by Martha Hix
His pace slowing, he combed his fingers through the dark curls at the top of her thighs, his hand cupping her womanhood. He rubbed, tickled, crooned, finding a region more sensitive than any other. A rush went through her.
“I want to feel more of you,” he admitted and traced her lips with his. A finger slid inside her, the heel of his palm still at her special place. “You’re so tight. So wet. Never in all my days in the arena, did I ever want the conquest as much as I want it from you.”
Overwhelming were his admissions. He knew how to bring a woman to dizzying heights, and Margaret couldn’t get enough of his finger and palm. Suddenly, a tremor went through her. And all the while, he chanted his elation along with encouragements.
“In the language of Hugo,” she said, sometime after she’d begun the descent to rational thought, “this is called the little death. If this is dying, I have nothing to fear.”
“The lovely dying has only begun.” He moved his hand to her hip, sliding over the flesh, fastening on the curve of it. “May the Lady of Guadalupe strike me dead, but I’ve wanted to be your first lover. And your last.”
“You well may be.” . . . the last. She chopped off melancholy thoughts. Tomorrow was tomorrow, tonight was tonight, and who on this earth had a guarantee for the rocking chair and stewed prunes? “You have taunted me enough, mi espada. Do plunge your great knife into me.”
He nudged her knees apart to site himself between her legs. She sighed at all that waited impatiently at her womanly gate. Bit by bit, he eased inside. While he did, he murmured the sweet nothings of sex. Yet he hesitated at breeching her.
“I hate to hurt you. I hate it, ’Rita . . . but I must.”
“If you don’t give me relief, I’m going to scream.” On a fierce groan, he lunged. The membrane tore and she screamed, as she had threatened, but not for that reason. Despite the agony of her torn flesh, she felt an immense thrill at the same time. Impaled on the huge and thick blade of the grand espadachín, she curled her fingers into the hair on his chest, then moaned for more of all he had to give.
And he gave it.
Fifteen
“I’m proud of myself.” Margaret cuddled in Rafe’s arms. In the aftermath of lovemaking, in the aftermath of such a tide of shared satisfaction that she—and he—remained rocked to the core, joking seemed a natural and sequential happening. “Did you notice, Rafe? I didn’t ask, not once, how anything worked.”
He disengaged himself from the tangle that was them. “Are you pleased with my servicing, Margarita?”
Not having any experience with this sort of situation, she supposed it was a natural thing for a man to ask questions. Instinctively, though, she wasn’t quite convinced such a bald query was apropos. “What do you mean?”
“I want to make certain you got what you wanted.” He withdrew from bed and reached down for his discarded britches. “In this case, rid of your maidenhead.”
Surely he didn’t—He wouldn’t—Was she caught in a nightmare? No! This is reality. “I didn’t expect this reaction from you. Do you always behave this way after bedding a virgin?”
“I told you. I prefer a more seasoned woman. You’re my first virgin in a good while. As for your fishwife-hectoring, don’t forget . . . you begged.”
Speechless, wounded, she tried to assimilate the message he sent. Unless other women expected a lot less than this, Margaret couldn’t understand how he claimed title to his venerated and rampant reputation as a great lover.
“Don’t huddle like a wounded sparrow, Margaret.”
He hadn’t called her Margarita or ’Rita. While he reached for his shirt, moonlight splashed across the muscles of his back, the play of them showing off the superb physique that had just moments ago been so close, yet evidently so far, from her. Slowly, hesitantly, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Going outside for a smoke.”
“Oh. I see. I guess.” She yearned to say something—anything!—to recapture the beauty of what they had shared, but her voice deserted her. He’s leaving for more than a smoke. Ridiculous. He wasn’t going anywhere but outside.
He pushed a foot into a boot, then tugged on its pull straps, and set to work on the other. He began to gather bits and pieces of this and this, then stuffed them in his britches pockets. In nothing flat he was at the door.
Hoping she read signs that weren’t there, she asked in a voice an octave higher than normal, “What did I do? I know I didn’t have any experience in giving pleasure, but I’d hoped to please you.”
“Have you ever noticed, all you think about is the world as it relates to Miss Margaret McLoughlin?”
His cold words chilled her heart. Maybe, possibly, she had behaved selfishly. Charity, during their most recent visit, last summer, had accused her of becoming too insular. Of course, Charity was gregarious and unstoppable, having never met a stranger or an unworthy cause.
It didn’t take much for Margaret to recall very real problems, not hers. “Forgive me if I seem heartless,” she said. “I am concerned about you, Rafe. I’d like to know how you feel, returning to Mexico after so many years. Returning to . . . to all you have returned to.”
“I don’t feel. I do.”
Until now, she wouldn’t have believed him an unfeeling person. “Pancho Villa told me about the trouble you’re having with your uncle. He said Arturo Delgado accuses you of murder.”
“Pancho Villa talks too much.”
“You didn’t do it, did you, kill your cousin?”
“I . . . I don’t know Rafe strapped on a spur, unnecessary equipment for smoking. “There were a lot of bullets flying. It could have been mine” He wiped a hand down his face. “It may have been mine”
“Oh, dear.” Into the weighty quiet that fell, she asked, “Is the law looking for you?”
“The law that is Arturo Delgado.”
“He’s why you didn’t come back to Mexico, isn’t he?”
“No, Margarita. Neither Hernándo nor his father was the reason I stayed in Texas.”
He said no more, an answer in itself. Rafe didn’t wish to discuss his reasons for becoming an expatriate. She ought not to press him on the subject. Ought not to. However, she’d traveled with a man who’d just admitted to a possible murder. She just gave him her virginity, her aching bottom reminded her. What in the world had she done? What in the world should she do next? It might be better to let him have his smoke, carte blanche.
That was the cowardly way. She swallowed. “Did it—Did your staying have to do with a woman?”
“If you must know, yes.”
“Olga?”
“I don’t kiss and tell.” He combed his hair.
It was better, his silence on that more important woman. Margaret convinced her heart his special woman wasn’t her sister. It hurt less that way. “What are you planning to do?” she asked. “About your brother, I mean.”
“I haven’t decided.”
Feeling a certain kinship, she said, “So . . . we both have brothers to worry over.”
“I meant to tell you, Tex is fine,” Rafe said in a dismissive tone. “He rode up a few minutes before I left Villa outside. Everything is taken care of, he said. He was half-asleep, so Pedro gave up his bedroll. Tex said he’d see you in the morning.”
Seeing a light in the awful abyss, she exclaimed, “Thank heavens! I tried to tell myself he was okay, but I’ve been dying a thousand deaths.”
“I know the thousand deaths,” Rafe commented dryly. “Xzobal will be shot. If he’s captured.”
“Is he safe for now?”
“For now.”
“Don’t you think that’s a good sign?” She made every effort to infuse a chipper note.
“Margarita, I am not in the mood for this conversation.”
“What are you in the mood for?” she asked hesitantly
“A smoke.”
Out of patience, weary of his hot and cold, and just plain tired from an eventful day and an even more eventful evenin
g, she turned her back, yanking the sheet over her shoulder.
Her expectation was to hear the door closing behind him. She heard him exhale. She heard him turn. He retraced his footsteps. Leaning across her, he guided her to face him, combed his fingers through her hair, and pressed his thumb just below her earlobe. “I can’t leave here, uh, can’t go outside without telling you . . . Thank you, bruja de dulce. It fills me with pride that you gave me the glorious gift of your virginity”
What in the dickens was she supposed to say to that? She kept her silence for a change.
“You are too good for me, my beautiful blue-eyed ’Rita. I am all the dirty names you called me in the past. And more. You were unwise to trust me.”
“But—”
“Shhh.” He pressed a fingertip to her lips. “Please remember something, ’Rita. Odd as it may seem, and no matter what happens, I didn’t set out to hurt you. But I did as I’ve always done. I took without planning to give anything real in return.” He paused. “I have nothing of myself to give back.”
“I don’t expect anything from you,” she said. “But I think you’re wrong when you say you have nothing to give back. You have much to give. And your great skill as a lover is but a small part of what you have to give . . . El Aguila.”
“Remember that when times get bad.”
Rafe quit the casita and made a beeline for Villa. “Draw me a map. I want to know exactly where Xzobal is hiding. And—by the ghost of Father Hidalgo—I don’t want any trouble out of you. ¿Comprende?”
Villa waved his hands in understanding and compliance. “When will you leave?”
“Now.”
“You disappoint me, El Aguila. Since before my first shave, I thought you were a rebel through and through. When you headed outside just now, I assumed your rebellious streak hadn’t been lost, that we’d ride together against the skunk of Santa Alicia.”
“You assumed wrong. I thought we settled that earlier.”
Villa glanced at his house, then at Rafe. “You have left the pretty toothpick. You cannot sleep. You are troubled.”
Troubled? He was more than troubled. But he needed to work this situation to its best and safest advantage. “All right, Villa, I’ll join you. After I’ve seen my brother to safety.”
“That’s all I ask. The robbery will wait for you.” The bandit paused. “But what about your wife? What will you do with the toothpick, while you are saving Father Xzobal?”
What about Margarita? Rafe squeezed the bridge of his nose before exhaling. He’d been hard-hearted on purpose. When he’d gone to her bed, he’d tried to make her furious enough to toss on his ear. Afterward—after her unabashed, rejoicing loving—he’d tried to make it easy for her to hate him. Why? His were the ways of a scoundrel. The epithet fit him like the silk stockings of a matador. Yet, in hindsight, he knew he shouldn’t have entered that casita. He shouldn’t have disrobed. He shouldn’t have made love to her. His lusts had been his undoing.
Just minutes ago, he’d driven himself into her, time after time, each time with more force, a man possessed with the wonders of the virginal Margarita. He ached—plain hurt!—for another taste of her lips, for another opportunity to thrust himself mercilessly into the hot glove of her.
Sweat popped on his upper lip. Even in her innocence, she was fifty times the lover her sister had been. Except for that one special and spontaneous night in the shadow of the Alamo.
Despite being wrong—or was it naive?—in her political sympathies, Margarita was more woman than any hombre ought to have a right to. You had no right to her. Would that he could have the chance to set her straight. But it was too late for could’s and would’s and chances-were. The only thing left was to leave her.
Villa repeated his question.
“Her brother will attend her from here.” Rafe took a menacing step forward and bared his teeth. “If you should cross her path, keep your hands to yourself. Make sure your niños stay away. If I find you’ve betrayed me, I will kill you, Francisco Villa.”
“There will be no need for murder.” Villa gave a half nod. “But if not for her ties to you, El Aguila, I would want the pretty toothpick for my own. For retraining purposes,” he added with a snicker, “if nothing else.”
“Just draw the map.”
Villa went to his saddlebag and removed writing tools. Within a few minutes, he handed the sketch over. “Take the pinto. It is a good gelding. Vaya con Dios, amigo.”
Rafe whipped around, making for Margarita’s brother and shaking his shoulder. “Wake up, McLoughlin. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Huh? What? Me? Oh, yeah.” He rubbed his eyes. “What can I do for ya, Rafe ole buddy?”
“Saddle up. Give me ten minutes, then collect your sister. Strike out for the city of Chihuahua. It’s not far—”
“I been there already. And—”
“Don’t interrupt. Just listen. Don’t let Margarita out of your sight. When you hit town, find the Avenida de los Niños Sacrificio. Call on the Naked Rooster cantina. Ask for an hombre named Hector Flores. He’ll show you the way to Eden Roc.”
“You mean you’re not going with us? But you promised my sister—You’re welshing on the deal, Rafe. I figured you was a better feller than that.”
“I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. And that is help someone in dire straits.” Sternly, like a father, Rafe asked, “Now—will you promise me you’ll not let ’Rita out of your sight?”
“ ’Course I’ll take care of her. But I—”
“I figured you would. You’re a good hombre, Tex McLoughlin. I hope you find your Natalie again someday.”
“Boy howdy, so do I.”
Rafe saddled the borrowed pinto, put his booted foot in the stirrup, and swung into the saddle. Now to Xzobal. Rapido. He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t allow himself a glance. But you’ll never see her again. A stab of pain—like iced heat—pierced his chest, as he had lanced between her legs. He knew that if he saw Margarita, or got a look at no more than the casita where they had made love, he wouldn’t be able to ride out of here.
He put a spur to the gelding’s flank.
In the wee hours of a cold and damp night in the District of Columbia, Maisie McLoughlin shivered. She shivered despite the roaring fire in the hearth of her grandson’s library, and the many layers of woolen night clothes she had gotten her nearly century-old body into. She shivered at what seemed to be happening to her family.
Insomnia had brought her downstairs for a cup of brandy-laced cocoa. Curiosity carried her to this Boston rocker that she now set in motion. Something kept The Honorable Gil McLoughlin awake, as well.
Fastening a look of disapproval on the Secretary of State, she waited for him to ’fess up. Any confession had nothing to do with the fraud that was her grandson. He claimed to hate cats, yet Deniece and Denephew lolled on his desk like fat characters from the funny papers, their loose hair a duo of coronas in the gaslight.
Cats had nothing to do with it.
For weeks Maisie had carried the terrible suspicion that her silver-haired Gilliegorm, who scratched an ink pen across paper, was keeping something from her. “Lad, did ye or did ye not, have some other reason for sending our Margaret to Mexico?”
He dipped into the ink pot. “I told you. I want Lisette back with me, and I knew I could depend on our daughter.”
“Ye coulda gone after yer wife all by yerself.”
“Maisie, America is on the verge of war,” he said tiredly and rubbed his eyes. “You know I can’t leave the capital. Not for any reason. Not even for a footloose wife.”
Footloose wife. Hmm. Maisie fell in love with the patient and serene Lisette on that first day she’d laid eyes on the blonde, in Kansas, in September of ’69. Sometimes she feared she loved the German girl more than Gilliegorm himself loved his wife. He tended to be tense, overzealous in his undertakings, too earnest and serious in the making of money or peace. Too neglectful of family. He assumed—and expected—they would under
stand him and all the things he held in high regard. Personally, Maisie figured him for a jackanapes.
And for all the lass’s strength, Lisette was as soft as a marshmallow on the inside. It hurt her to play second fiddle.
It wasn’t Maisie’s intention to quiz him about the couple’s relationship—that would be seeking more trouble than Charles Stuart got at Culloden Moor—but this centenarian would get to the bottom of her concerns, or she’d be buried alive in this confounded uncomfortable rocker. Devil a bit! ’Tis no good for a coffin.
“Did she leave ye?”
He gripped the pen until India ink sprayed on his letter. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”
“Canna sleep.”
“I’ll fix you a hot toddy”
“Nay. Ye doona have t’ answer me in so many words.”
She knew the answer. And it hurt. It hurt, like when she’d lost her Sandy And their sons. And their other grandchildren. And the great-grandson also known as Gilliegorm. Having her family out of her control—having them where she couldn’t make everything right—well, what was the use in living a hundred years?
Her gnarled hands gripped the rocker arms as if they were a mooring device. “I willna be bothering ye about our darlin’ Lisette again. But I will be telling ye—Ye were a selfish lad, sending our Margaret off t’ Mexico at a time like this.” Maisie sucked her teeth. “Ye know how she was needing t’ get ready t’ take on that job at Brandington College. And ye know she ain’t fit o’ body That sawbones Woodward said—”
“Goddamn it, Maisie, leave go with your nagging.” He slammed the pen to his desktop. “I know my own daughter’s problems, thank you very much.”
“I think ye sent the lass t’ . . .” Maisie felt the gullies of her face spreading as she smiled. “T’ match our lass up with that nice lad Rafael.”
Gilliegorm patted Deniece’s head; she purred. “Rafe Delgado is a good man, for a Casanova. Needs some direction, but if Margaret can’t get him directed, no one can.”