Carol Finch (11 page)

“I’ve come upon human remains a few times while
on patrol,” he remarked. “But who’s to say if the victims were attacked by man or beast. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell—”

An ear-piercing boom exploded overhead. Lori instinctively ducked. She looked back to note that lightning had struck a tree near their abandoned campsite. The smell of burned wood swept up the hillside with the wind. Lori was anxious to take cover from the threatening storm, but she was reluctant to dart into the dark cavern.

“I’ll go in first.” Gideon handed off Drifter’s and Pirate’s reins.

“Then you’ll need this back…just in case.” She returned his spare pistol.

She admired and envied Gideon’s fearlessness as he walked into the darkness. But she reminded herself that a man who faced down armed outlaws had learned to be prepared for anything. Still, there was no telling what lurked inside the cavern and she refused to stand here like a cowering female who sent a man to do battle for her.

On the wings of that thought, Lori pulled Gideon’s rifle from the scabbard on Pirate’s saddle and tethered both horses. She was going to bolster her courage and back up Gideon.

She went on high alert when she heard a low growl. Unfortunately, it was so dark inside the cavern that she bumped into Gideon and involuntarily leaped backward. He clutched her arm to steady her.

“I told you to stay outside,” he murmured.

“Did you? I must’ve forgotten… Where did that growl come from?”

Her voice fizzled out when a ferocious snarl echoed in the darkness. Gideon tucked her behind him, much the same way Tony had that fateful night.

The unnerving thought of history repeating itself
provoked Lori to squirm free so she could place herself in front of Gideon. “No,” she muttered fiercely. “No other man is going to die for me, if it comes to that in here. I already have Tony’s death on my conscience and I refuse to have yours, too—awk!”

She shrieked when the furry animal slammed into her shins, tipping her off balance and knocking her against Gideon’s broad chest. She felt something slash her leg and she yelped in pain.

Another snarl erupted from the darkness then Gideon’s gunshot exploded. The animal—she was pretty sure it was a bear—slumped against her legs.

“You okay?” Gideon murmured against the pounding pulse beat on the side of her neck.

She swallowed with a gulp. “More or less.”

“Are you injured? Yes or no?”

“Yes, but not seriously,” she insisted.

“Good. Run outside and gather up some fallen branches for firewood before the rain drenches everything in sight.”

Despite the burning pain in her shin, she scurried outside. She noticed bloodstains on the shredded fabric of the borrowed breeches. She forgot her discomfort when she heard Gideon fire off two rapid shots.

Carrying an armload of dry branches, she ducked into the cave then halted as Gideon dragged something toward her. She backed out of his way as he pulled the half-grown black bear past her. Then he spun around to fetch the second one.

While he disposed of the two animals that had attacked them, Lori set up a campfire by the mouth of the cave so smoke wouldn’t fill the chamber. She made sure she left room for the horses to stand under the overhanging ledge without tramping on the campfire. Once she had the fire
going, she retrieved the bedroll from Pirate’s back. Using the light of the campfire, she inspected her leg wound.

She glanced up to see Gideon standing over her, appraising her closely. “I’m sorry about your breeches I borrowed,” she said. “I have needle and thread at home to repair them.”

“I was more concerned about
you
than my breeches.”

She blinked in surprise. When he knelt to roll up her pant leg, she watched him inspect her wound. “You don’t have to be extra nice to me,” she insisted. “Glenn is long gone. He’ll never know.”

A smile twitched his lips as he pivoted to retrieve the tin of poultice from his saddlebag. She studied him discreetly while he concentrated on applying the soothing salve to the scrapes.

Outside, the first raindrops pattered against the leaves. A moment later, lightning flared in the darkness and thunder echoed around them. Lori felt cut off from the world as rain poured down the overhanging ledge and drafts of wind played with the dancing flames of the campfire. It was as if she and Gideon were the only two people in the world.

That wasn’t good because she was battling exceptionally hard to control her irrational longings. When he ventured too close, the memories of heated passion they’d shared that night in the barn came back to torment her.

“There,” he murmured. “That should prevent infection.” His gaze riveted on her, making it difficult for her to breathe. “Is there anywhere else I can kiss and make it feel better?”

Gideon chided himself for voicing that suggestive comment. But when he was this close to Lori he kept remembering the addictive taste of her kisses, the feel of her silky flesh beneath his hands. He’d been craving her to such extremes that he couldn’t even remember how it felt
not
to
want her, despite all the sensible reasons he could list for keeping her at a safe distance.

Why this woman?
he asked himself as his body moved instinctively toward her like a magnet seeking true north. It no longer mattered if she had been with Anthony Rogers or Glenn or nameless others. It only mattered that she was with him for this moment in time.

Her wide amber eyes, surrounded by thick sooty lashes, swept up. She stared at his lips then met his gaze. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Gideon,” she said unevenly.

“I agree completely.” He angled his head toward hers to brush his mouth over her dewy-soft lips. The craving magnified tenfold and his body turned hard and aching in two seconds flat. “Problem is, I crave a taste of you and I’m not sure the miracle cures my people concoct can counter this hunger.”

Then he kissed her with all the restless need prowling through him. He knew in an instant that he tasted inevitable defeat. Tomorrow he’d regain his sanity and regret his impulsiveness.

But not tonight.

He wanted this beguiling siren and he wasn’t sure that holding a gun to his head would discourage him. All that might stop him was
her
protests. If she turned him down then he’d accept her refusal. Of course, sexual deprivation would probably kill him, but he refused to force this spirited beauty to succumb to his aching needs.

There would be no pleasure or satisfaction in that.

“If you want me to stop then I will,” he rasped when he came up for air.

She stared at him while he crouched in front of her. Her expression suggested she hovered on a threshold, too. He held his breath while sensual anticipation buzzed around him like a hornet. When she glided her hands over his chest
and settled them on his shoulders, fire seared his blood. Desire hit him like a doubled fist.

“Only for tonight,” she whispered. “Not because I expect favors from you. I know you distrust me, but I am not using you, Gideon. I suspect I’m the time
you
’re killing during this storm.”

If it were only that simple, he mused as he eased her to her back on the pallet then stretched out beside her. Scratching an itch, he could understand. The overwhelming need to be with this golden-eyed temptress—and no one else—worried the hell out of him. She mattered when she shouldn’t.

It was that simple. And that complicated.

Yet, despite the questions concerning her involvement in her would-be fiancé’s death, and Glenn’s obvious infatuation with her, Lori was the woman Gideon wanted. Perhaps one night with her would cure his irrational desire and he could get her out of his system for good. Then he would become the sensible, self-disciplined lawman he prided himself on being.

That noble thought flitted off as his hands—which had suddenly acquired a will of their own—worked the buttons of her shirt—
his
shirt, to be more specific. He glanced down at her breasts. They glowed like gold in the flickering firelight, matching the unique color of her eyes. Gideon was hopelessly lost. Bewitched. Captivated.

He cupped her breasts in his hands, then suckled her until she gasped and writhed restlessly beneath his kisses and caresses. So much bottled passion waiting to be unleashed, he mused, as he flicked at the beaded crests with his tongue.

When he rolled the pebbled peaks between his thumb and forefinger, a wobbly moan tumbled from her parted
lips. Fascinated by her response, he flicked at her again then tugged gently on her nipples with his teeth.

Her breath quickened as she reached for him, practically tearing the buttons off his shirt in her haste to get her hands on his bare chest. The instant her fingers splayed over him, desire coiled like a spring and his aroused flesh throbbed heavily in rhythm with his pounding heartbeat. He refused to become distracted by her touch because he wanted to make a feast of her. He helped her discard her shirt—
his
shirt—then he went to work removing her baggy breeches.

When she lay naked beside him, his admiring gaze flooded unhindered over her shapely curves and swells. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured as he bent to spread a row of kisses along the pulsating column of her neck. “But I’m sure you know that already.”

Her reply was a wispy moan of pleasure.

Gideon began his journey of discovery over the lush terrain of her body. He took his sweet time caressing her silky flesh from breast to kneecap—careful to avoid the claw marks on her shin. He swore he could spend the evening marveling at her perfection.

He’d never made a thorough study of the women who came and went so casually from his bed. But his previous encounters didn’t seem as magical as learning what aroused this lovely siren. She fascinated him to the extreme. He wanted to savor the feel of her full breasts and map the trim indentation of her waist. He wanted to caress the gentle flare of her hips, the satiny flesh of her thighs. He wanted to know her body by taste, by scent and by touch and discover what made her come apart in his arms.

When his gentle suckling prompted her breathless groan, he smiled against the peak of her breast. He adored hearing the sounds of pleasure he called from her. He wanted
to hear more. He wanted her completely at his mercy. It only seemed fair that this woman—who made him break every hard-and-fast rule he’d established about remaining emotionally detached from his assignments—should be overwhelmed by sensations and feelings beyond
her
control. For certain,
he
was out of control when he touched her. The hungry want of her had become a living, breathing part of him and he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t wanted her to the point of aching desperation.

He heard her quick intake of breath when his hands glided from her hip to her thigh then trailed over the moist flesh between her legs. He remembered all too well how it felt to bathe his fingertips in her silken heat. He yearned to bury himself deep inside her. But she was going to have to invite him in, he vowed as he kissed his way down her rib cage to her abdomen.

“Gideon?” she gasped, and trembled beneath his kisses.

“I’m right here, love,” he murmured against her fragrant skin. “Now don’t distract me. I’m making a feast of you. You’re delicious, by the way. I can’t get enough of you….”

E
ach gentle, intimate stroke of his fingertip left Lori burning with exquisite pleasure. The erotic feel of his lips brushing against her heated flesh sent tidal waves of need crashing through her body. He created desires she hadn’t realized existed, then he satisfied them one by one, setting off the most incredible sensations imaginable. When he flicked at her with his tongue and suckled her with the most intimate of kisses, her composure shattered. Her body quivered with phenomenal passion.

Lori was certain she was going to die. Her pulse hammered like the hailstones that pounded outside the cavern. She couldn’t imagine how she could survive the intensity of his maddening seduction. Yet, one ineffable sensation built upon another until she lay helpless beneath his intimate kisses and caresses.

To her dazed amazement, he withdrew with no more of an explanation than, “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

Sprawled shamelessly naked on the pallet, she watched him walk to the mouth of the cave, then stare out into the
windblown night. “If it’s your intent to torture me by walking away like you did that night in the barn, it’s working,” she said raggedly. “I’m torturing
myself.
” His raspy voice drifted back to her. “I need a moment to gather my self-control.”

“You should have plenty of it since you stole every ounce of mine.”

She watched him turn toward her, a devilish grin playing on his lips. “Did I?”

When he came deliberately toward her, the anticipation of having his hands and lips working their sensual magic on her again left her throbbing with need. He did not disappoint. He knelt between her legs, guiding them apart with his shoulder. Then he reached up to brush the palm of his hand over her breast. She arched helplessly toward his caress then gasped when he kissed her intimately again.

“Come here, damn you,” she demanded urgently, unsure what she needed. But whatever it was, he wasn’t providing it. He was tormenting her with unappeased desire.

“Are you sure it’s me you want?” he asked as he came to his hands and knees to stare at her.

Was she sure? Of course, she was sure. What kind of fool question was that? He was the only man she had ever wanted to this intense degree. He was the only man who had tempted her to discover the heights and depths of hot, overwhelming passion.

“You’re making me crazy,” she grumbled as she reached for the placket of his breeches. “Why all these questions? What do you want from me? An engraved invitation?”

She brushed her hand over the noticeable bulge in his breeches. At least that got a response from him. He groaned, so she stroked his hard length repeatedly.

“Hell and damn, woman,” he whispered roughly when
she opened the placket to wrap her hands around his throbbing flesh.

Gideon swore his eyes were going to roll back in his head when she curled upward to shove his breeches past his hips with one hand while stroking him from base to tip with the other. He tried to draw breath, though he couldn’t remember why it was necessary. He could survive quite satisfactorily on the caressing stroke of her hand….

“Aw, damn—” he choked out when she twisted sideways to take him into her mouth and torment him with the teasing flick of her tongue.

His brain nearly shut down when throbbing pleasure riveted his overly sensitized body. He didn’t realize she had urged him to his back until she was bending over him. Her long curly hair glided over his chest and belly while she suckled him intimately and caressed him with the sweeping stroke of her hand.

Need pounded heavily inside him, building like the crashing crescendo of the storm raging outside the cavern. She took command of his mind and body, enslaved him with indescribable pleasure and made him glory in his own defeat. The erotic touch of her fingertips and lips sent him plunging into the blazing depths of reckless passion. He didn’t care if he ever found his way out again, either.

If she wanted the moon and a few stars, he’d find a way to fetch them down from the sky. If she wanted her freedom he’d give her that, too, so long as she satisfied this maddening ache that scorched him inside and out.

“Say you want me, Gideon Fox,” she demanded as she stroked him with her thumb and held his throbbing length in the palm of her hand.

“I want you,” he admitted on a panted breath.

“Say you
love
me,” she commanded, smiling mischievously at him.

“You ornery minx, I should’ve known you’d find a way to turn that taunt back on me—”

His breath evaporated when she took him deeply into her mouth and suckled him until every nerve and muscle in his body quivered with barely restrained need. Then she backed away momentarily, leaving him arching helplessly toward her mouth. She took him again, tugging erotically at him, flicking at him, killing him with one erotic stroke of her tongue after another.

“Cry uncle,” she whispered as she traced her lips up and down the length of his pulsing flesh.

He swore he couldn’t hold out much longer. Sweet, aching torment had him stumbling along the edge of hopeless abandon.

“Uncle,” he choked out on a ragged gasp.

“Not good enough.” She flicked at him with her tongue. Once, twice, three times.

His head spun in a dizzying circle when she nibbled at his ultrasensitive flesh and stroked him from inner thigh to ankle. “I love you, damn it,” he growled finally, defeatedly. “Now say it back to me.”

“No.” She defied him, her golden eyes dancing with mischief.

He hooked his arm around her waist and rolled above her, pinning her down in the time it took to blink. He glided his fingertip inside her and heard her breath catch, felt her hot and moist and welcoming. He surged toward her, through with their teasing games.

He braced his arms beside her shoulders and pressed intimately against her. He nearly lost control when she reached between them to guide him exactly to her. When he arched toward her, aching to bury himself inside her, her lashes fluttered shut. He would have none of that. He
didn’t want to be the substitute for Anthony Rogers or his own brother or anyone else.

“Look at me, hellion,” he demanded huskily. “Who is it you see?”

“A tormenting devil…with horns,” she whispered. “You’re driving me mad, Gideon. What more do you want from me?”

“Nothing less than everything you have to give,” he insisted as he lost his battle for self-control and thrust against her.

He drove into her, then went perfectly still when she tensed. He felt the unexpected barrier give way, proving her innocence. For a moment, he couldn’t believe he was her first experiment with passion. He had presumed… Well, he’d presumed all sorts of things. Obviously, he’d been wrong about her. At least wrong about
this.

Her golden eyes, enhanced by the glow of the campfire, focused intently on him. “You wanted all I have to give, Gideon,” she whispered as she moved restlessly beneath him. “It’s yours. Just tell me there’s more because I—”

He carefully withdrew, causing her voice to fizzle out. Then she moaned when he moved gently toward her, setting a slow cadence that was pure torture on him. His body screamed for quick release. But he’d be damned if her first time—and his first time with a woman’s first time—caused unpleasant memories and disappointment. He wanted her to remember him fondly. Wanted her to know that jaded and hardened though he’d become to function and survive in his dangerous profession, he could be caring and tender when it was important.

Now it was exceptionally important.

When he felt her body melt against him, he guided his hands beneath her hips. He lifted her to him, opening her lush body so he could caress her with each rhythmic stroke.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the need to move faster. He wanted to pleasure her until she was as breathless and desperate as he felt.

As they moved together, their bodies locked in heated passion, scorching sensations welled up inside him like lava. But he swore he’d burn to a crisp in unappeased need unless Lori discovered the pinnacle of her own sexual pleasure.

A moment later, her nails dug into his shoulders and her amber eyes widened. Her body shimmered around him and he smiled in satisfaction as he followed her over the edge into rapturous oblivion.

Shudder after uncontrollable shudder rocked his body as he clutched Lori possessively to his laboring chest. It seemed hours before he could gather the energy to raise his head from the curve of her neck.

“You should have told me,” he whispered as he kissed the rapid pulse in her throat.

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” she said, and he knew she was right.

He was a cynic through and through. A very satisfied, exhausted cynic, but a cynic all the same.

The next morning, surprised Gideon hadn’t taken the precaution of tethering her, Lori dressed in Gideon’s oversize shirt. She stared out the opening of the cave. Ordinarily, the sight of sunrise glistening on the raindrops that clung to leaves and blades of grass lifted her spirits. Today, however, the impact of her wild, reckless tryst with Gideon weighed heavily on her mind. To make matters worse, she had awakened Gideon at the dark hour before dawn to explore his powerful body more thoroughly and invited him to share the phenomenal pleasure she had discovered in his arms.

Lori swallowed hard and asked herself how she could have broken her determined vow to keep her distance from him. Like a fool, she’d crossed the point of no return. She’d become one of the many nameless women who came and went from his life, leaving no more than a footnote of a half-forgotten memory.

If you sleep with the devil you wake up in hell.
The tormenting thought blazed across her mind, making her wince. She was shameless, that’s what she was. She hadn’t kept her promise to herself and her willpower had become nonexistent. The temptation to flee before Gideon awakened was so fierce she shifted restlessly from one bare foot to the other. She wasn’t sure she could face him after she’d been so brazen and uninhibited the previous night.

It was one thing to surrender to forbidden desire in the flickering campfire light inside a cave and quite another to face Gideon during the light of day and remember how intimate they had been with each other. If he dared to tease her on the sensitive subject or flash a gloating grin, she might be tempted to pound him over the head.

Lori strode downhill, headed for the shallows of the river to bathe—or more specifically, to cleanse herself of the memories of the one, bittersweet night when she had succumbed to whimsical desires with the only man who had set her passions aflame.

The cold chill and fast-moving current, compliments of last night’s downpour, made her gasp for breath. Nevertheless, she waded into deeper water—and wasn’t that symbolic of what she’d done with Gideon last night? she mused. Grabbing a quick breath, she submerged, wishing she could resurface and find that time had rewound itself and last night hadn’t happened.

When she came up for air and raked her hair from her eyes, she gasped in alarm and sank down to conceal herself.
Gideon was standing on the riverbank, bare-chested and barefoot. A long-past-five-o’clock-shadow lined his jaw and his raven hair was disheveled. Still, he had a fierce impact on her senses, testifying to her hopeless attraction to him.

“I thought you might’ve decided to run off while you had the chance.” His words dropped like stones in the silence.

Even now, even after she’d given him a gift she’d offered no other man, he still distrusted her. He would always distrust her, she reminded herself.

“I considered it,” she said honestly then flashed an impudent smile so he wouldn’t know how much his lack of faith hurt her. “But the thought of how much I’d miss you kept me here.”

He regarded her for a long, contemplative moment. “I think it’s time I heard your complete version of the incident. From start to finish. And don’t leave out any details,” he surprised her by saying.

“Does that mean you think I might actually be innocent?”

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “You were…right.”

She wondered how much it cost the cynical marshal to make that comment. “Really? How thoughtful of you to say so.”

“I’ve been wrong about cases before. Rarely. But it’s happened. In your case, I didn’t ask enough questions about the shooting. I just presumed you were guilty because I deal with so many criminals who spout excuses and explanations that twist the truth.”

“I can understand that…. Would you turn your back while I come ashore,” she requested.

Wry amusement pursed his sensuous lips. “It’s a little late for modesty, isn’t it, hellion?”

“You might be accustomed to traipsing around in front of women, but I’m not used to being naked in front of men. The very thought makes me self-conscious.” She shooed him on his way but he didn’t budge from the spot.

“We also need to discuss what happened between us last night.”

Heat suffused her face. Not all the cold water in the river could cool her down. “There is nothing to discuss,” she decreed firmly. “In fact, I prefer to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Like you pretend not to have shot poor Tony Rogers, who made the critical mistake of proposing to you? Or was it because he turned
you
down? I forget.”

Damn the infuriating man! He had the maddening knack of inflaming her temper in the space of a heartbeat. “Curse you, Gideon Fox,” she erupted angrily. “Now turn your back.”

Chuckling, he pivoted to stare downstream. “There. My back is turned. Happy now?”

“Not particularly,” she grumbled.

“You aren’t going to club me over the head and run, are you?”

“I’d like to, but you’d be on my trail in nothing flat, nipping at my heels like a hound from hell.”

After she donned her riding breeches and blouse, she halted beside him. “I’ll have the horses saddled and ready to leave when you’re finished bathing.”

“Then we’ll talk,” he insisted as he reached for the placket of his breeches. His hands stalled when she crossed her arms over her chest and arched her brow. He unbuttoned the top button. “Do you plan to watch?”