OUT OF THE DARKNESS (THE PRESCOTT SERIES) (18 page)

Today, he’d
start his assault on her physical senses. Perhaps, by the time the baby came she would no longer want a ‘marriage of convenience’ no more than he did.

His stomach growled a
t the scent of breakfast. He dressed and went into the kitchen. Emma happily played in her pen while Jade busied herself making breakfast. Jason walked up behind her. His hands caressed her shoulders as he kissed the side of her neck.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

Her quick indrawn breath betrayed how his kiss affected her. And, the telltale goose bumps on her arms further proved her response. Stepping back, he poured a cup of coffee, took a sip, and then sat it down at his place at the table as if nothing unusual had taken place.

Holding out his arms, Emma’s chubby finger
s grasped his hands, and he picked her up.

“How’s daddy’s
little girl this morning?” Jason smiled.

H
e placed her in her chair for breakfast. Metal clattered as Jade nervously fumbled with the hot pans. Mmm…. His kisses must have really jolted her. Her reaction was all he had hoped.

“Here
, let me do that for you.”

Taking
the hot holders from her shaky hands, he placed the hot biscuits on the table. He brushed his body against hers when he turned to pick up the platter of ham and the bowl of scrambled eggs. He watched a shudder ripple over her. Yeah, his nearness affected her the same way hers did him. Jason gave an inner chuckle, sat down, and ate his breakfast a happy man.

Jade gathered the dishes from the table.
Whistling, Jason left the house. She still puzzled over his behavior when he returned later that evening in the same happy mood. He gave her a devastating grin, dropped a kiss on top of her head, and swung Emma up into his arms. Jade wondered how he spent his day. Surely being with cattle and ranch hands all day wouldn’t make a man so cheerful. She didn’t delude herself into thinking he enjoyed the night they slept together. After all, he hadn’t claimed his husbandly rights.

That
night she again appeared in Jason’s doorway and waited for him to fold the covers back in invitation. When he did, she padded across the dim lit room and crawled in beside him. Sleep came easily curled up next to his warm, strong, body. With his arm tucked under her head, she held his hand during the night. The darkness never invaded her slumber as long as Jason slept at her side. When he thought she’d fallen asleep, he whispered in her ear.

“I promise
I’ll make you happy, Jade.” And she believed him.

Jason woke
the next morning to an empty space beside him. Still warm from her body, he buried his face in her pillow and savored her womanly scent. He ran his hand over the warmth where she had slept and smiled. Even in her silence, she had twisted her way into his heart.

He bounced out of bed, dressed, and went directly to Jade
who stood at the stove cooking breakfast. She hadn’t objected when he’d kissed her the day before so he placed a kiss on her neck right where her pulse throbbed.

~~~

Jason rode away from the house and thought about this last week. As the days passed, he would kiss Jade’s forehead each time he left the house and each time he returned. He’d stroke her arms as he kissed her, telling her his plans for the day and when he would return.

He
knew he was making progress when today she turned her head to the side, to accept his kiss on her neck. This morning he had also brushed her lips with his. Shocked green eyes had fixed on his face. Drawing a deep steady breath, he grinned at her. A tentative smile creased her lips. With another quick brush of his lips, he left.

Jade watched Jason ride away. Since she’d first gone to his bed, he had assaulted her
senses from every side. At night, as she lay next to him, she could feel his arousal grow. The fingers of the hand he draped over her side would caress her stomach until she wanted to scream.

The ache he created between her thighs became unbearable. She wondered if she pushed his hand lower if his fingers could relieve the
deep throbbing pain she felt there. The ache intensified with each kiss, every touch, until she thought she would burst into flames.

The quiver
he had created when he’d kissed her lips before he left, danced along her spine, floated around her abdomen, then settled in her loins. At no time could she remember such a feeling being aroused in her. It was pleasant, yet, it disturbed her, too.

The mornings were just as bad. Jason no longer simply kissed her on the neck, but would nibble from
the sensitive spot behind her ear to her shoulder and back again. Then he would lave the area with his tongue, bringing sweet torture to her aroused body. His lips would play along the pulse in her throat until she was sure he felt the erratic beat of her heart. Her blood would sing. Fire would race through her veins while her nerve endings twitched and tingled along her spine. Her body began to crave his touch.

Jason rode up to the barn, unsaddled, and fed his horse. Anticipation drove him hard today. He couldn’t wait to see Jade. He
burst through the backdoor and was confronted with her dazzling smile. He didn’t know whom he tormented the most: himself or Jade. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she had started her own little campaign of seduction.

The night before, she’d wo
rn one of Margaret’s idea of a nightgown to bed. It wasn’t enough to keep her warm, so she’d snuggled closer. This morning, he awoke to find her nearly tucked underneath him.

Pure heaven or unmitigated agony
, he couldn’t decide.

He glanced around for Emma. She slept in her bed, her thumb stuck in her puckered mouth and pink blanket clasped
in her small fingers.

Jade stood by the table, a flush on her cheeks and
an almost expectant expression on her sweet face. Was she as eager for his kisses as he was to give them? Hell, he hoped so. He could already feel the beginnings of an arousal.

She took a step toward him. He encircled her with his arms. Her lips parted
, and he leaned forward. He brushed his lips across hers and when she responded, he prolonged the kiss. Her small hand crept up to the back of his neck, and tugged at his hair to pull him closer.

That was all it took for
his fragile control to snap. He deepened the kiss. His tongue delved to taste the sweet nectar of her mouth. All the while, his hips thrust against her. His open palm cupped her backside and nestled her against his aching, pulsating manhood.

He felt a kick.
Then another. At first, it didn’t register in his passion-fogged mind what it was. The baby! It was reminding him it was due in little over a month.

Jade nearly collapsed when
he stepped back. His hands dropped to his side.

“I’m…. Hell, I’m…. I’m sorry,” he stammered
and practically fled the house.

H
e’d spend the rest of the evening with the men. When he strode into the cook shack, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat at the table, the ranch hands gawked at him as if they thought him crazy, but dealt him a hand in their game of poker. They played a friendly game of cards, but mostly he just sat there until one of them reminded him it was his turn.

He glanced out the window.
Even as he watched, Jade extinguished a light and darkness enveloped the house. Jason swore he would never let her spend a night without being in his arms and he wouldn’t.

“Guess I’ll mosey on up to the house. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“’Bout time. “Crazy boy, what ya a’doin’ down here with us crusty ol’ cowhands when ya should be up at tha house with yer purty lit’le wife and baby gal’.”

Jason felt his cheeks burn with color. No one could make him feel like a low-down-dirty-dog the way Cookie could.
He all but fled out the door and strode across the moonlit yard to the house.

“When
the weather turns bad and Jade’s time draws near, ya best stay put, in the house, where ya belong,” Cookie hollered after him.

Jason tugged his coat closer and shuddered as a blast of cold air wormed its way down the back of his collar. Winter was full upon them with lower temperatures and an occasional snow. Lately, he spent more time in the barn where he kept his woodworking tools than he did in the cook shack. He chuckled into the stillness around him. The ranch hands probably didn’t miss his brooding silence.

A
special project waited for him to finish it, and he had a tendency to lose himself in his craft. With a wife as far along in her pregnancy as Jade was, he needed something to occupy his mind.

Laying the small piece of wood on his workbench, h
e pushed the knife’s sharp point deeper into the wood. It slipped. Hell and damnation. If his mind had been where it should have been, instead of thinking about caressing Jade’s sweet body, his hand wouldn’t be bleeding all over the place. Wrapping his wound in his kerchief, he headed for the house.

Jade was laying Em
ma down for her nap when Jason came in the backdoor. Placing the medical supplies beside a pan of water, he submerged his hand in the cold water to stanch the flow of blood and clean it.

“Jade, w
ould you get Cookie to come in here?”

Her gentle touch on his shoulder alerted him to her presence
behind him. She always walked so softly. If he wasn’t watching her, the only way he could tell she was near was by the way his body responded to her womanly scent. Moving aside, he held his hand up for Jade to realize why he needed Cookie.

Blood!
Blood soaking into the ground. Blood seeping into her dress from a source she didn’t dare name. Blood dripped from the hand held suspended above more blood. Blood everywhere. Her mouth opened to scream. It was as silent as death, yet echoed over and over in the empty chamber of her mind.

When her face turned deathly white,
Jason knew she was about to faint. Reaching out with his uninjured hand, he caught her before she fell. He grasped her around the back and held her tightly to his chest. With one hand holding Jade, the other bleeding everywhere, he was in a pickle about what to do next.

“Jason,
ya alright? I saw ya rushing to the house with yer hand drippin’ blood.” Cookie yelled from the backdoor.

“G
et in here quick.”

At t
he panic in his voice, Cookie barged through the door. Jason didn’t dare let Jade slip to the floor. She was heavy in her pregnancy, and he didn’t want to harm the baby.

“What happened?”

Cookie gently took Jade from Jason’s arm and laid her on the floor. Grabbing a towel from Jason, he placed it under her head.

“I seen
ya a comin’ to the house holdin’ yer hand, thought maybe ya might have cut yerself.”

“I did,” he rasped.
Jason wrapped a thicker towel around his bleeding hand.

He
soaked a clean cloth in cool water, rung it out then handed a damp cloth to Cookie.

“W
ipe her face with this.”

Filling a cup with water, he knelt beside her. Eyes fl
ickered open to reveal confusion and a deep-seated pain.

“See if she can take a sip of this. Then help her to her room,” Jason commanded. He tried to keep his bleeding hand from visual contact with Jade’s haunted eyes.

Helplessly, Jason watched as Cookie managed to bring Jade to her feet and lead her to her bedroom. Her eyes held a distant look, as if seeing into the past. A past she couldn’t remember, yet tormented her with its presence.

“She’s asleep,”
Cookie stated when he returned to where Jason stood, his hand still wrapped in the blood soaked towel.

“Are you sure it’s sleep? She didn’t faint again did she?” Jason could not keep the tremor of
suppressed fear from his voice.

“Yeah,
she’s asleep. Let me look at yer hand.” Cookie unwrapped the towel to expose the cut along the outside of Jason’s thumb. His gnarled fingers scraped across his bristled chin as he studied the open wound.

“For a little cut, it’s sure bleeding a lot. I don’t figure it’ll take
more’n two stitches.”

Cookie sifted through the medical box until he found a needle and a length of catgut.
He threaded the needle and poked the sharp point into Jason’s flesh.

“Ouch, that hurt,” Jason complained as Cookie
tied of the last stitch in his thumb and bandaged it in a clean cloth.

“Serves
ya right. You shouldn’t of asked Miss Jade, in her delicate condition, to put these stitches in for ya,” Cookie scowled his displeasure.

“I didn’t ask her,” Jason explained. “She passed out the second she saw the blood.”

“You reckon she’s one of them fragile women what can’t stand the sight of a little blood?”

“No, it went deeper than that,” Jason explained as he fl
exed his hand to test his grip.