Candice tried to turn her face away, tried to push him off, but it was useless. His lips ground into her brutally. He was hurting her on purpose, and she knew it. Instinctively she raked his cheek with her nails. His response was instantaneous. He smacked her across the face—hard, drawing blood from her mouth. She tasted it as tears welled up in her eyes. He stepped back, looking vicious. “Let me give you some advice, dear. I dismiss my mistresses when I’m ready. Don’t ever try to leave me again, because I will hurt you seriously next time.”
I could go to Jack for protection, she thought frantically. And knew that even if she could somehow send him word, he would not come to her aid. She was trapped, and there was no way out.
Kincaid was on top of her now, his body hot and hard, his manhood swollen and stabbing at her through his trousers. Candice struggled, but uselessly, and he laughed at her efforts.
It hurt. God, it hurt. He freed his manhood and was jamming it into her dry, tight flesh. He smothered her scream with his hand and paused abruptly to stare with disbelief and growing anger into her white, tearstained face.
“I’ve been dreaming of busting you,” Kincaid rasped, furious, “Damn you!”
Candice closed her eyes and bit her lip while his member throbbed inside her.
His fingers dug into her face. “You told me they didn’t rape you.”
Her eyes flew open and flamed with defiance. “They didn’t! I gave myself willingly to one of them!”
His face contorted.
And he slammed viciously into her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
He groaned.
He opened his eyes and tried to focus. The room was blurred, indistinct at first. He closed his eyes again against the bright, streaming sunlight, and felt the stab of pain in his temples, the unnatural thudding of his heart, the nausea welling in his abdomen. He needed water, desperately. As if he had been traveling across the Sonora Desert for days without a single drop. He opened his eyes and attempted to sit.
His head thundered between his ears.
Jack reached automatically for the pitcher on the floor next to the straw mattress, pouring a mug of the clear, cool liquid, then draining its contents. He drank another glass, then looked around. He was in a partitioned area of what was probably a one-room adobe house. A dirty blanket enclosed the small space he was in. He was lying on a filthy mattress. It was the only item in the room other than the cracked earthenware pitcher, the tin mug, and a looking glass that was propped against one wall.
He had on his pants, but that was it. Where was he and how had he gotten there? He didn’t remember retiring—in fact, the last thing he remembered was watching the moon rise through the open saloon door, while he drank himself senseless. He must be in a back room of one of the houses near the saloon. God, did he have a headache!
The blanket moved and Jack tried to sit up. He stared with shock at the familiar face of the half-breed girl who worked in the saloon. She was so pitifully thin and dirty, so lifeless and young. He didn’t remember bedding her. He prayed he hadn’t.
She didn’t say anything, but she smiled slightly and offered him a cup of steaming coffee and a fresh pastry. He wondered how she had gotten the money to pay for it, and felt sick as he understood what must have occurred between them last night—for her to offer him food, for her to smile.
Jack groaned and grimaced, filled with self-loathing. “Do you have any whiskey?” he said, as the pain he had been trying to escape yesterday came flooding back. “What time is it?”
She made signs with her hands, and he remembered that she couldn’t talk—someone had cut out her tongue—and he felt nausea rising hard and fast. She set down the coffee and doughnut and turned to go. He grabbed her wrist, his fingers closing over skin and bone. “Wait.”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Last night,” he said slowly, making sure she understood. “Did we …?” He motioned to the bed. “You and me, did we sleep together?”
She smiled again, and for that instant he thought he couldn’t bear himself, not for using some poor abused child, but then she shook her head. She made signs that he had been sleeping next door, his head on the table. She was telling him that he had passed out.
“Thank you,” Jack said politely, flooded with relief. He wondered how he had gotten there, to her bed. She left and he rubbed his face. When the blanket moved again, he looked up into the eyes of a heavy Mexican woman.
“You pay for last night,” she said in broken English, holding out her hand.
“I didn’t bed her.”
“No matter. You too drunk is not my business. You sleep here, you pay.”
“How much?”
“One bit.”
Jack reached into his pocket for a coin and found it was empty. “Damn.”
