Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  She managed to brace herself against the wooden fence railing and stayed upright, but she was waging a full-out internal war. Battling the intense desire to turn around and reach for him. Fighting the insistent urge to scream out his name. Most of all, she desperately tried to hold the coming pinnacle and make this heaven and hell last.

  When his fingers slid between her thighs, Lexie feared the jolt might just blow the top of her head off. She opened her eyes wide but stopped breathing, waiting for his next move.

  She didn’t have long to wait. Holding her steady by biting down on her neck, he began stroking and kneading the flesh on both her buttocks and the inside of her thighs. His sensual movements were sending her off to some kind of higher plane. A place where pain and pleasure mixed and became fantasy.

  When she felt a sudden rush of warm wetness between her legs, his calloused thumbs touched the opening to her most sensitive spot. She moaned, squirmed involuntarily. She heard him groan, too, then before she knew what he’d intended, he’d lifted the T-shirt up and over her head.

  Feeling him kneel behind her, she quieted, stunned at what he was doing. His warm breath began reheating the already sensitive skin of her buttocks. Dazed and confused, and so crazed with desire she could barely breathe, she had no choice but to give herself over to him.

  Gently, almost tenderly, he used his thumbs to spread her legs. In a trance, she accommodated him by adjusting her stance. Lexie couldn’t quite understand what he wanted and felt a flush of embarrassment, knowing he was staring at her normally hidden places up close. Then, she felt him touch the tip of his finger to the pulsating spot that ached the most for attention. Moments later, his finger moved inside her and set off the explosion she had tried so hard to hold back.

  Everything felt so foreign and yet so erotic and satisfying that it had pushed her right over the cliff. She hadn’t wanted to go alone, but found it impossible to hold in the scream of pleasure, let alone hold back the rising tides of her release.

  She felt sultry and lethargic now but Michael apparently was moving fast behind her. Through her smoky, lusty haze, she heard a zipper lower. Next she was bent forward in the middle as he pushed at her back. Gripping her tightly around the waist, he plunged inside her with one swift movement. The sensation of being pervaded by him drew her up again, drove sparks along all her nerve endings and awakened all her senses.

  He stilled, waiting as her body stretched and allowed him greater access. After only a moment, he began a slow stroke, filling her and sending her senses soaring. How could she so soon be back on that tight edge again? Never before had anyone…

  Gulping for air, she heard him doing the same. But his rhythm remained steady, until tension curled so tightly in her gut she thought she might physically come apart and implode this time.

  His thrusts increased then, growing to a frantic and furious pace. She stayed with him all the way, reveling in the way his muscles hardened to steel. In an amazing feat, he brought them both to the boundary of their erotic universe as one.

  Strobe lights started up behind her closed eyelids, as her entire body shattered into a trillion pieces. Lost in a personal shower of electricity and shooting stars, this time she let currents take her wherever they would.

  Michael regulated his breathing and waited to hear Lexie do the same. He was determined not to move a muscle, to keep her tightly within his arms until he was sure she was okay. But his knees were shaky. His body still vibrated from the savage pleasure he’d taken from her.

  What had he done? Had the primitive animal, who’d taken her out in the open without so much as one kiss, really been him? He’d never done anything so intensely crazy in his entire life.

  He didn’t regret one instant. But how would he explain his insanity to her? He couldn’t say, “Sorry, but the mere sight of you standing under the stars in nothing but my T-shirt drove me crazy.” And he wouldn’t tell her that the bone-deep pleasure of dipping his fingers into her heat and wetness had been enough to make a grown man cry. Nor could he gather enough courage to say he never would’ve been able to go through with it at all if he’d had to face her.

  Just seeing her looking up at him as he took her, knowing she would think him a traitor to her husband’s memory, would have stopped him cold.

  It wasn’t something he could ever explain. To her, or to himself. But he would never forget it.

  Where did that leave them now, though? His harsh and inconsiderate moves may even have cost them a friendship. What’s more, without the first thought toward protection, his errors may well end up bringing her more trouble than she could handle. Lexie was adept at being a single mother to one half-Navajo child. But two?

  Michael felt her stirring beneath him. Her jerky movements began to revive passion in a man who thought he must surely be too exhausted for anything more tonight.

  He tried to ignore the returning heat in his body, and swore there would be no more accidents or savagery on his account. Especially not out here under the open canopy of the cosmos where anyone could spot them.

  Finding a steadier footing, he straightened up, taking her with him. She nearly collapsed as her knees gave out, so he swung her up in his arms and headed for the hogan, determined once again to protect her—even if it had to be from himself.

  Kicking open the hogan door, Michael gently lowered her naked body down on top of the nest of sheepskins he’d made for her earlier. He quickly moved away from temptation and toward his own corner, all the while wondering how they could ever go back to working together tomorrow.

  But then, in the low glow of moonlight, he saw Lexie open her eyes and reach out to him. “Stay. Don’t walk away. Just please hold me.”

  How could he say no to anything she asked of him? Even knowing touching her right now would not be a good idea, he nevertheless went back and lay down beside her, gathering her close. Because she’d asked him to.

  She rolled tightly against his body and buried her face in his neck with a moan. His insides twisted and hardened again. His whole body flashed back to attention.

  An impossible situation was about to get a whole lot worse.

  Throughout the rise and fall of the night’s full moon, they reached for each other again and again. All his vows of protection and all his swearing to be more careful simply disappeared whenever she whispered his name.

  He was bound to pay a dear price for all this pleasure. His harmony and balance would definitely be affected badly by such unbridled passion with a woman who didn’t belong to him. But he’d be damned if he could worry about that in the face of her desire.

  Swimming up from some weird dreamless sleep, Michael cracked open his eyes and found dawn already streaming through the windows and the open door. He turned his head to look for Lexie and spotted her standing over the cookstove in the middle of the one big room.

  She had on his T-shirt again and appeared to be readying something to cook. He held his breath for the moment and took in the gorgeous, sleep-tossed sight of her.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked as he sat up and reached for the jeans he’d thrown aside in the middle of the night.

  “Fixing mush…or I will be as soon as the water boils. I watched your mother preparing mush the other day. And when I found an old mayonnaise jar filled with ground blue cornmeal, I thought I’d give it a try.”

  Michael felt his heart skip a beat. “You know how to use a wood-fired cookstove?” This was a very special woman and he was absolutely crazy about her.

  She smiled. “Sure. Dan and I lived in Alaska for few months one winter. Everyone there learns or freezes.”

  Those words stopped him, reminding him of the many mistakes he’d already made with her. With his brother’s widow, dammit. What a complete imbecile he was.

  However, Lexie didn’t look as if she was the least bit miserable or feeling ashamed the way he was. Instead, she most resembled a woman who had happily made love throughout the night, and who now was fixing breakfast for the very
man who had made her so happy.

  That thought made him completely lose his appetite. What in hell was he going to do with all these unchecked emotions? All the guilt. The lust. The love. The love?

  His stomach rolled. When had the practical, intelligent man he’d always thought himself to be disappeared? Well whenever it was, he desperately needed to find his old familiar self, the man who didn’t love or lust uncontrollably, once again.

  “I’m sure whatever you fix will be terrific,” he told her as he shoved his arms into his flannel long-sleeved shirt. “But I think I’d better make plans to get away from here before the sun gets too high. I also want to check on the wildfire. See if it’s still smoldering.”

  “You’re not thinking of starting the twenty-mile walk without even eating, are you?”

  Shaking his head and turning his back, he was not able to look at her without taking her in his arms. He needed time. He needed space. He needed a brain transplant.

  “I thought first I’d go back and check on the pickup,” he muttered over his shoulder. “See how much damage the fire caused. Maybe some miracle saved my phone.

  “But you go ahead and eat something,” he added as he pulled on his boots. “Then change clothes and start packing up. I’ve decided, whatever way we choose to get out of here, we’re going to go together.”

  More than an hour later, Lexie was beginning to worry. What was taking Michael so long? She tried to kept the tiny frisson of panic she’d been battling out of her mind. But what would she do if something happened to him?

  She finished tying her boots and decided to walk down the steep slope to see if she could find him. After a few trying yards of slipping on the gravel rocks, Lexie came to a stop and leaned over, peering downward into the wash.

  But Michael wasn’t anywhere in sight. She’d almost turned back when she spotted something that nearly floored her. The rushing water in the bottom of the wash had become a mere trickle.

  That was good, wasn’t it? Maybe now they could follow the wash downstream instead of either trying to strike out across the arid mesa to a neighbor’s or fighting backward the way they’d come through still smoldering forests. She wondered how far this wash actually went before it ran into other homes or a town. Such a good source of water must hit civilization eventually.

  She would just have to wait and ask Michael to be sure. There was no sense letting her nerves push her into doing something rash like leaving without him just because he was late. He’d be back in a while. Nothing could possibly happen to him. Not when he was so strong, so intelligent, so—sexy.

  Oh boy, what a damned, dumb woman she was, Lexie chided herself. She’d been doing her level best not to think about the terrific sex they’d shared last night. Michael apparently hadn’t even wanted to bring it up this morning. She’d never seen anyone so anxious to get away from her after he’d awoken. He’d practically run out the door the minute he opened his eyes.

  But he certainly was in her thoughts, and had been for every single minute since she’d awoken this morning. What they’d done together came back to her in erotic flashes when she least expected them. The two of them had shared something more than just sensual—more even than simply beautiful and intense. It had been way beyond her experience.

  And it wasn’t going to ever happen again. At least ithad better not. She couldn’t seem to shake the aftereffects. Even now, hours later, her body still burned and she still felt needy and desperate for his touch.

  He obviously didn’t feel the same. So that was that.

  Still, last night he’d seemed so solicitous. Her mind went right back to dwelling on him, despite her best intentions. He’d been gentle and loving. Well, all right, so he’d also been savage and a little rough. But that was only what she’d wanted him to be. He’d done everything in the way she’d imagined a dream lover would. That had been why she’d been so sure he must really care for her. Then.

  This morning everything had changed. The arrogant professor who apparently wanted the crazy psychic to be cured just so she could leave his territory had been back in his eyes. Her sexy warrior lover had disappeared along with the night.

  She’d learned a lesson. A hard lesson. Never let yourself go with a man who refuses to talk. This morning she felt lonely and sort of guilty—and she wasn’t about to let that happen again.

  Silently berating herself, she turned away from the wash and headed back up the slope to wait for him. He’d get here whenever he got here. As he’d told her once, she needed more patience.

  When Lexie reached the level ground, she halted in place at an odd and slightly scary sight. A middle-aged Navajo woman dressed in modern clothes seemed to be quietly waiting for her near the hogan.

  Startled but not afraid, because Michael had promised the place was protected from Skinwalkers and evil, Lexie walked closer to the woman. She sure hoped this lady knew a little English.

  “Ya’at’eeh,” the Navajo woman said.

  “Hi. Do you live around here?”

  “No, daughter-in-law of the Big Medicine Clan. I have come only to offer advice. To give directions and messages to the new Message Bearer.”

  Lexie couldn’t help the shudder that ran along her backbone. Heavens. This wasn’t a neighbor coming to their aid, it was another ghostly spirit. Very probably another of Michael and Dan’s relatives.

  She tried to give the ghost a half smile. Maybe her advice and message would be about how to find their way out of this place.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked for lack of knowing what was proper. “A cup of water?”

  The woman shook her head and smiled.

  Lexie wondered at how stupid she could possibly be to offer water to a ghost But, she sure wished she had something to drink herself. Her throat had gone dry and raspy at the very idea of hearing from one more ghost.

  “You know who I was in life,” the ghost told her. “I was known as the Plant Tender during my time in this world.”

  “Oh?” Ooohhh. Michael had said his aunt, Shirley Nez, the Old Plant Tender, had been killed by Skinwalkers. This must be her. Another chill skipped through Lexie’s veins.

  “My nephew has strayed from the correct path. He lets his heart rule his head. I have come asking for your help to set him straight again.”

  Michael letting his heart rule his head? That sure didn’t sound like the arrogant professor Lexie knew.

  “The man you love has the power to find the answers,” the ghost began again.

  The man she what? No way. She did not love Michael Ayze. Not even a little bit. No doubt that he’d been a terrific and sensitive lover. But he was a hell of a long way from being a man she could really love. When and if she ever loved a man again, that man would be able to talk to her openly and easily.

  “Look, I don’t—” she began.

  The ghost broke through her denial with a slight shake of her head. “Lead him to the desert. To the place he’d meant to search. Today. I will give you directions to make it easier to find the way.”

  “Today?” If they actually got the heck out of this remote wilderness today, all Lexie wanted was to find Jack and hold him in her arms. And then she wanted to take a nice long nap.

  “Wasted moments bring a bigger potential for disaster.”

  Okay, Lexie understood they were in a war and war required sacrifices, but there might be yet another problem. “What if he won’t listen to me? I tried to tell him before not to go nuts looking for some old medicine man guy that might not still be alive.”

  “He will listen now.”

  If so, it would be the first miracle Lexie would ever witness. “I’ll try.”

  The ghost told her the directions then, and Lexie made herself memorize every word. She refused to do a bad job in her first real assignment as the Message Bearer.

  When the ghost finished talking, Lexie thought of something else. “What if we get chased again? Or what if someone tries to hurt us because they think I’m a witch?”


  “By the time the sun sets tomorrow you will find the answer,” the ghost said with another smile. “Listen to your lover. Then listen to your own heart.”

  Lexie opened her mouth to ask more questions about how to get out of the witchcraft business and about how to make Michael pay attention, but right then she heard an odd noise coming from down in the wash and turned to listen. It sounded like…

  An engine? Could that be?

  She spun back, but the ghost was gone. Inching her way down the slope again, Lexie got to where she could see into the wash below. After a moment of standing there staring toward the noise that seemed to be coming from upstream, she saw something big as it appeared at the sharp bend in the wash.

  Her heart began beating so hard she thought she might faint, until she realized it was Michael’s red pickup, making its way along the rutted and almost dry wash bottom. The truck was still running. They were saved.

  12

  “Y ou’d rather go straight to the desert and not stop to see Jack first? But you haven’t seen him in over twenty-four hours.” Michael eased down on the gas, tensed as he felt the tires slipping against the rocks on the wash bottom, then relaxed again as they caught traction and moved the pickup forward.

  He was worried about Lexie. After he’d found the pickup in good shape and his phone high and dry, he’d thought she would jump at the chance to go back to civilization. Instead, the minute the pickup had been loaded with their stuff and the hogan cleaned and closed, she’d begun begging him to travel in the opposite direction, off to Monument Valley to look for petroglyphs.

  “We could use your phone to call Jack at your sister’s, couldn’t we?” she hedged, and he noticed her plea for understanding. “As long as I can hear my boy’s voice and know he’s okay, I think I can wait a little longer to see him in person.”