Merline Lovelace (10 page)

“You didn’t say anything about installments when we set the stakes.”

“I know.”

She looked away. Pink feathered her cheeks. When she looked up at him, he saw her throat work, as if she had to force the words up and out.

“It’s only a few hours to dawn. You said you wanted to ride out at first light. That doesn’t give us time to, er, pay the interest in full.”

Despite the tight kink in his belly, Jack felt a grin start. “I hate to be the one to tell you this,
Miss
Bonneaux, but what I have in mind doesn’t usually take a few hours.”

“How…how very unfortunate.” Her chin still resting on his knuckle, she looked him square in the eye. “What I have in mind, Mr. Sloan, will take all night.”

The grin fell right off his face. She was bluffing! She had to be bluffing. He’d bet every last cent in his pocket that demure, dainty Miss Bonneaux didn’t have the foggiest notion how long it took a woman to service a man and vice versa.

Or did she?

She’d told Jack her stepfather was a cavalry officer. She couldn’t have grown to womanhood without some understanding of what went on at the
cribs and hurdy-gurdy houses that sprang up like weeds around army posts.

Or could she?

The uncertainty ate at him. Damn the woman! He couldn’t figure her out to save his soul, and his was a soul that surely needed saving. Nor could he shake the suspicion that she’d been stringing him along since she dealt the first card.

To hell with it! He was done with being strung.

“All right. We’ll do this your way.” Scooping her into his arms, he started for the muslin curtain that divided the parlor from the back room. “I’ll take the first installment now.”

Startled by her abrupt shift from vertical to horizontal, she grabbed at his neck. “Don’t you think we need to discuss the exact terms first?”

“We’ll negotiate them out as we…” He stopped, his jaw dropping. “What is that?”

Disbelieving, he stared at the monstrous bed. Suzanne shifted in his arms and followed along as he took in the gaudy paint and four snarling creatures.

“Mother Featherlegs got it from Ying Li’s father when she bought the girl.”

“Good Lord!” A horrible thought occurred to Jack. “We didn’t just buy it back along with the girl, did we?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. Although…” Her gaze went back to the massive piece. “It
would make an excellent trousseau for Ying Li. Something for her to take with her into her new life.”

Jack kept his doubts about Ying Li’s new life to himself. The girl hadn’t looked to him as if she had the spine to make a new start, but she was the last of his concerns at the moment. Striding over to the bed, he opened his arms. Suzanne landed on the straw mattress in a whirl of blue serge and bare legs.

His heart jumped straight into his throat. She wasn’t wearing her drawers! God help him, she wasn’t wearing anything under her skirt at all.

His hands went straight for the buckle on his gun belt.

A
t the thump of Jack’s gun against the bedpost, Suzanne’s heart skipped a beat. The look in his eyes when he hooked the belt over the dog’s outstretched paw killed any thought that she could negotiate the terms of her surrender.

Any thought that she
wanted
to negotiate flew right out of her head when he leaned over her. Bending a knee on the straw mattress, he slid a palm under her hair, pulled her forward and brought his mouth down on hers.

On a surprised reflex, Suzanne jerked away.

“I still feel you,” she said breathlessly, feathering her fingers against her lips. “From before.”

In that moment, everything changed for Jack. He wanted this woman so bad he ached all the way down to his boot heels. He’d come after her, fully intending to take what she’d staked on the turn of
the cards, but he’d cut off his hand before he’d bruise her soft flesh.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He started to straighten, intending to end matters, but she hooked a hand around his neck. Face flushed, eyes bright as stars, she brushed her lips along his.

“I was just surprised. It’s all right. Truly.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

So sure, Suzanne thought she might die if he didn’t claim the first installment. She stretched upward, curled both arms around his neck, took more, gave more.

He tasted of whiskey and tobacco, smelled of smoke and leather. Her mouth opened, and her tongue flicked against teeth and slick, smooth flesh. Arching her back, she dragged him down with her.

They landed in a tangle on the rustling mattress. He braced his weight on his arms to keep from crushing her into the straw, but Suzanne wasn’t interested in such noble restraint. Not for the moment, anyway. She wanted crushing. Her whole body ached for the feel of his pressing hard on hers. She clutched at his shoulders, urging him down.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said again, re
sisting while he trailed kisses from her mouth to her chin to her throat.

“You’re not. You are most definitely not hurting… Oh!”

With a little gasp, she bucked at the feel of his hand sliding under her jacket to close over a silk-covered breast.

“Easy, darlin’.” His voice was low, his breath hot in her ear. “We’ll take this slow and easy.”

He
might intend to take it slow and easy. Suzanne was about to crawl out of her skin. His palm felt hot through the thin silk; his fingers were skilled on her soft, mounded flesh. When the nipple drew up into a tight, hard bud, Jack teased it first with his hand, then, pushing apart the silk, with his mouth and teeth and tongue.

Suzanne’s head went back against the heavily scented sheets. Eyes closed, she fought a moan as he peeled her jacket and the borrowed robe off her shoulders. With an arm under her waist, he lifted her up just enough to shove the bunched material down her arms, leaving both breasts bare and quivering.

The thought buzzed around in the back of her head that it was time to call a halt. Past time. She’d staked everything she had, everything she was desperately coming to want, on the turn of a card. Following her instincts, she’d played to Jack’s pair
of nines. He’d won that hand, but Suzanne fully intended to win the next.

Or that was her plan until Jack’s rough whisper penetrated her whirling thoughts.

“You’re so beautiful. Soft and smooth. Like thick, new-skimmed cream.”

His weight lay heavy on her now, pinning her to the mattress. Somehow his knee had slipped between hers. With a flash of heat, Suzanne remembered the way she’d ridden his thigh earlier this evening. Her belly clenched in anticipation of the same hard pressure, the same rocking, dizzying, delicious sensation.

The stubble on his cheeks and chin scraped her skin as he trailed kisses to her throat, the hollow between her shoulder and neck, her breast.

When he found a tight, hard nipple, streaks of pleasure shot straight to her belly. Toes curling, Suzanne marveled at the extraordinary sensations.

So this was what caused women to shed their virtue like old cloaks! These sweet, shivery bursts of delight. They heated her skin, set fire to her senses. Instead of protesting when Jack shifted his attentions from one breast to the other, she arched her back and offered herself eagerly.

Deliberately, she closed her mind to the shrieks of her conscience. The Misses Merriweather would faint dead away if they could see their star pupil stripped to the waist, with Jack Sloan’s stubbled
cheeks dark against her pale breasts. She refused to even imagine her mother’s reaction. Or the colonel’s! All she could think about, all she cared about, was the feel of Jack’s callused palm and the hot wash of his breath on her skin.

He was good at this, damn him! Too good. He knew just how to plump her tingling flesh, just when to stroke and when to suckle. With wicked deliberation, he alternated between slow, sensual tugs and sharp little nips. Suzanne thought she’d go mad, was sure she’d burst into a thousand pieces. The scrape of his teeth on her nipple caused a starburst of sensation that hovered between pleasure and pain.

She wanted more. Her body craved it. Squirming, she tried to work free of the twisted silk, wanting to touch him the way he was touching her. Wanting him to touch more than just her breasts.

It was then that she realized how close she’d come to total abandonment. Almost weeping with regret, she croaked out a plea.

“Enough.” Her voice was so low and hoarse she scarcely recognized it. “Jack, please.”

He raised his head and stared down at her. His gray eyes glittered behind his lashes.

“This…” She gulped in a shuddering breath. “This is enough for the first installment.”

“Is it?”

His body felt rock hard every place it indented
hers. Red tinged his cheekbones above the dark stubble. Sudden doubts shivered through Suzanne. Would he heed her plea? Did she really want him to?

“Let me up.”

He didn’t move. Hampered by his weight, Suzanne couldn’t move, either. She felt a flutter of panic, quickly come and just as quickly gone. He wouldn’t force her. Not Jack. But the fact that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind that intent look made her decidedly nervous.

“Let me up,” she said again, more firmly.

“In a minute. First I want to know why you folded your hand.”

“What?”

“You won that poker hand tonight, Suzanne. Why did you fold?”

Her head whirled. Here she was, sprawled under the man, as near to naked as didn’t matter. Her skin still burned where his cheek had scraped it. Her nipples ached from his kisses. She’d had to fight with everything in her against the urge to give herself to him, and all the time he’d been thinking about the cards?

“What makes you think I won?” she asked, more than a little piqued.

“I’ve played a few hands of stud poker over the years. You dealt yourself a pair of aces, then
changed your mind and tossed in your hand. Why, Suzanne?”

He was guessing. He had to be guessing. She could still brazen this out.

“Really!” It was difficult to infuse both disdain and disbelief into her voice with her bare breasts still quivering, but Suzanne managed both. “Are you implying that I cheated?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m stating a fact.”

“I refuse to discuss the matter with you until you let me up.”

“Tell me.”

She put a huff in her voice. “This is absurd! What in heaven’s name makes you think I cheated?”

“A person doesn’t ask for the shuffle unless they want a feel for the cards before the cut. You won the cut, and you dealt yourself the hand you wanted. Why did you throw it in?”

“What difference does it make what I threw in. You won, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t. You lost. On purpose. Why, Suzanne?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Exasperated, irritated and rather embarrassed now, she tipped her chin. “Let me up, Jack. I refuse to discuss this or any other matter in such an…an undignified position.”

“You didn’t think it so undignified a few
minutes ago,” he pointed out, quite unnecessarily, she thought.

Thankfully, he eased his weight to one side so she didn’t have to respond to that particularly ill-bred comment. Disdaining his assistance, she scrambled off the bed and jerked her twisted garments into some semblance of order. When Jack rose as well, she eyed him with a mix of wariness and indignation.

“May I remind you, sir, you were the one who proposed the table stakes in the first place?”

“I don’t need reminding. What I need to know is why you appeared so willing to pay them, or why you thought to do it with this crazy idea of installments.”

Heat warmed Suzanne’s cheeks. She wasn’t sure she herself understood the insane impulse that had led her to agree to the outrageous stakes, much less throw in her hand. Her promise to help Matt and Ying Li was part of it, of course, but only part. The real reason, the overriding reason, stood before her.

She’d gambled on Jack. She was still gambling on Jack. Taking her courage in both hands, she tried to express her jumbled thoughts.

“We seem to…to strike sparks off each other. I’ve felt them, and so have you.”

He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t, after what had just happened between them. Drawing in a long,
tremulous breath, she reached out and laid a palm against his cheek.

“Those sparks could burn us…or ignite the kind of sure, steady flame that gives both warmth and light.”

For a moment, a mere second or two, Suzanne thought she saw something that might have been understanding or agreement or hope in his eyes. It was gone before she could decide which, and a familiar look came over his face. She recognized that cold, flat expression now. It was the one he pulled on whenever she got too close.

Grabbing her wrist, he yanked it down. “Get this straight. All I was playing for was a roll between the sheets with a prime piece of woman-flesh.”

Her cheeks burned at hearing him put it in such blunt terms, but she held her ground. “If that’s all you wanted, why didn’t you take your
roll
tonight?”

When he had her so hot and eager.

The words hung in the air between them, unspoken but as plain as if Suzanne had shouted them.

“I’ll take it when I’m good and ready,” he shot back, “but I want to make sure you understand a few things first.”

“What things?”

His fingers tightened cruelly. “Don’t be mistak
ing these sparks flying between us, sweetheart. You’ve raised a heat in me, I admit it. It’s like a fiery itch just under my skin, one that needs a good scratching. But that’s all it is.”

She wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. Her eyes flashing, she shook her head.

“It’s more than that, Jack. You know it is. It is for me, anyway.”

He made a rude sound. His mouth curled downward in a way Suzanne had come to hate.

“Are you trying to say you’ve tumbled boots over bustle in love with me?”

“No, of course not. We hardly know each other. But they’re there, Jack. Whatever caused them, the sparks are there. Who knows what they might lead to if we…”

“There’s only one place they
can
lead. Don’t try to dress this up in fine feathers, Suzanne. Women like you don’t set up housekeeping with gunfighters. You’re intrigued, maybe. Fascinated, even, by the aura of danger that comes with men like me. You want a taste of the danger, a little thrill on the side, but that’s all you want.”

“Indeed?” she said frigidly.

“Yes,
indeed.
You’re not the first lady to send me sideways glances, and certainly not the first female to wonder if the piece I carry between my legs matches the size and firepower of the one strapped to my thigh.”

Suzanne pursed her lips, considered all possible replies and came up with only one.

“Hooah!”

His brows slashed down. “What did you say?”

“That, sir, is the biggest pile of hooah I’ve ever heard.”

Silence descended. Forgetting that he still held her wrist in a brutal grip and that her heart was thundering like the twelve-pounders the artillery corps fired during practice session, she stared him down.

“Does that mean what I think it does?” he asked finally.

“Yes.”

Cavalry troopers used the old army expression to refer to anything and everything, from a turn on guard mount, to a new commanding officer, to a steaming pile of horse droppings. Suzanne couldn’t think of anything more appropriate to describe what Jack was trying to shovel her way. Angry now, she yanked her wrist free.

“You may choose to phrase what’s happening between us in vulgar terms if you wish to. You may even deny that it’s happening. But that doesn’t alter the fact that we both
want
it to.”

His answer came back just as hot, just as quick. “Wanting’s not enough! Not for you, Suzanne. You deserve more. And I’m trying to tell you, as plain as I know how, you won’t get it from me.”

Just like that, he capped the head of steam she had building. He was serious, she saw. Dead serious.

“I’m good for exactly what we wagered,” he said fiercely. “A nice, sweaty toss in the straw. That’s all I can give you. All I can give any woman.”

“Why?”

“Jesus!” He shoved his hand through his hair. “I told you! I’m living on borrowed time.”

“Who isn’t? I survived cholera as a child, Jack, and an attack by murdering mule drivers. I’ve seen what smallpox can do when it runs through a fort or an Indian village. We’re all of us living on borrowed time.”

“We’re not all walking targets, dammit! Do you know how many drunken wranglers or swaggering bucks have come after me, thinking to prove themselves men by outdrawing Black Jack Sloan? Whoever’s with me becomes a target, too, Suzanne. I wouldn’t ask any woman to take that risk, even if I wanted to.”

She had to know. “
Do
you want to?”

“I’m telling you that what I want doesn’t matter two hoots in hell. That’s just the way things are.”

“Then change the way things are. Stop making yourself a target. Hang up your gun. Walk away from the next man who challenges you.”

His jaw worked. “I can’t.”