that look that asked for the words. She blushed at the thought. But what choice did she have? This was her one chance, and she wasn’t done with it yet.
She had to struggle to find her voice and when she did, it was a breathy thread of sound that took the command out of her order. “Fix it.”
He didn’t seem to have the same trouble. His voice was deep and even and seductive in its calm. “You know our deal.”
This time it was her turn to growl but not with passion. “Not that.” Nipping his lip, she snapped, “This.”
Catching her chin in his hand, he held her still, his mouth just inches from hers. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t look away. God, she wanted him.
“Do you want my mouth, Pet?”
She nodded.
With a little jiggle of her chin, he snapped her gaze to his. “Not good enough. Do you want my mouth?”
Why did he have to be so demanding?
She nodded again, hoping it would suffice, not willing to give him everything, not understanding how he could resist the fire she could feel burning just beyond her reach. She could only imagine how good it would feel while he had to know.
His fingers rubbed against her nape; his thumb crept over her cheek, catching the corner of her mouth, pressing gently, forcing her lips to part naturally around it. She touched it with her tongue. His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared, but he didn’t give ground.
“If you want it, my Pet, you’re going to have to ask for it.”
“Kiss me.”
She’d thought he’d kiss her then, but though his eyes narrowed, all he did was hold her still and give another order, “Ask nicely.”
She wanted to stomp his toe. “Just kiss me.”
A tap on her cheek made her look up again. There was desire in the hard lines of his face and the softness of his mouth, but in his eyes...in his eyes was the will of a man who expected to be obeyed. A shiver she didn’t understand went down her spine. Between her legs, moisture gathered.
“Say it right,” he ordered.
He wanted her to beg. She wasn’t a begging woman, but the word slipped past her control, filling the silence between them with an import she didn’t understand. “Please.”
It was enough. With a curse that sounded like the sweetest music to her impatient ear, he stepped in, his hands sliding down her back, pulling her into his body, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, breast to chest, mouth-to-mouth. Oh, God, mouth-to-mouth. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer still. Another growl, and his mouth smoothed across hers. Against her groin, his erection pressed. Thick, hard and foreign. A shock at first followed by a soothing burst of pleasure. She had the urge to spread her thighs, to grind against him, but she couldn’t move, and even that was good. So good, and she was so hungry. The hot, wet touch of his tongue along the seam of her lips had her jumping again.
“Open.”
This order growled against her mouth didn’t annoy her at all. She opened, willingly, eagerly, joyfully, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears, it blocked out the world, and there was only him. Ace took advantage of her surrender, full, wonderful, glorious advantage, claiming her mouth in a single thrust of his tongue. She opened wider; he teased further. His breath became hers; his moan hers and hers his, she realized. It was a blending; it was a mating; it was a... She couldn’t find the word but the feeling. Oh, the feeling! It surged forward out of the most primitive part of her in an exultant burst of joy. Free at last; she was free. And just in that moment when she would have given that moment a name, Ace fisted his hand on her bun and pulled her mouth from his, leaving her aching as he stepped back.
For a second, Petunia couldn’t comprehend what had happened. The only things that kept her from tumbling were the wall at her back and his hand on her arm. She felt bereft and abandoned. Lost.
“You’ve got your deal.”
A slap to the face couldn’t have been more shocking than his withdrawal. The afternoon sun had sunk behind the buildings, and she felt the chill of the shadows sink into her bones, even as he took that second step away. For him, it had been nothing more than a kiss, probably one of thousands, but for her it had been a moment that shook her world in ways that was going to take days to figure out. She licked her lips, tasting him. Her breasts felt swollen and tender, and when she looked down, her nipples were evident through her clothes. She brought her hands up, only realizing the mistake of that when he laughed.
Jerking out of his grip, she felt her bun give and her hair fall around her shoulders. Petunia didn’t need to look into Ace’s face to know he’d only been amusing himself. He was who he was, and she was a fool.
“Bastard.”
He had the gall to smile. “I assure you, my parents were married.”
She hated that he could be so reasonable when she was fumbling just to get her tongue around words.
“Our bargain’s done?” she asked, yanking her jacket down and untangling her reticule from her wrist, pretending that her nipples weren’t still tingling, that her breath still wasn’t raspy, that her voice wasn’t a shadow of its former conviction.
Ace picked his hat up off the doorknob and settled it on his head as he nodded, studying her in a way that made her want to... She didn’t know what it made her want to do but whatever it was, it wasn’t what she was used to, and she didn’t want to explore it while he watched.
“You’ll give back the money?”
“I’ll handle it.”
She reached behind her for the door. She wanted away. He stopped her before she got her hand on the knob.
“Not that way.”
Her first instinct was to tell him to go to hell. Her second was to swear. He was right. She couldn’t go through the saloon. She didn’t want to go down the alley, either, but she didn’t have much of a option. He took her arm as she hesitated.
“You go that way, you won’t get home before dark.”
That was the truth. This late the streets started to get wild, and schoolmarm or not, a woman alone was easy prey for the miners and cowhands who flooded the town when they got a bit of gold dust in their pocket.
“Come.”
“Does everything you say have to come out an order?”
“Yes.”
Twisting her hair back up into a bun as she skipped to keep up, she muttered, “I don’t like it.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
She didn’t think so.
He steered her down the alley to two buildings over and opened a door. It was the mercantile; she should have thought of that herself.
He said, “Go through here.”
Part of her hoped
