A Fall From Grace. Mail Order Bride Western Page 22

  “It’s not a divorce, it’s an annulment,” said the marshal. “And he’s not a boy. Have you ever stopped to consider that Maybelle here may not want to be married to him?”

  Maybelle gave it some thought. If he hadn’t been such a jerk earlier to her, she would have found Rafe McElroy a handsome man. All the McElroy brothers – the four she counted so far—were broad shouldered men, of a nice height. They weren’t nearly as tall as the sheriff but they were fit and very strong-bodied.

  They were fresh-faced with dimples and magnificently white teeth. Near as Maybelle could tell, two of the brothers were married – well three, counting Rafe. Jake was not.

  Maybelle took a seat at the table as she was told and accepted the food that Fiona set before her. She was famished. She was dehydrated. Her own mother had been right. Liquor was the devil’s water. It parched her. She could not drink enough water to cure it.

  As hungry as she was, she was having a tough time eating. She ate slowly. Fiona sat across from her at the table with folded hands.

  “Not so pleasant, is it?” she lectured.

  “No ma’am,” replied Maybelle sullenly.

  “We waste a day’s chores making ourselves sick,” she continued softly.

  “Yes ma’am,” said Maybelle, sorry as she could be.

  “Now then,” she said. “I’ll have my daughters take you down to the stream so you can wash up. I think the brisk water is just what you need.”

  Gretchen and Merla McElroy very sweetly accompanied Maybelle so a quickly flowing but shallow stream that cut just beyond the barn through McElroy’s Bend. They walked a piece until they were certain there was privacy. Still, Maybelle wasn’t sure.

  Maybelle walked with the two women as though the three of them were old friends. It felt as though they were. They were warm and inviting and took her situation of having accidentally marrying their brother in law, in stride.

  The stream meandered. And in the crook of the turn there was a rock that provided much desired privacy. Still the sisters in law turned their backs and stood guard as Maybelle stripped down to her altogether.

  Fiona was absolutely right. The brisk water was welcomed to her whiskey fevered body. She dunked her head and forgot herself and floated. She never felt so free and opened. Her body was light as a feather. Her worries and cares did no matter. She felt so revived, she could sleep.

  She may have actually dozed while floating on her back. She squinted out the sun as a figure standing on the shore came into focus. Maybelle scrunched in the water covering herself as much as possible with a tangle of her arms. She stared as her gawker with alarm. Rafe.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Oh we are so sorry,” said Merla. “We got to talking and -”

  The damage was done. Rafe stood dazed at the sight of her.

  “I will be on my way as soon as I am able. I will thank you to kindly allow me to dress.”

  With a look of utter bewilderment, Rafe barely managed to tip his hat before leading his horse downstream.

  Maybelle counted to ten as she walked towards her sisters in law to dress.

  “We are deeply sorry,” said Merla again.

  But Maybelle was silent. She struggled to put clothes back onto her wet body and stomped off to the prairie to be alone.

  Chapter Four

  “Hey!” called a man’s voice. “Hey!”

  Maybelle had been walking some ten minutes when Rafe McElroy came up behind her on his horse.

  “Don’t you have chores to do?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he answered plainly.

  “I got thinking to do,” she said.

  “You’ll get lost,” he warned her.

  “It’s flat as a pancake out. I can see the house,” she said.

  And she turned around to look in the direction of the ranch house to make her point. She couldn’t find it.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Oh,” he nodded.

  Suddenly she felt very vulnerable with him out in the middle of nothing with his having seen her naked, especially.

  “May I speak with you?” he asked politely.

  Charm. Maybelle could feel it. And she braced herself for she was afraid she could not resist it.

  “Maybe,” she relented.

  Rafe climbed down from his horse.

  “You look different after a bath,” he began.

  His eyes were clear and dark. They were as focused now as they had not been when he was drunk.

  “You’re a funny man,” she said facetiously.

  Her face colored with a heated blush. She turned away from him so that he did not have the pleasure of beholding her coming undone. He had seen her stark naked. She had been floated with her legs drifted apart.

  Rafe stepped towards her. She automatically held up her hand to say stop.

  “Not another step closer,” she ordered.

  “Well we are man and wife,” he reminded her. “I could invoke my rights as a husband.”

  “Don’t you dare! Besides it ain’t official until you know,” she said.

  Her mother and she had intimate talks. Her mother explained to her all about consummation. And if that had happened, though much of the night before was a mystery, Maybelle was pretty sure she would remember.

  “Until what?” he asked, his voice as delicious as honey.

  Maybelle shivered. She wouldn’t be able to think straight if he kept that up. She also noted that despite her request, he moved closer. There was a good distance between them and yet she felt pressure. It was a thick, sultry feeling that the two of them created. It made her feel drunk again. She looked away as best she could but there was no avoiding him.

  “All I wanted to do was kiss you,” he said in a tone that melted her insides.

  She shrugged. She wanted to kiss him but she was too upset. Her future was all upside down.

  “I am sorry about your ma,” he said softly.

  Now he was being tender. Maybe might not have any will against that.

  “Will you stop?” she pleaded. “You made it very clear you don’t want to be married to me. You said yourself I tricked you. Why are you here?”

  It was a sweet agony to be so close to him.

  “Actually that is why I am here. I have decided I do want to be married to you. And I apologize again for my brash choice of words. Marshal was right. I got you liquored up. I led you to the preacher. It was I who tricked you. The least I could do is make an honest woman of you and an honest man out of myself.”

  While he was speaking, Rafe had closed the distance between them completely. He was a sneak. He gently braced her shoulders.

  “I know you got nowhere to go. I know your kin took you for all your money,” he said gently.

  “It was all I had,” she replied clenching her eyes shut.

  “Not all you had. I imagine you have so much more than money. Or worldly possessions. And I am suddenly impatient to know those things. I am suddenly impatient to know you.”

  The look in Rafe McElroy’s eyes was liquid smoke. A force traversed down his arms and out his hands into her body. Maybelle lurched with it. If he hadn’t been holding her, she might have stumbled.

  “I just met you last night,” she rasped.

  “You were going to marry a stranger,” he said with a touch of amusement in his voice. “A pretend one at that. I promise you I am very real. I am willing. And it won’t cost you a penny.”

  Though she was still not looking him in the eye, Rafe’s face filled her mind. She had memorized it. So handsome. So perfect. With the slightest bit of a smile curling his lips. She was still as he leaned to press his lips softly at the base of her neck.

  That was unbearable sugar. She lifted off and up to her tiptoes to withstand it. A noise escaped her lips as she released as quietly as she could manage. But she gave him no answer. He got the message.

  “Well you think on it,” he said. “If your decision is not to go through with the mar
riage, we have to know soon or it will be harder to undo.”

  He turned to head towards the ranch house. He only took a few steps when she blurted out.

  “Yes!” she said impulsively.

  Rafe turned on his heel with a grin wiping his face as he faced her. He rushed to her and lifted her up in the air. Maybelle felt light as a feather in his massively thick arms. He lowered her and kissed her slowly, sensually. He plied her lips with his wet warm tongue. Exploring. Possessing.

  He must have sensed she was new to kissing for he knew just the right amount to lavish upon her. He broke the kiss and beamed down at her. She blinked, trying to come back to earth.

  “Whisky has nothing on you, Rafe McElroy,” she muttered.

  He burst out laughing. He stroked her hair, bracing her love-limp body.

  “Ma said we can have the main house for our honeymoon,” he whispered. “You know, if you said yes. I figure the money I save on the hotel room I can use in Wichita.”

  Maybelle perked up.

  “Wichita?” she demanded.

  “I am going to hunt that cousin of your’n down and kick his ass,” he said. “Then I am going to thank him.”

  “He’s probably spent everything I gave him. Might not make any difference,” she said as she kicked herself one more time for being so dumb.

  “Oh I ain’t leaving him be. ‘Sides, marshal said what he did was a federal offense on account of he took you by sending you letters. Making you think he was your suitor,” said Rafe. “The boy is in some kind of trouble.”

  “Really now,” Maybelle replied, suddenly inspired with an idea. “Rafe we may have that hotel honeymoon after all.”

  “Do tell?” he said.

  “I say you tell my cousin he’s facing charges, he might cough up my money,” she said.

  “Worth a try. Depends on if the marshal is amenable,” he said.

  His voice was flirtatious. He gathered against the wall that was his hard body and pressed her tightly to him.

  “Baby,” he said. “Be warned. I don’t need a house nor a bed nor a hotel. You are about to get your honeymoon and then some.”

  His words made her hum and knocked all rational thought from her head. Her eyelids were heavy with passion for him. She half fainted as he closed in and devoured her delicate mouth with a smoldering kiss.

  Chapter Five

  Everyone in the McElroy family must have believed that Maybelle would agree to stay in the marriage for there was not soul around except for him when she made her way to the house. The table was set with a lovely dinner, dressed with a potted candle in the middle. The day was setting though there was plenty of light left. It simply had softened.

  Rafe eyed her from his side of the table like she was the main course. A moment of clarity fluttered through her mind that she had bitten off more than she could swallow. She thought it best to let him know where she stood. For her mother was excruciatingly clear about what happened between a man and a woman so Maybelle had no delusions about why Rafe looked the way he did.

  “I feel I must tell you,” she stuttered.

  “Yes,” he replied patiently.

  He stalked her as she stepped back.

  “I am a spinster,” she said.

  “No ma’am,” he answered. “You are a married woman.”

  “Well, what I mean is,” she stammered, “is I never been courted before. Not ever.”

  “Aw now that’s a shame,” he said.

  “It is?” she tilted her head.

  “Well every beautiful girl ought to be courted at least once,” he said stepping closer.

  “You think I am beautiful?” she asked, forgetting to step away.

  “’Bout the most beautiful woman I have ever seen or could hope to see,” he answered.

  Rafe was around the table now and Maybelle was a goner.

  “You know,” he said wickedly. “All this food can keep. That’s the beauty of ma’s cooking. It tastes better and better the more it sits.”

  “Oh good,” she replied nervously.

  Rafe slipped his large, powerful hand to the small of her back and pressed her to him.

  “Easy,” he murmured deliciously. “I got you.”

  He tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

  “No trembling now. We have all the time in the world,” he said.

  But Maybelle wasn’t sure if she was shaking because she was nervous or because she wanted him so. She really had no idea what to do next. So she waited for him to make his move.

  He brushed her lips with his so lightly that she thought she would faint. It was exquisite. He urged her mouth apart, slipping his tongue inside. Their tongues entwined, tasting and searching one another.

  Rafe grazed the tips of her breasts with his rock-hard chest, swaying back and forth in a slow dance. As he rocked them back and forth by degrees, his hands roamed her. They glided slowly down to the small of her back.

  He pressed his powerful palms to cup her buttocks. He arms caged her against him. She melted as he felt her up. His fingers stole into the crevice of her cheeks. He slipped further and deeper to the entrance of her sex.

  Through her clothing, he teased and her stroked and introduced her to the idea of being entered. Dampness flowed where he touched her. His prodding and poking only made her squirm with incredible emptiness. And such need.

  The arousal between them was thick. It sucked Maybelle’s ability to see straight, to walk straight. Fortunately Rafe gathered her up in his iron-hard arms and carried her into the bedroom.

  It was a lovely room, crisp and clean. The bed was made up with fine linens and the folds in the bedding were straight and sharp. The light through the bedroom window was muted with a gauzy curtain. A hotel room would not have been more romantic.

  Rafe set her gently on the bed. They sat side by side each other. He took her hand. He was trembling and his palms, like hers, were slightly damp.

  “I know this is all sudden,” he said. “Accidental like. But I want you to know, I will be true to this marriage. I don’t have to remember having said vows to feel that they have bound us together.”

  Rafe’s words took Maybelle by the surprise. They were as intoxicating to her as his kisses were, as the surge of tingles she got from holding his hand. She struggled for a clear mind to reply.

  “I will be a good wife,” she promised.

  “Maybelle McElroy,” he said. “You already are.”

  He stroked her hair. How his fingertips could send wires of sparkling pleasure throughout her body, Maybelle was in awe. Parts of her body were particularly affected by his contact. Her nipples were pins and needles and so hard against her bodice. The blood was definitely flowing to her breasts. They felt swollen and aching.

  And the aching between her legs. She found herself drawing up tight to address it. She had the animalistic urge to sit on his lap. These needs and desires were telling her what to do. She wondered if it was the same for him or did he just know?

  Rafe’s finger tips lightly trailed the curve of her neck. They pushed away her neckline from her shoulder, baring a place for him to kiss. The heat from his breath at sensitive hollow where her neck flowed into her shoulder made her growl. She was possessed with a force that lifted her from the bed and caused her to push into his body.

  He guided her to lie back. He smiled down at her, soaking in her face as his eyes swept her body. He fixed onto the buttons of her dress. Like a practiced expert, his fingers flew across her buttons and unfastened each one. She fell out of her dress.

  Maybelle was a heavy breasted woman for being otherwise petite. She was somewhat self-conscious of it. They seemed so obvious. They were certainly obvious now. The look on Rafe’s face as he gazed upon them was one of immediate adoration. He loved them. His giant palm swam them, the heat of his hands were delicious. He tweezed her nipples through the callous-rough finger tips. He pinched them with just enough force to pleasure her.

  Saturated with need for him, Maybell
e arched towards him, jutting his ribs at him. He lowered his face to her flat belly and penetrated her bellybutton with his tongue. He touched the tip of his tongue to the torturously sensitive center of it. Maybelle clenched up tight at her core in response.

  She drew up causing her pelvis to grind again him. Rafe laughed softly at her. In several sweeps, he brushed up her skirt to bare her legs and lower body. He knew a woman’s garments. He took hold of her bloomers and in a single swift move, removed them from her. The air was cool on her body. She was not often bare skinned.

  Rafe pushed her thighs apart which was easy to do. They were in motion as she was squirming with impatience. He touched her dewiness. His fingers explored the lips of her body, kneading them, touching their every surface.

  He landed on the bud nestled there. As he pressed and moved his fingers back and forth, the level of their animal heat rose. Maybelle was bolding begging him with her body to do something for her. To take her.

  She closed her eyes trying to navigate the pleasure. So she could not have seen it when he put his mouth between her legs. The wickedness of what he was doing, was a mental overload for her. The feel of his hot tongue inside of her was so naughty, so delicious, if she wasn’t doing her wifely duty, Maybelle was sure she would be damned. She felt blessedly spared.

  She cocked her knees back towards her chest baring herself for him. He reared up and pulled the shirt from his body and lowered his pants. He felt over her, bracing himself in pushup position.

  He kissed her lazily. She beamed up at his wondrously handsome face. She pressed her hand gently to his cheek. He took hold of himself, still gazing into her eyes, and levered himself to the entrance of her body.

  It was strange to feel the soft yet hard head of his manhood inside of her. He was patient and slow, allowing her to adjust. He moved into a little more. She took a deep breath. He rotated his hips, swirling himself. She pushed her hips up, exhilarated by the stimulation. He pressed the sensitive nub between her legs as he moved. He took her mouth.

  While their faces were a steamy union, shrouded by his tousled hair and hers, Rafe pushed into her body as far as he could go. Maybelle cried out against his lips with the pain of it. Her mother had told her about this. She breathed and she waited. And so did he. He strummed her hips with his fingertips, reviving her arousal.