Jacey's Reckless Heart

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  She raised her head again for his kiss. Zant fed her hunger with his questing tongue, and then began a slow descent down her body, down to her breasts, kissing and swirling his tongue around each dusky peak until Jacey pushed against his shoulders, wanting him away from her sensitive nipples.

  He looked up and grinned at her. “Lower? Is that what you want?”

  Breathing hard, alive with sensual sensations, Jacey opened her eyes to look into his passion-warmed face. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I just … want, Zant. Help me.”

  His grin widened to a purely evil one. His black eyes reflected the snap of the fire’s flames. “Yes, ma’am. Always happy to oblige.”

  He slipped down even lower on her. Jacey’s breath caught at the back of her throat. Just his kisses on her belly, between her navel and her womanhood, quivered her insides, made her draw her knees up, made her … need. And Zant gave. He dipped down and drew her legs up over his shoulders, cupped her buttocks … and lifted her to his mouth.

  At the first swirl of his tongue, the first ripple of pleasure, a ragged sound tore out of Jacey. She clutched at his bedroll, at the desert sand, at his hair. She tried to sit up, only to fall back limply. She tried to call out his name. No words would come. She tossed in earnest now, feeling her world, her entire being, centering on what he was doing to her. The sensations rippling through her bordered on the painful, they were so intense. Never in her life had she ever—She wanted him to stop, wanted him to go on forever until she melted in a pool of purely physical sensations.

  As if he knew, as if he had always known, Zant continued his relentless assault. Swirling, sucking, kiss after kiss, of the sort they’d shared with their mouths only moments ago, brought Jacey to the edge, to the height of her sanity. Every muscle tensed. She arched her head, her mouth a grimace of pleasureful pain.

  Just when she thought she’d die, when she thought she couldn’t experience more, the tightening coils deep inside her sprang to life, spreading throughout her, releasing in spasmodic jerks that robbed her of dimension and time, that dried her mouth, warmed her cheeks, and curled her toes. Reduced to a creature of one floating sensation, of one greedy pleasure, she rode out the waves, she made helpless noises, wanted more, could stand no more. Only when she cried out Zant’s name did he take mercy on her and stop.

  Spent, weak, drained, she lay spread-eagle and helpless as Zant pulled himself up and over her. Zant kissed her. He smelled of a musk, her musk, she tasted it, he shared the saltiness with her. “This is what you taste like, Jacey,” he whispered.

  He then raised himself up, positioned himself between her spread legs, and began a slow penetration that told Jacey, like no words ever could, that the sensations, the pleasures were only just beginning. She opened her eyes, saw him watching her face. “Put your legs around my hips. This first time will hurt some. Maybe burn a little. I’ll go easy.”

  Jacey shook her head. “No. Not easy. I want it all.”

  Zant shook his head right back at her. “No. Trust me, Jacey. It has to be slow this first time.” He then looked at her, his eyebrows fairly meeting over his nose. “This is your first time, right?”

  His question heated up her cheeks and made her turn her head. She nodded and bit at her bottom lip. “It’s my first.”

  Zant leaned over her to kiss her forehead. “I’ll go easy.”

  She nodded, trusting him. Zant slid a little more into her. He kissed her, whispered in her ear, telling her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her, until his words, his touch, his actions spun a misty web that saw her raising her hips to his reflexively. Zant pushed into her.

  The burning sting, the sharp pain. Jacey clutched at Zant’s shoulders, wrapped her arms around his neck, laid her forehead against the expanse of his shoulder. And gasped in tiny breaths. Zant soothed her, kissed her, moved his hips against hers, tested her slick readiness. The pain became a memory with each gentle thrust of his. He moved again. Jacey arched into him, some instinct showing her the way, urging her to feel.

  Within a few thrusts, she was meeting him stroke for stroke. She clung to him, as if letting go of him would plunge her into a deep pit. She arched into him, felt the coiling begin again, breathed in and out with lusting need, and drove into him with a ferocity matching his. Jacey looked up, saw his straining muscles, his rigid arms, his grimace of intense pleasure. She pulled him down more fully atop her and held him, scratching at his back, not able to stop herself. His husky gruntings and sounds of need mingled with hers. She wanted—

  * * *

  The dam burst. Her body clutched at him, pulling at him, holding him inside her. He gasped and went rigid over her, as if frozen in the moment. Jacey moved her hands to his rock-hard biceps, gripped him clawlike, and took over the thrusting rhythm, helping her body pleasure him.

  Zant cried out and collapsed atop her. “Enough. You’ll kill me,” came his ragged words into her ear. He gathered her to him, held her tightly. Jacey smiled, reveling in the sound of his heartbeat, the slick wetness of their bodies, their panting breath. So this was what it was like to love. This was what Mama’d been talking about when she told her girls about the loving pleasures of the marriage bed.

  Marriage bed. What marriage? Jacey stiffened.

  Zant immediately raised up on an elbow, brushed a strand of her hair out of her face, and smiled down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Jacey turned her head away from him. “Nothing.”

  Zant tugged her chin back around until she had to look up into his eyes. “Like hell. Now, what’s wrong? Are you sorry we did this?”

  “It’s a little late for sorry.” Especially when he was still inside her and she was under him, naked.

  He nodded and chuckled. “You are sorry. I tried to stop you.”

  Jacey frowned up at him. “I’m not sorry. And don’t tell me how I feel.”

  He grinned like a devil. “Why not? I know how you feel.” He dipped his head down to kiss her neck and breathe in deeply of her scent. “You feel wonderful.”

  Jacey smacked at his shoulder. “Get off me, Chapelo.”

  He reared back, still inside her, still weighing her down, and laughed. “That’s not what you called me a minute ago.”

  Stung to the point of heated cheeks and sudden tears, Jacey shoved in earnest. “Get off me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Looking her right in the eye, making his point, Zant slid out of her. And then off her. He stood up and held a hand out to her.

  Jacey looked up the solid, naked length of him to his face and then to his outstretched hand. And took it. Zant pulled her easily to her feet. To her chagrin, Jacey realized she was sore, wet, and could barely stand on her own. Not to mention embarrassed to be naked in front of him, even after what they’d just shared. Zant smiled, as if he understood, and pulled her to him. He held her against his broad chest and said nothing.

  Jacey wrapped her arms around him, flattening her palms against his muscled back. She closed her eyes and breathed in the man-musk scent of him, absorbed the feel of her cheek against his chest, her woman’s body against his hard, male one. If only they could stay this way forever. But you can’t. Her eyes opened with the warning taunt from her conscience. She stared into the vastness of the desert night, seeing the world from the shelter of Zant’s strong arms, listening to his heart beating under her ear. The voice was right. This was but a moment in time for them. And not forever.

  Saddened, angry, she pushed away from him and stepped back. Looking up into his night-and fire-shadowed face, at his black eyes and slanting half-smile, Jacey spoke before she lost her courage. “This right here, what happened between us? It doesn’t change a thing, Zant.”

  Zant nodded, as if he agreed. His black eyes looked clear through her, to her heart, her soul. “Yes it does. This right here, what happened between us, changes everything. For both of us. Forever.”

  Jacey shook her head, afraid now as the enormity of what she’d caused to happen sank in. S
he took a step back, felt the flames behind her heat up her legs. Or maybe it was the judgmental fires of Hell. Either way, she burned. He was a Chapelo. She was a Lawless. And nothing could change that.

  “No,” she cried out. But even she didn’t believe it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Zant was right, Jacey mused. Everything was changed. Not so you could tell by looking. But everything was changed inside, where it counted. How could their shared intimacy have caused them to fuss so afterward? For days afterward. Zant acted like he wished she wasn’t riding with him to Don Rafael’s. Well, she wasn’t exactly happy about it, either.

  But it seemed the closer they got to this Cielo Azul, this Blue Sky place—as he’d translated it—the more they picked at each other. Why was that? Maybe like her, he didn’t know how to think of her, how to treat her … what to call her. Before two nights ago, their relationship was clear-cut. He’d been the outlaw, somewhat of a stranger, not really her enemy, and not her trusted friend, either.

  But now? He was also her lover. She looked over at him sitting his saddle with masculine ease. She had a lover. Zant Chapelo. If Papa wasn’t spinning in his grave right this minute, then she’d be a dog-eared coyote.

  Jacey sighed. What had she done? Why him? She stared hard at him, trying to see in his remote posture the same man who’d held her tenderly, whose hands had awakened her body, whose—Jacey made a noise to cut off her thoughts of the man. Zant turned to stare at her. Shaded by his Stetson, his black eyes squinted questioningly at her.

  Jacey ducked her chin to look down at her pommel. Just one look from him now, and she was undone. That was the problem. She now saw him as an M-A-N. And she now knew what that word meant to a woman. His big, muscled body, that black hair, those smoldering eyes, his way of looking at her, the sound of his voice, the way he moved his hands, all combined to make her fidget in her saddle. And brought a possessive smile to her face.

  Which she wiped away with her hand. Damn him. If only it could be as easy to scrub him out of her mind. But every motion of his, whether he was squatting down in his denims, eating by the campfire, currying his stallion, shaving his beard, or washing in a stream, now seemed less than innocent. Instead, his every action seemed a calculated display for her, like a stallion made for a mare in season. Preening, prancing, showing off his strength, his … maleness. And, Lord above, it was working.

  “Things aren’t going to be so easy for us once we reach Cielo Azul.”

  Jacey started at the sound of his voice and looked over at him. His mouth was no more than a straight line. But hers quirked up mockingly. “Easy? When’s anything been easy for us?”

  A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he notched his Stetson up and shifted his weight in his saddle. “Once we get there, you’ll think that everything that’s come before was a church picnic. Since we’ll be there in less than two days, I’ve come up with a plan.”

  Jacey stared at the big outlaw, stared at the way his hand splayed atop his thigh. “You’ve got to have a plan to get into your own home?”

  “Only because you’ll be with me. But it’s not my home. It’s my grandfather’s.”

  “Then where do you call home?”

  He shrugged. “I guess I don’t.”

  “You count yourself a drifter, then?”

  He got that look on his face, like he was going to shoot someone. “No.”

  “Everybody’s got to be somewhere, Chapelo. Got to belong somewhere.”

  He tugged his Stetson down and looked straight ahead. “Maybe.”

  Jacey gave herself up to the rhythmic sway of Knight’s easy gait. After a moment, she said, “What’s this plan of yours?”

  He rubbed a finger under his nose, stretched forward in his saddle, and kept his gaze on the southeastern horizon. “When we ride in, you’ll be my prisoner.”

  Jacey reined Knight to a standstill. She watched as Zant’s stallion continued on ahead of her. She saw Zant turn his head to where she’d been a moment ago on his left and heard him say, “And I don’t want any argu—” He stared at the empty space and then jerked this way and that. “What the hell? Where—” He finally looked back, found her, turned Old Blood and reined in his big roan. “What are you doing back there?”

  Jacey called out, “Your prisoner? Is that what you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  “You tell me how, and I’ll judge for myself, outlaw.”

  He shook his head and nudged his stallion into walking back to her. He reined in beside her, Old Blood’s head to Knight’s tail. “If Don Rafael thinks I’m coming home—” He frowned, daring her to say something.

  Jacey understood—he’d called Cielo Azul home after having just denied it. She said nothing, gave nothing away with her poker face.

  “Thinks I’m coming home for good, and you’re with me as my peace offering, then I stand a chance of keeping your skinny butt alive long enough to figure out what he’s up to.”

  Jacey took a moment to assess his words and what they said about him … and what he felt for her. “Why are you concerning yourself with keeping my skinny butt alive, Chapelo?”

  That got him. His eyes narrowed. “That’s my business.”

  Jacey stared hard at him, but finally let it go. For now. “All right. It’s your business. But answer this. Why don’t you just ask him right out what he’s up to? You afraid of him?”

  Zant sucked in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “Don’t push me, Jacey. I’m not afraid of him, but of what he’s capable of doing. And I did ask him point-blank why he was having you three tracked.”

  Three? You three? Jacey eyed him in a sidelong glance. What three?

  Zant went on, as if he hadn’t heard himself, as if he didn’t notice the change in her expression. “But he denied that he was behind it. He’s lying, he’s up to no good, and he’s not about to tell me or anyone else what that is. If you hope to save yourself and your sisters, you’ll have to meet him on his own ground. And on my terms. It’s the only way.”

  Your sisters? His words froze Jacey in her saddle. A sick feeling roiled through her belly. Hannah. Glory. “Zant, I didn’t think about that back at Buford’s place. Three men paid them a call. You killed one—Rafferty. Where are the other two? Are they still tracking my sisters, or did they go back to Cielo Azul?”

  Zant notched his Stetson up and looked mighty grim. “They didn’t go back to Cielo Azul, Jacey. Not according to Blue.”

  “Blue?” Jacey’s mind raced back to her first day in Tucson and then forward to that night in the desert when Zant killed Rafferty. The blond-headed, smiling Blue’d been there then. Her building anger tugged her mouth down. “How long have you known that those men are still tracking my sisters?”

  When Zant didn’t say anything, Jacey’s belly flip-flopped, her heart thudded. Her voice husky with betrayal, she repeated, “I asked you a question. How long have you known?”

  As grim now as death, the outlaw backed his stallion two paces and gripped Knight’s bridle. Only then did he speak up. “Since about a week after you got here.”

  Jacey gulped for air. In a sick sweat, she could only stare at the big man for several seconds. Her words, when she could form them, were a whisper. “I’ve been here nearly a month, and you didn’t tell me?”

  Exploding with equal amounts of anger at him and fear for her sisters, Jacey gripped Knight’s belly with her legs and jerked his reins, wanting to turn him, wanting to ride for home to warn her sisters. But all the black gelding could do was dance in place and rear his head. Zant’s roan stallion reacted with a snorting sidestep of his own. But neither animal could do more, because Zant’s grip on both horses was firm.

  “Damn you, Chapelo. Let go of my horse.” Thwarted, frustrated, held in check, Jacey gritted her teeth and glared. She’d not give him the satisfaction of fighting his hold on Knight. She knew, and he knew, that his grip was ironc
lad. She was no match for his strength. “Hannah and Glory—especially Glory—could be dead by now, you son of a bitch.”

  A muscle jumped in Zant’s jaw. He spoke through gritted teeth. “They’re not.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because you’re not.”

  “What kind of an answer is that? The only reason I’m not dead is because you killed Rafferty.” She then spoke in measured tones, giving each of her next words equal weight. “Now … let go of my horse. I aim to ride for home.”

  Zant shook his head. “Your enemy isn’t in No Man’s Land, Jacey. He’s in Sonora. Listen to me. You’re not dead and your sisters aren’t dead because—and only because—Don Rafael hasn’t ordered it yet.”

  Jacey leaned forward in her saddle, got in the outlaw’s face. “And what if he has by now? We’ve been out in this stinking hellhole of a desert for a week and a half hunting down sick or dead or crazy old men, asking them about a keepsake portrait, for crying out loud. And all the while, you’ve known this about my sisters? Anything could’ve happened by now. Anything.”

  Jacey met the outlaw’s grim stare, matched him breath for breath. She wanted only to ride for home. That’s where she belonged … not here, no matter what he said. She never should’ve left Glory alone. Glory’s the one they wanted. And Hannah was in Boston—who’d watch out for her? All their lives, Jacey knew, she’d been the tough one, her sisters’ protector and defender. They looked to her, to her daring. Without her, they were alone.

  Zant leaned toward her, close enough for her to see herself reflected in his black eyes. “What if he’s given new orders? There wouldn’t be a damned thing you could do about it. You’re too far away to help your sisters. Even if you’d left the minute I knew about it, you’d still be a week behind and too late. Your sisters will have to take care of themselves. If they’re anything like you, they can.”