A Wanted Man (27 page)

He had to feel her. He sought the buttons at the sides of her bloomers, released them in an instant, and shoved his hands below her waistband.

There
. Her bare bottom filled his palms, soft, skin
plush as velvet, and he squeezed once, quick and hard, before moving on.

He had to draw back a bit. She whimpered, tried to yank him back.

“Not yet
,” he whispered. “Only for a moment, I promise, but I have to—”

He slid his hands around. Probed gently, carefully, while he shook with the effort control demanded.

She was wet and hot and sleek, and she cried out when he touched her.

“Gently,” he murmured against her ear. “Gently.”

But there was nothing gentle about her. She pushed against his hand and grabbed his back, her nails digging in, her hips gyrating wildly. Her breath came quick, ragged and harsh.

And then she let go, struggling to push her bloomers and her drawers down, but they clung to her hips. “Help me,” she panted.

He shouldn’t. But what man could say “no” to a woman determined to strip? He told himself it didn’t have to mean anything more than that. It was not an admission of what they would do next. Just a chance to glory in her bare and open for him.

The wet fabric was stubborn, and it took all four hands and a luscious wriggle to inch them past her thighs. But he didn’t have the patience to work them over her boots and left them there, sagging around her ankles.

He wrapped his arms around her and lifted, leaning her back against the wall. “Come,” she said. “Here.”

“I—” She pulsed her hips against him, and he felt the glide of her against him, sleek and velvety, and he nearly blacked out with it, overexcited, overheated, overcome.

“
Inside me
,” she demanded.

He tried to protest. But her mouth swallowed his words and her tongue swirled inside and she was right
there
and he slid inside her a fraction before he realized he’d moved. Maybe he hadn’t moved. Maybe she’d done it, pushing herself forward, impaling herself on him.

Laura had forgotten her plan. Forgotten everything in the heated maelstrom of pleasure, in the feelings that swelled up inside and took her over and drove her closer, tighter, until she thought that, maybe, if she could be absorbed through his skin, that would get her close enough.

She would die if she did not have him inside her. Right now, deep and hot. It
hurt
to not have him there, and so she pressed herself on him, curving her hips until she couldn’t go any farther without his help.

And then there was another kind of pain entirely. Stretching, burning, and she gasped.

“Laura?”

“Don’t stop,” she said. The storm roiled outside the tiny cavern, a violent burst of fury. She wanted him there, with her, in this shelter they’d made of pleasure.

He shook against her. Fear? Or need? Maybe both. She craved the need. He would want her more than he would fear the dark, more than he would hate the memories. She would make sure of it.

“
Now
.” The uneven rock behind her bit into her back. She tightened her legs around his hips, pulled at him with her hands. “Inside me. Now.”

He hovered there, an inch inside her body, and she could feel each point of contact, thick and urgent, pain and pleasure a violent twin.

And then he gave in. He surged inside her, one quick, burning plunge. She bit his shoulder to hide her hurt, wrapping her arms around his back to hold him there.

“Laura, I can’t…” he gasped.

“Then don’t,” she said. “I’m here.”

He pulled back, thrust forward again. And shouted, his cry of release overtaken by a throb of thunder, a rumble that she felt in her belly.

He shuddered against her. His hips moved, slowed, a burst of pleasure. And each spasm twinged pleasure and pain where they joined. She couldn’t sort them out, couldn’t know what she felt except that she wanted him there, with her.

And maybe, she thought as she dropped her head to his sweaty shoulder, him still embedded within her, unmoving, not speaking—she was unsure if he was even awake or asleep, except that he didn’t drop her—maybe next time in the dark, next time in the close spaces, when the hell of his memories tried to grab hold and suck him down, perhaps instead he would think of her.

“L
aura?” he whispered. “Laura, sweetheart, I’m sorry. It’s time to wake up.”

“Hmm?” She was curled up on his lap, just inside the entrance to the cave, as he leaned against the wall. She was comfortable. Warm.
Tired
. “Is it morning already?”

“No. But the storm’s over. We have to go.”

She tilted her head back. His face hovered over her, clear-eyed, alert, ready to move. She felt foggy and slow, wanting nothing more than to snuggle right up against that lovely chest and drift back into oblivion.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked, grumpy, the promise of a headache pushing at her temples.

He chuckled. “I do seem to be waking you up a lot, don’t I?” Then he sobered. “I’m free, alive, and I’ve got you in my arms. Sleeping wasn’t really high on my list.”

Everything inside her went soft.
Oh, no, don’t do that
, she thought. It was all right to admire him. To enjoy the way she felt when he touched her, to revel in the
adventure of her time with him. To form memories of the man she couldn’t keep that she would recall fondly.

But don’t make me love you
.

He gently brushed her hair back from her face, the stroke of his fingers soft and sweet. She must look a terrible fright. But his eyes were admiring, his smile appreciative, as if he gazed at the most beautiful woman in the world instead of a bedraggled and grubby version of a woman who was very ordinary to begin with.

And suddenly she didn’t feel the least bit ordinary. Maybe she never would again. From now on she’d enter a room with that air of confidence that her mother wore with such glowing ease.

“I’m so—” he began.

“Oh, no, don’t do this!”

His fingers rested at the side of her neck, a light touch that was enough to make her tremble.

“Don’t do what?”

“Say you’re sorry.”

“But I—”

“No!” She cut him off. She couldn’t hear those words from him. “It happened. It’s over. I’m not sorry. I don’t want to talk it to death. I don’t want to muck it up with recriminations and regrets. I just want to let it be.”

“But—”

She shut him up with a kiss. Closed mouth, hard, commanding.
Don’t say a word
.

She drew back.

“If I keep talking, will you keep kissing me to keep me quiet?”

“Next time,” she promised darkly, “I’ll do something else to keep you quiet.”

“We have to go.” His hand slid around, encircling her throat, his thumb resting in the hollow. “Darn.”

“Yeah,” she said, her throat closing. The world, a particularly brutal and nasty part of it, was hard on their heels, and it was time to run again. “I know.”

The train was late again. Lucy, buttoned to her chin in what Hiram thought of as her nun’s dress, a great wheel of black straw covering every strand of her glorious hair, paced alongside the car, her quick steps jerky with impatience.

Hiram leaned against the side of the car and knew he was going to burn in hell. Because he’d never again be able to look at a black cloak of a dress without wanting to rip it off, and, if he didn’t manage to avoid church for the rest of his life, he was going to commit a sin that even a kind and forgiving God wouldn’t be able to excuse.

“Maybe they’re not coming,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, they’ve shut down passenger service between Omaha and Sacramento. We’re going to be stuck out here forever.”

She stopped pacing long enough to glare at him. A week ago that expression would have sent him running for cover. Now it made him horny. But then, for the last two days, pretty much everything was having that effect on him.

Her face crumpled.
Shit
.

“If we hurry, I bet we can bop off a quick one before the train gets here.” He tugged at his belt. “What’s taking you so long? Start stripping.”

She gaped at him.

“Don’t worry. We’ll hear it coming, and I’ll have
time to hurry up. Nobody’ll see anything. Probably.” He waggled his brows at her. “Unless you want. Some people like it that way, I hear. It could be arranged.”

Then she frowned. “It’s not going to work, Hiram. Distracting me by spouting offensive crudities is a weak ploy even for you.”

He sighed. “You sure?” he asked. “Even if I promise to keep it under five minutes? Come to think of it, you wouldn’t even have to get undressed. Just flip that skirt up and—”

“Okay, it worked.”

For about thirty seconds. And then she went back to pacing.

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re gonna get off at the next town, go find Erastus, see if he’s found out anything useful, and figure it out from there.”

“But—”

“That’s one of your problems,” he said. “Always trying to plan everything out in ridiculous detail. Sometimes things work out better if you just wait and see what happens and react. I mean, I sure as hell wasn’t planning
us
, and see how that turned out.” He grinned.

“Yes. Well.” Lucy swallowed. She’d put this off as long as she could, but the train would be here soon, and she could not ignore it any longer. “About
that
.”

“That? You can’t call it somethin’ that sounds better than
that
? Makes it sound like I farted in front of the Queen.”

She—finally—knew better than to play word games with him. “I want to thank you very much for your…comfort and…” Oh, why was this so very hard? She’d practiced it in her head, and it surely would come as no
surprise to him. Would quite probably come as an immense
relief
to him. “Understanding. This time was difficult for me and you made it…bearable.”

“Bearable,” he said flatly.

“Yes.” She linked her hands together to stop them from shaking. “But whatever there was between us…it must stay here. You should forget it. We should
both
forget it.”

“Excuse me, Lucy, but I don’t think that’s possible for me. And forgive my pride, but I don’t think it’s possible for you, either.”

Her stomach lurched as the last two days rushed back. They’d been insatiable, both of them, barely stopping to eat or sleep, scarcely pausing to breathe. She would never have guessed she had that inside her. Obviously she’d bottled up a decade and a half of unused passion, and it erupted all at once.

She’d know better in the future. When they returned to Newport she would search for a lover, someone appropriate, and appropriately restrained, which would allow her to release her tensions before they built up to such an ungovernable level.

“All right, perhaps not
forget
,” she said. He still leaned up against the side of the train, one leg bent, arms crossed in front of that wide and lovely chest. She was very fond of that chest. “But surely you understand it would not be possible for us to continue.”

He lifted one brow. “It’s not, hmm?”

“Of course not. You are too young. We are employed in the same household, and our positions are not…”

“I’m not quite up to your standards, is that it?” He said it without sting, but guilt twisted in her stomach just the same.

“No, not that,” she rushed to assure him. “But it would obviously be a poor example for Laura were we to carry on right beneath her nose.”

“Wouldn’t do to shock the innocent miss, would it?”

“Of course not.” He hadn’t moved. Looked perfectly comfortable there, unsurprised, not the least bit offended. She frowned. Why wasn’t he protesting? Not that she would change her mind. But a bit of dispute was only courteous when your…lover…was terminating the relationship.

“And so, while I will always remember this brief and unusual time with fondness and appreciation, it would obviously be best for us to go on as if it never happened.”

She couldn’t read his expression. His mouth was relaxed, not smiling, not frowning, his eyes clear. He looked like Hiram always looked, uncomplicated and at ease with himself and his world.

But there was much more to him than that; if she took nothing from the last two days, it was that he concealed a great deal beneath his simple exterior.

And then he pushed off from the train, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Okay.”

“‘Okay’? Just ‘okay’?”

“Yup.” A distant whistle shattered the quiet air. “There she comes. Finally.”

“I…” It was precisely what she wanted. She should be grateful he was making it so easy on her, on
them
. “I guess I’ll go check in the car, make sure everything’s stowed away before the train gets here.”

“You do that. Gotta have everything neat and organized, hmm?”

Nodding, she turned for the train and walked slowly toward it, head down.

Hoxie waited until she disappeared into the train car before he frowned, pulling his hands from his pockets where he’d jammed them to keep him off her.

“Like it never happened, huh?” he said. “Well, Lucy my love, we’ll just see about that, won’t we?”

The horses were laboring. They were game, but they weren’t bred and trained for such things, and so, late morning, Sam called a halt in a small glen where a stream burbled through.

“We’re going to have to stop for a while.”

Laura was too tired to nod. She slumped in the saddle until Sam came around, and she pitched off into his arms. He set her carefully down and stepped away when her legs could hold her up.

“When this is all over I’m never going to complain about the train again.”

“You never complain,” he said. He led the horses to the side of the clearing because they’d been pushed too hard to be allowed to drink their fill.

Laura hobbled over to stand beside the stream. It tumbled down a slight rise, swirling merrily in a wide, shallow pond before running away. Narrow bands of sunlight fell through the trees, sparkling on the surface.

“Why don’t you go in?”

Laura stared longingly at the water. She was sticky and hot, hair clinging to her forehead, and it was the best suggestion she’d ever heard.

Except for one minor thing.

“I don’t relish the idea of being caught without my dress when the bad guys show up.”

“
If
the bad guys show up, you mean.”

Whoops. “Didn’t I say ‘if’? I meant to say ‘if.’ And
it’s highly unlikely they’ll find us, of course. A mere slip of the tongue because it’s as fatigued as the rest of me.”

“It’s all right, Laura. I’m not going to hold your lack of faith in my abilities against you.”

She gaped at him, scrambling to come up with a better excuse. “I
swear
I didn’t mean—”

He chuckled, nudging her beneath the chin with his knuckle. “It’s not an omen, darlin’. And I’m not that easily offended. I was just twitting you a bit. But now I’ll make a note: all I have to do is claim injured pride, and you’ll rush to console me.”

His finger trailed down her cheekbone, and she shivered. “I’m very fond of the way you console me, Laura.”

She turned her attention to the rush of water, knowing the glowing color of her cheeks gave her discomfiture away.

“Go ahead and go in, Laura,” he said, his voice rich with amusement. Oh, how she loved his voice. “I saw no signs of them the last time I doubled back. We’ve got a half hour at least. The horses need the rest.”

She unlaced her boots and tugged off her stockings. She needn’t have bothered; they were shredded beyond hope, and she tossed them away.

“Tsk, tsk.
Wasteful.” He scooped them up, the filmy material drifting incongruously from his big, rough fingers.

“They’re not much good for anything now.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He threaded them slowly through his fingers before grinning and tucking them into his pocket, a bit of silk peeking out against the black.

She lifted her skirts and waded in. The water was
clear as glass, cold enough to bite. It felt wonderful, washing away grime, soothing away the burning ache.

“Is that as far as you’re going in?” he chided.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Excuse me, but unless my eyes have failed me completely, you’re still on the shore.”

“I’ll get there.”

The oval where the stream widened was no more than five feet across and shallow, barely coming up to her shins at its deepest point.

“Oh, go all the way in,” he told her. “You know you want to.”

She spun to face him. He should have looked the worse for wear. His black shirt was dusty from the trail, his hair hopelessly messy, and his beard was long past the point where it could be called a shadow.

He stood with his feet spread, arms folded, making no pretense of doing anything but watching her.

She’d been trying—and mostly succeeding—to put what had happened in that cave behind her. It had been born of unusual circumstances and was best kept there. Someday, when this was all over, she’d take out the memory and enjoy it. It would be her precious secret. No one would ever suspect how wicked and wanton she could be.

But it all rushed back at her now, as if a dam had been released upstream, swamping her with such sudden desire she shook with it.

She bent down to splash her face, hoping the cold water against her cheeks would shock her back into sanity. It didn’t help. The sting of it against overheated skin only spurred her already-rioting senses.

“Maybe I will wash,” she said, breathless. It was not
an invitation, she told herself. She had mud on her shins, dirt on her forearms. She did not know when she would have another chance to clean up, and it only made good sense to take advantage of it.

“Need any help?” he asked cheerfully.

“No!” But her hands stilled at her buttons. “I can’t decide. If I rinse out my things, they’ll still be damp when we’re ready to go on. But I can’t stand the idea of washing up, then having to put these grimy clothes back on.”

He didn’t answer. His gaze was riveted to her hands on the buttons at her throat, his mouth set and eyes hot.