Nan Ryan (38 page)

Mollie closed her eyes, hugged Lew fiercely
, and pushed aside troublesome thoughts of the future. There was no future. There was only now. This minute. This hour of happiness and fulfillment and she was going to enjoy and savor it. Inhaling deeply, she stroked Lew’s long, smooth back and smiled dreamily when he nuzzled the curve of her neck and shoulder.

“I think,” he said, rolling over, bringing her with him, “we’d better go into the canyon where it’s warmer.” He raised his hands to capture the long, silvery hair the winds were tossing about Mollie’s face.

“But it’s so magical here,” she protested, reluctant to leave their moonlit bed of bliss.

“So it is,” he said, his lips curved in a half smile. “But we’ll make it magical inside as well. I’ll build a fire. We’ll heat some water and clean up a little.”

Mollie said teasingly, “No more baths in icy streams?”

Lew turned his head to the side, playfully bit her shoulder, and said with mock gruffness, “Woman, don’t make fun of your man.”

Mollie laughed with delight. She liked the sound of that. She
was
his woman. And he was her man. At least for now. She said softly, earnestly, “I am your woman, Lew. Teach me how to please you. I’ll do anything for you. With you.”

Lew sighed with satisfaction. “Sweetheart, you do please me. Can’t you tell?”

“I’m so new in the ways of love. I want to learn all there is to learn, to do all the things with you that … that your other women have done. Will you show me?”

Charmed by her frank approach to all aspects of life, Lew laughed and gave her bare bottom a possessive slap. “Consider it done, baby.”

The wind continued to rise, whipping through the canyon, chilling them both. With Mollie in his arms and their blankets and clothes in her arms, Lew crossed the wide meadow while Mollie’s long blond hair blew into his face, occasionally blinding him. Both were laughing. Both were freezing. Both were happy. After several near-falls, Lew stumbled into the pitch black canyon crevice with his giggling burden intact.

Inside he stopped, kissed Mollie, and laughed because a strand of her hair had caught between their lips. Both sputtered and spit and tried the kiss again, this time with complete success.

Then slowly Lew lowered Mollie to her feet and said, “Stay right where you are, sweetheart.”

He fished inside the pocket of his discarded pants and found some matches. He struck one on the boulder beside his head and held it high. Its tiny flame illuminating a small portion of the narrow canyon, he led Mollie around the many twists and turns of jutting rock where the moonlight never reached.

In seconds they stepped into the wider area where they would sleep. Short minutes later Lew had a fire going, its orange glow the only light in the inky blackness enveloping the canyon.

Soon, Mollie, standing naked before the fire, felt her face flush and blamed it on her closeness to the flames. But it wasn’t really the fire. Lew was kneeling directly before her, repeatedly dipping a cloth into heated water and carefully, gently bathing her. He left no part of her untouched, from her crimson face to her curling toes. When he had cleansed her completely, he solicitously wrapped a blanket around her bare shoulders and sat her down by the fire.

Then Mollie watched, transfixed, while Lew unselfconsciously washed himself. She never took her eyes off him. His lean, naked body, licked by the flickering firelight, was powerfully beautiful to the woman who loved him. The play of muscles in his back and shoulders. The sheen of moisture on his dark chest and arms. The firmness of his tight, smooth buttocks and tempered steel of his hard thighs. The profusion of dense raven hair around that most male part of his splendid anatomy. Every inch of him was masculine perfection, and Mollie was almost sorry when his sponge bath ended and he tossed the damp cloth aside.

Turning, he asked, “Hungry, baby?”

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

“No.”

“Sleepy?”

“A little.”

“Me, too.” He grinned and came to her as Mollie rose and looked around. Puzzled, he said, “Lose something?”

She nodded and started past him. “My clothes. I folded them and left …”

“Sweetheart,” he caught her arm, drew her to him, “You won’t be sleeping in your clothes this night.”

“I won’t?”

Shaking his head, he pushed the blanket from her shoulders, allowed it to drop to the canyon floor. “Ever sleep naked?”

“Never.”

“It’s very comfortable.”

Mollie smiled and put her arms around his neck. “Then naked it is.”

They quickly stretched out in the firelight, Lew on his back with a long arm around Mollie. She snuggled against him, sighing, stretching, listening to his deep, sure voice as he—at her request—spun ghost stories. Mollie loved it. She loved lying naked in the darkness with her fearless lover while he made up spooky tales to scare her so that she’d cling tightly to him.

The last thing Mollie remembered was pressing close against Lew’s hard, warm body and his being halfway through a scary story about a half man, half beast. A huge, frightening predator who hunted those who had lost a personal item which he in turn had found. With something of his victim’s in hand, the monster ruthlessly stalked his unsuspecting prey and …

Mollie was fast asleep.

“Mollie?” Lew’s voice was a low, soft whisper. “Honey?” No answer.

He smiled, kissed her temple and sighed. He considered getting up to put more wood on the fire. Then yawned and decided against it. He didn’t want to disturb the slumbering Mollie. He would keep her warm. He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders and drew her closer. Soon he, too, was fast asleep.

The fire had gone out. It was totally black in the canyon when Mollie awakened, panicky from a terrifying nightmare. A horrible dream in which a big half man, half beast was bearing down on them. The huge being was bearded, ugly, grotesque. He held in his hand something that belonged to them, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

Chilled and trembling, Mollie realized that Lew’s protective arms were no longer around her. His back was to her. He had turned in his sleep as though he no longer wanted her close. She felt alone and afraid. It was too dark in the canyon. Dark and cold and claustrophobic. Too cut off from the world.

In the distance a night bird made a strange, unearthly sound and Mollie shuddered.

Overwhelmed with a feeling of uneasiness, she felt as though the cliffs of the narrow canyon were beginning to lean. She felt as if they were going to fall in and swallow her up. The night silence was deafening, and Mollie longed for the daylight, still hours away.

The nightmare continued to nag and Mollie, seeing the huge hairy being whether her eyes were open or closed, tried desperately to make out what it was he carried. It was something that glittered and shone brightly and … and …

“No!” Mollie screamed and bolted upright.

“Sweetheart?” Lew came instantly awake. “What is it?”

Mollie couldn’t see Lew in the thick darkness, could only feel his hand on her arm. She sobbed, “I’m afraid! I had a dream and … and …” She stopped, shook her head.

“And what, baby?” he urged, drawing her into his embrace, gently rocking her.

“I … I don’t remember.”

“That’s good, then. It’s already forgotten, the way bad dreams ought to be.”

“Yes,” she murmured, wishing that it really was forgotten. Wondering why she dreamed of the Kid. Hoping it had no meaning.

“It’s my fault,” Lew said, turning her so that she was draped across his lap and leaning back in his arms. “It was stupid of me to tell all those spooky stories. I’m sorry.”

Mollie pressed her cheek to his warm solid chest. “You don’t believe dreams come true, do you, Lew?”

“Only good ones,” he said. “Sometimes they come true.”

“Have you ever had one come true?”

“Yes, I have. I dreamed that a beautiful, golden-haired, gloriously naked girl was alone with me in a dark canyon.”

Mollie lifted her head, saw his eyes flashing in the darkness. “And what did you do? You and this naked girl?”

“We made love until the sun came up.”

Lew kissed Mollie until she became warm and pliant in his arms, then he made slow, sweet love to her.

The nightmare was forgotten.

When the first faint glimmer of light made its tenacious way down into the narrow passages and rocky overhangs of Oak Creek Canyon, an indulgent Lew and an inquisitive Mollie were still making love.

Lew now lay stretched out on his stomach with his cheek resting on his folded arms. Mollie was astride his hips, her hands clutching his ribs. She was bending to him, pressing kisses to his long, smooth, deeply clefted back. The reason? He had done so to her earlier. He’d had her lie on her stomach and he’d straddled her and kissed her bare, tingling backside for a long, lovely time, giving the butterfly birthmark an inordinate amount of attention, before turning her over and making love to her.

It had been incredibly pleasurable for Mollie, so after they had rested and talked and dozed, she asked Lew if she could do to him what he had done to her. His answer was a kiss and a quick turn onto his stomach.

So she sat astride him now, kissing him just as he had kissed her. She trailed wet, warm caresses over his shoulder blades, down his arms, across his waist. And just as she had when he did this to her, Lew sighed and squirmed and tensed.

Still, Mollie was at a loss when, asking that she rise to her knees for a second, Lew turned over to lie on his back.

Mollie’s eyes immediately went to his rigid masculinity and she heard him say, “Well, aren’t you going to do to me what I did to you?”

Her eyes sought his. “But that was different. You could put … I can’t do the same … we’ll have to change places.” She started to slide off him.

He stopped her, his hands swiftly gripping her narrow waist. “No, sweetheart, we don’t. You can make love to me like this.”

“I can?” She looked doubtful.

“You will,” he told her. “Raise up on your knees again, honey.” Still skeptical, Mollie obeyed. Lew took her hand, placed it on his pulsing erection, and with his long, brown fingers covering hers, helped her guide his hard flesh up into her waiting warmth. Mollie, violet eyes wide, held her breath as cautiously, inch by careful inch, she slowly impaled herself on the hard, throbbing heat of him.

“Lewwww,” she gasped, awed, excited.

She was afraid to move, afraid she would hurt him, afraid she would hurt herself. But not for long. Soon passion and Lew led her and Mollie began to accommodate Lew’s slow driving thrusts with lazy rolls of her hips, gyrating, squeezing, loving him. Reality slipped away, and Mollie eagerly rode her lover in the dawn light, the motion of her hips increasing their rhythm, her bare breasts swaying with her movements. Her wild, untamed hair falling into her face, she tossed her head and clung to Lew’s ribs as she looked steadily into his eyes and loved him good.

Lew put his hands under her arms and urged her down to him. He lifted his head and captured a hard-tipped nipple with his mouth. He sucked vigorously while Mollie continued to grind and roll and buck against him in an increasingly frantic climb toward orgasmic ecstasy. When he had kissed and licked both breasts until they were pinkened and tender from his caresses, Mollie pulled away and sat back up. She arched her throat, let her head fall back and—so inflamed she thought she would explode—felt the first violent contractions beginning.

“Lew … Lew … it … it’s happening,” she said excitedly, as once again the brand-new, frightening, fabulous sensations of searing sexual climax claimed her.

Lew stayed with her, pumping into her, gripping and guiding her hips, until both were caught up in that magical moment of carnal euphoria. Mollie screamed out her wrenching release. Lew groaned his. And when it was passed, Mollie collapsed on him as tiny tremors still jolted through her body and her heart beat double time.

Her flushed cheek rested on Lew’s heaving chest and his body was still a part of hers when he said, “Any doubts left about that particular position for making love?”

Mollie sighed blissfully. “None. It’s my absolute favorite.”

Lew chuckled. “Sweetheart, you can’t say that until you’ve tried them all.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“Many more. We’ve only just begun.”

Happily Mollie smiled, kissed Lew’s damp chest, and said, “Just let me catch my breath.”

Saddle leather squeaked and horses’ hooves
kicked up dust as the riders began their long climb into Oak Creek Canyon.

In the lead, a big, bearded man glanced irritably up at the leaden sky and cursed. The air was heavy with rain and clouds blotted out the sun, making the crimson cliffs look dark and slippery. Thunder rumbled and lightning streaked across the heavens.

Shortly, great sheets of water cascaded down from an angry sky as the sudden summer storm unleashed its full fury. The drenched riders complained bitterly, protesting that to ride on in the blinding rain was foolish and unnecessary.

Their bearded leader pulled up on his mount, turned in the saddle, and drew an ivory-handled revolver, aiming it at the man nearest him.