Adam felt Lara’s jaw move as she opened her sweet mouth and closed it again without a word. Next, he felt the warm rush of air fan his neck as she puffed out a breath. She swallowed, shifted, turned her head, and all the while he fought to keep a straight face through her hemming and hawing. Finally she spoke.
“Well, are you going to do it?”
“Do what?” Adam played dumb. So that’s what had her tap dancing on needle points. He bit back a grin. He would just let her dance a little longer.
“What do you mean, do what? You know exactly what, Adam Joseph Stonewell.” She pushed herself up, scooped her hair out of her face and glared down at him. “Ugg, you and your brother, you’re so…so…ugg.”
Adam barely held back the bubbling laugh, but couldn’t stop the grin. “Luke’s got one thing right. You are sexy as hell when you’re angry.”
She cocked her head. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Adam pretended to think about her question. “Hmm, now, let’s see. The ranch hands reported the fences seemed fine, the animals all got fed, the horses are locked in the barn, I ate dinner, and I even helped Ma clean the plates since you were otherwise engaged…” He trailed off as he glanced at her. “Nope, can’t think of a thing I might have missed. What were you up to while I set to the womanly chores this evening anyway?”
“Trying on a dress of your ma’s, and believe me, a few womanly chores won’t hurt a cowboy now and then.”
“Never said they would. Did it fit?”
“Did what fit?”
“Ma’s dress?”
“Perfectly.”
“What’s wrong with your own dresses?” Temper flashed in her hazel eyes, but it disappeared in a blink. His urge to laugh didn’t dissolve so easily or quickly though.
“My dresses are fine, thank you. Sometimes a woman likes to have a new one, though, especially when it’s one for a special occasion.”
“Now, see, that’s something I’ve never quite gotten.” Adam rolled onto his side, propping his torso on one elbow. “Give a man a pair of boots, a pair or two of britches, and a couple of shirts and, as long as they stay together, he’ll never need anything more. A woman, however, needs five dresses and all these ribbons and lace and, what?” He changed tacks when her eyes started to narrow.
“You are sounding more like Luke to me right now than you ever have.”
Adam let a grin tilt the corner of his lips. “I know. I couldn’t think of a better misdirection at the moment.”
“And why would you look to misdirect me?”
Adam hooked her waist, flipped her onto her back, and stretched himself over her body, stifling her yelp of surprise with a kiss in a series of fluid motions that pleased even him. “So you would stop yapping long enough that I could ask you to marry me.” He held himself on his elbows and framed her face in his hands, his mouth but a breath away from hers. “I love you, Lara Franklin. I’ve loved you my whole life. I’ll work every minute of every day to make you happy, to give you passion, and to earn your love.”
Tears glimmered in her eyes, and one slid down her temple. “Oh, Adam.” Her voice cracked. She caught his head in her hands and pulled him down that last fraction of an inch until their mouths touched.
“Will you marry me, Lara?” Adam asked against her lips.
“Yes. Definitely, yes.” The kiss Lara planted on him tasted of more passion and love than he’d ever felt from her. She wrapped her arms around him, catching his hips in her hands and guiding him between her legs as she spread them wide. “Please, now, Adam. Put a finish to your proposal by being inside me. I’m burning for you, Adam. I need you inside me.”
Christ, when she spoke to him like that, how could he do anything more? He positioned his body against hers, his cock ready and throbbing to be sheathed in the wet heat of her channel. When he pushed balls deep inside her, they both groaned in one drawn out sound of pleasure. He stopped, allowing himself a moment to bask in the feel of his woman, his soon-to-be wife locked around him.
“Shh.” She turned her head to the side to whisper in his ear. “Your ma and pa are just down the hall. We wouldn’t want them to hear us.”
“Not to worry, sweetheart. They're fast asleep and far enough down the hall they won't hear a thing.” Adam pulled back, easing his cock several inches from the gripping muscles of her channel and then guiding it back in. She threw her head back, making an inarticulate sound as she thrust her hips up to meet his, attempting to pull his cock deeper within her body. “Besides, you seem to be the one making the noise.”
“Forget I mentioned it,” she said raggedly as her body relaxed only to tense again when he repeated the slow out-in invasion of his cock to her gripping pussy. “Just make love to me.”
Adam didn’t need her to say more. She could save her begging for Luke. Right now, if Adam waited another moment to touch her, to stroke the pinnacle of her inner heat, he’d be reduced to begging like a banshee. Her vaginal muscles clenched on his cock, and he knew she wouldn’t last any longer than he. They rarely took long before both fell into the mindless sea of body convulsing surrender when they joined as one.
He made love to her with the slow, tender finesse he always showed and preferred above all else. The mewling cries she muffled against his chest coupled with the rise and fall of her hips as she met each thrust confirmed that he kept his promise to deliver her passion.
“Now, Adam.” She gasped and clenched onto his hips as tightly as her pussy clamped onto his cock. Her body started to shudder, liquid heat bathing him as her release took control.
He came, his seed spurting from the slit in his cock with such force he forgot all semblance of quiet and growled his release. Breathless and spent, he rolled her with him until they lay on their sides, his cock still buried deep within her spasming channel.
“The dress I tried on of your ma’s is the one she wore when she married your pa.”
Adam opened his eyes to find Lara gazing at him, her own eyes half closed as sleep neared. He brushed a strand of her hair from her temple. “I figured as much. What about your ma’s? Didn’t she wear a special dress when she married your pa?” He felt her stiffen for an instant in his arms at the mention of her mother, but then she relaxed.
“She did, but it got ruined. I don’t know how exactly, but it happened not long after Jeb’s birth. I have other dresses of hers, but none as suitable for a wedding as your ma’s.”
“I’m glad Ma’s fits you, and I’m touched, as I’m sure she is, that you want to wear it when you marry me and Luke.”
“I plan to do more than wear it for our wedding.” She giggled when Adam lifted a suggestive brow. “I intend to keep it safe to pass down to our daughter when she’s of age to marry.”
Adam gazed at her, speechless for several heartbeats. “I can’t think of a better plan than that, Mrs. Stonewell.”
“Hmm,” she moaned languidly. “I like the sound of that even if it isn’t yet my name.”
“It will be soon enough.”
“No, not soon enough. Yesterday wouldn’t be soon enough. Still, say it again, Adam.”
“I love you, Mrs. Stonewell.”
“I think those might just be the loveliest words you’ve ever said to me, Mr. Stonewell.” She grinned and kissed him.
* * * *
Luke mounted his horse and waited as the rest of the Stonewell gang followed his lead before he shot a look at the sheriff. With an almost imperceptible nod, the sheriff jerked the reins of his horse and set off at a brisk gallop. Luke waited, watching the man’s back and feeling that niggling in his gut growing stronger by the minute. The sheriff didn’t wait, didn’t glance back to see if the rest of them followed, but simply set on his way.
“Luke?” Dillinger's indecision rang in his tone.
Luke looked to the man that stood as both his second in the gang and the first appointed deputy of the town. He knew his friend struggled with the duty to follow his sheriff or stay with his gang. Feeli
ng like an ass for putting his friend into such a situation, Luke took a deep breath and gave the order to follow. “Let’s ride.”
He caught up to the sheriff quickly enough, slowing his horse to an even speed beside the other man. Two by two, the rest of the Stonewell gang trailed at their backs.
“I wondered if you’d catch up.” Baird eyed Luke as they fell into a steady speed.
“It’s your law in this town, and these are your men.” Luke kept his eyes trained on the land in front of him. The sun broke through the night only a half hour before, the sky still streaked with gorgeous colors that didn’t seem fitting for the fight he knew to be coming shortly after midday.
“Nah, they’re yours,” the sheriff argued. “Always have been.”
Luke hadn’t been talking about the Stonewell gang, but the Desert Riders. The bitter tone of the sheriff’s disagreement made him hesitant to explain. He found it odd that the sheriff would see things that way, even if the view held a certain amount of truth. More, it seemed strange the other man would latch on to what Luke considered a petty irrelevance at the moment when they were banded together to face off with a group of outlaws like the Desert Riders in a few hour’s time.
“They’re a loyal bunch, your gang. They stayed behind you even when you gunned down one of your own.”
The sheriff’s comment hit low to the belt. Luke barely caught himself before reacting with even a flinch.
You didn’t murder Jeb.
Twice since his return, Lara had said those exact words to him. He heard them a third time now, as softly but firmly spoken in his head as when she said them to his face.
“Jeb Franklin’s death was an accident.” He’d never put voice to such claim before, never even thought of that night with such a dismissal of blame. But, as he heard the statement leave his lips, he realized it to be true. He had accidently shot Jeb. The fact that he might be one of the best gunfighters in the West held no bearing when a man reacted to a perceived threat. He’d faced off with one menace that night when he felt another at his back.
“An accident, you say? Yet, from all accounts you banished yourself from town. That seems a pretty stiff sentence for a man who didn’t mean to kill someone.”
“What are you chewing at, Sheriff?”
“I came to this town shortly after you left. I heard about you, heard about what went down that night in John Franklin’s saloon, but no one could seem to tell me the whole story. Another man died that night besides Jeb Franklin, Stonewell, a fellow by the name of O’Keefe. Haven’t heard much tell about him, though, just that he got what he deserved.”
“Not quite,” Luke muttered. “The bastard died too quick for my liking. I should have shot him lower in the chest, maybe nicked his heart or a lung and let him bleed out slowly rather than taking him out with one bullet.”
The sheriff stared straight ahead, but Luke noticed a muscle in the man’s jaw twitching.
Luke had done all the talking about that night that he wanted to when he poured out his heart to Lara and Adam back at the ranch. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from prodding at the sheriff. “I take it you don’t agree.”
“The law demands a fair trial for any wrongdoer. The vigilante justice you and your gang dished out that night would’ve gotten you hanged in the eyes of the law.”
“The bastard I gunned down raped and murdered EllieMay Sue Rossly, shot down Cliff Rossly when he tried to save his wife, stole everything of value on the Rossly land, and then sauntered into the Franklin Saloon like nothing ever happened. That the kind of man you want walking the dirt in your town, Sheriff?”
“Way I heard it, you got the wrong man. There were others with him and one of them did that to the Rosslys. My guess is you figured that too or you wouldn’t have been so quick to watch your back after you killed the first one.”
Luke breathed deep, grinding his teeth against the urge to tell the sheriff exactly where he could shove everything he heard about that night. He’d run across men like Baird before, lawmen who couldn’t think beyond the regulations they’d sworn to uphold and protect. He agreed with organized law, too, though he couldn’t say he wouldn’t push for the same sentence for a bastard like O’Keefe if a similar atrocity happened under his reign as sheriff.
“Truth is, Sheriff, I figure it the same way now as I did that night. O’Keefe might not have been directly responsible for what was done to the Rosslys, but he belonged to the gang. He did nothing to stop them and, in my book, that makes him just as guilty.”
* * * *
Adam woke with a start, his heart hammering for a reason he couldn’t yet put a finger on. He laid utterly still, eyes closed and breathing shallowly, ears trained for any sound. He didn’t hear anything. Slowly, he opened his eyes. Where he expected to find only a sliver of moonlight to slice the darkness, a beam from the brightening sun greeted him instead. He’d drifted off after the second time he and Lara made love and morning now glowed on the horizon.
Lara stirred in his arm. Her head rested on his shoulder. Her lithe body curved to his side. She made a quiet moan in her sleep, and her hand glided down his front. All the blood in his body followed the descent of her hand until her fingers curled around his now-stiff cock.
Adam waited, sure she must be awake to be touching him in such a manner. When her breathing evened out once more in her apparent dream state, his certainty turned to amusement. He smiled, remembering how surprised she’d been when his ma directed her to sleep in Adam’s room. Lara expected to be put up in the guest bedroom. His ma, however, proved yet again not to be as reserved as most females. The fact that Adam and Lara already shared the ways of the flesh, the fact that both Adam and Luke intended to make Lara their wife and share her in every way a man claimed a woman, wasn’t lost on Grace Stonewell. As his ma put it when she propelled Lara down the hall to Adam’s bedroom, “Why mess up a good bed when you belong in my son’s anyway?”
Why indeed? Adam wondered and bent to brush his lips to the top of Lara’s head. He danced his fingers over her arm and shoulder, loving the softness of her flesh. The swell of one breast peeked from where it pressed against his side. He stroked it, delighting in the way she stirred once more, this time rolling slightly onto her back to expose the fullness of her breast. Her nipple beaded to a hardened point at his touch. An angelic moan filled the sexually charging air. When her fingers tightened around his shaft, he knew his time of rousing her slowly from sleep through sensual perusal had come to an end.
“You weren’t supposed to wake yet.” He sucked in a quick breath on the last as she began stroking his cock. She lifted her head from his chest, her eyes fluttering open, their hazel depths already darkened with desire.
“It’s after sunrise, isn’t it?” She cast a glance over her shoulder at the tiny window where the beam of sunlight grew brighter and larger with each passing minute. She looked back at him, and he didn’t miss the shadow that moved through her expression. Drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, she stared at him unspeaking.
Adam stared back, catching everything she didn’t say in the worry lines that creased her eyes and mouth. He cupped her cheek. “He’ll be back this time.”
She nodded. “As long as he’s able, I have no doubt.”
“He’s the best gunfighter in these parts, Lara. That’s never changed.” Even as Adam struggled to reassure her, he realized he needed the words to bolster his own confidence.
“Do you think they made it yet? To Miller’s Pond, I mean?”
Adam shook his head. “They wouldn’t have ridden at night. They likely waited till daybreak to head out.”
Lara nodded again. “You’re probably right. Luke isn’t stupid enough to lead the gang on that way in the dark. Tell me, Mr. Stonewell, why am I not supposed to be awake yet?”
Adam blinked at her brisk change of subject. Then his eyes started to roll back in his head when the hand that stilled at their conversation began stroking his cock once more. He knew why she did it. Sh
e needed something to take her mind off what might be happening at Miller’s Pond, to ease her worry until Luke returned.
“I had plans for you.” He grazed her taut nipple with the callused pad of his thumb, drawing yet another sexy moan from her pursed lips.
“I see. You would rather seduce a woman unawares?” She shifted, sliding her body up the side of his until she lay face to face next to him. “I suppose I could pretend to be sleeping while you take advantage of me.”
“You could,” he agreed, catching her hand and prying it from his cock. He immediately felt the absence of her touch, and his balls screamed in agony. “Or you could allow me to see you have a proper breakfast in bed now that you’re awake.” He pushed her hands to the bed and rolled on top of her. Her thighs spread, and he slipped between them with ease.
She gazed up at him, happiness and amusement twirling in her eyes. “Is this how you plan for me to wake every morning once we are wed?”
“Definitely.” Adam rested his weight on one arm and reached between their bodies, delving a finger into her soft pubic curls and finding her hot, wet, and ready. “God almighty, Lara, you feel amazing.”
“Adam,” she gasped his name, her hips lifting to meet his touch. “Please.”
She didn’t need to ask twice. Adam withdrew his finger and settled his hips more securely between her legs. His cock nudged at her sodden folds, and he braced himself to enter her intoxicating heat.
Then he heard a ruckus kick up outside.
“Adam?” A foreboding replaced the plea in Lara’s tone when she said his name this time. Adam felt the sense echo through him as he stilled, straining to listen. He didn’t have to try hard for a voice shouted outside the ranch house at the top of its lungs. “Shit.” He rolled off Lara and yanked up his britches as soon as his feet hit the cool wood floor.
Her Vigilante Passion Page 12