Ace's Wild by Sarah McCarty

Author:Sarah McCarty [McCarty, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780373778300
Amazon: 0373778309
Goodreads: 17900128
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ONE STEP AT A TIME.

Her battle cry reflected back to her in this moment of peace. Petunia sat in the warm water, feeling the soothing rhythm of Ace’s steady breath, and the persistent pressure of his arousal, and wavered between calm and panic. Peace and turmoil. Ace summed up in one poignant moment. Frowning softly to herself, she drew her middle finger up his hand. He had to be exhausted—she knew she was—but instead of curling up with one of his lady friends in the saloon, he was here with her, coaxing her to where she didn’t want to go with the same sleight of hand he manipulated the cards with.

A woman had to admire a man like that. Probably as much as she should be scandalized by her own behavior at being with him so, but after the past twenty-four hours, she truly had nothing to lose. Her reputation was forever ruined. At least here where it was known. She could run naked through the streets and all it would do was refer people back to the bigger scandal of her abduction. For the rest of her days, she’d be the schoolteacher with whom the Comanche had had their way. Nothing she could ever do on her own would top that.

Ace hummed in his throat and turned his hand. She stroked her finger over his palm as she mulled that reality over. It was oddly...freeing.

Ace’s grip shifted. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m forever ruined now.”

His growl was rich in her ear. “The hell you are.”

She added two more fingers to her stroking. “However do you manage to be so successful in gambling when your emotions are so easily provoked?”

He snugged her up a little tighter. “The rest of the world doesn’t provoke me.”

She sighed and accepted the truth no one else likely would. “It’s all right, you know. I don’t mind.”

“Damn it, woman.”

She twisted and leaned back just far enough so she could see his expression. It was tight and about as stubborn as she felt inside. “I don’t. Having nothing to protect means I also have nothing to lose.”

With a slight shake of his head, he asked, “Is that what you’ve been...quiet about all night?”

“A little.”

The hiss of his breath tickled her ear. “You need to stew some more if that’s the fool notion you came to.”

“There were other things.”

His hand moved against hers, and when they aligned, he wove his fingers through hers, anchoring her. “Like what?”

She thought she’d known all there was to know about the violence in the world, seen all there was to see, prepared herself for the increased frequency in the West, but she hadn’t realized there was no preparing oneself for the raw reality. It was scary, terrifying, actually, to know that you could be plucked from your life at any random moment into a world where you had no control and then just as quickly plucked out of the evil and dropped back into your life as if that transition hadn’t happened.

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