“It looks like they had a corral at one time. And a pig sty.
Pace grunted. “Useless animals, pigs.”
“But you like bacon and ham.”
“At least they’re good for something.”
Joanna poked him playfully. “I had a pig as a pet when I was little.”
“If it was your pet,” Pace muttered, willing to keep her talking so she wouldn’t worry about what might be ahead, “how come the damn thing followed me around all the time?”
“Because he liked you. You can’t fool me. I saw you pet him once.”
“I was just saying hello to the Easter ham.”
“That’s not funny. He was the Easter ham that year. I cried for a week.”
Pace drew to a halt at the corner of the crumbling adobe house. This time when he slid from the saddle, Joanna agreed to stay put.
Pace searched the house and barn and found both deserted. Oddly, the wooden barn had weathered time and the elements far better than the house. The barn at least still had a roof, and its walls stood solid and straight.
He made his way back to where he’d left Jo at the front corner of the adobe. An odd feeling settled in the pit of his stomach to see her sitting calm but alert, with his rifle in her hands. God, she was something, his redheaded firefly. Beautiful, strong, courageous. And she loved him.
For an instant, sheer terror locked his knees. What if she changed her mind? What if she didn’t mean it, or didn’t know her own heart?
Then she smiled at him, and her eyes lit from within with a love that took his breath away. His blood surged in response.
He stood at the buckskin’s head and gripped the bridle to keep from reaching for her. “Can you get down without help?” he asked, his voice sounding choked.
Puzzled at his odd tone, Joanna cocked her head. “If I have to. You’re not going to help me?”
He closed his eyes, and his Adam’s apple bobbed on a heavy swallow. “Firefly, if I touch you right now, we’ll both end up naked in the dirt before we ever make it to the shade inside the barn.”
Joanna’s body reacted instantly to his words by sending flames licking through her veins and settling between her legs. Her lungs automatically sucked in a sharp breath.
Pace opened his eyes. “I’ve shocked you.”
“That’s not…” This time it was she who had to stop and swallow. “Shocked isn’t the right word.” Was that her voice, so low and husky?
“I’m sorry.”
“I think,” she managed, using her tongue to moisten her lips and tasting his kiss all over again, “aroused is more accurate.”
The skin around Pace’s eyes tightened; a muscle in his jaw ticced.
Joanna felt a grin coming on. “Now I see I’ve shocked you.”
The sound of leather rubbing against leather was loud in the morning stillness as Pace’s gloved fist tightened around the bridle strap. “Don’t tease me, Firefly, not about this. I don’t think I can take it. We should wait.”
“For what?” she asked, astounded.
“For the shaman, for a preacher, whichever we find first.”
Joanna bit the inside of her jaw and slid from the saddle. Every muscle in her body protested, but she managed to silence the groan that threatened. After she leaned against the horse a moment, her legs steadied, and she realized she was in much better shape than she’d feared. After three days on the trail, she was starting to toughen up a little. Finally.
“You deserve at least a preacher,” Pace told her.
She straightened and untied the bedroll from in front of the saddle horn. She should be afraid, she supposed. She was about to give herself to a man for the first time. She would be forever changed, a woman in every sense of the word.
But then, she had been forever changed by a gentle touch and hot blue eyes in the darkness of a cold cave. She wanted more. She wanted Pace.
With a look that said it all, she sauntered past him. “Meet me in the barn, and I’ll show you what I deserve.”
Shock held Pace immobile while she walked away toward the barn behind him. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “I’ll be damned.” His smile grew and grew. “I’ll be damned, Firefly,” he whispered. The tension inside him both eased and tightened, and he threw his head back and laughed.
Turning, he watched her disappear through the wide barn door. He led the horse in after her. Without speaking, each tended to the chores at hand. Pace unsaddled the horse and gave him a quick rubdown, checked his hooves for stones, then led him to a pile of old hay in the end stall.
When he finished with the horse, he found Jo waiting for him two stalls down. She had spread armfuls of loose hay and straw across the dirt floor and covered it with their blankets.
Pace looked at the blankets and tried to slow the heated rush of blood to his loins. He looked at the woman waiting for him. Gone was the saucy temptress who’d teased him outside. Her cheeks were flushed with shyness; her shoulders were stiff. When she pulled the gunbelt off over her head and hung it over the side of the stall, she was trembling.
“You’re afraid?”
“No.” She shook her head, then smiled tentatively. “A little nervous, maybe. I’ve…never done this before.”
Pace pulled off his gloves, tossed them aside, and stepped closer. “Of course you haven’t. I know that.”
“I want to do it right, but I…”
“Ah, Firefly.” Pace pulled her gently to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. With her head tucked beneath his chin, he said, “There’s no way to do it wrong, not for us. But we don’t have to do this, Joanna. We can wait.”
Joanna raised her head. “No.” Brushing her lips across his, she whispered, “No, we can’t wait. You build a fire in me, you make be burn deep down inside in an empty spot that I didn’t know was empty until now. A spot only you can fill. Make love with me, Pace.”
Her words made his knees tremble. That she could want him so much…He cupped her face in his hands and returned her featherlight kiss. “I don’t think I’m capable of saying no to you.”
He touched his lips to hers again, and she opened for him, inviting him into her sweet, sweet mouth. He wanted to devour her in one huge gulp before anything could go wrong, before something happened to cause her to slip through his fingers like sand. He’d never wanted anything so badly in his life as he wanted Jo in that moment, and it terrified him. In all his life, he had somehow managed to destroy the things he wanted most. He would cut out his own eyes before he knowingly hurt Joanna, yet the very act of making love with her would hurt her.
“Joanna…”
“Love me, Pace. Just love me.”
He kissed her fiercely then, letting his hunger rule him. And then from somewhere inside came a sense of peace that soothed the urgency in him, letting him be gentle with her, letting him take the time to please her as merely touching her pleased him.
In slow, deliberate stages, he ended the kiss and raised his head. Her lips were wet and puffy from the pressure of his. Her eyes were wide and hungry. He wanted her to burn for him, the way he burned for her.
“Turn around,” he told her softly.
When she did, he carefully undid her braid and threaded his fingers through the long, thick tresses, rubbing them over his face, relishing the softness. “Your hair is like living silk. I love your hair.”
The sound she made when his fingers kneaded her scalp reminded him of a contented cat purring in the sun.
The thought of feeling her hair against his naked chest sent his pulse pounding low in his belly. He gently pushed her hair over her shoulder and unfastened the buttons down the back of her blouse. He turned her around until she faced him, then pulled the blouse from her shoulders and let it hang from the waistband of her skirt. Beneath the thin fabric of her camisole her breasts heaved and trembled.
His loins tightened as if being squeezed.
While Jo pulled her blouse free of her skirt and tossed it toward her gunbelt, Pace
removed his own gunbelt and draped it beside hers.
Silently he knelt and removed her boots while she held his shoulders for balance. He rose slowly, trailing his hands up her legs and stomach until his palms caressed her breasts.
His touch sent hot sparks shooting through Joanna straight to her midsection. The sensation was startling, thrilling. She leaned into his touch for more. He kneaded her breasts, and she moaned in sheer pleasure. She never knew how the buttons on her camisole came undone, but she would be forever grateful that they had, for now his hands were on her flesh, hot hands, hard hands, yet gentle as they set fire to her, cupped her, molded her shape until she felt her breasts swell and she cried out for more.
At her cry, a hollow ache began deep in Pace’s gut. He couldn’t keep from bending down to taste the flesh his hands caressed. With a flick of his thumbs, Joanna gasped, and both nipples hardened. Pace groaned and took one dusky tip into his mouth.
Joanna clutched his shoulders as her breath deserted her and her knees collapsed.
Pace caught her and lowered her gently to the blanket, then worked his way one kiss at a time to her other breast. God, she was sweet. Honey sweet and satin soft, except for nipples as hard as kernels against his tongue.
Joanna stabbed her fingers into his long black hair and held his head to her breast, afraid that sometime in her life he might stop what he was doing and she would wither and die on the spot.
His long hair was heavy against her hands, soft where it draped down and covered her shoulders and brushed along the sides of her breasts. Heaven. Dear God, she was in heaven.
She craved the feel of his flesh beneath her hands and released his hair to reach for his shirt, but she was shaking so hard that the buttons defeated her. She whimpered in frustration.
Pace released her nipple and drew back. Was he scaring her? Was he going too fast? Half out of his mind with wanting her, it took him a moment to realize the problem. “Let me help.” He was stunned to notice his hands were shaking nearly as much as hers were.
Between the two of them they got his shirt off and only managed to tear loose one button in the process. He started to remove his medicine pouch.
Joanna placed a hand over his to stop him. “I thought you never took it off.”
With his eyes on hers, he slipped the rawhide thong over his head and laid the bag aside. “I don’t want anything between us.”
Pace finished unbuttoning Joanna’s camisole, then paused at the sight of the bandage around her ribs. “I’m going to kill that bastard for hurting you.”
Joanna placed her fingers across Pace’s lips. “Forget him, Pace. He’s not worth it.”
Pace swore, low and vicious, as his mind cleared enough to allow him to remove the bandage and check her wound. “He’s not worth the air he fouls with his presence, much less two inches of your skin.”
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t think about him. Not now.”
Pace took a deep breath to control the sharp rage at the sight of her healing wound. That it was healing well and didn’t need to be rebandaged was the only thing that allowed him to set his rage aside. He took a deep breath and let the anger go. For now.
In apology for upsetting her, Pace kissed her slowly as he finished undressing them both. The heat in his loins was burning him alive, and in only a moment, Joanna was burning with him. Breathless, he raised up on one forearm to look at her. He had to see her, all of her.
At the sight of her, naked and willing against his rough, dark blanket, Pace’s heart skipped a beat. “God, you’re so damned beautiful.” So beautiful that just looking at her made his chest ache. She was pale cream tipped with soft rose at her nipples, with a nest of fire where her legs met. A fire that he knew would burn him to cinders and render him whole for the first time in his life.
Joanna felt his gaze on her as though it were a touch, and she feasted on him the same way. She’d never known a man’s body could be so beautiful. He was dark bronze against her paleness, and the contrast made her heart beat faster. He had not removed his wristbands; she had to bite her tongue to keep from asking him too. But she would not ask, not this time.
As one, they reached out to touch, to stroke, to savor and feel the other’s flesh.
Pace had never known anything so soft.
Joanna had never felt such heat, such firmness.
With hands and eyes, they discovered each other, and in doing so, discovered something inside themselves as well, an overwhelming joy for each in the delight the other took.
The touching stoked the fire in their blood and led to kissing. Hunger and need had Joanna pulling Pace on top of her, his weight both satisfying and arousing, and had him settling between her legs to tease himself with the entrance to what to him would be heaven. He trailed open-mouthed kisses along her jaw, down her neck. With the tip of his tongue, he tasted the fluttering hollow of her throat and traced her collarbone.
As he settled his mouth once more over the tip of her breast, he slid his hand down her stomach and felt her muscles contract. One finger dipped into her navel, then he slid his hand lower, down across a bed of curls and lower still, until he touched the very core of her heat. A shudder ripped through him at how slick and hot and ready she was, threatening to rip away his thin hold on control.
But he couldn’t lose control. If he plunged into her the way his body demanded, he would cause her unnecessary, unforgivable pain. He would rather die than do that, so he took his time and drove her higher, higher still, until her hips moved to the rhythm of his touch, until her breath came in gasps and her green eyes turned nearly black. Until he was on the verge of ruining it for both of them by spilling his seed on the blanket instead of into the woman who begged for it, demanded it, with every fiber of her being.
When he removed his hand from between her legs she whimpered in protest. Pace positioned himself at her slick entrance and gritted his teeth against the grinding need to thrust. He’d never tested his control to such limits before, never had a woman drive him to the edge of sanity with her response to his touch. And somewhere inside, he knew he would never have any other woman again but this one for the rest of his life. She was his and he was hers clear down to his soul.
With a nudge of his hips, he pushed into her, but only a little.
Joanna’s eyes widened. “Pace?”
“I’m here,” he answered, bracing as much of his weight as possible on his forearms to keep from crushing her.
Joanna gasped for breath. “You’re not…stopping, are you?”
Pace froze. Oh God oh God oh God. “Do you want me to?”
She thrust her hips upward to take more of him. Never, came her answer in his head. Never stop, never stop loving me.
He pushed a little farther into her heat, letting it caress him, fighting the need to plunder her depths in a single wild thrust, and felt the barrier of her maidenhead. “Dammit,” he cried in frustration. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“I will, but only this first time, I swear it. Hang on to me, Firefly. Hang on tight.”
While she clung to him with hands and arms and legs, Pace reached to that spot just above where their bodies were joined and teased her nub of flesh.
Joanna cried out as waves of shock startled her. More. She wanted more! With a thrust of her hips, she forced him through the barrier. One sharp pain brought a small cry to her lips.
Pace froze, chest heaving, blood pounding hot and heavy in his loins, his hardness threatening to burst. She’d rushed it and caused herself more pain than necessary, and he hurt for her. But even as he cursed himself for not preventing her pain, she began to move beneath him.
The rein on his control stretched to the breaking point. Sweat ran down his back and chest as he fought to keep from pounding into her. He withdrew, then pushed in a little farther, withdrew, and pushed, until he thought he would die of the tormenting pleasure right there in her arms. She took all of him, and for Pace, a
curious peace settled in his chest even as his blood pounded hotter, harder. She felt like…home. He hadn’t had a home in years. Now he knew that wherever Joanna was, that was his home. She was his home. She sheltered his flesh within hers, she held his heart in the palm of her hand, and he would love her with his dying breath.
When she instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips, his control snapped.
Joanna gloried in the power and abandonment of his thrusts, then she lost all ability to think as the spiraling, ravenous tension wound tighter, took her higher, and flung her off the edge of the world.
Pace felt her climax with every fiber of his being. It caressed him with velvet fire and drew him over the edge with her into a release so shattering, he wasn’t sure the ecstasy would ever end, it just went on and on and on until he thought he’d died and been reborn in her arms.
Their bodies were still joined when Joanna opened her eyes to find Pace staring down at her in the shaded light of the barn. The look of wonder in his eyes matched the feeling that swelled in her heart. “Oh, Pace…”
Pace swallowed. “You are…the most incredible woman.”
Joanna mashed her lips together and blinked at the stinging in her eyes. Her heart felt as though it were about to burst, so full of love was it.
Pace lowered his head until only a breath separated their lips. “I love you, Joanna Colton. I love you.”
Fifty miles southeast across the mesa, Manuel Ortiz praised God as he thundered back to the noon camp and announced that he’d found the half-breed’s trail.
Without looking up, Don Rodrigo Francisco Alfredo Martinez Juerta, known throughout the state of Chihuahua as El Carnicero, slid the blade of his favorite knife across the whetstone one more time, then tested the sharpness, and smiled.
Chapter Ten
The moon hovered over Pace’s shoulder as he held Joanna before him in the saddle and urged the buckskin into the night. He hoped the folded blanket beneath her hip protected her from the hard saddle horn, because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her straddle the broad rump of the horse after the thorough loving they’d shared that afternoon, three times.
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