"Oh." She clearly didn't have a reb.u.t.tal for that.

He ended the caress with the barest brush of her nipples. He retreated before she could finish her breath.

He did it again, sliding his hands outward, pressing a little harder, smiling as she pretended not to notice what he was doing, but was clearly intent on every nuance as witnessed by how still she held herself. And the way she held her breath every time he got near her nipples.

Like now. They were hard and swollen-eager for his touch. He gave it to her, a little harder, rolling the sensitive peaks between his fingers before working his way back to the plump base.

"Sometimes," he explained, squeezing gently as he had as much of her breast in his hands as he could gather, "when a woman is nervous and her milk won't come down, her husband can help her by stimulating her." Her breath shuddered out of her lungs as he ma.s.saged the resilient flesh in his hands. "Finding the right stroke and pressure to make her relax." He tweaked her nipples smiling at her halting intake of breath. "A woman's milk flows better when she's relaxed."

"But I don't have any milk."

"But you're my wife, and this is the first time we're feeding our daughter together, and I want you to havethe full experience."

He centered her nipples in his palms and pressed.

The succulent flesh bloomed in his hands. She sighed and her head dropped back against his shoulder. She was giving him more than her permission. She was giving him her trust. He let his fingers cup the sides of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, controlling the expansion as he controlled the moment.

"That's it, Sunshine. Lean back and let me take care of you."

"I'm feeding the baby."

"And I'm taking care of you."

He rolled her nipples in his palms, tilting his hand so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sprang back into his palms. They were heavy and full and if the baby wasn't in her lap, he would have turned her and tasted them. He resumed the milking motion, increasing the strength of each stroke, taking his cue from her increased respiration until, with the fourth pa.s.s, he captured her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezed, increasing the pressure until she moaned and pressed back against him.

"Ah, that's it then," he murmured, tucking her shoulders under his arms, keeping her still for the pleasure he wanted to give her. "Right there?"

It was a rhetorical question. He didn't need verbalproof of her pleasure. The involuntary shifting of her body against his, and her breathless moan told him all he needed to know.

He did it again, hungry for her response, her whimpers of pleasure, holding the pressure for a heartbeat more, reveling in her openness to him.

Needing it.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brianna turn away from the bottle.

"I think Brianna needs to be burped." He let the words drift down her neck, the goose b.u.mps that sprang up equally pleasing.

Her head snapped up. "Oh."

He relaxed his grip, sliding his hands back until they were once again just supporting her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He felt her blush in his hands before he saw it on her cheeks.

She carefully sat Brianna up, supporting her with a hand on her chest. Brianna sat there, her big blue eyes full of surprise as if she wasn't sure how she got there, and then they filled with intelligent curiosity as she viewed her world from this new position. Clint couldn't suppress a smile. She was such a little d.i.c.kens.

Three taps on her little back had the child burping loud enough to have Danny lifting his head off the floor.

As soon as the noise abated, Brianna's head jerked and one corner of her mouth kicked up in an unmistakableexpression.

"She smiled!" Jenna exclaimed turning to him. "Did you see that? She smiled."

"She sure did," Clint kissed the corner of Jenna's mouth, watching Brianna bob in her blanket, her movements jerky, her pleasure at being able to do them contagious. "And over a belch no less. That child's going to be a h.e.l.lion for sure."

"She is not!" Jenna kissed Brianna on her beaming face as she bucked in her blanket and smiled again, this time getting both corners of her mouth into the action.

"She's perfect."

Clint looked at the square little face topped by all that spiky hair and shook his head. The girl had h.e.l.lion written all over her.

"Now that would be a darned shame." He tickled Brianna's cheek. She turned instinctively toward his finger her mouth open, looking like a little bird. "I always thought a little bit of h.e.l.lion was an attractive quality in a woman."

Jenna stilled again in that way he was beginning to understand meant that she was thinking.

"It's a woman's duty to submit to a man." She threw that piece of wisdom out like a shield.

His "hmmm" was noncommittal as he kissed the side of her neck."In all things to follow his direction." She was obviously quoting an oft-heard dictate.

He pulled the pins from her hair, and the heavy ma.s.s fell in a silken waterfall between them, pooling where his chest met her back before sliding off to the side. d.a.m.n, he'd love to wrap himself in her hair.

"What if the man's wrong?"

"What?" She sounded shocked.

"What if the man's wrong?"

There was another of those long pauses. "A woman must trust and pray G.o.d will provide direction."

If that wasn't the biggest load of bull he'd every heard. "Sunshine, I've met a lot men in my time, and some of them wouldn't hear G.o.d's guidance if he boomed it in their ears. What does a woman do then?"

There was defeated pain in her voice as she said, "She prays and does the best she can."

"Is that what you did with your first husband, baby?

Pray and endure?"

She shook her head. "I'm not a very good wife."

He hugged her simply because he'd never held anyone who sounded like she needed it more. "The son of a b.i.t.c.h didn't deserve you."

"I was willful and disobedient."

He'd had a gut full of her defending that worthlessHe'd had a gut full of her defending that worthless piece of s.h.i.t. "He was a drunk and a bully and a few straws short of a bale."

"He was my husband."

"And I for one am glad he's dead."

She didn't have an answer for that. Brianna screwed up her face, clearly ready to lay into her mother again.

Clint gently flicked her cheek with his finger. He couldn't allow that.

"Brianna wants the rest of her bottle, Jenna."

She jumped and hurriedly propped Brianna up on her knee. As soon as the nipple touched her cheek the little girl turned and latched onto it, sucking strongly but without that desperate edge, as before.

"She's a strong eater," Jenna said, pleasure in her voice.

"Yes, she is." It was probably the wrong time, but Clint couldn't stomach the thought of Brianna growing up to be a shadow of the woman she was supposed to be. "She's going to be a strong woman, Jenna. I don't want her growing up thinking she has to kiss the a.s.s of every man she meets."

"She'll never find a husband if she's willful."

"Then she won't, but no one's going to tell my daughter she's worthless."

"You're a man. You don't understand what it's like."He tipped her head back with a finger under her chin until her head rested on his shoulder.

"I'm getting a glimmer of what things have been like for you, but they're not going to be like that for Brianna because we're not going to let them be that way."

"We're not?" Her eyes were huge as they met his.

"No." He cupped her jaw and turned her head so that her cheek pressed against his collarbone. "We're going to raise her to be strong-to think-and we'll protect her from any son of a b.i.t.c.h who tries to put her down."

"We may not always be available."

"If we aren't, then Cougar or Asa will be stepping up to kick a.s.s. And trust me, you haven't seen an a.s.s- whupping until you've seen those two take someone to task."

"I'd forgotten..." Her voice drifted off on what might have been a note of wonder. And hope.

"Well. I haven't. Brianna's a McKinnely now and we take care of our own. If I'm not available when there's a need, she's got a family to watch out for her." He kissed her lips, stroking her cheek, willing her to trust him.

"And so do you."

"Thank you." She ducked her head away from his gaze. There was no increase of confidence in her words.

Clearly she didn't think anyone would hit the groundrunning for her. He tipped her gaze back to his.

"Sunshine, I'm very good at taking care of what's mine, and you're mine now."

"I know." She didn't blink or flinch.

"I want you happy, baby." He stroked her cheek beside her mouth. "I want to see these dimples at least twenty times a day."

Her eyes widened briefly. "You do?"

"Yes, and not just because they get me hard." While her mind wrapped around the knowledge that he found her dimples l.u.s.t-provoking, he pressed on. "You can be as willful and as disobedient as you like as long as, at the end of the day, you're smiling."

"Why?" She blinked twice.

He rubbed his nose on hers. "Because I've waited a long time to have a wife to pamper and spoil, and as determined as you are to take the fun out of it, I'm just as determined to enjoy myself."

"You are?"

"Yup." He rested his forehead on her temple. "I'm not planning on settling for less than happy."

She didn't answer right away. Her gaze left his and she stilled against him. When she looked back into his eyes, her answer almost ripped the heart from his chest.

"I don't know if I know how to be that."He kissed her very, very gently on her lips. "Then maybe we'll get to have some fun figuring that out together."

"Do you know how to be happy?"

The question hung between them in the quiet room, and as much as he wanted to be glib and smooth, he found he couldn't be. Not with her, so he gave her the truth. "Not anymore."

This time when he touched his lips to hers, she was ready for him, kissing him back, tenderly, leading with that generous heart of hers, whispering into his mouth, "I want to make you happy."

The words went through his system like a flame. He shifted her higher, held her closer, welcoming her softness even while he felt driven to protect her from herself. "I'll be happy as long as you are."

She shook her head, her mouth set in a mutinous line, checked Brianna, and then tentatively laid her head on his chest again. "I want more."

"You're just going to have to accept that I'm past redemption in some ways."

"No. I'm not accepting that."

"You might not have a choice." He slid his hands up over her arms. Her muscles were tight under his fingers.

She was scared of bucking him, even on something as sweet as her determination to make him happy. She wa.s.so soft inside and out, and yet so d.a.m.ned incredibly strong in ways he couldn't be. He ma.s.saged the tense muscles, keeping his touch light.

"There's always a choice." How she could believe that after all that had happened to her was one of the mysteries of what made her who she was.

"Not in this."

"I won't be happy unless you are." Stubborn laced her husky voice and fought the purpose of his ma.s.sage.

He sighed and set his thumbs on either side of her spine, just inside her shoulder blades and worked at the tension there.

"Okay, baby. How about we agree that we'll both try to get acquainted with happy, but neither will expect too much."

"Okay."

She really thought he meant that. He kissed the top of her head, breathing the scents of roses and woman.

There was no way he was going to be content until she smiled from dawn to dusk. He looked down at little Bri.

Her eyes were closed and her lips slack around the nipple. A trickle of milk dribbled down her chin.

"She's asleep," he whispered.

"Oh. Good." Jenna made as if to get up. He kept her still with a hand on her shoulder."I'll put her to bed."

He slid around her, bracing himself above her as he eased his feet to the floor. His hair swung down around her face. To his surprise she smiled, tentatively touching the dark strands. Her "I like your hair" was as shy as her touch on his chest. l.u.s.t ricocheted through his body like a bullet shot off in a barrel. He couldn't move. His c.o.c.k ached and throbbed. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat. It seared him to his toes.