Desperate Hearts (26 page)

But when Jace rocked his pelvis against her
leg, she felt his arousal, hard and full, her fear took over.
Whether or not she wanted them, dark, fearsome memories crowded
into her heart to steal the pleasure Jace was giving her.

Obviously sensing her anxiety, he backed
away so that their bodies didn’t touch. His face reflected a blend
of need and concern. “Have you changed your mind?” he asked
quietly.

She shook her head. “No, I just—that night—”
She turned her head away. “Oh, it’s hard to explain.”

“
But not so hard to
understand. You have to realize how big a difference there is
between then and now.” He propped his head on his hand and stared
down at her while he stroked her cheek with the back of his finger.
“A year ago, you had no say, no choice. Tonight you’re the one in
charge. We’re here because you asked to do this. It’s all up to
you.”

“
Really?”

His soothing touch moved to her hair. “It
was that way from the minute we started this. If you want to stop
right now, then we will.”

“
I don’t want to stop,
but—“ She cast a quick, embarrassed glance down his torso to his
very evident hardness straining his fly buttons.

Catching the path of her gaze, he said,
“Remember, it won’t hurt.”

She nodded, not completely convinced.

“
Trust me," he whispered
and crowded close again. “I’ll do everything I can to make it right
for you.” With one arm under her shoulders, he kissed her while his
other hand roamed more freely on her body, over her

denim-clad legs and up the insides of her
thighs. Finally he reached the heat at their apex and pressed his
hand against it, hard.

Kyle moaned, forgetting to be frightened or
self conscious. A need much more primitive and demanding took
over then, and she lifted her hips to press back. He continued this
sweet agony for several moments, until finally he sat up and pulled
off her boots and then his own.

With a dreamy languor, she lay against the
blankets, watching him unbuckle his belt and rip open his fly
buttons with one sharp tug. Impatiently he shed his jeans and
kicked them away, revealing his lean, fully erect body. Would he do
the same to her?

As if reading her thoughts, he laid his hand
on her belt buckle. He didn’t speak, but he sought her permission
with his eyes. She let her hands rest at her sides, giving it to
him.

And in a moment, she lay beside him, bare
skin against bare skin. He was lean and long and beautiful to look
at. Perhaps he wasn’t tall, but his torso was finely wrought with
sinew and bone, and led to tight, lean hips and legs that were hard
with saddle muscles.

Jace gazed at her nakedness with ravenous
eyes, as if he would devour her, but not hurt her. He dropped his
head to tease her nipple again, then blazed a path of warm, moist
kisses that began at her throat and wandered feverishly over her
breasts and stomach. His hair trailed softly behind the kisses,
like the brush of feathers on her skin.

No, this was nothing like what she had
expected, this tender assault on her senses. She could not have
anticipated the sensation that she felt between her legs and in her
womb, a feeling that was both thrilling and frustrating, as if even
more awaited her.

Her frustration climbed to a new level when
Jace’s fingertips drifted down her abdomen, lower, lower until they
caressed the wet, aching want of her.

“
Jace," she gasped,
writhing under his ministrations. Hot and slick, like tongues of
fire he stroked her deftly while he muttered a stream of
endearments in her ear. She lay beneath his hand in sweet, helpless
torment, inflamed by his touch. “Oh, God, Jace, please—“

“
Do you want me to stop?”
he asked again. His own breathing had grown labored and his voice
sounded hoarse, but she thought she heard a smile in his
question.

“
Yes—no, don’t—” Kyla
didn’t know how long she could endure this. Every nerve in her body
sizzled and her heart thundered as if she had been running with all
her strength. Nearing a state of delirium, she heard a woman’s
voice begging her lover to help end the agony.

“
This is what you need, the
way it should be,” Jace whispered roughly.

Then he leaned over and kissed her again,
and the strokes on her sensitive flesh came faster and harder,
doubling in their intensity, pushing her closer to a dark chasm
that would surely consume her in a white-hot fire.

Suddenly, the heaviness gripped her in a
tight knot and silence fell, as if the world held its breath. Then
waves of spasms wracked Kyla, hot and fierce and deep, as her body
triumphed in its struggle to surrender to Jace. She turned her face
into his shoulder, muffling her sobs.

Kyla’s intense release had pushed Jace to a
fever-pitch. He pulled her beneath him, hoping he wouldn’t frighten
her, but she tensed as soon as she felt his weight on her. And when
he tried to part her legs, she grew rigid and gripped the blanket
beneath her in both fists. Maybe asking her to help him was the
best way to quiet her apprehension.

“
I won’t hurt you,” he said
softly. Bracketing her face between his hands, he dropped swift
kisses on cheeks and temples. “I swear I won’t. This is going be so
different. This is going to be your
first
time, and it’s going to be
with me. Your first time making love. Do you believe me?” He gazed
down at her, his face just a couple of inches from hers.

She lifted her eyes to his. He saw fear
there, but he saw trust too. “I believe you."

“
I need your help, honey,”
he said, and her tension He pressed his forehead to hers. “Will you
open legs to me?”

“
Yes," she sighed and
shifted her legs to accommodate him.

With an incoherent groan, Jace gently
entered her with a long, slow stroke. She drew a sharp breath and
tilted her hips upward to take him into herself. Her sweet warmth
surrounded him, grasping him in a liquid glove. By joining himself
to her, he thought he’d never felt so whole, so complete, or so
distant from his solitary existence.

But the demands of his body had reached an
urgent level and he began moving in her, working toward the release
that he’d held in tight check in order to give her pleasure first.
He lifted himself to the full length of his arms, and his thrusts
grew hard and short.

Kyla lay beneath Jace, filled with him, awed
by him, overwhelmed with the sensation of completeness. She watched
the long column of his throat, surprised to feel restless,
knife-edged passion rebuilding with each stroke. He was beautiful,
every part of him. The muscles in his arms flexed as he strained
against her body, advancing and ebbing. Faster and faster he thrust
into her. Sweat bathed him and his breathing matched his movements.
He pulled her toward a vortex that would either deliver her, or
send her spinning into a dark oblivion.

When she was certain that she could bear no
more of this renewed torment, with a hard thrust he pushed her over
the edge to release. Her muscles clamped down around him in a surge
of pleasure that made her call his name in a high, thin wail, and
stole her heart away, surely, completely, irretrievably.

He dropped his head to hers, covering her
mouth with a desperate kiss. Then with what seemed like the last of
his strength, he plunged forward, and a sobbing groan rose from his
chest while his body convulsed with swift, hot pulsations that
poured into Kyla.

He rested with his face turned into her neck
and she wrapped her arms around him, waiting for their breathing to
slow. His heart thudded against her own, powerful and steady.

“
Are you okay?” he asked
finally, his head still resting against her shoulder. He shifted
his weight to avoid crushing her, but they remained
joined.

She nodded, feeling amazed
and honored. “You were right, Jace. It
was
completely
different.”

“
The way it’s supposed to
be,” he said and kissed her eyelids and temples.

The way it was supposed to be, she echoed in
her mind. Giving and receiving. Yes, it was frantic and turbulent
and urgent. But not humiliating, not violent or painful.

He was hers now, even if she were never to
see him again after this moment. And she was his, branded by his
touch. Ripening love that she had kept hidden from herself, that
she had compelled to remain in darkness, now bloomed. Germinating
in the days of her convalescence in Misfortune, it had waited for
this moment of heat and passion to spring forth, and would no
longer be denied. The wound on her spirit caused by Hardesty’s
cruelty was not erased, but it had begun healing when she met Jace,
and now was closed. A confusion of emotions clashed within her,
joy, acceptance, despair.

Jace rolled over with a low, sated groan,
taking Kyla with him to nestle against his side. He drew the
blanket to her chin. His arms and legs were as heavy as lead,
completely relaxed, and despite the hard floor beneath them, he
knew that he would sleep well for the first time in months.

He refused to think about what tomorrow or
next week would bring. Life provided plenty of opportunities to
worry and brood—he wouldn’t miss anything by passing on the chance
now.

Tonight, he would sleep with Kyla in his
arms, and pretend that the world beyond these rough walls didn’t
exist.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jace woke with a start, the sound of heavy
steps nearby breaking into his sleep. Chilled and disoriented, he
wondered what weight anchored him to the earth. Then he detected
the smell of sage and realized that Kyla slept with her head on his
shoulder. Her bare softness kept one side of him warm.

Briefly, he lifted the blanket to study her
creamy nakedness. Her breast was flattened against his ribs and she
lay with her arm looped around his middle. He smiled.

In the gray-blue dawn, he scanned his
surroundings and remembered where they were. Overhead, the rain had
slowed to an occasional drip. That would give them a break.
Yesterday had been a wild, exhausting day for them both, fighting
the weather, surviving their narrow escape from the mountains, and
his gut-twisting fear when he’d seen Kyla fall.

But this morning, Jace felt completely
rested, almost renewed. Her legs tangled with his, Kyla stirred in
her sleep, and he knew the reason for his sense of well-being. Last
night . . .

Something had happened to him that went far
beyond any experience he’d had with a saloon girl. Certainly he’d
met a few with skills so amazing they’d left him exhausted and
drained dry. But then he’d gotten up from their well-worn beds and
ridden away without a backward glance. Money paid, service
received. Not much different from buying a haircut or a meal.

Last night had been a sharing of souls and
bodies, basic and honest, having little to do with expertise. He’d
made love for the first time in his life. And he felt humbled by
it.

Life, and the work he had chosen, had forced
Jace into a loner’s existence. He’d grown accustomed to that, to
the isolation. Sometimes he’d hated the fact that his only company
was his thoughts, but it was all he knew and he was used to it.

A few hours ago, though, the woman lying
next to him had breached that solitude. He had thought only to
comfort her. He hadn’t realized that he would lose part of himself,
and regain much more.

That empty space in him was stirring to
life, making him look beyond today and next week to wonder, what
then? What would happen after Blakely?

Impatiently, he pushed off the blanket.
Nothing would happen, he reminded himself, pulling his mind away
from the hazy, half-formed images there. He would go his way,
because there was nothing else he could do. And Kyla would withdraw
to a corner of his heart to become a bittersweet memory that he
would take out to savor in the years of rainy nights yet to
come.

Now, though, he had to see this through, the
thing with Hardesty, to give Kyla a safe future after he was gone.
And it wasn’t going to be easy. He kissed her forehead, and allowed
himself the luxury of running his hand down her silky back and
buttocks just once before disentangling from her embrace. She made
a soft little complaint in her sleep and rolled over, pulling the
blanket tight around her.

Those heavy footsteps—there they were again,
this time accompanied by the jingle of bridle and bit, just on the
other side of the thin wall. Jace paused with his head down to
listen—damn, someone was out there. Plucking his gun belt from his
gear, silently he crept to the window with a cool, detached calm,
his revolver firmly in his grip. Nakedness might be his
disadvantage, but his deliberate control and the ability to focus
on survival made up for it.

What he saw, though, only made him laugh and
he let the gun drop to his side. “Damn, son, we thought you were
dead,” he called to Juniper, Kyla’s dun gelding. The horse looked
fit and uninjured, and still wore his saddle, although it was
pretty soaked.

Turning to the stove, he stoked it to get
the fire going again, then pulled on his pants and boots to go
outside to dip water from an old rain barrel he spotted near the
window. A noisy search of the few items left behind in the cabin
turned up a cast-iron pot. Kyla slept through the racket.

“
Come on, sweetheart, wake
up,” he said, and his face grew warm. The endearment slipped out
too readily, too comfortably. He gestured at the stove. “I’ve got
some water heating for you here if you want to, you know, um,
wash.” Jesus, he was stumbling around like a tongue-tied
schoolboy.