Judith E French (19 page)

Ash’s head moved lower. He kissed and bit her neck and the hollow of her throat, then buried his face between
her breasts, all the while stroking and pinching her inner thighs. “Is this what you want?” he asked. “And this?”

“Yes, yes,” Tamsin urged him. She’d sensed a smoldering passion in Ash that matched her own hidden desires. She’d imagined what it might be like to have him make love to her, but she hadn’t dared to believe it could come true.

Reality was better than her fantasies.

Tamsin was conscious of a throbbing ache and a growing moisture between her legs that both shocked and aroused her. Sex with her husband had been an uncomfortable duty. What was happening here in this lonesome cabin was wild and primal and wonderful.

Ash fumbled with his trousers, and she gasped as his swollen member pressed against her bare thigh. She knew that any decent woman would put a stop to this, but she couldn’t. Brazenly, she reached down to touch him, and her eyes widened as she brushed the tumescent length.

He was so hot … so alive. All virile male, she thought, and she had never felt so feminine.

Ash groaned again. “I want you wet for me,” he murmured. “Wet and silky sweet.” Then he probed the source of her need with one long finger.

“You’re wicked,” she whispered hoarsely. The feel of him inside her was maddening. She bucked against him, feeling herself nearing the delicious brink of some great precipice.

“Am I?” He tantalized her with two fingers and chuckled. “I can be even worse.”

She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out with pleasure, and heard the sound of fabric tearing. Then Ash’s mouth closed on her breast. “Oh …”

Hungrily, he licked and sucked her nipple, worrying at
her breast until she could not contain her growing hunger. “Please,” she begged him.

“Please, what? Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” She groaned. “Don’t stop.”

“Tell me what you want me to do, Tamsin,” he whispered. “Do you want this?” He pressed himself into her hand, filling it and making bolts of flame sear up her spine.

“Yes, yes,” she gasped.

She waited for his thrust, but to her surprise, he braced himself with his hands and lowered his head. She felt the length of his hair brush against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh and she caught her breath. He wouldn’t! He didn’t mean to—

“Oh!” She dug her fingers into his shoulders.

“You’re sweet, Tamsin, sweet as wild honey,” he murmured.

Her eyes widened as ripples of tantalizing pleasure rolled through her. “What are … you … Oh!”

She thrashed her head from side to side, unable to lie still, unable to think. His mouth was on her. His tongue teasing, licking … driving her to the point of no return.

He clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her cry as she reached the peak and tumbled off into nothingness amid a shimmering rainbow of iridescent colors. The earth fell away beneath her as she drifted in delicious waves of rapture.

She hardly realized that he’d turned over onto his back and lifted her so that she was astride him. “Now it’s your turn to do the work,” he said.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world to settle over him, opening for his deep, full thrust. There was barely an instant of hesitation on her part as she adjusted to the odd but pleasant experience of being in control. Then she moved with him, giving and taking, letting her
primeval instincts take control until her passion rose again with an even greater heat.

This time Tamsin held back her climax until Ash reached his. His stifled moan of satisfaction was all she needed to push her over the edge again. Knowing that she had pleased him was an added happiness to her own fulfillment. And this time was no disappointment. She clung to him while her mind spun out into the heavens and her body convulsed with pure physical joy.

For long minutes they lay together, still joined, sheened with sweat and utterly spent. Then he turned on his side so that she curled beside him, fitting perfectly into the curve of his shoulder.

“Is it always like that for you?” she asked.

He chuckled and kissed her lower lip tenderly. “No, but then I’ve never made love to a Tennessee woman before. I can see what I’ve been missing.” He brushed the tangled hair away from her face. “You’re something, Tamsin MacGreggor. With talents like yours, why the hell did you take up a life of crime?”

She was too contented to argue with him. “It wasn’t like this with my husband,” she said shyly. “I’ve never been with anyone else.”

“This is a hell of a time to discover you like it.”

“Are you complaining?”

“Hell, no.” He sighed and lifted her hand to his lips. Gently, he kissed her palm and the place at her wrists where her veins showed blue. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

She averted her eyes. “Don’t,” she begged him. “Don’t say what you don’t mean. I know what I am. I’m too big and too tall to—”

“Hush …” He covered her mouth with a forefinger. “You’ve skin like milk where the sun hasn’t dusted you
with freckles. You’ve breasts to drive a man to drink, and hips meant to give pleasure.”

“My chin is too firm,” she replied. “And my mouth—”

“Your mouth is perfect for kissing.” To prove his point, he kissed her love-swollen lips. “If you were a lady of fortune, you’d be rich in—”

“But I’m not, Ash,” she said, suddenly sounding serious. “I’m a backsliding Methodist, and what we’ve done will have me on my knees praying for forgiveness, if I live long enough.”

He pushed back and studied her rosy cheeks and troubled eyes. “You think what we’ve done is a sin?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Who are we hurting? My wife is dead, and so is your husband. Considering the circumstances, I’d say we’ve not strayed so far from the path of righteousness.”

“Don’t make a joke of this,” she said. “What we did—what I did, I chose to do. All my life I’ve tried to follow the teachings of the church. I’ve fed the poor, and I’ve tended the sick. Until I came to Colorado, I never stole so much as an apple from someone else’s orchard. Now I’m a horse thief and a murderer.”

He tensed. “You admit killing Sam Steele?”

“No! Not him,” she insisted. “But I did kill an Indian, maybe two. Three if you count the one Dancer stomped on. And now I’ve just slept with a man not my husband.”

He chuckled. “Since the Cheyenne were trying to murder you, I hardly think that counts against you with the Man above.”

“But I did sleep with …”

“Honey, we weren’t doing much sleeping. Are you sorry?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not. If I burn in hell for what—”

He silenced her with a kiss. “If taking comfort from each other is a sin, it must be a small one.”

“Comfort?” she asked in a small voice. “Was that what it was for you?”

He stroked her hair and raised a lock of it to brush his lips. “Red as a mountain sunset,” he murmured. “You’re a hard one, Tamsin. You back a man against a rock and give him no place to run.”

“It was more than comfort to me.”

“And me,” he grated. “I still don’t trust you as far as I could throw you, but …”

“But?”

He chuckled. “But you’ve made me break my rule about keeping business and personal feeling separate.”

“You don’t think I’m a soiled dove?”

“Far from it, woman. You couldn’t have given me a more precious gift. Under the circumstances, I think even your God would understand.”

“He’s yours, too,” she replied.

“There’s small sin and then there’s real sin, Tamsin. I think I’ve seen enough of the bad kind to know the difference.”

She exhaled softly. “I hope so.”

He pulled her closer, cradling her in his arms.

“Be careful of your wound,” she reminded him.

He laughed softly. “Now you think of it?”

She pushed her tangled skirts down over her legs and sat up. “Will we get out of these mountains alive?”

He ran a hand through his damp hair. “I expect to give it my best effort.”

“And you’re dead set on turning me in to the sheriff at Sweetwater?”

“Afraid so, darlin’.”

His feelings for Tamsin were hard to sort out, as complicated as she was. On the one hand, he felt a duty to do
what he was being paid for, to take her in. On the other, he felt responsible for her.

He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the pillow. Part of him wanted to believe in her innocence. And another part wanted only to repeat what they’d just done.

“Ash.”

“What?”

“Could you just hold me?”

“Sure, darlin’.”

“I like the way it feels.”

“Me, too.”

“I feel safer with your arms around me.”

“Good.”

“And one more thing,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“Will you try to believe me when I tell you that I haven’t done anything wrong … that I didn’t kill Sam Steele?”

“I’ll try,” he answered, hoping he hadn’t promised more than a reasonable man could give.

Ash lay awake listening to the rain as Tamsin dozed in his arms. The fire had burned down to coals on the hearth and it was dark in the cabin, but he could see lightning flashes through the cracks in the shutter and hear the rumble of thunder moving in from the west.

His side ached where the bullet had plowed along it, but making love to Tamsin had soothed the deep hurt that throbbed in his soul.

He’d never thought to become involved with a woman like Tamsin. Sleeping with one of his suspects hadn’t been in his plan.

Not that he had a real plan. His dreams had died with the cooling ashes of the cabin he’d built for Becky. He’d
done what he thought he did best—hunt down outlaws and turn them over to the law. That didn’t require a long-range course of action. He’d lived day by day, kept sharp by the knowledge that stupidity or a slow gun hand would see him dead before he caught up with Jack Cannon and his remaining brother, Boone.

Once he’d seen justice done, he meant to give up bounty hunting and look for some decent woman and a life that didn’t mean looking over his shoulder or listening for the click of a gun hammer in the night.

But he hadn’t kept his promise to Becky yet. He still had unfinished business with the Cannons. This was the wrong time and the wrong woman. There were too many complications. It was better if he didn’t ponder on it too much … if he took what Tamsin offered and was satisfied with tonight.

She whimpered in her sleep and stirred restlessly as a loud growl of thunder rolled down from the mountain peak. Instantly, Ash felt a warm rush of emotion. Wrong time, wrong place, he thought wryly, but she did feel good next to him.

He tightened his embrace and gently kissed the crown of her head. Her hair bore a faint scent of flowers. He wondered how that was possible.

Old memories crowded around him in the darkness as the rain locked them in a private world. He found himself thinking about Becky, but oddly, he had trouble picturing her face. He’d been little more than a boy, years ago, when he’d first laid eyes on her and had fallen hard. Life had changed him since then.

Funny how a man could be attracted to two such different women. They were as different as a rose and a wildflower. Delicate, sweet Becky had been his yellow rose, blooming so long as she was carefully tended and kept safe inside a garden fence. Tamsin was the fireweed,
strong and self-sufficient, as beautiful as any cultivated flower and too tough for even a forest fire to destroy.

He’d never forget Becky. She’d always have a special place in his heart, but that part of his life was over. Common sense told him that little Becky wouldn’t have been happy with the man he was now.

“Fireweed,” he whispered under his breath. Somehow, he had the strangest notion to find a cluster of fireweed and fill Tamsin’s arms with it.

Ash eased out of the low bed, picked up his rifle, wrapped himself in a length of oilcloth, and ventured into the night to relieve himself. Once in the downpour, he circled the cabin looking for any sign of visitors. He didn’t see a living thing, hadn’t expected to, but old habits died hard.

He was sure that they’d left the Cheyenne behind, but not so certain about Cannon. He had an uneasy gnawing in his gut that the outlaw wasn’t too far off. He’d chased Jack for so many years that it seemed as though he’d developed a sixth sense regarding his whereabouts.

He hoped Tamsin would be the key to catching Cannon, but he was torn between his feelings for her and his doubts about her innocence.

Devil take him, he didn’t believe Tamsin had murdered Sam Steele in cold blood, but if she killed that Cheyenne, she might have shot the rancher. And regardless of his doubts, he still had to take her in.

He’d chased down enough suspects to know that a man’s past, or a woman’s, had a way of catching up with them. Tamsin would never find happiness if she couldn’t clear her name. California wasn’t far enough to run. Sooner or later, a lawman or another bounty hunter would see her face and remember an old wanted poster.
Rather than try to arrest her, he might shoot her down like a rabid dog.

Trouble was, Tamsin wouldn’t understand why his way was the only way. His daddy wasn’t an educated man, but he was smart. He’d always said that a person couldn’t twist and turn the law to suit themselves. Once a man started down that road, he was apt to lose sight of right and wrong.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if he hadn’t been born Big Jim Morgan’s boy, but it was too late to change that now. His father’s sense of right was part of him, and he had to follow that trail whether it was easy or not.

Drenched by the icy rain, Ash dashed back to the cabin. He opened the heavy door to see Tamsin sitting up in bed with a worried expression on her face. “It’s the middle of the night,” he said, throwing off the oilcloth and shaking himself like a wet dog. “Go back to sleep.”

Her eyes were large and frightened. “I woke up and you were gone.”

“Just outside.”

Damned if she wasn’t a fine sight, wearing nothing but a blanket. Her soft Tennessee accent poured over him like warm honey, making him forget the damp chill. If she kept staring at him like that, she’d have him on top of her, making promises he couldn’t keep.