The Rawhide Man Read online

  She could have cried. Crystal had always taken things from her. Crystal, who was beautiful and fragile and spoiled. But Bess had never minded losing before. Now it was a different story. She had Katy and at least the hope of some kind of relationship with Jude if she was patient. What if Crystal decided she wanted Bess’s new husband? A black cloud settled over the holiday preparations, like the despair of the days before Bess’s mother had died. She felt old suddenly, and afraid.

  Chapter Five

  “What in the hell is this supposed to be?” Jude asked Bess as she was setting the table for supper on Christmas Eve.

  She glanced at the gracefully folded napkin beside his plate. “It’s a napkin,” she told him.

  He glowered at it, and abruptly lifted it in his lean hand and shook it out. “If it’s a napkin, suppose you let it look like one! This isn’t your plantation, little Georgia peach.”

  She glared at him. “You’ll find napkins done that way in elegant restaurants all over the country,” she said with deliberate sarcasm. “If you’d rather wipe your mouth on your sleeve…”

  His eyes flickered with a burst of emotion. “Like a savage?” he taunted. He threw the napkin down onto his plate. “That’s what you’ve always considered me, Bess. From the early days.”

  “That’s not at all true,” she said quietly. She stopped lining up silverware and stood erect, her hair long and soft, floating around the shoulders of the white Victorian dress she was wearing.

  “Isn’t it?” He laughed shortly. He bent to crush out his cigarette in the big ceramic ashtray she’d put out for him. “Then why do you throw pots at me, and try to slap my face, and…”

  “Jude…” she said beseechingly. “Why can’t we let bygones be bygones?”

  “Do you really think we can ignore the way we react to each other?” he said in surprise, and even smiled a little. “My God, I can’t remember the last time a woman fought me like you have.”

  The remark brought embarrassing pictures to mind—Jude with a woman. She’d never thought about him in bed with a woman before, and it shocked her. Unfortunately, the shock was quite visible to his piercing eyes.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” he murmured softly.

  “Don’t read my mind,” she grumbled, turning back to her chore with fingers that trembled.

  “Was I? What were you seeing in that suspicious little mind of yours? I didn’t think ladies ever dwelled on such sordid subjects as sex.”

  She ignored the deliberate taunting. “Katy should be down any minute,” she said quietly. “Please don’t make fun of the dress I bought her to wear to the Christmas Eve service at church tonight.”

  He looked frankly insulted. “I never make fun of my daughter.”

  “Our daughter,” she said coolly, staring at him.

  A corner of his chiseled mouth curled upward. “Excuse me. Our daughter.”

  She finished arranging the silverware. “And would you say something nice about the way she looks?”

  “Hold it, honey,” he said silkily, noticing the way her head jerked up at the careless endearment that he’d just used for the first time in their stormy relationship. “I’ve let you get away with murder for the past week, but there’s a limit to my patience.”

  “Do you have any?” she asked conversationally.

  His chin lifted and his eyes narrowed. “Given the right circumstances, I have quite a lot,” he said, in a tone that rippled along her nerves like a teasing finger.

  She hated the hot surge in her cheeks and lowered her hands to rearrange one of the place settings. “That’s something I’ll never know about,” she said.

  He didn’t reply, and she looked up straight into his unblinking stare.

  It was like lightning striking. She couldn’t have dragged her eyes away from his to save her life, and the intensity of the look they were exchanging made her tingle all the way to her toes. Jude’s nostrils flared with a harsh breath and he moved abruptly, coming so close that she could smell his tangy cologne and feel the heat of him.

  He slid one hand into the small of her back. The other pressed against her cheek, and he watched her curiously while his thumb began to move slowly, sensuously, across her lips, back and forth in a rough caress that had the oddest effect on her pulse.

  “Cool,” he breathed, “like ice to the touch, even your mouth. I’ve wondered for years what it would take to unstarch you.”

  “Don’t think…you could do it,” she whispered shakily.

  But he could see the effect his hard thumb was having on her, he could see her lips parting helplessly, feel the in and out of her breath on his chin.

  “I’m a man,” he said quietly. “That’s something you seem to have overlooked for a long time. I have all the usual needs, and I’m no virgin.”

  She felt her heart beating wildly and she wanted to move away, but when she tried, that steely hand behind her brought her legs against the powerful muscles of his own.

  “Stop running, I won’t hurt you,” he growled, watching her mouth. “Not this time, at least. I’m curious about you. I want to know why you’re so damned cold with me.”

  “You make my life miserable,” she said jerkily, “you carry me off from my home and force me into a marriage I don’t want, you insult me…and then you have the audacity to wonder why I back away when you come toward me!”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You were backing away from me long before I brought you here. Two summers ago. The summer before that.”

  Her eyes fell to his chiseled mouth and she tried not to want it. “I’ve only tried to defend myself.”

  “After you attacked and set me off,” he agreed. He sighed quietly. “I guess I am pretty hard on you sometimes.”

  That admission was startling, because he’d never admitted any such thing before. She glanced up, curious.

  “You don’t know why, do you?” he asked, searching her eyes.

  She nodded. “Because you dislike me.”

  He laughed shortly. “God, you’re green,” he murmured. “Grass green and as out of place here as hothouse orchids.” He caught her chin and tilted it. “That reminds me. I want you to stop putting those damned flowers in my study. Bandy made a remark about it this morning—and about the damned tree you put in the living room. Said you were softening me up.”

  She gave him her most belligerent glare. “And what’s wrong with that, Rawhide Man? You’re so hard you can’t enjoy the simple pleasures of life.”

  That made him angry. “We don’t need all that,” he said gruffly. “Christmas trees and wreaths on the damned door…next, I’ll find lace sewn on the edges of my damned underwear!”

  The thought of it made her giggle. She put up a hand to muffle her laughter, but he caught it savagely and pressed it against his chest.

  Her fingers felt the heavy rise and fall of his breathing. The hand at her back involuntarily drew her closer, and with a shock she realized that the closeness of her body was beginning to have a noticeable effect on him.

  Apparently he wasn’t anxious to have her know that, because he immediately loosened his hold so that several inches separated them.

  His eyes went down to the slender hand resting on his white shirtfront. His own hand touched it lightly, tracing the pale blue veins on its back, running over her long fingers.

  “You play something, don’t you?” he asked in a deep, slow drawl. “The piano?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “You have…lovely hands,” he murmured. His breathing was growing more ragged by the second. Slowly, almost absently, he flicked open two of the top buttons of his open-necked shirt and drew her fingers inside.

  She went rigid at the feel of him, at the hair-roughened warmth and strength of the hard muscles of his chest, just below his collarbone.

  His lips parted as he watched her hand against his body. He opened another button and guided her hand from one side of his chest to the other, letting her fingers rest finally on one rigid m
ale nipple.

  She hadn’t realized that it happened to men the way it happened to women, and she looked up with the discovery in her eyes.

  His eyes held hers for a long, static moment. He bent his head just enough for her lips to come within reach of his, and she could feel the banked-down fire in him like an imminent explosion.

  “Open your mouth, and fit it to mine,” he whispered in a deep tone that hypnotized her.

  She obeyed him in silence, a thick silence that throbbed with new emotions, new knowledge. She stood up on her tiptoes, staring at his mouth, and opened hers very slowly.

  Holding her breath, she fitted her lips exactly to his hard, open mouth, and a gasp caught in her throat at the exquisite sensations that rippled through her body.

  His breath mingled with hers, coming quick and harsh. Both his hands moved to her waist and lifted her gently up against his hard body while his mouth slowly increased its intimate pressure.

  Her hands, both of them exploring his hard chest now, tangled in the thick mat of hair over the warm muscles and pulled, like a kitten kneading a soft cover in pure pleasure. He moaned sharply, and his mouth was suddenly demanding, hungry and relentless, forcing hers into a deeper union that drew a moan from her own mouth. She slid her hands up around his neck and pressed her breasts hard against his chest. She felt as though she were drowning in new and exquisite pleasures.

  All at once he set her back down on her feet and stood glaring at her, his face showing mingled anger and reluctant satisfaction.

  She drew away from him, surprised that he let her, and turned back to the table. “Katy…and I are going to services in a few minutes,” she said, shaken. “Would you like to go with us?”

  “No, I would not.”

  If she hadn’t been so shaken, she might have noticed the rasping sound of his voice, the quickness of his breath, which betrayed how moved he’d been. But she didn’t, and he turned away.

  “I’m going out for dinner,” he said coldly. “You can gush over Katy all by yourself!”

  “She’s your daughter, Jude,” she said, her voice soft and hurt and shaking.

  He stopped, his back to her, and said something rough. “I can’t stay here with you,” he ground out after a minute.

  That was deliberately cruel, but she didn’t react.

  “Don’t worry, Katy and I will be out of the house for at least two hours,” she retorted.

  “I’d still rather go to town. I’ve had about all the high society I can stand,” he added before he slammed out the door.

  She turned her back and went toward the kitchen to see how Aggie was coming with supper. But she hesitated outside the door and dried the tears that insisted on falling, no matter how hard she tried to stop them.

  She put on a happy face for Katy, making some excuse about an unexpected business meeting that Jude had to attend. It pacified the little girl, but her disappointment showed. She had her long hair brushed around her shoulders, and she was wearing the ruffled pink dress Bess had bought for her. She looked so lovely. And Jude didn’t even care enough to stay and see her. Bess could have shaken him.

  Later, when it was bedtime, Katy came into Bess’s room and they sat in their nightgowns on Bess’s bed while the older woman told her about Christmases at the Georgia estate where she grew up.

  “Do you miss your mother a lot?” Katy asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I miss her terribly. But she was very sick and she’s so much better off.”

  “She’s in heaven,” Katy said, understanding. She held Bess’s hand. “You aren’t sorry you came here, are you? You aren’t sorry you married Daddy?”

  “No, I’m not sorry,” Bess said softly, and smiled. “Look what a beautiful daughter I got.”

  Katy blushed and grinned. “Bess, did you have parties at Christmas when you were a little girl?”

  “Not a lot of them,” Bess said, sighing. “But when my stepsister got big enough, her father insisted that she have them. She had lots of boyfriends.”

  “Did you?”

  Bess shook her head. “No, darling. I’m very plain, you know.”

  “Daddy doesn’t think so,” Katy said. “I heard him tell Mr. Teague that you were a vision. Doesn’t that mean pretty?”

  “There are different kinds of vision,” Bess said sadly, thinking Jude probably meant she was a nightmare. Remembering the way he’d kissed her downstairs, she went hot all over. Why had he done that?

  She stretched, bringing the elasticized bodice of her nightgown precariously low, but she didn’t notice. “Darling, I’m tired, and tomorrow is Christmas. Let’s get some sleep,” she told Katy. “Tomorrow we’ll make some roasted pecans to snack on, all right?”

  “All right,” Katy said, getting up. “Bess, I’m so glad you came to live with us.”

  “So am I,” Bess said, and was about to elaborate when Jude walked in.

  He hadn’t even bothered to knock, and he looked a little wild. His black hair was hanging untidily down on his forehead and his green eyes were hard and glittering.

  “Have a party?” he asked, his voice slightly slurred.

  “Just saying good night to each other,” Bess said, sitting up straighter even though the action brought her bodice still lower. She felt a sense of power at the expression that went over his hard features, and she didn’t follow her first impulse, which had been to pull up the slipping fabric.

  “Good night, Daddy,” Katy said, standing on tiptoe as he lowered his cheek so she could kiss him. “You should have come to church with us, it was lovely. The minister said I looked pretty,” she added, grinning. “‘Night, Bess.”

  “‘Night, darling,” Bess said, cringing inside when Katy went out with a wicked smile and deliberately closed the door behind her.

  “Church,” Jude growled. “And Christmas trees and turkeys and turning my damn house and my life upside down.” He was breathing roughly, and Bess suddenly realized that he’d been drinking.

  Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “The service was very nice,” she said after a minute. “And Katy did…look lovely.”

  “So did you,” he ground out, staring pointedly at her bodice. “All lace and ruffles…did you wear that thing deliberately?”

  She swallowed nervously. “What thing?”

  “That gown,” he said, moving closer to the bed with a little less than his usual elegance of movement. He sat down heavily beside her, still staring at the gown.

  “I…couldn’t have known…you’d come in here,” she managed through tight lips.

  “Oh, of course not,” he muttered, glaring at her. “But you let it slip deliberately, honey,” he added with a glittering smile. “You saw my eyes on you and you liked it.”

  He caught both her nervous hands in one of his and locked them together over her waist, pressing her back in a sitting position against the pillows. The other hand went to the elasticized bodice, and his eyes were suddenly cruel. “If you want me to look at you, Bess, you don’t have to play teenage games. Just tell me.”

  As he spoke, he ripped the bodice down to her waist, baring her small, taut breasts to his hot eyes.

  He stared down at them as if he had every right, letting his eyes take in each line, each soft curve, each contrast of color from soft pink to mauve.

  The hand holding hers tightened as he studied her, and his face went curiously rigid, leaving only his eyes to express his churning emotions.

  Bess couldn’t move. His intent stare kept her still. He was looking at her in a way no man ever had before, and there was an expression in his eyes that puzzled, excited. Her breath came in unsteady gasps while sensation after sensation washed over her like flames.

  Finally, finally, his eyes wandered back up to hers, to read the wonder and faint embarrassment in them.

  “Yes, you do like it, don’t you?” he asked curtly. “Haven’t you ever been like this with a man?”

  She shook her head slowly, but words were beyond her.

&nb
sp; His eyebrows rose slightly. “Never?” he asked, as if that were incomprehensible.

  “As you, yourself, said…my blessings are small,” she said in a whisper, turning her face away.

  “Don’t,” he breathed. He freed her hands and drew her face back to his eyes. “Don’t. You’re exquisitely formed, as delicate as the inside of a seashell, pink and cream….” He caught his breath as he looked back down at her body, his eyes fiercely possessive. “My God, I’ve never seen anything so sweet as this!”

  He’d been drinking, of course, she told herself as she watched him. But he was making her feel things she’d never experienced, and she loved having his eyes on her. She wanted him to bend down and put his mouth there, there.

  Her thoughts shocked her and she caught her breath.

  His eyes came back up to hold hers. “We’re married,” he reminded her quietly. “There’s no shame in this.”

  Her breath stopped in her throat. “Yes, I…I know,” she said.

  He reached out a gentle hand and touched her cheek, then eased his fingers into her hair. “You’re so young,” he said in the tenderest voice she’d ever heard him use. “So untouched by ugliness and pain. I should have had enough humanity left to keep you away from me.” He drew in an angry breath and stood up, standing rigidly with his back to her as he lit a cigarette.

  She lay there helpless, puzzled by words she didn’t understand. “Jude?” she asked softly.

  He turned, his eyes going helplessly to her soft bareness. They closed, almost painfully. “Oh, God, will you cover yourself up?” he asked under his breath as he turned away again. “I’ve had three neat whiskeys, Bess, and it’s been months since I’ve had a woman.”

  She tugged her bodice back in place with trembling hands. “And you don’t want me. You needn’t bother repeating it,” she said in a cool tone that hid her wounded pride.

  He actually laughed, but bitterly. “You might be surprised at the things I want, but I’m a realist these days. I know my own limitations.”