Hostage Heart

by Lindsay McKenna

  Lark moaned, the sound drowning within his mouth as his large hands cupped her breasts. The sensation was surprising, molten. Automatically she lifted her arms, her fingers gripping his upper arms for support. A small cry of delight was torn from her as his thumbs encircled the buds of her breasts. Pulling her mouth from his, she breathed in ragged gasps of air.

  “Easy, easy, my woman, my own…let the feelings race through you. Feel, just feel…”

  Stunned, whirling in a cauldron of spiraling fire, Lark released a whimper as he continued his slow assault upon her ripened senses.

  Her cry rippled through Matt in waves and he broke out into a sweat. His own body was screaming at him, hammering at him to take her now, to make her his. His lips settled over the peak of her breast, and pulled it into the moistness of his mouth. Her fingers dug into his chest and she twisted and writhed against him, uncontrolled. Joy swept through him as he sampled her other nipple. Her cries continued and he marveled at her responsiveness.

  “Sweet,” he told her raggedly, “my God, but you’re sweet….” He slid his hand downward across her belly, slowly circling the silky ebony mound with the palm of his hand. At first Lark tensed, but as he slipped his finger between her thighs, a shudder wracked her. “It’s going to be fine, my woman…Relax, let me help you,” he crooned, claiming her lips and moving his tongue into her warm, waiting depths.

  Lark arched, moaning, at the same moment that she felt him sparking new fire to burning life by pressing his fingers gently between her dampened thighs.

  “Lark,” he breathed against her, “let me touch you, let me ease your ache, my woman.”

  Mindless, sobbing, she opened her thighs, feeling his fingers slip closer, closer, until…

  “My God,” he rasped, “you’re so wet.” And he began to massage her molten feminine core, slowly moving one finger within her.

  A cry of pleasure lodged in Lark’s throat. Fire expanded and leaped from deep within her. She pressed wildly against his palm, moving, moving to reduce the ache that was scalding her, burning her. The ache was too deep, the demand to be satiated too powerful, and she twisted her hips against his hand, wanting his finger to move more deeply within her, lost in a building crescendo.

  Matt suddenly felt Lark stiffen, her fingers digging into his tightly bunched shoulders. Perspiration made her entire body gleam like gold in the predawn light as she arched deeply into his arms, a moaning cry of pleasure tearing from within her. He felt her walls clench around his finger and he moved more deeply, triggering more and more pleasure, the thick honey of her body surrounding him.

  Suddenly exhausted, dazed by the unexpected sensation, Lark fell back into Matt’s arms. She stared up at him, wide-eyed, satiated. Weakness stole through every part of her, making her feel like a child in his arms. He was smiling down at her, pride reflected in his eyes as he gently stroked her core, feeling her body spasm and clench as he slid two fingers within her.

  “You’re so fiery, so sensitive,” he whispered, laying her back on the bed. He caressed her damp cheek, stroking her hair to soothe her, to bring her back from her dreamy state. She arched her hips against his hands, twisting, pushing and she was once more shattered by another orgasm. He eased his fingers from her, giving her time to absorb the experience.

  Lark tried to gather her thoughts. She reached out, her fingers touching his arm. “What…happened?”

  He leaned down, worshipping her kiss-swollen lips. Smiling lazily, he slid his hand down to her mound of ebony hair and started to massage her once again, watching as her eyes became heavy-lidded with desire. “You gave me the gift of yourself,” he explained hoarsely. “A man can go a lifetime without his woman ever giving herself to him like you just did to me.”

  Lark smiled weakly, thinking that he was like Holos, the light of her world. She slid her arms around his neck. “I want to make you feel like me. How can I do it? Teach me.”

  Sweat stood out on his brow and upper lip. Matt rested his head against hers, his breath quickening as he felt her respond to his touch. “It will hurt,” he rasped, warning her.

  “No…nothing you could do would hurt me. I know you’d never do it intentionally,” she whispered, kissing his brow and nose, then seeking out his mouth, wanting the powerful, commanding feel of his tongue against her seeking lips.

  Groaning, Matt slowly covered her body. He broke her wild, sweet kiss, drowning in her lustrous gaze. “I’ll be as gentle as I can, sweet woman of mine. Trust me, just trust me…”

  His words soothed the edges of her momentary panic. She felt his massive shaft begin to massage her entrance as his fingers had done earlier. She sighed, surrendering to the sensations, and became lost in so many new, wonderful explosions that she began to move unconsciously against him.

  “That’s it,” Matt gritted out hoarsely, “rub against me. Enjoy it, golden cougar. Come to me…come to me….” He clutched the bedsheet and quilt in one massive fist, sucking air between his clenched teeth as she followed his coaxing. How long could he hold back? My God, but she was so wet and felt so tight against him.

  Sweat beaded his furrowed brow, and each breath became an agony as her sweet, guileless body twisted and moved beneath his.

  Lark felt another explosion building within her heated body. She was trembling now, clutching at Matt’s shoulders as she increased the tempo of her hips against his shaft. This time the ache went deeper and, yearning to soothe it, she angled her hips higher.

  She was so small and tight! Matt felt the walls of her femininity pressing against his shaft. He gasped for breath, wanting to beg her to stop, to give him time to control his overwhelming need. But when she lifted her hips and pulled him barely within her, his control snapped. The need to claim her, to brand her, to make her his own, overrode all else. He crushed Lark to him and thrust deeply into her, smothering her mouth with his own, stifling her cry of painful discovery of a new, unexplored world.

  The momentary pain made Lark stiffen. Burning turned to pleasure as her body relaxed inwardly around his hard, driving shaft. She felt Matt tense, as if he was holding himself in tight check. Her eyes flew open and she met his turbulent gray gaze as he broke the kiss.

  “Just lie here,” he told her raggedly. “The pain will go away in a minute, I promise you.” He kissed her brow, nose, eyes, and finally her mouth.

  Trembling, Lark slid her arms around his sweat-slick shoulders. Her heart swelled with such emotions that all she could do was kiss him and bury her head beside his. She felt stretched tight, so full, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant. Every second, her body relaxed around him, accepting him, sucking him deeper into her. Seeing the anguish in his face and hearing it in his voice, she sought to erase it and moved her hips slightly.

  Matt groaned. “God…don’t!”

  The pain in his face was replaced by something else, something primal and savage. Spurred on by these revelations, sensing her power as a woman, Lark tested her newly found discovery and moved her hips gently but insistently. She felt his thick stalk move more deeply into her. A soft moan of pleasure caught in her throat.

  Gritting his teeth, Matt buried his head beside Lark’s. Every sweet movement of her inexperienced hips sent a burst of fire through him. He tried to pull out of her, but she clung to him, silently asking him to stay. Gulping for breath, he raised his head, dazed. He wanted her so badly. All of her.

  She looked into his anguished eyes and framed his face with her hands. “Make me your woman. I’ve given you my heart, now give me yours….”

  He nodded, unable to speak. As carefully as he could, he moved experimentally within her. She was so damned small and he was so large. Yet, to his amazement, he heard a familiar husky purr coming from deep within her, telling him that his tentative thrusts felt good to her. He slid his hand beneath her hips, showing her how to rock in motion with him. Her cries of pleasure increased and he abandoned himself to her wild, hungry body that was sucking him deeper and deeper into her. Each thrust
of his hips burned him more, took him higher. She was damp with perspiration, their bodies fused. She was liquid and molten as he slipped back and forth within her tight, hungry sheath. And then he groaned, tensing.

  Lark felt Matt grow stiff, like a bowstring pulled taut. His face went rigid, yet her newly awakened female senses told her to hold him, to twist her hips and prolong this feeling for him. She did so, and in moments he fell weakly upon her, gulping in sobs of breath. She smiled as a new warmth and contentment settled over her. She gloried in Matt’s weight upon her, in his utter maleness. Lark realized that her life had changed forever, and her heart felt free and joyous.

  Chapter 13

  “No…stay….”

  Matt remained motionless when he heard Lark’s husky voice. Thinking he was too heavy for her slender form, he’d started to withdraw from her wet velvet depths, but she had wound her arms around him, holding him close. He shifted some of his weight off her, his other hand protectively wrapped around her hips.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, honey,” he said, resting his mouth against her damp cheek. Inhaling her special scent, Matt caressed her skin with his own cheek.

  “You’re not hurting me. You would if you left.” Lark lifted her lashes, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth within his arms, his body like a blanket over her.

  She reveled in her new discoveries. So this is what it meant to be a woman. Smiling softly, she closed her eyes, her fingers tracing the outline of his powerful shoulders. “You’re so strong and sleek. Like the bear I first thought you were.”

  He nuzzled her neck, taking small nips from it, smiling. “A bear and a cougar are usually a mean combination.”

  “Yes.”

  “But we aren’t,” he growled, sifting his fingers lazily through her hair, marveling at its texture and color.

  Lark shook her head, continuing to explore his naked form. “I never realized these feelings existed,” she confided, holding his gaze. “My heart shines like Holos.”

  He understood what Lark meant. He never wanted her to change. “I like the way you think. More importantly, the way you feel.”

  A hint of urgency crept into her low voice and Lark paused in exploring his back. “Was I…I mean…”

  Matt caressed her lips with a featherlight kiss. “You were perfect,” he assured her, wanting to erase the doubt in her luminous eyes. “No man could have asked for a more responsive woman.” Concerned, he gently withdrew from her and brought the sheet over them, then held her against him. “You’re a very special woman, Lark,” he said. “I don’t know whether it’s the hot Apache blood in your veins or your wild Irish ancestry. Whatever it is, you’re like a thoroughbred.”

  Lark traced patterns on his chest with her fingertips. In another hour, dawn would awaken the world, but for now she languished in the wonderful feelings that made her glow. “My mother, Mourning Dove, said that when a warrior claimed my heart, I would fly like an eagle toward Holos. I think I know now what she meant.”

  Matt closed his eyes, never wanting to let Lark out of his embrace. “Honey, you made me fly higher and farther than any eagle ever could.”

  “I felt like sunlight on water.”

  “You were the earth, Lark—fertile, rich and giving. Very few women know how to give so fully.”

  Lark struggled to sit up on one elbow, holding Matt’s gaze. She saw happiness for the first time in the depths of his intelligent gray eyes. It made her want to press herself to him and somehow convey that she felt the same. “Giving back to you is natural,” she murmured.

  Despite his effort not to, Matt remembered Katie and how she had lain on her back in bed that first night after their wedding, tense and unmoving. When he had touched her, she had not responded. Matt still couldn’t understand it. “Some women, a lot of women, don’t enjoy what we shared.””

  Fascinated, Lark sat up, no longer shy about her nakedness. She reveled beneath his inspection, feeling as if she were truly a part of him now. “How could they not?” She gestured toward the eastern window where the first rays of the morning sun stole through the lace curtains. “You gave me sunlight! I felt as if warm waves were flowing through me, like a raging river out of control. How could any woman not enjoy that?”

  “I’ve often asked myself that, Lark. I don’t have an answer.”

  She frowned, resting her chin in her folded hands. “Mother often said that among the Apache, this closeness was necessary. When Ria, a woman on the ranch, married last year, I wondered why she was so happy the morning after.” A glow came to Lark’s animated features. “Now I know what she was smiling about!”

  “Come here, golden cougar.” Matt pulled her on top of him as he rolled onto his back. In her shining eyes he saw her surprise and then the pleasure that throbbed palpably between them. His flesh burned hotly wherever she came in contact with him. Her breasts became more firm, the nipples hard. Roving his hand across her rounded hip, he murmured, “You’re mine and I always want you to smile like that after we make love.” His voice caught as her hair pooled across his chest. “I want to always make you happy, Lark.”

  She laid her head on Matt’s chest, feeling the thunderous beat of his heart beneath her ear. “I’m so happy, I’m afraid I’ll fly apart, my bear.” Savoring his firm body and feeling his shaft begin to grow beneath her belly, Lark leaned upward, kissing his mouth. This time, she tried to duplicate the motion she remembered that he’d used on her. Startled when Matt gripped her hard, his mouth claiming her hotly in return, she relaxed, sinking against him. Her blood sang and Lark felt like so much molten sunlight as he worshipped her lips. And when he caressed the corners with his tongue, she shivered.

  Groaning, Matt gently broke the torrid kiss and moved Lark to his side. “You’re a wild-blooded cat and if we don’t stop now, I won’t be able to say no later.” Seeing the disappointment in her shining eyes, he added, “Listen to me, Lark. You’re going to be very sore from what we’ve done this morning. As much as I want to bed you again, I don’t think it’s wise.”

  She pouted for only a moment, drowning in his burning gaze. To be cherished was such an overwhelming feeling that she acquiesced with a nod of her head.

  A fiercely protective feeling smothered Matt, and it took every ounce of his remaining control to get out of bed. “I’ve got to leave whether I want to or not.” In an effort to ease their parting, he discussed another subject as he dressed. “Paco and I finished breaking all those colts. In a day or two we can herd them into Prescott and pick up the money from the U.S. Army. We’ll probably be gone a few days.”

  “A few days?” At that moment she couldn’t bear to think of their being separated for so long. At that moment, all she wanted was to throw her arms around Matt and hold him as he had held her: with all her heart. Sliding off the bed, she collected her nightgown and slipped back into it, retying the bows.

  After dressing, Matt drew Lark into his arms. “I don’t want to leave you for that long, honey, but we’ve got to let ranch matters take precedence.”

  Burying her head against his chest, Lark closed her eyes. “The ranch and the people come first,” she agreed faintly, savoring the last precious minutes within his arms.

  Within half an hour, the wranglers would awake. “I’ve got to go,” Matt whispered, placing his mouth against her lips.

  Reluctantly, she agreed.

  Lark swallowed her surprise when Captain Frank Herter arrived late that afternoon. This time he was wearing the garb of an ordinary wrangler and not his U.S. Army uniform. Lark recalled that he had talked about retiring.

  “Afternoon, Miss Lark,” he said, tipping the edge of his hat to her. “I heard that Paco was shot by Shanks. I thought I would come out and lend you a hand.”

  “Thanks for the offer. Paco’s going to be fine, but we are running shorthanded, Captain—”

  “I’m retired now, Lark, so just call me Frank.” He gestured to the left. “Who’s that? Another new wrangler?”

  Lark turned. “
That’s Matt Kincaid.”

  “The man Ga’n wounded?” Frank asked, recalling their conversation the last time he was out at her ranch.

  Lark avoided Herter’s penetrating gaze. “Yes. He’s helped me—all of us—so much.”

  “Sounds like you’re a little sweet on him,” Frank teased gently.

  Lark chewed her lower lip, heat prickling her cheeks. Frank Herter had always had startling insight into her, which kept Lark forever off balance, but she also sensed the approval in his eyes and in his amused voice. “Uh, yes, a little sweet,” she admitted.

  “You never could fib well, Lark,” Frank said. “Come on, introduce me to this man of yours. He sounds like someone made of good mettle.”

  Lark was eager to introduce the two men. Frank had always said he was sweet on her. Now he seemed to realize at once that she was Matt’s woman. How could he? Was it written all over her face? Stepping back so the two men could shake hands, she moved to Matt’s side.

  Frank held the cowboy’s assessing gaze. “To be honest, Mr. Kincaid, I’ve just retired from the Army and am looking for a job as a wrangler. Miss Lark knows I’m good with horses, and I know you’re running shorthanded. How about it?”

  Lark’s mouth fell open and she quickly shut it. “Frank, are you sure? I mean, we can’t pay you that much—at least not yet.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got my Army pension to supplement me. What do you say, Lark? Do we have a deal?” He thrust out his gloved hand toward her.

  Lark looked to Matt.

  “Once we get those colts to Prescott, we can afford him,” Matt told her, reading the question in her eyes.