Just This Once (26 page)

To her surprise, his face relaxed and he
looked amused. “That’s all? I reckon she deserved it.”

Josie nearly smiled. He only reverted to his
western style of talking when he was alone with her. Somehow it
made her feel closer to him. He had become very much the Englishman
of late—dark, dashing, aristocratic. Except, of course, when he’d
thrashed Oliver Winthrop—and Lucian and Pirate Pete and Tiny. Those
were the gunfighter’s fists in action.

She found herself grinning up at him.

“As a matter of fact, she did. If you’d only
seen how badly she treated Miss Perry. Ordering her about,
threatening to tell her mama that Miss Perry had paid more
attention to Colonel Hamring and to me than she had to
her
,
flinging it in Miss Perry’s face that the only reason she had a
home, and clothes on her back, and food was because of her mama’s
generosity.” The words were tripping over themselves. “I know what
it’s like to be beholden to other people—to have them rub your face
in the fact that without them you’d be nothing and to make you feel
as if—” She suddenly fell silent, turning away.

Ethan put a hand on her shoulder and swung
her back, “Is that what they told you when you were taken in,
Josie? That you were nothing?”

“Some of them tried.” She kept her tone
light. “But it didn’t bother me,” she added quickly, a bit too
breezily. “I just did what I had to do to stay out of trouble and
then if it got too bad, I’d run away.”

“And do what?”

“What difference does it make?” She tried to
shrug away, but he gripped both her shoulders and held her still.
“What’s important is what happened today with Miss Crenshaw.”

“No. Tell me what you did after you ran
away.”

She swallowed. His fingers were digging into
her shoulders. His gaze was digging into her soul. She struggled to
keep him out. “I found various jobs, in between ending up at
another orphanage. Usually cooking. I’m good at cooking,” she said,
her chin angling up. “You ought to taste my corn bread. That’s what
I did in Abilene, you know. I only filled in at the dance hall when
someone was sick—most of the time I worked in the kitchen
and...”

“And you picked pockets.”

“Only when I really needed money to get by.
I’m not proud of it!” she cried defiantly, trying to twist away
from him, but failing. “I only stole from people who looked like
they could afford to spare some money—like you. You’d just won the
big poker game and I’d given my last dime to a girl who needed to
get away from Judd Stickley, but I needed to get out of town, too,
and fast.”

“I know. That man who was after you. My
question is why?”

She gritted her teeth. His hands were heavy
on her shoulders, wearing away at her will, grinding down her
resistance. “What makes you so interested suddenly?” she demanded,
glaring at him from beneath a sweep of tawny lashes.

His eyes bored into hers. He couldn’t tell
her that he’d been interested, been curious for a while now, but
had been fighting it—unsuccessfully. Now he needed to know.

“Just answer the question.”

Behind her the wind sighed through the
trees. Josie was gazing into Ethan’s eyes, searching his lean, dark
face. She was unsure what she searched for. Beneath the rugged
masculine features, the cynicism and cool veneer, she glimpsed
something more. Something keen and demanding. Something intense
that belied the outward calm.

She felt something pulling her to tell him.
His will. Strong, dominant, but... gentle. It was the sudden
gentleness in the fingers that clasped her shoulders that was her
undoing.

“That man who was after me—he was an outlaw.
His name is Snake Barker.” The words, held in for so long, just
poured out and kept coming. “He and his gang—they’d have killed me
if they caught me. They’d been hunting me for weeks.” Just saying
Snake’s name had triggered a spasm of fear in her stomach, but it
faded as she continued to stare into Ethan’s eyes.

They were even darker, more intense than
before. They burned into her, hot as ice.

“Why?”

“I stole from him. It was loot—money and
things he’d stolen from others. I did it to get away and...”

She hesitated.

“Go on.”

It came out in a rush. “And for revenge.
Snake beat me one night, he beat me senseless. He finally passed
out from all the liquor he’d drunk, and I woke up on the floor.”
The horror of it returned, flashing through her with a wave of
nausea, of sick, shaking fear that shuddered through her whispered
words. It rocked her so deeply, she didn’t even feel the lash of
tension that coiled like a whip through Ethan’s body, didn’t even
see the cold, deadly fury clamp over his features.

“I felt like every bone in my body was
broken—but lucky for me, they weren’t. I crawled past him, to the
door, then I managed to get up. Everything hurt. I ran... I took
the saddlebags filled with loot, a horse....”

The lovely grassy streambank faded, the blue
dazzle of the English sky, the grandeur of the great house that
rose beyond the trees. She was back in that hideout cabin again,
the stench of liquor and Snake’s sweat and her own blood filling
her nostrils. And the pain blurring her eyes.

“I rode as far as I could... stayed a short
time only in each town... knew he was coming after me, there’d be
no stopping him the next time. He’d kill me. He wouldn’t stop until
I was dead. I crossed him, you see, when I took what was his—I
crossed him bad... but I’m not sorry I did, I needed to get back at
him for what he’d done. And I needed money, and I needed that—”

She broke off in horror, coming to her
senses just in time. She’d been about to say “needed that ring that
belonged to Miss Denby....”

What spell had Ethan Savage cast on her?
She’d told him too much and what was worse, he’d brought her to
tears. Hot, stinging tears had welled up in her eyes, and it took
all of her strength to blink them back.

“Let me go,” she gasped raggedly. To her
mortification, two tears slipped out and trickled down her cheeks.
“I want to go back to the house.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes! Let me go!”

Instead, his hands slid roughly around her
waist and he pulled her against him. His strength surrounded her.
An electric heat sparked between their bodies. Josie gasped at the
force of it, her head flying up, her eyes wide on the unfathomable
gray gaze staring back at her.

His arms tightened. She felt the length of
him, long and lean and hard, pressed against her. But instead of
her shrinking from him in fear, some primitive instinct took over.
Want and need had her melting against him. How strong he was. How
solid, his body like sculpted iron. It felt good to be held by him
like this—why did it have to feel so good?

Her hands splayed across his chest, delicate
fingers trembling over the hard muscles. Her head was still thrown
back as she stared at him half in trepidation, half in
anticipation, trying to read beneath the cynical exterior, to see
beneath the dangerous glint in his eyes.

She couldn’t read what she saw in his face,
couldn’t fully understand why his arms tightened so restrictively
around her and held her fast, as if he were afraid she would vanish
like mist if he didn’t hang on tight enough.

“So that’s why you agreed to marry me that
night—why you were so desperate to get out of Abilene pronto—to
come to England.” The words rasped out of him. He wiped a tear from
her cheek, so gently, it made her tremble. “So that this outlaw
couldn’t find you?”

Was he angry? His eyes glittered, his jaw
was clenched. But Josie thought she heard understanding in his
tone.

“Yes, because of that and...” There was
more, there was Miss Denby, the search she needed to commence, the
strange fascination she’d had with him right from the first, but
before she could say anymore, Ethan’s hands, those strong, capable
hands, slid to her hair. They smoothed through the velvet skeins,
caressing, stroking, and she felt her senses dwindling fast.

“Did you know, even then, Josie, that I’d
never let him touch you? Never let him hurt you?”

His voice was low, growling, dangerous.

Wildly, she shook her head. What was he
saying?

“If you’d told me that day in the alley, I’d
have protected you.”

“I’d picked your pocket, Ethan.” A
half-crazed laugh bubbled in her throat. “You were ready to murder
me yourself.”

“Not quite,” he muttered grimly, then had to
suppress a groan as she turned those deep violet eyes upon him with
questioning innocence and he felt himself drowning in their
spell.

He battled for control. Best to get her away
from him, fast. To step back, take time to think. Without the
sunshine-and-flower scent of her filling his nostrils, without the
soft handful of her lush curves playing havoc with his blood.

“What that man did, Josie, that Snake
Barker...” He drew a breath, tried to drop his hands from her, but
only stroked his fingers deeper in the cloud of her hair. He had a
mind, one day, to sail back to America and hunt down Snake Barker
like the animal he was. That would give him infinite pleasure, to
kill the bastard and leave him for the vultures. “No man has a
right to do that to a woman.”

“Try telling that to Snake. Ethan...”

“What?”

“I can’t believe that you care.” She
swallowed hard. “That you... Last night you said you don’t even
like me, remember? Or trust me.”

“I like you a hell of a lot more than I care
to admit,” he grated, the words torn out of him, and as her
delectable mouth dropped open in surprise, he suddenly hauled her
even closer and lowered his lips to hers.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Hell, he hadn’t
meant to touch her, or to hold her like this, every inch of their
bodies touching, with her pretty breasts crushed against his chest,
her hips molded to him. But once he’d started, he couldn’t seem to
stop.

Just like he couldn’t stop kissing her.

He heard her moan deep in her throat, but it
wasn’t an unhappy moan, nor was the way she slid her aims around
his neck an indication that she wanted to be set loose. Which was
damn well good because after the first taste of those lips, Ethan
had no intention of setting her loose.

He deepened the kiss as her mouth parted and
shaped itself to his. Heat seared, then the sweep of his tongue
found hers, and he felt her quiver all through her body. She tasted
sweeter than warm summer honey. More intoxicating than the most
potent, delicious wine. He wanted to drink her in, swallow her up,
devour her in one long, delicious never-ending gulp.

Ethan had thought his blood couldn’t grow
hotter than it was, but suddenly, as her tongue touched his, and
tentatively flickered between his lips, the fiery heat and
knife-edged need in him intensified by several hundred degrees.

His hands stroked down her hips and cupped
her bottom with a need that was fast building to a raging
obsession.

Josie felt herself spinning through waves of
pleasure, pleasure so deep and fiery and joyful, it burned out
everything else. Reason, sanity, dignity—gone, gone, gone.

Her fingers curled in the thick silk of
Ethan’s hair. Her mouth covered his with giving surrender. Heat
swept through her body, sultry flames that incinerated every
rational thought and left only the hunger of need, the hot raging
of desire.

As she clutched him to her, she felt his
tension and his strength and his incredible, powerful need
answering her, demanding her.

Wondrously, she responded, her body unable
to fight the primitive response. It began deep inside the lonely
feminine reaches of her soul and burst forth like an avalanche.

“Josie, do you know how long I’ve been
wanting to do this... ?”

“When you kissed me at our wedding, I never
wanted you to let me go.”

“I never should have.” His mouth pressed
against her throat.

“You had to... you p-passed out.” Her
laughter tickled against his mouth. He kissed her bruisingly.

“Shows you what a damned fool I was... and
still am.”

Laughter trembled through her, then turned
to a pleasured gasp as his hands found her breasts.

Oh, in the name of heaven, what was he doing
to her?

Taking her to heaven, she thought, and then
all thought dissolved in a bathing cascade of delight.

Ethan’s thumbs brushed the hard peak of her
nipples, sending shock waves of pleasure. She closed her eyes,
letting sensation flutter lightly at first, then deepen until she
clutched him in desperation.

His mouth burned ruthless kisses down her
throat, then claimed lower territory, nipping and teasing through
her gown even as his hands circled and stroked, driving her
wild.

When he backed her against the trunk of a
tree, and proceeded to run his fingers along the buttons of her
gown, Josie felt her knees wobble.

She’d never felt anything remotely like this
before—Snake had taken her, hurriedly, greedily, slamming against
her, even his kisses hurtful and wet and disgusting. Never, never,
had he touched her with this rough magic that brought a different
kind of pain, a desperate ache so intense, so simultaneously bitter
and sweet, it made her yearn and shiver and cling like ivy to
stone.

Ethan’s kisses scorched, but the pain was
pleasurable, like strong, hot wine warmed by the sun that burned
clear through to the soul.

And then suddenly, as they sank to the
grass, their bodies locked and entwined while Ethan lowered her
upon the velvety streambank, a sound reached them from just over
the rise. It was a soft sound, but distinct, and so oddly
intrusive, they both heard it and froze.

“What the hell?” Ethan’s head flew up. He
frowned, the instincts that had always alerted him to danger, and
that had kept him alive in the untamed West for so many years,
asserting themselves in a rush. He dropped Josie into the softness
of the grass and sprang to his feet.