Reckless Desire

by Thea Devine

  He knew why. He pulled away from her and pushed her gently onto her stomach, imprisoning her hands beneath her body. Her head faced away from him now and he had to force her to turn it toward him. She knew what he knew, and she did not want him to touch her.

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  He sensed it and made no move to kiss her again. His hand idly played up and down the sensual arch of her back. He had not shifted his own position at all, and he could just lean forward to touch his lips to her ear. "Admit you came here because you wanted to be with me," he commanded in that soft, low dangerous voice of his.

  "A fairy tale," she jeered just as softly. She pulled in her breath as his hand began shaping the line of her lower back and buttocks. If he got much further, it wasn't likely she could pick up and run. He already knew she was wearing nothing underneath; how could he help drawing his own conclusion from that? Yet his coaxing hand was not demanding. It gently skimmed her curves, feeling the line of her body beneath her clothing, never probing. Just there, caressing and audacious all at the same time.

  And he lay propped beside her in just the same way, moving his hand all over her body in the deep dark night, as though he were visualizing what she looked like and how her body was responding to the feel of his light, bold caresses.

  She felt herself stiffening as his hand sought her curves lower and still lower. Then, finally, he shifted, easing himself down so that they lay side by side, face to face. His hand rested on her buttocks now, its warmth and shape penetrating even the thick material of her skirt. Her heart started pounding; she was panting with the tension of him next to her, his hand on her,.and her fear of what he would uncover next.

  The air between them vibrated with a kind of taut excitement. His hand constricted and she knew, in that extravagant dark moment, that he fully intended to ex­pose her nakedness and her deceit.

  He moved still closer to her and she caught her breath as she felt his probing tongue lick her unyielding lips. She shook him off, unwilling to submit to his lush kisses when

  she knew what he was going to do.

  He nipped at her lower lip, pulling at it, nibbling it, sucking it, murmuring her name, commanding the caress of her tongue, whispering to her, coaxing her. "Kalida, kiss me, you want to kiss me," and he swirled his tongue against her lips. "Open your mouth to me, Kalida. I'm hungry for you." Here she shook her head violently, and he bit her lips with ravishing little nipping movements that again she tried to deny.

  His hand moved then, sliding the coarse canvas of her skirt upward. She wriggled against his hand, a negating motion that made him all the more determined. His voice came at her in the dark, a seductive breath, not even a whisper, hardly a sound at all. "You're naked under this skirt, Kalida." His mouth covered hers in a violent move­ment as his fingers contacted her bare skin. "Kalida . . ." He reached for her again, seeking to part her lips, again unsuccessfully. "Let," he murmured against her mouth, "me feel your body."

  Her body writhed tellingly at his words. If he kept it up, she would have no more secrets. Everything would be his. His hand lay just at the curve of her buttocks; she felt it there with an opulent awareness of both its heat and weight, and what it could do and where it could touch her next. And she would not be able to stop him; she didn't know if she wanted to stop him. She imagined his hand moving, large, hot, encompassing, and where it might move, what she would feel, and she wanted him to move it.

  "Deuce . . ." She breathed his name.

  "Kalida . . ." The barest murmur against her lips. "Tell me." His tongue glided over her lips, wetting them, tasting them, seeking entry. "Kiss me, Kalida." He cov­ered her mouth again, willing her to open it to him. Her lips trembled under his as his hand pushed her skirt up over her hips and uncovered the lush curve of her but-

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  tocks.

  She caught her breath as she felt his hand slide onto her naked skin and pause just at the small of her back. A deep chord sounded within her, like a mallet hitting a gong. It resonated deep inside, its reverberations eddying outward, downward, and nestling in that heated naked place just beneath his hand.

  He felt her uninhibited response to his touch. His avid mouth collided with hers, seeking, nipping, delving against her lips again and again. "Kalida, luscious naked Kalida, I have you in my hands now." He formed the words almost soundlessly against her lips. "Open to me, Kalida."

  Her body jolted sensually against his powerful thigh, and her lips parted for him.

  His hand moved, at the same moment his sultry tongue invaded the lush recesses of her mouth, filling it and entwining with her tongue. Two separate sensations as­saulted her senses—the wet heat of his devouring tongue and the heavy sensual motion of his hand exploring her soft curves. All her resistance caved in. She admitted it to herself, in the throes of her unbridled pleasure in the movements of his hands and tongue. She had wanted this, this close containment with him, his feeling her body in this slow sensual way, his sensuous words arousing her.

  His questing hand audaciously stroked her luscious flesh, sliding closer and closer to her churning femininity. Her whole body remembered the feel of his fingers teasing her just this way. She shifted upward slightly to entice the exquisite caress.

  "Kalida . . ." His vibrant whisper thrilled her. His tongue caressed hers voluptuously, hot and wet, endlessly demanding. "You're naked for me . . ." another ravishing kiss, "you want me . . ." his brazen fingers entered her velvet moistness, "you belong to me . . . Kalida . . ."

  She was drowning in sumptuous billowing sensations.

  She heard his erotic words, and her left hand worked itself out from under her surging body to grasp his taut shoulder, raking and wrenching it with the force of her galvanic response. Her mouth savored his now, kiss for kiss, touch for touch, her tongue as fervid to taste and caress as his.

  Her body turned, of its own volition, toward him against his insatiable fingers. Her right hand reached for his chest, for the buttons of his shirt, pulling, unfastening them as fast as she could with her trembling fingers, sliding the flat of her palm against the crisp hair on his chest, feeling his bare skin beneath.

  Her body convulsed as she touched him. It was almost as if this had been what she was waiting for, this intimate caress of his naked skin. The things he was doing to her receded beside her need to feel him.

  When he sensed that, his own hand moved, slowly retreating from her lush welcoming warmth, sliding back across her buttocks and downward to push the front of her skirt out of the way, arresting its exquisite movement just at the tempting line of her thigh. His fingers flexed against her silky skin, and she wrenched her mouth away from his to murmur softly, "Don't leave me."

  His lips hovered above hers consideringly for a mo­ment. "What shall I do, Kalida?" He posed the question almost before he had realized it, softly, lovingly, feeling as he had the evening before at Sweetland, that he wanted all of the desire to come from her, all the words and the burden of yearning to possess. And yet, the question sounded harsh, a backlash against her continual retreat from her refusal to admit the reality of her feelings. It wasn't possible she didn't know them by now, only that she refused to accept them. Yet she was here, in his arms again, naked and willing, and he waited, flicking his tongue against her lips, licking them, covering them with biting little kisses intended to storm her senses, and he

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  knew he did not have to do even that much.

  "Deuce — " Her lips felt swollen under his sensual on­slaught. Her body felt fraught with tension. His hand remained poised on her thigh; if she wriggled just once, she thought, she could coax it to slide right into her sultry warmth. Her body writhed in tiny tenuous thrusts that he must be feeling, and yet he made no move to assuage her hunger.

  "Kalida." Her breath of a name on his lips crushed against hers once more. "Kalida . . . Kalida; you will drive me away from you with as much passion as you welcome me —when I for
ce you to."

  "No." Her breathy denial was gorgeously quick. "I want you."

  "When you can't help yourself," he murmured dryly, and his hand moved then, feeling its provocative way to the juncture of her thighs, making her writhe with exqui­site sensation. "A fine excuse, Kalida"—a ragged mutter as his fingers delved deeper into her pulsating warmth — "especially when you walk around naked under your clothes. God, Kalida, I wish I had that excuse. I wish I could deny it was for me. But it was, wasn't it? Admit it, you came for me; you dressed for me."

  "Deuce—" She undulated her hips against his exploring fingers, her mouth seeking his now, desperate to say with her kisses what she would never admit in words.

  "You're a luscious wanton animal," he growled, refus­ing her lips, "for me, Kalida; understand it, only for me."

  She heard it, she understood it; in the core of her being she knew it. She couldn't help it because she loved her own fierce surrender to his hands and to his rock hard masculinity. She loved his mouth, his tongue, his body, his scent. She loved being in thrall to the sensuous things he did to her and to his response to the things she did to him. He had known forever what she was only compre­hending now: She had always wanted him. She was

  coming to want him forever.

  "You can't run any more, Kalida." Torrid words, ut­tered in that breath of a whisper against her ear. The truth, she thought, straining her smouldering body against him. Her left hand began a torturous trail of longing down his body; his right arm, which supported her shoulders, moved upward to her neck and pulled her mouth against His. "You ran to me, this time," he rasped against her lips before he devoured them again.

  Had she? she thought wildly; she had without knowing it, or consciously—but she was consciously giving herself to him now. It was he—and only he—who was there, evoking such wondrous sensations from her body. Only the two of them in the primitive dark, driving each other to fierce, enthralling surrender.

  Her frenzied fingers worked apart the buttons of his pants with shameless urgency, feeling his „massiveness throbbing beneath her hand, his excitement building with hers as the material fell away and she took him in her wanton grasp. Her whole body convulsed as she wrapped her fingers around his taut, elongated length with fero­cious ardor. Her fingers moved then, glorying in his massive strength. And as he audaciously thrust his fingers into her feminine heat, her own fingers brazenly explored the tempting granite length of him, learning its shape and texture and how her hand could evoke the same staggering response from him that her body did.

  She tasted his powerful response to her wanton explora­tion. Her whole body surged against him voluptuously, ravenous for him and the volcanic pleasure that his virile length could arouse in her.

  His lips and tongue released hers for the space of a breath as he murmured against them, "Oh no, Kalida. This time, I want you to touch the force of my desire. I want you to know exactly what you do to me."

  "I know it," she protested in a breathless whisper.

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  "Good," he growled, and took her lips once more. She was liquid with the opulent sensation of his exquisite caresses, awash in a voluptuously euphoric haze of plea­sure.

  His knowledgeable fingers created the most delectable feeling deep within her. Her body quivered as a riotous heat began its radiant course up and down her body. Her fingers constricted against the ravishing length of him in response, the driving essence of his manhood heightening the wanton undulation of her hips against his hand. She frantically massaged him as the powerful eddies of feeling rippled over her, lanquid and shimmering at first, and then in a storm of sumptuous white-hot culmination that cascaded through every pore in her body.

  He stopped only when he was sure he had wrung every potent drop of spiralling pleasure from her clamoring body, and he covered her mouth and face with luscious little kisses that, in their hot wet ardor, reflected his own bursting urgency.

  "I have you now," she whispered, enthralled by the intensity of the climax that gripped him then. And after­ward, the thrumming of his heart against her chest, as he rested in satiated peace, was sweet music; the languid touch of his lips against hers was a homage to the magnitude of his surrender.

  The night enfolded them as he cradled her close, and she held him lovingly in her hand.

  allows him to chase me away and then lets him feel her nakedness, and now ... He drew in a deep, salacious breath. There certainly were benefits to volunteering to nighthawk, he thought, his own body aroused by the tantalizing sounds he had just listened to. And Deuce had accepted his offer without a comment, and he knew damned well why. Deuce had intended to seduce Kalida tonight; his mind was solely on her luscious naked body and what he was going to do to her, and he couldn't have given a good goddamn what Jake had said —or anyone else for that matter.

  The high and mighty son of a bitch. Wait till he found the temptingly luscious Kalida in the bushes naked with someone else. Deuce would hand her over then; he would just chase her whorish body out of his life forever. And Jake planned to take it willingly into his.

  And outside the glimmering circle of their sensual exploration, a dark brooding figure listened to each low, vibrant word of submission and surrender. The bitch, he thought, the lousy teasing bitch. First she strips herself for two lousy goddamned women, then she lets that son of a bitch handle her any which way he wants to; she invites me for a ride to show her gratitude, she goddamn

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  Chapter Fourteen

  "Rrroll out!" Bruno shouted, banging a spoon against his washing kettle. "Onnn up. Come and get your vittles. Rrroll 'em out, men."

  It was just daybreak. The second shift of the night guard staggered into camp bleary-eyed. Everyone else rolled out of their bedding sluggishly. The fresh brewed aroma of coffee filled the air. Bacon sizzled in an iron frypan and Bruno was already whipping out a pan full of biscuits, still shouting at the top of his lungs, "Get 'em on up, boys; time to roll. Rise and holler, men, coffee's on the boil."

  Kalida struggled awake with a start. Damn, she had fully intended to get up in time to help Bruno set up for breakfast. But after the extravagant sensuality of last night, it had been difficult to do anything but sleep soundly and fully, her sated body entwined with Deuce's, her hands nestling against him. Impossible to think of responsibilities and chores. Impossible not to think of his powerfully virile body that was all hers, every last granite inch of it.

  But it was not beside her now. Some internal clock had prodded him awake even earlier than Bruno. She had not felt him leaving her. His warmth still encompassed her.

  All of that dissipated as she wrestled with the bedding and pulled down her skirt, making sure everything was buttoned before she lifted herself from the rumpled bed­ding and set about folding and rolling it back into its compact shape.

  Then she made her way cheerfully to the chuck tent, where the night guards were wolfing down their food in preparation to taking an hour's nap before the drive got underway. The rest of the men were at a nearby stream, washing and changing into the one fresh shirt they had brought with them.

  "Someone had best go with you," Bruno commented doubtfully as she petitioned him for a spare pot in which she could put some water so she could wash herself privately.

  "I'll do it." Jake's voice, gentle and helpful, behind her. She whirled and smiled at him. "Good morning, Jake. You don't happen to know where Deuce is, do you?"

  "Probably washing up," he said noncommittally, his innards tightening up at her mention of Deuce. "Let me take you to the stream; I could use a good wash up myself after last night."

  Kalida hesitated a moment. At least I know him, she told herself. The only one else is Eakins, or Deuce. Barney and Bruno are both busy. Oh damn. She nodded and he motioned for her to follow him into the bushes beyond the chuck.

  "I hope you slept well," he said sardonically as she fell into step beside him, knowing just how well she had slept. H
er sensuous whispers still reverberated in his mind. "Some folks don't take to sleeping outdoors, surrounded by all this wild life and nature. The thought of prowling animals keeps them uncomfortably awake. And some­times the noise of the cattle, or that awful drone those cowboys make when they're singing to the herd." Prowling animals, he thought; that's me, on the prowl for a

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  gorgeous wily heifer.

  "No, I'm used to it," Kalida said, becoming comfort­able with his homey conversation. When he was like this —considerate, chatty, friendly —she had no qualms about being with him. She reveled in the scent of the morning air that freshened considerably as they got fur­ther away from camp. The distance they seemed to be covering did not seem to be unduly far away.

  She was surprised, therefore, when he stepped through a copse of bushes and beckoned her to follow, to find they were alone and far up the stream from the other men, hidden by an undulating bend from their sight but not their sound.

  "Found this place yesterday," he said, stooping at the edge and scooping up the cool water to rub it over his hot face. "I thought you perhaps might like to take a bath rather than just wash."

  "With you watching?" she jibed, kneeling several feet away from him with her iron pot and filling it.

  "With me guarding you," he emphasized slowly, curb­ing his anger at her teasing taunt, which sounded as though she wanted him to and was deriding him for wanting to. What a potent combination she was, all knowing and seductive; a flirt and a chaste tormentor. She couldn't have driven him wilder with desire if she had tried. Everything she said seemed to him to have a second meaning. But because she was a woman, she could pre­tend there had been no suggestive meaning to her words, that he was reading something into them she couldn't possibly have intended.