Angel continued to watch him, unmoving and suddenly unsure. Something had changed between them, at least for her.
Outside, she’d thrown herself into his arms. The sight of him stepping from the darkness, alive, had filled her with such wild joy she’d simply reacted.
Never had she wanted a man to touch her, but Rane’s touch had become like water and air. An elemental need, vital and necessary.
Dear God! I’m afraid I’ll lose him.
How can you lose something you’ve never possessed, challenged her voice of reason.
For fleeting snatches of time during those hours and nights when she’d held him as helpless as a babe against her breast, he’d seemed like hers alone.
Now, those innocent interludes weren’t enough. She wanted and needed more. She needed him with a desperation she’d never known. She wanted his heat and passion. And damn the consequences.
Rane stood and pried open the buttons closing his shirt. Turning his back to her, he peeled the clinging wet garment from his body and hung it on a nail at the end of the mantle.
His movement sent firelight playing over his damp bronze skin. She saw the bullet scar high on his left side in passing now—expected it. Warmth seeped through Angel’s blood. She stepped behind him and lifted the towel in her hands to his back, unable to stop herself any more than she could calm the storm raging outside the door.
At her touch, his muscles flinched and rippled. He stiffened as though she’d scorched him.
“What are you doing, Angel?”
The question probed deeper, implied more than why she stroked his back with the cloth. She had no answer, at least not one she wanted to admit. She asked him a question instead.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” His long hair had separated into sodden ropes lying against the nape of his neck and leaked in steady streams down his back. She moved the towel up, gathered his hair into it and squeezed.
He chuckled, low and dubious. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’re trying to seduce me.”
White-hot, clammy heat crawled over her skin. She closed her eyes. What if he laughed at her? Rebuffed her? No, surely he wouldn’t. She remembered the hunger in his kiss that day on the ridge. He’d wanted her then. Of that, she felt certain.
She said nothing, afraid, yet hopeful, that her very silence answered him in spades.
Rane waited, expecting her to tell him he was dreaming, or to go to hell. Instead, she said nothing. Faint, desperate hope sped his heart.
The breath he’d been holding ran out. He turned, slow and careful. He didn’t want to make any sudden movements that might spook her and send her away from him.
Now that he faced her, she continued to dab at his chest with the towel, even though his bared skin had grown quite dry and warm from exposure to the fire.
She, on the other hand, looked like a drowned kitten. The camisole clung to every contour of her upper body—molded to her breasts—and moisture had rendered it all but transparent. He’d avoided looking at her. Why look when he couldn’t touch? The need to touch her was so strong he could no longer deny it.
“Your turn.” He pulled the towel from her hands and draped it around her hair, squeezing the long tresses with the cloth to soak up the wetness, as she’d done for him. She stood before him with her head slightly bowed—and he knew her to be anything but humble—and allowed him to dry her.
He waited, drawing out the towel strokes, conscious of the sound of each breath, while his thoughts tumbled. If he stopped, would she turn and walk away? If he tossed off the cloth and used his hands instead, would she slap his face, or surrender to his touch? Her submissive silence gave no clue.
Though the smell of wood smoke pervaded the room, he caught the essence of wildflowers drifting from her hair. He wanted to bury his nose in the silver-blond mass and breathe her in to his heart’s content.
Still, she wouldn’t look at him. Evidently, she’d found a fascinating spot on his neck, since that’s where her attention seemed focused. Or, perhaps, modesty had gotten the better of her. Impatience gnawed at him. He gave her hair a final brisk swipe, then tossed the towel onto the table behind her.
“Look at me, Angel.”
For a moment, the snap of burning wood was the only sound in the room. Then she pulled in a breath, expanding her chest until her wet camisa was as strained as his self-possession. She tipped up her chin and looked at him.
The misty softness in her eyes sent a ticklish thrill rippling through the pit of his stomach. Longing. An invitation. He knew that look. He’d seen it many times in the eyes of other women, but he never dared to dream he’d see it in hers.
Was this the same woman who just three days ago had held a gun to his gut and threatened to shoot him? Her lips parted, her breath coming a little too hard.
“Angel?”
“Yes, Rane?”
She arched one brow at him quizzically. That, coupled with the way she practically purred his name, snapped his restraint like a brittle twig beneath the hooves of a stampeding longhorn.
“Come here,” he growled.
Reaching out, he slipped his arm around her waist and hauled her against him. He sucked in his stomach and a sharp breath, recoiling from the shock of her cold, wet clothing touching his skin. But he didn’t let her go. No, he couldn’t let her go. Even if her clothes had caught fire, he would have stood there and burned. He looped his other arm around her and anchored her to him.
She leaned back and braced her hands against his chest, a puzzled frown knitted across her forehead. “What’s the matter?”
“Your clothes are wet. And cold. You should take them off.”
“But, I don’t have anything else to wear.”
He plastered on his best wolf’s grin. “Then we’ll just have to think of some other way to keep you warm.”
Before she could reply, he captured her mouth with his, hot with need, fierce with desire. The rumble of her whimper vibrated through him, as though it had come from his own throat. He swallowed the sound and plunged his tongue inside her mouth, swirling through her soft recesses, coaxing her response. Demanding it.
Slow down, an inner voice warned him.
He tried, but his hands traveled in restless strokes over her back, slipped to the sides of her waist, then returned to the space at the base of her spine to meld her closer. Her breasts pressed hard against his chest and he felt her nipples, already spiked to stiff peaks from the wet camisole. Oh, how he itched to rip the damned clothes from her body.
After a moment, she leaned fully into him, slid her hands over his shoulders and locked them together at the back of his neck. He felt her surrender as she joined her tongue with his in long, languorous strokes.
During their time together, he’d often fantasized about making love to her. About driving her slowly crazy, until she squirmed beneath his touch and begged him to take her. Ha! Another chimera shot to hell. He’d barely started kissing her and, already, the buttons on his breeches were ready to rip.
So much for going slow.
Following his lead and guided by instinct, Angel responded to the ravishment of Rane’s kiss, stroke for maddening stroke. On the surface, he was torrid heat and solidly muscled male. Within the depths of his mouth however, she drowned in soft liquid velvet. Molten honey seeped, pooled, tingled in all the places that defined her as a woman.
That this was wrong no longer mattered. She shouldn’t want him, shouldn’t allow him to do this. He was her captor, she his prisoner, as much as if she wore shackles around her wrists and ankles. She wanted him regardless, with a desperation that was both frightening and exhilarating beyond anything she’d ever imagined.
His hands skimmed the sides of her waist and met at the center of her stomach. She shifted, allowing him access. Long fingers molded each rib as he moved upward. Yes, she wanted him to touch her there. She ached for him to touch her there.
Instead of moving over her breasts, he reached between them and pu
lled loose the limp bow closing her camisole. Still holding her in thrall with that drugging kiss, he loosened the gathered neckline and eased it from her shoulders.
She gasped a soft, surprised sound into his mouth when her bare skin met his. She thought she knew the feel of him, smooth, warm, but nothing had prepared her for the sensation when her damp-cool breasts fused with his solid heat.
His mouth left hers and settled near her ear. “Do you want me, Angel?”
She knew what he was asking. “Yes,” she whispered, breathy and without hesitation.
Shifting his hold, he picked her up and started across the room.
The unexpected lift had her clinging even harder around his neck. “Rane! Your shoulder!”
“What shoulder?”
As though she weighed nothing, he carried her to the bed and lowered her to the lumpy mattress. An instant of panic shadowed her bliss when he loomed over her.
How could this be wrong when it felt so right?
With trembling hands, she helped him strip away her clammy skirt and coarse drawers. Near darkness emboldened her, softened the sight of her naked body lying next to him.
His lips trailed over her cheek and settled, hot and tingly, against the side of her throat. She strained against him as her body quickened into an aching bundle of need.
He moved lower, dragging his tongue into the valley between her breasts with slow torture. Her nipples hardened, begging for him. When he finally scaled one pale peak and settled the moist, scalding heat of his mouth over her, she gasped and nearly came off the bed. She hadn’t known. Nothing had prepared her. She moaned and tangled her fingers into the damp, silken hair at the back of his head, holding him. When he applied suction and drew her deep into his mouth, an echo of sensation throbbed between her thighs. Raw pleasure rippled through her belly and lapped downward.
His heart pounded against the side of her ribs. Harsh breaths competed with the sounds of the rain pelting the shuttered window and door. After a lingering kiss on her swollen nipple, he moved to her other breast and bent his leg so that his buckskin-clad thigh came between hers.
The same hand she knew capable of absolute violence settled atop her stomach with utter gentleness, inflicting warmth and curious little thrills that burrowed deep into her core. He stroked downward, moving against the inside of her thigh, brushing against the moist heat centered between her legs with just enough insistence to send her following his movement with her body.
She arched her back and curled her fingers trapped in his hair, digging into his scalp. Instinctively, her legs tightened around his hard-muscled thigh.
He lifted his head. Breath heaved between his parted lips. Heavy-lidded with passion, his dark eyes seemed to glitter in the semi-darkness. “Mí Dios, mí ángela. I want to be inside you.”
To be inside you... The words, their intent, sank in on Angel. She swallowed thickly, but offered no objection. She couldn’t. She wanted him, too.
Bracing himself on one forearm, he moved the hand that had been stroking her, unfastened his trouser buttons, and shoved the buckskins down his long legs with jerky movements. When he pressed against her once more, his erection came to rest atop her leg with scorching heat and a weighty presence she found surprising. Even this felt right. Oh, so right.
With a low groan rumbling in his chest, he levered himself onto his knees and hovered over her, his heat centered between her legs. She felt the leashed tension vibrating through his rigidly held muscles, humming almost, as a too-tightly strung run of barbed wire.
Rane couldn’t hold back any longer. A shiver trickled down his spine, and pushed him ever closer to losing the miniscule control he had left. He squeezed his eyes closed and pulled in a long breath, fighting for it. No woman had ever had this devastating effect on him. Until Angel.
Why resist any longer? She was as wet and swollen as he was.
Grasping her hips, he arched and drove into her in one, long shattering stroke. Her body’s tightness squeezed him almost painfully. He registered the slickness bursting around him, heard her small cry, felt her nails scoring the flesh on his upper arms where she held him in a death grip.
His mind stumbled over the implications. He froze, as an improbable thought took precedence over his body’s demands.
Against the dark blankets, she looked pale, her face drawn with the pain she tried valiantly to hide.
“Angel? Is this...the first time?”
She nodded, and that simple motion sent an icy chill spearing through his heart. He started to pull back.
“No!” In a move he could only attribute to instinct, she wrapped both legs around his waist and held him. “I want you to do this.”
Just that quickly, her action halted his body’s retreat. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She offered a brave smile. “I knew what to expect.”
The damage had been done, common sense argued, and no power under the sun could restore her virtue. He didn’t want to disappoint her, any more than he wanted to deny himself the satisfaction of finishing what they’d started. Silently, he cursed himself for a weak fool.
Still firmly embedded inside her, he braced on his hands and locked his elbows to hold his weight off her. God above, she was a vision. Just looking at her, her tight little body gripping him, he felt himself growing even harder. Her eyes widened.
“Angel, I don’t want to hurt you. I want to give you pleasure.”
Laying her hands around his wrists, she stroked upward to his shoulders and smiled. “I trust you’re capable of doing just that.”
If she meant to simper at him seductively, her expression reminded him more of a shy miss flirting with her first beau.
“It would be better if you relax,” he suggested.
“I thought I was relaxed.”
“Trust me, you’re not relaxed. Try squeezing me.”
Her brows pulled together. “How?”
He pried his right hand from the bed and splayed his fingers across her lower abdomen. “Here. Try it.”
She caught on quickly. He sucked in his breath as her strong little muscles closed around him even tighter. “Now, relax and try it again.”
After the second time, he started to move within her when she relaxed her inner muscles. They played at this give and take until he thought he would explode. But he felt her opening to him, accepting, stroking him back. Making love to him with her body.
Rane’s heart stampeded. A primal pulse slogged heavily in the place where his body joined to hers. He couldn’t hold back much longer. Reaching between them, he found her secreted bud and worked a little magic with a moistened fingertip.
She sucked in an audible breath and arched up beneath him, convulsing around him in the throes of release. He let go then and tumbled with her. Spiraling into that white, blinding flash of intense pleasure, he drove deep one final time and held there, adrift in a sea of pure sensation. And somewhere, in the midst of it, he heard her cry out his name. The sound echoed through the long-sealed chamber of emptiness he kept buried deep in his heart.
Rane lifted his head, still panting for breath, his heart tripping in double-time. Beneath him, Angel’s pale body glistened with a fine sheen of moisture. He thought he saw tears seeping from the corners of her eyes, but a dreamy smile of contentment curved her lips. She looked like a sleek kitten that had just lapped up an entire bowl of thick cream.
His arms trembled from the prolonged strain of holding his weight above her. She had sapped him, drained him of his seed and his strength as no one ever had.
He levered himself over and collapsed in a loose-limbed sprawl beside her. When he lifted his arm and laid the back of a wrist across his eyes, she turned to him and slipped her arm around his waist.
“Rane?” Her voice sounded uncertain.
In answer, he curled his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, stroking the tangled strands of hair from her face. He kissed her forehead, her cheek, and tasted the salty bite of her tears on
his tongue.
“Don’t cry, Angel. It’s too late for tears.”
“I’m not crying.”
“Then go to sleep.” The words came out sounding harsher than he intended. She snuggled down against him, one long, slender leg draped over his, her arm curved across his stomach. He felt the hard pounding of her heart against his ribs, felt it slowly lessen until her soft breath settled into a slow, even rhythm.
He ventured a glance at her upturned face and saw that her eyes were closed. The innocence of her sleeping, angelic features speared him with guilt.
A virgin! In innocence, she had come to him, and he had taken what she offered with greedy hands.
He muttered a vile curse and damned to hell all the wagging tongues that had spread lies about her. But most of all, he damned himself for listening, for not trusting what he had felt in his own gut all along. It had been so much easier to believe the lies and think of her as a wanton.
He should have known. In fact, he had known, but lust had blinded him.
It was too late for regrets. All he could do now was try to keep his wits about him and stay alive until he finished the job he’d set out to do. But the guilt still nagged at him. He had dared a taste of the forbidden fruit. He couldn’t help wondering, somewhere down the road, what price they would both be forced to pay for their one stolen hour of intense sweetness.
Chapter Ten
The shutters on the solitary window stood open and soft, white daylight filled the room. Angel stretched with lazy contentment and ran her hand beneath the rumpled blankets. The space beside her was empty. No Rane. Not even a trace of his warmth remained.
She turned to her side. The movement touched off a dull ache in uncustomary parts of her body. Bunching the cover in her hand, she held it tight against her chest, thinking, remembering. A murmur of sensation bloomed low in her belly when she recalled the intense, soaring pleasure Rane had given her in the darkest hours of the night. Feminine instinct told her, somehow, she had given that same gift back to him. The ultimate mystery revealed. If the worst should happen today, she would have no regrets.
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