Lily (Wildflowers Of Montana Book 5) (11 page)

I nodded, for the words were like a balm.

“How about this? I like you, no, I love you just the way you are. I like you prickly because then I can spank that pert ass of yours. I like you headstrong because there’s no one else I’d rather argue with. I like you naughty so I can fuck that sweet pussy. You are all those things, but most important, you’re mine.”

I’d never had such a declaration before.

“Perhaps I should have said all that before we married, before I left you to chase after Benson, but I thought you knew. I knew right away. That very first moment.”

“Jack,” I sighed.

He lifted my hand to his mouth, kissing my ring. I was recognizing it as his way of showing me his love and a constant reminder that I belonged to him. “Do you plan on arguing with me?”

I shook my head.

“My parents died when I was nine,” he declared, the change of topic startling.

I gasped at the thought of a young Jack, alone in the world and I lifted my hand up to stroke his cheek. His beard was soft, the color of it a shade darker than that on his head.

“I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now.” His voice had an edge of darkness to it, but he offered me a small smile. “Dr. Bower, he cares for you, I’m sure, in his own way. He’s lost in his head, just like when you get all thinking and distracted.”

That was true; strangely, I was just like him in that.

“Good thing you have me to take care of that problem.” He grinned and I blushed as he patted my bottom through my dress. “Do I need to help with that right now?”

I bit my lip and looked around. “Perhaps,” I admitted.

“Mrs. Matthews, such a dirty girl wanting to be spanked in Dr. Bower’s office.”

I shook my head. “I was thinking…”

“Yes?”

“Not here. My bedroom,” I mumbled.

Jack tipped my chin up and I met his heated stare. “Your bedroom? You want me to spank your bare ass in your bedroom?”

I nodded.

“You know what spanking leads to?” he asked.

I licked my lips. “Fucking.”

“That’s right, sweetness.”

Taking my hand, he led me down the hall, then up the stairs to my bedroom. While he’d never been in the house before, he seemed to know exactly where to go.

“I’m going to fuck you in a way that makes you truly naughty.”

As he kicked the door shut with his foot, I wondered just what he had in mind.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

JACK

Lily’s bed was so small, I woke up with her sprawled on top of me. I slept sideways so my feet could hang off the side. This was all fine and good for one night, especially since the things I did to my bride in Dr. Bower’s house only brought to light that she was a
very
dirty girl.

“Morning, sweetness,” I murmured, when she stirred in my hold.

“Mmm, morning.”

She was warm and naked in my arms, my cock hard against her belly. Once she was awake enough to realize it, I’d take her again, although I had to remember she was carrying our child.

“How are you feeling? No sickness?”

She shook her head. “None. Just tired often, and I can’t stand the smell of cooked meat.”

“I thought it was all my attentions that wore you out last night.”

She groaned. “You did, and so did the baby.” She was quiet for a minute. “I like waking up with you,” she added, rubbing her cheek against my bare chest.

I stroked her back with my hand, pushing the sheet from her as I did so.

“We’ve been married six weeks and this is the first time we’ve been able to do this,” I commented.

She stiffened. “Did Dr. Bower come in last night?”

“We’re married, sweetness. What difference does it make that I’m sharing your bedroom?”

She turned her head, rested her chin on me so she could look me in the eyes. “It’s not that.” She bit her lip.

“What is it then, that you’re a screamer?”

She flushed prettily and I picked up one of her bright red curls, playing with the silky strands. I enjoyed seeing her all flustered.

“Jack,” she groaned.

I nudged her up so we were both sitting. “What are you embarrassed about? Trust me, there’s nothing you want, no matter how naughty it is, that I won’t like.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Really,” I repeated. I tugged her from the bed and scooped up one of her stockings. “Give me your wrists.”

She arched a brow and I loved the way she flushed even more, down over the pale curves of her breasts. Without hesitating, she did so. I walked her backwards toward the open window, then lifted her arms overhead and tied the tail end of the stocking to the center of the wood curtain rod. The window was open to the summer breeze, the town coming to life, even though it was still early. While the house was in town, it was on a quieter street.

Testing her bonds, she wriggled her wrists, but the stocking held. She was comfortably standing flat on the floor and could pull her arms down by her face, but no lower. “Jack, someone might see me!”

I took in her naked body, not yet having much opportunity to do so in the daylight. “Christ, you’re beautiful.” Reverently, I ran my hands down her arms, to her sides, then back up to cup her breasts, which thrust up with her arms pinned overhead. “I love your tits like this. They’re so sensitive now, aren’t they?”

Brushing my thumbs over her nipples, she moaned.

“I bet I can make you come from this alone.” I arched a brow at her, daring her to disagree.

“Jack,” she repeated, this time on a breathless whisper.

My hands slid lower, over her flat belly and happiness bloomed in my chest, knowing that our child was safely inside. Further on I moved to the red curls at the juncture of her thighs, then lower. She was already slick and wet, her pussy lips swollen and plump, ready for me.

I dropped to my knees and nudged my nose against her, breathing in her musky arousal. She looked down at me with such passion, such trust in her eyes.

“I’m going to eat your pussy, sweetness, and you’re going to come. Then I’m going to fuck you. Right here.”

She spun about to look over her shoulder. “Anyone can see us,” she hissed.

“Only if they’re looking this way. Be quiet and no one will glance up at your bedroom window. But if you make those gorgeous panting sounds I love so much, I’m sure you’re going to have quite the audience.”

I didn’t give her a chance to think, for that was the last thing I wanted from her. While she
could
be seen if someone were looking up at the second floor of the Bower house, there was not much chance for it to occur. It was just after dawn and her window faced the west, shielded from the sun until later in the day. I wouldn’t put her in harm’s way, or where anyone could truly get a glimpse of my gorgeous bride. Her body, her pleasure, belonged to me.

Nudging her legs far apart, I put my mouth on the sweetest part of her and made her forget everything, everything but me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LILY

“Where are we going to live?” I asked. We were back in bed once again, but this time I was sticky with Jack’s seed and had my stocking still tied about a wrist. My hair was a wild tangle down my back and I was sprawled on top of him, our legs entangled. The room smelled of fucking.
We
smelled of fucking. It was not only decadent to be lying about in the daytime, but in my bedroom. Dr. Bower had yet to return, which I’d expected, but he could come through the door at any time, Dr. Meager in tow. I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all.

If I could be fucked in front of my open window with a chance of someone seeing, then I could remain abed naked with my husband.

“I don’t have a home, not one for a wife anyway.” His fingers ran through my hair. “
Definitely
not one for a baby. I doubt you’ll like Washington.”

“Do
you
like Washington?”

I felt him shrug. “I haven’t been there in almost a year. The Montana Territory, it’s… different. Beautiful. Wild. I like it here.” I heard his hand run over his beard. I wondered if he’d keep it, or shave it off. It was soft and yet a little scratchy against the sensitive skin on the inside of my thighs, and I thought it definitely had its uses. “The women are… stuffy. Some are even prickly.”

“Hmm,” I replied. “Stuffy women. And prickly, too? I doubt I’d fit in.”

He laughed at my dry humor. The day we first met he said he was going to fuck the prickliness right out of me. I thought maybe he’d done just that, but I wasn’t going to tell him.

“I don’t need much,” I told him instead.

“But you need a purpose. I loved you and left you. A wife with no husband. I’m sorry.”

“You were working. I worry about you leaving again, knowing the kind of men you chase.”

He tugged on my hair so I had to look at him. “Sweetness, you don’t have to worry about anything but that baby I put in your belly. While I might not have a place for us to live, I have money. I made an arrangement with the copper kings for Benson. We can do anything you wish. Go anywhere you want. Live near your family.”

“What about your job?”

“My job is to take care of you now.”

“What about being a Pinkerton?”

He sighed, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek. “I spent my life angry, sweetness, trying to find justice wherever I could. I’ve gone all over the country trying to find it.”

I frowned and swirled my finger through his chest hair. “I don’t understand.”

He shifted slightly, so I lifted off of him. He moved so that he sat up, leaning against the brass headboard. I propped myself up on my elbow so I could look at him.

“My father died in the war. My mother died, ultimately, of a broken heart.”

I could see all the joy fade from his eyes, his muscles tense as he spoke.

“When my father left for the war, I was little, six or so. She showed me a hiding place under the porch where I was to go at the first sign of danger. She said we were fighting bad people. I was too young to know what that meant other than my father was gone off to help.”

He took a breath, glanced off at the far wall instead of me. I remained silent, for this heart-wrenching story was what made Jack who he was.

“I was ten when they came. My mother made me go beneath the porch so they didn’t know I was there.” He swallowed then. “I watched them take her into the barn. They left an hour later, but still I remained in hiding. She came out soon after, disheveled. I learned later they raped her, but as a ten-year-old, I only knew they took something from her. Word came of my father’s death soon after that. It had been several years since she’d seen him, but the loss was brutal for her, especially after what those soldiers did. She killed herself soon after.”

I gasped and sat upright, tossing my arms about his neck at that, crying into his shoulder, his beard tickling my forehead. He comforted me as I wept for a woman who had been destroyed by men, men who used war as an excuse to harm the innocent.

Sniffing, I pulled back. “You want justice for your mother.”

He wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “I did. For years I did, chasing one outlaw after another all the way across the country trying to feel some sort of justice for what happened to her.” He sighed. “My parents won’t get justice, because there is none in war. There is none no matter how many outlaws I chase. I learned that this past month.”

“Oh?” I asked, afraid to say more, afraid he might decide to stop sharing.

“My life is with you, sweetness. I want to look to the future, with our baby.” He put his hand on my flat belly and I put mine on top of his. I looked down at our joined hands, the ring he gave me no longer the only physical proof of our love. “It’s time to stop looking to the past.”

***

I must have fallen asleep, for I woke with the sun coming in the windows and Jack gone from my bed. Only the sound of the grandfather clock came up the steps. Outside, I heard the heavy clops of a horse, but otherwise, all was quiet. Where was Jack and how long had he been gone? I lay on my bed and put a hand on my belly. I couldn’t help but marvel about how I was actually making a baby. Lower down, I felt Jack’s seed, sticky on my thighs. I was naked and the sheet only covered part of me. Surely, I looked a picture. Wicked and wanton. It made me grin.

I was no longer working for Dr. Bower, doing his bidding or trying to find random purpose. I was Jack’s wife, who seemed to like me just as I was. While I’d gone to the most ridiculous fashion to gain his attention—investigate and track down a band of outlaws and wait for a bank to be robbed—I felt as if my point had been made.

Jack knew of my intelligence, knew of my idiosyncrasies. He knew everything and he still wanted me. I knew far less about him. We’d spent two days together, then he was gone. I’d had to sift through the lies for the truth about my daring and justice-seeking husband. He’d spent years keeping himself a secret because of his work. An outlaw could use any weakness against a man like Jack. He’d shared the sad story of his parents and it was a deep insight into his character, the kind of man he was. I loved him all the more for it.

He’d said I had been the one who’d made him seek a new life, a new direction. I think the same could be said for myself. I’d just been aimless in Butte, waiting for Dr. Bower to toss me some scraps of his attention and purpose. It was only a matter of time before I would have left to go home, to aimlessly find some kind of purpose on the ranch as well. Perhaps his taking on Dr. Meager had been a blessing in disguise, for while treating patients was something I was skilled in, it wasn’t my true life’s calling. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew it was with Jack, with this baby we’d made. Just like he’d said, it was the future.

Smiling, I climbed from the bed for the last time. I would bathe and dress, then pack my trunk. It was time to live for the future. With Jack.

Two hours later, I was folding the last of my dresses and tucking them into the top of my trunk. I heard the back door open and close, then footsteps down the hall and up the stairs. My heart leapt into my throat at Jack’s return. The excitement of him coming closer and closer was… exhilarating. He was mine and he came back. I hadn’t realized until I heard his return that I worried that he might disappear on me again. Instead of folding the last dress, I just rolled it up and stuffed it onto the top of the pile, then shut the lid of the trunk. “I filled it. You’re going to have to carry it down the steps,” I said.