Twin of Ice (17 page)

“Please me?” he said, as he held out his hand. “Just look at that. It’s shakin’ so bad I can’t hold it still.” He put his hand on the soft skin of her stomach. “It ain’t gonna be easy for me to wait, but any lady’d climb all the way up here to spend the night with me deserves the best—not no quick tumble on the floor. You just sit there and I’ll make us somethin’ to drink. You like peaches? No!” he said as Houston began to pull the blanket about her. “You can just leave that on the floor. You get too cold you can crawl in my lap and I’ll warm you.”

Growing up in Duncan Gates’s house had not given Houston much opportunity to learn to like the taste of liquor. But Kane took a can of peaches, poured out the juice, mashed the peaches to a pulp and mixed it with a generous amount of rum.

He handed her the concoction in the can. “It ain’t a fancy glass, but it works.”

Houston took a sip. She felt quite awkward wearing absolutely nothing while sitting in front of a man. But by the time she’d finished the drink, which didn’t taste at all like the few sips of liquor she’d drunk before, she was feeling as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have no clothes on.

Kane took a seat across from her and watched her. “Better?” he asked as he handed her another drink.

“Much.”

She was only halfway through the second can of drink when Kane took it from her. “I don’t want you drunk, just relaxed.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him. The drink inside Houston made her feel less inhibited than she ever had been in her life. Her arms twined about his neck and she put her lips on his.

“What did you tell your sister about you and Westfield?”

“That Lee might set her body on fire, but he did absolutely nothing for me.”

“Not a good asker?”

“The worst,” she said as his lips came down on hers.

His hands played along her body as he kissed her, touching her skin and sending fire through her. Some small part of her brain was aware that Kane was holding back part of himself, that he was more reserved than she was, but she didn’t listen.

As his hands roamed about her body, Houston moved so she was closer to him, stretching out her body to give him freer access.

He kissed her face, her neck, his mouth running down to her breasts. When he took the pink crest in his mouth, she arched against him, and he used his hands to caress her waist and hips.

“Slow down, love,” he murmured. “We have all night.”

All the sensations were so new to Houston. Always, when Lee’d touched her, she’d felt like withdrawing, pulling away from him rather than wanting to explore and discover everything at once. As Kane touched her, she felt more and more wonderful, and all the fears that Lee’d instilled in her, that she was frigid, were fast disappearing.

Her hands began to explore his skin, to feel the warmth of it. The firelight made his flesh glow, and Houston so much wanted to touch all of him.

Kane pulled her closer to him, lying down with her in his arms. He removed the towel from his hips and Houston moved her hips closer to his, a little afraid of the feel of his swollen manhood.

Kane’s control began to break. His breath in her ear was ragged and quick, and his gentle kisses turned hot and demanding. Houston met his force with her own.

“Houston, sweet, sweet Houston,” he said as he laid her down on the blanket-covered floor and lay on top of her.

Eagerly, she clutched his body to hers. When he entered her, she gasped and quick tears of pain came to her eyes. Kane lifted himself and looked at her, and held himself back until he saw by her face that the pain was receding. He kissed her neck with little nibbling kisses, running his tongue along her ear until she moved her face and sought his mouth.

Slowly, Kane began to move inside her, and after the first few painful movements, Houston began to arch toward him in clumsy little circles. Kane put his hands on her hips and began to guide her, slowly, carefully, gracefully.

Houston put her head back and gave all her thoughts and feelings over to the new and delicious sensations Kane was sending through her body.

She began to move in a rhythm as old as time itself, and inside her she felt all the emotions she’d kept pent up, at last finding a release.

Her breath came faster and harder as she began to feel herself building into an explosion.

Kane began to move faster and she moved with him. Higher and higher her passion climbed, until she thought she might burst.

And when she did explode, she was sure she might die from the experience. “Kane,” she whispered. “Oh my dear, dear Kane.”

He pulled away from her just enough to look at her, and his face wore an unusual expression, one she couldn’t understand.

“I didn’t please you?” she asked, as her body began to tense again. “Do you think I’m frigid, too?”

He put his hand to the side of her head and kissed her softly. “No, sweetheart, the last thing I think you are is frigid. I’m not sure I know anythin’ about you at all, except that you’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen and you do the damnest things, like come all the way up the side of a mountain just to spend the night with me, and then my prim little lady-wife turns out to be a hot little…Maybe we shouldn’t go into that.”

He kissed her forehead. “I’m goin’ outside into the rain and wash this blood off, and when I get back, let’s eat. I need my strength if I’m gonna make love to you all night.”

As he stood, Houston stretched, her fair skin tawny in the firelight.

As Kane watched her, an unusual thought entered his head: he didn’t want to be alone, not even for the length of time it took him to go outside.

He reached out his hand to her. “Go with me,” he said, and there was a plea in his voice.

“Anywhere,” Houston answered.

Houston walked out into the rain with her husband and wasn’t even aware of the cold. Her mind was occupied with the fact that she wasn’t frigid. Maybe the problem had been Leander, maybe she had been too close to him, or felt too much like his sister, to want to climb into bed with him. But whatever the reason, she was now released from her fear that there was something missing inside her.

Kane pulled her into his arms. “You look dreamy,” he said. Rain was dripping down his face and onto hers. “Tell me what you’re thinkin’. What does a lady think after havin’ the local stableboy make love to her?”

Houston pulled away from him and stretched her arms up toward the sky. On impulse she began dancing slowly, as if she wore her satin wedding dress, holding the skirt out and moving gracefully with it. “This lady feels wonderful. This lady doesn’t feel at all like a lady.”

He caught her wrist. “You aren’t regrettin’ that your weddin’ night wasn’t in a silk-sheeted bed? You don’t wish some other man—.”

She put her fingers to his lips. “This is the happiest night of my life, and I don’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone else. A cabin in the woods with the man I love. No woman in the world could ask for more than that.”

He was watching her with an odd intensity, a slight frown on his face. “We better go in before we freeze to death.”

Calmly, he started back to the cabin, Houston beside him, but suddenly he turned and grabbed her to him, their cold, wet skin sticking together as he kissed her.

Houston melted against him, letting him feel her joy and happiness.

With a smile, he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the cabin. Once inside, he grabbed a blanket, wrapped her in it, and began rubbing her cold body.

“Houston,” he said, “you’re not like any lady I ever met. I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what marriage to one of the Chandler princesses would be like, but you ’bout busted all my ideas.”

She turned around in his arms, her nude body wrapped in the blanket, his bare skin glowing in the firelight. “Am I different in a good way or a bad one? I know you wanted a lady; am I not being one?”

He took a while to answer, looking at her speculatively, as if judging what he should tell her. “Let’s just say that I’m learnin’ a lot.” He grinned. “I’ll bet Gould’s wife never followed him up the side of a mountain.” He began kissing her neck, but stopped abruptly. “Would it be too much to hope that you know how to cook?”

“I know the rudiments, enough to direct a cook, but I don’t know how to prepare a meal from scratch. You don’t like Mrs. Murchison?”

“I’m happy to say that she ain’t here at the moment. What I want to know is whether you can make somethin’ to eat out of those bags of food.”

She wiggled her arms out of the blanket and put them around his neck. “I believe I could arrange that. I never want this night to end. I was so afraid that you’d be angry with me for coming up here when I hadn’t been invited. But I’m glad that we’re here now and not in Chandler. This is so much more romantic.”

“Romantic or not, if we don’t eat soon, I’m gonna shrivel away to nothin’.”

“We can’t let that catastrophe happen,” Houston said quickly and rolled out from under him.

Kane thought for a moment that his bride had just made a bawdy joke, but he dismissed that as an impossibility.

With the blanket loosely wrapped around her, falling off one shoulder, Houston took the bags Kane handed her and began unpacking them. He’d once again wrapped the towel about his hips as he piled more wood on the fire. She saw right away that whoever had packed the food had done an excellent job. She withdrew lidded tins, tied porcelain boxes, and muslin-wrapped packages. A note fell out of the second bag.

Kane looked up from the fire to see Houston with tears in her eyes as she clutched a piece of paper. “Is somethin’ wrong?”

She handed him the note.

“What’s this mean, that I carried you away?”

Houston began unwrapping food. “It means that when we return to Chandler, your reputation as the most romantic man in town will be further enhanced.”

“My
what?”

“Yes,” she said as she unwrapped a package of Vienna rolls. “It started when you carried me out of the Mankins’ garden party and was added to later when people began repeating the story of how you ran the cowboys who accosted me out of town. And then there was the romantic dinner party you gave at your house with the pillows and candles.”

“But it’s because I ain’t got any chairs, and I spilled food all over you, and was I supposed to stand around and let those cowboys bother you?”

Houston opened a can that contained creamed lobster soup. “Whatever the true reason, the result is the same. By the time we return, I expect adolescent girls to stare at you on the street, and to tell each other that they hope they marry a man who drags them away from their own weddings to a lonely mountain cabin.”

For a moment, Kane said nothing, but then he grinned and came to sit by her. “Romantic, am I?” he said, kissing her neck. “I don’t guess anyone’ll see that it’s the lady I married that’s keepin’ me from lookin’ like a fool in front of ever’body. What’s that gray stuff?”

“Pâté de foie gras,” she said, spreading some on a cracker with a little pearl-handled knife Opal’d included. She put it in his mouth for him.

“Not bad. What else you got?”

There was a piece of Stilton cheese, an artichoke which Kane thought was a waste of time to eat, tomatoes, soft-shell crabs, chicken croquettes, Smithfield ham, sirloin steak in onion gravy, and fried chicken.

When Houston saw the chicken, she laughed. It hadn’t been on the menu that she’d planned for the wedding. No doubt Mrs. Murchison had prepared it especially for her dear Mr. Taggert. Houston wondered how many other people had been involved in packing the food for her “secret” runaway.

“What in the world is this?” Kane asked.

“I thought the wedding might be a good place to introduce a few foreign foods to Chandler. That is a German pretzel, and some Italian pastries were served, but I don’t think any were packed for us.”

As Houston talked, she unwrapped more food: a cloth bag filled with fruit, a tin of Waldorf salad, a big round box filled with slices of several different pies, gingerbread, a bag of peanut candy, one of fudge. There were three loaves of bread, a box of sliced meats, cheese, and onions, a jar of olives, another of mustard.

“I don’t think we’ll starve. Ali! Here it is.” She showed Kane the inside of a metal box that contained a large section of wedding cake.

He took the little knife from the bed, cut a piece of cake and fed it to her from his fingertips. Houston held his hand and licked away every last crumb. He put his hand to the side of her face and kissed her lingeringly.

“A body could starve to death with you around,” he murmured. “Why don’t you feed me before you seduce me again?”

“Me!” she gasped. “You’re the one who…”

“Yes?” he said as he picked up a piece of fried chicken. “I did what?”

“Perhaps I won’t pursue that line of thought. Would you pass me that can of soup?”

“Did you find my weddin’ present to you? In that little leather trunk?”

“The one in the sitting room?” When he nodded, she said she hadn’t had time to look at it. “What’s in it?”

“Wouldn’t that spoil the surprise?”

Houston continued eating for a moment. “I think that wedding gifts should be given on the day of the wedding. And since we are here, and the trunk is there, I’d like another gift.”

“You ain’t even seen what’s in that trunk and, besides, how can I buy you somethin’ up here?”

“Sometimes, the most precious gifts aren’t purchased in a store. What I want is something personal, something very special.”

Kane’s face showed that he had no idea what she was talking about.

“I want you to share a secret about yourself with me.”

“I already told you all about myself. You wanta know where I have money hidden in case some of my investments fall through?”

Delicately, she cut herself a piece of Camembert. “I was thinking more in the line of something about your father or mother, or perhaps about your hatred for the Fentons, or maybe about what you and Pam talked about in the garden this morning.”

Kane was too stunned to speak for a moment. “You don’t ask for much, do you? Anythin’ else you want, like maybe my head on a platter? How come you wanta know things like that?”

“Because we’re married.”

“Don’t you go puttin’ your lady face back on. A lot of married people are like your mother and that sober ol’ man she married. She calls him
Mr.
Gates out of respect, like you used to do to me. I’ll bet your mother never asked Gates questions like you’re askin’ me.”

“Well then, maybe I’m just terribly curious. After all, it was my curiosity that made me want to see your house, and that led to now, and…” She let her voice trail off and the blanket slide down another two inches.

Kane looked at the sliding blanket with amusement. “You sure do catch on fast. All right, I guess there is somethin’ I better tell you ’cause Pam says it’s gonna be all over town in just a few days.”

He paused a moment, looking down at the food. “You ain’t gonna like this too much, but there ain’t much I can do to change it now. You ’member that I told you that Fenton kicked me off his land when I was a kid ’cause I’d been messin’ around with his daughter?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“I always thought that somebody’d snitched on us and told Fenton, but today Pam said she was the one that told him.” He took a deep breath, looked at her with an air of defiance, and continued. “Pam told her old man that she was expectin’ my kid and she wanted to marry me. Fenton, bein’ the bastard he is, sent her away to marry some ol’ man that owed him money, and told me Pam never wanted to see me again.”

“Is that the reason you hate Mr. Fenton?”

He looked her in the eye. “No, it ain’t. I just learned all this today. The point of all this storytellin’ is that Pam’s come back to Chandler to live, and with her is her thirteen-year-old son who also happens to be my son. And accordin’ to Pam, he looks enough like me to set a few tongues waggin’.”

Houston took her time in replying. “If everyone will know this shortly, it’s not really a secret, is it?”

“It was damn well a secret to me until a matter of hours ago,” he said with some anger in his voice. “I didn’t know I had a kid somewhere.”

When needed, Houston’s stubbornness could match his. “I asked for a real secret, not something that next week everyone will know and be discussing over tea. I want to know something that only you know about yourself, something that even Edan doesn’t know about you.”

“How come you wanta know about me? How come you can’t just put the furniture away and sleep with me?”

“Because I’ve come to love you and I want to know about you.”

“Women are always sayin’ they love you. Two weeks ago you were in love with Westfield. Damn it! All right, I’ll tell you somethin’ that’s none of your business, but you’ll probably like hearin’ it. This mornin’ Pam came to me and told me she’d been in love with me all these years, and she wanted me to leave with her, but I turned her down.”

“For me?” Houston whispered.

“Ain’t you the one I married? With no thanks to that idiot sister of yours, I might add.”

“Has something happened between you and Blair that makes you two snarl at each other?”

“One secret to a weddin’ day,” he said. “You want another secret, you gotta work for it. And the best way you can work is to get that food off this bed and take that blanket off and come rub up against me.”

“I’m not sure I can stand such torture,” she said, as she frantically removed food and tore the blanket away at the same time.

“I like obedient women,” he said, holding out his arms to her.

“I have been trained to be the most obedient of women,” she whispered, putting her lips up to be kissed.

“As far as I can tell, you ain’t obeyed me once yet…except maybe here in this cabin. Damn it, Houston, but I never thought you’d be like this. Maybe you’re more like your sister than I thought.”

She pulled away from him. “You thought I was an ice princess, too?”

With a smile, he pulled her back to him. “Honey, what happens when you apply heat to ice?”

“Water?”

“Steam.” He moved his hand down to her firm backside and pulled her between his legs, covering her body with his.

Houston loved the sensation of being close to him, of feeling his skin against hers. She’d been warned that the wedding night was very painful, but this night had been all the joy she’d hoped it would be. Perhaps it was Kane, and the fact that she felt approval coming from him, rather than the criticism that she’d always received from the other men in her life, but now she felt free to react in any way she truly felt.

Kane began to stroke her body, her legs, the back of her, and his touch made her feel beautiful in a way that no compliment or pretty dress ever had. She closed her eyes and gave herself to the lovely sensations of the darkened room, the sound and warmth of the fire, and this man’s big, wide, hard hands going up and down her body, curving over surfaces that she’d not even been aware that she owned until this night. He stroked her hair, spreading it out on the pillow, running the back of his fingers along her cheekbones.

When she opened her eyes to look at him, she saw a softness in his face that she’d never seen before. His eyes were dark and hot-looking.

“Kane,” she whispered.

“I’m right here, baby, and I’m not about to go away,” he said as he began touching her again.

As she closed her eyes again, his hands became more insistent as he clutched her hips, burying his thumbs in her soft flesh. Her breath came faster as he moved to put one of his big, hard thighs across her smooth soft ones. His hands were on her breasts as his mouth sought hers and she opened to him like a flower to a bee.