Rose (21 page)

Kase pulled her up hard against his length, one arm moving to encircle her shoulders while he draped the other across her hips to press her against him. His breath was warm and whiskey-scented, the rough material of his suit a sharp contrast to the soft sensual feel of his lips against hers. His kiss, as before, was not gentle, and yet she felt no fear as his lips played against hers. As if he might devour her with his kiss, Kase ground his lips against hers, slanted his mouth and slid his tongue between her teeth.

Rosa uttered a muffled groan and pulled him closer, as she strained upward, clasping him to her as the exchange deepened. The arm he held across her hips lowered until his hand cupped her derriere. He fit her to him. She could feel the hard length of his manhood burgeoning beneath the heavy suit material.

The kiss ended—not abruptly as it had the night he kissed her in the store—but slowly as he drew his lips away from hers until they stood breathing heavily, still clasped in each other’s arms. He kissed her temple, then her cheek. She felt his breath whisper past her ear as he sighed.

“Let’s go.”

“Should we not tell Signor Quentin good-bye?”

“No.” He held her elbow as she climbed up into the carriage.

“We should tell him
grazie,”
she tried again.

“He’ll think I had to get back because of all the cowhands who followed Flossie and the girls to town.”

“Do you?”

“I think you know why I want to leave. Besides, Zach stayed in town to look after things.”

She watched him pick up the reins and signal the horse to move forward. “Why we are leaving before the party is ended?”

He was hungry for the taste of her, aching with need, and out of patience. It was evident in his tone. “You’re playing with fire, Rose. You know it, though, don’t you?”

Surprised by the harshness in his voice, she looked away. What he said was true and she knew it. He was as volatile as a powder keg. What she did not understand was why.

“Look, Rose. We have to get something straight.”

“Rosa.”

He ignored the correction. “Ever since the first day you came to Busted Heel, I’ve felt responsible for you.”

Puzzled, she shook her head. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I’m the marshal. I feel responsible for you the way I feel responsible for everyone in town.” The next reason was harder to put into words. After a pause he continued, “You remind me a lot of my mother.”

“Your
mother?”
Her heart sank. Just when she was marveling that this usually angry, brooding man was beginning to share some of his thoughts and feelings with her, he tells her she reminds him of his mother. Rosa sighed. A woman does not want to remind a man of his mother.

Kase went on, unmindful of her disappointment. “She came to this country from Europe, too.” He paused, collecting his thoughts, carefully choosing his words. “Things weren’t easy for her, either.”

Rosa watched as he flexed and unflexed his fingers and then rubbed his palms on his thighs unwilling to say any more.

“But I am not your mother.”

“No, definitely not.” He relaxed a little and leaned back against the seat.

Jealous of the attention he had paid Flossie’s women all evening, especially one in particular, she could not resist saying, “The girls from Flossie’s house do not remind you of your mother. Perhaps you do not care for me because your hands are already loaded.”

“What
?”

“Your hands are loaded with the others.”

After straining to comprehend, Kase suddenly laughed out loud. “Do you mean
full
? My hands are full?”

His laughter riled her. “Full, loaded, is no difference.” She pictured his hands, dark and sure, occupied with Chicago’s more glamorous attributes.

“Floss’s girls are friends.”

“The blond one, too?”

“Especially the blond one. She’s like a sister to me.”

Suspicious, Rosa arched a brow. Her skepticism was evident, even in the moonlight.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said.

“Don’t give me the lie.”

“I’m not lying. She’s a friend.”

Rosa shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do say so. There’s no need to get huffy.” Kase sat in stony silence as the carriage moved down the road. The horse’s dark mane shone blue-black in the moonlight. The road was a white ribbon against the black earth; the moonlit sky hovered close above them. Rosa shivered in the crisp air; it seemed much cooler than it had been before sunset. She rubbed her arms to warm them as, more confused than ever by his actions, she tried to ignore the man beside her.

As the carriage rolled on toward Busted Heel, the strained silence lengthened between them. She shifted as the jolting ride became more uncomfortable, the night air more chilled as the moments passed. When a back wheel hit a rock, Rosa bounced upward and lost her balance. She nearly landed atop Kase’s thigh. He drove the carriage off the main road for a few yards, men stopped. After looping the reins around the brake, he reached under the seat and brought forth a thick striped blanket.

“Stand up,” he directed.

When Rosa stood, he wrapped the blanket around her and, when she sat back down, tucked it end over end about her legs.

He started to reach for the reins again, then stopped. He took off his hat, set it on his knee, and leaned back against the leather seat. Kase stared out at the dark flat land that stretched endlessly before them.

“I don’t see how you have any call to ask me about Chicago when I spent the night watching every damned man in the place dance with you—”

“Not every one.”

“Close to it. You have Quentin Rawlins eating out of your hand. I found out something about myself tonight, Rose. I don’t like to see other men put their hands on you. I don’t like to watch you smile up into other men’s eyes, either.” He turned toward her and moved his arm, resting it on the seat behind her. His fingertips toyed with the material of her jacket sleeve.

His admission filled every corner of her heart with joy, but she did not know how to respond to it. She met his eyes as he continued.

“I’ve never been jealous in my life, and I don’t like feeling the way I do.”

“Because you do not like feeling anything, Marshal.”

His eyes roamed over her face. “Meaning?”

Moonlight gleamed against his raven-black hair. His lips were full and inviting. She took a deep breath, thankful that he could not see the way her fingers were clasped together beneath the blanket. She was afraid to push him too far, afraid to try to make him put into words all that he was feeling. From what she had experienced of Kase Storm, she knew he was a man who kept all he felt hidden behind one of two masks—silence or anger. It might take a lifetime to learn what was hidden behind them. At this moment Rosa only cared about tonight. Flossie’s advice was still fresh in her mind:
If you’ve got feelin’s for Kase Storm, you make ‘em known.... Do what comes natural.

“Kiss me,” she said.

“Dammit!” he said softly. There was only so much a man could withstand. He pulled her roughly into his hard embrace and did as she asked. His kiss was long, slow, and thorough. Rosa felt trapped in the cocoon he’d made of the blanket. She longed to hold him, to slide her fingers through his thick straight hair.

As their lips finally parted and Rosa took a deep breath, Kase settled back against the seat. They stared up at the moon that rode the sky and silhouetted the distant mountains with its silver light.

Things had progressed further than he had intended, but somehow, sitting alone with Rose in the cool night air under a wide star-filled sky, he found himself unwilling to leave. He felt a quiet peace that he had not known in months. He hated to end the moment, but refused to lead her on.

“You deserve the best life has to offer, Rose.” In a tone that held no self-pity, only certainty, he added, “And that doesn’t include me.”

“You think little of yourself, Marshal. Why?” How could a man who was so strong and determined have such a weak opinion of himself?

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Rose. A lot I don’t know about myself.”

“I will never know unless you tell me.”

“What if I say it’s something I can’t talk about?”

“I say a man must unburden his heart before he can open it to another.”

He kissed the soft flesh of her neck, ran his tongue around, the edge of her ear, then drew her earlobe between his teeth. She shivered and nestled closer. He thought about her simple statement:
A man must unburden his heart before he can open it to another.
Could he tell her that after twenty-one years he had finally learned the truth about his father—and that that truth explained the way he saw himself? How could he tell her of the confusion, the guilt, of knowing his very life began with an act of violence and violation?

It would take hours to tell the girl in his arms about his mother and of the way she had been forced to scrape out a living on the prairie, of the shame she endured because she kept him by her side. He would have to tell Rose of Caleb Storm, his stepfather, the man who had adopted and loved him as a father loves his own flesh and blood. And what would he say of the man whose blood ran in his veins? The man who was responsible for his unmistakable Indian features and coloring.

“Do you ever wonder who I am? Where I come from?” he asked.

She drew back and studied his features, then smiled. “I think you are a Gypsy. We have many in Europe.”

He shook his head in wonder. Was she so naive that she did not know what he was? Part of him wanted to believe she was sincere, but his more cynical nature wondered if she was toying with him. As he concentrated on her tempting lips, he found it impossible to resist, no matter what her motives. Kase smiled slowly. “For tonight, then, I’ll be your Gypsy.” He traced the smile on her lips with his tongue.

“I want to touch you,” she whispered and his breath caught in his throat. Swiftly he folded back the blanket. It fell around her hips.

Rosa reached up and encircled his neck with her arms. Able to slip her fingers into his hair, she raked them through the silken mass and then pulled his head down until his lips touched hers.

His fingers found the buttons that closed the front of her jacket. Unerringly, he worked them free one by one. As his lips moved against hers, as their tongues met and explored each other, his hands brushed aside the rose-patterned material and reached inside. The cold night air slipped between them as his hands began to massage the full, rounded breasts he found beneath her camisole top. Her nipples flowered into hardened peaks at his touch. Blood pulsed through her veins, rushing to further heighten the tortured nerve endings that made her breasts tingle as the ivory skin over them stretched taut.

“Please,” she begged and tried to draw him back when he pulled away. A rush of night air kissed her heated flesh. Reaching up, he pulled the pins from her hair and let the mass of raven tresses fall until they reached her hips and flowed around the seat. He laid her back against the carriage seat and knelt on the floor beside her.

Rosa held her breath, thankful for the darkness that hid the riotous red blush that she could feel suffusing her cheeks. She knew she should close her eyes for modesty’s sake, thought it was a sin to watch what she was allowing him to do to her—but she was already a sinner. She could not bear to shut him out of her vision.

If this is a sin, Rosa thought, then let me the a sinner. Kase Storm had already aroused more passion in her than Giovanni ever had, touched her as her husband never dared. Giovanni was a man of God, a man who would have been a priest if not for his sudden decision to marry her. But as Kase Storm nuzzled her ear, enticing her with his lips, she released all thought of Giovanni.

Kase smoothed her flowing hair and watched it fall to the floor. He knew he was stepping beyond the boundaries he had set for himself, but he could not stop what she had begun when she requested a kiss.

She was breathing rapidly in anticipation of his next move. He leaned down and carefully slipped his fingers beneath the lace edge of her camisole. The feminine feel of the soft lace itself excited him. Her skin was warm and pliant beneath it. Slowly he drew the edge of the cotton batiste downward, careful not to tear it, until her breasts were exposed to his gaze. They burgeoned up and over the top of her undergarment, the dark peaks with their crowning nipples beckoned him to taste them. He dipped his head and ran the tip of his tongue around a swollen bud before he gently drew it between his teeth.