“No, please,” she whispered, feeling new fear.
His hand moved to her back and burned into the trembling flesh there as it caressed her again, moving from the curve of her spine to her shoulder and then around to her breast. His fingers teased the hard little nipple, and she cried out, but he only pulled her closer against him and deepened his probing kiss. Now, much to her amazement, her knees buckled.
“Here, lie down,” she heard him say, lifting her to carry her back to the blanket.
“No…please,” she whispered.
“Hush. You don’t know what you want.”
Now she was lying on the blanket with the scratchy wool against her back and him welded to her front. His lips abandoned hers to explore the sweep of her neck and the rosy tips of her firm little cone-shaped breasts. His wet tongue traced imaginary circles around the swollen nipples until she shuddered and cried out. His warm hand nudged her legs open and brushed softly against the sensitive inner thigh. He pulled the cloth of her pantalets aside, and his fingers tried to slip inside. “No, please…” she moaned.
His lips stopped her protests. One hand squeezed and kneaded her breasts while the other hand strayed back between her legs. She shuddered again, but this time, her treacherous body arched against him, seeking his hands.
He sighed against her cheek. “That’s right, love, hold me tight.” His hand deftly undid the buttons on his trousers. Leslie knew what he was doing, but part of her seemed aloof from that knowledge. His fingers slipped inside her pantalets and brushed through the tight curls between her legs; one probing finger insinuated itself inside her, and his warm, smooth shocking member was nudging at her, ready to follow it.
Out of curiosity she had lain still under his ministrations, but now she knew she could no longer convince herself that all was well. Her kidnapper was about to do the unthinkable.
“No!” she cried, beginning to struggle in earnest. She pressed her thighs tightly closed, barring his entry.
“Easy, hellcat! Settle down,” he whispered, reclaiming her mouth. He kissed her long and hard, ignoring her struggles to stop him, until they were both breathless. When he had reduced her to quivering helplessness, his head moved lower to tease the sensitive inner thighs. Even in the state she was in, burning with unaccustomed desire, she felt alarm bells ringing in her head. But part of her wanted to know. Part of her wanted to experience everything that a man like this could or would do to a woman. Part of her was sick of wondering what it was men did to women that they wouldn’t talk about. But her terror was too great. Gasping with fear and the effort it took to make herself stop him, she caught him by the hair and dragged his head up.
“Ow!” he yelped. “Dammit.”
“Well, don’t do that!”
“Little hypocrite,” he growled, taking in the glazed look of desire that she couldn’t hide. “You know you want it.”
Her cheeks flushed scarlet. His piercing blue eyes seared into her, confirming his words; then slowly his mouth reclaimed her own, and she felt herself relaxing. His tongue claimed her mouth while his deft hands relieved her of the wet garments.
“No! Please, no!” she moaned, feeling like a hypocrite but unable to stop the instinctive plea.
“Hush, relax,” he urged, gentling her.
“No, please,” she whimpered.
“You would never forgive me if I believed you, you little liar,” he growled against her throat. His mouth closed around her dark rose nipple, torturing it while his hand stripped the soggy chemise and pantalets away from her body. “You’re beautiful, little one,” he whispered. “It’s no wonder Younger is so eager to have you back.”
She groaned, but even as she did her body arched into his, betraying her with its neediness. She decided in that instant that perhaps he was right. She was on fire. Why should she deprive herself of the delicious promise that shimmered in his touch? Her fate was sealed in any case. Either this man would take her and have his way with her, or Dallas Younger would. And Younger’s touch truly filled her with revulsion.
Ward leaned away from her, his hands caressing her. He would have liked to spend hours caressing her soft skin, but her artless movements had stirred his own passions to the breaking point. He opened her legs and guided himself into the narrow sheath there. She cried out and her eyes flew open, and they were as startled as a doe confronted by a grizzly. He thrust into her, and a scalding pain wrenched a gasping cry from her lips.
Shocked, he closed her eyes with his lips and concentrated on kissing her lips and then her breasts until she began to relax. Then, slowly, gradually, he began to move again, his male weapon creating friction against her most intimate surfaces. Her hands clutched at his broad back, wanting him closer. She was filled with tautness and an indescribable need that was becoming intolerable, until his body, sturdy and lean against her own, stiffened suddenly, and she hung suspended for a moment on a wave of aching breathlessness. Unexpectedly, he withdrew.
She cried out and threw her head back, her body arching frantically to find him again. Groaning, he shoved three fingers into her, and the terrible tension inside her exploded into gasping heat and bonelessness.
He rolled over and pulled her on top of him, breathing as if he had run for miles. Her own breathing was as labored as his. Limp and exhausted, she closed her eyes and just floated in the warm aftermath. She had no idea how long they lay like that. When she opened her eyes it was dark overhead, bright at the horizon. The moon shimmered on the water, streaking it with brightness. A coyote howled in the distance.
Chapter Fifteen
“I thought you were Younger’s woman.”
“I’m nobody’s woman. I belong to me.”
“You’re damned cynical for a girl.”
“Maybe I just sound cynical because I’ve never been…been…”
He chuckled softly. “You’ll get used to it.”
How could he sound so cruel? Only moments ago he had been warmth and ecstasy; now he was turning her roughly to tie her hands behind her back. She struggled against him, but it was useless. “What are you doing?” she hissed.
“Just making sure you’ll be here when I get back.”
Real terror darkened her lime-green eyes, and Ward leaned down and took her face between his hands. “You’ll be safe here. Just keep quiet and be still and you won’t attract anything you can’t handle.”
Her skin under his hands was soft as silk and sheened with a fine mist of perspiration from their lovemaking. Her lips were soft and full, and he couldn’t resist tasting them again. She moaned a soft protest and clamped her lips shut, to cheat him of any pleasure.
He continued kissing her, and she continued stubbornly to resist, until suddenly, without warning, his thumb moved into her mouth, forcing her lips apart. She squirmed and cried out, realizing too late that she had made a mistake. With one thumb jammed between her jaws, his hot lips reclaimed her own. Now his tongue jabbed into her mouth, dueling with hers until her anger and outrage diminished, overcome by her body’s unmistakable response. A wave of heat washed into her, and she felt her mouth go slack beneath his searching lips. She wanted to keep fighting him, but there was something dizzying about being so completely helpless and open to him. So aware of his rough thumb in her mouth, so aware of his tongue and lips ravaging her mouth. Tremors shook her body. His warm hand moved down to cup her breast. His fingers played with the taut, swollen nipple and a heartbeat started in that secret place between her legs. She moaned in the back of her throat, and her body went limp.
“Oh, Jesus,” he groaned. He sat up abruptly and ran his fingers through his hair. “If Younger had planned this, he couldn’t have done a better job…”
“What?…” Her body was crying out for the feel of his tender-harsh hands; only her anger that he was leaving her on the desert, tied up, kept her from straining toward him.
“Go to sleep,” he growled, uncoiling in one lithe movement to stand over her. With the set sun and a sky full of fiery
red and gold clouds at his back she could not read his expression. She started to question him, but anticipating as much, he stuffed his handkerchief into her mouth and tied it securely. He bound her feet and she watched through wrathful, spitting green eyes as he pulled on his clothes and buckled his gunbelt around his narrow hips, his eyes already remote and engrossed with the plan she could see had replaced everything else for him. Damn him!
It wasn’t until all the daylight had faded and night was reality that she realized the precariousness of her position. Maybe the next face she would see would be an Indian’s! Worse yet, maybe he didn’t intend to come back for her. Maybe she would be left there to die, helpless, naked, alone, with only the desert creatures to keep her company—the scorpions, snakes, Gila monsters, spiders…She shuddered. And only one thin blanket over her. She had heard her uncle and his riders talking about the deadly inhabitants. Now all those names she had forgotten were there—like nightmare creatures—all the worse because she did not know what any of them looked like. Or which was the most deadly…
Would an Arizona spider be worse than a scorpion? Or a snake? She shuddered at memory of that enormous Gila monster that had waddled off, wagging its fat, blunt tail. Did it take large bites out of a person? Or inject venom? She had visions of being eaten alive one bite at a time by monsters of such ugliness that her mind veered off into numbness.
Stop it, fool! Even if it is true, it serves no purpose. But by midnight, when the cooling ground was alive with crawly things that had eyes that seemed to glow in the inky darkness, she finally gave way to her terror, crying like a small child, and none of her bravery helped in the least.
Dallas Younger woke up first and knew even before he opened his eyes that something was wrong. He lay there, still warm in his blankets, listening to the shriek of the birds, feeling the sun on his face, and his black brows knit into a frown in his handsome, sensual face. He sat up abruptly and looked around at the camp. The fire had died to cold ashes; men still slept in their blankets. Why the hell hadn’t the night guards woke them at sunrise? He came to his feet, pulled on his boots, roaring for his men to get the hell up.
A piece of white caught his eye, a note torn from butcher paper and slipped around one of the buttons on his shirt. Growling, he ripped it off his shirt and read it with his mouth dropping open. It was written in the same hand as the note on Caswell two days ago:
Younger, this is where I’m going to put a bullet. Keep a close eye on your belly. Cantrell
“Where are those goddamned sentries?” he bellowed, paling perceptibly. Cass Ewell, who had walked out a distance to relieve himself, hollered, “Over here!”
Emmet Wilson, one of the two who had been charged with first watch, was dead—his throat cut from ear to ear. They found the other guard less than fifty feet away, probably lured out by some sound, maybe even Wilson’s dying.
“Stupid bastards—serves them right for being so damned careless!” Younger snarled. “Saddle up! Then spread out and find his trail. I want that bastard! When I get my hands on him he’s going to be praying for death a long time before he gets his wish!”
Ward Cantrell left his horse at the stream, took off the saddle, tied the horse securely next to the girl’s mount, and then moved as silently as an Indian over to the blankets. He slipped off his boots, lay back with a sigh, and heard a soft, muffled sob that caused him to look sharply at the figure huddled next to him.
“Hey, you all right?” he whispered, reaching out to smooth her hair out of her eyes. Her face was wet with tears and felt cold and clammy under his hand. Christ! Now what? He untied the gag and then her hands and feet and took the silent crying girl into his arms. He’d thought she would be sound asleep—not crying like an orphan left to die somewhere.
“Hey, what happened? Did something scare you?” Jesus. She was cold as death all over.
“Hey, are you all right? You’re all right. Just scared,” he whispered, brushing at her face gently. But she only shivered uncontrollably and huddled her slim body against him, trembling. In the moonlight, which now silvered the sheer walls of the canyon, her face was like wet marble and as cold. He lowered his head and pressed warm lips against her cheek, brushing tears away with his warm hands.
“Hey, don’t cry. Everything is all right. You’re okay Nothing bad is going to happen to you.” But he could see she wasn’t responding. Tears kept spilling down her cheeks, and she was shivering like she’d taken a chill.
“Did something bite you, a snake or something?” She didn’t respond, just kept crying as if he weren’t there. He pulled the blankets back and inspected her all over to be sure, but there were no signs of injury, no swellings or bumps anywhere. He took his clothes off and pulled her back into his arms to share his body heat. Even without the blanket he was warm. Her cold body felt good against his, and it seemed natural to slip inside her and begin moving slowly. And just as natural to kiss her wet face and then her cold lips until he felt them become warm and responsive. He continued the gentle rocking motion until he felt her beginning to relax, her cold limbs becoming warm and pliant instead of cold and stiff.
Leslie woke with a strange headache that lasted until noon and finally receded. She ate whatever he gave her that day, did what he told her to do almost like a mechanical doll. She felt strangely bemused and confused but grateful he didn’t keep the rope around her neck. By the time they had stopped for the night she was exhausted but almost back to normal emotionally. She looked at him strangely then, as if she were trying to remember something. She had a vague recollection of a nightmare filled with nameless terror and then nameless, faceless comfort. Had she dreamed it or had he made love to her again—for a long time, gently, with warm kisses and soft murmurings?
She couldn’t tell by his actions today. He was remote, cool, efficient—the same as before. If he had comforted her, if she had needed comfort, neither one of them seemed willing or able to talk about it. Maybe it had been merely a nightmare.
She couldn’t tell anything from his reactions. His clean-shaven face was as impassive and stoic as any Indian she could ever imagine. She would like to know, but she couldn’t imagine asking him about it, and they were still traveling too fast for conversation.
The land was no longer level. They rode through hills now—small hills and great rolling hills, through wild canyons, basins, and valleys, sometimes crossing narrow streams. The land was still gray and brown, still strewn with rocks and cactuses and small tufts of grass—the very same type of land as before but turned on end, receding off into ominous-looking mountains. Sometimes she saw live things, but she had no idea what they were—just small slithery things. One second they blended into their surroundings, into the rocks they sat on; the next they slithered away—disgusting!
Chapter Sixteen
They made camp this time next to a dry stream bed, and Leslie watched Ward take a shovel from his assortment of packs and begin to dig until water, murky and sluggish, bubbled up.
“How did you know there would be water there?”
“Guessed.” He built a small fire, opened a can of beans, and heated water for coffee. He moved deftly and with an economy of motion that Leslie found fascinating. The artist in her saw him as one of the simple rustics used by so many painters, herself included, to enhance a landscape. She leaned back on her elbows, her legs stretched out in front of her, covered by her tattered gray riding gown, and amused herself by planning a landscape with the simple pots and pans, the brown of Cantrell’s clothes, the yellowed desert sands, the orange glow of the small crackling fire, the blue sky turning fiery red and purple as the sun lit the clouds from underneath. She could use bravura brushstrokes for the sky and clouds, but she would need a finer brush to capture the unexpected refinement of feature she saw in this bandit: the thick, curling, honey-colored lashes fringing his fine blue eyes, the rich smoothness of his lips, the handsome angles of his face…In this light she would use ocher to simulate teak for the symmetrical sweep of hi
s dark arms, where muscles swelled and tapered with masculine strength and competence. She would have to balance the fiery, evanescent sky against the dark and warm tonality of the man.
Art was her first love, and no matter how much she might personally despise Cantrell, she could not help framing him in various poses. He had a lithe, striking form. With his tawny, flaxen hair and his azure blue eyes, set in a warm, sun-bronzed face, he would tempt any painter. The artist in her did not need to judge his personal worth. He would serve as a decoration, a mannequin only.
She felt very superior thinking her fluid, lofty thoughts, denying his manhood in the bargain, but she soon tired of her diversion. After they ate he used one of the tin pans and washed from his waist up, then shaved, scraping the red-gold stubble off his lean face with a wicked-looking blade he carried in a sheath behind his gun. She had never watched a man at his toilet before and found this fascinating. She forgot that she hated him and that he was a killer and began asking questions.
“How long have you been a train robber?”
He glanced at her, his face darkened with a scowl. “Three, four years,” he finally said.
“What happened to your girlfriend? The one on the train?”
He grinned, remembering that little Belen had gone back to Mexico in a fit of temper brought on by her jealousy during the train robbery. “You two didn’t exactly hit it off,” he said, ignoring her question.
“What did you do before? You haven’t always been a train robber, have you?”
He chuckled. “Seems like I have.” He sighed and put down the razor. He rinsed his face. He’d been a hunted outlaw for six years, doing whatever he had to do to survive and little else. The world was full of people who could spot a fugitive on sight. Honest work was damned hard to come by. The closest thing he’d had to a legitimate job was when he worked for the Que Ti Qua Ranch, enforcing Colonel Goodnight’s Winchester Quarantine to keep fever-bearing herds of longhorns from crossing the Texas panhandle. Mostly that had involved riding from point A to point B, armed to the teeth, looking dangerous enough to discourage trespassing, and occasionally leading a herd down a designated trail to avoid contaminating the local stock. It hadn’t been legal, but the law had deliberately ignored the activity because it successfully protected the ranchers in the panhandle…
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 11