At that moment, Maggie knew she would have licked every inch of him clean—and loved doing it. Her eyes traveled up the muscles of his legs, pausing speculatively at his pulsing sex, then following the thin vee of dark hair that widened out across his chest.

      
When their eyes met at last, he swallowed hard and rasped out, “Then come do it.”

      
She scooted off the bed and seized the rag from the basin where he had flung it. Soaping it up, she approached him and began by wiping his face, tracing the strong, clean lines of his brow, cheekbones and jaw, now dark with an evening shadow of whiskers. Those whiskey eyes watched her like a hawk studying a plump rabbit, ready to swoop down and carry it off. But he held himself still, fists clenched at his sides as she rinsed his face and began to suds his chest.

      
“Hold out your arms,” she said, and her voice broke as he complied. Her hands applied the wet rag to the swells and curves of his biceps, then down the lightly furred length of his forearms to those clever hands with their long sensitive fingers. Every inch of him was hard with muscles made taut by his closely leashed desire.
At least we have this in common, don't we, Colin?

      
He willed himself to stand still as the cloth moved down his torso toward the core of his heat, the throbbing shaft that trembled with eagerness. His eyes closed and his lips pulled across his teeth in a feral grimace of concentration. She surprised him, slipping past his sex and kneeling to wash his legs, first one, then the other.

      
When she stood up and walked to the basin, taking her time to pour fresh water and wash out the cloth, his eyes flew open and he studied her. “You're enjoying this,” he accused.

      
Maggie glanced from his tense arousal to her own damp glistening flesh, soft and pale next to his sun-bronzed hardness. “And you aren't?” Her voice was teasing and breathless at the same time. She walked slowly back to him and wrapped the cool cloth around the heat of his flesh. All breath left his body in a sudden gasp.

      
“Aaah, Maggie,” he groaned as she plied the rag with deft thoroughness, stroking the length of his phallus, then gently cupping him and letting the water trickle down his legs.

      
“Now, turn around so I can wash your back.” She tried to sound calm but her own breathing was becoming ragged. He turned away from her, exposing the broad expanse of his back. He was so big, so tall, she had to stand on her tiptoes and hold onto his shoulder for balance as she plied the cloth.

      
Finishing that, she knelt. His buttocks were small and hard. Like the rest of his body, his back was marked by a number of scars. One long ugly slash snaked around his side and ended on his left hip. She traced it with her fingertips and her lips grazed it, tasting him.

      
“Enough of this,” he growled, turning and pulling her up into his arms.

      
Their wet flesh melded wickedly as her breasts slid across his chest and his staff pressed into her belly. Their arms enfolded, their hands gliding, caressing. The moisture added an incredible sensuality to simple touches.

      
“I never thought lye soap could be an aphrodisiac,” Colin whispered raggedly as his mouth came down to claim hers in a fierce hard kiss.

Chapter Sixteen

      
“There is nothing quite like good, clean fun.” Maggie chuckled against his chest as he swept her into his arms again and rolled them onto the bed.

      
After that she could speak no more, for his hands found her, slick and wet. His fingers opened her petals, caressing, probing, withdrawing, then resuming the magic until she tossed her head back and forth against the mattress.

      
She lay with her hair spread like dark fire across the faded blue blanket. Her eyes were closed and her face was flushed with passion as she writhed beneath his touch. The flickering lantern light bathed her skin pale gold. His hands glided across her soft, silky hips and her legs fell open, inviting him to bury himself in the dark burnished curls at the apex of her thighs.

      
How many men had gazed on the splendid beauty of her nakedness? Countless others, he knew, and bitterness filled him. Yet had any of them been given the gift of her passion? Maggie was an excellent poker player and a cool woman in a dangerous situation, but she was not this kind of an actress. He had known his share of whores and they always responded with rote monotony, merely play-acting pleasure, seldom with the slightest conviction. He felt in his bones that her response was genuine.

      
Maggie gradually became aware of his troubled eyes studying her while his caresses, so swift and frenzied a moment ago, grew slow and languorous. Her eyes opened and she looked up into his face as he lowered his head to kiss her, covering her body with his. Before their lips met she read his tender expression and her heart nearly burst with joy. Perhaps there was hope, she dared to believe as she returned his kiss, softly tasting, exploring.

      
He rimmed her lips with the tip of his tongue, then took her lower lip into his mouth, tugging gently on it. When he released it, his tongue invaded her mouth in swift thrusts. She captured it with her own, twining them around, following his retreat, tasting of him until he finally pulled away, trailing wet licks and bites over her jaw and throat. He raised up over her with his arms extended and slowly thrust into her, holding very still for a moment.

      
They stared into each other's eyes, both letting down their guard, mirroring the powerful emotions they felt, emotions that went far beyond the joining of their bodies. Maggie felt the pressure of his hardness invading her, filling her even as he had invaded her life and filled it. She could never again imagine existing without him. He gave her pain, but he also gave her joy. And she knew she would always love her husband.

      
Colin was enveloped by her heat, sweetly pulling him down into a whirlpool of feelings he had believed long dead. In truth, these were feelings he had never in his life experienced. Was this love? Afraid to answer the question, he relinquished his control and began to move deeply within her.