Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 (25 page)

Her limbs trembled as he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her with exquisite sweetness, as if nothing existed for him but her mouth.

“Sarah,” he murmured, nipping at her lower lip. “You’re mine now.”

She made a soft sound of assent. He lifted his head and looked at her, stroking his hands down her neck and over her shoulders. Holding her gaze, he continued downward until he cupped her breasts in his palms. Desire spiked through her as he rubbed his thumbs over the nipples. She didn’t try to hide her reaction from him. She couldn’t.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Every inch of you, inside and out.”

“Jack…” His touch utterly devastated her.

“I need your hands on me, Sarah.” He guided one of her palms to his chest. She flattened her fingers against the broad expanse, then flicked open one of the buttons of his long underwear. A glance at his face made her smile, and she popped open another button. He leaned back against the wall, his hands resting on her hips, letting her set her own pace.

Finally she had unbuttoned to the waistband of his trousers. Spreading the edges wide, she smoothed her palms over the hair-roughened muscles. He simply watched her, his eyes slitted. Then she leaned closer and pressed a kiss to his chest. He groaned, and his eyes slid closed.

Such power. Her lips curved, and she dragged her nails lightly down the exposed flesh. He shuddered, sending a thrill through her. She scored him again with her nails, enjoying the way her lone wolf gritted his teeth and quivered beneath her touch. She did it again and again until he grabbed her wrist.

He opened his eyes, and she almost stepped back. Her wolf had returned all right, and he was hungry.

Taking her hand, he led her to the pallet he had made.

She lowered herself to the makeshift bed, sitting back on her heels and watching as he stripped off his garments. His boots went first, tossed carelessly at the foot of the bedroll. Then he stripped off his trousers, sending them flying after his boots. His long underwear hid nothing, his arousal stretching the white cotton to the limit even as he ripped open the remaining buttons. One popped off and zinged across the shed. In moments, he was as naked as she.

He came to the edge of the bedroll and looked down at her for a long moment. She waited, her heart pounding. Donovan without his clothes was a sight to behold. His body was solid and lean, marked here and there with scars. She longed to kiss each and every one of them. Here was a man who had lived hard and survived. Here was a man she could trust with her heart.

He knelt on the bedroll, shifting until their knees touched. She stretched up to meet his descending mouth, linking her hands around his neck once more. With a groan, he clasped his arms around her, pulling her against him with desperate strength. Wrapping her braid around one hand, he tugged her head backward, breaking the kiss while he nipped at her neck and sent her senses soaring.

“I need you,” he muttered against her throat. “Let me love you, Sarah.”

“Yes,” she whispered. And again, “Yes.”

He released her hair and cupped one hand possessively over her bottom, urging her closer. His erection pressed into her belly, hotly insistent. She slid her hand down, closed her fingers around him. His guttural moan urged her to stroke him. Their mouths met in reckless greed. He squeezed her bottom, stroked her back. She smoothed her hands over every sleek muscle she could reach, always coming back to the hungry flesh between his thighs. He returned the favor, parting her thighs and caressing her with a tenderness that hinted at his tenuous control, even as it edged her to the boiling point.

“Jack.” Mindless with need, she reared up and nipped his earlobe. “Jack, please.”

“God.” He shuddered, still stroking the slick heat between her thighs. ”You’re so ready for me, sweetheart.”

“Yes.” Trembling, she dug her nails into his shoulders. “I want you so much.”

“Sweet Sarah.” He tumbled her backward, cushioning her with one arm until she lay fully beneath him. She didn’t even care about the rough blankets against her skin. Her world was filled with Donovan. She stroked her hand over his forehead, combed the sweat-dampened hair back from his face. Dropping a kiss on her breast, he shifted, hooking his elbows beneath her knees and spreading her wide for him. “I love you, Sarah,” he murmured against her mouth. Then he slipped into her.

A cry of surprise escaped her lips. There was no pain, only a slow, satisfying stretching as he pressed insistently forward until he filled her completely. There he paused, waiting for her body to adapt to the sensual penetration. She instinctively clenched her inner muscles around him, little ripples of adjustment that wrung a groan from him. He began to rock his hips, and she clung to him, her movements echoing his as he plunged harder, faster, deeper. Nothing else felt like this, that pleasure and the heat, the instinctive rhythm of loving. She met his kiss eagerly, her tongue teasing his, imitating the age-old mating dance.

When he buried his face in her neck and called her name, she tumbled right behind him into rapture.

The door crashed open with a clatter of rusty tools. Donovan sat bolt upright, his knife already in his hand. With a sleepy murmur, Sarah snuggled closer to him, flinging an arm over his thighs.

“Here they are!” Mort peered into the shed, Gabriel just behind him. Amos pushed them aside and stuck his head in.
 

“There ya are, boss!”

Sarah stirred, no doubt disturbed by the commotion.

“Ya had us right worried,” Amos continued, entering the tiny edifice as if he owned it. “When your horse come back without ya, we thought something awful had happened to ya. Shoulda known better.”

“Keep your voice down,” Donovan said. He tucked his duster around Sarah’s shoulders as she settled into slumber once more.

“That gal must be plumb tuckered.” Matt peeked in, his rifle in hand, along with Mort and Gabriel. The four men looked at Donovan with raised brows.

“She was attacked by that bastard, Petrie,” he said in response to the unspoken question. “He stole her horse, and mine ran off, so we had to bunk down here.
End of story
.”

Amos rubbed his chaw-stained beard and glanced at Matt. “Well, boss, I reckon there’s something we ought to tell you…”

“I heard the commotion,” said a new voice.

The other men gave way in the doorway, and Donovan met the newcomer’s gaze squarely. “Morning, Ross.”

“Donovan.” Ross’s gaze slid to the slumbering Sarah, then back to Donovan. His mouth thinned.

A rustle of the tarps drew everyone’s attention. Sarah sat up, rubbing a hand across her eyes and yawning.

“Jack?” she said in a sleepy voice. Then her eyes focused, and she cried out, jerking the blanket to her chin. Her face flushed redder than any tomato as she glanced from one man to another.
 

“Good morning, Sarah,” Ross said. He looked at Donovan. “I think we’d
all
better wait outside while Sarah gets dressed.”

With a sigh, Donovan got to his feet, grateful he had slipped back into his trousers when he’d last checked the perimeter sometime before dawn. He followed the posse outside. Ross brought up the rear, his expression grim and his fingers tight around the rifle in his hand.

The instant the door to the shed closed behind him, the rancher turned to him. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Donovan asked, his tone deceptively mild.

“Your horse showed up at the Calhouns’ last night, right around the time Mrs. Calhoun was asking around about Sarah. The whole blasted town knows the both of you were missing all night.”

“Bet they’ll be glad to know we’re alive,” Donovan said sarcastically. “People should be more concerned about Petrie running loose than whether or not Sarah and I are going to get married. Which we
are
going to do, by the way.” He scanned each man in turn, daring them to protest. But instead their bodies relaxed as the worry left their faces.

“I’m sure glad to hear that,” Amos said, voicing what was obviously a shared opinion. “I like that gal. Didn’t want to see her get hurt again.”

“I take care of what’s mine.” Donovan looked at Ross as he spoke.

Ross gave a nod of understanding. “Then it looks like I’m not needed here anymore. I’ve got cattle to see to.”

“Turner,” Donovan warned as Ross mounted his horse. “I expect to see you dancing at my wedding.”

The two men held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Then Ross gave him jerky nod. “Tell Sarah I’m sorry about the other night,” he said. “And that I hope she’ll be happy.”

“She will be,” Donovan assured him.

With a nod to the other men, Ross kicked his horse into a gallop.

“Sure hope he can dance,” Amos mused. He spit a wad of tobacco juice into the hoofprints left by Ross’s horse.

The door to the shed opened. “Please take me home, Jack,” Sarah said.

Donovan came to her and took her hand, pressing her trembling fingers over his heart. “You are home.”

One week later, the entire town of Burr attended the wedding of Sarah Calhoun and Jack Donovan. After the ceremony, everyone rode out to the Donovan spread for an enormous wedding reception.

Sarah clung to her new husband’s hand as they walked among the guests, greeting and being congratulated. The yard was full to overflowing with people in their Sunday best. Trestle tables covered with white tablecloths had been set up for dining, and a steer was slowly being roasted over an open fire. A line of tables alongside the house sagged with the weight of hot corn and potatoes, biscuits and gravy, and dozens of other delectable foods. Smack in the center of all this bounty rose a three-tiered wedding cake, baked by Honoria Westerly and her daughter, Marianne.

A bunch of Donovan’s hands had built a wooden dance floor that stood just outside the white picket fence that surrounded the huge yard. Mort, Johnny and Gabriel had taken their places atop the dais and kicked up a foot-stomping tune. Someone handed Sarah a plate full of food, and she even sat down with it, but she couldn’t eat. Donovan, however, ate heartily, accepting congratulations and slaps on the back with sociable good humor.

Sarah made an effort to pick at the delicious offerings on her plate, but finally she just pushed it aside. She was too edgy to eat anything. Every time someone came up behind her, she jumped, expecting to see Luke’s leering face. She had spent the week before her wedding expecting him to step out of some corner and threaten her again.

As if he sensed her turmoil, Donovan reached over and took her hand without pausing in his conversation with Matt and Amos. He caressed her fingers with his thumb, and she found herself relaxing. Even if Luke was still around, she was safe with Donovan.

Comforted by her husband’s soothing presence, she took more of an interest in her surroundings. Donovan’s yard was little more than hard-packed dirt, and she envisioned how it might look once she took the gardening in hand. Perhaps a trellis on the side of the house. Rose bushes maybe, or petunias. Someone laughed, breaking her free of her imaginings.

At the next table, Mr. Castor stuffed his mouth with beef while arguing politics with Harve Heinman, the owner of the Four Aces Saloon. The cattlemen crowded in a corner of the yard, glasses of whiskey in their hands, debating the vagaries of the cattle market. Across the way, the Tillis family sat with Kate O’Brien and the Westerlys amidst the bedlam created by their collective children. The Tremont sisters sat with their uncle Mortimer. Sarah’s eyebrows rose in surprise as she noticed Ross Turner fetching lemonade for a blushing Emmaline.

Over near the house, Susannah was surrounded by most of the eligible young males of Burr. She handled the crowd of eager suitors with a casual aplomb that Sarah had always envied.

Just a few yards away, her mother was engaged in a lively discussion with Mrs. Castor and two other matrons. She positively beamed with happiness as she described the making of her daughter’s wedding gown, a fantastic creation of white satin, snowy lace, and seed pearls that was the culminating achievement of her career as a seamstress. Having one of her daughters marry the most eligible bachelor in town had made June Calhoun the envy of her contemporaries.

Sarah noticed the Mercers in deep conversation with the Pearsons, and sitting with them was Marshal Brown.

He seemed fit enough now, she thought, though his arm was still in a sling. He was tall and lean with wheat-colored hair that fell to his shoulders and a mustache of the same color. His dark eyes scanned the crowd, a habit, no doubt, from years of having to watch his back. He looked personable enough in a white shirt and fawn-colored pants with a matching coat, but the way he held himself made her think that he could move quickly in any direction at a moment’s notice.

Just like Jack.

As if he heard her unspoken words, the marshal turned his gaze on her new husband. He watched Donovan with a measured thoroughness that made her edgy.

She knew Jack had a past. Only now did she think to wonder whether or not it had been a
legal
one. But what could Donovan have possibly done to draw the attention of the authorities? She glanced at her husband, who was talking to Ned Gorman and Amos. He had told her that he wasn’t wanted anywhere, and she believed him. But Donovan had definitely seen some dark times in his past.