by Thea Devine
Her whirling hips quivered with her demand. "Take me if you can," she whispered.
"Oh, I will," he growled. His hips shifted, lifting in a
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long smooth slide that left her feeling bereft as his thick length poised itself to possess her fully.
"Now?" she breathed, goading him just that little bit with the poutiness in her throaty question, taking the tip of his tongue between her teeth provocatively.
It worked. He thrust his tongue forcefully into her mouth at the same moment he drove his massive maleness into her straining feminine heat. And then out again, and then in, with a fierce thrusting cadence that thrilled her. She yielded her body to his virile stroking, meeting each lunge with shameless abandon, matching his movements with the savage surge of her own.
She was made for this —made for him, she thought recklessly in the throes of her silken surrender. He had only to seduce her with his virile masculinity; she wanted it, she needed it. His vigorous thrusting slowed suddenly, as he sensed her coming capitulation. He wanted her to feel all of him as he possessed her intimately, pleasuring her in a way that no other man could ever duplicate.
"You're mine," he growled raggedly, deep in his throat. "Your nakedness is mine, Kalida; your body is mine"— and his left hand swooped down to possess the curve of her hip—"your breasts are mine"—and up to caress the tight hard nub of her nipple —"your lips are mine" —and he covered her mouth violently.
Her body writhed at the words she knew were true. She could never deny her need to possess his maleness, to have him slowly invading her with the shimmering glissade of feeling that only he could evoke, To feel it building with each leisurely stroke, all glistening heat, surrounding her, cushioning her in a haze that tantalized her with luscious eddying cascades of sensation. Filling her, molten and gold, glowing and rich now, expanding within her, filling her and filling her again, rich and hot and dazzling as the feeling exploded into a ravishing white glow of pure radiant pleasure.
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He gave her the enchanting moment, as she acknowl
edged with her sobbing moans that it was he who was
connected to her, he whose lusty thrusts commanded her
potent climax. •"
And then he plunged his rigid length into her fiery body blindly and mindlessly, releasing the torrent of his passion deep within her.
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Chapter Thirteen
In the morning he was gone before she awakened, but she fully expected that. She stretched luxuriously, exulting in the euphoric memories of the night before, refusing to think of anything but the cataclysmic pleasure she had shared with him.
Shared with him, her mind echoed, and her willful body bolted upright. Nothing has changed, he had said. He had said he wanted her, threatened to have her any way he could, and now was having her, and she was falling for his inexorable, artful seduction.
But nothing had changed; she was still the collateral for a business deal. She was still immured like a piece of porcelain on a shelf at Sweetland. Her father had only done the barest minimum of his plans to restore and reorganize his ranch and his cattle herd. And her choices were just as limited this minute as they had been yesterday.
The only clear thing Kalida knew was that she wanted Deuce, and she did not want to precipitate him into Ellie Dean's arms.
She looked around the room that was still permeated with the powerful scent of their lovemaking. Her dress lay crumpled on the floor where she had flung it; her stock-
ings were a pool of sensual black beside it, a reminder of his devastating seduction of her and her convulsive response. Even as she remembered it, her body reacted.
God, she desperately needed to get away from him, from her volcanic surrender to his touch. She jumped out of bed and ran to the little wardrobe where she had hung her skirt and shirtwaist. And stopped. The lush naked figure coming Joward her was herself, with her jutting, proud rose-peaked breasts and all the firm, responsive curves that Deuce had wantonly explored hours ago. Her midnight wild hair was tangled and tousled with her sensuous head tossing, and her cobalt eyes reflected a deep lambent glow of satisfaction that was not manifested in her somewhat petulant expression.
She did not want to be in thrall of Deuce Cavender's body and hands and wayward tongue. He could never lay a hand on her again, for all she cared, she vowed, dragging out her clothing frantically as if if would ease the ache in her loins and the pulsating memory of the night before.
She picked up the wrinkled undergarments from the floor with trembling fingers, remembering it had been she who had removed them in such overwhelming haste. She threw them on the bed, hating them, and picked up the black stockings Deuce had so deliciously stripped from her long legs. The memory of him caressing and kissing her feet aroused her instantly. She held up the crumpled stockings and the thought came unbidden into her mind: I want him to do that again.
Her naked body recoiled. She did not; she did not want him to touch her again ever. Except . . . She sat down on the bed and began sliding on one stocking. She secured it with an elastic garter and began with the other one. Her hands began shaking. She knew what she was going to do, she couldn't pretend she didn't. But not because of Deuce, because she wanted to. She wanted to wear the
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hose, and she elected not to wear the undergarments. She ignored the excitement of her pulsing body and the stiff peaking of her nipples and what she hoped, in her secret heart, would happen.
She buttoned the shirtwaist over her jutting hard-nip-pled breasts, breathless with a feeling of anticipation. The skirt came next, lifted over her unruly black hair and sliding down over her upper torso to be buttoned by her nerveless fingers. She slid into her boots as she ran a brush through her tangled inky hair.
She felt her nakedness beneath the clothes intensely, as well as the slight constriction around her thighs that defined the length of the stockings on her long legs.
It was no matter, she told her reflection; Deuce would be gone the whole day, busy moving the summer herd out to market and settling in the others to summer pasture. Tomorrow, he would be on his way to Stoneface Ridge.
He wouldn't be thinking of her. All her little plots and plans would go to waste.
Except somehow she was going to get to Stoneface and help bring down her father's herd.
The thought calmed her wildly pumping heart. It was crazy. Her knowledge that Deuce would love to discover her nakedness made her heart accelerate unbelievably. Her navy eyes glittered with a sultry light. It just wasn't going to happen today, she told herself. No matter how much she might want it.
Kalida was still shaking with that fine sensual tension when she left the room. She hardly expected the first thing to be dealt with was Ellie, who came barging out of her room at exactly the same moment.
"Good morning," she said coolly, instantly in control as those feelings evaporated at the sight of Ellie.
"Kalida," Ellie acknowledged. "We seem to be keeping the same schedule today." Her opaque black eyes swept over Kalida as if she expected to see some visible evidence
of what had happened between her and Deuce. But Kalida was clever. The only telltale sign of the evening's passionate ending was the slight swelling of her soft lips, which she kept touching somewhat self-consciously.
Ellie did not like that. The ease with which the one time gangling, bluntly outspoken child had captivated Deuce Cavender was galling; somehow, in the short space of several yeass, she had assumed a relentless sensual power that overran anything in its path.
Including Ellie, who once* again had the unpleasant feeling she was an afterthought. She was tired of being overlooked and left behind. Tired of petulant babies like Kalida robbing her of what was rightfully hers, taking away chances, and making her invisible. Someone would pay for Kalida's insolence, she vowed, preferably Kalida herself.
But she showed none of this condemnation to Kalida as, in inimical amiabil
ity, they proceeded downstairs where Prestina awaited them. Ardelle was nowhere around, and they elected to take breakfast on the porch. It was a curiously silent meal until Prestina removed the plates and platters and served the coffee. Then Ellie settled her sedate gray-dressed figure into one of the wicker rocking chairs, Kalida perched on the porch railing, and they sipped their coffee in a wary silence.
"You're over the shock of the ranch?" Ellie asked suddenly, her black eyes focused straight ahead.
"I have to be," Kalida said, wondering what Ellie was after with this conversational gambit. "I can't change it."
"No," said Ellie, "you can't." She sipped her coffee broodingly. "It was surprising that all the rubble had been cleared away."
"Papa said he was attending to it."
"But so expeditiously," Ellie said. "That kind of decisiveness is more Deuce's style, don't you think?"
"I don't think; Papa intended to take care of it, and he
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did," Kalida said firmly. Oh, did she not like what Ellie was implying. What other nasty little remarks did Ellie have up her sleeve? she wondered.
"Have you heard from him?" Ellie asked after a moment. Even she was curious about that; it was almost as if Hal Ryland had disappeared off the face of the earth.
"No, but he hasn't been gone that long."
"Not yet," Ellie murmured into her coffee cup.
"He'll be in touch with us," Kalida reiterated. Ellie must hate her father, she thought, for her to be so vindictive. She did not have to stay and listen to Ellie's viperous comments. "Do you know where Ardelle is?" she asked abruptly.
"How could I?"
Kalida put down her cup decisively. "Good, I'm going riding."
"Kalida-" Ellie started to say, but Kalida had hopped off the porch railing and taken off in a brisk stride toward the stables. Malca was waiting, fresh and frisky.
She saddled him up and mounted, being careful to arrange her skirt to protect her* nudity. With a liberating sense of freedom, both from her nakedness and her escaping the house, Kalida guided Malca from the corral and down to the shortcut leading to Morgan field.
When she was within minutes of it, she could already smell the earthy tang of the cattle. As she got beyond the trees, she could see the milling herd slowly moving under the careful prodding of Old Bruno .and several of Jake Danton's crew. Jake was nowhere in sight, so she circled carefully around to the tail end of the drovers. No one noticed her; she had no idea how any of them would feel if she were to present herself among the hired hands.
Carefully, she picked her way to one side of the jostling cattle, on the shady side of the pasture.
From here, she could see the trail and the great green swath of pasture. She could see the line of cattle proceed-
ing forward slowly and congestedly. She could see Old Bruno bringing up the rear.
She followed them slowly, certain that no one had seen her, keeping her distance, enjoying the morning and the luxuriant feeling of her covert nakedness.
Suddenly a calf broke from the herd and ran laterally at first, behind the herders, circling back then toward Old Bruno, and then bucking out toward the scrub brush. Bruno whipped around, saw Kalida, and hollered at her. She took off after the calf like a shot, barreling Malca at an angle to the calfs run, breaking ahead of it, and wheeling the horse around so that she was running head on into the calf. It veered toward the trees and she raced after it, whooping and zigzagging, angling across to reach the trees before it did so she could cut it off. In an instant, it wheeled and cut back across the pasture. Kalida chased it and ran it back into the herd.
"You'll do," Old Bruno shouted across the bellowing herd.
She pulled Malca to a walk and took up the opposite drag point from Old Bruno. Yes, he thought, she'd do. She knew that had been a lucky break. But she'd proved she would do, and Bruno welcomed her on the crew, and that was all that mattered.
Her shining cobalt eyes searched the landscape as the trail down to Sweetland's pastures advanced at its own leisurely pace.
Another calf broke, heading for the trees, and Kalida followed it carefully this time as it crashed into underbrush and skirted bushes. She urged Malca on cautiously but quickly to try to get ahead of the calf, who now was becoming confused and bewildered.
Kalida pushed Malca ahead so she could circle around in front of the disoriented animal, and then with her hand, she slowed Malca's walk so that the crackling of the underbrush would not scare the calf.
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She jumped when she heard the low murmur of voices somewhere ahead of her. Deep in the wooded field. Surrounded by thick trees and leafed-out bushes. Who?
She edged Malca closer, her heart beating wildly because she did not like the conclusion she leapt to. Deuce. Alone in the woods with some other woman. No! She slid down from Malca's back.
She bent low, after tying Malca to an overhanging branch, and almost crawled to the point where the voices emanated. Whoever they were, they were on horseback, speaking very low and not laying in the bushes caressing each other.
She held her breath and ducked behind a nearby bush. And then she let out a breath and shook her head. Ardelle. And Jake Danton.
Ardelle must have come out for a ride and met Jake. They certainly weren't hiding; their chance meeting just happened to be secluded.
Thinking that, she still bent her body low as she made her way back to Malca. For some reason she did not want them to see her; there was no reason why not, she thought, except Ardelle would probably be very displeased that she was riding drag point with the calf herd. As good a reason as any. She untied Malca, swung onto his back, and picked her way back to where she had last seen the calf.
It was several hundred feet beyond that spot. Very slowly she approached it, got in front of it, and chased it back out of the woody thicket onto the trail. With very little effort after, she prodded back into the herd and was pleased again at Bruno's approbation.
She rearranged her skirts and prepared to enjoy the rest of the unhurried trip back to Sweetland.
There was a flurry of activity at Sweetland. The market
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herd had been sent off, and the rest of Jake's crew was preparing to leave for Stoneface Ridge.
"Tonight?" Kalida demanded of one of the men.
"Yeah; old Deuce decided not to waste any time, ma'am. We're pulling out in an hour or so, and he reckons we can be back by tomorrow night."
Dismayed, Kalida uncinched her saddle from Malca's back. Damn a/id damn, he would not be with her tonight, and she would have no time to formulate some plan to get her up to Stoneface with him.
She nodded to Jake as he passed by on his way to the bunkhouse, and then as an afterthought she ran after him. "I heard right? Deuce is pulling out today for Stoneface?"
"Yep, Miss Kalida." He took off his hat in a mocking gesture of respect. "Figured we'd save a day. But don't let him see you talking with me."
"Oh Jake, I've forgotten all about that," she said airily. Well, she hadn't. And not because of Jake either. "Bye, Jake," she said abruptly, turning back to the corral.
He stared after her a moment, his hazel eyes narrowing. The stable was empty now, since all the horses were being gathered up for the remuda. She would be alone in there for several moments. Perhaps he could help her somehow.
Perhaps she was inviting him to help her. Perhaps, since she had mentioned yesterday's incident, she had obliquely implied she was ready to apologize to him. Perhaps she was waiting, brimming with excitement, for him to follow her. She would be naked under her clothes, and she would just be unbuttoning her shirt. Yes, she thought, now that his mind was really on it, that he had seen the bulge of her nipples beneath the shirt. He was absolutely sure he had seen those taut nubs jutting against the material.
He started walking forward purposefully, imagining her waiting for him, her luscious lips in a pouty expectant smile. I'm so sorry ab
out yesterday, she would say huskily.
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That bastard barged in before I could show my gratitude.
Yes, he thought, that was just how it would be. And then she would, finally, show her appreciation for his friendship.
In a riot of anticipation, he strode into the stable.
"Kalida!"
A hoarse whisper penetrated the darkness and Kalida stopped short —and Jake ducked into a nearby stall.
"Deuce?" she said uncertainly as she put up Malca's saddle and edged around the opening of his stall.
He was a tall, formidable shadow in the dusky light.
"You're leaving," Kalida said, and she knew her voice sounded accusing. He came closer and she backed against the stall wall breathlessly.
"I am," he concurred, his voice still husky. "In an hour
or so; it makes sense. We're finished. I'm not too excited
about hanging around here any longer than I have
to "
She drew in her breath sharply. Not too excited indeed!
"Except," he added huskily, "for the fact I have to leave you for tonight."
Her mouth opened, and she said nothing. The air was thick and tangy with the musky scent of horse and masculine sweat, portentous with the scent of her knowledge of her nakedness and his memory of it.
"What —what are you doing here?" she finally managed to ask, licking her lips nervously. The" movement arrested his dark gaze.
"You know what I want," he growled. "Come closer, Kalida."
His preemptory command set her hackles up, angry as she was that he was leaving today. "Why?" she asked petulantly, knowing what would goad him almost more than anything else she could do.
"You know why. After last night . . ." He was becoming all out of patience with her. He had almost thought she would send him off with a proper farewell, be anxious to leave the taste and scent of her with him to carry through the night. The thought was almost unbearable anyway, the way her brazen body had enslaved him last night. He could hardly bear to leave her. He could hardly wait to kiss her,; it was all he was going to get to do with her tonight. His body was already taut with that thought and the memory.
