The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (34 page)

A smile quivered on her lips, and she looked up at him through a sweep of lashes.

"And this mouth." He leaned closer and smoothed the pad of his thumb across her lips. "Ah, this mouth could make a man forget what few scruples he's managed to hang on to in his miserable life."

His lips touched hers in a gentle, languid brush.

"Don't you know what you do to me, Grace?" He kissed her again, lingering longer this time with a slide of his tongue against the seam of her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. Brushing a strand of hair off her cheek, he said, "I turned away just now because if I didn't, I'd do something we'd both be sorry for later."

She leaned her face against his shoulder. "I wouldn't be sorry," she answered, spreading her fingers across his chest where his skin met the open V of his placket.

"Yes, you would." Capturing her hand, he lifted her open palm to his mouth and pressed his lips there. He was no saint, but a flesh-and-blood man. He'd been too long without a woman, and he begged her with his eyes to have mercy on him.

"Don't treat me like a child, Reese. I'm twenty years old. Today I almost didn't make it to twenty-one. Neither one of us can know what will happen around the next bend in the river, but I know I don't want to die without being with you—as a woman. Do you care for me at all?"

He dropped his forehead against hers. "Grace, I'm not the man for you."

"That's not what I asked." The fire snapped behind them, spiraling smoke up into the night air. Cupping his jaw with her hand, she forced him to look at her. "Do you care for me?"

"You know I do." It would take only the merest movement to seal his mouth against hers and take her as she was asking. He wanted it as much as she, maybe more. He was hard and throbbing at the very thought of her. But he reminded himself of her words. The river that carried them toward Querétaro could lead them to their deaths. If so, how could he regret taking her here, making her his woman? On the other hand, if—by some miracle—they came through it, could he say good-bye to her then? Could he let her go, knowing he'd spoiled her for the man she deserved?

That thought led inevitably to the next, one that swirled like hot grist in his gut: Could he ever reconcile letting some other man—any other man—hold her this way? Kiss her? Touch her? Could he ever truly let her go? The question drummed in his ears.

Her insistent lips pressed damply against the firm line of his jaw, and she caressed his heated skin with the slow swirl of her tongue. It spread an ache spiraling through the lower half of his anatomy.

Firelight flickered off her features, bathing her in a golden light. "Reese," she begged. "Make love to me."

"You don't know what you're asking."

"You don't want to?"

He let out a sharp breath. "Don't want to? I've spent the last four hundred miles trying to keep my mind off just that."

"You have?" A tremulous smile curved her mouth. "Then why—"

He took her by the arms and held her tight. "You've spent the last two weeks telling me I'm an honorable man. So, I'm trying to do the right thing here. Don't you see that?"

"Is it right to deny what's happening between us? Is it right to walk away from this without ever knowing?"

He stared at her without an answer for that. Slowly, she leaned forward and touched his mouth with hers. Once, twice—with maddening, pleading sweetness, until he could take no more. He caught her mouth fully in a hungry kiss, inhaling her scent.

There was no stopping it, he thought. Not this time.

With a low growl, he turned on her, pressing her back against the bank with the blanket spreading beneath them. He covered her with his weight, hip to hip, his thighs straddling hers. Capturing her hands in his, he pinned them to the ground on either side of her head. Her breasts lifted against his chest with an unbearable friction. Through the thin cotton of their clothing, he could feel the aroused buds of her nipples. Her face was flushed in the firelight, eyes half-lidded with passion—for him. She looked like an angel. His angel. And this wild place seemed for the moment as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

His mouth closed on hers hungrily, slanting first one way, then the other. It took no coaxing to urge her to open to him. Her tongue mated with his in a heated, reckless slide, and she moaned against his mouth. Her fingers threaded into the thick curls at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer yet.

Releasing her wrists, his hand traveled down the length of her arm to the soft cloud of her breast. Cupping its weight in his hand, he fondled the beaded nipple through her damp chemise until she arched upward, leaning into his touch. Breaking the kiss, his mouth tortured the column of her neck, licking and nipping her heated skin on the way to his goal.

He untied the silky ribbon on her chemise, roughly pulling the fabric aside to expose her breast. A sigh escaped him as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her perfect pink nipple. He teased it with his tongue, laving and nipping with his teeth until she squirmed beneath him. Then, pulling it fully into his mouth, he suckled with a hunger more insatiable than any he'd ever known.

Grace moaned in pleasure as sensation after sensation rocked her. She could feel the hard length of him against her thigh. The momentary fear that chased after the pleasure vanished with his next kiss. Her blood was afire and her pulse thudding so hard against her ears she was certain that it was the heavy rhythm of it he was following with his mouth. Every inch of her skin tingled, particularly the damp places where his tongue explored. When he shifted his attention to her other breast, she thought she might explode.

But that was before he took up a new kind of torture with his hand. It drifted lower to her hips, smoothing over her thighs, then dragged a lick of heat across her inner thigh. Like a promise, it moved upward to that secret place as yet unviolated by any man's touch. And when, through the fabric, he found her, an exquisite tremor rocked through her, stealing her breath.

He groaned. "Sweet Mary." His breath came raggedly. He rested his hand on her hipbone and looked up at her. The night air cooled on her damp breast. "It's not too late to stop, but soon it will be. Do it now, before this goes too far."

"I don't want to stop," she told him desperately, easing the first button on his longjohns out of its home. She slid her hand against the mat of hair just below, seeking the flat brown nipple on his chest.

"Ahh-hh." He sighed. "Neither do I, darlin'. But if you change your mind—"

"I won't." She dipped her mouth to his nipple the same way he had to hers. His heart thudded against her palm in a frenzied beat. When he opened his eyes again, they were ablaze with passion. He took her by the shoulders and rolled over onto his back so that she was sitting atop the hard length of him. He flexed his hips with a wicked smile as he unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons on her camisole, before slipping the garment completely off.

Grace squirmed against him, wanting more. On her parents' farm, she'd seen animals mate, and she wasn't so innocent she didn't know what would come next. But her knowledge was limited to the act itself.

She'd never guessed, and none of the married wags had ever so much as hinted, that getting there could be so much fun.

Reese cupped both her breasts in his hands, lifting and testing their weight. Then, with her still riding his hips, he arched forward and kissed each one with languid heat. Slowly, he worked at the knotted drawstring of her pantalets until the waist fell open. He drew them down over her hips, then rolled her over onto her back, stripping her completely.

He whispered some prayer as his heated gaze slid over her like warm honey. The firelight carved his features with shadows, and as he leaned over her to burn a trail of fire down her belly with his mouth, his hair fell across her breast. Grace threaded her fingers into the luxuriant thickness of it, pulling his head inexorably closer. His tongue explored every curve and rise with aching thoroughness. And when he dipped below the small triangle of curls at the juncture of her legs, she gasped in shocked pleasure. Oh, heavens! she thought breathlessly, even Lorna Lee didn't know about this!

Where his fingers had teased, his mouth cajoled. With slow, languid skill, he brought her to the brink of madness. She arched upward mindlessly, desperate to ease the exquisite ache he stirred.

Her response set fire to Reese's blood. His breath a ragged growl, he rose up over her and ripped the buttons loose on his longjohns. She reached up to help him out of them, as eager as he for the feel of her skin against his. Her fingers hesitated on the healing scar on his side and she looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

Dispelling her concern for him with a single movement, he covered her with his weight, a heartbeat away from losing his last thread of control. He'd thought he'd known sweetness before. He'd thought he'd known desire. But all paled beside the reckless hunger throbbing inside him now. Pressing his hips against hers, he probed the entrance to her.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered.

"Oh, Reese, please," she begged. "I need..." Her voice trailed off as she watched him and he knew she wasn't sure exactly what she needed to relieve the tension building between them.

But he did. He entered her warmth slowly, allowing her tightness to accommodate him as he filled her. With the slow grind of his hips, he probed deeper, then withdrew, over and over, until he reached the barrier he knew he'd find. Grace squirmed beneath him. His breath scraped against his throat as he lingered on the precipice, uncertain if he should go through with it. And just as certain that he must.

Wrapping her legs around his hips, she took the decision out of his hands by forcing him deeper. He heard her gasp of pain and felt the give of the delicate maidenhead. Reese went perfectly still inside her.

He dropped his mouth to her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. But he didn't move for a full minute as she gathered her nerve again. Her fingers gripped his sweat-sheened shoulders and her lips moved against his ear. "Don't stop, please. Don't stop now."

And with that, his restraint broke.

His hips resumed their rhythm and Grace matched him movement for movement. Skin to skin, she felt the unbearable friction of their passion-glazed bodies as he rubbed against her, capturing her lips, her ear, her breast with his heated mouth.

In some dim part of her mind, she realized that a part of her had just vanished into the past while another, new aspect had entwined with his soul, forever linking her life with his. There was a rightness to it and a sense of destiny she would never question or regret, no matter what the result.

Somewhere, beyond that thought, she forgot to think—forgot everything but the ancient rhythm between them and the pulse-pounding sensations flooding her. Each movement drove her higher and higher, whirling on some dangerous ledge from which she could only hope to take flight.

He lifted her hips and plunged deeply into her with a final thrust. She heard his strangled cry as he spilled his seed into her and at the same moment, felt that fragile thread she'd been clinging to snap inside her. With a moan, she spiraled upward, then fractured apart in tiny pieces in an impossible explosion of fire and ice.

Minutes later, still entwined, they lay recovering their breath as the night air cooled the sweat glistening on their bodies. Reese absorbed the feel of Grace's hand against his back. She moved it in slow, comforting circles and, aside from what had just happened, he'd never felt anything so good.

Above them, the dome of stars seemed somehow fuller and nearer, and he wondered hazily if that piece of heaven he'd shared with her had accomplished that. He tightened his jaw and closed his eyes against her shoulder.

Fool.

It just proved how low he'd sunk that romantic notions were actually popping into his head. There was no defense for what he'd done. He'd warned her he was a selfish man, but even he had rarely stooped to such depths as to ruin an innocent virgin, even if she had begged him for it. Grace couldn't possibly know the full ramifications of what they'd done tonight. But he did.

But she wasn't just any virgin. She was the woman who'd saved his life, brought him back from the dead in more ways than one. She was the woman who'd asked him to believe in himself again.

A single, terrifying thought, one that had edged stealthily into his consciousness for the past few days, circled in on him now and coalesced into this simple truth: He'd fallen in love with her.

When had that happened?

Slowly,
he thought. She'd crept up on his heart and charmed her way in with a smile here, a word there. He'd tried hard to dislike her, harder still to keep her at arm's length. But all for naught. And this was where it led.

He had no right to her. And even if he could stay right here and hold her forever, she'd one day resent him for it. Of that he was certain.

He pushed up on one elbow, feeling the heat of the fire warming his back. It cast Grace's features in a burnished light, and his movement caused her to open her eyes.

"Don't go," she whispered, pulling him back. But, breaking the intimate connection between them, he did.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked.

She shook her head, watching him uncertainly. "No. Just for a moment." She reached out to trace a finger in the whorl of hair matting his chest. She sighed. "I never knew it could be like that."