The Rawhide Man (9 page)

He laughed when he said it, but Bess ached for his pride. How it must have hurt!

“I won’t ask you to put out the light,” she said into his ear. “I wouldn’t care if you were missing an arm or a leg…you’d still be Jude!”

He caught his breath at the admission and she felt a shudder work its way through him. “You may regret this in the morning,” he ground out.

“I’ll worry about it in the morning. Jude, please…?”

“Good God, you don’t have to beg. Can’t you feel how much I want it?” He bent and took her mouth roughly, possessively, and she gave herself up to the wild arousal.

She felt him lift her onto the bed and she lay watching him as he undressed with jerky, urgent movements. She knew he wasn’t quite sober, but at last some of the barriers were down and she was going to take full advantage of it. Her eyes didn’t waver when he turned back to her; she let them linger on the white scars across his hip and thigh. He was pale there, probably because he never went swimming or wore shorts, and she could see why. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t as horrible as he seemed to think it was. The rest of him was all hard muscle when he moved. He was broad chested, narrow hipped, as graceful as a cat.

“No comment?” he asked as he slid onto the bed beside her.

“Did you expect me to faint?” she asked with a tiny smile. “I almost did, but it wasn’t because of the scars.”

His eyebrows arched and he made a tiny, amused sound. “Haven’t you ever seen a man undressed before?”

She shook her head.

His fingers touched her mouth, her cheek. “I’ll try to be careful,” he said, bending to kiss her softly. “But I’m pretty rusty, Mrs. Langston. It’s been a long, long time since I had a woman in my bed.”

Amazingly uninhibited with him, she reached up with loving arms to hold him while he teased her mouth. She felt as if she were seeing for the first time the man beneath the hard veneer.

“I didn’t think you felt…like this,” she whispered, tautening when he touched her unexpectedly.

He lifted his head, frowning. “Why not?”

She flushed, lowering her eyes to his hairy chest. “You’re always sniping at me.”

“Don’t get any ideas about it,” he said coolly, hesitating. “I don’t love you, Bess. I want you, but that’s it.”

She felt a cold sickness well up inside her and almost jerked away from him. But there was something different in his manner, in his eyes. She knew she wasn’t going to change him overnight. She’d just have to be patient. And at least he wanted her. A child might soften him, just a little, if he could watch her grow big with it and be there in its early years—things he’d missed when Katy was born.

“I’m not asking for miracles,” she said softly. “I…I’ll try to please you if you’ll tell me what to do.”

His eyes closed for an instant and his lips compressed. “Damn, Bess!”

“What is it?” she asked, reaching up to smooth her fingers over his broad chest as she had done in the dining room.

Surprisingly, he turned over on his back. “Don’t stop now,” he said quietly.

Her hands, shy at first, smoothed over his shoulders and chest, rediscovering the different textures of skin and hair and muscle and bone. He watched her, lying back on the pillows like some Middle Eastern potentate, faintly smiling.

When her hands stopped at the powerful muscles of his stomach, just below his waist, he actually grinned at her embarrassment.

“Coward,” he taunted.

She smiled back. “I’m new at this.”

“You’ll learn.” He sat up, bringing her body against his, watching her breasts vanish in the thick hair over his chest. “Now, it’s my turn,” he breathed, bending to kiss a shocked gasp from her parted lips. “My turn,” he growled again, easing her down onto the mattress.

She felt her body blaze up with sensation. His strolling fingers learned every silken inch of her, his lips soon following the same path. The room was utterly quiet except for the reckless sounds they made together.

Once, her eyes opened and looked straight up into his as his powerful body eased down totally against her.

“Afraid?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she agreed unsteadily.

His body moved and she gasped.

“It won’t ever hurt again after this,” he whispered gently, controlling the motion of his powerful body with an effort that showed in every strained line of his hard face. “Is it bad?”

It was, but she shook her head, and a minute later the lie became truth. She arched helplessly and there was a sudden tenderness in his eyes as his motions grew deep and urgent and his hands taught her the strange new rhythm.

She lost track of time and place in the grip of something so exquisitely torturous that she felt as if she were dying of a particularly vicious fever. Her body burned with it, and there was no relief. She was slowly, agonizingly being stretched in a tension that would surely kill her.

“No,” she whispered urgently, her fingernails clutching wildly, her teeth against his shoulder. “No, I can’t!”

He was laughing triumphantly…laughing! His hands controlled her wild body, forcing it to comply with the demands he was imposing. And then it was all sweet explosion and consuming flames, snapping the tension, and she fell and fell and fell…It seemed like hours before she could breathe again, before her eyes stopped melting in hot tears that fell onto his damp chest. She was trembling, and so was he in the aftermath of something so volcanic that she blushed just remembering it.

His hand brought her eyes up to his and he caught his breath as he watched her. “Not what you expected, honey?” he asked softly.

“I…thought it would…hurt,” she whispered.

His eyes wandered slowly down the length of her body. “Didn’t it? You cried out.”

She blushed wildly and hid her eyes, and he laughed again, softly. He bore her down onto the mattress with a glittering wildness in his eyes that she’d never seen in them. His nostrils flared as he breathed.

“Last time was for you,” he said under his breath as his fingers moved in slow exploration. “This time,” he whispered, bending to her mouth, “is for me….”

The night was at once the longest and shortest she’d ever spent, and as dawn slowly erased the blackness outside the window, she ached pleasantly from head to toe. She was astounded at Jude’s inexhaustible ardor. She flushed at just the memory of it and wondered at his stamina—and her own.

But the tender, hungry lover of the night was sadly lacking in the bitter-faced man who dragged himself out of bed and dressed in the dim light. She didn’t remember when he’d turned the lights out.

He dragged on his shirt and flicked the light on, standing quietly in his jeans and staring at her with eyes she couldn’t read.

Self-consciously, she tugged the sheet over her breasts and flushed at the intensity of his gaze.

“And now you know, don’t you?” he asked with a mocking laugh. “You know that I want you to the point of obsession. But don’t think you’re going to put a ring through my nose because of it, honey. You won’t own me. Not even if you give me a child out of last night. I hope you meant what you said about wanting that baby, Bess, because I’m through keeping my distance from you. I’ll have Aggie move your things into my room in the morning and you can sleep with me from now on.”

She stared at him with slow comprehension. “But…you said you…wanted a child, too,” she reminded him.

“My God, I wanted you, you stupid woman,” he ground out, glaring down at her. “I’d have agreed with anything to get…” He sighed and turned away, running a restless hand through his hair. “It had been months, and I was hungry for something female in my arms. All that whiskey and all the lonely nights caught up with me.” His eyes glittered at her. “And you stripped off that damned gown and came at me like Venus rising. I’m human, damn you!”

She turned her head away on the pillow, her eyes closed as the tears ran freely down her cheeks. For just a few hours she’d thought he was as involved as she was, as full of wonder about what they’d shared. But it had all been a sham, like their marriage.

“Regretting it won’t help now,” he said coldly. “Just remember, lady, it was all your idea.”

But she didn’t answer him. She couldn’t. Her heart was breaking in half.

He stood by the bed for a minute, and she felt that he wanted to say something. But the moment passed and he left her, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter Six

G
etting up and pretending that everything was fine was the hardest thing Bess had ever done. She put on the soft beige jersey dress that she’d come from Georgia in, and rolled her hair into a French twist at her nape. She hardly bothered with makeup because no one would see her except Jude and she didn’t care how she looked anymore. She’d wanted him so much, loved him so much. She’d thought he cared a little…and it had all been sex.

She laughed at her own naiveté. And tonight she’d sleep in his arms and it would all happen again. But her response wouldn’t be as uninhibited, she promised herself. He wouldn’t wring that madness from her twice, not when she knew he was hating her for “tempting” him. She picked up her brush and almost flung it into the mirror in pure fury. If only she hadn’t been so stupid, so trusting. She straightened. For Katy’s sake, she was going to have to put on her brightest face and pretend everything was just fine.

She went to Katy’s room and knocked on the door. She peeked her head inside and smiled at the head under the covers.

“Hey,” she called softly. “Santa Claus has come by now, I imagine. Want to go downstairs and see?”

Katy was instantly awake and all eyes. “Oh, let’s!” she agreed, bounding out of bed to grab her quilted pink robe and slippers.

Bess put an arm around her as they went to the staircase, dreading the confrontation that would undoubtedly come with Jude.

The presents she’d put under the tree last night after she’d sent Katy upstairs were where she’d left them, but some more had been added. She frowned at the size of one of them, a big rectangular thing wrapped in brown paper with a frilly bow stuck to one corner. Perhaps Aggie had put it there.

“Shouldn’t we get Daddy?” Katy asked at the foot of the stairs.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Bess said halfheartedly. “Why don’t you go upstairs and knock on his door, darling?”

“No need,” Jude said from the hall. “I woke early.”

He had a coffee cup in one hand and he was wearing jeans and nothing else. His broad, hair-covered chest was bare and so were his feet, and he looked…odd.

Bess couldn’t meet his eyes. She went into the living room behind Katy, aware of Jude near her. It must be some sort of radar, she thought hysterically. She always knew where he was.

“I knew you’d come to watch me open my presents,” Katy said, laughing, dragging her father to the tree. “Here, this one is yours. I hope you like it!”

Jude sprawled on the carpet and opened the package, murmuring appropriately at the special cigarette case Katy had bought him with her own money. Bess knew it was something he’d never use, but Katy had insisted.

“Oh, Dad, thank you!” Katy was cooing, as she opened a present that contained an automatic camera with film and flashcubes. “You remembered!”

“It was hard to forget,” he murmured drily, and Bess almost laughed as she recalled Katy’s repeated hints every morning at breakfast.

“Aren’t you going to open yours?” Jude asked Bess, glancing in her direction without actually looking at her.

“Yes, here it is, Bess!” Katy said, handing her a small present.

“That wasn’t the one I meant, but go ahead and open it,” he said.

Bess tore the ribbons and paper and found a bottle of her favorite cologne. She leaned forward and kissed Katy. “Thank you, darling,” she said softly. “It’s my very favorite.”

“I hoped you’d like it. Thank you for mine,” she added, hugging the musical computer that Bess had given her.

Jude reached out and tugged the big, rectangular package from its perch against the wall and handed it to Bess.

“I…I didn’t expect anything,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

“Neither did I,” he said, holding up the as yet unopened package that contained the nasty tie.

She tore open the paper, and when she saw what he’d given her she couldn’t say a word. Her eyes filled with tears and she chewed hard on her lower lip to keep from crying. There, in the torn folds of the wrapping paper, was the painting she’d admired that first day at the San Antonio airport—with the windmill and ranch house against the flat horizon.

“Cat got your tongue?” he taunted.

She took a slow breath. “Thank you,” she said in a subdued tone, touching the painting lightly, lovingly. “I…I wanted it very much.”

He didn’t say a word, but when he started to open his gift she touched his hand lightly.

“No,” she said. “That’s just a tie. I have another…”

She jumped up and ran all the way up the stairs to take the pocket computer out of her chest of drawers. She was breathless when she got back and thrust the small package into his hands.

Puzzled, he unwrapped it with slow, deliberate movements of his lean hands, and when he saw what it was he just stared at Bess.

“How did you know I wanted this?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “The same way you knew I wanted this, I guess,” she said, touching the painting.

He was leaning back against the armchair with one leg propped up, and his eyes were calculating. Half dressed as he was, he looked devastating.

“Well?” he said curtly.

“Well what?”

“Don’t I get a kiss?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “You gave Katy one.”

“You must, Bess!” Katy insisted, his willing co-conspirator, both of them ignoring the older woman’s blush. “It’s Christmas.”

“She’s shy,” he told Katy. “Why don’t you go get Aggie and tell her to come and open her presents?”

“Sure!” Katy laughed, leaping up to go in search of the housekeeper.

Bess flushed wildly, lowering her eyes to the carpet when they were alone.

“Shy?” he taunted. “There isn’t an inch of you I don’t know now.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” she replied, lifting her eyes. “My mind. And my heart. You don’t know the first thing about either one.”