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She felt his legs pressing the horse’s sides, and they set off again, into the canyons, away from the riders and into the night.
Boon pulled Laurie flush against him. He didn’t need to, but he figured if he was going to get a bullet in his back over this gal, he might just as well have the benefits of holding on to her.
He gave the horse its head, letting it pick its way along the rough trail left by the mule deer. The horse walked briskly along, but he kept them just shy of a trot. The gelding’s night vision was far superior to his, but he didn’t want his mount stepping into a hole and breaking a leg.
“What is your Christian name, Mr. Boon?” Laurie’s whispered question sounded like a gunshot in the stillness of the night.
His lip curled in response. He wasn’t like most folks with a first and last name. He had only one.
“It’s just Boon.”
He could feel the tension in her. What was she thinking? That he didn’t want her to know his full name? If he had a last name he’d surely tell her. But he did not have one and that was all.
“I see,” she whispered. But she didn’t, couldn’t, not without knowing where he’d come from and damned if he’d tell her that.
He turned his thoughts back to the danger they faced. The men chasing them were all drunk and they couldn’t see in the dark any better than he could. Best to go easy until the moon rose, saving the horses, and then slap leather. That gave him the rest of the night with Laurie in his arms. It was the kind of temptation he never expected to face, having been told he was retrieving a girl.
Boon snuggled her against him, wondering who she was.
Why hadn’t the captain told him that the girl he was rescuing was a full-grown woman? Maybe he didn’t figure he owed Boon any explanation after saving his life.
When the captain took him in, Boon had thought he’d been given a second chance. Now he wasn’t certain. He’d been summoned to the rooms of John Bender, the division head of the Texas Rangers. Bender and his partner, Sam Coats, had argued over whether to send him for Laurie. The captain believed in him, knew he was the best man for the job, but Coats had been against it, claiming you couldn’t reform an outlaw any more than you could reform a rattlesnake. That comment had stuck to him like a cocklebur ever since. Hammer had said the same. He’s one of us, boys.
Two men different as fire and water and both thought they knew him. Maybe they did. Were they right? Would he always be a rattlesnake, dangerous and unpredictable?
His head sank and he breathed deep of the sweet scent of Laurie’s hair. Soap and lavender powder, he realized, on skin soft as a baby bunny.
Why had he let himself believe that this job was his chance to earn the captain’s respect? He still thought so, or he would have ridden the other way the minute he’d left the captain. That made him worse than a fool.
Behind him the gunfire changed direction. Laurie stiffened as he cocked his head.
“They’ve taken the road toward the river,” he whispered, as he had figured.
Laurie’s breathing gradually returned to normal. He stared straight down past the waterfall of dark hair that curled across her shoulder and to her substantial bosom. He blew out a breath. One look at Laurie heated his blood and made his skin tingle as if he stood naked in the pouring rain. He tried to keep his eyes on the horse’s ears as they swiveled to listen to the sounds of the night, but his mind kept throwing images of Laurie in her corset trying to button that shirt. This little gal was a temptation, the kind he’d avoided since leaving the Blue Belle.
Laurie was not what he had expected, not at all. She was all woman and a proper one at that. Her prim little coat and skirts, the upsweep of black hair that had once likely been a modest bun, and the white cotton gloves all made her seem like a lady who had been well cared for. Nothing like any woman he’d ever known.
So why had she kissed him like that?
He recalled her as he had first seen her, sitting still and watchful beside the fire, the orange flames glinting off her dark hair, giving it a red cast. She’d held her gloved hands together as if in prayer, when they were actually bound. Her stillness radiated tension and her face had pinched with worry. Her generous mouth had tipped down at the corners and her dark flashing eyes had been watchful as any cornered animal searching for escape. She’d nearly reached his horse. That showed the kind of fight she’d need if they were to get out of here. All that fit together, a brave lady captured by outlaws. What didn’t fit was that kiss. In that kiss he’d experienced what she had hidden, a raw sensuality about her that burned hotter than a blacksmith’s forge.
It didn’t fit. That kiss, her fancy duds all bustles and lace. Who was she, the captain’s woman? He was surprised at the whirlwind of anger that thought stirred.
Boon compared that first glance to the sight of her, half-dressed, lithe and winsome, standing in that cleft in the red rock struggling with the shirt he’d provided, her shoulders pale as starlight.
He wished he could look at her again, all of her this time. And he wanted to see her face in the sunlight. For now he pictured Laurie in his mind as he breathed in her scent. Her eyes were too widely set for her small oval face, he decided, too dark and too large. Both top and bottom lips were full and ripe, the top shaped like a bow and the bottom had the slightest depression at the center. He wanted to rub his thumb over that bottom lip and see her mouth open for him. Might have been a trick of the light, but her skin seemed flawless and he knew her teeth were white and straight. She was a beauty by any standard. Leave it to the Hammer to want to destroy such a woman. It made him sick.
Her face surely would be temptation enough, but Laurie had curves, full hips, a round tight backside and a full bosom, made more generous by the silly corset that pinched her middle and looked like it might break her in half like a matchstick.
He glanced back into the dark, seeing nothing but the glint of starlight on rock. With luck, Hammer’s men wouldn’t see their tracks until morning; by then they’d be over the rock and have a fighting chance of making the stage station where the captain would be waiting with his men.
Boon pushed the horse to a faster walk, increasing the distance between them and capture. Soon it would be light and they could ride like blue blazes. Until then the dark would hide them. The motion of the saddle rocked his hips into Laurie’s bottom. He winced and shifted as his body reacted to having a beautiful woman in his arms.
Surely Captain Bender had known it would, but had sent him anyway.
Should he tell Laurie that the captain had sent him, ask what she was to him? But what if he didn’t like the answer?
Fighting for her, killing for her had given him funny ideas—wrong ideas—like the notion that he had some claim over her and the feeling that he didn’t want Laurie needing anybody but him. He didn’t want to share her or give her over to a man old enough to be her father. What did Bender want with someone as young and sweet as Laurie? Boon knew Laurie was too good for the likes of him, but maybe she was too good for Bender, too. But Bender didn’t know where to find the Hammer. Only Boon knew that. And while it was true that the Rangers could easily take the outlaws’ camp, to do so would have cost Laurie her life.
Boon had gotten her out alive. Did she owe him for that? He knew that under normal circumstances she’d cross the street rather than have anything to do with someone like him. But fate had put her in his hands.
He looked at her fingers, now swathed in stained white gloves as they rested, delicate as flower petals on the saddle horn. She had high-class clothes, high-class speech and the look of someone who’d been loved and cared for her whole life.
For the course of this journey she was his. If the captain didn’t like it, he should have sent one of his goddamned perfect Texas Rangers instead of a low-down murdering outlaw.
He smiled, tightening his grip upon her waist, wishing he had cut the damned corset from her. He wanted to feel the soft, warm flesh of her stomach and ribs. She was so different than the women he had known, so fresh and so full of piss and vinegar. Not beaten down or defeated, resigned or crushed by circumstance. She’d fought them and she tried to escape, twice. This was a woman who did not lie down and take what the world handed her. This was not the sort of female to give up or turn to cocaine to numb her from life’s woes. She was not cynical or coarse or jaded. Fresh, vibrant and a real lady, just the opposite of those women in his past.
What he would give to have a woman like this.
What did it matter? She’d never accept the likes of him. Ladies knew enough to keep clear of rattlesnakes and outlaws.
He lifted a curling feathery wisp of hair from her neck and held it in his gloved fingers, then lifted it to his cheek. Soft as a satin ribbon, he decided. Laurie glanced back at him and then leaned away, trying to recapture her hair without snatching it from him. He released it, but her rejection stung. He knew how to make her want him. He’d learned a thing or two back there. She wouldn’t be able to resist him and here she was spread out before him like a banquet. Should he take a bite? If he pleased her, would she come back for more?
Boon thought about that kiss, how Laurie had melted against him right there in front of God and everyone. Nobody had ever kissed him like that, not even Paulette. He knew some women liked his looks, the ones who preferred dangerous men. But not the good ones, not the proper ones. They stayed clear of him as if he had something catching.
Still, even a bad man could please a good woman. He could make her want him without compromising her. It would show her what he had to offer and that he was every bit as knowledgeable as Bender. Maybe if she knew, maybe she’d want to stay with him.
He snorted, disgusted at himself and the turn his thoughts had taken. He wanted her. It was the first time he’d ever really wanted a woman. There were only about a million reasons why that was a bad idea. Even so, he found himself reaching for her.
Chapter Four
They rode in silence. Laurie strained her ears for the sound of pursuit but heard nothing but their horses’ hooves striking the hard-packed earth.
Boon snaked his arm about her waist again, holding her with a gentle ease she found disconcerting. Even her corset stays did not shield her from the heat and intimacy of his touch. The sensation of his warm arm, sheathed only in cotton and the leather wrist cuffs that most cowboys wore, was shocking and stimulating. To make matters worse he splayed his fingers and then drew them together absently, repeatedly, as if unaware that the tender caresses were driving her to distraction.
She straightened and wiggled in an effort to escape the intimate contact, but her movements only served to rub her bottom into the cleft of his lap. Laurie stilled at the thrill of excitement that shot through her. She heard him draw breath.
“You’re driving me crazy, Laurie-gal.”
Even his voice disturbed her, making her insides all liquid and warm. Still, she denied what was happening between them. “I’m doing no such thing.”
“You are. Ripe as a summer peach. Makes me want to take a bite.”
He nuzzled her neck as the horses walked steadily on. The sensation was the most erotic of her life. His warm lips moistened her skin and his hot breath dried it again, leaving her flesh tingling and sensitive. Boon rubbed his stubbled cheek against her downy one and hummed. The deep, low rumble vibrated through her like distant thunder. Laurie drew a sharp breath, trying to control the urge to lift her gloved hand and stroke the strong line of his jaw. She shouldn’t, couldn’t encourage him, but neither did she try to stop him. Instead she clutched the saddle horn with greater ferocity as she leaned back against him.
Boon’s lips pressed to her ear and she melted. If not for the corset she’d be puddled around him like butter left in a sunny window.
His whisper ruffled the hair curling about her cheek.
“That kiss. Can’t get it out of my head. You sure don’t kiss like a lady.”
Laurie’s head sank as she realized how quickly he had seen through her facade. Was that why he was stroking her; did he suspect the truth? It was a terror of hers, that men could tell, just by looking, what she had done.
“Laurie, why?” His words were a whispered caress, a hot demand brushing against her ear. “Why’d you do it?”
How could she answer a question like that when she knew such behavior was inexcusable?
“I don’t know.” Her voice had become a strangled thing that she hardly recognized as her own.
“Likely you don’t. But I do.”
She surrendered to the urge to touch him by laying her head against his broad shoulder and turning away from him so he could not see the hot flush of shame burning her cheeks. Laurie tried not to cry. She was all a jumble inside, wanting one thing and needing quite another. She wanted him to leave her be, wanted to tell him to stop touching her. But her body urged her to rub up against him like a cat demanding to be stroked.
He lifted his hand. When had he removed his glove? Boon trailed his fingers along the column of her neck as if she had intentionally offered the bare flesh just to him. Slowly the caresses reached her throat.
Her breasts felt achy, as if they swelled with the wanting he stirred. A mutiny, she realized, her desires commandeering her rational mind. Now instead of inching away, she pressed back, closing her eyes at the shame and the delight. What was he doing to her and why did she need it so badly?
The desire to feel his hands upon her breasts grew until she had to clamp her teeth together to keep from begging him to touch her. She’d staunched her words, but not the soft moan that rumbled in the back of her throat.
Had he heard it? He nuzzled her neck, lips dropping hot kisses on scorched skin.
Humiliation burned her as the cursed trousers rubbed against the sensitive flesh at her cleft with each rocking step of the horse. The rhythmic bob of the saddle beneath them and the feathery caress of Boon’s experienced fingers set off a whirlwind within her.
All about them the stars wheeled, but down here on the canyon floor, darkness cloaked their passing.
She whimpered, but he did not release her. Instead, he nuzzled her ear, taking her soft lobe in his mouth and sucking. She shivered with delight.
His hand remained splayed over her collarbone, maddeningly high. If only he would cup her breast with those big callused hands.
“What do you want, Laurie-gal?”
But she couldn’t say what she wanted aloud, for she didn’t know. And if she did know, she felt certain it was wicked and wrong to want it.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“No,” she whispered, shocked at the breathy quality of her voice.
He chuckled, his chest rumbling behind her like a kettle drum. “No one will know,” he whispered. “Be our secret.”
Secret, yes, just another secret.
He had woven some spell over her, made her body turn against her, until she longed for his touch, ached for it. He slid one hand down, cupping her breast, kneading the sensitive flesh and bringing her nipple to a tight throbbing bud of need. He pinched it gently between his thumb and forefinger. Oh, he was making it worse. Now she burned and the aching sensitivity increased with each wonderful, masterful touch. Deep inside her core, she felt her body quicken and then came the liquid heat where she touched the saddle. How did he know to do these things, how did he know her body better than she did?
She could not catch her breath and she felt feverish and weak. Now he had both hands upon her breasts, pressing her against his body, kissing her neck and ear. Each time his lips touched hers, he sent shivering tremors through her, like tiny earthquakes. Her head fell back against his chest and she lifted her chin offering her lips, longing to feel his kiss once more.
His mouth moved over hers, their kiss deep and long. Laurie trembled as his hands snaked down over her twitching belly and to the rivet that held her jeans. Though the fit was tight on her hips, the waist gaped and he had no trouble releasing the rivets. His fingers delved into her thick curls, burrowing deeper, closer to her most private places. She shifted in a poor effort to evade his touch but only succeeded in helping him reach his goal. He found her cleft, sliding his fingers over her slippery flesh. She gasped in shock and need. This was wrong. She knew it, yet she said nothing to stop him. But this time, she wanted the touch, craved it.
“Lean back … that’s it. Let me touch you.”
She did as he bid her, rolling her hips so he could stroke her needy nub of flesh, and was rewarded instantly with a curling, building tension which began where he caressed her and crept outward. Her body flexed as she rocked against his stroking fingers, beginning a slow rolling rhythm.
“That’s it. Nice and slow.”
Something was happening. She couldn’t move slowly any longer. The urge to thrust overcame her and she began to rock her hips in a way that was new, yet familiar. She climbed toward a new goal as her body moved in ways she did not recognize. She lifted her arms and locked them about his neck, pulling, arching. His mouth moved to the shell of her ear.
She couldn’t get enough air and feared she might faint. What was happening to her? With a suddenness that shocked her, the tension, which had built with each slow rocking motion of the man’s hands and the saddle, released in a tumbling waterfall of pleasure, flowing outward from his masterful fingers, rippling in all directions with a force that caused her to arch as if he had stabbed her in the back. She tried to scream, but his mouth covered hers, silencing her cry as she clung, wrapping her arms around his neck, allowing his tongue to plunder her mouth.
The waves of pleasure receded, replaced by a lethargy. Laurie’s arms slipped from about his neck and she collapsed against him. Gradually she came back to herself. She lay quivering, enfolded in his strong arms, his chin now resting familiar upon the top of her head.
Laurie blinked, becoming aware by slow degrees. What in the world was that?
She looked about.
They still rode slowly along, the horse picking his way in near silence. Their pursuers had vanished in the shroud of darkness. And Boon still hugged her close, as if she belonged to him, one arm about her waist and the other cupping her at the juncture of her thighs in some vulgar mockery of an embrace. Laurie glanced at herself, seeing his dark hand thrust lewdly down her open trousers. When had he unbuttoned her shirt? How had he managed to get the shirt open and her camisole unlaced?
She’d acted just like a prostitute, taking her pleasure, rubbing up against him like a mare in heat. She lifted her hands to cover her burning eyes. It didn’t help. She still wanted to cry.
“Feeling better?” he asked, as if it were perfectly natural to ride with her blouse open and his hand down her pants.
She gave a little cry of dismay.
“Laurie?” His voice now held caution.
She writhed, nearly falling from the horse.
He withdrew his hand and grasped her, hauling her back before himself. “What are you doing?”
“How could I allow you?” she whispered, pressing her hands to cover her eyes.
“Just natural, I guess.”
She did not know how to respond to such an answer. She was mortified. He was a complete stranger, yet she had not made the slightest effort to prevent him from touching her. The terrible truth was that she had welcomed it.
“Laurie?” His voice had lost the easy confidence of a moment ago as uncertainty crept in.
If she could have sunk to the canyon floor and died she surely would have. Had they not been on horseback, she was certain that he would have taken her, just as she deserved, on the ground, like an animal.
As she fumbled with her camisole and fastened the rivets of the hated trousers, the tears came.
“You’ve shamed me.” Her head hung as she tugged at the shirt, still unable to completely button it.
“Shamed?”
How dare he sound surprised? She wanted to slap him; instead she dashed away the tears coursing down her cheeks.
“I just tried to, well, I thought you wanted to.”
Laurie held both hands over her mouth, feeling dizzy and sick.
“I don’t understand this.” Her voice had that high wavering quality that told her she was perilously close to sobbing.
“Just trying to bring you ease.”
The casualness of his reply shocked her speechless.
“Thought it might take your mind off your troubles for a little while.”
“No! You’ve only added to them. Oh,” she cried, “but I didn’t even try to stop you.”
“You’re human.”
“My display was disgraceful!”
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
She paused trying to decide if he was mocking her but could not tell.
“Women got needs, too, you know.”
“Needs? No. A lady most certainly does not have needs.”
He gave a snort. “Well, you could be right about that, ‘cause I never been with a lady before.” He leaned close and nibbled the shell of her ear. “But I like it.”
She slapped at him. “Stop that. Don’t touch me.”
“That’d be some trick, riding double. Guess I’ll touch you if I like.”
Laurie hung her head. She was a fraud and a fake, just as she’d feared. She wasn’t fit for decent society. No wonder she’d failed to attract a decent man. How could she convince a respectable gentleman that she would make him a proper wife if she allowed herself to be treated in such a low manner?
Sweet lord, even an outlaw could tell the difference. She was no lady. Had not been since … No, she would not think on that. Only two people on earth knew and she’d never tell. She had spent the past years trying to pretend that episode had never happened. Did her father know? Was that why he had left them?
All this time she had tried so hard to convince herself that her troubles were behind her and that, if she could only convince her parents to reconcile, if they would end this separation and remarry, then she could set aside the stigma of divorce. She’d nearly convinced herself that it was their actions, not hers, that kept her from a decent match. But in her heart she knew the truth. No decent man would have her because she was ruined.
The trouble was not her parents’ divorce, but the flaw that she could not hide. What if every man who looked at her could already tell what had happened to her?
Laurie felt cold that cut bone deep as she admitted to herself that the problem all along had been herself. She wouldn’t let a man near her and that was a fact.
She closed her eyes and prayed. Please, God, forgive me my trespasses. Don’t let me fall for an outlaw and live a wicked life. Please let me wake up and find this is all just a nightmare.
Hot tears splashed down her cheeks.
Nothing had changed and somehow this outlaw had seen right through her and into her wanton heart. The past four years had been nothing but a lie.
Laurie opened her eyes and noticed the ghostly pale landscape, made visible by the slip of a moon, nearly in its quarter, rising silver above the canyon rim. She could no longer see the stars. Laurie stiffened at the significance. If she could see about them, the outlaws could, as well.
“Can you sit a horse solo?” he asked.
“Ladies don’t ride astride.” She scrubbed her hands over her face, wiping away the tears with the grit.
The truth was her father had taught her when she was a girl. She had loved the freedom of galloping over the countryside. But that was before she understood how unseemly such behavior was. Ladies did not ride; they sat in carriages. But riding meant escape from Hammer and it meant distance from Boon. She needed that more than she needed to protect her crumpled dignity. Besides, he’d already discovered what kind of a woman she really was.