The Outlaws: Sam (22 page)

Lacey didn't know if her decision had been a
wise one but she did know she couldn't, wouldn't, let Andy out of
her sight again. The ranch could fall to ruin or be sold from under
her before she'd give up her son.

Sam wasn't sure how he felt about Lacey's
decision to stay. In a way he'd expected it of her, and would have
been disappointed had she abandoned her son. But he didn't delude
himself into thinking she had stayed because she held any strong
feelings for him.

"If you're remaining here in hopes of taking
Andy away, forget it. You won't succeed. You are free to leave any
time you wish, but Andy remains with me. We'll be leaving for
California soon."

"How do you expect to support Andy?
California is far away and you'll need money to get there."

"Let me worry about that. It's late. You can
share Yellow Bird's tipi."

"I wouldn't think of keeping you from Yellow
Bird's bed. I'll sleep with Andy."

"Andy sleeps in the chief's tipi with Sitting
Bear."

"How convenient for you."

Sam sighed. "Lacey, I'm in no mood to
exchange barbs."

Lacey seemed to collapse inward. "Neither am
I. I'll share Yellow Bird's tent...for now."

Running Buffalo chose that moment to join
them. Sam introduced him to Lacey.

"This is your woman?" Running Buffalo
asked.

Sam nodded before thinking. Lacey wasn't his
woman. He wasn't sure she had ever been his.

"On behalf of my people, I thank you, Lac-ey,
for warning us about the unprovoked attack. I have spoken with
Yellow Bird," the chief continued. "She will share my tipi so that
you can be with your mate."

"Yellow Bird agreed to that?" Lacey asked,
apparently stunned by Yellow Bird's offer.

"I am chief. Yellow Bird must do as I say."
Without another word, he turned abruptly and strode away.

"Where is Andy?" Lacey asked.

"Probably sleeping. I saw Running Buffalo's
wife herding him and Sitting Bear inside her tipi while we were
talking. It's very late." He grasped her arm. "Come along. Running
Buffalo will set out guards to make sure Cramer doesn't return, but
for now there is nothing more for us to do."

Lacey dug in her heels. "I want Andy with
me."

Firming his jaw, Sam swept Lacey into his
arms and carried her into the tipi, ducking beneath the entrance
before setting her on her feet. "I won't have you disrupting the
entire camp after what they've been put through."

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Sam Gentry.
I don't want anything to do with you."

Ignoring Lacey, Sam stared into the dying
embers of the fire burning in the center of the tipi, watching
pensively as a finger of smoke curled upward through the smoke
hole. Her words bit deeply into his heart when he knew they
shouldn't. Yet he couldn't deny the fact that he wanted her. Making
love to Lacey had been one of the greatest pleasures he'd ever
experienced. He remembered how she looked, her lovely face suffused
with ecstasy, her lush body arched against him as she exploded
around him. The image made him grow hard, and it was with great
difficulty that he jerked his thoughts back to the present.

"The sleeping mats are rolled up at the back
of the tent," he growled. "Get undressed and go to bed." He turned
to leave.

"Where are you going?"

Sam whirled around. "I thought you didn't
care?"

Her chin rose. "I don't. It's a warm night. I
suppose you and Yellow Bird will find someplace to...to..."

"Damn you!" Sam hissed. Teeth clenched, hands
fisted, he ducked through the opening and disappeared into the
shadows.

Lacey undressed down to her shift and drawers
and crawled into the sleeping mat she had unrolled and placed near
the back of the tipi. It was surprisingly comfortable and she was
exhausted. With a sigh on her lips, she closed her eyes and prayed
for sleep. Disturbing thoughts spinning around in her mind chased
away the respite she so desperately sought. She wondered if Sam and
Yellow Bird had gotten together, and if they were enjoying
themselves. She wished fiercely for rain, then silently chided
herself for acting the jealous wife.

Weariness ended her mental musings as sleep
finally claimed her. But it wasn't a deep sleep, for she awoke
abruptly to the sure knowledge that she was being watched. Her
heart pounded in erratic rhythm and her spine tingled with
awareness as she slowly opened her eyes opened. She saw him
standing in a patch of moonlight filtering down through the smoke
hole.

Her gaze started at his booted feet, then
glided slowly upward over muscular legs, powerful thighs, to his...
She gasped. He was fully aroused. The hardened ridge in his
trousers provided ample proof that he hadn't bedded Yellow Bird.
Elation speared through her, but she quickly subdued it. Why should
she care who Sam did or did not bed?

Raising her eyes above the blatant proof of
his desire, Lacey was startled to see that his chest was bare.
Moonlight turned his torso to molten gold, gilding each rippling
muscle and corded tendon. His face was shadowed, but she knew if it
were visible, his eyes would be mesmerizing pools of pure
seduction. She averted her gaze. She couldn't succumb to Sam's
sexual allure, not now, not after what he'd done to her. He had
stolen her son and would have taken him far away forever.

"Lacey."

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

"I know you're awake."

A resigned sigh slipped past her lips. "What
do you want? Didn't Yellow Bird satisfy you?"

He dropped to his knees beside her. "Yellow
Bird is not now nor has she ever been my lover."

Another sigh. "Why should that matter to
me?"

He found her hand in the dark and placed it
on his arousal. "After everything that's happened between us, I
still want you."

She tried to jerk her hand away but he held
it in place. "Go away, Sam. I can't forgive you. You took my son
away."

"You gave me up to the Yankees."

"You abandoned me for six long years."

"You sent a posse after me."

Anger suffused her words. "I didn't! I swear
it."

Sam's soft whisper pierced the charged
darkness. "I wouldn't have taken Andy to California without giving
you a chance to join us," he confessed. "I thought I could take him
away but at the last minute I had a change of heart. I planned to
return to the B&G and ask you to join us. It would have been
your choice. You had but to choose me and your son over Cramer and
the ranch."

"You're lying."

"No, it's true. I hadn't even told Andy yet.
It was something I just recently decided."

"You...you wanted me with you? I thought you
didn't trust me."

"I don't, but we could make the best of it
for Andy's sake. I never thought much about children until I met
Andy. Fatherhood was not an option for me. I already had a wife,
albeit one I had no interest in seeing again, and there was no
other woman I was close to."

"How long would you have let me go on
thinking you were dead?"

"I honestly don't know. Forever is a long
time. For all I knew you had remarried."

"Go away, Sam. I don't want to listen to
this. My emotions are too fragile where you're concerned."

"I want you, Lacey. When I saw you again I
realized that time had changed nothing. You're a fire in my blood.
I can be angry with you one minute and want you fiercely the next.
Let me love you."

He stretched out on the sleeping mat, gently
pulling her against his hard length. Lacey bit her tongue to stifle
a moan of pleasure.

"When I left the tipi tonight I had no
intention of returning," Sam revealed, "but something compelled me
to return."

His hands slid down her back; they were so
hot Lacey's skin caught fire and burst into flame. She moistened
her lips, felt them trembling as his hands found the mounds of her
buttocks. Then his mouth came down hard over hers. Not soft and
gentle but hot and ravishing. It was a deep, almost brutal kiss,
one of savage need. Lacey couldn't stop her response as she kissed
him back, her hands clutching desperately at his shoulders. His
breathing was erratic, coming hard and fast, when he broke
away.

He began pulling off his boots, his motions
frantic.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking off my clothes."

"Making love will solve none of our
problems."

"Maybe not, but it sure as hell will make us
feel better."

His boots hit the ground. He lifted his hips
and skimmed his denims down he legs, kicking them away. Then he was
beside her again, bringing her hard against him, holding her
tightly, kissing her, thoroughly, slanting his mouth over hers,
molding their lips together. When he nudged her lips apart, taking
her deeply with his tongue, Lacey sighed into his mouth.

A scalding moistness seeped from between her
legs. She felt as if she'd just jumped into an inferno. His kisses
grew more ardent. He cupped her breasts, plucked the tips into hard
buds with his fingers through the material of her shift. Lacey felt
her body softening, preparing for his entrance, and she moaned.

Suddenly he grasped her shift in both hands
and tugged upward. "This has to go," he breathed raggedly.

With little effort he pulled the shift over
her head and off. "And these are definitely in the way." With one
quick motion he stripped off her drawers.

Lacey barely had time to register the fact
that their nude bodies were molded together before Sam's hands
began seeking out all those places that gave her the most pleasure.
He caressed her breasts until they felt heavy and swollen, suckled
her nipples into hard nubs, driving her nearly insane with need.
Another moan slipped past her lips. She wanted this, needed this,
but feared the consequence of her submission.

Sex without the elements of trust and love
was just an act. Is that what Sam was wanted, to perform an act
that meant little to him save for a moment of ecstasy? Oh, God, if
only she felt like that, willing to sacrifice love and trust for
pleasure. But Lacey wanted what Sam obviously wasn't willing to
give her. She struggled for sanity.

"Sam, stop and think about what we're doing.
Is it in Andy's best interest? Is it in
our
best
interest?"

"You talk too much," Sam growled around the
plump nipple he was suckling.

Lacey had tried, truly she did, but her body
seemed to have a mind of its own. She felt hot all over, as if her
nerve endings were on fire. Then Sam's mouth started a downward
trek and all semblance of control fled. Her stomach contracted
beneath the wet heat of his mouth. She grasped his head as he aimed
lower, bringing him closer as his tongue slid along satiny smooth
petals. When he spread her open with his thumbs and tasted her
deeply, she nearly arched off the mat. She gave a ragged cry and
tugged his hair, urging him upward. She wanted him inside
her...now.

Sam raised his head and chuckled. "Easy,
love. Pace yourself. I want to watch your face when you fly apart."
Then he returned to his succulent feast, his mouth and tongue
driving her to insane heights.

Lacey gasped, her body straining upward into
his intimate caress while one of his hands charted the smooth
roundness of her bottom and the other fondled her breasts. The taut
feeling inside her grew tighter and tighter, tension built, until
she felt as if she would explode.

Then she was there, poised on the brink. One
final thrust of his tongue and she tumbled over, breaking into a
thousand tiny pieces. Half sobbing, she clung to his shoulders.
When the waves of shimmering pleasure finally receded, she opened
her eyes and gazed up at him through a shimmering haze. He was
smiling at her, his dark eyes glowing. She barely had time to
recover before he crawled upward and impaled her.

"Put your arms around me," he whispered in
her ear. She obeyed without hesitation, her hands sliding over his
damp skin as he began to move forcefully between her legs, his body
lifting and thrusting with strong, relentless strokes.

He kissed her again, roughly, his mouth
fiercely possessive as he thrust and withdrew, and she cried out at
the sweet, hot ecstasy of it.

Her response stunned her. She was sure she
had already given everything she had to give but her body suddenly
thrummed back to life. She gave herself up to it, to that feeling
of flying without wings. She heard Sam's harsh breathing, felt his
hands lift her bottom as his hips pumped, plunging in and out of
her. Thunder burst in her head. No, it was Sam's voice crying out
in the dark silence.

"Lacey...God!"

It was enough to send Lacey over the edge.
She followed Sam into oblivion seconds after he explode inside
her.

Lacey's wits returned slowly. She felt
drained, utterly depleted. Apparently Sam suffered from the same
malady for he rolled away and collapsed beside her, his lungs
rising and falling as he took in great gulps of air.

Lacey couldn't speak, the effort was too
great, but she could still think. Her response to Sam's loving
overwhelmed her. Against her better judgment her love for Sam had
been rekindled. She had recognized the danger but had refused to
heed the warning. She knew Sam was wanted by the law, that their
painful past prevented a future together, but love was blind.

She could still dream, Lacey thought
wistfully. The reality was that Sam was an outlaw. How long could
they be together before the law caught up with him? Oh, God, she
was so confused, and a little bit crazy to want Sam as desperately
as she did.

To love Sam.

Sam stared into the darkness, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing but his own harsh breathing. What the hell was
wrong with him? When he'd entered the tipi tonight he had no
intention of making love to Lacey. He'd waited to return until he
figured she'd fallen asleep. But the moment he'd entered the tent
awareness of her struck him like a physical blow. He'd tried to
control his reaction; he'd even spread out his sleeping mat and
taken off his shirt, fully intending to lie down and turn his back
on Lacey.