After the Thunder (10 page)

She put her hands on her hips, pretending to be
miffed, a move to bring attention to her breasts, straining against the half-fastened confines of the jacket. The heat in his eyes burst into flames.

“Come with me, my wild rose,” he said, in a husky tone. “Let’s get away from these people so that we can get acquainted without all their prying eyes. I want to tell you how I feel when I look at you.”

Gallantly, he offered her his arm. She took it, and they started walking toward the edge of the clearing, his eyes devouring her as they went.

It felt good to be completely, totally, the object of a man’s approving attention. The Bonham boys were all right, but they were just that—boys—and they were constantly as aware of themselves and each other as they were of her.

“I never knew that you were such a natural poet, sir,” she said with a flashing smile. “No gentleman has ever called me a wild rose before.”

He drew her a bit closer to his side.

“Ah, my dear, but I did not call you a wild rose,” he said, with a dashing smile. “I called you
my
wild rose and that is exactly what I meant.”

She pulled a little bit away from him but tossed her head and flashed him a look that bade him come closer if he dared.

“I belong to no one but myself,” she said.

He raised one eyebrow.

“Of course you do,” he said quickly. “I’m speaking only in reference to myself versus other suitors.”

He smiled down into her eyes. Then he began walking faster, leading her deeper into the rolling woods, his hand firmly over hers on his arm.

“We can’t go too far from the others,” she said. “Emily will be looking for me.”

He stopped, suddenly, and took both her hands in his,
swinging backwards a few steps so he could look at her.

“Ah,” he said, “but something tells me that you didn’t wear this dress for Emily.” He gave her that devil’s grin. “Now, did you? Tell me the truth.”

She couldn’t resist grinning back. “No.”

His eyes roamed over her, openly admiring every inch of her. He thought she was beautiful—it was written all over his face. Really, he was perfect for her stay here, perfect to prove to everyone that she could attract a prominent man even though she might be living under the roof of one who had rejected her. Best of all, he, like herself, was nothing but a flirt, and he would never cause her the kind of problems that Tonio had created. She held his meaningful gaze for a moment longer, then lowered her eyelashes coquettishly and looked away.

Right into the arresting face of Walks-With-Spirits.

He stood beside the trunk of one of the big pecan trees, as completely still as if he, too, had roots that ran deep into the ground. But his eyes were as alive as fire, they were burning lights in his wooden face, as bright and gleaming in the shadows of the deepening dusk as the big yellow eyes of Basak the panther sitting at his feet. Another set of eyes glowed in the darkness behind him. The coyote, Taloa, without doubt.

The flames of his eyes wouldn’t leave her—they set her face and her bare throat to smoldering, the biting heat grew and grew in every pore of her skin. Beneath it, though, the inside of her body felt a sudden, deathly chill, as if she had a fever. Oh! Would he never smile at her again?

“Go away!” she cried. “You’ve already told me what you think of me, so you can just go away! Stop spying on me!”

She sounded like a petulant child, she knew it the
minute the words left her mouth, but she couldn’t call them back. Whirling away from the touch of those terrible eyes, she caught Jacob’s arm and began walking away, fast, away from Walks-With-Spirits, who was nothing but a self-righteous prude, always standing apart from the rest of the human race.
Judging, Judging
.

Well, he had no right to judge her!

“Has that charlatan insulted you?” Jacob asked. “Would you like me to demand satisfaction?”

“No,” she said quickly. “No. I … hated that … altercation you all had behind the store the other day.”

“Why, Miss Cotannah!” he said in a tone that proclaimed he was truly moved by her words. “You mustn’t worry about me, for I can best that false prophet any day of the week with any weapon he might choose.”

He didn’t turn around and march right back there to try and make good on that claim, however, she noted wryly. And what a selfish pig, how full of himself he was, leaping to the conclusion that she had been afraid for his safety!

“No,” she said again. “Do nothing on my account. I …”

She snapped her mouth closed, surprised by her own response. What was the matter with her, discouraging such delicious excitement as men fighting over her?

Jacob gave a satisfied chuckle, slipped his arm around her waist, and squeezed her to him, hard, as they began to hurry through the dusk-shrouded trees. She leaned against him as the sounds of the social faded away, erased by the sounds of sticks and leaves under their feet. “I know the perfect spot to sit and talk,” he said. “I promise no one will disturb us there.”

“Thank you, Jacob,” she murmured.

He held her even closer, and the warmth of his body alleviated the cold inside her to a small extent.

“You just let me know if that crazy one ever bothers you again,” he said, “but for now let’s forget all about him. I knew the minute I saw you that you wanted to spend time alone with me tonight.”

His arrogance sent a sharp shaft of irritation through her. Well, he’d soon see that she was the one in charge here.

She challenged him as they entered a small clearing in some pines where the darkness had grown complete except for the first pale rays of light from the moon.

“Tell me now, sir, aren’t you assuming a great deal?”

“No. Your beautiful eyes have been begging me to be alone with you ever since the night we met.”

“As I said,” she repeated, with a teasing laugh, “you assume a great deal.”

Without another word, he put his free hand beneath her chin and turned her mouth up to meet his. “Prove me wrong,” he whispered against her lips.

Maybe she would, she thought, as he pressed her to him and began to kiss her. If she didn’t like a man’s kisses, she had found, she wouldn’t like any other intimacy with him, either.

He kissed only tolerably well, but at least his blather and admiration had erased the sight of Walks-With-Spirits’s fierce face. His kiss wasn’t particularly repulsive, but it didn’t make her blood heat with desire the way Tonio’s kisses had done. Was it possible to learn to like a man’s kisses after a while?

She desperately needed strong sensations to flood her body, to wipe out the memory of Walks-With-Spirits’s arms around her …

The unexpected thought scared her, so she slipped her arms around his neck and made herself kiss him back.

He gave a grunt of pleasure, thrust his tongue deep into her mouth, and dug his fingers into the flesh of her
Shoulders, hurting her even through the thick fabric of her jacket. The next instant, one of his hands was in her hair, the other was cupping her bottom, and he was grinding his body against hers. She couldn’t breathe. He was crushing her.

She realized she couldn’t learn to like his kisses, after all, and then panicked even more as memories of the
bandidos
came flashing fast and hard through her mind. Panic flooded her.

She struggled to loosen his grip, to free her mouth and get some air. He wrapped her whole body closer and she felt the bulge of his manhood, growing, hardening, threatening her, even through the layers of her skirts and petticoats.

Desperate, she tried to arch her back and, to her shock, he let her—he loosened his hold on her suddenly and then just as swiftly reached out with one hand to rip open her half-buttoned jacket. He jerked it back and off her shoulders.

“Look how gorgeous you are, spilling out of that dress,” he said, his eyes shining greedily. “I can’t wait to get it off you completely.”

As he spoke, he held one of her wrists in a death grip, ripped the jacket off her entirely, and threw it away. Then he grabbed the neckline of her dress, jamming his knuckles into the cleft between her breasts.

She fought for control, some semblance of control so she could get out of this perilous situation. What a fool she’d been to come way out here with him!

“You’re hurting my arm, Jacob,” she said, completely amazed by the calmness of her tone. “You need to loosen up just a little.”

Immediately he let go of the arm behind her back. She pulled away.

But as she took her first deep breath for what seemed
like hours, she realized that his hand had caught her elbow in a steel-jawed trap.

“I’ll loosen up, tighten up, do anything you want me to, Beautiful,” he crooned. “All I want to do is give you pleasure.”

His hand fumbled in her bosom, then he drew it out. It hovered like a bird of prey, then dipped down and touched the edge of her dress—he dragged one fingertip along its curve.

“Isn’t that giving you pleasure?” he said.

“Jacob, let me go.”

“You want more, but even you, my wild rose, are lady enough not to say so,” he murmured, and with no more warning than that, he freed one of her breasts, then the other, from the bodice of her dress.

Never, ever, not even in the hands of the
bandidos
, not even in the gloomy confines of Haynes’s office, had she felt so immediately vulnerable. She tried to cover herself with one hand and jerk the other hand free of his grip, but she might as well have been a dying leaf trying to defy the wind.

He tightened his grip on her arm so fast and hard it cut off her circulation and took one breast roughly into his other hand.

She screamed. She screamed her frantic fear of a man molesting her for the third horrid time in her life, and while she screamed, she slapped him, twice, three times with every ounce of strength she could muster.

“Help … me! Please …!”

Jacob clapped his hand over her mouth before she could call Walks-With-Spirits by name. But he had to come. He had saved her before, from much less danger than this. He had to be near enough to hear her. He had to. Even if she had told him to go away. He was all she could think about, he was all that could save her.

Jacob was laughing at her blows, he was dragging her down to the ground, he was talking to her all the time while he smashed his hand tight around her mouth and made her want to gag.

“Nobody’ll hear you, darlin’, so save your breath,” he said. “Save it to pleasure me, hear?”

Panic at how utterly she’d misjudged him rushed through her veins, spiking goose bumps up through her skin. She tried so hard to twist free that her wrist burned like fire; she thought the bone would come through the flesh; but he held her easily. It was truly amazing how much stronger a man was than a woman.

And then, without warning, his weight was lifting off her and she was able to pull free. She rolled away from him over the hard ground and soft pine needles, sharp twigs and rough rocks, fighting to protect her naked breasts with one hand while the other flopped useless and numb. She tried to scramble to her feet so she could run, run. Jacob was not going to touch her again. He would have to kill her first.

Awkwardly, she fumbled at the bodice of her dress, pulled it up so that it covered all of her breasts that it would stretch over, but the effort made her stumble and she nearly fell back down again; her shoulder struck a low tree branch, and she ended up sitting slumped against the base of a huge, rough-barked tree trunk. Stunned. She must have been stunned senseless because what she thought she was seeing couldn’t be real.

Somebody was fighting with Jacob, who grunted a loud, animal sound, and his head snapped back. The newly rising moon, pouring pale light down into the clearing, showed that Jacob’s attacker was Walks-With-Spirits!

She lifted her good hand, stinging now from scraping and scratching on the rocks and twigs, and pushed her
tousled hair out of her eyes. Could it be? The man who had turned and walked away from a gun drawn in his face was now trying to beat Jacob to a pulp?

She stared at them in wonder, as best she could. Her vision was blurry—she was shaking all over, the moonlight was patchy, her mind was whirling—but one thing was clear: he could fight like no one she had ever seen. He never stopped, never slowed down, never gave an inch, never backed up, not even when Jacob hit him hard, not even when Jacob swung a tree limb he must’ve picked up from the ground.

Walks-With-Spirits fought like a determined bear. He drove at Jacob, caught the limb, and levered his weight against it so fast that he took it from him. Jacob cringed and curled his arm over his head to protect it, but Walks-With-Spirits threw the weapon away, tossed it over his shoulder in a gesture of great disdain, and came at Jacob again with his fists.

Jacob got a few licks in and then there was blood coming from Walks-With-Spirits’s face, dripping black in the moonlight onto the bright white of his shirt. One logical thought broke through her hazy, disbelieving brain. Was he shot? Oh, dear God, did Jacob still have his pistol? No, surely not—she had not heard the cracking report of a gun.

Suddenly, the clearing filled with more light and the glow from half a dozen torches showed people crowding into the clearing, men first, a few women behind them. Tay and Marshall Greenwood and some more men she didn’t know and Uncle Jumper and Jacob’s partner, Peter Phillips.

But none of them did anything! Her heart sank. They stood back at the edge of the clearing and watched, because this was a matter between two men that had to be settled by only those two.

Jacob swung his arm back enough to land a blow to Walks-With-Spirits’s face, grunting loudly with the effort it took. She cringed because it landed with such a crack that it must have hurt him terribly.

Her conscience whispered that Walks-With-Spirits suffered that pain because she had screamed, because she had called to him in her mind to come and help her.

After she had ordered him to go away.

She tried to squelch the thought, for she didn’t want to be beholden to him, not to a man who looked down on her and judged her a silly child whose behavior degraded herself. She could take care of herself, truly she could, this was simply a situation where she’d made a few bad judgments.