“Because everything I know about such feelings so far I have learned from you. Do you mind?”
“This is the goddamnedest conversation I’ve ever carried on with a woman.”
“Do you want to stop?”
He waited a long time before answering, so long that Sage wondered if he was disregarding her query altogether.
“Hell, no, I don’t want to stop.” He cleared his throat. “Not sure where this is taking us, but it’s sure making it easy to stay awake.”
“Me, too. I find I am quite excited at the prospect of learning more about this topic.”
He groaned, then tightened his arm around her. “It’s not a ‘topic,’ Sage. It’s part of being alive. I’m glad you’re…” he hesitated, drew in a long breath “…excited.”
“Oh, good.”
“I’m even more glad,” he breathed into her ear, “that we’re on horseback.”
“Why is that, Cord?”
“Hell’s bells, Sage. Can’t you guess?”
She thought it over. “Oh. Oh!” Her entire body felt as if he’d dropped a hot coal down the front of her shirt. “I see,” she said in a shaky voice. “Yes, I do understand. Of course. At least I think I do.”
Laughter rumbled up from his chest. “Got any more questions?”
She pressed her lips together, felt a slow heat spread down her legs, all the way to her toes, then spiral back up to her neck. She bent her head forward. Cord’s warm breath ruffled the loose hair at her nape.
“Tell me what you want to know,” he said quietly.
“I want to know why I feel so strange inside when I’m close to you.”
“Strange how?”
“Skittery inside. As if my veins had butterflies in them instead of blood.”
“It’s because you’re female, Sage. And I’m male.”
She digested that information as the horse splashed on down the creek, across a sandbar and into a stretch of rippling shallows. “Horses don’t feel that way, do they? Mares, I mean?”
“I don’t know about horses. With animals the drive is to mate. It’s an instinct, like feeding.”
“And with people?”
He hesitated. “Well, now, there’s people and then there’s People.”
“Females, I mean. Women.”
Again he hesitated. “Same thing. There are women, and then there are Women. Ladies.”
“But we are all female, are we not?”
“Yeah. Some more than others,” he added under his breath.
“Then I should think that, under the skin, we all have the same instincts.”
“Probably.”
“And men? Do they all have the same—”
“Definitely.”
“Oh, good. That makes it so much easier, don’t you think?”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” he grumbled.
“And therefore, it would logically follow that—”
“Whoa there, Sage.” He brought his mouth to her ear. “It’s not male and female we’re talking about here. It’s one particular male and one particular female. You and me. So let’s be honest.”
“All…all right. You told me about your fallingover-a-cliff feeling, and I told you about my butterflies. Are they the same thing?”
“Could be.”
“A drive to—to mate?”
“I can’t speak for you, Sage. But for me, yes. There’s a strong drive to mate.”
“What…what do you do when you feel it?”
“Depends on the situation. With some women—Hell, I shouldn’t be telling you this!”
“Yes, you should. Please. How else will I know? With some women…” she prompted.
“With some women—most, in fact—it’s just pleasure. Like a mare and a stallion. Doesn’t mean much. With you…” His voice dropped. “With you, it means something.”
A fist squeezed her diaphragm so hard she felt light-headed. That a few words could bring a rush of such heady joy…why, it was almost miraculous. No elixir known to medicine could produce that effect so instantaneously. It was like…well, like that flying sensation she had experienced when Cord had touched her, kissed her. And especially when he had entered her most intimate place.
And it meant something to him! She meant something to him!
Dear Lord, she felt as if she would float right off the horse.
“Cord?”
“Yeah?” His voice sounded tentative.
“How long before…”
“Before what? Before we make camp? Another hour.”
“No, not just make camp. Before we…”
Cord folded his right arm tight across her middle, pulled her up against him. He inhaled the scent of her hair and tried to think.
“Not until morning. We’re both tired. And hungry. Not until we’ve slept and eaten and slept some more.”
He kissed her temple. “Not until the sun’s pouring down on us like it did this morning. For now, it’s enough to just keep riding.”
Chapter Sixteen
Toward morning, Cord found what he was looking for. The cave cut into a rocky hillside had been a bear’s den at one time; now it served as another of his hideouts. Or stakeouts, when the need arose.
Sage peered at the dark opening. “You knew this was here,” she said in a voice rusty from lack of sleep.
“Yep.”
“You know every inch of this wilderness, don’t you?”
Cord nodded. “It helps to know the area. Makes tracking easier.”
“I see. You chase your quarry into these mountains and then corner them. What about Suarez? Does he know the area?”
“Hope not. He knows the Sangre de Cristos like the back of his hand, but we’re not in Colorado.”
“Does that mean we are safe here?”
“For the moment. Even if Suarez finds the cave, we’re safe. Look up.”
Sage craned her neck. “I don’t see anything except trees.”
Again Cord nodded. He’d built the simple tree house forty feet off the ground, in the crotch of a giant whitebark pine. From up there he had a clear view of the cave entrance. He’d captured more than one man on the run by letting him “find” the cave while Cord watched, rifle in hand, from his perch in the tree.
He walked the horse to the cave entrance, dismounted and reached for Sage. “There’s food stashed in there—tinned tomatoes, beans, a bit of jerky. Even a can of coffee and some whiskey. You hungry?”
“I’m too tired to feel hungry.”
“We’ll sleep first, then. Eat later.”
The instant her feet touched the ground, she headed for the cave on wobbly legs, but Cord blocked her way. “The horse stays here. We sleep up there.” He tipped his head toward the wood structure high above them.
“But why?” Sage’s sleepy eyes narrowed. “Why not use the cave?”
“Because I can’t keep watch without staying awake all night. In the tree—” he gestured skyward with his thumb “—we’re well-hidden. I don’t have to stay awake.”
He watched her measure the distance. She’d have to climb, but once she started there were plenty of branches well-spaced for footholds.
“It’s easy,” he said. “Just don’t look down.”
Sage propped her hands on her hips and faced him. “Do you realize how many hurdles you’ve dragged me over since we set out on this trek? First I had to swim all the way across a river. Then there was that awful morning we scraped out the grave for Nita, and now you want me to scramble up that tree like a lumberjack? Well, I can’t do it. After a day and a night in the saddle, my legs no longer work.”
She stared up at him, an accusing look in her blue-violet eyes. “Besides, the food is in the cave.”
“There’s food up there, too,” Cord said quietly. “Even better, there’s a couple of rifles and a corn husk mattress.”
Something sparked in her gaze. “A mattress? And maybe I could take a bath? Could we heat some water?”
“Nope. Tomorro
w you can use the tin kettle shower I rigged up. When the sun hits the trees in the morning, you’ll be glad the water is cool. Gets pretty warm up there.”
“Warm,” she echoed. Again the light flared in her eyes. “And your tin kettle? It’s up there?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you…I mean, well, will you…watch me?”
He held her gaze for a long time, then moved his hand to touch her cheek. “Damn right.”
They climbed in tandem, Sage in front, Cord below her in case she slipped. Despite her cramped hands and shaky legs, she managed to keep going until she fancied the pine branches reached all the way to the sky, like Jack’s beanstalk. Her mind silly with fatigue, she laughed out loud at the thought.
Then Cord was saying something, but it made no sense and she was too tired to sort it out. Something about how he’d constructed the tree house one summer when he needed to be alone. How he’d never brought anyone here before.
The wood structure felt solid enough, but when Cord swung himself up beside her she wondered if it would buckle under their combined weight. Without a word, he pulled up the rope tied to their bedrolls and his poncho. The horse, with the remaining saddlebag and her medical satchel, was hidden in the cave below.
Sage stretched her tight shoulders. The warm night was still except for the soft hoo-hoo of an owl. Cord retrieved a makeshift mattress from its hiding place under the platform; the dry stuffing crackled when he shook it out. This side of the mountain got little rainfall, she remembered.
Cord spread the pallet flat, then laid both blankets on top. Sage took one look at the inviting bed and tipped sideways until her body was horizontal. The rustle of corn husks made her smile.
Cord tugged her boots off. “You want to sleep in your clothes?”
“No. Too hot.” Her fingers fumbled with the top shirt button.
Cord finished the job for her, then unbuttoned her riding skirt and slipped it off. Great jumping scorpions, no underwear. He’d forgotten there’d been no time to don underclothes during their hurried departure this morning.
It didn’t matter. He was too exhausted to even look close, let alone…
He shucked off his jeans and shirt, lowered himself next to her and pressed his chest against her bare back. When he could think clearly, he’d decide what to do about the situation. In the meantime, he’d try not to think at all.
Except for the fact that in your whole life, no one has ever felt so good next to you.
Sage woke to the sounds of birds and splashing water. Eyes closed, she lay still, enjoying the sweet, clean air and the twittering sparrows. The splashing noise was so close she could almost feel the cooling droplets splatter on her sun-heated skin.
In fact, she did feel them! She opened her eyes to see Cord standing at the edge of the platform, his face tipped up under a shower of water trickling from the bottom of a large cooking pot. It looked like a soup kettle, hung from wires strung over a sturdy overhead branch. Beside his bare feet sat a battered tin bucket of water.
He faced away from her. Water ran in rivulets through his dark hair, down his muscled shoulders. She watched him, studying his movements under the dribbling shower.
The man obviously enjoyed his body. Enjoyed sensation for its own sake. Cord was teaching her something, not with books and lectures, but simply by being himself. By sharing with her what he knew, what he was. Being alive meant feeling things. Everyday things. Pleasurable things.
She shut her eyes tight and tried to think of something else.
The next thing she knew, his warm breath washed against her cheek. “You awake, Sage?”
“No.” She heard his soft chuckle and her body tensed.
Her world was shifting because of this man. She wasn’t sure she liked it.
“You’re frowning,” he said.
“I am…thinking.”
“Hungry?”
“No.”
“Want to shower off? I hauled up an extra bucket of water from the—”
“Yes. No! I…I’m not sure what I want. In the last seven days, everything has turned upside down. I’m not feeling like my usual self.”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “I think maybe you are, you’re just not sure you want to.”
Her eyelids snapped open. “Whatever does that mean?”
He brushed the hair off her forehead. “For years you’ve defined life as drawing oxygen in and out of a pair of lungs, a heart pumping blood through arteries and veins. Now maybe you see there’s more to it. You look at life differently. You can’t go back, and maybe you’re scared to go forward.”
“I am not sure I want to see things—life—differently.”
“What are you afraid of, Sage?”
“Afraid? I am not afraid. Well, yes, I am. I don’t know, exactly.”
“Me?”
“Yes, in a way.”
He bent down, brought his face close to hers, forcing her to look at him. “What way?”
Sage swallowed. “It isn’t because you are… well, male.” He isn’t just male, he is blatantly male. He revels in it. His body was beautiful, lean and strong, tanned bronzy-gold right down to his belt line. “It’s something else.”
Something unexplainable and mysterious that drew her to him like a moth to a candle flame. It was that she feared. She wasn’t sure she could put it into words.
“It’s the way you…see things. You make me feel—think—about things in ways I never have before.”
“And that scares you, is that right?”
“Damn right,” she breathed. Her breath hitched at the profanity. She’d never before used such language. Never.
All at once she knew what it was: she was changing. Cord was making her face something—something she resisted, but that pulled her forward, anyway.
Herself.
“Had to happen sooner or later,” he said softly. “It won’t hurt you to grow up, Sage. I won’t hurt you.”
Oh, yes you will.
But at this moment, poised at the edge of the precipice, she didn’t care.
He touched her cheek, her shoulder. Then he knelt straddling her, smoothing both hands over her skin from her throat to her thighs, stroking slowly and deliberately down, then back up again until her mouth came open.
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
He feathered his palms across her belly. “And this?”
“Yes.”
He dipped his fingers into the curls at the juncture of her thighs. “This isn’t mating, Sage. This is lovemaking.”
“Yes.” She arched her back, stretched her arms over her head. “Whatever it is, don’t stop.”
“Couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Good.” She exhaled with a sigh. “It makes everything feel…bigger. More intense. The sky, the trees, even the quiet.” She licked her lips and smiled into his darkened eyes. “I feel so…alive.”
“Admit it, Sage. You never had such a good time as you’re having right now.”
“No. I never have.” Nor will I ever again.
He pressed his member into the moist heat at her entrance. “Do you want more?”
“Yes.” Her voice trembled. “I want all of it. All of you.”
He thrust in hard and deep, burying her cry under his mouth, and began to move. She was all silk and heat, tight and wet. He’d have to slow down.
“What are you feeling?” he said, his tone gravelly. “Tell me.”
“I feel you inside me. It feels…full. It feels… wonderful.” Her voice caught in a little hiccup of surprise. “Like there are explosions happening inside me.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No. Oh, no. It’s…it’s like flowers bursting open.”
“Come with me, then. Move with me.” He cupped her bottom, rocked her into his rhythm. She clung to him, gasping. He kissed her breasts, her mouth, until she moaned his name and then cried out. Her face was wet against his lips.
Her movements triggered hi
s own release, but nothing he’d ever experienced before prepared him for what happened next. In ecstasy, or in agony—he couldn’t distinguish between the sensations—he felt himself rise out of his body and float into another place, soft and black and welcoming.
It was a place he’d never been before, as if a hot light sucked up everything inside him, milked him of his will and his consciousness until, with a shout of assent, he gave himself up to it.
After a long, long time, he heard her voice.
“I will remember this for the rest of my life.”
Chapter Seventeen
When they woke, dappled shade spread a lacy pattern over their naked bodies. With their limbs still tangled, Cord smoothed his hand over her tousled hair, let his fingertips play with the loose waves above her ears while he listened to their slow, steady breathing.
“You ever wonder why you’ve never done this before?”
Sage laid her small hand over his. “Ladies don’t. A woman who wants to keep her reputation doesn’t…let herself.”
“I’ve known women—ladies—who’ve kept their reputations.”
Her near-violet eyes widened. “Known in the carnal sense?”
He didn’t answer.
“My aunt Cissy says a woman keeping her reputation intact means a man is keeping his mouth shut.”
“Fair enough. He does if he’s a man of honor.”
“I take it you are such a man, then? A gentleman?”
He jerked his head up. “Whoa. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Never thought of myself in that way.”
She reached toward him, combed her fingers through his warm, damp hair. “I think of you in that way, Cord. I always will.”
An expression she’d never seen came over his face.
“I’ve always shied away from civilized things, wearing proper duds, settling in a town.”
“Have you ever lived in a town?”
“Nope. Don’t plan to try. I feel more comfortable closer to the raw side of life. In some ways it’s more real.”
She twisted her fingers in his hair, unable to let go. “What do you fear in a town?”
“Don’t honestly know. I just feel…different, that’s all. Like an outsider.”
“In Russell’s Landing I feel like an outsider, too. I never did before. There aren’t many women doctors out West.”
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