Kate Wingo - Western Fire 01 (29 page)

“Is everything all right?” Mercy inquired, gently res
ting her hand over top of his.

Seeing the concern in those luminous blue eyes, Spence fought the urge to lean over and kiss
Mercy on the lips. On the verge of assuring her that everything was right as rain, he was upstaged by his younger sister.

“And just how can things be all right when we’ve got a pack of damn Yankees pro
wling around in the next county?”

“Virginia Rose! Must I remind you that our guests are
—”

“Damn Yankees,” Prudence quietly interjected.

An awkward lull ensued. Dewey appeared particularly upset by his sister’s prejudicial remark. Seated across the table from Pru, he cast several pointed glances her way; glances that were reciprocated, he and Pru sharing a silent language all their own.

No sooner did Spence clear his throat to speak than Gabriel Maddox
– seated in the middle of the table next to Dixie – pulled a fruit jar full of earthworms from under the table.

“Dixie and I are going fishing tomorrow,” he announced, displaying more childish exuberance than he’d shown in days.

“Gabriel said that I could put the worms on the end of the hook,” Dixie chimed in.

Spence stared at the two children in mute shock, realizing for the first time that he was looking at the offspring of a death monger and the innocent man he
’d brutally murdered. About to nix the fishing trip, he was stopped cold by Mercy’s sudden death grip. Her face completely drained of color, she clutched his hand as if she was hanging on for dear life.

“Mercy, honey, what’s wrong?”

Staring at the jar of squirming, dirt-covered worms, Mercy rose from the table. Then, teetering on her feet, she made a slight choking noise before running from the room.

Spence cannonballed
to his feet, fully prepared to follow her. Almost immediately, his sister-in-law shot him a quelling glance.

“Leave her be, Spencer.”

Wondering at Lydia’s lack of compassion, Spence openly gaped at her.

Ignoring his heated stare, Lydia gracefully rose from the table. “
Might I have a word alone with you, Spencer?”

Curious as to what the blue blazes was going on, Spence followed Lydia to the kitchen.
As soon as they were out of earshot, he let her have it.

“Well, you
’re no Florence Nightingale, are you?”

“That is neither here nor there,”
Lydia replied in that perpetually cool tone of voice that she always used with him. “When would you like to hold the ceremony? The situation being what it is, I would think the sooner, the better.”

“Just what the hell are you talking about?” Knowing how Lydia disdained coarse language, Spence took a gleeful delight in being especially profane
in her presence.

“Why, I thought you already knew. Your lady friend is with child.
Your
child, unless I’m greatly mistaken.”

Spence’s jaw slackened,
Lydia’s announcement effectively knocking the wind out of him.

“Mercy? Pregnant?”

Damn it all to hell and back!

“We need to talk.”

Spencer’s deep, husky voice startled Mercy, the hairbrush slipping from her fingers and clattering onto the floor.

“I didn’t hear you knock,” she
said breathlessly.

“That’s because I didn’t.”
Unbidden, Spencer stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. Lifting his chin, he indicated the flickering candle on top of the bureau. “I saw that your light was still burning and I figured now was as good a time as any to clear the air.”

At a glance
, Mercy could see that Spencer’s mood had greatly altered since she’d last seen him at the supper table. There was something predatory and overtly masculine about him.

Self-consciously, she pulled the two halves of her wrapper together, her fingers fumbling with the tie.

“That’s kinda unnecessary, don’t you think?” Spencer sauntered over to where Mercy stood in front of the large oak armoire. “Particularly since I’ve already sampled the goods.”

Mercy made no reply.
Unnerved by Spencer’s cavalier tone of voice, she was suddenly put in mind of the brash, whiskey-eyed marauder who’d ridden with Bloody Ned and his gang.

His movements slow and deliberate
, Spencer grabbed a handful of her unbound hair and wound it several times around his fist. “Why do you have to be so damned beautiful? Huh? Can you just answer me that?”

“D-don’t you w-want me to be beautiful for you?” Mercy stammered
, able to smell liquor on his breath.

“
No. Not tonight.”

His
harshly uttered reply sent a chill down her spine.

Frightened, Mercy tried to edge away from him
. Only to have her backside slam against the full-length mirror attached to the front of the armoire.

“Aren’t you curious to know why I wish
that you weren’t so damned beautiful?”

Mer
cy wordlessly shook her head.

Choosing to ignore her
wishes, Spencer leaned toward her, his hand still entwined in her loose hair. “See, it’s like this.” He pressed his chest against her quivering breasts, his warm, distilled breath hitting Mercy full in the face. “If you didn’t have such a sweet little body, I might be able to keep my hands off of you.” Untangling her hair from around his fist, Spencer framed Mercy’s face between his hands, his fingers digging into her scalp. “See what I mean? I can’t stop touching you. Even, now, knowing that you’re—”

In the next instant,
Spencer’s mouth slammed into hers with a brutal, punishing force, any protest that she might have voiced effectively silenced. Mercy instinctively pushed against his chest, desperately trying to break free of his embrace. To no avail, the man as solid as a stone wall.

Still holding her head between his hands
, Spencer plundered the tender recesses of her mouth. Trapped between the armoire and that hard, unyielding male body, Mercy had no recourse but to surrender.

Once she did, she was lost.

Easing his mouth away from hers, Spencer’s lips scorched a path down Mercy’s neck, robbing her of the ability to think, to reason. She could only feel.

Because she needed Spencer in the deepest, most intimate way that a woman
could need a man, Mercy offered no resistance when he untied her robe and pulled it off her body. Nor did she resist when he unbuttoned her cotton nightdress. In fact, she helped him to tug the garment to her waist. And when he cupped her bare breasts, Mercy arched her back, filling his hands more fully.

“
Damn you, Mercy Hibbert. Damn you for ruining all my plans,” Spencer muttered, the guttural curses sounding like fevered caresses. Brushing his fingers back and forth across her breasts, his eyes burned with unrestrained passion.

Suddenly, without warning,
Spencer spun Mercy in his arms, turning her so that she faced the full-length armoire mirror.

Mesmerized, Mercy stared at their reflection, unable to look away
from the wanton sight. Holding her in front of him, Spencer rolled the stub of her nipple between his fingers, a shocking juxtaposition of male and female. While one callused hand continued to knead her breasts, the other hand roamed lower, finessing its way to the nightdress still bunched at her waist. Wedging his hand beneath the restraining fabric, Spencer palmed her woman’s mound before easing his fingers between her legs.

A st
rangled moan escaped Mercy’s lips.

To
her frustrated disappointment, Spencer all too soon retreated, his errant hand returning to her breast. In shocked disbelief she watched in the mirror as he wiped his fingers across her nipple, smearing it with her own feminine essence.

Not quite believing what she was seeing, she was powerless to
pull her gaze from the looking glass, her desire kindled by the twin fires of sight and touch. At that moment, she was as much a captive to the
feel
of Spencer’s hands as she was to the
sight
of those same hands upon her body.

Still fully clothed, Spencer pulled her
tightly against the front of his body, the sudden movement causing Mercy’s unbound breasts to indecently bounce. Groaning in her ear, Spencer made no secret of the fact that he thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. Frantic with need, she shoved her nightdress to the floor.

Bracketing her torso between his muscular
arms, Spencer slid his hand across her lower belly. Mercy avidly stared at the mirror, her excitement mounting as she watched Spencer rake his fingers through her nest of blond curls.

“Open
your legs for me,” he rasped.

Mercy did as
bidden, opening herself to him. She was soon hit with a jolt of pure, unadulterated pleasure as his middle finger wormed its way into her moist cleft. Slowly, deliberately, Spencer moved his finger in a small concentric circle, pressing against her inner bud.

The pleasure near unbearable
, Mercy bucked against him.

Maintaining
an excruciatingly steady rhythm, Spencer wantonly teased her, his finger pressing firmly against her one instant, then rubbing softly the next. Winding her tighter and tighter.

“Please, Spencer . . . please love me,”
Mercy shamelessly begged.

“I am, damn you.”
Spencer shoved two fingers deep inside of her. “I am.”

Mercy rubbed her
bare bottom against the front of his trousers, silently pleading with him to become one with her. To bury his staff deep within her.

For some inexplicable reason,
Spencer denied her what she most wanted. Instead he ground himself firmly between the channels of her buttocks, securely anchoring her between his hips and that sinfully knowing hand. Over and over, he eased his fingers into her. With each foray, he pushed a little harder, pressed a little deeper.

Nearly undone,
Mercy began to whimper.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No . . . yes!” she gasped, the pleasure so intense that it bordered on pain. She closed her eyes, reveling in the sweet, torturous agony that he forced her to endure.

She was almost there.
Almost.

“Keep looking in the mirror,” Spencer hoarsely commanded.

Her eyelids fluttered open. Fixing her gaze on the looking glass, Mercy stared at her reflection, taken aback to see her nude body writhing in wild abandon against Spencer’s tall, fully clothed frame. She was a woman teetering on the verge of complete and total surrender. Mindless of anything and everything except for the man who stood behind her and the sensual firestorm that he incited.

Just then,
Spencer flexed his hips, letting her feel the full measure of his erection. The brazen caress sent Mercy over the edge.

Sobbing
from the pleasure of it, she grasped Spencer’s wrist with both her hands. Unable to control herself, she violently trembled as one exquisite burst after another pulsated between her legs. Finally, her zenith having run its course, Mercy collapsed against him.

Spencer put
a hand on either side of her hips and spun her around to face him. Sexual hunger burned bright in his eyes, his appetite having clearly been whetted by the sight, and sound, and fury of her womanly climax.

Although
she was still in a weakened state, Mercy moved her fingers to the front of his trousers. Fumbling slightly, she worked the buttons over the swollen bulge of flesh between his hips. From the open V of fabric, his manhood jutted free; a raw, throbbing hardness that pushed against the soft flesh of her belly.

Mercy took
him in her hand, lovingly sliding her fingers up and down the heated length of him. Quite intentionally, she did to him as he’d done to her, quickening the tempo to the point of near ecstasy, only to withhold it from him at the very end. Spencer groaned, the veins in his neck throbbing as blood pumped through his body at a furious rate.

Glancing
downward, Mercy saw a single moist drop glisten on the hooded tip of Spencer’s organ.

“Mercy
, I can’t—” He drew a ragged breath. “
Please
—”

At hearing the desperation in
Spencer’s voice, Mercy stepped over to the four-poster bed and lowered herself onto the quilt-covered mattress. She then raised an arm in his direction, offering Spencer what he so desperately needed.

Putting a knee on the mattress
, Spencer shoved his trousers off his hips. He then pried her legs open and fully imbedded himself in one powerful thrust. With a strangled moan, he began to rapidly pump his hips.

As
Mercy stared at Spencer’s face, she thought that there was something savagely beautiful about him, passion rendering a harsh, leonine cast to his handsome features.

A few moments later
, much to her surprise, she felt herself again cresting ecstasy’s tide.

Panting
with renewed passion, she arched her back, boring her nipples into Spencer’s chest. Then, needing more, she shoved her hands beneath his shirt, her fingers skimming greedily across his shoulders. Sinking her nails into the straining muscles of his back, she held onto him as she began to take flight. Unable to restrain herself, she bit into Spencer’s shoulder to muffle her ecstatic cries.

In the next instant, Spencer groaned, every muscle in his body tensing as he filled her with his seed.
Only when his shudders had finally diminished did he wearily collapse against her.

Although satiated, he was still mad as hell.

Sprawled on top of the feather tick mattress, Mercy curled at his side, Spence stared at the white-washed ceiling. Somewhat absently he noticed the jittery play of shadows cast by the lone candle that still burned on the nearby bureau. As he idly rubbed his hand across his chest, he called to mind the almost frantic way that Mercy had clawed at him while in the throes of passion.

Glancing southward, he thought about buttoning his britches, his partially erect cock lying damp against his open fly. Too tired to care, he let it go. Why, bother?
He was, after all, still wearing his boots.

Furious as the devil, he’d smoke
d several cheroots and downed a healthy measure of corn whiskey before making his way to Mercy’s room. He still couldn’t believe that just when everything he’d worked so hard for was finally within reach, he found himself saddled with the kind of ball-breaking responsibility that sent most men running.

Hell, the last thing, the
very
last thing, he needed was a family of his own. All he wanted was vengeance, the need for it so strong that he’d spent the last eight years on a one-man quest to hunt down the twelve men responsible for killing his father and two brothers. Now, only one still remained alive, the elusive Dark Angel.

After having his little ‘chat’ with Lydia,
Spence had given serious consideration to saddling his horse and simply riding the hell out of Mercy Hibbert’s life. She didn’t need him. Truth be told, the woman had more grit than most men he knew. And while the idea was mighty appealing, for every argument he came up with in favor of leaving, he hit up against two stronger arguments for staying.