Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) (47 page)

      
When Hawk caught up to her, Carrie was already out front waiting for a stablehand to bring the rig around. “Planning to leave without me? I'm not going to be very hospitably treated when Krueger wakes up. Let's just hope his pride will keep him from sending his gunmen after us!”
      
Grabbing her elbow, he propelled her toward the stableyard as she tripped and struggled to pick up the wispy layers of her long silk skirts.

      
When he handed her into the rig, he could see the evidence of dried tears on her cheeks, but forced down the wave of tenderness they engendered.

      
She said nothing, and they rode through the starry night in hostile silence. The crackling sexual tension radiated between them like summer lightning. Scarcely had the carriage slowed in front of the Circle S big house than Carrie bolted out of it, ripping the golden dress in her haste. Too weary after the hours of riding to get down and saddle up Redskin, Hawk just slapped the reins and turned the rig toward his cabin and a good long drink.

      
He awakened the following morning with a foul hangover and rolled across the wide bed to free himself from the sticky encumbrance of the sheets. Lord, it was hot! Kicking off the offending covers, he sat up, swinging his feet to the floor in one jerky, angry motion. After holding his head in his hands for several moments to assure himself it would not come off his shoulders, he stood up.

      
As he rummaged about the cluttered bedroom, thoughts of the preceding evening came crowding back, doing little to lighten his humor. He had been ready to kill Carrie and that pig of a German. Damn her for being so beautiful. Damn himself for wanting her. Didn't he have any more pride than Lola Jameson?

      
He scowled, remembering how Lola had thrown herself at him, and how he had actually encouraged her in the dark seclusion of the garden. Finally her cloying kisses and busy, exploring fingers had begun to repel rather than arouse him. He actually believed that she would have undressed them both and impaled herself on him right there on the ground! The sour taste of self-loathing had filled his throat when he had broken her feverish grasp on him and had begun to straighten his clothes, urging her to do the same with a scathing rebuke. What a night! He rubbed his eyes and tried to forget the whole sordid mess.

      
“Damn place is a sty!” He swore, searching through a pile of wrinkled clothes for a clean shirt. Marah's once immaculate, shrinelike cabin was now thoroughly lived in. A thick film of dust marred the gleaming perfection of the floor and randomly thrown articles of clothing were deposited across it and over the furniture. Unemptied ashtrays gave off the sour odor of long-dead cigarillos and pipe ashes. Tin plates and cookpots, caked with the residue, of overcooked beans and fried beef, sat in careless stacks on the table.

      
Tucking shirttails into his breeches, Hawk padded over to the big granite coffeepot and swished the mold-encrusted grounds around inside its sinister depths. Swearing in disgust, he abandoned the idea of making coffee. It was too hot anyway.

      
What he needed was an invigorating early-morning swim before he went to work. He toyed briefly with the idea of picking up Perry and taking the boy with him, something he had been doing often in the past weeks. The prospect of facing Carrie made him abandon the impulse almost immediately. After last night, he would be hard put not to place his hands around that slim golden throat and squeeze.

      
He was outside before he remembered Redskin was at the big house and he had the two carriage horses unhitched and grazing in the small, fenced pasture near the cabin. No help for it, he would have to hitch up the team and drive the rig back to retrieve his bay.

      
By the time he neared the small lake, memories of his encounter with Carrie in its cooling depths came back to stir emotions he did not want to contemplate. “I hope the water's ice cold,” he muttered under his breath, leaping off Redskin. Quickly he stripped off his shirt, breeches, and moccasins. Just as he tossed them across the saddle, he heard a splash from the other end of the crescent-shaped pool. Silently he walked across the grass, cutting through the bushes and alders to peer at the peace disturber in his private domain.

      
It was Carrie, gloriously naked, slicing cleanly through the pale greenish depths of the lake with fast, sure strokes. The sun caught her mane of water-darkened hair and set it afire, while warming the honey-colored flesh of arms and shoulders. Then she turned over, eyes closed, and began to float on her back, revealing two magnificent breasts in glossy wet perfection. He felt himself go hot, then cold all at once, trembling in desire and anger.

      
Before he could think or stop himself, he burst from the cover of the foliage to dive off a jagged rock that overhung the pool. He surfaced near where she had been floating. Now she was round-eyed with terror—until she recognized him. Then a furious flash of anger overcame her fright. She floundered in the water, gasping for breath to yell at him.

      
He beat her to it. “What the hell are you doing out here, all alone with no protection, sunning yourself mother naked?” His voice fairly thundered. “Any wandering gunman could leap in here and attack you!”

      
“One just did,” she spat disdainfully, shrugging free of his grip and kicking away.

      
The gesture of rejection infuriated him even more. He was already near the brink of irrationality. “Damn, Krueger was right. You are a fire-haired whore, teasing just like Lola. The only difference between you is that she delivers and you don't!”

      
At the mention of Lola, Carrie bristled, losing the caution that might have tempered her rising fury. “You dare castigate me after you spent last night pawing one another in front of the whole assembly!”

      
“Unlike you and the baron, who sneaked off in private for your little tryst!” He moved so quickly through the water she could scarcely turn to make a stroke before he was on her.

      
“Let me go!” She thrashed, sending water in stinging droplets every direction. The more her water-slicked flesh touched his, the more insistent he became, pulling her against him and propelling them nearer the shallow, grassy bank at the opposite side of the lake.

      
As soon as his feet touched the bottom, he stood, taking her in his arms and carrying her out of the water. For several seconds she was too stunned by the feel of his hard, hairy chest and torso pressed so intimately against her sensitive breasts and thighs to fight him. Then he knelt and tossed her on the soft grass, falling down beside her to grasp her flying skein of wet hair in his hands. When she saw the open lust in his eyes and realized his mouth was rapidly descending on hers for a savage kiss, she tried once more to break away. It was too late.

      
The moment he had felt those long, sleek arms and legs entwine with his and the hardened nipples of her breasts brush across his chest, he knew he was lost, unable to stop what was happening as he subdued her and carried her to the shore. Now as he tasted Carrie's lips and tangled his hands in her hair, he knew why no other woman would ever again satisfy him.

      
He loved her…and he hated her.

      
Carrie was frightened by his intense desire, the lust and anger she could feel emanating from him as he forced her lips open in the kiss. He had no right to be angry at her after the spectacle he and Lola had put on last night! Fury warred with desire under the insistent pressure of his hard, warm lips and body on her soft, pliant flesh.

      
If he had gone slower, murmured a few words of endearment, been gentler, she would have melted into him. But he did not. Driven by his own desperate need, he kissed her with bruising force while his hands slid possessively down her waist and hips, back up to her breasts, then trespassed below to the fiery curls between her legs. His long, muscular legs held her with brute strength, stilling her thrashing as he felt the silky contours of her body once more.

      
When he raised up from kissing her and began to spread her legs, she caught her breath and cried; “No, Hawk, please don't—” The rest of her plea died in her throat as she looked into his implacable face. His eyes were glazed in passion, his lips parted in a feral grimace. He looked like a throwback to some ancient savage warchief of the Cheyenne.

      
Then he plunged into her in one long, hard thrust. Rather than being dry and painful as she thought it would be, as experience with Noah had taught her to expect, it was smooth and good. Instinctively she felt herself arching up to meet him. Then, ashamed of her wanton surrender, she bit her lower lip and tried to lay passively under his sensuous assault. It was the water—that was the explanation! If he had not caught her swimming, she would never have been so ready to receive him.

      
Her concentration on martyrdom was broken when he suddenly slowed his thrusts and cupped her face in his hands for another kiss. He tasted the blood from her bitten lip and ran his tongue softly, insinuatingly around it, then centered his mouth on hers for a searing, penetrating kiss. She could not hold back the little whimper that accompanied her return of his caresses, nor stop her hands from eagerly sliding up and down his back as she clasped him fiercely.

      
He let out a low triumphant growl as he felt her respond. As if to brand her his for all time, he deepened the kiss and prolonged the exquisite, slow thrusts into her body until he could hold back no longer. He moved faster, more frantically, and she moved with him. In a mutual frenzy of desperate hunger they rode to the crest, then spiraled back down into blackness after the explosions of light had blinded them like bursting meteors.

      
They lay locked together in the grass, panting and sweat-soaked, shocked at the intensity of the need each had revealed to the other. Feeling the sun beating down on his back with summer insistence, Hawk rolled off Carrie and up to his feet in one swift movement. Before she could gather her scattered wits he reached down, grasped one slim wrist to pull her up beside him, then waded into the water.

      
“It's hot. We both need to cool off.” With those terse, uninflected words, he dove in and began to swim briskly toward the center of the lake.

      
Nothing could have more literally or figuratively dashed cold water in her face. Carrie followed him into the depths of the blue-green pool, simply to cover her nakedness. She felt used and painfully vulnerable. Cursing herself for her body's shameful betrayal, she swore at him even more virulently for the brutal way he forced her to acquiesce. He took every last vestige of pride from her and then calmly swam away as if it meant nothing to him.

      
By the time she had crossed the pool to where her clothes were laid out, she was trembling in hurt and anger. With shaking hands and tear-blurred eyes, she groped clumsily for her shirt and began to dress. What a stupid impulse, to come here alone for a swim. After the last time he had accosted her in these waters, she should have known it might happen again!
Or did you know and hope?
She shook her head in denial and swore.

      
Carrie was still struggling with her belt when he came up behind her, clad in a half-buttoned blue shirt tucked carelessly into tight tan breeches. His moccasined feet made no sound on the soft earth, and she gasped in surprise when she turned and saw him standing a scant three feet away. His face looked bleak and sad, almost wistful, if she had taken the time to read it.

      
“We need to talk, Carrie, about what just happened, about everything.”

      
“As to what just happened,” she bit off furiously, “there's little to say. I was a fool to come here alone where you could rape me!”

      
He winced as if she had struck him, part of him realizing in outraged anger that she had enjoyed the culmination of the act as much as he. Nevertheless, another part of him knew he had forced her at the onset. His guilt lashed him, and his undiminished desire for her goaded him to speak in cruelly taunting tones. “Why, you lying little bitch! I always thought a raped woman was terrified, stiff and cold—dry when an attacker had his way with her. You clung to me, moved with me, cried out your pleasure to me! I'll be damned if that's rape!” He turned in disgust to leave, but her next words froze him.

      
“You're just like Noah! You take what you want and then leave!” She crumpled to the ground now, sobbing in betrayed misery. “Just like that horrible dream I keep having over and over. I used to believe Noah was the wolf and the hawk that fought him was my rescuer, but I was mistaken. You're as much a predator as he was, damn you, damn you!” She knelt on the soft grass, her long, tangled masses of flaming hair covering her face as she wept into her hands.

      
Hawk was stunned by her unwitting revelation. The dream—she shared his medicine dream! If only he could talk to his grandfather. What did it mean? She was a white woman, born far from his home. He had scorned her and hurt her terribly, perhaps destroyed the fragile bond that had brought them together across cultures and miles.

      
He wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her with gentle words and kisses, to tell her he loved her, had always loved only her. But he sensed her abject rejection if he touched her now. They both needed time to sort out so many painful things. Softly he said, “I'm sorry, Firehair.” Then he mounted Redskin and rode away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO