He failed. Maybe it was the vast differences in their cultures, hers northern, his southern. Perhaps it was because he was a man and she was a woman. Or maybe it was because she was a genius and he was of ordinary intelligence.
Whatever it was, the thought of a woman deliberately sacrificing her virginity and nine months of her life to get a child she was going to give away was the damnedest thing he’d ever heard of.
And the fact that she was going to do all those highly unusual lovemaking maneuvers with Dr. Wallaby togetthe baby was—
His lips quivered with the same wild laughter that had consumed him last night.
“What do you find so amusing, Mr. Montana?” Theodosia asked coolly.
He folded his arms across his chest. “I was picturing you and Dr. Wallaby making love. Orhaving coitus,as you so scientifically put it. You and the brilliant doctor will probably consult that sex-treat book before each and every move you make. ‘Page fifty-two says we aren’t doing this correctly,’ you’ll say. You’ll hold up the book, and Dr. Wallaby will read the page through the three-inch-thick lenses in his glasses. ‘How right you are,’ he’ll say. ‘We must follow the instructions precisely.’”
Roman’s smile grew. “You’ll stop to analyze each sentence in the book, so a single kiss will take you six weeks to accomplish. Other stuff, like learning to touch each other, will require three or four years to get right, and by the time you understand lovemaking perfectly, Dr. Wallaby will be too shriveled to perform!”
She sniffed in disdain. “And how long wouldyouneed to understand the contents of this book, Mr. Montana?”
“I wouldn’t bother with the book, Miss Worth.”
She refused to surrender to the warm flow of passion his announcement brought. For heaven’s sake, she was a highly educated woman! Surely with a bit more discipline, she could conquer the feelings Roman so effortlessly created. “Are you saying you know everything there is to know about coitus?”
He was tempted to say yes, but the gleam in her eyes gave him the vague feeling that she was preparing to use every smidgen of her intelligence to back him into a corner out of which there was no escape. Her weapon was her brain, and in this particular instance it was far more deadly than any firearm he could think of.
So he wouldn’t do battle with her mind. He’d attack her emotions instead.
He joined her by the trees, and his eyes holding hers captive, he traced the curve of her cheekbone with his finger. “I’m saying I know how tomake loveto a woman, Miss Worth. I know when to touch a woman. Where. And how.”
He heard her breath quicken, and he moved in for the kill. Slowly, he drew his finger past her cheek. Over her lips. Down her throat, and finally into the valley of her breasts. She’d unfastened just enough buttons to make the task easy.
His thumb folded against his palm, he slid four fingers beneath the low-cut edge of her lacy chemise, allowing only their tips to touch the puckered velvet of her nipple. “This,” he whispered, “is one way to touch a woman.”
Theodosia swayed and would have fallen if Roman had not quickly captured her waist. She tried stepping away from him, but she discovered that it was not his arm that kept her to him, but her own reluctance to be parted from him. “What possesses you to think you may caress me in such a way, Mr. Montana?”
He kept his fingers exactly where they were. “What possesses you not to stop me?” He flashed her a lopsided grin and finally withdrew his hand. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to make Templeton by tomorrow. As much as I like touching you and as much as you like me touching you, we’ve run out of time. I guess you’ll have to learn about the—uh…thesweet art of passionon your own.”
For the next three hours, while she was driving the wagon, Theodosia tried to concentrate on the songs of the meadowlarks that frolicked in the branches of the oak and buckthorn trees. But the songbirds’ music could not hold her attention the way Roman did.
He liked touching her. He’d said so himself. She couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to touch him in a similar fashion.
She stared at Roman’s back. His massive shoulders. His long black hair and thick muscular legs. He sat tall and straight in the saddle. His hips moved. Forward. Backward. To the rhythm of his horse’s gait.
Hips may move in a circular or back and forth motion.
The words she’d read in the sexual treatise came back to her. Still watching the easy sway of Roman’s hips, she wondered if his movements were also those a man employed when engaging in sexual relations. Was that how Dr. Wallaby would move?
Somehow she didn’t think so.
Standingbetween his stallion andTheodosia’s horse and holding the steeds’ bridles, Roman watched the choppy Colorado River slosh over the sides of the ferry. He realized the current flowed more swiftly now than it had when he’d crossed the river on his way to Oates’ Junction.
“This ride is precarious at best,” Theodosia stated, peering over the wooden side slats of the ferry.
When Roman turned to look at her, he noticed her face was as colorless as the brisk wind that sailed through her hair. Clutching the side of the buckboard with her right hand and holding her parrot’s cage in her left, she acted as though she were heading for a raging waterfall aboard nothing but a slim hope for survival.
“Ain’t nothin’ to be skeered of, ma’am,” one of the ferrymen told her. He slackened his grip on the rope pulley and smiled at her.
Theodosia saw he had no teeth. When he opened his mouth, it looked as if someone had painted a black hole on his face.
“Nothin’ a’tall to fear,” the other agreed. “My brother and me’ve been workin’ this here ferry fer many a year, and we’ve only lost three passengers and a mule. The men was fightin’, ya see, and fighted theirsefs right into the river. The mule, well, he staggered off on account o’ he was drunk as all git out.”
Roman noted the alarm in Theodosia’s eyes. “You aren’t fighting, Miss Worth, and you aren’t drunk, so stop being afraid.”
