“Good. It was supposed to be.” He fingered a strawberry-colored curl on her cheek. “Your hair still has little drops of water here and there. They look like tiny diamonds.”
Jessie leaned up and smiled. “I think I’ve been making love to a poet.”
“All Transylvanians are poets,” he told her. “Didn’t you know that? We are surrounded by dark, gloomy mountains, thick forests, and deep rivers. A man either takes to drink in such a place or writes poems about it. Most of my people cannot afford that much to drink, so ...”
Jessie laughed at that. “I think some of your people take time to become lovers, Feodor. I know one who did. And a very good lover, at that.”
“Jessica ... how could a man give you any less than everything he has?”
“Oh, I expect that’s possible,” she grinned.
He shook his head and let his eyes wander freely over her body. His look was so intense, she could almost feel it brushing her skin. He started at her legs, moved up the gentle curve of her thighs, and let his gaze rest lovingly on the soft nest of hair burnished copper in the sun. She felt him there, warming the fires inside—almost as if he’d reached between her legs again and touched her. She squirmed under his bold tour of her treasures, and arched her back off the ground like a cat. The motion made a satiny hollow in her belly, and thrust her breasts up to meet him. Feodor bent to stroke her tightened nipples with his tongue, pulling the sweet tips into his mouth.
“Yes,” cried Jessie, “oh, yes!” With each silken touch she felt the warmth within her grow. It flowed like thick and sugary syrup from her thighs up to the hard points of her breasts. Feodor moved over her again, and she reached down eagerly to grasp the hardness she knew was waiting for her touch. Opening her legs wide, she guided him gently through the moist folds of her flesh, opening to him like a flower. He rested just inside her, filling her but hardly moving at all.
Jessie delighted in the slow, exquisite touch of his erection, and answered that touch with an easy pressure of her own. Feodor looked down and grasped her chin in his hands. “Jessica—may I say something to you?”
“Of course,” she said softly. “You can say anything you like to me.”
“I want you to take this ... as I mean it. There are not many women like you. Not anywhere. Do you know this?”
“Just what kind of woman do you think I am, Feodor?”
“I think you are a woman who is honest in her feelings. Who is not ... ashamed to let herself be what she is. You show a man that you ...” Feodor stopped to find the words. “... that you relish the pleasure of making love. Am I saying this right?”
“Oh, I think you’re doing pretty well,” she teased. “Relish, huh?” She bit her lip and gave him a saucy grin. “You mean like this, do you?” Very gently, she contracted her loins around him, stroking his erection until she could feel it begin to swell inside her.
“Ahhhh!” Feodor’s eyes went wide. “Uh, yes. I think that’s exactly what I mean. Jessica, you do that again and I‘ll—”
“Now that’s not much of a threat, Feodor. At least not one that scares me.” She reached up and touched a finger to his lips. “You filling me up again comes under the heading of relishing the pleasures of making love. When you did that to me in the pool ...” She closed her eyes and grinned. “That was perfectly beautiful.” She pulled him to her and kissed him. “You are a good man, Feodor. And yes, you’re right. I don’t see anything wrong with showing what I feel. If you can‘t, I think you’re making love to the wrong person, and shouldn’t be there in the first place. I could thank you for being what you are too, you know. I wanted you, just as you wanted me. We let each other know that. It would be sad if we hadn’t, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t think there was any danger of that, do you?” He leaned down and took her in his arms, and for a long moment he stroked her slowly, thrusting himself against her, then drawing out again. Jessie lay back on the warm sand and closed her eyes. Each new stroke brought her closer, then closer still ...
“You like that, don’t you?” he whispered. “Everything I do to you ...”
“Yes. Oh, yes! God, Feodor, now. It’s time now, isn’t it?”
Once more she clasped her long legs lovingly about him, pressed herself against him, and ground her fingers into the hard muscle of his shoulders. They were poised and ready, both of them, balancing on the thin edge of their pleasure—a breath, a whisper, a soft touch away from the thing they would bring to each other. Feodor thrust himself against her, burying himself in the warmth of her flesh. Jessie arched her belly up joyously to meet him, drawing him hungrily to her. Her hands left his shoulders and slid along the curve of his back to grasp his hips. When he plunged into her again, she dug her nails sharply into his skin.
Feodor shuddered and bellowed out his pleasure. Jessie closed her eyes, clinging to him as if his body were somehow hers as well, as if the fire that exploded between them fused them together. Feodor cried out again, and once more she felt him rush into her like a flood. His pleasure heightened her own, reached down and stirred the warmth within her. This time her orgasm was nearly an agony of delight, a force that lifted her up and swept her along in its fury. For a while she was almost certain it would never end—half afraid that it would, half afraid that it wouldn’t ...
Finally, Feodor let out a breath, rolled over on his back, and drew Jessie over onto his chest. “I think you are right,” he said solemnly. “There is much to be said for pleasure between a man and a woman.”
Jessie stared at him, then broke into laughter. “Think it’s something you’re going to like, do you?”
“Yes. I think so.” Feodor gave a long, deliberate yawn. “I would like to try it again sometime.”
Jessie kept a straight face. “Well you really weren’t bad, you know. For your first time, I mean. I guess I ought to tell you.”
“Good. I appreciate that.”
He looked so terribly serious that Jessie couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Feodor, you are a crazy Transylvanian. And if that was your first time, I don’t think I can stand the second—when you really get the hang of it.”
“I hope that is very soon.”
She looked into his dark eyes and gave him a long, searching kiss. “Oh, I think we can arrange that. I really think we can.”
The horse was a sturdy farm animal, and Jessie rode along easily behind Feodor, her arms wrapped tightly about his back. After their lovemaking, she’d taken the time to rinse her clothes, and he’d carried them up the bank and spread them over a bush. They were still a little damp, but the cool cloth felt good against her skin.
Feodor kept to the far edge of the creek, under the trees. When they were close to the settlement, Jessie asked him to pull the horse deeper into the thicket, telling him she wanted to get off and talk with him for a few moments.
They dismounted and walked toward the creek, where Jessie stopped, pulled the revolver out of the waist of her denims, and inspected it in the light.
“Do you usually do away with your lovers after you use them up?” Feodor smiled.
Jessie laughed. “I didn’t know you were used up. No, I left this out on the bank back there while we were, uh, occupied. I just wanted to make sure it didn’t get any water or sand in it.”
Feodor eyed the weapon with interest, and Jessie handed it to him.
“It is very beautiful pistol,” he said. “What fine workmanship!” He turned it over and let the sun glint off the barrel. The polished peachwood grips were a perfect match for the light slate-gray finish.
“My father gave it to me,” said Jessie, “and taught me how to use it. Started me out on a .44, but I practically had to lift the thing in two hands, and it kicked like a mule. So he had this made for me. It’s a double-action .38 on a .44 frame, and fits me just right.”
Feodor looked at her and handed back the weapon. “Jessica, your eyes sparkle when you talk about that pistol. I think it is the man who gave it to you who brings such
pride to your eyes.”
“Yes, you’re very right about that.” Jessie swallowed and looked away. She had shared a great deal with this man, and she trusted him. For a quick moment she felt like clinging to him and telling him all about Alex Starbuck—what he was and what he truly meant to her. And how greatly she missed him. She hesitated, though, knowing this wasn’t the time and place for such confidences—even with a man like Feodor. The story of her father was one too tightly entwined with one she couldn’t tell, one he might or might not understand.
She turned away for a moment and listened to the water trickling by in the creek below. “I’d like to tell you something,” she said. “It’s something you should know, Feodor. But I want to ask you something first.”
Feodor looked puzzled. “Of course, Jessica.”
She turned quickly and faced him. “Who approached you and your people to buy your land? Will you tell me?”
Feodor shrugged. “Certainly. Only I’m not sure who the man was. Gustolf handled all that.”
“Do you know whether he was an American—or a European?”
“Oh, he was an American. Gustolf said that much.”
“And he came out here and just—”
“No.” Feodor frowned and shook his head. “No one came out here, Jessica. After the—after that creature killed the little girl, Gustolf waited, thinking perhaps it was not the curse of our homeland, but something else. Then, when the creature was seen again and again around the village, he was sure. He announced that we must move to another place. He went into Roster and asked around town for someone who could buy.”
“And he found someone, I’ll bet,” Jessie said wryly.
“Yes he did. The lawman there told him who to see.”
Jessie’s eyes narrowed. “You mean Town Marshal Gaiter?”
“I don’t know. That sounds right.”
“Gaiter put Gustolf onto a buyer he just happened to know?”
“I think that’s so.”
Jessie let out a sigh. “Feodor, he didn’t even go talk to Tom Bridger, did he? Let him know what he was thinking about doing?”
Feodor looked down at his boots. “No he didn‘t, Jessica. And I think you know why. You saw how he acted with you. Bridger was most kind to us when we settled here. Gustolf was ... ashamed to face him.”
“Bridger is dead, Feodor.”
“What?” Feodor turned pale under his dark skin. “How did he—” He stopped and brought his lips firmly together. “I guess I already know that, don’t I? Your eyes tell me how.”
“He was shot down in the street. The night before Ki and I got to town.”
Feodor gripped her shoulders. “Why are you telling me this, Jessica?”
“Because I want you to understand what’s happening here. To you and your people.”
“I can see what is happening. What do you know that I do not?”
“Someone wants to buy your land and buy it cheap. They’re willing to do just about anything they can to get it. Including scaring you to death and killing off your people.”
It suddenly dawned on Feodor what Jessie was trying to say. Concern, then anger and disbelief clouded his features. He turned abruptly away from her, jammed his hands in his pockets, and stared into the forest. “As I said before, I am a man who does not know what world he belongs to, Jessica, the old or the new. Perhaps it is a little of both.” He turned then, and held her with his eyes. “That thing has killed two people. You were here, you saw what it did. Now you come to me and say there has been a shooting in town, a man who was our friend. That it has to do with buying land, and that this ... man-wolf I do not believe in is a part of it. I do not understand this!”
“I don’t either,” Jessie told him. “Not yet, Feodor.”
Ki rode out of the settlement as soon as there was light enough to see, leading his horse up the hill to the road back to Roster. Jessie would drop a casual word somewhere to let the settlers know he had business to attend to, and would likely be gone all day. She knew, though, that he had no intention of going into town.
He followed the dusty road a good mile, then swept his eyes carefully over the low horizon. When he was certain he was alone, he urged the mount into a run away from the road, toward the hills to the north. When the hills were nestled about him on either side, he slowed the mount to a walk and veered off west again, circling back toward the village. After a good half hour he slid off the horse, walked to the top of the hill, and went to his hands and knees. Ki allowed himself a satisfied smile. There was the settlement, not half a mile away against the dark row of trees that hid the creek. Closer, just below his perch, was the beginning of the wheatfields. They stretched out to the south as far as the eye could see, finally disappearing with the roll of the land. If he kept the line of hills between himself and the fields, he could ride for several miles before he cut back south again. That would give him cover, and allow him to look for tracks leading out of the fields. If he didn’t find sign after a while, he’d cut into the wheat itself and look there. And if that didn’t work, he would have to go west and trace past the creek.
It was a good day’s job, he knew, unless he got lucky and spotted the animal’s tracks right off. Logically, he knew he’d probably pick up the trail much sooner, starting from the place where the wolf had made its kills. Unfortunately, that spot was also in plain sight of the village, and both he and Jessie had decided that wouldn’t be too good an idea.
Ki got off his horse and led it west, keeping his eyes to the ground. After only a few moments, he decided there was little chance of tracking anything over the grassy hills. Even an Indian would have trouble finding sign here. He was far enough from the settlement now to risk moving out of the hills into the wheat, and he turned immediately to the south.
The sight of the fields heartened him at once. The soil between the tall, golden rows was full of tracks—mice, rabbits, birds, and all sorts of tiny creatures. If anything as big as a wolf had passed through, he’d have no trouble spotting its trail at once. He backtracked east for a while to make sure he hadn’t missed anything in moving away from the settlement, then cut across the fields on a southwesterly course toward the creek.
Roughly halfway across the field, the thick rows ended abruptly. Ki stopped, surprised to come on such a place without warning. It was an outcropping of rock, a thirty-yard-wide circle, growing to head-high boulders in the center. Ki couldn’t help thinking of an island rising up in the midst of a golden sea. The settlers, of course, had simply planted all around it, right to the edge of the stone.
Ki started around the area, staying off the rock itself, checking to see if any tracks led out of the field and onto the stony surface. A wolf wouldn’t make its den in so small and accessible a place, but it might be attracted to the craggy—
The shot sounded sharp and flat, like a slap against the sky. A heavy slug snapped past his ear. Ki threw himself from his horse and came up running in a crouch, weaving for the cover of the wheat. The second shot chipped stone in his path, forcing him back. He jerked to the right, found a bullet there to meet him. He didn’t try again—if he tried to get to the field, he knew he’d never make it alive. Turning on his heel, he sprinted for the rocky island. A bullet went right between his legs. Another tugged at his shirt. He leaped, throwing himself behind a low boulder.
Ki waited, hearing the panicked, receding hoofbeats of his horse as it raced away, probably back to its nice, safe stall in the Roster livery stable.
He let his breath and heartbeat slow to a manageable pace. A hard knot settled in his stomach, and he knew exactly what had happened. While he was tracking the wolf, someone had tracked him as well. Someone so good at what he was doing that none of Ki’s senses had picked up an inkling of the person’s presence. He’d been deliberately herded into the island of stone. Herded in alive. Whoever the hunter was, Ki knew any of the bullets that had passed him could have just as easily hit its mark. The tracker liked his work. He enjoyed teasing his pre
y before he came in for the kill ...
Chapter 9
Ki quickly explored the wide circle of stones, and decided the place was both a fair sanctuary and an excellent trap. Unless his pursuer was a fool, which he didn’t appear to be, it wasn’t at all likely he’d leave the perfect cover of the wheatfield to hunt his quarry down. Why should he? If Ki didn’t know by now that the man was a deadly shot, then he was a fool as well. If he so much as stuck his nose out of the rocky island, the hunter would shoot it off without blinking an eye.
Ki wasted no time in wondering who the man might be. Exactly what he intended was more important. Ki’s mind moved rapidly over the possibilities, discarding those that seemed implausible or unlikely.
The man would not come in and get him; there was no need for that. Ki, in turn, would not bolt from cover. The hunter must know him, and understand his prey was not a frightened hare.
Assuming the man was alone, he could see at least half the perimeter of the circle at one time, without moving from cover. Which meant that Ki could try to escape—if he dared to risk his life on fifty-fifty odds.
He cursed himself for not thinking fast enough in the beginning. That had been an inexcusable error. Instead of using the rockpile for cover, he should have run right through it to the wheatfields beyond. Go in a hole and come out the other side. Leave the pursuer sniffing at the entry while you bound freely away. It was the basic ploy of any number of wild creatures—including, he reminded himself glumly, that supposedly frightened hare.
Ki leaned back and listened a long moment, then stared at the sun. It was a stalemate, then, or almost. He didn’t have a gun, which his pursuer might or might not know. There was one in his saddlebag, along with several other weapons, including the corded nunchaku sticks, and a hardwood bo staff jointed in three sections. At the moment, of course, none of them would do him any good at all.
He still had the two sai tucked in his belt, and he could kill the man with them easily—if he could ever get to him. The sai, because of their great versatility, came close to being his favorite weapons. Essentially, they were blunted swords, roughly eighteen inches long, with two short prongs curling out from the hilt. He could drive the sai right through a man at any point on the body he chose, or throw it like a missile and stop a foe in his tracks.
Lone Star 04 Page 8
