Mercenary's Woman (24 page)

178

MERCENARY'S WOMAN

DIANA PALMER

179

to strip down the covers before he
fell with her onto crisp,
clean sheets.

She knew that first
times were notoriously painful, embarrassing, and uncomfortable, but hers was
a notable ex
ception. Eb was skillful and slow, arousing her to a hot
frenzy of response
before he even began to touch her in
timately. By the time his body slid down
against hers in
stark possession, she was lifting toward him and pleading
for an end to the violent tension of
pleasure he'd aroused
in her.

Her breath jerked out
at his ear at the slow, steady in
vasion of her most private place in a silence
that magnified
the least little sound. She heard his heartbeat, and her own,
increase with every
careful thrust of his hips. She heard
his breathing, erratic, rough, mingling with
her own excited little moans.

She felt one lean hand
sliding up her bare leg as he
turned and shifted his weight against her, and when he
touched her high on her inner thigh in a rhythm like the
descent of his body,
she arched up toward him and groaned
in anguish.

He laughed softly at
her temple while he increased the rhythm and caressed her in the most
outrageous ways, all the while whispering things so shocking that she gasped.
Tossed between waves of pleasure that grew with each
passing second, she
found herself suddenly suspended
somewhere high above reality as she went over
some in
tangible
cliff and fell shuddering with ecstasy into a white-
hot oblivion.

She felt him there
with her, felt his pleasure in her body, felt his own release even as hers
threatened to last forever.
She wondered dimly if she was going to survive the in
credible delight of it. She shivered
helplessly as pleasure

washed over her and she clung harder
to the source of it,
pleading for him not to stop.

When she was finally
exhausted and barely able to catch
her breath, he tucked her close in his arms
and pulled the sheet over them.

"Sleep now," he whispered, kissing her forehead.

"Like this?" she asked unsteadily.

"Just like
this." He wrapped her closer. "We'll sleep
a little. And
then..."

"And then,"

The dinner
reservations went unclaimed. Through the
long night, she learned more than she'd ever
dreamed
about
men and bodies and lovemaking. For a first time,
she told her delighted husband, it was
quite extraordinary.

They had breakfast in
bed and men set out to explore
the old city. But by evening, they were exploring each
other again.

A week later, they
arrived back home at Eb's ranch, to
find a flurry of new activity. A local
undercover DEA
agent, whose wife Lisa Monroe lived on a ranch next door to Cy Parks,
had been found murdered. Apparently he'd infiltrated Lopez's organization and
been discovered. Rod-rigo was still undercover, and Eb was concerned for him.
The warehouse next door to Cy was in the final stages of
construction. Things were heating up in
Jacobsville.

"At least we
had a honeymoon," Eb murmured dryly,
hugging his new wife close.

"So we did,"
she agreed. She looked up at him lov
ingly. "And now you're back off
adventuring."

"Well, so are
you," he pointed out. "After all, isn't
teaching second-graders a daily adventure
as well?"

She hugged him close. "Being married to you is the

180

MERCENARY'S WOMAN

biggest adventure, but you have to promise
not to ever get
shot at again."

"I give you my
word as a Girl Scout," he murmured
dryly.

She punched
him
in the stomach. "And if you
wade
into battle, I'll be right there
beside
you holding spare
cartridges."

He searched
her
eyes. "You really are a hell of
a woman," he murmured.

She grinned. "I'm glad you noticed."

"Lucky
me," he
said
only half facetiously, and bent to kiss her with
unbridled passion.
"Lucky,
lucky me!"
he
added
while he could manage speech.

Sally wrapped her arms
around him
and held
on tight,
as intoxicated with
pleasure as
he was. There would al
ways
be the threat of danger, but nothing that the merce
nary and
his woman couldn't handle. But for the moment,
she
had her soldier of fortune
right
where she wanted
him—in her gentle,
loving arms.

In January 2001

Silhouette Desire

presents the next
book in

Diana Palmer's
provocative new

Soldiers of Fortune
trilogy:

THE WINTER SOLDIER

Cy Parks had a reputation around Jacobsville
for being meaner than
a rattlesnake. But Lisa

Monroe wasn't afraid of the
mesmerizing

mercenary and drove him to distraction
with

her tantalizing kisses. Though he'd
never admit

it, Cy was getting
mighty possessive of the

pregnant, practically
penniless widow who

needed the type of
safeguarding only he could

provide. But who would
protect the beguiling

beauty from
him?

Soldiers of
Fortune... prisoners of love.

Turn the page for an
exciting sneak

preview of Silhoutte
Desire's unforgettable

Man of the Month...

Cy Parks had his first good night's sleep in
days. He'd
sent a capable, older cowboy over to Lisa Monroe's neigh
boring ranch the
night before to sleep in the bunkhouse
and keep an eye on things. He'd also arranged
covertly for
sensitive listening equipment to be placed around her
house, and for a man
to monitor it full-time. He might be
overly cautious, but he wasn't taking chances
with a preg
nant woman. He knew Manuel Lopez's thirst for revenge
far too well. The drug lord had a nasty
habit of targeting
the families of people
who opposed him. Cy wasn't willing
to
risk leaving Lisa out there alone.

Her situation was
precarious. Pregnant, widowed and
deeply in debt, she was likely to find
herself homeless
before much longer, when the bank was forced to foreclose
on the small ranch
her father had left her as a legacy.
Lisa's husband, an undercover narcotics
officer with a fed
eral agency, had recently been killed by Lopez's men when
he tried to
infiltrate the drug lord's organization. He had

184

THE WINTER SOLDIER

DIANA PALMER

185

borrowed on his life insurance
policy, so there had been
just enough money to bury him.

The next day Cy
drove over to Lisa's house and found her struggling with a cow in the barn,
trying to pull a calf
by
hand. He couldn't believe she was actually doing that!

He'd barely cut off
the engine before he was our of the
big sports utility vehicle and towering over
her in the barn.
She looked up with a grimace on her face when she real
ized what a temper he
was in.

"Don't you say a
word, Cy Parks," she said at once,
wiping the sweat from her forehead.
"There's nobody but
me to do this, and the cow can't wait until one of my
part-
timers
comes in from the lower pasture. They're dipping
cattle..."

"So you're trying to do a job that
you aren't half big enough to manage. Are you out of your mind?" he burst
out. "You're pregnant, for God's sake!"

"Barely two
weeks pregnant.'' She was panting,
sprawled between the cow's legs. She glared up
at him
and blew a stray
strand of hair out of her sweaty eyes.
"Listen,
I can't afford to lose the cow or the calf..."

"Get up!" he said harshly.

She glared at him.

For all the raging
temper in his eyes, he reached down
and lifted her tenderly to her feet, putting
her firmly to one
side. Cy studied her openly. She was sweet, but she
wouldn't win any
beauty contests. Her dark blond hair was
always in
a
bun and she never wore makeup. She wore
glasses
over her brown eyes, plastic framed ones, and her usual garb was jeans and a
T-shirt when she was working
around
the ranch. He got down on one knee beside the
cow and looked at the situation
grimly. "Have you got a calf-pull?"

She ground her teeth
together. "No. It broke and I didn't
know how to fix it."

He said a few words
under his breath and went out to
his truck, using the radio to call for help.
Fortunately one
of his men was barely two minutes away. Harley, his fore
man, came roaring up
beside Cy's truck, braked and
jumped out with a length of rope.

"Good man,
Harley," Cy said as he looped the calf s
feet. "If we can't get him out
ourselves, we can use the
wrench on my truck. Ready? Pull!"

They were bathed in
sweat and cursing by the time they
managed to pull the calf out. Cy cleared his
nose and
mouth
and the little black-baldy bawled. The cow turned,
gently licking her calf.

"That was a near miss," Harley observed, grinning.

"Very
near." Cy glowered at Lisa. "In more ways than
one."

"Excuse me?" Harley asked.

"It was my
cow," Lisa pointed out. "I thought I could
do it by
myself."

"Pregnant, and
you think you're Samson," he said with biting sarcasm.

She put her hands on
her hips and glare up at him. "Go
away!"

"Gladly. When
I've washed my hands," Cy muttered,
glancing at his stitched arm. It had been
injured from an
encounter with one of his angry Santa Gertrudis bulls. It
was his left arm,
too, the one that had been burned in
the
house fire back in Wyoming. "I've got a raw wound.
I'll
have to have antibacterial soap."

"Antibacterial
soap, indeed. The germs would probably
die of natural causes if they got you!"
Lisa muttered.

"At least my
germs are intelligent! I wouldn't try pull
ing calves if I was pregnant!"

186
                            
THE WINTER SOLDIER

Lisa almost doubled over at the thought of
a pregnant
Cy Parks.

His bad mood subsided
at the sight of Lisa's dark eyes
bubbling with joy. Her laughter was
infectious. She made
him hungry, thirsty, desperate for the delight she
awakened
in
him...