Authors: Christina Dodd
Yet he had his revenge when he put his mouth to her nipples and suckled.
She stiffened, then in a low voice that she scarcely recognized, she murmured, “You do that mighty well for a big, fat liar.”
“Rosie?”
“Hm?”
“I’m not fat.”
His mouth slid lower. He cupped the weight of her breast in his hand, tasting her in open appetite.
She lay back. Cool rock supported her. Warm hands roamed over her. The stars spun overhead and the moon bowed off the sky stage as the first sunrays hinted at dawn.
When Thorn stepped away, she cradled her head in her arm and gazed at him. He still stood beside the boulder, scrutinizing her as if she were a pecan pie and he a starving man. But he was still fully dressed.
“I’d bet,” she mused, “you are one fine-looking man without those clothes on. And I’d bet if you took them off nice and slow and pretty, I’d give you a reward.”
“Yes, ma’am!” His eyes shone as he nearly tore the buttons off his shirt.
She reprimanded him. “Slow. Nice and slow.”
He ripped his shirttails out of his denim pants. “Or what?”
“Or I won’t … “ Her riding boot clattered to the ground, and she reached one leg out to rub her foot on his crotch.
Had she said slow?
The still offstage sun brightened the sky faster than the man removed his clothes.
She watched as he tugged off his boots, as he unbuttoned each riveted button from his jeans, revealing a stomach well-rippled by muscles and skin shadowed by coarse hair. “If my horse venture fails,” she mused, “I think I’ll go into Fort Davis and open a saloon for ladies.”
He peeled off those skintight jeans and proved he always carried his pistol. “That’s stupid,” he said. “Ladies don’t frequent saloons.”
“They would if I hire you to strip for them.”
He glanced toward the east where predawn revealed him. “Rosie, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Is that what that is?” She leaned out and trailed one finger down his stomach, down as far as she dared. “You must be mighty embarrassed.”
Beneath the finger, she felt a rush of heat. Was he blushing? Or was he just … hot?
He lifted her hand away from him and pressed it to his lips. “Promise me you’re not like this with anyone else.”
It stopped her, that he would be thinking such a thing. “I’ve never been with anybody, not even with you. You stole that saddle before—”
“That’s not what I meant. I meant … you’re so prim and solemn, and you don’t cuss or drink secretly or indulge in gossip. But when you ride your horses, you get that barbaric look about you, and men like to speculate. Are you ice all the way down? Or are you fire beneath?” He scraped his feet in the dirt, and watched them as if they were entities separate from himself. “You’re fire and joy, and I want all that fire and all that joy for myself.”
Touched by his avowal, she sighed. “Thorn … “
More prosaically, he added, “You’ve got a bawdy sense of humor, woman, and I’d be irked if you used it with anyone else.”
She sighed again, but for a different reason. He was embarrassed by the very emotions that she delighted in. She tried to think of a way to respond to his confession, but he was a man with his feet firmly planted on the ground — literally — and if the words meant love to her … well … the act meant love to him.
So she would perform the act, and he would understand. If anything could bind the wild man that he was, it was love. Physical love.
Unfastening her holster, she said, “I don’t think I’ll need these.”
“No, ma’am.” He took the belt, stuffed with ammunition and cradling her two Colt six-shooters, and reverently laid it aside. “I’m not taking anything you don’t give me.”
As she loosened her riding skirt, she assured him, “Sue Ellen and I talk bawdy, but of course, she’ll be my first customer in the saloon.”
“Great,” he muttered as he helped her rid herself of both the skirt and her remaining boot. “I’ve escaped the bullets all these years so that stupid ox Sonny Pogue can shoot me.” Stepping back, Thorn scrutinized Rose as carefully as she’d done for him.
She didn’t mind, even though the light grew stronger with every moment. After all, she’d been waiting for this for nine years.
Gruff with passion, he said, “If you’ll let me peek up your skirt whenever I want, Miss Rose, I’d be honored to dance in your saloon.”
Scooting down the curved rock face until her head was level with his, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her feet would have dangled, but with bent knees she braced them on the rock. Her weight rested on her rear, but as she leaned forward, more and more of her body met Thorn’s. More and more of her body warmed and tingled, and when he stepped between her legs, the whole of her, from head to toe, flushed with heat.
It was, she decided, a most glorious embarrassment.
Adolescent passion. Mature longing. They mixed and melded when his lips touched hers. He wanted … she wanted instant gratification, a crazed rush toward climax.
Yet … they’d waited so long. They’d imagined so much. Now they had the reality, and they savored each other. Cherished each other. Cherished until she trembled with need, with desire, with now.
“Dear God, Rose.” Thorn touched the inside of her knees, the inside of her thighs, and, skirting the very place she wanted him to touch, the milky skin of her abdomen. “You’re as fine and soft as silk, yet underneath” — he stroked the long line of her muscular arm — “you’re as strong as one of your horses.”
“You’re strong, too.” Imitating his motions in reverse order, she rubbed his arm and then his thigh. But she couldn’t reach his knee, so, giving in to her curiosity, she substituted one body part for another.
He jerked as if he were a telegraph wire and she the electric current. Grabbing her, he begged, “Slow down. Please, slow down. I want to make you happy.”
She smiled at him, carefree and young as she had not been for too many years. “You already have made me happy.”
He pushed her back, as serious as she was lighthearted. Leaning over her, he looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m the expert here, and I can assure you, you’re not nearly as happy as you’re going to be.”
Sunrise approached, but not nearly as rapidly as her fulfillment.
He smoothed his lips across her bare shoulders.
He tilted her head back and nuzzled her neck, ran his tongue around the shells of her ears.
He held her breasts in his hands and rubbed his thumbs in circles around her nipples. He watched as they became firm and erect, then covered them with his mouth and suckled. Each movement of his tongue, his teeth, his lips made her catch her breath and moan.
He seemed to know how to command her body, to make her skin tingle in places he had not yet touched.
Happy? Oh, yes, now she knew exactly what he meant by happiness.
If happiness was frustration, she was happy. If happiness was crying aloud with no thought to a listener, she was happy. If happiness was sweet agony, then she was happy.
Everything he did she tried to imitate, and every time she touched him, he murmured encouragement and pleasure.
When she lifted one knee, trying to ease the growing need between her legs, he slid his hand up her thigh and lightly pressed on her. “Rose, honey. Rose, can I touch you here?”
She whimpered.
“Rose, would you like it if I did this?” He found the dampness that had been growing there, and slid his finger inside her.
She jumped at the intrusion. Her muscles tightened.
Now he whimpered. “God. Rose. That’s … enticing.”
He slid his finger in and out.
She flexed against him.
“Rose. Rose, honey.” He repeated her name like a prayer. “Listen. I would love to try this now. Rose, let me help you sit up. Now move down here and wrap your arms around my shoulders. Yes, like that. And your legs around my hips. Yes, like that. We’re almost there … “
Finally, he braced his feet and fitted their bodies together.
Nothing had ever made her as happy as his slow slide into her. It was the answer to a demand and a prayer. It was pain, and it was pleasure. It was the beginning of the best ride she’d ever experienced, and when he paused to ask, “Are you hurting?” she lifted her head and glared.
The sun broke over the canyon wall and lit his face, his chest, and his slow, delighted, wicked grin. “I’m happy, too.”
CHAPTER NINE
Thorn set up a slow, warm rhythm, a worship of Rose’s body with his. He held her close, stroked his hands up and down her spine. He rubbed her shoulders, slid his fingers into her hair, as if he wanted to touch her all over at the same time. He kissed her mouth, over and over.
She watched his face … his brilliant blue eyes gleamed with a hint of tears.
And all the while, his hips moved between her legs, he touched the deepest part of her, and more and more, her thoughts slipped away. She became wild, free, a creature of instinct, driven to move, to seek some primal satisfaction only Thorn could bestow.
Passion was driving her now, making her demand he ride her harder, faster. She listened with gratification as he groaned, caught in the same intense storm of pleasure that whirled her into an exciting new place she had never imagined.
Finally, hands under her bottom, he picked her up off the boulder, swung around and leaned against it. He moved her on him. She planted her feet on the stone behind him and thrust against him. Bound together by desire, they shared a frenzy of bliss.
An irresistible spasm caught her, making her arch her back, dig her fingers into his shoulders, cry out again and again.
He thrust into her, deeper and deeper, holding her tightly, straining so hard she thought his heart must burst.
As hers was bursting.
This was love, witnessed by the rising sun, evoking the low, sweet call of a mourning dove. This was love, freeing Rose and Thorn from the civilized world, making them a part of nature, and fusing them into one being.
Together, they welcomed the new day.
It took thirty minutes before Rose noticed the air was cool against her naked body, and the sun had not yet warmed the boulder upon which she rested. Turning her head, she looked around, wondering where Thorn had gone. Wondering how, after that cataclysm of lovemaking, he had discovered the energy even to walk.
All three horses, she saw, were unsaddled and tethered to a bush. In some vague corner of her mind, she was glad they hadn’t wandered away, untended as they were. Hearing movement behind her, she rolled over.
Using branches and an Indian blanket, Thorn had made a bed in a notch under the cliff. The saddles, supplies, and firearms were tucked behind the bed for safekeeping. Thorn wore his jeans and his boots, but his chest and shoulders were still bare. Still beckoning.
And she wanted to start all over again.
His warm chuckle pulled her gaze to his face. “Don’t even think about it. You’ll be riding sidesaddle as it is.” Gesturing to the bed, he asked, “Think we could sleep here for a while? I don’t know about you, but I’m tuckered out.”
“We need to go get my horses.” But a yawn interrupted her.
“They’re not going anywhere until the next train comes through.” He came over and pressed a kiss right in the middle of her back, then lifted her over his shoulder and carried her to the bed. Fussing like an old maid with a guest, he inquired about her comfort, formed a pillow for her head, and when she had been placed to his satisfaction, covered her with another blanket. “Now” — he lay down and wrapped an arm around her — “who knows you sold Starbright?”
“Just about everyone, I would guess. Sonny would have told everyone at the party. Didn’t he tell you?”
“I heard it before I left,” he admitted. “Before I came along and you had somebody to be suspicious of — who were you thinking might steal those horses?”
“Somebody who didn’t like me or my parents.”
“Everyone likes you. Everyone liked your parents.”
She kept her head pressed into his chest. “Except you.”
He ignored that. “How about Sonny?”
“How about Sonny?”
“Didn’t you ever think of him?”
She sat up and asked incredulously, “Sonny?”
Two cynical lines set themselves into Thorn’s cheeks. “When I lived here, every rancher in the area knew he’d better get his calves off the range fast, or his cows would have no calves, and Sonny’s cows would suddenly all have twins.”
“That was Sonny’s father.”
“Yeah, and Sonny never did it?”
She didn’t answer.
Thorn shook her a little bit. “Who stands to get your land if you fail? Who’s got the resources to have cowboys watch your place night and day and pick off your horses when the time is right?” She didn’t answer, and he added the clincher. “The corral with the stolen horses is on his land.”
“Oh, no!” She thought of Sue Ellen and her blatant assurance that she was keeping Sonny on the straight and narrow.
“I know you don’t want to believe it, but my money’s on Sonny Pogue for horse thief.”
Slowly she lay down.
“Think about it,” he coaxed. “When you wake up, the answer will be right before your eyes, I’m sure.”
The answer? Right before her eyes? The only thing that would be right before her eyes was … Thorn.
He kissed her forehead and cuddled her, murmuring love words and assurances, and before she knew it, she slept.
When she awoke, it looked to be about noon, and she was alone. She heard Thorn talking in a low tone — to the horses, she guessed. Was he answering the call of nature? Was he moving the horses into the shade?
Or was he leaving, like the thieving liar he was
?
Embarrassed by her suspicion, but unable to quiet it, she rose, peeked around the corner — and saw him. He was fully dressed, his guns strapped on, his hat pulled over his eyes, and he was leading his horse away.
Away
! After what had happened, after the pleasures of the night and the promises of the morning, he was leaving!
She collected her carbine from behind the bed, swiftly reloaded it, and set it into her shoulder. Stepping out into the sunshine, she caught him as he fitted his boot into the stirrup.