Nan Ryan (12 page)

Then came the best part.

By now she was on fire for him, so aroused she was feverish. So she gave a great sigh of pleasure when—like a magician waving a wand—he ceased being the docile slave and became her forceful master.

Commandingly he pushed her legs apart and came between. He loomed just above then, filling the entire scope of her vision, the sleek, steely muscles in his bare, broad shoulders a silent testament to his strength and masculinity. His deeply tanned face, struck by the dazzling alpine moonlight, was hardened by passion and strikingly handsome. His inky black hair was appealingly tousled and falling over his high forehead and his changeable blue eyes had darkened to a deep navy hue. Awesome heat shone from their bewitching depths, and she trembled beneath his fixed stare.

His full lips were parted and his quickened breath was loud in the mountain quiet. He was naked against her and she was feverish with desire. He knew it. He lowered his lips to hers, pressed a kiss to them, and whispered, “You want me, baby?”

“Yes,” she breathed, “oh, yes.”

He raised his head and looked at her with those smoldering eyes. “I’ll make you mine, baby. You’ll never want anyone else.” He tangled a hand in her wild ginger-red hair, bent his head, and kissed her, his lips opening hungrily on hers.

Her arms came down from over her head. She was trembling violently now. Her hand stole beneath his arm and moved over his back, feeling the muscles surge and bunch under the hot smooth skin. Her fingertips drifted tentatively along his ribs and down to his hard, muscled waist.

His lips left hers, moved to the rising swell of her breasts. His silky black hair ruffling against her chin, he bent and kissed her aching breasts, and her heartbeat accelerated wildly. She whimpered with joy when he raked his teeth back and forth across the rigid nipples. And she gasped with heightened pleasure when his warm, wet mouth fully enclosed her left nipple and he sucked on it as if it were some sweet treat.

Her eyes closing against the brightness of the moonlight, she sighed and gasped and wriggled. And she moaned with rising anticipation when she felt him place the throbbing tip of his heavy tumescence just inside her.

Her anxious hands gripping his corded waist, she heard him say, “Open your eyes, baby. Look at me.”

She meekly obeyed.

And, looking straight up into his mesmerizing eyes, she cried out in pain/pleasure when he thrust himself firmly into her, penetrating deeply. She uttered a single cry of shocked joy that became a low moan as she surged up to meet the driving fire that filled her.

Continuing to look into his eyes, she lay there in the moonlit meadow in the middle of the night, being expertly pleasured by this magnificent master of love. It was exquisite. Unlike anything she’d ever known or imagined.

“Oh, yes, yes,” she murmured breathlessly as he thrust forcefully into her, stretching her, filling her, making her wild and giddy with sensual delight.

The joy swiftly escalated. The passion blazed out of control. Her pleasure became so intense it bordered on pain.

And then, she felt a new kind of pleasure beginning. A sensation she’d never experienced. She had never felt this way before. As if something were about to explode inside her.

“Yes, yes.” She tossed her head about. “Yes, please … ohhh … yes … yes …”

“Yes?” he repeated, gently shaking her shoulder. “Yes?”

“Yes … yes …,” the princess again murmured breathlessly, still submerged in the beautiful dream.

“Exactly what is it you’re saying yes to, Red?” his low, provocative voice finally pierced the lingering mist of the lovely fantasy.

The princess awakened.

Her eyes opened to see Virgil Black, unshaven but wearing clean clothes, crouched on his heels above her. The rising sun was behind him. Flustered, her heart hammering, she glanced at him, then away, feeling herself color hotly with shame and embarrassment. Hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“You blushing, Red?” he asked.

“Certainly not!” The princess glared at him.

“You were dreaming,” she heard him say.

“No!” she denied too quickly. “I was not.”

A half smile curving his lips, he accused, “Yes you were. You were dreaming of me.”

“Dreaming of you?” she repeated, as if incredulous, tossing the blanket aside, and hastily sitting up. She made an exaggerated face of repugnance. “That would be no dream, Texan. That would be a horrible nightmare.”

13

His wicked smile made the princess
instantly furious. Furthermore she was appalled by the suggestive way he was crouched there on his heels with his knees wide apart, practically in her face, the fabric of his black trousers straining across his groin.

Her emerald eyes snapping with displeasure, the princess impulsively reached out, flattened her hands on his shoulders, leaned into him, and pushed with all her might. His dark face a sudden study in surprise, Virgil toppled over onto his back. Smiling with triumph, she rose quickly to her feet with intent to flounce away and sweep grandly toward the campfire.

“Owwww, ohhh,” she moaned, when she tried to walk and found that her legs were so sore she could not even stand.

She felt herself falling and looked around expectantly, assuming he would catch her. He did not. Although Virgil had agilely shot to his feet the second his back touched the ground, he stood and watched her fall without making a move to come to her aid.

“You insensitive bastard!” she shouted, as she lay there on her stomach, her weight braced on outstretched hands. “Are you blind? Couldn’t you see that I was falling?”

“I saw,” he said, his thumbs hooked into the cartridge belt circling his slim waist, his booted feet apart.

“You saw?” she repeated. “You saw and did nothing!” Like a thwarted child, she bent and banged her forehead on the grassy ground in angry frustration, beginning to cry. “I am in wretched pain and you do not even care, you black-hearted viper!”

Virgil knew exactly what was wrong with her. “A little sore, are you, Red?”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, the princess rolled over with effort and sat up. Sniffing, she said, “My legs and my back are killing me. I cannot walk, much less ride that miserable gray mare today, so you can just forget about traveling. This is all your fault, and I hate you with every breath I take for causing me this terrible agony and not even caring!”

Unconcerned, he said, “Relax, I have something that will fix you up, good as new.”

“You have?” She was skeptical, sure she would suffer forever. She struggled to stand.

“Stay where you are,” he advised, and she nodded.

She watched as he rummaged through his gear, picked out a black tin of something, and came back to her. He unstrapped his gun belt, tossed it out of her reach, and sat down beside her.

“Lift your skirts,” he commanded.

“Certainly not!” she spat, incensed. “If you think for one minute that you will
ever
be allowed to—to—”

She stopped speaking when, ignoring her protests, he nonchalantly reached down and flipped her wrinkled blue skirt and lacy white petticoats up over her knees.

She automatically started to fight him, but he easily caught both her hands in one of his, drew her up so that her face was only inches from his own, and told her, “If you want to suffer all day, that’s fine with me. But, ready or not, we are riding away from here within the hour. I can make you feel better in fifteen minutes. It’s up to you.”

“Wh-what are going to do to me?”

“Rub down your sore, aching legs with a restorative salve,” he said. “And, when your legs are feeling better, I’ll work on your back.”

Still skeptical, she said, “You’re not just trying to—to—”

“Seduce you?” He shook his dark head. “You’ll know it when I am. Now take off those stockings and lie down.”

“Shut your eyes,” the princess commanded.

“Not a chance,” he told her. “Get those stockings off or I’ll do it for you.”

She exhaled indignantly, pushed her saucy satin garters down over her knees, then rolled the stockings down to her feet.

“I’ll do the rest,” he said. “Lie down.”

Too miserable to argue, she stretched out on her back, placing her folded arms beneath her head. She watched from narrowed eyes as the Ranger slid the rolled-down stockings from her feet and stuffed them into the breast pocket of his black shirt. Without asking permission, he pushed her lace-trimmed underpants up until they were bunched high on her pale thighs. He then dipped his middle finger into the tin of salve and rubbed it into his palm. He warmed and softened the thick ointment in his hands and then carefully placed his hands on her.

The princess quivered involuntarily at the first bold touch of his warm, surprisingly soft hands on her exposed flesh. She had to bite her lip to keep from whimpering. Unself-consciously he rubbed the mint-smelling ointment over her shins and knotted calves. She cried out in pain when his long, tapered fingers punished the aching muscles, massaging firmly, kneading and stroking the soreness away.

Shortly she was reluctantly admitting—to herself, not to him—that he had talented fingers. She closed her eyes and gave herself up entirely to his magical hands, allowing every muscle in her body to slacken. She idly thought how she could lie there forever while those strong smooth masculine hands rubbed away the awful soreness from her limbs.

But just as that thought occurred, those powerful hands glided up above her knees. Any measure of relaxation she had experienced ended abruptly. She felt her entire body tense with the first upward stroke of his fingers on her left thigh. She slitted her heavily lashed eyes open just a fraction and felt her heart slam against her ribs.

He was seated on the ground facing her, his intense gaze riveted to her bared flesh. Dressed today all in black—black shirt, black trousers, black kerchief, black boots—he looked more like an outlaw than a Ranger. His shirt was the yoked kind that cowboys wore, but one side of the yoke was unbuttoned. The flap of the unbuttoned yoke hung open, exposing a thick growth of jet-black hair on his dark-skinned chest. The shirt’s long sleeves were rolled up, revealing muscular, suntanned forearms.

His trousers were a hard finish black twill that fit his slim hips and long, lean legs so snugly it was almost indecent. He sat now with one leg cocked outward and resting on the ground, the other bent at the knee and raised, booted foot flat on the ground. Unaware of her perusal, he continued to touch and rub and knead the sensitive flesh of her thighs. The princess finally allowed her gaze to glide down and watch him at work.

It was a mistake.

The sight of those strong, deeply tanned hands moving so seductively on her milky white thighs was powerfully erotic. As each long, tapered finger vigorously pressed and squeezed, she grew a little more breathless, a little more disturbed. Those incredibly arresting hands moved higher and higher and she watched, through barely opened lashes, in fascination and excitement, her body tingling as it had in last night’s pleasurable, but troubling dream.

Had the dream been a prophecy of what was actually to happen? Had this stone-faced, black-clad seducer of unsuspecting women only used her soreness as an excuse to break down her defenses? Had he known that he could easily topple the ramparts of her reserve with this intimate touching and stroking.

“That’s enough!” she suddenly burst out, levering herself up onto her elbows. “Stop! Stop it now.”

“Ready to start on your back?”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary. My back is fine and—”

“It is no such thing,” he disagreed. “Turn over, Red. Let old Doc Black and his magic potion have a go at it.”

“Absolutely not.” She shook her head. “I’ve had quite enough of your pummeling. I do believe you deliberately hurt me.”

“How can you say that when your legs feel so much better?” A hint of a knowing smile stretched his full lips. “Don’t they?”

“Well … yes … yes,” she admitted, amazed at how the soreness had left her legs. “But, still …” She anxiously rose to her feet, afraid to let him touch her anymore. Standing above, she looked down at him and said, “Where shall I have my morning bath?”

“The same place I had mine,” he told her, draping a forearm over his raised knee. He inclined his dark head. “That brook you hear tumbling over the rocks is not more than a hundred yards away and well concealed by the dense cedars and pines bordering it.”

She nodded. “You won’t follow me? Spy on me?”

Virgil lifted a hand, idly rubbed his nail-scratched jaw. “You overestimate your feminine charms, Red.”

Insulted, she accused, “Do you actually suppose I don’t know that you are attracted to me, Texan?” She laughed, incredulous. “I know. Believe me, I know. Why, you would take me in your arms right now and … and …” She swallowed hard. “If you had the opportunity.”

Virgil abruptly rose to his full, impressive six-foot-three-inch height above her. Smiling easily, he hooked a finger into the open-necked collar of her blue summer dress and said, “Sure, I would, Red. You owe me one, remember?”

“I owe you nothing!” she said, slapping his intrusive hand away. “I am going down to that stream to take my bath, and you better not come near me!” She turned and walked away.