He moved down her body to lavish attention on her swollen breasts. The kisses and nibbles and licks layered shivers over need until she thought her body would never get to right again. She’d be filled with only him and the memory of tonight, through the long, lonely nights in prison.
When he started to draw her trousers down her hips, she froze for a moment, caught in the portent of the action. She was truly going to do this, proper behavior be damned. And she’d love every moment.
He noticed her hesitation, because he stopped and looked up. A shock of hair fell across his forehead, making him look younger and more vulnerable than he ever had. “We don’t have to do this. It’s not too late.”
“Don’t you dare back out on me now.” With fast, frantic movements, she pushed her pants down, kicking her legs when she couldn’t reach with her hands anymore. Her toes caught him in the calf, and wrenched a dry chuckle from him.
“Easy there, partner,” he laughed. “We’ve got all night.”
“I want to make use of every moment. Help me get these damn things off.”
Rearing back on his haunches, he gripped her hems and pulled. “Your wish is my command.”
“You know just how to make a girl feel like queen of the world.”
He lifted himself above her, his hands planted next to her head. “Do I? I’d begun to wonder if I’d lost my touch.”
“What does that mean?” Even his hair-dusted calf and the solid muscles of his arms delineated the differences between them. The very same differences that made her feel strangely fragile, even as she swelled with a wicked power. She peeked down the length of their bodies. Flat to curved, hard to soft. And between, his strong, extended member. His cock. She knew the word. But this was the first time she’d ever seen one in person, much less one so eager looking.
“Remember, it’s been five years for me, hellcat.” He lowered himself in a slow, controlled motion. His shoulders to hers first. Then his chest against her breasts. The simple pressure made her eyes flutter shut. Next were his legs, springy hairs brushing her, and she burned with the heat pouring off him.
His hips came last, his cock notched into the warm wet that had spread onto her upper thighs. She didn’t think he’d forgotten a thing. “Oh,” she breathed, a nonsense word that did not encompass the intensity that coursed through her.
“Oh, indeed,” he said. A curious look of determination crossed with near-pain passed over his face.
The newness ebbed, at least enough for her to gather a fraction of her wits. But then he kissed her again. She was nothing but the now when he kissed her. Flinty sparks surged through her when his cock slid along her parted slit. She moaned, even as he groaned and rubbed his face over the juncture of her shoulder and neck.
“I don’t think I’m going to last very long.”
Digging her blunt fingernails into his back gave her a hot rush under her ribs. “I don’t think I care.”
“Trust me. You will.” He levered up on one arm, forcing her to loosen her grip. “But don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.”
It didn’t seem the moment to be smiling, much less laughing, but somehow another giggle bubbled out of her. “Is that right? Should I be frightened?”
“That depends.” He traced a slow path down the center of her body, until his fingers hovered above the place where they pressed so near together. “Do you trust me?”
A cold spike shoved under her ribs. “Sometimes. But I don’t understand…”
She lost her words all together when he slipped down her body as fast as one of her trick riding stunts. Then she didn’t just understand, she
knew
and it was the most shocking, surprising, absolutely magical thing she’d ever felt. Every kiss and lick he’d lavished on her breasts was multiplied and intensified. His mouth sucked, preparing her for nibbles that sent shaky luxury down her limbs. He soothed her aching flesh with his tongue, keeping to his task with admirable focus before delving inside her.
Even as her core melted soft and warm, her body still thrashed on its own, held down by his one strong arm pinned across her hipbones, just over where he ministered to her aching body. Her heels hooked over his damp shoulders. His other hand snaked down his side, working in a rhythmical motion she couldn’t be bothered with understanding while he worked her over.
He kept at it until she thought she’d flip inside out with the roiling bliss, until he’d wrung from her two of those explosive white-stars-behind-her-eyes events. Until on the last one, she became the pleasure, inside and out, and begged and pleaded. She called his name over and over.
Finally he rose from his knees, taking the lazy way up her body as he delivered soft kisses and stinging nips that he immediately laved with quick licks. He spent time at her breasts again, sucking her swollen nipples and palming the heavy mounds. Fighting to regain her breath left her riding the shivery aftershocks that spun out into her legs. But it wasn’t long before his ministrations wrapped her tight again, like a bowstring ready to fire. She tunneled her fingers through his thick, slick hair and tugged his head up so she could see his eyes. Even in the dim light of the moon that streamed over their hideaway, they burned with a passion that thrilled her to her toes.
“Now,” she said. “I want you now.”
He gave a wicked, roguish smile that warmed her heart entirely more than it should. “I’m happy to oblige,” he said, and kissed her. He tasted like himself, plus a salty tang that she was shocked to realize must be her. How very naughty.
A heavy presence prodded between her thighs. She shivered and buried her face against his chest. For all she’d wanted this, and did even now, trepidation coiled through her. Such a huge step, and so many things could go wrong for a woman who gave herself freely. But all those minor problems faded in the shadow of Yuma Prison. She spread her thighs a little wider in silent supplication and rubbed her knees against his legs. His skin was hot and sticky with sweat.
She opened her mouth against him, just above his flat nipple, and touched her tongue to his flesh. A slow rock of his hips and she was filled. Given and owned in one fell swoop. Her head spun free of all earthly concerns, swept with joy.
Then he took her mouth in a searing kiss and surged inside her in an incendiary taking. Her entire body lit with pleasure and want and a fullness she’d never forget. The moan she gave became his breath. He didn’t move his hips, merely stayed seated inside her in a presence that seemed near to take over her soul.
She yanked her mouth from his and arched her neck until she could see the white pinprick stars overhead. It was too much, and at the same time, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure whether to scramble away or sink her nails into his skin and never let him go. The precarious blending of bodies became grander than she’d ever expected. And yet it was somehow more. Like she’d let him into not simply her body, but her soul as well. She squinched her eyes tightly shut.
He curled his hand around her jaw. “Look at me.”
It was a demand, even in such soft words.
She wanted to look, despite the tumult in her mind. But she couldn’t make herself. Instead, she opened her lips and darted her tongue over his thumb. He grunted, and the presence inside her twitched, sending sparking joy out through her body, up to her ribs.
He wouldn’t be deterred. “Look at me, Maggie.” He rubbed his thumb over the edge of her teeth. “I won’t be some anonymous fuck.”
Her eyes snapped open and she jerked her head down, almost choking on his hand. That hadn’t been what she’d meant, not at all. She shook her head, but didn’t have the words to explain the mess inside her. She had always been a tumbled mess inside, but hid it with smiles and determination. Never before had she felt so exposed.
Then he moved. Stroked deep inside her, then out again ’til she thought he would withdraw. She wrenched her arms and legs tight around him, desperate to forestall such torture. For all her tumult, she couldn’t bear to stop now. He pushed inside her again and again, until bliss took her over.
He started smooth and assured, his gaze boring into hers. That didn’t last long. Though he never looked away, his motions became frantic, driving her into the rock. She surged back at him, grateful he seemed as out of control as she felt. Words spilled from her though she could barely even tell what they were. Begging and pleading for more and harder and yes, there. He answered with grunts and purrs and praise. His hands gripped, one traveling to her hips, while the other wrapped under her back and over her shoulder. Bruises would mark her flesh in the morning, but it wouldn’t matter. The security she found in his grasp infused her.
When the pleasure wound too tight, she snapped open in a shimmery shower of sparks, flying over the edge in a consuming rush she’d never dared dream of. She hardly recognized the growling scream as her own, but he sealed his mouth over hers, taking it into himself. The shuddering power of his release became part of her, absorbed into her very body. Everything the universe should be was wrapped up between them both.
When he fell beside her on the rock, a boneless lassitude prevented her from doing anything more than letting him. Until he scooped her up and draped her over himself, her full body length supported upon him. She let him arrange her like a rag doll, her legs stretched down his, her face tucked into the straight slash of his collarbone. For short moments, half seconds or less, she could pretend everything was as it should be. Happy and whole and not headed for misery. He rubbed up and down her back in a slow massage, not even stopping when he got to her buttocks.
“Was the stone too rough?” His voice was hoarse, and she felt it rumble through every bit of her.
“No. I hardly even noticed.” Though she would likely feel it tomorrow. Even now, a stinging awareness broke through the tingling delight that suffused her. Still, she couldn’t regret it, even knowing she might be miserable sitting on Sandie for hours tomorrow.
“Good.” His hands didn’t stop their petting and soothing, and she was glad for it. Even if it was a casual sort of caring, she needed someone to worry about her. It had been a long while since she’d had that simple pleasure, not since her mother died. After Robert was killed, there had been only Father, and he had been too absorbed in his own day-to-day pain.
She pushed such sad thoughts from her head and breathed in the tangy male scent that filled her nose. Allowing her eyes to drift shut, she focused on continuing their little moment outside time as long as she could. Worrying about the repercussions could come later. Much later, if she had her way about it, but that wasn’t likely. Dean would still deliver her as promptly as possible to Masterson.
Wouldn’t he?
His arms wrapped around her, hands spanning her back. “You cold?”
She thought about denying it. If she said yes, it would be the same as admitting they had to gather up clothes and their dignity. Go back to the camp and pretend this night had never happened. But there was no ignoring the second shiver that overtook her. “Mmm-hmm.”
“All right.” He rubbed her back, then lifted her to sit beside him. “Time to get going.”
She agreed with a nod and a sigh, and slid from their little pagan altar of a rock. But she kept sneaking looks at him and the tight play of his muscles in his butt as he bent and stepped into his pants. She’d barely gotten her chemise on before he caught her eyeing the way his thick shoulders rolled as he shrugged into his shirt.
That wicked little smile of his tipped his mouth. “Keep looking at me like that and we’ll never get back to camp.”
She grabbed her pants and made sure to work in an extra shimmy as she pulled them up over her hips. She watched him out of the corner of her eyes. He was most certainly staring. “Would that be such a bad thing?”
His chuckle bounced around the small clearing and over the water. From behind, he slid one arm around her waist and with the other dragged his fingers down her neck. “You’re a menace to my wellbeing. Do you realize that?”
She let her head rest on his shoulder, and stroked her hands over his bare forearm. Cozy, comforting touches—and yet so very not. Hunger began to build within her, but she shoved it down. “Hmm. I’m rather proud of that fact.”
He kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear and she could feel the bow of his smile against her skin. A hot slither of power went through her, that she could affect his moods. She wanted to reach down within him and shake up all his parts. “I am not surprised in the least, hellcat.”
“Isn’t this a cozy scene?”
They both spun, Dean shoving her behind him.
Ike Linkers stood not twelve feet away, thumbs slung in his dirty suspenders as he reeled back on his heels. They’d both been too wrapped up in each other to notice him approach.
The grin he sported made Maggie feel like she needed a dip in the river to wash away his filth. Though she wanted nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face, she wasn’t stupid enough to come out from behind Dean. His wide body prevented Linkers from getting any more of an eyeful than he’d already gotten. She cast around for her shirt, but it was too far away to reach—a good two feet past Linkers. Even worse, Dean’s gun belt coiled in the sand beside it. Seeing it sent a nasty shock jolting through her.
Her father’s connection to Masterson meant she’d never truly worried about danger from the man. He was an annoyance with a healthy smattering of disgusting, but not dangerous. Now, she wasn’t so sure. His dark eyes gleamed and he leaned forward in an almost predatory manner. She wished Dean had his gun. Even its simple, deadly presence might be a deterrent, since Linkers had never been known as a gunfighter.
She swallowed, her throat tight with the sudden dryness that swept every speck of moisture from her mouth. There were no such nerves visible in Dean, though. He stood with his feet casually apart and his hands steady at his sides, as if he had nothing to fear from Linkers. And he didn’t. She had no doubt he’d take care of this situation.
“Now I understand why you got all fired violent,” Linkers said in a smooth voice. A crazy, fevered expression pinched his features. “Have you been swiving her since you picked her up in Texas? Or is this a new adventure?”
“Shut your goddamned mouth,” Dean growled.
She set her free hand at his back, surprised to feel the cramped muscles there. From all appearances, he was as cool as could be, but that was nowhere near the truth. “Don’t do this, Ike,” she warned, hoping their years of acquaintance might break through to him. The last thing their little party needed was brawling, not when they were about to cover two days of straight, dangerous desert.
“No?” Linkers cocked his head as if to look around Dean. “You gonna make it worth my while? Toss me a little consolation prize? I wouldn’t need long, I promise you.”
She blanched, her cheeks going heavy and cold. Though she tried to control it, she flinched against Dean’s back. The thought of sullying memories of their lovemaking by lying with Linkers was so repugnant bile churned in her throat.
“This is what’s going to happen.” Dean’s cool voice belied the menace pouring off him in pulsing waves. He nigh on exuded violence and killing, and it didn’t matter that his weapon was so far away. “You’re going to turn around and walk away. You won’t say a word about this. For that matter, you won’t say a word to either of us, unless it’s a dire necessity, if you know what’s good for you.”
“You know what? I’ll be goddamned before I take orders from you.” Linkers’s hands fisted into balls. “It’s bullshit enough Masterson’s giving you that fucking sheriff job when I should have it.”
Dean leaned forward on his toes, even as he subtly pushed her back. She went, though reluctance dragged her backward steps to prickly pear sap stickiness. Her heart pounded in her ears and her wrists, swamping her with fear. The last thing he needed was a hysterical female splitting his concentration.
Dean flexed his fingers and darted a glance at his pistol. “What’s the matter? Masterson doesn’t think you’re man enough to be allowed out on your own? Is he too afraid you’ll shoot off your own balls if he lets you play lawman?”
Linkers’s smile stretched into a feral grimace. “It’s your turn to watch your fucking mouth before it gets you killed.”
The twist of Dean’s lips wasn’t anywhere near a smile, but she wasn’t sure what else to call it. A dare, perhaps? “You go ahead and try, pansy.”
Lowering his head, Linkers charged like a buffalo. Great, lumbering steps stomped with rage. Dean ducked to the side, but a swinging punch caught him in the side. Linkers turned with a speed she never would have expected and swung at Dean again. He blocked it and his own blow slammed into Linkers’s temple with a sickening hollow thunk.
Maggie hopped backward and leaped onto the boulder she and Dean had laid upon together. Her heart was racing again, but for an entirely different reason. Sheer, stark fear had taken over her bones and made her fingertips pulse with shakes. She’d seen fistfights before, usually spilling out of Fresh Springs’ saloon, and those she’d watched with a certain sort of fascination before she’d been hauled away by either Robert or her father.
This…This was different. She was closer, for one, near enough to hear the smacks and thumps of flesh on flesh. For another, it was Dean. What if he lost? She’d be Christ-damned if she went anywhere with Linkers. And…what if Dean was gravely hurt? For all their bickering, she couldn’t bear the idea. Despite his protestations, whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was a good man.
Linkers hooked a foot around Dean’s ankle, and they fell to the ground, Dean on the bottom. His head bounced against the sand, near enough to a smaller rock at the bottom of Maggie’s perch that she flinched for him. They rolled so that Dean was on top again, and he slammed punches into Linkers’s ribs. Linkers grunted, but somehow managed to toss them again.
Silver flashed in the pale moonlight. A small belly gun appeared in Linkers’s hand. Dean snatched it and sent it spinning out of sight into the trees. Linkers yanked a long, skinny knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh.
“Watch out,” she screamed, then wished she could take it back. His gaze flipped to hers, costing him a vital moment.
Linkers stabbed, but Dean took the slice across his forearm. He grabbed Linkers’s wrist with his uninjured hand. It should have been an easy contest—Dean had four inches and a good twenty pounds of muscle on Linkers. But he was in the weaker position on the bottom and Linkers seemed to have some strange kind of feral rage pushing him on. His face twisted in a frightening caricature of a man, lips pulled back from his teeth and his temples furrowed in a nasty snarl.
Oh, this was not a fair fight at all. Her own burning fury poured through her body, lighting her nerves on fire. She hopped down, landing in a loose-kneed crouch. With the way the men twisted and rolled, she couldn’t get to Dean’s gun without jumping over them. She kept one eye on the fight that had degenerated into such a miserable standoff. The rock she pried up was rough, but she almost dropped it anyway because of her sweaty palms. She juggled it to wipe her hands down her pants one at a time. It wouldn’t do to slip, not at all.
She crept forward, afraid Linkers would notice her, but both men were trapped in a savage struggle.
Linkers dug his knee into Dean’s leg, making him flinch. The knife flashed down, but Dean pushed it up again.
Maggie stood above them. She lifted the rock. Slammed it down with her full strength.
It bit into Ike’s head with a sickening crunch.
Her stomach churned. “Did I kill him?”
Dean pushed the man off him and sat up. He held a hand before Linkers’s mouth. A long minute spiraled out, and all Maggie heard was the occasional chirrup of a cricket.
He shook his head. Sweat plastered his hair to his scalp, and a dark trickle of blood dripped down his arm. “No, he’s alive. Won’t be waking up for a while though.”
She wrapped her arms around her chest, cupping her elbows. “Good.”
He pushed up from the ground, his every motion showing exhaustion. “What part?”
“Both, I suppose.” Her legs trembled and her blood roared, filling her ears with a too-late rush. “What are we going to do with him?”
He looked over his shoulder at her, head cocked with curiosity. He seemed to be searching Linkers for extra weapons, because he tossed a Colt single action to the side. “What do you mean? Tie him to his horse if we need to, but we’re taking him back with us.”
Her jaw dropped open. “Back with us?” she echoed dumbly.
He turned back to his task and tossed a gleaming, deadly knife to the pile. “Masterson will want him back, I imagine. Or if he doesn’t, he can deal with the jackass.”
“You’re—you’re still…” She wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence, so she waved a hand at the prostrate Linkers. “This? Him?”
“I’ll tell Masterson what the man’s really like, of course.”
Her mouth twisted with bitterness. “I’ve no doubt he already knows. Doesn’t much seem to me like Linkers dissembles well. And you’re ready and eager to work for the man who would employ such a lowlife.”
The longer Dean kept his gaze on Linkers, the more she thought he was doing it deliberately. He flipped the unconscious man to his back and tied his hands together with a strip of rawhide dug from his own pockets. “Doesn’t matter to me. Once I have the job, I can make my own way. Be the kind of sheriff I want.”
“If you believe that, you’re much stupider than I would have thought.” She dug at a pebble with a toe, then realized she was still barefoot when the gravel chafed her skin. Silently she gathered up her leggings and boots and sat down to pull them all on. She found her shirt on the far side of the big, flat-topped rock, one cuff dangling in the water. Uncaring, she yanked it on.
But it became impossible to hold her tongue any longer. She stomped her way over to Dean, who’d armored himself with his own boots and shirt. “I don’t think you understand.”
The sigh that shuddered through him was all long-suffering martyrdom. His eyes had gone cold again—that bitter, arctic cold she’d seen the first time she met him. A chill to match froze his tone. “Then explain it to me. I’m sure you will.”
She held back her shiver with pure determination. “Masterson and my father were a unit. They represented order and commerce in Fresh Springs. I used to think he was a good man, but he can’t be. Not considering the glee with which he denied me money for Father’s care and not after sending this kind of man after me. He’s going to expect the same sort of loyalty from you. Maybe more. After all, you’re the one who thinks he’s saving you with this nonsense.”
A cloud skittered across the moon, obscuring its silvery light, and Dean faded into a looming shadow. Arms loose at his sides, he was bigger and taller and wider than her.
She realized suddenly that he could break her with very little effort. During all their previous fights, he must have been holding himself back. Shaky fear cooled the last embers of their earlier passion. No matter that she was still sore between her legs, or even slightly slick with wetness. This wasn’t the same man she’d shared those moments with. This man looked incapable of ever smiling, much less smiling against her skin as he stroked her into climax.
She swallowed the nothingness in her mouth. “Well?” she prompted.
“Well, what?”
“Haven’t you anything to say for yourself?”
“No. And if you’re done, I need to haul him back to camp.”
For a second, she actually felt a twinge of guilt over hurting another human being. The bastard. She’d hit Linkers with that rock to save his worthless skin, and she wouldn’t allow him to make her feel guilty over it simply because he didn’t like the way their conversation was going. “So you’re willing to stick your head in the sand and ignore what’s right in front of you?”
“Aren’t you one to talk,” he drawled.
She narrowed her eyes at him, for all the good it did. He was still swathed in shadows. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
He tucked his thumbs in his gun belt and rocked back on his heels. “You really can’t see it, can you? Do you even listen to yourself? Or do the words just spill out of your mouth?”
She shook her head, as bewildered as if she were lost in the desert that stretched outside Fresh Springs for miles upon miles.
His voice whipped out like a lash, scouring her in sensitive places. “Your precious, sainted father. The one you broke the law to save. If Masterson is such scum all of a sudden, and if I’ll become scum by association, what does that make your father? Have you thought that one through?”
She flinched back until her boots smacked into the boulder. She thumped to a seat. Her palm scraped against a rough outcropping, but the sting was nothing compared to the pain that suddenly ricocheted through her. She shook her head frantically, loose locks of hair catching across her mouth. A quick swipe pushed them away. “It’s not the same thing.”
“No?” He stalked her like a mountain lion, all rangy movement and deadly threat. “Please, Maggie. Explain how it’s not.”
“It just
isn’t
,” she insisted. Her voice was climbing high, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. Not when the whole world whirled around her. “My father is a good, honest man. He’s a family man, always has been.”
“Is that right?” He loomed over her again. “Then tell me. Tell me what your brother was doing at any kind of shootout. He wasn’t a deputy, was he? Was there at least a posse gathered?”
“No, there wasn’t.” She cast back in her memories, but that whole period had become hazy. She hadn’t liked to think on it, not after losing her beloved brother. “Father had an idea where the raiders would be. Robert went with him, and they surprised the gang. That was it.”
Dean slapped his hands down by her hips. She leaned back, trying to get away from the fire of his eyes. “Why
didn’t
your pa get up a posse, then? How did he know where they’d be? What was he doing out there, Maggie? Was Arthur Bullock in league with the raiders? Tell me, damn it!”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she screamed in his face, spittle flying from her lips. She felt like an animal, caged by his strong arms. “They didn’t tell me. They never told me anything.” To her everlasting shame, she crumbled into sobs, falling flat to the rock. She stared up at the stars again, but they swam through the shimmery layer of her tears and her shoulders burned as they shook against the stone.
“Jesus, Maggie.” Big, warm hands pulled her upright again and he folded her against his chest, tucking her head under his chin. “I’m sorry.”
She wound her fingers into his shirt and hid her face from the world. The cotton went wet with her tears. “It…it can’t be true, can it?” Weak tremors ran through her voice.