“Please,” she begged mindlessly, tearing her lips from his. Her hands pressed and tugged at his chest. Her hips teased against him. And she felt the heat pouring off of him in waves, felt the powerful iron urgency of his desire answering her own.
“Are you certain?” he whispered, his voice husky and strangled.
She was very sure. She hadn’t known it until his arms closed around her, and she felt his ragged breath stir her hair, but she knew it now. “Yes,” she breathed against his lips. “Yes, yes.”
Lifting her in his arms, Dal carried her away from the revealing glow of the fire, carried her past the sleeping drovers and far out on the range. He set her on her feet in the darkness, kissed her deeply, almost savagely, then strode away from her. “Wait here.”
Freddy had a moment to ask if she really wanted to do this. And the answer was yes. In the eyes of most who knew her, she was already ruined. She licked her lips and tasted him there. And the answer was yes. She thought of all the times she had said no. And this time the answer was yes.
Would she regret this one day? Would she look back and ask, why Dal Frisco? No other man had aroused her like he did. No other man had possessed her thoughts as he had. No other had challenged her as Dal did or asked as much of her. No man had made her as aware of her body or as aware of his. There were so many things she admired about him, had come to respect about him. Would she regret choosing him? No.
She heard his boots moving through the grass, then he was in front of her, spreading a blanket on the ground. When he came to her, he gazed into her eyes and placed his hot hands on her waist. “I can think of a dozen reasons why this shouldn’t happen,” he said in a hoarse low voice. “But you look at me like that, and I can’t stop wanting you so much that I ache with it.”
“Don’t talk.” Clasping his cheeks, feeling rough new whiskers beneath her fingertips, she pulled his head down and kissed him hard, parting her lips to let his tongue explore and ravish. When his hands slid to cover her breasts, she gasped and her knees weakened. Sinking, she pulled them both to the blanket, her arms locked around his neck. And she returned his deepening kisses, letting his hands sweep over her, letting her mind spin on wave after wave of sensation.
All her life she had been saying no to eager boys and men—although after her time on the boards, no one she knew believed it. But the truth was that before she’d always hesitated, had inhibitions that here with Dal dissipated into the wide spaces beneath the milky canopy of stars. What they were about to do was inevitable. Her body knew that, and so did she. They had been pulled toward each other from the beginning. On some level that she had fought to ignore, she had always known this moment would come, the question being only when and where.
He pressed her backward, his mouth hot and demanding and electric against hers, his fingers fumbling at the buttons on her trousers. Helpless, almost mindless, fighting for each gasping breath, Freddy surrendered to the vibrations thrilling down her body. She wanted to touch him, wanted to rip at the buttons on his trousers, too, but she couldn’t. What he was doing paralyzed her. His mouth nuzzled her breasts through her shirt and teased her nipples into hard buds. His fingers slid into her opened trousers, moving across her tense stomach and then he stroked her center and her mind exploded. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His lips and his fingers aroused white-hot sensations that she’d never felt before. Mind swirling, she dissolved in fluid waves and she thought she would faint, believed she might die if he didn’t possess her now.
Thrashing beneath him, wild with the desire he skillfully aroused, she didn’t know he’d pulled off her trousers until she felt the night air rush over her legs and thighs, then he came to her again, covering a sudden chill with the heat of his bare skin. Instinct lifted her hips and her throat arched and her eyes closed. Gripping fistfuls of his shirt while shudders of pleasure trembled through her body, she whispered his name then tensed and cried out softly as he entered her.
“My God!” Lifting on his elbows he stared down into her face.
The heat and fullness of him inside her was unlike anything she had imagined. There was pain, but only fleetingly, and quickly replaced by an instinctual urge to move, to lift to meet him.
Her eyelids fluttered and opened. “Dal?” She licked her lips. Surely this wasn’t the end. Surely there was more.
“You’re a virgin,” he said hoarsely. “Freddy, for God’s sake. Why didn’t you tell me?”
It took a moment to understand what was happening. Then she felt a flash of anger fed by disappointment and a feeling of loss as he withdrew and rolled off of her. “I was right,” she said, sitting up. “Just like everyone else, you assumed—”
He dropped his head and pushed a hand through his hair, swearing softly. “You told me you were experienced.”
She had never felt so foolish in her life, sitting in the dark, half-naked, next to a half-naked man. Feeling half-ravished and wholly frustrated.
“This has nothing to do with some generalized opinion about actresses, so don’t put that on me,” he warned. “This has to do with you and me and that’s all. You said you were experienced, and I believed you.”
Embarrassment flooded her face and she peered through the darkness, looking for her trousers. “I meant that I’d been kissed.” She wasn’t really sure what had gone wrong, only that something disastrous had happened which left her feeling angry and empty.
He stood up, pulled on his pants, then threw out his hands. “Freddy, this isn’t how a man takes a virgin, damn it! There’s a responsibility that goes along with…” He planted his fists on his hips, and looked up at the stars, fading now toward dawn. “Damn it. I apologize. I’m sorry.”
“I can’t help it that I’m a virgin.” Where were her trousers? “Was a virgin.”
“You should have told me!”
“You know what makes me mad?” Standing up, trying to cover herself with the tail of her shirt, she stumbled around until she found her trousers, but she couldn’t find her boots in the darkness. “For years men have been trying to talk me into doing this. Then when I finally decide to go ahead, you jump back like I just handed you a poisoned apple!”
Dal placed his hands on her shoulders, but she angrily shrugged away from him. “Freddy, for God’s sake. A man doesn’t deflower a woman on the ground in the open air. That’s not how a gentleman does it.”
“Since when are you a gentleman?” Where in the hell were her damned boots? Later, she would let herself experience the pain of rejection and embarrassment. Right now anger prevented her from humiliating herself with tears.
“In this matter I’ve always been a gentleman. Will you stand the hell still and listen a minute?” He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her hard against him. “Listen to me. What I just did was wrong.”
She would have slapped him, but he caught her wrist. “If you tell me this didn’t mean anything, I swear I’ll…” She wasn’t even sure if she was experienced now or still a virgin. She suspected one deep thrust was enough to ruin her, but she wasn’t certain. Either way, the whole thing was a disappointment. Much ado about nothing.
He smothered her threat with a kiss that infuriated her because it ignited the heat again and the wild frustration she had felt when he rolled away from her.
“We are going to do this again, and the next time we’re going to do it right,” he said grimly, staring down into her eyes. “Not on the ground. Not half-dressed. Not fast.”
“The hell we are,” she snapped, jerking away from him, reaching deep to locate some pride. “Now you listen. I’ve been wondering about this event for years, and let me tell you something.” She thrust out her chin and pulled back her shoulders. “It isn’t much. A woman might do this once to satisfy her curiosity or because she had to, but no woman would do it twice. So you can forget any repeat performance!”
He swore and dropped his head back to look at the sky. “See? That’s exactly what I was afraid of. When a man makes this kind of m
istake, he can wreck a woman. Son of a bitch!”
Finally, she stumbled over her boots but didn’t bother taking the time to pull them on. “I saw Les almost dying and I kept thinking, what if that was me? It could have been. And what if I died without ever knowing…” She spread her hands, the boots swinging in a wide arc. “For several years everyone I know has condemned me for ruining myself. The respectable women in Klees wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t call on me or accept my calls.” Tears choked her. “But I hadn’t done anything. Nothing worse than acting some lines onstage. Then you come along and… I just… I decided I might as well do what everyone thinks I’ve done anyway.”
“This is my fault. I knew you were exhausted. I shouldn’t have trusted a decision made when you’re this tired,” he said, staring at her. Behind him the sky was beginning to brighten.
“You’re wrong. This happened because I was doing what I always do, picking the son of a bitch in the crowd.” Disgust twisted her lips, and her voice sank to a whisper. “You’re like everyone else. When you rolled away, I felt like something you didn’t want to touch, like something dirty and unpleasant. But you got what you wanted. I’m not sure what I got.”
“Good God! Freddy—”
But she didn’t stay to hear any more. Humiliated, frustrated, and hurting inside, she ran toward her bedroll and, when she reached it, rolled up tight in her blankets and pressed her face into the pile of folded clothing she used as a pillow.
Everything she had told him was true, but the reasons for wanting to surrender to him no longer made sense. She couldn’t recall why she had decided it had to be him or what had made her impulsively decide that it had to happen tonight. It was just that Dal Frisco did things to her mind and body that no man had done before. She had experienced flashes of desire, but not to the point where she could hardly think of anything else. She’d always been able to control herself.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the fading stars. Well, at least she knew now. The mystery of sex was solved, and if she died on this cattle drive, she wouldn’t die a virgin.
But she’d never felt as disappointed in her life. Somehow, she’d expected… more.
Dal had planned to rest the herd outside Waco, but now he was in a hurry to reach Fort Worth. Waco had only one shabby hotel, and he guessed that Lola would stay there. A shabby room and the chance of encountering Lola didn’t serve his purpose on any level.
Instead of grazing out the herd and giving the hands a visit to town, he swam the steers across the muddy, reddish Brazos River and headed north, in a bad mood every step of the way.
As part of his responsibility, he rode circle on the herd several times a day. A good trail boss rode approximately four times the distance the cattle would travel. He needed to know that he wasn’t pushing the beeves so hard that any went lame or developed cracked hooves. And it was his job not to wear out the remuda and bust up the horses by working them too hard. This was part of what he watched for while he rode circle. The state of the animals, the effectiveness of his drovers, the condition of the grass and ground they covered. And Freddy.
He couldn’t stop brooding over how badly he’d mishandled the situation. In retrospect he believed that he should have known she was still an innocent. There was a skittishness about her, an unawareness of herself as a desirable woman. Women who had been awakened were not careless about leaving a button undone. They noticed, and they knew the message it sent. Freddy didn’t. Experienced women could be as modest as a preacher’s wife, but they still had a gleam of knowledge in their eyes that Freddy lacked.
“Damn it.”
And he couldn’t have performed worse than he had after he made the discovery that she was a virgin. Reliving that moment, he would have given much to change it. He should have slowed things down, should have gotten control of himself, should have focused more intently on her reaction and response, but most of all, he should not have quit.
“Damn it.”
Now she thought she had experienced lovemaking, and it was nothing to her but disappointing. Now, she was hardly speaking to him. And it was all his fault.
Tense enough that his shoulders and thighs ached, he rode through the dust toward the drag. Ward Hamm was still trailing the herd where he could keep an eye on Les, which didn’t improve Dal’s mood. He sent a glare toward Hamm’s wagon, then turned in beside Les. Dark circles ringed her eyes and she looked ill with exhaustion, but she managed a smile.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, dropping his gaze to the rope contraption Hamm had made to hold her in the saddle. “Still need that?”
She touched the rope circling her waist. “Probably not, but it makes me feel more secure to keep it a little longer.” Les followed his gaze toward Freddy, riding ahead of them, kicking at one of the stragglers. “Freddy’s doing the work back here. It’s all I can do just to stay in the saddle all day.” She bit her lip and pulled her shoulders out of a slump. “Alex says it will take time, but I’ll get stronger every day.”
“When we reach Fort Worth, we’ll stop for a few days. Get a room in town and spend those days resting.” When he saw her glance toward Hamm’s wagon, he frowned. “That’s not a suggestion, Les. That’s an order. Do it.”
Not waiting for a reply, he urged his horse forward and rode up beside Freddy. She didn’t look at him. “We’re missing a red steer with a muddy-looking blaze.”
A flash of green eyes cut his way, then swung back toward the tail end of the herd. “If I’d seen a stray, I would have turned him back into the herd.”
“I’m not criticizing,” he said patiently. “Just asking if you’ve seen that steer.”
“The answer is no.”
There was a subtext here, and he didn’t like it. “There’s good grazing near Fort Worth.” Nothing in her stony profile suggested she would be receptive to what he had in mind. “Fort Worth has several big hotels, a couple of them as fine as you’ll find in the West.” He fixed a look on the stragglers. “You and I are going to stay overnight in one of them.”
“The hell we are!” Now she turned a full, narrowed stare on him, her expression battened down like a shutter against a storm. “Never, Frisco. No. It isn’t going to happen.”
“Yeah, it is going to happen, Frederick. I have a responsibility to repair the damage I’ve done, and I’m going to live up to it. You have a responsibility, too.” She started sputtering and making choking sounds like she was trying to talk but couldn’t. “You withheld vital information.” Now he looked at her. Crimson pulsed in her face, and her eyes were wide and incredulous. She was dusty and sweat-streaked and the most beautiful creature he’d ever clapped his eyes on. “By doing so, you cheated us both.”
“What?” The word emerged as a strangled shout.
“That’s right. I owe you better, and you owe me better.” She was throwing off sparks that he could almost see. “So make up your mind to it. We’re going to a hotel, and we’re going to do this thing right. Afterward, you can tell me to go to hell, if you want to. Then we’ll walk away, and it’s finished.” Turning his head, he fixed her with a stare. “But we are going to do it. If I have to drag you into that hotel kicking and screaming, I will, Freddy. I’m not going to go through life knowing I ruined a woman. That’s not going to happen. I’m going to fix this damage, and, by God, you’re going to like it!”
Having said his piece, he kicked his horse in the flanks and cantered up the side of the herd. His speech wasn’t the most romantic he’d ever made, but Freddy wasn’t like any woman he’d ever known. With her, every damned thing was a struggle or a fight. It pissed him off, and made him wonder what was wrong with him that out of all the women in the world, he had to let this one crawl under his skin.
He was still pondering that enigma an hour later while he was out on the range looking for the red steer with the muddy blaze. The land rolled and dipped and he figured the old mossback might be grazing in a gully. His mind was jumping back and forth between searching f
or the missing beeve and thinking about Freddy Roark, so he didn’t immediately register what he was seeing when he rode up out of a twisting gully he’d been following.
Reining, he took off his hat and fanned his face, squinting into the distance. He made out three longhorns, all cows. And what looked like a naked man walking beside them. Curious, he rode forward, slowing when he came up on the longhorns, not wanting to scatter them. A glance revealed they weren’t branded and were free for the taking.
“Are these your beeves?” he asked the man, who stood with one hand on the back of a cow, looking up at him.
The wanderer was naked except for a pair of boots and a loincloth like the Indians still wore, and he was tanned deep brown by the sun. Gunshot wounds were distinctive, and this man had been shot a couple of times in the past. He had a few other scars and scabs and a ragged cut across his rib cage. Long brown hair curled on his shoulders, and a brown-and-grey beard reached to his chest. Expressionless, he glanced at the gun on Dal’s hip, then settled his gaze on the old Confederate shirt that Dal wore beneath his vest.
“What’s your name?” When the man didn’t answer, he asked, “Do you understand English?” Still no answer.
The situation was puzzling on several fronts. Now Dal noticed a pouch and a knife hanging from a thin rope around the man’s waist, indicating that he had the fixings to make a fire and skin whatever he could catch to eat. It was strange about the longhorns, too. Taming a longhorn was damned near impossible in Dal’s view, but the three cows seemed placid and content, not protesting the man’s presence or his touch. Clearly they traveled with the naked man, and he exhibited a definite proprietary air toward them. That was disappointing. Dal would have liked to pick up three extras.
He gave it another try. “That’s a nasty-looking cut. Do you need assistance?”
For all the reaction in the man’s expression and steady grey eyes, Dal might have been addressing his remarks to the cows. It didn’t much matter if the man was deaf or a foreigner who lacked English, the end result was the same. They weren’t communicating.
The Best Man Page 22