Page 59 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
His mouth hovered an inch above hers. “Slowly,” he whispered, his breath flowing across her lips, hot with the sweetness of pulque and the torment he inflicted on her.
Panting, squirming under the heat of his hands, Jenny let her head fall back against the wall as his thumbs caressed the underside of her breasts. She trembled violently, her hips returning the insistent pressure of his, her hands tugging and releasing in convulsive movements on his shoulders. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; all she could do was feel the wildfire his touch sent shooting along her skin.
“Jenny.” His voice was a hoarse, tortured command.
Swallowing hard, feeling the sweat trickling between her breasts, the wetness between her legs, she opened helpless eyes.
And finally, finally, his mouth came down on hers—hard, deliberate, possessive. Her arms tightened around his neck and she pulled him in to her, wrapped so tightly against his body that she could feel his heart pounding against her breasts, could feel the hard grind of his hipbones.
Wild and crazy with wanting, she opened her lips to his tongue and thrust back with her own. Her fist closed in his hair, and she pulled him harder against her. Beneath her poncho, his hands closed over her breasts, and the sudden heat through her shirt scalded her and made her gasp and break from his kiss. His lips trailed down the arch of her throat, then returned to her mouth to conquer and ravage and leave her breathless and panting and mindless with need.
Then he was holding her, whispering against her ear, his hands stroking warm circles on her back. Gradually her violent trembling subsided and her breath quieted. She rested her head on his shoulder and wondered what in the hell had happened to her.
“I think we should get some shut-eye. We didn’t have much sleep last night,” he was saying when his words began to sort themselves out and make sense.
Easing back in his arms, she blinked at him, too dazed to fully grasp his words. When she did, she didn’t understand what had happened. She had felt his powerful desire, had expected him to drag her to the ground and take her. As crazed as she had been, she wouldn’t have resisted. He must have known that.
Stumbling, trying to steady her mind, she moved back into the shack and checked on Graciela. The kid was sound asleep, unaware that minutes ago the world had tilted and spun out of orbit.
When she turned, Ty was standing in the doorway, a dark silhouette with the moonlight sharpening his lean angular form.
Jenny licked her lips, tasting him there. “Why?” she whispered.
He knew what she was asking. “It has to be your decision,” he said in a voice still raw with desire. “When you’re ready, you’ll come to me.” A match flared, and he lit a cigar. “Get some sleep.”
Suddenly she felt bone tired, as limp as a washrag. “What are you going to do?”
“Have a smoke. Do some thinking.”
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she sat on the edge of a hammock and swung herself inside, listening as he sat at the table and poured another tumbler of pulque.
“Ty?”
“Yeah?”
She stared up at the dark rafters. “I was wrong. Until tonight, I’d never been kissed.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said softly.
Chapter Thirteen
In the morning, nearly thirty people accompanied them to the railroad tracks. Although the train steamed past every day, it seldom stopped; therefore, the villagers made a festive event of the occasion. Women wrapped themselves in their best rebozos, and the men wore starched white shirts and embroidered sombreros. While Ty and Jenny’s horses were being loaded into a boxcar, a boy ran alongside the train holding an armadillo up for passengers to see. Women sold husk-wrapped tamales through the train windows and tortillas folded around hot chorizo. Someone strummed a guitar, and two men danced around their sombreros, puffs of dust following the rowels on their spurs.
Once the horses were loaded, Ty led Jenny and Graciela into one of the middle cars and found seats for them and a place to store their saddlebags.
“I hate the train,” Graciela stated. “It’s hot and it smells bad.” Making a face, she shoved a chicken off the end of the bench seat. “When will we get there?”
Jenny used the end of a newly bought shawl to fan her face. The air was stifling and stank of roosters and dogs and greasy food and old sweat. “You don’t even know where ‘there’ is,” she said, looking out the window at the villagers waving at the faces peering back from inside the train.
Before he sat down, Ty scrutinized their fellow passengers. Most were women and children. Two old men sat together at the rear of the car, three men appeared to be traveling with their families. They looked hot and uncomfortable, but not dangerous. No one displayed more than a cursory interest in the new arrivals.
Once the train got under way, he leaned to pull up the window against the soot and cinders that flew inside and speckled the clothing Jenny had purchased from Senora Armijo. Beneath a grey shawl she wore a white blouse tucked into a faded blue skirt. The clothing was worn, but clean and pressed, and attracted less attention than her trousers and poncho would have. Graciela’s new clothing was similar; both wore untrimmed straw hats.
“You look beautiful,” he said, smiling at them after settling his lanky frame on the hard wooden seat.
Graciela returned his smile and patted the thick bun pinned on her small neck. Jenny glared, then returned her gaze to the window.
She’d been strangely subdued this morning, tossing him quick glances that he couldn’t read, hastily looking away when he caught her studying him. He suspected she was remembering last night, just as he was.
