“Chase,” she whispered, pressing herself against his hand, “I’m aching inside. Chase, do something!”
“It’s all right,” he said, easing a finger inside her as she strained against him. “I’ll do something, I’ll do more than that.” He probed her taut muscles, working them gently, delving as deeply as her body would let him. A cry slipped out of her as he withdrew and reentered her with two fingers, checking her theory about accommodation. He found her warm and moist, throbbing with desire. If he needed any assurance that she was ready, he had it.
She murmured something that sounded like a prayer as he moved over her and positioned himself between her legs. Resting his weight on his hands, Chase pressed into the soft, delicate heat that was Annie Wells, and felt her natural resistance. “Easy,” he said as she rocked against him with eager little thrusts. “Easy, Annie, that’s what does it. Let your body decide when and how to take me. When it’s ready, it will.”
But Annie didn’t share his patient attitude. She could feel him. Lord, she could feel him so vibrantly, the hardness, the solid width of him, as he pressed against her, nudging that tender, aching place, promising ecstasy. And whether her body wanted to take him or not, she did. She gripped his hips with her hands, aware of the flex of muscle, the dynamic tension in his flanks, as he probed and pushed, gentle but relentless.
She let out a little gasp as he entered her, hardened flesh pressing into soft, easing aside muscles that automatically tightened around him. Annie felt a wildness building, a whipcrack of excitement. She wanted to scream with pleasure and urge him on. But he stopped nearly as soon as he’d entered, leaving her that way, aching for more, only a little bit satisfied. It was torture, the cruelest form of torment she’d ever known.
“Chase, I’m dying. It’s so sweet.”
“We’ll make it, baby,” he said, his voice harsh. “Inch by inch, if that’s what it takes.”
Inch by inch, Annie thought. She’d never last that long! She kept her hands on his hips, thrilling to the flex of his buttocks as he moved inside her. Instinctively she began to explore him with her fingers, discovering that every inch of his backside was hardened and sleek to the touch. He was a man designed to bring a woman the most exquisite pleasure imaginable.
Now, if only he’d go a little faster! If only he’d truly make love to her instead of torturing her.
“Bring your legs up, Annie,” he said. “Wrap them around me. Yes, that’s it.”
Annie was closer to getting her wish than she realized. As she entwined him with her legs, he gathered her up in his arms and pushed into her softness, all the way up to the barrier that had stopped him before.
“How we doing, Missy?” he said, his voice going harsh again. “You okay with that?”
“Yes, yes! I’m fine,” she cried as he thrust again, a little harder this time. “It’s not hurting at all. It feels wonderful, really. Oh! Ouch!”
“Easy now,” Chase said, sliding his hands beneath her buttocks and scooping her up. “It’ll only hurt for a minute. Like pulling off a bandage.”
He thrust hard, and Annie’s fingernails cut into his flesh as she felt a quick, tearing sensation inside her. It was more a sense of pressure than of pain, of something vital giving way, making way for a huge, intruding presence. There was one last thrust, and then the impediment was gone, and he surged deeply into her body. “Ohh,” she gasped, feeling as though she were being opened like a channel, a river suddenly flowing free.
It was an enthralling sensation. She was aware of the entire length of him as he came to a gradual halt inside her. Lord, it felt as though he would stretch her to bursting.
“That’s the worst of it, Missy,” he said gently, holding her still while he bent his head and stroked her mouth with his. His breath was hot, his whisperings tender against her parted lips. A moment later, he was easing his way into her again, going just a little further with each flex of his hips. By the time he’d stopped completely, he was buried so deeply and exquisitely that she thought he must be touching her belly from the inside.
“I think we’re there, baby,” he said softly. “Are you all right?”
“I’m better than all right,” she assured him. It had only hurt for a few seconds, as he’d promised. But that astonishing sense of pressure remained. And now she felt so wonderfully full, engorged. Dear God, it was rapture. “You are remarkably large, aren’t you? I mean I knew you were, but I didn’t realize ... ”
“And you’ve got a remarkably fresh mouth.” Chase wondered if a cowboy was capable of blushing. He’d never had any false modesty about his size, but he’d never taken any particular pride in it either. However, now that she mentioned it, he did feel damn big inside her. Especially with her so tight all around him, and squeezing him the way she was. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?” he asked. “You’re hugging me, Missy.”
“Sorry—”
“Don’t be, it feels sensational.” Chase closed his eyes, but as he tried to concentrate on the deep, pulsing pleasure, he gradually became aware of what else she was doing. Her wanton little fingers were roaming all over his backside. She was stroking and feeling and squeezing. As her fingers bit into his flanks, he tightened deep inside, his muscles jerking with pleasure.
“Annie, are you trying to tell me something?” he asked, tipping up her head and searching her face.
“Well, now that you ask,” she admitted, wetting her lips as though to hold off a smile, “I was wondering about something. Are you going to move any time soon?”
“Would you like me to?”
“Oh, yes ... ohh ... yes.”
He rocked into her, moving slowly back and forth, and thrilling to the way she was able to take all of him, everything he had. Pleasure clutched deep inside him, giving way to a jolt of desire as she ran her hands down his back and cupped his buttocks. Her fingers dug into him, urging him deeper, faster. He’d been up against some rugged tests in his life, but holding off with this woman was the toughest, hands down.
He kissed her deeply, roughly, thrusting into her mouth and into her body at the same time. Her hips rocked beneath him, and the soft bounce of her breasts was tantalizingly sexy. “Can you handle that, baby?” he asked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me? I’ve never known such bliss.”
Bliss, Chase thought, if that’s what he was feeling now, he wanted to prolong it as long as was humanly possible. He wanted to overdose on bliss, to die of it, with her. He held out as long as he could, loving her with thrust after thrust, slow and sensual, deep and shuddering ... until finally the hot throb of her hands and the urgent rhythm of her hips broke his control. She wanted it hard. She wanted it fast.
Give the lady what she wants, cowboy.
Annie couldn’t hold back a sob of pure joy as he drove unrestrainedly into her body, gathering her up in his powerful arms and storming her with his animal passions. Nothing in her storehouse of fantasies had prepared her for the actual raw pleasure of making love with Chase Beaudine. The glorious pressure that had been there since he entered her was now deepening, tugging at her insides like a spring coiling in on itself, and at the same time, radiating sharp waves of pleasure. The urgent sensations fanned through her in tight little ripples.
As the coil shivered and pulled tight, her mind flashed a riveting image of black lightning. It jagged through the air, as hard and unforgiving as the crack of a rawhide whip. She could feel its heat and stinging sweetness in her mind. And then all at once, with the force of a thunderbolt, a whip cracked inside her and the coil of pleasure jerked unbearably tight. She writhed up, clutching at Chase with her arms and legs, until just as suddenly the coil broke free, reverberating wildly and leaving her gasping as it flooded her with spasms of incomprehensible joy.
She heard herself crying out Chase’s name. She felt him shudder and drive deep inside her, and in her dazed, bewildered rapture, she wondered if he could possibly have experienced the same wonder as she had.
/>
Ten
CHASE SAT ON the outside of the sleeping bag, bare-chested, with one long leg drawn up as a resting place for his forearm. He wore only his jeans against the chill night air. Annie slept facing away from him, on her side, her body forming a soft S-curve inside the goosedown bag.
It had been hours since they’d made love, and from the look of the hills, Chase knew dawn would soon be breaking. He hadn’t slept all night. His restlessness had nothing to do with Bad Luck Jack. The rustler had never shown up, proving Chase’s hunch wrong, but that wasn’t what had him concerned. He had a much larger dilemma at hand—namely, a redheaded, proverb-quoting, tobacco-chewing ex-virgin named Annie Wells.
He’d known making love with her would change everything, and it had. In the hours that had passed, he’d been mulling the consequences of that one seemingly simple act of passion. Taking her had been irresistible and imperative. Everything had demanded it, including her. But what did it mean? Even if he could convince himself that the act had been nothing more than a mutually satisfying, pleasure-driven moment, separate and distinct from everything else, he couldn’t imagine her seeing it that way. She was probably dreaming about wedding gowns and honeymoons at this moment. With his luck and her timing, her fertile little body was probably already making a baby!
On that sobering thought his mind flashed from one bone-chilling consequence to another, including the requirements of the immigration service should he decide to acknowledge his hasty marriage to Annie. It wasn’t as simple as filing a petition with the INS to grant her citizenship as his wife. The petitioning couple had to prove that their relationship was bona fide. Among other things, the agency required a two-year period of cohabitation.
Cohabitation with Annie Wells? Another bone-chilling thought. Just looking at her was enough to melt a man’s heart, especially when she was asleep. She was sexier than original sin. But she was also haywire, noticeably so. Worse, she had an annoying way of imposing herself on every aspect of his life. A private man couldn’t live like that. Chase had spent the last five years trying to simplify his life. In five minutes she’d reversed everything he’d done.
But the deepest concern he had on this chilly predawn morning—what bothered him more than any of the rest of his doubts—were her motives. She’d been so damn urgent about everything, including wanting to make love with him. If it had been a ploy to get him to commit, or to make him feel obligated, it had been half-successful. He damn sure felt obligated.
He pushed himself up and walked barefoot to the edge of the bluff, staring down at the deserted mine shack as he rubbed his hands together, working some heat back into them. Commitment. Now there was a word loaded down like a stock train headed for the slaughterhouse. Marriage, children, family, all linked up like boxcars. He could feel the weight, the straining bonds, of that much emotional baggage.
He didn’t want bonds, of any kind. His parents had been bonded, perhaps by love at one point, but later by hate and mutual degradation. He’d seen how the ties got twisted, how they could strangle whatever was good in a person. If he’d devoted himself to anything in life, it was to avoiding emotional entanglements. Somebody always got hurt.
His problem was how to convince Annie of that. From what he knew of her, she would probably refuse to believe that she had run up against someone who didn’t share her convictions. She believed in snails and arks and the unconquerable soul. Anything was possible with enough perseverance. Undoubtedly her proverbs had got her through some rough times, and he didn’t want to be the one to destroy her illusions. But to him, they were nothing but crutches. Props to help a man convince himself that life had a rainbow waiting when the storm finally cleared.
He shuddered, hoping it was the cold and knowing it wasn’t. He hated platitudes. It was cruel the way they kept a person holding out hope. They promised rainbows ... and never delivered.
“Chase? What are you doing?”
Chase didn’t turn around immediately. He didn’t want her to see what he knew was written in his face—that what she wanted from him was impossible. Whatever there was between them, or might have been, was impossible. ...
A muscle in his jaw tightened, aching hotly as he stared out at the hills, trying to figure out how he was going to tell her, but before he could find the words, she was next to him, pulling on her jeans and rushing to button up her sweater.
“What is it, Chase? The rustler?”
He shook his head without looking at her.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“A lot, Annie. There’s a whole lot wrong.” He turned and gave her a taste of the kind of hurt he could inflict. Acid seemed to be pumping through the valves of his heart as he watched her concerned expression transform into something softer, sadder. The light was going out of her eyes. Hope was being extinguished by another emotion that had no discernible color. The irises of her eyes had shone robin’s egg blue in the pale light, but now they were taking on an ashen dullness. Despair, he thought, that was the color of Annie’s eyes. It made her heartbreakingly beautiful.
“You’re sorry you made love to me, aren’t you?”
“Annie ... ” Words rushed out of him, words that couldn’t possibly bring back the vibrance to her eyes, but he said them anyway. “I’ll do everything I can to help you regain your citizenship, if that’s what you want. I’ve got some connections. I’ll even swear out an affidavit that you’re an American, or whatever it takes.”
“Affidavit?”
“Yes, I’ll get my partners to swear too—”
“But we’re married, Chase. Why do we need affidavits?”
He turned away from her, trying to block out the naked hurt in her eyes. It ripped through his chest, it clawed at him, tearing out hunks of flesh. “Dammit, Annie, it’s not going to work.”
“What isn’t going to work? Us?” Her voice softened, dropping off to a raspy whisper. “Anything can work if you’re willing to fight for it. If you want it badly enough.”
“For God’s sake, would you try to understand?” He swung around to confront her, aware of his own impotent rage, his own searing sadness. There was only one way to deal with this hopeless mess. It was another bandage that had to be ripped off as quickly and painlessly as possible. “I don’t want to be married, Annie. Not to you, not to anyone. I don’t want a wife and yellow kitchen curtains and a pack of screaming brats underfoot.”
The tears he’d expected to see sparkling in her eyes weren’t there. Instead, she was looking at him with stunned disbelief, as if he were some kind of monster.
“It makes no difference to you that I’m in love with you?” she said. “That I always have been? None of that matters?”
“It all matters, Annie. It matters like hell. That’s why we’ve got to resolve this thing now. I can’t let you go on thinking there’s a future for us. We can’t let this drag on any longer.”
“We wouldn’t have to stay married,” she said, her voice growing distant, as if she was talking to herself more than to him. “We could be divorced as soon as my citizenship is a proven thing.”
He turned away, raking a hand through his hair as he walked to the edge of the bluff. “Annie, the marriage in Costa Brava was a means to an end. It was a desperate measure, and we both know that. It may not even be valid, and if it is ... it has to be dissolved.”
Annie stepped back, staggering as a jagged rock cut into the sole of her bare foot. The pain was nothing compared to the brutal truth he was asking her to face. He didn’t love her. He’d risked his life to rescue her, he’d even married her, but he hadn’t loved her, then or now. And he never would. The fiery ache she’d felt earlier returned full force. It slashed a path up her throat and stung the lining of her mouth. The heat of it felt as much like anger as pain. And then she realized she was angry.
Arguments raged through her mind. She could think of a million ways to tell him what a selfish bastard he was, and how he was cutting himself off from everything good in life—from lo
ve, life’s greatest happiness. But what would it accomplish? She would never be able to convince him he was wrong. His flinty gaze told her nothing she could say or do would make any difference. The door was closed.
Perhaps she’d been right about him—he wasn’t capable of returning love. At the moment she didn’t care. She just wanted to get away from him. Being in his presence was too painful. She hated the thought that she might have to accept his help with the immigration service, but she would deal with that later. For now, at least, she had to find a way to put some distance between them. “Chase, I’m—”
His hand whipped up, silencing her. The words backed up in her throat until she realized his harsh gesture was not meant to castigate her. He was staring down at the mine shack.
“There’s someone down there,” he said under his breath. He ducked behind the ledge, grabbing Annie by the hand and dragging her with him.
The sound of rotted boards being ripped loose with a crowbar drifted up to them. Chase ventured out from behind the cover of the ledge for a look. “I can’t see who it is,” he said, “but he’s inside the shack. It’s got to be Jack.”
“Chase, I—”
Chase muffled her voice with his hand, pulling her close. “Not now,” he whispered roughly. “It’s not safe. He’s probably armed.”
Annie closed her eyes, hardly able to believe that she was enveloped in the warmth of Chase’s strong arms, that her face was nestled in his soft, thick chest hair. His sheltering embrace gave her such terrible pleasure, such cruel pain. She broke away from him, refusing to let herself feel such things.
“Annie, please don’t do anything stupid. Stay here while I check this out. Neither one of us is safe until I find out who’s down there.”
Annie watched silently as Chase pulled on his boots and shirt. Once he was dressed, he crept over to where the horses were staked out and lifted his bullwhip off the saddle horn. He also took a handgun from one of the saddlebags and tucked it into his leather belt. Then, motioning again for her to stay put, he started around the ridge toward a heavily treed section of the hill behind the shack.
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