“Hell, you’re right!” He swore, turning away. “I was loco to think I could have you. I’ll go right back in there to that party, stop the band, and announce I’ve broken the engagement.”
He started to walk away, but Amethyst caught his arm. “Santa María, you can’t do that! I’d be the laughing stock of the whole countryside!”
He shrugged, looking back at her. “Then you do it, you go make the announcement that you’ve decided against the wedding.”
She stared up at him in horror. “And destroy the friendship between my papa and his oldest friend?”
His grin was maddening. “I believe you’re on the horns of a dilemma, sweet.”
It was all she could do to keep from attacking him with her fists. She looked over at the duenna discreetly sniffing the roses. “Besides wrecking the friendship, tomorrow I’d be on a stage back to the convent. Papa’s fiancee would be purely delighted to get me out of her way. She wants a free hand with his money and property.”
He pulled a small coin from his pocket, flipped it carelessly as he talked. “You want to let my lucky piece make the decision?”
“You want to decide something like this on the flip of a coin?” She glared at him as he stood there flipping the gold piece over and over. “If I marry you in the Church, I’m stuck with you forever, can never get out of it.”
“Sounds good to me, sweet,” he drawled, putting the coin back in his pocket. “If you marry me, you can stop worryin’ about your papa’s fiancee getting the Durango money. The Falcons have much more and I’ll lay it all at your feet.”
Suddenly she saw how very serious he was.
Staring down at her, he declared, “I want you, Amethyst. I’ve wanted you since the first moment I laid eyes on you, and I’d do anything to get you!”
“You had already forgotten me,” she accused. “You were all set to marry the Durangogirl, not even knowing it was me.”
He shook his head. “I’d already decided I wouldn’t marry her, no matter what. Believe me, Amethyst, I only got into this so I’d have the money and power to go looking for you. God must be looking out for me because you turn out to be engaged to me already.”
“God or the devil!” she snapped, turning away from him. “This can’t work, Texas.”
He caught her shoulders. “Why not? You marry me and we live a long happy life as Señor and Señora Tony Falcon. No one need never know the birthmark isn’t real.”
A thought occurred to her suddenly. “How did you find out about the missing heir? About the birthmark? And how’d you get that, anyway? Who else is in on this with you?”
He avoided her gaze. “No one.” He hedged. “I just heard about it in the cantina, found myself a tattoo artist, and figured it was worth the gamble.”
She didn’t believe him, but she didn’t say so. “I don’t know what to do, Texas, but I don’t intend to marry some counterfeit Falcon.”
“We need to discuss all this at length, Amethyst.” He looked over at the scowling chaperone, still watching them from the area of the sundial. “Is there someplace in this garden where we can talk without being seen?”
Amethyst thought a long moment, while listening to the laughter and music drifting from the big patio of the hacienda. She really should go back to the party. When she stood so close to this wide-shouldered man, she could only remember what it had been like to melt into his arms there on the creek bank. “There’s a swing under the trees beyond that hedge there.” She nodded in that direction.
“Good. Now all I have to do is get rid of your ugly shadow.” He looked toward Mrs. Wentworth.
“She won’t leave.” Amethyst stiffened. “It’s her duty to stay close to me, to protect my reputation.”
“She been with you a long time?” He stared at the distant woman.
“No, my governess, Miss Callie, died right after Monique and her companion, Mrs. Wentworth, came to visit a couple of months ago. Papa decided I needed a duenna so Monique insisted I take Mrs. Wentworth. I think she did it so she’d have a spy telling her what I was up to all the time.”
“I take it there’s no love lost between you and your papa’s future wife?”
Amethyst frowned. “That elegant beauty is too young for him, although I think not half as young as she pretends. Still, there’s no fool like an old fool.”
“I’m gonng get rid of the old bag and then we’ll talk this out.”
“She’s employed by my father,” Amethyst protested. “You won’t be able to shoo her away.”
“Sweet, you really have been so protected you’re naive!” Bandit grinned, reached into his pocket, held up some coins. “We’ll see how much it takes to buy Mrs. Wentworth’s loyalty. I’m tired of her hovering about in that black dress like a bat lost from its cave.”
Even as Amethyst watched in disbelief, Texas sauntered over, handed the woman the money, and said something to her. Immediately, Mrs. Wentworth went off to the farthest section of the rose garden, where she stood gazing up at the moon.
He came back, took Amethyst’s elbow. “Now, where’s that swing?”
She almost had to run to keep up with his long strides. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she scolded. “If anyone finds out we’ve been alone together out here in the dark, my reputation will be ruined! Mexicans are very strict with unmarried girls!”
“So I’ll marry you and protect you from being known as a fallen woman,” Bandit said as they reached the swing.
He’s almost as stubborn and pigheaded as I am, Amethyst thought as they sat down in the white swing which creaked and swung on its rusty chains. She sat as far away from the cowboy as she could get, but he put his long arm along the back of the swing and his fingers reached the fabric of her off-the-shoulder ball gown.
She was acutely aware of his fingers fiddling with the filmy silk of her gown. Another inch and his hand would be on her bare shoulder. Hidden behind the hedge, they could still hear the sounds of the party, the music drifting on the air.
The heady scent of roses came to her as she took a deep breath. “Roses smell good, don’t they?” she said to fill the void between them.
“Prefer forget-me-nots myself,” he said. “There’s something about the scent of little wild violets on a woman’s warm skin—”
“Which reminds me!” Amethyst sat bolt upright, stared at his other hand. “My ring! You stole my ring!”
“I’ve been wearing it in memory of the other night.” Bandit smiled gently. “You know, the way a knight of old wore a lady’s scarf or ribbon into battle to show she loved him—”
“You took it. I didn’t give it to you.” Amethyst gave him a steely look.
“Suit yourself, sweet. I’ll give it back.” He caught her hand, slipped the ring back on her finger. “But you stole something from me that night, too.”
She flushed with anger, then pulled out of his hands. “I did not! I didn’t steal anything. How dare you!”
His arm went up along the back of the swing. “Oh, but you did, Aimée . . . beloved. You didn’t want it and I didn’t know you’d get it; no woman ever has before.”
She stared at him across the swing. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“My heart, sweet,” he drawled softly. “You took my heart, and it didn’t mean a thing to you.”
She stiffened, watching his fingers on the back of the swing out of the corner of her eye. “How many times have you used that line on innocent girls, Texas?”
He laughed softly and his fingers fumbled with the silk at her shoulder again. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve used it lots of times on lots of women. But this time, I mean it.”
Had she ever noticed before what a strong, square jaw he had? How he had a deep cleft in his chin she could almost put the tip of her finger in? She resisted that thought. “Texas, let’s be honest with each other. All I was to you was a good roll in the grass. And all I was after from you was some help and that horse so I could escape being sent to the convent.�
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He laughed. “You crafty little wench! I had forgotten about that horse. You knew where he’d been stolen from, and that I was riding right into the Falcon’s home territory, and didn’t tell me.”
She leaned back as far as she could get against her side of the swing, but the arm blocked her from getting out of the reach of the fingers playing with the sleeve of her gown. “Well, they didn’t hang you, did they?”
“No thanks to you.”
She looked up at him, ran her tongue over her lips, remembering the hot, sweet taste of his mouth on hers. Was he going to try to kiss her? Would she let him? “You never told me how you came by the famous Falcon stud,” she said, to get thoughts of his lips out of her mind.
Bandit shrugged. “I got him from a fellow who didn’t need him anymore. Don’t guess he stole him, though; probably bought him from Comancheros. Who knows where they got him?”
His fingers were now stroking the bare skin just above the dropped sleeve of her dress. She must stop thinking about his hands, about the heat of his mouth. “You’ll never get away with this masquerade, Texas.”
His hand stroked along her bare shoulder. “I seem to be doing a damned fine job of it, Aimée.”
Aimée. Beloved. He’d given her a French name. Where had a common cowboy learned to speak French? She knew she should shrug his hand away, get up and run back to the party, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stand up. “Suppose the real Tony Falcon shows up someday and you’re exposed as a fake?”
He shrugged. “If he hasn’t turned up in sixteen years, I’m willing to take the chance that he never will.”
He leaned toward her in the narrow swing and his fingers stroked up her shoulder to her throat. When he moved closer, she could actually feel his warm breath just above the swell of her breast in the low-cut gown.
“Bandit, what you’re doing to the old Falcons is wrong. They’re wonderful people.”
“They sure are,” he said with conviction. “If I’d gotten to choose my own relatives, I couldn’t have come up with a better choice. And is it wrong to make them happy? You must realize that frail lady only has a year or two at most, and he may not have much more.”
“And then you’ll control their entire fortune and this giant ranch,” she stated bitterly. “Not bad for a few years of acting.”
“I’ve given them back their long-lost son, and now they’ll have grandchildren to bounce on their knees in their last years. Is that so bad?”
With one hand, he still stroked her throat, but now the other came up to stroke the swell of her breasts just above the silk of her dress.
“Stop that.” But she half hoped he wouldn’t. She tried to remember the topic under discussion before his hands had begun moving across her skin. “You’re just whitewashing what you’re doing,” she said, taking a deep, shuddering breath, her emotions in confusion. “I won’t be a part of this! I won’t marry you, Texas.”
“Suit yourself, sweet. How was the food at the convent?”
She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see his hand stroking ever so gently along the swell of her breasts. She really should make him stop. “Gruel,” she murmured, “lots of watery gruel, hard work, and prayer.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said softly. “Now if you don’t want any part of being Señora Tony Falcon, just get up, march back over there, and break that old couple’s heart. By tomorrow night, you can be back on your way to gruel and calluses forming on your dimpled knees.”
She didn’t open her eyes, leaned against his caressing fingers. “I don’t have dimpled knees.”
“No, the dimples are in your soft, rounded little—”
“Will you get your hands off me?” It took all her self-control to sit bolt upright, push his hands away.
He looked at her a long moment, and she was shaken by the stubborn determination of his face. “I want you, Amethyst. I want you any way I can get you, and I don’t care what I have to do as long as I end up with you in my arms.”
“No,” she protested, wary of the intense heat of his gaze. “No, I don’t want—”
“Liar!” And with that, he slid across the space between them, took her in his arms. He seemed as big and powerful as all of Texas as he pulled her to him.
Amethyst opened her mouth to protest, and as she did, his mouth came down on hers, hot as a branding iron, his tongue forcing itself between her teeth. As she struggled, he tipped her head back, plunged his tongue deep inside, caressing the depths of her mouth even as his free hand pulled down the front of her dress, cupped her left breast.
She must stop him. Her mind whirled in a kaleidoscope of distant music, laughter, the scent of roses, and the warmth of his hand cupping, claiming her breast. His mouth coaxed hers to open even wider in ultimate surrender while his big hand stroked her nipple to a taut peak.
I’ll cry out in protest and everyone will come running, she thought; but when his lips left her mouth, kissed along the pulse point in her throat, the only sounds were his gasping for breath, the distant music, and the creak of the swing.
Santa María! Was she some cheap puta to let a man paw her while she did nothing to stop him? And then he caught her nipple between his fingers, teased the tip of it until she moaned aloud.
“Aimée, beloved,” he murmured against her throat, and his breath felt hot and moist on her skin. Without even realizing she did so, she arched her back, offering her breast up to his eager mouth even as his hand went to her dress hem, pushed it up.
“Touch me, sweet,” he commanded, and she reached out. His manhood pulsated and strained against his tight trousers, and as she stroked him there, he gasped and his hand fumbled under her petticoats.
“No, Texas, we shouldn’t. . . .” But she didn’t try to get up, run away. His hand seemed hot enough to set fire to her lace underwear as he stroked up her thigh.
“I didn’t satisfy you the other night,” he murmured. “I owe you this.”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about. She tried to tell him he must stop, but now his mouth covered hers again and the soft breeze cooled her breast, still wet from his kiss. His hand caressed under the delicate fabric at the joining of her thighs.
Surely he didn’t mean to touch her there. Yet even as she gasped in surprise, his fingers teased and stroked the lips of her femininity. She felt a sudden rush of hot moisture as her body, seeming to have a mind of its own, arched up against his seeking hand.
Sweet . . . sweet . . .” he murmured, “you’re wet and ready. How I wish I could take you.”
All she could think of was the sensation of his big hands, his probing fingers. She couldn’t stop herself from spreading her thighs still wider, pushing up against his fingers as he stroked her.
The swing creaked as she arched her body, wanting his touch. She gasped as his big hands teased and caressed her velvet interior. “Someday, sweet,” he gasped, “I’m going to do this with my tongue.”
The idea both horrified and excited Amethyst as she grasped his hard manhood, throbbing inside his tight trousers. His tongue plunged inside her mouth, sucked at the tip of hers. His fingers reached deep inside her.
“Don’t Texas. . . .”
“You mean don’t stop, don’t you?” he murmured against her mouth, holding her tight against him.
That was exactly what she meant even as she clung to him, his hot mouth sweet as brandy on hers, his fingers stroking her depths as, with one arm, he held her in a captive grip. She hadn’t realized how big and powerful he was. If she wanted to stop him now, she couldn’t. Realizing that, she surrendered to her emotions and let him do as he would with her.
“That’s it, sweet, you’re quivering under my touch, wanting me,” he whispered against her lips, and his hand probed even deeper, teasing . . . teasing. . . .
Amethyst’s heart pounded so hard in her breast, she was sure he could feel it as he bent his head to her nipple again, sucking until it almost hurt. The feelings building in her both thrilled
and frightened her. She felt she was being swept away by something too big to control. “Texas? Texas!”
And with that she stopped fighting the emotions, felt her body swept by inner convulsions as she locked her knees tightly around his hand, drawing him still deeper into her, never wanting to let him go.
For a long moment, she thought she had fainted. Everything went black around her in a dizzying ecstasy. Somewhere very far away, the band still played faintly, and the scent of roses and the taste of his mouth in the depths of hers seemed to blend.
When she came back to reality, he held her in his arms there in the swing, looking down at her, kissing her cheek. Reality crashed around her. “I—must have been out of my mind.”
“Sweet, you’re certainly driving me out of mine!” With a regretful sigh, he pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his hand. “If you only knew how close I came to throwing you down in the grass, mounting you—”
“You treat me like a common puta—a whore!” Tears of shame and humiliation came to her eyes.
He pulled her to him, kissed the tears off her lashes. “Don’t call yourself that!” He sounded angry. “Has any man touched you but me?”
“No.”
“If one did, I’d kill him!” His face was flushed with jealous anger. “Aimée, if you were a common whore, I’d have you down on your back in the grass. You don’t know what my body’s going through at this moment!”
She didn’t know what he expected her to say. She stood up, straightened her clothes. “We must get back, they’ll be wondering what’s keeping us.”
He stood up, looked down at himself. “I’m afraid I can’t go back right this minute,” he said sheepishly, “My desire for you is too plainly visible.”
She looked down. Even in the shadowy moonlight, she could see the bulge of his aroused maleness in the tight pants. “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“You’re too innocent to survive in this rough world,” he murmured tenderly, taking her in his arms. “But as Señora Tony Falcon, you’ll be protected.”
She looked from his gentle face to her ring. It was a loco idea that this drifting cowboy could just move into the heir’s place, into her bed. He must be using her to help him in his plot. “No,” she said, suddenly angry with herself for becoming a quivering, eager female in his arms. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ll not go along with this deception.”
Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family) Page 14