Intimate Strangers (Eclipse Heat Book 2) (25 page)

Thinking about his dance with death, Quincy’s arms tightened around her. “You saved me. Your mind might not remember me but your soul surely does.”

And then he set out to leech the poison still corroding her thoughts. He deliberately cupped the sweet heat of her core, tracing the line of her scars with his other hand. She stiffened and reached to brush aside the fingers that followed the journey of her pain. But he stilled her resistance, holding her hand beneath his, making her continue the exploration together.

“I know what scars crisscross my body,” she protested. Her face was a picture of sadness. “I’ll never again be the Lucy McKenna you married.”

He slid their hands up his thigh over the smooth thickness of one of his scars. Her fingers traced the breadth of it and he explained, “I took a bullet four days before Lee surrendered—it almost unmanned me. Hamilton dug out the ball himself, not being able to find a doctor. I almost bled to death from the wound before Ham used a hot knife blade to seal it. I was still limping from that when you met me.”

He stood, carrying her with him, raining tepid drops on the floor.

“Ambrose, you’re getting bath water all over the…” He let her body slide down the wet length of him, turning her in his arms so that she faced him. Ignoring his cock prodding her belly, he guided their fingers to the sun-shaped scar that puckered his side. “Bull gored me there when I was but fourteen. My ma cried the whole time she was fixin’ it between scolding me for being so clumsy.”

He tipped her chin and made her meet his gaze. “Ma didn’t love me any less when the scar didn’t fade.”

He moved her hand to the white twisted line that still marred his throat. “Reckon folks who first meet me will always wonder how I danced beneath a noose and lived to walk away.”

Her hand crept up to touch the rope burn and she shivered. Ambrose grabbed up a drying cloth, wrapping it round Lucy before briskly rubbing her hair dry with another towel. “You’re right, Lucy McKenna’s all grown-up into the woman who stands before me—Lucy Quince—my woman.” He swept her into his arms and carried her to their marriage bed.

Molten lava replaced the blood flowing through Lucy’s veins. When Ambrose would have placed her on the mattress she said, “No, I have a birthday gift for you.”

“Not now,” he growled, surly at being interrupted in his mad dash to the bed.

“Put me down,” she whispered in his ears. “I promise you’ll like my gift.”

Reluctantly, his cock bobbing violently as if to say no, Quincy set her on her feet.

“I’m going to prepare for bed,” she smiled and walked away from him, feeling the hot burn of his gaze on her rump. “Just get comfortable. I’ll be with you—”

“Soon,” he ordered gruffly. “You’re teasing me and I don’t want that right now. I want…”

Lucy shimmied into Roberta’s creation, letting the sheer material mask her scars at the same time outlining her body beneath. The vanity mirror faced the bed so she turned sideways, brushing her half-dry hair until it crackled with life, billowing in a curly mass down her back.

Each motion lifted her arm, exposing her breast, and Ambrose said, “Your nipples are pokin’ their heads up at me.”

Lucy didn’t have to look down to know it was true. The tips brushed the sheer material, arousing her even more. She untied the ribbon at her throat, pushing the opening until the fabric became sheer lapels cupping her breasts on either side.

“You’ve got big nubs.”

She looked at him, surprised and a little embarrassed. Before she could cover her breasts and scurry away from her seduction he said, “I like to pull on them. Get them harder before I start sucking on them.”

She slid her hands upward, cupping the mounds, then moved higher until her fingers pinched each nipple. She pulled. “Like this?” Heat pulsed in her womb and she peeked at Ambrose to see if he showed signs of passion.

He sat on the edge of the mattress stroking himself, moving his hand up and down slowly as he watched her perform.

Lucy labored to find breath, her breasts arched high, her back taut as a bow as she pinched the nub and then twirled it.

“Yep.” Quincy’s eyes were narrow slits of lust. “You’re a mite bigger up top than before. See if you can touch your nipple with your tongue.”

Instead of being appalled at his request, she was so aroused she felt waves of heat coursing through her, rushing to the tips of her breasts as if begging her to lick them. “I don’t know if I can,” she whispered.

“Try.” His voice was a guttural command. “It’s my birthday.”

She cupped one breast, lifting it closer to her mouth. He was right, her nipples were long. She touched the tip with her tongue and Ambrose growled, “Bring ’em over here and I’ll bite ’em for you.”

Lucy obeyed but instead of offering what he wanted, she sank between his legs, her hair tickling his thighs as she pushed them wider. He spread his legs and she kissed her way from his leg to the nuggets drawn high against his groin. “Easy, girl,” he laughed raggedly as Lucy tongued them before sucking delicately on each one.

He continued to stroke himself as she licked her way higher, bracing her hands on his spread thighs and taking the ruddy head of his shaft into her mouth.

Lucy loved his taste. She sucked the end of his cock as he pumped up and down, swirling her tongue over the slit to savor the drops of come escaping.

“A little more,” he grunted, half an order, half a plea. She slid her mouth past the head to his rigid length, then withdrew to suckle and taste again.

“Oh God, that’s sweet. Take more of me.” This time it was definitely a plea and Lucy smiled inside as she engulfed him, working her tongue along his cock and taking him deeper each time she pulled back and returned.

She slid to the floor and angled her head, inviting him to nudge deeper. Quincy cradled her head, holding her as he touched her throat. She gagged and he coaxed, “Open a little more, breathe around it, let me…”

Lucy shifted, swallowing the tip as he tickled her throat with it, humming around his length until he lost his iron control and came with a shout.

She swallowed his release, savoring the taste of Quincy on her lips as she finally let him withdraw.

He groaned and laughed roughly, pulling her to the mattress where he held her for a moment. When she started to pull the sheet over them, he said, “I’m not that old, Luce. We’ve got plenty more to do. My turn.”

He rolled her on her back, hiking the sheer nightie up but not off. She peered up at him, her body naked but for the ruffled sheer material draping across her throat.

“Yep.” He gazed at her nipples thrusting up at him then pulled on them, stretching them longer.

Lucy writhed, arching her back at the exquisite pleasure, silently asking for more.

Ambrose covered one nub with his lips, sucking ever so lightly. It wasn’t enough. “You’re teasing me,” she whimpered.

“Yep,” he agreed, licking the ruby tip and then switching to tease the other. He suckled her, pulling, pulling, pulling, penetrating her channel with his fingers and pumping in time. When he took the turgid nipple in his teeth and licked roughly then bit the tip, Lucy came, her orgasm flooding her senses and her cries filling the room.

She hadn’t recovered, was lying in a muzzy heap beside him, looking blearily at his cock waving in the air when he growled, “Together now.”

He rolled her over, pulling her to her knees and pressing her head down ’til it rested on her arms. He came between her legs from behind and thrust his shaft deep, sliding through her channel as she clenched and squeezed his length.

She spread her legs wider, milking him as each stroke forged closer to her core. Ambrose filled her until her thighs were splayed wide and his groin touched her rump. Lucy squeezed her internal muscles around him, grinding her bottom against his flesh as he touched the spot high inside that sent her rocketing once again. He held her hips, keeping her high for the jarring thrusts that signaled his release was upon him too.

Panting and out of breath, he collapsed on top of her, rolling them both to the side so he remained connected, spooning behind her.

Lucy rubbed her cheek against his arm, contented and replete. There wasn’t a spot on her body Ambrose hadn’t touched, examined and tasted. Likewise, she had made his body hers.

Her compulsion to hide her flaws from him was gone. She touched his scarred thigh as he absently traced the path of violence that meandered from her crown, whimsically down her left shoulder to cross to her right nipple and then jaggedly stumbled back toward her left hipbone.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Lucy admitted. “I don’t want this to end ever.”

Ambrose hugged her, nuzzling her neck before he turned her in his arms.

“Seems like a good time to talk.” It surprised her when he continued their earlier conversation. “You were never a loose woman—I was never a murdering husband. If there are rumors telling tales about either, they’re lies.”

Ambrose stopped tracing her scar and looked up at her. “I know that now, Lucy. And that makes me every kind of a damned fool.”

“What did I do to make Eclipse citizens think such horrible things about me?” Lucy asked, and then, upon looking around the room, answered for him, “I flirted, wore dresses cut down to my better-left-unseen parts and courted gossip.” She knew she hadn’t been an adulterous wife, but a spoiled brat was in evidence.

“I’m a good deal older than you.” He cleared his throat. “I guess I feared that you’d find a younger, better-looking man more appealing.”

Hearing more than he said, she asked, “Did this younger, better-looking man have a name?”

He grunted. “Steve Pauley, the banker. You spent as much time in Eclipse as you did on the ranch. You and he sat hatching plans to spend your money while I worked trying to make enough to compete.”

It was a hard admission from a proud man. Stephen Pauley was a handsomely dressed man with fine social manners. But Lucy knew, and every woman in the area would have agreed, that next to Ambrose Quince he was no more than wallpaper to any woman entertained in a room with the two of them.

“Ambrose, Stephen Pauley is so pompous just being near him irritates me. There is only one man in my life and you’re him. I’ll never feel about another man the way I feel about you.”

Sliding his arm under her neck, Ambrose cradled her head against his shoulder. “Good.”

She wrapped her hand around his half-erect shaft, stroking him until he grew hard under her touch. “You appear to be mighty feisty yet, for a man who just turned thirty-nine.”

He came over her, sliding into her heat as she pulled him close and rolled her hips sinuously, taking him deep again. Their loving was slow and easy this time, two people who knew what each other wanted and needed. Satiated, Lucy murmured against his chest, “I love you, Quincy.”

Ambrose hugged her. “God, Lucy, I wanted to die without you.”

They should have been exhausted, ready to sleep, but as they lay replete in each other’s arms, Lucy’s stomach rumbled and she admitted, “I’m hungry.” She wanted to cook up a storm and feed and pamper this man like there was no tomorrow.

He grinned at her, still connected for the moment. He nudged his hips against hers one last time and then rolled off with a sigh. “I’ll warm up the water in your bath while you put on the coffee.”

They crept downstairs like two children on Christmas morning and Ambrose washed in the tepid water left from his birthday party and then dressed. Lucy remained wrapped in a blanket as she put on the coffee. After he finished, he emptied the dirty water and warmed a shallow tub for her.

He did barn chores while she bathed and dressed, then cooked breakfast. When he came stomping back in through the back door, wiping his hands on a drying cloth as he sniffed appreciatively, her breath was constricted by the love she felt for him.

When she dropped her gaze and turned away, he crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. “There will be none of that now. We agreed—no more hiding thoughts from each other.”

Trying to hang on to some of her dignity, Lucy reached for an intelligent response rather than maudlin sentiment. “I’m thinking that I have an uncommon response to you.”

Ambrose growled deep in his throat, picking up her hand to kiss her fingers. “You own my heart, Lucy. You always did.”

After breakfast, Ambrose helped Lucy tidy the kitchen and she helped him with the barn chores. When they were finished, dawn was breaking and they had an early start on the day.

Ambrose said, “Let’s ride out to Hamilton’s cabin. I expect he’s praying we come. The kids won’t trouble him but he might be hiding from Roberta by now.”

Lucy frowned at Quincy’s suggestion and reluctantly agreed. “If I ever liked that place, I don’t anymore.”

Already dressed in riding clothes, Lucy was suddenly anxious to check on the rest of the family. Ambrose saddled their horses and under the pink skies of dawn, they started for Hamilton’s cabin.

* * * * *

They arrived and led their horses to the shed where Hamilton’s mount stood with three other Double-Q brands. Lucy and Ambrose both realized at the same time things were not right. It was too quiet. Not even crickets chirped.

Uneasily, Lucy peered through the half light of morning across the expanse of ground between shed and on to the hills that rose behind the cabin. The rising sun glittered and wavered off a spot above in the rocks.

“Look out,” Lucy warned and Ambrose leapt sideways as if he were a cat, sweeping her along with him just as the crack of a rifle disturbed the silence. Dirt kicked up from the ground where they had been standing moments before.

“You in there, Hamilton?” Ambrose yelled at the cabin.

No one called out an answer but another bullet kicked up the earth.

Ambrose motioned Lucy to the side and they angled up through the trees that grew along the trail. When he stepped deeper off the path she followed, gripping her Winchester, cocked and ready.

Ambrose bent low, working his way carefully. Lucy’s clothing blended into the shadows of the scrub pine and she followed. When she would have continued toward the hot springs above and to the right, Ambrose veered off to the left, motioning her to follow.

They climbed until they reached a pinnacle that crested onto a flat plateau, much like the one in front of Hamilton’s cabin where they had watched the stallion with his herd. Lucy stiffened, touching Ambrose, making sure he’d seen the man crouched and waiting.

Ambrose nodded, motioning for her to stay. He circled, coming from behind the sniper to throttle him. A pile of wood stood ready and he struck a lucifer to the dry tinder and lit a blaze.

“Signal fire,” Ambrose said grimly. “Double-Q riders will be here quick.”

Occasional bullets sent rocks flying but Lucy and Ambrose fired back, turning the tables and pinning the outlaws below until the Double-Q drovers arrived.

Stepping into the shadow of the trees, Lucy worked her way back down the hill, getting closer to the path that led to the springs. She’d learned to protect herself in Buffalo Creek, but this place left her shivering inside.

She wanted to turn tail and run, but when the sounds of whimpered fear reached her, she pushed on ’til she reached the lip of rock circling the spring.