An Unlikely Lady Read online

  He pushed away from the wall and unfastened first one cuff, then the other. “So how’d a pretty girl like you wind up in a godforsaken place like this?”

  “They don’t call it Last Hope for nothing.”

  Jesse peered quizzically at her from under half-masted lashes. He would have pursued that remark, but again she steered the subject from herself.

  “You might want to test the water before you get in,” she said, gesturing toward the tub.

  After scooping his hand through the water and finding the temperature to his satisfaction, he finished unfastening his shirt and tossed it carelessly on one of the chairs.

  “Good cow feathers, what happened to you?”

  Jesse didn’t have to look at the weblike pattern above his heart to know what she referred to. “I had a fight with a Winchester and lost.” He unbuttoned his trousers and she whipped away to face the wall. Jess quirked his brow at her peculiar reaction. Hell, she acted as if she’d never seen a man undress before.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked, busying herself with the items on the bed.

  “Only when I breathe.”

  “You’re lucky you’re able to do that. An inch lower and you’d be dead.”

  “That was the plan.” He shucked his pants, then lowered himself into the steaming water with a sigh. The tub was almost too small to hold him; Jess had to fold his knees to his chest just to fit. “You can turn around now.”

  She peered over her shoulder, as if checking to see if it was safe, before lifting her chin and approaching to kneel behind him. He heard her lathering her hands, and a spicy scent mingled with the vapor rising up from the water. He nearly melted when her soap-slick palms glided across his upper back.

  “You’re a long way from Texas, cowboy.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Jesse asked, knowing full well that it was. Though he hadn’t been in the Lone Star state for several years, he’d discovered that the affected dialect seemed to open more doors for him than any other. Few seemed willing to question a Texan, especially one in the Stetson and spurs of a cowboy’s trade.

  “I recognize the accent.” She slid the rag across his shoulders, back and forth, her touch light and heavenly. “So what brings you to Last Hope?”

  “Just passing through.”

  “Unless I miss my guess, you do that often.”

  She must take fishing lessons from Rose. “Often enough.”

  “Are you a miner?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “An outlaw?”

  “No.”

  “A gambler?”

  That made him smile. “Only when it suits my purposes.” He wondered where she was heading with the conversation. Most sporting girls cared only how loud the jingle was in a man’s pocket. “Are you always this nosy?”

  “Only when it suits my purposes.”

  The sideways grin she gave him struck Jesse as so pure and innocent that a moment passed before he remembered that purity and innocence were hardly words that belonged in the same context as her profession.

  “Close your eyes so I can wet your hair.”

  He did as she bade, and as warm water tumbled over his head, a groan of pleasure rumbled up his throat. Damn, but that felt good. The scouring of her fingers against his scalp felt even better.

  Jess leaned back as far as his spine would bend and allowed himself to enjoy the full extent of her ministrations. Lilac perfume and a woodsy scent he recognized as patchouli thickened around him as fingernails gently scored his scalp from brow to nape. Her hands circled his neck, then ran across his shoulders and down his chest, taking extra care around the puckered scar.

  Oh, to hell with the meal—this bath was heaven itself.

  When he opened his eyes, he was treated to the delicious sight of Honesty’s breasts trying to push their way out of their tight confines. She had beautiful breasts, what he could see of them. Full. Firm. Flawless. Yep, definitely heaven, he thought with a smile.

  Just then a glitter of gold caught his eye. Languidly, he slid his forefinger beneath the chain and lifted an object from the valley it called home. A gold ring set with a small, oval-shaped ruby raised his eyebrows. “What’s this?”

  Soapy hands gently extracted the jewelry from his grip and dropped it between the pale swells. “A gift.”

  “You must be quite talented.”

  “From my father.”

  Even if the correction had called for a reply, the appearance of a straight blade in her hand warned Jesse against voicing it.

  “I hope you aren’t too fond of that scruff on your face, because you and it are parting company.” She gripped his chin between her thumb and forefinger. “I can’t abide whiskers.” Only then did Jess realize how rich a brown her eyes were, the color of hot chocolate—though right now they glittered with a determination that set his nerves on edge.

  She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and tilted her head first one way, then the other. The sight of those pearly whites nibbling on pink flesh had the temperature in the room rising several degrees. “Have you ever shaved a man before?”

  Perfectly arced eyebrows shot upward. “Do I look like a woman who has never shaved a man?”

  Put that way, shaving was no doubt a drop in the bucket of services she offered.

  The images that popped into Jesse’s mind would have made even the most seasoned harlot blush. Suddenly his skin became overly sensitive to the water, his senses acute to the woman beside him. The rasp of steel scraping away beard and her gentle breaths were the only sounds in the room.

  Normally he avoided bedding saloon girls; he well knew the kind of men who paraded in and out of their beds each night, and had no desire to take with him any souvenirs gained from a few minutes of pleasure.

  So the swift and gripping interest in bedding this one was odd—and a little unsettling.

  It had to be the whiskey dulling his wits, not her flowery-fresh fragrance, so out of place among the smells of steam and spice and whiskey and sweat. Not the glossy brown-gold curls piled atop her head. Not the beads of bath water dotting her skin.

  Closing his eyes, Jess reined in the desire climbing through his veins and forced himself to think of something—anything—other than the woman kneeling over him.

  His mother. Thinking of his mother should overcome this damnedable weakness he had for soft skin and sweet scents. Hoping the old trick would serve its purpose, he called forth an image of Rowena Randolph as he’d last seen her, standing on a depot platform in Cheyenne, Wyoming, recruiting other suffragettes to close down a bordello. He’d just about succeeded when a soft gasp echoed through the room.

  He opened his eyes and found Honesty staring at him in wonder. “Oh, my lands . . . you’re beautiful!”

  His brows shot up. “Beautiful?”

  Her cheeks turned a becoming pink, and she self-consciously dabbed at his freshly shaven face with a damp cloth. “You needn’t act so surprised. I’m sure people tell you that all the time.”

  “Not if they want to live,” he said with a sardonic twist to his mouth. Beautiful sounded far too feminine, and much too much like the derogatory names thrown at him all his life by his own gender. Angel-face, pretty boy, buttercup . . . and those were the polite ones.

  Of course, as Jess had gotten older, he’d learned to close his ears to the slurs and use his looks to his own advantage: women seemed to appreciate them, and men were so busy underestimating him because of them that they never realized how much danger they were in until it was too late.

  Strangely enough, coming from her, the comment sent a surge of warmth through his chest instead of the usual resentment, a rush of power—as if she could pay him no higher compliment. It didn’t make a lick of sense. Hell, for all he knew, it could be part of her routine. All harlots had one; some were just better than others.

  And Honesty was infinitely better than most, he decided, when her hand delved beneath the water. Her fingertips grazed his hips, and Jesse couldn’t decide if it wa
s a designed move to arouse or an innocent mis-aim. Either way, it had hot blood centering in his groin. He seized her hand under the water in a tempered grip. “Do you tend to all your customers so thoroughly?”

  She blinked. “Rose said to oblige your every whim.”

  His every whim, huh?

  Well, why the hell not? When a man found himself stranded with a beautiful, willing woman, he shouldn’t complain. He should fall on his knees and thank the gods.

  How long had it been since he’d lost himself in a soft, warm body? Too damn long, now that he thought about it. After two months of diligent tracking, didn’t he deserve a night off? And if that night included being pleasured by the prettiest sporting girl this side of the Rocky Mountain Range, he’d consider himself richly rewarded. “Honesty?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve got a whim that needs obligin’.”

  He dragged her hand to his hard shaft. Dark eyes widened in alarm, she sucked in a breath, and her entire body went tighter than a lodge-pole pine . . .

  For a moment Jess wondered how experienced she could be at pleasuring a man, when she acted as if she’d never touched one before.

  Then her fingers closed snugly around him, and he couldn’t think at all.

  “Ah, God!” he gasped, sinking back against the rim of the tub, pushing himself further into her palm.

  As if emboldened by his body’s reaction, her hand moved up, then down. “My, my, that’s quite a loaded weapon you’re packin’,” she drawled in that red-velvet voice.

  Stars burst behind Jesse’s eyelids and every last drop of blood in his body seemed to rush to his groin. The air around them grew hot enough to peel the hide off an armadillo.

  He gritted his teeth and fought for control. “You keep touchin’ me like that and it won’t stay loaded for long.”

  She licked her lips again, and seeing that pink tongue sliding across the seam of ripe flesh proved his undoing. With a half-groan, half growl, he cupped the back of her neck and dragged her face down to his.

  The instant their lips met, light exploded into tiny shards behind Honesty’s eyes. She couldn’t deny that she’d been kissed before; over the last few months, there’d been more than she wished to count, and most of them had been like this—demanding and possessive and self-satisfying.

  None of them had ever rocked her down to her corset strings.

  As his mouth devoured hers Honesty tried to call upon the methods Deuce had taught her over the years to fend off overly bold advances but not a one came to mind. Even if any had, she didn’t think she could muster the strength to use them. Her heart pounded so loud she swore he could hear it; her hands felt sweaty and clammy at the same time. A wild craving unfurled low in her belly, a restless urgency she could neither define nor fight.

  Honesty moaned and leaned closer into him. She’d never dreamed a kiss could be so. . . . enjoyable. His tongue felt like velvet sliding across hers and the pressure of his lips as enticing as paradise.

  He shifted, and Honesty realized that she hadn’t yet moved her hand. She’d never touched a man’s. . . . privates before—she’d always managed to keep the game from going that far. But as Honesty once again stroked his stiff organ, she marveled at the texture of him. He bucked his hips, fueling a sense of power and control she’d never felt before. His fingers tightened in her hair; his tongue followed the rhythm set by her hand, driving into her mouth, then retreating. And she thrust back, tasting whiskey and soap and man . . . oh, so much man.

  Driven by an insane need to touch him, she dragged her palm past the soft, wet hair that nestled at the core of him up to a stomach rigid with muscle, then glided up the tight, slick wall of his chest. How could she have ever thought him scrawny? Lean, yes, but hardly scrawny. There was no mistaking the solid ridges of muscle beneath her fingers.

  His kiss gentled then, his mouth no longer bruising, his tongue no longer aggressive. It slid across hers with maddening leisure, coaxing, teasing, tasting; magnifying her awareness of his power and her weakness. Then he drew her tongue into his mouth and. . . .

  Oh, God.

  Sensations swept through her in kaleidoscopic colors—the blue of desire, red of fire, purple of need . . . she plunged her fingers into his soapy hair, gripping the back of his head, if only to ground herself from the dizzying assault.

  “Damnation, but you taste sweet,” he murmured against her lips.

  He tasted like . . . a summer storm.

  Reeling, Honesty’s head felt too heavy to support, and fell back. He took that as an invitation to blaze a hot path down her neck with his mouth. Her limbs turned to liquid, her blood to lava. Her breathing grew so ragged she feared she would faint.

  “And your skin is so soft . . .”

  And his was so . . . hot. She’d go up in flames if he kept this up.

  But she’d die if he stopped. Everywhere his lips touched, her skin burned. Down the cords of her neck, along the ridge of her collarbone, across the slopes of her breasts . . . They strained against her dress, growing so heavy and painful she could hardly bear it. In a daze, she watched as he gave the scooped neckline of her chemise a fierce tug; one breast spilled out over the top of her corset and eagerly filled his hand.

  His mouth latched onto her nipple and Honesty nearly came out of her skin. Her fingers gripped his slick shoulders, her leg lifted over the rim of the tub. She hardly noticed that the toes of her slippers dipped into the water, or that splotches of water stained her skirts. She knew only an intense need to be rid of the restless, aching feeling Jesse had created inside her.

  “Enough—I want inside you now.”

  The words, raw and determined, reached past the fog and slapped her like a sheet of cold rain. Honesty stilled instantly; she glanced down at the top of Jesse’s head.

  Oh, God . . . what was she doing?

  Her mind spun back to the moment it all began. If any other man had taken such liberties, she’d probably have clubbed him over the head with the closest chair. But Jesse had the strangest ability to make her forget the role she played and remind her that beneath the sportinggirl guise beat the heart of a woman.

  Breathless, she pulled back, knowing that if she didn’t put some distance between herself and this tub full of temptation, she’d never regain control of the situation. “How about we take this to drier ground?” she suggested in a ragged whisper.

  His grip tightened. Eyes impossibly thick-lashed and such a rich shade of green they put mountain aspens to shame studied her with a twinkle of mischief. His hand swept under her skirt and slid up her stockings, past her garter, and curled around the back of her thigh, his fingertips mere inches from the damp heat of her. “What’s the matter, darlin’—afraid of gettin’ a little wet?”

  Honesty’s breath caught at the bawdy remark. She didn’t know whether to laugh or spit in his face. Alarmingly, she couldn’t find the will to do either. Oh, why did he have to be so blasted handsome? Earlier, with his hair in soapy tangles, shaving cream and bits of whiskers smeared all over his face, he’d hardly been an appealing partner. But with the grime washed away, his hair had turned the light blond of a sunbeam and fell across his shoulders in tumbling disarray. Brows a shade darker arced above those smoldering eyes, and lines extending from the corners suggested that he spent a lot of time either laughing or squinting into the sun. His nose was straight bridged and narrow, and below was the most perfect set of lips, the lower slightly fuller than the upper, that she’d ever seen in her life.

  She licked her own lips, swollen from his kisses, and peered at him through lowered lashes in what she hoped was an inviting manner. “I just don’t think this li’l ole tub is big enough for the both of us.”

  She pulled free of his hold once again. This time he made no move to stop her, but his hot, hungry stare bored into her back as she crossed the room. Honesty forced herself to remember her role and put a saucy swing into her step, hoping he couldn’t see how badly her knees knocked together.


  Once at the dresser, she pressed her hand against her breast, closed her eyes as she quickly pulled up her chemise, and released a slow, pent-up breath. How had the tables turned so quickly? She was supposed to have been seducing him senseless, not the other way around! Good gravy, the whole purpose of working in places like the Scarlet Rose was to get money! How could she hope to hire an escort without funds to pay him?

  It was definitely time to put an end to this little charade.

  She threw a quick glance over her shoulder. Much to her relief, he was bowed over in the tub, pouring a bucket over his head to rinse away any remaining suds. Honesty quickly slipped a trembling hand into her skirt pocket and withdrew her “secret to a man’s greatest pleasure.” The packet of powders had come in handy more times than Honesty cared to remember. “Would you care for another whiskey?” she asked, amazed that she could even talk for the tumult inside her.

  “I’ve had enough, thanks.”

  “Surely you won’t make a lady drink alone.”

  With determined movements, she poured them both a glass of whiskey from the bottle Rose always kept in the night stand, then watered down the contents in her glass. She’d never had much tolerance for spirits, and getting soused would quite defeat her purpose.

  But as she opened the packet and lifted it to the rim of his glass, she found herself fighting a sudden impulse to toss the powders aside. Take the passion Jesse offered, and hang the consequences. For the first time in her life, a man’s attention was less like a bullet to dodge and more like an adventure to savor. Did it really matter that this gorgeous cowboy would be gone tomorrow? In fact, wouldn’t it be better if she didn’t have to see him again?

  Then Deuce’s face appeared before her—laughing Scottish eyes, stern father’s mouth, and a truth left undiscovered—and she knew she could not let herself be diverted from her goal, even for one night.

  Honestly pressed her lips tightly together, dumped the powder into his whiskey before she changed her mind, then turned around—

  And nearly dropped their drinks. “Oh, m-m-my . . .”