Forever And A Day. Mary McBride
you come one inch closer or I’ll scream. I swear I will.”
Eyes still closed, Gideon grinned. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Just try it and see.”
He levered up on one elbow, gazing down at her stubborn little mouth, the moonfire burning in her eyes. “Is that an invitation, Miss Cassidy?”
Her eyes widened fearfully, but her voice stayed level and brave. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re right,” he growled as he lowered himself back onto the mattress. “Go to sleep, bright eyes. You’re safe.”
Honey rattled the chain hooked to the iron bedstead. “You don’t expect me to sleep like this, do you?” she hissed.
“Hush.”
She rattled the chain once more, and kept up the racket until Gideon rose with a muted curse. Five years in prison had made him remember only the fair part of the fair sex; he’d clean forgotten how irritating they could be without half trying. And this one was trying. He retrieved the quill pick from his shirt pocket, jimmied the lock, then clamped the steel bracelet over his left wrist and clicked it closed. “Happy now?”
“Thrilled,” she muttered.
“Good.” Gideon dug his shoulders deep into the mattress. “Close your eyes, Ed. It’ll be morning all too soon.”
She was quiet a moment, listening to the cadence of his breathing. “What are you planning to do?”
“Sleep.”
“I mean tomorrow.” She raised both hands in a gesture of frustration, tugging his arm up along with hers.
Gideon wrenched back his hand. “I’m planning to be dead on my feet tomorrow if I don’t get ten minutes of shut-eye. Now hush.”
Honey was quiet another moment, until she couldn’t keep still or stand the suspense any longer. “Where are my clothes?”
His silence was nearly palpable, like the quiet before a storm, like fire working its way along a fuse. Honey expected an explosion, but instead she felt the muscles of his arm relax and heard him release his breath in a long sigh.
“They’re being washed,” he answered quietly.
“Oh.” She was sorry she had asked. She was mortified, and grateful for the dark to hide the color staining her cheeks. Her voice, so strident before, quavered now. “You...you must think—”
“I think,” he said, cutting her off, “that you’re as stubborn as a weed. Now go to sleep, will you? Or at least just keep that pretty little mouth of yours closed.”
But she couldn’t sleep. Honey lay there for a long time, wide-awake, listening to the sound of Gideon Summerfield’s deep and even breathing. She shifted slightly onto her side to watch the rise and fall of his muscular chest, to study the soft hair that thinned as it neared his belt line, to feel the warmth that radiated from his arm where it touched hers.
A week ago, under the watchful eye of Miss Haven and her staff, Honey wasn’t permitted to promenade with beaux or to have tea alone with a gentleman caller. Now here she was—naked as the day she was born—sharing a bed with a notorious outlaw. The preposterousness of the situation brought a wild little giggle to the back of her throat when she probably ought to have been screaming for help.
But she wasn’t afraid of Gideon Summerfield, even when reason told her she should be. The man had had ample opportunity to do whatever he pleased with her, and the fact of the matter was that he had conducted himself as a gentleman. She remembered the moment on the trail this afternoon when she had thought that he was going to kiss her. But he hadn’t, and there had been that surprising little quiver of disappointment inside her, like air being let out of a balloon.
Honey tilted her head now, the better to peruse his profile in the moonlight. He wasn’t bad looking. In fact, Gideon Summerfield was decidedly handsome. There was strength in his face—from the firm line of his jaw to the deep slashes that parenthesized his mouth to the slight hook of a nose that had undoubtedly been broken once or even twice. But, strong as they were, his features possessed a certain vulnerability now that he was sleeping, now that those gunmetal gray eyes were closed.
His hand twitched. His closed lids fluttered. Honey wondered what sort of dreams a desperado had. Was he planning more robberies? Figuring out how to spend his ill-gotten gains? Somewhere, deep in his sleep, was he lining up innocent bank tellers like tin ducks in an arcade, taking aim and shooting them one by one? Was he...?
His hand twitched again, jingling the chain that linked them, and then—slowly, warmly—his big hand slid over hers and closed. Honey’s heart shifted perilously and her breath snagged within her chest. From beneath her lashes, she watched as his lips parted in a soft, almost desolate moan. Perhaps, she thought, it wasn’t a dream at all inside his head, but a nightmare. Perhaps it was Gideon Summerfield who was the target....
He rolled to his left, casting a heavy arm across her, bringing his face just inches from her own. “Cora,” he murmured in a voice thick with sleep and need. “Hold me. I’m so cold. So goddamn cold.”
Without even thinking, only responding to the husky plea, Honey slipped her free arm around him. Slowly she spread open her hand, over smooth skin, over sleek muscle. She smiled softly. Some desperado, she thought, adjusting her vision to study the face so close to hers.
His breath mingled with hers. Soap. A hint of whiskey. The pure male fragrance she recalled from snuggling in her father’s arms and burying her face in his neck. Aside from him, she’d never really been this close to a man before, even though she’d had more than her share of beaux. It seemed they were always in someone’s shadow, though, or under someone’s watchful eye. When they kissed her—and few had ever dared—it was always brief, fleeting, tentative.
Her eyes focused on Gideon Summerfield’s lips, wondering what they would feel like against her own. Even in sleep, there was a hardness to his mouth. Could such a hard mouth kiss softly? Honey wondered. She moved closer. Then closer still, until her lips felt the warm flutter of his breath.
A deep groan issued from him, and before Honey could shift away his mouth had claimed hers with a warm urgency that sent tremors through her. His lips were softer than she’d have dreamed as they covered hers. His tongue was warm and gentle as it explored, then delved. She moaned helplessly as waves of pleasure surged through her, as new feelings were born in her along with strange and bewildering urges.
It was Gideon who broke the kiss, sighing, shouldering more deeply into the mattress. “Hush, darlin’. Hush, Cora,” he murmured against her wet mouth. “Sleep now.” His hand slid beneath the covers to settle firmly and protectively over Honey’s breast. “Sleep.”
Sleep! She couldn’t breathe. Her entire body was thrumming and her mind was snapping like a telegraph wire whose messages were positively scandalous. What was she doing in bed with a bank robber and enjoying it? Honey closed her eyes and clamped her lips together, shocked at her behavior, stunned and surprisingly warm beneath Gideon Summerfield’s big, gentle hand. But sleep? She might never do that again, she thought. And who in the world was this Cora?
* * *
When she woke, the room was golden and warm with sunshine. The light of day revealed a tawdriness in the room she hadn’t been aware of the night before. Above her head, the ceiling was cracked and peeling. The wallpaper was patterned with stains and poorly rendered roses, all of them stuck to the wall at a queasy tilt. There was a scuffed wooden dresser with a missing drawer, a cracked mirror and a chipped pitcher and bowl. It was the worst-looking room Honey had ever been in. And to think last night, lying in the outlaw’s arms in this bleak iron bed, it had all seemed quite elegant.
The outlaw, she realized dully, was gone. The handcuffs were gone, too. And so was the canvas money bag from Logan Savings and Loan. Honey groaned. Then, after casting a woeful look down at her exposed bosom, she groaned again. What was she supposed to do now?
And