Page 46 of The Promise of Jenny Jones

When she realized she was worrying about things she had never in her life expected to even think about, she laughed out loud and shook her head. It must be the fever.

Long after Graciela had fallen asleep beside her, Jenny lay awake listening to Ty toss and turn in the bed next to theirs.

Eventually, he threw back the blanket and walked through a wash of white moonlight to the waistcoat hanging over a chair.

A minute later she saw the flare of a match and smelled cigar smoke.

“Bought new long johns, too, I see,” she commented softly, smiling in the darkness. The long johns pulled tight across his shoulders and chest, sagged a little behind. He didn’t have much of a butt. Must have pounded it off galloping after cows.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” He returned to his bed, mounded the pillows against the headboard, then leaned against them, smoking in the darkness.

“I’ve done nothing but sleep for almost twenty-four hours.”

“How are you feeling? Did the fever powder help?”

“I think it must have. And my stomach doesn’t hurt like it did. Hell, I’m as tough as an old hen. Always did heal fast.”

“Jenny… come over here.”

Her heart rolled over in her chest, and she caught a quick breath. But she hesitated, fighting the siren call of temptation. “No sir, I’m not getting in a man’s bed with a kid in the room,” she said, as prim as a preacher’s wife. Except for the hint of regret.

“Just what kind of low bastard do you think I am?” She couldn’t see his glare, but she felt it and almost laughed. “Nothing’s going to happen in this bed except some kissing and some touching and a whole lot of frustration on my part. Now get on over here.”

Temptation won. Actually, it wasn’t much of a contest. “Well… I would like a puff off that cigar.”

Easing away from Graciela, she carefully slid off her bed and tiptoed around his. Lifting the hem of her new white nightgown, she crawled up beside him. “Give me one of those pillows.”

“Can’t do it, I need them both. You’ll just have to snuggle on me.” He opened his arm and she drew a breath, then slipped in beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. Oh Lord, it felt so good.

“You’re like cozying up next to an oven.” But she didn’t move away from the hard heat of him. Reaching up, she took the cigar from his mouth and put it between her own lips, drawing the smoke out slowly. “Ahh, that’s wonderful. I’ve been wanting a smoke all day.”

After she exhaled again, he took the cigar from her fingers and stubbed it in a dish on the table between the beds. “Why didn’t you get a cigar out of the saddlebags?”

“I just… you know, I just… I wasn’t certain when you and Graciela were coming back. I don’t like to smoke in front of her. It sets a bad example.” She couldn’t believe she was managing to speak coherently when all she could think about was his hand dangling so near her breast.

“You’re something, you are,” he said, laughing softly. “As hard and brittle as an eggshell on the outside, soft as yolk inside.”

“Are you going to talk nonsense all night, or are we ever going to get to the kissing part?” When he laughed again, his lips in her hair, she shivered in anticipation. “Do it quietly. We don’t want to wake Graciela.”

“Kissing doesn’t make too much noise.” Sliding down, pulling the pillow with him, he brought his head next to hers. Then he caressed her face, gently teasing a thumb across her lips. “Do you know what I wish we could do?” he whispered in a thick voice.

“We can’t,” she said, her mouth dry. Already her heart was pounding so hard that she could hardly breathe, and her skin was flushed with fire.

He’d moved close, not pressing against her, not risking causing her pain, but close enough that she could feel the rigid length of his arousal.

She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes.

He kissed the corner of her lips, his hand hot on her throat. “I’d like to skin that nightgown off of you and run my tongue all over your body,” he murmured.

“My God!” Jenny eased back and blinked at him.

She’d never heard of such a thing. The idea of someone licking her body should have been disgusting…

but, strangely, it wasn’t. Oh, it wasn’t.

Imagining what such a thing would feel like made her tremble and feel hot and shaky inside.

If she hadn’t already been lying down, she would have fallen flat the way she did the first time he touched her breast.

He kissed her eyelids and his hand moved in a light caress over the top of her bosom.

“I’d like to kiss you here,” he whispered, dropping his hand farther to stroke her nipple through her nightgown.

She gasped and felt her rib cage swell. “And here.” His fingers passed lightly over the bandage at her waist and stroked her lower belly.

“Oh my God.” Panting lightly, she squirmed against his hand. She couldn’t have remained still if her life had depended on it. How was he thinking of these things? These strange, erotic things that she had never even imagined.

“And here.”

“There?” Her eyes flew open and her mouth dropped in amazement. His hand cupped her most private part, scalding her right through the thin material of her nightgown. “You want to kiss me there? ” She thought she might faint just thinking about it.

He laughed softly against her lips. “Right there. Give me your hand. I’ll show you what thinking about kissing you there does to me.”

She knew what he was going to do, and she didn’t resist. She let him draw her hand down between them, down to where his long johns tented out.

“My God,” she murmured again, curving her fingers around the length of him. When he groaned, she snatched her hand back, but he caught her fingers and pressed them back around him. Tentatively at first, then with growing curiosity and assurance, she explored the power and maleness beneath her hand.

To her astonishment, she discovered she could create a baritone symphony of groans and moans and low, tortured whispers. If she did this, his body arched and quivered. If she did that, he kissed her so fiercely that her mouth burned. When she did this and this, he went limp and groaned.

He held the power to kindle a fire in her belly and drop her to her knees with a caress. But she had power, too. The realization astonished her.

“Wait,” he begged, his voice a hoarse rasp. “Stop for a minute. This is torture.”

“I like torturing you,” she whispered wickedly, covering his face with kisses, teasing him with her hips to see what might happen.

A groan of pain rumbled in his chest. “I might have known you’d learn fast.” Then he slid down and opened the top of her nightdress, his mouth and tongue finding her breasts. “I’ll show you what torture is.”

When Jenny staggered back to her own bed near dawn, her lips swollen and her breasts aching, she decided he’d kept his promise.

She burned for him, was on fire for him.

Never had she experienced anything even remotely similar to this kind of arousal and desire.

He had brought her to explosion after explosion with nothing but his hands and his voice in her ear.

And she had discovered she could do the same for him.

It had been wild, erotic, exhausting, and delirious. And informative.

When she crawled into bed beside Graciela, she cast the kid a glance of resentment and grudging affection. If Graciela hadn’t been here… but then, if Graciela hadn’t been here, she and Ty wouldn’t have been here either.

“Ty?” she whispered, leaning forward to look across at him.

“Hmmm?”

“Before tonight, I never had an…” She didn’t know the proper word. Lordy, Lordy. She hadn’t even suspected that a woman could erupt like that. “Ty? I thought I knew about—you know, men and women—but I didn’t know a damned thing.”

“Well, you sure do now,” he said softly. A low chuckle groaned from his side of the room. “You sure know now.”