Stranded with the Groom Read online

  Mine. The word exploded in his brain, bright as a shooting star in a dark winter world. Mine.

  She gasped again and she tipped her head back, offering her mouth.

  He took it, his blood roaring in his ears, his body burning, on fire.

  All his lies, all his scheming, his lifelong quest for justice—all that was nothing. There was only Katie, the promise of Katie, the truth of Katie, held close in his hungry arms.

  As he plunged his tongue into her eager mouth and cupped her bottom in his hands, pressing her harder into him, as his blood pounded through his veins and his heart beat so hard it was like thunder in his ears, he knew….

  This…this was what mattered. This woman’s tender heart, her lips, her breath, her yearning, willing body.

  This was his truth. His real justice.

  The truth that could save him.

  The truth he could never claim.

  He knew he had to stop this, that he owed it to her.

  Somehow, from some deep hidden resource of rightness within him, he managed to break the never-ending kiss.

  He tore his mouth from hers, groaning at the effort. “Katie.”

  But she only reached up, touched his mouth and whispered, “Shh, it’s okay.”

  He bit the soft pad of her finger. She cried out—not in pain; it had been a gentle bite—but in hunger, with a fire that answered his own.

  Her cry of need broke him. His last resistance shattered into a thousand tiny shards. He surrendered to the pounding of his own blood, the yearning like fire spreading through his veins.

  She pulled her hand from his mouth and he cupped her head and claimed her lips again.

  He kissed her and she kissed him back and he took a step and she moved with him.

  No stumbling, not this time. Backward she went, knowing where he guided her, through the open door to the central room, down the roped-off walkway to…

  The big, old bed with the pineapple finials, the bed that had once stood in a Douglas bedroom over a hundred years ago.

  Was that irony?

  Probably.

  Did it matter? Did he care?

  Not right then. Right then, there was nothing and no one but Katie in the world.

  Nothing mattered, nothing even existed, but her tender lips and the wetness beyond, her soft, willing body, her eager sighs, the light and heat that seemed to radiate from her, warming him down to a place that, until she had found him, had lain forever cold, forever shadowed.

  A place unknown even to him.

  He held her close, his willing prisoner, with one arm. With the other he reached back, found the hook that held the thick rope to the pole and released it.

  He let it drop. With a heavy, final thumping sound, it hit the hardwood floor.

  She clasped his shoulders.

  And then she was the one waltzing him backward, around the carved trunk at the end of the bed, to the knotted rag rug that waited beside it.

  She pushed him onto the tangled blankets. The bed was high; he had to lift himself up to it, and he did, with little effort, bringing her with him, so she rested on top of him, a tempting pressure all along the length of him.

  Until he rolled and captured her beneath him.

  “Oh!” Her lids fluttered open and he looked for the briefest, sweetest moment into those honey-brown eyes. “Oh…” And her lashes settled, feather-soft, against her cheeks.

  He shut his own eyes and lost himself in the sensation.

  Of kissing her. Of touching her.

  He slid to the side a little and put his weight on one arm, bringing the other up, laying his hand between her small, soft breasts, feeling the heat of her and beneath that, the strong, hungry beating of her heart.

  The buttonholes on the old pajamas were worn and loose. The red plastic buttons slipped free with no difficulty at all. He undid them, one by one, only pausing when he once again got so lost in her kiss he could do nothing but press his mouth tighter to hers.

  When all the buttons were undone, he eased the sides of the top open to reveal her beautiful white breasts. He took one in his hand.

  “Oh,” she cried, and “Oh!” again, as he positioned the hard, pink little nipple for his mouth.

  He took it, closing his lips around it, and she moaned as he caught it lightly in his teeth and flicked his tongue across it, felt the puckered nub of flesh tighten all the more. She arched her back and clutched his head, her fingers threaded in his hair. He drew on her sweetness and more cries escaped her. The pleading, hungry sounds enflamed him, driving him on.

  To know her.

  In spite of everything, in spite of the lies he’d told and the harm he would do her. To know her, anyway, in the deepest, most complete way.

  To find the truth in spite of himself, here, in this moment, in the dark windowless quiet, with the artifacts of other, long-lost lives all around them.

  Here among the ghosts of the past.

  His body on fire with her, her scent all around him, her yielding flesh under his hands, his heart pounding out her name, it seemed to him he could sense them, those long-lost souls, that he could feel them.

  The pioneers who came before. The hopeful families seeking a brighter future, the miners struck hard by gold fever, scouring streams, digging into mountainsides, after a fortune destined to elude all but a fortunate few. The merchants, the cattle barons, the Shady Lady in her red dress, lounging provocatively against the bar in her sporting house saloon.

  They came to Thunder Canyon with desperate ambition, a grasping, undaunted will to match his own. How many found the dreams they sought?

  It was too long ago. He would never know.

  He only knew that, for this night, in this moment, he held the happiness he’d never understood he was seeking. She was his happiness.

  He couldn’t hold her past this night. Cold, hard reality would intrude. He knew that, too.

  But for now, for this brief time in this old bed with Katie in his arms, he was someone else.

  He was…

  Her groom. And she was his sweet mail-order bride, come in on the train intending to marry a stranger—himself—and start a new life with him out here in the raw, untamed West.

  They had said their vows before a drunken crowd of well-wishers and the buckboard pulled by the mean old palomino mare had brought them here.

  A sudden blizzard had snowed them in, forcing them, with astonishing swiftness, to know each other.

  To want each other.

  And now, it was finally time. To seal their vows in the age-old way.

  Yes, in some cynical corner of his mind, Justin was more than aware that such wild flights of imagination, such absurd leaps of logic, were ridiculous in the extreme.

  But right then, with Katie soft and willing in his arms, he believed them, anyway.

  And that was the greatest miracle of all: that right then, Justin Caldwell believed.

  He captured her other breast in his mouth and she groaned low in her throat, her body arching, offering him more. He moaned in answer, his fingers skimming the creamy flesh of her belly, dipping lower…

  “Oh! Oh, yes…”

  He murmured soothing, ardent sounds against her breast and he continued to explore the warm, soft curves and hollows of her body.

  The pajamas tied at the waist.

  Easily dispensed with. He pulled on the tail of the little bow she’d made and the bow gave way. It was a simple matter then to slip his hand beneath the worn flannel…

  She gasped and clutched his head tighter against her breast. He drew on her nipple more strongly and her hips began to rock against the lumpy mattress. She moaned, her fingers loosening in his hair. He lifted his head enough to glance up at her sweet face as she tossed her head on the blankets, her dark hair, alive with static, clinging where it rubbed.

  He stroked the inward curve of her smooth belly, dipping a finger into her navel.

  Her breath caught. She made small, hungry mewing sounds. He wanted to kiss t
hose sounds from her lips.

  And he did, letting go of her breast and taking her mouth once more, as his hand slid upward, to caress the sleek flesh high on her stomach, to clasp the side of her slim waist, to trace the lower curve of her ribs where they arched above her midsection.

  By then, the sounds from her throat were pleading ones.

  He dared to ease his fingers beneath the flannel again, to stroke the silky curls at the place where her soft thighs joined. She stiffened, but only for a moment.

  Soon enough, her hips began rocking again.

  He dipped farther down, parting the soft curls, easing a finger into her moist cleft. She bucked hard against his hand and he cupped her, steadying her as he kissed her deeply, his own body aching with the need to be buried within her.

  No.

  Not yet. This part was for her—and, yes, for him, too.

  He wanted to feel her give herself over; he wanted to give her satisfaction first, before he took his own.

  Right then, as he stroked her, as her body moved in rhythm to his intimate touch, it came to him. Like a blinding, painful light switching on in velvet darkness, he realized…

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  Ridiculous fantasies of past lives aside, crazy dreams of a mail-order marriage come true to the contrary, he wasn’t going to have her fully.

  Even tonight she couldn’t be really his.

  He had no condoms and she didn’t, either.

  This. Right now. Her body moving in hungry yearning under his hand, her mouth eager and soft against his own, this was all he could have.

  All he would ever have.

  He groaned in agony at the thought and pressed himself, hard and aching, against the side of her thigh.

  She clung to him, whimpering, as he slipped that finger inside again, even daring to ease in another, stretching her a little. She was tight and very wet.

  So good, so right.

  He realized he was whispering the words against her parted lips. “So good, so right…”

  “Yes,” she answered, soft and sweet and oh-so-willing. “Oh, Justin, yes….”

  Her hips moved faster. He followed the cues her body gave him, finding the nub of her greatest pleasure, rubbing it, stroking it….

  She said his name again against his mouth, on a low breath of yearning and building excitement.

  And then he felt it. The soft pulsing beneath his stroking finger, the silky spurt of wetness as she came…

  She cried out and he caught that cry, kissing her deeply, as below the tiny, hot, wet pulsing continued.

  In the end, her body went loose and boneless. She gave a final, gentle sigh.

  His body hurt. He ached for more, and yet…

  It was good. Better than good, just to be here, in this old bed with her, to know she’d hit the peak and loved every minute of it, that he had done that for her.

  She lifted a lazy hand to stroke the side of his face and he raised his head to look down into her shining eyes.

  “Oh, Justin…” Her sweet mouth trembled on a smile.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. And then, slowly, reluctantly, he took his hand from that wet, hot secret place between her sleek thighs and smoothed her pajama bottoms to cover her to the waist. He took the sides of her top, one and then the other, bringing them together, proceeding to slip the buttons back into their too-loose holes.

  She caught his hand. “Oh, don’t…”

  He gave her a dark look. “Katie. We’ve got to be careful. You have to know. That was as far as we can go.”

  She only looked at him, eyes dazed, mouth swollen from his kisses, cheeks flushed: a woman more than willing to go on from here.

  Willing? Hell. Eager.

  Ready.

  For him.

  With a low groan, he fell back on the bed, throwing his arm across his eyes, ordering the bulge in his jeans to subside.

  Now.

  It didn’t happen—which hardly surprised him.

  The bed shifted as she sat up. He dared to steal a peek at her from under the shadow of his arm.

  She was taking off her pajama top.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Her high, cute breasts bounced as she tossed that top aside. “Getting undressed.” It flew over and hooked on the vanity mirror. “And so should you. Now.”

  He shouldn’t be peeking. He should cover his eyes again.

  But somehow, he couldn’t. The bulge in his pants only got bigger as she slithered out of the pajama bottoms and tossed them over to land with the top.

  Now, all she had left were those thick, gray socks of hers. Her skin seemed to glow in the dimness, rich as vanilla ice cream, but with a pearly kind of luster, too. The sable hair between her soft thighs was shiny with moisture.

  And the scent of her…ripe. Purely sexual. The scent of a woman aroused and satisfied. It clung to his hand.

  Exercising every last shred of will he possessed, he held back a groan.

  This was not going well.

  She got rid of the socks, ripping them off, one and then the other, and tossing them to the rag rug beside the bed. “Okay, Justin. I’m naked.”

  As if he didn’t know. As if every inch of him wasn’t painfully aware.

  He pressed his arm hard against his eyes. He was not going to look. Not again. No matter what.

  She spoke again. “Justin. I want to get into bed. But you’re on the blankets…”

  “Uh. Right. Sorry.” He shut his eyes tight and jumped from the bed, letting out another groan as his jeans dug in at the crucial spot.

  He stood there, eyes shut, body rigid and burning, facing away from her. Behind him, he heard the covers rustling.

  “Safe to look now,” she said at last, her tone just slightly teasing. “I’m all covered up.”

  He yanked his sweater down low over his jeans, to mask the clear evidence that his body refused to be ruled by his mind. And then, with a deep breath and a silent vow that he would not climb onto that bed with her again, he turned to face her.

  She sat against the pillows, shining dark hair soft and wild on her satiny shoulders, the blankets pulled up to cover those tempting breasts, looking achingly sweet, and not quite as confident as a moment ago. “I…well, I can’t help it. It’s crazy, but I almost feel as if we are married, you know? As if making love with you is the most natural, right thing for us to be doing.”

  It was exactly what he’d been thinking not long before.

  But so what? his cynical side reminded him. So damn what? They weren’t married. They would never be married. In a week she would hate him and know him for the enemy he was and had always been.

  And, all sentimental talk of “feeling” married aside, they had no protection. They shouldn’t have gone as far as they had.

  And they damn well weren’t going to go any further. “Katie.” His voice was rough. Pained. Pushed out through his clutching throat, threaded with his own frustration. “We can’t. You know we can’t.”

  She picked at a thread on the velvet patchwork spread, eyes cast down, lashes wisps of silk against her cheeks. “You’re right. I know…” She looked up. Those honey-brown eyes captured him, held him—a prisoner of his own burning need for her. “But couldn’t we just…” She paused to swallow, convulsively—and then didn’t seem to be able to go on.

  “Couldn’t we, what?” he demanded way too gruffly.

  She swallowed again and licked those soft lips with a nervous pink tongue—an unintentionally provocative action that inflicted yet another blow to his barely held self-control.

  “Well,” she suggested, all wide eyes and innocence, “you could put on those black sweats you sleep in. I’ll put my pajamas back on, too. You can…come to bed with me.”

  “Come to bed with you.” There was nothing—nothing—he’d rather do. And it was exactly what he was not going do. “Katie—”

  She cut him off before he could tell her no. “Oh, listen. Please…”

  �
��We can’t—”

  “No, see. Just listen. We won’t do anything more. I promise…to be good.”

  They shared a look—hot and hungry, crackling with need.

  And then, out of nowhere, she laughed, a happy, startled, captivating trill of sound.

  That laugh was infectious. He laughed, too—and then he stopped himself and glared at her. “What the hell are we laughing at?”

  “Well, Justin, it’s only…me, sitting here naked. Promising not to try anymore to seduce you. Who would have guessed that would happen?”

  He only looked at her, making no attempt to smile. He was thinking that she’d been seducing him since the first moment he saw her, when Caleb introduced them and he got his first look into those wide, soft brown eyes.

  There was just something about her. She got to him in ways he’d never been gotten to before.

  “Please,” she said, so sweetly.

  “Hell,” he replied.

  “Please,” she said, once more.

  And once again, there was no stopping the wrong words from escaping his mouth.

  “Put on those damn pajamas,” he growled. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Spooning,” Katie whispered.

  They lay on their sides, her slim back tucked into him, her legs cradled on his, his arm across her waist. He nuzzled her hair, cuddled her closer, in spite of the fact that holding her tighter only aroused him more.

  “Yes,” she said. “Spooning.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?”

  She chuckled. The sweet sound vibrated through him. “What we’re doing, tucked in this bed together, fully clothed, with you curved all around me. We’re spooning.”

  He grunted, smoothed a wild coil of fragrant hair away from his mouth, and muttered, “We’re driving me crazy, that’s what we’re doing.”

  “Hmm,” she said, and wiggled her bottom against him.

  He took a slow breath. “That was completely uncalled for.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Liar.”

  “But seriously, courting couples used to do this, in the old days…lie down together, with their clothes on, tucked up nice and cozy, like spoons in a drawer. Thus, spooning.”