Nan Ryan (20 page)

They strolled unhurriedly down the sidewalk toward the sound of music. Walking between them, Mollie felt happy and confident. That confidence remained when Lew led her onto the dance floor and said in that low, soft voice that so enchanted her, “Just follow me, sweetheart.”

“Always,” said Mollie with meaning and stepped into his arms.

She was the tallest woman Lew had ever danced with. Her height made her remarkably easy to lead. Her slender body fit against his so perfectly it was as if they’d been fashioned for each other. Her temple rested against his jaw, her firm, high breasts against his chest. Her long legs moved against his in a graceful, sensuous way that caused his arm to tighten reflexively around her.

Not once did Mollie look down at her feet.

It wasn’t necessary. She could sense Lew’s movements before they were made, and her body responded naturally.

She loved dancing!

It was even more fun than she had imagined. She had been foolish to dread this night. There was nothing to dancing. Nothing at all. Nothing but the wonder of being in Lew’s arms while they swayed and turned and touched each other more intimately than they ever had before.

Through the gathered bodice of her cool summer dress, Mollie could feel her breasts flattening against Lew’s hard chest. The heavy cadence of his heartbeat seemed to become her own. And hers his. Two hearts beating as one.

“You were teasing me, weren’t you, sweetheart?” Lew’s warmth breath ruffled a blond ringlet beside her ear.

Her hand caressing the night black hair curling down over his shirt collar, she asked dreamily, “About what?”

“Not knowing how to dance.” His lips brushed her cheek.

She sighed. “Yes. I was teasing you.”

The dance continued, and Mollie and Lew never left the floor. Between numbers they clapped enthusiastically, then stood, holding hands, waiting for the music to resume. It was during one such pause that Mollie caught sight of John Distant Star standing alone at the edge of the crowd. His brooding eyes were locked on her.

“Oh, look, Lew,” she said, inclining her head, “John’s come to the dance. I’m so glad. Will you excuse me for a minute?”

“Sure,” Lew said calmly. But Puma’s taunting, dirty slurs leapt into his mind. “Go on. Dance with John, but—”

“Don’t be silly,” she interrupted him. “I don’t want to dance with John. I want John to meet and hopefully dance with a pretty young girl who recently moved to Maya with her family.”

“You do?”

“Yes.” Her eyes met his. “Lew, I’m so afraid that John has grown too attached to me, and …” She shook her head worriedly. “I wouldn’t hurt John for the world. He’s such a sweet, good boy. He badly needs to meet some friends his own age.”

“Yes, he does,” Lew agreed.

But he felt unreasonably angry with Mollie for being sensitive to John’s growing affection and genuinely concerned about hurting the boy. Robbers and murderers were not supposed to feel and behave like kind-hearted human beings. It rankled him. Frowning, he watched her walk away, stubbornly conceding that there was
some
good in her.

But not enough.

A soft hand on his arm and a throaty voice saying, “You look lost, but I’ve found you, so now you are mine,” drew Lew’s attention to the small, dark-haired woman smiling seductively at him.

When the music began, Mary Beth McCalister lifted her arms up around his neck, lacing her fingers together behind his head. “Dance with me.” It was more command than invitation.

Lew’s hands spanned her small waist and he obligingly spun her about the crowded floor. Mary Beth quickly pressed her small, curvaceous body suggestively to his, standing on tiptoe, undulating her generous hips against him. Urging his head down, she spoke softly into his ear of the extreme heat and of what it was doing to her.

“Since the breeze died at dusk,” she murmured huskily, “I’ve hardly been able to get a breath.” She inhaled deeply then, causing her large, soft breasts to swell and push against Lew’s white shirt front.

“It is warm,” Lew agreed.

“Hot,” Mary Beth corrected. “It’s hot, Lew. May I call you Lew?” Not waiting for an answer, she said, “Know what I like to do when it’s this hot, Lew?” She plucked playfully at the open collar of his shirt.

“I’ve no idea.”

Dark, flirtatious eyes holding his gaze, she confided, “I ice down some French champagne and take it up to the privacy of my bedroom.” She giggled naughtily. “Then I strip off
all
my hot, confining clothing and stretch out on my luxurious mink comforter. I sip champagne and …” she paused for effect, “I rub tiny chunks of ice all over my nude, feverish body.”

She leaned back in the circle of Lew’s supporting arms, waiting for him to reply.

He smiled and said, “I’m sure that cools you off.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it does the opposite. Have you ever lain naked on soft, ticklish fur while a beautiful woman rubbed ice over your throat and chest and belly?”

Lew shook his head. “I think I’d remember.”

“Oh, you would. You’d remember all your life.” She wet her lips and whispered, “Come out to my ranch tonight after the dance. Let’s cool off, Lew. Together.”

“I don’t think so, Mary Beth.”

“Why not? Fontaine Gayerre won’t cool you off, and we both know it. All she does is make you hot.”

“Now, Mary Beth—”

“Don’t say no now. Think about it. I’ll be waiting, naked, with the champagne chilled and the ice chipped. And I’ll be hot, Lew. Soooo hot.”

Her brazen suggestion was more than a little appealing to the hot-blooded Lew Hatton. She was exactly the kind of bedtime playmate with whom he’d spent many wonderful nights in his wild youth. Turning down what she offered was not easy. He had considered, more than once, visiting the fun-loving grass widow.

But it was too dangerous. Maya was a small town. And he was here for one purpose only. To take in the renegade, Mollie Rogers.

Mollie stood on the fringes of the crowd, talking distractedly with John Distant Star and pretty Margarita Rios. Margarita was an outgoing, friendly sixteen-year-old whose dark eyes had stayed locked on the tall, slender John from the moment Mollie introduced them.

Margarita had quickly put John at his ease and Mollie could hardly believe her ears when he shyly agreed to Margarita’s suggestion that they walk down to the refreshment table. Smiling and waving the couple away, Mollie turned her attention on another couple. A handsome couple swaying sensuously together on the dance floor. Lew and the glamorous Mary Beth McCalister.

Mollie tried very hard not to be jealous. But it didn’t work. She was sick with jealousy and sure that the beautiful, experienced Mary Beth was effortlessly succeeding in doing just what Patricia and Madeline had warned her of—stealing Lew.

It took all her firm resolve to stand idly by, smiling, while a woman she thought far more beautiful than she, and who knew far more about pleasing a man, went shamelessly about seducing Lew while the entire population of Maya looked on.

“What did I tell you?” Patricia stepped up beside Mollie.

“Song’s almost over.” It was Madeline. “Get over there!”

The music finally ended. Lew’s hands dropped to his sides. He looked around. He saw Mollie approaching, her expressive eyes flashing purple fire.

Mary Beth McCalister turned to face her. “I was just telling your handsome beau,” she said, smiling at Mollie, “that I was glad the dance was ending. It’s so warm on the floor. Too warm.” She pointedly looked up at Lew, laughed low in her throat, and said, “It’s hot.”

“It’s warm.”

“It’s hot.”

“Yes,” Mollie agreed. “It’s hot.”

Mollie and Lew sat in the professor’s parked brougham on a spit of land up in the foothills overlooking the city of Maya. It was past midnight.

They had left the dance as soon as the professor took Lew aside and told him he could drive Mollie home and take the long way. “But not too long,” he had added. “I will, of course, be waiting up.”

Anxious to get back in Mollie’s good graces after his dance with Mary Beth, Lew had promptly taken the professor up on the offer. He had gone directly to Mollie, whispered in her ear that he wanted to take her for a ride in the moonlight and show her that she was his only sweetheart. There was no other.

Mollie had been immediately agreeable. Naive and desperately in love, she had jumped at the chance to be alone with him. She was determined to make him happier than Mary Beth McCalister ever could. She would kiss him and kiss him until he would never want to kiss anyone but her.

Now, as they sat in the parked brougham, Lew leaned back comfortably and laid his arm along the seat behind Mollie. He looked at her and thought that he had never seen her look quite as beautiful. Her eyes flashed arrestingly, and her mouth was incredibly tempting. Her golden hair—silvered by the moonlight—spilled down around her pale bare shoulders. An errant lock had fallen across the swell of her bosom, and its wispy ends had worked their way down inside her low-cut bodice.

A muscle twitching in his jaw, Lew reached out, wrapped his fingers around the shiny lock of hair and slowly, gently tugged it free. His heated gaze on her décolletage, he didn’t release the strand of hair. Holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were some priceless treasure, he gazed at the pale, luminous flesh exposed above her dipping neckline.

Finally his eyes lifted to meet hers and he told her, “Some night, sweetheart, I am going to kiss the spot where this golden curl was lying.”

Mollie’s heart tried to beat its way out of her chest and she knew that, as a lady, she should protest such a brazen remark. She started to do just that, but thought better of it. Mary Beth McCalister wouldn’t object to such talk—nor even the deed itself—and she had to keep Lew from Mary Beth.

So she smiled seductively, put a hand to his handsome face and, letting her fingertips glide over his smooth, dark jawline, said breathlessly, “It all belongs to you, Lew.”

The simple statement gave Lew a quick rush of excitement. Then he reminded himself that this was no sweet maiden. If it belonged to him now, it had belonged to the Texas Kid and so many others in the past. Consciously pushing the unpleasant thought to the back of his mind, he slowly bent his head, and said, “And I want it all, sweetheart. Every precious bit of it.”

His warm lips brushed Mollie’s while his fingers continued to clasp the lock of hair. There was no mistaking her eagerness. She tilted her face up and leaned into him, her eyes closing. With deliberate slowness, Lew kissed her softly, his lips tenderly molding, tasting, playing.

His arm left the seat back and—her hair still entwined in his fingers—he gently cupped her cheeks in his hands. He nibbled teasingly on her full bottom lip and kissed its fleshy inside, slanting his mouth across hers. His hands left her face and slipped down to the sides of her throat. He took plucking, sucking kisses from her soft, moist mouth, and all the while he was whispering that she was his only sweetheart, his only woman. He wanted to kiss her forever. He wanted to kiss her all over. To make her his completely.

His low, soft-spoken words and his exquisite kisses so excited Mollie that she moved her hands from his shirtfront and wrapped her arms tightly around his trim waist. She heard his quick sharp intake of air as he winced.

She pulled back immediately. “Lew, what is it?”

Teeth clenched, he managed, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“That isn’t true. You’re hurt. I’ve hurt you.”

“No, sweetheart, you didn’t hurt me. I bruised my ribs the day that bay stallion threw me.”

“You bruised—why didn’t you tell me? Oh, Lew, let me see. I never knew … and you worked all day.” Already her nimble fingers were at his shirt’s buttons. In seconds she pushed the white cotton fabric apart and, seeing the large area of discolored flesh, she gasped. And then she acted instinctively, a woman in love whose man had been hurt. “My darling,” she murmured and bent to him.

Tenderly, lovingly, she began kissing his corded ribs while Lew, stunned and speechless, trembled and felt his heart race as he gazed down on the golden head bent to him.

“Lew, my poor Lew,” Mollie murmured, her warm, open lips pressing kisses to the bruised flesh.

Short of breath, Lew leaned back and clung to the carriage seat with both hands. He sat there in the summer moonlight, his knees wide apart, his naked chest expanding, while this beautiful golden-haired woman sweetly aroused him with angel kisses to his aching ribs. Her long eyelashes fluttered against his hot skin, and her silky hair fell in a silvery pool over his bared chest and onto his lap, tickling him, exciting him.

Lew groaned aloud when he felt her tongue licking hot, wet fire over his throbbing heart. His muscles tightened instantly, causing the waistband of his trousers to fall away from his belly. Of their own volition, his hands went to Mollie’s head to guide her face down to his contracting stomach. His blue eyes closed in ecstasy, then opened in shock when her warm, soft lips began to follow the vertical line of dark hair marching down his taut abdomen. Holding his breath he watched the blond head move lower and lower until her mouth was nearly to his navel. A large section of her hair had fallen between his legs and lay fanned out over his straining, aching groin.