Hummingbird (20 page)

"Don't try to talk yet," he ordered, "let your breath come back first."

Then finally it came. Blessed, pure, giant puffs of air, flowing into her lungs and fortifying her. "Put… me

… down," she managed while her fists still gripped the sheet and she flailed one foot dissolutely. He released her at last and she slumped flat. She felt her weight roll as he moved to kneel beside her.

"Hurt?" he asked, and she felt his hand rubbing the small of her back while she lay there limp, panting, waiting for her near-bursting heart to ease.

"Get… your… filthy… hands… off… me," she sputtered into the mattress between gasps of air.

"It's your own fault," he said, ignoring her order, still rubbing, warmer now and in longer sweeps. "Just what were you trying to do, shoot me?"

"Nothing would pleasure me more," she puffed.

"That goes to show what you know," he said, and purposely ran his long, lean fingers—one swipe—

down her spine where its hollow widened, then narrowed. She jumped like a jackrabbit in a desperate leap toward the corner of the bed, lunging for the gun. But her head hit the corner wall with a resounding crack! The bedsprings twanged and he grabbed her by the calves and dragged her backward, her fingers never touching the pistol, her nightgown shinny ing up in a roll beneath her. She reached for it desperately, but just then he flew and landed full-length on top of her, reaching easily with one long arm to retrieve the gun from the floor. His chest pushed her face into the bed, then the weight was gone, settled farther down as he straddled her like a cowboy on a bronc, holding her aims pinned to her sides by his knees.

But now he was panting too, gritting his teeth while he pressed a hand to his throbbing wound. He rocked a time or two, suddenly angry because of the pain.

"All right, Miss High-And-Mighty, so you want to play guns, do you? Okay, I'll play." Through the ringing in her head she heard his ragged breathing. Then he swung off her hips and she heard the gun click by her ear. "Roll over," he ordered.

She struggled with the nightgown, but as she tugged, the gun barrel skewered it to the center of her back, holding it where it was.

"Roll over," he repeated, tight and hard now, and nudged her a little harder with the barrel. She rolled fearfully away from him, shivering near the wall. "Why is it that every time I wake up you seem to be in my bed?" he accused.

She clutched her head, which was aching uncontrollably now, closed her eyes while his unctuous voice flowed. "Is this why you took me into your house, Abbie? So you could weasel your way into a gunslinger's bed? Why didn't you just say so instead of pretending to be the gracious nurse? Nurse… ha!

Do you know what all you've done to me under the guise of nursing? Let me recount every one so you'll know what I'm about to get even with here. First you shaved off my moustache for no apparent reason at all. You made me lie in need until I thought my bladder would burst. Then you threw the bedpan at me.

Then you pushed branches down my throat until it was practically useless to me, then claimed afterward that it was for my own good you had to starve me. Next, you proceeded to calmly poison me with liver until I puked like a buzzard. Then, you presented me with a raw pig's bladder while I groaned for a square meal. And now—last but not least—you try to shoot me!"

"I did not try to shoot you!"

"You, Miss Abigail, were caught red-handed. Are those familiar words? Do you remember hearing them recently?"

"You shot Mr. Melcher and he has a toe gone to prove it. I shot nobody. I was only after the gun."

"You shot nobody because I was faster than you. What's the matter, your head hurt now?"

"I hit it on the wall."

"As you also said to me once, it's your own fault. You brought it on yourself when you came sneaking in here. You pulled your pussyfooting act just once too often."

"I saved your life, you ingrate!" she spit, and was going to call his bluff, thinking he wouldn't really harm her. But her shoulders got no more than a hand's width off the mattress before she found herself pushed flat again, his knuckles prying into the bones of her chest.

"Ingrate?" he chuckled wickedly. "Yes, perhaps I have been an ingrate. Perhaps I haven't shown the proper gratitude for all you've done for me. Maybe I'd better do it now… in kind. Pay you back for all you've done to me, is that what you want?"

"N… no, I didn't mean it."

"But of course you meant it. Let's just call it payment for services rendered."

"Don't…" She crossed her arms protectively over her chest.

"Let's see how you like having your mouth invaded, Abbie." He moved so swiftly she had no chance to fight. The next moment one of her arms was imprisoned between the mattress and his body, the other wrist pressed against a rail of the brass headboard while he held it there with a powerful hand. His mouth swooped down but she rolled her face aside and he missed. He tried again but she rolled the other way.

"So you still want to play games, huh?" She struggled while he yanked her arm down. But he rolled her easily to her side, forcing the arm up behind her back before her own weight and his rendered it useless.

His newly freed hand came to the back of her neck, long fingers trailing up through her freshly washed hair, controlling her as he lowered his mouth to hers again and ran his tongue across her bared teeth. She gasped and bucked, but pain shot into her arm so she fell still, realizing she was no match for his strength.

He lightened his hold on her lips, teasing now with his tongue, running it to the corners of her mouth, torturing her with its sleek, wet insinuation. Unable to combat him, her only recourse was to lay limp and submissive, determined to show neither fight nor fear.

He sensed what she was doing and slid his lips down to the hollow beneath her jaw, whispered near her ear, "I'm going to pay you back for every single thing you did to me, Abbie." Then he nuzzled his way back to the corner of her mouth, his full lips closing upon it leisurely while she resolutely kept her jaws clamped shut. He chuckled low in his throat and she felt him smile against her lips. "How do you like it, Abbie?" Her heart danced to her throat and her eyelids trembled as she held them tightly shut. He moved to catch the side of one nostril as a stallion nips a mare, leaving her skin damp as he moved on, bending lower He took her small pointed chin in his mouth, sucking gently, sending shafts of heat darting through her body. And far down the bed she felt him grow harder and harder against the back of her captured hand. Wanting to die, yet feeling more alive than ever before in her life, Abbie absorbed the feeling of it all. Held prisoner, she suddenly felt as if she soared free.

His hand slid away from her hair and he ran only the outer edges of its little finger down the valley between her breasts, to her waist. Then, hooking each button with that single finger, he flicked them open on his leisurely way back up. "Hey," he whispered against her neck, "did you think you were going to get away with my shirt tonight? You steal mine… I steal yours." Then slowly he pushed aside the bodice of her gown, opening first the left side, then the right, still using only that little finger, but sailing its back side against the surface of her breasts, over each smooth mound to each erect nipple, skimming them like warm wind and creating uninvited goose bumps upon her skin.

"You know what you do to me, Abbie? You rub me in a hundred wrong ways. Let me show you the one right way." His palm cupped her bare breast and her eyes flew open. She saw his dark moustache so close to her face, felt his breath on her mouth, his hot hardness against the back of her hand. And all the while he kneaded her breast with its unforgivable taut nipple, he caressed her ribs and stomach with his forearm. Her eyelids slid closed, the breath which he'd earlier knocked from her caught now in her helpless throat.

"How about a bed bath, Abbie? I owe you one." Her senses fled to one central spot as he fondled one breast while leaning to circle the other with his warm, wet tongue, slowly and painstakingly bathing it, from rigid crest to softest perimeter. She felt the forbidden lick of grain upon smoothness, made sleek by moisture. His teeth, open, gently sliced, their edges unhurting, knowing. Between tongue and upper teeth he took the ruby crown of her breast, lightly, lightly, stroking, tugging until her shoulder strained off the mattress. He lowered his mouth to the soft cay where breast met rib and there washed her with warmth before continuing downward while her body reached its dewpoint. He dipped his tongue into the cupule of her navel as a bee dips into the chalice of a flower for honey. His warm tongue disappeared, then he kissed her lightly a little lower, raised his face to ask, "Should I do a thorough job or leave you half-finished like you did me?"

"Please…" she begged in a ragged whisper.

"Please what? Please finish or please stop?"

"Please stop." Tears seemed to have gathered in her eyes, her throat, and between her legs.

"Not yet. Not till I bring some life to these limbs like you did to mine. Remember, Abbie? Remember how you massaged the life back into me and made my blood beat again after you tied me up?" She could no longer tell if this was torture or treat. It seemed her heart beat in every pore of her body as once again, in that slow, slow motion, he did what he wanted with her, sliding his arms along the lengths of her own, catching one up high above her head, sealing the other beneath them. He stretched his length out upon her, holding her now from behind while her wrist was clamped against brass which chimed a muted knell each time he pulled, grinding his tumescent body against her aroused one. Her lips fell open as her traitorous body responded. Her breath beat fast and warm upon his face. She'd made no sound, yet he heard her whimper all the same. Whimper for all the fear mingled with this new sensual turbulence so suddenly awakened in her, the pulsing void that seemed to cry for fulfillment.

Suddenly he stilled, looking down into her shadowed face with its closed, trembling eyes, its open, trembling lips. He touched the crest of her cheek softly. "How old are you, Abbie? You lied to me, didn't you? You said you're old because it's a shield you hide behind, afraid of what life is all about. But what do you fear now, living with this or without this?"

A sob caught in her throat. "I am thirty-three and I hate you," she whispered. "I shall hate you till my dying day." Her fear of him was gone, replaced by fear of a new and different kind: a fear of herself. A fear of the muscle and blood that had responded too plainly to all he'd said and done.

How long had her hands been free? They rested inanimately, curled in limp abandon, commanded now only by the air, for he was smoothing the hair back from her brow—too gently, too gently. He had claimed his victory over her, true, but somehow it left him hollow and beaten himself. As she lay beneath him, disheveled and defeated, he suddenly wished he had the old Abbie back, all starch and spitfire.

"Hey, what started this anyway?" She heard the change in his voice and it did nothing to calm the riotous vibrations of her flesh. She swallowed the tears in her throat, but her voice was thick, the back of her wrist falling across her eyes.

"If I remember correctly, somebody brought a train robber into my house and he wore a moustache."

"Abbie…"he said tentatively, as if there were so much more unsaid. But she pushed him off her and struggled to the edge of the bed, leaving him sorry he'd done as much as he had, sorrier still that he hadn't done more. But as she slid across the rumpled sheets her hand touched cold steel, abandoned in their struggle which had ceased to be a struggle. Her fingers closed over it as she moved off silently in the dark.

r

e

v

i o

u

s

T

o

p

N

e

x

t

It was a fine Sunday, bright and fresh, the sky as blue as a robin's egg. But all through services Miss Abigail found it difficult to pay attention. Even while praying to be forgiven for the responses she'd been unable to control last night, she felt her skin ripple sweetly in remembrance. Standing to join in a hymn, her lips parted to form the words, but the memory of his tongue between them scorched her with shame and a tingling, forbidden want. Putting a hand to the nape of her neck to smooth her hair, the memory of his hand there made her hang her head in shame. But as she did she looked down the lace-covered bodice of her proper, high-necked dress only to know that within it her nipples were puckered up like gumdrops. And within her pristine soul Abigail McKenzie knew that she was truly damned now, yet all through no real fault of her own. She had lived a demure life, one in which—granted—little temptation of last night's sort had been put in her way. But she had not deserved to be treated so ruthlessly.

. While Miss Abigail contemplated all this she occasionally caught herself eyeing the back of Doc Dougherty's bald head, wishing she could take the butt of that gun and rap some sense into it!

When the service was over she lost track of how many times she was asked how everything was going up at her house, how many times she was forced to lie and answer, "Fine, fine." She was asked everything from how the outlaw's wounds were healing to what in the world she wanted with that pig bladder! To the latter she again replied with the half lie that the train robber used it to strengthen his bruised hand—true enough, but hardly the reason she'd bought it. When she finally got Doc Dougherty off to one side, she was upset not only with him but with everyone who'd asked her what was none of their business.

Doc was his usual congenial self as he greeted, "How-do, Miss Abigail."

"Doctor, I must talk to you."

"Something wrong with our patient? What's his name again? Jesse, isn't it? Has he been up getting some exercise?"

"Yes he has, but—"

"Fine! Fine! That limb will stiffen up like an uncured pelt if he doesn't move it. Feed him good and see that he gets up and around, maybe even out of the house."

"Out of the house! Why the man has no clothes. He went to the outhouse yesterday wrapped in nothing more than a sheet!"