Part 5 (1/2)

She needed to come.

He scooped up her thighs, used the crooks of his arms to spread them wider, higher, and thrust again.

”d.a.m.n you!” She was helpless against his strength, helpless to stop the blaze that entered her bloodstream and slid through her veins. She grabbed at his arms, digging her nails into his leather jacket, and used that leverage to lift herself over and over, small movements that collided with his need and fed her own.

As if she had spoken, he said, ”All right!” and rolled over, bringing her to the top.

His black hair spread out on the green gra.s.s. His face beneath the beard was harsh, and his eyes were narrow slits of demand.

He loosened his grip. ”Ride, then!”

He was a big-boned man. She couldnat straddle him and have her knees touch the ground. So, with her hands on his bare belly, she pushed herself up, put her feet under her, and rode.

It was decadent.

It was luscious.

She serviced him.

She serviced herself.

She listened for his groans and made him suffer. She probed for her own pleasures and repeated the movements that worked for her.

The sun beat down on her shoulders. The breeze caressed her nipples.

Beneath her he writhed. Inside he stretched her to the limit.

He was a beautiful animal, with long, wiry muscles and strength in his big hands.

And something about him slipped under her skin, into her blood, while at the same time he breathed deep, as if her essence fed his heart, his soul.

Her thighs burned with exertion as she rose and fell, rose and fell. She panted harshly, fighting to draw in enough of the thin, cool air to sustain this race to the finish. She moved faster and faster, dragging them toward completion.

o.r.g.a.s.m took control of her, a brief, glorious, pulse-pounding climax that expanded her senses to include the whole world, and shrank her focus to hima”and her. She thought he was beautiful as he bucked beneath her, fierce, undisciplined, wild with pa.s.sion.

They finished too soon. Throwing her arms out in an excess of jubilation, she laughed out loud. Shead never been so alive, so happy. She had escaped Mount Anaya. They had escaped death.

She wilted down on him, panting, exultant.

He wrapped his arms around her back and rolled once more.

She was under him, the heat of his body between her legs, the cool earth below her, and around her head tiny white flowers blossomed.

He stared at her as if she bewildered him.

She stared back, smiling, recovering from her folly. Slowly his dark gaze recalled her to normalcy, then to wariness.

She had had s.e.x with this man, held him in her arms while he slept beside her, trusted him to save her life. Yet she knew nothing about him, and his eyes . . . his eyes chilled her with the same sense of impending disaster shead experienced on the slopes of Mount Anaya.

With the fingers of one hand he pushed her hair away from her face. ”You shouldnat have done that.”

”What? What do you mean? I shouldnat have had s.e.x with you?” In a tart tone she said, ”I didnat know I had a choice.”

”You shouldnat have done me. You shouldnat have loved it. Most of all you shouldnat have laughed.”

She stared at him.

He looked so stern, like a revivalist minister preaching the Old Testament.

She struggled to divine his meaning. ”I wasnat laughing at you, if thatas what you mean. I was laughinga””

”a”for joy. I understand.”

He observed her so closely, she felt as if his gaze scoured her face, revealing more than she wanted him to know, and he made her aware of his weight pressing her into the gra.s.s, her widespread legs, her risky vulnerability. She s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably.

He stroked her hair again. ”Someday I would like to hear you laugh again.”

”I donat laugh like that very often.” She didnat do any of this very often.

”Nevertheless.” With every sign of reluctance he pulled away from her. He stood and stripped, a swift, efficient elimination of clothing and boots.

He tossed everything on the ground, then stood over her, looking down at her, his fists clenching and unclenching.

To suspect him of lifting weights was absurd; he led a life on the edge of civilization, doing G.o.d knew what for a living, yet he was long and lean, a sleek predator with coiled strength in the bunching muscles of his arms, in the bulk of his shoulders, the ripped power of his belly. His c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s hung between his legs, and although he was limp, she knew only too well the size and power he wielded there.

Charcoal black smudges etched jagged lines down his chest and arm. The marks seemed to form thunderbolts, but they were shrunken, pulling at the edges of his skin, eating into his flesh. She couldnat ignore them, and compa.s.sion made her ask, ”What happened?”

Leaning down, he grasped her wrists and brought her to her feet. ”Itas nothing.”

”Nothing?” She touched one lightly. ”It looks like a burn, but thereas a form . . . isnat there?”

”Itas a birthmark.”

”Is it painful?”

”No.” He pulled away from her.

Whatever those marks were, he was sensitive about them. And the way he looked at her, like a man who had reached a decision, made her think.

She didnat want to think.

But she was, above all, a woman of good sense, a woman made tough by necessity, a workaholic who spent her life completing one job and going to another. Until this man had visited her tent, she hadnat bothered to take a lover for years. A lover was too much trouble. A lover always required attention, and she didnat have the time to waste.

Now she felt as if shead been reborn to this world; too open, too raw, too new. She was like a child experiencing a swarm of new emotionsa”or were they old emotions set free? She didnat know.

But she did know her lack of discipline would have consequences.