Esmerelda recoiled from his bared teeth, as if afraid he just might bite her, too. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t like to, Billy thought, remembering the moment when he’d pressed his open mouth to her throat. By rights, she should have tasted like sweat and trail dust, but her flavor lingered on his lips, sweeter than anything he’d sampled for a very long time. Sweeter even than the ripe, juicy peaches she smelled like. It made him wonder what she might taste like in other places. Made him want to do something even more foolish than biting her, like stealing a taste of those tender lips trembling only a breath away from his own.

Stung by the raw power of the temptation, he released her wrists and rolled off of her.

He half expected her to strike out at him again, but she took advantage of her freedom to scramble to her feet. He caught her wrist before she could take a single step.

“Let me go!” she whispered between clenched teeth, attempting to twist out of his grasp.

“Not until I make sure you’re not thinking about bolting out of here and tempting one of my brothers to put a bullet in your back.”

Esmerelda sank down in a puddle of skirts, her sullen pout informing him that was precisely what she’d been thinking.

She made a great show of searching her wrists for bruises, frowning with disappointment when she didn’t find any. “I hate to be rude, Mr. Darling, but I really don’t care much for those brothers of yours.”

He shrugged, hoping the casual gesture didn’t reveal more than it hid. “They weren’t always so bad. Prone to mischief as most boys are, I suppose. If it hadn’t been for the war, they’d have probably raised a little hell, then settled down with the first farmer’s daughter they got with child. Provided her pa wanted a wedding and a son-in-law more than a funeral and a bastard, that is.” Esmerelda’s shocked expression stopped him from telling her that would have probably been his fate as well. “But riding with Quantrill and Anderson changed them—cut a mean stripe in their hides that’s been festering ever since.”

She shivered and began to toy with the pleats of her skirt, avoiding his eyes. “What would you have done if they’d have called your bluff tonight when you drew your pistol? If Virgil had rushed you or Jasper had drawn his own gun?“

Billy’s jaw tightened as he remembered how Jasper had ogled her breasts, the greedy way Virgil’s tongue had snaked out to wet his lips, as if she was nothing more than a cheap piece of horehound candy to be devoured in one brutal bite.

“I’d have pulled the trigger,” he said flatly, surprised to realize he meant it.

Her head whipped up before he could wipe the murderous expression off his face. Her brown eyes shimmered with a curious mix of disbelief and wonder. “You’d have shot one of your own brothers. For me?”

Billy was as staggered as she was by the depth of his urge to protect her. He never could stand to see anyone bully a woman. Which was exactly why Miss Mellie and the girls had been so delighted to have him living in their attic. His presence alone discouraged most of their rougher customers. But what he felt as he gazed into Esmerelda’s eyes was something more primitive. And far more dangerous. Especially for a man with his temper.

Although the shape no longer felt natural, Billy forced his mouth into a mocking smile. “I’d have done the same for any lady,” he assured her, though he wasn’t at all sure he would.

He would have almost sworn he glimpsed a hint of disappointment in her eyes, but before he could be sure, she bowed her head, hiding her face behind a curtain of hair. “How very gallant of you, Mr. Darling.”

“Billy,” he whispered, tipping her chin up so he could search her eyes.

“Hey, Billy!" Virgil's booming voice sent a violent start through Esmerelda. “It’s awful quiet up there, son. You need me to come up and remind you how to make a woman squeal?”

Billy touched a warning finger to Esmerelda’s lips before calling out, “Don’t bother, Virg. I remember more about making a woman squeal than you ever learned.”

A derisive hoot of laughter greeted his retort. Exchanging a wary glance, he and Esmerelda crawled forward on their stomachs and elbows to peer down into the canyon. The faint glow of a fire and the clink of a bottle being passed from hand to hand warned them that their worst fear had been realized. His brothers had camped in the small valley just below the bluff.

“Damn,” he whispered. “I was afraid of this. They’re not going to give us a moment’s peace until we give them a taste of what they’re hungry for.”

“How about some arsenic?” Esmerelda muttered.

Billy bit back a grin. “A little noise should satisfy them for a while.”

“Noise?” she echoed, turning her head to blink at him.

He cleared his throat, wondering why it had suddenly gotten so hard to swallow. “You know—a few whimpers, a couple of moans, maybe a grunt or two thrown in to make it convincing.”

Even though they were both lying prone, Esmerelda still managed to look down her nose at him. “I do not grunt, Mr. Darling.”

Although she seemed merely bemused by his request, Billy realized with horror that he was on the verge of blushing like a virgin. He rubbed the back of his neck and clenched his teeth. “If you could just make the sort of sound a woman makes when a man comes into her…”

Esmerelda looked so blank that Billy decided she was either utterly innocent or a much more cunning actress than he’d suspected. Then her cheeks burst into crimson flames. “Oh! You mean the sort of noises that woman was making back at the… the…”

“Whorehouse,” he drawled, beginning to enjoy the game now that he was holding the winning hand. “Yeah, like maybe you don’t like what I’m doing to you at first, but then I make you like it even if you don’t want to.”

He half expected her to slap him for his insolence, but she surprised him by rolling over on the blanket and pressing the back of her hand to her brow.

She remained in that dramatic posture for several minutes before lowering her hand and fixing him with a stern look. “Close your eyes, sir.”

He pretended to comply, using the asinine eyelashes his brothers had always teased him so mercilessly about for the only thing they were good for.

“And no peeking!”

He swore beneath his breath, but obeyed in earnest this time. Until Esmerelda’s first breathy whimper sent a prickle of awareness dancing across his flesh.

His eyes flew open. Esmerelda lay on her back in the moonlight with her eyes pressed shut. Longing and pain flickered across her features in a wistful duet. Her lips were no longer pressed together in prim disapproval, but parted to release throaty little gasps that soon had his own breath coming in feral pants.

Billy gaped in unabashed fascination as her whimpers deepened to a full-bodied moan, earthy and wildly stirring in its power. The dead silence drifting up from below warned him that his brothers must be similarly captivated. He could almost see them there in the firelight, their eyes glazed with lust, a forgotten mouthful of whisky dribbling down their chins.

Esmerelda arched her throat; her small, firm breasts strained against her bodice, a tantalizing reminder that there were no barriers of lace or linen between flesh and fabric. All he had to do was lean over and flick open one hook, then another…

He knocked off his hat and groped for his bandanna to mop away the beads of sweat forming on his brow. In the months that he’d slept in the attic at Miss Mellie’s, the moans and grunts of pleasure being given and received had ceased to move him. Especially since he knew most of the girls were faking their cries of ecstasy in the hope that some gratified cowboy might flip an extra nickel on the bed before strutting from the room.

But his body throbbed in time to the irresistible rhythm of Esmerelda’s song. As it reached a crescendo, the ache intensified, growing more bitter than sweet as he realized what its melody signified.

Winstead had been right. Either Bart Fine had taught her how to make those sounds or some other man had. The innocence shimmering in those big brown eyes of hers was an illusion. Just as much of a disguise as the mask an outlaw might wear to rob a bank. Only she wasn’t using it to steal his money, but his heart.

Billy’s keen disappointment did nothing to defuse his lust. He wanted to coax her out of his brothers’ earshot and make her moan in earnest. He wanted her to watch everything he did to her until the sight of his face above her blotted out every memory of the man who had touched her first.

He wiggled forward on his elbows until he was looming directly over her. He didn’t really want to know, but couldn’t resist growling, “What in the hell were you thinking about?”

Esmerelda opened her luminous eyes and smiled up at him, her cheeks flushed with the rosy glow of a woman well satisfied. “A French cream puff.”

Struck mute by her reply, Billy had no choice but to listen to her dreamy recital.

“After Mama and Papa died, I used to pass by this bakery on Beacon Street on the way to the market. Every morning, they’d put the tray of cream puffs in the window, fresh out of the oven. I desperately didn’t want to want one because I knew we didn’t have enough money to waste on such extravagances. But I wanted one anyway.” She sighed wistfully. “I never succumbed to the temptation, but I used to stand there in the cold until my breath fogged the window, imagining what it would feel like to lick away the glaze of honey butter, to sink my teeth into the flaky pastry, to plunge my tongue into the cream-filled center…”

Billy held up a hand to silence her, his groin bound into a knot of sweet agony. If Esmerelda could get that worked up over some imagined indulgence, what might a taste of genuine pleasure do to her? He thought it a damn shame that she’d deprived herself of such a simple delight and spent the rest of her life regretting it. He’d never denied himself any pleasure he wanted.

Until now.

Esmerelda stretched and yawned, looking as drowsy and vulnerable as a woman who had actually experienced the release she’d so cleverly mimicked. “Do you think we fooled your brothers?”

Desperate to escape before she realized she’d made an even bigger fool of him, Billy threw the other half of the blanket over her and climbed to his feet. “I’ll go find out,” he said tersely. “You stay put. Get some rest.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, touching her brow in a mocking salute.

He started to go, then hesitated and turned back. Esmerelda’s eyes widened as he slipped her derringer out of his boot and tossed it on top of the blanket. “It’s loaded.

Shoot the first man who lays a hand on you in a disrespectful manner.“

“Even if it’s you?”

He didn’t return her wry smile. “Especially if it’s me.”

As Billy stumbled down the path wind and time had carved into the canyon wall, he ruffled his hair and unfastened the first two buttons of his Levi’s. He was thankful both his brothers’ wits and their vision had been addled by whiskey. If any one of them gave him more than half a glance, they would realize his hunger had been in no way satisfied by his tryst with Esmerelda. On the contrary, he was as hard and thick as a bundle of dynamite awaiting the kiss of flame to its fuse.

He swore, but the eloquent oath failed to give him its usual satisfaction.

As he approached the campfire, he shifted his walk into the deliberate swagger of a man who’d just proved his prowess to a woman for all the world to hear.

Virgil presided over the fire like a tribal king, puffing on a cigar Billy recognized as being stolen from his saddlebag. Jasper reclined on one elbow, nursing a fresh bottle of rotgut. His smoldering glare warned Billy that he was still sulking over their earlier confrontation. Sam was tearing at a ragged hunk of jerky with his yellowing teeth while Enos sat next to Sadie, absently fondling the basset hound’s floppy ears. Her tail twitched a lazy welcome at the sight of her master. The aroma of canned beans wafted up from an iron pot dangling over the fire.

Virgil winked at Billy, his booming voice softened by mock concern. “I hope she was gentle with you, son. You did tell her she was your first, didn’t you?”

Billy tucked his thumbs in his gunbelt and forced a grin, hoping it didn’t look as sick as it felt. “She must have been your first, Virg, because she swore I was the best she ever had.”

Virgil’s roar of laughter did nothing to lighten Jasper’s black expression. He took another swig of the whiskey and cast the bluff above them a contemptuous look. “I bet I could give the little whore a ride she’d never forget.”