by BJ James
The door was kicked shut, closing out the storm, then the pad that was little more than a bedroll was at her back. Lying prone beneath him, with belts and buckles and rough cloth taunting her, she cried out in frustration.
“I know,” he answered on a breath. His forearms framing her face, his fingers tangling in her hair, he lifted away only a little to feast on the wanton his caress had created. His words took on a soothing, consuming rhythm, its seductive cadence kept and marked by slow, lazy kisses. “I know, my love. I know.”
When she would have protested that he couldn’t know, that this madness must be hers alone, the tug of his teeth at the lobe of her ear, and more muttered words, scattered even that thought. When she grew restless and greedy for more, before her greed could be spoken, his mouth drifted here, there...the hollow beneath her ear, the base of her throat, the cleft of her breasts. One nipple, and then the other. Suckling, Sweet.
Wonder and agony.
“Steve.” Only his name.
Pain and plea.
Pain he shared. A plea he answered.
Levering himself away from her, he stood by the bed, looking down at her in the flame of the one brave candle unvanquished by the winds of the storm. “I’ve wanted this.” He kicked aside the slippers he wore instead of boots. “Since the first day I saw you on the streets of Silverton, I’ve wanted it.
“I knew then that you were dangerous. That somehow, because of you, my life would never be the same.” The snaps of his shirt opened, each muted crack heralding another inch of his brawny chest revealed. When he shrugged it from his shoulders, his torso was dark. As dark as Bonita. Indio dark.
“Will anything ever be the same, Savannah? After tonight can it be?” His hand rested at his belt, but before he could deal with it, she was on her knees before him, fingers more nimble than his dealing with leather and buckle.
“For a quiet man, you talk too much, Steve Cody. You said that neither yesterday nor tomorrow mattered, and you were right. This is between us. Only us.” Drawing the belt from its loops, she moved away. Kneeling on the crude bed, she folded her hands, her fingers locked.
“Only Steve Cody, Savannah Benedict, this night, and what we make of it.” Silver eyes flashed in the swift glare of lightning, her chin lifted, turned. A move that sent her hair tumbling over one shoulder and down her back. As if it knew life and mischief of its own, a part coiled at her hips and brushed the soles of her feet. Another curled at her breast playing a winsome game of hide-and-seek. “What would you make of it, Steve?”
“This.” The last of his clothing was gone as he drew her down with him to the bed. His long legs, muscular and naked, twined with hers. The dark pelt at his chest cushioned her breasts, as arousing as his suckling kiss. He drew her closer, his thrusting manhood hard against her belly, striking fire to fire, turning heated blaze to an inferno. “I would make this of it.”
Then his hands and his kiss were everywhere, devastating with their bold touch, building sensation upon sensation. The last shred of logic and will deserted her. She was pliant and languorous, his to do with as he would. But even as she thought she would never need or want to move again, a new desire was stirring. A need to touch him, to know him as he knew her. Catching his wandering hands in hers, she drew them first to her breast, then to her lips.
“Let me touch you. I need to touch you.”
Steve shuddered at the thought of her hands on him, the sheer insanity it would invoke. Turning with her, he held her close until she rested over him. Then he released her, touching only her throat and nape as he drew the wealth of her hair down on him. He wanted the silken web flowing over him, as with lips and hands and laughing witch eyes she cast her magic spell. “I’m yours, Savannah, to do with as you like.”
Her caress was tentative, unpracticed and unskilled. If there had been any lovers before him, Steve knew it was not the lover a woman such as Savannah Benedict merited. But lack of expertise was no match for innocent delight. In a matter of minutes, as she discovered and explored his most vulnerable places, drawing from him responses he’d never encountered, he was shaking with an agony that was sweet, and terrible, and desperate all in one.
She was beginning again her delighted and delightful quest when he caught her hair in his hands, winding it around his palm, drawing her lips to his. “Enough,” he snarled in a voice that was harsh, even as his kiss was gentle. “Unless you would make love to a lunatic, enough!”
Savannah hesitated, lying over him she was as still as death. Love. She’d never said the word, never questioned what force had brought her to him. Never faced the depth of her own true feelings. But she’d known. Deep in her heart, she’d known for a long time.
“What more would you have, Savannah?”
“You,” she answered as she listened to her heart’s voice and knew Sandy’s words were words of wisdom. “I would have you.”
“And you will.”
As if she were a feather, as if he were not weak with desire, he swept her beneath him. He took one long, hard kiss, his mouth ravishing hers as tenderness fell from him like stricken armor. There was a fierceness in him as he caressed her, and more than a little madness as his body plunged into the crucible of hers.
She was hot and sweet and giving. And with the sweetness and the giving, knotted tensions eased, turning to fire. He heard the pounding of the rain, felt the rock of the howling wind threaten walls and roof, but he couldn’t care. She was wine in his blood, breath in his lungs, the beat of his heart. And as he thrust into her, into softness that sheathed the length of him, as sensation after mounting sensation caught at him, she became his life.
Savannah reached out to him, her arms circling his shoulders, her legs clasping his hips. A turn of her head and her lips brushed his shoulder, her tongue tasted the clean salty flavor on him, and with it desire moved to another plane. Feeling, unfathomable, demanding, gathered deep inside her. Too much to bear, too powerful to control, too wondrous to believe. Nothing in her life had prepared her for the mind shattering pleasure that mounted in currents that never ebbed.
She wanted him closer, deeper. More. Grasping his hair she bore down, her nails cutting into his scalp as she met thrust with thrust. And in the midst of furor it began. A nuance. A whisper. The ripple of a stone in a quiet pool. Building, building, wave upon wave, until it became a cataclysm washing over her. A sea threatening to drown her in the bittersweet torment of passion and desire.
“Steve,” she called his name hoarsely, and had no reckoning of the power of her cry.
The raw hunger in her whisper, the pulsing clasp of her body, catapulted him over the final edge of constraint. Slick with sweat and magnificent, he bucked and lunged, stroking the throbbing flesh that held him captive. Stoking the fires that licked at them, he took her further, spiraling down with her into dementia that could have but one end.
And when she convulsed in the throes of ultimate release, he reared over her, a grimace of victory distorting his face. He was primal man taking what was his. The pagan warrior crying triumphant possession over the prize of victory as he plunged savagely to the tip of her womb, and spilled his seed.
The storm chose that moment to unleash the worst of its wrath. Thunder pealed in a deafening roar, lightning fell through windows with a white, blinding glare. The earth shook, roof and walls groaned. But for Steve and Savannah the storm that both destroyed and resurrected had ended.
The cabin was serenity in the wake of passion, and darkness hovered as the valiant candle snuffed out. In peace and unshakable calm, he gathered her into his arms. With their bodies still joined, stroking the sweat of their mating from her, he kissed away her tears. And as he held her, as surely as he knew tomorrow must come, he knew his premonition had proved true—that from this moment his life and Savannah’s had changed forevermore.
“Tomorrow.” The harsh word fell like a stone in a sudden well of silence.
Drowsily she nestled against him. “Mmm?”
“Nothing, love.” He kissed the top of her head and rested his chin on her hair. “Only thinking aloud.”
Savannah heard, and understood, but said nothing. Drifting in the peaceful aftermath, surrounded by the essence of him...the scent of soap and leather and lovemaking...she knew he questioned, as she did, what transitions this night would bring.
One did not walk through fire and emerge unscathed. Nor face the truth of love and turn away from it. No matter what the future brought to them, Savannah knew she would carry the memory of this night, and the love, forever in her heart.
Her love. “Forever.”
One word. A promise to herself. An admission of truth. With a wrench of her heart, she wondered if it was an omen that Steve spoke of a day and she of eternity. A frisson of fear for the unknown rushed through her in a shiver.
He drew away, grave concern in his expression. “Are you cold, love?”
Love. He called her love as he had before, but it was only a name. No more than dear, or honey, or, God forbid, good buddy. She wouldn’t deny the sorrow of her loss, nor let herself regret it. The decision had been hers. He’d made no declarations, nor offered any promises, and still she’d come to him.
Her choice. No recriminations.
“I’m not cold.” Gathering his hand in hers, she clasped it to her breast. “I’ll never be cold when you’re with me.”
He moved to cover her, their joined bodies beginning to pulse with awakening need. “I know a wonderful way to warm you. If you were cold, that is.”
Locking her arms around his neck, Savannah shivered again, not completely in pretense. “Gracious,” she murmured lazily. “There must be a draft. A chilly one.”
Smiling, he began to move within her. “A draft.”
The sun was up. By rancher’s standards the rain drenched morning was ancient, but neither Savannah nor Steve squandered a thought on time. The horses had water and grain. A late start, or even a day of rest, would do them no harm.
Lying in bed, a sheet drawn to his waist, his arms folded behind his head, Steve watched Savannah as she wandered through the cabin. She’d taken the time to slip on the gown before she began her exploration. So he amused himself imagining and remembering the exquisite form hidden and yet intriguingly revealed by the cling and sway of flowing lawn.
He found he liked the charming disarray. Tousled hair combed into little order by the rake of her careless fingers, face flushed by a subtle glow, eyes languid and dewy, heavy with contentment. As she wandered from place to place, learning about him from the clutter of personal items, she made no effort to disguise that she was a woman who had only moments before arisen from his bed and a night of making love.
Steve liked that about her. The honesty, the candor that left no room for coy pretenses. He chuckled, admitting he liked everything about her. Especially the way the banded lace dipped and swayed as she moved, the weblike threads brushing a rose-brown nipple in full bloom, then teasing it to a taut, irresistible bud. Even now, his mouth hungered for the taste of it, his tongue longed to curl around it.
“What?” Savannah stopped in mid motion, her silver gaze on Steve rather than the open book in her hand.
“Hmm?” Steve lifted a questioning brow.
“You laughed.”
A wicked smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I did?”
“Yes.” Snapping the book shut, she returned it to a shelf filled with other books with surprisingly eclectic titles arranged in no apparent order. “You laughed.” Her hands were at her hips, lawn and lace pulled taut over her breasts. “And you were staring.”
“Not staring.” Delight sparkled in his eyes. “Admiring.”
“Admiring? Me?” Before he could respond, raking her hands through her hair in a rare and enchantingly feminine gesture, she rushed on. “I must look a sight.”
Steve leaned forward, stretching to catch her hand. “Leave it. I like it like that. A little wild, a little fey.” More than anything he liked it flowing over him, wrapping around him, binding him to her.
“You’re joking.” She would have taken her hand from his, but he wouldn’t release her. In her effort the gown slipped over the curve of one shoulder. “Either you’re joking, or you’re nuts.”
“If it’s nuts to like and admire you, then I guess that’s the verdict. I’m nutty as a greedy squirrel.” Linking his fingers through hers, he held her tighter. “Because I like everything about you. I like you more than you know, and I admire every inch of you. Every perfect, secret place, such as...”
It was Savannah’s turn to lift a questioning brow. “Such as?”
“Ah...” He sighed and grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.” Pulling her to him, stopping only when her knees touched the bed, he leaned to her, muttering huskily, “Such as this, and this, and this.”
As if to torture himself, he made his journey over the smooth planes of her brow and cheek arduously slow and deliberate, with each of a hundred kisses a tiny taste of her. “Then there’s this, and this.” His teeth nipped at the lobe of an ear. His mouth brushed over hers, but he was too intent on his goal to linger. “This...”
Light kisses blazed a trail at the curve of her jaw, the arch of her throat, the cleft of her breasts. “And this.” His mouth found the goal for which it yearned. His tongue, the taste it craved. The puckering nipple, with its dapple of lace, was like nectar to him. Desire lanced like chained heat from the tip of his tongue to the center of him, as his teasing went awry.
“Savannah.” He lifted his head from her breast. “I didn’t mean...I thought...” His look was stormy, sultry. “I can’t back away.” Releasing her, he stabbed his fingers through his hair, tearing at it as if he would punish himself for his folly. For awakening sleeping desire so soon. There was a desperateness in his look, his words. “I need you. But I won’t...”
He would have turned away then, but Savannah wouldn’t let him. Catching him by the shoulders she held him fast.
“Savannah?” A frown scored his face, and she caught a heart wrenching glimpse of the past, and a little boy whose innocent prank caused trouble he hadn’t intended.
“Shh.” She crossed two fingers over his lips, stilling the rambling that was half demand, half apology. “I know.” A tender smile touched her mouth, a graceful shrug sent the gown falling to her feet. A lazy tug took the sheet from him in slow and maddening purpose.
“Cowboys aren’t so different from lovers.” The words were a whisper, a needful sigh. She knelt on the bed before him, her fingertips drifted lazily over his chest, tangling in the pelt that trekked in a narrowing vee from tense male nipples to ridged stomach and beyond.
“Sweetheart.” He caught back a shudder as Savannah’s roving fingers did a bit of teasing on their own. “I don’t think your dance card’s been full enough for you to know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Savannah laughed softly and teased again. “The fabled card is full enough that I know one special cowboy and one lover very well.”
“What do you know so well?”
“That he finishes what he starts.” Her hands slid over his chest, a slight push sent him falling back. Bracing her body above his, letting the tumble of her hair sweep over him, she sealed her fate. “I know that if, because of something he’d done, a lady really needed comfort, he wouldn’t deny her.”
“What would comfort you, my love?”
“You.” As deftly as she mounted the stallion, she mounted Steve. “This.” Recalling for him the mischievous journey he’d taken, she began to sway. “This.” Her body glided over his. “This.” Her voice was rasping, her cry hoarse as she leaned again to him, whipping him with the swirling strands of her hair, caressing him with the tips of her breasts. “And this.”
She was a Cossack, an enchantress. The warrior’s woman taking the booty of her conquest. No race through the desert was ever so wild. No horseman ever so fiery, no steed so hot-blooded.
And when she sank quietly into his open arms,
no woman was ever more deeply in love.
“Only one more.” Savannah rose on tiptoe to brush one last tangle from Gitano’s mane. When she drew away, he snuffled at her shoulder and nudged her arm. Laughing, she patted his neck and stepped away.
Steve leaned against the stable door, watching a dangerous stallion behave like a puppy. “You’ve made a pet of him.”
“Do you mind?”
“Surprised. He’s done this once before, but I never expected it again.”
Savannah faced Steve, her hand still on Gitano’s neck. “The little girl in Mexico. The blind child who saw what he was.”
“She believed in him.”
Giving Gitano one last stroking pat, she stepped away. She’d learned much of Steve’s life, but in casual bits and pieces, not soul searching conversations. She liked the naturalness of it, the comfort and growing friendship it proved. Her own life had revealed itself with the same ease. At the most natural moments she’d spoken of the parental contest waged over her, the first star for her boot, regrets for ambitions unrealized that were regrets no more.
Now she knew the matters, small and great, that shaped his life. He knew her better than anyone had, or ever would. He had become more than her love and her lover, he was a rare and trusted friend.
As they walked from the stables, the last chore of the day finished, his arm lay over her shoulders, his hand at her nape. Autumn was not yet a reality, gold and amber were only beginning to show among the trees and across the meadow. But soon their small world would be awash with glowing shades of captured sunlight. But for now the season manifested itself in subtle hints, and in days that grew shorter. And as they walked together in quiet communion, the first of twilight was falling around them.
“Will you be going back to the Rafter B?” Steve was first to break the silence, and only a slight tightening of his fingers on the tender flesh at the side of her throat betrayed that it was more than incidental interest.
“Tomorrow begins the final judging and culling for the Silverton Fall Festival, and Jake will be primed and ready long before dawn.” The celebration that was more for show and bragging rights was just weeks away. Jake Benedict’s body might be faltering, but his competitive spirit raged on. “If I’m not in the corral waiting and ready, along with every other hand he expects, there will be the devil to pay.”
