Page 22 of Texas Splendor
Loree had lit a lamp to ward off the darkness and the constant fears that surrounded her. She had warmed a bucket of water, removed her bloodstained clothes, bundled them up, and shoved them into a corner of her bedroom. Now she stood before her dresser, stripped to the waist, wearing nothing but her linen drawers, scrubbing, scrubbing the blood from her chest, her hands, her arms. So much blood.
She lifted her gaze to the mirror and caught the reflection of Austin Leigh standing in her doorway, watching her with an intensity in his gaze that she thought might have frightened her under ordinary circumstances.
But tonight wasn’t ordinary. She’d just had the last bit of love she’d ever known torn from her life. She turned to face the man who had given her beloved Digger a final resting place. “I can’t get his blood off.”
She watched his throat muscles work as he swallowed, saw his hands clench and unclench before he quietly walked across the room in bare feet. In a distant part of her mind, she realized he must have left his soiled boots outside.
In silence, he took the cloth from her hand, dipped it into the bucket of water, wrung it out, and gently, slowly wiped the cloth over her face, his deep blue gaze touching her as sunshine greeted the dawn, warming her when only moments before she’d been chilled.
He wiped her throat, her shoulders, and brought the cloth lower. He touched his thumb to the scar just above her left breast. “Is this where he shot you?” he asked hoarsely.
She could do little more than nod, knowing he needed no answer as his mouth replaced his thumb.
“How could he have hurt you?”
Another question for which she had no answer. She felt him tremble as his knuckles skimmed the inside swell of her breast. He shook his head slightly.
“There’s no more blood,” he rasped as he stepped back.
She grabbed his hand. “There’s blood on you.”
He glanced down at his shirt. Of their own accord, her fingers began to undo his buttons. She heard his breath hitch. She had never been so bold, never bared her body to a man. The embarrassment she had anticipated was drowned out by need. A need she didn’t fully understand, but knew existed because it beckoned to her from the farthest reaches of her heart and soul.
She removed his shirt and bloodstained bandage. Taking the cloth from his hand, she wiped it across his chest even though she saw no blood.
With one roughened palm, he cradled her cheek and tilted her face until their gazes met and held. She heard his uneven breathing. Beneath the hand she had rested on his chest, she felt the rapid, steady pounding of his heart.
She had long ago accepted the fact that she would live out the remaining days of her life alone. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the scent, sight, sounds, and touch created by another person. She thought she had effectively warded off the loneliness.
Now, she knew it had only been in hiding, gathering strength, waiting until her defenses were down to attack. All the days of silence and nights alone suddenly loomed before her. A lifetime’s worth. And she hated them. She hated every one of them and the man whose actions had condemned her to the loneliness.
She suddenly felt plain and poor, longing for things she would never know: a husband’s smile, the laughter of children.
Austin’s gaze drifted to her lips, the blue of his eyes darkening until she felt the warmth of a fire, burning hot and bright, creating even as it consumed. He lowered his head slightly and her lips parted.
“So sweet,” he whispered, and she wondered if within the words, she heard an apology.
Then his mouth was pressed against hers, warm, soft, moist, and she had her first taste of a man. Deep inside, she smiled. He tasted of strawberries.
Then he deepened the kiss, and when his tongue sought hers, she raised up onto the tips of her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gave to him all that he asked.
He groaned deep within his throat and she felt the rumble of his chest against her breasts. His arm snaked around her, pressing her closer against his body.
She had never been wanton, but then the loneliness had never been this great, this consuming. Nor had the need to be held, to be loved been so strong. She did not delude herself. He did not love her. In his eyes, she had seen the stark loneliness that mirrored hers. They were kindred hearts with a haunting past that had stolen dreams. Still, he would leave and never look back.
And with that thought, she found comfort. She could accept what he offered, knowing that he would never discover the secrets that the killer had forced her to lock away. Austin Leigh would never look upon her with revulsion. Years from now, when she brought forth the memories of this man, she would only see the desire that deepened the blue of his eyes.
His mouth trailed along her throat, pressed kisses against the sensitive flesh below her ear. “So sweet,” he repeated in a ragged breath, like a litany that stirred his actions.
He guided her to the bed, skimming her remaining clothes from her body before laying her down. Holding her gaze, he slowly unbuttoned his trousers as though giving her time to tell him that what he was offering wasn’t what she wanted.
But she did want, more than she had ever wanted, to be without the loneliness. When he stretched his tall lean body alongside hers, she’d never felt so tiny, so delicate. He cupped her breast, his hand shaping and molding her flesh as his mouth teased and taunted. Desire spiraled through her, strong enough to send the loneliness into oblivion. For one night, she would have what she might never have again: a man’s touch, a man’s whispered words, a man’s strength and ability to hold the loneliness at bay.
His mouth came down on hers, hard, devouring, but his hands remained gentle, as though she were shaped from hand-blown glass. She trailed her hands over the firm muscles of his shoulders, digging her fingers into his back, careful to avoid the wound that had forged a bond between them.
When his hand skimmed along her stomach, she shivered. When he touched her intimately, she gasped as his fingers made promises she knew his body would keep.
He moved until his hips were nestled between her thighs. Then slowly, cautiously, he joined his body to hers. The pain was fleeting, the fullness of him satisfying. As he rocked against her, the past blurred into insignificance, the future that awaited her lost its importance. All that mattered was this moment, this joining. Sensations she’d never known existed wove themselves around her, through her, creating beauty where she’d only known ugliness. She reveled in the sound of his throaty groans, the feel of his sure, swift thrusts.
