A Wanted Man (28 page)

What could it hurt to play a bit? Laura wondered. They’d both earned it. And it was not as if she’d ever have the opportunity again. At least not with him, she thought, a tint of sadness coloring her desire.

She slipped two buttons through their holes, drawing aside her collar so a wedge of skin was exposed to the air and sunlight. Sam’s mouth fell open.

“So? You’re the expert on trail life. Wash or not?”

“Huh?” Sam had a vague notion she was talking to him. He saw her mouth move, the buzz of her words humming past his ear. But all he could do was watch, and wait, for her to open another button, to slide the blouse off her shoulders and reveal lovely, pale skin above the lacy edge of a simple shift.

Her cheeks pinkened, the flush spreading down her neck to her upper chest. But she didn’t stop, stripping off her bloomers, swishing both pieces through the water before wringing them out and laying them over a nearby rock.

Laura couldn’t go further. She tried. She’d taken him inside her. Why would she balk at being naked in front
of him? She suspected the two often went together after all.

But the sunlight was strong, Sam too silent and intent, and she all too aware that her curves were barely that. And so she simply found a clear space and lay down, letting the water eddy and flow around her.

Sam hadn’t moved because he
couldn’t
. His brain had ceased to function, his limbs no longer under his control.

She wasn’t naked. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful. He’d found release in her body less than twelve hours ago. Yet his knees wobbled and his heart pounded and his head spun with her.

He knew there’d been no pleasure for her yesterday. That it had been as much about fear as passion.

Her first time should not have been like that. It should have been in a big, comfortable bed with clean sheets spun of the finest thread, a room heaped with flowers and candles, heady with the smell. There should have been plenty of time, a whole long lovely night of it, and a man who came to her with clean hands and a whole heart and her joy upmost in his mind.

He could never give her back that first night. But the pleasure that she should have had…maybe he could do something about that.

S
am’s hands shook like a hopeless drunk’s as he stripped off every stitch of his clothes and piled them beside hers. The water swirled around his ankles, the stones on the bottom of the stream smoothed by its rush.

She had her eyes closed and didn’t seem to know he was there. Her hair spilled about her shoulders, waving in the rushing of the water, brown strands undulating like reeds. The water made her shift transparent, a white film over pale skin. He could see the indentation of her navel, the dark triangle of the hair that shielded her sex. The fabric puckered around the tight bud of her nipples.

Pleasure. Laura. Laura’s pleasure.
He tried to hold on to it. He had a goal, recompense to be made. But if merely looking at her was driving him over the edge, what would happen when he touched her?

Her lids fluttered open. And then her eyes went wide, her gaze attaching to the hard jut of his cock.

Laura had thought he could no longer surprise her.
She had studied him thoroughly in his clothes. Her imagination was good, her knowledge of human anatomy extensive. And her hands had explored him in the dark, measured the size of him, tested the width of his chest and the hardness of his belly.

But nothing had prepared her for this. She doubted anything could have.

Muscle swelled across his arms, his chest, ribbed his abdomen. And his sex, long and thick, angled out from him, brash and bold, as fascinating as it was frightening.

She lifted her head, water streaming from her hair. “Sam?”

“You have one chance to stop this,” he said, harsh and low. “And it’s now.”

“I—” Should she protest? Lift her arms and welcome him?

It might hurt again. How could it not? she thought, unable to look away. And yet the desire hummed within her, growing stronger with each passing second, until she thought that she would even welcome the pain,
anything
, rather than letting the aching want burn on, unassuaged, until it consumed her.

“Time’s up,” he said, and knelt between her knees.

“Sam—”

“You had your chance. Now hush.” He placed his hand on her belly, the heat of him a marked contrast with the bright, tingling chill of the water, his hand dark and male against the fragile, webby fabric. “I won’t hurt you this time. I promise.”

The pressure throbbed at the base of his skull.
Hurry. Stay alert. Stay in control. Please her
. But first he had to drink in the sight of her, for he knew that few
men were ever presented with such a gift, and it would be the worst kind of sin to ignore it.

Her skin blushed pink, a reaction to the temperature of the water, a flush that reminded him of the color of a woman’s skin when she approached her peak, when the blood raced through her just beneath the surface. Her shift came to just above her knees, a wisp of floating white, exposing legs that were miles long and lovely, delicately formed.

He hadn’t expected her to be so…pretty. The color of her skin, the line of her waist, the slight round knob of her knees…he could spend days, weeks, merely enjoying the sight of her.

Though he would surely go mad in the meantime. For as much as he liked looking at her, every second made the desire pulse more strongly within him, taking him over, driving him beyond reason.

He bent and rolled the hem of her shift higher, higher, revealing the firm length of her thighs. She gasped. “Easy,” he murmured. “You can see all of me. It’s only fair.”

Higher, while his hands started to shake. Higher, while the blood pumped in his temples and made the world start to swim.

And then she was bare to him, the sweet hollow where her legs joined her torso and the springy hair that hid her intimate flesh from him.

He slipped his hands beneath her, her curves fitting easily into his palms. Then he lifted her hips from the shallow water, beads bejeweling the mink brown hair. Laura struggled to sit up, making an inarticulate sound that he chose to interpret as encouragement. The motion made her legs separate slightly, giving him glimpses of
gleaming, pearly pink, and he nearly plunged into her right then, driving for oblivion.

Laura. Her pleasure.

“Lie back,” he murmured. “Lie back and let it come to you.”

He bent and placed his mouth on her, holding still at first, sipping the cold water from her heated flesh, letting the feel and taste of her flood him.

She jerked against him. Shock, pleasure…both. He dragged his tongue slowly against her, and her hips jerked.

Laura did not do as he’d asked. Not at first. For she couldn’t look away, any more than she’d ever been able to look away from a great work of art, an extraordinary stretch of landscape.

He had his mouth on her.
There
. The vision of it staggered her to her core, excited her just as deeply. Her skin was so pale, his so dark, a line across his waist separating the parts of him that had not been exposed to the sun. His hair, too, dark, wet, and gleaming in the dappled sunlight, against the white of her thighs.

She shuddered with each stroke of his tongue. There’d been pleasure that first time, interspersed with the pain and her concern for him. Brief, small waves of it, there and gone before she could truly experience it, tempting flickers of bliss.

That had been nothing compared to this. It rolled over her, threatened to take her down, swamping her in ecstasy. Her head fell back, her eyes closing because she no longer had the will to keep them open. Water streamed around her, sluicing softly over preternaturally sensitive flesh.

Was this, Sam wondered, what she’d felt in that cave? An excitement of your own, yes, an almost blind
ing one. But an even greater one to be found in witnessing
hers
, in knowing that you gave comfort, pleasure, joy.

Her moans rose, accelerating with the pace of his tongue against her, her hips circling. And she cried out, a keen burst of sound in the clearing, and shattered in his arms.

He gently lowered her hips and lifted his head. Her mouth was lax, her eyes closed, so spent she might have been asleep. He’d give her a moment, he decided. And then he’d drive her up again and again, until he’d squeezed a lifetime’s pleasure into one brief, perfect interlude.

And then she opened her eyes and smiled at him, replete and joyful. “Come inside, Sam.”

“Let me—”

“Now, Sam.”

He grinned, sliding up the slick surface of her body. “When did you get so demanding?”

“About three minutes ago.”

He lay upon her full length, resting between her legs, but he hadn’t entered her yet. He fit his forearms along hers, entwining their fingers together. Her breasts were crushed between them, his sex hard against her.

There was not a single part of her that was without stimulation, either the water that rushed over every exposed surface or the hot press of his skin against hers, the heavy, lovely weight of his body on her.

She shifted her legs, lifting herself against him to urge him on. She’d only come halfway down from her peak, floating restlessly between satisfaction and hunger.

“Sam!”

He circled his hips, stirring up a current of water that lapped against her swollen, heated flesh.

He was beautiful above her, the full daylight allowing her to see him in detail, showing off the faint dazzle of gold in the dark brown depths of his irises, the droplets of water that sparkled on his face, the paler color of his skin in the lines that fanned out from his eyes.

She squeezed his hips with her thighs, trying to hold him near, to urge him inside.

“Sam,” she repeated, more a plea than a command.

Sam knew that this would be the last for them. It couldn’t be anything else. They’d reach Salt Lake City the next day, back to a civilization she understood, and her family would surely swoop down soon and sweep her away from him, taking her back to her own world, one as far away from his as the moon.

And he would go back to his solitary life, one he’d chosen with full knowledge of what he’d be giving up. It was a coward’s way to sacrifice having a family and friends in order that you would never lose them. He understood that but could not change it. He’d lost too much ever to consider losing any more.

But he hadn’t bargained on her, and admitted to himself that he was past the point that losing her wouldn’t hurt. All he could do was hope to stem the bleeding as quickly as possible. And if she held some fond memories of him, if sometimes in the middle of a luxurious ballroom or a famous museum she remembered him with some nostalgia, it would be enough.

It would have to be.

But knowing this would be the last time, he drew out the anticipation, hovering at that point where he was al
most…nearly…inside Laura. For if they did not begin, they could not end.

But then she arched against him, the tight buds of her nipples scoring his chest, her motion forcing him inside her a bare inch.

It obliterated his control. He drove inside her, gasping, the world narrowing to this place, this time, this woman.

They were apart from the world, disconnected from their past, exempt from the future. Here, right now, for a single, brief instant, what they could give each other was the only thing that mattered.

“We have to go.”

He’d collapsed upon Laura, his softening cock still embedded within her, the taste of her still on his tongue and the smell of her in his nose. Perhaps it would never go away, he thought. He would move through his life with her presence a living thing, palpable no matter if she were thousands of miles away. She’d imprinted herself on him, scarred him, and he doubted the marks would ever fade.

Her hands drifted up and down his back. “Must we?”

“Yes.” He kissed her, one last time, lingering over the sweetness. Then he pushed up, pulling her up with him, the water pouring off them as the future arrived. “Hurry.”

They dressed quickly. Sam grimaced over the condition of his clothes, spattered with mud and streaked with dirt. Laura had a harder time with hers, the cold, damp fabric refusing to slide over wet skin. Sam helped her, and the determination with which he tugged on her clothes, the way he didn’t pause even
once to stroke or kiss a bare spot, told her that he’d meant the “hurry.”

“Mount up.” His hands at her waist, he lifted her into the saddle and immediately turned for his own horse.

And then, “Shit!” He leapt into the saddle, pulling hard on the reins and wheeling Harry around to face the direction from which they’d come. And then he dropped the reins and reached for his guns.

“What is it?” she asked, while her stomach lurched into her throat.

“There’s somebody there.” He squinted into a thick copse of pines. “Start riding.”

“I don’t see anyth—”

“Ride,”
he shouted, and sent Harry flying off toward the trees.

A clump of brush shuddered. She caught a glimpse of a man in dark clothing, bursting out of the copse and sprinting away.

He popped a couple of shots in Sam’s direction. It shattered Laura’s stunned daze.
Time to do as you’re told
, she thought, and sent Star off into the trees.

Sam bent low over his horse’s neck, trying to stay loose enough in the saddle to keep his guns level.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

He’d known it was wrong from the beginning, and he’d done it anyway. Dragged Laura into this mess and, worse, let her distract him. And now they were both in desperate danger because he’d failed to adhere to the rules he’d set out so many years ago.

The man could run. Young, certainly, fit and healthy. He ducked around the trees, racing away.

Only one of them. Strange. Should have been more. Crocker’s men always traveled in packs, weak jackals who knew their greatest safety was in numbers.

Just a scout, then. Probably sent a half dozen of them out in every direction, hoping one of them would get lucky.

And one of them had. Except his luck was about to end.

No use shooting in here. He zigged around trees, ducked under branches. Bullets were more likely to end up in a trunk than in the scout, just like the ones he’d popped off so wildly.

But then Crocker’s man broke into a small clearing where a compact, spotted horse waited on the far side.

Sam took aim. And then Laura bloomed in his mind. What would she think of him, shooting someone in the back?

The hesitation cost him.

The man reached his horse and vaulted into the saddle. He twisted, sent a couple more wild shots in Sam’s direction, and took off.

Good rider. Bad shot.

But the shots goaded him to his senses. Sam fired.

He got him in the shoulder. The man jerked when the bullet hit, then fell forward over the horse’s neck before he pushed himself back up, guiding the horse with one arm and gaining the trees.

Fresh, Harry might’ve been able to get close enough to stop him. But after a day and a half of hard travel, he just didn’t have enough left to catch a horse who was well rested and well trained for the terrain.

Sam swore savagely. If there was only himself to worry about, it would be one thing. He’d gotten out of worse situations before. And if he didn’t, well, that wasn’t the end of the world either, was it? His, of course, but he’d had a good many more years than he’d once figured he would, and there wasn’t anybody around to be pained by his passing.

But with Laura in the equation…this was the one time he had to get everything right. Make sure he got her out safe and whole.

Could he lead Crocker’s men away from her? Would they be satisfied with his capture and let her go?

No, of course not. And, Lord love her, though Laura was game and brave and willing, she simply didn’t have the experience to find her way to Salt Lake City by herself.

They’d begun this together. They were going to have to finish it together.

She stayed low, hung on so tightly she thought her fingers would be permanently frozen in that position, and let Star go wherever he wanted. She figured there was a better chance he knew where he was going than she did.