Page 39 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

“I wish you’d never found us,” Jenny snarled in a low, harsh voice. “I wish it was just me and the kid. Things were simpler then.”

Needing to get away from him and the confusion he planted in her head, she returned to the shack, stopping abruptly just inside the door.

The first thing she noticed was the table. The meat she and Ty had left on their plates was now cut into ragged bite-sized pieces. A grim smile thinned her lips. Either the kid had known how to use a knife, or she’d learned in a hell of a hurry.

Reaching for the table lantern, she carried it past the washtub and looked into the hammock at Graciela’s sleeping form. The kid had climbed onto a stool and then into the hammock. The light from the lantern outlined a faint milk mustache tracing her upper lip.

When Jenny heard Ty enter the shack, she said softly, “Looks like she can manage just fine when she doesn’t have someone to do for her.

” Calling his attention to the cut meat and the fact that Graciela had climbed into the hammock unassisted should have given her a glow of smug pleasure, but it didn’t.

Instead, she gazed down at Graciela and wondered how it would feel to know with absolute certainty that you would never again go to bed hungry. That you would always have a pillow under your head and clean sheets. To know you would never be alone. How would it feel not to fear tomorrow?

“I could use some light over here,” Ty called from the table.

Lowering a finger, Jenny touched the gold locket pinned to Graciela’s shift. Then she carried the lantern back to the table and sat in front of her steak. The first bite was cold and stringy.

“Senora Armijo brought a jug of pulque. Do you want some?”

She nodded, then pushed the bite-sized pieces of meat around her plate. Whatever appetite she’d had was gone. Giving it up, she shoved her plate away, then swallowed a generous swig of the pulque. The liquid scalded down her throat and brought a shine of moisture to her eyes.

“So what are you going to do when this journey is over?” she asked, watching Ty eat.

“I’ll help Robert operate the ranch… run some cattle on my own place.”

“Ranching is a demanding life,” she commented, “but a good one. Don’t have to worry where the next beefsteak is coming from.”

When he finished eating, he leaned back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. “Cigar?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” To her surprise, he leaned forward and lit it for her.

It was pleasant sitting at the table, smoking, listening to the village quiet down for the night.

She had feared it might feel awkward to sit without talking, but it didn’t.

That, she thought, was the measure of true companionship.

Not that two people could talk, but that they could be comfortable just sitting together in silence.

“You look pretty in the lamplight.”

Jenny choked and burst into a fit of coughing. “Damn it, Sanders. I’ve asked you a dozen times not to say that kind of crap to me.”

“Why not? It’s true.” Squinting, he watched her through a curl of smoke. “You’ve got strong good features. You’re the kind of woman who’s going to get more handsome as the years go by. Long after more conventional beauties have faded, you’ll still be turning men’s heads.”

She stared at him, then laughed with genuine amusement. “Funny how you’re the only man who’s noticed how all-fired pretty I am.”

“Oh I doubt that. I might have the distinction of being one of the few who’s mentioned it, but I’m sure as hell not the only man who’s noticed.”

Her cheeks turned scarlet, and her ribs suddenly ached. This kind of talk embarrassed her, made her deeply suspicious, and she didn’t know how to respond. “Shut up,” she said finally, focusing intently on the end of her cigar.

“Have you ever been kissed? I mean, really kissed?”

The question and the husky timbre of his voice made her twitch and feel strange inside. Her skin suddenly felt hot and itchy. “I’ve been kissed,” she said defensively, scowling at him.

He grinned. “Must have been a brave man.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re an intimidating woman.” His gaze traveled lazily over her face and throat. “I imagine most men would back away from a challenge like you.”

“Huh!” Instead of patting her hair as she had a sudden idiotic desire to do, she blew a smoke ring toward the shadows in the corner. “Most men don’t even see me. Which suits me just fine.”

“If they don’t see you, it’s because you don’t want them to.

That’s why you hide yourself under that shapeless poncho and wear an old hat pulled down to your ears.

” He released a stream of smoke and watched it drift into the darkness.

“If you’d grow out your hair and wear a pretty dress, you’d have men lined up to get at you, darlin’. ”

Jenny wet her lips and swallowed. “Like that’s what I want.” When she realized this conversation was making her hands tremble, she stubbed out her cigar in disgust and made a face. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Instead, you wear that chip on your shoulder and dare anyone to pay you a compliment. You talk and act like one of the boys, so you don’t have to deal with being one of the girls.”

“Just shut the hell up.”

“If I were to kiss you…” He paused, dropping a lazy lingering glance to her mouth. “Do you know how I’d do it?”

Her heart lurched and knocked against her rib cage. She gripped the edge of the table and squeezed her eyes into a warning squint. “I’m telling you for the last time… shut up. ”

He kept his gaze on her mouth, studying her through eyes that seemed to smolder in the depths.

“I’d start out slow. Real slow, so’s not to spook you.

I’d put my hands on your waist, low, almost on your hips.

Then I’d draw you up against me. Let you feel what I was thinking. ” A smile touched his lips.

She understood the reference. Jenny tried to swallow, but her mouth was suddenly as dry as a desert bone. Eyes locked to his, unable to move a muscle, she held her breath and waited, wanting him to stop but helplessly wanting to hear more.

“I’d rub against you, slow like, getting the feel of you, letting you get the feel of me.

” His eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched hard before he made it relax.

“Then, I’d move my hands up your waist, under that poncho, right up your rib cage until I could feel the soft heat of your breasts resting on the tops of my hands. ”

“Shut up,” Jenny whispered, staring at his mouth.

He flipped his cigar out the door of the shack and dropped his hands to his thighs.

“I’d lean over you and put my mouth down next to yours, but I wouldn’t kiss you yet.

” They stared at each other in the lamplight falling over the table.

“I’d breathe you first. I’d sip your breath and hold it inside.

Then I’d touch my tongue to your bottom lip. ”

The air ran out of Jenny and her shoulders collapsed.

Her arm slid off the table, and her cigar dropped out of boneless fingers.

“Oh my God,” she murmured. Her heart slammed against her ribs and she heard her pulse thundering in her ears.

The night gathered around her, dry and hot, and she felt as if she were strangling.

His gaze fastened on her mouth. “I’d run my tongue around those lips, tracing the shape and size. And then…” He rose to his feet, his face moving out of the light and into shadow. “Stand up, Jenny.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, staring at him. Her knees had turned to soup. This time he hadn’t even touched her. This time he’d melted her bones with words. Helpless to resist whatever would happen next, she gazed up at him with fear and confusion widening her eyes.

Ty took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Instantly, she felt the heat of his body and her own quickened response. Eyes fastened on his firm, hard mouth, she licked her lips nervously and tried to speak. “Don’t.” The word emerged as a croak, totally lacking conviction.

She blinked and swallowed hard. She saw the smoldering desire in his narrowed gaze, and she thought he would kiss her. Thought she would surely die if he didn’t. Instead, he raised a hand and drew his fingertips along her jaw, then slowly down her throat.

Jenny gasped. Pinpoints of fire sparked on her skin, lanced deep into her body. A tremor began in her toes and swept upward, shaking her as if she had the ague. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

She could easily have repulsed crude talk or a rough direct grab. God knew she’d done so plenty of times in the past. But she had no experience with and no defense against gentleness and seductive words.

Holding her hand, not speaking, Ty led her outside into moon-washed shadows. Helplessly, Jenny followed on trembling legs, not resisting when he leaned her against the wall of the shack. Unable to utter a word, she gazed up at him with large round eyes, waiting for whatever would happen next.

He placed a hand on the wall on either side of her face, then slowly, he leaned in to her, enveloping her within his heat and scent.

The solid weight of his hips meeting hers made her suck in a sharp deep breath, and she closed her eyes on a low groan.

He moved against her deliberately, pressing her against the wall, letting her feel the full power of his arousal.

Dropping his head, he murmured next to her ear, his voice thick and husky. “I wanted you the first time I saw you.” His breath was warm and heavy, the pressure of his body hot against her. “I saw you go after Luis and I thought, there is a magnificent woman, a woman worth taming.”

She wanted to object, wanted to laugh and tell him that no man would ever tame her. But she couldn’t speak. Her heart slammed in her chest. Her skin was on fire. Hot weakness pervaded her body, and she felt a warm dampness spreading between her legs.

A sound almost like a sob caught in her throat. And she felt her hips moving against his as if imbued with a will of their own. His lips grazed her forehead, searing her nerve endings, and still the words murmured against her skin, but she scarcely heard.

Touch overwhelmed other sensations. She was blind to the white moon suspended in warm darkness, deaf to the hoarse whisper against her temple.

Dimly she sensed the scent of him, hot and male, but it was touch that kindled a blaze in the pit of her stomach.

His lips whispering against her temple, the pressure of his hips pressing her against the wall, the power of an arousal so hard that she felt the outline on her own flesh.

“Please,” she whispered, lifting parted lips.

His words, his touch created a wild need inside her, stripped her emotions raw, and crushed any thought of resistance.

Unable to live another minute without his mouth on hers, she grabbed his shirt and pulled his upper body toward her, then circled his neck with her arms.

Instantly, his hands dropped to her waist and he shoved her roughly against the wall. When she gasped in surprise and pleasure, he ran his hard callused hands up her rib cage, holding her against the wall with his hips.

His mouth hovered an inch above hers. “Slowly,” he whispered, his breath flowing across her lips, hot with the sweetness of pulque and the torment he inflicted on her.

Panting, squirming under the heat of his hands, Jenny let her head fall back against the wall as his thumbs caressed the underside of her breasts.

She trembled violently, her hips returning the insistent pressure of his, her hands tugging and releasing in convulsive movements on his shoulders.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; all she could do was feel the wildfire his touch sent shooting along her skin.

“Jenny.” His voice was a hoarse, tortured command.

Swallowing hard, feeling the sweat trickling between her breasts, the wetness between her legs, she opened helpless eyes.

And finally, finally, his mouth came down on hers—hard, deliberate, possessive. Her arms tightened around his neck and she pulled him in to her, wrapped so tightly against his body that she could feel his heart pounding against her breasts, could feel the hard grind of his hipbones.

Wild and crazy with wanting, she opened her lips to his tongue and thrust back with her own.

Her fist closed in his hair, and she pulled him harder against her.

Beneath her poncho, his hands closed over her breasts, and the sudden heat through her shirt scalded her and made her gasp and break from his kiss.

His lips trailed down the arch of her throat, then returned to her mouth to conquer and ravage and leave her breathless and panting and mindless with need.

Then he was holding her, whispering against her ear, his hands stroking warm circles on her back. Gradually her violent trembling subsided and her breath quieted. She rested her head on his shoulder and wondered what in the hell had happened to her.

“I think we should get some shut-eye. We didn’t have much sleep last night,” he was saying when his words began to sort themselves out and make sense.

Easing back in his arms, she blinked at him, too dazed to fully grasp his words.

When she did, she didn’t understand what had happened.

She had felt his powerful desire, had expected him to drag her to the ground and take her.

As crazed as she had been, she wouldn’t have resisted. He must have known that.

Stumbling, trying to steady her mind, she moved back into the shack and checked on Graciela. The kid was sound asleep, unaware that minutes ago the world had tilted and spun out of orbit.

When she turned, Ty was standing in the doorway, a dark silhouette with the moonlight sharpening his lean angular form.

Jenny licked her lips, tasting him there. “Why?” she whispered.

He knew what she was asking. “It has to be your decision,” he said in a voice still raw with desire. “When you’re ready, you’ll come to me.” A match flared, and he lit a cigar. “Get some sleep.”

Suddenly she felt bone tired, as limp as a washrag. “What are you going to do?”

“Have a smoke. Do some thinking.”

For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she sat on the edge of a hammock and swung herself inside, listening as he sat at the table and poured another tumbler of pulque.

“Ty?”

“Yeah?”

She stared up at the dark rafters. “I was wrong. Until tonight, I’d never been kissed.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said softly.