The door closed and shuddered slightly within its frame, but Jacob barely noticed. He was staring instead at the place where Stone had been, while a cold fist seemed to close around his heart.
The Highwayman joined me by the side of the old beaver dam. The afternoon fairly dripped with heat. The sky hung low and stormy, filling the air with its heavy hand. I had escaped from the house and come to the water, hoping for a breath of air, a whisper of a breeze. But the stagnant weight of the approaching storm seemed to smother all motion, save for the rhythmic lapping of the creek.
My eyes closed, my neck arched, and I lifted a hand to wipe away the perspiration that gathered beneath the thick weight of my hair. Thinking I’d heard a whisper of sound—like a breath of air ruffling through the grass—I let my hand slip around my neck and unfastened the first button of my bodice. Then the second. And the third. Soon my blouse gaped, ready to catch the slightest breeze, the first stirring of air.
Still standing with my eyes closed, I reached for the satin ribbon beading the edge of my chemise. Slowly, ever so slowly, I drew the ribbon free from its bow.
It was at that moment I heard him gasp.
My eyes flew open, and I whirled toward the stand of trees beside me. Fear shuddered through my veins as I sought to pierce the darkness for the source of that single betraying sound. Then a shadow stepped away from the gnarled cottonwood not five yards away.
My Highwayman.
For some reason I have been unable to fathom to this day, the fear seeped from my body and, with it, my resistance to his charm. As he moved closer, my breathing quickened, my heart began to pound. But not with fear. No, something else began to throb in my veins. Something hot, and urgent, and aching. With each step he took toward me I grew more restless, more wanton. Until, stopping only a few inches away—so close that I could feel the heat of his body, smell the musk of his skin—he reached out to touch me.
One single finger, clad in black leather, slipped beneath the edge of my bodice and slid the garment from the curve of my shoulder, all without touching my skin, so that I felt only a whisper of warmth, a shiver of need
He looked up at me just once, his eyes glittering darkly before he glanced down at the firm curves of my breasts. They thrust above the tight lacing of my corset and threatened to spill from the edge of my chemise. He gazed at them, long and hard, for several moments. Until they ached. I ached. Then he smiled and reached out to touch me.…
Lettie moaned sleepily, opening her eyes. As if she had conjured his image, she found Ethan squatting beside her. The late-afternoon sunlight stroked the dark waves of his hair and haloed his features until he appeared more fantasy than reality. He’d changed into the clothing he’d had in the valise, clothing that only seemed to emphasize his strength, his masculinity.
His finger reached out, grazing the curve of her cheek, before dipping down to circle her lips. His eyes were dark, intense, as if he had been able to sense a portion of her fantasies.
“You fell asleep for a few minutes. Perhaps you should go to bed for an hour or two,” he murmured.
She smiled, wondering if he had intended the double interpretation that could be attached to his words.
“Tired?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “I never seem to get enough rest.”
His eyes seemed to grow serious. “That’s because you spend too much time with me.”
She shook her head. “No. Not enough time.”
A shuttered look slipped over his features, and, not for the first time, Lettie knew that her words had caused a silent battle within him. For years, Ethan had convinced himself that he was somehow unworthy of life’s gentler emotions. And her own joy at being with him seemed to fill him with distrust.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Ethan murmured after a few moments of silence.
But Lettie found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. His finger had begun to stroke back and forth across the fullness of her lower lip, scattering all possibility of coherent thought.
Her lips parted and her tongue darted out to tease his finger before disappearing again.
Ethan groaned.
She smiled, feeling a delicious thrill at becoming the temptress for once.
He reluctantly pulled his finger away, closing it into his fist, as if Lettie would come looking for it unless he hid it. His gaze flicked away, then returned to lock with her own. “You’re playing with fire, Lettie girl,” he whispered huskily, his jaw tightening.
Her chin tilted and her smile filled even more with womanly seduction. “I’ve told you, Ethan: I’m not a
girl
.”
Her hands reached out to twine behind his neck, pulling him forward. Knocked off balance, Ethan fell to his knees, bumping his chest to hers before he could push himself upright. He tried to draw back. Lettie followed.
“Lettie,” he sighed, reaching up to try and unclasp her hands.
Inexplicably hurt by his actions, she allowed herself to be pushed away.
He stood up and walked a few feet away.
“Why, Ethan?” she asked after the silence seemed to become smothering. “Why are you always pushing me away?”
He sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I told you my conditions. There can be nothing more between us than a few stray nights. And for once in my life, I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m no good for you, Lettie.”
She waited, sensing there was more.
“I haven’t always been honest, Lettie. You know that.” He turned, and his eyes gleamed with self-disgust. “After the death of my father, my mother remarried. Her second husband was a bastard. He wasted my mother’s inheritance, then left her when the money was gone. We had to eat.” His head dipped and his shoulders lifted ever so slightly in a self-deprecating shrug. “And do you know what? I liked it. Damn, my heart used to race so hard! I never felt so alive. When I was stealing, I felt vindicated. My stepfather had never been able to support my mother. But
I
could. I could support her and
his
children as well. And no one ever knew where the money came from. No one but me and my stepbrother.”
He moved slowly toward the creek. “I developed quite a reputation for myself. No one could catch me. And except for your brother’s half-formed suspicions, no one had the slightest idea who I was.” He laughed, but the sound was bitter. “Then one morning, my stepfather returned with a fortune that made my efforts look puny. And I woke up and realized I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like that feeling.”
He turned to gaze at her with eyes that had grown dark and fierce. “I swear, Lettie, I haven’t done anything illegal in the last five years and—damn, I was so close to that pardon! So close. Because I’d never killed anyone, I was granted leniency. All I had to do was restore a bulk of the money I’d stolen. The money had to be earned in honest labor, and I had to stay out of trouble with the law for five years. Now they’ll never believe me. They’ll never believe that I’ve been honest or that I’m not responsible for the latest robberies.”
She walked toward him, reaching out to slip her arms around his neck and hold him close. He grew stiff at first, then, bit by bit, he relaxed until his arms wrapped around her and he held her to him as if he would wither and die if she let go.
“They’ll believe you, Ethan. When the true criminal is found, they’ll believe you.”
He shuddered against her in evident disbelief.
“
I
believed you with much less than that.”
He twisted his head to bury his mouth into the hair spilling around her nape. “I’m not quite the hero you think I am. In fact, I’m the worst kind of bas—”
“No.” She forcefully stopped his words with her fingers. “The true criminal will be found and you’ll be given your pardon. Then we’ll find some way of being together. You have to believe in that.”
When he gently disengaged himself from her embrace and turned away, Lettie glared at him in frustration. “Damn you, Ethan McGuire! Don’t turn away from me as if I were some child painting rainbows for you.”
“Then what are you doing?” he demanded, facing her. “Even if I were to gain my pardon by some miracle of chance, what good would it do me? Do you actually think your brother is going to allow you to become involved with a man like me? Pardon or not?” He issued a short bark of sarcastic humor. “Jacob isn’t going to take lightly to your being involved with a man who has any kind of a blemish on his past, let alone a criminal record, like mine.”
“I am not living my life for my brother!”
“Well, maybe you should!” he shouted, then quickly lowered his voice. “I’m bad for you, Lettie.”
“In what way?”
“No woman should be shackled to a man like me.”
“Stop waltzing around what you’re really thinking. The only person concerned about your past is you!”
“All right then.” He scowled and advanced toward her, stabbing the air with his index finger. “I am incapable of the emotions you want from me, Lettie. The years have bled me dry of anything but disappointment.” His head dropped and he seemed to suddenly become aware of the fact that she was advancing toward him. “Lettie, what the hell are you doing?”
“Even if I believed you, I have love enough for both of us, Ethan McGuire.” She was within mere feet of him now, and she closed the distance. “But I happen to know you’re lying. The years may have bruised you a little, but a gentle, loving man still exists within you,” she murmured, lifting her hands to the spot low on his chest where the placket of his shirt gaped open.
“Lettie—”
Her fingers began to nimbly unbutton his shirt.
“Did I ever tell you that I used to dream of a man like you, long before you came?”
“The Highwayman,” he breathed, revealing that he’d read the fantasies recorded in her notebook.
“The Highwayman,” she confirmed.
“Lettie—”
As her fingers uncovered a swath of flesh down his chest, he tried to fasten the buttons behind her.
“I think you’ll admit that my dreams were rather detailed… and just a little risqué,” she whispered, glancing up at him. When her lips tilted in a mischievous smile, he seemed to forget the fact that he’d been trying to button his shirt.
Savoring each second as if it were a delicate wine, she unfastened the last button, looked up to gauge Ethan’s expression, then lay her hands flat against the flesh of his chest.
Ethan took a shuddering breath.
“Dammit, Lettie, this isn’t a good—”
“This is a fine idea, a wonderful idea,” she interrupted smoothly, her thumbs extending to rub against the soft brown patches of his nipples. His skin was warm and firm beneath her palms.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered in surrender, before reaching out to cup his hand behind her neck and drawing her toward him for his kiss.
Their lips met in hungry anticipation, made all the more sweet by the fact that it had seemed so long—too long—since they had held each other this way and touched, embraced. Hungrily stepping closer, Lettie’s hands slipped around Ethan’s neck to hold him tightly against her, until the combined heat of their flesh seemed to meld together in a tantalizing manner.
He broke away once, his lips eagerly tracing her chin, her eyes, her ears, moving across the delicate contours of her face in scattered abandon.
“Damn you, Lettie, why can’t you leave well enough alone?” he whispered, more to himself than to her, his voice thick with his own desire.
“Because I can’t bear to see you aching.”
He drew away, ever so slightly, and clasped his hands around her hips, pulling her against him in such a way that she could not deny the evidence of his arousal. “I’m aching now.”
She shuddered beneath the stark passion she saw in his eyes. “Ethan.” Her hands curled around the gaping placket of his shirt in support when her knees threatened to give way. “I want you to love me.”
“Nothing has changed, Lettie. I can’t give you anything more than this,” he muttered, before pulling her tightly against him, taking her weight and lifting her so that his lips could hungrily take her own.
Her arms wound around his back, feeling the power of his shoulders and the strength of his arms. She felt no fears being so close to him, no inhibitions. It was as if the two of them had been fashioned for each other—two halves to a whole. She knew his thoughts, his desires, as if they were her own, and she knew just how to please him with soft caresses of her hands and hungry kisses. The effect of his passion was heady, the depth of his desire exhilarating, because he wanted her—her! Not some black-haired, dark-eyed temptress with natural curl in her hair and a wanton swing to her hips. Ethan wanted her! Plain, ordinary, brown-haired, brown-eyed Lettie Grey.
Gasping slightly, Lettie broke away. Ethan regarded her in confusion, obviously taken aback by her sudden retreat, until he saw the mischievous glint in her eyes.
“What are you up to?”
“Not a thing,” she retorted, but her hands were lifting to the back of her head to remove the pins still holding the coils in a tight knot against her nape. With utter disregard to their value, she flung the hairpins into the grass, backing away.
Ethan obligingly followed, his eyes burning with his own desire.
“You are a sinful, wanton creature, Lettie Grey.”
“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” Tunneling her fingers through her hair, she pulled it free, then shook her head so that her hair rippled down her back in a wealth of braid-crimped waves.
“Your mother would be shocked and appalled if she knew.”
“Mmm. No doubt.”
“Your brother would lock you away.”
“No doubt at all.” She offered him a smile rich with her own delight and desire. “But if you can catch me, I’ll give you a kiss.”
When he dodged toward her, she issued a muffled shriek and grasped her skirts, running down the creek bank. Within seconds it became apparent that Ethan could catch her any time he wished and she was only delaying something they both wanted to happen.
Giggling and breathing hard, she jumped onto the trunk of a fallen tree that stretched over the water and dammed the flow, creating a shady pool. When Ethan jumped up behind her, she backed away, still laughing and trying to catch her breath.