The bedroom window was too small and high for first morning light to reach him, but J.D. stirred with the dawn anyway. He suffered a moment's disorientation, not because there was a strange room around him--he was kind of half-used to that now that he'd traveled around a bit--but because there was someone else in the bed. He heard soft breathing that wasn't his own and felt of the mattress move with the slight shift of someone else's weight.
His eyes cracked open in sleepy puzzlement, focused on tangled waves of chestnut hair spread across the adjoining pillow and his shoulder--and abruptly he remembered.
Lord, did he remember. If it hadn't seemed like a really uncouth way to say good morning to a lady, he would've whooped at the top of his lungs for the sheer joy of it. As it was, he settled for a smug, contended sigh that made no sound at all. Up until last night, the nearest he'd come to sharing a bed with someone was when they camped overnight on the trail, and Buck or one of the others spread out their bedroll close enough for him to kick them into silence if they got to snoring too much. Sharing a bed with a woman--the sleeping part, that is--was another in the whole long list of things he'd never given much thought, but now that he'd tried it, he really liked it. He had sleepy, disorganized memories of half-waking at various times through the night to find Amelia sometimes tangled comfortably around him, sometimes just a dimly felt presence in the darkness beside him.
Once, he'd surfaced to find her crying softly in her sleep. He'd pulled her into his arms to comfort her without even thinking about it, it had seemed like such a natural thing. The movement had awakened her, and somehow after that, things had turned all hot and lustful and urgent, though the memory was so dreamlike that he wasn't exactly sure that either of them had completely woke up.
Right now, she was sleeping peacefully, a tiny, contented smile on her lips. J.D. thought about waking her, but it was still early and it didn't seem fair, so he just leaned over carefully to touch his lips to her cheek. Grinning at the warm, stupid, pleasant feeling that small gesture engendered, he slid very carefully and silently out of bed.
The clothes he'd borrowed were strewn on the floor where he'd discarded them. He wasn't crazy about the thought of using them again, but he gathered them up and tiptoed out into the main room of the cabin. A quick check on his own abused suit put him out of the thought of donning that. Maybe Mrs. Lei, who did laundry for hire in town, could rescue it, but his own unskilled attempt had left him with a wrinkled mess still stiff with mud. Bowing to the inevitable, J.D. climbed into the underwear and dungarees, then inhaled and managed to get the tail of the shirt tucked down inside them. Quite apart from the fact that he liked to dress respectable, so people would take him seriously, he just couldn't understand what Buck saw in these things. They sure as hell weren't comfortable.
If he didn't find something to keep himself busy, he knew he'd jitter himself to death while he waited for Amelia to wake up. He thought about it for a couple of minutes, then started making a mental list of things that needed to be done. He brought another couple of armfuls of wood in from the shed and piled them up beside the cook stove, so they'd be there when Amelia needed them. There wasn't much left in the shed, but when he checked out back, he found a stash of rough-cut logs that needed chopping, so he added that to the day's list of chores.
The thought made him grin at himself, thinking he was acting awfully much at home, all things considered. That started him wondering if he'd ever want something like this for himself, something regular and domestic with chores to be done and wood to be chopped and a woman to share his life. He kind of liked the feeling, though he knew it was only play-acting--but he liked his freedom more, so he figured it wasn't something that would merit serious consideration for a while yet. Lord knows, his group of friends were half-again or twice his age, and they were all getting along just fine without settled roots.
Thinking about his friends reminded him that he was now a whole night overdue for when he'd said he would be back in town. If Amelia had preferred it that way, he would have been perfectly willing to sneak out of Four Corners without letting the townsfolks know he was coming with her, but leaving without telling Buck had never been a possibility. J.D. suspected he could've fallen down some nameless crevice without Chris, Vin or Ezra noticing his absence for a month or two, but Buck was a different matter entirely. If J.D. were to up and vanish, Buck would have the others out looking for him in no time flat. As far as he could tell, Buck was convinced he was completely incapable of looking after himself for more than a few hours at a time without expert assistance. If not for the fact that he--usually--enjoyed Buck's company as much as Buck enjoyed his, it would've driven him crazy months ago.
With that in mind, J.D. had wandered by the saloon the night before last to let the drifter know what his plans were. He'd been prepared to be teased and encouraged in ways he hadn't needed any encouragement, but fortunately Buck had already availed himself of the company of one of the saloon girls for the night. Josiah had just greeted his news with a benevolent smile and told him to have a good time.
The way J.D. figured it, Buck and Josiah had spent yesterday making sorts of wild bets at his expense like the pair of great busybodies they were. The question was, what would they do today, when he hadn't showed up on schedule?
Most likely, they'd figure that things had worked out the way they had worked out, which was a thought that annoyed J.D. way more than it should have. Of course, even that didn't guarantee they'd leave him alone. They sure hadn't with Emily. He couldn't quite envision Buck riding all the way out here just to "check up on him." On the other hand, he wasn't dead certain the drifter wouldn't, either--especially if could he manage to convince himself that J.D. and Amelia couldn't be trusted to keep out of trouble on the range by themselves.
J.D. heaved an exasperated sigh. There was no point worrying about that particular problem unless it rode into the yard on a brainless gray horse named Chowderhead. There wasn't a thing he could do to prevent it, and if he dwelled too long at the possibility of Buck peering through the cabin window at just the wrong--or right--time, he'd just drive himself loco.
He headed off to the barn to tend to the horses and take a look at the rental buggy in full daylight. It needed a good wash, so he found a bucket and a rain barrel, then shoved it out into the yard. He rinsed it down as much as he could, then left it to dry in the sun.
He fed the carriage horse, and was attempting to convince his bay that grain made a better breakfast than sugar--not that he had any sugar in his pockets right now, anyway--when a voice from behind him called, "Good morning."
J.D. turned to find Amelia leaning against the stall railing, with her arms on the top bar and her chin resting in her folded hands.
"Morning," he returned, feeling a little bit shy for no reason that made sense.
"How long have you been up?"
"Oh, a couple of hours, I guess."
Amelia came to the gate of the box stall, which he'd left open while he was working. She was wearing her own clothes this morning, looking all prim and respectable except that her hair was a riot of chestnut waves falling loosely around her shoulders. She stayed at the gate, watching him run a curry comb he'd found across the bay's sleek coat.
"What's her name?"
"I call her Candy." J.D. grinned at her across the horse's dark back. "'Cause she'd live on lump sugar, if I gave her the chance. Never saw a horse in my life with such a sweet tooth." At the mention of her name, the mare's ears perked forward so stiffly that their tips nearly touched. She eyed Amelia with interested speculation.
"No, she don't have nothing for you, neither," J.D. informed the bay. "You've got plenty of good oats in the box. Why don't you just..."
Belatedly, it occurred to him that holding a comfortable, one-sided conversation with a dumb beast didn't exactly make him seem too bright. He threw a self-conscious glance at Amelia, to find her watching him with a quiet smile.
"Did you bring her with you from New York?"
"Nah." He went back to currying the last of the caked-on mud from the horse's sleek hide. "Never would've been able to own a horse of my own back home. I bought her the first day I got to Four Corners, after I heard Chris and Vin were getting together some men to go out and help the Seminoles."
That was one story he hadn't spouted off to her about because there was nothing in it that made him sound like much of a hero. First he'd got so excited that he'd tried to shoot someone in the back, then he'd tried to show off and earned himself nothing better than a lot of bruises and an unscheduled bath. Looking back on it now, he still blushed at the memories, and shivered to think how close he'd come to giving up and finding himself a seat on the first stage out of town. It hadn't been pride or even stubbornness that kept him on Chris's trail, just a gut-level instinct that said it was right. In some undefinable way, he knew he was exactly where he belonged, he just had to convince six older and more experienced men of that fact. That had taken some doing, but he thought he was the better man for it. He was certainly happier for having found his place in the world.
"What are you thinking?"
Her soft words awakened him to the fact that his hands had stopped moving, and he was just half-leaning on the mare's back, staring off into the past. Amelia left the gate and came around behind the mare, running a hand across her rump to reassure her. Up close, J.D. could see the anxiety in her eyes, and for once he didn't need any prompting to figure out what had put it there. In the unforgiving light of midmorning, she wasn't sure how he'd feel about last night. Maybe she wasn't sure how she felt about it herself, though when he searched her face, he could find no trace of regret.
"Oh, I was thinking about you. And about last night." It wasn't the exact truth, since right at that moment his thoughts had been elsewhere, but he had been thinking about it nearly non-stop all morning. Remembering how it had felt. Second-guessing himself on all the things he hadn't thought to say or do. Smugly reliving the things he had done.
Figuring it was time he started taking a bit of the initiative, J.D. put an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Amelia's arms came up to circle his neck as she sank into the embrace, her tongue tangling and dueling with his in a kiss that was deep and confident on both sides.
The moment of bliss ended in a huff of expelled breath when the mare reminded him of her presence by thumping him in the back, then sawing her head up and down his spine as she used him as a scratching post.
J.D. cursed under his breath, then grinned uncertainly when Amelia leaned against him, laughing so hard she could barely stand. Scratching the mare's forehead over his shoulder, she said, "I think she's jealous."
"I think she's spoiled rotten."
"Who's fault is that?"
"Can't imagine." With an arm still around her waist, he steered her through the stall gate, shoved it closed behind them, and tossed the curry comb at a convenient ledge. Before he even heard it land, he was back to the business of kissing her, not just her mouth but her face and the smooth column of her neck above the primly fastened collar of her dress.
"I think I liked the shirt better," he complained, when his mouth found silk.
"Think of it as a lesson in patience."
"Patience ain't something I'm good at. Anybody'll tell you that."
While they continued to exchange blithe, meaningless chatter, he was steering her back towards another stall. Amelia gave a little shriek of surprise as he tipped her backwards and tumbled with her in a pile of sweet-smelling straw. She lay still a moment, half beneath him, then planted both hands on his waist and caught him totally off guard by tickling him. J.D. whooped in outrage and tried to twist free, but women moved damned fast when they were motivated by a devilish need to strip away a man's dignity. Even worse, a few attempted counterattacks informed him she wasn't ticklish, or if she was, she was too well armored by her unmentionables to react. He was a whole lot stronger than she was, but he was so worried about hurting her that he got the worst of it until he managed to grab hold of both her wrists and wrestle them above her head while he held the rest of her still with his weight.
Amelia made a half-hearted struggle to free herself, then went still beneath him, laughing and catching her breath. Just when he thought he had things under control, she popped her head up and bit him, right on the tip of his nose, then fell back against the straw again, with another whoop of joyous laughter. "You definitely ain't no lady." He rubbed his nose, more because he couldn't quite believe she'd done it than because the little nip had actually hurt.
"I did warn you about that." Her grin faded slowly, leaving her face solemn. He was just about to ask her what was wrong, when she murmured, "Thank you, J.D., for helping me to remember what it feels like to be young."
"You ain't exactly old." He hadn't even thought about their age difference, except in the very beginning. There had been so much else on his mind that it hadn't seemed important.
"I shall be twenty-six next month--"
"That ain't old," he told her, trying not to remember that he'd already been nine years of age when Mama turned twenty-six. "--And by the time I was your age, I'd survived three years of marriage."
"You don't even know how old I am," he protested, hoping she wouldn't just turn around and ask. When Judge Travis was filling out the paperwork to hire him on, he'd lied and said he was twenty-one. He was pretty ashamed of that, since Mama had raised him to put a high stock in the truth, but he didn't know if he would've got the job otherwise. Now, he just told everybody the same thing because his age had never been set down on paper any other way. But he didn't want to lie to Amelia, so he settled for, "I'm older than I look."
He didn't think she believed him, but she let it pass. Her face was still serious, her eyes lost in the past as his had been a few minutes earlier.
"When I was nineteen, I traded my virtue for passage to Denver. After that, my life was very hard, and there was no time for anything except work and trying to survive. Even now... I'm comfortably off, and no one in St. Louis knows about Sam or any of this, but I always have to be so careful. So respectable. I was a terrible tomboy when I was growing up. It isn't easy being perfectly respectable all the time. It's good to be free for a little while. To laugh and be silly and not worry about any of it..." She paused, then said very quietly, "Make love to me, J.D."
"Here?" His voice cracked a little, and not because the notion was unpleasant. Scandalous, yes, in broad daylight, with the barn doors open for the--fortunately vast and empty--world to see, but definitely not unpleasant.
"Here," she echoed. She tugged at his hold, and he let her hands free to encircle him.
Today, he wasn't a green kid fumbling around in the unknown. He knew what awaited him, but he was determined to get to it in less of a rush than he had last night. Between what he'd heard and what he'd already experienced--trying to hang onto the very moment of release until he thought he'd die from the pleasure of it--taking things slow seemed like a really good idea.
He had reached that decision even before he discovered that undressing a woman clad in proper woman's clothing was one hell of a lot more complicated than he'd anticipated and rushing wasn't an option.
Seemingly endless layers of buttons and hooks and laces and fabric needed to be explored and mastered before he finally spread aside the light fabric of Amelia's chemise to free her breasts. Rolling up onto his knees, he pulled her into his lap, so that her breasts were at a perfect height to be explored and teased with his mouth and tongue. By then, he was already hot and aroused, hungry to be inside her. The feel of her against him, her legs wrapped around his hips, sharpened the desire.
Amelia's fingers knotted in his hair, and she turned his face up to hers, bending to meet him in a deep, harsh kiss. J.D.'s arms tightened convulsively around her back, dragging her against him with a small, desperate groan. His hips flexed uncontrollably, half raising him on his knees. Cupping her bottom to hold her close, he rocked rhythmically against her.
Not yet! The thought was so clear that for a moment, he thought Amelia had murmured the words. But her mouth was still locked to his, still making love to him with the skilled dance of her tongue. Carrying her weight easily with him as he moved, he stretched out in the straw again, settling her beside him. One arm held her against him while the other rucked her skirt and petticoat out of the way so he could run his hand up her stocking.
More silk tangled around his fingers, in the form of the fancy, frilly drawers women wore. J.D. groaned and leaned back, looking down at Amelia with disbelief.
"How the heck much stuff have you got on, anyway?"
"Too much?" Her voice made it a teasing question, and she punctuated it by nipping his chin. "More than you."
She shifted suddenly, catching him off-guard and tipping him over on his back. Landing atop him, she straddled his hips. Her long hair trailed down, forming a veil around their faces as she bent forward, not to kissing him, just to fit her face against his for a moment at nose and forehead before she sat up again. She settled back on her heels, combing her fingers through her hair to sweep it free of the straw that had already tangled itself in the curls. She looked wonderfully wanton, her shirt waist hanging open, her breasts exposed, supported by disarrayed silk. He could tell that she liked just having him looking at her, but in a moment, he had to reach up and touch her, too--to fondle her breasts, then let his hands glide downward to the soft flare of her hips.
Leaning forward, Amelia set about unbuttoning his shirt and vest. He let her get on with it while he sorted through the layers of skirts and petticoats that were in the way, found her drawers again, and discovered they were held in place by a silly little ribbon ties that gave way easily when he tugged on them. He was trying to decide how to get them off, when she braced her hands on his chest and slipped to her feet.
Sitting up, J.D. caught the drawers by their frilly knees and tugged them down to her calves. Amelia stepped daintily free of them then settled downward again, still riding his hips in a way he thought would quickly become unbearable. Her skirts pooled around them, covering her legs, sliding along his arms as he ran his hands up her thighs. He was still uncertain about touching her intimately--though she seemed to have no such qualms with him--and so he settled for fondling as much of her skin as he could reach.
Amelia had bared his chest to the waist, and her hands were travelling lower, massaging his skin as she went. Her hands brushed lightly against his shaft as she freed the final button, and he could have cried when the touch was gone again as quickly as it came.
Bending from the waist, she licked a trail down his chest starting at the small, vertical scar on his shoulder.
"How did this happen?"
"Knife," he told her in a low voice, almost laughing at the irony of how he'd regretted, only a day or so back, that she would never see it. "I'll tell you about it sometime."
Her lips touched the mark delicately, almost as though she were kissing it better. It hadn't been sore in a while, but the swirling pressure of her tongue brought out a sensitivity he hadn't even known was there.
From there, she worked her way along the line of his collarbone, then downward to seek the hollow above his breastbone. Last night, J.D. thought he'd experienced every sensation a man could feel, but now he was discovered a whole world of response lay inside him, just waiting for her hands and mouth to awaken it. His breathing grew labored, harshly in-drawn breaths alternating with soft sounds he couldn't seem to control as she brought his skin to pulsing life wherever she touched. When she got as low down his stomach as she could reach, Amelia slid down along his thighs. As his hands slid free of her, and her weight vanished from his groin, J.D. whimpered in protest. His hips flexed automatically, seeking her again, then his whole body jolted as she freed him from his trousers, and her warm, seeking mouth brushed his shaft.
If there had been any part of him left that was still capable of thought, he would've been shocked. But the heat of her mouth, the teasing caress of her fingers, robbed him of the ability to do anything but feel. He moaned and arched again, seeking more pressure than the light, dancing caress.
"Amelia, I can't--" The warning ended in a groan of frustration as her touch withdrew, leaving him on the edge of release. His eyes flared open, his hands reaching for her or for himself, at that point he didn't care which. His groping touch found Amelia and he clasped her thighs as she rose above him then sank down onto him.
Lying on his back like that, he couldn't move the way he needed to seek instant relief. He twisted beneath her, groaning again as she rose up until he was almost free of her, then sank down to take him completely inside her. Moving slowly, never giving him quite enough to push him over the edge, she held him like that for what seemed like hours, caught between ecstasy and torture. Finally, he couldn't bear it another moment. He reared up, his arms closing around her to crush her to him, rolling sideways so that she fell into the straw and he came down on top of her. He pumped his seed into her in a flurry of short, hard thrusts, then sagged forward to lay his head against her breast while he panted in frantic drags of air.
"I swear to God, you're trying to kill me," he croaked when he could manage to form the words.
He was still hard enough to feel her soft ripple of laughter as a shuddering of internal muscles against his shaft. He winced and caught his breath, which made her laugh again, a hoarse, seductive little sound that came from somewhere deep in her throat. She started to shift away from him, but J.D. caught her and held her still.
"Not yet," he murmured, tilting his head back to look up at her. "Please? You feel so good."
Amelia laid her palms against his forehead and smoothed back his sweat-soaked hair.
"So do you."
The words were oddly reassuring, because he wanted her to share the happiness he was feeling. He'd been so completely lost in his own enjoyment, he had just been kind of taking it for granted that what felt good to him would feel good to her. She certainly seemed to like to touch him and be touched, but there didn't seem to be any single moment when everything inside her exploded. Maybe there couldn't be, seeing as how ladies weren't built the same way.
Well, no, actually that didn't mesh with some of the stuff Buck had told Josiah within his hearing. He really wished he'd been listening a mite closer, but then when Buck really got going, his tales just made J.D. feel like going off somewhere and blowing his brains out.
At least he'd never feel that way again, he realized smugly. He'd match any experience Buck had had in his life against the past twenty-four hours... except he wasn't planning to talk about it, of course. He'd always thought there was a mite of contradiction in the way Buck was overprotective as hell of women, but liked to talk about what he did with them way more than was gentlemanly, and that was one area where J.D. did not plan to copy his example.
Be that as it may, Buck's tales led him to believe there were still a few things he needed to learn about women, and he wasn't going to learn them any younger.
Tentatively, watching her response to his actions, he began to explore Amelia's body, trying at first to mimic what she'd done to him. He was still too spent to be interested in much of anything more strenuous than a nap, but almost as soon as he touched her, he knew it wasn't the same for her. When he brushed his lips to her nipple, she sighed softly in pleasure; when he opened his mouth wide against the soft mound of her breast and raked it lightly with his teeth, she gasped and twisted beneath him.
Happy with the response, he experimented further, taking his time, for once not driven by his own immediate needs. He felt kind of wicked and wonderful, not to mention oddly proud of the trust she was granting him by giving him this freedom to lose himself in the satin smoothness of her skin, her curves, all the wonders of womankind. At this moment in his life, Buck's obsession made perfect sense to him.
Over long, slow minutes, he discovered a sensitive spot at the base of her throat that made her murmur his name, and that the simple act of kissing the inside of her forearm, nipping at her with just his lips along a trail from wrist to forearm, drove her wild. The skin along the inside of her thighs was incredibly soft and sensitive to the touch.
Listening to her soft sounds of pleasure, feeling her increasingly restless movements beneath him, J.D. was beginning to harden again, but there was no urgency yet to the arousal. Shifting carefully so that he still stayed within her, he raked his nails lightly through the crisp, crinkly hair between her legs, then carefully inserted a finger into the slick folds of flesh hidden within it.
That produced a sharp cry and a violent shiver that ran the whole length of her body.
"Did I hurt you?" he asked, drawing his hand back as quickly as though he'd been burned.
Amelia shook her head and gasped, "No!" in tight voice. Her eyes were closed, and the restless movements of her body, shifting and twisting beneath him, had gained a new urgency, as though she were desperate to regain the touch.
Tentatively, he ground his pelvis against her in a slight, side-to-side motion. He was still so oversensitive that he almost had to stop, but another soft, breathy cry urged him on. Half-soft still, he began to move inside her... partly withdrawing, pushing in again... twisting a little where his body met hers because that seemed to please her more than the other... then staying in her, trying to bury himself even deeper while he rocked his hips ever-so-slightly forward and back.
Amelia's small, almost continuous whimpers and cries were exciting him as much as the friction of moving within her. Before long, he began to feel something entirely new: small, arhythmic pulses of her muscles against his hardening shaft, as though she were trying to clasp him. It felt... amazing.
Propping himself up on one elbow, J.D. reached between them to stroke her breast. Amelia caught his hand and clung to it. Her fingers tightening around his with unexpected strength as she threw her head back and gave a long, harsh cry.
Even though he'd thought he knew what was happening, the sheer desperation of the sound scared him, but before he could react, the sudden rhythmic throbbing around his shaft drove him to a hard, immediate climax. For a minute, nothing else existed but the need to empty himself into her, then he collapsed beside her, utterly drained.
When his eyes focused again, he found Amelia watching him from inches away. She was smiling, but that made less impression than the tear that beaded in the corner of her eye and slid slowly down her cheek.
"Amelia? Did I hurt...?"
She shook her head and wiped impatiently at the trail of telltale moisture. "Actually, it was quite marvelous."
"But you...? And you, um... It sounded like I hurt you." That nervous, worried babble seemed to amuse the heck out of her. She rolled to face him and cupped his hand between her palms, gazing at him from so close a distance that he couldn't quite focus on her.
"You may never have noticed this, J.D., but you aren't exactly quiet at certain times, either."
Actually, he had noticed that, in a kind of distant, unimportant way, but he found it hard to believe that he sounded quite so loud or so... anguished.
"Yeah, but..."
"Ladies have been known to caterwaul, too, you know."
"I'm sure ladies don't never caterwaul." He grinned at a sudden memory of Emily's merry shrieks and wails for the benefit of Buck's eavesdropping. He'd thought it all mighty overdone at the time, but he might have to reevaluate that opinion. "Maybe they howl a mite at times."
"When you do it right, they most certainly do."
He blinked at her in surprise. "That mean I did it right this time?"
She kissed him, light and sweet, a kiss that somehow tasted of happiness.
"You, my dear, are a positive prodigy."
J.D. puzzled over the comment for a moment, wishing she didn't have such a habit of using fancy five-dollar words like Ezra. Even when he paid attention and thought back on his schooling, though, he didn't think he'd ever heard that one before.
"Is that good?" he asked finally.
"That's better than good."
Entirely pleased with himself, the world, and everything in it, J.D. shifted around a little, trying to get comfortable. It hadn't bothered him at all up to now, but he was starting to notice that while straw made a fine bed to nap on when you were fully dressed, it was mighty uncomfortable stuff when it got in touch with bare skin. Especially bare skin that was wet with sweat or other juices that made the chaff stick to it and itch like the devil. Much though he would've liked to just lie there a while, all cuddled up against her, he didn't think he'd be too happy when he woke up.
Amelia must have been thinking the same thing, because she sat up and stretched with languid grace. With her clothes all open and disarrayed, it made for a pretty sight, though he didn't have the strength to do anything more than lie still and appreciate it.
"You know, I did originally come out here to see if you wanted some breakfast."
He wanted breakfast and a nap and a bath, and right now figuring out which one he wanted first was completely beyond him. He decided he'd just lie here for a few minutes more, then start with a smaller problem: finding the energy to stand up and walk himself back to the house.
By the time he got there, maybe he'd have the rest of it figured out.
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