Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WayWard Wind (6 page)

“You’d be surprised what I’ve been forced to eat, old woman,” he said in a soft voice as he got up from the table and went over to the far bed, lying across it on his belly with his face turned to one side, hands to either side of his head.

“He’s hurting worse than he’s letting on if he does that,” Snake said in a low voice. She was finished with her food and was careful this time as she scraped her chair back and got up. “You cooked, I’ll clean.”

“I’ll help you ...,” Peyton began.

“Won’t do nothing of the sort, missy,” Snake growled at her. “Go sit and leave a body do her work!”

Peyton held her hands up. “I’m going,” she said and started for the rocker, but stopped and walked over to the bed. “Would it help if I rubbed your neck and shoulders?”

Harper’s eyes were closed. “Couldn’t hurt worse than it already does,” he responded.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Peyton crawled up on the bed and knelt beside him, putting her hands to his taut shoulders.

“My Lord, but you’re tighter than a drumhead,” she said. She began kneading the bunched muscles and heard him sigh with pleasure.

“This is certainly no way to treat a man who did to you what I did,” he told her.

“I’m adaptable if nothing else, Sloan,” she replied. “As I see it, you did me a favor by relieving me of something I’d wanted to lose for quite some time.”

“You’ll be sleeping beside me tonight,” he stated and she saw him open his eyes to stare at the wall.

“I would prefer that to sleeping with Miss Coronella,” she said.

“I intend to take you again.”

Peyton’s brows drew together, her hands stilling on his shoulders. “Certainly not with your grandmother in the next bed,” she stated.

“She’ll be dead to the world in less than five minutes from the time her head hits the pillow. Besides, she’ll expect it.”

“Nevertheless,” she said as she withdrew her hands. “I have no intention of allowing you to ....”

He lifted his head and looked around at her. “Allowing me?” he queried. “Wench, it’s not like you have any options in this. I
will
take you whether you want it or not, whether you fight me or not.” He narrowed his eyes. “As a matter of fact, the struggling might add more to it.”

“But why?” she asked, tears gathering in her eyes as humiliation set in. “Why would you shame me in that way?”

“I intend you be carrying my child when I send you back to Texas,” he said, a muscle grinding in his jaw. “The more times I take you, the better the chance of that happening.”

“And have you once--even once!--considered that I might be incapable of bearing a child?” she threw at him. “I am forty-eight years old and ....”

“I
will
get your pregnant,” he said. “Never doubt it, wench. To contemplate anything other than that is unacceptable to me.”

“All that talk ain’t even necessary,” Snake said and it was obvious the old woman had been eavesdropping. “I’m gonna be bunking outside while you’re here, girl. I’ve heard enough grunting and groaning, mewling and moaning to last me a lifetime.”

“You most certainly will not give up your bed!” Peyton declared. “You ....”

“Ain’t no discussing it,” Snake told her. “Done made my mind up I don’t want to be where the boy is making noises like his old man did so that’s that.”

Peyton stared down at Harper but he had already laid his cheek on the hobnail spread and had closed his eyes. “This isn’t right,” she said.

“She’ll do what she wants so you might as well accept it,” he said, his brogue thick as the laudanum began to take effect.

Realizing he would soon fall asleep from the result of the medicine, Peyton scooted off the bed and went to sit in one of the rockers, her clenched fist jammed under her chin as she glared across the room at her captor.

“Don’t do no good to send him them fiery looks,” Snake said as she strolled by on her way out, pillow and blanket in hand. “He’s dead to the world right about now.”

“How long will that last?”

“Most of the night,” Snake answered, “but if’n you’re thinking he won’t be able to get it up, think again. He’ll wake himself up stiff as a post and be reaching for you, girl. Best you be in the bed beside him and ready else he’ll be one sorry-tailed bear.” She put a finger alongside her nose. “Mark my words now and don’t get him all riled up. He’s a good man most of the time, but I’m thinking he might be less so if you try denying him what he has his heart set on having.”

That said, the old woman left the cabin, easing the door shut behind her. The silence left behind was palpable and Peyton sat there as the sun went down and the crickets began chirping loudly. She shifted uncomfortably in the rocker--listening to Harper’s faint snoring--and stared at him. She missed her soft, comfy chair in her bedroom, wishing she was in it curled up with a good Gothic novel and a glass of warm milk.

Thinking of the milk, she yawned. It had been a long, eventful day and she was tired. The bed looked inviting but Harper was lying across the middle of it. In order to sleep on it, she’d have to stretch out beside him with her feet off the edge and that didn’t seem conducive to a good night’s rest. Ideally, she switched her gaze to Snake’s bed but the old woman’s warning flittered through her mind and she dismissed that as a possibility. After another ten minutes or so of staring at Harper, she took off her boots and stockings then hoisted herself out of the chair, went behind the screen to make her toilet for the night, then came out to pluck a pillow from the bed and crawl up on the bed beside him, lying on her side, her back to him. She had no sooner laid her head on the pillow than his heavy arm settled atop her, his hand curling around her middle to draw her closer to him.

“You smell good,” she heard him mumble a second or so before his warm breath fanned over her neck.

“How’s your head?” she felt compelled to ask.

“Still there,” he muttered.

Peyton thought she had to be the most sinful woman in the world for when his hand crept up to close over her breast, she drew in a slow breath and closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the sensation, and said nothing, did not shy away from his touch, did not sigh with exasperation or bat his hand from her. When his thumb stroked over her nipple, she simply bit down on her lower lip, forcing herself not to groan as she so longed to do.

“You are a sensuous woman, wench,” he said against her ear. “You were made for making love. You were made for a man’s touch.”

His words made Peyton’s womb clench and she relaxed against him, willing to have him do whatever it was he felt compelled to do to her. Though she knew it was wicked, knew it was wrong, but she didn’t care. She was a woman who had been denied what most women took for granted and she wanted to experience, to experiment with those things that had been forbidden, hidden, things for which she’d been starved for so long.

“Turn over,” he said and she obeyed immediately, eager to know what wondrous things he had in store for her.

He rose up, poised over her as he kneaded her breast through the fabric of her bodice. His fingertips grazing her taut nipple. His mouth came down over hers and his insistent tongue parted her lips to delve inside as his fingers pinched her lightly. The moment he thrust deep with that wicked probe, Peyton was lost, completely at his mercy, offering herself up to him like an opening flower petal to the morning sun. Her entire body became one throbbing, pulsing tool for him to wield as he liked.

She put her arms around his neck and held him as his kiss deepened. She had waited so long, ached so long,
needed
a man for so long that she was on fire beneath him. Her fevered dreams could never have prepared her for the reality of a man’s kisses or the way his body felt pressing down upon hers. No forbidden touches between her thighs--fleeting and filled with shame--could ever have been so sweet.

“Touch me, wench,” he said in a husky voice and reached for her hand, pulling it down to the hard bulge that pressed against her leg.

“W--what do I do?” she asked when her palm was held to that thickness.

“Undo my pants and reach inside,” he said, his warm breath fanning over her face as he looked down at her.

Her hand shook as she did as he bid her, fumbling with the hook on his jeans, barely able to draw the zipper down her body quivered so violently. There was no need for her reach inside the garment for his manhood sprang free, jutting toward her, its tip slick.

“Wrap your fingers around me,” he instructed.

Licking her upper lip, she forced her concentration to that part of his anatomy and gently closed her hand around him. He was velvet soft but hard as steel and she could feel the pulse of his heartbeat against her palm.

“Tighten your fingers around me.”

Her eyes flew to his. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” he said, holding her gaze. “Squeeze me, wench, then run your closed hand up and down the length of me.”

She increased the pressure around his rod.

“Tighter,” he said.

Peyton drew her fingers inward and when he bid her squeeze even harder, she complied though she was afraid she might bruise him and said as much.

“I hope to God you do, wench,” he breathed against the side of her face then lowered his mouth to hers once more, thrusting his tongue deep into the warm recesses, his shaft leaping in her hand as she ran her hand down him and he bucked his hips toward her. He tore his mouth free of her and lowered his lips to the hollow at her throat. “Aye, like that.”

He was so thick in her hand and the tip of him was oozing in such a way it aided her in running her palm up and down him. There was such heady power in handling him like that and Peyton was reveling in it.

“Squeeze and release slightly then squeeze hard again,” he said and she heard him growl deep in his throat as she did what he wanted.

“You like this?” she asked, innocently.

“Aye, wench, I like it,” he muttered, “but let go now else you’ll have a mess in your hand.”

She released him and he slithered down her like a snake, pushing her skirts up as he’d done in the cave except this time she helped him, tugging them up until they were out of the way and he was between her legs where he obviously desired to be, shouldering aside her thighs until his hot breath was centered on her most private area. A part of her was embarrassed beyond belief for she no longer had the protection of her drawers and she could feel him staring intently between her legs.

“What are you doing, S--sloan?” questioned.

“Shush. God, you smell so lusty, wench,” he said. He moved closer to draw in her scent.

She thought she felt him lick her--there!--and she froze, her face burning with a raging fire. “That can’t be right,” she said as he reached up to lay the flat of his hand between her legs. She nearly levitated straight off the bed, her entire lower body hitching upward to meet his touch.

“Trust me,” he said. “What I’m going to do, you’re going to like.”

Peyton had no time to question that claim and no desire to miss out on anything this man wanted to do to her. She was putty in his hands and as soon as she felt the unmistakable touch of his lips to her flesh, she arched her hips up, her hands going to his thick hair to hold his head.

“Aye,” he said around slow, long drags of his tongue over her folds. “Hold me like that, baby.”

Peyton stared up at the water-blotched ceiling above her and vaguely heard thunder rumbling in the distance. She was panting, her rump wriggling on the mattress, mussing the spread as he licked her, but at the moment his lips closed around something truly enlightening, she cried out and she heard him laugh as he suckled her.

“Sweet, Merciful Lord!” she exclaimed. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might not survive this round of love making. With the insertion of his finger into her wetness, she believed herself well on her way to dying, her eyelids fluttering as a second intrusion joined the first.

Her heels were digging into the mattress and her knees fell wide apart. He was thrusting his fingers in and out of her slowly, deeply, as he drew on whatever that delicious part of her flesh was that held his rapt attention. Her hands were buried in his long hair, her fingernails grazing his scalp, and she closed her eyes, arching her head back as a third finger slid smoothly into her, stretching and twisting then arched upward as he seemed to be searching for something within her. The moment he found what he was looking for, she knew and cried out, pressing down, bearing down on his hand as wave after wave of purely intense delight shook her to her very core.

He had hooked his fingers inside her and was pulling on what she thought might be her pelvic bone but there was no pain, just vibrant enjoyment that shimmied down her back and fanned out through her womb and spread to her limbs.

“That’s it, baby,” he said. “Come for me.”

And that ripple of pleasure ran through her again until she was nothing more than a boneless mass lying splayed open for him, unable to move, her hands falling from his hair to lay palm up, her short, quick hitches of breath sounding very loud to her ears.

“Now, it’s my turn,” he said and as she lay there, he slid his palms beneath her and hiked her hips upward, bracing the backs of her thighs on the tops of his as he guided his stiff cock into her moistness.

He went deep inside and then began a slow, tantalizing rhythm that finally gave her the impetus to move and she slammed her hands to his upper arms and wrapped her fingers around him--her nails digging into the backs of his arm--as his thrust increased in speed and depth and he filled her to bursting with his hard, pulsing tool.

His spending was thick and hot shooting deep inside her and the leap of him brought about still another wave of quickenings within her tired body. She brought her legs up and captured him, holding him to her as the last of his juices spurted.

“Damn,” he said, panting and his body weight descended upon hers for a moment or two before he rolled off, flinging an arm over his eyes as he gasped for breath.

“Did I hurt you again?” she asked.

He laughed. “Aye, wench, and the more you hurt me, the better I like it.”