Breathless(76)

“Hey, Eddy. What can I do for you?”

“This came today.”

She handed Portia an envelope. “It’s from Corinne. The Pinkerton detective I hired found her.”

Portia beat down her trembling. “Do I want to read it?”

“No, but you should.”

Filled with dread, Portia slipped the single sheet of vellum from the envelope and read. E. Do not contact me again. Have a good life now. No desire for the old. Make this clear to Portia and Regan. I repeat. Do not contact me again. C.

“I guess that’s that,” Portia said softly.

“I’m sorry, honey.”

Portia nodded. “Thank you, Eddy. I’ll move on with my life.”

“As will we all.”

After her aunt’s departure, Portia walked over and closed the door. With her back against it, she surrendered to the emotion and silently wept.





Chapter Eighteen




While June would be remembered for its sadness, July brought joy. Mr. Nogales finished the house and she and Kent moved in on the first day of the month.

As they marveled at how beautiful and spacious the new house was, Kent said, “I think we should christen the place by making love in every room.”

She laughed.

“I’m serious, and once the rooms are marked we start with all the flat surfaces. I think I’d like to have you laid out on the kitchen counter wearing nothing but your garters while I lap you up.”

Having gone to paradise and back with him so many times, she thought she’d lost the ability to blush, but she hadn’t.

“So . . .” He walked over to her and loosely laced his arms around her waist. He brushed his lips over her neck. “Where shall we start?”

They started right there in the parlor where they were standing. Her clothes were slowly removed, piece by piece, and in the end he laid her down on his shirt and took her in the center of the room on the newly installed and polished pine floor.

“This is a two-for-one romp,” he said, pulling her atop him. “We’re in the parlor and on a flat surface.”

She looked down into his face. “Whatever am I going to do with you?”

“Not sure,” he said, “but how about you start by riding this?” She complied, and as he slipped inside, she rode him until he roared.

Over the next few days, they’d christened nearly every room in the house and topped it off in the washroom, where he took her first against the wall and then in the large claw-foot tub. He’d loved her so thoroughly she vaguely remembered being dried off and carried to the bed, but nothing more.

Portia had never been treated to breakfast in bed—she’d always been too busy making sure the hotel’s guests were the ones to enjoy that treat. So when she was awakened by his entering the bedroom, tray in hand, she was delighted. On the tray was an omelet spiced with peppers along with bacon, grits, and toast. “I think I may keep you,” she said, showing him a smile.

“After all the lovemaking we’ve been doing, I know I’m keeping you. Though I still have to have you in the kitchen and in your office.”

“We’re not making love in my office.”

He laughed. “I ordered that desk for you to work at and for me to bend you over, so expect to be ambushed when you least expect it. We’ll call it The Bookkeeper and the Naughty Cowboy Husband.”

She dropped her head. He was unbelievable, and yes, all hers.

He kissed her softly. “You agreed to be my wife. This is part of the benefits. I’m going to see to the horses.”

“Good-bye.”

He tossed her a wink, put on his hat, and left.

Alone, she chuckled softly and began eating. The image of herself bent over the desk with him behind her crept into her mind. As it continued, her senses flared, and she decided she might enjoy being ambushed by the naughty cowboy husband.

And she did. Two days later, reaching for the Nogaleses’ ledger, she accidentally knocked over the tin cup holding her pencils. It slid off the front edge of the desk spilling the pencils all over the floor. Momentarily irritated by her clumsiness, and because she had to get out of the chair to retrieve them, she walked around, picked up the cup, filled it with the pencils again and set it back in its spot. Standing in front of the desk, she was about to walk back to her chair when she spotted a lone pencil that had not made it to the floor. As she reached over to grab it, she heard, “Good afternoon, Miss Bookkeeper, and don’t you dare move.”

She dropped her head and laughed softly. Ambushed.

He came up behind her and whispered, “Perfect timing.”

While Kent vividly described all the naughty things the cowboy planned to do, her skirt was slowly raised and her drawers slowly lowered and taken. Then his hands began a slow dance of arousal. He reached around and undid the buttons on her blouse and soon her breasts came out to play. “I should visit you in here every day.”

Portia whimpered with pleasure.

He filled her, coaxed her into the age-old rhythm, and as the pace increased she bent forward to grab the edges of the desk. “Yes, just like that,” he rasped.

Soon pencils spilled to the floor along with ledgers and books, and she didn’t care as long as he didn’t stop. Her pleasure climbed, his strokes became stronger, and the sounds of mutual desire grew louder. Portia lost track of time, her name, and everything else that seemed to matter before he’d entered a few moments ago. Her naughty cowboy was so very wicked, she shattered on a scream and he followed her off the edge of the world with a roar.