"You know, I'm beginning to think you're more of a scoundrel than you pretend," she said, but her show of anger did no good. It was belied by the tiny shocks of anticipation that jerked along her inner thighs.
"You do?" he taunted softly. "Why's that?"
He pushed. The thrust was clean and deep, and she arched helplessly. His second thrust nearly had her crawling out of her skin. She tried desperately to brace herself, to hold herself back from the dizzying vortex of sensation. But when she would have twisted away, he added the weight of his chest, burying her beneath flint-hard planes and fleecy fur.
The room began to reel. Everything was spinning out of focus except his face. His eyes were like a beacon, drawing her to him. They shone with that same golden radiance that had wooed her to surrender before. There was something else lurking in their beguiling depths, though. It was primitive, a hunger, and it devoured her every move. Dimly she realized he watched her for signs, altering his rhythm to escalate her desire, taking primal satisfaction in learning the greatest source of her pleasure.
She might still hold the ace after all, she thought.
"Oh, yes," she moaned, her head rolling in a feverish frenzy. "Take me, Cord. Take me with you."
"I'll take you as far as you can go, sweetheart."
He plumbed to her furthermost depths. She gasped, digging her heels into the bearskin, pitching her hips higher. Molten fire exploded inside her. She cried out, and his mouth silenced her, possessing her yet again with the quick, plunging thrust of his tongue.
He was still shuddering when she collapsed beneath him. She gulped down air, reveling in the raw, pulsating power of his masculinity. He was magnificent. A seasoned lover whose caresses offered paradise. She couldn't help but smile.
Yet despite his undeniable skill, he was still a rank beginner when it came to love games.
She kissed his hair. "Darling?" When he didn't immediately stir, she tapped his shoulder. "I think we should leave before dawn, to avoid a showdown with the boys."
He raised his head. "What—"
"You said you would take me, remember?"
Realization gathered slowly, rolling like a thundercloud across his brow. "I didn't mean—"
"You said 'as far as I can go,'" she interrupted silkily.
A slow blush crept up his cheeks. "The hell I did."
"Now, now. Don't be a sore loser. With practice, you'll get better at these games. Someday, with a lot of hard work, you might even be as good as I am."
She smirked, and his lips twitched. A reluctant smile spread across his face.
Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed.
"I have to hand it to you, sweetheart." His eyes turned wistful as they met her gaze once more. "You really are good."
Chapter 17
Seventy-two hours later, Cord was still smarting over the way Fancy had tricked him into giving his word, but even he had to admit he preferred a female long rider by his side than one of his wide-eyed, overeager brothers.
At least Fancy had no illusions about the dangers of their mission. And he'd learned from experience that she kept a cool head in heated circumstances. God knew, he needed a cool head beside him now.
Using intelligence supplied by the Texas Rangers, Cord had tracked the Wilkersons to Comanche Peak, in Johnson County, where Ned was holed up after Sheriff Applegate's posse had cost him three men. The Johnson County sheriff appeared in blissful ignorance of the renegades hiding in his jurisdiction—either that, or the lawman preferred to chase drunken, mischief-making cowboys rather than risk his hide by tracking cold-blooded killers.
In any event, Ned and his men had taken refuge in Johnson County, nursing their wounds and, no doubt, plotting their revenge against Clem Applegate.
Since Cord figured Ned would need recruits to bolster his ranks, he was counting on the outlaw being less suspicious of outsiders than he might normally have been.
Even so, Cord couldn't help but wonder at how readily Ned had agreed to negotiate after Cord had sent him a message, ostensibly from Frank Harris. He guessed Frank Harris's reputation as a counterfeiter had preceded him, thanks in part to the mock wanted posters; and that the reminder of Fancy's earlier correspondence with Ned, promising Mexican silver for U.S. minting plates, had wooed the outlaw further.
After only twenty-four hours of silence, Ned sent his younger brother, Jake, with the message that he was willing to hear Cord's proposal.
The game had officially begun.
Jake was a scowling, uncommunicative bear of a man, to whom Cord took an immediate dislike. The fact that Jake was a known sheriff killer had less to do with Cord's resentment than with the way the man stared at Fancy's buttocks, swaying so enticingly in her saddle.
Cord tried to remind himself that in the past, Fancy had handled far worse than leers from randy men, yet at least twice he came dangerously close to punching the renegade's lights out while Jake directed them with grunts and nods along the rocky ribbon of trail.
Scaling the bald face of the butte, Jake at last rode ahead of Fancy, leading her horse beneath towering boulders and slabs of avalanche-ready stones, many of which—Cord was certain—had been gathered and strategically placed by the gang's sentries to protect their hideout. Cord could occasionally glimpse a rifle barrel glinting from the craggy shadows above.
Fancy, too, must have noticed the guns trained on them, but rather than show any uneasiness, she sent him a dry smile and a shrug over her shoulder. Apparently Santana had made similar death threats routine for her.
Considering how she rode into a den of thieves with a lawman rather than a crime boss, Cord couldn't help but admire her nerve. He prayed he could keep her safe. He prayed, too, that he could end this nightmarish quest soon. Two weeks of the governor's four-week reprieve had already ticked off the clock.
As they reached the scrub-brush summit of Comanche Peak, Jake gestured for them to dismount. Cord reached automatically to help Fancy, but she gave a small, fierce shake of her head. He was surprised by her reaction, but the clinking of spurs distracted him, and he spied a lanky, denim-encased leg dangling from a nearby boulder.
"So you're Harris the Hustler, eh? Houston's big-time sharper." This challenge came from the boulder's sentry, a thin-haired, long-necked man with a bulbous Adam's apple. He grinned, lazily swinging his boot about an inch from Cord's hat brim. "Reckon prison's been good to you, Harris. You got yourself a nice tan."
Cord felt the back of his neck heat. The sentry's wisecrack could mean trouble, considering how Frank Harris had been locked up in the state penitentiary for more than two years.
"Reckon I do," he retorted, drilling the outlaw with an unflinching stare. "What of it?"
Fancy laughed. Dismounting, she made a point to hike her buttocks in the process. Cord couldn't help but notice how easily her ploy stole the attention of both outlaws.
"You should see what else hard labor did for Frank," she drawled in her whiskey-smooth alto. "You ought to try it, boys."
The sentry's face split into a lewd smile. "I'd much rather try you, sweetheart."
"The hell you will, Goose," Jake said in his guttural bass. "I saw her first."
Cord steeled himself against a growing desire to crack both outlaws' skulls against the rock. "Where's Wilkerson?" he demanded brusquely.
"You mean Mad Dog?" Goose chuckled as he ogled Fancy's breasts. "Well, lessee. Blisse ain't skinning the rabbits Colt shot for her, so—"
"Christ." Jake's scowl deepened. "Grub's gonna be late again." He drew his six-shooter and fired into the air. "Ned! Quit your goddamned screwing and come out here. I brought Harris back to deal. You want a cut of that silver, or don't ya?"
Two other men dropped eagerly from the rocks. Cord realized they'd been lying in ambush, and he suspected the promise of silver was the only thing that had kept them from shooting him in the back. Judging by the way they ogled Fancy, he worried she would face another kind of danger.
"Mighty nice piece you
got there, Harris," called the first bushwhacker, a dark, slanty-eyed scorpion with a drooping mustache. "And I ain't talking 'bout your six-shooter."
Goose snickered. "Just wait till you see her tits up close, Lash."
"Hey, Harris." This came from the second bushwhacker, whose long nose and big teeth reminded Cord of a mule. "Where's the rest of your women? Don't tell us you only brought one."
"Hell, Colt," Goose said. "If she ain't to your liking, you don't have to poke her. I'll take your turn." He winked at Fancy.
Cord sensed rather than saw her tense. She was too good at playacting to show revulsion, but he suspected she was remembering other campsites, other outlaws. He leveled his coldest, hardest stare at Goose.
"The woman's mine."
The wiseacre's grin ebbed. He glanced at Jake, whose face had darkened with resentment.
Before either outlaw could challenge Cord's claim, though, a heavyset man lumbered out of the bushes. Hurrying in his wake was a skinny, disheveled redhead of about sixteen. The girl's steps faltered when she spied Cord—or perhaps Fancy—but Cord's gaze was quickly drawn from the surprise on her gaunt face to the bruises on her shoulder, which was too bony to hold up her chemise strap.
His gun-hand twitched at the proof of her abuse, and he glared narrowly at the heavyset man. Even without the patch covering the outlaw's left eye, Cord would have recognized the Terror of the Pecos. Ned Wilkerson's bulldog jowls and the list of his atrocities had taken up prominent wall space in the U.S. marshal's office the last time Cord had reported there.
"You're Harris?" Ned halted before Cord and crossed his arms over a barrellike chest.
Cord nodded curtly.
"And this here's your puta?"
Cord ground his teeth as Ned appraised Fancy as if she were a piece of raw beefsteak.
But if Ned's Spanish taunt of "whore" had insulted her, she didn't show it. She merely donned the sultry, closed-lip smile Cord had watched her use to such advantage at the Diamondback Saloon.
He felt his temperature rise.
Apparently he wasn't the only one who didn't like Fancy's game. The redhead's fists clenched, and she stepped possessively to Ned's side, her storm-colored eyes flashing in warning.
"Me and Harris were just discussing the lady," Goose said in an oily voice. "Seems like he don't want to share her with nobody."
A breathless silence fell as Ned sized up Cord again. Cord imagined he heard Fancy's heart picking up its pace. As for the redhead, her gaze flickered uneasily from him to Ned, as if she feared they might start a shootout.
Suddenly, she flounced between them, sticking out her boyish chest in a futile attempt to attract Ned's notice.
"Why would you want to go and hump her for, Mad Dog?" the girl said, her tone falling somewhere between sullen and wheedling. "That whore's got a twat as old as Methuselah."
"And yours is ten times as worn," Colt said, wrinkling his snout.
"Shut up!"
"Aw, Dusty." Goose chuckled, and the girl turned as red as her hair. "Why don't you go skin them rabbits? We got business to discuss."
"The name's Blisse," she fired back. "And you can go skin 'em yourself."
"You cook?" Ned shot this question at Fancy.
She met his basilisk stare with flawless aplomb. "Among other things."
"Then go make yourself useful."
Blisse sneered. "Yeah."
"You too." Ned grabbed the girl's shaggy hair, and she yelped as he yanked her around, shoving her toward the campfire.
Cord's blood boiled. He stepped forward to protest Ned's treatment of the girl, but Fancy tossed him a quelling look and moved quickly to bar his way.
"Serving you gentlemen would be a pleasure," she purred, lavishing her come-hither smile on the outlaws. "But don't keep me waiting for long."
Goose hooted. Colt snickered. Cord bit back an oath as he watched Fancy saunter after Blisse. He didn't know whether to be relieved or worried that Fancy played her part so well. Jake and Lash were practically drooling.
Although Cord told himself Fancy was just playing her old high-stakes game, he couldn't quite discount the hurtful twinge inside his chest.
He recognized it as jealousy.
* * *
That night, Fancy spent what seemed like hours cooling her heels, waiting for Cord. He had forbidden her to leave his sight, which irked her to no end. She supposed she should be flattered that he cared enough to worry about her.
On the other hand, she wasn't sure she liked the implication that she was weak and helpless, and that he was the only thing that stood between her and bodily harm. God knew, she'd been handling men like Goose and Lash since she was thirteen years old.
Her gaze drifted back to the campfire. A lively game of poker was underway. Cord was losing badly. Since he didn't have much of a purse to wager, she guessed he was staking his share of the loot from the minting-plate sale he had supposedly arranged with Mexican nationals.
Over dinner, in an attempt to get Ned to reveal where he'd hidden Bart's plates, Cord had claimed that his contacts would deal only if all four plates were available for sale. Ned had grunted something noncommittal and wandered off to urinate. He hadn't said another word about the matter, but whenever he was out of earshot, his men started muttering.
Boredom always took its toll on a group of holed-up outlaws, but Fancy sensed the tension in the Wilkerson gang stemmed from something else: resentment. Lash had grumbled that hiding out was worse than prodding steak-on-the-hoof; at least when the gang rustled beeves, they made money.
Jake had also had enough of lying low. Showing a tendency to dispute his brother's leadership, he'd complained that Ned was going soft and ruining the gang's reputation for retaliation. They should be riding back to Tarrant County to make an example of Sheriff Applegate, instead of hiding out.
Applegate's posse must have turned up the heat pretty high for Wilkerson's men to go underground for five weeks, Fancy mused. She remembered thinking that Wilkerson would try to track her down after her escape from Fort Worth's jail. Apparently, however, Applegate's pride had been too great to admit publicly that a federal marshal had stolen his prisoner.
At least, that's what Applegate had confessed to Cord during one of their recent correspondences. No doubt that was why Ned had readily bought Cord's lie that he, as Frank Harris, had ambushed and killed the bounty hunter who'd been sent to track her.
Privately, however, Fancy couldn't understand why Ned hadn't cut his losses after learning that she'd slipped through his fingers and had fled with Bart's plates to Mexico. For a band of men who had access to thousands of dollars worth of silver bullion—not to mention the cool million each of Bart's minting plates should bring in—the outlaws were leading unnecessarily spartan lives. They could have been sipping whiskey and entertaining high-class whores in some gilded casino. Instead, they were sitting on this godforsaken rock.
She couldn't blame Ned's men for harboring ill will toward him. He'd let them pull off a few small highway robberies, and they'd stolen a horse here and there, but for the most part, Ned had ordered them to stay put until local lawmen considered them old news.
It probably was boredom that made Lash and the others speak so nostalgically of rustling. Even so, why would thieves who could conceivably mint their own fortunes want to go back to the drudgery of herding stolen cattle?
Fancy was distracted from her speculations when Ned suddenly threw down his cards in disgust. Rising, he grabbed Blisse's arm and pulled her to her feet. The girl glanced longingly at Cord—much to Fancy's irritation. Blisse's hungry gaze had been feasting on his chest, crotch, and buttocks all day. When Cord failed to notice Blisse's latest appeal for sex, she hid her obvious disappointment and let Ned drag her into the shadows.
It was then that Fancy remembered Blisse's bruises. She was just thinking she should try to rescue the girl when the sound of Blisse's soft, seductive laughter drifted toward her. Moments later, Fancy heard tell-tale thumps and t
he sounds of satisfied grunting.
She thought she might be ill. Ned urinated in plain view. Did he have to screw in public too?
Fancy couldn't bear to listen anymore. As casually as she could, she climbed to her feet, trying not to let her hand quake as she unlatched the safety on her Colt.
A path led to a stream, and she followed it. Thankfully, the chirping of crickets and the whispering of wind at last drowned out the noise of rutting. Squeezing her eyes closed, she battled the bile that had risen to her throat. She'd forgotten what it was like, what it really was like, to be in Blisse's shoes.
Swallowing hard, Fancy gulped down ragged breaths and gazed around her. She had to stay alert. Vigilant. Otherwise, one of the bastards would sneak up on her and try to mount her too.
Shuddering, she hugged her arms around herself. The day had been typical of other days she'd spent with lecherous, pecker-proud outlaws, but difficult, nevertheless. Each time Cord had lapsed into a display of his well-ingrained gallantry, every hair on the back of her neck had stood on end. Somehow, she had to make him understand that kindness to women made him suspect.
Even Blisse had begun to eye him suspiciously.
"Have you ever been to Miss Lottie's?" she'd asked, spooning dinner onto his plate.
He'd glanced up sharply, his features frozen. "Miss Lottie's?"
"Yeah. She runs a cathouse in El Paso."
He'd held Blisse's gaze for a long, breathless moment. Then his lids had drooped, hooding wary eyes. "Why would I be wasting my money in some El Paso crib? I've got Houston's finest bawds working for me."
Blisse had frowned, looking thoughtful. She had probably considered his answer a challenge—or maybe an employment opportunity. For the rest of the evening, she had dogged Cord's heels, rubbing his shoulders, stroking his thighs, and generally trying to map his private parts in spite of his gentlemanly resistance.
Five weeks earlier, before Fancy had come to care about him, Cord's predicament might have amused her as much as it had Goose and his donkey-faced pal, Colt.
Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One) Page 60