Desert Storm

by Nan Ryan

  Pecos eased into his trousers, determined to take command without further delay. Raking a brown hand through his unruly hair, he padded barefoot to the tall bureau, poured himself a straight whiskey and downed it, his gray eyes stinging and his throat burning from the fiery liquor. Slowly he crossed the room to the open double doors. Across the moonlit courtyard, Angie’s double doors stood open and inviting. Pecos smiled and stepped out onto the stone gallery, paused and went back into his room for the music box.

  ANGIE, HER DEFENSES TUMBLING from the long, scorching summer spent too near to the tall handsome man across the courtyard from her, had retired early, only to toss and turn, unable to push aside the events of the morning. Standing in Pecos’s masterful embrace beside the baked Cibolo Creek had taken a staggering toll on her. If not for the interference of Barrett McClain and his two shadowing bodyguards, she and Pecos would have made love there on the parched sands under the broiling desert sun. She knew it. Pecos knew it.

  The aborted tryst had left her weak and restless. As Angie rode back to Del Sol beside a stern-faced Barrett, unmistakably displeased with both her and his son, she’d worried little about how Barrett felt. She could think of nothing but the irresistible man who had made her want to give herself to him. Her surrender there at Cibolo had been complete; that the victor didn’t have time to claim his reward was due solely to the untimely interference of Barrett and his men.

  Throughout the long, still, suffocatingly hot September day, Angie, try as she might, could not regain control and regret that surrender. Her only regret was that it had not ended in the total union of Pecos’s lean heated body with hers. Having stopped short of the desired goal had left her burning, longing for a needed release that was beyond her comprehension. That which Angie sought was a mystery, but her need for it was great.

  Long after she’d put out the lamp beside her bed and evening had finally cooled her bedroom, Angie remained wide awake and uncomfortably warm. In the moonlight, she stood sponging her naked skin with cool, cleansing water, trying desperately to lower the temperature of her body. It did little good. The heat within continued to plague her, and she knew only the dark-haired man across the courtyard could calm the throbbing fever in her blood.

  Her body dampened from shoulder to toe, Angie tiredly dropped the cold cloth into the china bowl atop her dresser and padded to her bed. Sighing heavily, she crawled in between the silky yellow sheets, pulling the top one to her waist. Exhausted, she fell into a fitful sleep.

  Angie smiled and sighed in her slumber. There her dark, desirable Pecos waited deep in her erotic dream to stroke the unbearable heat from her waiting body; to kiss and cool her burning lips; to escort her with him into the fiery volcano of love where the inferno would melt them into one and spew them high up into the heavens to ride the high, cool clouds before slowly, restfully floating back down to earth wrapped in each other’s arms.

  PECOS WALKED BAREFOOT around the stone porch, drawing nearer to the open doors of Angie’s bedroom. Pausing in the portal, he looked across the room to her bed. His long fingers tightened on the gold and mother-of-pearl box in his hand and the heart inside his bare chest raced.

  Angie lay with one slender arm above her head, the bedcovers at her narrow waist. Silvery moonlight streamed in through the tall windows. Slowly he approached her, his eyes never leaving her beautiful sleeping face. He reached the bed and held his breath while he looked down at her, his gaze sliding to her full, naked breasts gently rising and falling with her even breathing. Perspiration beaded on his face. His rapid pulse drummed deafeningly in his ears, and beneath the tight, restraining trousers, that most male part of him began to swell in aching arousal at the sight of the golden beauty before him.

  “Angel, it’s Pecos,” he whispered softly and sat down on the bed facing her. Angie’s thick, long lashes fluttered, but her eyes remained closed. Carefully, Pecos set the delicate gold-and-pearl music box on the mattress near her shoulder. With shaking hands he lifted the lid. “Good Night Ladies” wafted through the quiet room as two miniature dancers slowly rose from the box.

  Angie’s eyes came half-open. Her face was turned toward the small beautiful box. Her soft lips parted in a smile and she sighed and turned to Pecos. Sleep still claiming her, she was neither shocked nor distressed to see his handsome face above her; it was only the extension of her dream. Arching lazily upward, Angie’s hand came down from over her head and went to the satiny scar on Pecos’s dark chest.

  “Pecos,” she murmured, eyes closing again.

  Pecos swallowed and looked down at her with wonder. The big eyes were closed, their dark, thick lashes fluttering restlessly. Flaxen hair spilled around her oval face and bare creamy shoulders, and her full, high breasts were jutting up in two delicious pink-tipped peaks, like some sweet confection offered up for him to feast on.

  Her eyes opened as Pecos’s mouth descended to hers. She saw his hard lips coming down, cruel and punishing, and she came fully awake. She gave a brief moan of protest before he parted her lips with his tongue and brazenly swept the recesses of her warm sweet mouth, tasting the honeyed darkness while his heart raced and his arousal became total, the hardness of his body pulsating, throbbing, aching for her touch.

  Angie, her brain beginning to function once again, stiffened and pushed on his heavy chest, but the plundering mouth made it impossible for her to scream in outrage. To her despair, she knew that down deep, screaming was the last thing she wanted to do. The hot, insistent mouth holding hers prisoner was evoking those strange, stirring feelings of warmth deep in the pit of her bare stomach, and almost unwittingly her moans and gasps of fury turned to soft, strangled sighs of shocked pleasure.

  When Pecos’s thumb began to brush across her hardening nipple, Angie arched nearer to that fiery, knowing hand, lost in his deepening kiss.

  “Sweet baby,” Pecos whispered heavily from fevered lips, and Angie’s small, nervous hands went to his bare, wide shoulders.

  “Please,” she pleaded, trying feebly to stop what was happening, knowing it was wrong, sinful, no matter how much she wanted him. “Pecos, don’t … I …”

  “Don’t fight it,” he murmured as again his lips were upon hers, warm and questing. Try as she would to resist his searing kisses, Angie’s trembling lips eagerly opened to him and she gloried in the hot moving tongue sweeping her inner mouth, turning her into the wanton, weak woman he’d accused her of being from the beginning.

  She wanted to hate him; she wanted to prove him wrong about her; she wanted to stop him before he went further. But she couldn’t do it. He was right about her. She must be all of the vile, sinful things he thought she was; otherwise, she wouldn’t be lying here naked in the moonlight letting him do such shameful things to her. Battles raged within her, and in desperation Angie offered up a pleading, silent prayer.

  Only Satan answered as desire won out.

  Pecos lifted his dark head and looked down at her with those silvery eyes of molten lead. His breath was ragged, his dark chest covered with a sheen of perspiration. His gaze strayed down from her flushed face to the white shoulders and rounded breasts. While his open lips slowly descended to a throbbing, erect nipple, he said heavily, “Angel, your name doesn’t fit. Your body can send a man straight to hell.”

  She whimpered softly when his heated lips closed over her left breast. Pecos dragged sharp teeth gently over its aching tip and Angie felt tears stinging her eyes as new and frightening heat filled her slender body and caused her to writhe with erotic pleasure. Frantically grabbing him by the hair, she had every intention of pulling his head away, but as her fingers tangled in his luxuriant locks, Pecos groaned and flutter-tongued her nipple. Instead of pulling his head away, Angie pushed it closer as she, too, moaned, whispering his name through trembling lips.

  Pecos continued to gently tease her nipple until Angie was unconsciously whispering, “Yes … Pecos, yes … oh, please …”

  Pecos moved from breast to breast, patiently pleasi
ng her, breaking down her defenses, filling her with a white-hot passion beyond anything she’d ever dreamed about. Why he bothered to take his precious time with her as though she were an innocent maiden, Pecos couldn’t understand. He’d had every intention of slipping into her room, jerking down the covers and plunging himself hastily into her warmth. Yet here he was kissing and fondling her as though she were a treasured lover, savoring every sensual step of the path to fulfillment, anxious to take her to the summit with him. Feeling foolish and almost as frightened as Angie, Pecos drew on a sweet, pink nipple and let the questions leave his head.

  Nothing mattered at this moment but the warm, soft body beneath him, the honeyed mouth and breasts, the silky, flaxen hair with its clean, perfumed fragrance and the breathless female voice calling his name in ecstasy.

  Pecos’s lips finally left Angie’s breasts and slowly slid down her smooth rib cage to her flat, satiny stomach. Angie’s eyes flew open as his mouth, open and questing, feathered hot kisses over her quivering flesh. He pushed the sheet down with his face. Her hand still entwined in his hair, this time, Angie pulled. Pecos reluctantly lifted his dark head and looked at her.

  The dreamy, limpid look in those magnificent emerald eyes caused Pecos to tremble with heightened desire. Angie was looking at him with unmasked hunger. Her soft, wet lips were parted and her breath was coming in shallow little gulps. Her golden head lifted from the pillow in invitation and longing.

  “Honey,” he groaned and moved up to stretch out beside her, his weight supported on an elbow. Leaning over her, his lips descended to Angie’s, as with something very close to tenderness, his mouth played with hers. Against her sweet, open lips, he punctuated his gentle, unhurried kisses with low, soft words of endearment. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, “you really are an angel, my soft, golden angel. I want to worship you. Let me make you happy, let me love you again and again.”

  His free hand, lightly resting on her breast, began to slowly slide down over her warm little body, pausing to stroke the satiny belly still wet from his kisses. “Angel, my sweet,” he breathed against her cheek as his long, lean fingers spread out and slipped down, down to the flaxen triangle of hair between her silky thighs. Pecos lifted his head to look at her naked length stretched out before him like a creamy sacrifice, while Angie, her face flushed and hot and her heart pounding, ran her small hand over his hard chest, glorying in the warm feel of him. She looked up at his handsome face through dreamy half-closed eyes.

  Her green eyes widened when, slowly, tenderly, Pecos, murmuring huskily, “Let me touch you, Angel,” slipped his fingers between her legs and began to move them in slow, coaxing little circles. Angie gripped his muscular chest and winced with shock and heightened excitement. Suddenly her warm body grew unbelievably hot, as raging intense heat spread alarmingly from the tiny area of flesh where Pecos was touching her.

  “Pecos, Pecos,” she gasped, her throat tight, perspiration dampening her body, her green eyes frightened.

  Continuing to caress her until a fiery wetness made his fingers slip and slide upon her swollen sweetness, Pecos smiled down at her and reassured her. “Yes, Angel, sweet Angel, you’re okay. Relax with it, my darling.”

  Her small hand gripped him so tightly that her long nails were punishing his shoulders and chest. Angie began to squirm, her rounded hips moving on the bed, pressing up against his brown hand, her burning, throbbing flesh rising to meet his enticing fingers. In a frenzy, she moaned low in her throat and began to beg him for … for … she knew not what. She only knew she was afire from the top of her damp head to the tip of her curling toes, and that although what she was feeling was wonderful, she was sure she was not going to be able to bear much more of the intense flaming heat licking at her body.

  “Pecos … Pecos …” she begged, her emerald eyes pleading, her golden head tossing about on the pillow, her breasts swelling painfully, a rhythmic throbbing spreading throughout her lower stomach. “Pecos, my darling,” she breathed in erotic agony.

  “Yes, my Angel, yes,” he promised, his lips dipping to her for a brief, consoling kiss.

  A stifled agonized groan escaping his heated lips, Pecos was off the bed, stripping his tight black trousers from his achingly aroused body. Angie’s curious eyes never left him, and when she saw the size and length of his powerful hardness, she winced in fear. Then he was back on the bed, gathering her to him, covering her lips with his own, driving away fear and doubt, wrapping her in his strong arms and pressing his hard, sweat-dampened body to hers. While his tongue ravaged her open mouth, his slick chest pressed her swelling, sensitive breasts, turning the nipples into twin points of fire.

  By the time she felt Pecos’s knee go between her legs to part her thighs, Angie was frantically exploring his wide shoulders and smooth tapering back with hot, eager hands while her body strained to get closer to him.

  Time stood still for a breath-snatching instant. Pecos slowly moved atop her, his gray eyes smoldering. Beside the pillow, the delicate music box continued to crank out its sweet, soft song.

  “Love me,” he whispered and thrust into her. Angie felt a searing, blinding pain slice upward into her body.

  Pecos heard her sharp intake of air and felt her heated body stiffen immediately. Briefly the insane notion that she was as virtuous as she pretended to be flickered through his mind. He lay completely still within her and looked down at her through confused eyes. Her eyes were closed, tears spilling down her cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a sound the tight, sweet warmth sheathing him drove all logical thought from his head and he began to move rhythmically atop her, mindless of anything save the glorious pleasure of her soft, pliant body holding him. His mouth dipped to Angie’s and his kiss ignited her anew, and soon her pain was forgotten as desire flamed through her and his expert loving caused her to move her hips with his, increasing his pleasure to the point where his mouth dragged from hers and he murmured huskily against her temple, “Angel, Angel, take all of me … please, baby,” and his hands went to her rounded hips, lifting her to him as he drove into her with ever-increasing power and insistence.

  Innately sensual, Angie moved with him as though they were one heated, hungry body; her hands gripping his muscled arms, her wide eyes looking daringly into his, her sweet voice urging him on. “Oh, dear God, Pecos. Yes … oh, yes …”

  While her pleas lifted him to fierce, erotic elation, Angie was also unwittingly assuring him that he was correct about her, that she was the experienced, practiced little piece he knew her to be. Together they ascended to the crest and he exploded within her and Angie clung to him and nervously bit his shoulders, knowing for the first time the power of passion. Pecos, his eyes closed, his big body shuddering atop hers, was torn between the joy of his incredible release, like none he’d ever known, and disgust for the soft, trembling woman who had caused it with her unbelievably sweet body that molded itself to his as though she were his alone, as though all the men she’d lain beneath had never existed.

  For a time he lay atop her, his pounding heartbeat mingling with hers. Her slender arms remained tightly wrapped around him while she kissed his jaw, his throat, his shoulders, and murmured, “I love you, Pecos, I love you,” as though it were true.

  With a shudder of despair, Pecos slid from her and immediately swung his long, shaky legs over the edge of the bed. He rose and was hunching into his trousers while Angie, blinking in confusion, reached for the sheet, deeply hurt by his cold, abrupt actions. She covered her nakedness and by the time Pecos had buttoned his pants and turned back to look at her, she was biting her trembling lip and clutching the sheet up to her breasts, her wide, hurt eyes questioning him.

  Pecos did not see the bright crimson bloodstains on the silky yellow sheets beneath Angie. He saw only a beautiful whore who’d loved him with such expertise she’d almost made him forget who she was, all the men that had come before him, and what she was doing at Tierra del Sol. Yes, this sweet-faced vixen was
quite talented at her trade; she’d serviced him well, no doubt about it. And now she was looking up at him with hurt green eyes as though she were a helpless, deflowered maiden, sedately clutching the sheet up over the ripe, full breasts he’d so recently feasted upon.

  His hard mouth curving into a sardonic grin, Pecos watched the big tears slide down from her sad eyes. Raising his hands, he quietly clapped them together in applause for her performance. She was quite the actress, was Angel. How many times had she turned on the tears to make some unsuspecting male come to heel? Well, it wouldn’t work on him. He knew exactly what she was, and although he might again slip into her room to enjoy that beautiful, experienced little body, he’d not let her soft, hurt routine sway him one whit.

  “Come off it, Angel,” he said tiredly, “I’ve told you, I’ll not give you away. It’s going to be rather pleasant to have a prostitute for my stepmother.” His mocking gray eyes raked over her in disgust, and from his trouser pocket he pulled a roll of paper money, peeled several bills from the top to toss onto the bed at her feet. “Honey, even at full price, you were worth it.”

  Too stunned and hurt to remember or care where they were, Angie opened her mouth to scream. With incredible speed, Pecos was on the bed, covering her open mouth with his hand. He slid in back of her, a knee bent behind her hips, holding her against him with his free arm. Angie’s hands flew to the tight fingers covering her mouth as hot tears scalded her cheeks and the sheet fell to her waist, her naked, shaking breasts pressing Pecos’s hard forearm.

  His lips in her hair, he whispered icily, “Angel, have you forgotten where we are? Do you want your nervous bridegroom to know you’ve been writhing naked under his only son so close to your approaching wedding date?” He clicked his tongue in derision. “It would never do, dear. Why, he doesn’t even want to share his land with me, much less his wife-to-be.” As he spoke, Pecos suddenly became all too aware of the soft, full breasts pressing against his arm, and he gritted his teeth, longing to shake the squirming, lying little bitch until her lovely head rocked on her white, creamy shoulders. That violent emotion fought with one just as violent of another kind.