The Rustler (33 page)

He chuckled again. Kept right on unbuttoning her dress. “There's one thing you'll need to keep in mind about married life, Sarah. It doesn't have to be dark outside for a man to make love to his wife. Fact is, if you're willing, I'll take you anytime of day, anywhere that's private enough.” He'd opened all the buttons; now he smoothed the dress off her shoulders, nibbled at the long curve of her neck.

Sarah's breath caught at the exquisite sensation of his lips and his breath moving warm and slow over her skin. Ever more and more of her skin bared, until the dress fell in a pool at her feet and she was left standing there in petticoats, pantaloons, a camisole and the corset Kitty had teased her about in the pantry.

Wyatt gave a low whistle of exclamation. “I will never understand,” he said, “how you women can tolerate so many clothes. Especially things with wire and whalebone in them.” He unlaced her camisole, dispensed with it. Pushed her petticoats down, so they tumbled, lacy, on top of the dress. She stood in the swell of fabric like Venus rising from the sea, her breasts swelling above the corset-top, naked without the camisole to cover them, and Wyatt weighed them gently in his hands. Chafed the pink nipples with the sides of his thumbs until they tightened.

Sarah whimpered. Closed her eyes. Swayed slightly.

She wasn't an innocent virgin bride. She'd been with a man—one man—numerous times, and she'd enjoyed the caresses, the holding that came after the hard, moist pounding of Charles's body slamming into hers.

But this was different.

It was as though she were some infinitely precious instrument, rare and perfectly designed, and Wyatt meant to play every string, play every chord, and coax from her soft and tender notes at first, but building, building, until the gentle strains soared into a concerto, thunderous and mighty.

Muttering a little, he freed her from the corset, flung it away. She knew, just by the motion, that if he had his way, she would never wear it again.

He bent his head to her breasts then, tasting one, then the other.

Sarah entwined her fingers in his hair and held him to her, wanting more, and then more still.

He suckled until she was breathless, one of his hands splayed across the small of her back, the other sliding down into her pantaloons, finding and parting her. Plying her.

A thin shimmer of perspiration broke out all over Sarah's body. She felt wet everywhere—on her breasts, between her legs, where Wyatt was igniting a fire with a simple swirling motion of his fingers.

It was a relief when he laid her down on the bed, pulled off her pantaloons, her stockings and garters, her slippers. She watched, dazed, as Wyatt stood watching her, devouring her with his eyes, all the while shedding his own clothes—boots first, then the shirt, then his trousers.

His manhood stood erect, reminding Sarah of stallions in the field, preparing to mount a mare. As primitive as the image was, it made her blood burn and her body strain.

She wanted him inside her, deep inside her.

But he turned her sideways on the bed and knelt between her legs.

She groaned. Now he'd take her. At last, at last, he'd take her.

Instead, he stunned her with a pleasure so unexpected, and so fiercely keen, that she wasn't sure she could endure it. He buried his face in her, took her into his mouth.

She began to rock and writhe on the bed.

He feasted on her, alternately sucking and laving her to madness with the very tip of his tongue. He stroked the insides of her thighs, inciting rather than soothing, keeping her knees apart. And when she arched her back, caught up in the throes of something she had never imagined could happen, he drew on her harder still, and reached up to cover her mouth lightly with one hand.

If he hadn't, the wail she gave would have been heard on every corner of Stone Creek Ranch. The release was utter, shattering, an unhinging of soul from body. Sarah buckled wildly under Wyatt's mouth, howling against his palm. Again and again, she felt that catching deep inside her, the thing she thought she'd experienced before, but never had.

At last, spent, she fell, gasping, to the mattress. Wyatt still knelt between her legs, his head resting on her quivering abdomen.

“I didn't know—” she managed.

“Shhh,” he said.

Presently, he turned her again, so that she lay properly on the bed. And he lowered himself onto her.

“Sarah,” he told her, looking into her eyes, “the wedding was a prelude. So was what we just did. But when this next thing happens, there'll be no going back. If you've got any doubts, you'd best say so right now.”

Sarah knew, though only dimly, what he meant. The marriage could still be annulled, even with the marriage license signed, and her still trembling from the unspeakable satisfaction he'd evoked in her only moments before. But once their bodies had been joined, the die would be cast. She would truly be his wife then, and he would be her husband.

She put her hands on either side of his face, rough now, needing to be shaved, and drew his head down for her kiss. Felt the wetness of her pleasure on his mouth.

What she couldn't say in words, her body said for her.

With a low moan, Wyatt eased inside her.

The sheer size of him made her eyes widen and her breath catch.

“Easy,” he said. Ever so slowly, he began to move within her.

The friction was delicious at first, then as necessary as her next breath, her next heartbeat. Sarah clutched and clawed at Wyatt, trying to take him in still deeper, trying to hurry him.

But he would not be hurried.

His thrusts were deliberate and controlled. He murmured senseless words into Sarah's neck, raised his head to look into her eyes.

She began to buck beneath him again, like a wild mare in springtime. And when she cried out, lost in pleasure, flung into it to whirl in breathless spirals toward heaven itself, he covered her mouth with his own.

When she climaxed, he swallowed her fevered shouts.

And when he let himself go, when he thrust back his head and gave a low shout of surrender, spilling his warmth into her, Sarah realized she'd never made love before that day. She'd given herself, yes. She'd even had soft, sweet releases.

But she had never known passion. She had never soared, never been ravished, never felt the stirring, silent music of her own body, expertly rendered by a man who cared as much for her pleasure as his own.

She began to cry.

Wyatt, lying beside her, kissed her temple. Wrapped her in his arms and held her close against him, not minding her tears. She clung to him, their legs entwined. And, eventually, she slept.

When she awakened, the cabin was shadowy with twilight. Lying on her stomach, she stretched, made a little crooning sound of sheer contentment. Wyatt stirred next to her, shifted.

She felt herself drawn up onto her hands and knees, with Wyatt behind her. Kissing her backbone, caressing her buttocks with one hand, he arranged himself and slid into her in a single thrust.

Her sated body thrilled, wanting again.

She whispered his name, raggedly, unashamed of her need.

He held her hips, filling her and then withdrawing. Teasing until she pleaded. And only when she pleaded did he truly take her, in the way she craved taking. His lovemaking was like some exotic drug; if he withheld it from her, she would suffer. As it was, she gasped and twisted like a woman in a violent fever, but Wyatt did not deny her. He drove into her, hard, at the precise moment she needed him most, and the resultant explosion consumed her.

She collapsed again, but Wyatt got out of bed, pulled on his trousers, and went outside, Lonesome padding after him. When they returned, Wyatt lit a kerosene lantern and set it on the table, began poking kindling and crumpled newspaper into the belly of the stove.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked drowsily, still almost too breathless to speak.

He laughed, the sound gruff and somehow as intimate as their lovemaking. “Maybe you can keep up a pace like that, Mrs. Yarbro,” he said, “but Lonesome and I, we need some supper.”

“Supper?”

“Don't worry,” Wyatt told her. “You don't have to cook.”

“Good,” Sarah said, “because I don't think I can
stand up,
let alone make supper.”

But she
would
have to stand up, she realized. She needed to use a chamber pot, wash her hands and face.

“Outhouse is behind the cabin,” Wyatt said.

Sarah felt the now-familiar heat suffuse her face. How had he known?

She scrambled out of bed, wrapped herself in the quilt, after untangling it from the top sheet, poked her feet into her wedding slippers, and left the cabin as regally as she could, praying that none of the ranch hands would see her.

It was dark out, though, and lights shone in Sam and Maddie's windows, and from the bunkhouse, too. Sarah felt warmed by them, even comforted.

She used the outhouse, which was newly built and therefore had not acquired an odor, then returned to the cabin. Wyatt had set out a basin of warm water for her, along with a washcloth and a bar of soap still in the wrapper.

“I wish I'd known your mother,” Sarah said.

Busy frying something in a skillet, Wyatt looked up. “Why?” he asked.

“Because she raised you right. You cook. You knew I'd need hot water and soap—”

“I'm not sure she'd agree,” Wyatt said quietly. “That she raised me right, I mean. She sure didn't rock me at her bosom when I was a baby and say, ‘I hope my first-born grows up to rob trains.'”

Sarah felt a pang, because she'd never know Wyatt's mother, and because she missed her own with a sudden soreness of heart. Both of them should have been at the wedding, Nancy giving Sarah shy last-minute advice, Mrs. Yarbro beaming over her handsome son.

“I didn't get to hold Owen, when he was a baby,” Sarah said, without ever intending to say any such thing. “They took him away before I could.”

Wyatt pushed the skillet to the back of the stove, came to her, took her in his arms. Kissed the top of her head. And he had the good sense not to say anything at all. He simply allowed her to cry.

“There'll be other children,” she said presently. “And I'll love them with my whole being. But if Owen's not there, too—”

“Shhh,” Wyatt said. “We'll think of something.”

But what?
she wanted to ask, but didn't.

Lonesome came over, squeezed himself in between them.

They laughed.

Wyatt let Sarah go, went back to the stove. She rummaged through her valise and found her wrapper. Shed the quilt to put it on.

God bless Kitty Steel, she thought. If it had been left up to her, she'd have had nothing to wear but her mother's wedding dress.

Once decently covered, Sarah gathered her scattered clothes from the floor—the petticoats, the gown, the camisole and pantaloons, the corset.

“You're right,” she told Wyatt. “Women wear too many clothes.”

He grinned, crossed the room, took the corset out of her hand, and carried it back to the stove. Stuffed it right into the fire and watched it catch.

“Wyatt Yarbro,” Sarah protested, somewhat after the fact. “I need that corset!”

“No, you don't,” he replied. “As far as I'm concerned, the pantaloons could go into the stove, too, since it would save me having to pull them down, but I reckon you'd feel the breeze on windy days.”

Sarah laughed, scandalized, not so much because of the audacity of what he'd said, but because she liked the idea.

Whatever Wyatt was cooking sizzled, and it smelled divine. He grinned at her. Waggled his eyebrows.

“You are not going to go around pulling down my pantaloons,” she said.

“Wait and see,” he answered. “You liked it when I took you from behind, and what you like, I like. I'll be bending you over things right and left, Mrs. Yarbro, and having you hard and slow, until you howl like a she-wolf in heat.”

Sarah fluttered a hand in front of her face, overheated. It must have been the stove, and the summer night. “I take it back, what I said about your mother raising you right,” she told him. “You mustn't
say
such things, Wyatt. It's improper.”

“Why not, Sarah?” Wyatt asked, still grinning. “Because it makes you want me to put my—money where my mouth is?”

She did want that, and he knew it, and her temper surged, right along with that insatiable passion he'd awakened in her.

“Shall I prove it, Sarah?”

“No,” she said, drawing the belt of her wrapper more tightly around her waist. It really
was
too warm in that cabin. “I'm starved. I'm exhausted. And there will be no more talk about where you put your mouth!”

He laughed out loud at that, throwing back his head.