Golden Flames

by Kay Hooper

  He was still holding her hips, pressing her body against his, and his face was taut, his eyes dark. “I don’t think I can wait this time,” he said thickly. “I’ve wanted you so long, sweet, so desperately.”

  “Your wound,” she managed, breathless as his hands slid over the tight jeans to shape her buttocks.

  “What wound?” he murmured, just before his lips covered hers.

  Victoria forgot it as well, mindless in the stark need of his kiss. Her breasts ached against his hard chest, and her lower body throbbed even as his did. The shocking intimacy of his subtle movements against her sent her senses into a dizzying spin, until she was aware of nothing but him, his body against her, his mouth claiming hers with the driven impatience of something held in check for too long.

  She could barely breathe when he lifted his head at last, and stared up at him dazedly. He pushed her gently back onto the fur-covered cot and then knelt before her, pulling her boots off and setting them aside, removing the thick socks. Victoria wouldn’t have believed that such a matter-of-fact action could have been erotic, but it was, and when his thumb brushed her sensitive instep, she caught her breath.

  His eyes gleamed beneath the hooded lids as he rose and pulled her back up. His fingers trailed down her thigh and unfastened the leather thong tying her gun down; then he unbuckled the heavy belt, and dropped her gun near the discarded boots. “I’ve wanted to do this,” he murmured, his hands lifting to her hair, “since the first moment I saw you.” He freed her braid from the thong and ran his fingers through her hair, spreading it in a pale curtain over her shoulders, and watching as the firelight glimmered off the pale strands. “Beautiful…I knew it would be.” Her leather vest was slipped off, and fell unheeded to the floor. He unbuttoned the tight cuffs of her shirt, and chuckled softly when his fingers found the scabbard strapped to her forearm.

  “So this is where you hid the knife. I wondered. Who taught you to wear a knife?”

  “My brother, during the war,” she murmured, hardly aware of the question.

  Falcon unbuckled the scabbard and tossed it aside. Her shirt was tugged free of the waistband of her jeans, and he began slowly unbuttoning it from the top.

  Victoria was caught, trapped in the darkness of his eyes, and it was a familiar feeling. Her heart was pounding heavily, her breath coming fast between parted lips, and the hollowness deep inside her was filled only with an aching heat. She listened to his deep, rough voice and gazed into his compelling eyes, and she couldn’t have turned away from him then even if it had been the price of her life.

  The shirt was pushed off her shoulders and dropped, and Falcon caught his breath as he stared at her. He had seen her before, in a darkened carriage and garden, in a book-lined room. But not like this. Those shadowy glimpses paled beside this. Naked to the waist, the firelight flickering over her golden flesh, she was more beautiful than any person or thing he had ever seen. “God, Victoria…” His hands surrounded her full breasts, and he watched intently as his stroking thumbs brought the sensitive tips hard and erect. He heard her gasp, felt her sway toward him, and the feverish need to see her totally naked blazed through him.

  Victoria twined her fingers in his thick hair, feeling his mouth move slowly downward between her breasts, barely conscious that he had dropped to one knee. Then she felt his fingers unfastening her jeans, and knew a moment of instinctive panic, aware that she was vulnerable as never before. But the panic faded as he smoothed the coarse material down over her hips, faded because he was moving his lips over her quivering belly, and the sensation drove everything else from her mind.

  Then she was lying on the cot, with no memory of being placed there, watching him swiftly discard his own clothing. His eyes were sweeping her body, hot and glittering, and she had never felt so much a woman as she did in that moment. Vaguely, she thought that she should have been shy or embarrassed, because she had never lain naked while a man looked at her, but it was a fleeting thought and untroubling. Her body burned, and she looked at his in wonder as the clothing fell away, fascinated by his power, by hard planes and angles and muscles that rippled with every movement.

  Black hair covered his chest, arrowed down his hard, flat stomach to the thicket over his loins, and she caught her breath in surprise. Beautiful—he was beautiful with the strength and pride of a wild stallion. She’d never known a man could look like that, never realized such beauty existed. His desire was obvious in the jutting fullness of his manhood, and she let her gaze move slowly back up to meet his darkened eyes.

  So this was desire, this terrible hunger for something she couldn’t even put a name to. He was so beautiful, and she wanted him so desperately.

  But his wound. The bandage was starkly white against his bronze flesh, wrapping his upper chest and one shoulder, and the thought that he might tear the wound open and start bleeding again was a worry she couldn’t ignore.

  “Falcon, you haven’t healed yet—“

  “You’ll heal me,” he said thickly, joining her on the narrow bed.

  “But you might start to bleed!”

  “I won’t,” he promised recklessly, and kissed her before she could protest again. Her flesh was silk beneath his touch as his hand stroked lightly beneath her breasts, her response instant and total, and he ignored the dull ache of his healing wound. Other aches were more insistent, driving him. His heart was thundering, his breath a rasp, and the fullness of his loins a fire that was burning him alive.

  Victoria bit her lip to hold back a wild cry when his mouth trailed down her throat and between her breasts, a restless heat filling her until she wanted to move, wanted to plead with him to hurry, to stop torturing her like this. But the ache grew stronger, maddening, until her entire body was taut and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t hear for the pounding of her own heart against her ribs. She gripped his shoulders without even feeling the bandage under one hand, all her burning senses concentrated beneath his lips as they moved over her breasts.

  She lost what was left of her breath when he finally stopped tormenting her and captured a throbbing nipple in his mouth, but that was another kind of torture, and she moaned with the sweet agony of it. Her body shifted restlessly, burning, and she moaned again when his hand slipped down over her flat belly.

  She could feel his touch there like a hot brand, moving lower, until she arched against him with a broken cry when his fingers moved through the pale curls at the base of her belly and slipped between her thighs. It was too much, it was…Her thighs were taut, trying to force his hand away from the exquisite sensitivity he was so close to because it was too much. And then it wasn’t enough, and her legs parted for him, and the pleasure jolted through her like madness.

  “Falcon…make it stop…it’s getting worse, make it stop,” she pleaded huskily.

  “I will, sweet,” he murmured against her breast, flicking the distended nipple with his tongue and then drawing it into his mouth hungrily. She was so sweet, so soft and warm, she was driving him out of his mind. His palm covered the satiny curls of her womanhood, his fingers probing, and he could feel the slick heat of her response to him.

  Victoria was on fire, her flesh burning her, and the erotic touch of his fingers only fed the blaze instead of diminishing it. She knew she was dying, knew it because her heart had gone wild and she couldn’t breathe and the flames were consuming her. Her stomach muscles knotted painfully and her head lashed, and he was killing her instead of making it better. “Falcon…”

  “Shhh. I know, sweet,” he murmured thickly. He took one of her hands, carrying it to his lips briefly and then to his body. “I’m hurting too.”

  Her fingers closed around him, and her feverish eyes widened in surprise. So warm and hard, alive in her hand, and he responded to her touch just as she had to his, a groan escaping his lips and his stomach knotting in a hard spasm.

  “Oh, God! Don’t—“He gently moved her hand away, his breath rasping as he fought to get the words out. “I can’t take it.
Not now. I wanted to go slowly, but—“

  Victoria felt her legs gently widened, felt him there, and she caught at his shoulders. A blunt pressure, hot and hard, and she could feel her body stretching, feel the tension that was a building ache.

  “Relax, sweet,” he murmured, a tinge of surprise in his rough, deep voice. He was braced above her, kissing her deeply again and again, and she couldn’t find the breath to tell him her body’s resistance wasn’t a conscious thing. And she was too involved in the sensations even to be able to form the words that would have warned him.

  It felt so strange. But hard and hot, and what her body craved in its terrible hunger. The pressure increased, and a flash of pain tore a gasp from her lips, but there was a deeper, burning ache, a need he was so close to satisfying. She could feel his surprise, feel his big body shudder, and see a dawning, baffled realization in his eyes, even as his face tautened in stark pleasure.

  “God, you’re so small,” he whispered. “So…tight. Victoria? Relax, sweet, you—“He didn’t believe what his body was telling him, couldn’t believe. He pushed harder, deeper.

  The pain was worse now, stealing her breath, but need was stronger, and instinctively she met his sudden thrust, arching upward. She cried out even as he went still, and she was conscious only of the throbbing fullness of him deep inside her. There was no pain now, just the hot satisfaction of merging, joining, and the tension of hovering, waiting for…something.

  “Victoria?” His elbows braced on either side of her, he touched her face with one shaking hand, and she could see the shock on his face, the glitter of something wild in his eyes, hear it raw in his voice.

  She didn’t want to talk. There was more, she knew that, knew the pleasure had only begun. The heaviness of his body was wonderful, the pulsing of him within her spurring the tension higher and higher, and she moved impatiently beneath him. “Falcon, please.”

  He groaned, and his lips covered hers. His tongue dived deeply, filling her mouth in a stark caress, and he began to move in a hot, smooth rhythm that stole her breath all over again. The burning ache inside her was magnificent now, maddening, and she half-sobbed as she held him with all her strength. His powerful rhythm filled her mind, her swirling senses, her shaken world, until there was nothing but that, nothing but this pulsing, jagged pleasure surging within her.

  Falcon tried to be gentle, but her response shattered his control. His body was wild for hers and his mind was chaotic, his emotions reeling with the knowledge that there had been no other man in her bed, not husband or lover.

  She was his, all his, and he hadn’t known until then just how much it meant to him.

  There was no time for thought, no time for astonishment and wonder. Her body sheathed his with a molten tightness that was almost agony, a sweet agony that drove him to thrust harder, deeper into her welcoming heat. And then he heard her broken cry, felt her body convulse around him in an ecstatic rhythm, and a guttural groan tore its way from deep in his chest as he buried himself in her, shuddering…dying.

  —

  They both became aware of their surroundings again in the same moment, and Falcon lifted his head to look down at her as the wail of the wind reached his ears. The fire in the hearth had died down and the shanty was chilly, the storm outside building loudly in the fury she had predicted.

  He touched the flushed curve of her cheek, and a pang of tenderness such as he had never known went through him. So much to talk about, to understand. Her eyes were fixed on his face, wide and wondering and glowing, and a tiny smile curved her lips. He didn’t want to leave her, never wanted to leave her, but the fire had to be built up before they froze.

  He bent his head and kissed her gently. “We’ll freeze,” he murmured.

  “Will we?” Her voice was dreamy, soft.

  Falcon chuckled and moved carefully until he was off the bed and on his feet, very conscious then of the chill in the room. “I’ll build up the fire. Get under the covers, sweet.”

  She didn’t want to move, but with the warmth of his body gone, she realized it was necessary. She wiggled beneath the heavy grizzly fur and lay on her side, watching him as he built up the fire. She’d never known a man could look like that. He was so beautiful…so—“Falcon? Your wound?”

  He returned to the bed, sliding in beside her and drawing her close. “Fine.”

  “Let me see.” She wouldn’t be denied, and carefully examined the bandages to make certain he hadn’t reopened his wound. He had, but just a little. “I should rebandage it.”

  “It’s fine, sweet.” He raised up on his elbow to look down at her, reaching to trace the curve of her bottom lip with one finger. And it was time, now, for questions. “He wasn’t your lover.”

  She heard the wonder, the bewilderment in his voice, and knew that he had to understand her relationship with Morgan, knew it was important. “No. Husband in name, but never more. It was just for appearances, because there was no other woman in the house and I wasn’t kin to him. But he promised to set me free when I met someone else. That’s what I meant when I told you that I was free in New York. I was. Morgan would have understood.”

  He shook his head a little. “How did you meet? How did it come about?”

  She took a deep breath and told him steadily about that day years before, about her brother Jesse’s visit, and about the man who had come later, the man with the bloodstained purse, the man she had killed. And about Morgan’s arrival, and his gentle invitation. “I don’t remember much about the trip to New Mexico,” she finished softly. “And perhaps it was wrong of me to go with Morgan when I didn’t even know his name, but I’ve never regretted it.”

  Falcon was gazing down at her with an odd expression in his eyes, something a bit distant and preoccupied. “The man who attacked you that day, did he say anything about gold?” he asked slowly.

  Victoria was startled. “Why, yes. He had Jesse’s purse; I suppose he meant that gold, that he knew somehow Jesse had left some of it with me.”

  “Jesse left some gold with you? Was that usual?”

  The question surprised her. “Well, he always tried to send some of his pay home to us. But that day, he said he’d been paid for an errand. He left a bag of gold with me, and took some with him in his purse. Odd, I’d forgotten all about that. I hid it in the house and never thought about it again, not even when I left with Morgan.”

  He was still tracing her lip slowly, watching his finger now, frowning slightly. “The man who attacked you. What did he look like, sweet?”

  She shivered. “He was frightening. Tall, with wide, thick shoulders. Black hair. And an eye patch.”

  “When you fought him, did you cut his cheek?” Falcon’s voice was slow and still.

  Victoria half-closed her eyes. “The blood…I cut his face, and then…I stabbed him in the chest and he fell.”

  Falcon leaned down to kiss her gently, then raised his head, murmuring, “It’s all right, sweet. It was a long time ago. And Fontaine took you away that day?”

  She was disturbed by his still face and soft voice, bothered by something she sensed in him, something almost detached. “Yes. I was running from the house when he saw me, caught me. And he was very kind. He calmed me down, asked me what had happened. He seemed—well, almost as upset as I was when I told him about the man and Jesse. He went with me to look for Jesse’s body, but we never found it; the stream had carried it away. He—he buried Papa and old Sam.”

  “But not the other man?”

  Victoria blinked and felt uneasy suddenly. “No. He said the man must have made it to his horse and rode away. But there was so much blood—“

  “It’s all right, sweet. Don’t think about it anymore.” Falcon kissed her again, gently, and then eased down and pulled her into the circle of his arms so that her head rested on his shoulder. He changed the subject abruptly, but in the same quiet voice. “Tell me about him. About Fontaine. About your life together.”

  “Falcon—“

&n
bsp; “I need to know, sweet. I need to understand.”

  She realized that. And, quietly, she told him. She told him about the shock of a new life in a place vastly different from her childhood home. About Morgan’s teachings, his insistence that she learn to survive no matter where she was, and yet never forget the gentle upbringing of her childhood. She told him about learning to hunt and track and find or build shelter. She drew a loving image of a man who was intelligent and kind and strong, and it helped ease her grief to talk about him to someone who had never known him.

  “You love him,” Falcon said finally when her voice trailed away.

  She lifted her head to look at him gravely. “I love him. I always will. I would have died without him—or something worse. He gave my life back to me. Can you understand that?”

  Falcon’s eyes were dark, somber. “Yes, sweet. I can understand that.”

  Victoria was uneasy nonetheless, listening to the storm building outside and wondering why she felt it inside as well, inside Falcon, as if pressure were growing where it couldn’t be seen, but only felt. “Falcon? I love you.” Her voice was unconsciously imploring, afraid.

  He looked at her with those somber eyes, and the smile that curved his lips was tender and loving and almost sad. “I love you, sweet. More than you’ll ever know.” He swallowed hard. “Don’t forget that.”

  It should have reassured her, but frightened her instead, because the look in his eyes was achingly familiar. Morgan had looked like that, she remembered, when he had talked about what the South was like in her childhood. When he had talked about something that was lovely and gentle—and forever out of his reach.

  What had Falcon suddenly lost to bring that terrible look of pain and grief to his eyes?

  “Falcon.”

  He drew her head down and kissed her, at first gently, and then with growing desire. “Slow this time,” he said thickly, drawing her closer. “Slow and sweet.”

  But it wasn’t slow and sweet, their lovemaking. It was wild, driven, hungry. Desperate. It was a violent storm, capturing them both, tossing them furiously on surging waves until they were left at last, drained, on a peaceful shore.