Western Winds

by Raine Cantrell

  Rafe rose abruptly and began to pace the room. He never once looked at Lacey, but she couldn’t take her eyes from him. She listened to him tell of the days and weeks that followed, sometimes smiling with him, sometimes feeling the pain his voice revealed. She began to fully measure the depth of his hunger for a place of his own, the same hunger that Maggie and Fletcher told her he had. Inside herself she cried for a boy trying to eke out the barest form of existence, the likes of which she had never known. And she screamed in silence for a boy forced too soon to become a man.

  “…when there was no work, I took their offer. I was damn big for my age and already earned a name for brawling ’cause they hate mixed blood as much as Texans.”

  “No more, Rafe,” she whispered, flushing under his harsh gaze.

  “But there’s more. It was easy to sneak across the border, steal a few horses or cattle or rob a gringo and then slip back to Mexico. Money was good, my mother better. She had food, as much as she wanted. That wasn’t the only reason. I liked the excitement of outwitting the border patrols, both the Federale’s and the Union soldiers’. I wasn’t a helpless boy. I was a man when I came in from a raid, with money to spend on drink and women. And then I got caught.”

  His silence and still posture had Lacey moving to sit, ready to go to him. Instead, she asked, “You couldn’t have been more than sixteen or so. Did they try to kill you?”

  “Kill me?” he repeated with a soft, mocking laugh. “Better if they had. No, they locked me in a Federale jail and waited for the men I worked for to come and get me.”

  “They were so sure of that? Honor among thieves?”

  “No honor, princess. I had the money from the sale of the horses. But I had buried it—instinct, whatever. I had bad feelings. And honor among the soldiers had nothing to do with it. They wanted it for themselves.”

  With a muttered curse he raked his hand through his hair, his voice suddenly low so that Lacey leaned forward, straining to hear him.

  “For three weeks they kept me there. I had to force myself to eat the slop they called food after I had nothing left to trade but my pants. My belt brought me a hard roll free of maggots, my boots … Ah, what the hell am I bothering for! You can’t understand.”

  “But I want to, Rafe. Please, look at me.”

  Again that bleak flatness met her level gaze, but he spoke. “I slept with one eye open to keep watch for the rats, and when the beatings and bribes didn’t work, they threatened me.” He slammed the wardrobe door closed, but stood there, seeing what she could not, his back toward her.

  “Rafe? I don’t understand. How much more could they threaten you?”

  “I wasn’t the only prisoner they had. There were men held in cells for years.”

  With a dawning horror her mind turned in the direction he pointed, but she didn’t want to believe him. She gave a strangled cry and met the agony in his eyes. “No. No, they couldn’t have done that to you. Tell me they didn’t, Rafe! Tell me!” she screamed, wrapping her arms around her middle, desperate to contain both pain and nausea.

  “No. It never happened. But the thought that it could, that I was helpless to stop it, was enough to keep me awake. Days on end, awake and alone, shivering in a cold sweat with every footstep that came near my cell. The days blurred one into another. There was some fiesta in town, and most of the soldiers were away. The four men I worked with came that day, but it was a trap. They were killed, and I was released.”

  “Released,” she repeated, sighing with relief only to tense when he laughed.

  “Yeah. And when I finally went for the money, it wasn’t there. But I was branded a traitor on both sides of the border. There’s your honor among thieves. So I turned to the one thing I had left. I sold my gun to whoever wanted to buy it. No questions asked and none invited.”

  Lacey jumped up and stopped when he shifted his stance to block her. “I’m not leaving. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have moved north. No one would know about you. People opened the Western territories by running from their pasts or looking to start over.”

  “You think I didn’t try! I punched cows for an outfit out of Kansas, wasn’t there more’n three, maybe four weeks, and suddenly I was fired. I’m a greaser, Lacey—don’t look at me like that! That’s what they call me. And the same thing happened again and again till I couldn’t take any more. My mother was dead. There wasn’t enough money to buy the medicine she needed. I didn’t … I couldn’t even scrape up enough to pay the priest to say a mass for her.”

  She went to him then, wanting only to comfort, and he stepped away from her.

  “I don’t want your damn pity!”

  “I don’t pity you. But finish it. Get rid of all the hate bottled up inside you.”

  “What the hell does a princess know about hate? The only thing you claim Sy Garrett denied you was love. That’s all you’ve ever been denied!”

  “Wasn’t that enough?”

  Her voice was soft but laden with pain. Pain that twisted a knife inside him. “Yeah,” he admitted, “maybe it was.” He looked at her, then away. She still had questions in her eyes. “You want to know why I was in jail on that trumped-up charge of gun running?”

  “That’s almost the last of it, Rafe,” she answered with an outward calm.

  “It was because of Ana Louisa.”

  “Ana—”

  “Señorita Martainez. Ana Louisa de Valdaiz y Martainez is her full name. The woman I supposedly got with child and then abandoned.”

  His voice was so bitter, Lacey could only nod for him to continue.

  “I was hired by her father to be her bodyguard. Only el patrón was too late. She already had her lover and was afraid he would be killed. She begged me to help her run away, and we were caught. When her father found out she was with child, he accused me of running guns to the Juaristas and sent her to a convent. That’s when Judge Walker came.”

  “How did he get you out?”

  “He bribed them. Any more questions, princess?”

  Lacey buried her pity, but she couldn’t rid herself of the sorrow that went bone deep. And it was from the sorrow she had caused him that she spoke. “Rafe, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for you to rake up a past that—”

  “Is it all in the past now?”

  Lacey looked up at him. He was watching her, his eyes intent, a pulse beating slowly in his neck, the slow, even rhythm of his breathing so at odds with the sense she had that her answer mattered. His mouth tautened into a flat line as the seconds ticked past. She either believed him or didn’t. Her decision.

  But Rafe wasn’t waiting any longer. He planted himself in front of her, lifting his hands to cage her face between them. “I want you, Lacey. I want a fresh start. A home. A woman I can trust. One who trusts me.” He closed her eyes with light kisses, stole a shimmering tear from her lashes, and brushed her mouth once. “God, I want to be so gentle with you, and I’m shaking. I’m shaking ’cause I don’t know how. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He stole the whisper of his name from her lips, taking her mouth, and the wild, sweet taste of her exploded through him. Rafe claimed her lips, knowing he had never wanted a woman the way he wanted Lacey. He fought not to pull her down and bury his hard aching flesh deep within her.

  Lacey wrapped her arms around his waist, wanting to hold him and be held by him. The wildness awoke inside her, a wildness that Rafe encouraged with the molten intensity of his kiss until it melted with a sharp need to heal the raw wounds of the past. She knew the danger of risk, but desire shimmered in her blood, a desire that went beyond passion, for it was the desire of all that made her a woman who longed to give this one man everything he wanted.

  His name was a cry of surrender from her lips, and his arms tightened around her. She fitted herself to him perfectly, hard to
soft, heat matched with hunger. His tongue claimed her mouth, deeply, repeatedly, with a hot certainty that she was his. With barely restrained urgency he scattered kisses over her face and neck, his teeth dragging aside the shirt to bare her shoulder, and with that same restraint he savored the taste of her silken skin.

  “Mujer,” he whispered. “Siempre mujer,” he added, feeling the shivers that coursed over her as his hair brushed against the rising curve of her breast. “Woman, always woman,” he repeated, over and over, drinking her half-wild cries.

  Lacey felt her knees give way and clung to his broad shoulders. Her head fell back under the sizzling kisses he pressed along her jawline and down her bared throat. He found the pulse beating in the fragile hollow of her throat, and his tongue slowly laved it until the beat was as frantic as his own. His hands slid down her body and lifted her up into him. Lacey began to move her hips against the hard evidence of his desire, and he took her mouth again with a husky groan.

  “I’ve wanted you burning like this for me from the first time I saw you,” he whispered, his fingers digging into her buttocks, rubbing her against him. And every tremor of need that he drew from her stoked the fire inside him higher.

  “Do you want me, Rafe? Me, not just the Reina?”

  He lifted his head slowly and gazed down at the luminous sheen of her hazel bright eyes. “I want you.” His voice was savage, and he glared at her with a feral gleam in his black eyes. “You. Hear me? Understand? I want you.”

  “Yes … Rafe, yes,” she said, closing her eyes, unable to look at his. His bruising kiss made her forget the tiny doubts. His was a primitive power barely leashed that invaded her every sense, and when she responded, his mouth began to gentle, coaxing not dominating.

  Rafe stroked her slender hip, sliding his hand beneath the loose shirt to caress her back. Lacey stood on tiptoe, instinctively straining to ease the taut fullness in her breasts. He shifted his body slightly to one side, and Lacey held on to the firm muscled strength in his upper arms. His hand cupped her breast, the rough pads of his fingers finessing the hardened nipple, his groan deeply satisfied, sparking flame inside her.

  “I want my mouth on you. On all of you, Lacey. I’ve never said that to another woman. I’ve never wanted,” he murmured, his voice husky with longing, “just wanted a woman so much.”

  Her hands clung to his shirt, her lips tasting the tanned skin of his neck, her teeth delicately testing the resilience of the muscle beneath. He was warm and salty and male. His subtle move increased the pressure of her mouth, and she used her tongue to make tiny forays on his skin until his shirt stopped her. Rafe moved his leg between hers and Lacey bent one knee to slide her leg restlessly up and down his. She was empty and aching, twisting against him with silent entreaty.

  He lifted her, his mouth locked to hers and moved toward the bed. Rafe eased her down, then followed, trapping her in heat.

  He broke the kiss, and Lacey opened her eyes to look up at him. She was held by the burning intensity of the yearning in his eyes. Rafe tilted her head to one side, pressing kisses on her face, his fingers sure and steady as he unraveled her thick braid and spread her hair with deep stroking motions that revealed his pleasure.

  His knee pressed her side as he rose slightly, and Lacey couldn’t prevent a gasp of pain. Rafe froze, then rolled to his side, gathering her into his arms.

  “What did I do? I hurt you, didn’t I?”

  “No. No, Rafe.” But he wasn’t listening to her. He unbuttoned her shirt impatiently, spread it open and lightly touched her side. Lacey drew in her breath. He lowered his head, his lips soft, tender, as he kissed her wound. “Rafe, don’t … you didn’t—”

  “It should have been me.” He was tormented by the thought that he had believed Lacey the guilty one. “I promise I won’t hurt you again.”

  Lacey cradled his cheek, drawing his face up. “You didn’t hurt me. You can’t, not the way you mean. I’ve never been made to feel so precious.”

  “Lacey, God, Lacey, you don’t know—”

  She silenced him with her fingertip. In that same silence she offered herself to him. Rafe’s face was flushed, his eyes glittering as he stared down at her satin-smooth breasts. Drawn tight, dusty rose nipples were velvet and waiting, inviting his touch. Lacey ached for him and skimmed the damp curling hair on his chest. She longed to touch him the way he had touched her, but fear that he wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t let her share with him, stopped her. “I want you, Rafe,” she whispered. “I won’t break. And you won’t hurt me.”

  “Remember that,” he said harshly, his fingers molding the shape of her breasts, his thumb slowly rubbing the engorged tip. Lacey trembled and moaned his name, closing her eyes. His lips courted hers, and she lost herself in the wash of sensations that began to coil inside her, tightening the moment his mouth kissed the quivering flesh he held.

  Her fingers dug into his arms. His mouth was hot. His tongue teased, lashing then soothing, his warm breath kindling a rising fever through her before he pulled her into his mouth, suckling hungrily.

  Lacey knew he wanted her, but he made her feel cherished, too, as if she were the only woman who could give him what he needed. Her pleasure sounds echoed his, and she drew his head tight against her, feeling tension snare her once again when he slid his thigh between her legs.

  Hampered by being held on her side, Lacey tried to free her arm. Her fingertips brushed the soft cotton denim and his erect flesh. Rafe stilled. His mouth slowly withdrew from the glistening peak as he raised his head.

  “If I take you now, I will hurt you.”

  His features were passion sharp, his cheekbones flushed, but it was his eyes that held her. Lacey felt herself drawn into the unsated black depth with a dizziness that would not end. “Rafe?”

  “It’s all right,” he soothed, searing a line of kisses from her lips to her belly. The heat of his mouth, the velvet roughness of his tongue made fire spread inside her. With a lover’s delicacy he bit her, rolling her onto her back, his fingers stroking her other breast, coaxing the tip into hardness. He smiled when she shuddered, taking her mouth in a powerful, possessive kiss. His hand savored the sleek, feminine curves and strength that twisted beneath him.

  Lacey felt the same storm that tautened his body, the warmth of his ragged breaths a lover’s song over her skin, and her cry pleaded.

  “I made you a promise, didn’t I? Remember?” His mouth hovered over hers, his lips taunting hers between words. “I promised you’d be hot, wet, kitten soft, and wild with wanting me.” He leaned away from her, his hand sketching the curve of her thigh, his thumb pressed to the veed joining, gentling and arousing her with the same motion.

  “Which are you, bright eyes?”

  Her eyes were fever-bright with flecks of gold, and her heartbeat was as erratic as her breathing. Shafts of sunlight and shadow banded them both, drawing Lacey’s hand to touch the firm line of his jaw. The sun warmed the back of her hand, but his skin was hot. She could not look away from him.

  “Tell me.” Rafe rested his hand on her thigh, desire surging to a dangerous peak, and he fought to control it.

  She swallowed and found there was no moisture left in her mouth. “All.” His hand flexed, pressing down on her, and Lacey felt his touch like a brand. “Did you expect me to lie?” He shook his head slowly, his lashes sweeping down to conceal his gaze, but his smile deepened with distinct male satisfaction. Before she lost her courage, Lacey pushed his shirt off his shoulder. “I want to touch you, too.”

  “I’d like that.” He rolled to his side, stripped off his shirt and came back to her. “Now you.” Rafe lifted her carefully, slid her shirt off, but his lips couldn’t resist tasting the skin he revealed. “I’ve never had a woman who wanted to touch me, really wanted to, without being paid for it.”

  Lacey felt the tears welling in her eyes—she could
n’t stop them. Nor did she want to. Suddenly the fear of being a woman, of being vulnerable to Rafe, left her. How could she withhold anything of herself from him now? She couldn’t. Not when he touched her as if she were delicate enough to break and then kissed her with a possessive hunger that knew no end.

  And when she was aching, craving the blaze of his mouth on her breasts once more, he moved to satisfy that silent demand.

  “Rafe? Rafe, you make me feel—”

  “Show me. Show me,” he repeated with a groan, kneading the flat plane of her belly while he stroked his tongue over the soft undercurve of her breast. His hand shook as he worked her belt buckle open. “Man’s pants, but all woman warm,” he whispered, lowering his head to kiss the small vee of skin each opened button revealed. Lacey tensed. “Don’t you like that?” he asked, gazing up at her.

  “I don’t know. No one ever—”

  “And no one will,” he grated in a savage voice, working one callused fingertip beneath the open edge. “And don’t ever let me catch you outside of this bed without drawers on.”

  “Rafe, I—”

  “Oh, Christ, you’re so kitten soft.”

  His eyes closed as he lowered his head to rest against her belly, and Lacey lost her moment’s anger, threading one hand through the silky texture of his hair. She smiled at his sound of pleasure. The curve of his shoulder beckoned kisses, she scattered them fervently, then licked lingering spice scent from his skin. Rafe’s breathing quickened, heating her flesh, and she caressed the length of his muscled back, her eyes drifting closed when she skimmed the small scars that marked his life.

  His body seemed to coil and tighten in response to her touch, just as hers was flooded with the same growing tension.

  Rafe slipped off the bed and kneeled in front of her. Lacey raised herself up and flushed at the sight of her wanton sprawl. Her legs were spread on either side of his shoulders as he pulled off her boots and tossed them aside. He peeled off the damp socks, his smile boyish as he glanced up at her.