by Nan Ryan
Cole threw a long leg over, dropped to the ground, came around and hauled Marietta down out of the saddle. He was angry, his bearded face set, his indigo eyes snapping with fury. His hand tightly encircling her upper arm, Cole shoved Marietta up against the winded mare.
He took her chin roughly in his hand, tilted her head back, made her look up at him and said, “Damn you, don’t you ever try anything like that again! You hear me? You can’t get away from me, can’t outsmart me, so stop trying. You, sweetheart, are going to Texas, like it or not. I am taking you to your Grandpa in Galveston if I have to drag you every step of the way by the scruff of your neck!”
His eyes were feverish and his lean frame vibrated with anger against her trembling body. Half-afraid of him, Marietta nonetheless experienced a delicious feeling of triumph. His broad chest, pressed against her breasts, was rising and falling rapidly with his excited breaths and his hard thighs had her pinned against the horse’s heaving belly.
He continued to hold her chin firmly between thumb and forefinger and his voice was hot, not cold, when he said, “Damn you, woman, I’ve had about enough of your nonsense. Either start behaving or suffer the consequences, because I am out of patience. I know your kind, baby, you’re dime a dozen and I can beat you at any game you want to play. You aren’t the first conniving female to think you can get the best of me, but it isn’t going to happen. You can’t escape me nor can you seduce me, trust me on that. You’re nothing more than a spoiled little witch bent on annoying the hell out of me and I am tired to death of you and your shenanigans. You understand me?”
Staring up into his angry face, Marietta tried to speak but couldn’t. He was holding her cheeks and mouth too tightly in the vise of his hand. So she made an attempt to nod, her eyes wide.
“Answer me, dammit!” Cole commanded, “before I lose my temper.”
Marietta’s eyes grew wider. Her heart thumped against her ribs. She clawed at his hand, trying to swallow. “Y-yes,” she finally managed to say.
Cole released her chin, but kept her pinned to the mare with his unyielding body. “Yes, what?” he snarled.
Again she anxiously swallowed, attempting to get some saliva into her dry mouth. “Yes, I understand, Cole. I won’t give you any more trouble.”
“See that you don’t,” he said. He released her and stepped back so quickly that she lost her balance and fell to her knees.
Cole didn’t help her up. His back was already turned on her. So he never saw Marietta’s exultant smile as she got to her feet and dusted herself off. He thought he had won the battle of wills.
She knew better.
She was the victor.
His surrender was imminent.
At long last she had succeeded in making the impervious Mr.-God-Almighty-Heflin angry. Really, really angry.
Couldn’t she make him want her with that same brand of fiery passion? Of course she could.
Late that same afternoon they had crossed the wide green valley and reached the last line of jagged foothills marching north to south. They made camp near a winding snow-fed brook bordered by tall evergreens, verdant pines and thick weeping willows.
As soon as they had unloaded the gear, Cole left Marietta alone. Without a word he took a towel, his razor, a bar of soap and disappeared into the woods.
He wasn’t worried that she would try to escape. She had, he was sure, learned her lesson and would give him no more trouble. The rest of the journey should prove uneventful.
Cole returned to the campsite shortly, clean shaven, his raven hair damp and glistening, his shirt unbuttoned down his dark chest. Marietta looked up at him and felt her heart skip a beat.
It was, she realized, not going to be all that unpleasant to make love to him. His face, devoid of the thick dark whiskers, was smooth and handsome and his broad, bare chest, revealed in the open shirt, was nothing short of magnificent.
“You take a bath?” Marietta asked.
“I did,” Cole said and went about gathering firewood.
“You enjoy it?”
“I did,” he said again.
“I need a bath myself,” Marietta informed him. Cole said nothing. His back to her, he continued to gather wood. Marietta rose, stretched and announced, “Yes, sir, I think I’ll just go take myself a nice refreshing bath like you did.”
Over his shoulder, he said, “Go ahead. But don’t get too far out of my sight.”
She smiled and teased, “You won’t peek, will you, Cole?”
He finally turned, glanced at her and said, “I have no desire to spy on you, Marietta.”
“I’m sure relieved to hear that,” she replied and smiled at him. “Now I’ll feel quite safe and can take my time.”
“Don’t take too much time,” he warned. “You do and I’ll come after you.”
“Promise?” she kidded, took a blanket, the soap and towel, and headed for the stream.
Cole finished gathering wood. He built a fire. He laid out their evening meal. He sat down to wait for Marietta.
Cole waited.
And waited.
He became more alarmed with each passing minute. He finally rose to his feet. She had been gone too long. Way too long. Almost an hour. Jesus, maybe she had drowned. The current was swift from the recent rains. Perhaps she couldn’t swim. He should never have allowed her to go off alone.
Cole’s heart began to hammer in his chest. He started running. He raced headlong into the stand of tall weeping willows where she had disappeared.
“Marietta! Marietta!” he shouted frantically, slapping greenery out of his way.
No answer.
Panic seized Cole.
“Marietta!” he shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Please, Marietta, answer me! Oh, God, where are you? Answer me!”
“Were you looking for me?” came a soft feminine voice from close by.
Cole crashed to a stop, turned his head and saw her. She was seated on a blanket spread out on the grass. Her damp red hair was blazing in the dying summer sunlight. She was naked to the waist. Her pale, high breasts were full and perfectly shaped, the satiny nipples large and soft. How long, he idly wondered, would it take him to awaken those sleeping nipples?
His hot gaze slid lower.
Marietta still had on her leather riding pants, but the trousers were unbuttoned down her bare belly. She was leaning back on stiffened arms with her long legs stretched out before her. Her feet were bare.
She was the loveliest woman Cole had ever seen.
He swallowed hard when he glimpsed the wisp of fiery red curls against pale ivory flesh appealingly exposed in the open vee of her unbuttoned leather trousers.
Even as he approached her, Cole struggled to resist. He couldn’t touch her, he couldn’t. She was Maxwell Lacey’s granddaughter, for God sake. Maxwell Lacey had saved him from the gallows and he had paid him a fortune. He couldn’t repay the old gentleman by seducing his misbehaving granddaughter.
Unbuttoning his shirt as he knelt on one knee beside the half-naked, naughty Marietta, Cole’s last logical thought was, Ah, what the hell, the old man will likely be dead before we ever get to Galveston.
Cole put his hand to the crown of Marietta’s flaming red-gold hair and said in a low, caressing voice, “I intend to take off your britches, Marietta. If you don’t want me to, stop me now while I still can.”
Nineteen
Marietta did not reply.
She smiled catlike, the answer clearly written in her flashing emerald eyes. The trap had been set and was about to be sprung.
Cole gazed at Marietta for a long, tense moment, then drew her up and gently pressed her against his raised knee. With his hand still in her hair, he urged her head back slightly, leaned down, started to kiss her, but paused when his lips were a scant inch from her own.
In a voice that sounded like a caress, but drawling a little more than usual, Cole said softly, “Tell me, Marietta. Tell me you want me to kiss you.”
Her heart now
beginning to race beneath her naked breasts, Marietta gulped anxiously for air, then whispered, “Yes, I do, Cole. I want you to kiss—”
Before she could finish the sentence, Cole kissed her.
And what a kiss it was.
Squirming against him, her left breast brushing his naked chest, Marietta couldn’t believe that a mere kiss could be so incredibly exciting. No one, absolutely no one, had ever kissed her the way Cole Heflin was kissing her now.
She hadn’t expected this, wasn’t prepared to get involved, to be so thrilled by his touch. She hadn’t intended to let herself actually become engrossed in the lovemaking. She had meant to hold herself apart, to not truly surrender to his passion, to only pretend.
The troubled thought ran through her mind that this unexpected excitement, this sensual awakening, was not in her well-laid plans. Heflin was supposed to be the one aroused, not her. She had given it a great deal of thought before coming to the decision that allowing Cole to make love to her was a necessary evil. Simply the means to an end. For one reason and one reason only.
But just what was that reason? Marietta wondered now as Cole deepened the kiss, his hot mouth open on hers, his tongue dipping inside to touch and taste and thrill her. Marietta tingled with rising pleasure and promptly forgot everything, save how wonderful it felt to have Cole’s marvelous mouth moving so persuasively on hers.
As the slow, hot kiss continued, Cole’s warm hand lifted to cup a soft, pale breast. He slowly rubbed his thumb back and forth over the rapidly stiffening nipple. Marietta shivered at his touch, made a little whimpering sound deep in her throat and finally tore her burning lips from his.
Cole raised his dark head, but his caressing hand stayed at her breast, his thumb continuing to tease and pluck at the sensitive nipple. Fighting for breath, her heart hammering, Marietta knew in that instant that she had made a mistake. Had miscalculated her formidable foe.
She looked into Cole’s heavily lidded, sleepily sensual eyes and was suddenly quite frightened. He stared at her and she felt a fierce animal power emanating from him, fully enveloping her, rendering her defenseless. She trembled. She should never have allowed things to go this far. She was in imminent danger and it was her fault. Perhaps she should just tell him she had changed her mind.
“Cole,” she began, her eyes closing, “I don’t think we should…that is, I…I…”
“Hmm,” he murmured, agilely swung around, threw a leg across Marietta and sank down astride her thighs.
He took hold of her shoulders, drew her up into his close embrace and slowly kissed her closed eyes, her face, her throat, his heated lips moving down until he reached the swell of her breast. Marietta’s eyes opened and she again feebly tried to protest.
“Cole, we really can’t…”
Her words trailed away as his head moved down her chest until his lips closed over her left nipple. Her breath caught in her throat and she raised her hands to push him away. She slid her slender fingers into the thick hair at the sides of his head.
But she didn’t push him away.
She couldn’t.
His tantalizing tongue was licking her responsive nipple and it felt so heavenly she decided to let him continue. Just for a second or two. Then she’d make him stop.
“Ohhhh, my,” she murmured, her eyes closing again when his teeth playfully raked back and forth, nibbling at the pebble-hard nipple. Her fingers automatically tightened in his hair.
“Cole,” she breathed his name when he began to suck on the nipple, his jaws flexing, lips pulling vigorously.
Marietta’s eyes opened and she gazed down on the head at her breast. It was an erotic sight to watch him suckle her, his handsome face dark against the paleness of her breast. His beautiful blue eyes were closed, the long dark lashes fluttering restlessly. He had a hand beneath her breast, lifting it to his lips, his lean, tanned fingers gently kneading the soft flesh.
For a delicious moment it was as if Marietta were outside herself, watching. She was intensely aroused by what she saw. The two of them, naked to the waist together on a blanket under a dying red sun. Cole seated astride her, his weight supported on his bent knees, his mouth on her breast.
Cole gave Marietta’s nipple one last plucking kiss, raised his head and looked into her widened eyes. He put a hand to the side of her throat, his thumb beneath her chin.
“Kiss me, darlin’,” he urged. “Kiss me like you mean it.”
Marietta raised her arms up around his neck, lifted her face for his kiss and again closed her eyes, waiting. Cole didn’t kiss her. A long minute passed. Marietta opened her eyes and gave him a questioning look.
“Don’t you want to kiss me?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I want you to kiss me.”
She shrugged, pulled his head down and eagerly pressed her lips to his. Cole allowed her to control the kiss for a moment or too. Then he took over. The enveloping hotness of his mouth closed commandingly over Marietta’s and he sucked the very breath from her lungs. Then gave it back to her.
They kissed several times, seated like that and with each kiss both became increasingly feverish with desire, eager to have more, to know each other completely. It was during one of those long, heated kisses that they changed positions. Deftly, with Marietta hardly realizing what was happening, Cole managed to roll the two of them over until he was lying flat on his back and she was seated atop him.
Another lengthy, ardent kiss finally ended and Marietta was surprised to find herself astride Cole. She slowly sat up. She looked at him and realized that his sleepy-eyed gaze was focused on the vee of her open trousers. She automatically lowered protective hands to cover herself.
“No, baby,” he said, brushing her hands aside. “Don’t. Come here.” Cole drew Marietta back down onto his chest, placed her head on his shoulder and murmured into her ear, “Remember I told you I was going to take your britches off?” Marietta nodded against his bare shoulder but said nothing. “Marietta?”
“Yes?”
“Say it. Tell me you want me to take off your pants and make love to you.”
A long minute passed in silence. Finally, she managed to say, “Yes, all right.”
“Yes, all right, what?” he said.
“I…I…you know.”
“No, sweetheart, that’s not good enough,” he told her. “I want to be sure you know exactly what I intend to do and that you want me to do it.”
He fell silent then, let her think it over. Marietta realized he was giving her the opportunity to change her mind. She could say no, get up and button her britches. But, how could she possibly make such a decision when she was lying here against his hot, hard body? Her breasts were flattened on his broad, bare chest, the crisp dark hair tickling her sensitive nipples. If that were not enough, she was seated astride him, her trousered legs open directly atop his pelvis.
Through the shielding fabric of both her trousers and his, she could feel the hot throbbing power of his erection. And she could feel the answering pulsating of her own body.
“Cole,” she whispered, her lips against his throat, “I want you to take off my pants. I want you to make love to me. I want to make love to you.”
Cole turned his head and kissed her. A long, slow, fervent kiss. During that kiss, Cole gently urged Marietta over onto her side and he rolled onto his. He lay facing her, stroking her hair, allowing her a moment to calm down, to put aside any lingering anxiety. When her nervous breathing had slowed, when she was tranquilly stroking his chest, his shoulders, Cole slipped a warm hand down inside Marietta’s open trousers.
He watched her beautiful face change expressions as his fingers brushed lightly through the crisp red curls to gently, possessively cup her. For a long moment Cole did no more than that. Just held her as if she were a fragile work of art and all the while he looked into her eyes, reading every emotion she was experiencing.
Marietta felt as if she was bewitched. It was heaven to lie looking into the sky blue eyes of
this dark, compelling man while his warm, gentle hand lay lightly enclosing the most intimate part of her body, that part that no man had ever touched before. She supposed she should be shocked and outraged. Should tell him that she had not expected, nor did she approve of him examining her with his hand.
Instead, she felt herself involuntarily begin to squirm and thrust her hips forward. She flushed at the realization that she actually longed to feel his long, tanned fingers touch her even more intimately. Would they? She didn’t know. She dared not ask.
Cole could easily read Marietta’s thoughts. Her body was signaling her desires. She was ready. She wanted him to touch her more aggressively, needed it, was asking for it.
Cole gladly gave it to her.
Continuing to lie on his side facing her, Cole eased up, balanced his weight on a bent elbow and watched Marietta closely as he deftly parted the fiery curls partially concealed in the open trousers. Marietta was looking directly at his face. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and blushed hotly. She couldn’t keep from glancing down when she felt the tip of Cole’s middle finger touch her where she most wanted to be touched.
“Cole, Cole,” she breathed as he slowly, expertly caressed her, moistening his finger in the hot silky wetness flowing freely from her.
“I know, sweetheart. I know. Feels so good,” he murmured, gently circling that tiny button of pulsating flesh with the tip of his finger.
An experienced lover who was more than adept at undressing women, Cole kept Marietta at a fever pitch while he managed to easily relieve her of her leather pants. When they were discarded and Marietta was gloriously naked, Cole, with his hand still between her legs, kissed Marietta. Then he drew her up into a sitting position, coming up with her. He put an arm around her. Sighing, Marietta closed her eyes and let her head sag against his shoulder.
“Baby, open your eyes,” Cole coaxed. “Let’s watch together while I touch you, love you like this. You’re so beautiful. So hot and wet.”