Desperado (21 page)

“Do you like that?”

“Yes.”

“And this?”

“God, yes.”

There wasn't an inch of her body that he didn't examine with his rough palms and warm lips. He spent a lot of time on the curve of her spine. “I always thought the small of a woman's back was the most erotic turn-on . . . until I saw your breasts,” he told her. And she had to agree that he'd revealed a new erogenous zone for her.

He traced her butterfly tattoo and pressed his lips to it. “It's my mark on you,” he said with hoarse possessiveness.

Then he showed her another erogenous zone—the back of her knees. By then, she was a quivering mass of flesh. She whimpered for release, but he just laughed, holding her down with a hand on her back. When he skimmed the crease at the back of her knees, a current of electric pleasure shot through her legs, up, up, up. When his tongue repeated the caress, something wild and frighteningly intense broke free inside her.

At the first spasm of her approaching climax, he turned her on her back and took a breast into his mouth. He drew on the aching tip with a rhythm that matched the waves ebbing between her legs, undulating outward. She tried to scream, but her throat closed. Increasing the strength of his suckling, Rafe whisked a hand over her stomach, skittering over the damp curls, then touched her.

She saw stars.

When she tried to close her legs, he kept them open with one knee, exposing her to his tantalizing fingertips.

“No more, no more, no more,” she sobbed, and pounded against his chest.

“Easy, easy,” he coaxed every time her thighs tensed against the onslaught. “Stop fighting me. Relax.”

“Relax?” she squeaked in disbelief, trying to hold his wrist in place. He withheld his hands until she obeyed. Then he embarked on the exercise again.

Over and over. Raging arousal. To the edge. Then halt. Relax. Start again.

When she finally reached her peak and shattered, she heard the high-pitched squeal but could barely connect it with herself, this flailing, arching, brazen woman pleading for forbidden delights she'd never dreamed existed.

At the height of her orgasm, Rafe demanded in a strangled voice, “Look at me.”

She unshuttered her heavy lids and saw him poised on his knees between her widespread legs. Her knees were bent, buttocks resting on his thighs. Even as shudders racked her in waves, he placed both hands on her hips, lifting her higher and wider.

“No,” she said, realizing his intent.

“Let me . . .” Lowering his head, he nuzzled her hair from side to side with his mouth, then used his tongue against the molten slickness, turning her to liquid fire.

Another agonizingly intense climax began to build.

She thrashed. She bucked. She fought the cataclysm.

He no longer entreated her to relax. He was making low, masculine sounds of heightening excitement.

Then he adjusted their positions, and slammed into her, filling her. Her body welcomed him with shifting ripples and fierce clasps.

She screamed.

He roared.

“So hot!” he gasped out. “So good!”

“Oh . . . Oh!”

“I wanted to be gentle.”

“Don't . . . you . . . dare.”

He almost pulled out and gazed at her through eyes that seemed misty, teary-eyed. “Tell me what you want.”

“You,” she whispered.

He plunged into her so hard and deep he drove her off the blanket. She wrapped her legs around his waist and cried into his ear, “I'm losing control.”

He chuckled. “That's the point.”

“I'm afraid.”

“I'm with you. Together.”

So she held on and matched him stroke for stroke, letting him lead the way on a journey she'd never taken before. Beyond sex and biology to a joining of flesh with spirit.

He rolled onto his back, still in her, and let her set the pace for a while. Slower. Deeper. He touched her breasts while she rode him, and she felt herself melt around him, anointing him with her pleasure.

“You're wonderful . . . wonderful . . . wonderful. I never dreamed . . .”

“Say it,” she pleaded.

He hesitated. She could tell he didn't want to. But he did. For her. “I love you.”

She closed her eyes and surrendered to the overwhelming spirals.

He turned her on her back again and pressed her knees to her chest. “Hold on tight, babe. This is the last stretch.” Braced on muscle-strained arms, he thrust into her with shorter, harder strokes. “Now!” he shouted, and she felt him expand, then come inside her.

Her heart raced, her ears rang, and every nerve ending in her body shook. Finally, finally, finally . . . Her inner folds broke into wave after wave of convulsions, trapping Rafe's manhood with her orgasm.

He howled—a raw, male sound of pure satisfaction.

And she blacked out for an instant with utter, unadulterated ecstasy.

It was several moments before she became aware of her surroundings again. Rafe lay heavily on top of her, probably paralyzed. Her back was pressed to the dirt floor, five feet from their blanket. When she lifted one eyelid, she saw a horse's hoof mere inches away from her cheek. She looked up to see F. Lee staring down his aristocratic nose at the two of them, probably thinking, “Dumb homo sapiens!”

Rafe lifted his head, gulping for breath. “I think I'm hyperventilating.” He kissed her lightly and smiled. “Damn, I was good.”

She returned his smile, correcting, “Damn,
we
were good.”

“Ri-i-ight!” He froze then, as if stunned.

“What?”

“Did you just lick my tattoo?”

“I beg your pardon.”

She glanced up and Rafe peered over his shoulder. F. Lee's tongue took another wide swipe across Rafe's right buttock.

“Oh, my God!” Rafe exclaimed as he began to assimilate their new location in the cave. “How did we get here?”

She shrugged. “You were the ‘driver.'”

Rafe hooted. “Oh, no! You're not going to lay that one on me.” Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he pulled her closer. “If I ever call you Prissy again, just karate chop my tongue.”

She cuddled against his chest. “When it has an erection?” she asked sweetly.

He made a choking noise. “You're never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Never.”

“Let's see if we can find a pepperoni pizza and a Coors in one of those saddlebags,” he said. “I'm starved.” His legs almost gave way under him as he stood. He grinned sheepishly at his weakness and held out a hand to pull her up.

His thick hair was mussed. His blue eyes scanned her body with lazy possessiveness. His lips were slack in passion's
aftermath. There were bruises and bite marks on his dark skin. In essence, he looked like a man who'd just engaged in sex, and had a real good time.

She loved him.

“Why do you have tears in your eyes,
mi amor
?” he asked, drawing her upright and into his embrace.

Cupping his face in her hands, she whispered, “Say it again.”

He sighed deeply with understanding. He was obviously uncomfortable.

She cringed with hurt and tried to pull out of his arms.

He held her fast. “Don't you dare start misinterpreting everything I say or do. This is all new to me, and—”

“And you think it's same old–same old to me?” she said on a sob.

“Helen,” he said with exaggerated patience, “you're wine, and I'm beer. You're granola, and I'm Froot Loops. You're apples, and I'm jalapeño peppers. You're broiled chicken, and I'm chili dogs. You're—”

“You're looking for excuses, Rafe,” she snapped. “Besides, I make a mean Mexi hot dog.”

“You do?” He smiled wearily. “You didn't let me finish. The most important thing is that you are babies, and I'm . . . well, I'm not.”

Yes, there was
that
important stumbling block always in their path. Her shoulders slumped.

“Now, let me finish before you stiffen up on me. I'm just trying to say that we're different, and neither of us is thinking beyond this incredible chemistry we have, and that's okay, but—”

“Stop beating around the bush, Rafe.” She braced herself for the rejection that was undoubtedly coming.

“I love you,” he said, gazing at her through hazy eyes that were confused and vulnerable and wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful. “Bottom line . . . I love you,” he confessed in a whisper.

Her heart expanded in her chest almost to bursting, and a big tear slid down her cheek. “You'll probably try to take those words back tomorrow,” she charged, trying to smile, but failing.

“Probably,” he conceded, kissing the tear off her chin.

Another tear soon followed.

“I love you, too. Honest to God, I really do,” she said bleakly.

“And that's why you're giving my chest hairs a bath?” he bantered as one tear after another ran down her face.

She nodded, then shivered. “What's going to happen to us?”

He walked her over to the fire and wrapped one of the blankets around her toga-style. “We'll work it out somehow, I promise. Didn't I tell you I was going to be your hero?”

“Please, you're not going to sing again?”

“No, first I'm going to feed you. To build up your strength,” he said as he arranged several logs on the fire. “Then . . .” He flashed a mischievous grin at her.

“Then?” she prompted.

“Then we're gonna play Marco Polo.” He winked.

She giggled and burst out laughing.

“I get to go first, of course.”

“Of course,” she said dryly. “Will I need a compass?”

He chuckled. “Nah, just follow my anchor.”

“Hmmm,” she said, swiping the last of the dampness off her cheeks. “Maybe I could be the figurehead on the prow of the ship. You know, one of those waist-high buxom babe things.”

“That's the spirit, darlin'. And I could swab your decks.”

“Well, I don't know. Would that occur before or after I raise your flag?”

“You've played this game before,” he accused boyishly.

They exchanged a warm smile across the fire. He was pulling food items from one of the saddlebags.

She knew Rafe had changed the subject in an effort to make her feel better. He was probably as confused and scared as she was.

Maybe things would work out, after all.

C
aptain Hook and Tinkerbell . . . role playing was so much fun! . . .

“T
ime for the last dance, sweetheart.”

Helen felt so warm and sleepy. She cuddled closer under the furry blanket and refused to open her eyes.

“Wake up, little Suzy,” the furry blanket said. “One more for the road.”

Helen chuckled in her sleep.
What a dream!
There she was on a Hollywood set, waltzing around with Fred Astaire, whose fuzzy sweater rubbed sensuously against her chest. No, it was Patrick Swayze, and they were dirty dancing in the Catskills. Maybe he wasn't wearing a sweater, at all, and he was calling her Suzy, like that old song title.

But why did Patrick have dark hair and blue, blue eyes? And, boy, could he dip!

She slept some more, drifting from dream place to dream place. Now she was a little girl and her daddy was giving her a puppy. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“I'm not your Daddy,” her daddy said.

Poor man! It had always pained her father to refuse her a pet throughout her childhood, but they moved constantly from base to base.

“What a cute puppy! How affectionate!” she giggled. The darling, frisky pet was licking her belly.

She thought the darling, frisky pet grumbled, “I am not a dog,” as she yawned widely. Or maybe it was, “I'll show you cute.”

Before she gave up her dreams for deep sleep again, she thought,
That's the nice thing about dreams. Blankets can dance and puppies talk
.

Moments later, she entered a new dream. This time, she was holding a baby in her arms. “Oh, sweet baby!” she cooed.

“Now we're getting somewhere,” the baby growled in a deep voice. It must be a boy baby.

Helen looked down at the black-haired infant, and tears filled her eyes. A child to love! She would never be lonely again. Her dream come true. She ran her fingers through its surprisingly thick hair and cradled it closer. The infant's mouth clamped over her breast, rooting.

Whoa! This baby has some suction power. And teeth
.

Teeth?

Her eyes shot open. “Oh, baby!” she exclaimed.

“You called?” Rafe grinned and slid himself up her body. Lying on top of her, with elbows braced on either side of her head, he began to lower his mouth to hers.

She realized that her breasts were full and taut, pressed against his chest. Her legs parted and rubbed sensuously against his furry thighs. The fire had died down to embers, and dawn light filtered through the cave opening. Obviously, this “dream” had been going on for some time.

“What have you been up to, Rafe?” she chided with mock seriousness.

“Exploring.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “You wouldn't wake up. So, I started without you.”

“Oh. Did I miss anything special?”

“Probably. I guess I'd better start all over again, huh?”

And he did.

“I don't suppose you swabbed the decks yet?”

“No, but I did raise the flag.” He ground himself against her to demonstrate.

“Some flag!” she remarked dryly.

“Some prow!” he countered, rubbing his crisp chest hairs across her breasts.

“Man the gunwales, matie.”

“Anchors aweigh.”

“Is that a whale on the starboard?”

“No, it's a tongue hard-on.”

“You fool!”

“Just call me Captain Hook.”

“Who said you get to be captain?”

“Well, I'm steering
this
boat right now.”

“Can I steer later?” she asked sweetly, cupping his “hook” in both hands.

“Aye-aye, Tinkerbell,” he choked out.

They stopped clowning around then, and this time their lovemaking took on a slow, poignant character. Helen understood without Rafe saying the words that he fully intended that this third time would be the last until they were back in modern civilization with birth control protection.

So, he cherished her body with gentle caresses and lingering kisses. And kept murmuring, “Last time, last time, last time . . .”

She basked in his expert ministrations, stifling her contrary thoughts, “In your dreams, in your dreams, in your dreams . . .”

A
few hours later, Rafe was outside saddling the horses.

They'd already eaten breakfast—a hearty meal of fatty bacon, undercooked beans, stale bread, and God-awful coffee. A Sunday brunch at the Beverly Wilshire couldn't have tasted better.

Helen was still inside the cave, gargling and meditating, no doubt, but Rafe didn't care today. Nope, he was feeling mellow, and he couldn't stop smiling. Hell, he even caught himself whistling one time until F. Lee gave him one of those “don't-you-dare” looks. Translated, “If you whistle, I get gas.” Rafe stopped whistling.

When Helen came out finally, carrying a saddlebag with their provisions, she was smiling, too. And he stopped smiling.

She'd combed her unruly red hair back into a ponytail, tied with a strip of cloth. She wore the ugly green gown over her camouflage pants because they'd both agreed that they couldn't continue to avoid the mining camps on the way north. Her fresh scrubbed face gazed up at him adoringly as she walked closer, marred only by the whisker burns on her cheeks and the puffiness of her lips. He saw a dark bruise on her neck and another on the soft inner skin of her upper arm. There were lots more under the concealing dress—he knew because he'd examined every delicious one of them earlier—and just as many on his own body.

His heart skipped a beat, then seemed to swell inside his chest with love for this woman. She was so beautiful.

He loved her. And she loved him. A miracle.

But one thing became alarmingly clear in that instant when she smiled at him. There was no way Helen had accepted his decision not to make love again.

She dropped the saddlebag at his feet and raised her lips to give him a fleeting kiss. “Good morning,” she whispered
throatily, and walked over to her horse, hips swaying. She started whistling right off.

Helen was a woman on a mission. And he was the target.

He cringed. “Helen, we have to set some new ground rules.”

“Oh,” she said, already in the saddle. “I thought you didn't like rules.”

“I don't, but sometimes they're necessary. Like now.”

“You have a hickey on your neck.”

He counted to five, silently, for patience. “Helen, I have five hickeys, and one of them in a place that would shock you.”

“Really? Did I do it, or did you?”

“Do what? Give myself a love bite
there
?”

She grinned.

“Stop changing the subject. This is serious. Last night was wonderful. Incredible. But it can't happen again until we get back to the future. It just can't.”

“And?”

“And I need your cooperation.”

“I think I've been cooperative,” she said suggestively.

“Helen, please. Help me here. This is going to be hard enough as it is, without you tempting me.”

“Do I tempt you?”

“All the time. That's why we have to set some rules.”

“Like?”

“No sex.”

“Define sex.”

He gave out a loud whoosh of exasperation. “No intercourse. No naked bodies. No sleeping together.” He was getting aroused already, just thinking about what they wouldn't be doing.

She frowned, then smiled brightly. “I can handle that. There are
other
ways, you know.”

He busied himself tying the extra saddlebag on his horse, trying not to imagine those
other
ways. He fought for the words that would convince Helen of his determination. Damn,
he was a lawyer. Words shouldn't be hard for him, but they were when the adversary facing him knew how to make his tongue get hard.

“Helen, there aren't going to be
other
ways, either. I know myself. It wouldn't stop there.”

“Can't you control your sexual drive with women?”

“I've got real good control, babe. With other women. Not with you.”

He ignored her smile of satisfaction and tried to explain. “It's like St. Augustine said, abstinence works, moderation doesn't. In other words, a hard-on has no brain.”

“St. Augustine said
that
?”

“Not in those words exactly,” he said, grinning. “But he was right. Don't start the horse to galloping unless you plan to take a ride.”

She laughed. “I can't believe you know the works of St. Augustine.”

“Hey, I told you—my mother was a dictator. Other kids got Doctor Seuss for bedtime stories. We got the lives of the saints.”

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Wasn't St. Augustine the guy famous for saying, ‘Lord, make me pure and chaste—but not quite yet?'”

“So?”

“No wonder he's your favorite saint!” she hooted. “But back to your birth control problems . . . I don't see why you couldn't . . . well, you could always, uh . . .”

“You want me to ‘leave before the gospel?' Good old coitus interruptus?”

She nodded. Her face was scarlet with humiliation.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Number one, I'd probably forget—you have a way of turning my brain to mush—or I'd say ‘to hell with it' at the last
minute—that's also related to your turning my brain to mush. But, most important, the method's not foolproof.”

She pulled a face at him for his firm refusal. “Okay, so you're saying no actual sex and no
other
sex and no sharing the same blanket. Any other rules?”

“No touching.”

Her eyes widened with shock. “At all?”

“It's gotta be that way, babe. And no kissing, either.”

She cast him one of those wounded looks, one women use to make men feel guilty.

He did.

Laughter bubbled out from her lips then and continued until tears streamed down her face. Wiping them away, she nudged her horse into a slow canter, moving down the hill away from him. When he caught up with her at the bottom, she was still laughing.

“What's so funny?”

“You. Oh, Rafe, I can't believe you think that we won't make love again for weeks, maybe longer. It's impossible.”

“Not if you cooperate.”

She lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.

“I'm stronger than you think.”

“We'll see.” Her mouth turned up in a Cheshire cat smile.

“So, do you agree to the rules?”

“Sure,” she said, blinking with exaggerated innocence.

She lied, and Rafe damn well knew it.
St. Augustine, you'd better send down some heavy-duty ammunition. I'm a man in deep, deep trouble
.

F
our days later, they made their way down the final stretch to Rich Bar, the northernmost town on the Feather River, a
mining camp that had been established earlier that year on rumors of a lake of gold.

Helen's nerves were strained almost to the breaking point. Rafe had proven formidable in his efforts to resist making love with her. Among other things, he forced her to sleep on the other side of the fire every agonizing night, darn him.

It hadn't been easy for Rafe, either. Several times, the howling of wolves had awakened Helen in the middle of the night. She would open her eyes to find Rafe staring hungrily at her across the fire, white-lipped with restraint.

But it was the grueling travel that took its greatest toll on them both. Neither had anticipated the rough terrain as they climbed higher and higher into the mountains on their route north.

Riding hard each day, they passed through such colorful camps as Rough and Ready, Lousy Level, Helltown, Gouge Eye, Dead Man's Bar, Whiskey Flat, and Slumgullion Gulch. They recognized a similarity in them all: Gaming houses and brothels popped up like mushrooms after a rain in every mining town, all with canvas tents, rough plank buildings, and the everlasting crimson calico.

The miners who endured the backbreaking labor of panning gold under the hot sun all day long could be seen using the same pans over a campfire at night. And often the
entrée du jour
was rattlesnake, or “bush fish,” as the delicacy was called, with a side of those neverending beans.

They camped by late afternoon each day so that Rafe could pan for gold in the many streams they passed—streams that were crowded almost hip to hip with gold-hungry prospectors. Thus far, Rafe had managed to accumulate a small bag of gold dust, worth about fifty dollars. Not much, but encouraging.

More than once, they'd been forced to seek other camping sites because of mutterings about a dirty Mex trying to steal the gold that rightly belonged to true-blooded Americans.
On a few occasions, Helen had wanted to take a stand and fight off the bigots, but Rafe insisted they pick their battles wisely, not ones in which they were so outnumbered.

“Besides, I'm used to it, babe,” he said over and over.

Helen wanted desperately to fight for him, to wipe away all the hurts he'd suffered over the years—still suffered.

For now, she could only think about the dangerously narrow trail they were traveling. They were proceeding down the five-mile trail to Rich Bar—a narrow path along a steep incline with a dangerous precipice on one side. One misstep of their horses, and they would fall hundreds of feet down the almost perpendicular cliff into a dun-colored canyon.

Rafe kept throwing out encouraging words behind her. “Just a little bit longer, honey. Don't give up. You'll be okay.”

She couldn't even turn to glare at him. Not that she was able to answer anyway, her jaw was clenched so tightly.

“Just stare straight ahead,” Rafe advised. “Don't look to the side.”

So Helen concentrated on the tiny valley ahead of them, only eight hundred or so yards in length, and a mere thirty yards wide. The Feather River,
Las Plumas
, meandered along at its base, hemmed in by lofty mountains of beautiful fir trees.