Liz Ireland (22 page)

Apparently so! Suddenly she felt all the fight had been sucked out of her, and she gazed at him dreamily. She still knew so little about Lang. Would she always be discovering different shadings of his personality?

He squeezed her hand, and lightning snapped between them. His voice fell. “I didn’t arrange the kidnapping to take advantage of you, Emma.”

“Oh, but—”

Before she could state that she
wanted
him to take advantage, he cut in. “You didn’t come here of your own free will.”

“But—”

“I realize all that you’ve sacrificed for me. I won’t push you for more till you’re ready.”

I’m ready!
a voice inside her shrieked. She was surprised he couldn’t hear it, but evidently he couldn’t. He turned and took the blanket they’d pulled off her horse and laid it across the ground. Then he arranged the canvas saddlebag as a pillow at the head of the blanket. The action caused desire to quicken inside her…then she realized he just meant her to lie down. Alone. She stepped forward and was rewarded with a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“Good night, Em.”

Em
. The new nickname warmed her. Now they were getting someplace! They were just getting there very, very slowly—too slowly. “Please, Lang, rethink finding your brother. It won’t do us any good. If we just went to California…”

“And what good would that do us? You think I want to spend the rest of my life wondering if you missed your home and your farm? And what about all your plans for the hospital? I can’t ask you to give those up.”

“I already have! Believe me, I’m a thousand times happier with you than I ever would have been running that hospital.”

“I don’t want to make you give anything up,” Lang said. “You deserve better than a life on the run. And besides—”

His mouth clamped shut.

Emma sensed an opening. “What, besides?”

“Nothing.” His eyes had that hooded look again.

Curiosity burned in her, especially when she detected two patches of red in his cheeks. “Tell me, Lang. We might as well be honest.” Honesty was perhaps their only possession at the moment.

His shoulders rose in a gesture of surrender and he said, almost as if through gritted teeth, “Well, I was only going to say that the only way that we could be legally married is if I cleared my name.” She gaped at him, temporarily too stunned to speak, so he rushed on. “What I mean to say is, if we went somewhere and used false names, that wouldn’t make us truly and legally married, would it? And if we had children, I’d want them to have the right name.”

Marriage?
Children?
These were the thoughts that had been going on behind that taciturn expression of his? Her heart soared, and she practically twirled in happiness.

She melted against his chest, encircling him in her arms. “Lang! As if I should care—as long as we’re together I couldn’t give a hoot about legalities.”

He looked down at her, looping his hands about her waist. She couldn’t tell whether he was trying to anchor her close or keep her at a safe distance. “I shouldn’t want you so much,” he practically growled. “I’ve stayed up nights, trying not to.”

“I’ve been fighting my own battles,” she said, grinning saucily. “And losing.”

He groaned. “Em, you didn’t come here of your own free will.”

She sidled closer, seeking his warmth. “Yes, I did. You just couldn’t tell it because you were too busy kidnapping me.”

A muscle in his clenched jaw twitched. In fact, his whole
body seemed tense, like an overwound watch or a cat ready to spring. Incredibly, being in the circle of so much barely leashed masculine power thrilled her more than it frightened her. Too long she’d languished miserably in the fear that her desire was one-sided, and that all her affections were doomed to go unrequited. Now, as she leaned against him, bringing him to the very edge of his last nerve, she delighted in the fact that she, too, had power over him, power she’d never guessed she possessed.

His expression was anguished. “If I make love with you now…”

Just hearing the words caused her heart to race. Yes! Here was the real adventure. She felt as if she were standing on a precipice, ready to fling herself over the edge into the unknown. “I won’t regret it,” she assured him with a calm that surprised her. Every particle in her body thrummed with excitement, with blind desire, with simply wanting.

And then, as if to punctuate her words, she tilted her head, perched on her toes and brazenly pressed her mouth to his. The moment their lips touched, Lang pulled her close and drank deeply of her lips, until she was almost dizzy from the kiss. Even while her heart pumped wildly, she had to remind herself to breathe. Yet Lang’s lips transported her to a place where mortal concerns like breathing seemed secondary to sensation and desire. A million different impulses warred within her—to keep her lips to his, to move against him, to explore every sinew of his body. All the while, his hands raced through her hair, down her back, around her waist, cupping her bottom and pulling her shockingly close to him. Every place he touched her seemed to leave a trail of fire, to make her legs feel weaker and to cause her desire to increase.

She clung to him desperately, feeling as if she were attempting
to hold on to a tornado. The torrent of shocking new sensations flooding her amazed her, as did her sudden understanding of what she needed. Lang. His body against hers. Clothing, so long her armor of modesty, suddenly seemed a hindrance, a nuisance. As if he could sense her thoughts, she felt Lang’s fingers working at the tiny buttons that Rose had so expertly done up for her that morning. At the same time, she began fumbling at the much simpler task of divesting Lang of his shirt.

His chest, with its heavy dusting of dark hair, was familiar to her. The bandages were gone, and in their place remained a thick red scar, healed, but an angry reminder of his brush with death. The sight caused her throat to constrict to a lump, and she ran her finger along the jagged line.

At her touch, Lang sucked in a short breath between his clenched teeth, then pushed her dress off her shoulders. Though she wore a shift and a corset, it was still the first time she had stood in her underclothes before any man, and suddenly her skin burned so with embarrassment that she feared her whole being would go up in flames, especially since Lang’s gaze was steadily focused on her breasts, which were pushed high and half exposed by Rose Ellen’s infernal corset.

Embarrassed as she was, however, she wanted to be free of it. She wanted Lang against her again, so she would feel active, not like a half-dressed statue frozen in front of his dark, glittering eyes.

Then he reached out and brushed the top of her breast with his thumb, nearly causing her legs to buckle beneath her. She’d never guessed one part of her anatomy could hold such a well of feeling, but that one touch nearly was her undoing. She reached out, gripped his arm and eased him down to the blanket. The material was woefully inadequate
to provide a mattress for them both, so as soon as Lang was sprawled on the ground she followed her instincts and clambered on top of him so that she straddled his lap as he unlaced her. Each progressive loosening of her bindings made her realize anew how constricted she had been, and now that she could take a real breath again, she felt as if she had air to spare for kisses. She began at his ear and worked her way down his jaw, stopping at his lips again. She couldn’t get enough of his mouth, his warmth, the taste of him. Every movement of his tongue seemed designed to cause a chain reaction of desire in her body, and almost rhythmically she began to move her hips against him.

Lang groaned and tore his lips from hers. He looked almost as if he were gasping for air. “Emma, wait.”

She smiled, knowing she had no intention of waiting, or being patient, or following any orders he might give her. She was being driven by pure instinct now. She pressed his shoulders down to the ground and lay full against him, reveling in the tantalizing evidence of his masculinity pressing ever more insistently against her. She reached down, but the moment she touched the evidence of his desire, a sea change occurred on that blanket.

Lang’s body shuddered, and with a gravelly sound that was half moan, half roar, he turned the tables on her. In a split second she found herself on her back, Lang perched over her, his face dark and intense, yet his eyes shockingly tender and vulnerable.
Wait
, they seemed to say.
Slow down
.

But inside her was a hurricane of heat and desire and a lifetime of suppressed feminine curiosity, and there could be no holding back that storm. “I trust you,” she whispered, reaching down and unbuttoning his pants. As soon
as she clasped her hand around the erect fullness of him, he closed his eyes.

“Em.” He ground out the word before bending to give her the most passionate kiss she’d ever received. It was the kiss of a man on the breaking point, and she surrendered to it completely, as she did to the insistent movement of their bodies, a friction that made her feel as if they might combust like the sulfur tip of a match. As an amateur student of medicine, Emma was not ignorant of the birds and the bees. She had a fairly good conception of what went on between a man and a woman, and she was ready to experience it firsthand.

But again Lang surprised her. Instead of taking her immediately, just when she thought she was at the breaking point, he caressed her in places she’d never imagined a man touching—her hips, her thighs and finally the very core of her womanhood. He stroked her until she thought she might combust all by herself, until she was senselessly pleading for more. Just when she thought she could stand the exquisite torture not one second longer, when she might explode or simply dissolve into a puddle of liquid fire, Lang parted her legs, positioned himself over her and penetrated the most intimate part of her.

Emma gasped at the unexpected shock of pain. Her body arched against his, and he stilled above her, his eyes apologetic as he murmured tender reassurances against her ear. His low, husky voice stoked the fire burning within her, until she was unable to hold herself back any longer. She braved the consequences by moving her hips, and found that she increasingly felt more pleasure than pain, and soon they were moving in tandem, in a rhythm that felt both new and as old as time. Faster and faster the sensations seemed to spiral inside her, until she was spinning out of control, afire with feelings both frenzied and poetic. Tears
built in her eyes, and when she finally found the oblivion of release, moments before Lang himself tensed above her and shuddered, she knew she’d been right. She would never regret this…no matter what happened.

Barton tossed and turned on the hard, cold ground, unable to get a wink of sleep. The pitiful fire he’d managed to build didn’t give off enough warmth to make a fly feel cozy, and he already wished he’d brought better food. And more of it. In his nervousness and boredom, he’d already eaten half his provisions—the best half, too. Most of the jerky was gone.

The worst of it was, he still felt like nibbling. And there was something sticking in his side.

“Damnation!” Muttering to himself, he sat up and extracted a small stone embedded in the earth beneath his blanket. “And damn Emma Colby!” he added, pitching the curse into the darkness.

It was her fault he’d reached this sorry pass. If she hadn’t gone and fallen under the spell of a no-good outlaw, he’d be snoozing on a comfy feather bed in her old family house this very minute. He’d have a real blaze to warm his toes, and a goose-down pillow to rest his head on instead of a pile of dirt. Also, he’d have a woman to use for his pleasure instead of just the stars and all sorts of spooky night noises for company. Odd rustlings and hoot owls sounded around him, along with coyote howls and the east wind’s disturbing lullaby. He shivered.

He’d wanted to go to San Antonio and spend a few nights in a hotel, but on second thought he’d decided against it. Midday was close enough to San Antone that someone might recognize him, and then that would put him in a pickle. How would he explain why he wasn’t hunting for the man who’d run away with his fiancée? Even if he
did dream up some excuse, it just wouldn’t look good. People might think he was yellow.

Lord, he hated Emma Colby. He’d never liked her and had only barely tolerated the thought of her becoming his wife; but now that she’d run off with another man, his pride was stinging as if she’d been his one and only sweetheart. He thirsted for revenge, but he knew he wouldn’t get it. God willing, he would never have to lay eyes on her mousy face again.

He still couldn’t believe she’d done it. Run off with an outlaw—when she could have been Mrs. Barton Sealy! It didn’t make a lick of sense to him. He’d offered to marry that pathetic old spinster…and she’d had the unmitigated gall to prefer a desperado, an outcast of society, a man on the run. What kind of life did she think she was going to have? Heck, the man wasn’t even a very successful outlaw when it came right down to it. He’d heard the Gonzales gang had only a few bank robberies to their credit.

He just prayed that she and her inept criminal lover would have the brains to make it far away without getting caught. If either one of them was dragged back to Midday, or even somewhere near Midday, it would be curtains for him. Emma would probably blurt out the whole story just for spite. She’d been angry when he’d pressured her into agreeing to marry him, he knew. But women were like that. They didn’t understand the practicalities of life.

A noise startled him. It sounded like a horse’s whinny, and he bolted straight up, alert, and grabbed for his rifle. But as he squinted out into the inky black of night, he saw nothing, and he sure as hell wasn’t crawling out from under his blanket. The little patch of dirt beneath him was finally feeling a little warm.

He heaved a sigh. Emma had reduced him to this—sleeping out on the ground like an animal. How long would
he have to stay out here in the middle of nowhere before it would be safe to go home and tell the town that he’d given up on her? That announcement would no doubt meet with all sorts of recriminations, especially from Rose Ellen. But what did she care, really? Now
she’d
own all the Colby land and be sitting on easy street. That stuck in his craw, too.