Nobody's Darling

A sharp clap of thunder heralded the arrival of a genuine downpour. They clung to each other as the rain washed over them, neither wanting to be the first to break away. But when Billy felt a violent shiver wrack Esmerelda’s delicate frame, he drew back, gently chafing her shoulders.

“Come out to the barn with me,” he blurted out.

At least she didn’t slap him right off. She simply blinked up at him, her eyes dark with uncertainty. She couldn’t know how delicious she looked with that worn-out old nightgown plastered to her breasts and her lips still glistening from his kiss. Billy barely resisted the urge to drop to his knees and beg.

“I swear on my pa’s grave that I won’t compromise you,” he vowed, brushing a raindrop from her silky lashes. “I just want to hold you… touch you.”

Esmerelda’s breath caught in a tremulous sigh. She could hardly believe she was actually pondering Billy’s bold proposal. But there was something so tender in his touch, so earnest in his eyes. It tempted her to trust him with both her virtue and her heart. Tempted her to believe that William Darling was a man of his word.

It was that hope, however foolish, that prompted her shy nod.

As if afraid she would change her mind, Billy wasted no time in scooping her up in his arms. She curled both arms around his neck and buried her face against his breastbone, taking care not to disturb his bandage. He covered the distance between house and barn in long, urgent strides. As he shoved open the door with his foot, the animals within greeted them with curious whickers and a plaintive lowing. Leaving the barn door half-open to beckon in the brilliant flashes of lightning and gusts of wind, he deposited Esmerelda on a bed of clean hay.

He followed her down, cupping her face between his hands with fierce tenderness. Rain beat like a sonata against the tin roof, indistinguishable from the painful stammer of Esmerelda’s heartbeat.

“If you don’t want me to,” he whispered hoarsely. “I swear I won’t lay a finger on you.”

“Well, maybe…” Esmerelda swallowed hard, wondering just what manner of wanton spirit had possessed her. “…just one?”

A thoughtful grin spread across his face before he reached up to tip an imaginary hat. “Very well, ma’am. I aim to oblige.”

Oblige her Billy did, using a single fingertip to gently trace the arch of her brow, the flare of her cheekbones, the delicate bridge of her nose, until she had no more pride left than Sadie rolling to her back to beg for a belly scratch. Esmerelda had always lavished hugs and fond caresses on Bartholomew, but since he’d grown too big for such embarrassing displays, there had been no one to hug or caress her. She hadn’t realized how starved for affection she was until that very moment.

Her hunger sharpened as Billy used the calloused pad of his finger to explore the softness of her lips. After a moment of such delicious torment, they instinctively parted and closed around his finger, drawing him into her mouth. He let out a tortured groan of his own.

He laved her tingling lips with honey from her own kiss until they were primed for more of his kisses—a hot, wet feast for the senses that left Esmerelda so sated with delight she barely felt that same sly finger loosening the sodden ties at the throat of her nightgown.

The caress of his breath against her naked shoulder gave her a start of panic. She struggled to sit up. “Billy!”

“Mmmm?” he murmured, stroking the sensitive skin over her fluted collarbone.

Even as she pushed at him, Esmerelda knew she wasn’t playing fair. After all, she was the one who had set the rules of this game, a game at which Billy was already proving himself to be a master. A game she was no longer sure she wanted to win.

Fisting her hands in his damp hair, she forced him to meet her gaze. “You won’t cheat, will you?”

“I make it a habit never to cheat at cards.”

“We’re not playing cards,” she reminded him.

His wink was pure devilment. “Then you’ll just have to take your chances, won’t you?”

Esmerelda despised games of chance, but something told her that if she didn’t take a chance on this man tonight, she might very well regret it for the rest of her staid, lonely life. She’d long ago resigned herself to spending her life without a man, but spending this one night without Billy seemed intolerable.

So she sank back on that sweet-smelling bed of hay and surrendered herself into his custody. He hooked his finger in the bodice of her gown and tenderly peeled the wet fabric from her skin.

When a flicker of lightning limned her naked breasts in quicksilver, she might have cringed with embarrassment if he hadn’t breathed a reverent sigh into her ear. “Peaches, angel. The prettiest ones I’ve ever seen.”

Indeed, the breasts she had always considered so woefully inadequate seemed to swell and ripen beneath his touch. He kissed her softly on the mouth while that deft, wise finger of his traced ever-narrowing circles around the tender globes. He resisted the greedy thrust of her nipples for so long that when his finger finally brushed one of the aching buds, as if by chance, Esmerelda cried out at the raw wonder of it.

He captured her cry with his lips, flicking first one distended nipple, then the other. Tremors of pleasure cascaded through her, forcing her to clamp her legs together against a rush of yearning. It was almost as if he’d touched her somewhere else—somewhere dark, lush, and forbidden.

Esmerelda had struggled not to feel for thirteen years, but beneath Billy’s skillful coaxing, her dormant senses came alive with a vengeance. She could smell the sharp musk of his own desire, taste the mellow hint of tobacco on his tongue, hear every nuance of his husky drawl as he murmured that it sure would be nice if she’d let him put his mouth everywhere she was letting him put his finger.

Esmerelda didn’t really grasp the shocking implications of that proposal until she felt his finger slowly inching up beneath her gown. Even through the modest cotton of her drawers, it felt like a live fuse winding its way between her trembling thighs toward the narrow slit in the fabric. The explosion was inevitable. The instant his fingertip brushed that soft thatch of hair, her legs simply fell apart, yielding all to his touch.

She must have whimpered. She must have moaned.

“Shhhh, sweetheart,” he murmured, “I can’t hurt you with just one finger, can I?”

It wasn’t pain Esmerelda was worried about, but pleasure. A pleasure so thick and sweet it seemed to dribble through her veins like wild honey, melting her resistance to his will. Billy might not mean to hurt her, but he was breaking her heart with nothing more than the tender probing of his fingertip.

She gasped into his mouth as he fondled her passion-engorged flesh, the grace of his gunslinger’s hands serving them both well. He sought the taut bud nestled within her silky folds, stroking and rubbing until she was panting with delight. Only then did he dip his long, blunt finger into the nectar welling from her throbbing core.

“Peaches and cream,” he groaned against her lips, making her shudder with primal longing.

To Esmerelda’s dismay, she discovered that Billy was a man of his word. Although she arched her back, desperately trying to press herself into his palm, he prolonged her delicious torment by using only his calloused fingertip to tease her into a frenzy of ecstasy.

“Please,” she choked out, burying her burning face in the crook of his throat. “I’m throwing myself on the mercy of the court.”

“No mercy,” he breathed into her ear before deliberately splintering her into a thousand glittering shards.

Esmerelda cried out her astonishment as all the pleasure she’d denied herself for the past thirteen years seemed to swell through her body in one devastating surge that left her limp and trembling in its wake.