by Nan Ryan
He didn’t care how long it might take to win her over. He’d not rush her at all, he’d go at a slow, respectful pace, steadfastly pursuing her the way a man should diligently court a young sweetheart of impeccable character. Never again would he do anything to shock or hurt her. If he had to wait a year or more before she favored him with a caress, so it would be.
He would wait.
Pecos jumped when Willie the conductor knocked on the compartment door and stuck his smiling black face inside to announce that Marfa was the next stop. They’d be pulling into the station in twenty minutes. Pecos leaned up to the window and noticed the thunderheads in the late-evening sky, hanging over the mountains in the distance.
PECOS BREATHED DEEPLY of the sweet rain-scented air. Night was falling. He was nearing the ranch. A bright flash of lightning lit up the summer sky as bright as day. For an instant, the salmon-colored hacienda was visible. Pecos’s heart leaped. He was home.
As he reined his horse through the tall ranch gates, the winds became very strong, taking on a gale force from the south. A few large drops of rain stung his cheeks. Pecos lifted his face, pushed his Stetson to the back of his head and smiled.
It was going to storm. This punished land was going to get a gully-washer if he knew anything at all about Mother Nature. It would be raining hard within the next hour and, if the gods were kind, it might continue to rain throughout the hot summer night. Pecos shuddered with anticipation. How glorious it would be to spend the stormy, rain-drenched night with his beautiful Angie.
Pecos laughed and spurred his horse. Here he was thinking about holding her when he’d promised himself he’d patiently wait forever. Lightning came in multiple flashes from one heavy thundercloud directly over his head. He urged his mount to a gallop and headed for the stables. The trunk of a tree split and shattered in his path, felled by lightning. His gelding reared in panic.
“It’s all right, boy,” Pecos soothed and calmed the terrified horse. Pecos was not at all frightened, but he felt great tremors of excitement as the lightning lit the night sky. The thunder boomed closer, and the sage dew sweetened the heavy air. The winds stroked his warm face and plastered his shirt against his chest.
Turning his horse over to a smiling vaquero, Pecos headed toward the hacienda. There were no lights in the main portion of the big house, though it was early evening. Mildly disappointed, Pecos told himself it was just as well. He was tired and dirty. He needed a bath and a shave and a night’s sleep. He’d wait until morning to let them know he was home. No need to bother anyone on this stormy night. He’d just slip into his room from the courtyard and make his presence known come morning.
The sound of his footfalls on the stone gallery around the back of the house was drowned out by the howling winds and the booming thunder. Pecos walked along the gallery, hardly realizing he’d chosen to take the long way to his room. The path that would lead him past Angie’s room.
He fished in his breast pocket for a thin brown cigar and paused to light it. Cupping his gloved hands against the strong winds he puffed the smoke to life. There was no need to shake out the match; its tiny flame was quickly extinguished by the wind.
Pecos’s heart began to hammer in his chest. He was standing directly in front of the carved double doors of Angie’s bedroom. Slowly he pivoted around. He stood, booted feet wide apart, cigar clamped in his teeth, fighting the strong urge to take the two or three steps across the stone porch to knock loudly on her door.
Was she inside? Was she asleep? Would she be glad to see him? Pecos groaned with indecision. He couldn’t disturb her. He couldn’t invade her privacy. He’d have to wait until morning.
Still he stood unmoving, his narrowed eyes locked on her door.
Chapter Forty
A STRONG GUST OF WIND swirled through the courtyard and the heavy double doors to Angie’s room blew open. Angie spun around, the silver hairbrush poised in one hand, her long hair tightly clutched in the other. She gasped when she saw him standing before her.
“Pecos,” she breathed and stared unbelieving at the virile, rugged man facing her. He stood silhouetted against the storm-lit sky, his Stetson pulled low on his forehead. His blousy loose-woven shirt was unbuttoned down his dark chest and his tight denim trousers were covered with shotgun chaps buckled beneath his slim hips and behind his knees. His long, muscled arms hung at his sides, and there were fawn-colored kid gloves on his hands. Between his even white teeth, a long brown cigar showered sparks about his handsome face as the winds billowed around him and into the bedroom.
“Pecos,” she breathed again and let her eyes lovingly caress the masculine length of him, awed by his lithe, lusty beauty. Her heart began to pound wildly with joy. Pecos was home! He’d come back. Back to Del Sol. And to her?
Pecos clenched the cigar tightly between his teeth and looked at her. She stood not six feet from him; breathtakingly beautiful. She wore nothing but a nightgown of sheer champagne lace. The violent winds sweeping into the room were tossing the flimsy lace high about her knees and thighs. Her long shapely legs gleamed silvery-white and her small, fragile feet were bare. Her left breast was partially hidden by her thick, flowing hair, but the right was provocatively displayed to his searching eyes. Its full roundness strained against the sheer lace, the rosy nipple clearly visible, jutting proudly against the tight bodice. His ally, the desert wind, pressed the frothy gown taut on her flat stomach and creamy thighs.
The tiny indentation of her navel and the shadowy triangle beneath made the blood pound in Pecos’s temples. All the explanations he’d been planning to lay before her, all the self-recrimination for his past behavior, all the pleading for forgiveness and the vows to court her patiently slipped rapidly away. As it had always been when the two of them were in the same room, the complexities of the world, of life, of day-to-day living and all it entailed, melted away, leaving only the elemental need of man for his mate. What else was there?
While his smoldering gray eyes burned her with their intensity, Pecos yanked the cigar from his mouth and released it. He reached for his Stetson, and for a moment he held it in his right hand, tapping it idly on his thigh. Then it too was released. It flew in wide eddying circles, and neither Pecos nor Angie watched to see where it finally came to rest.
Pecos took a determined step toward her and Angie released her breath. Their hot eyes locked. When he reached her and lifted a gloved hand slowly up toward her, Angie gave a soft, frightened gasp, but made no effort to step backward. Commandingly, Pecos took the silver hairbrush from her. His arm dropped to his side and he said thickly, “My God, you’re beautiful.”
The sound of his deep, masculine voice, so soft, yet forceful, filled her with exquisite delight, and the look in those great gray eyes told her what she wanted to hear. Pecos loved her. She knew it. He loved her just as she loved him. He wanted her, but he loved her, too. He’d come back to claim her.
“I’m only beautiful for you, Pecos,” she murmured softly. “It all belongs to you.”
If the sight of her slender, lovely body had brought heat to his insides, the sound of her sweet voice saying such meaningful words to him made his passions flame out of control. He watched with unabashed pleasure as her long golden hair swirled seductively around her face and his. Transfixed, he watched its golden dance for several appreciative moments before he impulsively grabbed at the blowing hem of her lace gown and lifted it. Angie happily raised her arms above her head, biting the inside of her cheek in excited anticipation while the tall, handsome man’s sure hands peeled the lacy gown away from her trembling, bare body.
Naked, she slowly raised her eyes to his. He stood, the gown in his gloved hand, looking down at her. Angie could feel the heat of his gaze branding her, burning her, making her his own. She could hear her pulse drumming in her ears while she waited, standing vulnerable beneath the bold inspection of this exciting, sensual man whose very nearness made her weak and light-headed.
The winds increased, roaring a
round them, blowing the gown he held tightly in his hand. Angie shivered. Pecos, a muscle bunching in his jaw, released the nightie. Before it reached the thick rug, the wind picked it up, tossing it across the big room. Angie didn’t see where it landed. Pecos reached for her. She sighed with delight as he hauled her up against his hard length. His dark, handsome head descended to hers in slow motion, while he murmured honestly, “I was going to say so much, to tell you so many things first.”
Understanding completely, she wrapped her happy arms around his neck and whispered reassuringly, “Later, my love. Later.”
When his lips touched hers, they both moaned in ecstasy. His gloved hands pressed her to him while his tongue anxiously searched for and found hers. The kiss was almost punishing as each, starved for the taste of the other, sought to feed that hunger in one long devouring fusion of mouths. Pecos, his eyes closed, his mouth greedily feasting on the honeyed lips pressed to his, forgot for the moment that he was fully dressed.
Angie, her happy face turned up to his, was all too aware of his clothes. The loose-weave shirt covering his chest rubbed teasingly upon her sensitive, erect nipples. Against her bare, fluttering stomach, his wide silver belt buckle pressed insistently, subtly scratching her soft, tender skin. The rawhide chaps covering Pecos’s long legs chafed against her hips and naked thighs, touching her all the way down to her bare toes, on which she stood.
She could have pulled away. She didn’t. She loved this strangely erotic feel of his clothed male body pressed against her nakedness. Pecos’s hands slid from her shoulders to her back. While he gently explored the vertebrae, his scalding lips left hers for a moment. His breath ragged and his eyes soft and warm, he said the words she most longed to hear. “I love you. I love you, baby. I’m so damned sorry for …” He shuddered and his mouth was again on hers, taking her breath away.
His strong gloved hands slowly slid to her narrow waist. Angie gasped into his mouth when they moved farther down to cup her bare buttocks, pressing her closer to his body. She was lost in his kiss and in the pleasing, playful way his hands were kneading her bottom.
Angie stood trustingly in his arms and gloried in the sensations washing over her. From beneath closed eyelids she was vaguely aware of the flickering of the lightning. A loud clap of thunder boomed in through the open doors, but Angie hardly heard it. Her senses were too full of the man whose lips were twisting on hers, bruising, searing, his tongue thrusting, possessing, filling her mouth. She was too filled with the unique earthy masculine scent of him to notice the clean, pleasant smell of rain upon the desert. She was too aware of the tall, hard male body, fully clothed, pleasantly punishing her bare body to realize that wind-driven raindrops were assaulting her. How could the antics of the storm possibly command her attention when her dark lover was turning her into a living lightning bolt far more potent than any the heavens could send?
Pecos’s sculptured legs were pressing hers. Angie kissed him wildly and squirmed against him in aroused ecstasy.
She couldn’t wait any longer. Abruptly, she pulled back from his kiss and looked at him. His dreamy eyes came open with a questioning look.
“I want your clothes off,” she said with sweet bluntness and he grinned. He started to unbuckle the shotgun chaps, realizing he’d never even removed his gloves.
Shamefaced, he said, “Jesus, honey, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you—”
Jerking furiously at the buttons of his shirt, she interrupted, “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Pecos.” Impish emerald eyes lifted to his. She laughed. Pecos laughed with her and stripped the tight gloves from his lean hands. Then the race was on. Both were eager to get him undressed. Her small white hands slapped at his when he dared to work on the same article of clothing she was tugging upon.
In seconds he stood wonderfully naked in front of her, and her happy eyes caressed his tall, slim body in a hurried, adoring sweep from his handsome head to his bare feet. He pulled her to him and buried his face in her golden hair. Skipping cloud-to-cloud, lightning lit up the room as squalls of rain and wind tickled their embracing bodies.
Against her flushed temple, he said simply, “Let me love you,” and tipped her head back. His lips were upon hers once again, but only briefly. His searing mouth slid over her chin, his tongue probing the hollow of her throat while she leaned back in the circle of his long arm. Murmuring words of love, Pecos let his heated mouth trail over her collarbone and down to the sweet, rounded breasts, so incredibly lovely, so ripe and tempting. Painstakingly pressing gentle kisses in a wide arc all around one creamy breast, he heard Angie’s small, pleading whimper and made her wait no longer. His loving lips closed over the aching, delicious nipple and he drew her sweetness into his warm mouth, hearing her sweet sighs of approval. When he’d tenderly and tirelessly adored each swelling breast, Pecos lifted his dark head and straightened.
In a voice heavy with passion, he said, “Shall I carry you to the bed, my darling?”
Breath coming in shallow little gulps Angie nodded her head. Her eyes were limpid with desire and her breasts pink and tingling from his worshiping kisses. He smiled at her and bent to kiss her again, but just as his lips closed on hers, she drew back and said loudly, “No.”
Stunned, Pecos pulled back and said nervously, “No? No, what? No, don’t kiss you, or no, don’t take you to bed?” His forehead creased and his lips thinned.
Angie smiled and traced the tautness from his mouth. “I want you to do both, darling, but first there is something I want to do to you.”
Relieved, he released his breath and said, “Honey, I’m all yours. Do what you want with me.”
Angie gave his strong chin a playful biting kiss and said, “Since the first time I saw you shirtless, I have wanted to lick that long scar going down your chest.”
Pecos threw back his head and laughed. He put a loving hand to her bare shoulder and said gleefully, “Baby doll, you can sure kiss that old scar if you wish, but don’t get mad if I laugh while you do. It’s always been ticklish.”
“I won’t be angry,” she assured him. She lifted her lips to his for one more brief taste and said against his lips, “And you won’t laugh.”
Without further ado, Angie put her hands on his hair-covered dark chest and the merry laughter died upon his lips. He watched, expectantly, as she tilted her golden head a bit and studied the long scar with wide green eyes. “Umm, my beautiful Pecos,” she whispered and leaned toward him.
His big body trembled as she slowly, seductively, began kissing the long vertical scar. With loving fingers, she gently parted the thick blue-black hair surrounding the white, satiny scar and placed warm lips to the scar’s top, just below his flat nipple. Pecos sighed at the first touch of her teasing tongue upon his sensitive flesh. Angie sighed, too, as tenderly she began a downward path, determined to kiss every curving inch of the one imperfection of his beautiful brown body.
Her small hands clinging to his ribs, she kissed him, moving lower and lower, slowly sinking to her knees while her mouth never lost contact with his smooth, hot flesh. Pecos’s eyes never left her, and the sight of the golden head pressed to his body was almost as pleasurable as the touch of soft, sweet lips upon his skin.
Angie finally reached the abrupt ending of the scar and gave it one last loving lick. Then she slowly lifted her head. For a long, electricity-charged moment she looked up into Pecos’s smoldering gray eyes and she could tell that her dark virile lover was holding his breath. A brief understanding smile touched her lips and she lowered her eyes and turned her face to the middle of his stomach. Instinctively knowing what he desired, she again pressed her mouth to his body. She kissed his hard, flat abdomen, and with maddening slowness, she worked her way across that stomach to his straining, throbbing masculinity.
A split second of pride rushed through Angie when she possessively gazed upon the powerful size of him and realized it was she who’d done this to him. She felt in that instant that this part of him, as every other part of his l
ong, lean body, belonged to her. It was hers and hers alone, and she silently vowed to give him more pleasure than he’d ever known with any other woman. Pecos was hers, she was his, and nothing else in all the world mattered or would ever matter.
Her small, heated mouth went boldly to the tip of that throbbing power and she kissed him tenderly. Still an innocent, she was terrified that she might hurt him. She opened her mouth and gently, cautiously touched her tongue to him. It was then that a loud, labored breath broke from Pecos’s heaving chest, and she felt his strong fingers entwining in her hair, pressing her to him in desperation. Angie clutched him tighter and grew bold. She opened her mouth wide and took him to her, glorying in this new expression of love.
Pecos stood feet apart, biting rains stinging his naked backside, the howling winds of the storm drowning out the groans of ecstasy breaking from his shocked throat. His hooded gray eyes, glazed with passion, he looked down upon the golden head of this beautiful woman kneeling between his legs. Her long flaxen locks, tossed by the wind, tickled his hard thighs and stomach, adding to his wild pleasure. He realized he was dangerously close to exploding fulfillment and, with an almost frantic movement, his long fingers tightened in Angie’s hair and he swiftly pulled her head away. He slid to his knees in front of her and their eyes locked. A flash of lightning sliced through the room.
For the very first time, Pecos called her by her name. “Angie, my own Angie,” he murmured softly and gazed almost reverently at her lovely face, awash with light. Her emerald eyes filled with happiness, but before she could respond, a clap of thunder jarred them both and Pecos’s heated, hungry mouth came down on hers. He kissed her with tenderness and urgency, his long arms wrapping her in a close embrace. Glorying in the plundering hot tongue filling her welcoming mouth, Angie’s arms went around him and she met his hunger with her own. Neither knew exactly when they tumbled over onto the thick rug. When the long, passionate kiss finally ended, they were lying side by side on the plush carpet while the rain and winds swirled around them and the lightning continued to flash. The storm worsened, and the first small hailstones peppered the stone gallery beyond the gaping double doors.