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A flash of frustration crossed his expression as he set her down next to their bed. “A stove.”
“A stove?” Maddie took a step back as her annoyance increased. “Why on earth would you buy a stove?”
He sat down on the bed—which now hosted a mattress he’d hauled from town a couple of weeks ago—and tugged off his boots. “Because the days are already getting shorter—in a month or so we’ll need the heat.”
She knew all that, yet a stove had to have cost a fortune. A fortune they didn’t have. “You’re right,” she said, “that we don’t need to unload it. You can take it back tomorrow. We’ll just dress warmer.”
“Dressing warmer won’t do, Maddie.” He stood and shrugged out of his shirt.
The sight was as terrifying as it was pleasurable. He knew it, too, how easily distracted such things made her. Afraid of losing steam, she insisted. “We don’t need a stove.” Putting space between them, she crossed the room. “What we need is gold. At the rate you’re spending it, we’ll be in Alaska for years.”
“No, we won’t,” he said. “I haven’t spent an ounce of the gold we’ve found, but while we are here, I want us to be as comfortable as possible.”
It was true, he hadn’t spent any of the gold they’d found. That bothered her more than if he had. From all Jack had told her, Lucky had enough money and really didn’t need any gold, which meant he didn’t need her, either. “Gold mining isn’t supposed to be comfortable,” she said.
He’d crossed the room and pulled a paper-wrapped package out of one of the packs he’d carried in. “Here, maybe this will make you smile.”
Maddie didn’t want to smile. She didn’t want a stove, either, or to be comfortable. Lately, she wasn’t overly sure what she did want. Maintaining a focus on finding gold had grown hard, and dreaming of a future had grown blurry, too. He was the reason. Having what they had right now was what she wanted. Just being together. But that wasn’t enough for him, and would never be. The way he kept buying stuff told her that.
Snapping the strings in two, he folded back the paper and then lifted out material, as yellow as sunshine, before her eyes. Her heart convulsed. It was a dress. The most beautiful one she might have ever seen. It had lace, too, thin and delicate, sewn in a V shape down the front and around the hem and cuffs. With smarting eyes, Maddie looked away.
“I don’t need a new dress, Lucky. Whenever would I wear something like that?”
“Whenever you want.”
“One trip to the river and the entire hem would be stained,” she said, “and it probably doesn’t wash well, either, and most likely needs to be ironed.”
“Then, I’ll buy you an iron.”
She walked away again, this time toward the bed. He’d turned her into a woman. That was what he’d done. At little more than a drop of a hat tears formed in her eyes, and she didn’t like that any more than she did everything else. A woman. A silly woman who thought about nothing more than fancy dresses and places to wear them.
“Why do you have to be so stubborn about everything?”
The despondency in his voice struck her in her most vulnerable spot. Her heart. Shaking her head, she admitted, “I’m not trying to be stubborn.”
He was behind her again and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Then, what is it?”
Even while mixed up and confused, his hands felt wonderful. Fighting tears, she admitted, “I don’t know how to iron.”
“I’ll iron it for you.” He spun her around and wiped the moisture off her cheeks with his thumbs. “I just want to make you happy, Maddie.”
She wanted to say she was happy. That he made her happy. But that scared her. She didn’t want a man to make her happy. Never had.
In the end, his kiss prevented her from speaking, and the tenderness of it played mayhem on her insides. Wanting him sparked anew and she gave in, wanting as well to forget her fears, her frustrations.
He made that happen in no time, with kisses and caresses that soon had her stretched out on the bed, in complete submission with arms open, waiting for him to shed the last of his clothing and join her.
The opportunities to indulge herself in actions for no other reason than pleasure had been few and far between in Maddie’s life, up until meeting Lucky. It was still inconceivable, yet absolutely gratifying.
Rather than climbing on the bed beside her, Lucky went to the foot and parted her legs by grasping both ankles. He kissed his way up her shins, over her knees and along her thigh. By the time he reached her juncture, she was wild with need. In tune to her in ways she’d never understand, Lucky took her with his mouth with a feral roughness that had her thinking of nothing but the pleasure he provided.
