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  "You're so beautiful," he said, "and so obedient today. Why?"

  She shook her head, closing her eyes. "I don't know," she confessed. "I just want to please you."

  "You do. Very much so. And I want you to remember that while I do this to you."

  Before she had a chance to ask him what he meant, he had taken a seat beside her on the bed and, laying one heavy arm across the backs of her thighs, pinned her into place, putting her entire backside—and all the secret places in between—within easy reach of his other hand.

  Then he began to spank her.

  She gave a half-cry, half-moan as his broad palm came crashing down on her bared flesh with considerable strength. It stung. It burned. It stoked the flames of her desire higher with each slap.

  Sometimes he'd give her a few swats all in exactly the same spot, until she was writhing ineffectually beneath his hold, trying desperately to escape the searing pain. Sometimes he alternated between her buttocks, spanking first one, then the other, occasionally moving down to land a particularly cruel smack to the back of one of her spread thighs.

  "Sweet Sapphire, do you know why I'm doing this to you?" he asked, pausing to rub her scorched flesh.

  "No, sir, I don't."

  His wide lips curved up into a wolfish smile. "Two reasons. One, because I can. And two…" his fingers crept ever closer to the folds between her legs, the place which was already swollen, hot and aching for his touch, "because I know how much you like it."

  She whimpered with delight, knowing he was about to reach that rigid, throbbing pearl which was so desperate for his touch that she was sure she would explode within moments of his finding it.

  Instead, he slapped it; and the noise his hand made as he spanked her sodden sex was unmistakable. Crawford gave a dark chuckle. "You see? I don't even need to look at it. I can hear how fucking ready you are for me."

  As if to prove his point, he spanked her there again, and Sapphire howled with the torturous combination of pleasure, pain, and absolute shame.

  "So wet," he went on, at last dipping his finger into her honey pot and beginning to stroke that rigid spot which was laid so open to him in that humiliating position.

  She gripped the arm which was pinning her to the mattress, keening as he stroked faster and faster, up and down and around, the shame and the heat in her face and her backside and her pussy all combining into one raging inferno of desire until she was so close, her entire body was trembling.

  "Do you deserve to spend, little Sapphire?" Crawford asked, cruelly changing his movements so that he was caressing around her hard button instead of over it.

  "Yes, sir, please, please, please…" She was barely aware of what she was saying. Her whole world centered around that aching, pounding place between her lewdly splayed thighs and his agonizing treatment of it.

  "Then do so," he said, and when he resumed stroking her distended nub once more, Sapphire did as she was told, allowing the sheer pleasure to consume her, feeling the proof of her desire trickle between her bared, spread, spanked buttocks as her sex contracted again and again beneath his hand.

  "Keep your eyes on me," he urged as she shuddered and writhed helplessly, his expert fingers milking every last drop from her fluttering core. "Don't you dare look away."

  The way he was staring at her made it impossible for her to do otherwise, and she held his gaze even as he shifted until he was kneeling before her still spread thighs.

  She was unable to suppress a groan of delight as his thick shaft found the sodden pouch of her sex, and as he began to move deep inside her, his fingers roughly kneading and gripping the soft mounds of her breasts in time to his long, leisurely thrusts, Sapphire continued to look into his deeply penetrating eyes. When he did these things to her, when he made her feel this way, she knew she could never deny him anything. It was more than desire. It was more, even, than love. It was ownership.

  * * *

  A good while later, once they had both sated their lust, Crawford drew her into his arms and held her, naked, Sapphire resting her head on his chest, in the crook of his arm. The space fit her perfectly, and she couldn't help once more thinking how right it all seemed. As though they had been made for one another.

  "Sweetheart?" His voice was low, husky.

  "Mmm?"

  "Remember when I said I needed to tell you something? Where I was going to but then didn't, because you got upset?"

  "I remember." It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him whether they could discuss it at a later time, as she didn't want to spoil the feeling of pure contentment she felt right at that moment. But the urgency in his tone stopped her.

  "I think I need to tell you now. I want you to know everything before we… well, before things continue to progress between us."

  Turning her head, she pressed a kiss to his chest. "Nothing you could say could ever change the way I feel about you."

  "Christ, I do hope that's true. But even if that is the case, I really think you should know. If only to understand me better."

  Sapphire settled back down against him, allowing her fingers to slide idly over the hard, ridged planes of his abdomen. "Then tell me."

  He chuckled. "As soon as you stop touching me that way. You're far too distracting. And beautiful."

  With a little sigh, she stopped caressing him. "Go on."

  "As I said before, I used to be a hired gun. If the money was right, I took part in executions."

  For obvious reasons, it was not a subject Sapphire cared to dwell on. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe deeply and remain calm.

  "I'd be lying if I said it came easy, or that I enjoyed it, but it was a job. I don't need to tell you how people are sometimes forced to do things against their conscience in order to put food on the table."

  "You don't," she said quietly.

  He pulled her even tighter against him, and when he next spoke, his voice had a new, raw edge to it. "I need you to understand, I never took part in any lynching. Whenever I was hired, it was official; the criminal had been tried and found guilty, and sentenced to death. And I and a few others like me were asked to form the firing squad. None of us ever knew who fired the fatal shot."

  "Did that help soothe your conscience?" Not sure whether she wanted to hear the answer, she couldn't resist asking the question anyway.

  "Not really. But it was all right. Like I said, we only executed those who deserved it. Until… one day…"

  He paused, and she could feel the sudden tension in every single part of his body. Reaching up, she stroked his hair. "Tell me," she murmured. "If it's something that's still bothering you, you need to tell me about it."

  He made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sob. "I already told the sheriff. I had to. It didn't really help. If talking about it lessened the guilt, I would have asked Everett to run a piece telling everybody in the whole damn town about what I've done."

  "Then why tell me now?"

  "Because I need you to know… to understand. There was a boy, Sapphire. He couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. A big fella, but slow. Not quite right in the head, from the little I saw. But he was found guilty of murdering his little brother, and sentenced to death."

  Crawford's grip on her tightened to the point of being painful, but she remained silent, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, a muscle in his jaw working as he wrestled with the memory, she prompted him. "The sentence was carried out?"

  "It was. And I was on the squad. It didn't feel quite right. Taking someone's life is never an easy task, but usually I had this sense of justice being done. With him, it was different."

  Sapphire listened without speaking, closing her eyes against her own memories of Seth, fighting to be strong for the man beside her who was obviously wracked with pain and guilt.

  "Turns out my gut instinct was right," Crawford said at length. His voice was now barely above a hoarse whisper. "The real murderer was ascertained a week later, he even confessed to t
he deed. The boy we—I—shot… he had been innocent. Oh, Christ, Sapphire, his face. It still haunts my dreams."

  Blinking back tears, she continued to stroke the thick, dark hair back from his forehead. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "So very sorry. But you must remember, it wasn't your fault. You weren't the sheriff, or the judge. You didn't pass the sentence. You were merely doing a job."

  It was if he hadn't even heard her. "The guilt eats away at me, from the inside out, every damn day," he said. "If I had listened to my gut, if I had stepped in… I don't know, there must have been something I could have done. Instead, a young man died, one whose only crime was to find his dead little brother in the dirt and pick him up…" Crawford jammed his trembling fist to his mouth, taking a moment to regain his composure. "It just doesn't seem right."

  "What doesn't?"

  "That I should feel any kind of happiness after what I did. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you. Every time I look at you and feel joy, every time I feel anything other than sorrow, I feel bad that I'm still alive, still able to feel happiness, pleasure, hope, or mirth, while that kid is… while he can no longer feel anything. While he never will again."

  With tears now flowing freely down her cheeks, Sapphire threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. She wasn't really sure for whom she was weeping more; her beloved brother, who had suffered such a similar fate to that of the young man Crawford had described, or for the deputy himself, whose regret and guilt were threatening to consume him.

  "Thank you for telling me," she whispered. "Is that why you tried to stay away from me? Why you were so quick to push me away every time I tried to get close?"

  He nodded, swiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "You have Sheriff Justice to thank for my change of heart. That man hounded me and hounded me to tell you what was weighing on me. He said I ought to leave it up to you to decide whether you still want to be with me after what I've done." He let out a deep sigh, then turned his intense grey eyes to her face. "So now you know the whole, ugly truth. And after you told me about your brother… well, I just had to make sure you knew all of it. The question now, I guess, is… knowing all that you do, will you still have me?"

  She didn't even have to think about it. "Of course." At his astonished expression, she was unable to suppress a giggle. "I happen to agree with the sheriff. Yes, you needed to tell me, and yes, it was foolish of you to assume that I wouldn't want you because you made a mistake in the past, before you even met me."

  "Wait a minute. I never told you that Jebediah said anything of the sort!"

  "Well, did he?"

  Crawford's sheepish expression was answer enough.

  "In any case, it was foolish of you. And you hurt me! Every time I so much as hinted at my feelings for you, you pushed me away, and I had no idea it was for any other reason than the fact that you just didn't like me."

  His arms tightened around her once more. "I know, darlin', and I'm so sorry. But when you went and stole that horse, shoot, I was so angry with you. There was me thinking you were a good girl, you never took that man's pocket watch, and then I found out you were a thief after all! I was so mad I could barely contain myself."

  "I know," Saph said with a wry smile. It all felt as though it had happened so long ago. "I was there."

  The corner of Crawford's mouth quirked up. "I was so rough on you, and then when Mr. Vasquez told me you'd taken that horse because you were sweet on me and wanted to see me again, I felt such a prize fool."

  "Mr. Gabe told you that?" Sapphire sat up, pushing her hair over her shoulder. "Damn, Jewel must have told him! Oh lord, how humiliating." She threw herself back down and buried her flaming face in the cushions.

  "You could have just come and told me how you felt about me, you know," Crawford said, tracing an idle finger up her spine.

  "I was too embarrassed. Besides, you'd been nothing but rude to me ever since we met!" Her voice was muffled by the pillow but he must have understood every word, for a sharp slap landed on her still naked rear end, making her squeal. "Ouch!"

  He chortled. "You love it. In any case, hearing that you did it for me… that you weren't really a thief, I—"

  "I have a confession to make," Sapphire interrupted him.

  "Take your face out of the cushion first."

  "I'd really rather not."

  "I wasn't asking," he said, in that tone of voice that inspired both lust and fear in her in equal measure.

  With extreme reluctance, she rolled over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "While we're both here, confessing our sins, I have to tell you something. I want us to start this… whatever this is… with a clean slate."

  "I'm listening."

  Summoning up all her courage, she took a deep breath. "Before I came here, to Culpepper, I, well… I was a thief. I stole things. Food. After what happened to Seth, I had no one to turn to, no one to help me. My parents were gone, my brother was gone, my other relatives are all still in England. I had no way of making money. If I didn't take what I needed, a loaf of bread or an apple here and there, I would have starved."

  There was a long, long pause while Crawford digested what she was saying. "But you felt bad about it, right?"

  "Of course I did! I still do! I just didn't see any other way."

  "That's why you were so mad that night we first met, when you were being accused of thievery," he said slowly.

  She nodded.

  "Oh, my poor, sweet darlin'. It must have been so hard for you."

  When he moved to take her in his arms, she went willingly, relishing the warm, smooth feel of his bare skin against hers, inhaling his now familiar, comforting scent. "I had no choice," she said into his chest.

  "I know. It's all right, sweetheart. Stealing's never right, but I can see how you felt you had no other options. So what happened next? How did you end up here?"

  "Do you really want to know?"

  "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

  Despite herself, she giggled. "Smartass."

  "Takes one to know one. Now go on. Tell me everything."

  "I'm tired." It had been a long, hard day and an even longer night. The pale light of dawn was already beginning to glow at the window, and her eyelids were beginning to droop.

  "Me too, but I want to hear it. Give me the short version. And don't you dare say, 'Make me.'"

  "Would you believe, I'm too sleepy even to defy you, Deputy Slade. All right then. The short version. I spent a few years like that, living on the streets, sleeping wherever I could find shelter. If I was lucky I was able to find a couple of pennies and get a room in a boarding house, but usually I slept under the stars. But I was hungry all the time. And cold, especially at night."

  His only answer was to draw the quilt up over them and hold her closer, listening silently.

  "I may have been ragged and filthy most of the time, but even so, I soon became aware of the way men responded to me. Lots of them told me I was pretty…" She blushed. "A few said far more improper things, but one day, a man saw me making off with a can of peaches from a delivery cart. He followed me, and I thought he was going to haul me away to be punished, but instead he told me that if his assumption was correct and I was all on my own with no-one to look out for me, I didn't need to be sleeping outside. He said there was a great demand for saloon girls in the new mining camps and towns that were springing up everywhere and that, with my looks and grace, and if I had a bath, I would likely do very well. Lots of girls worked in places like that, and were able to make their own money and sleep in a real bed every night." Her face was growing hotter the more she spoke, but she battled on, encouraged by Crawford's sympathetic presence. "The very next day, I saw a poster advertising for a local saloon. At the bottom, it said they wanted girls to dance… and oh, the pictures of the girls. They were so glamorous. I wanted to be like them. You know, paint my face and wear pretty clothes. But mostly I wanted to earn money honestly. I—"

  "You didn't want to have to resort to
theft any longer," he interjected.

  Sapphire nodded. "So I asked around, and I heard about Culpepper, and how it was a booming town, and that there was a place called The Red Petticoat where I might find employment. I hitched a ride with some people who were on their way through here anyway, and met Madame Jewel. Once I told her my story, she took me in. And I've been here ever since."

  To her immense surprise, Crawford pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head. "You've done so well, to come so far all on your own," he said. "A lot of girls would have given up, or made a hasty marriage just to have someone take care of them."

  "Oh, I could never marry somebody I didn't love," Sapphire said vehemently. "My mother and father were so happy together… I was very young when I decided that if I couldn't have a marriage like theirs, I didn't want one at all. Besides, I must admit I enjoy earning my own money. I like the freedom it gives me."

  "You're a very unusual girl," Crawford said. "But that's one of the many, many things I adore about you."

  "So you don't judge me? For stealing?" She had been so afraid to ask, but knew that if she didn't, she would always wonder.

  "Do you judge me for my past sins?"

  "No. What happened to you was awful… but I think you've paid a dear enough price."

  "And that, my darlin', is why we're so well matched. I happen to feel exactly the same way about your past." His strong arms drew her up so he could kiss her lips, a lingering, sweet embrace, more warm than passionate. "Maybe it is time that we forgive ourselves."

  Feeling as though an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Sapphire snuggled back down against him. "Maybe you're right."

  "And right now, we need to get some sleep. It's almost daybreak." In one smooth motion, he turned them both over onto their sides, still holding her close to him.

  As she closed her eyes, she couldn't prevent the smile of pure joy from spreading over her face. She couldn't remember ever having felt quite so happy.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was another grey, overcast September day in Culpepper Cove. Crawford was making his rounds, ostensibly patrolling Main Street—but in reality, he was lost in thought. As usual.