Authors: Sarah McCarty
She sighed and squared her shoulders.
“Now, remember the kick and brace for it.”
She aimed at the bottle sitting atop the log.
“Good.” He kept his hand on top of her wrist as she settled her weight. He’d seen more than one greenhorn bust his face by not preparing for the kickback. “Now, squeeze the trigger steadily and gently. Just picture that bottle as the bastard’s face and go easy into the shot.”
She did exactly as he said, right up until she met that last resistance of the trigger. At the precise instant she squeezed the trigger, she ducked her head. The recoil kicked the gun up into his hand. The shot went wild.
“You can’t close your eyes and expect to hit your target.”
She didn’t look at him. “How do you know I closed my eyes?”
“Didn’t you?”
She huffed and brought the gun back up. “I won’t this time.”
He got his hand over hers just in time. She didn’t close her eyes this time. She still missed, but she managed to nick the log.
“Ha!” She spun around, eyes alight. “I told you I could do it.”
He tilted the gun away. “You haven’t done anything yet, but you’re getting close.”
Her frown was half-play, half-serious. “You can really be a killjoy.”
“I tell you what, you hit it this time, and I’ll show you how to take down a man bigger than you.”
“Everyone’s bigger than me.”
“Then it would be a right handy skill to have, wouldn’t it?”
She stared at him, pursed her lips and then frowned. “What happens if I miss?”
“Then I guess you get the booby prize.”
“And that would be?”
“A kiss.”
She caught her lip between her teeth for a second before releasing it slowly, deliberately, in a slow, small smile. Holding his gaze, she pointed behind her in the general direction of the target and pulled the trigger. Caine leapt for the gun as the shot went wild, swearing and snatching it out of her hand. Sam burst out of the outhouse in a crouch, his long johns around his waist, gun in his hand, curses trailing his exit. One glance in their direction was all it took for him to assess the situation. He stood, holstered his gun and looked at the hole in the top of the outhouse.
“Goddamn it, Allen,” he hollered, yanking his sleeve up his right arm. “Are you teaching that woman to shoot or redecorating?”
Desi didn’t spare Sam a glance, just stared at Caine with that little smile playing on her lips. He took the gun out of her hand, not taking his eyes off that smile and all that it meant. “Both.”
He emptied the bullets out and put it back in his holster.
Desi still didn’t look away, didn’t move, just said in all innocence, “I missed.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “So you did.”
On purpose, no less.
It was such an easy thing to hook his fingers behind her neck and pull that little smile closer. To direct her with the pressure of his fingertips so when she took those two steps in, she was centered against him. Natural that her head would tip back. Right that his mouth meet hers in a reward rich with claiming, possession and…laughter. He’d never laughed through a kiss before, but he did this one, and it didn’t diminish the heat at all, merely spiced it with a richer context as their breath met and mingled like their tongues.
He removed his lips a fraction from hers. “You’re turning into quite a caution, Mrs. Allen.”
She gave him more of her weight. “But you like it…”
There was still a touch of a question mark in that statement, but he could work with it. A trace of moisture glistened on her lips. He covered it with his thumb. “It has its high points.”
“Well, I’m not appreciating them.” Sam stomped up, hauling up his left sleeve. “Next time you get a notion to aerate the outhouse, I’d appreciate notice.”
Desi glanced up, but didn’t step out of Caine’s arms. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
“No, but my hat’s never going to be the same.” Sam stuck his finger through a hole in the crown. “It’s a shame, too. I liked this hat.”
“Caine will buy you a new one.”
That was news to him. “I will?”
Desi slapped—actually slapped—his shoulder. She was getting quite brave with him. “Yes.”
“Well, in that case, I’m ordering up one of those expensive Stetsons I saw in the mercantile.”
“You do and it’s coming out of your hide,” Caine growled.
“You’ll have to take that up with your missus.” Sam settled his hat on his head. “She promised.”
“And as I’m Hell’s Eight, you have to take it to the bank,” Desi inserted, laughter in her voice and in her expression. The same laughter that worked in him.
“I suppose I’m going to have to.” He glanced at Sam’s hat. “That was a darn reckless thing to do, Desi, shooting blindly like that.”
Her eyes sparkled up at him. “Then why are you laughing?”
Because she was smiling up at him with genuine humor. Because she’d done it just for a kiss. And because Sam had looked damn hilarious bursting out of that outhouse. “Hard not to with the spectacle you created.”
Her expression of disbelief was almost believable. “
I
created?”
“You are the one with the gun.”
“You are the one doing the teaching.”
“You are the one who took the shot.”
“But only because you tempted me.”
He pulled her lip down. He didn’t want to argue with that. A man liked to know he could tempt his wife. “I did, huh?”
Her smile softened. Sweetened. Her hand came up to his shoulder, the palm curved to fit him. “Yes.”
Her lip was hot and slick as he slid his thumb along it. He rested his nail against the white of her teeth. “Still, you could have hurt someone. I wouldn’t be a responsible husband if I let that go uncorrected.”
“Uncorrected?”
His hand slid down her back over the slenderness of her spine. It wasn’t so easy to feel the bone. She was getting up to a normal weight. She took his meaning as he patted her buttock, lingering on the plump curve.
Her brows rose. “And you take your responsibilities as a husband seriously?”
“Very much so.” He squeezed her rear. “Which will give you something to look forward to tonight.”
There was nothing subtle about her blush. It covered her face in a wild rush, highlighting the blueness in her gaze, the fullness of her lips, the return of life to her personality. “You think you can control me?”
He smiled and laughed out loud, causing several heads to turn in their direction. “I know I can.”
“Because you’re my husband?”
He kept her tucked against him, his cock pushing against her abdomen, his personality pushing against her challenge. Awareness of both flared in her eyes a moment before he said, “Because I’m your man, and you know you can trust yourself to me.”
She was too strong to just give in. “Just because I can, doesn’t mean I will.”
He brushed her hair away from her cheek with the back of his fingers, lingering on the heat still coloring her cheek. “No, it doesn’t, but you still will.”
“What makes you so sure?”
That answer was written all over her face for a man who was lucky to know her well enough to see it. “Because you want to.”
She had to wait days for him to deliver on his promise. Days in which she had ample opportunity to stew, anticipate and then get annoyed. Those wolves that Ed mentioned had turned out to be quite a problem, creating the need for nightly patrols and daily discussions. Her body would hum every day in anticipation of the night, only to fuss with frustration when Caine either didn’t come to bed or came to bed too tired for the drawn-out sex play he’d promised. And as he’d pointed out so succinctly in the yard, she wanted to experience his dominance in bed. Longed for it with a breathless need that defied description. She wanted to give herself the way he needed her to, but for her pleasure, not his. Desired to bridge that last chasm between them by giving what he needed to take. And it was completely for herself as he’d known. How did he know her so well?
Desi stood by the bed and stared at the door, anticipation and nervousness tingling through her limbs. As her nanny would have said, all her chickens were about to come home to roost. And as usual, she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Caine made her reckless, made her want to walk the edge of cliffs she’d never climbed just because there might be fun in it. He brought out that part of her that had had her mother despairing at parties, her father cutting off her allowance and suitors swarming around her at balls and gatherings.
With Caine, it was different, though. With Caine, cutting loose was exciting, comforting, fun even. Because with Caine, she knew, deep in her gut, that whatever she did, no matter how outrageous she got, he could handle it. And her.
Like with the gun the other day. She still couldn’t believe she’d done that, pulled the trigger for no other reason than to feel his mouth on hers. It had been reckless in the extreme, going with the wild feeling that surged so often against the wall of caution she’d erected, but Caine had laughed. Actually laughed, and then given her the one thing no one else ever had. The comfort of limits she could live with.
So now she was up here waiting on her punishment, dressed in her nightgown but no underpinnings, body taut and expectant, aching in places no lady ever mentioned. She adjusted her position at the foot of the big bed. And still being disobedient.
She was supposed to be waiting under the covers while Caine finished his business with the three rough-looking men who’d come in last week. Not because he found the thought seductive, but because he worried she’d catch a chill. She was reasonably sure that he’d much prefer to see her as she was now, with her gown on but the front undone so it barely clung to her shoulders and gaped away from her chest and abdomen, stopping just short of revealing all. For all he was a big tough Ranger and Hell’s Eight, he was a worrier. As if she could be cold with as much wood as he stuffed into the little stove.
Boot steps sounded on the stairs. A shiver of excitement went through her, followed quickly by a twinge of anxiety. This had to work. She didn’t think she could make it through another day at war with herself. The top stair creaked the way it always did. It was just a few more steps to the door.
She smoothed the curls from her face, pushed her left sleeve just a little closer to disaster and leaned back against the bedpost. The door latch lifted before she decided what to do with her hands. She settled on clasping them before her in a demure, ladylike manner. Mostly because it brought her cleavage into nice display.
Caine took one step into the room, spotted her and froze. His gaze touched her face, her torso, her groin and then slowly traveled back up, picking up heat with every inch it traveled. Her flesh prickled with awareness. She licked her lips, fought back nervousness and plunged on.
“Hi.”
The door closed slowly behind him. Not taking his eyes from her chest, he flipped the lock into place. His eyes met hers—hot, flickering with the wildness he kept restrained. “I thought I told you to wait in bed.”
Oh, she loved it when he got that low growl in his drawl. She shifted against the post, arching her back more, presenting herself better. “I got bored.”
Two steps and he was in front of her, his shadow covering her in darkness, his body bathing her in heat and temptation. One finger eased under the ribbon trim at the collar. “Did you think you’d get out of trouble this way?”
She couldn’t find her voice as his eyes stared into hers, seeming to go so much deeper than the surface, playing with the truth in her soul the way his finger played with that ribbon. She shook her head.
His right eyebrow quirked up and that touch of a smile deepened as his callused fingertip skimmed downward, following the path of the lapel but not disturbing it, crossing the ridge of her collarbone, gliding over the swell of her breast. “Were you looking to get your spanking sooner by being disobedient?”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, not stopping him, just holding on. As soon as she touched him, that shaking uncertainty inside died. This was Caine. She had nothing to be afraid of. The feeling welled, warming her from the inside out. And that inner wildness surged to the fore.
She teased her lips with the tip of her tongue, allowing herself a smile as he watched the movement. Teased the inside of his wrist with the rub of her fingers, bringing his hand to the point of her breast. “Maybe I was just trying to ensure you didn’t change your mind.”
The only change in his expression was the flicker of his lashes. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t read what he was thinking, though she had an idea he saw everything she was trying to hide. “Maybe?”
“Truthfully?”
His touch skimmed her ribs, followed the concave hollow of her abdomen, before pausing at the cluster of curls below. “Always.”
She hadn’t expected to get into this so early in the evening but she might never get a better opportunity. “I’m never sure what to do around you.”
This time he did smile. He also took a half step forward as his hand closed over the underside of her breast. His chest pressed her back, imprisoning her between his hard body and the hard post. Her shudder was pure instinct. There was something wildly arousing about being helpless before Caine.