Touch the Wind (19 page)

“Damn you!” Frustration throbbed in her voice, making her curse sound more like a sob of despair. That explanation Sheila believed.

More angry, embittered words were on the tip of her tongue, but her head was already being lifted to meet
his descending mouth. Sheila resisted, straining away from him. His mouth opened over her lips in a series of long, drugging kisses. She might have been able to be impassive and indifferent if he had been bruising and rough, like before, but this dizzying, lazy seduction undid her.

Her flesh willingly let itself be molded to his hard male contours. Sheila surrendered to the whirl of inevitability, wildfire raging through her veins. The velvet mist enveloped her again.

Later, much later, Ráfaga drew the blanket over both of them and ordered Sheila to sleep. Part of her mind wanted to argue with him, to declare again that she didn’t want to sleep in his bed. But a languorous exhaustion claimed her body. She didn’t even object when he possessively curved an arm across her waist.

It seemed she had barely fallen asleep when a torrent of Spanish abuse awakened her. Lying on her side in bed, Sheila had difficulty remembering where she was or what was causing that furnace-like heat down her back, hips, and legs. A weight was lifted from around her middle, the delicious warmth leaving, too.

Not fully awake, Sheila turned to seek its source. Her eyes opened when she heard Ráfaga’s voice inches away. All traces of sleep fled, her senses fully alert and her memory vividly clear.

Elena stood a few steps inside the room. Her dark Spanish eyes had the look of a wounded animal driven to anger by pain. Her golden complexion had paled to a waxen hue as she glared at Ráfaga lying in the bed beside Sheila. Whatever Ráfaga had said to Elena in Spanish had not soothed her. Her voice was shrill when she replied, her tone bitterly angry and accusing.

Sheila pulled the blanket tighter around her nakedness, repelled by the jealous scene being staged by Elena. Why hadn’t she awakened in the night and slipped from the room? The answer was obvious. She had been physically exhausted by Ráfaga’s virile love-making and mentally confused by her disturbing reaction to it.

The last thing Sheila wanted was to become embroiled in a dispute with Elena over Ráfaga. She was welcome to have him. Sheila was glad to relinquish any claim Elena might believe she had. There was no quicker way to do that than by leaving the bed and the room.

“Stay where you are.” Ráfaga laid a restraining hand on her arm, as if reading her thoughts.

“She wants you, and I certainly don’t!” Sheila gasped.

“It is of no consequence what either of you wants,” he answered sharply. “This is the way it will be.”

He must have said as much to Elena in Spanish, because his following words unleashed another stormy outburst. Ráfaga seemed unmoved by Elena’s angry pain. His bronzed features were masked in indifference. Sheila considered again what a heartless, unprincipled brute he was.

A third voice in Spanish, calling from the main room of the adobe house, interrupted Elena. Sheila’s heart stopped beating as Laredo appeared in the doorway. He stopped short, the faintly amused expression on his face wiped away at the sight of Sheila lying in the narrow bed.

The color drained from her face, then raced back to flood it crimson-red. There was nothing in the clear blue of his eyes to reveal what he was thinking, but Sheila felt like a cockroach and wished she could scurry to some dark corner and hide. The sensation intensified as she remembered the demeaning way she had responded to Ráfaga’s intimacies.

Elena turned, speaking rapidly in Spanish to Laredo, obviously trying to enlist his support. Laredo shook his head in firm refusal and started to leave, not wanting to become involved with the triangle.

“There is no need for you to leave, Laredo,” Ráfaga stated. “Elena is going.”

When he translated the same message to Elena, she gave him a cold, proud look and answered him in a low, savagely controlled voice. Ráfaga said nothing in return, his face expressionless. Elena turned rigidly and
left. The glitter in Laredo’s blue eyes plainly held a bemused “I could have told you this would happen” look.

Unaffected, Ráfaga threw back the cover and swung his feet to the floor as he sat up. Sheila’s tight hold on the blanket kept him from uncovering her, as well. She averted her eyes from his nudity as he stepped into the trousers left on the floor. A fresh surge of embarrassed shame hotly stained her cheeks. Accidentally, she encountered Laredo’s glance.

“I asked you not to leave me last night,” Sheila said in an accusing fashion. She propped herself up on an elbow, the tilt of her head regally defiant. “I don’t suppose it matters to you that he raped me after you left. After all, he’s your boss, your god.” The sharpness of her tongue hid her shame.

Laredo looked at her in silence. The blanket was pulled tightly across her chest, revealing her bare shoulders and arms. Dark, honey-blonde hair cascaded in rippling, molten gold over one shoulder. Her cat-gold eyes shimmered with the moistness of pride.

Ráfaga fastened the waistband of his trousers and glanced over his shoulder, his compelling gaze demanding her attention. She shivered at the cool mockery in his eyes.

“Do not blame him for what you provoked,” he told her smoothly. “It was not rape.” Sheila breathed in sharply, angry words of protest springing to her lips, but she didn’t have a chance to say them. “Do not deny that you were like a she-cat in heat last night.”

Her gaze slid to the congealed blood on his shoulders and the long red lines where she had scratched him. “Is that how you’re going to explain those marks on your shoulders?” But Ráfaga simply ignored her, as if the marks were so trivial they didn’t warrant an explanation.

“You should clean those scratches,” Laredo observed.

Calmly, Ráfaga poured water from the pitcher into the basin on the dresser and moistened a cloth. “Sheila made them. She can clean them for me.”

“Like hell I will!” she said angrily. “I hope you get blood poisoning and die!”

“See how bloodthirsty she is?” Ráfaga said to Laredo in mock reproval. He walked to the bed, a harsh glint in his eyes. “But you will clean the scratches, my lioness.”

“I will not,” she declared. “If you want them cleaned, you’ll have to get Laredo or someone else to do it, because I won’t.”

“You will.” Leaning forward, his fingers clamped over her wrist, digging into the small bones.

The blanket slipped dangerously low. With one hand imprisoned by him and the other arm propping herself up, Sheila realized she was in a precarious position. There was a malicious, dancing gleam in the dark eyes that held her gaze.

Sheila knew he would not think twice about pulling her from the protective cover of the blanket, revealing her nakedness for Laredo to see if she continued to disobey him.

“All right,” Sheila agreed snappishly. “But I can’t do anything when you’re holding my arm that way. You’ll have to let it go unless you intend to break it.”

He laughed softly in arrogant satisfaction and released her arm. Bundling the blanket around her, Sheila inched to the side of the bed where he stood. When he offered her the wet cloth, she snatched it from his hand. His mouth quirked at the action and he turned to sit on the edge of the bed, offering each shoulder for her ministrations.

On her knees with the blanket clutched to her breasts, Sheila stared at the rakish thickness of his ebony-black hair and the golden-bronzed skin covering his muscled shoulders and back. If she had a knife in her hands instead of a cloth, she would have plunged it into his spine.

“The scratches,
señora
.” His lazy, accented voice reminded Sheila of her purpose, while leaving her with the impression that he was reading her mind.

Her touch was deliberately not gentle as she began
wiping his dried blood from his hard flesh. She felt his muscles contract from her roughness, but Ráfaga neither flinched nor made the slightest sound, not even an indrawn breath, to reveal she was causing him any pain. His control didn’t lessen the cruelty in her touch.

When the parallel scratches were exposed, Sheila discovered they were worse than she had thought. She had not just scraped the skin. Her nails had dug deep to rake furrows into his flesh. They looked sore and angry, extremely painful. Her gaze slid to Laredo, who had been watching her work. The expression on his face agreed with her assessment.

“Is there some alcohol around to disinfect them?” Sheila asked, not allowing any emotion to creep into her voice.

She told herself she didn’t care that she had hurt Ráfaga. He deserved it. But she did feel a rise of compassion and consoled herself that it at least proved she wasn’t as barbaric as her captors.

Laredo nodded. “I’ll get it.” He was gone only seconds and returned with a liquor bottle, two-thirds full.

Uncorking it, he handed it to Sheila, taking the wet, soiled cloth she held. She hesitated, glancing at the austerely carved line in Ráfaga’s jaw and the coldly patrician arrogance of his profile.

“This will hurt,” she told him unnecessarily.

“Perhaps you would wish to apply it in drops to prolong the torture.” His smooth voice taunted her.

Compassion vanished in a flash of temper. Without warning, Sheila tipped the bottle, dousing the scratches with the alcohol, but she didn’t feel any satisfaction when he winced as the fiery liquid seared the lesions.

Immediately, Ráfaga rose and walked to the dresser to remove a shirt from a drawer. Sheila wondered if he shouldn’t have a bandage on the wound, but she wasn’t about to suggest it. Mutely, she handed the bottle back to Laredo.

“Have you learned to cook,
señora?
” Favoring his
shoulders, Ráfaga put on his shirt, flicking an indifferent glance her way.

“No.” Not
their
food with
their
crude implements—Sheila qualified the denial in her mind. “I guess you’ll have to fix breakfast yourself or go hungry until lunch. Elena’s temper will probably have cooled down by then and she’ll be back to fix it,” Sheila remarked coldly.

“Elena will not be back,” Ráfaga informed her, then turned to Laredo. “Arrange for Juan’s wife to come each day to prepare our meals. Tell her she is to come after her own family has been fed and that she may bring her young child with her if she wishes.” A faint smile touched his lips as he gazed at Laredo. “Juan has always told us she is the best cook in Chihuahua. We will find out, no?”

There was a smile of agreement from Laredo before he left the room to carry out the order. When the front door had closed, Ráfaga turned his attention to Sheila.

“You will move your belongings to this room,” he stated, tucking his shirt inside his trousers. “You will sleep here from now on.”

“Will I?” she challenged without a hope of backing it up.

The slashing grooves on either side of his mouth deepened in mocking amusement, but he made no response as he walked from the room, as if he knew her protest was made merely to save her pride.

After last night, Sheila had expected that Ráfaga would withdraw his permission for her afternoon walks with Laredo, not trusting them to be together. But, to her surprise, he suggested they should continue them.

Now, walking through the green meadow where the horses grazed, Sheila wished she had refused. The silence between them was heavy. Sheila was self-conscious and on edge, shamefully aware of her changed status in the house.

“For God’s sake, say something,” she demanded tautly. “Say you’re sorry or that I deserved it—say
anything.”

“It’s not the end of the world, Sheila,” Laredo placated gently.

She stopped short. “Am I supposed to be overjoyed that he has decided he wants me for his mistress?”

“Sheila,” Laredo sighed with a hint of exasperation.

She began walking stiffly. “Why don’t you go rob some other unwary motorist and kidnap his wife so he’ll forget about me?!”

“We don’t rob and kidnap motorists.”

“Oh, don’t you?” Sheila taunted. “Pardon me if I call you a liar.”

“That was an accident.” Nonplussed, Laredo stared grimly ahead. “Things just got out of hand. Motorists being robbed and killed on the highways is about as common in the States as it is in Mexico. It happens, but rarely.”

“Really?” Her tone was deliberately skeptical. “If you don’t obtain your money by stealing, then how do you pay for your food, clothing, ammunition, and everything else?”

“We aren’t exactly living in splendor,” he pointed out dryly. “And you have to remember the cost of living here in Mexico is considerably lower than in the States, especially the bare essentials which is all we have here. A lot of what we eat is grown or raised right here.”

“So what do you do with all the money you steal?” Sheila challenged. “Does Ráfaga see himself as Robin Hood and give it to the poor? Or is he like Pancho Villa, with his numerous women and plundering band of raiders, hiding their misdeeds under the guise of
‘la revolución’?
”

“I told you before that we don’t steal.” His eyes narrowed into icy-blue slits. “A couple of times a year, Ráfaga raids a prison or a jail. You might say he’s hired to do it.”

“I see.” Sheila nodded coldly, remembering Laredo’s story of how he had joined the group. “This is a mercenary commando group, then. You don’t rob or steal. You just break into a few jails, kill a few guards, and collect your fee. You don’t do anything as bad as stealing.”

“Damn it! What do you expect us to do?” Laredo demanded angrily. “Are we supposed to go out and get jobs? Work in the fields? Hell, all of us here were wanted by the law before we ever joined up together. I’m not pretending that what we’re doing is right or lawful. I know I’m either in, or going to, my own hell. But maybe some of those kids we’re busting out are
going to get another chance before they end up like me.”

“I’m sure your motives are very noble,” she murmured with a sardonic bite to her tone.

“I don’t give a damn what you think my motives are.” His features were hardened with cold anger. “But I don’t think you have the right to judge me or Ráfaga or anyone here. We’re just trying to stay free and get by the best way we know how.”