He chuckled and kissed her again. “What do I care what they think? I do care about eating tonight, though, so as much as I’d like to stay here and hold you, I think I’d better rustle up some grub.”
“Grub is insect larva. Not a very appetizing expression.”
“That depends on who’s cooking.” He gave her a final hug and tried to ignore the trusting blue eyes fastened on his lips. “When Scratchy’s at the stove, the word ‘grub’ says it all.”
Rory picketed the horses that had been lazing beside the stream and took off the saddles and bedrolls. “You want to set up camp while I look for something bigger than a chipmunk?”
“I will. Then I think I’ll wander along the stream.”
He sobered quickly, concern for her safety never far from his mind. He looked up-and downstream. The sandbank was located between two bends in the creek, which gave the section of the canyon a secluded feeling, but that was no reason to let down his guard.
“Stay close by,” he ordered. “Do you have that gun of yours in your knapsack?”
She nodded.
“Then keep it handy.”
“What are you worried about?”
She was too wise to fool, so he told her the truth. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, that’s all.”
“And what makes you think I can’t take care—”
He stopped her midsentence. “Whoa. I didn’t say you couldn’t take care of yourself.” He put his hands on his hips, shifted his weight to one foot, and took a deep breath before he admitted, “I’m not convinced your assistant’s death was an accident.”
“Why not?”
“Something Piah said yesterday keeps coming back to me. He acted as if you had been to the mesa. Said he had warned me to keep the bone hunters away. He said the spirits were mad.”
“You mean you knew there was a paleontologist out there somewhere and you didn’t tell me?” She looked mad enough to spit.
He took a step backward. “Now hold on. If you’ll remember, up until just now we’ve had a few other things on our minds.”
“Would you have told me?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“As soon as I remembered.”
“And the sight of Jerome Stoutenburg didn’t remind you?”
“Don’t push me, Jess,” he warned. “That wasn’t the time to bring it up and you know it.”
“Why?”
“Because I heard it from Piah, that’s why, and any mention of his name would have sent those men off on a witch-hunt the likes of which you could never imagine. I’m going to do a little snooping around on my own before I come to any decisions about Piah’s guilt or innocence.”
She shivered even though the afternoon was still hot and dry. “There’s something about that man I don’t like.”
“Piah? I’ll admit he’s a strange one. He’s caught up in something right now, but unless he turns fanatical, I have a feeling this’ll all blow over like a puff of smoke in a tornado.”
“Unless he did kill Jerome.”
He pulled the brim of his hat low. “Until we know for certain, I want you to be on guard.” His fingers swept over his own turquoise-handled gun on his hip. If he was going to hunt down something for dinner, he had to get started.
“Rory, wait!” she called out to him when he was no more than six feet away.
He stopped and admired the way she looked standing there against the red rock wall of the canyon. “What?”
“A few days before the flood, Piah warned me away from the mesa. He was adamant about the bones of his ancestors not being disturbed. If Jerome had stumbled upon something, some find that might not have been saurian at all, but an Indian burial ground—”
Rory shrugged. “That’s what I suspect, but like I said, I’m not going to Williams or Carmichael until I have proof. I’ve lived too close to the Utes and gotten along just fine for too long. I don’t want a band of vigilantes seeing red and yelling for blood.”
“I agree.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
With a far-off look in her eye she admitted, “I’m just tired.” Then she smiled as if to reassure him. “I’ll be just fine right here while you go hunt down that dinner you keep talking about.”
Chapter Seventeen
BECAUSE HIS WARNING and her own suspicions weighed heavily on her mind, Jessica curtailed her urge to wander along the stream. Instead she opened the bedrolls and made a ring of stones for the fire. Then she gathered dry brittle branches of piñon and sage and stacked them before she settled down beside the spring and unlaced her shoes. Once her feet were bare, she hiked up her skirt and waded into the shallow stream. The water barely lapped about her calves, but it offered cool relief from the heat trapped in the gorge.
She looked around at the breathtaking surroundings and was reminded that each time she forgot where she was, reality came sharply into focus to remind her. Southwest Colorado was still a wild, untamed land, a place where life could be snuffed out in an instant by forces of nature—or by the hands of another.
Carefully stepping over the smooth, slick stones in the creek bed, she worked her way back to the sandbank and then sat down, unwilling to leave the water’s edge. The water sang a merry tune as she watched the sun sink behind the western wall of the canyon. For a moment she concentrated in disbelief on the blue-green flash that lit up the canyon rim where it met the sky.
With the absence of direct sunlight, the colors along the canyon floor began to fade to varying shades of gray. With the afternoon shadows came a sense of timelessness. She could almost imagine huge reptilian beasts pausing beside the stream, their ponderous bodies leaving deep footprints in the mud.
Had Jerome Stoutenburg found evidence of such creatures before he died? Or had he stumbled upon a primitive gravesite? Had the discovery cost him his life?
She heard a footfall echo down the canyon and looked up. Rory waved and began to walk back toward the sandbank. Something dangled limply from his hand. Dinner, she supposed. Jess stood up and brushed the sand off of her skirt and decided to leave her shoes and stockings off. She thought about sleeping beneath the stars with Rory, of how she had blatantly chosen to sleep with him, and prayed she would not suffer for her impulsiveness. But after last night there was no turning back.
She wanted him. She’d be a fool to admit any less. I want you to want me, Jess, he’d told her once. Little did she know then how much she would come to want him, how much she would think of him, wait to hear his voice, his footsteps. To depend upon his strength. She watched him stride up the canyon, sure of himself and his surroundings. Each moment she spent with him made it that much more difficult to imagine ever leaving him to return to Boston. He was not only physically powerful, but able to move her through word and deed. Through his poetry, she’d come to know how sure he was of his love for her, but how long would he wait for her to decide to commit her love and life to him?
Until now, her work had been her life. How could she simply turn her back on paleontology?
Dinner consisted of black-tailed jackrabbit roasted over an open fire and beans cooked in the can that Rory had in his saddlebags. Her appetite had not returned. If anything, nervous anticipation kept her from enjoying the little she did eat.
Fully aware that she was suffering a case of nerves, Rory was careful not to push her, even though dragging out the process of cleaning up the supper remains and washing his face and hands in the creek was torture of another kind for him. Finally he settled down beside the fire and waited to see what she would do next.
It wasn’t long before she excused herself, pleading the need to answer nature’s call and adding a promise not to wander far away. He stared into the fire he’d lit to keep coyotes and other night prowlers at bay. He rubbed his hands on his thi
ghs and noticed the denim of his work pants was nearly worn through.
Her bare feet made a hushed sound as she walked through the sand. Jess returned quickly and waited in silence, standing so close to him that her skirt gently brushed his shoulder. He reached out and slipped his hand around her ankle, ran it up her smooth, well-turned calf, felt the dimples behind her knee.
She reached down and slipped her fingers into his hair and rubbed his head. The shy tenderness of her simple act sent a shaft of heat slicing through him. Rory slid his hand higher and caressed her thigh beneath her skirt. He felt her tremble, but she didn’t ask him to stop. He stroked her gently, working his hand higher until he came in contact with her filmy cotton drawers.
Her fingernails raked his scalp, massaging, stimulating, caressing. She worked her fingertips into his ear and traced its shape.
He slipped his fingers up inside the open leg of her drawers and gently explored the silken nest hidden there.
She gasped. Her knees buckled and she sank down beside him, legs spread wide as she welcomed his touch. Rory turned and rose until they knelt face-to-face in the coarse sand. His hand was hidden beneath her skirt, but he could see by the look of heated wonder on her face that his exploration was welcome. He stroked her with a slow even pace until she was panting. Jessica leaned into him, grasped him by the shoulders, and let him take her over the edge. She cried out when her release came and wrapped her arms about his neck. Her warm lips pressed against his neck. She tasted his skin with her tongue.
When the waves of passion subsided, Jessica raised her head and stared into his eyes. Firelight flashed in the ebony depths. “Will you write a poem about this someday?”
“You are a living, breathing love poem I could never put down on paper, Jess.”
His words moved her to act. She pressed her lips to his and this time taking the lead, slipped her tongue between his teeth and tasted deeply of his kiss. He returned her offering with a passion of his own, stroked her tongue with his as his hand stroked the moist, heated mound between her thighs.
“Try,” she whispered against his lips when the kiss ended.
He whispered back, “If I try any harder, I’ll explode.”
She shook her head, her excitement driving her to impatience. “No. Try a poem.”
“Later.” He grasped her shoulders and pushed her to the ground.
She tore at his shirt until it came free of his waistband then feverishly worked at the buttons of his pants until she could shove them down past his hips.
While Jess fought to free him of his clothes, Rory was not idle. He unbuttoned her shirtwaist blouse and pushed it back off her shoulders. She clung to him, raised up off the sand far enough for him to pull the blouse off and cast it aside. The sand had cooled with the coming of darkness—it felt rough and dry against her back.
Rory bent over her, pulled the lacy straps of her chemise off her shoulders, and shoved it down, exposing her to his gaze and hungry mouth. In the shimmering firelight her breasts were as round and firm as they had seemed in the total darkness of the hayloft. Her skin was gilded by the firelight that set the fool’s gold shimmering in the sand beneath her. The moment was magic, the night as alive as his blood thrumming through his veins.
He kissed her breasts. She arched against him and moaned, writhed, and begged until her whispered pleas for release softly echoed off the canyon walls.
His breath was hot against her skin as he whispered in her ear. “You want me, Jess? You want me now?”
A shiver raced through her. She was hot and cold, ice and fire. Her body was ready to receive him, she wanted to feel him slide into her, hot and hard. At that moment in time Jessica wanted him more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
“Yes,” she hissed, barely able to speak. “Yes, I want you.” Afraid she would climax again before he entered her, she cried out, “I want you right now.”
He wanted to prolong the torture, wanted to thrust into her and spill his seed and brand her his forever. But as much as he wanted to seek his own release, he also wanted to make this moment last forever. Their relationship was too new, and grounded on such a shaky foundation that he was afraid each time he held her it might be the last.
Rory grasped her wrists and pinned her arms to her sides then slid down her body until he rested between her legs. When he nipped at the tender sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, she dug her heels into the sand and lunged upward with a gasp. He trailed his tongue from her inner thigh to her knee and back up, teased the soft curls over the mound between her legs, dipped into and tasted of her honeyed core.
Jessica was sobbing, heaving sobs that matched the intense thrust of her hips as he delved into her most intimate recesses. Lost in the immense pleasure he was offering her, she closed her mind to everything else, to the hot night, to the multitude of stars carpeting the heavens above them, to the lonesome, plaintive cry of a coyote somewhere on the mesa. For that one intense moment in time he was her entire universe. Jessica gave herself over to him until every inch, every fiber of her being was his to use and control.
When her climax came again, she screamed his name and it echoed against the canyon walls.
Seconds later, as she lay drifting in a satiated void, certain she would never be able to move again, afraid she would never rise from this place in the sand because she had become part of the earth beneath her, Rory released her wrists and covered her with his body.
“We’re not through yet,” he whispered as he kissed her cheek. She felt his rod, hard and throbbing, tease the fluid entrance to her inner depths.
She moaned as her shattered senses began to come to life again. He prodded deeper, teasing her as he slid in and out of her, centimeter by centimeter. He kissed her shoulders, her neck, her lips and eyelids. He forced her to come alive again until finally, when her fingers dug into his hips to urge him on, Rory grasped her thighs and tilted her to receive him full length.
When she began to increase her pace, to provoke him with a swift undulation of her hips, Rory stilled. “Not yet, Jess. Not yet.”
Then, in a swift, fluid move that caught her by surprise, he rolled to his back, carrying her with him.
Jessica found herself straddling him, her knees splayed and buried in the sand. Rory grasped her by the shoulders and forced her to sit up until she was riding him. Her golden hair, shining like midnight sunbeams in the firelight, surrounded them like a curtain of rippling satin.
Too lost in the wonder of the moment to be embarrassed by the brazenness of this new position, she met his heated stare. His dark eyes blazed with reflected firelight. He was sheathed to the hilt inside her, filling her with a turgid strength that was foreign and yet as welcome as a homecoming.
“Ride me, Jess,” he whispered. “Take what you want.”
It was an easy request to fill. She began to move, slowly at first as she savored the new, pleasant excitement that pulsed through her. It took over until she was demanding more and more of him. He grasped her hips and shoved her up and down as her pace increased. Finally, when she thought she would surely die, he clasped her to him and held her there as his hips bucked and he filled her with his seed.
Jessica was lost. With her head thrown back, she stared up into the starry sky and convulsed over and over with shock waves of her own.
When it was over, she collapsed on his chest and he wrapped his arms about her, enveloping her with his warmth. The coyote howled again, but tonight she was protected from the loneliness of the plaintive cry.
LATER, AFTER SHE had splashed through a makeshift bath in the shallow stream and they had both dressed again, Jess leaned against her saddle and nestled beneath Rory’s arm. In silent contentment, they both stared into the fire. “You promised me a poem,” she said softly.
He kissed her temple. “Ummm. I’m too tired to think.”
&
nbsp; She nudged him with her elbow. “No excuses.”
“Promise you won’t laugh.”
Jessica reached out and laced her fingers through his. “Never. There’s nothing funny about your poetry.”
He watched the coals in the fire pop and break apart. Never in his life had he recited one of his poems aloud to anyone. Maybe it would be easier if he didn’t look at her. At the moment he thought it would be easier to ride Arthur again than put his feelings into words. The truth was he’d been working on a new poem ever since they had made love in the barn.
A promise is a promise.
It was one of his father’s unwritten laws.
He squeezed her hand and started slowly,
I’ll hold you, I’ll love you.
I want you to know,
I’ll hate it, but take it,
If you ever go.
I know now that somehow,
If we ever part, you’ve given me somethin’
To ease this old heart.
You might go, I don’t know.
I do know one thing,
While you’ve been beside me
You’ve made my heart sing.
She was silent so long he thought she’d fallen asleep in the middle of his recitation. He leaned over to peer into her face. She was staring off into the night, but the firelight revealed the tears shimmering in her eyes.
“Was it that bad?”
She turned to him. “I wish I didn’t have to hurt you. I wish I was certain of what I wanted.”
He smoothed her hair back off her face then traced her lips with his fingertips. His touch was feather light. She grabbed his hand, kissed the ends of his fingers, and then lowered it to her lap. Rubbing her thumb along the back of his hand, Jess took a deep breath and sighed heavily.
“I don’t want you to say anything because you feel sorry for me.” His voice held a note of anger. “You told me once not to marry you out of pity. I sure as hell don’t want the same thing from you. You have a job to do and I know you, Jess, you’ll do it come hell or high water.” He laughed at the truth of the old saying. “I’m not going anyplace. This is my land. I’ll be here when you decide you’ve had enough of that life.”
Past Promises Page 26