by Beverly Bird
“Let’s hope so.” Jack stood up abruptly and pulled on her arm. “Come on,” he said shortly. “We have to go back.”
But she needed time to think about this. At any given moment, Jack could take off after his…his terrorist, and he would be gone. Maybe even dead.
“Carly,” he said quietly, “I have to go back to the others.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Do you think…I mean, will he just start shooting people for no reason?” Holly, she thought. Tell me Holly is safe enough, more than safe enough, with Rawley, the way I thought.
“No,” Jack said, watching her face. “I don’t think so. Not unless he’s threatened.”
She breathed carefully. “No one up there is going to threaten him.”
“If I thought that, I would never have come down here in the first place.” No, all the danger was right here at this creek, Jack thought. He was double sure of it when she finally stood up and moved closer to him.
She touched her palms to his chest and slid them up over his shirt slowly as though to be able to reassure herself later, when this was over, that he had really been here, had really existed, that he hadn’t been a mirage. There was something almost tentative, even self-conscious about her touch. That alone undid him because he knew what she was thinking.
“I’m going to be fine, cowgirl,” he said hoarsely. “I really am going to shoot him first.”
But his words were hollow. He realized that he wasn’t entirely sure he believed them himself, not anymore, not with his instincts scattered to the wind. He told himself that it was because he didn’t believe himself that he let himself kiss her again.
It was as good an excuse as any.
In truth, he didn’t think it was humanly possible for him to step away from her, while her hands trembled and reached for him, while she looked up at him with those hot, green eyes, her lips slightly parted, her breath soft and fast. He lowered his mouth to hers slowly, with a groan, as though drawn to her by the force of a steady, strong magnet.
He had told himself last night that touching her again would be the worst thing he could do to her. He’d thought she believed that, too. But there were fewer lies between them now, he thought, and there was only one that really mattered anyway.
Suddenly, he wanted to hold her, to protect her, as he had never wanted anything before in his life. And he wanted more than that. He wanted to lose himself in her, just in case Brad did shoot him first. He wanted to be warm inside her. He wanted to be…just a man, without responsibility for what suddenly felt like the whole world on his shoulders.
He dragged her the rest of the way to him, crushing his mouth to hers even harder.
Her hands got somehow trapped between them as she began fumbling with his buttons. Jack made a frustrated sound in his throat and struggled out of one sleeve without breaking the contact of their mouths. He swept his tongue past her teeth and tugged the other sleeve off, then he put his free hand to the back of her head, into all that long, glorious hair, holding her mouth still for his assault so he could taste her again.
He hooked his thumb over the edge of her bra and pulled it down, his hand covering her bare breast. As soon as he touched her she was leaning hungrily into him again, her mouth hot. She was the one who changed the angle of their kiss this time, wanting more, so much more.
When she slid her lips to his shoulder, when she laved her tongue over the rigid muscle there, Jack found his voice again. It was raw.
“We’re crossing a line here.” And it was going to make the rest of his job so damned complicated and dangerous.
“I know.” She did, and it made her voice breathless. “I don’t care.” And she didn’t, and that was frightening even as it felt so, so right.
Jack knew he would care later. Almost certainly, he would. He had always known a little panic at letting women get this close before, even as his body had demanded such release. And this woman was so much more than any other. He knew instinctively that whatever happened next would not be just sex, at least not as he had always kept it. His hand found her chin and he pulled her face up, forcing her to look at him. He lost himself in her eyes—eyes that had captivated him for so much longer than she knew. Guilt ravaged him at that, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop him. It wasn’t as strong as what he had come to feel for her in a few treacherous, precious days.
His mouth came back to hers and worked on it without hesitation or apology. His hands slid up over her ribs, closing over her breasts again, one covered, one not, and the sensation of his calluses against her skin left her reeling. Last night had been sudden, reckless, and every touch had been one of discovery. Last night, she had been fighting with herself. But this was heat and desperation, defiance and need.
He needed to see her this time, really see her, all of her. There could be no fumbling this time, no pushing clothing just far enough out of the way. That would be unfair to both of them. He eased away from her a little, though his blood pounded with urgency, though he was hard to the point of pain.
Carly was confused when he broke their kiss, then she understood. As he set her away from him, he caught the thin, stretchy fabric of her bra again and this time he tore it away completely, snapping the center clasp. She gasped and fought the urge to cover herself. She brought her chin up as though defying him not to like what he saw.
She started trembling and her eyes burned again, because he looked at her as if he had just discovered gold.
Jack felt a strange ache fill his throat at the way the moonlight spilled over her skin. Her breasts were small, her nipples dark and hardening under his gaze. He pushed the straps off her shoulders and her bra fell away.
“Take your jeans off,” he said hoarsely. “I need to see you.”
She felt vulnerable. She felt scared and self-conscious and exquisitely alive. She hesitated.
“Please,” he added.
Just as when he had asked her to take Plank to Rawley’s, the simple word broke something inside her. Carly sat down quickly to pull her boots off, but it took her a moment too long. He lowered himself on top of her, pushing her back into the sand, tugging at her belt.
She sought his mouth again, and he found hers. She forgot what she was doing, and how she had meant to do it. Her hands flew desperately, sliding over his skin, her fingers tangling with the soft mat of golden-brown hair on his chest. Then they skimmed over a puckered ridge of scar tissue just below his waist.
Jack stiffened and waited for her reaction. Women had always avoided his nicks and wounds and scars. Carly snatched her hand back and he wasn’t surprised.
Then she understood what it was that she had felt.
“He shot you,” she breathed. “That came from him, didn’t it?”
Jack didn’t answer, but she could see the truth on his face. It made her even more desperate to feel him inside her before everything could go wrong.
She touched the bullet scar again, sliding her palm over it, then she began pulling at his jeans. Jack felt his breath catch oddly. He hadn’t known relief could be so sweet. He didn’t know if relief was purely what he felt. There was satisfaction and a fierce kind of exhilaration all tangled up with it, that she really was woman enough, strong enough, loving enough to move past the ugliness and try to find the man inside.
And maybe, he thought, maybe she would find that something remained of his heart after all.
He dragged her jeans down her hips. He lowered himself more fully on top of her, feeling her nipples graze against his chest. He wanted to get his own jeans off and realized with a scraping, amazed laugh that he didn’t want to take the time. Not while she was quivering beneath him. He didn’t want to take his attention from her. Not while her mouth was so hot, sliding over his neck, his shoulder, coming back to seek out his own again. He wanted to feel everything, feel her, all of her.
He eased down to take one of her nipples gently between his teeth. Carly arched her back at the wet heat of his mouth, her hands diving into his hair t
o hold his head against her.
More. He traced his tongue to the other side, laving that nipple, too. Not enough. Finally, in desperation, he used his hands, cupping her breasts together, sliding his mouth back and forth.
Carly cried out. They rolled together until somehow she was above him, straddling him, and then she finally remembered that she had been trying to get his jeans off. She tugged and pulled at his clothing until he was naked, but then she found his gun.
She gasped unconsciously. He unstrapped it as fast as he could while his mouth searched her neck, beneath her hair, and he made her forget it again. His hard-gentle hands moved up her thighs and she moaned. His fingers slid between her legs and she cried out.
“Now,” she managed. “I can’t…I don’t…”
“I know.”
Later there would be time for finesse, for protracted pleasure—if he ever allowed himself a later. He groaned, knowing he would never be able to keep his hands off her, not now that he had given in to the need once. But now there was her skin and the sand, both still warm from the sun, and later was a long time away. He rolled again, pinning her beneath him. Though he’d wanted to explore more of her first, he couldn’t have denied her plea if Scorpion had held a gun to his head.
Scorpion. Dear God, what if he came over the rise now? Nothing like a little insane jealousy to get things rolling, he thought, and had another wild urge to laugh. But then Carly wrapped her legs around him, ensnaring him, and he could no longer think about the man, about anything at all.
Carly gasped at the sudden fullness of him, her body tightening first in shock at the invasion, then going liquid, melting. He went still for a moment, kissing her again, more gently this time. He covered her mouth, swallowing her breath even as it exploded from her. Then he finally moved inside her, slowly at first, as though savoring the moment, as though there would never be another one like it, and there was something reverent about it, something almost too good to be true. He plunged harder, faster. Carly felt an exquisite tension, building, tightening, wanted it to last and knew there was no time because Scorpion was back in the camp, waiting for him.
And Holly, too. Oh, God, there was Holly—
But Holly’s safe with Rawley and this is mine, she thought wildly. Finally, this is mine.
Jack caught her hips and held her still and thrust inside her until the tension in her exploded. Then she could no longer think of anything at all. Release rained through her in colors like a sunset, the red of heat and the purple of twilight. Don’t stop, don’t let this end. But of course there was nothing she could do about it any longer and her breath caught as she felt him stiffen above her.
This time he said her name, her full name, and it was so sweet that she couldn’t remember anymore why she had ever hated it.
“Carlotta…”
Chapter 12
Jack finally braced his weight on his elbows to look down into her face. He brushed his mouth over her cheek. Carly smiled, but then her own mouth trembled. Reality came back, cruel and cold.
“You have to go back,” she said quietly.
“Yeah. I do.”
She turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t have to watch him leaving her. It felt too fast, too soon.
Jack heard himself explaining though he hadn’t intended to, listened to himself and wondered again why he felt compelled to make her understand. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that, try as he might, he couldn’t ever remember sex being like that before…that genuine. He felt as if he owed her something more than a kiss goodbye.
And he needed her to understand.
“If we don’t go back up there, I’m afraid Scorpion’s going to start wondering what we’re up to.” He didn’t add that he probably already had, and he would be none too pleased about it. “He doesn’t want anything odd, anything different, to happen right now,” Jack went on carefully. “If it does, then he could get antsy and dangerous.”
Her eyes finally slid back to him. “You don’t ever turn it off, do you?”
“What?”
“That predator in your brain.”
He eased off her without comment.
She was being unreasonable. Carly knew that. She’d known what he was when she’d let herself make love with him. Let herself? The lure of him was more than she could withstand any longer. Either way, now was a fine time to start feeling put out by it, she realized.
Jack sat in the creek-bed sand, watching pensively as she washed and dressed again. Once he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. More than once his gaze went to the rim above them. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that Brad hadn’t appeared there yet to find out what was going on. He knew that Carly was still disgruntled, and he was stunned that he had left the man out of his sight for this long.
When she was ready, she picked up her bag with one hand and her gun with the other.
“I really wish you’d give me that,” Jack muttered.
“I’ll just feel better if I have it within reach,” she said tightly.
“It won’t do you any good. You can’t possibly be fast enough with it to make any difference.”
He was trying to scare her into cooperation, but it didn’t work this time. Her jaw became hard.
“Then, too, there are all those things I warned you about when I was tossing firecrackers your way,” she pointed out stubbornly. She laid the gun neatly on top of her clothing inside the bag. She didn’t zip it. “There could be snakes, or a cow could go down. I couldn’t just leave an animal lying there, dying slowly, so—”
“You’re babbling again, Carly.”
No, she thought, no, she was just trying to make her world normal again. Trying desperately. And if she had to babble to do it, well, then, she’d babble.
“I’d carry this gun with or without your Scorpion, Jack,” she went on. “I’m just glad I have it, and believe me, I’m ready to use it.”
Something about the way she said it alerted him. “Don’t tell me. You’re the Ellis County shoot-out champ from four years ago, before Rawley.”
“Five. But who’s counting?”
Jack thought about it. “Did Rawley compete that year?”
She looked pained. “No. But I’ll get him this year. I’ve been practicing since the snow melted.”
A corner of Jack’s mouth lifted. God bless Rawley, he thought, if the man had the audacity to edge her again.
Then something wrapped itself tightly around his windpipe. He didn’t know when the next shoot-out was, but he found himself praying that both she and Rawley would be alive by then to lock horns, to worry about such inane concerns. He found himself praying fiercely, thinking about God again when he hadn’t done so for years before this trip…maybe since he was ten years old and he had prayed and prayed, and no one had ever answered.
He finally dressed as well and they started back up the slope. At the last minute he took her hand.
Carly was surprised, then she thought she understood. He was trying to send his Scorpion—which one?—some kind of signal.
She thought about pulling away from him, but she couldn’t fight any of this any longer, and she was finally coming to realize it.
“Where’d you put your tent?” she asked tightly.
“I didn’t.”
She opened her mouth, then she snapped it shut again. She understood that, too. He wanted to be outside, aware of every little thing that went on in the camp tonight. This Scorpion character was definitely one of them, she thought again.
Fear slid through her coldly. This time it stole the breath right out of her, and she was glad Jack still held her hand.
Carly couldn’t sleep, and the camp never really did, either. She didn’t know if that was good, bad or merely nerve-racking.
She stayed outside, too. The idea of being trapped inside her tent brought a hard, heavy weight to her chest, though she had never really been claustrophobic before. She lay in her sleeping bag beside the fire, her gun tucked inside with her, though she had
not let Jack know that.
Well past midnight, she heard the first footsteps. It was enough to make her scramble out of her sleeping bag and perch on one of the supply boxes, her gun in her lap. But it was only Leigh, creeping through the darkness to one of the other tents. Carly wasn’t sure whom the blonde was meeting. Too many of the group had retired while she had still been down at the creek with Jack. She could only pray, for Leigh’s sake, that it wasn’t the man Jack called Scorpion.
A little while later, Myra scurried back from a nearby culvert. That surprised her, though she supposed it shouldn’t. The teacher had sat beside the fire with Rawley until late, and they had been talking quietly and laughing with each other. Rawley had a custom-made, all-terrain wheelchair and he could get around just fine. Carly wondered if it had just taken him to a tryst with Myra.
There was nothing more invigorating to the libido than a little dust and fresh air, Carly reflected, finally relaxing enough to rest her chin in her hand. The very nature of these trips always lent a feeling of disassociation and unreality. The eleven of them—thirteen now with Josh and Rawley—were isolated in a place that always felt like nowhere, no matter how many times she crossed it. The whole world seemed to be made of rocky red soil and immeasurable sky. It was hard to remember that there was a real world out there, a place just past the horizon where real life would have to be resumed with real people who weren’t caught in this space in time.
Carly grimaced. That being the case, she supposed it made it easier to accept what had happened between her and Jack.
She felt no regret, no remorse, she realized. Right or wrong, she had succumbed to the mood of the ride, and she had grabbed what she could for herself, had given to him what she was able. Oddly enough, she knew she still didn’t trust him exactly, yet she trusted in his kindness, and in his heart. He genuinely thought that he was doing the best for her—for all of them—that he could. And right now, in the middle of nowhere, she supposed that was enough.