Nan Ryan (23 page)

24

His bearded, rain-wet face set
in hard lines of fury, Virgil Black swept the princess to safety, racing due south atop the responsive black stallion. Thunder boomed and lightning streaked across the steadily darkening sky as the summer rain continued to fall in blinding sheets.

Enclosed in Virgil’s long arms, the princess was draped across the saddle before him, her wet head on his shoulder, face pressed against his throat, arms wrapped around his waist. He hadn’t said a word since he hurriedly lifted her onto the black’s back, swung up behind her, and rode swiftly away from the Apache stronghold. But she could tell by the inflexible set of his jaw and the expression in the narrowed blue eyes staring straight ahead that he was angry.

She had no idea how angry.

Virgil’s anger rose with each mile they covered. This unthinking woman had frightened him so badly his usual composure had been shattered. Never had he been so scared. Never had he been so mad. As the stallion put more and more distance between them and the Apache, Virgil’s fear gradually dissipated.

But his anger blazed out of control.

Blindly furious with her, he spurred the big black toward a high shelf of rock rising from the valley floor. A few yards from the jagged walls and spires of rock, he abruptly pulled up on the reins. The startled stallion came to plunging halt. The princess lifted her head, gave Virgil a quizzical look. His blue eyes flashed with a kind of fire she’d never seen before. He shoved her roughly off the horse. Caught off guard, she lost her balance, fell to her knees in the mud. He dismounted, stood for a long moment towering above her, his booted feet apart, a muscle spasming in his whiskered jaw.

Then, looking mean and menacing, he leaned down and grabbed her. He yanked her to her feet with such quick force, her head rocked on her shoulders. His teeth bared like an animal’s, he angrily tore the beaded necklace from her throat, tossed it away, and clamped his hands too tightly around her upper arms.

“You little fool,” he finally spoke, and the sound in her ears was like the roar of a lion. A flash of lightning struck the rocks nearby. “Damn you!” he bellowed above the blast of following thunder. Intending to shake some sense into her, he shouted, “Jesus Christ, woman, you scared me half to death! Don’t you know that … don’t you … oh, God … God Almighty …”

His heart thundering, a vein throbbing on his high forehead, he abruptly drew her into his embrace and held her close against his heaving chest, relieved beyond words that she was unharmed, safe, here with him. But the feel of her soft, slender body pressed against his own quickly turned his anger and relief to desire. His hands, shaking slightly, rose to frame her upturned face. His lean fingers twined in her tangled wet red hair.

Before the startled princess realized what was happening, he lowered his lips to hers and kissed her forcefully. And he kept on kissing her as they stood there in the falling rain with the lighting flashing and the thunder cannonading.

Virgil kissed the astonished princess until she stopped trying to tear her lips from his and responded in kind. It didn’t take long. In seconds she was kissing him back with a fire and a hunger that matched his own. In minutes both were ignited by a mutual burst of white-hot passion that could not, would not, be denied. Desire blazed out of control and demanded release. There was no going back. No stopping to think if this was the right thing to do. No questioning where it would lead once the deed was done. No wondering if they should discuss it first.

Like a couple of untamed animals they began anxiously stripping the clothes from the other. Fighting the rain that caused garments to cling to soaked flesh, the struggle was made all the harder because neither could bear to take their lips from the other’s lips. Probing, sucking kisses continued as the difficult disrobing dance took place.

When finally both were naked to the waist, the princess glanced at the tape around Virgil’s middle and remembered that he was hurt. Bracing herself back from him she looked up into his rain-wet face and said, “I forgot you were hurt. We … we can’t … your ribs—”

“Are fine,” he said and drew her back against him.

They sighed with pleasure and excitement as they kissed again and eagerly ran their hands over the other’s bare, wet flesh. A flash of too-close lightning finally caused Virgil to tear his lips from hers. She moaned at the desertion and tried to pull his head back down.

“Wait, baby,” he said, immediately lifted her up into his arms, and carried her toward the jagged wall of rock.

She didn’t question him, just looped her arms around the strong column of his neck and pressed kisses to his wet throat. She was tracing the top of his bare shoulder with the tip of her tongue when she heard Noche neighing loudly. She opened her eyes, looked over Virgil’s shoulder, and saw, through the falling rain, the black following them.

They reached the wall of rock. Virgil didn’t stop to put her down but followed the ragged wall’s perimeter southward for several yards. All at once, he ducked his dark head, stooped, and swept the princess inside a dry, dim cave with a smooth stone floor.

“Virgil,” she said breathlessly, and the sound of his name on her lips made his heart pound. “Our own shelter from the storm.”

Pleased, he leaned down, gave her a kiss, and lowered her to her feet. His hands cupping her bare shoulders, he said, “You cold, baby? Maybe we could get a fire going and … and …”

His words trailed away and both grinned wickedly, their eyes flashing with the shared secret. They had already gotten a fire going. A fire that was hotter than any other kind on earth.

“Come here.” He drew her up onto her toes and kissed her.

The princess stood against her tall, lean lover, shamelessly pressing her breasts against his hair-covered chest. Her nipples felt as if they themselves were on fire, so sensitive were they to the touch of his warm, wet flesh. Her mouth open wide to his deeply penetrating tongue, she could feel his beard pleasantly tickling her cheeks and chin. She shocked herself by wondering how that ticklish black beard would feel if his lips were at her breast. The prospect caused her to shudder involuntarily against him.

The awakened princess was so caught up in his probing fiery kisses and the thrill of his chest against her swelling breasts, she hardly realized that he had unbuttoned her pants. She sighed into his mouth when she felt the rough fabric slip over her hips and down her thighs.

Virgil slowly released her lips, raised his head, and looked into her eyes. As his hands spanned her waist, he lifted a booted foot, snagged the pants with his toe, and sent them to the floor. Still looking deeply into her eyes, he gently lifted the princess off the stone floor. Her arms wrapped around his neck, she kicked free of the jeans. Now she was totally naked, save for her ruined leather slippers.

“Don’t let me go,” she said, as she put the toes of her right foot to the heel of her left slipper.

“Never, baby, never,” he murmured.

When both slippers lay discarded on the cave floor and she was as naked as the day she was born, Virgil again lifted her up into his arms. His eyes a smoldering blue, he allowed his gaze to slide over every inch of her bare body. And, to her surprise and delight, she felt no shame. She knew her body was beautiful. She wanted him to look at it. She loved the feel of those burning eyes caressing her tingling flesh.

“Jesus, you are exquisite,” he said, his voice low, husky.

“I’m glad you think I’m pretty,” she said, her chest swelling with pride, her nipples standing out in darkening twin peaks of pure arousal.

“What I can see is perfect,” he said, his Texas twang more pronounced than usual. “I want to see everything, baby. Say you’ll let me.”

“I’ll let you,” she sighed.

25

After that, everything that happened
seemed to be taking place in a lovely, prolonged dream. A fiery, fulfilling fantasy.

The next thing the princess knew she was lying on her discarded pants, and Virgil was lying beside her. With the worsening of the storm outside, it had grown dramatically dimmer inside the cave. She blinked to see in the deep shadows, letting her gaze slide curiously down his body.

He was still wearing his tight black trousers. She half shocked herself when, burning hot from his expert kisses, she rolled up into a sitting position. Then smiling shyly at him, she moved her hands to the waist band of his pants and began unbuttoning the buttons.

He let her.

Virgil lay stretched out on his side facing her, weight propped on an elbow, cheerfully allowing her to unbutton his pants. He wished it were not so dark there in the cave so that he could better see her beautiful face and bare lovely body. She worked quickly, eagerly. When every button was undone, his thrusting masculinity was still restrained, but his hard brown belly and the dense black hair of his swollen groin were visible in the gaping trousers. Staring, her lips fell open and the curious princess became momentarily reticent.

Virgil picked up on the signal, rose, and quickly kissed her, leaving the opened pants just as they were. While he kissed her, he gently eased the naked princess back down onto her back. His open lips slanted across hers, he slid his tongue up under her top lip, ran it back and forth teasingly, then nipped playfully at her soft bottom lip with his gleaming white teeth.

She became aware of his hand on her breast and thought she might die of joy when his rough thumb rubbed back and forth across the stinging nipple. He lifted his dark head, gazed into her eyes as he gently caressed her breast. A flash of lightning struck nearby, and for a second, the cave was as light as day. Then came the darkness once more as the thunder echoed.

Virgil took her hand and drew it down to where the black trousers were parted over his belly. She gasped and touched him timidly. He lowered his face and kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. When his lips trailed heated kisses down the side of her throat to her shoulder, the princess’s breath grew short.

She grew a trifle bolder. Her hand, lying where he had placed it, now began to carefully explore the varied textures beneath her sensitive fingertips. The heavy black twill fabric. The crisp curly black hair. The hot smooth flesh. The almost frightening surging of that confined male flesh, the restrained power pulsing through her fingertips as if it were her own heartbeat.

Her hand momentarily stilled, and selfishly she temporarily forgot about his throbbing tumescence when she felt his mouth enclose her left nipple. Straining to see him in the darkness, she sighed and shivered and breathlessly murmured, “Yes, oh yes.”

His lips tugging firmly on the pebble-hard nipple, Virgil swept his hand slowly down her slender, fever-hot body. He touched her caressingly from just under her arm down to her pale thigh. After a second’s pause, his hand trailed leisurely on down to her knee. He wrapped his fingers around the back of her knee and urged her left leg up into a bent position with her bare foot flat on the stone floor. Then, ever so gently, he prodded the bent knee outward, cocking it to fall over toward to the floor, thus giving him easy access to that most sensitive part of her beautiful body.

While he licked her nipple and dragged his teeth over it, he laid his hand on her bare, flat belly. His thumb found her navel and toyed with it, brushing back and forth, pressing gently, playing harmlessly.

In a sweet daze of desire, the naked princess lay there on the floor atop her discarded denim pants in the private shelter of the cave. While the summer storm raged just beyond the cave’s entrance a few short feet away, she gloried in the steadily escalating pleasure. A physical joy of a kind she’d never known existed. She moaned. She sighed. She murmured his name.

Virgil moved his hot face to her untasted right nipple. He pressed a tender kiss to it before opening his mouth wide and taking as much of the soft, round mound into his mouth as possible. The first strong pull of his lips at the nipple made her cry out with elation. At that instant a day-bright flash of lightning struck just outside, and she could clearly see Virgil’s dark, bearded face clamped onto her pale, swollen breast.