Page 10 of The Bastard Heir (The Gilded West #2)

Chapter Four

C astillo took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It didn’t help though, because even across the distance he could smell the lavender on her skin.

The scent was still on him from when he’d held her against him.

His gaze went to her lush mouth, and he imagined how soft her pink lips would feel as they opened beneath his.

He closed his eyes before he could imagine anything more, but he only saw her disheveled.

All of that golden hair down around her waist, her creamy skin flushed with need.

He’d been attracted to her on the train because she was pretty and kept her wits about her when she’d faced death.

He’d admired her then. But this woman…this woman was all of that and more.

She stood up for herself, she challenged him and she did it all while making him imagine how great it would feel to have all of that energy focused on him.

She was so different from what he’d thought he wanted in a woman, but all he could imagine was how explosive they could be in bed.

His eyes shot open and he had to look away from her, but he couldn’t banish the thoughts.

“I’m not in the habit of compromising innocents, Miss Hartford.” She was an innocent, and she wouldn’t welcome what he had in mind.

She was silent, and he finally looked back at her, curious as to her thoughts. She stared at him pensively, her head tilted to the side. He couldn’t tell if she knew the direction of his thoughts, but he couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting down to her soft lips.

“No, I suppose you aren’t, Mr. Rey—Mr. Jameson.

” She didn’t look away, even though she blushed, and he knew she felt the attraction between them.

Her heated gaze held his for far longer than was appropriate.

But, hell, he was in her bedroom, alone, late at night.

They’d passed appropriate a long time ago.

“I’m sorry.” She blinked, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap.

“I don’t mean to stare, it’s just that…I know this sounds silly, but I feel that I can trust you.

I know that I met you on a train while you chased a man with a gun, and now you’re asking me not to reveal your alternate identity or why you’re looking for that man, but—” she laughed “—I do. I look into your eyes and I trust that you are a man of honor.”

He clenched his teeth and swallowed the bitter taste on the back of his tongue.

He’d been a man of honor once, but that was long ago.

There was too much blood on his hands to ever claim to be honorable again.

He hadn’t even been completely truthful with her.

Yes, his name was Reyes and he was searching for the man who’d murdered his grandfather.

However, he’d conveniently left out the list of crimes he’d committed in that search and the fact that he and his men had somehow become a band of notorious outlaws.

The Reyes Brothers. The papers called them a gang.

Castillo had never thought of them in that way.

There’d even been a drawing in one of the papers once.

Castillo, Hunter and Zane had been drawn with kerchiefs over the lower halves of their faces as they faced down a sheriff.

The shootout had never happened, though the artist had captured Zane’s scar perfectly.

But that was back in Texas, and far away from Montana Territory, where his identity was still secret.

Castillo hoped like hell he could keep it that way. Her silence could help ensure that.

He didn’t know why he felt the need to warn her away from him, but he found himself saying, “You should take care in placing your trust. You don’t know me.”

“I don’t,” she agreed. “But I know people, Mr. Jameson. And I know you find me pleasing.” Even in the dim lamplight he could see the blush that rose to her cheeks again. “I know that…that you’ve thought about compromising me, and yet you don’t. Why?”

He shifted again, finding her candor unsettling. “You don’t mince your words, do you?”

She chewed her bottom lip and her eyes shifted across the room toward the cold fireplace. “I’m told it’s a flaw.”

Something twisted deep in his gut. “You’re not flawed from what I can see.”

She smiled, but it seemed sad and hollow, and it slipped away before he was ready for it to go.

She met his eyes again with her startlingly direct gaze.

“Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to sleep.

As you can imagine, I have a few things to think over.

” She started to rise, but he leaned forward, holding out a hand, though he stopped just short of touching her.

“Wait. I’m afraid I can’t leave until I have your promise to keep silent.”

“And I’m afraid I can’t give it to you. I need to go to medical school, and it appears I can’t do that until I’m either wed or so ruined that no man will want to marry me.”

“You can’t mean that. Even if I were to do as you ask, you’ve said yourself that you want to be married one day. Don’t you think the scandal will follow you for years? Don’t you think that it could ruin your ability to marry in the future?”

She smiled at him then, like he was a simpleton who clearly didn’t understand her argument.

“No, I’m not worried in the least. You see, the man I’ll eventually marry won’t care.

I don’t plan to marry one of those gentlemen who trots out to our fundraisers, gives a pretty speech, pledges a donation and then returns to his parties and the theater.

I plan to marry a physician or perhaps a professor.

Someone scholarly who won’t care for gossip and who’ll listen to me when I explain the circumstances of my being compromised. ”

Castillo leaned back in his chair and raked a hand through his hair.

Not that he’d ever put himself in the running as a contender for her hand, but had he, she had just shot down all hope.

He wasn’t the least bit scholarly. She deserved someone exactly like the man she described.

Someone who would listen to her and honor her.

“I hope you find such a man, but I imagine that he would prefer it had you chosen not to compromise yourself.”

She shrugged. “Is that your position? Would you prefer your future wife—I’m assuming you’re not married?” At his nod, she continued, “Would you prefer your future wife chaste and pure and all of that?”

“I haven’t thought much on marriage.” But that was another lie to add to the growing list he’d already told her. He thought of marriage more than he wanted to admit.

In his youth, growing up on his grandfather’s hacienda, there’d been a small village nearby.

At the ranch’s peak they’d employed so many of the villagers to help with the cattle that they’d built quarters to house them all.

His grandfather had even built a chapel, and a priest had lived there year round.

Castillo couldn’t say that he was very religious now.

He still prayed sometimes, but he hadn’t attended Mass in years and couldn’t recall when he’d made his last confession.

He’d seen his mother married in that chapel to her second husband—with some not-so-subtle persuasion from his grandfather, since her first husband hadn’t been dead—and Castillo had taken it for granted that he’d be married there, as well.

In that life that seemed so far removed from who he was now, he’d been taught that women should be obedient and keep themselves chaste for their future husbands.

But he’d also been taught that to take a life was a sin.

He couldn’t very well expect a wife who was virtuous when he only had a tarnished soul to offer in return.

“I suppose you’re right. It wouldn’t matter so much. I’d assume she had her reasons.”

She adjusted the prim little spectacles perched on her nose before crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her gaze at him. “And yet you still won’t compromise me, even though you know it’s for my own good? That it’s what I want?”

He shook his head, as much from the need to deny her as the need to deny himself. Something about her—he couldn’t quite put his finger on why he was so drawn to her—made him want to say yes. “I wouldn’t steal from your husband.”

That infuriated her. Anger burned from her eyes as she sat up straighter, gripping the arms of the chair.

He had to fight not to smile at how it transformed her beauty from prim and elegant to fiery and almost wild.

He wanted to see her wild, to see her lose control of that fire she kept carefully subdued.

And he wanted her beneath him when it happened.

She was beautiful. She was strength. She was all the things he wanted and admired.

“My virtue doesn’t belong to my husband. It belongs to me. I can do with it what I like.”

He inclined his head in a minor concession. “As you wish. My answer is still the same.”

“Have you considered that it’s possible to compromise me without actually taking my virtue? We could simply arrange to have someone see us in an embrace. It needn’t be very dramatic.”

He hadn’t thought of that at all. Probably because he’d been too busy imagining the act of compromising her. “No, but I wouldn’t insult your honor in any way.”

She wanted to scream at him. He could tell from the way she jerked her head to the side, her jaw clenched tight, and he was tempted to push her until she lost her grip on her restraint.

What would she look like raging at him? And, just as quickly, he was back to imagining his tongue on her body, his hands wrapped in that gorgeous hair as she bucked beneath him.

Mierda, he needed to stop. His blood was already starting to rush south, tightening his trousers.

“Fine, then we have nothing more to discuss. Get out.”