As painful as the truth was to admit, Mac realized he'd been fooled. Savannah's passionate kiss had merely been a smoke screen to distract him from their plans to follow him.
Mac swallowed a frustrated curse. Once again, when he thought he'd taken a step forward with Savannah, he found he'd taken two steps backward.
Duped by an angel...
If she only knew how much power she held over my emotions—and my heart.
She would pity him, Mac decided, forcing himself to be brutally honest. If she didn't pity him, she would be furious at how he'd ruined their friendship by falling in love with her.
"Son-of-a-bitch!” Roy suddenly howled, startling Mac from his unpleasant thoughts. Cactus gave an alarmed snort, which neither seemed to notice.
"What happened?” Savannah demanded.
"That son-of-a-bitchin’ horse bit me when I tried to take the saddle off of him!"
Roy needed his mouth washed out with soap, Mac decided grimly. At least they needn't worry about curious critters tonight, for Roy's howling had probably frightened everything for miles around.
"Well,” Savannah declared, finally beginning to sound irritated with the brat, “If you're through shouting, I'm going to try to get some shut-eye."
"Go ahead,” Roy grumbled. “I'll stand guard. Thanks to Buckaroo, I don't think I'd be able to sleep anyway. Besides, Mac would expect me to protect you."
"Of course he would."
Savannah's voice had softened; Mac had to strain to hear over the gentle gurgling of the creek water that separated him from his lady love.
"He likes you, Roy. Mac just has trouble showing his feelings. I should know, he has the same problem around me."
Of all the—! Mac had to physically restrain himself from stomping across the creek and jerking Savannah over his knee. After the past week in his company how could she baldly state that he had trouble showing his feelings? He kissed her at every opportunity. Touched her when he thought he could get away with it. And just last night, he'd nearly claimed her virginity!
With a disgruntled sigh and a self-reminder that he'd never understand females, Mac settled against the tree again. He marveled anew at Roy's tracking abilities. And was that warm rush of feeling in his chest pride? He hardly knew the boy! Yet that's exactly what he was feeling; pride in the boy's accomplishment.
He'd tell Roy, too, after he taught him an important lesson about disobeying a direct order from his trainer. Maybe then Savannah would realize how terribly wrong she was about him. He had no trouble at all showing his feelings.
"Good night, Roy."
Her sleep-husky voice sent shivers along Mac's spine, reminding him of last night and how close he'd came to making her his in every way imaginable.
"Good night, Miss Carrington. Sleep tight, and don't you worry about a thing. I plan to stay awake all night."
Mac couldn't help but smile. Roy sounded just as sleepy as Savannah. He suspected it would only be a matter of time before he could begin the lesson.
* * * *
Exhausted, Savannah drifted to sleep to the sweet, lulling sound of creek water gurgling over the rocks.
She didn't stir when Roy began to snore, or when Billy stamped her feet restlessly, but the nearly imperceptible disruption in the steady flow of the creek water brought her instantly awake.
A quiet swish, then silence. Another swish, and silence once again. She lay wide-eyed and still, listening intently. It came again. Swish ... swish ... swish.
Someone or something was crossing the creek in stealthy movements, and since she could hear Roy snoring, she knew it couldn't be him. Silently, she rose from her bedroll and crept behind the tree she'd propped her boots against. She removed the small derringer from her pocket, heart pounding, mouth dry.
There was a half moon, but it scudded behind clouds more often than not, leaving her in the dark. She could make out vague shapes—the outline of her bedroll, and the indistinct shape of her horse.
And beyond that ... a bulky shadow emerging from the darkness, advancing steadily in her direction. She swallowed hard, yet quietly.
The shadow paused by her bedroll.
Savannah took a deep, quiet breath, wishing the moon would cooperate. The intruder wasn't a bear; she felt certain she would have smelled him or heard it breathing. The only scent she could detect was the aroma of pine needles and creek water. A man, then. It had to be a man. Another thief? Savannah's lips tightened at the thought. She had nothing of value, just a rented horse, a bedroll, and the man's clothing she wore.
But she wasn't prepared to give up her meager belongings to this thief. This time she was better prepared.
Her finger quivered on the trigger of her gun. She'd have to be quick. She'd have to step forward as she cocked the hammer and press it against his head before he realized she was behind him.
Above her, the clouds parted. Moonlight filtered through the tree tops for a brief moment, shedding enough illumination on her subject to spur her forward.
It was now or never.
A twig snapped beneath her feet. Savannah froze, breath and all. In a flurry of movement that left her stunned, the man toppled her to the ground and thrust his hand on over her mouth. His body sprawled across hers, pinning her down. Her derringer flew from her hand and landed on the ground with a soft plop. Hands roamed roughly along her hips and legs, as if searching for something—a weapon, perhaps? then up over her breasts.
He became stock-still, one hand returning to cup her heaving breast. Slowly, his hand took flight again, moving along her shoulders until his fingers bumped against her thick braid. He explored it like a blind man.
"Savannah?” the man whispered incredulously, removing his hand from her mouth.
Savannah struggled to catch her breath. “Mac?” she gasped, peering at the shadowed face leaning over her. She'd never been so glad to see him in her life! Before she could say more, he placed a warning finger against her lips. He picked her up in his arms and rose, carrying her back across the creek and into the dense forest. She marveled that he could move so easily in the dark—and carrying her, no less!
When she could no longer hear Roy snoring, he sat her on her feet. Savannah leaned weakly against a tree. Her legs were shaking from the aftermath of her scare.
Then it hit her.
Mac was here. Mac was standing before her, watching her intently. Silently.
She struggled to make out his expression. Why didn't he speak? Was he that furious? She began to fidget. Of course he was furious. Mac had ordered them to remain in Cornwall.
They had followed him instead, blundering through the forest, stopping to check the temperature of each pile of horse manure they came across.
Belatedly, her chin rose. She didn't have to obey Mac's orders. They were friends, not husband and wife. They had a deal, and in making the deal nothing had been mentioned about ‘obeying’ orders. If something had been said, she would have reminded him then and there that she was a grown woman who could take care of herself, make her own decisions.
Besides, other than her fright, nothing serious had happened to her.
Mac stepped closer. Very close. Close enough for her to see the faint glimmer of his eyes and feel his warm breath on her face. Savannah drew in a sharp breath as his hands moved to the top button of the man's shirt she wore. With an expert twist of his fingers, he slipped the button free and moved on to the next one.
"Mac?” She licked her lips, damning the darkness and his silence—which was beginning to unnerve her. “What—what are you doing?"
"I'm doing what any other red-blooded male would do if he came upon a woman alone in the woods,” Mac whispered.
Savannah gave a shaky laugh, edging to the side in the hopes of slipping out of the trap he'd made with his arm. He was teasing her, of course, just like he always did...
Her laugh turned into a gasp when he thrust his leg between hers, pressing intimately against her mound and pinning her effectively against the t
ree. He finished the fourth button and nudged the material to one side, exposing the pale oval of her breast to the night air. Her nipple immediately puckered.
She made a half-hearted attempt to cover herself, but Mac pushed her hand away. “Mac ... I'm not alone,” she reminded him, hating the quiver in her voice. When Mac touched her, everything about her was prone to quiver.
"Listen,” Mac said.
They fell silent. Through the dense trees and across the gurgling creek, Savannah heard a sound that mocked her attempts to defend herself—and Roy.
It was the sound of Roy snoring.
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Chapter Thirteen
"He's just a boy, Mac. I wasn't really depending on him to protect me."
Thank God she had that much sense, Mac thought. He leaned in and brushed his chest against her budding nipple. Back and forth. She drew in a sharp breath.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because this is what someone else would be doing if they had found you,” Mac said as sternly as he could muster, considering his voice had grown husky. “But maybe you're right—maybe they wouldn't be so nice. Maybe they'd do something like this."
He bent forward and plunged his mouth over her quivering nipple, suckling hard. She arched her back and moaned; his manhood acted accordingly, lunging against his trousers as if to burst free.
"So this ... is a lesson,” she said breathlessly.
Mac didn't have time to speculate on the reason she sounded disappointed. He was busy working his mouth and teeth over her breast, feasting on her satin skin and the quivering tip that seemed so eager for his attention. He ground his thigh between her legs, making her gasp. Again and again he reminded himself that it could have been someone else, and that someone else could not have possibly loved her as he loved her.
Despite his efforts to stay focused, the lesson he'd intended to teach her got lost somewhere between her thigh-clenching reaction and her gut-clenching moan. The desperate fingers she buried in his hair completed his sudden memory lapse.
"What—what else might they do, Mac?"
Her throaty, provocative question made him moan. Breathing hard, he drew back to peer at her in the darkness. They were relatively alone, surrounded by ageless trees and miles from the nearest town. Pressed against the tree with her shirt gaping and her eyelids drooping, she had never looked more desirable to Mac.
He knew he should quit this dangerous game before it got out of hand, and if she had reacted in the frightened way he had been hoping for, then he might have been able to turn away right here and now.
But she wasn't frightened, as she should be.
She was aroused, and her curiosity was aroused as well. Mac should have remembered that about Savannah. He should have remembered before he was throbbing with desire and she was giving him those come-hither looks and begging to be taken.
The man who won her heart would be the luckiest man on earth.
He desperately wanted to be that man.
Perhaps he should make love to her, and take his chances. Perhaps if he did, he could enslave her with desire, and over time she would come to love him as he wanted her to love him—as he needed her to love him. It wasn't his first choice, to gain Savannah's lust before her love, but what if he passed on this opportunity only to discover later that he'd made a mistake?
She made the decision for him, reaching for his hand and closing it over her breast. “Show me, Mac. Show me what you would do ... if you were a bad boy."
Ah, to hell with it, Mac growled to himself. How could a man be expected to think with his hand filled with Savannah's soft, quivering breast and thrusting nipple? How could he be expected to resist listening to the alluring, desire-husked sound of her voice?
To his knowledge, Savannah was innocent, yet she possessed a natural sexuality he knew a courtesan would envy.
And right now it was directed at him.
Mac was a man, and he loved Savannah with all his heart and soul. He of all men could not resist her. Surely God, in His infinite wisdom, would not expect him to?
Squashing his doubts until there was nothing left but a faint trace of anxiety, Mac pushed her shirt aside and filled his other hand with a sweet globe. For better or for worse, he re-joined the game—a game that had started out as a lesson. “I might kiss you, like this,” he whispered, nibbling at her lips and forcing her to reach out for him. Finally he closed his mouth over hers, kissing her tenderly, yet with increasing passion.
When he broke free, her eyes were closed.
"Or I might kiss you like this,” Mac growled, taking her mouth in a rough, erotic kiss that left them both panting.
Her swollen lips moved. “What—what else, Mac?"
Nobody spoke his name like Savannah, with that lilting inflection that made it sound like a question. He loved it, as he loved many, many things about her. Was it any wonder that he wanted to show her how much he loved her?
His fingers trembled as he made quick work of the rest of her buttons. He pulled her shirt from where she'd had it tucked into her trousers, pausing on the drawstring that held them to her slim waist. The trousers hung low, revealing her flat belly and outlining her womanly hips. He took a moment to draw the rough pads of his fingers slowly along her body, from her neck to the top of her trousers.
She hissed between her teeth as his hand moved lower, forcing the material down until his fingers tangled in her womanly curls. He could feel her trembling all over, and the knowledge of her anticipation fired his own desire to an almost unbearable degree.
Wisely, he stopped to allow his ardor to cool, watching her reaction and wishing he had built a fire so that he could see her more clearly. But no, he decided, Savannah by firelight would shorten their love making. He would save that pleasure for another time and place.
Please God, let there be another time and place!
"Mac ... show me, please."
No favor had ever been asked of him with such demanding sweetness. Mac obliged. He tugged on the drawstring, catching her trousers before they could slid over her hips. She twisted from side to side, arching toward him, moaning. Mac placed his mouth at the beginning of the trail his hand had made, and kissed her as he moved down. He went to his knees, plunging his tongue into her navel.
His manhood jerked at her sharp gasp of pleasure. She grasped his head with both hands, trying to kneel with him. Mac held her up with his hands on her hips.
"No ... stay there,” he commanded, startled by the hoarse sound of his voice.
"My—my legs are shaky,” she whimpered.
"Do you want me to show you?” he taunted, surprised by his own bold daring. He made slow, sweeping circles with his tongue around her navel, moving lower, then lower still. His manhood could have passed for the tree behind her.
"Yes, yes, but I want to touch you, too."
Her lusty confession nearly drove Mac over the edge. He let her trousers complete their downward destination, and nudged her legs apart. His fingers found the hot, central core of her womanhood.
She was moist and throbbing to the touch, and touch her he did. But not for long.
He had other plans for his sweet Savannah.
Mac inhaled her musky, arousing scent and placed his mouth where his fingers had been. He thrust out his tongue once—twice, before her knees began to buckle and a keening moan rose in her throat. He caught her firm little bottom in both hands and pressed her to his mouth.
Her moan became a scream of pleasure.
Frantically, she tugged at his hair, literally hauling him to his feet with a strength that amazed Mac. Her shaking hands unfastened his trousers and pushed them over his hips.
She closed her fingers around his pulsing, rock-hard length and explored him from the glistening tip to thickened base.
Incredibly, the sound of her awed gasp made him swell to greater lengths. Mac had never felt more virile, more desirable than he did at that moment.
Her lips sought his mout
h as she whispered urgently, “Show me all of it, Mac. Show me everything."
As he struggled to keep from spending himself in her eager hands, he wondered if she could taste herself on his mouth.
It was, quite obviously, the wrong thing to think about.
Anxious to ‘show’ her before he really showed her, Mac braced her against the tree and gently positioned himself between her legs. But instead of doing what he'd dreamed of doing, longed to do for years, what everything that was male in him urged him to do, he hesitated.
Something was missing.
And he knew what it was. Not a single word of love had passed between them.
"Savannah, I—"
The explosion drowned out the rest of his confession. Wood splintered from the tree inches from his shoulder—inches from Savannah's shoulder, as well. Stunned, Mac acted instinctively, moving his body to fully protect Savannah.
"Move away from her, mister, or the next bullet will go right through your black heart."
"Roy,” Savannah whispered to Mac, her alarmed eyes wide on his face. “Don't move, Mac. He's a terrible shot—he shot a hole in the floor at the hotel."
Mac wasn't a coward, but neither was he a fool. He stood very still, blocking Roy's view of Savannah. Not that Roy could see much in the darkness, Thank God!
Raising her voice, Savannah called out to Roy. “Roy, put your gun down."
But Roy remained suspicious. His voice shook with a mixture of fright and fury. “Don't worry, Miss Carrington. I'm a mite better at aiming now, thanks to you. I won't shoot you by mistake, but I promise I'll get him if he moves so much as a muscle."
Mac met Savannah's questioning gaze, and slowly nodded. They had no choice but to reveal his identity.
"It's Mac, Roy,” Savannah said. “Don't shoot."
"He make you say that?"
Stifling a frustrated oath, Mac shouted, “Dammit, Roy, put the gun down! It's me!"
"Mac?"
"Yes!"
"Mr. Cord?"
"Yes!"
"Miss Carrington?"
"What?” Savannah snapped, sounding as exasperated as Mac felt.
"Is it really Mac?"
"Yes, it's really Mac. Put the gun down so that he can turn around and show you."
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