Kit Gardner (24 page)

Louise swept to Jessica and kissed the air beside her cheeks. “I see you finally came to your senses with regard to a new dress, Jessica. You look ravishing.”

“Stark bought it for me.”

Louise raised too-innocent brows, her lips tilting in a smug smile. “On a farmhand’s pay, hmm? Well, then, he must be dying to show you off in it. He does have that supremely frustrated look about him. One can only assume why, hmm?” Linking her arm through Jessica’s, Louise drew her around the buckboard and toward the brightly lit pavilion. “Shall we, Jessica? I’m afraid if you linger here another moment, the good citizens of Twilight will be denied their first good eyeful of you. And God knows I want to be right there when Avram Halsey sets his eyes on you and your, er...more charming assets. Indeed, I believe I saw him embroiled in some heated discussion with a feral-looking fellow who rather resembles your Logan Stark, now that I think about it. Very tall, dark, forbidding-looking. No doubt another of those pesky Easterners. Let’s find them, shall we?”

“I’m not marrying Avram, Louise.”

“Of course you’re not. Logan Stark would never allow it.”

“It has nothing to do with Stark.”

With a seasoned expertise, Louise proceeded to pick her way through the throng crowded about the dance floor. “Posh, Jessica. A woman can’t marry one fellow when she’d much rather marry the man she loves. Oh, hullo, Nellie, Elly. Lovely evening, hmm?” Louise swung her past the overblown matrons, whose jaws sagged as one when Jessica swished past. “Smile, Jessica. Everyone is looking at you.”

“Good grief.” Jessica did as she was told, pasted on a smile, and glanced over her shoulder at Stark, who was following just at their heels. His blazing eyes seemed to probe the very depths of her soul. “I—I never said I wanted to marry Logan Stark,” she whispered to Louise.

“Whatever else would you want?” Louise hissed. “To be his lover?
Really,
Jessica, what do you think Logan Stark is about, buying you this dress, then seducing you out of it, there among the buggies?”

“I— Now wait a minute, Louise, he wasn’t seducing me.”

Louise gave her a sideways glance. “Oh, really?”

Jessica lifted a shoulder. “We were...admiring the stars.”

“Indeed, I’d wager you’d have a far lovelier view of the stars from flat on your back. Oh, but you must have considered that, hmm?”

“Quit
hmm
ing.”

“Annoying you, am I? Odd, but for so intelligent a creature, you seem positively obtuse lately. My
hmms
are intended to stir your thoughts a bit, nothing more. Though it’s all so blasted plain as day to me.”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Jessica. But a man can stalk about looking like some caged beast for only so long before he simply must do something about it. And with a girl like you, my dear, a man only has one course.” Louise tossed Stark a quick look, then gave a wistful sigh. “I can only pity the poor fellow who stares at you a moment too long tonight. Oh, but possessiveness is entirely too irresistible in a man. Your Logan Stark is positively mad to have you, Jessica. He’d marry you five times to get what he so desperately wants. Do remember to tell me what it’s like to be devoured, will you?”

Devoured...yes. By the man who carried her dead husband’s locket.

He must have known Frank.

What else had he kept from her?

How would she ever explain to Louise that his deceiving her didn’t seem to matter...when she could never have explained it to herself?

A large hand wrapped about her upper arm, stilling her feet and drawing her back against a rock-hard chest. “I’ve had enough of looking at your round little backside,” Stark muttered close to her ear. “Someday you’ll have to tell me where you learned to walk like that.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Jessica replied archly, her heart fluttering.

A sound not unlike a low purr rumbled deep in his chest. “Your hips, my dear, would tempt a saint.”

She looked up at him, curving her lips winsomely. “They’re just hips, Stark. Perhaps it’s the bustle.”

“It’s the woman. Now, say goodbye to Louise. I suddenly have a pressing urge to see those hips on the dance floor. And then—” his breath played like a fiery promise over her ear “—we’re going home.”

* * *

The irony of the situation was not lost upon Rance. In his arms bloomed a wild sapphire rose of a woman. Delight sparkled in her eyes, and mischief danced in her smile. She was the purest form of beauty to behold, a triumph, a reward. His. All he’d ever thought to want in a lifetime. When a woman looked at a man like this, he could never want for anything else...he would do anything to protect that...anything.

Over her blond head, his gaze once again probed Black Jack Bartlett’s, concealed somewhere beneath the heavy shadow of his typical wide-brimmed black hat. Beside Bartlett stood Avram Halsey, his spectacles reflecting nothing but the light of the oil lamps overhead. Halsey’s mouth jerked with his words. Bartlett’s shadowed face remained set in deep, unfathomable crevices carved from years on the frontier. Years of killing. Rance knew the look well. He’d seen it in his own mirror enough times.

Beside Halsey stood the sheriff, his brow caterpillared, his narrowed eyes following Rance as he moved about the dance floor. Perhaps he simply wanted Halsey to shut up. Then again...

Rance glanced again at Halsey. Never underestimate your enemy, he reminded himself.

“Thank you, Stark.” She was smiling up at him, eyes aglow with some inner flame. “You’ve made me happier than anyone deserves.”

And in doing so, he’d set himself a trap he’d have one hell of a time escaping. For a man condemned, he felt damned good about it all. Downright invincible, the more she kept smiling at him.

“Stark. A word, if we might.”

It was the sheriff’s hand pressing heavily on Rance’s shoulder. Halsey stood just behind the sheriff, wearing a look Rance itched to wipe clean with his fists. His gaze shifted over Halsey’s oiled head and met with Black Jack Bartlett’s.

Somewhere the reel ended in a screech of discordant fiddle strings. He felt the probing stares surrounding, heard the voices hushed in speculation.

Jessica drew up rigid as a brittle twig and spun about. “Avram, what the devil have you done?”

Halsey blinked furiously, as though just now gaining a full, unbridled view of Jessica in her sapphire silk. At once, his jaw sagged. “Good heavens, Jessica!”

“Close your mouth, Avram. Then tell me what you’ve gone and done here.”

“Me?”
Avram said, plainly seething. “Why, only what any responsible citizen would do. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”

The sheriff ignored Avram Halsey. “Just a few questions, Stark.”

“By all means,” Rance replied casually. He knew enough of Bartlett and his kind. If the man wanted to haul him in to Spotz and claim his bounty, he wouldn’t let a half-cocked fool like Halsey and a local sheriff do his apprehending for him, in the middle of a town social. No, he’d first make certain Rance was his man. Reasonably certain. Then he’d stalk him, taunt him, and strike when Rance was least suspecting. The more violence, the more bloodshed, the better it suited Bartlett’s twisted purposes. No, this little scene had Halsey written all over it. It was a ruse, a gamble on Halsey’s part to get him away from Jessica, with Bartlett providing all the reason in the world the good reverend would ever need.

Rance watched Bartlett shove a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and his slitted gaze move over Jessica with unabashed insolence. Again, their gazes locked, and the challenge was issued.

“Wait a minute—” Jessica began, but Rance squeezed her upper arm.

“This also involves you, Mrs. Wynne,” the sheriff said, jerking his head at Bartlett. “This fella here is lookin’ for the man who killed your husband, ma’am.”

“Then what is he doing here in Twilight?” Jessica asked.

Halsey stepped forward and poked a shaking finger at Rance. “This man here could very well be the cold-blooded killer Rance Logan.”

“Avram, don’t be ridiculous.”

“We now have more than enough reason to run him out of town!” Halsey bellowed. “Let this Bartlett fellow rid us of him, I say!”

A halfhearted rejoinder billowed up from the crowd.

“What is his crime, might I ask?” Jessica snapped. “Saving our town from that outlaw gang?”

The sheriff shoved his hat back upon his head. “We don’t go lookin’ for trouble here in Twilight, ma’am. Just want to see justice served.”

“As do I, sheriff,” Jessica replied with a thrust of her chin. “But not at the expense of an innocent man. Mr. Stark may well have been a stranger several weeks ago, and he may handle weaponry with skill, but that is hardly proof that he killed my husband.”

“Never seen a man quicker on the draw,” the sheriff muttered.

“Indeed,” Halsey offered, preening. “And this Rance Logan fellow was a hired gun for some cattleman near Wichita.
Paid for his shot.
Renowned for his abilities.”

The sheriff glanced at Rance beneath bushy brows. “You ever work for a cattleman?”

“Several.”

“Oh, for God’s sake...” Jessica said, huffing.

“You ever a paid gun?”

“Stark, you don’t have to answer that,” Jessica said, turning wide eyes up at him.

“Your man here...” Rance indicated Bartlett. “Does he know the fella he’s hunting?”

Bartlett chewed on his toothpick, his face revealing nothing. “I reckon I might.”

Rance folded his arms over his chest and cocked a brow. “Seems to me, Sheriff, that this Rance Logan fella and I might have a good bit in common. As do most men who find themselves quick on the draw. But if a man like this Rance Logan fella has something to hide, he’d be a fool not to head for a big city. A man can lose himself among the many. In open country, a man, a dangerous man, stands out too much. Sooner or later, everyone knows it.”

“Just as we found you out, Stark,” Halsey said with a sneer.

Rance’s smile never reached his eyes. “I never said I had anything to hide, Halsey. And if I did kill Frank Wynne, his widow’s farm would be one hell of a fool’s place to think of holing up.”

A murmur filtered through the crowd.

“Let him go!” someone shouted.

“Aw, come on, Sheriff!” said another. “I wanna dance!”

The sheriff chewed on his tongue and slowly nodded. “I’d have to agree with you, Stark. What good reason would a killer have to come here to Twilight?” All eyes flickered to Halsey.

“I’ll give you plenty good reason!” Halsey crowed. “That land of Jessica’s is worth a small fortune. He killed her husband and now intends to swindle her out of her property, by God, and I won’t stand by and allow it.”

“Shut up, Avram.” The venom in Jessica’s voice stopped Halsey cold. Scarlet crept up from his celluloid collar, clear to his receding hairline. He opened his mouth, balled his fists, only to find the sheriff’s palm smack in the center of his chest, restraining him.

“Go on home, Reverend.”

“What?”
Halsey shrieked, spittle flying from his tongue. “You’re not going to allow this man to...to...I won’t have it! The townspeople won’t have it!”

The sheriff planted himself in front of Halsey, hands on his hips. “The townsfolk are more likely to string you up for interrupting their social. Don’t make me draw my gun on you, Reverend. I don’t want no trouble. Now go on home. Mr. Bartlett, I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

Bartlett merely grunted, then was swallowed by a surge of the crowd around them.

Rance felt Jessica’s back trembling against him. “Let’s go,” he said, grasping her elbow.

“Yes,” she murmured, still looking after Halsey.

“Jessica, good heavens!” Louise French burst upon them, John following at her heels. “You’re pale as death. How awful for you. That Avram—what could have possessed him to create such a stir? A bit of jealousy is one thing, but I sense something more here. Logan, take her home. I’ll tend to Christian. He can stay with us tonight, can’t he, John? Aunt Aggie has baked enough for an army. Christian can help me eat some of it.” Louise slipped an arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “And you can relax for one night.”

“I don’t shake hands with murderers,” John French said, grasping Rance’s hand firmly. “Halsey’s all alone in this, Stark.”

“I know.”

“He tried to stir up a vigilante group last night to run you out. Couldn’t get more than a handful of fellas to listen to him. And then Sadie McGlue came by, offering warm blackberry pie at her place to the first takers. Well, that was the end of the vigilante group.”

“I’ll have to thank Mrs. McGlue for her support.”

“No thanks necessary, my friend. We may be small-town folk who don’t take too kindly to strangers. Hell, we’re damned mistrustful. But a man’s character speaks for itself. If you ever found it necessary to kill a man, Stark, I’d lay my reputation on it that you did it in self-defense. You’re no killer.”

“Stark! Stay right there, young man, and let me shake yer hand.” Hubert McGlue huffed through the crowd, then vigorously pumped Rance’s hand. “A travesty, I tell you. Them church fellas ain’t quite right in the head, I always say. You gotta come on over for some of Sadie’s pie, Stark, an’ teach me how to play that faro game, when Sadie’s not lookin’, ‘course. I can always tell a good card man when I see one. An’ you’ve got that look about ya. Kinda like that Bartlett fella. Somethin’ similar ‘bout you two fellas. Both got that glint in yer eye. So how ‘bout it, Stark? You won’t find a finer-made blackberry pie—”

“Of course he won’t!” Sadie beamed, linking one plump arm through Jessica’s. “The whole town’s coming over for pie. You can’t possibly miss out. Come, Jessica. You can ride with me. I don’t trust Logan Stark alone with you in that dress. We might never see you again.”

A man could get used to feeling like he belonged, especially when he’d never felt it before. And as Rance joined the crowd heading for the McGlues’, he realized he’d do just about anything to protect that, now that he’d finally found it.

“D
on’t.” Just as Rance drew back on the reins to slow the buckboard before the barn, Jessica laid her hand atop his. “Drive on a little farther, Stark. The night is too lovely.”

Rance eased up on the reins, and Jack trotted into the open prairie. Beneath a foamy moon, the grass billowed in great undulating waves of shimmery silver-blue. A vast starlit sky loomed overhead, stretching endlessly in all directions. A warm breeze played a constant rustle through the grass and tossed several lemon-scented blond curls against Rance’s neck and chest. And beside him Jessica nestled, her hands locked around his arm.

They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the McGlues’. Rance sensed a wistfulness in her, in her touch, in the clinging of her gaze to his whenever their eyes met. It was as if she somehow knew it all, without his having to say a word.

Jess, I’m the man who killed your husband. And part of me isn’t the least bit sorry.

Jack followed the well-worn path to the stream. Beneath a low-hanging clump of willow, Rance drew the buckboard to a halt. He jumped down, looped Jack’s reins loosely over a tangle of brush, then reached for Jessica. Before her feet touched ground his lips closed over hers in a hard, unforgiving kiss. He wanted to lose himself in her, drown in the taste of her mouth, and draw her very breath deep into his lungs. He wanted to know the feel of this woman’s love flowing like sweet salve over him, healing all the wounds, banishing the torment of memory, making him whole. She was his life force, and his body craved hers in the most savage, primal sense. He would take her as he’d dreamed of taking her, until this fire had left his blood, if only temporarily. Yet beyond that, far beyond that, he wanted possession of her soul, wanted to fully claim it as his. Only then would she forgive him for that which was most unpardonable. He would allow her nothing else.

Their mouths parted in a rush of air. He held her there, full against him, feeling their chests straining together with their labored breaths. Desire spiraled through him, hot and wicked, plunging into his loins, running riotous and savage in his blood.

As pliant as silk, she arched against him, offering the sweet fruit of her breasts so that they swelled to the very limits of her bodice. Her head fell back with her abandon, and moonlight spilled over the length of her throat like silver-blue flames. His lips burned to taste her skin. “Please, Logan...I need to feel your hands upon me. Touch me...Logan...”

Logan...

Just once, to hear his name from those sweet lips...to know this night would be cherished, not tarnished by the stain of deception. When he took her, it would be as Rance Logan, no other. She deserved no other.

“Jess—” He gripped her slender upper arms, resisting the need to crush her against him, to seek all that promised softness. She would be heaven beneath him. “Listen to me. I can’t—”

Her fingertips pressed against his lips, cool and trembling against the heat of his mouth. “No. I understand. You needn’t say anything. I am a woman full grown, Logan, responsible for my actions. You bear no responsibility toward me.”

“The hell I don’t,” he growled. “I take full responsibility for anything that happens to you. I want to possess you.
I want you as mine.
Only mine, in every sense that a man can want a woman. His mate. My need for you is all-consuming. It’s become a living thing in my blood and in my soul. I can no more deny it than I can my next breath. You’re everything that I want to keep and protect.”

“Oh, Logan—” She swayed into him and brushed her lips over his. “My heart aches when you talk like that. Swells and aches as though it will burst from my chest. I never thought love and desire could be so painful, so unsettling, yet so joyous and fulfilling, all at once.”

His teeth met, and he set her from him, at arm’s length once more. “Jess, that man, Bartlett...”

A calm settled over her features. Moonlight glittered like diamonds in the fathomless depths of her eyes. A wind-tossed curl fluttered against her lips, unheeded. “He was looking for Rance Logan,” she said, so softly the breeze immediately snatched her voice.

“Yes, he was.”

“The man who killed my husband.”

“Yes. Bartlett was sent by a man named Cameron Spotz.”

“It was self-defense, wasn’t it?”

A ringing filled his ears. An unseen hand shoved hard into the center of his chest. “Jess—”

Her proud chin came up, and her shining eyes tilted into the moonlight. “Frank drew his gun first, didn’t he?”

“Jess—”

“He would have shot you if you hadn’t shot him. Kill or be killed. Isn’t that the code in the West?” Her whisper was like the wind. “You were gambling with him. He gave you the locket. Probably as a wager. That’s how you came to have it.”

The strength of this woman drove like a blade through his heart. “Jess...” he whispered.

Her voice quivered faintly. “That’s what brought you here. The locket.”

“I couldn’t stay away. Your face in that picture, Jess— I couldn’t believe a man could leave a woman like that.”

“You never meant to stay here.”

“I never meant to do a lot of things.”

“You knew Bartlett would find you...somehow. You were a wanted man. And yet you stayed.”

His throat was closing up on him, his chest compressing. “I couldn’t leave you once I’d found you. The way things were for you here, with Halsey, I had to make it right for you and Christian.”

“No matter the risks.”

“A man doesn’t think about risks sometimes. Other things become more important than his own damned hide.” He lifted one hand, fingers stretching toward her. She didn’t move, didn’t flinch, and his fingers curled around the nape of her neck. The agony of thinking he might lose her now... “Jess, I’m sorry.”

She stiffened, and for one horrific moment he thought she would flee him. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t ever say you’re sorry.”

His arm flexed, crushing her against him, trapping her there with the pressure of his arms. If she struggled against him, if she fought him, by God— “There isn’t an excuse in the world for what I’ve done to you,” he rasped into her hair, reveling in the softness of her against him. “The words could never exist, in any combination, to justify it. Maybe that’s why I let it go for this long, and that, too, was a damned foolish thing to do. Because now I’m in love with you like a madman, and I’m never going to let you go. Even if you hate me for what I’ve done. You came to love me once. Dammit, you will again.”

“Don’t you know—?”

His fingers bit into her upper arms, and his teeth bared with his words. “I know nothing at this moment, Jess, except that I took a man’s life.”

“You saved mine.”

His eyes narrowed. A blossoming hope stirred in his chest, and then a deep shudder shook him when her fingertips barely touched his beard-stubbled cheek. Grasping her hand, he pressed his mouth to her palm, his breath coming fast now. Her voice flowed over him like softly falling summer rain.

“How can I think of what you took from me, when all I see and feel is what you’ve brought me? How can a woman hate the man she was born to love? I was half-alive, sleepwalking through my life, more wounded by events than I could have ever imagined, until you came. And it was as though the sun finally rose upon the night. You brought passion into my life. You awakened me to sensuality, and an awareness of myself as a woman I would never have known. You’ve shown my son more compassion and tenderness than any man ever has. And you’ve stirred in me a love that makes me ache clear to my soul. If Frank had to die by his own foolish hand to keep you alive and bring you to me, even for a short time, then God knows I’m content that he did.”

“I didn’t shoot to kill him, Jess.”

“A man like you never would.”

It was as though she’d known him a lifetime. “You knew,” he said softly. “Tonight, with Bartlett and the sheriff, you knew I was the man he was looking for.”

She turned her eyes toward the muffled gurgle of the stream, one brow curving wistfully. “I suppose I suspected for quite some time you had something to hide. Instinct, I guess. Even though I’d been so cruelly deceived by my husband, somehow it didn’t seem to matter that you kept something from me. Somehow I trusted you implicitly with the reasons, and with telling me, in your own time. And if you didn’t, if you rode off down that rutted trail and never returned, I would never have regretted one moment we’d spent together. Beneath your hard, callused surface, I sensed tenderness and an innate fairness in you. When I found the locket—” She pressed a hand to her heart and gazed up at him with eyes wide and glimmering, withholding nothing. “I feared for you like I’ve never feared for anything before. I thought nothing of myself. I felt no anger. Not a trace of betrayal or remorse. Only this deep sense of foreboding that you would be taken from me. There was never a need to forgive you, you see. I love you, Rance Logan. I always have, and I always will.”

His hand caught at the back of her head and drew her softness full against him. “Say it again,” he said thickly, smoothing a blond curl from her cheek.

Her arms slipped around his neck, and she tilted her lips up to his. “I love you, Rance Logan.”

“I want to hear my name on your sweet lips...again and again.”

“Rance,” she breathed against his mouth. “Rance, please, make me yours. I cannot bear another moment like this...waiting. We’ve waited so long as it is...entire lifetimes...”

“Then open for me, love,” he rasped, brushing his thumb over her mouth. He took her lower lip between his teeth to test its plumpness. He sucked softly on the tender fullness, until it grew swollen and throbbing, then swept his tongue over the dewy rim of her parted lips, drinking of her honeyed taste. “Before we’re through, your taste will be mine, and mine yours. No difference will remain.”

Silk burned beneath his palms as he molded the upthrust curve of her full buttocks and gently eased her woman’s core against the burgeoning evidence of his desire. Her resulting gasp of awareness brought her mouth open to the first thrusts of his tongue, deep into the farthest, warmest recesses. From deep in her throat came a moan of the purest pleasure.

“Yes, purr for me, my little cat.” His fingers twisted into her hair, freeing it from its pins. Fragrant curls spilled about him like flaming shards of sunlight. “The faintest touch of you on my skin is like a blade. Sweet torture...yet pain can be the basest form of pleasure. I’ve come to live for that pain...all that I’ll find when I burn inside of you, Jess...and when I make you burn for me.”

“Yes—” Taking his hand in hers, she drew it to her breast. “Make it stop hurting. All of me. Please...ease the ache for me, or I shall die of it.”

“We may both die of it yet,” he murmured, spreading his fingers wide over the fullness of her breast. A deeply felt satisfaction flowed through him when she sighed his name and her breast swelled beneath his hand. “The barest touch—” He lowered his head, his mouth hovering just over her skin, without touching, and breathed warmth upon the high, lush curves. In the silvery moonlight, her flesh quivered in response. “It’s the same for you, isn’t it?”

Her sigh was like a ghost’s murmur in the night.

“I could ravish you without even touching you.”

“Yes...”

The blood thundered through his veins, testing every last ounce of self-control he’d ever thought to possess. He’d never dreamed a woman could be so responsive, as much a slave to her passionate nature as he had become with her. Instinct demanded he ease himself on her in one magnificent onslaught. The pain that had settled in his loins required it. The restraint he’d shown thus far decreed it, by God. He couldn’t withstand a lingering seduction with such a woman. Surely no man could endure such exquisite torture and think to keep his sanity. And yet the pleasure he could achieve in arousing her to limits unknown, in plucking and playing her supple, passion-sensitive body until she, too, was consumed by these unforgiving flames...yes, his will could withstand such a test.

He might well have been holding a virgin in his arms. The thought swelled his shaft to agonizing limits, as did the gentle fingers stroking through his hair and over the back of his neck. Just a simple touch. He could only imagine what those fingers were capable of doing to the rest of him.

“I’m burning,” she murmured huskily.

“So am I.” He brushed his lips back and forth, again and again, over the highest curves of her bosom, keeping his hands around her waist. “Tell me where it burns, love. Here, where my mouth is?”

“Yes, and lower...”

His long fingers slid up her back and worked the tiny hooks of her dress free. Silk rustled and parted. He flattened his palms, molding the sleek curve of her warm skin, then drew the silk wide. In a whisper, the capped sleeves slipped from her shoulders, and the dress spilled to the ground in a soft rustle.

“Finally,” he murmured against her neck. “I’ve been wanting to take the damned thing off since you first put it on.”

His actions were deliberate, his pace slow and leisurely, for he was intent upon savoring. His mouth took hers in a gentle kiss, his lips drawing deeply of her nectar until a whimper reverberated in her throat. He felt her fingers at the buttons of his shirt, the urgency of her palms spreading the cotton wide to caress the breadth of his chest.

“Mmm...” she breathed. “I could never tire of the feel of your skin. It’s so rough, so entirely masculine and different from mine. I want to feel it against all of me.”

He cupped her jaw and brushed his thumbs over her lower lip, then dipped his head to taste of her again. “And all I can think of, dream of, day and night, is your woman’s softness beneath me, and the taste of you...like warmed honey...” With agonizing slowness, he moved his hands up and down the length of her upper arms until she shivered and sighed his name. “Are you still burning for me?” he rasped, pressing his mouth to the pulse beating at the base of her throat. “Sweet honey...” He lowered his head and slipped his tongue deep into the valley between her breasts. “Such softness a man could drown in.” Sliding his fingers beneath the narrow straps of her camisole, he rubbed his knuckles along her skin beneath the length of the straps, pausing just where the strap met with the first tender curve of her breast. He watched her eyes dilate with sweet desire. She placed her hands over his and squeezed with burgeoning impatience.