Tears of the Renegade

by Linda Howard

  For a moment pain so intense that it blinded her tore at her insides, and she inhaled sharply. Then she managed to push it away, accepting that she would have to prove to him that he could trust her, in all things. She moved against him in a way that wrenched a groan from his lips. With a lithe, powerful twist of his body, he rolled and placed himself above her, his muscled legs controlling hers.

  With one shaking finger, he outlined the small circles of her nipples, watching as the velvet flesh puckered into succulent buds. “Sweet Susan,” he breathed, and lowered his head to offer homage with his mouth. Like fire, his lips burned over the soft mounds of her breasts, and he teased the quivering slopes with his devilish tongue. Susan moaned, a sound unnoticed except perhaps by the deeper, primal instincts of the man who bent over her. Her insides were molten, her body liquid with the flow of desires that urged her relentlessly onward. He suckled strongly at her breasts, and the moans became whimpers, little sounds of pleading.

  But he lingered over her, as if determined to enjoy everything about her. With hands and mouth he explored her, discovering the different textures and tastes of her body, searching out her most sensitive places with probing fingers and a curious tongue. She writhed under his touch, her hips undulating as she arched higher and higher toward the sun, her skin breathing the perfume of passion. She cried out in hoarse, mindless reaction when his hand moved with sure, heart-stopping intimacy to discover the degree of her readiness, and he sucked in a deep breath. “Now,” he said with fierce intent, his hand moving her thighs apart, opening her legs to him. Susan obeyed the demanding touch instantly, unable even to think of not doing so, opening herself to him like a vulnerable flower, chaining him with her trust more surely than he could chain her with his strength.

  He moved over her, his eyes feverish with desire, his strong body shaking as he covered her softness with the hard power of his own frame. He slid his hands under her, cradling the satin curves of her buttocks in his palms and lifting her up to his thrust. Susan whimpered softly, wanting him so much that she was aching with it, and she arched invitingly. He took her with a powerful surge that drove him deeply into her, sheathing himself completely in the searing velvet of her flesh. The whimpers in Susan’s throat caught as a shock wave thundered through her body, her chaste body that hadn’t known a man’s passion since Vance’s death. A reflexive cry of pain slipped from her lips, and her fingers dug into his biceps, feeling them bulge with the strain as he reached desperately for control.

  He hung over her, staring down at her with astonishment freezing his expression. “My God,” he muttered hoarsely.

  Her lips were parted, her breath moving swiftly in and out between them, as her body struggled to accept him, adjust to him. “Cord?” she gasped, asking for reassurance, a little frightened with an instinctive, feminine fear.

  He held himself very still. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No, no! Don’t stop! Please, don’t stop.” The words turned into a moan as they trailed out of her mouth. She felt as if she would die if he left her now, as if a vital part of her would be torn away. But he didn’t pull away; he lay motionless atop her until the tension had eased out of her body and he felt the inner relaxation, until she began to move under him with little instinctive undulations of her hips. She clung to him, her arms around his neck, her legs locked around his waist when at last he began to answer her movements with his own. He was slow and gentle, taking incredible care of her, making certain that she was with him every step of the way as he pushed his body toward satisfaction. His hands and mouth buried her conscious thought under a flurry of hot caresses that intensified the fire in her loins, pushing her out of control, past any semblance of serenity or decorum. In his arms she wasn’t the quiet, demure Susan Blackstone; she was a wild thing, hot and demanding, concerned only with the riptides of pleasure that were sucking her out to sea. She clutched at him with damp, desperate hands, and her heels dug into his back, his buttocks, the backs of his thighs. He was no longer gentle, but driven by the same demons that drove her, pounding into her with a wild power that had only one goal.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he gritted, his teeth clenched. It was a cry that erupted without conscious thought, and he heard it but scarcely realized that he’d said it. But it was true; he couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t get deeply enough into her to satisfy the burning need that was torturing him; he wanted to blend his flesh with hers until the lines of separateness faded and he absorbed her into himself. He wanted to bury himself so deeply within her that she could never get him out, that her body, the very cells of her flesh, would always have the imprint of his possession.

  While he was branding her with his touch, Susan branded him with hers. She’d never realized how incomplete she felt until this moment when she knew the shattering satisfaction of being whole. She tried with her hands, her mouth, the undulant caress of her body, to show him how much she loved him, giving him everything she had to give, declaring her love with every movement, mingling herself with him in an act of love that transcended the physical.

  There, on a sun-washed bed, she gave her heart to an outlaw and found a heaven that she hadn’t known existed.

  In the silent aftermath of passion they lay together with their bodies slowly cooling, their pulses gradually resuming a normal rate. Time drifted past, and still they lay together, reluctant to move and break the spell, reluctant to face the moment when their flesh would no longer be joined. Her fingers threaded through the tousled softness of his dark hair, stroking gently, and he settled his full weight on her with an almost soundless sigh of contentment. Susan stared at the ceiling, so happy that she felt she might fly into a million little pieces of ecstasy. Her lips trembled abruptly, and the image of the rough, timbered ceiling blurred. She bit her lip to stifle the sob that rose in her throat and demanded voicing, but she couldn’t prevent the identical tracks of moisture that ran out of the corners of her eyes and disappeared into the hair at her temples. He was relaxing into sleep and she tried to keep from disturbing him; it was silly to cry because the most wonderful thing in her life had just happened to her!

  But he was a man who had stayed alive by paying attention to his senses and gut instincts, and perhaps he felt the fine degree of tension in her body. His head lifted abruptly, and he surveyed her brimming eyes with sharp attention. He levered himself up on one elbow and lifted his hand to wipe at the tears with his thumb, the callused pad rasping slightly across the sensitive skin of her temples. He was frowning, the dark, level brows lowered over narrowed eyes that searched her delicate features so intently that she felt he could see inside her mind.

  “Is it because I hurt you?” he rumbled.

  Quickly she shook her head and tried to give him a smile, but the stretching of her lips wobbled out of control and vanished. “No. You didn’t really hurt me. It was only at first…I wasn’t expecting…” She couldn’t get the words out, and she swallowed, forcing her will on her voice. “It was just so…so special.” Another tear escaped her eye.

  He caught that one with his lips, pressing an openmouthed kiss to her temple and darting his tongue out to cleanse the salty liquid from her skin. “Susan,” he breathed almost inaudibly, saying her name as if he could taste it, as if he savored the sound of it. “I want you again.”

  Golden sunlight washed the room with brightness, allowing no shadows to hide their passion, and no shadows at all on her heart. Her lips trembled again, and she reached for him, drawing him into the tenderness of her embrace. “Yes,” she said simply, because she couldn’t deny her heart.

  Chapter Seven

  There were isolated moments, during the hours that followed, when she was able to think, but for the most part she was overtaken by the unstoppable tidal wave of desire. He knew just how to touch her, how long to linger, how to bring her time and again to the heart-stopping peak of pleasure. His hard hands learned every inch of her as he taught he
r to accommodate his desires, and she gave herself to him without reserve. She was incapable of holding any part of her heart back, all thoughts of protection left behind in the dust of the past. She had to love him with all the strength and devotion she could, because she could give no less. He’d known too much coldness, too much pain, and she sought to heal him with the soft, searing worship of her body. He was wild, hungry, sometimes almost violent, but with her love she absorbed the bitterness from him, soothing away the loneliness of his isolation. A combination of many things had made him a loner, a man without hearth or home, who lived on the razor’s edge of danger and stayed alive by his wits and his finely honed body. Without words she accepted his passion and gentled it with her unquestionable trust. She tried to show him that he was safe with her, that he had no need for the wall that he’d built to keep himself apart from the rest of the world.

  The sun was past its zenith and sliding down to the horizon when he relaxed abruptly and fell asleep, as if a light had been clicked off. Susan lay beside him and almost cried again, this time in thankfulness. He did trust her, at least a little, or he wouldn’t have been able to sleep in her presence. She somehow had a mental image of him taking his pleasure with innumerable women, faceless and nameless; then, when they slept sated in his arms, he would slip away from them to find his solitary bed. She watched him as he slept, his powerful body sprawled across the bed, his mouth softened under the black silk of his moustache. He had long, curling lashes, like a child’s, and she smiled as she tried to imagine him as a toddler, with his cheeks still showing the chubby innocence of a baby.

  But the innocent child had grown into a hard, wary man whose body was laced with scars, evidence of the battles he’d fought just to stay alive. He’d told her about Judith, but other than that he’d kept his past locked away in the depths of his mind. Other men would have had tales to relate of their adventures, or at least mentioned the different cultures and lands they’d seen, but not Cord. He was a silent warrior, not given to rehashing past battles, and when he was wounded, he crawled away to lick his wounds alone.

  The thought of him being hurt made her heart clench painfully. She couldn’t bear it if he were ever hurt again; just knowing that he had already borne wounds was almost beyond bearing. She leaned forward in blind desperation and touched her mouth lightly, tremblingly, to the round, silvered scar on his right shoulder. His skin twitched under her touch, but he didn’t awaken, and she drifted to the long, thin line that ran down under his left arm, trailing her lips along the length of the scar, with aching tenderness trying to draw from him even the memory of those wounds. She found every scar on his body, licking and kissing them as she crouched protectively over him, guarding him with her slender, delicate woman’s body, healing him. She felt him quiver under her mouth and knew that he was awake, but still she roamed over his body, her gentle hands caressing him. He began to shake, his body taut and ready.

  “You’d better stop,” he warned hoarsely. She didn’t stop, instead turning her loving attention to a scar that furrowed down the inside of his thigh, then moving on to a newer, still-angry scar that snaked down his abdomen. He groaned aloud, his hands clenching on the sheet. She lingered, more intent now on the tension that she could feel building in him, intensifying to a crescendo, wanting to make him writhe with need as he had done to her.

  He endured her loving torment until he was a taut arch on the bed, then his control broke and he reached for her, a primal growl rumbling in his throat as he swept her over him, thrusting up to bury himself in the sweet comfort of her body. His movements were swift and impatient, his hands grasping her hips so tightly that tiny smudged spots would mark the placement of his fingertips for a week. He held her still for his sensual assault, rotating his hips in a manner that drove her to a fast, hard culmination, then followed her while she was still submerged in the powerful waves of satisfaction.

  Afterward he cuddled her against his side, and she curled into his hard, strong body with a sigh that reflected her bone-deep exhaustion. His hand stroked over her hair, smoothing it away from her damp face. “I’m sorry I hurt you, that first time,” he murmured, his thoughts turning lazily to the morning, remembering the shock he’d had at how virginal she’d felt. “But I’m glad as hell that Preston hasn’t had you.”

  So he’d realized what her difficulty in accepting him had signified. She wished that he had trusted her enough to take her word in the matter, but he’d learned the hard way not to trust anyone, and it would take time for her to teach him that he didn’t always have to guard his back. She ran her hand through the dark curls on his chest in an absent manner. “Since Vance—” She stopped, then continued so softly that he had to strain to hear her. “You’re the only one.”

  She didn’t look up, so she missed the expression of almost savage satisfaction that crossed his hard face. She knew only the momentary tightening of his arms before his embrace relaxed and he shifted his weight, coming up on one elbow to lean over her. His hand settled proprietarily on her soft stomach, a little gesture that said a lot. “I don’t want you going anywhere else with him,” he informed her in a voice so darkly menacing that she looked up at him in quick surprise.

  She hesitated, wondering if she dared presume that this day of naked passion had established any sort of stable relationship between them. Very steadily she asked, “Are you offering your services as an escort if I need one?”

  A guarded look came over his face, and he stroked his jaw in a restless manner, as if missing his beard. “If I’m available,” he hedged.

  Susan slowly extricated herself from his arms and sat up, feeling a little chilled by his answer. “And when will you be unavailable?” she queried. “When you’re with Cheryl?”

  Surprise pulled his brows together, but she couldn’t tell if it was the thought itself that surprised him, or that she’d thought she had a right to ask the question at all. Then his face cleared, and amusement began to sparkle in his pale eyes. Very deliberately he let his gaze wander over her, noting the tumbled dark hair, the soft flush that his lovemaking had left on her creamy skin. Her lips were swollen and passionate-looking, and he remembered the way they’d drifted over his body. Her breasts, high and round, fuller than he’d expected, also bore a rosy glow from his caresses and ardent suckling, and as he stared at them he noticed that her pert little nipples were hardening, reaching out as if for another kiss. Swiftly he glanced at her face, and his amusement deepened when he saw the way she was blushing. How could she still blush? For hours she’d lain naked in his arms, totally unselfconscious, allowing him the complete freedom of her body, yet now it took only a slow, enjoyable visual tour of her nakedness to have her blushing like a virgin.

  Then he had still another surprise as he felt the lower hardening of his body in response to her. How could he even think about sex again right now? Five minutes before, he’d thought that the day had been fantastic, the most sexually satisfying day of his life, but that he probably wouldn’t be able to respond again for a week. Now his body was proving him a liar. He wanted her, again and again. The sensual pleasure he felt with her was staggering, but no sooner had his pulse calmed than he began to feel the nagging need to possess more of her. From the moment he’d seen her, he’d wanted to lie on her tight and deep, immerse himself in her tenderness. He’d never been jealous of a woman in his life, until he’d met Susan. It knocked him off balance, the fury that filled him whenever he thought of her dancing with Preston, kissing Preston, letting him put his arms around her. He’d wanted to hurt her because it drove him crazy to think of Preston making love to her. Now he knew that she’d been chaste, yet still there was the possibility that her loyalty was to Preston. Women were hard to read, and a treacherous one was deadly. If he were smarter, he’d keep this one at a distance, at least until everything was settled and he wouldn’t have to watch every word he said to her, but he couldn’t force himself to say the words that would send her away, just as he hadn’t been able to resis
t her rather innocent striptease that morning.

  Susan watched him, waiting for his answer, but his eyes had gone opaque and his face was a blank wall, his thoughts hiding behind it. She was aware that he was becoming aroused by looking at her body, so why should he suddenly lock himself away? Was it because he didn’t think she had any right to question him about his relationships with other women? Well, if he thought she’d sit quietly home while he danced the night away with Cheryl Warren, he’d just have to think again! She balled her fist and thumped him on the chest.

  “Answer me,” she demanded, her blue eyes darkening with fire. “Will you be out with Cheryl? Or any other woman, for that matter?”

  He jackknifed to a sitting position and swung his long legs off the bed. “No,” he said shortly, getting to his feet and leaning down to scoop his jeans from the floor. “I won’t be with any other woman.”

  Did he resent having to give her that reassurance? Suddenly she felt embarrassed at her nakedness, and she snatched up a corner of the tumbled sheet to hold it over her breasts. Until then she had felt protected by the closeness she’d shared with him, but now he was suddenly a stranger again, and her bareness seemed much more vulnerable.

  He gave the sheet a derisive glance. “It’s a little late to try to protect your modesty.”

  Susan bit her lip, wondering if it would be better simply to get up, get dressed, and leave, or if she should try to talk him out of his sudden ill-temper. Had she gotten too close to him today? Was he reacting by trying to push her away with hostility? Looking at him worriedly, she thought that he looked uncomfortable, the way a man looks when a woman is making a nuisance of herself and he doesn’t know how to get rid of her. She paled at the idea.