Taming of Jessi Rose (19 page)

“We'll need it later.”

Jessi had no idea what he was talking about and didn't much care. His hands and lips were roaming ever so lazily. He pulled her frayed camisole down and gave her breasts a long, lingering loving. Raising up, he looked down at her with blazing eyes, then picked her up and carried her into the house.

The kiss he bestowed upon her as he set her on her bed had enough potency to keep a woman satisfied for a week. While she lay there ebbing and flowing, a haze-filled Jessi felt him leave her. She hadn't an inkling as to where he'd gone or what he was doing, she just wanted him to return.

He did only moments later. “Sorry for leaving…”

He kissed her deeply and her desire rose higher. He gently stripped away her shirt. The camisole went next and he filled his hands with the soft bare flesh. His thumbs rubbed against them in silent invitation and they hardened on cue.

“You've learned your lessons well…”

He gave them each a glancing lick, then gently bit the yearning peaks. He proceeded to divest her of the rest of her clothing slowly and expertly.

“No wonder society doesn't want decent women associating with disreputable men like you,” Jessi breathed, as she looked up at him from atop the sheets on her net-shrouded bed. Her breasts were hard as jewels and she seemed to be throbbing everywhere.

Lying beside her, he grinned softly. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

His mouth tenderly captured a nipple and she arched and crooned to the dizzying pleasure. Breathing became difficult as his tapered brown fingers meandered and roamed. A sweet lingering heat flared and grew everywhere he touched. Strong hands slid over her like velvet, learning her lines, tracing her shapes, mapping her as if she were an uncharted land he'd come to claim in the name of some erotic kingdom. Although she'd never enjoyed the marriage bed before, Griffin made her want to be his in every way.

“Open your legs,
querida,
” he whispered, brushing a kiss against the small dark whorl of her navel.

Jessi shuddered and rippled like heat waves on the horizon. His fingers dallying with the passion-damp hair below her navel made her legs part without thought. The tiny licks he began to place on the trembling inner skin of each thigh were overwhelming. Her ragged breathing became audible as he alternated the flicks of his tongue with humid, lingering touches from his lips.

Bold fingers tutored and cajoled her to widen her legs
even further, and groaning aloud, she shamelessly complied. He was knowing, masterful, brazen. Continuing to tease her blissfully, he warned softly, “Now, don't scream…”

Before Jessi could voice her confusion, his tongue moved over her so wantonly no further explanations were needed. The sensations were so seeringly sharp she had to grab a fistful of sheets to keep from screaming loud and long. What was he doing to her? She knew, of course; she just didn't believe it. While she twisted and moaned, he dallied, nibbled, parted her gently, and gave her passionate fits. When her body rippled its powerful release, she swore she'd been flung up to the stars.

Griffin's manhood throbbed with need as he watched her response. He realized he could want this woman twenty-fours hours a day. Who'd've thought she'd be this lush, this magnificent? He couldn't keep his hands from touching her, stroking her, toying with her. While he knew it would take her a few moments to recover, he was ready to continue branding her into his soul. To that end he stood and undressed. When he rejoined her atop the bed, he began again, teasing, inviting, making her heat rise to match his own in this age-old dance of man and woman. His grip on his own passion was steadily eroding. He had to have her now or shame himself like an untried youth.

He entered her a few heated moments later and their mutual sighs of satisfaction mingled in the otherwise silent room. As he began to move slowly within her, he was glad this first time had happened during the day so he could see her take in his pleasure, watch her nipples grow hard as wild blackberries under his kisses, and view the delicious way she arched as she rode his rhythm. Just thinking about it made him increase the tempo of his thrusts. Her hands traveling sensually over his back were hot, the place sheltering his manhood
warm and tight. Next time they'd go slower so they could explore each other's passions at length, but right now, as she rose to his strokes, and her lush, lean body drove him over the edge, his hold on his self broke and the world shattered into a thousand shuddering pieces.

Afterward she lay on the bed sated and dewed with sweat. She was lying on her belly, not wanting to move ever again. He lay beside her, languidly stroking the strong column of her spine, marveling once again at her beauty. “Still think you're too old for me?” he asked softly.

“At this moment, yes. I couldn't move even if Darcy came through the front door shooting.”

Griffin didn't believe that for a second, but he was glad she felt so satisfied.

“You're very good at this, too, Griffin Blake.”

He placed a kiss at the base of her spine. “So are you. Be right back.”

Before Jessi could ask anything, he was gone. He returned shortly, dragging the big claw-footed tub that usually sat on the back porch. The tub had been purchased by her father on a trip to Mexico early in her parents' marriage, and it was more than large enough for Jessi to sit and stretch out in, unlike the hip bath she regularly employed.

After positioning the tub on the far side of the room, he left once more. This time, he returned hauling two cauldrons of the water she'd heated for the wash. She couldn't help but admire the red and gold beauty of his muscular nude body. He poured the water into the tub.

“So that's why you asked about the wash water,” she said, getting up and walking to where he stood. “I don't think I've ever taken a bath in the middle of the day, but then again,” and she ran the tip of her finger down his fur-dappled chest, “I'm doing a lot of things with you I've never done before.”

He raised her hand and tenderly kissed the tips of her fingers. “And much more before the day is done, believe me.”

She stepped gingerly over the edge and stuck a toe in. The water was hot, but not too hot to enjoy. “What're you going to do while I bathe?”

“Watch.”

Jessi's passion flared to life and her gaze became a prisoner to his hot eyes.

Griffin knew that a gentleman would've withdrawn so his lady could bathe privately, but because Griffin had never claimed to be a gentleman, he stretched out on the bed and feasted his eyes on her glorious dark curves.

“You're really going to stay?” she asked.

“Sure, why not? The view's as pretty as a sunrise.”

No man had ever seen Jessi bathe before, not even her late husband. Hell, he had never even seen her fully unclothed, if her memory served correctly, yet this train robber seemed to look upon this as a natural aftermath to what they'd just shared, and Jessi supposed he was right.

With his glowing eyes ever present in her mind, Jessi eased down into the water and felt the silkiness envelop her. Her eyes slid closed for a moment and for the first time in a long time, she had no worries. Jessi loved baths, always had, but since her father's death, she'd had no time to spare for indulgences.

“Is the water warm enough?” he asked softly.

“Oh, yes.”

The pleasurable purr made Griffin's manhood quicken and he knew he had to have her again soon. What had begun as harmless flirtation with this lady rancher had turned into something so complicated that Mexico seemed very far away. He was in the prime of his life, far too young to be bound to one woman, mainly because there were so many others yet to meet, but his
body and mind seemed to be running on opposing tracks. Jessi Rose Clayton was in his blood and he wasn't sure if he wanted a cure.

She looked so peaceful lying there with her head back and her eyes closed, he padded over to the tub and knelt behind her. When she turned up her face, he kissed her possessively.

Soon his hands were wandering beneath the water's clear surface, once again sensually exploring her valleys, hills, and plains. He took her soap and cloth and washed her gently, pampering her, sliding his soap-slick hands over the arching buds of her breasts and the deep, throbbing darkness between her thighs. He was so achingly adept, she knew he'd done this many times before, undoubtedly with a variety of women, but she didn't care; she was just glad they'd taught him so well.

He rinsed her, and using a drying sheet, toweled her off slowly. As he moved his hands over her breasts and down her belly, he asked, “Are you sore?”

Jessi had no idea what he meant until he languidly grazed a bold knuckle over the tip of her heat-filled dampness.

“Are you sore here?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she managed to say, but she was very hot there, thanks to him.

He stole a soft kiss from her lips, saying, “It's been so long for you. We need to be sure…”

Through the foggy haze of her spiraling desire, Jessi could feel him touching her gently, wickedly, expertly.
Do couples do this more than once a day?
a voice in her mind asked. Jessi had no way of knowing, and it didn't really matter. What did matter was the low, passion-filled purr she gave as he slid a long, tapered finger into the source of her heat.

His eyes were glittering with a need that equaled her own as she tightened and pulsed around him. “I think
you're okay,” he whispered provocatively. “Let's see if I can make you bloom, Jessi Rose…”

She felt bereft as he freed himself from her softness, but her longing soon fled. With his hands and mouth, he feasted his way down her damp body, touching, teasing, making her succumb to his spell all over again. On his knees he filled his hands with her dark hips and brought her forward. This time, she didn't muffle her responses to his glorious plundering. As he parted her and lingered, her cries and moans rose. In the end, it took him only a few minutes to make her shatter and scream loud enough to be heard in Austin.

Declaring her fit, he laid her back on the bed and there under the sunbeams streaming through the windows, taught her that yes, there were couples who made love more than once a day, and how wonderful it was to be one of those couples. He coaxed her astride him and it was unlike any riding she'd ever done before. The position gave him access to all of a young man's toys and she let him play and play until the world exploded again for them both.

“This was not supposed to happen again,” she told him, when she could finally speak again.

“What wasn't supposed to happen?” he asked, lying beside her again, stroking her back softly.

“This. You and I.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wasn't. I figured, one time, then I'd be cured.”

“And you're not.”

She looked over her shoulder at him lying there all nude and glorious. “No.”

“Is that so bad?”

Jessi turned back. She didn't know.

“You're a passionate, vibrant woman, Jessi Clayton. You've nothing to be ashamed of.”

“It's not the shame I'm worried about. It's the wanting you that's giving me fits.”

He squeezed her behind and grinned. “Maybe it'll go away.”

Jessi didn't think so. Even now, as sated and worn out as she was, the thought of him loving her again rekindled her desire. She dampened it, lest she wind up riding until Joth came home. “I'm going to wash, and this time, by myself, Griffin Blake.”

“Are you sure you don't need help?”

Jessi wondered when this wanting would stop. Trying to distance herself from the man she'd begun to crave would be next to impossible. When he left, she didn't want him to take her heart too. But she reminded herself that she was supposed to be embracing Griffin's light, not talking herself into running in the opposite direction. “Maybe I do need a bit of help with my back.”

His mustache lifted with pleasure. “Then step over to the tub, and I promise to be good.”

She leaned over and kissed him softly. “And you are lying, lying, lying.”

He just grinned.

This time, they managed to wash without winding up back on the bed. Jessi even got the opportunity to put on her clothes and keep them on. Good thing, too, because when she left the bedroom to head to the kitchen, she found a note on the table. It read:
Back in a while. Preacher.

When Griffin read the note, he smiled. “It's good to know he's here.”

He took a seat at the kitchen table and fed himself on the potatoes and bacon she'd heaped on a plate for him.

“Why do you think he left?”

“He probably realized we were a mite too busy to entertain guests.”

Jessi's eyes widened. “Do you think he heard us?”

Griff chuckled at the look on her face. “Probably, but he only heard you, not me. Folks probably heard you in Denver.”

She swatted him on the arm. “That's not funny.”

“I'm just telling you the truth,” he said, and ducked away from another swat. “You are one loud woman, Jessi Rose Clayton.”

“Be serious. How am I ever going to face him?”

He pulled her down onto his lap. “He's a grown man, Jessi, and he knows what grown men and women do.”

“I'm still going to be embarrassed!”

“Well, don't be. He's a preacher and a gentleman. He'd never tell anyone something so private. Now, the Twins, on the other hand—”

She understood. “No need to say more.”

They shared a smile.

He then asked, “Did you enjoy your holiday this morning?”

“I did. It was a day of firsts.”

“Well, the day isn't over.”

“No?” she asked, her eyes filled with mischief.

“Not at all.”

 

The Preacher knocked at the door later that afternoon and Jessi let him in. Luckily, he hadn't arrived in the middle of Griffin seducing her out of her clothes, because she was already embarrassed enough. “You must be the Preacher. My name's Jessi Clayton.”