Page 17 of The Copper Heir (The Gilded West #1)

Lips still tingling from his kiss, she watched his impressively wide shoulders as he dug through the saddlebags with more than a little regret.

It really was unfortunate that she hadn’t met him under different circumstances.

That kiss had been...unbelievable. But it was stupid to pursue that line of thought.

She had to get away—and not just to get back to her sisters.

If the past hours had taught her anything, it was that she wasn’t safe with Ship anymore.

Money or not, she had to get herself and the girls away from his chaos.

She shuddered to think what might have happened if someone like Ship’s men had kidnapped her, or worse, her sisters.

Taking a deep pull on the flask, he handed it to her and watched as she nodded her thanks and took a small taste of the whiskey.

It burned going down, warming her from the inside out as if she’d needed it after that kiss had heated her blood.

She had only just begun to worry about how to get the powders into his drink, when he turned to pick up the binoculars, bringing them to his eyes to look in the direction the shooter had ridden.

She couldn’t resist admiring the view he presented, wide chest, narrow waist and the tantalizing way his trousers pulled tight over the curve of his backside.

Shaking her head, she fumbled with the locket, pulling it out of her bodice and carefully pressing the catch to open it.

How much should she add? One quick glance to make sure he hadn’t moved and she emptied the entire powdery contents into the whiskey, just managing to stow the locket back in her dress before he turned around.

Swirling it, she made a show of bringing the flask to her lips again, making sure to keep her lips closed as she pretended to drink before handing it back to him, stifling her pang of regret. “No sign of anyone?”

“No.” He held the binoculars loosely at his side with one hand while bringing the flask to his lips with the other and taking a drink.

The muscles working in his throat held her mesmerized as he swallowed and she knew then that it would be her life’s regret not to see more of those glorious muscles of his.

When he lowered the flask, she realized that he had caught her staring at him.

His darkened gaze settled on her lips briefly before meeting her eyes, both of them reliving that kiss.

His eyes were hot, blazing across the few feet separating them.

“If my brothers are the giant and the Spaniard, who am I?”

“What do you mean?” Her heart pounded in her throat once before it skidded to a complete halt.

Taking another pull off the flask, he grinned. “I understand why you’d name him the giant. He’s one of the biggest men I’ve ever met. And the Spaniard, well, that’s obvious, too. But what have you named me?”

“I—I—what? Nothing. Nothing! I haven’t named you anything.” Her entire face flamed as her heartbeat seemed to have returned to beat an absurdly loud tempo in her ears. If she had to admit to naming him “The Pretty One” she’d die right here in this cave.

He was smiling as he looked down to screw the cap back on the flask and set it beside him.

He was laughing at her and she was torn between dying of embarrassment and panicking because he wasn’t drinking the sleeping powders and she knew as diluted as they were, the little he’d had wouldn’t be enough.

“Let’s see.” He was still amused when he looked back up at her, seeming to consider his options. “You’ve named us based on our obvious physical attributes, so what’s the most prominent thing about me?”

She squeezed her eyes closed, certain that her nickname for him would be obvious. He knew he was pretty. Hell, Jake had known he was pretty.

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“That bad, huh?”

“No, not that bad.” She opened her eyes to see him still watching her, one arm draped lazily over his knee, the whiskey still at his side. How was she ever going to get him to drink more? “Take another drink and I’ll tell you.” She blurted those words out before she could figure out anything.

His brow furrowed and he looked down at the whiskey and then back at her. What a way to make him suspicious, Em! Dear Lord, she was horrible at this, whatever this was. Subterfuge. Finesse. Being clever.

“It’s embarrassing.” It was the only explanation she could offer.

Still unable to get her brain wrapped around a coherent thought tight enough to formulate a plan, she walked on her knees to sit beside him while still facing him and grabbed the flask.

Her fingers worked to unscrew the cap as she met his gaze. Lord, she couldn’t force him to drink.

Or could she? Her gaze shot to his mouth and her lips tingled as she imagined it on hers, a hasty plan formulating. “Will you promise not to say anything if I tell you?”

He nodded once. The mood had sobered and she wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. “I promise.” His deep voice filled the small gap between them, vibrating across her senses.

Staring at the stubbled hair on his chin, she whispered, “You’re ‘The Pretty One’.”

He kept his promise and didn’t answer. His lips parted as if he might say something, but he paused and closed them as he took the flask from her, tipping his head back just enough to take a long drink.

She felt like a ridiculous little girl admitting she’d taken a fancy to the older gentleman in one of the Gothic novels her mother had favored.

Chancing a look at his eyes, she saw they weren’t laughing at her.

Not anywhere close to laughing. He was staring at her with that same intoxicating look that made the green appear so vivid.

The one that made her think he was imagining kissing her.

That look didn’t make her feel like a little girl at all.

Taking the flask back from him, she took a swig of the laced whiskey, the rich, oak taste of the amber liquid sitting on her tongue as she held it in her mouth.

Her gaze locked on his lips, she leaned forward slowly, anticipation making her skin prickle until her lips pressed to his.

They parted beneath her and she fed him the warm liquid.

He made a rough sound in the back of his throat as he drank from her.

When he’d taken it all, his tongue teased across her lips, dipping inside to brush against her tongue.

She wasn’t prepared for the answering flare of heat deep in her belly and a small moan escaped her.

His hands immediately seized her waist and dragged her astride his lap, strong fingers unyielding on her hips as he pulled her into him.

She gasped aloud at the shock of his hard arousal pressed against her so intimately, but he chased her mouth with his, covering it with his as he pushed up against her.

The flesh between her thighs grew wet with her desire, making her ache from the rough contact and the need to be closer.

Her fingers clenched tightly in his hair as she stroked his tongue, needing more from him.

Only the need for air drew them apart, then he just pressed kisses to the corner of her mouth and then her chin as he pulled back far enough to look at her.

His scent was all around her and she realized just how much she craved it.

Need burned hot in his eyes as they held hers briefly before he took her lips again, devouring her with his kiss.

His hands moved in a slow circular caress up and down her hips, finally moving to fill themselves with her bottom which he squeezed gently as he rocked her into his hard arousal.

A whimper escaped her as the ache increased in intensity.

“Emmy.” Her name whispered against her lips made her stomach flip pleasantly. “When this is over with Campbell... I want you.” He took her mouth again in a rough kiss, his tongue slipping between her lips to brush hers.

“I want you, too.” The words were out before she could stop them.

It would never happen. When this was over with Ship she’d be long gone.

But it was a pleasant idea, even if it was wrong in so many ways.

She wanted him so badly that it was taking away her reasoning.

Would it be so bad to lie with him just once?

Yes! The accusation was so loud in her head that it made her draw back from him. She wouldn’t become her mother. She wouldn’t become a whore. Her virtue was the only thing she had any control over and she couldn’t let this happen.

“I’m sorry.” She pulled back so abruptly that she felt the need to apologize. But the wounded look on his face made her offer a jumbled explanation. “I...my mother... I shouldn’t.”

“What’s wrong?” His hands were so tender as they touched her face that more words poured out.

“I’m so afraid of becoming like her...a whore.” She had no idea why she was giving voice to her deepest fear. To him. Probably because she knew that he wouldn’t remember any of this. His voice had thickened as the powders were already starting to take hold.

“Dear God, Emmy, do you really think that you ever could be?” The intensity on his face was as if she had blasphemed.

Furrowing her brow, she nodded. “Yes, sometimes it’s not a choice.”

“That’s not who you are.”

“You don’t know who I am.”

“No, I don’t.” He eyes held hers and refused to let go. “But you’re not a whore. No matter what happens, that’s not who you are. My own mother used her body for profit. Believe me, I’m familiar with that type of woman.”

“Your mother worked in a brothel?”

He smiled and it was distinctly self-deprecating.

“No, nothing so honest as that. She did her work in a marriage bed with a husband she didn’t want.

It’s rather the same thing, don’t you think?

” He paused then and stroked his thumbs over her cheekbones, trailing fire across her skin.

“That’s not who you are. You could sell your body every night and that’s not who you would be. ”

She couldn’t stop the sudden ache in her throat or the blush that stained her face.

No one had ever paid attention to who she was before.

No one had cared to notice. Words wouldn’t move past the thickness of her throat, so she kissed him instead.

A slow, lingering kiss that she hoped let him know her gratitude.

He groaned softly and put his arms around her again, squeezing her bottom to pull her against him and deepen the kiss. Pulling back slightly, he blazed a path of hot kisses down her neck. “I want to know all about you,” he whispered against her skin.

She knew the feeling. She wanted to lie with him and talk to him for hours, for days.

She wanted him to open up to her even more.

Pressing her face to his hair, she breathed in the intoxicating scent of leather and man, knowing it was for the last time.

If only they had met some other way. If only Ship wasn’t his enemy. If only she had a different life.

“And I want to know you.” She pulled him up to kiss him again, stopping whatever other silly promises he might want to make. She knew they weren’t real. His eyes were clouded and muddled. He’d forget everything that happened.

His hands moved back to cup her face and he was surprisingly strong when he pulled back to look at her. “When this is over—”

“When this is over,” she agreed, cutting him off before he could finish.

Then he gave her a tongue-tangling kiss that sent tendrils of longing through her whole body, making her long for a few more minutes with him, but sooner than she would have liked his hands dropped to his sides and his body relaxed beneath her.

Pulling back to make sure his eyes were closed in sleep, she gave into the urge to brush her lips against his one last time before getting to her feet.

She covered him with his coat and picked up the canteen, debating on taking it or leaving it.

He’d seemed confident that his brothers would find them that night, but she wasn’t sure and knew the powders would leave him dehydrated and thirsty when he awoke, so she placed it beside him, giving him one last lingering look.

She did take one of his guns, extra bullets, most of the jerky and the bedroll before heading down the mountain to where he’d tied his horse.

The large black snorted at her when she tried to put the saddle on his back and pranced to the side.

It took her four tries, her arms burning from the exertion, before she finally made it.

She tried to calm him just as she’d seen his master do it by running her hand down his neck, but he was having none of it and tossed his head away.

Grumbling under her breath, ever aware of the sun sinking behind the mountains, she tied her supplies down and took a firm grip on the reins to lead him downward.

There was no way she was chancing a mount until they were on level ground.

The narrow path seemed to take hours to navigate, but finally she was wading through the grass, grasshoppers jumping out of her way.

“Okay, beast, just hold still and I promise this won’t hurt either of us,” she whispered to the animal as she put her foot in the stirrup.

With a quick prayer, she swung her other leg over his back, holding on for her life when he pranced beneath her.

It seemed he didn’t like what was happening any more than she did.

Once she was settled she glanced to the south, toward her home and her sisters.

Her heart clenched with the pain of the decision she had to make.

She couldn’t go back there just yet. The outlaws would find her easily and even if they didn’t, her problems wouldn’t be solved.

She had to find a way to get the girls to safety.

That meant getting them away from Ship and his outlaw life.

This could quite possibly be her only chance to do that.

Her sisters would be fine with Jake for a few days, just long enough for her to do what she had to do and come back for them.

With a quick glance of regret up the mountain and the man she’d left sleeping, she turned the horse north.

An idea had been forming in her mind over the past two years, but she’d never been brave enough to act on it.

Never desperate enough. Now she had no other choice.

She had to keep her sisters out of danger, she had to take back control of her life, even if it meant following in her mother’s footsteps for one night.

At least she’d have the rest of her life to be free of men like Ship.