Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (45 page)

She looked up. His eyes were dark and intense. His forearm across her back held her breasts to his chest. She could feel his heart beating faster than normal. “What?”

“It’s bullshit that you don’t resent Emily.”

“That’s so unfair.” True, but unfair.

“You don’t want me to have ever loved anyone before you anymore than I want you to have loved anyone before me.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” He touched her cheek, the light gesture infused with the softness in his eyes as he said, “You’re as possessive as I am, so you can drop any bullshit to the contrary.”

“All right,” she grunted, pushing against his chest. “I don’t want you to have loved Emily. I hate knowing you compare me to her and she wins every time because you loved her and she’s always going to have that part of you.”

“I didn’t love her.”

“I hate wondering if I’m doing the right thing, and in private, if it’s right or wrong that I do as you ask. Whether I should enjoy it, and whether Emily would have done it and therefore whether I should. I hate—”

His hand over her mouth stopped the torrent of words. She considered biting his palm. “I didn’t love her.”

She blinked, still not sure she’d heard him right.

“And yeah, you should definitely do as I ask in private and you should absolutely enjoy it until you scream yourself hoarse. You should wiggle and beg and—”

She bit him then. Hard.

“Ow.” He didn’t look upset. He looked extraordinarily pleased.

“I hate you,” she whispered to her lap.

“No, you don’t.” He slid his hand into her hair, clenching his fingers in the loose strands at her nape, and tilted her head back until she was staring into his face. “You love me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you raped me.” The tears she was blinking back pooled in her voice.

He kissed her very, very gently on her lips, brushing her nose with his as he pulled away. “But you do, and maybe, if I’m very lucky, sometime in the next fifty years, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“I can never forgive you if I don’t know what happened. Why it happened.”

“I can’t tell you why, Angel, but I can tell you how.”

“Please.” She just wanted it over.

He let go of her hand and pressed her head into his chest. “All I know is what I overheard and what I put together later.” His words were muffled by his hand over her ear.

“That’s fine. Just tell me.”

“Cecile was going to auction you off to the highest bidder, make some money off you before handing you over to the regulars. Virgins bring a high price.”

“Oh God!” She fought back the nausea.

His hands rubbed her back, her thigh, whatever they touched. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No. I want to know. I don’t want to wonder about it anymore.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded.

“You ticked her off and she gave you to me.”

“You were my punishment?” She sounded shocked. She couldn’t help it. Who could ever see Cougar as anything but a reward?

“Guess she figured being taken by a half-breed, especially one in the state I was in, would make an impression on you.”

“You’d never hurt a woman.”

He held her stare. “Most people are afraid of me.”

“Most people are fools.”

“You get used to it.”

“But you don’t ever like it?”

“No,” he admitted after a slight hesitation.

“So I shouldn’t start calling you Gut ’em?”

He smiled and touched her cheek. “You do and that little pussy of yours will be red for a week.”

She offered no comment.

His finger slid across her cheek and settled into the corner of her mouth. “I saw you in that room, Angel, and I knew I’d found something special. Something I’d been looking for my whole life.” He shook his head, his finger insinuating between her lips until he could slide it along the sensitive lining. “You were so damned beautiful and so sexy in that floaty nightgown.”

It was ridiculous but she was relieved she’d been dressed.

“I knew right then that when I left, I was taking you with me.”

“Did I fight?”

He shook his head and his hair brushed her cheek. She caught the strand and held it, making him meet her gaze. “You were so drugged, though I didn’t know it at the time, you didn’t do much except lay there, sigh, and let me touch and play with you.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to remember the time at the ranch as our first. Remember how you rose to my touch, how you screamed in release under my mouth, how you made me senseless with pleasure.”

Yes. She could do that, but first, she needed to deal with what happened at Cecile’s. “What happened after?”

“At Cecile’s?”

“Yes.”

“You knocked me out with the lamp, and took on Aleric and Cecile. You killed Cecile. I came to in time to stop Aleric from killing you, and then I took you out of there.”

“Really?” He made it sound so simple. Straightforward. So unimportant.

“Yes.”

“You were my first?”

“First, last, and the only one who will ever matter.”

“That’s a strange way of putting it.”

“I want you to remember that I’ll always want you, Mara. And if anything happens to you that makes you feel dirty or uncertain, you just remember, I’m coming for you, and you hang on no matter what.”

“That’s a strange thing to say.”

“As a marshal, you get to see a lot of things you’d rather not. One of those things is women who’ve been raped. They get it in their heads they can’t go back, that it somehow matters, and they do stupid things.”

“Maybe their husbands would have cared.”

“They wouldn’t have.” He sounded very sure.

“How do you know?”

“Someone had to tell them their wives were dead.”

And it had fallen to him. How hard that must have been for him. Cougar wasn’t a man who dealt in what-ifs. He accepted life’s ups and downs and made plans on how to get through them. Explaining to another something that made no sense to him would have been hard. It would have left an impression. One that had him once again gripping her chin between his fingers, the calluses on his hands rough on her flesh as he brought her gaze to his. “I don’t want anyone ever coming to tell me something like that.”

“I already promised I wouldn’t leave you that way.”

He dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. “Promise me again.”

She placed her hand on his cheek, understanding in that moment, that there was no way he would have taken her at Cecile’s if he’d known she was unwilling, and even if she couldn’t remember what had happened, there was no way that Cougar would have been cruel. It wasn’t his way. “I promise, Cougar. I’ll hold on until you come for me.” She stroked her thumb over his wide, generous mouth, smiling as he immediately pressed a kiss against the pad. “No matter what,” she added softly, knowing he needed to hear it, understanding his fears.

His “See that you do” was gruff. She didn’t take offense. He was such a deep-feeling man, her husband. He just didn’t understand that she was better now, stronger. That she had strength of her own that he could believe in. She would wait for him, if it ever came to that, because he needed her and she wouldn’t leave him alone with that need. As he had never left her alone with hers, even when she’d faced the specter of pregnancy.

She sat up straight. Her hand dropped to his shoulder, as she gasped, “No wonder you weren’t worried about raising another man’s child!”

He flinched and had the grace to look guilty. For about two seconds. Then his expression turned sober. He slid his big hand behind her neck, bringing her back against him.

“Has there ever been anything in my background or your dealings with me that would make you think I would ever turn a child away from my home?”

“No.”

“Anything I’ve ever done to make you think I’d hurt a child out of spite?”

“No.” She could see him dying to protect a child, but she couldn’t see him hurting one.

“Anything you’ve ever heard or seen that tells you I get my jollies from hurting things littler than me?”

“No, but—”

He reared back the slightest. “But what?”

Beneath her hand, his muscles were tight, telling her that he still wasn’t comfortable with the way things were between them. He still expected her to walk away on some excuse. She stroked the hard ridge of his collarbone. He had so much to learn about her.

“But if we do have kids, you’d better find a way to toughen up. I’m not going to have a household of hooligans running roughshod over me because you crumple at a pout.”

There was a shocked moment of silence, a short burst of laughter and then he hooked her neck in the crook of his elbow and kissed her hard. There was passion, hope, and relief in that kiss. He rested his forehead against hers. “Witch.”

“I’m serious Cougar. You’ll have to hold up your end of the discipline.”

He hugged her tighter. “Then you’d better make damned sure none of them look like you.”

She smiled and snuggled into his shoulder. He would be a wonderful father. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

She let her hand slide down until it rested on his chest.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

She barely felt the kiss that landed on the top of her head. She tilted her head so she could see his face. “If you didn’t love Emily, why did her death bother you so much?”

Beneath her ear, muscles jerked and his breath hitched. His expression became guarded. And sad. “Because I should have loved her. Because I couldn’t. Because I tried to force the issue and she died.”

“Doc said she died in a flood.”

“She did, but if I hadn’t pushed her, she wouldn’t have fought me.”

“You pushed her in the water?”

He shook his head and looked over the buggy wheel. “I pushed her for intimacy.”

She could see him doing that. Easily. He was a very physical man. This time, it was her hand on his cheek bringing his face to hers. “There’s no way you forced her and if you were about to be married, she should have been happy with your touch.”

“She wasn’t.”

“Then she should have called off the wedding, not thrown a hissy fit that almost killed you both.”

His smile was a small curve of his lips. “You’ve been talking to Doc.”

She shrugged. “He offered the information.”

“And you were curious.”

“More like intimidated. She sounded so perfect and you were engaged.”

He turned his mouth into her palm, and kissed her. “She was window-dressing. You’re the real thing.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Of course I do.”

He nipped her palm and slid his hand down her thigh, pulling her closer. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I do.”

He dropped his head until his mouth caressed her ear. “I showed you mine, now you show me yours.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“How’d you end up at the Pleasure Emporium, Mara?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He kissed her temple, his lips sliding in her hair. “I think it does.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You’re going to tell me someday.”

But not today. She laid her head on his shoulder. Between them, his stomach rumbled loudly. “You’re hungry.”

“I could eat.”

“Me, too.”

“The one thing we can’t have is you skipping meals.”

“You are obsessed with fattening me up.”

“You’re still too thin.”

There was no arguing the truth, so she didn’t bother. “So let’s go do something about it.”

His hand stroked her hair. “What are you suggesting?”

“Well, you did leave your hat at Millicent’s.”

He squeezed her tightly. “We don’t need to go back there.”

“I want to.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m starving.”

“We can get something to eat without having to sit amidst a bunch of gawking townsfolk.”

“But I want to sit amongst a bunch of gawking townsfolk. I want them to see me with my husband. I want all those women to see me with you. I want to eat my dinner while they eat their hearts out wishing they had half as much man sitting next to them.”

“You might be stretching it there.”

She smiled and braided her hair down her back. “You’ll have to trust me on this, Cougar. There isn’t a woman in this whole territory who, after today, wouldn’t give her eyeteeth to spend a day with you.”

He frowned. “I don’t want any of them.”

She stood, straightening her skirt and brushing straw from the hem. “That’s what makes it even better.”