Desert Sunrise

by Raine Cantrell

  She closed her eyes against the blaze of his, afraid he would know the words she longed to say. But Delaney was not ready to hear about love, so she answered him in kind.

  “No. I can’t deny you, if you need and want me. Not if you care.”

  One hand untangled itself from her hair, drifting down, dampening the cloth of her gown. With the backs of his fingers he brushed lightly over one taut nipple in a blatant, deliberate caress.

  She trembled in reaction, unable to hide from him. But his grin was now a male smile that was reflected in his eyes.

  “With a little coaxing you’d give yourself to me whether I cared or not.”

  “Would that please you, Delaney? I would.” She was beyond denial. But she was not prepared for the pain her own admission cost her.

  Delaney repeated the caress to her other breast and let his hands fall to his sides. The smile disappeared.

  “But I do care. I care more than I want to, more than I ever intended. When I first saw you, I thought you were all starched pride, a virgin, and trouble. I swore I wasn’t getting my boots tangled up with range calico like you. But there’s no more pride in you than a woman has a right to. And—”

  “…and I wasn’t a virgin, Delaney,” she whispered, afraid of what he was leading up to. Faith decided to use some of that pride she had a right to and stepped back. With a blatant gaze she made a quick sweep of his body, finding that pride was no substitute for the brazen act she intended. He was too potent, too male, and fully aroused. She stared down at his feet. “Since you’re not wearing boots, you don’t need to worry about getting them tangled with the calico I wear.”

  “Faith, look at me.” He slid his hands into her hair. “That sassy mouth’s gonna get you in trouble.” He smiled, drawing her head up so she was forced to meet his gaze. The light, teasing scent that was all woman, only hers, sank deep inside him, and his body tightened in a heated rush. “You’re trouble for me, Faith. More trouble than you know. You steal into my thoughts. You—”

  “I need you to kiss me, Del,” she softly demanded, for passion was now a fever in her blood, and need for him to ease it her only thought.

  He nipped her lower lip, soothing it with his tongue, but once again lifted his head away.

  “Del,” she moaned, locking her arms around his neck, shivering as the lingering dampness of his body soaked her gown. For a moment her gaze was pleading. “You told me once a woman should never have to beg a man for anything. Did you lie to me?” she asked, scattering tiny kisses over his bearded jaw. “Is that why you’re teasing me?” She closed her eyes, took a deep shuddering breath, and released it. Her lashes lifted reluctantly, her gaze searching his, finding his eyes dark, intense, almost fierce. “Do you want me to beg?”

  The question kindled something explosive inside him. “No. God, no, Faith,” he groaned. His mouth crushed hers, and he delved into the pleasure of kissing her for long, endless minutes.

  The feel of him this close, the touch of his hands gliding over her heated body made her tremble. She couldn’t hide her need from him. The shape of her mouth molded to his, opening to the slow stroke of his tongue inside until the taste of him filled her, blended with her own, and became one taste.

  When he felt her trembling, he drew her closer, his touch gentle from her nape down her slender back to the slight flare of her hips. He repeated the same caress a second time, less gentle, deliberately arousing her and himself, pressing their bodies tighter. The stroke of his tongue became heavier, deeper, and he was kneading her flesh against his, forcing her swelling breasts to his chest, forcing her hips to cradle his.

  Wildfire. Burning out of control. He lifted his head, breaking the kiss, his breathing labored. His lips whispered over her hair, brushing her eyes closed, for the desire that blazed in them sparked his own. His mouth followed a random path over her cheek, nudging her hair away from her ear, and Delaney gently captured the soft flesh of her earlobe with his teeth. There had been no time to know the shape of her delicate ear, but his mouth learned it now, and his mind was filled with soft, sweet sighs from her lips.

  Faith felt his chest dragging against her breasts with every move, his long powerful legs pressing against hers. For every touch that his mouth offered her skin, she returned its measure until her legs felt weak.

  His tongue trailed fire across her jaw, and she lifted her face, giving him whatever he wanted of herself. The string of tiny love bites he offered the taut arch of her neck made her cry out, her hands holding tight to his arms. Restless need filled her.

  “Please, Del … don’t … stop,” she whispered, her voice broken, feeling totally vulnerable to him.

  “I can’t. I won’t.” Need was in her eyes, and she looked just as she had once claimed, that she would die if he didn’t make love to her. And that same need clamored in his blood, in every taut nerve of his body. “I want you too much,” he murmured between kisses that covered her face. “I wanted to love you with nothing between us, Faith.” Even as he spoke, he began unbuttoning her gown, stopping when it was open to her waist. He couldn’t control his labored breathing and stepped back, his eyes all that touched her. “Show me how beautiful you are, Faith,” he demanded in a passion-rich voice, as dark with hidden promise as the night.

  “Am I beautiful to you?” she asked, suddenly feeling shy.

  Delaney’s gaze lifted to hers, and he let the desire show. “You are woman, the most lovely of all gifts given to man.”

  She thought of making love to Delaney without anything between them, feeling his skin against her own everywhere they touched. And she longed to be beautiful for him. With a hand that tremored she slid the gown from one shoulder, following his gaze to see the cloth caught on her nipple.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered again, need no longer a sweet song but a fierce demand. “I remembered the taste of you on my lips and deep in my mouth. I want you like that again, all soft heat and fire, burning for me, coming apart for me. And you want that again, don’t you?”

  Faith couldn’t answer him. She didn’t know that a man felt this way, that any man, that Delaney could say these words to her. With a small move the cloth fell and bared one breast. She held his gaze with her own, needing his silent reassurance, needing to see a new, hotter blaze kindle in his eyes. Sliding the sleeves down her arms, she felt her gown pool loosely around her hips.

  “Nothing between us, Faith. Nothing but burning, dying, and coming alive.”

  She pushed the gown over her hips and stood proud in her nudity, letting her lover look as she did at the one whose joining would make her complete. Passion tautened his features. Her own body, under the caress of his eyes, felt tight, and hot, filled with a building tension.

  Hiding nothing of her feelings, Faith went to him.

  Chapter 17

  Delaney took her hand and led her away from the pond to where the moon pooled its light on a cove of walled rock with a thick carpet of moss at its base.

  The scent of the moss was rich and pungent mingling with their own aroused scents. Desire throbbed in his body. Delaney turned to her and saw a strange new fear in her eyes.

  “Why? I won’t hurt you, Faith.”

  “I know. But I look at you and see power, a male strength—”

  “That I would never use against you. Come to me.”

  She went into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss, knowing that she could not tell him that his gaze whispered of a possession his lips would never speak. What she craved to hear he withheld, even as his tender kiss built quickly into one that was wild and deep with passion’s promise.

  Faith found herself needing to cling to his strength, feeling out of control, shaking with want. As if she had spoken to him, he drew her tight to his body, his mouth demanding now, his palms cupping the sides of her breasts, his thumbs sliding between their flesh to rub the taut peaks. She felt the world tilt and swirl as he lifted her into his arms before lowering her to nature
’s softest bed.

  He broke the kiss, slowly levering his chest over her bare breasts, feeling the bite of her nipples into his skin. She raised her arms at his whispered urging, looping them over his neck, her fingers tunneling through his thick, damp hair, drawing him closer. Her eyes were dark, and he felt a new need to pay homage to the woman’s gift she gave so freely to him.

  He kissed the bruise on her cheek, murmuring words that he knew she could not understand. Dark words, Apache words, and softer, sweeter words of Spanish that eased his guilt for not speaking the few words she wanted to hear. Each gentle touch his lips first made to her eyes, her mouth, her skin, praised her woman’s softness and strength and told of her special beauty to him.

  Delaney learned new tastes from her. The skin of her throat was warm like cream, her lower lip throbbed and swelled within the heat of his mouth. And she trembled. He knew the fire that waited. Tiny kisses weren’t enough, he discovered, lingering to lick the hollow of her throat, measuring the blood that quickened her pulse until it beat as wild as his.

  His hunger grew with every kiss, every new taste of her that he found with his tongue. He wanted to be gentle, tender, and loving, but the tiny sounds she made, the very restless moves of her body made other demands for him to heed.

  Faith listened to his whispering, to the husky tone that grew deeper, and longed to know what he was saying. Nothing could make her ask. This was a pleasure too intense, a spell of tenderness he wove that she could not break.

  His body shifted, leaving her bathed by the cool night air. His kisses were still gentle, shaping the curve of her breast, and she lifted her arms to free him, stilling the words of longing she wanted to murmur. There was a tension in his body that spoke of his fierce restraint, but his potent maleness pressed her thigh, and she arched her body to his, unable to stop this silent entreaty.

  Delaney crushed the soft moss within his hands, touching her only with his lips. They had called fire from each other once and soon would do it again. He could feel its heat build within him, and he fought its pull. He refused to tell her he loved her no matter how his heart sang those very words. Love was a promise to Faith, and promise meant life together for all days to come. He had no such certainty to offer her.

  The lithe, feminine twist of her body almost made him lose control. His tongue dipped into the tiny indentation of her navel, and he smiled against her skin when she stilled, then shivered. He rubbed his bearded cheek against the soft skin of her belly, whispering his breath over the lush curls that had to wait while he pressed kisses to the sleek length of her thigh. Her knee rose when more of the warmth of his body left hers. She turned to him, her hands feverishly seeking to touch him, and he slid out of her reach, one finger tracing the shape of her ankle up to her knee.

  The fire had built inside her, burning every sense, and she had to see him. Bracing herself on one elbow, Faith found him watching her.

  She leaned over and caressed his shoulder, smiling when he trembled. Hadn’t she always known what her touch could do to him? Wasn’t this rightness of loving him always with her?

  “Come to me,” she murmured, trailing her fingers down his chest, gently rubbing the hard pebbled tip she found nestled in his hair. Her gaze held his as a fleeting butterfly-light breeze caressed them. “I want you inside me.”

  She entwined his fingers with hers, bringing his hand to her mouth, gently biting him. Her gaze never wavered from his, and she wondered if her smile matched the wicked slant that shaped his mouth. She turned his hand, kissing the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb, remembering how he had made her insides tighten. With delicate cat licks she bathed his skin, then softly sank her teeth into him.

  “Faith…”

  “I want you.”

  His body covered hers, his lips barely touching her mouth as he pulled their joined hands to the side of her head.

  “If you want me inside you … open your mouth.” He drank her cry, feeling as if he had fallen over the edge of a precipice. His tongue penetrated her deeply, in thrusts that lifted her up against him. He groaned, savoring the hunger of her kiss, giving her more of his body’s weight. His hands slid under her bare back, the move tearing the velvet moss, releasing more of its rich scent as pleasure filled him and he devoured her mouth.

  Faith struggled to free her hand from his, needing nothing so much as to touch him. He wouldn’t let her go. She fed and tasted from their kiss as deeply as he, loving the feel of his aroused body pressing hers to the earth. Her every breath was filled with the scent of Delaney.

  Fire swept her body. Passion called, demanding a joining just as he tore his mouth from hers.

  “Yes, love, yes,” he whispered, seeing the need in the dark fevered look of her eyes. His body was rigid with desire, his hips thrusting against hers, and he nipped her lower lip roughly, possessively. “I want you,” he breathed into her mouth. “Want you and want you.” Her answer was a cry, the wild tossing of her head and the uncontrollable shaking of her body moving beneath his, desperate now for fulfillment.

  “Soon. I promise you that.” He wanted to bury himself in her softness, lose himself in the heat of her, but he dragged his lips down to the taut peaks that begged for his mouth. He drank her scent and taste until it was deep inside him, a part of him that he could never forget.

  Hot breath and delicate licks had flames blazing in her body. Faith was crying, twisting up to his mouth, and hurting with need.

  She clutched his shoulders, forcing him to stop. “Love me. I … can’t … oh, Del…” She urged him inside her, wanting to hold him, wanting the Delaney who was lonely, the man who was gentle, and vulnerable, the man who would not say he loved her, but whispered such words with kisses and touch.

  She stilled when he claimed her. Delaney closed his eyes. The endless loneliness that always waited disappeared. Her legs clamped around him, holding him deep, offering him love, hope, and the eternal giving of woman.

  “Look at me, Del.” You’ll always have my love, her eyes told him.

  And he whispered in his heart, I love you, my woman, I love you.

  Passion would not wait. In sharp, powerful waves it ripped through Faith, its force relentless. A fragile cry escaped her lips.

  She shuddered everywhere, inside, where he wanted to savor the heat of her that tightly gloved him, outside, where his lips drank the mist that sheened her skin. He couldn’t be still.

  There was no time for gentle arousal, for slow deep strokes that would bring them together. Faith was wild, her fingers biting into his, her teeth raking his shoulder.

  Fever rose in him in a vicious, merciless need.

  And Faith was there, urging him deeper with the rough thrust of his body.

  Faith, tangling her legs around his, crying out his name in plea and demand.

  Faith, smoldering and burning, bursting into flame, and taking his mouth with the hunger that ripped through him.

  Faith, who whimpered and tore her mouth free, cupping his cheeks and watching him as passion ignited.

  Watching him as he watched her. Feeling as he felt the tension come to a racking point. Pleasure beckoned him over the edge. He was shattered and helpless, knowing that she still watched him.

  But it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. He burned and took her with him. Dying. Endless flame and life.

  Faith closed her eyes. He was truly hers. She was shattered and renewed. She loved him. Loved only him.

  There was agony in his eyes when he looked at her and heard her whisper her love. Delaney silenced her. With kisses, with a fierce gentle loving, and then once more with fire. He loved her until even the heat of their joined bodies could not keep the chill of the night away.

  He reluctantly left her, quickly returning with his bedroll, cradling her against him until the stars began to fade and she slept. His own eyes finally closed, and he felt himself drift off into sleep only to wake with a start.

  Between the night nois
es he heard her cry out, broken words and whispers before the silent tears. She quieted when he drew her back into his arms, murmuring softly, wishing it had been Faith and not Keith who told her secret.

  All his own thoughts of women and betrayal and their cost came rushing back to him. He regretted his thought that Faith would betray him as Elise had done. This woman he held trusted him and would betray herself rather than one she loved.

  For this night she was his woman, his to hold and to protect, his to love. He stroked her cheek and waited for the tension to leave her, listening to her breaths become deeper, even, now that sleep reclaimed her.

  He placed a kiss on her lips and made plans to give her a gift for the one she had given him this night. A gift that would chase her nightmares and allow her to be free of guilt. A gift that would not equal what she had given him, but the only one he could give her from his heart.

  When the morning sun broke the night’s grip, Faith woke to find Delaney gone.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. Around her was the scent of him, and she turned her head, only to find tiny daisy flowers scattered over the moss that had made their bed.

  She reached out to touch one delicate lavender-tipped petal, almost afraid that she was dreaming and it would disappear like Delaney.

  The flower was real. She lifted one and brought it to her lips, giving the kiss that she had thought to place on Delaney’s mouth when he woke. The complete joy she had found in his arms would not be tainted by sadness. He had loved her. They had been one. The flowers were not for good-bye. They were a promise of his return. They had to be.

  Faith lifted her gaze to look above her and froze. There on the edge of the rock wall lay a huge mountain cat. Delaney had warned all of them that mountain lions and jaguars often hunted this land. She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath until she released it. Tension seeped from her when the cat made no move to lunge at her.

  The glossy coat was tawny in color, small dark spots marking its rounded head, larger ones appearing on its neck, then changing shape at the cat’s sides to squarish black marks circled by a deeper yellow with a dark spot in its center. A jaguar, she decided, noting its torn ear. The cat was over eight feet long, and she couldn’t guess its weight.