Strangers on a Train

by Ruth Wind

  "Okay," she heard herself agree. "I'll try."

  Ben boosted her onto the horse's back. "I learned to ride bareback," he said, "and I think you get a better feel for what goes on inside a horse when you do. Just hang on to her mane. If we were going anywhere, I'd put a bridle and blanket on, but there's no way she'll go outside in this kind of weather."

  Oddly, once perched on Sugar's back, Heather felt her terror slip away. The animal's back was broad and warm, the hair prickly through her jeans. The mane was thick and coarse and much softer than Heather would have imagined. When Ben began to lead her around the barn, Heather felt the horse's muscles shifting and sliding under her thighs. It gave her a powerful feeling to ride so high. "I think I might like this," she admitted.

  "Good." He stopped and lifted his hands to help her down. "Let's go riding."

  "I thought you said she won't go out in this weather?"

  "She won't. Buffalo will." He nodded at the big black horse in the corner. "We'll ride together, just a little ways." As he spoke, he threw two wool blankets over Buffalo's huge sable back. The horse whinnied and danced sideways for a moment, then allowed himself to be bridled. Ben led him to the barn doors. "I think I'll take him out for a minute, let him get the restlessness burned off a little." He winked at Heather, then using his good leg to spring, jumped astride the great beast.

  Heather watched from the barn doors as Ben walked Buffalo down a short path to an empty field. The sight of him on a horse literally stole her breath. His body took on a fluid yet tensile nature that made him seem utterly at home in a way that he never was on foot because of his limp, however much it had become a part of him. Just as his face seemed to be designed for laughing, his lean body looked made for riding. His black hair curled out from below his weathered hat, and the duster split neatly over the horse's back to cover Ben's long legs. Heavy snowflakes clung to his shoulders and arms and hat. He was beautiful on the back of his horse—a refugee from one of his novels, a proud man comfortable with the elements, ready to tangle with gunfighters or smoke a pipe with the elders of a local Indian tribe. His masculine profile showed a strong nose and full lips. He was looking off into the distance as if he could see forever. Heather felt decidedly dizzy at the sight.

  When man and horse reached the field, Ben led the straining animal in circles, and when Buffalo had ceased his restless pacing, brought him back toward Heather, moving silently in the endless landscape.

  As they approached, Heather felt her breath coming in shallow gasps, as if her sustenance depended not upon the air she breathed but upon filling her eyes and heart with the sight of this magnificent man. The ride had flushed his cheeks and lent a leaping excitement to his eyes. He guided the horse to Heather's side. "You ready?"

  She nodded eagerly.

  "Climb up on that fence and I'll get you."

  She eased onto the horse behind Ben and slipped her arms around his waist. "Don't go too fast," she asked.

  "I won't, honey," he assured her. "Hang on. You're going to love it."

  They headed back to the field at a mellow pace and Heather, who'd been holding on to Ben's waist for dear life, eased her grip to look around her. The heavy snowfall drifted over the trees that rose at the foot of the mountain, over the plants and shrubs that dotted the field and over Ben's house behind them, giving off a magical, mystical elegance. She stuck her tongue out to catch the ethereal snowflakes and reveled in their cold taste. Ben's scent enveloped her. The soft air swirled around her face and she thought she'd never felt more alive than she did at this moment.

  "Are you okay back there?"

  "I'm fine!" She leaned into the solid expanse of Ben's back and tried to sense what he meant about the muscles of the horse. Somehow, Ben seemed to move with the animal in a way that she wasn't. She closed her eyes and relaxed her body, suddenly feeling a rhythm beneath her.

  Buffalo moved with sure grace over the field, and Heather felt her hair whip out behind her as a cold wind blew. As she fit her arms more snugly around Ben's waist, she reveled in the comfort of his body next to hers. "This is glorious!" she called to him.

  "Best thing in the world to me."

  She could understand how he'd been able to win the titles he'd claimed in high-school rodeo. Seeing him on a horse brought home the best of him, made clear the reasons he wrote the way he did, emphasized the forceful yet gentle personality.

  With a start, Heather realized that her emotions had passed infatuation and gone beyond even the heady sexual awareness she felt toward him—a sexuality any woman in her right mind would experience in his presence. She didn't quite know what she felt, but her growing sensitivity to him was frightening.

  The field ended at a grove of pine trees. Ben led them into it a little way and paused. "This is my chapel," he said softly. "I come here to get myself together when I'm not. I even sleep here in the summer-time."

  She looked around. Tall, deep green firs, pines and spruce bent their graceful arms toward the earth. The silence was as unbroken as a frozen pool and she felt the hush was like a spirit's presence. "I can see why."

  "Let's get down. I want to show you something."

  A surge of anticipation tightened the muscles of her belly as she slid from the horse into his arms. He took her hand and they waded through the snow to an enormous old tree, seventy feet high. The branches on the lower trunk had fallen away up to about seven feet, leaving a protected cove at the base of the trunk. Around it sprang an assortment of other greenery—piñon and spruce and a bush Heather didn't recognize.

  Ben led her inside the cove of branches. Below the tree, the ground was dry and soft with years of fallen needles, and was dotted with pinecones. "It's like a little room," she said in wonder.

  "Look up."

  She did. Above stretched the mighty tree, thick branches hiding the sky as effectively as a roof. It was incredible, like a child's hideaway. She smiled at Ben, her fears of the moment before forgotten as he once again cast his spell over her. A tiny voice in her mind warned, You're in over your head. But Heather ignored it. "Can we stay here for a little while?"

  He nodded, strangely sober, his eyes below his hat taking on a deep intensity. "Let me get one of the blankets from Buffalo."

  He left her and Heather leaned on the tree. It smelled spicy, and the warmth of the cove surprised her. Again she looked up through the branches, peering for a glimpse of the sky. It was a mystical place, she thought; a secret, private thing. She felt gratitude toward Ben for sharing it with her.

  When he returned with the blanket, Heather looked at him. Very seriously she said, "Thank you for bringing me here, Ben. It's beautiful."

  His expression softened. He threw the blanket around her shoulders and drew her toward him. "It's my pleasure," he responded and kissed her lightly. His lips were cool at first, warming as the kiss lengthened. When their hats bumped, he took them both off and wrapped himself in the blanket with her. "This is nice," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "All alone in the wilderness with a beautiful woman."

  She drew him back to her, her lips hungry for the lush taste of his below the thick mustache, her tongue longing for the dance he had shown her. With a murmured sound of pleasure, he leaned her against the tree and pressed his long body into hers. With one hand he cupped the back of her head and Heather found herself imitating his gesture, burying her fingers in his hair. An unspoken shout of joy echoed through her, its vibrations singing with fluted notes through her nerves. The sense of destiny that had preceded her playing the steel-mill sonata, then had preceded Ben's entering her dressing room afterward, now returned full force. Fate had led them to this secluded grove, had led her into the arms of Ben Shaw; and she didn't intend to deny what fate had planned.

  She dropped her hands to the buttons of his heavy coat and released them, and her mouth left his to trail down the scented path of his neck to the rise of his collarbone. Ben went utterly still for a moment, and when she undid the buttons of his shirt so that she could
taste the crisp hair lightly covering his lean chest, he made a low noise. He brought his hands to her face and claimed her mouth with a hunger that jolted her simmering desire for him into a full-blown passion. With movements bordering on violence, he devoured her mouth, pressing his thumbs into her chin, and his fingers about her ears. The blanket fell away from them, forgotten.

  She grasped the lapels of his coat as dizziness invaded her, a rush of emotion so intense that she could think of nothing beyond this cove in the trees and his lips upon her own. When his hands left her face to tear at the buttons of her coat, Heather pulled his body close to hers. Ben caught her wrists and pushed them down, pressing himself into her for a brief instant before finding her buttons again. With impatience he pushed the coat from her shoulders, his tongue thrusting and parrying with her own in an expert and unceasing dance. His tongue slid forward to just tip hers teasingly, then plunged hard, over and over, until Heather moaned at the symbolism of his movements. Again she lifted her hands to his chest to touch the blazing heat of his bare skin.

  Ben breathed her name, his voice somewhere between a sigh and a groan. He pushed her away for a single moment, taking hold of her sweater at its hem and slowly drawing it over her head. As he lifted the material, Heather raised her hands and her breath came in short, shallow gasps as the cool air circled each inch he exposed—first her stomach, her ribs, and then her small unfettered breasts. At last he pulled the sweater free and flung it aside. "My God, you're beautiful," he whispered. His eyes blazed as he viewed her naked torso, covered with her streaming, tousled hair. Heather felt like the elfin queen he'd so often compared her to, as alluring as Helen of Troy. She raised her eyes and shook her head slightly to send her hair swirling over the peaks of her breasts, then held out her arms. "I've never had my clothes off outside before," she said softly. "I never knew it would feel so wonderful."

  And he was glorious, as well. His unruly dark hair had been thoroughly disheveled by her raking fingers, and his eyes were black with hunger as he reached out to touch her over the small space separating them. A teasing light glowed in his face as he grasped her shoulders beneath her curtain of hair. He stepped up to her, seeming suddenly huge and overwhelmingly masculine. Against her thigh his manhood raged and as he eased closer yet, gently pushing her back against the rough bark of the pine, she knew that whatever coquettish game she could dream up, he could go her one better. When the crisp hairs covering his chest brushed against her breasts, pushing the satiny covering of her hair away, she knew she'd already lost. His gaze held hers, sultry and teasing and warm, and he moved infinitesimally back and forth against her naked chest, creating an explosion of heat in her middle. Fleetingly she wondered how he could remain so completely controlled. He dipped his head to murmur against her lips. "You're a nymph," he said, nibbling her mouth with tiny nips. "I can't let you go this time. But you don't really want me to, do you?"

  She arched against him, straining for more contact, and something in his armor broke for an instant. He grasped her waist, the fingers digging almost painfully into her flesh, and his full mouth closed on hers in something close to desperation.

  Suddenly he stooped to pick up discarded clothing and the blanket, which he wrapped around her shoulders. Dismayed, Heather thought she was about to be rebuffed again. Instead, he swept her up into his arms. "I can't enjoy you the way I want to here," he murmured, and helped her onto the horse. He jumped on behind and nickered to Buffalo, who turned to head out of the woods.

  Heather felt dizzy when Ben's hands encircled her beneath the blanket. It seemed somehow delightfully forbidden to be almost naked under the blanket, anyway. To be astride the horse in the deep, silent snowfall added to her building desire in a way she would never have believed possible. She relaxed into Ben and laughed. "This is wonderful," she said softly.

  His hands ascended her body beneath the blanket, the tips of his fingers cutting a freezing-hot trail. At the barrier of her arms holding the blanket, he paused, his molten mouth falling on her neck. "I want you to feel the snow on your naked breasts," he whispered. "I want the snow to melt on all that heat." His tongue teased up her neck. "And then I want to sip it all away."

  She swallowed, dry mouthed at the reaction his words created. "What if someone sees?"

  "I own a hundred acres—every inch of it fenced." He hugged her from behind. "It's okay, Heather. I'm playing with you. I can't quite believe you've never been naked outside before." He straightened a little, pulling his hands from beneath the blanket. "Hold on to it. I'm just going to pull it off your shoulders a little bit."

  Heather complied, clutching for dear life to the blanket covering her breasts as he slipped it off her shoulders. A huge snowflake dropped to the hollow of her throat, another touched her collarbone. She leaned into Ben, letting her head fall back at his urging, and the snow fell on her exposed neck.

  "I got one," he murmured, licking a cold flake away with his tongue. He slid his hands over her arms, enfolded her waist and pulled her closer still on the gently undulating back of the walking horse. Against her she felt his hardness and shivered at the thought of it—at the thought of him. "Oh, Ben," she breathed.

  "I've never known anyone like you," he whispered against her ear.

  Her joy rippled through her. This moment was unique in all of history; as unique as the snowflakes melting on her shoulders, as individual as her compositions, which couldn't be given life by anyone except her—just as she couldn't have been given this new lease on life by anyone except Ben. All the exuberance she'd felt upon the overwhelmingly positive acceptance of the "Steel Mill Sonata" now flooded through her again, heightened and enhanced by the man who held her. In a rush of full pleasure, she let go of the blanket and whooped. The snowflakes danced on her breasts and her outflung arms.

  Ben made a sound behind her and his lips came down upon her shoulder at the same time his hands reverently reached up to stroke her breasts. His palms were hot—a heady contrast to the icy snow. The consuming hunger she'd known since meeting him broke free beyond any recalling. She moved her hands to his thighs—hard beneath the jeans—and clawed the cloth with her nails in her urgency to touch the flesh below. He played his fingers over her nipples, rolling and plucking them as expertly as Heather had ever played the guitar. He tenderly sucked the sensitive places at the nape of her neck and lashed her ear with his tongue. Boldly, Heather slid her hands up his thighs and heard his moan as she teased close to his arousal.

  How they reached the barn at all would be a source of wonder later. In those moments, both were too grateful for its shelter to pause and question. Ben slid off Buffalo and pulled Heather into his arms, crushing her against him, bare chest to bare breast, his mouth covering hers with violent need. Somehow they'd made it inside the barn, to a bed of fragrant hay.

  Ben urgently stripped off his coat and spread it out for them. He eased Heather to the ground where she lay suspended in the prelude of a symphony that had just begun to echo within her, watching as Ben stripped off his shirt. His supple torso was tawny and sleekly muscular; the dark curls of his head echoed over the lean lines of his chest. Heather held out her arms in supplication, and the first movement began as he came to her.

  "I've imagined this a hundred times," he whispered as he took her in his arms. He lowered his head to close his mouth upon first one nipple and then the other, his tongue circling wider and wider until he had tasted every inch of the soft curves.

  Heather heard violins take up the sound the flutes had begun in her veins as his mouth and hands played over her. He tasted the lengths of her arms, pausing at the vulnerable flesh of her inner elbow, drew shapes with his mouth upon her belly, slid her jeans from her body and tasted, too, that guarded center. Before she could be completely lost in the building symphonic sound, she grasped his shoulders and moved upon him to begin the second movement.

  She'd never been a bold or imaginative lover, but now the music led her. She trailed the sweet and painful kisses over
uncharted places of his body and traced the geography of his burning skin with her fingertips. The violins began a frantic whirr; the drums beat a slow backbeat, growing ever-so-faintly louder. Her breath began to heave in and out of her lungs until Ben could stand no more. With a hoarse curse, he crushed her to him, taking her mouth, his naked length glorious against her.

  There was no pause now for play. Their desire was too sharp, too raw. Lips bruised, tongues tangled, hands grasped and stroked and explored, throats uttered groans and murmurs and gasps. The flutes and horns and violins crescendoed to a roar, with the drums crashing behind.

  At last Ben moved above her and all time paused as their gazes locked. Reaching gracefully into his coat pocket, he whispered, "I figured you wouldn't have thought of this, so I took the liberty…"

  "Thank you," she whispered, touched by his thoughtfulness.

  When he finally plunged, the music commenced again, stronger and louder as he thrust with velvet and iron until Heather cried out, her head thrown back as she died and was reborn in a cataclysmic explosion. No longer could Ben tease and play and pull away. He, too, was drawn into the vortex to emerge, at the end, a different man.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

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  It was nearly dusk when Heather awoke from a lazy doze to find Ben curled around her back. His head rested against her shoulder and one hand circled her waist protectively. Sensing her movement, he asked, "How about a shower, gorgeous?"

  She shifted to look at him. "Are you coming with me?" After the first of their passion had spent itself, they'd returned to the house, to this room, where they had lingeringly discovered one another's secrets, making love with abandon, energetically and playfully.

  "You better believe it."

  They showered together, soaping each other and teasing and laughing, so sated from the afternoon's luxurious mutual explorations that they even managed to get dressed. They made sandwiches of corned beef and mustard, and shared mugs of hot chocolate in the growing twilight of the comfortable kitchen.