Wild Is the Night (23 page)

They’d made it. Somehow, impossibly, they’d survived. Amanda’s hands slowly dropped away from her ears and she was filled with the blessed sounds of soft rainfall. Tears tumbled down her cheeks. She wiped her face with her sleeve, then her eyes fell to the floor and her heart stopped.

Luke was staring back at her with a familiar grin.

“Well, author. Looks like you wrote us out of this one.”

Butch climbed out from beneath a conclave of rocks, grateful that he’d managed to find shelter at all. Damien hadn’t been as lucky.

He’d heard his partner’s screams during the stampede, but couldn’t do anything to help him. The beasts had run roughshod over everything that stood in their way. Even now as Butch picked his way among the rubble, he could see the ruts and holes where the prairie grass had been torn up.

Damien’s body lay fifteen feet away, fifteen feet from shelter and safety. Butch stood over the bloodied and mottled form, now barely recognizable. He reached down and felt for a pulse, uncertain whether he really wanted to know.

Damien was alive. The pulse was thready, but there. Butch grunted, letting the battered arm fall back to the equally battered earth. He’d have to find a horse, and then make a pallet to get Damien back to town where a doctor could stitch him back up. As if hearing his thoughts, Damien moaned. Butch counted three breaks in the man’s leg alone.

Swearing under his breath, he set off for the horse. This was Amanda Edison’s fault, he thought. And once he got help, she’d answer to him.

For Damien.

“Luke, I’m so sorry!”

Amanda rushed to his side, unabashedly hugging him, thrilled that he was alive. Luke rose up on one arm, wincing as Amanda stumbled into him.

“Easy, Mandy. I’m okay, really. You did a good job with the bandage.” The gash on his forehead was little more than a flesh wound, Luke discovered as he adjusted the cloth, and obviously looked worse than it felt. He glanced around, saw the rainfall, and grimaced. “Looks like we’re stuck here until they find us. I guess the horse is gone.”

“Does it hurt badly? This was all my fault, I should never have sent your clothes downriver. I thought you were gone, I thought I could never tell you—”

“Tell me what?” Luke eased himself back down, deciding he didn’t want to look too healthy. For whatever reason, Amanda had let her guard down. She even looked different. Emotion colored her face and sparkled her eyes with a passion he’d only guessed at before. It was like seeing a book with its cover torn off, and the pages whipping enticingly in the wind.

“Well…things.” She blushed, her cheeks taking on a rosy hue that made her even more attractive. “I was so scared that you were hurt, when I thought you were…”

The rain softly pattered above them, and the wind blew, bringing a scent of dank, carnal earth and crushed grass through the window. Amanda turned away, unwilling to face him, and even more unwilling to confront her own emotional turmoil.

Luke stared at her for a long time, then gently took her hand, pulling her closer to him. “Did you hate it that much, pretending to be married to me? Is that why you tried to drive me away?”

“No!” Her eyes widened, startled, then her face searched his, as if to seek out the truth of his question. “How could you think that?”

“Amanda.” Luke groaned, chuckling deep within his hard, lean body. “You tore my clothes apart. Sent them downstream. Defied me at every turn. Threw quotations in my face when I tried to reach you, and invited men to my table when I tried to seduce you. I have owl feathers in everything I own, and no whiskey when right now I’d kill for it.” He grinned at her embarrassed expression. “Yes, I’d say you haven’t made it easy.”

“I never meant for you to think that,” Amanda said, blushing to the roots of her hair. “It’s just when I saw you with that saloon girl, I thought—”

“Nothing happened,” Luke said, wincing as he recalled that night. “I thought about it, I even attempted it, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. Believe me, Amanda, a man doesn’t lie about a thing like that.”

She believed him. He looked too chagrined not to be telling the truth. Plucking shyly at a fold of her skirt, she shrugged. “It’s so illogical! I mean, why should I mind? I don’t understand the things I feel….”

That was dangerously close to the truth and they both knew it. Luke picked up the hand that held his, his eyes never leaving hers, and kissed the back of her knuckles. Amanda shivered, amazed that such a slight touch could be so unnerving and so arousing at the same time. She was getting in too deep and she knew it, and didn’t know how to stop. This was more frightening than when Luke asked her to swim the river, and her eyes reflected her panic.

“Luke, I think—”

“Don’t think.” He pulled her into his arms, then smoothed the hair away from her face. “That’s your problem, you think too much.”

“But it doesn’t calculate—”

“Amanda.” He groaned, fighting the urge to silence her in an age-old way, developed—he was certain—before the theory of calculus. “‘Reason and love keep little company.'”

“Shakespeare,” Amanda sighed, offering no resistance when his mouth took hers.

For the first time in her life, Amanda abandoned knowledge, for her mind told her this was folly, but her heart urged her on. She giggled like a child when his stubbled chin tickled her face, then she stopped giggling when his lips brushed hers, gently at first, then deepening as passion took them both to a new level of existence. And because it was unhurried—they were trapped alone in the nester’s hut until at least the rainfall ended and the Reverend’s group set out to find them—they savored the moment, each of them wanting everything the other could possibly give.

Amanda began to relax in his arms. Shyly, her hand clasped the back of his neck, amazed at the strength she could feel in his broad shoulders and the enticing crispness of his curls beneath her fingers. His mouth seemed to mold her lips to his and she sighed, amazed at the gentle warmth she saw in his beautiful blue eyes, and the way her body was beginning to respond to his long, sweet kisses. She parted her lips, meeting his tongue with her own, and a rush of pure liquid sexuality coursed through her, making her arch her back to be closer to him.

Luke groaned, then his hands slid down to below her waist, pressing her body against his in a dizzying statement of how much he wanted her. She gasped, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth in a frank imitation of the sexual act he was beginning to crave.

He was making her crave it too.

Amanda felt as if she was drowning in pleasure. She was lost in a hot, endless kiss that made her behave in ways that she never dreamed desirable, never dreamed of at all. Somehow, they had turned and he was on top of her, his legs tangled in her skirts, his weight leaning on his arms as his hands cupped her head. Passion flared hotter as his body made intimate contact with hers, promising more, and then delivering with the next heated kiss. His hands slid sensuously down her body, cupping her breasts, his thumb brushing the nipples until they hardened, outlined against the damp material of her dress.

His hands moved lower, seeking out the arched curve of her legs, her slender waist, her rounded bottom. Amanda rolled on top of him, her explorations just as eager. She marveled at the contrast of his work-roughed hands against her own bare skin. Her chestnut hair fell loosely around her, tickling him, making him chuckle even as he kissed her again. He reached up, his fingers working the buttons of her dress, and she sighed, lifting her hair out of the way, making the task easier for him.

It was wonderful to let a man undress her. Amanda felt like an explorer, on the verge of a new discovery with every moment. The dress and chemise slipped sensuously down her body, aided by his hands, which felt even better as they cupped her waist. Then he brought her back down on top of him, startling her as his mouth made hot wet contact with a bare, aching breast.

Amanda never imagined it could be this good. Her fingers locked in his hair and she urged him on, reveling in the powerfully erotic feel of his tongue encircling, then sucking on her nipple. She leaned on her arms, wanting it to go on, wanting everything he had to offer.

Then his hands were beneath her skirts and his playful manner gone. She gasped as he roughly pushed her damp dress aside, then purposefully sought out the dark curls between her legs. His fingers raked through them, then slid lower, caressing her intimately, making her writhe against him.

“Luke, I want—” she breathed, panic setting in. She had meant to say that she wanted to stop, but his mouth took hers—and with it, the last vestige of logic.

“Me too,” he whispered, mistaking her meaning. “God, Mandy, I want you so badly. I want to be gentle, but I don’t know if I can….”

He pushed her onto her back and Amanda felt him, hot and probing between her thighs. But he kissed her again and she was lost, forgetting everything except that Luke wanted her. She never felt more beautiful—or more a woman—than now, in his arms. She parted her legs at his urging, aware that something wonderful was about to happen. Her body felt like an overripe peach, bursting with juice. Blood pounded in her head and her pelvis burned, aching, wanting something she couldn’t explain.

He entered her a little bit at first, then, unable to restrain himself, he plunged deeply into her. Amanda gasped. Passion fled as he drove into her and pain became a reality. She struggled against him, but he mastered her as easily as he had the captured horse, and Amanda quieted, following his urgings. She bit her lip and her eyes flew open, amazed at the excitement in his face and the driving force of his body. Her discomfort increased as her initial pleasure fled, and she was aware of a scraping dryness between her legs and the damp ground beneath her. She began to count strokes, grateful when something seemed to especially please him and he groaned, shutting his eyes tightly, and drove even more deeply into her. The ache became a raw pain, and Amanda was thoroughly relieved when he finally withdrew, taking the burning lance with him.

Luke collapsed, drained of all energy. She was so exquisitely tight and so responsive that he wanted to stay like this forever, plunging into her warm wet body, making her forget everything except this. She’d given him an earth-shattering orgasm that was the sweetest he’d ever recalled. He smiled as he remembered his initial impression of her, as a cold, withdrawn school marm. She had proven to be anything but.

Drenched in sweat, aching from his wound, Luke rose on one elbow and gazed down into the face of the woman who’d just given him unbelievable pleasure.

“My God, Amanda,” he breathed, brushing the long hair away from her face, wishing he could have seen her at that special moment. “Wasn’t that just incredible?”

She stared at him, her eyes bright and clear of passion, her nose wrinkled in confusion.

“No, it wasn’t.” She shrugged, as if discarding a puzzle that wasn’t worth dissecting, then moved away from him. She snatched up her dress and chemise and pulled them roughly over her body, then she fished out her tortoiseshell glasses and put them on. Gazing at him through the spectacles, she frowned. “In fact, I think the whole thing’s been much too exaggerated, though from a scientific standpoint, it makes sense.”

“What does?” Incredulous, his mouth dropped as he rose on one arm, then he saw that she was serious. She was looking at him like a mad scientist peering into a glass jar at a particularly undesirable specimen.

“That it shouldn’t be pleasurable for a woman.” Her freckled nose wrinkled and she tapped her cheek with her forefinger, giving him a speculative glance. “For most other species it isn’t. Hence the mating dances and the brilliant coloring of the male peacock designed to attract a female’s attention. Surely if the female derived as much enjoyment from the act of fertilization as the male—”

“Amanda!” Fury made his jaw tighten, and the lazy aftermath of passion disappeared, replaced by raw anger. This woman was unbelievable! His male pride stung, Luke glared at her while Amanda delivered her next line like a female archer, taking deadly aim.

“—there would be a population explosion. So even though I’ve devalued myself in a marital marketplace, I am glad we did this.” She smiled sweetly, not realizing that the brilliant red that stained his face was from a blush, and not passion. “For I’ve learned something valuable. I don’t ever want to do this again, and therefore, have no reason or desire to marry. I will also take full responsibility for any progeny that may result from this act of intercourse, so you need not worry. I can take care of myself.”

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