Denim and Lace (24 page)

He remembered her voice at the end of the ceremony, whispering that she loved him. His chest swelled. Her love was part of his strength in some odd way. And he cared about her, too. She was pretty and smart and accomplished, and she had the breeding he lacked.

He knew it was going to take time to adjust to being married, for her as well as for him, but they'd make it. He sighed and drew her close while they endured the congratulations and the press of reporters. He'd keep her happy somehow, he thought doggedly. And when the children came along, he'd be more than content. A child would make up for everything. She might even now be carrying their son. A faint smile touched his hard mouth as he looked down at her. Yes. A son. His chest swelled. And he'd be twice the father his own had been. He'd give his child love and attention, and he'd never turn his back on him. His arm tightened around Bess. Bess would be a good mother, too, once she had this independent streak of hers cured by some warm loving. She was class all the way, a real lady. Her family lineage would give his children a social acceptability that he'd never had. It would open doors for them and give them pride in their heritage. She'd teach them the beautiful manners that she had, and the shame of poverty he'd always felt so keenly wouldn't exist for them. They'd never have to apologize for being low-class and rough, he thought bitterly. Even if they didn't have great wealth, they'd have respectability.

He looked down at her, smiling at his new wife. Miss Samson of Spanish House, he thought absently, and of all the men in Texas she could have had, she'd wanted him. That made him proud.

He lifted his chin. It would be a good marriage. He'd make her happy and she'd give him children. She'd help bring a new, better generation to Lariat, a more cultured and educated class of heirs. She'd come home and have babies and they'd live happily ever after. That settled, he reached out and hugged Robert and Gary and his mother. As an afterthought he even hugged Gussie. Life was looking up.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
HEY
SPENT
THEIR
wedding night at Bess's apartment. Cade had wanted their married life to begin at Lariat, but he was mindful of Bess's feelings. It would have been embarrassing for her, with his brothers and his mother in residence and everyone giving them knowing looks. He could hardly ask the family to leave the house to give them privacy. Besides, he told himself, he and Bess had the rest of their lives.

He took her out to supper at the most expensive restaurant in town, mindful of his rented dinner jacket and her terribly expensive dress. It seemed more than anything to point up the vast differences between them and put a damper on his mood.

Bess touched the crepe de chine fabric of her cocktail dress when she saw his eyes on it, and instinctively she knew that he was thinking back. He didn't even own a dinner jacket and had had to rent one. Besides that, she thought guiltily, this meal was costing him an arm and a leg. If only she'd used her mind and protested, but even now it was difficult to get used to not going to the most expensive restaurants, the most expensive shops. Her whole life had been spent with wealth. Now she was still learning how to do without it, even though she loved Cade enough to live in a cave with him.

She touched his hand gently where it rested beside his water glass and smiled at him. “Can we afford this ritzy place?” she mused, with a twinkle in her eyes. “Or should I order a salad and make us a nice chicken casserole back at the apartment?”

Her matter-of-fact remark took the lines out of his face. His hand curled around hers and he smiled. “Is that how I looked? I'm only planning to get married once in my life, Mrs. Hollister. I think we're entitled to a fancy meal.”

She sighed. “It was a beautiful wedding,” she said. “And thank you especially for removing the one blight from the landscape. I hope he catches cold,” she said, remembering the pushy reporter.

He chuckled. “The river's not that warm even in summer,” he agreed. “I'm sorry he did that. Nothing should have spoiled today for you.”

“It isn't spoiled. I'm going to love you until I die, Cade Hollister,” she said huskily, her smile fading as all the long years caught up with her and her eyes misted. “I never dreamed I'd be married to you, that I could live with you and...” She wiped away the tears, aware of his concerned gaze. “Sorry. All my dreams came true today, and I'm shaky.”

His fingers linked with hers. “I'll take care of you,” he said quietly. “We'll have a good life together.” He rubbed his fingers against hers. “At least our kids won't have the childhood I did,” he remarked with faint bitterness. “They won't be looked down on and made to feel worthless because they don't have breeding.” His dark eyes met hers. “You'll teach them manners. They'll have all the advantages that my brothers and I didn't.”

She stared at him for a long moment, a little unnerved by what he was saying. “Is that important?” she asked, feeling her way.

“Breeding? Of course it is.” He let go of her hand and picked up his water glass, taking a sip. “I know I'm rough around the edges. I've got the biggest part of Lariat, but I'm still not much more than a glorified cowboy. But you're class, Mrs. Hollister,” he said, eyeing her with pride of possession. “You're upper-crust all the way, a debutante with a rich background and excellent manners.”

She'd always known that it was as much the illusion of what she was that Cade saw, even through the desire he felt for her. But it was rather shocking to have him put it into words and in such a way. Was that why he'd married her? To give him respectability? To improve the family bloodlines? She felt a twinge of fear.

“I'm just a woman,” she said unsteadily. “Like other women. And I'm not a rich debutante anymore.”

He scowled. Her tone disturbed him. “I know that.”

She looked down at the table and slowly pulled her hand from under his. “I hope you didn't marry me for a status symbol,” she said, laughing nervously. “Because I don't have much mileage in that respect. Whatever I was, now I'm just a copywriter for an ad agency.”

He'd put it badly. He caught her hand back and held it. “Listen. I married you because I can't seem to get through the day without you anymore,” he said, forcing the words out. “I want you. I want to have children with you. I'm not into status symbols, even if I made it sound that way. I'm proud of what you are. I'm proud that of all the men you could have had you wanted me.”

She colored. It wasn't the speech she wanted, but it would do. She'd known that he didn't love her the way she loved him. Perhaps someday he would.

“I've never wanted anyone else,” she said quietly. A long, tense silence fell between them, and it didn't ease even when the waiter brought their order. They ate in silence and left the restaurant in silence. Bess felt like crying.

Cade sensed the sadness he'd caused and could have crushed his impulsive tongue. He shouldn't have been thinking out loud. A woman wouldn't want to hear on her wedding day that her husband married her because she was well-bred. He hadn't meant it like that, but he had a hard time expressing emotion in words. He looked down at her, and his body began to burn. Well, he thought, there were other ways to let her know how he felt. Better ones.

But once they were back in her apartment, she shied away from him nervously, and his temper got away from him.

“Is that how it's going to be from now on?” he asked icily. “Now that the ring's on your finger, you're going to have nerves and headaches?”

“Don't,” she groaned. Her wide, hurt eyes held his. “I'm nervous. It's been a long few weeks, and then all the excitement of this week... I've been living on my nerves. And then tonight, you don't say that you love me or that you want to cherish me—you tell me that I'm a nice asset to the breeding program at Lariat. You made it sound as if you only wanted me because I had superior bloodlines and a classy background—just the way you'd buy a purebred heifer to breed to your best bull!”

His face paled. He couldn't have made it sound that way, could he? He started to speak, but she was in tears. She ran into the bedroom and threw herself across the bed, crumpling her black dress as she cried into the white coverlet.

He'd been clumsy. He muttered as he sat down beside her, his hand smoothing her long, disheveled hair. His eyes ran over the soft curves of her body, down to the elegant long legs in black hose that were so nicely revealed where the dress was pulled up. She was the prettiest woman he'd ever seen, and her body made him go taut with sudden need.

“Maybe we're both done in with nerves,” he murmured. He pulled her up and turned her so that she was lying across his knees. His dark eyes met her tearful ones, and he brushed at the tears with an impatient hand. “But I've got the best cure in the world. And it won't be like breeding cattle,” he said curtly, as his head bent to hers. He bit at her soft lips, enjoying her sudden lapse of breath, the kindling softness in her eyes. “I'm going to strip you down to your silky skin and enjoy you until dawn,” he said sensuously, letting his hand slide down over her breasts to her tiny waist and flat stomach and on to her silk-clad legs. “And you're going to enjoy me this time. I'm damned well going to ensure it. Come here.”

His hand held her at her nape, bringing her mouth to his. His eyes closed, his brows knitting with pleasure, and he turned her into his arms.

She followed where he led. This time was nothing like the last, except for his exquisite tenderness. It was dark, but he left the lights on, encouraging her to look at him, to learn his body as he'd already learned hers, guiding her hands, smiling at her shy attempts to do what he wanted her to do.

Her body pressed warmly against the length of his, without a scrap of fabric between them, and she trembled with the pure joy of being so close to him, feeling his big, warm hands sliding lazily down her spine, rubbing her breasts against his hair-roughened chest, her hips against his.

His mouth slid onto hers as his hand moved down her body and made sure that she was ready for him. She shuddered at the intimate touch.

He lifted his swollen mouth from hers, and his dark eyes smiled tenderly into hers. “Does it still shock you to be touched this way?” he whispered and did it again. “This is how a man knows if his woman is ready for him, Bess. It's your body's own special way of making sure that I won't hurt you when we join.”

She colored, but he made it sound so natural that she relaxed and didn't protest. Her eyes searched his when he slid a long, powerful leg across hers and levered himself above her.

“There's no rush,” he whispered. “We've got all night, and I'm not going to pull away until you're completely satisfied this time.”

“But, I was...” she protested huskily as he eased down over her. She gasped as she felt him intimately and gasped again when he pushed.

“It's all right,” he said soothingly as the soft, slow joining began. It was still a little uncomfortable at first, but the tenderness of his hands and his mouth made her relax, so that her body made him welcome seconds later.

“It's a miracle, isn't it?” he whispered, shivering a little as he lifted his head to look into her eyes. “The way we fit together so perfectly when we love.” His hands shaped her face, and he brushed his mouth with delicate mastery over hers, teasing it until her lips followed it and began to respond. Her hands were on his shoulders, resting shyly, but as the kiss and the overwhelming intimacy of their position began to work on her, her hands pulled at him and finally slid down to his hips, lightly touching but still hesitant.

“Cade...?” Her voice broke as his hips lifted and then fell, a stab of remembered pleasure shaking her.

“Yes?” he whispered. His mouth settled softly on hers. “Don't be afraid. Feel the rhythm. Move with me. Slowly, honey, very, very slowly,” he breathed into her mouth. “You're my wife. I'm going to take you as sweetly and as tenderly as I know how. I'm going to make love to you...”

It felt like love. She began to whimper as his movements grew slower and deeper, as his lips burned down on her breasts and made her ache with the sensations that rippled through her taut body. She felt his hands on her skin, sliding over her, their deft exploration making her blaze. She tried not to think of how many women there must have been to make him so expert. He was hers now, she thought. Her own. Her husband...

Her short nails dug into his lean flanks, and she felt him shudder and suddenly increase his movements, building the rhythm. His harsh breath in her ear became mingled with the softest kind of Spanish love words as his hands slid beneath her hips and his head lifted to watch.

Her eyes were drawn by his face as he looked down the length of their bodies. She flushed wildly. He caught the awed fascination in her eyes as his hands linked with hers above her head and the rhythm grew suddenly urgent and quick and fierce.

She gasped. His jaw clenched and his eyes blazed, his brows knit and his face strained as he arched his body against hers in a harsh drive for completion.

“Feel it...” He groaned and still his eyes held her shocked ones as she began to shudder and weep under him. “Oh, God, feel it...! Feel it, Bess, feel...it!”

She never knew when the shudders became convulsive, the pleasure so hot and sweeping that she cried out in a voice she knew she'd never used in her life. His face above her was a contorted blur, and when the spasms first hit her, she was afraid. His lean hands controlled the whip of her body, forcing her to completion in a frenzy that brought her into breathless, thoughtless oblivion. She cried out endlessly, vaguely aware of his own shuddering groan in the heated stillness around them.

His shivering body was damp in her arms. She opened her eyes and looked to the ceiling. There was a dull, deep throb in her body and lingering heat. Her hands moved experimentally on Cade's broad back, moving over it with exquisite tenderness.

After a long, unsteady sigh he lifted himself off and rolled over onto his back beside her, stretching with a lazy, unconscious grace and apparently no inhibitions at all.

Bess stared at him, her eyes tracing the hair-roughened strength of his body from head to toe and back again. His eyes were open, quiet, soft, watching her while she watched him.

“Hello,” she said, her voice soft with love.

“Hello.” He slid his hand under her nape and brought her against him, wrapping her in one arm while he reached and fumbled for cigarettes, lighter, and ashtray with the other. He dragged a pillow behind him and eased himself into a sitting position, with Bess still cradled against his damp body.

The intimacy was as new as their marriage. Before, she'd been too self-conscious and guilty to enjoy what they'd done. But he was her husband now, and the lack of inhibition she felt with him was delicious. Her hand smoothed possessively over his chest and down to his flat stomach.

“Not yet,” he murmured dryly, catching her fingers and dragging them to his mouth. He kissed them before he laid them on his chest, his cigarette still smoking in his hand. He put it to his mouth with a heavy sigh. “Men can't do that twice in a row without a little rest,” he murmured, enjoying her blush. “While women, I believe, are capable of multiple—”

“Cade!”

He chuckled with pure delight at her expression. “So much for wifely sophistication. Come here and kiss me.”

She lifted her lips to his, enjoying the feeling of possession and sharing. “Your mouth tastes of smoke,” she whispered.

“Yours tastes of smoke, too, now,” he whispered back. His eyes smiled into hers. “God, it was good this time,” he said huskily. “Like being dropped off a balcony. I've never had it like that in my life, not even that first time we were together.”