Page 28 of The Gunslinger’s Bride (Montana Mavericks: Historicals #1)

H e hauled her against him as roughly as she grasped him in return, an explosive clash of bodies that pressed the buckle of his holster into her belly.

With one arm around her back, pulling her forward, and the other hand at her nape, he kissed her with surprising restraint, his lips warm, pliant, insatiable.

Abby ran her hands over his back, relishing the glorious feel of him, lost in the magic of his deep-drawn kiss.

No one had ever kissed her as thoroughly and splendidly as this.

No one had ever turned her insides to liquid heat and created this delicious eagerness in her body.

Dimly, she thought of Jonathon, of the possibility that he could awaken and stumble back out.

Brock must have considered that, too, because he broke the kiss, released her, but kept hold of her hand, and leaned to extinguish the lamp on the table.

Abby’s pulse beat all through her awakened body as the darkness enfolded them.

When he tugged her toward her room, she resisted.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he whispered, still coaxing with a gentle pull.

That was the problem. She wanted to.

“Just a few kisses if that’s all you want,” he said. “In here where Jonathon wouldn’t see us if he woke up.”

Against her better judgment, she went. Eagerly. Wantonly.

Brock sat at the foot of her bed and pulled her between widespread knees to frame her hips through her skirts and tip his face up to her throat.

She skimmed her palms over his shoulders, kneaded his neck.

“You don’t know what heaven it is when you touch me,” he said, his voice gruff.

If it was half what she felt when he touched her, she knew.

He moved back, coaxing her forward to straddle his lap. “I have my shoes on,” she objected.

He set her away, raised one foot at a time to his thigh and unbuttoned her shoes, dropping them to the floor, then guided her back.

“You know I hate those guns,” she said, when her knee bumped one holster and startled her.

Obliging, he leaned back to unbuckle the belt and remove the revolvers, hanging them over the bedpost.

“Is that everything?” he asked teasingly in the dark. “Anything else you’d like one of us to take off?”

“You don’t have much left,” she replied, stroking the skin of his shoulders and upper arms.

“Feeling left out?” He brought his hands up her rib cage. “We can even things up.”

She leaned against him, bringing her breasts under his chin. “You’re much to bold for someone who should be far more repentant.”

“What do you want me to do? Beg your forgiveness on my knees?”

She thought about it, and couldn’t picture him doing so in a million years.

She shook her head, not caring whether or not he could see.

His hair beneath her chin was cool and silky.

She speared two handfuls and pulled his head back so their faces were close, but tauntingly kept her lips from touching his.

He lowered his hands to cup her bottom through layers of skirts and petticoats, an intimacy all the same.

She nuzzled his forehead and temple, inhaling his erotic scent. They hadn’t kissed since they’d come in here, but her body thrummed as though they’d never stopped. He arched his hips up against that place where she pulsed for him.

“Remember how it was with us, Abby?” he breathed against her cheek.

“I remember.” How could she ever forget?

“You were a little scared that first time, but so beautiful in your eagerness.”

His words seduced, but still she kept her mouth a hair’s breadth from his. “I believed in fairy godmothers back then, too.”

He ignored that. “Your breasts were always so sensitive to my touch. I remember their perfect shape and—”

“I don’t have a young girl’s body anymore,” she interrupted.

“Knowing that has kept me awake at night for weeks,” he replied, then darted out his tongue so that it reached her lower lip.

Startled, she sucked in a breath, lost track of her thoughts and gave herself over to the sensation of his mouth, kissing him hungrily, controlling the pressure by her grasp of his hair.

Never passive, Brock explored her bunched skirts to find the hem and glide his hands up her calves, beneath her drawers and over her knees to the tops of her stockings, where he found her skin and tickled enticingly with his fingertips.

When the fabric restricted further exploration, he flattened his palms on her thighs through the cotton and rubbed upward.

He created a rapturous suspense in her body, one she knew too well he could kindle and feed until both of them were sated and replete. One thumb found the placket in her drawers, and tentatively, enticingly, he stroked over the folds of her femininity and found her moist readiness.

Abby sucked her breath in, squeezing her eyes shut in expectation, releasing her hold on his hair until her wrists draped over his shoulders.

“Abby,” he said, kissing her throat, her neck beneath her ear. “Abby.” Each vocal caress of her name paralleled his stroking thumb.

She shuddered uncontrollably under the focused assault, shamelessly indulging in the pleasure he gave. She wanted this in her life. She wanted passion and fire and anticipation and the intense perfection of lovemaking she’d only ever shared with Brock.

His scent was in her nostrils; her blood pounded in her ears, her every sense compromised by his inflaming assault.

She found his mouth with hers, tasted him impatiently. He drew his hand away, and she almost wept.

He found the buttons at her throat and made quick work of opening her dress. Her head cleared enough to know it was time to make a decision. If she didn’t stop this now, there would be no turning back. He kissed the skin of her chest, bared above her chemise. “No corset.”

The kisses sent tingles across her shoulders and down to tighten her breasts. “I don’t wear one to work.”

Finding the ribbons that held her chemise closed, he pulled them loose and spread the fabric, letting the cool air wash over her fevered skin.

He buried his face between her breasts, and she hugged him close, tears coming to her eyes at the vividness of feeling.

She didn’t want to end this experience. She wanted to revel in it.

Brock stood her up to remove her dress. Untying her petticoats, he helped her kick them off, then peeled down her stockings and drawers.

He ran his hands over her hips and along her thighs, worshipfully, then guided her to the bed, where she hastily peeled back the coverlet and sheets and reclined while he made quick work of the rest of his clothing.

“Have we ever made love in a bed?” he asked, leaning over her, his hard body sliding against her sensitized skin from her breasts to her thighs.

“I—I don’t think so.”

He closed a hand over her breast, and she bit her lip against a lusty groan. Drawing her other nipple into his mouth, he tortured it with his tongue and lips until she wanted to scream.

Her powerful responses awakened a realization that her memories and fantasies had not blown Brock Kincaid’s effect on her out of proportion. This tantalizing rediscovery was no dream.

Beneath Brock’s hands, her sweet body trembled and tensed, twined and pressed. He remembered the combination of fragility and strength that had always made Abby unique and desirable. The energetic passion that had always matched his was still as fierce as ever.

He explored leisurely, giving lavish attention to each place that caught his fancy or stole her breath, all the while gauging her arousal, yet prolonging the enjoyment for both of them, honing the inevitable to a fever pitch.

Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, her hips more curvy—womanly changes that made him crazy with wanting her.

She returned the caresses until he caught her wrists, stroked her damp shoulders and slowed her down.

He pushed to his knees and pulled her to a sitting position in the V of his thighs, facing away from him.

She snuggled backward, eliciting an unrestrained groan from him.

He caught her disheveled braid, ran his hand to the end and fumbled to unfasten the tie.

Using his fingers as a comb, he loosened her hair from the ends to her scalp. Once the tresses were free and flowing over her back, he caressed her through the silky coolness, leaned into her and inhaled her mind-numbing essence.

Arousal pounding now, he pulled her back, weighed her breasts in his palms, flicked the nipples with his thumbs until she drew up her knees and whimpered.

Brock guided her to lie down, then stretched over her and took pleasure in the way she opened her silken body to him, eagerly drawing him close.

Pressing into her, he captured her cry with his kiss, groaned against her mouth and held himself perfectly still lest he end the ecstasy as soon as it started.

The tide abated and he moved. Abby caught his face with one palm, and her chest jerked with a sob. At her cry, his heart dipped. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Yes, don’t stop.”

“I just want it to be good for you,” he said, meaning it with all his being. “This is for you, beautiful lady.”

“You know I’ll hate you now,” she said, her breathy voice lacking conviction.

“You hated me already,” he replied, hearing the sadness with which he said the words.

“Not like this,” she whispered. “Not like this.”

“Oh, Abby,” he said, and slowed his movements.

“If you stop now, I will get one of those guns and shoot you in your black heart,” she threatened.

Despite the sadness in his heart, he smiled at her spirit, admired her never-flagging gumption. And thrust them both over the edge.

She hadn’t been imagining how it had been between them. The years hadn’t blown their explosive attraction out of proportion in the least. If she’d been testing that, she had an answer. And how.

Brock had pulled the covers over both of them, but she had drawn away, torn between wanting to hold him close so badly that her arms ached, and needing to distance herself so she could think.