Jacey's Reckless Heart

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  They were alone. Jacey turned to Zant. “Let me guess. She thinks we’ll burn in hell, and then she said she’d pray for us, right?”

  Zant chuckled. “You wouldn’t have to speak Spanish to get that one.”

  Jacey smiled, but then the smile fled from her face with her next thought. “Zant, what if she … tells? I mean, that you’re in here with me?”

  He shook his head. “She won’t. For one thing, she’s terrified of my grandfather and probably couldn’t get up enough nerve to tell him his chair’s on fire. And two, she practically raised me. And still thinks she can mother me. We can trust her.”

  Blue, and then Paco, and now Conchita. He’d said he was gathering his forces. “Good.” Jacey smiled and then felt that strange shyness that came over her when Zant was near. Lowering her gaze to the floor, she spied her dinner attire, drawers and all, in plain sight. Her eyes widened and a fierce heat traveled up her cheeks.

  Apparently Zant’s gaze had followed hers, because he nonchalantly stuck his booted toe out and nudged the entire outfit under the bed. “That better?”

  Mortified, Jacey spun away from him. The man had already seen her naked. Why should his seeing her drawers embarrass her? All she knew was that it did. Then, with only the scuffing sound of his boots on the wood floor to tell of his approach, she felt Zant’s hands in her hair.

  His touch was gentle, probing, as his long fingers moved through her coiled braid, removing hairpins when he encountered them. She didn’t move, didn’t protest. She couldn’t. Every nerve ending in her body raised the gooseflesh on her arms. His touch, his nearness, his clean, musky scent. If he didn’t stop soon, she’d swoon. And never forgive herself. Or him.

  Zant’s hands, one still holding the brush, left her hair to grip her shoulders. Still behind her, he guided her to the low stool in front of the lady’s vanity against the far wall. “Sit here so I can get to you easier.”

  Jacey sat down and stared at his reflection in the oval mirror in front of her. He was frowning, staring at her coroneted hair, and moving his head from side to side, as if trying to decide how best to attack this problem. He stood like he was getting ready to go into battle. Legs spread, feet apart, shoulders squared. A giggle, probably the first one she’d ever produced in her whole life, escaped her.

  Zant quirked a raised eyebrow at her, put his hands on her shoulders, and bent down to put his face next to hers, the better to see her in the mirror. “What’s so funny?”

  “You. You’re standing like you’re about to charge into an Indian war party. It’s just hair.”

  He grinned and straightened up. “Yeah, but there’s enough here to braid Sangre a new saddle blanket. What’s holding this mess up on your head, anyway? I thought I got all the pins.” To prove his point, he dug through his shirt’s pocket, pulled out a tangle of pins, and reached around her to lay them on the vanity.

  Jacey eyed the pins and then looked at him in the mirror. “Mess? Don’t let Conchita hear you say that about her handiwork.”

  “I’m not worried,” he said absently as he again eyed her hair and poked and prodded the coils as if they belonged to a sleeping snake. With the suddenness of a snake’s strike, her long braid snapped loose and swung down her back. Zant made a noise and jumped back.

  Jacey broke out into chuckling guffaws and shook her head. Zant warned her with a squint-eyed expression and stepped back up to her, gripping her cheeks firmly with his hands and turning her head straight forward. “Sit still.”

  “I was.”

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  Jacey obediently sobered, but only by drawing her lips in over her teeth and clamping them there. In the mirror, she watched Zant’s increasing absorption with his task and the look of wonder that came over his face as he unbraided her hair bit by bit. His touch was silken, mesmerizing. Jacey released her lips from her teeths’ grip and said, “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

  He glanced briefly at her in the mirror. “No. Am I hurting you?”

  “No,” came Jacey’s soft reply, but she was thinking of all the ways he could hurt her forever. Just by turning away from her one day soon, when all the trouble here came to a head. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, her shoulders slumping with her sense of loss.

  “You sleepy?” Zant caught her reflected gaze again.

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  And that was all they said as he lost himself in her long black hair. Dry now, but kinked and crimped from being braided when wet, the tight curls wrapped themselves around his fingers when his free hand followed his brushing hand. He stroked her tresses and coaxed the tangles out, his face in the mirror showing his every expression, his every emotion.

  Clearly, he marveled at the sheer length and thickness and shine of her mane. He drew each stroke of the brush out to its fullest. They laughed together when her hair crackled and stood out straight, following the brush as if anxious over being separated from it. Jacey was the one to break the sensual silence between them. “I think you’ve about brushed it off my head.”

  “Let’s see.” Zant reached around her, his chest rubbing against her shoulder, and placed the silver brush next to the hairpins. He then straightened up, put his warm hands on her shoulders, and stared at her a long time. Jacey watched him in the mirror. His expression changed, became dark and penetrating, singular and compelling.

  She knew what was about to happen … again. They’d never really talked about that first time out in the desert, never really said much, except to say that their … being together like that had changed everything and nothing. Jacey wondered what this time would mean. Nothing? Everything? Then she realized it didn’t really matter. Because she wanted him with all her body and soul. Without breaking the eye contact between them, she reached a hand up to caress and cover his.

  Zant read her gesture perfectly. He turned her to him and, taking her hands, pulled her to her feet. Walking backward, drawing her with him, he unerringly found the four-poster bed and stopped. “Jacey,” he whispered, “I’ve wanted you so damned much. I’m on fire, girl. What have you done to me?”

  His words slipped over her skin, thrilling her and sparking that needle-sharp throbbing between her legs. “I think,” she tried to answer, but then hesitated and smiled and started over, “I think I’ve made you love me.”

  A heated smile curved his mouth. He smoothed his hands over her shoulders, down her arms. His black eyes smoldered with desire as he stared into her upturned face. “I think you’re right. What are we going to do about it?”

  “This.” The word was a hiss. She boldly rose up on tiptoes and drew his head down to hers, claiming his mouth in a hot kiss that weakened her knees and saw her clinging to him.

  A hoarse sound from Zant melted into her mouth as his tongue began its plundering raid. Kissing her, demanding more, he grabbed her to him and wrapped his powerful arms around her, holding her tight enough to cut off her air. She didn’t complain. No matter how close he held her, no matter how tightly, it couldn’t be close enough for her. Even if she could curl up in his heart and stay there forever, warm and safe, it wouldn’t be close enough.

  Jacey pulled back from their kiss, gasping for air, breathing hard, and holding on to the tensed muscles in his arms, her small hand no more than a child’s against the sheer size of his biceps. She tugged at his shirt, wanting it off him, wanting the feel of his skin against hers. Zant obligingly ripped his shirt off over his head, tossed it away, and then helped Jacey tug her gown over her head. It too disappeared the way of his forgotten shirt.

  He then quickly, heatedly, looked her up and down, his finely shaped, sensual hands following his eyes, caressing her, stroking her. He went to one knee and unfastened her knife sheath from around her thigh, setting it carefully on the wooden floor.

  Still kneeling before her, he pulled her to him, his cheek against her quivering belly, his hands cupping her buttocks. Jacey was undone. Her mouth sla
cked open, her eyes closed. And then she felt his warm, moist kisses trailing across her stomach, her navel, and lower, down to the black and curling hair that sheltered her woman’s core. Jacey’s knees weakened, she clutched at Zant’s thick hair and heard little mewling, whimpering sounds coming from her mouth.

  Zant held her tighter … and tongued aside the crisp hairs at her vee until he found her pulsing desire. He flicked it, circled it, coaxed it into a rage of want. Jacey’s mewling sounds became gasps, her muscles tensed. She heard herself saying his name over and over. He pushed up to his feet and allowed her to roam her hands over his hard-muscled chest while he unfastened his pants.

  Jacey surprised herself and him by taking over the task of undressing him. She opened the last of the silver buttons and began sliding his pants over his hips. She grinned at her sensual power over him when he began making those same noises she’d made only moments ago.

  Zant stopped her hands, took a deep breath, and mouthed, “Let me.” He sat on the side of the bed to remove his boots and heavy stockings, and finish divesting himself of his britches. Then, naked, proud, he stood before her, his own desire evident as it jutted between them. Jacey looked from it to his face. And stepped into his embrace.

  As he held her close, she roamed her hands over his back. She then pulled back enough to explore his flat brown nipples, his crisp chest hair. With her fingers, she traced the narrow band of black hair that bisected his torso and pointed down like an arrow to below his navel. Just as her hand would have closed around him, a growl escaped Zant as he abruptly picked her up and laid her on the bed behind them.

  As he crawled onto the four-poster with her, his crouching posture like that of a panther stalking its prey, he warned, “Don’t play with fire, girl.”

  Feeling wicked, laid out in a decadent position, Jacey rose up on her elbows and teased, “Why not? I know how to put it out.”

  Zant froze for a second. Then he slowly raised one of his eyebrows and his grin became pure, seductive evil. “Do you?”

  “Try me.”

  Zant’s other eyebrow joined its mate, and he pounced on her. Jacey squeaked and grinned, making a feint for the other side of the bed. She never made it. He was atop her before she could move away. In a fevered rush, he kissed her mouth, her jaw, her neck, and moved down to her breasts, claiming one nipple and then the other. Swept along with his storm of passion, all she could do was arch into him and wriggle beneath him. Zant slipped lower on her, kissing his way ever downward.

  When he dipped even lower, Jacey cried out, her legs jerked spasmodically, and her body prepared a place for him in her loving saddle. Zant slid back up her. “I’m sorry, Jacey, but if I wait another second, I’ll explode. I’ve got to have you now. I’ve wanted this, I’ve wanted you every damn day since—”

  Jacey cut his words off with her finger against his lips. “Shh. Me, too.” She smiled up at him, her hands now on his desire-dusky cheeks. She watched him search her eyes, her mouth. She pulled him down to her. Zant needed no further nudging. In one swift move, he ensheathed himself in her. Jacey’s cry against his bigness inside her slick tightness was muffled by his kiss. But she instinctually matched his stroking, plunging pace, working in rhythmic time with him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles together. Her arms went around his neck.

  But Zant pulled himself up, enough to look into her eyes, enough to arch over her and gauge her reaction to each and every long, suddenly slowed stroke. Jacey’s mouth opened but no words came out. She moved with him, unable to separate sensation from thought, pleasure from need. She became aware that he was whispering to her in Spanish, uttering phrases of such tenderness and passion that they needed no translation. She listened with her soul as he made of her name an endearment. As he made of her body a temple, and offered up his own in loving worship.

  With a staggering suddenness, though, the sensual loving gave way to the purely physical coiling and tightness that forced Jacey’s mouth into a grimace of greedy want. She picked up her pace. Zant matched it. He pulled himself up on his arms, then his hands. He sat back on his haunches, pulling Jacey up with him, until she straddled his hips. He then gave the pacing, the stroking over to her. He bent her back just enough to get to her breasts, which he kissed and sucked and circled with his tongue, all the time holding her close with his flattened hands on her back.

  As her raging desire peaked, when the coiling tremors exploded into hot spasms, she gasped out raggedly and went tense, clinging to Zant as if only he could keep her from falling over a cliff. His hands slid down to cup her buttocks as he took up the stroking that made Jacey throw her head back, open her mouth, and gasp … and gasp … and gasp in animal need and satisfaction.

  At that moment, with her inner muscles clutching hotly at him, Zant went over that cliff with her. He went rigid as his seed pumped into her. He drooped forward until his forehead rested heavily against her shoulder.

  How long they sat there, lost in their loving climax, clinging together in a slick and loving sweat, Jacey couldn’t say. But her breathing was almost back to normal when Zant finally lifted her off him and fell limply with her onto the bed’s now mussed lace counterpane. Jacey lay on her back, spread-eagled next to him. His pose matched hers. Smiling, satiated, her hair a damp and tangled mass all around her, she closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. What could be more wonderful than this?

  Several moments later, she had her answer when Zant moved, and then again lay across her. Jacey opened her eyes, smiled up at him, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  * * *

  “What does basta mean?”

  Zant looked up from his breakfast plate. Jacey sat on his immediate right, having pulled her heavy chair there. Her soulful black eyes stared unwaveringly at him. But it was her almost childlike appearance, what with her scrubbed and glowing skin and her hair pulled back simply at her nape and held there with a tied ribbon, that tugged at his heart.

  Dressed as she was in a loose white camisa and brightly patterned skirt, she could be mistaken for a Spanish beauty. Unless she opened her mouth. But was this young girl really the sensuous woman he’d held in his arms half the night before going quietly back to his own room?

  “Well?” she repeated. “Why are you looking at me like that? Is basta a bad word?”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “As if that would stop you from using it. But no, it’s not a bad word. It means ‘enough.’”

  “Enough, huh?” She took a big bite out of her butter-and-jam-slathered hunk of toast and chewed. And watched him. Silently.

  Even though she stared at him as if a hen perched on his head, Zant picked his fork up and took a bite of his now cooling eggs. Chewing and swallowing under her sustained gaze, he finally clattered the heavy silverware onto his plate. “What now?”

  “I want you to teach me Spanish.”

  Immediately, about fifty reasons why he shouldn’t, and only three why he should, occurred to him. “Teach you Spanish? Why?”

  “So I can hold my own here. So I can know what’s going on around me. So I can know if what I’m hearing is important.”

  Zant blinked in surprise. She’d just named all three of his reasons. Still, he hesitated. “That makes sense. But I’m not sure I’ll have time to teach you. Or if you’ll be here long enough for lessons to do you any good. Because the Spanish you need to learn is more than a few simple words like ‘cat’ and ‘dog.’”

  She leaned over the table toward him. “Try me, Zant. I’m a quick study. Especially when my life might be at stake. And remember, you owe me. I saved your … you know … from that rattler. Or have you already forgotten?”

  “Forgotten?” Zant raised an eyebrow at that. “I still have nightmares.” Then, thinking through her proposal, he rested his elbow on his chair’s polished-wood arm, looked outside through the open double doors to the flowering gardens of the courtyard, and rubbed his hand over his mouth and chin. Finally, he turned again to her
, and said, “All right.”

  Jacey’s face lit up. “All right?”

  “Yes. I’ll teach you Spanish.”

  “Good. But since I’m a prisoner here, your lessons will have to be up in my locked room. You’ll have to sit in there all day with me, even when it’s hot and boring, and you won’t be able to get out to do anything, not even see to your own horse.”

  Zant grinned at her underhanded—and effective—scheming. “I see now what you’re up to. All right, you don’t have to stay in your room today. Don Rafael’s gone to a neighboring villa to … um, look over a promising stallion, and he won’t be back until late tonight. So I guess it’s okay for you to get some sun on your face.”

  Jacey’s broad grin brightened the room like no sun could.

  Zant held up a cautioning hand. “Not so fast. You have to stay right with me all day. You can see I’m wearing a gun, and that should tell you something. I don’t want you out of my sight.”

  Her grin dimmed. “You think there could be trouble?”

  “Hell, yes.” He stood up, tossing his napkin next to his unfinished breakfast. “But you’d be the one causing it.” He held his hand out to her.

  Eager, and suspiciously unoffended, she scraped her chair back and stood, taking his hand and following him outside through the courtyard.

  * * *

  The very minute Zant was surrounded by a knot of his men, including Blue and Paco, Jacey slipped away from him. She shouldered her way through the heavily armed men. They absently stepped aside as they listened to every Spanish word coming out of Zant’s mouth. Once out of their midst in the wide-open welcoming plaza that circled the central flagpole, she kept her head down and hustled away with stiff-legged strides.

  With every step, she expected to hear Zant bellowing her name. But luck was with her. She wasn’t called back. Jacey looked up to get her bearings. Off to her right were the double-wide mesquite-wood gates that she’d ridden through yesterday. Only desert lay beyond it. Directly in front of her sat the villa itself with all its windows and watching eyes.