Broken Vows Page 23

  She looked up into his face, once so beloved, still as handsome even though etched by the years and his bitterness. “I understand now why you hate him, but why me?”

  “Perhaps I don't hate you, darlin'—any more than you hate me.” He let one hand caress the elegant line of her cheekbone, then move to her lips and lower yet down her throat. His fingertips teased around the low décolletage of her gown, grazing sensuously over the creamy swells of her breasts. He could feel the pulse racing frantically in her throat and knew she felt the old pull just as he did. And resented it just as he did.

  “Once Amos is in prison, you'll be penniless. I think we'll derive mutual pleasure when you become my mistress.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rebekah slapped him so hard that her hand stung. The noise echoed around the high-ceilinged room as she tried to move past him, but Rory was too quick for her. He seized one slender wrist and turned her around to face him. The red handprint stained his cheek. Her own cheeks were filled with high color from the fury his insult had generated.

  “Let me go, you insufferable bastard!” She twisted under his hurtful grip.

  “Not until I'm good and ready,” he said in an implacable voice.

  “I'll scream the house down, birthday celebration or not!”

  He grinned sharkishly. “I doubt it. What would Amos say?”

  “Why do you think I won't go to him and warn him about your plans to destroy him?” Foolish question! She berated herself the instant she blurted out the angry words.

  “For the same reason you sent me that note warning me about him four years ago in Washington. You were right. Someone did try to kill me. You know what your husband is. Could you still hold some guilty bit of tender feeling for me?”

  He studied her with fathomless blue eyes, watchful, perhaps uncertain, she was not sure. “Don't be absurd!”

  “Or maybe you were only trying to frighten me away from dear Amos then. But now—now you must realize you're both in over your heads. His house of cards will crash down around him, and you'll be dragged under too, unless—”

  “Why? Why do you want me now?” Her expression changed from anger to hurt bewilderment. He had thrown away her love, deserted his child eight years ago. What kind of cruel game did he play? Surely, he had not found out about Michael! Panic welled up inside her. He can't know!

  Rory watched the play of emotions sweep over her face and tried to read the truth. All he could see were the small golden flecks swimming in her green eyes. “You're quite an actress,” he finally said with a sigh of disgust, releasing her wrist.

  She stood rubbing it where his fingers had bitten into the tender white flesh, too afraid to move as her thoughts tumbled over each other in chaos.

  “I'm sorry,” he said softly, his hands gentle as he took her arm and raised it to plant a soft kiss on the bruise forming on her wrist. “Once your skin was golden from working in the hot Nevada sun...in a cabbage patch.”

  “Don't—please.” His coldness, even his cruel, degrading insults, she could endure better than the invading desire engendered when he evoked old memories. “Please let me go, Rory.” Damn, she was begging!

  “For now, Rebekah. Only for now,” he said, placing one last soft salute on the inside of her palm.

  She snatched her hand away as if he had scalded her and ran from the room.

  * * * *

  When Rory's note arrived the next morning, she was having a late breakfast with Amos. Her husband had insisted on discussing their social agenda for the forthcoming weeks. Normally, her routine was to rise at dawn, eat lightly, and go for an early morning ride before the heat of the day became oppressive. Amos, who often conducted late night meetings and drank to excess, slept late. Their paths crossed as little as possible except for the political events during which she was on display as his ornamental wife.

  “What's that?” he said, frowning over his coffee as he poured an extra dollop of cream and stirred it.

  She folded the note and slipped it onto her lap before her hands betrayed her trembling. “Just an invitation from Celia to go shopping this afternoon,” she replied with feigned calm, praying he would not demand to see the invitation to a tryst with Michael's father.

  “That fool woman is as scatterbrained as she was before she married,” he muttered, uninterested in her friends.

  “But she married Bryan Kincaid,” Rebekah could not resist adding just to jab at Amos. Bryan was a vice president of the Central Pacific and one of the most powerful railroad men in the West. At least Celia's dreams had come true. But she spent most of the year in Sacramento, which meant they saw each other all too seldom.

  “We have dinner at the Ormsby House with the Sheffields and Stephan Hammer tonight. Seven sharp. Don't dally shopping with Celia and be late.” He started to rise, then paused, wiping his beard meticulously with his napkin. “Oh, do wear your diamonds tonight. That old bag of Sheffield's will be weighed down with hers.”

  Diamonds. She hated them. Cold, heavy, and as soulless as her marriage. “How fitting,” she said flatly, nodding in acquiescence as he left.

  What should she do about Rory? Once she heard the front door slam, she unfolded his note and reread his bold scrawl:

  Meet me at the stand of cottonwoods behind the racetrack at one p.m. You know there is a good reason not to disappoint me. R.

  “A good reason,” she repeated, balling up the note. Could he have found out about Michael? Was that his threat? Or did his monstrous arrogance simply lead him to believe she would be compelled to come because she still desired him? How could he possibly believe she loved him after what he had done? Why would he not when she trembled and melted at every touch, every brush of his lips against her skin?

  “I hate him. But I must go—to protect Michael,” she whispered as she rose and walked over to the sideboard where two candles burned beside the breakfast buffet. She slid the note into the greedy flames, then dropped it on a silver tray and watched it burn until only charcoal flakes remained.

  Although Amos had not set spies on her in years, there was no sense taking chances. When they were first married, he was convinced that a woman so wanton as to get herself with child outside wedlock would look for other lovers because her husband was unable to fulfill his marital duties. But that physical part of her was dead and gone, killed along with the love she had given Rory Madigan. No other man interested her. Within a couple of years, even Amos believed that she had shifted all her love to her son.

  But that was before Rory had come back into her life. In Washington, her one brief encounter with him four years earlier had cost her dearly. Amos must never catch her again. She would call on Celia and arrange a shopping trip as cover for this meeting. How fortunate that Celia was indeed in Carson City with Bryan this week. How ironic that her past had gone full cycle to catch up with her—once again she would use her friend as an alibi while sneaking off to Rory.

  “Damn them both—Amos and Rory. I'll see them in hell before they harm my son.”

  * * * *

  Rory patted the sleek bay filly, then turned her over to the handler for a rubdown. The magnificent two-year-old had been sired by Lobsterback. He had named her Scarlet Poppy. He grinned at the conceit, thinking of all the respectable ladies who frequented his racetrack, sitting in their reserved seats, all prim and cool while their husbands bet on the horses. Those same women slipped heated looks his way and came to his bed in the dark of the night. At least, whores were honest about what they did and the reasons for which they did it.

  Will she come? Rory really had no idea. His agents had discovered a great many things about her relationship with Amos Wells. Like many of the silver barons, he was unfaithful to his wife. Unlike them, he did not indulge in keeping expensive mistresses, but visited cheap bordellos. Whether or not he still visited his wife's bed was a mystery. Had Rebekah turned him out of it for being an inept or selfish lover? Did she not want the encumbrance of more pregnancies? Their son was virtu
ally invisible, having spent his entire life raised by servants and more recently attending exclusive private boarding schools. Neither parent was exactly doting from what he had learned. That fact struck him as peculiar. For some reason he could not fathom, Rory could not imagine Rebekah Wells as anything but a loving mother.

  “You're creating fanciful pipe dreams, my man. Even if she hasn't taken other lovers, you know her for what she is,” he muttered to himself as he strolled around the racetrack, heading toward the beckoning coolness of the secluded copse of cottonwoods. A small feeder to the Carson River flowed through it. The irony was not lost on him as he knelt on the grassy bank and began skipping pebbles across the clear running water. His thoughts skipped back over the years just as quickly, remembering other warm days on a sun-dappled riverbank. How young they had both been. And how stupid he had been to believe in love.

  But you still want her. He tried to tell himself he only wanted revenge for the heartache she had cost him and the destruction her husband had cost the Madigan family. He had vowed to make her crawl to him, the once proud and prudish minister's daughter with her veneer of morality covering her greed. And she would. But you want her, the voice in the back of his mind taunted again.

  At the sound of approaching hoofbeats, he stood up and composed himself as Rebekah rode through the trees and reined in. She perched warily on her elegant mare as if ready to bolt at his first untoward move. He crossed his arms over his chest and inspected her with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes.

  “The riding habit is quite fetching. That shade of bronze brings out the highlights in your hair.” It also clung to her soft curves like a lover's caress.

  As he approached, patting her nervous mount and calming it with his magical touch, she worked up her courage to face him down. “You didn't send for me to compliment my dressmaker,” she said tartly, unable to help noticing the crisp black chest hair visible above his half-unbuttoned shirt or the way his broad shoulders stretched the fine white lawn with his slightest movement.

  “Whatever my reasons, you're here,” he replied simply, reaching up to catch her by the waist and lift her from the sidesaddle before she could protest. “I was just thinking how we've come full cycle, trysting by a riverbank again after all these years.”

  Rebekah stiffened and pressed her hands against his chest, pushing away. “We're not trysting.”

  He arched one brow sardonically. “No, darlin'? Then what might you be doin' here?”

  He was mocking her! “Your brogue has thickened over the years. Is that how you charm the women gullible enough to fall under your spell?” she retorted with cool amusement, turning away from him. Two could play at his game.

  “I find the voters like it.” He moved up behind her when she stopped at the edge of the stream.

  “A pity women can't vote in Nevada then.”

  “Would you? Vote for me, that is,” he whispered against her ear. He could see the pulse leaping in her throat. His nearness disturbed her.

  “First dressmakers, then suffrage. What next? Surely, you aren't going to try to rekindle a long-dead passion here in the grass?” She stood her ground, growing angry at his cat-and-mouse tactics.

  “Long dead? I don't think so.” Without warning, he spun her around and took her mouth in a swift, fierce kiss. As his lips slanted across hers, he dug his fingers in her hair, pulling the pins out with one hand while the other pressed her lower body tightly against his, rotating his hips in rhythm with his mouth. Let her feel his lust. He damned well knew she felt the same.

  Rebekah gasped in surprise when his lips met hers, trying in vain to keep the old fire from swamping her senses, but all she succeeded in doing was opening her mouth for the invasion of his tongue. He thrust it with wicked skill, as he rocked her against him, letting her feel the bulge in his tight denims pressing into her belly.

  So long. She had been so many lonely years without a man's touch, merely an ornament to be placed on display, admired and then returned to her sterile bedchamber.

  His hot, hard body, so achingly familiar, robbed her of will, of breath. Her bones melted, and a mesmerizing languor stole over her. Rebekah gave in to it, to him. When his hand slid up and cupped her breast, she felt as if a lightning bolt had flashed through her body. Her hands pulled him closer, her mouth opened wider, her hips arched against his as the savagery of their coming together obliterated all else.

  Rory felt her surrender and pressed his advantage, lowering them slowly to kneel on the soft, grassy earth as his fingers unfastened her jacket and delved inside to slip between the buttons of her frilly blouse. Then, unable to stop himself, he tore at the soft fabric in his eagerness to feel the velvety lushness of bare skin and taste the sweet pucker of pink nipple.

  Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, and her flesh paler, like silk. When he teased one round globe with his tongue she whimpered, thrusting it into his mouth until he suckled greedily, then switched to the other tempting mound. While he made love to her breasts, his hands continued stripping the elegant riding habit from her body. She helped him, shrugging off her jacket, blouse, and camisole before reaching up to tear at his shirt voraciously. When her teeth caught one hard, flat nipple, he let out an oath of pleasure. She ran her hands through his chest hair, then dug her nails into his shoulders and clung to him as he yanked her unhooked skirts over her hips and shoved the heavy linen to her knees.

  They tumbled to the grass, kissing and caressing desperately as they discarded clothing. Rory's warm, clever mouth moved over her skin as he bared each new inch of it, pulling away her camisole and pantalets. Then, he moved to her boots and stockings, kissing her long, slender white legs. She lay naked beneath his touch, her hair spread in golden tangles around her. He seized great fistfuls of it as he covered her with his body and kissed her lips rapaciously until she writhed and whimpered beneath him, eager for him to complete their joining.

  Finally, he rolled up, tugged off his boots, and finished the job she had begun by unbuttoning his fly. He could feel her glazed green eyes on him as he slid his denims off. He reached for her hand and placed it around his rigid staff, biting down on his lip to keep from crying out her name.

  Rebekah sobbed aloud with the need to feel that hard, sleek manflesh inside her once more. “Please, oh, please, Rory.” She pulled him to her, opening for him as he moved between her thighs.

  He looked down at her flushed, beautiful face. Her golden head thrashed from side to side as her body arched in anticipation of his invasion. Now. Now was the time to scorn her, to taunt and humiliate her for betraying him, then to take her by force when her ardor had turned to ashes. But he could not do it. Sweet Mother of God help him, he could not do it. He ached with wanting, and that wanting demanded that she come to him as inflamed as he was.

  Rory lowered himself to her and plunged inside the soft wetness beckoning him. At once, he felt the almost virginal tightness of her sheath. She stiffened and cried out in pain, even though her hands held him fast. He had hurt her. Murmuring sweet words of love and reassurance, he clamped a steel control over his raging desire. Blood pounded through his body. Every fiber of his being screamed that he appease his need with savage ferocity. But her still, soft body, so yielding in spite of her hurt, held him in check. How long had it been since she had lain with a man? Surely years.

  Cursing Amos Wells for a fool, he rained kisses down her throat and breasts, then took her mouth once more in a deep, sensuous exploration. Gradually she came back to life under his gentle wooing, returning his kiss, her body softening and stretching to accommodate his.

  Rebekah was taken completely by surprise at the tight, burning pain that followed his first thrust into her. She was so desperate for this mating, she ached with the wanting of it, little knowing that her body, like a flower denied sunlight, had dried and shriveled from deep within after all the years of neglect. But he waited, buried deeply inside her, feeling her hurt, giving her time to open and bloom for him once again. And like the mir
acle of spring renewed, it happened. His soft touches and lush kisses worked their magic. She felt herself taking him deeper yet, stretching and yielding, drawing him to move once more within her. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she arched up with a joyous cry.

  Rory smothered it with his mouth as he began to move once more, withdrawing ever so slowly, then plunging down into the slick heat of her welcome. Her hunger was so fiercely sweet, so desperately demanding, it unleashed a maelstrom of passion in him. With no other woman had he ever felt this blind, mindless bliss.

  Together they rode the storm, giving and taking, hungry, building toward a culmination beyond the stars. When it swept over her, she stiffened, feeling the old, never-forgotten rhythm of her body's release rippling through her. His body answered, pounding harder, faster, deeper, until his staff swelled in one final hammering burst of indescribable ecstasy. Finally, he collapsed on her slender body, and they held on to each other, panting and shaking with the aftershocks of passion.

  His weight pressed her into the soft grassy bank but she pulled him tightly to her, wanting the closeness, the hard, heavy feel of his body joined full length to her own. Let it last. Please... She could not think beyond the drugging lethargy of satiation to what she would say to him or he to her.

  Reality began to seep into Rory's consciousness as an autumn wind rose, blowing cool air across his sweat-sheened back. He raised himself on his arms, shaking his head to clear it as he looked down and met her dazed eyes, their changeable green now almost hazel with golden flecks dancing at the centers. He withdrew from her and rolled onto his back, reclining on his elbows, head dropped back, face tilted up into the dappled sunlight filtering through the rustling cottonwood leaves.