Caine's Reckoning. Sarah McCarty

a cold night and while Caine might be big and arrogant, he was warm. She leaned toward the blankets, forgetting her injuries. Stiff muscles and her bruised rib immediately protested.

      “Shoot. I forgot about that.” The blankets were removed from her grasp. A broad palm rubbed small circles on her back as if he thought to absorb her pain through his touch. “You just take your time getting comfortable, and I’ll take care of the covering.”

      He said that as if he were being perfectly reasonable, but no matter how he couched it, it was an order and it drove home the fact that he expected her to obey. The knowledge that there was nothing she could do about it ate at her defiance, because once all the settling was done, he’d want to be getting on to other things. Intimate, unpleasant things that were now her duty. God help her.

      He tucked the blanket over her shoulder. “Now, what thought just made you stiffen up?”

      If he didn’t know, she wasn’t telling him. “Nothing.”

      His sigh blew over the top of her head. “Are you back to worrying that I’m ornery in bed?”

      “I don’t want to talk about it.”

      He pulled her forearm up, dislodging her elbow from his bicep. “Doesn’t appear to me that either of us are going to get comfortable enough to sleep without it.”

      A muffled chuckle from across the fire alerted her to how that low drawl of his carried. “Hush.”

      “I’ll hush if you’ll talk.”

      “Fine. What do you want to know?”

      “I want to know what has you scared.”

      Her shiver had nothing to do with the wind as memories swamped her. “I just don’t like being with a man.”

      “Because it goes against your beliefs, or because of what you’ve been taught?”

      “We’re married, it can’t be against my beliefs.”

      “I got news for you, Gypsy, many a woman feels it’s wrong to enjoy her husband.”

      “I can understand that.”

      His finger under her chin tipped her face up. “I can see where you’d have reason to fear a man who’s hurt you, but, Gypsy, I’ve never hurt you.”

      Yet. The immediate tag to his assertion lingered in her mind. She just barely kept it from her lips. His hand tilted. Instead of letting her go like she expected, he swapped his fingers for his thumb, the latter brought to rest against her lips, brushing lightly. The fire had died down to the point it was just a small flicker. The faint light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate where they lay.

      “And that’s the hitch in your git-along, isn’t it, Desi? You don’t have any idea who I am, or what to expect, so your mind’s just leaping from one awful possibility to the next.”

      “You’re a man.”

      “And you’re a woman, that should make us more compatible rather than less.”

      “Maybe I just need more time.”

      His thumb made another of those lazy passes that tickled the edges of her lips and sent little tingles radiating outward. “Time can be a funny thing, Gypsy. You think it’s your friend, but when it comes to fears, it’s your worst enemy. You leave a scare to time’s tending, and rather than making it go away, time turns it bigger and meaner than reality could ever be.”

      “So you say.”

      His thumb made another pass across her lips, following the swells and dips as if testing the shape of her words. “I know what it’s like to be scared, Desi.”

      The “Huh?” escaped before she could contain it. The man was as big as a mountain, had more muscle than a blacksmith and had a reputation that would terrify a hardened gunslinger. What did he know of fear?

      “I wasn’t always this big, and there was a time I knew so little about fighting, you could probably have whupped me with one hand tied behind your back.”

      “I can’t imagine that.”

      “Then you’re just going to have to take my word for it the same way you’re going to have to accept I have a reason to start as I mean to go on.”

      Because he didn’t see any reason to wait. Because he wanted her. Because she was his and men liked to stake their claims. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, and he was right, she was darned sick of dreading it.

      Desi hauled her skirt out from under his thigh and threw herself onto her back. Yanking her skirts up, she spread her legs. Every bit of rage she felt at being, yet again, at a man’s mercy ripped out, along with her snarl. “Then get it over with.”

      He came over her, a large black shadow, deeper than the night, scarier, more intense. Her breath caught in her lungs. A fine tremble started in her gut and spread outward, consuming her limbs, ending in her fingers and toes. Dear God, what had she invited?

      “Is that what they wanted, Desi? For you to lie there like a doll for them to play with?”

      His whisper was scarier than his looming. His whisper wanted to delve, ferret out her past, her weaknesses. “It doesn’t matter.”

      There was a long pause. Something touched her cheek, and she shrieked. She was wound so tightly she couldn’t contain it.

      A voice intruded into their private battle.

      “Just so you know, Desi, I don’t hold the bond between man and wife sacred.”

      Sam’s low, cold drawl reached across the fire and the implication had the blood rushing from her head so fast she felt as if she were falling. Except she couldn’t because she was already down. She worked her hand out of the confines of the blanket, grabbing Caine’s wrist. “Please.”

      Caine’s snarl was as chilling as the wind. “Shut the hell up, Sam.”

      “The lady needs to know she has options.”

      Oh God, she didn’t want any more options. One man to deal with was more than enough.

      It grated, but if begging saved her from being passed around, even for one night, she’d take it. There were times when pride wasn’t worth the price to keep it. “Please. I’ll do what you want,” she whispered to Caine. She glanced across the clearing to the shadow that was Sam. “don’t call him over. don’t make me…”

      “Fuck.”

      The epithet tore through her like a shot. She clung tighter, wishing it were lighter so she could see whether her begging was having any effect. “Please—”

      Caine’s hand came over her mouth, cutting off the plea. She could feel his stare as clear as a touch, his “My wife doesn’t beg, got it?” She nodded slowly. His hand left her mouth slowly.

      “Sam, if you don’t elaborate in the next two seconds, I’m coming over there and kicking your ass.”

      Desi ran her tongue across her lips, tasting the salt of his skin and the bitterness of her fear.

      “Just saying the lady doesn’t have to suffer thinking there isn’t anyone here who won’t stand for her if she wants it.”

      He couldn’t mean what she thought.

      But he did. Caine confirmed it. “Sam’s offered you his protection, do you want to take it?”

      Was it a trick?

      “You’d just let me go?”

      “Hell, no, but you’re free to take him up on his offer.”

      Some choice. Caine or Sam. Wife or whore. “You’d fight your friend?”

      “What’s mine stays mine, Gypsy.”

      Oh, yes, he’d fight. Not because he loved her or wanted