Breathless (Old West, #2)

by Beverly Jenkins

At dinner that evening, Portia sat across from him at the table, still thinking about her reaction to him and the water jug. She hazarded a look his way and he smiled. Whatever she was coming down with must be serious for her to imagine licking him like a tamed cat. Or a lover, quipped an inner voice she’d never heard before. That caught her so off guard, she dropped her fork and it clattered onto her plate.

Breathless, she wanted to be kissed by him forever, only to have him gently turn her loose and step away.

“Now you’ve been kissed . . . with passion.”

“Still think you can manage what you felt like a ledger or the hotel?” “I’m ready to go back.” “Made things worse, didn’t it? Told you so. I can give you another if you think it might help.” “I’m leaving.” If she didn’t, she’d be begging for more and she was already appalled enough by her uninhibited response. “Okay, but I did enjoy kissing your uppity mouth. You’re a very passionate woman, Duchess.” She

“There isn’t a man

alive who can pay attention with your lovely little behind waving before his eyes like that.” “It’s not waving.” “Maybe not but it is lovely and very distracting. Makes me want to set your garters on fire.” “Is that all men think about?” She positioned another shingle and expertly placed the nails. “I can only speak for myself, but when it’s you—yes.” She looked his way. “This roof will never get done if you can’t concentrate. Shall I leave?” “And deprive me of the fantasies playing in my head? Not on your life.” She chuckled softly. “I’m not going to ask.”

“You’re fibbing again, Duchess.” “And you’re supposed to be nailing

shingles.” He wanted to nail something all right—real slow and real thorough like, but decided to keep that to himself. “Yes, ma’am.”

When she looked over he was watching her. Time stretched. Her eyes strayed to his mouth and lingered. When she raised them to his again, the air seemed to thicken.

He said, “When

you look at me that way it makes me want to do all manner of things, Duchess, and keeping my hands to myself is not one of them.” His voice was barely above a whisper but it echoed within her like distant rolling thunder. She kne...

but when he put actions to words and ran a slow possessive finger over her lips, passion rooted her where she stood and she couldn’t move, nor did she wish to. Instead, her untutored senses drank in his touch like the desert did rain. The kiss th...

her closer, fitting her against him until they melted into one and she didn’t care that they might be discovered as long as he continued to feed the longing he’d aroused. His mouth was experienced, masterful, dizzying. Her lips parted. Their tongues mated, danced, and she groaned with the rising pleasure. “I want to strip you bare and kiss you here . . .” he rasped as his hand moved to her breast beneath the thin fabric of her shirt and toyed with the nipple until it bloomed and hardened. As the words shook her, he lowered his head and bit her gently through her shirt before taking the nipple into his mouth. She responded with a hushed harsh cry. “Like that, do you?” he asked with wicked ...

Hot eyes holding hers, he traced a finger down her trembling throat and over the rise of her breasts before placing his lips against the bared vee of her throat. He flicked the tip of his tongue against her flesh. When he tugged the front of her shift down, she drew in a shuddering breath and thrilled to the feel of his hands sliding over the length of black silk she’d bound herself with in lieu of wearing a corset.

“You could kill a man wearing this.” And before she could react, he moved the silk aside and feasted. A strangled cry slid from her lips. No man had ever touched her let alone used his mouth to do so, and the glorious sensations overrode how scandalous she knew she must be to allow such liberties. Yet she allowed him to suck and tongue and tug with his teeth until her eyes slid shut and the moans stacked up in her throat. Small shards of lightning settled between her thighs. Her hips began to move in a subtle rhythm only her body could hear and he answered with the hard thick part of himself that made him male.

A strangled cry slid from her lips. No man had ever touched her let alone used his mouth to do so, and the glorious sensations overrode how scandalous she knew she must be to allow such liberties. Yet she allowed him to suck and tongue and tug with his teeth until her eyes slid shut and the moans stacked up in her throat. Small shards of lightning settled between her thighs. Her hips began to move in a sub...

It was shameless, illicit, and so decadent she felt ...

entirely, and that woman was breathless and g...

He finally lifted his head and the flame in his eyes increased her need. “You should button yourself up and get out of here before I tug those denims down and kiss you in...

Aching and hard from their play, Kent pulled himself together then walked out to the porch just in time to see her riding off. Her sister’s words rang softly in his head. Be gentle with her. He planned to do just that.

“She began life as a Dutch slave. English is not her first language, but to hear the movement’s leaders tell it, she speaks like an unschooled Deep South slave. And why they refuse to allow Colored women in their ranks says a lot about who they are. Especially Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This phrase they’re beginning to use—intelligent suffrage—is designed to leave women of our race on the side of the road. As if they’re the only ones with enough smarts to read a ballot.”

Stanton was still smarting from Colored men having been given the access to the voting booth ahead of them with the passage of the Fifteenth

Amendment. In

He no longer wanted to pursue women other men had ridden hard and put up wet.

I felt like I’d finally come home. Made me think about buying a plot of my own and putting down roots—maybe finding a wife and starting a family.” Portia saw the honesty in his eyes and the impact of it pierced her so deeply, she had to look away. She readily admitted to not having had a lot of experience with men, but she’d never had one open himself up to her in this manner before and she was shaken by it, because for the first time in her life she considered what it might be like to be the wife of a man like him. Also for the first time, she didn’t immediately discount the notion. Kent Randolph was slowly changing her and he made her want to embrace that change.

He obliged and she wrapped her arms around him and thrilled to his groan of approval as their bodies met. He moved his lips to her throat above the bandana and tugged it free to give him access to the soft scented skin beneath. The distant sound of the waterfall matched the rush of her blood. Bold as ever he tugged her shirt free of her denims and slid his hands beneath. His warm palms worked over the band of silk binding her breasts and he whispered heatedly, “One day, soon, I’m going to have you naked except for this silk so I can show you exactly what it does to me.” The potent promise set off a shiver of excitement that radiated from the deep wanting between her thighs and spread like flame through her limbs. Her buttons were undone

and when he brushed the halves open and took a silk-shrouded nipple gently between his teeth, she crooned aloud. His fingers played with the other while he fed and licked, and her breath stacked in her throat.

The raw request sent the flame soaring. Looking into his passion-hardened eyes, she unveiled herself and he stroked a slow circle around each aching bud. “Do you want me to make them harder, Duchess?” Her back braced against a tree, Portia could barely stand due to the storm whirling inside. He leaned down and kissed her mouth possessively. “You have to say ‘please,’ darlin’.” Not wanting him to stop, she breathed, “Please . . .” He treated her to a silent, wicked loving that left her gasping and arching into his masterful mouth. His palms slid up and down her bared sides, learning her, branding her, and slid behind to the skin above the waistline of her denims and down to cup her behind to bring her flush against the hard ridge that made him male.

while that part of him moved wantonly against her. “Feel what you do to me, Duchess.”

Eyes shining with amusement, Eddy asked, “So, did you enjoy your ride? You certainly look as though you did.” Portia froze and wondered what had given her away, but was too embarrassed to ask.

Later, Portia lay in her bed in her darkened room. She wasn’t sure what left her reeling more—her sensual encounter with Kent or the jaw-dropping conversation she’d had with her baby sister. Too exhausted to choose, she drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

“Morning. How are you?” “I’ll be better once these greenhorns are on the train and I’m on my way back here.” He was about to reply when he heard the widow Gordon declare in a voice loud enough to be heard in Tucson, “I can’t wait to leave this awful place.” Clad again in her fancy brown traveling costume, she stormed over to Regan’s buggy, adding, “And when I get home, I’ll be sure to tell everyone I know what a terrible time I had.” “Please do,” Regan tossed back, which seemed to throw the widow off her stride.

He added, “I want you to wear a skirt the next time I get you alone. No denims.” “Why?” “Because I’ll be taking your drawers as punishment for how hard I’m going to be for the rest of the day thinking about you and your sponge. You really are trying to kill me.” Thrilled by his words, she didn’t agree to the order but gave him a serene smile instead. As she walked away, she was trailed by his laughter.

“I’ve decided to open my bookkeeping business, so I’m alerting some of the other businesses to the services I plan to offer.” A smile spread over his features. “That’s wonderful, Portia. You and I talked about this a few years back but I thought you’d given up on the idea.” “No. I was just afraid I’d fail,” she admitted. He stilled and studied her for a moment. “Takes a strong person to admit something like that.” She nodded and thought about Kent’s support. “I plan to keep doing the books here though, if that’s okay with you.” “Of course, but you may become so successful I’ll have to increase your salary to keep you on.” “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going anywhere and what you pay me now is just fine.” He’d given her her start. She’d always be grateful for his faith in her abilities, no matter what the future held.

He thought for a moment. “Yes. Don’t listen to naysayers about what you can’t do, and get up every day and do your absolute best.” “Thank you, Uncle Rhine.” “You’re welcome. Proud of you, Portia.”

The tradition of women

of the race forming groups to assist and uplift their communities could be traced back as far as 1793 when the lady parishioners of Philadelphia’s Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the first Black Episcopal church in the nation, formed the Female Benevolent Society of St. Thomas. In the years since, women of color nationwide built on that tradition by coming together to support everything from abolition to literacy to the caring of the sick, elderly, and the destitute in their neighborhoods, and since the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, female suffrage.

“You’re very wet, Duchess. Makes me want to do this . . .” She gasped. “And this . . .” She whimpered passionately. “And now, this . . .” He slid a finger inside and worked her with such expert wickedness, she shattered on a strangled cry and spiraled to the moon. Pulsing and moaning, she heard him whisper against her ear, “I’ll be spending the rest of our lives making you fly apart, woman . . . so get ready.”

The lone bedroom with its adjoining washroom was at the back of the house. The four-poster brass bed was large and covered with fine linens. “Now this is a bed,”

Kent said, pressing his hand into the mattress to test its give. There was a large armoire, a chest of drawers, and a vanity table with an attached mirror. She waited while he stepped into the washroom. “I think this tub will fit two.”

He walked back out and looked around again and said suggestively, “The things I’m going to do to you in here. Good thing we’re not near the hotel. I don’t want Rhine running in with his gun drawn when he hears you screaming.” The heat in his eyes seared her, setting off a familiar tightening that made her want to move into the space and share the big bed with him as soon as possible. She also wanted to ask him to teach her how to please him, but she wasn’t sure she had the courage to broach the subject, at least not yet.

“They say love is blind.” “Love is also patient,” he added quietly. “Love is kind. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.” Portia was so moved by his words, her voice came out as a whisper. “Did you make that up yourself? That’s beautiful Kent.” “No. It’s from the Bible. First Corinthians. Chapter thirteen verses four to eight.” “The Bible?”

“I’m marrying a Bible-quoting cowboy. What else is hidden inside you, Kenton Randolph?” He kissed her. “You’ll have the rest of our lives to find out.”

captured her lips. “Come for me, Duchess. I know you’re ready.” And a breath later she did, bucking wildly and calling his name. Kent smiled the smile of a pleased male and eased his fingers free. He was on the verge of orgasm, too, but she was his and he was greedy, so he teased the stiff little bud at the apex of her thighs and dropped his head. When his tongue found her she cried out. “What—” “I just want a small taste, darlin.’”

She fell back as if outdone and he laughed. “Oh, baby, we’re going to have so much fun, you and I.”

“Welcome to the marriage bed, Mrs. Randolph.” His thrusts were harder, stronger, and he reached down and raised her hips without missing a beat. He threw back his head, “God, you’re so tight. I could do you all night, woman.”

“I’m fine and so were you. When can we do it again?” He laughed, dragged her atop and they did again, and again. When the sun came up, they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms. For the next three days, they made love, many times, ate food delivered to the door by the hotel staff, and talked about everything from the silly to the serious.

As they marveled at how beautiful and spacious the new house was, Kent said, “I think we should christen the place by making love in every room.” She laughed. “I’m serious, and once the rooms are marked we start with all the flat surfaces. I think I’d like to have you laid out on the kitchen counter wearing nothing but your garters while I lap you up.”

“This is a two-for-one romp,” he said, pulling her atop him. “We’re in the parlor and on a flat surface.” She looked down into his face. “Whatever am I going to do with you?” “Not sure,” he said,

“but how about you start by riding this?” She complied, and as he slipped inside, she rode him until he roared. Over the next few days, they’d christened nearly every room in the house and topped it off in the washroom, where he took her first against the wall and then in the large claw-foot tub. He’d loved her so thoroughly she vaguely remembered being dried off and carried to the bed, but nothing more.