Never Marry a Cowboy (17 page)

He dipped his tongue into her navel. She pressed her fingers against his head in an effort to urge him to bring his mouth back to hers. But he ignored her silent request and slid lower, kissing the sensitive flesh on the inside of each thigh.

Then with a gentle daring, he pressed his mouth to the intimate core of her being and circled his tongue over the budding flesh of her womanhood. She convulsed as intense sensations flooded her. He alternately stroked and suckled, the velvet smoothness of his tongue heightening the pleasure.

Her fingers tightened their hold on him as her body curled toward him. She began to spiral upward, beyond limits, beyond boundaries, until she thought she would die.

Brilliant colors exploded behind her closed lids, blood roared through her ears, she cried out his name, and her back arched as the sensations carried her into what she thought was surely heaven.

She fell back to earth, breathing heavily, not certain she would ever be able to move again.

Kit kissed the inside of her thighs, his mouth following the trail back to hers. He pressed his lips to hers, leaving behind the salty taste of her own flesh as he gently eased away from her and slid his finger inside her.

“You're still throbbing,” he said in a quiet voice, but she heard the masculine pride emanating from him.

“Am I?” she asked breathlessly, turning her head slightly so she could gaze upon him.

His answer was a low growl of satisfaction. She
wanted to laugh, but she hadn't the strength. Of its own accord, her hand turned and circled him. Beside her, she felt his entire body stiffen.

“You're still sturdy,” she murmured.

He kissed the sensitive spot below her ear, and she heard him swallow hard.

“Yes.”

She thought she detected a note of sadness in his voice. Why would he be sad after giving so much to her?

She folded her fingers more snugly around him. He groaned.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked.

“God, no,” he answered, his breathing harsh.

“Kit, I want to know what it feels like to have you inside me.”

He buried his face within the crook of her neck. “There is little except pain for a woman the first time.”

“I don't care. I want to experience the full extent of love, and if it includes pain, I'll welcome it if it means a joining of our bodies. I love you, and I want you to be my husband in the truest sense.”

He lifted his head and skimmed his knuckles across her cheek. “You're crying.”

Until that moment, she hadn't felt the tears. “From joy. What you give me fills me with gladness, and yet I feel empty. I think it's because as close as we've become, we're still separate.”

“Our joining will make the parting so much harder, Ashton.”

She cradled his jaw within her palm. “I don't want to die not having experienced the greatest of all gifts.”

“Then I'll give to you what I can.”

Tenderly, he kissed her as though it were the first time, as though no other moment had existed before this one, as though he'd never brought her pleasure or known her body as intimately as he had.

Love swelled like the roaring of the ocean that lay just beyond their balcony. When he shifted and nestled himself between her thighs, she knew that he was where he belonged, and this time he would gift her with what she had expected before.

Instinct made her lift her hips to welcome him. With one sure thrust, he joined his body to hers. The pain was slight, no doubt because he had already given her exquisite pleasure once.

She relished the full, hard length of him, filling her. She felt a shudder course through him, heard his harsh breathing. He kissed her passionately, hungrily, before raising above her. His movements were slight at first, like wading into the ocean, testing the current. The night covered his face in shadows, yet she could feel the heat of his gaze upon her as he rocked against her, increasing the tempo.

She had expected the pain. She hadn't expected to feel the pleasure rippling through her again. She gasped and he quickened his movements. She ran her hands along his sides, over his chest, until she could clutch his shoulders. Anything to keep her anchored, but she became like a ship tossed into a tempest.

All she'd experienced before paled in comparison
to what she felt now with each powerful thrust. His fingers had worked a miracle, his tongue magic, but these sensations went beyond earthly bounds. He was hers, completely, absolutely, making her his.

She writhed and moaned, tossing her head from side to side as the passion increased, undulating waves that never ceased, but only grew grander in intensity, broader in scope.

She shivered, felt him tremble, and then the storm washed over her, gloriously, taking her to the depths of passion and tossing her back to the height of sensual awareness. Her body curled, then arched, her fingers digging deeply into his shoulders.

Lost in oblivion, she felt his last thrust before he stilled, hovering above her, breathing harshly.

She trailed her hands along his quivering arms, his muscles tense and taut as any rope about to snap. Slowly, carefully, he withdrew and rolled off her, leaving her bereft for reasons she couldn't understand. She had wanted him to stay with her forever.

Lethargically, she eased onto her side and placed her hand on his chest. “You're so tense.”

He twisted his head slightly and brushed a kiss across her brow. “Go to sleep now, sweetling.”

She moved her hand lower. “You're still sturdy.”

He grabbed her wrist and tucked her hand in close against her side. “Go to sleep.”

He rolled out of bed and disappeared into the darkness of the balcony while confusion surrounded her. Why would pleasure leave a woman feeling completely relaxed and a man incredibly tense? Would
they not, in some way, both experience the same sensations?

She clambered out of bed, jerked the sheet off the bed, wrapped it around herself, and padded to the balcony. She could see only a silhouette of Kit standing in the front corner, gripping the railing as he stared at the distant sea.

Quietly, she crossed the expanse separating them and pressed a hand against his back. He stiffened, but not before she felt the tightness that already existed within him.

“Go back to bed,” he said in a controlled voice.

She pressed a kiss to his sweat-slickened flesh. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She wrapped her hand around his arm. “I don't understand. Why is a man so tense after experiencing pleasure while a woman—”

“I did not—” She heard him swallow. “I did not experience the pleasure that you did.”

Grief hit her with the knowledge that she'd disappointed him. Her experience was none while his was abundant. Why hadn't he shown her what he needed from her to experience the joys of love? “What did I do wrong?”

“I told you. Nothing.”

“Then explain to me what I should have done so I'll know—”

“Nothing.”

“Then why—”

“Ashton, for God's sake, if you read all those med
ical books you must know what happens when a man reaches the pinnacle of pleasure.”

The brusqueness in his voice caught her unaware. After all his kindness, why now was he incredibly angry? She took a step back, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from him. “Tell me what happens.”

He jerked his head around and glared at her. “I not only fill you with my cock, sweetling, I fill you with my seed.”

His crudeness unsettled her, but not nearly as much as the implication of his final words. “Your seed,” she repeated lamely.

A sudden chill swept through her, and she drew the sheet more closely around herself. “So you held back. You gave me pleasure, but denied yourself.”

“The night I asked you to become my wife, I made a personal vow that I would not get you with babe. If your physician's prediction holds any accuracy, then my child would die with you. I will not be responsible for the death of another innocent.”

She heard the wind blowing over the waves, like the howling of a child, a child she would never hold. During their time together, she'd never considered all the ramifications that this arrangement was costing him. She felt the tears well within her eyes and slide along her cheeks. Her mouth dry, she cleared her throat. “I think it's time that I returned to Dallas.”

“I thought you wanted to see a performance,” he said quietly.

“I fear, my dear Kit, that I have been living a performance for too long now while you have suffered through the reality. I want to go back to Dallas.”

He turned his attention to the ocean. “Then we'll leave tomorrow.”

Although he couldn't see her, she nodded. She had married a man of wise words. All that she'd experienced would make the parting unbearable.

K
it had succeeded in giving Ashton what she had so long ago wished for—a broken heart.

He found no satisfaction in his accomplishment. Self-loathing pierced his soul. Frustration had caused him to blurt out his explanation in the crudest of manners. If the devil didn't already own his soul, he would trade it to have that moment returned so he could have explained kindly with words that would soften the truth.

Sitting across from his wife inside the jostling stagecoach, Kit felt the chasm between them widening. She'd chosen to wedge herself between the side of the coach and the obese man who had climbed aboard ahead of her.

When Clarisse had died, he'd felt a loneliness so deep that he thought the well of despair would forever hold him captive. Now, he was taking his very much alive wife back to her brother, and he feared he would have neither the courage nor the kindness to leave her.

God knew he didn't have the desire.

Loneliness already gnawed at his soul. Ashton was still with him in flesh, if not in heart, and he wondered how he would survive when he no longer had the ability at least to gaze upon her, to watch the wind whip stray strands of hair around her lovely face, to inhale her sweet scent of oleander, the flower of Galveston.

He had purchased her some more scented soaps and perfume before they'd left. Although she'd obliged him by dabbing a bit of the perfume against her throat, her eyes had held no joy, only resignation.

Death was her destiny.

Clarisse had belonged to Christopher. Although Kit had accepted that fact, only now did he truly understand the ramifications of that truth. He had loved Clarisse, but it was a love born of youth, a love deepened by denial.

His feelings for Ashton were those of a man staring down a long, desolate road that would never again know the touch of the sun or the light of the moon. He would live only because his heart continued to beat and his lungs to take in air, but his soul was already withering.

He would insist that David not notify him when the flame of her life had been snuffed out. He knew he would be unable to bear the sorrow. In his mind, she would live forever. When his hair turned gray, he would imagine hers silver. When his wrinkles deepened, he might add one or two to the memory of her face. Only when Death came for him would he accept that she'd gone before, and he could only hope that she would be standing at Heaven's Gate awaiting his arrival.

He closed his eyes. He'd doomed himself to hell when he'd poured the extra powder into the glass for Clarisse. Once he left Dallas, he would never again see Ashton. Not in this life, nor in any that lay beyond.

Opening his eyes, he again felt the stab of regret—for the personal vow he'd taken the night he proposed and for his lack in judgment that had allowed it to harm her. Still, the memories of her moans, sighs, and cries were a balm to the mental flaying he'd given himself. He would carry the song with him for the remainder of his life.

He hoped that in the passing months, she would forgive him and remember him with a measure of caring, perhaps a bit of love, although he feared it unlikely. He had wounded her greatly by not giving everything to her.

If only she knew how much he'd wounded himself. Never in his life had he become so lost in a woman when he joined his body to hers. Never had he reveled in the pleasure he could provide or felt such a belonging. Until Ashton, he'd never realized that he had been as a voyeur…involved but distant.

Strange for a man of thirty-three to discover that he'd never truly made love. Created passion, yes. Elicited pleasure, certainly, but his heart had watched from afar, a safe distance away.

Now, it was no longer safe. It hurt unbearably. God help him, he'd never known such pain, and he'd always thought he'd experienced the worst. He was beginning to realize he'd experienced nothing at all.

With longing, he watched Ashton, resisting the urge to reach across the expanse separating them and
take her hand in his, cherish her touch, just one more memory to tuck away and carry with him into his dotage.

With her head bent, she stared at her clasped hands in her lap as though they were the only things that existed in her life. She had shut him out completely, absolutely. He might have thought the past month had never occurred if it weren't for his heart. It refused to forget a solitary moment that he'd spent with her since he'd first seen her on the porch at Mrs. Gurney's.

Memories of Clarisse were like ancient portraits, faded over time until they were little more than shadowy veils. He hadn't a clue how he could keep memories of Ashton vibrant. He only knew that she was all that mattered.

“You're missing the countryside,” he said quietly, remembering how she'd enjoyed it on the trip to Galveston, how much she had wanted to see everything.

She lifted her gaze to his and the sadness within her eyes was like a dagger to his heart. “I've seen it before,” she said softly.

“It's a bit different. We're taking another route. There are more trees, more greenery.”

She lowered her gaze, and he could see her knuckles turning white. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand over hers, surprised to find her cold. “Come over here,” he ordered.

She shook her head slightly.

“Ashton, I will make a scene if I must.”

She nodded. One corner of her mouth lifted into a smile that quickly disappeared. He placed his hands
on either side of her waist, helping her keep her balance as she crossed over to sit beside him. He slipped his arm around her and drew her against his side, cradled her face, and nestled it within the crook of his shoulder. He bent his head and whispered, “I never meant to harm you.”

“I know, but I brought such misery to you.”

“Not you, sweetling. Fate conspires against me. You have no control over fate or my heart.”

He heard the obese man snort. He glanced up to see that the man was asleep. An amazing feat, considering the rumbling contraption. He looked down at Ashton. “Perhaps you should try to sleep as well.”

“I'm not tired.”

He nodded, grateful to have her near. How in God's name would he find the strength to leave her in Dallas? He could and he would, somehow. He had yet to turn his back on an obligation, and to keep her near would only add to her suffering at the end.

Guilt was an unforgiving and cruel master.

A gunshot rang out, and Kit heard the echo of pounding hooves. He cursed soundly, using profanity that he'd never spoken in front of a lady. His horse was tethered to the back of the stagecoach, and his rifle was housed in his saddle on the roof. The stagecoach increased its speed. He drew Ashton more tightly against him.

The obese man awoke with a start and fumbled with his clothing, removing a money pouch from around his waist and shoving it beneath the seat.

“What's going on?” Ashton asked.

“Robbers, no doubt,” Kit said quietly, his voice calm, while his mind reeled with unfavorable scenarios.

“The whip don't seem to be stopping,” their companion pointed out as the stagecoach swayed unmercifully.

“No, he doesn't,” Kit replied as more gunshots sounded.

“The last stagecoach I rode in overturned three times, and it wasn't going this fast. Why the hell doesn't he stop?” The man reached up and pounded on the ceiling.

Kit heard scraping on the roof. No doubt the man who rode shotgun was trying to position himself better. The retort of a gun exploded overhead, followed shortly by a yell. An object passed quickly beside the window.

Ashton screeched and turned her face into Kit's shoulder. “That was a man,” she whispered.

He felt her shivering uncontrollably. He stared at the man sitting across from him. “Have you a gun?”

The man nodded and withdrew a derringer from inside his coat. Kit swore beneath his breath. A lot of bloody good that tiny thing would do him. He needed his rifle.

Gently, he urged Ashton away from him. He heard the ping of a ricochet. The wood in the window of the door splintered. “I want you to lie on the floor.”

Her wide eyes were filled with fear.

“It sounds as though they're gaining on us. You'll be safer in a lower position,” he explained.

Their companion began to slide off his seat. Kit shoved him back into place. “There's not room for two.”

“You can't expect me to remain a target.”

“I expect you to keep an eye out and use that gun if any of the outlaws ride close enough to the coach for your weapon to be of any assistance.”

He thrust the weapon toward Kit. “You can have it.”

“I won't be here.”

Ashton clutched Kit's shirt. “Where are you going?”

“The driver had only one man riding on top with him. I need to determine if it's best to stop or continue at this breakneck speed.” He drew her close. “I need you on the floor so I won't have to worry.”

“Kit—”

“We'll argue about it later,” he said firmly as he urged her to the floor. She looked up at him with such incredibly blue eyes. He had so much he wanted to tell her. “Keep your head down.”

Taking a deep breath, he put his hand on the latch. Dear God, he was inviting disaster, but he didn't see that he had a choice. He opened the door. The wind caught it and slammed it against the side of the coach. He glanced out. Eight riders. Bloody hell.

Reaching up, he grabbed the top of the opening to the door with one hand, the opening to the window closest to the front of the coach with the other. He swung his leg out and wedged his foot against the corner of the window. He heard a bullet whiz past his ear and drew up his shoulders as though that insignificant action could protect him. The wood near his hand split.

If he thought the men in pursuit would leave his wife in peace, he'd yell for the driver to stop the blasted vehicle, and he'd stay inside.

His muscles straining, he pulled himself up, clutching the roof as he moved his other foot to the window. The driver jerked his head around.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Coming to your assistance. I'm a marshal,” Kit yelled over the din of stampeding hooves and rumbling wheels. He threw himself on top of the coach and, lying low, worked his way to his saddle that he'd tied down in a corner before they'd begun the journey. He slid his rifle out of its scabbard.

He knew his horse would be an enticing target. He was surprised the men hadn't already shot it. Dragging dead weight would slow the vehicle.

Lying low, he pulled himself forward on his elbows. Cursing his precarious position, he reached over the edge, aimed his rifle at the rope tethering Lancelot to the stagecoach and fired three bullets in rapid succession. The beast broke free and galloped clear of the coach, heading between the thick trees that lined the road.

Inching back, Kit leveled his rifle and fired at the riders who were in rapid pursuit of the coach. One man toppled from his mount. Kit quickly fired again, downing another man before ducking behind baggage to avoid the flying bullets. He heard the driver cry out. He looked back. The man clutched his shoulder briefly before urging the six tiring horses on.

Kit sighted his next target, the man he deemed to be the leader. The jostling vehicle made it difficult to
keep his rifle steady. He slowly squeezed the trigger. His victim bellowed and grabbed his arm. Unfortunately, he also kicked his horse, spurring it to increase its speed.

“We got a damn fallen tree in the road!” the driver yelled.

Kit glanced over his shoulder to see the driver leaning back, pulling hard on the reins. Kit heard an explosion, felt a sharp pain slam against his temple, and was powerless to stop the darkness from consuming him.