[Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw (19 page)

"I don't care what the men in your clan might think. I only care about you. Besides, it's the truth." Drawn by the same power that had drawn her across a century, Noel began walking toward him.

She experienced a momentary shock at the first touch of the water against her heated flesh, then, as her body became accustomed to the temperature, she found herself becoming warmed even more by the heat in his mesmerizing indigo eyes.

"You are beautiful, Wolfe Longwalker. And I want you so very, very much."

His smile was a wicked slash of white in his dark face. "Far be it from me to deny a princess anything her royal heart desires."

They met about six feet from the red-stone bank. "This is your last chance," he warned, his eyes locked on hers. "If you don't tell me no right now, there will be no turning back."

Knowing that there'd been no turning back since Sabrina had passed on Chantal's invitation, Noel said, "Thank God."

He sighed his surrender. And then he touched her.

It was only a palm to her cheek, but it shook Noel all the way to the bone. His hand was dark and, like the rest of him, large, at least twice the size of hers; on the inside of his wrist was a birthmark in the shape of a wolf's head that the unknown author of
Rogues Across Time
had described. The mark that had earned him his name. Although his touch was tender, the raw strength was evident.

He murmured something in his native Navajo that needed no translation. Noel knew exactly what Wolfe was feeling because she was feeling it herself.

Wonder.

Love.

And, more to the point at this suspended moment,
need
. He took her hand in his, intending to lift it to his lips. It was then he realized that she'd taken off a great deal more than her clothing.

"Where is your promise ring?"

"In your saddlebag." The decision not to marry Bertran had not been made hastily. It also had nothing to do with her feelings for Wolfe, although falling in love with him had shown her exactly why it would be a mistake to wed a man she could never give her entire heart to. "I did not want anything—or anyone— to be between us when we finally made love."

The water was lapping at her breasts. Heat was pooling between her thighs. Her soft lips curved in a slow, seductive female smile as she twined her arms around Wolfe's strong neck. She tilted her head back and waited for his kiss.

She did not have to wait long. As if suffering from a lifetime of need, he groaned and claimed her mouth.

The kiss went on and on. The hands that dived into his jet hair were shaking and urgent. The lips savaging hers were hard and hungry.

He tore his mouth from hers, and devoured the milk-pale flesh of her breasts, first one, then the other, ravenously feasting like a man who'd been starving all his life.

Her body was a throbbing, pulsing mass of sensations. With his mouth and teeth, with his rough strong hands, he treated her to a dizzying pleasure just this side of pain. Burning with need, moaning his name, she dug her nails into his shoulders as she arched her back, inviting, demanding him to take more.

When his hand slipped between them, his fingers pulling those silvery curls before plunging deep inside her, Noel cried out.

It was reckless. Wild. It was savagery tempered with love. And it was love that made it wonderful.

"Please," she gasped. Beneath his mouth, her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. "I want you. Now." Her body clenched wildly at his clever, wicked fingers, even as it demanded more. "Oh, please, hurry."

His teeth closed around a nipple and tugged. Wolfe felt a corresponding tightening deep inside her that ripped at the last vestiges of his control like a grizzly's claws. "I want you ready for me."

"I am ready," she moaned, rotating her hips in instinctive feminine demand. "Can't you tell?" Her hands fretted down his back, below his waist, pressing him even tighter against her.

As urgent as she, he lifted her. "Wrap your legs around me, Princess," he growled in her ear as he cupped her bottom in his wide dark hands.

She willingly did as instructed, locking her legs around his hips, holding on to his shoulders. With his first thrust, a fireball exploded inside her, filling her with heat, touching her deep where no man had ever touched her before. Deep in her body. And her heart.

He'd felt the unexpected barrier too late, as he tore through it. Wolfe cursed. A low, guttural sound that came deep from his chest and sounded like a growl. But then he felt her surrounding him, warm and wet and welcoming and felt the explosions ripping through her, massaging his penis like a thousand hot stroking fingers. A red haze came over his mind.

Need curled tightly at the base of his spine as he tightened his hold on her and began to thrust—deeper, harder. Once, twice, a third time, and then, shouting out her name, which echoed around the crimson red rocks, he poured himself into her.

Wolfe had no idea how he managed to get them both back onto dry land. But somehow, they were lying beside each other on his bedroll beside the water. Her cheek was on his chest, his hands tangling in the silken strands of her hair.

"How did my bedroll get down here?"

"I brought it with me."

"I didn't see you."

She ran her hand down his chest, loving the feel of his hard muscles beneath her fingertips. "You were pretending not to notice me."

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers, one at a time. "I always notice you. Even when I don't want to."

He eyed her gravely over their linked hands. "Why didn't you tell me you'd never been with a man?"

Noel sighed. She'd feared this was going to prove a problem. She lifted her head and sighed again when she viewed the dark and guarded expression that was so like the one he'd worn when she'd first tried to get him to admit who he was back at the Road to Ruin.

"I thought men preferred virgins. Especially in these times."

"Some men do. I've never been one of them."

As much as she loved him, that stung. "I'm sorry I was such a disappointment."

Wolfe cursed, wondering how he could make things any worse. "Don't be foolish." He cupped her chin in his fingers and lifted her gaze to his. Her crystal-blue eyes were moist and shiny, making him feel even more the bastard. "You were anything but a disappointment, Princess. In fact, if you'd been any hotter, you would have set the water to boiling."

She smiled through the threat of tears. "It was you. No man has ever made me feel like that."

He picked up her hand and ran his fingers across the place that had so recently worn that sparkling diamond. "Not even your fiancé?"

"Bertran is a very wonderful man," she hedged. It was bad enough that she'd just betrayed the man she'd promised to marry. She could not demean him, as well.

"I didn't ask that." His eyes were locked on hers, looking hard. Looking deep.

"If Bertran had made me burn, you would not have made love to a virgin just now."

The flash of rebellious loyalty in her gaze made Wolfe feel guiltier than ever. "I'm sorry." He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss against the inside of her wrist, rewarded when he felt her pulse jump. "I should not feel so good about your broken engagement. But I have to admit that the idea of you returning home to another man's bed—"

"Never." She quickly pressed the fingers of her free hand against his mouth. "I love you, Wolfe Longwalker. Only you. There will never be another man for me."

When a very strong part of him wanted that to be true, Wolfe decided that he was one rotten son of a bitch. Who was he, after taking her with such force and haste, to demand that she live a life of celibacy? Just because he hated the idea of any man ever touching her. Tasting her. Lying with her like this.

"Neither of us knows how long this will last—"

"I do," she cut him off again. "Forever. A lifetime."

"Forever," Wolfe repeated, loving her unwavering determination. Loving
her
. "Since we've already determined that time is relative, are we talking your lifetime? Or mine?"

"Either. Both," she said without hesitation. "Although I've inherited Katia's gift, I don't possess the power to see my own future. I have no idea what's going to happen in the next few days. I also don't know if I'm destined to stay here, or return to my own time."

"But," she said, turning their hands so she could see the wolf's head at his wrist, "the one thing I
do
know is that I will love you through all eternity." She pressed her lips against the birthmark. "Whatever the future holds."

Wolfe had learned to use the white man's words well. He earned a very good living with them, they'd been his gateway to a world not many individuals, let alone Dineh, would ever experience. But never had Wolfe ever heard words that affected him so deeply. "I will love you, too, Princess Noel Giraudeau de Montacroix," he pledged. "For all eternity."

He traced her lips with a fingertip. "If I had known you were inexperienced," he murmured as he brushed his lips against hers, "I'd have taken more time." He stroked her cooled flesh from her breast to her thigh. "I wouldn't have taken you like some wild animal."

His caressing touch was warming her, rekindling flames, stoking fires. "Actually," she said on a breathless laugh as his roughened fingertip brushed across a nipple, "I rather enjoyed that part."

"So did I." He stroked the taut nub with his tongue, enjoying her soft, rippling sigh of pleasure. "But there are other ways."

She was melting. Like a candle beneath the bright golden sun. "You'll have to show me."

His lips curved against her creamy flesh. "With pleasure."

He drew her into his arms and as the shadows grew longer, Wolfe showed Noel exactly how much he loved her. All afternoon long.

Noel had never been happier. Which was foolish, she realized, since she'd never been in a more precarious situation. The trip across the Arizona high desert and into the Rocky Mountains was long and difficult. Not wanting to tire out the horses, they did not ride as hard and as long as they had on the way to Canyon de Chelly.

As anxious as she was to get this matter settled, Noel knew that the trip to Silverton would always be the most wonderful time of her life.

They talked freely, sharing stories of their lives, their dreams. When he spoke of his youth, those long lonely months spent so far away from his beloved Dinetah and his clan, she felt like crying.

Although Wolfe did not want to risk using his rifle because the thunderous crack could draw attention to them, they did not want for food. The river teemed with fish, the land with small animals. Once, after he'd heard the warble of a wild turkey, Noel watched in awe and admiration as, with a single underhand toss of his knife, Wolfe provided them with that night's dinner.

It was a night made for lovers. With no man-made lights to diminish the effect and no haze of industrial pollution, the starlight was dazzling.

"I've never seen so many stars," she murmured as they sat beside a campfire, eating the savory roast turkey. "Not even in the Montacroix planetarium."

He laughed, enjoying her pleasure. And her awe. "There is a legend that First Man and First Woman made the stars to serve as lights on those nights when the Old Man Moon was too tired to make his journey across the sky."

"They planned an orderly arrangement, but Coyote tricked them by scattering them across the sky and they've been that way ever since."

"You portrayed Coyote as a troublemaker," she said, thinking back on Wolfe's book of stories.

"Among other things."

"Still," she decided, "I'm glad he scattered the stars."

Wolfe smiled. "So am I."

"May I ask a question?"

They'd shared so much, been so open with each other, the hesitation in her tone puzzled him. "Of course."

"It's about your father." Noel watched Wolfe's face close. But when he did not immediately cut her off, she continued across the conversational minefield. "Do you ever wonder about him?"

"No."

Well, that was certainly short and sweet. Noel took a deep breath and tried again. "But half of who you are, what you are, comes from him, so—"

"I don't
ever
think about him," Wolfe said curtly, cutting her off with a vicious swipe of his hand. "When I was younger, I thought about him all the time. I thought about castrating him so he could never do to any other woman what he did to my mother. I thought about slicing his throat. I thought about staking him out in the summer sun. I thought about innumerable ways of torturing him, each more excruciating than the last."

"Finally, Second Mother and Many Horses convinced me that all I was doing was hurting myself. So, I put the bastard away in a box, deep in my mind, and I never, ever opened it again."

"But what if there were extenuating circumstances?"

The look he gave her was as hard as flint. As cold as sleet. "There are no extenuating circumstances for rape."