by Cox, Deborah
Without a word, he reached out, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her into the square. His eyes never left hers. Their hands joined, her small one inside his large one, as they moved around the clearing to the rhythm of the music.
How could a man of such violence dance with such skill and grace? He held her close against him, guiding her gracefully over the hard-packed ground. The flickering lantern light accentuated the planes of his face and made his dark hair appear even darker, but his gray eyes glowed as he looked down at her, and her pulse quickened.
Cut off from the rest of the world by his arms and his muscular body, she closed her eyes, surrendering to the sweetly haunting music. He held her gently, as if she were something precious. And when she gazed up into his eyes again, they had lost their cold remoteness and burned instead with a fire that spoke of hunger and need.
The heat of his body reached out to her, engulfing her in warmth and strength. She clung to him, pressing her body fully against his, willing herself to forget for just a while that he was a gunfighter, a man who could never give her what she wanted. Right now, he was everything she needed.
He whispered her name, the sound like a soft, caressing breeze on a hot summer's night. His chin rested against the top of her head, and she laid her cheek against his chest. His heart beat strong and fierce against her temple. She knew in that instant that she never wanted to be without him, even for a single day. The realization terrified her because she also knew that eventually he would leave.
Oblivious to everything around them, they continued to sway together long after the music died away. The band began another fandango, and the dancers started to whirl around them.
"The waltz is over," he murmured, the sound rumbling in his chest. He held her away from him, and she tipped her head back to gaze into his eyes.
"Yes."
The noise and the crowd receded. He reached out to tilt her face toward his. She knew he was going to kiss her before his lips gently touched hers.
A groan passed his lips and shuddered through her body. She grasped his shirt and pulled herself closer to him.
Rafe backed away from her as she leaned toward him. Taking her by the hand, he led her through the dancers and out of the square, into the shadows where the lights could not follow.
They reached the edge of the river where Rafe had set up camp, and she surprised him by wrapping her arms around him and tilting her head up, offering her lips to hm. He pulled her into the circle of his arms and kissed her, his mouth traveling down the column of her throat, even as he tugged her shirtwaist out of her breeches.
Slowly, slowly, he told himself, fighting the urgency of his own desire. This was Annie, not some whore, not a faceless body he could use for his own pleasure with no regard for her. Don't frighten her. Don't hurt her. But the blood pounded in his veins with relentless power, threatening to blot out everything but his own need.
His hand moved up under her blouse, closing around a soft, firm breast. She gasped at the contact, gazing up at him with lips slightly parted, her eyes dark with passion. A familiar hardness began to build between his legs, and a groan rumbled up from his belly as he kissed the hollow of her neck.
Straining against him, she returned his kiss with a hunger that coursed through his painfully aroused body. He lifted her shirt. She shivered but did not protest until he ran a calloused thumb over a sweet, swollen nub. Then she cried out in shock and jerked away.
She watched the rise and fall of his chest as he struggled for breath, marveling that she had elicited such an acutely physical reaction in him. Slowly, he moved toward her, as if he feared he might startle her into flight. Her heart drummed in her chest with such force that she could scarcely breathe, but she didn't back away. There was an inevitability about what was happening between them, as if it had always been meant to be.
He didn't touch her except to undo the buttons that ran down the front of her blouse. When he had unfastened the last one, he pushed the garment open and slid it down her arms. He had removed it before she reacted, folding her arms over her breasts, turning her face away from him, suddenly shy, suddenly afraid of the fire in those pale glowing eyes.
She was torn between incompatible urges: to press herself against him and to keep her nakedness hidden from him. She hadn't known it would be like this, this complete giving of herself to someone else. And while it frightened her to her core, her body cried out for his touch.
"Let me see you, Annie," he whispered against her ear.
She didn't resist when he took her wrists and drew them gently apart. She felt the heat of his gaze as he looked at her as no man ever had before. Pulling her chemise over her head, he dropped it to the ground. Warm hands encircled her flesh and calloused thumbs caressed her sensitive, nipples sending a flash of something like pain plunging downward, across her belly, between her thighs.
"So soft," he murmured. "So sweet."
Now it was Anne’s turn. She wanted to see him, too, to touch that rock hard chest she’d felt through his shirt. Her fingers fumbled on the buttons, but finally the last one yielded. She did as he had—pushing the garment down his arms, letting it float to the ground behind him. She touched him, the soft skin over hard muscle, the dark hair that ran down the center of his chest and disappeared inside his breeches.
She trailed her hand down over those coarse hairs until he gasped and grabbed her hand.
He twisted his other hand in her hair and gently pulled her head back. She gazed into his eyes, into the barren wasteland that was his soul. The desolation tore at her heart and took her breath away. She wanted to take away the pain, the darkness.
She lifted her lips to his, her kiss like a whisper, her soft curves molding to the contours of his lean body. He held her more tightly, drinking her essence like a starving man. He lifted her in his arms, carried her a short distance to the river, and laid her down gently in the scant grass that grew along the bank.
Fear rippled through her as she thought of the creatures that must call this place home—insects, snakes, spiders. But the urgency of her desire overrode everything else when he knelt beside her.
She knew he was naked, even though she averted her gaze in embarrassment. Was it too late?
His mouth captured hers again, and she forgot her fear. His tongue traced her lips while his hands worked to divest her of her last garment.
Her world was filled with him. He stretched out beside her, supporting his body with one hand while his other hand stroked her breasts, moving down her belly and across her hips, his touch feather light. She moaned as sensations pulsated through her, and her body yearned for fulfillment.
She gasped as his fingers found the triangle of downy hair that grew at the juncture of her thighs and moved downward into the recesses of her core. She nearly cried out at the savage thrill that leaped through her tingling body. His eyes bored into hers while his fingers explored, arousing a response that terrified her with its intensity.
"Stop!" she finally cried.
He continued touching her, caressing her. "Did I hurt you?"
She couldn't answer. An unfamiliar spasm ripped through her being, leaving her speechless, mindless. She could hear herself moaning, but she couldn't stop until her body reached an apex of sensation.
He shifted his weight, and she felt the pressure of his knees coaxing her legs apart. He lowered himself between her thighs.
Her flesh encircled him as he eased inside her, slowly, gently, even though a raw insistence urged him to take her quickly and end the unbearable agony. But he was determined to be patient, to give as much pleasure as he received.
It was then he encountered the barrier, the thin but insistent membrane, and he went still. He'd known it would be there, though he had nearly forgotten in his frenzied need. The thought shot through him like a hot wind that this was the one pure thing in his wretched existence, and he was about to defile it.
He couldn't stop. He needed her as he had never needed anyone or
anything in his life. His body convulsed with a blinding hunger as he fought the urge to thrust into her, to break through that barrier, to feel the sweetness of something untouched, something pure. He needed to feel connected to her, if only for a short while. He almost believed—hoped—that she could redeem him.
"Oh, God, Annie, I can't give you anything," he managed to choke out, hating himself for what he was doing. He was everything dark and vile. She was everything bright and beautiful. He had no right to touch her, to want her so desperately.
She answered him by wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling herself up to him so that her soft breasts brushed his hard chest and her lips fitted themselves to his. He moaned deep in his throat as a shudder ripped through him. The urgency to be inside her consumed him. His breath hissed between his teeth. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, blood rushing through his body to his groin.
She clung to him as he pushed her back down to the grass, a war raging inside his rigid body between the insistence of his need and his desire to be gentle, to cause as little pain as possible.
Why, Annie, why? He kept asking silently, even as he made that irrevocable thrust. She cried out sharply, and he willed himself to absorb her pain.
She had gone rigid, lying beneath him, trembling in reaction. He pressed a kiss to her temple, smoothing the hair from her brow with a trembling hand, fighting the burning need to move, to thrust deeper inside her, to feel her flesh tight and soft around him.
She had known there would be pain, but what she hadn't expected was the absolute invasion of her body and her soul. He surrounded her, absorbed her, as she absorbed him. She wanted to know what he felt, what he thought when he looked down at her, their bodies locked together, his flesh inside hers. In his eyes, she saw pain, her pain, and she wanted to reassure him that she would not break.
And then he moved, and she released a long, low gasp of surprise mingled with pain and pleasure as he entered her further, pushing deeper, her body stretching, opening to receive him until he lay fully inside her. She felt the sleek caress of his naked body as he withdrew from her in a long, silken movement, his mouth trailing along her collarbone, his lips teasing their way down the valley between her breasts.
He stopped the slow retreat from her body, remaining inside her. His mouth continued its feast, extending its quest to the soft mound of a breast. She arched her hips toward him and he remained still, so that it was she who took him.
Her breath came in soft, painful gasps as she felt herself stretching once again to accommodate him. She sank back down to the ground and he followed her, maintaining the connection between their bodies, deepening it when her hips rested on the ground.
He didn't have to pretend this time that she was someone he cared about as he had with the countless whores he’d lain with. He didn't have to keep his eyes shut tightly to block out the reality. She was soft and sweet and guileless, and she'd given him the most precious thing she had to give—her innocence.
All the emotions and all the memories he'd kept so carefully buried for so long rose inside him and devoured him. He felt himself slipping into a black hell as all of his defenses began to crumble, leaving his soul open like a raw wound.
Her hand on his face brought him back from the abyss. He closed his eyes, leaning his cheek into her palm.
Wetness touched her fingers and her heart constricted. "It's all right," she whispered, because she didn't know what else to do, to say.
He pressed a kiss into her palm. A hand slipped beneath her shoulders and lifted her up against his chest. Her arms went around his strong muscled back, clinging to him as he moved inside her. The cadence of his breathing turned shallow and raw. It frightened her, his wildness, his loss of control. She tried to remind herself he would never intentionally hurt her, but it was all she could do not to cry out as the rhythm of his body increased and the thrusts became fiercer. He needed her, and tonight his need outweighed hers. He clung to her, devoured her with the fervor that grew to a shattering climax, and cried out with the release that tore through him.
The music from the village faded away. Somewhere in the distance a coyote howled, sweet and sorrowful. Rafe's heart hammered against hers as she listened to his rapid, shallow breathing.
His breath quieted eventually, and he turned on his side, drawing her soft, moist body against him, her back pressed against his chest. She came into the fold of his embrace so sweetly, so eagerly, that his heart plunged into his stomach with regret that he could never be what she needed, while she was everything he wanted.
He wrapped an arm around her, his hand closing over her soft, vulnerable shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Annie," he whispered against her hair. "I hurt you and I'm sorry."
"My father's mistress told me it always hurts the first time."
What Terese had said was that there were always tears the first time, but they were supposed to be her tears, not his.
"I could have been gentler. It's just been so long.... Why, Annie?" He finally asked the question that had plagued him throughout their lovemaking.
"I wanted it to be you," she murmured.
"I don't understand. Why me?"
She hesitated. Her heart knew the reason, but she wasn't sure how he would react if she told him.
He waited in silence until she finally replied. "Because I love you."
A slow, bitter sigh hissed between his lips. She regretted her truthfulness when his arms fell away from her. She pushed herself up, bracing her weight on an extended arm so she could look down into his eyes. Her long, loose hair brushed against his chest. He lifted it in his right hand, caressing it. He refused to look at her.
"You can't love me."
"But I do. You don't have to—to say anything. You don't have to feel...."
"You know what I am." His voice sounded as dry and coarse as desert sand.
"Yes."
"Don't tell me you believe in me or that I'm something I'm not."
"And don't you try telling me you're not! You kill people for money. You have no home to speak of. You've lived a harsh, rugged life by any standard, yet you waltz as if you were born to it."
He turned to face her. "A whore taught me."
"I don't believe you. No whore could have taught you to dance like that. It's as if there's another man deep inside you—"
"He's buried in the desert, Annie. There's no one else in here now but me."
"All right. I don't care. I love you anyway."
He began to rise, but she tried to block him.
"Don't!" she cried. "Don't leave me, not now. We won't speak of it again, I promise."
She wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly aware of her nakedness.
Rafe cursed himself silently. He must be the most insensitive son-of-a-bitch who ever lived. He'd taken his pleasure, and now that she needed him, all he wanted to do was escape. He took her by the shoulders and laid her down on the ground, reversing their positions.
"Don't move," he whispered.
He rose and walked to the spot where he’d dropped their saddlebags and fumbled inside his until he found what he was looking for. He retrieved the other bedroll and walked back toward her, touched by the way she averted her gaze from his nakedness. He couldn't get used to this new Annie. She was always so self-assured, so bold and intrepid, it was odd to see her so timid.
"Here," he said, dropping to the ground beside her.
She sat up with a gasp at the feeling of something cold against her breast. It was her lost locket. She opened her eyes, gazing at him in confusion.
"You can add theft to the list of my sins," he said, wrapping the bedroll around her trembling shoulders. "I wanted to give it back to you before, but I started thinking of it as my good-luck charm."
She touched the locket with a sad smile. "My father gave this to me the night he died. He'd won it gambling, and when he gave it to me it still had someone else's picture in it."
"You once said something about t
he man who killed your father. I got the impression you knew him."
"Borden McKenna." The name was like a curse on her lips. "My father befriended him when he was down on his luck. Papa was always bringing home strays of one kind or another. I was in Baton Rouge and Papa was in Natchez when they met. Papa sent him to fetch me to Natchez when it was safe."
Anger surged through him at the thought that her father would have sent a stranger to escort his daughter anywhere. How had he known he could trust the bastard? "But he hardly knew the man, from what you've said."
"My father's judgment wasn't the best. But Borden was a handsome, charming Irishman. He didn't have to resort to molesting women. They fell at his feet."
"Including you?" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer to that one. He didn't want to think of Annie loving another man.
"I should have known better."
"You were innocent. Your father should have known better. He should have kept you away from a man like that."
"Borden McKenna could charm a drunk out of his last drink. He deceived my father as he deceived everyone else. He told me he loved me, and then he shot my father in cold blood."
"Both of them were fools." Rafe said in a low, pain-filled voice.
"I loved my father. He had his faults, but he loved me. My mother died in childbirth in St. Louis when I was five. My father blamed himself. He was never the same after that."
Rafe was silent. The muscle in his jaw tightened, as if he was having a hard time controlling himself. She wanted to comfort him, to make him tell her what he was thinking, but he would only become angry if she asked.
She held the locket out to him. "Here. You keep it."
He blinked his eyes, focusing on her with an effort. "It belongs to you. It holds special meaning for you."
"But if it brings you luck..."