Page 15 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)

H is hot gaze caressed her face, her mouth, and the blatant desire in his expression sapped her resolve, drew her instead, like a nail to a magnet.

Abby didn’t realize she’d moved, but in the space of a heartbeat she was in his arms, pressed against the hard, delicious length of his body.

She met his mouth greedily, tasting the heady maleness of him, glorying in the sensual slide of heat and texture as their tongues met and melded in an enthusiastic dance.

Every place their bodies touched, she was fiercely aware of him—of the slight scrape of beard against her tender cheek, her breasts crushed against his hard chest, his biceps beneath her exploring palm, his arousal through layers of denim and cotton and crinoline.

Abby raised a hand and thrust her fingers into the cool thickness of his hair, lifted her other palm to the front of his shirt and pressed against hard muscle in an explorative caress.

His chest and shoulders were broader, his arms more muscled, but she still fit against him perfectly.

Years fell away. Everything that had happened since their first physical encounter was seared into temporary oblivion by the explosive heat of this passion they shared.

Abby pressed both hands to his cheeks and kissed him hard.

She pulled away long enough to breathe, and their combined breaths sounded ragged and hot in the silent room.

This was never enough with him. She craved more, needed more of the delightful indulgence she found in his embrace.

He pressed his hips against her rhythmically and her eyes fell shut. He turned his face and darted his tongue against her palm. Her entire body quivered and wept with pleasure. She ran her thumb over his lip, touched his teeth. He nipped the pad and released it.

Their lips met again, this time more tenderly, this time with a care for the artful finesse of the act. He kissed the corner of her mouth, caught her lower lip, a sensuous move that had never failed to elicit a moan, and didn’t now.

He caught her cry with another kiss, tormenting her until her body trembled and her knees grew too weak to support her weight.

Abby wanted to drop back to the floor and pull him hard against her. Nothing would suffice now but to have more of him, feel more of him, relish the heat of his flesh, taste him, take him….

She took a moment to get her bearings, thinking of where they were, where they could go…. His lips nibbled the column of her neck in exquisite torture, but she opened her eyes.

Her kitchen came into focus. Yellow-and-white gingham curtains at the window. Brock’s coat and hat hanging by the door, his gun belt slung over a hook beside them.

Reality crashed down on her like a wave of ice water.

She pushed at his shoulders. “Stop.”

Brock’s arms were a band of steel around her.

“Stop!” she said more forcefully, and pulled back.

His grip loosened. He studied her with passion-glazed eyes, and blinked as if trying to orient himself.

Abby disentangled her limbs and took two steps backward, reaching for the back of a chair for support. She thrust a hand into her hair and caught her breath. What kind of woman was she that she fell so easily into the same old trap of sensual ensnarement? Where had propriety and sensibility flown?

She wasn’t a foolish young girl with unrealistic dreams. She was a mother, responsible for herself and her child, and she knew better than to think that anything more than momentary physical satisfaction—and perhaps even a baby—could result from her senseless lack of judgment.

Humiliation welled inside her and scorched her cheeks.

She jerked her gaze up to his. This man!

Not her kind and gentle husband! Not her respectful, amenable fiancé, but this man!

This corrupt, irreverent traitor had the power to unleash these stunning feelings and make her greedy for more. She covered her face with a shaky hand.

“Mama? You bringin’ me thoup?” Jonathon called.

She heard Brock pick up the tray she’d prepared and carry it toward the other room.

Abby stood, still gripping the chair, still hiding her face and still castigating herself for her loss of control.

She hated that Brock knew her weakness. And he knew.

Oh, he knew. She’d practically torn his clothes from him and straddled him on her kitchen floor!

That picture brought another flash of heat, and to cast it aside she dipped a cloth in cool water and pressed it against her cheeks.

She’d never dreamed this could happen. She de tested the man.

She did. She hated what he stood for and what he’d done.

Climbing all over the man who had killed her brother was more than disloyal, it was sick.

She must be depraved to have let that happen.

She should have let him go hungry. She should have let him sit there until he died of starvation, she thought irrationally.

Abby straightened her apron, smoothed her hair and garnered all her courage to walk into that room and see to her son in the presence of that man.

Brock had tucked the curtain back over a hook, so Jonathon saw her approach. “Brock thaid you had to let the thoup cool a little bit. I like it.”

She smiled weakly and seated herself on the opposite side of the bed from where Brock sat, helping Jonathon with the heavy mug.

“You okay, Mama?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You look kinda funny. Maybe you got a fever, too.”

Brock turned his head to look at her, but she ignored his gaze.

“No, I’m fine,” she assured Jonathon. “The stove was hot, is all.”

“Sit in the rocker and cool off, Abby,” Brock said, his voice deliberately solicitous.

She moved to the rocking chair and watched her son eat his meal.

Brock enjoyed holding the mug for Jonathon, tearing off bits of bread and cheese and seeing him savor them. How many mealtimes had he missed? How many childhood sicknesses and sleepless nights and bedtime stories? “What’s your favorite food?” he asked.

“Licorith,” the boy answered immediately.

Brock chuckled. “How about your favorite food that your mama makes?”

“Mmm. I think prob’ly her fried chicken. Mama’th a real good cooker and maketh a lot of food I like.”

“What’s your favorite story?”

“The one where Jack Thpade trackth the bank robber through the mountainth an’ hith horth dieth, an’ he walkth all the way to Cheyenne with a bullet in hith leg. That prob’ly hurt.”

Brock blinked. “There’s a story about that?”

“Yup. Mr. Thpencer read it to me.”

Brock glanced at Abby. Her lips were pursed in disapproval, but she held her silence. If she’d just found out about this, he’d bet Asa Spencer had an earful coming. “What do you think about your mama marrying Mr. Matthews?”

“Brock,” Abby cautioned, finally looking at him.

“I’m just asking the boy his opinion. He can have one, can’t he?”

She slanted a glance at Jonathon.

“Go ahead, Jonathon,” Brock said. “What do you think of their wedding plans?”

Jonathon looked a little sheepish as he said, “Mama thaid I’d alwayth be her favorite.” He handed Brock the empty mug. “Mithter Matthewth don’t like me very much.”

Abby’s brows furrowed in concern. “He likes you, dear.”

Jonathon shrugged his narrow shoulders.

“Go ahead, Jonathon, speak your piece,” Brock said, and cast Abby a look to silence her again.

“He only talkth to Mama,” Jonathon continued, “but when he doeth talk to me, he tellth me how to thay wordth better.”

“He corrects your speech?”

“Yeah. I mean yeth. Ye- s-s .” He struggled to get out the correct sound.

Brock glanced at Abby. Looking displeased, she studied her hands in her lap. “But your mama doesn’t tell you to say words better?”

“Nope. Well, I ain’t th’poth to thay ain’t. Uh-oh, I thaid it, din’t I?” He glanced at his mother.

“That’s okay,” she said with an indulgent smile.

Brock had recognized the bond between mother and child from the very first, but every hour that passed pointed out how badly Everett Matthews fit in this picture.

What did Abby see in him? Did she love him?

How could she fall into Brock’s arms and respond to him so quickly if she did? No, she didn’t love Matthews.

After she took away the tray and Jonathon chattered for a while longer, Brock told him he was going to leave.

“Can you come back tomorrow?”

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he promised. The wrenching desire to touch his child, to hug him close, left Brock feeling incomplete.

He ruffled the boy’s hair instead, but the gesture felt empty.

He could hardly hug him or kiss him or Jonathon would wonder at his forwardness.

This was a need Brock had never experienced.

He walked away with a hollow ache in his gut.

In the kitchen, he buckled on his gun belt. “Will you keep him home from school tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. I think he might need another day of rest.”

“What will you do? Stay here with him?”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I’d have to take him downstairs with me. I have to be in the store in the morning because Sam’s been staying home with his wife until about ten.”

“Sam works for you?”

She nodded. “Yes, but his wife’s baby is due soon, and she’s not feeling well. Her family are all back East. I could send for Laine, I suppose.”

“I’ll come,” he said simply.

“You can’t do that,” she said, keeping her voice low.

“Why not? I did just fine today, didn’t I?”

“As long as I was cooking and checking on him.”

“I can heat up soup and slice bread,” he assured her.

“It just wouldn’t look right,” she told him in an irritated whisper. “You can’t keep coming here without people becoming suspicious.”

“Matthews, you mean,” he said, careful not to let the boy hear their conversation.

“Anyone!”

“Why are you marrying him?”

She blinked. “Everett?”

“Who else are you engaged to?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I think you do. You’re taking my son into a marriage with you, and I have a right to help decide what’s best for him.”

“No one knows he’s your son,” she whispered.