Patricia Potter (32 page)

She nodded slowly. She could be starting something difficult to finish, but Jess was right. Alex was already a dangerous enemy. Perhaps a dam would make him see reason and understand how they all had to share water.

Now that the decision was made, her mind turned to something else. “I want to show you something,” she said. Before he could decline and suggest returning, she urged Betsy forward, through the cottonwoods, until she reached one that towered over all the others, its roots partially above ground and knurled with a natural artistry that had always awed her. The huge branches reached partially over the river, and shaded a good portion of ground. Without waiting or turning to him, Willow slipped down from Betsy and walked over to where one of the roots made a perfect bench. Only then did she dare a look in Jess’s direction.

He was still sitting on the horse, his expression bemused, his hands resting over the mane of his horse. Leisurely, he moved his right leg over the saddle horn and slid down from the pinto. His gaze, now hot and intense, met hers with challenge. He walked toward her with the grace of a stalking cougar, and she wondered whether she was fully prepared for the consequences of her own trap.

She could not move, did not want to move. Warmth suffused her body and she felt herself trembling. She dropped the sack she was holding, and she hid her hands behind her back so he wouldn’t see how much they were shaking. Not with fear. She didn’t think she would ever really fear
him.
But she did fear the strength of her emotions and feelings for him. She also relished them, for never had she felt so alive and vibrant, even wild and…wanton.

Her cheeks were flushed. She felt the heat in them, and she knew her eyes were saying things that her mouth couldn’t. She didn’t know how to say them to him. And she didn’t have to. From the beginning they’d had a special communication, an intimate knowledge of each other, of the feeling that ran so rampant between them. He wanted her. She wanted him. Their bodies strained toward each other as heat radiated around them.

He finally spoke in a hoarse voice. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“I won’t be staying.”

“I know.”

“Do you, lady? Do you really?”

She reached out for one of his hands, seductively pulling off the leather glove, her fingers playfully brushing his skin. His hand quivered as she drew circles on the palm. There were still traces of the burn—a lingering redness and broken blister. She lifted the hand to her mouth, and held it against her cheek as she looked up at him. “Yes,” she said.

“You’re loco,” he said, the words almost lost as his lips reached for hers, then burned their imprint on her consciousness. The kiss was hungry, no, more than hungry, ravenous.

Any reservations Willow had disappeared as the kiss deepened and the yearning between them exploded. His tongue entered her mouth and she welcomed it with her own, exploring and seeking and delighting in the discoveries. The warm rush she’d felt earlier was nothing compared to the volcanic heat now flooding her, sweeping into every pore, galvanizing every nerve. An uncontrollable tingling started in the core of her being and swelled to encompass all of her, demanding something she didn’t entirely understand. Her legs turned weak, and she felt his arms steady her, cherish her, possess her.

She looked up and was consumed by eyes that now burned with fire. Her heart raced as new sensations galloped through her. Soft, longing ones; fiery, passionate, demanding ones.

His arms tightened around her, and she felt his body tighten under his clothes, smelled the warm scent of earth around him. When she shivered, his hands rubbed her back, his fingers touching and kneading and exciting. His lips left hers, and she suddenly felt bereft, but then they started traveling along her neck, leaving trails of heat until she felt herself glowing with it.

He mumbled something she didn’t understand, and she wanted to say something, to call him Jess, but she was afraid she might break the bonds that were still fragile and tenuous. She bit her lip until it bled, holding back the word, holding back anything that might bring back that wariness, that intense fear of involvement.

Lobo had never touched with gentleness before. He hadn’t known he was capable of it. But from the moment she had taken his hand, had given him softness and tenderness, he knew sensations and feelings that he’d kept tightly locked away nearly all his life. For the first time he could remember, he wanted to give, to share, to belong, and, strangely, he was discovering he knew how. He wanted her to feel everything he was feeling, every touch of newborn wonder, of exciting discovery, of emotions wild but sweet. Even as he wanted to mock himself for feelings he’d always scorned, he knew they were more real than pain, or fear, or triumph.

Her touch inflamed and healed at the same time, and he desperately wanted to do the same to her. He’d always taken in lovemaking, and always with women with experience. Willow, he was sure, had no such experience, and he had none with women who didn’t. He didn’t know what to do, and he was frightened of hurting her.

And yet he could not stop. His heart and soul and body longed for her with a compelling fierceness that brooked no denial. And when his eyes searched her face, he saw the same need in her.

Lobo felt her hands in his hair, her fingers making patterns along his neck, caressing and teasing, and her warm breath tickled the skin of his cheek. Her eyes, the summer-blue eyes, were dazzling in their clarity; no doubt at all lay hidden there.

His hand reached up to her face, tracing her lips, delighting in the softness of her skin, the soft, becoming blush from the passion streaking between them.

He knew he shouldn’t continue. It would be like snatching a bite of a feast that would be jerked abruptly away from him. For his sake, for hers, he knew he should stop.

But no one had ever looked at him like that, no one had ever touched him like that. He was like a thirst-ravaged man who was offered a drink of water, and he could no more refuse it than he could stop breathing.

He felt the heat curl inside his loins, but more than that he felt a warmth in the upper region of his body, in the area of his heart. It was more seductive even than the physical, the pleasure more perfect, the satisfaction more complete.

Lobo guided her down to the ground, and he pulled her body against his, rejoicing at how readily it moved with his, how completely they fitted together, despite the difference in size. He felt his manhood swell and heat and ache, and it was different from the other times he’d felt a man’s need. He wanted more than quick relief; he wanted to bury himself in her and make her totally his in a way no other woman had been. The feeling was so intense, so unexpected, it scared the hell out of him.

But nothing could stop his hands, which suddenly knew exactly what to do, how to seduce, how to caress, how to cradle, things he’d never considered before. He looked down at a face beautiful in the shaded light, the eyes full of stars and a mouth swollen with his kisses, and he knew he’d never seen anything quite as awe-inspiring before. Not a sunrise over the mountains or a desert sunset. The look was for him. Lobo, White Apache. Gunslinger. Even killer. Yet at the moment he felt the sum of all the heroes who’d ever existed.

He bent his head and kissed her slowly, tenderly. His hands moved over her with the same wonder, resting but briefly on her still-clothed breasts before moving on, exploring, feeling the shivers of her body as she reacted.

And then her hands were doing the same to him, and he felt jolts of sensation run through his body until he thought he would explode. His body shook with the effort to keep his hands gentle, to avoid frightening her, to keep touching when any minute he knew she would realize her mistake and jerk away from him. He didn’t know what he would do then, so he kept his touch light though it was more painful than anything he’d experienced in a life grown accustomed to pain.

He felt her hand at his neck, her fingers running through his hair, and then along his jaw, and he thought nothing had ever been, could ever be, so loving. He hurt at the agony of it, at the need inside him, at the fierce fire that consumed while it soothed. His kiss deepened, his tongue sliding over her lips, and she opened them and her tongue met his, feeling each other, exploring secret places with a joint rhythm and yearning that drew their bodies even closer together until he could feel her breasts pressed against his heart, and he knew his manhood was straining against her with demanding heat.

She’ll go now. She’ll gasp or scream and run.
But her body leaned only farther into his, until he felt every nerve end screaming. His kiss suddenly became violent, violent and ragged and full of need. But still she responded, his schoolteacher so full of unexpected fire that he suddenly knew neither could stop what they had begun.

“Jess,” she whispered.

He pulled his mouth from hers and searched her face again, delighting in the emotions running across it. She was so open, so open and fresh and clean and pure. He knew he had no right, until he saw the right in her eyes, and his lips caressed her temple, then her cheeks, tasting the clean sweetness of them. His mouth moved down to her neck, his tongue fondling and stroking until he felt her entire body quiver and her hands tighten almost desperately around his neck.

One of his hands covered a breast, and he heard a slight noise, almost like a moan, and then he heard a similar sound from his own throat. His other hand found the buttons in front of her dress, tiny little buttons, and his hands, usually so efficient, faltered and fumbled. But then her hands were unaccountably helping, and he could only stare as the cloth moved and he saw the creamy white skin beneath, the swell of soft mounds until they disappeared under the cotton of her chemise.

His hand found its way under the material, his fingers cupping the soft, rounded flesh that swelled in his hands. One finger played with a rosy red tip, and he felt it growing taut with excitement, and heard her quick gasps of breath.

Lobo felt his own blood quicken, his own breath change its pattern. Everything was new. He felt touched by the sun, basking in some kind of light that pried into the closed, shaded parts of his life. His hands were no longer tools of death, but now instruments that gave pleasure and wonder.

He closed his eyes, capturing the moment, the feelings that he was sure he’d never know again.

“Jess.” The name again was like a song in his mind, and he swallowed hard before looking at her. Invitation was in her eyes. There was fear too, but mostly invitation, and longing.

“Are you sure?” His question was tentative.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything,” she whispered and, despite the murmurings of a conscience she was holding at bay, she
was
sure. There was something very right about the feelings between them, the wholeness of them. She’d been waiting for this for years, and she knew with all her being that there would never be another Jess. Even if he left tomorrow, she knew it was right. Right for her. She hoped right for him.

“I can’t stay,” he warned her again.

“I know.”

And Lobo knew she did, that she wasn’t lying. She was willing to accept whatever he gave her, for however long he chose to do it. And that knowledge made him humble and unworthy. Until she lifted her hand to his mouth and held it there, her fingers quieting any additional words, and then all rare good intentions went to the devil.

He finished undressing her, and he sat and looked in incredulity at the slender, lovely body. He watched her eyes, hesitant and shy, watch his for reaction, and his fingers touched the auburn hair, unbraiding it and letting it settle around her shoulders like a cloud. Her blue eyes were bluer than ever, wide and searching, and he saw sunlight dapple her skin through the leaves of the tree, turning ivory into gold and silver.

“Christ, but you’re beautiful,” he said in a hoarse, emotion-filled voice.

“So are you,” she said simply.

He shook his head, but a small smile touched his lips. “I think you’re the first to ever think that.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “I noticed it from the beginning, from the day I saw you on horseback framed by the sun.”

He raised an eyebrow in question.

“The hill overlooking the trail.”

He shook his head. He was definitely slipping.

But for the moment that didn’t matter, only the face that looked at him with such yearning did. His fingers slightly trembling, he began to undo his shirt buttons, and she helped him.

He shook off the shirt and watched her eyes as they widened when they saw his chest, and he felt a momentary surge of pleasure. Then his hands went to his trousers, and this time his fingers were sure. Yet part of him quaked inside. What if he frightened her? Despite her openness, he was sure she was inexperienced, a virgin. The shyness in her eyes, the way she held her body, told him as much. There was no brazenness, no open disregard for nakedness that he’d seen in loose women, only a certain wonder at her own responses.

His hands stroked her skin, and he leaned down to kiss her breasts before he pulled off his trousers. He felt her body tense just as her mouth softened. Her hand went to his nipples, and played with them until he felt jabbing jolts of electricity strike him.

“I knew you were beautiful,” she said, her hand moving to the scar on his shoulder and then downward, following an arrow of golden hair that disappeared beneath his trousers. Her hand rested there, and she swallowed as she saw the bulge grow larger. Then she looked up at him. “I need you,” she added simply.