Bandit's Embrace (The Durango Family)

by Georgina Gentry

  “You could teach me!”

  “Uh-Uh.” He shook his head, disengaged her hand. “I don’t think much of any man who’d take advantage of some sweet innocent who’s had too much wine, a girl who wants to go back and brag to her little girlfriends how she teased some stupid cowboy—”

  Without thinking, Amethyst slipped her arms around his neck, brought her inexperienced lips up to his half-open mouth.

  For a split second, he didn’t move as she kissed him awkwardly. Then he moaned deep in his throat, pulled her hard against him.

  She gasped for breath as his mouth expertly covered hers, and forcing her lips apart, he slipped his tongue between.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears, so hard she almost couldn’t hear him as he pulled away to hold her at arm’s length. In the moonlight, she saw the pulse pounding hard in his throat. “Lord! You smell good! What is that perfume, anyway?”

  “Forget-me-not,” she whispered. “It’s a little wild violet-type of flower.”

  “Just like you,” he said as she turned her head, kissed his wrist. “Don’t do that. I’m warning you, sweet.”

  “Don’t warn me, kiss me again,” she whispered, rubbing herself against him all the way down their bodies as she had seen the cantina girl do.

  “Dammit! Because you’re somebody and I’m nobody, you think you can play with me like that, lead me on and then walk away laughing?” He jerked her up against him. The maleness of him was hard and throbbing against her body.

  His big fingers burned into her shoulders and trembled as he slid the purple silk down. “Forget-me-not, huh?” He sniffed along the bare skin of her throat, his breath caressing her skin.

  “Suppose, Texas, I don’t walk away?” Her own bold words echoed in her ears and startled her. Just what was it one did to a man or let him do to get him to agree to a woman’s wishes?

  “You little tease! I wish I knew what your game was!” His callused hands pushed the front of her dress down so that her globular, full breasts shone pale as pearls in the moonlight. One of his arms held her as she swayed on her feet, while the other stroked the circles around her nipples.

  She gasped at the sensation, feeling her breasts swell and strain, reaching for the touch of his fingers. Just why had she come out here in the moonlight? It was for this, she thought dizzily. Forever, it seemed, she had waited for a man to pull her hard against his hot body and tease the hard nubs of her nipples as he was doing now. “Make love to me, Bandit,” she whispered, turning her face up to his as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.

  His hand was actually shaking as he tangled it in her black hair. “All my life I’ve dreamed of a girl like you.” He gasped. “Elegant, classy, unattainable—the kind who used to sneer at me because of what I was, where I came from . . .”

  She reached up to kiss him, cutting off his words, the wine making her bold and unsteady on her feet. Brazenly she took his hand in hers, guided it down the front of her dress to stroke between her breasts, even lower. She arched back, opened her lips, let him ram his tongue deep into her throat while she hung limply in his arms in complete surrender. The stars above her whirled as he swung her up into his arms, then bent his blond head to taste her full breasts.

  He moaned aloud. “I—I shouldn’t do this,” he murmured, looking down into her violet eyes. “Lord, I shouldn’t do this . . .”

  She laid her face against the bare skin of his chest exposed by his open shirt, and her pink mouth kissed along the swell of his wide chest, blew gently on his skin.

  “Sweet, don’t do that.” He gasped uncertainly. “Don’t I . . . I may not be able to stop the momentum once it starts building! A man’s just a man, after all!”

  She was counting on that. Besides, she’d heard so much about this experience, the embarrassed laughter of new brides, faces hidden behind fans, usually accompanied discussions of that first time.

  If she hadn’t been full of wine, she would never have dared to do what she was doing now, hanging in a man’s powerful arms, nuzzling his wide chest. Amethyst sank her small, white teeth into his nipple.

  He swore, jerked away from her. “You little bobcat!”

  But he didn’t put her down. She looked up at him, seeing the flush of color on his face, hearing his deep, aroused breathing.

  And suddenly, she wanted to experience this great wondrous event of which she was so ignorant. “Make love to me, Bandit,” she whispered. “Oh, please make love to me!”

  With a low groan, he laid her on the soft grass in the shadows, stripped off his shirt. “Are you sure, sweet? Are you sure?”

  She slipped her lace drawers off, wriggled the purple dress down to her waist. “I’m sure,” she whispered tipsily.

  He slipped out of his pants, knelt before her on his knees. For a split second, she was afraid, seeing the size and virility of his erection. But then he bent his head to kiss her breasts and she forgot everything but the way his warm hands explored the silken curves of her body, the heat of his mouth sucking at her taut nipples. “This is loco,” he gasped, but he didn’t move away. “I must be asleep and dreaming that a beautiful virgin is throwing herself at me wantonly.”

  “It’s no dream.” Amethyst groaned, dug her nails into his rippling back muscles as she pulled him still closer, loving the sensation of his wet, hot mouth licking the perfumed cleft between her breasts all the way down to her navel.

  “Take me, Bandit, take me!”

  She felt him spread her thighs, try to force himself inside her, but she was too small for him. “I—I can’t, aimée. I’ll hurt you! My Lord, you really are a virgin, aren’t you? A virgin . . . my virgin!”

  The wine made her head spin. She responded to his thrusting instinctively, as a primitive female. Arching herself up against his rhythmic thrust, she urged him still deeper, excitement building in her.

  The barrier of her maidenhood seemed to excite him into a frenzy as he rammed against it. When it finally tore, he slipped his tongue deep into her mouth to muffle her cry. “Sweet . . . sweet . . .” he murmured, “I never meant to hurt you! Amethyst . . . aimée . . . beloved . . .” And then he rode her harder, faster.

  She felt her body tense with her mounting excitement at the feel of his maleness forcing itself, laden with life-bearing seed, into her depths. So this was what it was like! She dug her nails into his broad back, locked her legs around him. Deep in her belly, she felt him throbbing as he lunged into her waiting softness.

  And then he gasped, went rigid, and lay still. Amethyst felt too much terror to scream. He was dead! Of course he had died in her arms! The strain of making love to such an inexperienced girl had overtaxed his big heart! But as she tried to shift his weight to get out from under him, he stirred, sighed as he looked down into her face. She kept her eyes closed, still drunk and dizzy. She felt him slip her little ring off. “Sweet, you’re really something! I’m sorry I got so rough. No woman’s driven me that loco in a long time!”

  She opened her eyes, saw him admiring her little ring, now on his own smallest finger. “Sweet, what is this little flower?

  “Forget-me-not,” she murmured in a daze, “forget-me-not . . .” Amethyst started to ask for the ring back as he smiled that lopsided grin and raised himself on his elbow.

  “Sorry about that. A real gentleman always supports half his weight on his elbows.” He reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “Was it good for you, too?”

  She realized abruptly that he was finished with her. Her excited pulse pounded in frustration and sudden fury. “You mean, that’s it! Santa María! Is that all there is to it? That’s love?”

  She struggled out from under him, reached for her lace drawers.

  He looked stunned. “What do you mean, ‘Is that all there is to it’? I don’t usually get complaints—”

  “Then other women are more polite or are better liars than I am!” She pulled on her dainty underclothes with jerky gestures. “I keep hearing all this nonsense abou
t fireworks and sky rockets going off! What lies!”

  He looked embarrassed and stunned. “I was no good? You’re tellin’ me you were disappointed?”

  “Disappointed!” She laughed in her rage. Amethyst was nearly sober now and her head ached. “If this is a sample, making love must be the most overrated activity since the game of croquet!”

  “Okay, sweet, maybe it wasn’t so good the first time.” He grabbed her shoulders. “I’ll admit you drove me so loco, I hurried! I should have taken a little more time, been a little more—”

  “Maybe it’s not you, maybe it’s just me,” She paused suddenly in pulling the purple silk back upon her shoulders. “Maybe I am a natural old maid; maybe I do have the disposition to be a cloistered sister!”

  “A what?”

  Amethyst frowned at the naked Texan. “You know, Texas, a nun.”

  His mouth dropped open. The cocky male seemed to gasp for words. “What in blue blazes? You mean I’ve stolen a woman meant for Him?” He glanced up toward the sky.

  “No, I’m not a nun . . . yet.” Amethyst finished straightening her clothes. “But if my future stepmother has her way, I may be stuck in a convent forever.” Weariness and disappointment suddenly overcame her and she started to weep. “At the very least, I wanted to find out what it is I might be missing for the rest of my life!”

  He took her in his arms, kissed the tears off her cheeks. “Amethyst . . . aimée . . . I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he said softly. “I got pride. No woman ever left the Bandit’s arms feeling she’d been gyped.”

  “Well, there’s always a first time, isn’t there?” She tried to pull out of his arms, slapping at his imprisoning hands furiously.

  He held her arms at her sides, pulled her up against him, tried to kiss her. “The night’s not over yet!”

  “Oh, yes it is, you—saddle tramp!” She tried to kick his shins as they struggled. “Here I thought if I let you make love to me, you might help me escape; let me have that horse!”

  His face went hard, cold. He turned her loose so suddenly she stumbled backward against a tree. “Why, you elegant, high-class little tart! That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You’d use your body just like some cheap puta to bargain for whatever it is you want! And here I thought you were as smitten with me as I was with you!”

  “Now, Texas . . .” She was reluctant to admit that for a couple of minutes when she was in his arms, she wouldn’t have traded places with a queen.

  “Well, there’s some things a good whore could teach you!” he snarled, running his hands through his tawny hair. “The number one rule is get your payment first, it’s hard to collect after a man’s finished!”

  “Bandit, believe me, that wasn’t the only reason—”

  “Don’t lie to me, sweet.” His mouth was a grim line as he pulled on his clothes. “I should have known a pedigreed aristocrat like you wouldn’t really want a mongrel saddle bum like me. In some ways, you’re not so innocent after all!”

  His anger frightened her. It was almost as if there was something else he struck out at, something bitter and sad in his own past. She thought about her desperate situation. “I do need you, Texas! If you’d help me get away, let me have that horse—”

  “Hell no, señorita! You’ve paid a high price, I’ll admit, submitting to the kisses of an ignorant commoner. But you can’t have that pinto. I need him too badly myself!”

  She watched him finish dressing, gather up his saddlebags. “You’re headed on south then?”

  She should warn him, but she was too angry. Her precious virginity had been wasted on the wrong man, in a sudden burst of passion indulged in under a tree like a common slut. Santa María! It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last that too much wine had fogged a woman’s mind, made her open her thighs to a virile, eager male.

  He took her elbow, nodded, “It don’t make me no never mind where I go. Reckon the area around Monterrey is a good place to stay for a few weeks. When things cool down, I’ll head back up to Texas.”

  Of all the places he should avoid, the ranching country around Monterrey should be at the head of the list, Amethyst thought. She wondered suddenly if a sheriff or a U.S. Marshal was looking for him. Bandit certainly had some reason to be south of the border. Amethyst let him propel her across the courtyard toward the silent inn. “You know anyone in Monterrey?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m just drifting, like always. Got no real places to call home.” He paused before the inn. “How in blue blazes did you get out of this place unseen?”

  She gestured toward the open window, looked up at him uncertainly. She was cold sober and her head hurt. “I could go with you,” she whispered. “I know that area, I could help—”

  “I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw that stallion.” He adjusted the heavy saddlebags on his shoulder. “You’re just like the rest of ’em—greedy, conniving. Besides, then your papa would have the Federales lookin’ for old Bandit and there’s enough people on my trail already! Adiós, Aimée, and don’t think it hasn’t been one hell of an adventure!”

  Before she realized his intention, he took her in his arms, kissed her deeply, thoroughly. Then he wheeled and swaggered toward the barn.

  “You saddle bum!” Her voice was a loud, hoarse whisper, “don’t think it was wonderful, ’cause it wasn’t!”

  He didn’t even look back.

  Damn him, she thought savagely as she climbed back through the window, damn that arrogant gunslinger! How dare he take her virginity and then deny her what she wanted!

  She lay sleepless until dawn, moving restlessly, thinking of him sprawled asleep on the soft hay of the barn. Aimée . . . beloved . . . Now where would a Texas cowboy learn to speak French?

  She twisted her hands together. Her ring! She felt her fingers frantically. That pistolero had gotten away with her ring! Damn him! Damn him anyway!

  At dawn she still hadn’t figured out any way to get her ring back. Certainly she just couldn’t walk up and ask for it in broad daylight. Maybe she could catch him alone.

  Mrs. Wentworth stirred and groaned. “I—I must have had a little too much wine. I don’t remember—”

  “We finished the wine and went to bed right after dinner,” Amethyst lied, primly reaching for her hair brush. “And now I suppose it’s about time for the stage to be loading up again.”

  While her chaperone ordered coffee sent to the room and readied the luggage, Amethyst poured some water so she might wash her face. The reflection that stared back up at her from the water had shadows under long-lashed, dusky lavender eyes and lips that seemed to swell from being kissed too fervently. She’d not only lost her virginity but her precious ring to that swaggering americano stud.

  Mrs. Wentworth climbed into the stage and promptly closed her eyes, moaning about a headache. Amethyst got in, saw the Texian mounted up on the fine pinto stallion and starting south toward Monterrey. As the stage pulled away, he gave her a long, searching look that she could not quite understand, then mouthed these words: Aimée . . . beloved. As he touched the brim of his hat with two fingers, the ring flashed on his little finger.

  She stared at his effrontery, open-mouthed. He was flaunting the ring! How dare he look at her so arrogantly, knowing she could do nothing about it! The Texan turned the big horse south.

  Even then Amethyst almost called out a warning. But she reminded herself that he had coldly taken advantage of her innocence, had refused to help her. The pistolero deserves what he is going to get, she thought, watching through the window as the flashy pinto loped away south.

  The Flying Eagle brand. That was a damned lie! She wondered how he had come by the fine horse; she had recognized it instantly, the brand, too.

  Falcon’s Lair, the cattle empire of Señor Enrique Falcon, lay to the north of Monterrey and just west of her own Papa’s ranch. That blue-eyed pinto, surely his finest stud horse, had been stolen less than six months ago. Señor Falcon had not been in such a
sorrowful rage since his only child had been kidnapped and murdered many years before.

  Amethyst leaned back against the cushions, trying to feel smug satisfaction, but somehow-it eluded her. Bandit didn’t seem to know that he rode the most famous stud in the states of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Or that Señor Falcon had offered a great reward for the return of the stolen horse—or the head of the man who had taken it!

  Chapter Four

  Evening fell like soft layers of gray gauze across the abbey of the Cloistered Sisters as the stagecoach disgorged its two passengers out front.

  Amethyst stood in the jumble of her baggage, watching the sour chaperone pull the bell cord as they waited at the gate before the grim, forbidding walls. Behind her, the stage pulled away with a clatter and the jingle of harness.

  She had a sudden urge to run after the coach, shouting at it to wait. But she had no money, no destination in mind if she should get back on that stage. Besides the stout Mrs. Wentworth would only pull her off and scold her for her brashness.

  Damn that Texan anyhow! He could have helped her instead of just stealing her ring and her innocence! And certainly the supposed ecstasy of lovemaking had been vastly overrated as far as Amethyst was concerned.

  The sound of shuffling feet interrupted her thoughts. A bent old servant woman swung open the door.

  Mrs. Wentworth motioned Amethyst to enter. “Tell the Mother Superior that Señorita Durango has arrived and seeks audience.”

  The worn face wrinkled with scorn as the nun looked over the pile of baggage. “She’ll not be needing all that here, I can tell you, but I’ll send word you’ve arrived.”

  While her chaperone dealt with the luggage, Amethyst found herself seated in a sparse, small room across from the Mother Superior. Had the woman ever been young? It was hard to tell with her form so swathed in the black habit, and her face so plain and pale. She jangled the big ring of keys hanging from her waist. “So you are Amethyst Durango! Any relation to one Luis Durango?”