My Darling Gunslinger (15 page)

Tyler Morgan was an intelligent man, never mind his lack of formal education. In no time at all he would uncover Sebastian’s identity and the threat that followed him. It would take little more than one slip, Magnus in a rage naming her Countess or Akeem teasing Sebastian with a deferential bow. One day he would come upon Magnus tutoring Sebastian with a revolver or rifle, or Akeem instructing her in the proper method to snap a man’s neck.

Good gracious, had the man come upon her in the Pleasure Palace even five minutes later that afternoon, he would have found her tossing her knives at the target behind the very tapestry he’d pinner her against, pummeling the sand bag hidden in the roof with her fists, or practicing her footwork and kicks on the leather mat.

It was a wonder Ty hadn’t already realized he lived with a houseful of warriors and the young lord they had pledged to protect.

Charlotte could only surmise that he’d been too distracted by his injuries, too preoccupied learning his way around the ranch, and too intent upon avoiding her to recognize the truth of their precarious situation.

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the study door.

Ty stood at the window, one hand wrapped around the sill, the other holding a sweet-smelling cheroot. His gaze was fixed on the fields dotted with cattle, the hills beyond where sheep grazed in the darkening evening, and the mountains off in the distance.

Charlotte halted over the threshold, her gaze sweeping over his profile, taking in the mahogany hair brushed back from his face, the decadent ripeness of his bottom lip as he lifted the cheroot to his mouth, the hollows beneath his cheekbones when as he pulled the smoke deep into his lungs.

Dressed in dungarees and a dark shirt, sans hat and gun, Tyler Morgan might have been any other rancher just come in off the land, weary from a hard day’s work, content with his place in the world.

Tossing the glowing cheroot out the open window, Ty turned to face her and she realized he’d known she was there all along, likely from the moment she’d opened the door, perhaps even when she’d crept quietly down the hall.

“You did not stay to celebrate the happy news,” Charlotte said, nerves skittering as he dragged his gaze over her simple calico skirt and starched white blouse before his dark eyes met hers.

“From where I was standing you looked none too happy,” he replied, his voice soft and gravelly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she exclaimed, unsettled by his insight into her heart. “Why ever would I not be delighted Ethel and Ken are to have a baby?”

“You tell me.” Ty crossed his arms over his chest.

As openings went, his quiet words were ideal.

And yet she hesitated, not at all certain the time was right to lay her burden at his feet.

There was something dangerous in the way he looked at her, in the way he held himself perfectly still, as if daring her to enter the masculine room, to answer the accusation lurking in his eyes.

In that moment he was a stranger to her. Gone was the man who’d kissed her with perfect gentleness, who’d joined his body to hers with exquisite tenderness, who’d lain beneath her while she’d offered him parts of her past, pieces of her heart.

He was the dark angel once more, the gunslinger who’d watched her alight from the Pleasure Palace on a bitingly cold winter day, everything she held dear clutched in her hands and an unknown future looming before her.

The year that had passed from that day to this, the weeks he’d spent at the ranch recuperating and learning to manage the land, the hours they’d spent together only that afternoon dissolved as if they’d been no more than a dream, a fantasy she’d concocted in her lonely heart.

So be it. When it came right down to it, she needed the gunslinger more than she needed the gentle lover.

Lifting her chin she stepped into the study, pushed the door closed behind her and crossed the room to circle the desk. When she reached the painting hanging on the wall, a poorly rendered landscape of the foothills and mountain to the north, she lifted it and tossed it onto the scarred desk.

Aware of Ty’s gaze on her, she spun the dial of the safe, the whirling tick of the rotating teeth loud in the otherwise silent room. As the final number of the combination spun into place, Charlotte took in a deep breath and pulled the heavy metal door open.

Inside lay stacks of paper currency, coin and small purses of loose gold. Atop the fortune Uncle Jasper had stashed away for her, sat a gun belt, the leather worn soft by the elements and years of use, two pearl-handled revolvers tucked into the holsters.

Lifting the coiled leather, she turned to face the man who must have wondered what had become of the gun by which he’d earned his living, yet had not once enquired as to its whereabouts.

She offered the mass of leather and metal to him across the landscape of mountains and gray clouds, held the heavy bulk between them, a terrible sorrow filling her as she recognized the choice she was forcing upon him.

Ty made no move to take the gun belt, nor did he look away from Charlotte as she carefully set his past atop his dreams for the future. Dropping his hands to his lean hips, he shifted his weight and she wondered if his injured leg was paining him.

Charlotte waited with increasing confusion and apprehension for Ty to take up the guns, to strap the belt around his lean hips and the leather ties around his thigh, to don the trappings of his trade, to well and truly become the hired gun once more.

Instead he reached for his hat dangling off the corner of the desk, jamming it on his head and pulling the brim down low, hiding his eyes.

Even so, she felt his gaze on her, hot and heavy, as she made her way from behind the desk to stand before him, close enough that he might reach for her, bring her flush against him and wrap his arms around her, ending this odd stalemate that had settled between them.

Waiting with mingled hope and dread, Charlotte tilted her head to the side, attempting without success to find his eyes in the shadow of his hat.

“What is it you want?” Ty growled the words, his fingers clenching at his sides.

“What makes you think I want something?” she countered, immediately wishing the words unsaid. Twice now he’d given her an opening, and twice she’d retreated.

“Don’t mistake me for stupid,” he grated out between clenched teeth.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tossing her hands in the air, she stepped back, her temper fraying around the edges. “I am entirely cognizant of your intelligence.”

“Call me ridiculous one more time.” He followed her retreat until he loomed over her. “And you’ll be
entirely cognizant
of your own foolishness.”

“Are you threatening me?” she asked, unnerved by the anger radiating off him in waves.

“Call it a warning.”

“What on earth has come over you? What have I done to infuriate you so?”

“What is it you want?” he repeated, ignoring her questions entirely.

Charlotte was tempted to withdraw, both from the room and the man, to turn and flee to the safety of her bedchamber, there to regroup, to marshal her forces and await a more opportune time to ask for his help.

As if sensing her wavering resolve, Ty clamped his hands around her upper arms, his fingers clasping her hard and holding her in place.

She might have made use of her knee, brought him to his own with little effort, so close was he standing. Instead she relaxed in his grip, lifting her chin and finally finding his eyes beneath the battered brim of his hat.

And wished she hadn’t.

Tyler Morgan looked back at her from eyes that flashed like quicksilver, hot and boiling, ready to burn all in his gaze.

“You no more belong on this ranch than I belong at some Prussian court,” he said, his words laced with unmistakable scorn.

“You know.” The words trembled from her lips as her heartbeat seemed to stutter, missing a beat, two, before resuming at a frightening pace, beating against her chest like the wings of a bat trapped above the eaves of the house.

“Jasper Heimlich lost that hand to put me in your path.”

“Yes,” she admitted, afraid of him for the first time since she’d seen him leaning against the hitching post, his spotted horse at his side.

“Just what the lady needs,” he snarled, leaning down until his breath washed over her upturned face.

“I do need you.” The simple words were true and not remotely simple.

“You don’t need another hand on a ranch with two hundred head of cattle and a dozen sheep,” he replied. “And your uncle knew I wasn’t a cowpoke.”

“He saw you for who you are,” Charlotte whispered, hoping she could make him understand. “Magnus and Chan and Akeem recognized you from the very beginning.”

“And you?” he barked. “How long did it take you to decide to make use of the killer your uncle had sent to you?”

“Killer?” she repeated in confusion. “But you are a bounty hunter, not a killer.”

“Bounty hunter, hired gun, assassin, killer,” he growled. “I am all of those things and more. Your menfolk saw that right off and so did you.”

Charlotte would have liked to argue, to call attention to the fine points that distinguished one term, one gunman from the next, but Ty was still speaking, his words falling fast and furious from his lips.

“Maybe I am stupid. It took me a good while to see it, what with the circus show of servants you’ve got gathered around you. But they aren’t servants, are they? A wounded old mercenary and a Chinaman with a talent for what? Knives? A giant Arab who can kill a man with his bare hands if he can get near enough to his victim. What’s the matter, lady, can’t none of them get the job done?”

“They would die trying, every one of them,” she retorted, confusion and fear transforming into panicky rage. “They are loyal warriors, tried and true.”

“Bargained for their loyalty did you?” he asked, his voice low and scornful.

Charlotte sucked in a shocked breath. “You were listening at the parlor door.”

“Don’t sound so fucking outraged, lady,” he mocked, his hands tightening on her arms, nearly lifting her off her feet and bringing their faces so close his breath, warm and spicy, wafted across her lips.

“Did your mother never explain to you that eavesdropping is both ill-mannered discourteous?” she asked, knowing as the words left her mouth that it was both imprudent and dangerous to provoke him.

“No, my mother forgot to share that lesson. But she told me all women are whores,” he replied, his words lashing her. “It’s only a question of what a woman wants that she would willingly trade her body to possess.”

“How dare you,” Charlotte cried, beyond shocked, beyond enraged. “I am not a whore!”

“No? Then what was all that fucking in your fancy railcar about?”

“We were making love.”

“I told you, honey, it ain’t making love if a man has to pay a woman for the pleasure,” Ty taunted, his fingers flexing, biting into her flesh.

“You didn’t pay me.”

“And I’m not going to. Find yourself another gunman.”

A smart whore bargains first and fucks second. Else all she’ll get is fucked.

Molly Morgan

Releasing Charlotte with enough force to send her stumbling back, Ty grabbed up his gun belt and turned for the door.

“Wait.”

Ty ignored the whispered command, wrenched open the door and stepped over the threshold, intent upon escaping before the seething fury and sharp, jagged pain whipping through him took over.

“Please, Ty.”

With a low growl, he spun about.

Charlotte stood exactly where he had left her in the center of the small room, the lantern’s golden light surrounding her like a halo.

“Who is he?” he asked, curious what sort of man had the power to turn a lady into a whore and just what he’d done to earn her cold hatred.

Charlotte met his gaze, her stubborn little chin jutting in the air. “Frederick Grenville is the second son of the seventh Earl of Westlockhart.” Her words were sharp and clear, the foreign tones crisp and cool.

“Who is he to you?” Ty’s fury spiked as her haughty manner forced him to once more recognize the disparity between his childhood in a brothel surrounded by prostitutes and hers at some European court surrounded by counts and princes and who knew who else.

“He is my husband’s brother.”

“You want me to kill your brother?” Nothing of Ty’s shock showed in his words. “Your son’s uncle?”

One pale hand slashed through the air, eyes as blue as the hottest flame holding his gaze. “He is no brother to me, no uncle to Sebastian, not by law, not by marriage, not by any God, any deed or any word.”

Christ, she was cold. And witheringly cruel. How had he not seen it? Instead believing her to be warm-hearted and possessed of a gentle spirit.

“And blood?” he asked.

Charlotte made no reply beyond the flaring of her nostrils, the narrowing of her eyes.

“This is about money. Who has it and who wants it.”

“How did you know?” Her voice trembled.

“What other reason would you have to kill your brother, your son’s uncle by blood?” Ty stepped back into the room, kicking the door closed behind him, and took the handful of steps that separated them, surprised when she held her ground, tilting her head back to keep her eyes on him.

“You do not understand,” she whispered.

“No? Then make me understand, Mrs. Green.”

“The Earldom is one of the oldest in England, and one of wealthiest,” she said, her words gaining both volume and speed. “The prestige which accompanies the title is immeasurable, the power unfathomable. The aristocracy formulate the laws, laws designed and implemented to increase their power and wealth, laws which allow no room for dissention. And all of it, the wealth and power, the authority and control, is passed on through the rights of primogeniture without exception.”

Most of the words spewing forth from Charlottes lips were incomprehensible to Ty and still he grasped the simple truth.

“This Grenville has the all-powerful title, and the wealth that comes with it and you want it.”

“No, no,” she cried. “You’ve missed the point entirely. Frederick covets the earldom and all its accoutrements—“

“Enough,” Ty roared, bending over her, forcing her to arch her back to keep him in her sights. “I’ve had enough of your highfaluting words, your snooty ways and your attempts to justify murdering a man for money and power, for titles that don’t mean a damn thing.”

“You don’t understand—“

“I understand, I just don’t give a shit.”

“If you will just let me explain,” she begged prettily.

“Fuck your explanations,” he replied, his voice harsh in his ears.

“I will pay you.” Tears glittered in her eyes.

Ty only stared hard into those sparkling eyes, allowing his silence to answer for him.

“I will give you my share of the ranch.” Her lower lip quivered before she pulled it between her teeth.

“What the hell do I want with another quarter of a ranch that’s never seen a profit?” he shot back.

Charlotte’s entire body trembled, her hands clenching into fists, two twin spots of color blooming on her cheeks, and Ty realized she was struggling to hold onto her temper rather than her composure, attempting to appear sweet and beseeching while she manipulated him.

She was good, Ty had to give her that. He might have believed her little act had he not witnessed her temper only that afternoon. Charlotte had been furious to think he’d left the Zeppelin, spoiling her plans to do away with this Frederick fellow. She’d turned that rage into passion, bartering her body to get what she’d wanted, never mind he’d never agreed to that particular bargain.

“On your knees.” The words roared past his lips even as the thought formed, born of the memories of the fury he’d mistaken for passion, of her hands clasping his cheeks, of pinning her to the wall, of that first moment of agonizing pleasure as he’d thrust into her heat.

“I beg your pardon?” Her words oozed scorn, her façade of sweet persuasion falling away.

Ty’s fingers clenched around the leather wound around his hands, the guns in their holsters dangling over his hardening cock.

“I won’t say it again.” Rage beat at him, all of it aimed at the woman who’d given him a glimpse of heaven only to toss him into the bowels of hell.

“You expect me to beg you on my knees?”

It might have been shock that colored her words, more likely it was contempt.

Tossing his gun back on the painting of gray clouds and looming mountain, Ty’s hands fell to front of his dungarees.

Charlotte’s eyes widened as she realized it wasn’t begging he wanted from her.

“Absolutely not,” she whispered.

Ty shrugged, the indifferent gesture completely at odds with the riot of emotions seething within him. “Suit yourself.”

He’d barely reached for his gun again when Charlotte dropped to her knees before him, her hands reaching for the metal snaps of his trousers.

“You risk your life,” she said, her voice a soft growl.

“Are you threatening me?”

“We’ll call it a warning.”

Ty watched her long, elegant fingers pluck at the buttons, felt them skim over his rigid flesh beneath, his breath hitching in his chest.

He lifted one shaking hand to hover over the braids coiled like a crown on her head, an unwelcome memory of her straddling him as she set all that golden hair free crowding his mind.

What the fuck am I doing?

The thought had barely penetrated his mind before it was scattered to the four corners when she drove her hand into the open vee of his jeans, her fingers curling around his shaft.

Jesus, her hand was so soft on him, her fingers cool and her palm warm, the dichotomy sending lust raging through him, and whatever regret he’d momentarily felt was gone.

Ty tugged his dungarees past his hips and his cock sprang free, rock hard and already pulsing with the need to spend.

With no hesitation whatsoever, Charlotte took him into her mouth, her tongue swirling over the fat head, her lips fastening just beneath, a wispy breath billowing over his turgid flesh.

Ty allowed himself to believe that breath was a soft hum of satisfaction, a quiet moan of pleasure.

Charlotte rested one hand on his thigh, glided the other down his shaft, her mouth following, taking him deeper into her wet heat. When she reached the base, when the heel of her hand brushed his pubic hair, she gave him a gentle squeeze, her tongue dragging over the sensitive underside of his cock.

“Fuck,” Ty groaned, his balls tightening almost to the point of pain.

Charlotte slowly worked her way back up his length, tongue laving, lips suckling, her hand smoothly sliding over his pulsing shaft on the moisture left in the wake of her sinfully hot mouth.

Reaching the engorged head once more, she paused to torment him, her tongue flicking over the crest, twirling beneath, dragging a ragged moan from deep within him.

As if the desperate sound drove her, as if his unconcealed pleasure urged her on, she pulled the fat bulb into her mouth, lips clamping tight. With her hand wrapped around his shaft, she stroked him up and back as she set up a rhythmic suction with her mouth, pulling him hard against her velvety tongue, the soft wet flesh of her cheeks, only to release him and swirl her tongue over the tip once, twice, before beginning the sweet torture again, and again.

Caught up in a vortex of pleasure so dark, so excruciatingly sweet, Ty tangled his fingers in her braids, intent upon keeping her just there, tantalizing and torturing him indefinitely.

Charlotte had other ideas.

With one final swipe of her tongue over the pulsating head of his cock, she unwound her fingers from the rigid flesh, and glided her mouth down his length, taking him deep. Ty felt the crest bump the farthest reaches of her mouth, waited for her to pull back, to work her way to the tip once more.

Instead she dropped down to balance her weight on her heels, arched her neck and tilted her head back, her throat loosening around his cock, opening until the swollen and aching head slid deep, and deeper still, until her lips were stretched wide over the thick base, pressed to his pubic hair as if with a kiss.

“Holy shit,” Ty growled, his gaze fastened on her upturned face, her fluttering eyelids closed tight, the sweep of her long lashes over pale cheeks, her nostrils flaring as she pulled a stuttering breath in through her nose, her lips wrapped around his cock.

Her fingers on his thigh flexed, her nails digging into him through the stiff denim.

With her free hand she cupped his balls, bounced them on her palm, before wrapping her warm fingers over and around their weight.

Easing back slightly, she slid her mouth slowly up his length as her fingers began to massage his balls in time to the staccato beating of his heart, the roar of the blood in his veins.

Anticipating the swirl of her tongue over the crest once more, Ty groaned in mingled disappointment and fiery lust when she reached the fat head only to lunge over him again, taking him deep into her mouth, into her throat, her fingers playing over his balls all the while.

Charlotte bobbed over him again and again, devouring him with the hot suction of her mouth, the tight clasp of her lips, the stroke of her tongue down the inflamed vein that ran the length of his painfully hard shaft, and her nimble fingers curling around his balls.

Ty felt the first shivers of his orgasm tightening his balls, forcing a raspy groan from his lips.

“Enough.” The word was ripped from him as he clasped her head, took an unsteady step back, and yanked his cock from the warm, wet pull of her mouth.

Charlotte peered up at him from beneath her lashes, a frown pulling at her lips.

“Turn around and get on your hands and knees,” Ty ordered, giving her a gentle shove to get her moving.

“Don’t you want me to finish?”

“I want you on your fucking hands and knees,” he growled. “Now.”

She twisted to obey him, falling to her hands and knees with a soft grunt that might have been pain or annoyance or shock. Ty didn’t know, nor did he care.

The only thing he cared about was thrusting his aching cock into her body, burying himself deep within her heat and letting the lust and rage and pain loose on her, over her, in her.

Ty dropped to his knees behind her, whipped her skirts up over her back and drove his hands between her legs, finding the slit in her drawers. Gripping the delicate fabric in his fingers, he ripped it apart.

Charlotte moaned, her thighs trembling and her back arching, her ass rising in the air.

“Spread your legs.”

Ty knew he’d lost what meager control she’d left him. Hell, she’d damn near rendered him mindless, but somewhere in the back of his head, a warning sounded. It was the same warning, the same faint but insistent shiver of awareness that had alerted him to pending danger and saved his skin in back alleys and dirty barrooms, vast mesas and narrow canyons.

For the first time in twenty years he ignored the warning.

Charlotte opened her legs and he could see her treasures, from the small puckered rosette to the portal he knew to be wondrously hot and tight, to the soft pink nether lips.

Ty wedged his knees between her legs, forced her thighs farther apart and brought the head of his cock to the opening of her body, circled the rim once, twice, felt the moisture there.

“You’re wet,” he grunted, part exultation, part accusation, as he nudged forward, barely penetrating her body.

Charlotte made no reply beyond a soft inhalation of air that shook her slender back.

Ty grabbed her hips, his fingers digging into her supple flesh, and in a single hard, sharp thrust, drove his cock into her tight heat. Twisting his hips, grinding against her soft folds, he forced his way deep inside.

Charlotte let loose a soft moan and fell to her elbows, her hands clasping her head, her forehead pressed to the hard floor. The position lifted her ass into the air, forcing her hard against him.