by Austin, Lori
“Noah,” she managed.
Or thought she did. The wind grabbed the word and flung it into the abyss. Her chest hurt; her throat ached; her cheeks stung, and her lips bled. The darkness beckoned once more.
“Gotta be there soon. Gotta be.”
Where? she wondered, but couldn’t get the word out.
She tried to open her eyes and failed. Right now it was all she could do to breathe with this weight on her chest, the fire in her lungs, and the hard knot in her belly.
“I’ve killed her,” he mumbled. “Love me or hate me, she’s gonna die because of me. Princess, why didn’t you stay where you belong?”
She wanted to shout, I belong with you! but she couldn’t.
He thought she was dying; maybe she was. Maybe that was why she suddenly knew the truth. She would love him forever—no matter what he had done. If that was wrong, then it was wrong. But Ruth couldn’t understand how love could be anything but right.
“Thank God.” The anguish that had laced Noah’s voice was replaced by relief. “We made it.”
Made it? Where?
Heaven? No, this still felt more like hell. Who had ever come up with the idea that hell was hot? Hell had to be icy cold and never-ending damp.
Noah lifted Ruth and held her close. A thud, a crash, and the wind went away. She was still cold and wet, and now she began to shiver so hard that her teeth rattled. He lowered her onto something soft, but then he left her there all alone.
Yes, hell would be just like this.
Cold. Damp. Alone.
When heavenly warmth beckoned, Ruth went there gratefully.
Chapter Sixteen
Noah wasn’t proud. When the chips were down and everything looked bad, he panicked.
Some hero.
Luckily, Ruth was unconscious, so she didn’t get to see him lose his mind. Or maybe that was unlucky, since her being unconscious was the reason he had.
Also, luckily, or maybe not, the cabin was deserted. The family who had lived there had no doubt given up and gone east after the most recent hailstorm, locust plague, or outlaw horde descended. They’d left behind a shelter, a small pile of firewood and a few staples.
“Make a fire,” he told himself, needing the sound of a voice, any voice, even his own.
Noah broke one of the chairs into kindling, then nursed a tiny flame into a blaze with shaking fingers and logs from the lean-to. As the wet wood crackled and warmth spread far too slowly, he turned his still-shaking hands to Ruth and her sodden clothes.
He stripped her quickly, the enticing curves and intriguing dips that had haunted his dreams irrelevant as concern over the blue-veined luminescence of her skin consumed him. Beneath her riding habit she wore the garnet he’d given her, the fire-red brilliance stark against her ice-pale chest. He covered her with the single blanket on the bed, then braced himself and headed out into the storm.
The horses stood in the yard, heads together, asses to the wind. Noah led them to the barn, did what he could for them under the sparse circumstances, then dragged the saddlebags and bedrolls back to the cabin.
The warmth of the room stung his face and burned his hands. He spread the soaking-wet bedrolls near the fire, upended the bags, and discovered an extra horse blanket in one, some whiskey in the other. Not much, but it would have to do.
Noah covered Ruth with the second blanket. She lay too still, looked too pale, breathed too shallowly. His hand next to her smooth white cheek appeared rough and red. Against the storm-wind chill of him, she was cold. He had not dragged her through the snow to watch her die before his eyes. Noah knew what he had to do.
He laid his wet clothes next to hers in front of the flames. Even their clothes showed the difference between them. Perhaps, just once, his being so large would help.
After tossing several more logs on the fire, Noah crossed the room. The sweet innocence of Ruth’s face stopped him. With a curse, he turned about, then grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the table and placed it on the floor next to the bed. This was going to be a very long night.
Noah lifted the blankets and climbed in beside her. Beneath the covers no warmth lingered. Her body was too cold to generate heat. He had to do this. He had to stay here or she would die.
Noah folded Ruth into his arms and surrounded her with himself. Chilled flesh to steadily warming skin, smooth to rough, night to day—she was everything he was not and then some. Head to head, her feet only reached past his knees, and they were like blocks of ice against him.
Noah clenched his teeth. If there was one thing that cooled the ardor, it was having cold toes pressed between your legs.
As the blankets heated from his warmth, she shifted closer. He was encouraged by the movement, by the steadily pinkening shade of her skin, by the blue-rose tint of her lips. She threw her leg over his and put her hand on his hip; her knee bumped his thigh. Noah was hot now—no more chilly blood at all, thank you.
Naked and in bed together, this was the stuff of which fantasies were made—or at least the stuff of which his had been made since Christmas Eve. But this wasn’t about sex; it was about life. Ruth’s life.
So tell it to his treacherous body.
Noah thrust an arm from beneath the blankets and clutched the whiskey bottle as if it were the last sturdy boulder on the edge of a cliff.
Ruth sighed, the sound pure pleasure. The warmth of her breath caressed his chest. Despite the heat beneath the blankets, he shivered.
Noah lifted the whiskey bottle to his lips.
Oh, yeah, it was going to be a very long night.
***
Heaven was even better than she’d imagined.
Hard but warm. Firm but cuddly. Ruth wanted to sleep wrapped up like this for always.
She could hear the crackle of a fire, smell fresh snow and the tang of whiskey—an odd combination, but right now it seemed just right—feel every inch of her body, free, warm, and alive.
If heaven was like this, why did anyone fight dying?
Drowsy still, Ruth opened her eyes to find Noah’s face not even an inch from her own. She blinked, but he didn’t go away. She moved, and all of her slid along all of him. She froze and discovered that parts of him were quite a bit different from parts of her. She kind of liked it.
How had they ended up in bed naked? Why was there a bed?
She shifted her head. Why was there a cabin? She couldn’t recall.
The windows were a haze of white. Since the flickering fire was the only light in the room, it was impossible to determine day from night. Had they been here mere hours, or had it been days? The cabin seemed a place out of time—like a dream. Perhaps it was a dream, after all, and as such, she should take full advantage before one of them woke up.
She’d touched him before but never like this, with nothing between them—no wounds, no clocks, no clothes, no inhibitions or fears. Here there was only them and nothing, no one else.
His body was beautiful—strong, big, and hard. Smooth over the curve of his hip, the light dusting of hair on his chest and belly just a bit rough. His buttocks rounded muscle, his thighs long but taut. Ruth shifted closer, and another taut ridge of muscle pressed against her thigh.
This part of him was both the softest and the hardest of all. She liked the way he felt against her. The friction was delicious. The more she rubbed, the bigger and harder he became.
The air beneath the blanket felt like a midafternoon in August. A trickle of sweat loped down the side of Noah’s neck. She reached out and caught the drop with her tongue, then pressed her lips to his collarbone and tasted of his skin, pressing their bodies together in a rhythm that resembled the beat of her heart.
He stiffened. His big palm cupped her hip and yanked her closer still. She moaned as his thick shaft slid along the part of her that had pulsed and begged for … something. With that movement she suddenly understood what.
Rolling on top of her, eyes closed, neck corded with strain, Noah kissed her savagely, the fury o
f the embrace an answer to the wildness building within her.
Mouth heated whiskey, lips cool as the snow, his tongue plunged in an imitation of his hips rocking toward hers.
She should be frightened. She wasn’t even close. He was what she wanted; this was what they needed. Always they would have the memory. No one else could ever be her first.
He had saved her as a child; now he had saved her again. The love she’d felt for him then, she felt for him still. What he had been, what he had done, was wrong. But what they would become together could only be right.
He pressed openmouthed kisses across her chin, down her neck. When his tongue circled her nipple, she arched for him, tangling her fingers in the length of his dark hair. Then his breath brushed the wetness, and she hardened to a near-painful peak. His lips took that peak and pulled her within.
Fire and ice, all at once.
“Noah,” she whispered. “Yes, Noah.” She was so empty; he was so full. Her fingers searched, found, then gently guided him to her. “Please, Noah. I’ve always been yours.”
She should have kept her mouth shut. She should have let things happen. Because as soon as he heard her voice, his eyes shot open, and all that was good stopped.
“Ruth?” His brow wrinkled. He blinked, then started to move away.
“No!” she cried, and opened her legs, capturing his body between them. Then she captured his gaze as well. “No.”
“You’d better believe it’s no.” He shook his head, hard, as if to wake up. “Let me go.”
“Never.”
He scowled at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is a mistake.”
“It doesn’t feel like a mistake.” She pressed her body against his. The tip of his shaft slid inside. They moaned as one. “It feels like the wisest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Well, you’re a fool, then. But I’m not.” He inched away, and she wrapped her arms around his back. He gave her a formidable glare. “Let—me—go.”
“No.”
“I could get away if I wanted to. You can’t make me stay here. Quit being foolish. You almost died today.”
“But I didn’t. And I feel …” She considered how she felt. “Damn good.” His eyes widened. “You’re being foolish. You want me. I want you. Take me, Noah.” She smirked. “I’m yours.”
Something flashed in his eyes—there and then gone in an instant. To Ruth the expression resembled fear. What could Noah be afraid of?
“Stop it! We’re in a life-or-death situation here. There’s a killer blizzard outside, and we barely have any food. There’s only enough wood for one more day.”
“There’s no one I’d rather die with than you. There’s no one I’d rather live with, either. If we die here, let’s die after having lived, at least. Before I die, I’d like to know what all the fuss was about.”
He stopped struggling. His eyes pleaded, as did his voice. “Don’t make me go to my grave knowing I ruined you.”
“Go to your grave knowing you gave me one of the few things I ever wanted.” His brow crinkled. “You, Noah. I’ve always wanted you.”
Like a puppet whose strings had been dropped, his head sank forward until his forehead rested against hers. His hair curtained their faces. “You know who I am, what I am. You don’t want me.”
“There you go again, telling me what I want, what I feel. I’m not a child.”
“Even if I gave you this one night, a few days, that’s all it could ever be.” He lifted his head. His eyes peered deep down into her soul. “If we get out of here, out of this, I still have to leave.”
They’d see about that. Ruth was betting that once he gave in and ruined her, he’d be ruined, too.
“You’re worth more than a tumble or two, Ruth.”
“I know what I’m worth. And I know what you’re worth.”
“Nothing. I’m worth nothing, and you need to remember that.”
“Oh, you’re so bad. Be bad, then.” She tugged his hair until his mouth hovered over hers. “Take me, Noah. You know you want to.”
Still he struggled against the force that made their bodies tremble. So she kissed him the way she liked it—deep, searching, intense. Their breathing grew ragged. His erection thickened and pulsed against her. She no longer held him to her; she merely held him.
He broke the kiss, staring into her face, eyes desperate, mouth tight. He was afraid. Her heart seemed to melt.
“Shh,” she murmured, stroking his hip. “Everything will be all right.”
He lifted a brow. “I doubt that.”
“What if it’s never all right again? At least let it be all right for now.”
His sigh of surrender sent joy through her. The movement rubbed his chest along hers, creating a luscious friction against the sensitive peaks of her breasts.
Ruth shifted and wiggled against him some more. His bright blue eyes darkened. “Do you like that?”
“Mmm,” she purred. “Very much.”
“What else do you like?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” she said in her best princess voice.
Noah grinned. “I’ll be happy to help you find out.”
His big hand slid over her hip, up her ribs, then splayed out beneath her breast. He tested the weight with his palm and flicked a thumb over the aching peak. She caught her breath. His gaze lifted to hers. “Like that, do you?”
She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, as he lowered his head and let his tongue follow the path of his thumb. He had touched her before, but lack of clothes made all the difference. Not only did his mouth arouse her breasts, but the slide of his body along hers with every movement made her skin come alive with hunger.
They kissed, gently at first, something new for them. Previous embraces had been frenzied, fierce things; the intensity of their feelings—be they love or lust—had made those kisses taste of desperation. These kisses were languorous, sweet, but nonetheless arousing for their tenderness.
The longer they kissed, the closer came desperation.
The longer their bodies created sensuous friction, the more frantic that friction became.
“Slow down,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Why?” She gasped against his chest, licking a trail to his nipples and tasting his the way he’d tasted hers. “I’ve already been waiting too long.”
He groaned when her teeth grazed him. His shaft jumped against her belly, and she smiled. She had the same effect on him as he had on her. Power was a heady feeling. She wanted more of it.
Pushing him back against the bed, she let her lips trail along his chest, kissing, teasing, tickling. His belly hard and ridged, she explored with her fingers and her tongue. His wound she gently kissed and took great care not to jostle, though he seemed completely healed and none the worse for it. Her jaw bumped his throbbing member. She turned and kissed the tip, then tasted it.
He cursed and yanked her up, rolling her beneath him once again. “None of that or we’ll get no further.”
The heat beneath the blankets, between them, brought a dew of sweat to their bodies and added another sensation. Their skin slick, the most sensitive part of her wept for him.
As if he knew where she needed him the most, his shaft pushed near the place that ached so terribly, and she arched, gasping in surprised pleasure when he slid against her just right.
Uncertain, aroused, she wanted more of the miracle and rocked turbulently toward him, searching for an end to the torment.
Kissing her brow, he stilled her movements, hand against her hip. “Shh, Princess. Like this.”
He shifted, slowed, stroked. She saw the place she wanted to be and climbed there gladly with him.
Higher she flew, faster they rocked, harder he pressed against her, but she could not discover what she searched for.
“Oh, Noah. Noah, please!” she begged.
“All right.” His voice was as tight as the muscles that strained in his arms, across his chest. “You win.”
He move
d again, lifting his body, adjusting her legs. His shaft slid inside with ease; she was so slick with wanting him.
Gently, he rocked; the pleasure began anew. Better this time, because the emptiness had been filled by him.
His body trembled. She touched his face. He opened his eyes, and what she saw there made the sky erupt into a million tiny shards of ice. She gasped, and he plunged through her barrier.
Her delight caught in her throat. He winced as if he’d been hurt. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He began to pull away. “No. Don’t you dare stop now,” she practically snarled.
The pain was already gone, but the pleasure was still there, a sparkling, spinning presence calling her name. Had she once thought he would never fit? How could she have been so naive. Nothing had ever fit so perfectly. She moved against him, around him, pulling him to and fro, back and forth. He groaned and came along.
Wave upon wave of ecstasy washed over her. She wanted him deeper, nearer, and opened, urging him on with quiet murmurs of need and desire.
Stroke after stroke, moment to moment, the pressure built inside her again. This time when the lights exploded behind her closed eyes, he pushed himself deeper within her than ever before, and she felt him pulse in time with her heart.
When he stopped trembling, and she did, too, he rolled to the side, taking her with him. Their legs a-tangle, their bodies limp and damp, she kissed him, and when he opened his eyes, there was little left to do but smile.
Perhaps getting an outlaw for Christmas wasn’t so bad, after all.
***
Noah wanted to curse. He wanted to shout at the sky and beat his chest; better yet, beat his head with a stick. He’d ruined the most perfect thing in his world.
She’d wanted him to; begged him, in fact. But that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d done it.
He could say he’d been drunk, but he wasn’t that drunk. He could say he was half-asleep. But he’d come awake soon enough. He could say he wasn’t himself. The problem was, this was more like him than he cared to admit.