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“Is that it, then, Jarrod? No more talk of wedding plans?” Why was he elusive?
“Only until tomorrow. It’s been a long day for both of us.”
“Long day?” she snapped. “That’s how you think of this? Of me?”
“Of course not, darlin’.” He swooped in to brush his lips against her cheek.
The light kiss was unexpected. A sexual current rippled between them, hot and fierce, as she wavered past his looming body, inches close to his chest and his firm, square jaw.
His skin, bristling with unshaven shadows, held the scent of fresh outdoor air mingled with leather. She inhaled sharp and quick, and his gaze snapped down to hers. A moment of fire burned between them. Who were they to each other? Soon-to-be husband and wife?
The thought that they would soon share a bed made her tremulous. Heat shot through her chest, flushing her skin and heating her limbs.
She was so inexperienced yet so lonely that she couldn’t wait to share her nights with Jarrod.
Her nostrils flared with the heady scent of his masculine presence, and she stepped past him, desperate to breathe neutral-scented air. It was almost as though she couldn’t think straight when he came too close.
And she had to think straight to surmise her next step. What would be the proper requirements to set her mind at ease that he was indeed the man she should spend the rest of her days with?
“Jarrod, I don’t wish to be one of those couples who pretend for appearances that we are happily wed, when beneath the surface we might live in separate homes in separate towns in separate beds.”
“You have given this a lot of thought.”
She frowned. “Haven’t you?”
He seemed to be getting exasperated. He tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it were too tight. “Yes, it’s all I’ve been thinking about. For days.”
“Only days?”
“Weeks. Three months.” He groaned. “What do you want me to say?”
She opened her mouth in disbelief. “How can you be so...so detached?”
Still looming at the doorway, he held up his palm in a sign of forgiveness. He seemed sincere as his voice softened. “I’m sorry. Let me rephrase this. Since the moment you stepped off that train, I haven’t been able to take my eyes off your beauty. Since the moment you kicked that trunk halfway down the platform, I thought there’s no other woman in the world for me.”
“You truly mean that?”
“And every word I said in my letters.”
At his bright expression, she felt buoyed. Then somewhat embarrassed. “You saw me kick the trunk?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh.” So much for appearing ladylike.
She stepped into the large room, her skirts and petticoats swirling about her ankles. It was a fine room. Large and airy, decorated in clean white linens with fresh-cut flowers on the nightstand and a lantern lit on the wall above the bed.
Her trunk had been placed at the foot by the closet door, and the bed had been turned down. The pillows had been fluffed and patted and looked inviting after her long, tiresome journey. Comfortable feathers awaited her.
She tossed her satchel onto the bed, lifted her arms to unfasten the pin holding down her bonnet, removed it from her head and turned to face Jarrod.
Staring at her from several paces away, he pressed a bulging shoulder against the door opening, one massive cowboy boot crossed over the other. He studied her as she patted down the unruly hairs that followed her bonnet, and mistakenly knocked out a pin from her hair.
One side of her curls fell to her shoulder, so she quickly unfastened the pin on the other side till it tumbled down, too. The weight of her hair fell onto her collar and spine.
He was watching it all, as if he’d never seen a woman fix her hair before.
The lapels of his suit jacket opened. She got a glimpse of the shoulder holster crossing his chest and swallowed hard at how intimidating he looked. The men in Chicago rarely displayed their weapons. She wasn’t naive enough to think the men in the East didn’t carry any, but this vision of Jarrod made her realize how rough and crude and lacking in the law the West was. She’d observed it on the train ride here. Every man had the right and duty to defend himself, and most carried guns.
She placed her bonnet and hairpins on a stand.
His posture stiffened, as if watching her made him uncomfortable in some way, as if being here in her room made him uncertain how to proceed. But, Lord, he hadn’t even crossed the threshold of the door. How tense would it make him if he moved closer?
“I trust you’ll be comfortable tonight, Natasha. I’ll swing by in the early morning.”
Startled that he was leaving, she asked, “Where will you be tonight?”
“Right next door.”
Her eyes widened. “Next door? In this hotel?”
“I thought it would be more convenient if we could spend more time together. No sense going back to the cabins with McKern and Fowler. I’m here to spend time with you.”
Her pulse hammered in her throat. So he did care.
Her lashes lifted as she walked closer, experimenting with this new relationship, this new man. What did he want to know about her?
And what did she wish to know about him?
The answer was quite simple, really.
She wanted to know what he truly thought of her as a potential bride, beyond their cordial first greeting and the predictable words of How was your trip? and How do you do? There was one quick way to find out, and he seemed to be too shy, or too much of a gentleman, to make the first move.
Her lady friends of a certain kind back at the boardinghouse had often told her that some men, especially upstanding gentlemen, often needed a nudge to know when a woman wanted to be touched. And where she wanted to be touched.
Natasha stepped close, craned her neck to stare up at him and tangled her slender fingers into his. An invisible current shot through her at the contact. She tugged in a breath of air. He froze.
Kiss me on the lips, she thought. Show me what you truly feel and kiss me properly.
* * *
Her touch was unexpected.
Simon’s initial response was to pull back. He wasn’t here for this; he was here to get into her mind and motivations, and not be affected by her damn presence.
She pressed her soft lips together as she stood assessing him, their fingers entwined. The warm light from the lantern danced across the bridge of her nose and lit the soft details of her cheek. Her dark chestnut hair, slightly ruffled from the hairpins she’d removed, swirled about her creamy throat.
Why did she have to be so luscious?
She slid her hand into the nook of his firm waist, her light touch caressing his skin, sending a jolt riveting through his gut. She stood so close he could breathe in the scent of her fresh skin and the lemony rinse she’d used on her hair. His pulse drummed hard beneath her touch, and when their eyes met, hers were clear and sharp and inquisitive. No woman, no innocent woman, had ever offered herself to him in such a tender manner.
She was poison, he reminded himself.
And yet he needed this, needed her. He needed tenderness and warmth and gentle understanding. Lord knew he’d had none of this on the road for the past ten years, only hard work, distance and no attachment to any upstanding woman he might have met in his line of duty. There had been saloon girls and hard-core drinkers who could guzzle a bottle of whiskey as fast as any man, but no one with any lick of sensitivity or class.
He swallowed hard at what he could not have.
A night with her would be filled with a hell of a lot more consequences than with a pretty barmaid. This woman would demand things from him he wasn’t willing or capable of giving. Just as his father hadn’t been able to give to the woman he’d married, and to the son they’d had.
Maybe that made Simon selfish. So what.
He was protecting her by not giving in, by not succumbing to her charms. He was also protecting the soreness in his heart that would surely rise if he ever became involved with a decent woman.
Huh, he thought, realizing for the first time in his life that he’d never been with a decent woman.
He’d slept with painted ladies, barmaids and drinkers. No one like Natasha O’Sullivan.
His jaw muscles tightened.
He should have broken free of her grasp then, for when she slid her other hand along the other side of his waist, his sexuality awakened, and the lonely boy who’d grown into a lonely man could not resist her.
With a firm grip, he anchored his hands at the sides of her face and lowered his lips to hers. It began as a graze, a soft, teasing pleasure, warm and delicious. His mouth slid across hers, tasting and pleasuring in the feel of her femininity, marveling at how lightly she could kiss, and yet how firmly his body responded. It was instant arousal. He had an immediate need to take it further.
Expertly, he moved her, stepping into the room just enough so that he could kick the door closed with his big cowboy boot and press her against the slab. Her hands slid up over his ribs, making him burn with a palpable need. He cupped the back of her neck, twirling the silky strands of her hair beneath his fingertips, gasping at the sound of her soft moan and then boldly shifting his palm to cup her breast.
He could feel the rib cage of her corset, the shallow waist, the whalebone strips that tilted her breasts upward. The cup of her breast was large and firm beneath his hand, a wondrous mound of beauty. The bud of her firm nipple arched beneath the fabric into his palm.
And suddenly their kiss became so much more. It was as if they’d been standing in a calm, sunny field, and suddenly a tornado had swept in and blasted around them. The wind caught, the weather shifted, and he and his emotions were whipped into a furious storm. The pressure of their mouths mounted, their lips pressed firmer and deeper and their tongues brushed. He wanted her.
Their bodies pressed closer, his hand dropped from her rib cage to her waist and down lower as he gripped her buttock and imagined what it might be like to throw her onto the bed and truly do everything he fantasized.
Break it up...I must break it...
With a shudder, he tore himself away.
Cool air rushed into the space between them. He gazed down at her shocked expression. Perhaps it had been too much for her, too, the unexpected jolt of passion and desire that seized them.
She slid the back of her palm against her red and swollen lips. She stared at him in amazement. Or was it shock?
He couldn’t apologize! He was supposed to be her beloved groom, so how could he say he was sorry for his display of obvious desire?
“Are you all right?” he managed to gasp.
“Yes,” she murmured, her brown eyes as round as chestnuts, her nostrils flaring as she caught her breath. Her fingers trembled as she lowered her hand to her waist.
“Welcome to Wyoming,” he whispered.
“What a welcoming,” she said softly.
“You’ve had a long journey. I’ll leave you to rest. I’ll be back in the morning and we can have breakfast.”
She nodded, stepping out of the way to allow him to open the door. Her hair was totally disheveled, buckling in waves along her shoulders. Her skin was flushed and she herself was as breathless as though she’d been riding a galloping horse for hours and had been abruptly pulled off.
“Good night.” He strode out of the room and wondered what on earth had just happened between them.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
Chapter Four
Jarrod was definitely attracted to her, thought Natasha with a combination of pleasure and confusion an hour later. Judging by the kiss that still had her stomach in knots every time she thought about his handsome face and his roaming hands, there was no doubt about his physical attraction to her. She pulled her thin robe tighter to her damp, bare skin. She’d just bathed in the hotel’s Spring Room for Ladies and had returned to her room to unpack.
So the hesitation she’d felt from him at dinner was not a physical one. That left her to wonder what precisely it was.
Wasn’t he pleased with their friendship and looking forward to a much deeper relationship? Falling in love? Having children?
Then what in blazes was wrong? One minute he was keeping her at arm’s length as though he didn’t know what to do with her, and the next, he was grabbing her by the behind and making it very obvious what he’d like to do with her.
“I don’t understand,” she grumbled, tossing aside the ropes from her trunk and lifting the monstrous lid. She didn’t know a lot about men from personal experience, but she was ready and willing to learn about Jarrod.
Rummaging through its contents, she tossed aside the worn blanket, then the patched dresses.
She reached for her jewelry box. She didn’t have an overabundance of jewelry, but there were some fine pieces given to her by her grandfather, and others that she’d taken a shine to at his shop. She had saved for some of it herself, investing her hard-earned wages into precious metals, gemstones and pearls. Sadly, over half of her items had been destroyed in the Great Fire. And she’d had to sell most of the few remaining pieces from his shop over the past two years as she struggled to make ends meet.
She spotted the exquisite wedding gown she’d tucked in the middle of the trunk, between the other clothing for protection.
Gingerly, she slid it out and stood up to assess it.
The gown was more beautiful than anything she’d ever owned. It had been bought just for her and graciously sent by train to Chicago by her dear friend Cassandra Hamilton in California. Cassandra had also been a mail-order bride from Mrs. Pepik’s Boardinghouse, the first one in fact, and was now happily living with her husband in the vineyards of Napa Valley. Cassandra and her husband were doing very well to be able to afford such an extravagant gown for Natasha.
“Oh, Cassandra, thank you.”
The billowing white satin wasn’t too wrinkled; nothing that hanging in the closet couldn’t solve.
Natasha spread the gown onto her bed and smoothed the front. The bodice was tailored and beautifully fitted along her bosom and waistline. The square neckline swept low. Mounds of bustling white satin formed the lower half. And, Lord, the train! Who would’ve thought she’d be wearing a ten-foot train? It was embedded with lace and pearls and cut-glass crystals. There were jewels of red glass sewn into the hem and trim around her long sleeves.
She vowed she’d be a good wife. She’d be respectful of Jarrod’s wishes and dreams, work hard to better both their lives, and the lives of their children when that time came. She’d fall into step beside him as his equal partner and lover.
Her pulse bounded again at the thought of that fabulous kiss. And the heart-pounding love affair they might start.
Could she allow herself the freedom of trusting Jarrod? If she couldn’t trust her husband-to-be, then whom could she trust? She’d never relied on a man before, not a suitor. She supposed she did follow by her grandfather’s example of never being able to fully trust someone who wasn’t family. The older he’d gotten, the more protective he was. Near the end of his life, he’d turned everyone away. She tried not to be like him in that regard, but it was difficult to peel away that layer of self-protectiveness that had been ingrained in her since she’d been fourteen and faced with the loss of both parents.
What if Jarrod’s indecision in setting a date was a hint of a deeper problem? Why didn’t he wish to talk about any details of the wedding? Was she being stupid in ignoring the signals that he didn’t want to marry her?
Don’t be a fool, girl. If a man doesn’t wish to marry, walk away quickly and find yourself another. That was what her friend Valentina Babbs, in her fifties and a former lady of the night, used to tell her at the boardinghouse.
“But when do I walk away, Valentina?” Natasha asked aloud. “How do I know if it’s time?”
You can tell how they really feel about you if you ask them about their mother. If they open up, it means they trust you more than they do her. Valentina gave a lot of odd advice.
