Christmas for Ransom (7 page)

Suddenly Eliza’s lashes flickered.

“Enough for now,” he said. Her weariness disappointed him because tonight was all they had. “You’ve had quite a day.”

“That I have.” She nuzzled her head against his chest. An image of him holding her close after the act of love burst behind his eyelids.

“But you know the best part?”

He smiled. The berry stain at the corner of her mouth tempted him. “The pageant.”

“No. It was the kiss.” She buried her face, coy. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

“Then you can think about this all night.” With his forefinger, he raised her chin, bent his face to hers, and near burst into flame when their lips met. Her mouth opened sweetly, shy, to let him in, and without thinking, he laid his hand on one breast. She didn’t slap it off, and his cock took that as a good sign. But damn. Like any woman, she wore too darn many layers. The search for her skin was fruitless.

“And for days to come,” he said in his false-soft voice. He couldn’t leave without some sort of good-bye.

“What do you mean, Ransom?” She pulled away from his hand.

Clearing his throat, he had to tell her now. “Crusty just described a fella I tracked some time back. Lost the scent. It would be a real good thing if I met up with him around here.” He stopped talking, wanting to make sense without tripping himself up. As gentle as he could, he touched her cheek, first with his hand, then with his mouth. Seemed to settle her.

“Seems lucky all around we stopped here at the Star,” he went on without her saying anything. “So you wait for me here a day or two. Keep Miz Ida company. Sort out this mess with Oneida. I’ll get back soon and get you to your granny.” He meant it all with his whole heart.

Her lips parted in protest, so to stop her, he kissed her again, loving it, already missing her. “I sure hate to leave you. I’ll be back. Believe me, all righty?”

“I want to. But is the man dangerous? Do you think he’s a horse thief? I don’t want you hurt.” The dread in her voice touched his heart.

His fingers traveled down her cheek one more time, catching his breath in his throat. “Nope. Just a man his woman wants back home. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“How do you think he came across Oneida?”

“That’s for me to find out, darlin’. That’s what I do.”

“Oh, all right. I hope it’s all worth your while. Granny’s got a fine reward posted.” For a flash, her pretty forehead twisted like worn leather, and his gut clenched because he’d caused her pain. Oh, he was good at lying, but truth to tell, he’d never downright lied to a lady. Whore, maybe, and more than once to Hard Tack Timmon’s alley-cat sister. But never to a real live lady.

“Stay safe. I think I’m going to miss you.” Her lips trembled.

In the depths of Eliza’s eyes, he saw she believed he hated to leave, which was true. But she believed his last-ditch runaway husband tale, which wasn’t. Shame smacked him, but Canyon Jack Ransom had a duty to the gang. He had to find them and send them safe on their way. He owed the boys that much. They’d taken him in, no questions, when he had nothin’ and nobody. Afterward, he’d hightail it back for Christmas with Eliza because those days without her would be like living without his arms, his legs. His heart.

Best of all, she was going to miss him. For the first time since Gram-maw passed, Jack Ransom just might have somebody after all. It had come upon him like a sledge on an anvil.

He was in love. The thought so startled him he knocked the chalk to the floor.

“Ransom?”

“Sorry.” He tried to sound like any naughty schoolboy rather than an outlaw in shock. In love.

But it got worse. He was respectable now, and a respectable man married the woman he loved.

Hell and damn.

****

Eliza’s heart lurched in disappointment. “You’ll be back for Christmas at Stony Brook? You promise?” Desire raged. He was more handsome than any male had a right to be. She locked her fingers together to spare her unbuttoning his clothes.

“You have my solemn oath.” Ransom said. “I mean it, Eliza. I won’t let you down.”

At his words, she shivered in delight. Like the softest silk pillow, the calluses of his rough hand brushed her cheek. Her woman’s part tightened and grew wet, and she knew well why. She wanted him. She wanted his manhood to fill her up, make her a woman. Not the half-forgotten girl she’d been for Royal in her own bedroom at the Stony Brook, almost hoping Granny caught her.

She flushed hot and shamed at the mean-spirited girl she’d been then. But if she didn’t warm herself tonight in Ransom’s arms, with his fingers exploring every inch of her, and his lips tasting every pore, she’d end up a madwoman screaming in need. It had come upon her slow, while he labored to sound out the poem, but it had come upon her real. She loved him. Whoever he was, wherever he went, she loved him. She’d wait for him. But whatever happened tomorrow, she wanted to have him tonight before anything did. A fugitive husband might kill rather than return to a shrew or adulteress.

“You have a first name?” she asked, trembling at her conclusion.

“Jack.”

“Well, Jack Ransom.” She stood up and boldly took his hand in hers. “We don’t dare desecrate ‘Mother’s’ guest bed. The barn’s plenty warm.”

“What are you saying, Eliza?”

“Make love to me there, Ransom. I won’t let you leave if you say no. I’ll”—she started to giggle at the widening of his eyes—”I’ll have you tossed in a hoosegow.”

“Eliza. You can’t mean…”

“I mean nothing else.” At the front door, she pulled their coats from a bentwood tree. “I’m no harlot, but I’m no skittish virgin either if that’s your concern. I’m a woman wanting a man. And truth to tell, you want me, too.”

Ransom’s lids lowered now like they might just before he slept. Her heart thudded.

“You’re so blamed beautiful a blind man would want you,” he said. “But Eliza…what would your gram-maw say?”

Her laugh burst through her nose like her first sip of champagne. “She’s miles away, and I promise not to tell her if you don’t.” Ransom grinned back at her. “Besides, Crusty knows we’re ‘spooning.’ He won’t think a thing if I’m not in the guest bed come daybreak. I know him pretty well.”

“But Miz Ida…”

Eliza ran her hand across a cheek wearing the stubble of a long day. It was the best thing she’d ever touched. “She’s a dear, but age has slowed her wits. Doubtful she’ll even recollect I was here. Now, let’s go.” She grabbed the lantern.

Into the cold night, he held her hand like he’d never let go. Ransom stubbed the toe of his boot against a rock and said, hesitant. “I’d like a better place for our first time, Eliza.”

“The barn is perfect, Ransom.” She couldn’t tell him, not now at least, that she’d had a soft downy bed for a man she hadn’t cared for much at all.

“At least we forgot to lock the barn before,” he said with a chuckle as they entered the barn.

“I reckon Crusty never locks up around here. Most folks don’t,” she said.

“More’s the pity,” Ransom said in a voice more hushed than usual. No need to startle the critters.

Eliza grabbed the blankets from her gear. “Why’s that?” She led him up the ladder to the hayloft and safely hung the lantern on a hook.

“Makes stock easier to steal.”

Alarm fizzed in her veins. “Why, you can’t think…Ahab Perkins is still hanging around?”

Ransom shrugged and pointed to the blankets. “Good henskins there. Best blankets in Texas. Perkins? Couldn’t say. Haven’t heard much about the gang lately. Likely they’re on a spree. New Mexico, most like. Seems they move west.”

“Well, nonetheless, let’s lock the door from the inside tonight.”

“All righty. I’ll go do it.”

When he rejoined her, all thoughts of horse thieving left her brain as they forged a nesting place in the loose straw. Coats, vests, and boots nestled in a pile of their own.

Eliza extinguished the lantern.

“Nah,” Ransom said, clearly disappointed. “Want to see you when I…”

Heat flamed underneath her skin. “No. Moonlight’s enough. Clouds cleared a bit.” She pointed to the silver rays sneaking through chinks in the planks. “I don’t want to alert the ’hands.”

“All right then. Come here, woman.” Ransom knelt in front of her and wrestled with her garments. “Why do you gals wear so dratted many clothes?”

“Me? I’ll have you know, Mr. Ransom.” She giggled against his lips. “I don’t wear corsets as a rule. Anything
Godey’s Lady’s Book
says is proper goes right out of my head.”

“Hmmmmmmmm.”

He nuzzled right below her ear, and for some reason the action was almost more delicious than the kiss. His apt hands had her out of the rest of her clothing, and despite the heat of him, she shivered against the hay. Her nipples tightened, and he laughed joyously.

“Those peaks just waiting for me,” he murmured as he laid her down upon the blanket and suckled gently, then with increasing ardor. A molten craving consumed her, and she frantically reached for the placket of his trousers.

His lips journeyed up the mounds of her bosoms, up the column of her neck until he nourished himself at her mouth. By now, she was on fire, burning with only Ransom able to assuage the flames.

“Now!” she screamed, doing her best to pull his trousers from his hips.

He knelt around her, the tip of him pressing into a womanhood aching with need. Tears welled as she groaned, “Ransom, now. Or I will die.”

As if she opened for him, he entered, and she pulled him close, hands on his firm buttocks. His masculine thrusts completed her, made her the woman she was meant to be. Had her feeling loved and beloved although he hadn’t spoken any such words. His eyes locked with hers. Finally his lids squeezed shut and he exploded inside her, and she crossed her legs around him to hold him in, hold him close and forever. Even if he was leaving in the morning.

“Oh, dear God,” he breathed as she bore his weight with total delight. Finally he rolled off with a last kiss. “Sorry.” He took his bandana and cleaned her a bit.

“Sorry?” She rose on one elbow to look down at him. “Sorry? That was splendid.”

“If you think that, darlin’, you are a skittish virgin,” he drawled in that husky hushed voice of his. “There is so much more to show you. I just got caught up in the moment of your eagerness. Couldn’t slow down to give you the attention you deserve. Give me a while, and I’ll show you just what I mean.”

“Can’t you show me now?” She didn’t ask to be coy. Other than Royal, who obviously hadn’t been an ideal lover, Eliza knew little about the machinations of lovemaking. Right now in Ransom’s arms had only made her long for more.

“As to that, darlin’, with you naked beside me, it won’t take long. But it will take a little time. Come here.” He cuddled her against his chest, wrapping her in his unbuttoned shirt before covering them both with blankets. “Oh, there’s something else, Eliza. I know we haven’t been together much at all. Very long neither. And I ain’t saying this because of what we just did. But I know it in my heart.” He paused. “I love you,” he drawled in a slow low growl.

His words covered her both like a wave of cold water and a warm cool blanket. For a while, she couldn’t think of a thing to say and only squeezed his hand.

“Ransom, you sure?” She raised up on her elbow again, but he had already fallen asleep. She smiled against his lips and said, “That’s good, then. I love you, too.”

She recalled Royal sleeping sound right after, too and reckoned that was the way with men. As for her, she hugged Ransom close, reliving his words, seeing again the expression in his eyes when he’d entered her, sensing snow begin to fall as the moonlight disappeared.

Almost as if guided by someone or something else, her hand lowered underneath their makeshift covers to find his manhood, and her fingers closed around it. It sprang to such life at her touch she marveled that it had fit inside her; her fingers barely closed around it. Ransom grunted and woke right up.

“Ah, I see you have a taste for more.” He growled seductively in her ear. “But first things first.”

He burrowed underneath the covers and opened her legs, burying his face between them. At the near indecency of this—not even her wildest or most open-minded chums at school had ever spoken of such an act—she struggled, only to hear him mumble soft words and caress her inner thigh with his tongue. Soon she gasped, for he placed his tongue where the shaft had been before while his fingers caressed her cleft. Then his tongue began to move sinuously while his fingers entered her now, and within seconds, she writhed in rhythm to Ransom’s actions.

Suddenly the last shafts of moonlight exploded into a rainbow of countless colors inside her head, and every song she’d ever heard rang in her ears.

Her knees clasped around his neck, but she knew what he wanted next, his shaft deep within her. But no. She wanted something similar for herself, the taste of him, the feel of his length underneath her tongue.

“No, not yet, Ransom.” She wrestled him on his back, and began to love him with her mouth, watching the thrill dance in his eyes. Soon they squeezed shut, and his body began to shudder.

“Sonofabitchandthensome,” he shouted out in a full-strength gravelly voice she’d heard once before. Then he plunged inside her, and she gasped in terror and contentment both.

****

“You all right, darlin’? Did I hurt you?” Ransom rolled on his back when he was done, barely able to breathe, but he’d heard her intake of breath. He grabbed her close with whatever strength he had left. Twice, so close together, and with the woman he wanted at his side forever and ever, had rendered him near powerless. There wasn’t enough air on the planet right now to fill his lungs.

“No.” The word came out breathless, and she didn’t say more than that, but the single word comforted him anyway. A woman gasping in delight meant he’d treated her right.

The words he’d just thought inside his head smacked into his heart now. Words he’d never imagined any other time in his life about anybody else. The woman he wanted at his side forever. He forced his own words from his lungs, and he meant every single one, swear on his gram-maw’s grave.