The Scoundrel's Bride (20 page)

Therefore, if he wanted his scheme to proceed as planned, a wedding was Zach’s only option.

The idea didn’t really bother him; the marriage wouldn’t last for long. His gaze traced the line of her curves beneath his sheets and he sucked in a breath of air. A few months of regular sex sounded pretty damn good about now.

Of course, all of this could be accomplished without actually bedding her. He could easily play the hero, sacrificing himself on the altar of marriage on Morality’s behalf. But knowing her, unless she was well and truly compromised, she’d want to fight the scandalmongers in the name of Truth.

So bed her he must. Zach traced the curve of her cheek with his finger, and his mouth lifted in a wry smile. The sacrifices a man must make in the name of revenge.

So, why was he hesitating? It wasn’t at all like him. He lied and cheated and stole without blinking an eye. He’d killed without remorse. What was a little seduction compared to that? What was holding him back? Why didn’t he just climb into that bed and do what his lower parts were telling him to do?

Because he didn’t want to hurt her
.

Well, hell. What sort of petticoat-sporting reason was that?

Whirling around, he strode across the room and added a pair of logs to the fire. “Coming home must have affected me more than I thought,” he muttered to the collie and her pups. It must be the memory of his mother. Sarah Burkett’s influence was awfully strong here in the cabin that had once been their home.

And so, Zach began to argue with his ghosts. By seducing Morality, he’d be helping her as much as he’d be hurting her. After all, wasn’t she upset about marrying her uncle? He’d save her from that. He’d get her away from that heavy-handed, phony miracle peddler. He’d be doing her a great service.

Lifting the poker, he stirred the fire and watched the embers flare. Morality passionately wanted her freedom—she’d come right out and said so. He wouldn’t stand in the way of that. Hell, when this was all over, he’d settle some money on her and send her on her way. She’d be free to do whatever she damn well pleased.

This was the best thing for them both. She’d see it. Eventually.

He’d feel lower than a snake in a deep-water well.

Damn
. He grimaced and set the poker back in its stand. What sort of thinking was this! He was a schemer, after all. A blackguard, a scalawag, a sharper. He was supposed to do rotten things.

He was too close to his mama in this cabin, that’s all it was. What he was forgetting was the promise he’d made to her before she died. That’s what was important.

With that thought bracing his character against unfamiliar qualms of conscience, Zach crossed the room, reached down, and carefully unbuttoned Morality Brown’s dress.

With a featherlight touch, he proceeded to bare her to his gaze. Her skin was the palest ivory, except for the sprinkling of freckles across her shoulders that betrayed an exposure to the sun. Naughty girl, preacher’s niece. He stripped her down to her shimmy and drawers, lifting a curious brow at the lace decorating the bands below her knees. Morality Brown was full of surprises.

And he wanted her.

Zach laughed beneath his breath. That was no surprise. Fact was, the only surprising thing about this business was that Morality was still asleep. The woman slept like the innocent she was. But wouldn’t be much longer.

Heat stirred in Zach’s loins as he anticipated her lying naked beneath him. At some point, awareness of his intentions would hit her, and fury would snap in her storm-cloud eyes. And then, passion. Hot, sizzling hunger.

Damn, but she’d be glorious.

His hand grasped the hem of her chemise, and Zach paused one last time. What he intended would change Morality’s life.

For the better
, a voice inside him insisted.

His knuckles brushed downy skin as he hardened his heart. Better or worse, it didn’t really matter. He had come to town with a single objective. He would not, could not, allow anyone or anything to stand in his way. He’d use her. That’s who he was. Who he needed to be.

Zach stripped Morality naked.

His mouth went dry. His blood ran hot in his veins. She was as beautiful a woman as he had ever seen, and she was his, here, lying on his bed atop his mother’s quilt.

His mother’s quilt. Damn. Wouldn’t Sarah Burkett be proud of him now?

Zach forced the thought away and concentrated on his task. He cupped her breast in his hand and stroked her nipple with the pad of his thumb. “Morality?” he said softly, sitting beside her.

She squirmed, but she did not awaken. Her skin was velvet to his touch. “Angel?”

Still, she slept. Drawn by her charms and propelled by the ache building fiercely within him, he lowered his head and nuzzled the valley between her breasts. He felt, more than heard, her sigh.

Zach looked up into her face. She gazed at him dreamily, and her smile was open and…loving.

Damn. He bit back a groan. His heart simply wasn’t in this. The rest of him was raring to go, but his heart just didn’t want to cooperate.

What kind of scoundrel am I
?
Can’t even seduce a woman who needs seducing. Hell, I’ll have to turn in my badge of dishonor
.

She closed her eyes, and for a long moment, he sat without moving, willing himself to do what needed to be done. Then, in a flash of divine inspiration, the idea popped into his mind. A compromise. Something to please both his pesky, newly discovered conscience and his offended sense of scalawag. Zach went still. Minutes dragged by as he considered the notion. Seduction wasn’t his only talent. There was another way, one that—if he were gifted enough to pull it off—wouldn’t hurt her so badly in the long run and yet would redeem his sense of scoundrelness.

A slow grin spread across his face. It would be a test. A severe physical challenge. Could he do it?

He rolled off the bed and stood breathing heavily, his gaze trailing over her. From the honey of her mouth, beyond the delectable expanse of bosom, below the narrow curve of her waist and the gentle flare of her hips, he feasted on the sight of her womanhood. That little bit of heaven that beckoned him and made him ache.
Good Lord, did he have the strength
?

Zach rubbed a hand across his jaw and considered the question. Then, abruptly, he nodded. Sure he had the strength. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it. And he could pull this scam off, too. He was a silver-tongued, cotton-mouthed conniver who could convince Davy Crockett’s ghost that his body hadn’t died at the Alamo.

He could fool Morality Brown.

Making quick work of tending the fire and extinguishing the lamps, Zach prepared to put his notion into motion. Peeling off his pants, he crawled into bed and gathered her nakedness to his.

“Good Lord,” he spoke aloud some ten minutes later. “It’s even harder than I thought.”

MORALITY DREAMED she had wings and soared high and free above the worries of the earth, warmed by Heaven’s sunshine. A wonderful celestial warmth.

Something tickled her nose, rousing her to a state of half sleep. A cloud? An angel’s halo? She shifted, burrowing deeper into the heat, as she luxuriated in unaccustomed comfort. Was this what heaven was like? This sense of safety and profound well-being? A delicious tingling from head to toes, and a significant feeling of joy that sent her spiraling through time and space?

A steady thud filled her ears. Morality was certain she heard the pulse of God.

Prepared to gaze into Paradise itself, she opened her eyes. Zach Burkett s heavenly blues stared back at her, as soft and gentle as a spring shower. Paradise, her heart repeated and she smiled.

“Mornin’, angel,” he said, his voice raspy with sleep. It wasn’t until she felt the stroke of his hand on her buttock— her bare buttock—that the reality of the moment sank in.

She was lying on top of Zach Burkett. In his bed. Without any clothes on. And him as bare as Adam in the Garden.

“You snake!” she yelped.

CHAPTER TEN

ZACH GRABBED HER TIGHT as she attempted to roll away. “Snake? Come on now, honey. I liked what you were calling me last night much better.” He pressed a kiss against her neck, licking her with his tongue.

Morality closed her eyes as a tremor raked her. She didn’t remember a thing after falling asleep in his arms while they sat in front of the fire. “What do you mean?”

In a teasing moan, he said, “ ‘Zachary, darling.’ ”

“No!”

“Now
that’s
a word you never said.” Satisfaction dripped from his voice. “And I lost count of the number of times you said yes.”

He rolled above her, pinning her lower body with his weight. The naked length of corded, muscular male pressed intimately against her sparked fear inside Morality. The softness in his eyes made her melt. “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ve never known a loving like what we shared last night. The gift you gave me, well, I don’t have the words to describe how much it means.” He lowered his head and kissed her.

That blissful tingling surged back to life, and she again took flight, just like in her dream. But she returned to earth real quick when she felt his hand begin to roam. Frightened, she wrenched her lips away from his. “Stop this. Get off me! I gave you no gift. I didn’t give you anything.”

He pulled back slowly, a frown slashing furrows in his brow. “Morality, don’t tease me like that. After what we shared last night…”

Despite herself, she asked, “What
did
we share last night?”

The man appeared honestly puzzled and more than a little offended. “You know, I’d admit to not having much truck with virgins, but I can’t rightly believe it’s normal for a woman to forget the giving of it.”

She shut her eyes. That’s what she had feared he would say. “The last thing I remember is you holding me in the rocker.”

“No!” he protested, sounding hurt. “That can’t be true.”

“It is.”

He rolled onto his side and lay next to her but no longer touching. “What sort of game are you playing here? Whatever the hell it is, it’s certainly not funny.”

“I don’t think this situation is funny, either.” Morality’s nerves were stretched tight. Her voice was pitched higher than normal. “You are the one playing games here. This didn’t happen. You’re lying again. You, Zach Burkett, are nothing but a bald-faced liar.”

“Why, you little witch.” He glared down into her face, then abruptly pushed up off the bed.

Morality’s eyes rounded and her mouth went dry as he stood brazenly bare before her. “I see what you’re doing. I’m not good enough for you, am I? I’m a murdering bastard, not good enough to polish the Miracle Girl’s halo.” He folded his arms. “Well, guess what, honey, I already shined it.”

Morality kept the sheet pulled up to her chin and her gaze anchored above his neck. “No. I find it impossible to believe that I would sleep through…ravishment.”

Anger glittered in his eyes and she knew she’d touched a nerve. “Ravishment. I think that’s the dumbest word. If a man takes a woman in violence, and it’s not part of shared pleasure she’s consenting to, then there’s only one word for it. Rape. Dammit, Morality. You can call me just about anything your pure little heart desires, but don’t you dare use that word or one like it in connection with my name again. Understand?”

Shocked by his tirade, she nodded.

“I have
never
forced a woman in my life, and that includes last night.” He closed his eyes. Seconds passed as he visibly strove for control. He filled his lungs with air, and Morality’s gaze slipped.

Oh, my
. He took her breath away. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist. Sleek skin stretched over sculpted muscles. He stood tall and strong and beautiful.
In God’s image
. Yes, she could believe it of Zachary Burkett. He was the Lord’s creation, with the energy and power and vitality of one foremost among His creatures.

Her daring stare traced the path of dark hair that began on his chest and narrowed, trailing downward toward that mysterious part of him that gave proof of his gender. Morality’s grip tightened on the sheet. She hadn’t imagined…she couldn’t believe!

She would
never
have forgotten something like that.

The sound of his voice startled her, and she whipped her gaze back to his face.

“If you choose to pretend that last night didn’t happen, I reckon I’ll let you,” Zach said bitterly as he turned to open a short chest at the end of the bed. He pulled out clean clothing. “If you can forget the passion between us, the way you exploded in my arms and cried out your pleasure, then I guess it wasn’t as special—as uniquely beautiful—as I thought.”

As he stepped into his pants, Morality shut her eyes. Somehow the mere act of watching him dress seemed more intimate than seeing him naked. “Stop saying things like that,” she insisted. “Maybe you didn’t do what I said before, but I know I didn’t… we didn’t…” She summoned her courage and said, “If we had had marital relations, I would remember. Quit trying to play me for a fool!”

“Marital relations?” he drawled. “Honey, referring to what we had together as ‘marital relations’ is like calling a tornado a tiny breeze.”

For a long moment the only sounds she heard were the rustle of clothing and the rasp of her own breath. Then the bed ropes creaked and the mattress dipped. Morality swallowed against the tightening in her throat and dared to open her eyes.

Zach loomed over her, his hands clutching the feather pillow on each side of her head. His eyes were twin blue flames. “I know you are no fool, Morality Brown. That’s why, if nothing else, you’ll believe what I’m about to say.” He lowered his face so close that she could feel the whisper of his breath on her cheek. “I’ll be damned before I’ll let you go off and marry your uncle—”

“Don’t curse,” she interrupted, instinctively knowing she didn’t want to hear what he intended to say. She turned her head away.

He took her chin in his hand and gently moved her head back, saying, “Look at me.” Then he waited until she braved his gaze. “You will not marry your uncle—or anyone else—as long as there’s a possibility that you’re carrying my child.”