by Linda Howard
Emma shivered and went still, her brown eyes enormous in her pale, dusty face. She stared up at the hard face of the man lying on top of her, shocked at what she could feel happening to his body. She had never felt a man’s weight before, and now that their battle had abruptly changed to a sexual one, she was frightened into stillness.
Though she knew there were others standing just a few feet away, in a strange way she felt they were utterly alone. She smelled his sweat, and his quick, hard breathing feathered her face. She knew hers must be doing the same thing to him, in a subtle exchange of their very breath.
She noticed his eyes were hazel, his eyelashes and brows black. He moved again in a slight shift of position that brought him even more snugly against her.
From a great distance she heard Celia sobbing. Emma rolled her head to the side, and the sight of the girl locked in another man’s arms shattered the strange sensuality that had enthralled her. Hectic color rushed to her face.
“Please,” she said in a stifled tone. “Let me up.”
Ben propped up on an elbow, still keeping her arms pinned to the dirt with his other hand. “Am I going to have to wrestle you down again?” he panted.
“No.”
He got to his feet and dragged her up until she was standing. Emma held out her arms, and with a small understanding smile Luis released Celia, who flew into her cousin’s comforting embrace. The girl was terrified and sobbing in harsh, choking sounds.
Ben picked up his hat from the ground and slapped it against his pants, sending clouds of dust flying. He felt breathless, and though his erection had subsided there was still an uncomfortable tightness in his loins.
Emma stroked Celia’s tangled hair and looked over her head at the men surrounding them. “What are you going to do with us?” she asked, instinctively looking at the man who had held her down as the leader.
“Take you back to the ranch,” he said.
Emma ducked her head, hiding her alarm as she continued to soothe Celia. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse, but pride held her erect, unable to show weakness to an enemy.
Ben looked up at the sun, estimating the time. “We’ll have to rest the horses for a while before we head back. We won’t make it to the ranch tonight, but we should meet up with Jake on his way back with Mrs. McLain.”
Emma’s head jerked up. “Jake?” she asked, her heart beginning to pound. Had Jake Roper come to their aid after all? But she was afraid to hope, because Jake was such a common name. Until then Emma had been determined not to say anything about Victoria in the hope that she had gotten away.
“Jacob Sarratt,” Ben said. “My brother. I’m Ben Sarratt.”
She stared at him, white-faced, because Victoria had been right after all.
“The—the Major?”
Ben walked over to snare Sophie’s reins and gave Emma a dismissive look over his shoulder. “Dead,” he said.
It was late in the afternoon when they saw two riders approaching. Ben grunted in satisfaction, glad that Jake had recovered the missing widow without any trouble. His plan to get legal possession of the ranch by marrying her would have been worthless if he hadn’t been able to find her. Ben watched them ride up, more than a little curious about this woman Jake was willing to marry.
Emma finally recognized Victoria and stumbled forward with a cry, but she froze in her tracks when she also recognized the man riding beside her cousin. She shot a disbelieving look at Ben, then another at Jake. Jake Roper was Jake Sarratt? Understanding dawned. My God, he’d been playing them all for fools from the beginning!
When they reined in at the camp Victoria didn’t wait for anyone to help her down. Unhooking her leg from the pommel, she jumped and stumbled, but recovered herself before Jake could reach out to catch her.
“Emma? Celia?”
Hearing the hoarse anxiety, Emma hurried forward. “We’re both all right. Celia’s stiff and sore, but we haven’t been hurt. Are—are you—”
“Tired,” Victoria said, her shoulders slumping. She allowed herself the weakness only for a moment. Lifting her chin, she said, “I suppose you know?”
“About the Major? Yes.”
“And about the Sarratts?” Victoria’s face was expressionless.
“Yes.”
There was nothing else to say. They were all safe, at least for the moment. What lay ahead, they couldn’t even guess.
Victoria sat quietly with Emma beside her. One of the men—the one they called Wylie—began preparing the evening meal. Victoria stirred enough to offer their provisions.
Jake was ominously silent, and Ben watched Victoria closely. She didn’t know that he was admiring her quiet, dignified manner and the look of pride on her dusty face. He was even admiring the fact that she was obviously the cause of Jake’s black mood, because no woman before had ever been able to get past Jake’s wall of reserve.
They ate at sunset and turned in shortly afterward. Victoria was too tired even to argue when Jake dumped his bedroll beside her blanket, though she did wonder what the men thought. She decided that she was too tired to care and, curling up on her side, was asleep before Jake got his boots off.
When they reached the hacienda the next day, Victoria still didn’t know what Jake intended to do with them. If he’d been planning to kill them, surely he would have done it and left their bodies out in the rocks. Instead he’d brought them back, to Carmita, who came running from the hacienda with glad cries and outstretched arms.
There were signs of the recent battle everywhere, from the multitude of new faces to the chips in the adobe walls. Several windows had been broken and holes peppered the black wood of the front door. Still, there were some things that were unchanged. Carmita was still motherly in her concern, and Angelina Garcia still lounged around.
The women trooped tiredly upstairs, with Carmita fussing around them while Lola and Juana began heating the massive quantities of water needed for them all to have a bath. Celia could barely climb the stairs, she was so sore; they decided she should have the first bath for the relief the hot water would give her muscles. Carmita also addressed the problem with a liberal application of liniment, despite Celia’s blushing reluctance to bare her legs and backside.
The house was teeming with activity, and if there was one thing Victoria knew how to do it was run a household. She seized on the work to keep herself from screaming out her fears and uncertainties, because she still didn’t know what was going to happen and was afraid to ask. The Major’s room had been cleaned out as if he’d never been; even the furniture had vanished.
It was disorienting to open the connecting door between their bedrooms and look at the emptiness of bare walls and floor. Her husband was unmourned, and every trace of him had also gone. It seemed as if no one wanted to say anything about it. She wondered if McLain had been shot down in that very room. She backed into her own room and quietly closed the door.
When it came time for her own bath, she locked both doors and lolled in the hot water for a long time, soaking out the grit that felt embedded in her skin. She washed her hair, sighing with relief at the sense of being clean again, and leisurely brushed it dry. Eventually, however, she ran out of excuses to linger and was forced to dress and go downstairs for dinner.
The meal was a strange affair. Celia ate in her room, and the four people who sat down at the table were all silent for their own reasons. Emma, usually as self-assured as a Mother Superior, was pale and looked only at Victoria the few times she raised her eyes from her plate. Jake wasn’t scowling, but his expression was dark nonetheless. He and Ben made no effort at conversation, but ate steadily. Victoria’s own stomach was knotted in a mass of nerves and she only tasted a few bites.
Immediately afterward, the two men went into the library and shut the door.
Once they were gone, Emma came to life. “I’m going to my room,” she said with heartfelt relief. “I’ll have to read a couple of hours before I get sleepy, but at least I’l
l be able to relax.”
Victoria nodded, equally relieved. “That sounds like a very sensible plan. I have some mending to do that will take an hour or so.”
Very much in accord, they ascended the stairs together. Victoria sewed on loose buttons and mended torn hems, the mundane chore giving her back a portion of her lost reality. Many things on the surface looked as they had before, but the content had changed. Uncertainty was nerve-racking, she decided as she bit off the thread the last time and packed her sewing box away. The Major and Garnet were both gone, but her life was even more tenuous than it had been before.
At least she felt calm enough to sleep. She lifted her skirt to remove her shoes and stockings, then walked barefoot to the dresser to take the pins from her hair.
Her arms were raised, removing the last pin, when the hallway door to her bedroom opened and Jake stepped inside. Victoria went white. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
For answer, he calmly turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. While she watched, horrified, he strolled to the connecting door and repeated the action. As casually as if he undressed in front of her every day, he then removed his boots and shirt. His naked torso was strongly muscled, with lean, hard bands delineating his ribs and stomach. She stared at him, mesmerized. A strange, warm sensation jolted her, and she jerked her gaze upward.
She stood frozen, her eyes huge as she searched his face. It was as expressionless as the day she’d met him, and she realized that this, then, was the final part of his revenge. She had been a complete fool about him; worse, even now she still loved him. It was a passion that twisted inside her, an ache intertwined with fear; she had never before known that a loved one could be simultaneously cherished and dreaded, but then she had never before loved someone who wanted only to wreak his vengeance on her.
“Come here,” he said calmly.
Her heart thudded and for a moment pure fear pushed her to obey. Then her back stiffened and she put up her chin. “You think I should aid you in my violation? No. I will not.”
He shrugged and a hard smile touched his lips. “It makes no difference to the outcome,” he said, approaching to stand directly in front of her. “Neither will your next decision, but I’ll give you a choice anyway. Take off your clothes, or I’ll take them off for you, and I don’t care about buttons or seams. It’s your choice,” he repeated, “but your clothes won’t survive if I have to do it.”
She looked directly up into his glittering green eyes, trying to read them, but his expression was closed to her. “Is there nothing I can say that will convince you to leave me alone?”
“No. I decided to have you practically from the first time I set eyes on you, and that hasn’t changed. You can try to change my mind, though, if you insist.”
She decided not to, because she was afraid she would descend to begging, and her desperate pride rebelled against that.
“You can even scream, if you want,” he pointed out. “That won’t do any good, either. It’ll upset Emma and Celia, but they won’t be able to help you. So what’s your decision? Are you going to undress?” He lifted one brow at her, and hating her own cowardice, she lifted trembling hands to the buttons on her plain white shirtwaist. It seemed there was nothing else she could do.
She had never undressed in front of a man before, never dreamed that she would have to perform such an act. She unbuttoned the front, then rumbled with the buttons to the tight cuffs until he said impatiently, “Get it off.”
The button at the waistband of her skirt eluded her, and with a muffled curse he pushed her hands away and unfastened the garment himself. It drooped around her hips, but was held up by the bulk of her petticoats. She removed the freed shirtwaist and dropped it on the chair.
“Now the skirt,” he directed.
A fine shaking seized her legs as she lifted the skirt off over her head and placed it, too, on the chair. Now she stood before him in petticoats and shift, acutely aware of her bare shoulders and arms, and the fact that her nipples were visible through the soft, thin cotton.
He was only a foot away, so close she could feel the heat of his body. She tried to back away, but came up flush against the dresser.
His hard mouth twisted in wry acknowledgment of her action. “The petticoat,” he prompted.
She untied the tapes and pulled the first one off over her head. He stared down in frustration at the almost identical garment that had been beneath the first. She hurried to release it, then closed her eyes in mortification as she let it drop to pool around her feet. Now she was clad in only drawers and shift, and hot color rushed into her pale face. Even on those two horrible nights when the Major had tried to consummate their marriage, he hadn’t insisted on watching her remove her clothing. But this wasn’t the Major, it was Jake. Paralyzed, she stared at his broad chest and naked, heavily muscled shoulders, the smooth skin gleaming in the mellow lamplight. Curly dark hair covered his chest, punctuated by two small, tight brown nipples. Oddly, she had never before thought about a man having nipples, and seeing his made her even more acutely aware of his half-naked state.
Jake stiffened against a surge of lust as he looked at her round breasts pushing against the thin cotton covering them. God, she was pretty, slim and ivory-skinned, delectably curved in all the right places. “Now the shift.” The words were a little hoarse.
She turned white again and automatically crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I won’t.” But her voice shook, and Jake was almost at the limit of his control. He reached out and roughly jerked the garment up and over her head, forgetting about it even as he tossed it aside. His mind was on Victoria, on the pale, full globes of her breasts and the delicacy of her small, pinkish-brown nipples. He had wanted to punish her a little bit because of the worry and torment she had caused him by running off, but his patience and need for revenge had run out. More than anything, he now just wanted her naked and willing in his arms.
Victoria cringed as her breasts were bared. Not even the Major had ever insisted on seeing her naked bosom. She tried to cross her arms over her chest again, but Jake caught her wrists and held her arms down at her side as he leisurely looked her over.
“Don’t hide from me.” Heat was rising in him, swelling his loins with an intensity that made him shake, now that he was so close to having her. He’d never before known this kind of hunger, this overwhelming urge to have this particular woman and no other. “I’m going to see every inch of you before I’m finished.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she burst out, tears stinging her eyes. She blinked them back, not wanting him to see her cry. “What have I done to you?”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said, his voice even hoarser than before. “I’m not looking for punishment. I want you, and you want me. It’s time we did something about it.” He released one of her wrists and put his hand on her waist, smoothing his palm up her rib cage, savoring the softness of her skin under his fingers. “You’re going to enjoy it as much as I do.”
She stared incredulously at him. “You’re mad!”
Her disbelieving outburst told him a lot. He smiled and slid both arms around her, pulling her tight against him. “You’ll see, sweetheart. I’m not McLain. I’m going to love you until we both go crazy.”
Out of the confused, combined vortex of fear, shock, embarrassment, and outrage, only one coherent protest formed, and the words were a moan of despair. “But you—you shouldn’t see me like this!”
“Why not?” he murmured, bending his head to nuzzle her ear. “You’re so pretty and soft. We’re both going to be naked before too much longer, and if you like to look at me half as much as I like looking at you, we may never put on clothes again.”
She trembled at the very idea of lying naked with him; the thought was so foreign to her upbringing that her mind felt numb, unable to form the picture. She was pathetically grateful that at least she was still wearing her drawers, though she was afraid the garment wouldn’t remain on her much lon
ger.
“Kiss me,” he said in a cajoling tone, but she couldn’t. He cupped her chin and turned her face up to him. “Kiss me,” he said again, whispering, and covered her mouth with his.
Victoria hung in his brawny arms, her toes barely brushing the floor. His mouth smothered hers, and she felt dizzy. Despite herself, she had to cling to his heavy shoulders. The raspy sensation of his hairy chest against her sensitive nipples almost took her breath. When she gasped for air, his tongue moved into her mouth, taking the deeply intimate kiss from her, penetrating her in that small way to help prepare her for the other. Despite her fear, his taste was warmly familiar, the scent of his heated skin so exquisitely tantalizing that she wanted to turn her face into his shoulder and inhale it more deeply.
A warm, heavy feeling was growing in her body, making her feel drugged. She pulled her mouth away but her head fell back, exposing her throat to his mouth. “That’s right, honey,” he murmured, sliding one hand down to her bottom and lifting her against the hard bulge at his loins.
She gasped again and moaned an incoherent little protest. He couldn’t be doing this to her, she couldn’t be feeling this way, as if she wanted him to continue kissing her, as if she wanted him to do more. It was a strange, hot madness, that she should want him to do the very thing she had found so repulsive when the Major had tried it. Her shock at her own lack of propriety made her squirm, an action that tore a groan from deep down in his throat.
He held her to him with one arm around her bottom, and with his other hand he pulled at the tapes that tied her drawers at the waist. When they loosened he closed his fist in the soft material and tugged it downward, baring first her buttocks, then her mound and thighs. Victoria gave a strangled cry and arched against the steel band of his arm, but he merely tightened it and lifted her higher, so the drawers fell to her feet, and then to the floor.