“You’d get a big laugh out of seeing me tricked out in men’s clothes, wouldn’t you?” she accused, turning, suddenly inordinately angry.
He shrugged. “Wear what you want. If you enjoy being filthy, then by all means, don’t change.”
Sarah looked at him for a long moment, undecided. Then cleanliness won out. She would change, no matter how ridiculous or scandalous the clothes might make her look. And she would take a moment to bathe, too. With a haughty lift to her chin, she bent and began to rummage in Dominic’s saddlebags. A pair of dark breeches and a gaudy blue shirt came immediately to hand. They were of poor materials, and coarsely sewn, but they were relatively clean. And since Darby had been on the thin side and she was tall, they shouldn’t be too terrible a fit.
“Where are you going?” Dominic called after her as she headed for the creek, clothes in hand.
“To bathe,” she called back, grinning despite herself as she heard him groan, “Can’t you at least untie me first?”
By the time she returned to their camp, she felt infinitely better. She had sat in the middle of the stream and scrubbed every inch of her body, including her nails, each of which to her shame had managed to collect a tiny crescent of grime. Then she had submerged her whole body, lying on her back on the rocky streambed while she scrubbed her hair with sand. When at last she emerged, she dried herself on the inside of the nightrail—having been next to her skin, it had stayed comparatively clean—before donning her new garb and rebraiding her hair. The breeches were a trifle loose and had to be rolled up at the bottom so that she could walk; the shirt was even looser, with long sleeves that she pushed above her elbows. The dark blue of the breeches was unexceptionable—if one could call a lady dressed in breeches unexceptionable—but the brilliant cobalt of the shirt made her feel like a peacock on the strut. She had never in her life worn such a bright color, and it made her uneasy.
Sarah retraced her steps very slowly, feeling more uncomfortable by the moment at the thought of Dominic’s seeing her dressed as she was. She didn’t know if she was bothered more by the impropriety of his seeing her clad in breeches, or by the unbecomingly revealing clothes. To her dismay, she suspected it was the latter, and fiercely castigated herself for always wishing to appear attractive to him.
To her surprise, he made no comment about her appearance—she had expected barbed jibes at her expense. Indeed, although she watched him carefully as she approached, she could discern no reaction except for a slight hardening of his eyes. Still feeling uneasy, she got the fire started and quickly set up a billycan for tea. That done, she fried bacon in an iron pan that he had also brought. When it was crispy, she ate a portion and swallowed a cup of scalding, bitter tea, all under his eagle eyes.
“Going to starve me to death?” he inquired nastily as she filled the cup a second time.
“It’s a thought,” she replied, carrying the cup and the pan with the remaining bacon over to where he sat. “But I think I’d rather watch you hang,” she added, setting the food aside and pointing the rifle, which had never left her side, at him. He stared first at it, then at her. She thought his expression looked sullen, and smiled with delight at having so thoroughly gotten the best of him.
“I’m going to untie you. Don’t make any sudden moves.” She held the rifle on him for a moment longer, savoring his helplessness, then walked around the tree and began to work on the knots. It took her considerably longer than she had expected; she congratulated herself on having tied such knots when she was physically exhausted. But at last he was free. She gathered up the rope, then moved around to stand in front of him again, gesturing him to stand with the rifle. Then she had him move away from the tree and lie on the ground, and repeated the previous day’s procedure for untying his hands. She had to work at those knots, too, and when at last they were loose she winced inwardly at the chafed marks on his wrists. She had not realized that she had bound him so tightly.
“All right, get up.”
He stood again. Sarah stood over him with the rifle while he ate the food she had saved for him, then oversaw his activities as he packed their gear and loaded it on the two horses. When at last the animals were saddled, she motioned him to mount first, then swung herself into the saddle. He obeyed her every instruction without argument. Sarah didn’t know whether to congratulate herself on his docility or to be wary of it. In the end she decided to be wary. She was as cautious as she could be, keeping her horse well behind his and her eyes trained on his back.
Two hours later he made the move she had been half-expecting. They had just passed a dilapidated shepherd’s hut, the first building—though the sagging wooden shack could not really be dignified with such a name—they had seen in days. Lowella’s western boundary could not have been more than a couple of miles distant. To reach the homestead itself would be about a six-hour ride. Soon she would have to make a final judgment on what to do about Dominic, though secretly she knew that the matter had already been decided. She would never be able to live with herself if she did not let him go. But not quite yet . . .
“Why are you stopping?” she demanded as he reined in without warning. He said not a word, but deliberately swung a leg over his saddle and dismounted. Sarah’s eyes widened in alarm. She swung the rifle up and aimed it at him. He ignored it, walking slowly toward her.
“What are you doing? Get back on that horse!”
“Get down, Sarah. I want to talk to you.”
He was alarmingly close. Sarah kept the rifle aimed at his heart. He didn’t even hesitate.
“What do you think you’re doing? Stop! I’ll shoot!” Her voice was shrill.
“Will you, now? Shoot then, for I’m not stopping.”
“Damn you, Dominic Gallagher, I will shoot you!” Sarah cried.
When he didn’t stop, she hesitated for a moment. But he was only a few feet from being able to catch her horse’s bridle. She could ride away, but he would come after her. If she was going to stop him, it had to be now. . . . But she couldn’t bring herself to shoot him. She could see hard triumph in his eyes. He was reaching for her reins. Sarah jerked the rifle up to her shoulder and quickly aimed it between his feet. She would show him she meant business! She pulled the trigger, bracing herself not to wince from the expected boom. She did not wince, because there was no need. All that emerged from the rifle was a sharp click. Dumbfounded, she pulled the trigger again, thinking the weapon must have misfired. There was another empty click.
“Lose something?” He was holding her horse’s bridle now; the animal was docile under his hand. As he spoke, he thrust his hand into his breeches pocket and pulled it out again. When he opened his fist and extended his hand toward her, she saw that he held several rifle shells. The truth dawned on her with a sickening flash. Somehow, somewhere, he had managed to unload the rifle! He grinned maliciously at her stunned expression, his hand leaving her bridle as he took a step forward and reached for her.
“You Irish blasphemer! You no-good, filthy, rotten . . . !” Beside herself with rage at having been duped, Sarah reversed the rifle and clapped her heels to her horse’s sides at the same time. The animal bounded forward, but Dominic grabbed at the reins, caught them, and hauled the whinnying horse’s head around. Sarah swung the rifle butt at Dominic’s head, murder in her heart. He ducked in the nick of time, catching the blow on his shoulder instead. He cursed, vividly, but didn’t release his grip on her reins. Sarah swung again, wildly. He caught the rifle in his free hand and wrested it from her grasp. Then, despite her struggles, he was pulling her down.
“Let me go, you . . .” She was inundating him with the swear words she had learned from him, and he was laughing. Enraged, she began to beat at his head and shoulders with her fists as he held her tight against him. He caught her hands in his with ridiculous ease and held them pinioned behind her back. Still she fought, kicking and screeching, her head thrashing wildly as she hurled abuse at him. Finally he reached up, catching her long braid in his free ha
nd, and hauled her head back. She glared at him with hate-filled golden eyes. Drawing back her foot, she kicked him hard on the shin, not caring that his hard bone did more damage to her foot than vice-versa.
“Enough, Sarah,” he growled. And when she opened her lips to heap more abuse on him, he crammed her words back into her throat with his mouth.
XX
That hard kiss robbed her first of her breath, then of her anger, and finally of her will. Sarah surrendered to him utterly after little more than a token resistance, twining her hands around his neck to clutch with shaking fingers at the rough silk of his hair, pressing her body eagerly against his as he pulled her closer. She could feel the heat and strength and growing desire of him with her every nerve ending. His mouth was hungry as it took hers, his lips and tongue hard and urgent. The force of the kiss should have hurt her, but it didn’t. She reveled in his fierceness, returning it with a spiraling passion of her own. There was nothing in all the world for her but his mouth, his hands running up and down the slight curves of her body, the feel of him against her. . . . She was trembling in his arms, on fire for him, wanting the kiss to go on forever, wanting to savor the red-hot desire that rose in her like the sudden awakening of a long-dormant volcano. She opened her mouth to him endlessly, her head thrown back against his shoulder, her eyes closed. She loved the sensation of fragility she got in his arms. His kiss made her dizzy.
When she felt his fingers at her throat, slightly unsteady as they worked loose first one and then another and another of the buttons fastening her shirt down the front, she whimpered into his mouth but refused to open her eyes. She did not want to see the sun blazing at her over his shoulder, or the dusty, pockmarked landscape, or the stamping horses. She did not want to be reminded in any way of reality, of what had happened before and would likely happen after. She wanted only to be a woman in the arms of a man, her man. . . . Sarah quivered helplessly at the thought. He was her man; her body had recognized him from the first. The lover she had spent her nights dreaming of, her life waiting for . . .
His hand slid beneath the opened shirt to close over one small, high breast. Sarah groaned as she felt his callused palm cup her sensitive flesh. The erotic sound shocked her; knowing that it had come from her own throat shocked her more. But she could not stop the wordless whimpers that were swallowed by his mouth as he abraded her aching nipples with the palm of his hand, brushing it over first one, then the other, then the first again, before finally, with agonizing slowness, his hand slid down her belly to the loose waistband of the too-big breeches. She felt his long fingers and hard palm creep beneath the waistband over the silky skin of her belly, pausing only momentarily to explore the indention of her navel before covering the triangle of hair that he had claimed before.
“Dominic . . .” His name was a prayer on her lips. She didn’t know if she was begging him to stop or not to stop, but when he removed his hand to work unsteadily at the button at her waist, she felt bereft. Her nails dug punishingly into his neck; her mouth shook beneath the heady passion of his.
One-handed, his other arm still holding her clamped against him, he unfastened the buttons securing her breeches until the garment fell over her hips and thighs to the ground. Underneath she was naked. He slid the shirt from her shoulders, letting it lie where it fell, bending to loosen her sandals before straightening to lift her so that the breeches and sandals were left behind on the sandy ground. Sarah felt the sleeve of his rough cotton shirt against the bare backs of her thighs as he swung her around, felt the tingling rays of the sun on her back and buttocks as he lowered her again, felt the rasp of his clothing and the heat of his body beneath it as she slid, naked and trembling, down the hard length of him.
“Sarah.” Her name was husky as he spoke it against her mouth. His hands had moved to clasp her waist; he pushed her a little away from him. Whimpering, Sarah clung with all her might. With her lips she felt his mouth twist in a smile. “Oh, Sarah. Open your eyes, Sarah.”
She refused until he lifted his head, breaking off the butterfly contact of their mouths. Then, resentful at the interruption, her eyes flickered open. Her hands were still clasped behind his neck, her naked body pressed to his fully clothed one. The lean brown face with its frame of midnight-black hair was so handsome as it loomed above her that she could scarcely breathe; her lips quivered as her eyes sought and found the beautifully shaped mouth, twisted up at one corner as he took in her dazed expression. Then her eyes met his; the passion she saw in the endless blue depths dazzled her.
“Do you have any idea of what you do to me, Sarah?” His voice sounded rueful despite its huskiness. He reached up and caught her right hand in his and pulled it from around his neck, guiding it down until at last he pressed it against the straining bulge in his breeches. Sarah felt the hard, throbbing outline of him through the coarse material, and snatched her fingers away as if from an open fire. He made no move to recapture her hand, but after a moment curiosity got the better of her. Slowly, cautiously, her fingers returned to explore that most intimate part of him. She touched him, hesitantly at first, and then as he showed no reaction except for a tensing of his muscles she grew bolder. Her fingers measured the width and length and strength of him, alternately squeezing and stroking until he gasped and reached down to catch her hand and pull it away from him, holding it tightly for an instant before lifting it to his mouth and pressing a heated kiss to her knuckles.
“Sweet Jesus, Sarah,” he said, groaning. “Much more of that and you’ll unman me.” Gently, carefully, he replaced her hand on his shoulder.
Her eyes, huge as they gazed into his, asked a question; hard as she might find it to believe, she could think of the answering expression in his eyes only as tender. She stared up at him, lips parted, golden eyes wide, wanting yet not quite daring to believe what she thought she saw. “I burn for you, Sarah,” he continued, bending his head so that his mouth brushed the top of her ear as he spoke. She felt a shiver run up and down her spine at the gentle touch of his lips on her ear. “I only have to look at you and I’m as hot as a young boy. I want to make love to you for hours, days, without stopping. I want to touch you all over, to kiss every inch of your skin and make it mine. . . .” He took a deep, shaky breath. Sarah felt a faint quiver in the hard muscles of his arms as they held her. “And I’m going to, Sarah. Right now, this minute, unless you tell me not to.”
His head lifted again; he was looking down at her, his eyes asking a question now. Sarah could no more have denied him than she could have denied herself. She wanted him—she was too shy to say the words, but her eyes said them for her. She felt his hands tremble where they clasped her waist. Her whole body shook in answer. But it seemed that he wanted the words as well.
“Shall I make love to you, Sarah?”
Sarah could only stare up at him, her mouth trembling as she fought one last battle with her common sense. The hard male beauty of the face bent over hers, the soft yet firm mouth scant inches away from her own, the blue eyes with their soul-shaking mixture of passion and tenderness defeated her before the battle had even been joined.
“Yes, please, Dominic,” she whispered.
He laughed in a curiously shaken way. “My beautiful, feisty Sarah. I’ll make it good for you, I promise.”
He let her go, turning away to untie the bedroll from behind Kilkenny’s saddle and spread it on the ground. Sarah watched, arms wrapped around her nakedness, second thoughts running riot through her mind. What was she doing, giving herself to him—a convict—again? Hadn’t she learned?
Before she could change her mind entirely, he came back to her, taking her into his arms, pulling her against him so that she could feel the hard, warm muscles beneath his clothes. At his touch, her doubts wavered and then vanished. Her body seemed to catch fire. Trembling, she rose on her toes to find his mouth as he lowered his head. Their lips met with an explosion of passion. Her hands tightened around his neck, straining him to her as he lifted her and laid her down
. Sarah felt the rough wool of the blanket beneath her bare back, felt the sharpness of a trio of tiny pebbles as they dug through the coarsely woven material into the soft skin of her buttocks, felt the scratchy limbs of a small, crushed shrub poking through somewhere in the vicinity of her waist, and didn’t care. She wanted Dominic too badly.
He was taking off his clothes, his movements lacking their usual deftness because of the tremor of his long brown fingers. Staring up at him from her prone position on the ground, her eyes narrowed against the sun beating down on them, Sarah felt her mouth go dry as he quickly stripped off his shirt to reveal the wide, bronzed shoulders and the wedge of curling black hair on his chest. Still standing over her, his eyes never leaving her body, he pulled off his boots. Barefoot, he lifted his hands to the buttons securing his breeches. . . . Sarah was barely conscious of her legs shifting restlessly as she watched him unfasten his breeches and push them down, revealing lean hips and flanks and long, hard-muscled legs. Stepping out of his breeches and dropping them needlessly to one side, Dominic stood motionless for a long moment, just looking at her. His eyes on the most intimate parts of her body were as fiery hot as the sun overhead.
Sarah was no longer conscious of her surroundings; she did not hear the jingle of the stirrups as the horses, trained to stay in place as long as their reins trailed the ground, shuffled their feet impatiently; she did not see the sable-skinned platypus who waddled from the creek, took one look at the naked humans and stamping horses, and promptly waddled back again; she did not feel the penetrating heat of the sun-baked ground through the blanket. She was conscious only of Dominic, of his blue eyes and the waving thickness of his silky, blue-black hair, of his broad, bronzed shoulders and hard-muscled arms and legs roughened by the same curling black hair that grew luxuriantly on his wide chest, and of the way that thick pelt narrowed into an ebony trail down his muscle-ridged abdomen only to widen again around the tangible evidence of his desire. Once there, Sarah could not drag her eyes away. She stared at that part of him with fascination and trepidation as the enormity of what she was about to do came home to her with a vengeance. This time, there could be no excuse of moonlight and music. This time, of her own free will, she was making the conscious decision to go against every precept she had ever been taught and willfully take a lover—a convict lover. . . .
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