Outlaw m-3

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Every way there is.”

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  Ten’s breath came out in a husky rush that Diana felt an instant before his lips touched hers. His lips were smooth and incredibly soft, fitting over hers tenderly yet completely. He brushed against her mouth again and again, letting her become accustomed to his textures, enjoying hers in return, and what he enjoyed most of all was the way her lips began to follow his, silently asking for more.

  Smiling, ignoring the heavy beat of his own blood. Ten gave Diana more of the undemanding caresses. Her mouth relaxed and softened and her breath sighed between her slightly parted lips. The tip of his tongue touched the sensitive peak of her upper lip, then withdrew, only to return and touch her again. She made a murmurous sound and tilted her face more fully up to his. Her reward was a warm, gliding caress that went from corner to corner of her smile. She made another low sound that became a tiny cry of surprise when his teeth closed tenderly on her lower lip, holding it captive. Instantly he released her and began the elusive, gliding kisses all over again.

  “Ten,” Diana said, the word more a sigh than his name.

  “Too much?”

  “No.” Her teeth closed a little less than gently on Ten’s lower lip. She heard his breath break and released him, whispering, “Not enough.”

  “Does that mean you won’t run if I taste that beautiful mouth?”

  “Yes.”

  “The way you were hanging on to my hands, I wasn’t sure.”

  Belatedly, Diana realized that she was imprisoning Ten’s hands against her face, holding him hard enough to leave marks on his tanned skin.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly, releasing his hands. “When you started kissing me I forgot everything else.”

  Ten bent and touched a corner of her mouth with his tongue. “That’s all right, honey. I just thought you might be worried that I’d start straying out of bounds if you let go of my hands.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you remember high school? Nothing below the collarbone in front or the waist in back.”

  Diana started to laugh, but the look in Ten’s eyes took her breath away. His words were light, his voice was velvet, but his eyes were a smoldering gray that made her knees weak.

  “I remember.”

  “That’s the way it will be for us. If you want my hands anywhere else, you’ll have to put them there.”

  “But then you would-you would expect more.”

  “I expect to spend this night like I’ve spent every night since I pulled you out of that kiva-hungry as hell. That’s my problem, not yours. You’ve done nothing to encourage me.”

  “Nothing? What about right now?”

  “This isn’t encouraging.” Ten lowered his mouth another fraction of an inch. His teeth closed tenderly on Diana’s lower lip. The tip of his tongue caressed her captive flesh until she made a small sound at the back of her throat. He released her, gave her a quick, biting kiss and looked at her flushed lips with hunger. “This is pleasure, honey, pure and simple.”

  “Steve always-he said it hurt him.”

  Ten’s answer was another brush of his lips against Diana’s, but this time there was no lifting, no gliding, no teasing. His fingers eased into her hair, rubbing her scalp, holding her with gentle care while he joined their mouths in a different kind of kiss. The caressing pressure of his lips increased, tilting her head back, yet still she felt no uneasiness.

  Slender fingers threaded into the thick pelt of Ten’s hair, holding him even closer, wanting the kiss not to end. When Diana murmured his name, he accepted the invitation of her parted lips. His tongue glided between her teeth, seeking the moist heat beyond, finding it in a slow, deep tasting that was like nothing she had ever known. He memorized the contours of her mouth with teasing, sliding touches, caressing her, enjoying her, cherishing her. Only when she whimpered and pressed even closer to his body did he complete the seduction of her mouth.

  Diana had never realized just how sensitive her tongue was, how it could discriminate so vividly between the satin smoothness and intriguing serrations of Ten’s teeth, the silken texture and beguiling heat of his mouth, the nubby velvet enticement of his tongue sliding against hers in a dance of penetration and retreat that made her forget who was stronger, who was weaker, who was frightened and who was not. Tender and sweet, hot and wild, the kiss shimmered with both restraint and the sensuous consummation of two mouths completely joined.

  Diana was never certain who ended the kiss or if it had truly ended at all. Slowly she realized that her arms were around Ten’s neck, his arms were around her, supporting her and arching her into his body at the same time, and he was looking at her mouth as though he had just discovered fire.

  “Ten?”

  The huskiness of Diana’s voice made his whole body tighten. Her heavy-lidded, luminous eyes told him that she had been as deeply involved in the kiss as he had. When she looked at his mouth and her own lips parted in unconscious invitation, Ten made a sound that was part laugh, part groan and all male.

  “Do you want to taste me again?” he asked.

  The shiver of response that went through Diana was clearly felt by Ten.

  “Then take me,” he said huskily.

  Indigo eyes widened for a startled moment, then her lashes swept down as she looked at Ten’s mouth. Her breath rushed out in a sigh that he tasted in the instant before she took his mouth, relearning his textures in a sharing of tongues that had neither beginning nor end, simply the hushed intimacy of their quickened breaths intermingling with the night.

  Diana’s last thought before the kiss ended was wonder that she could tremble and yet know not the least bit of fear. She had never felt so safe in her life…or so sweetly threatened.

  12

  “Not a chance,” Ten said flatly. “If you think I’m letting you excavate that kiva, you’re crazy.” He pulled Diana out of the truck and shut the door hard behind her. “You’re not going anywhere near that hole.”

  Diana blinked and stared at the man who had suddenly become every inch the ramrod of the Rocking M rather than the restrained lover who last night had taught her the pleasure of being kissed. Just kissed. All through the long drive to September Canyon, memories had come at odd times, making her shiver; then she would look over at Ten and he would smile at her, knowing what she was thinking.

  He wasn’t smiling now. Neither his stance nor the taut power of his body suggested that there was a bit of gentleness in him.

  “I want your promise on that, Diana.”

  She waited for the fear that had always come to her in the past when a man had stood hard-shouldered in front of her, his very size a threat that didn’t have to be spoken aloud.

  “Or else?” she asked tightly.

  “Or else we’ve had a long drive out here for nothing, because we’re going back.”

  “And if I refuse to go back?”

  “You’ll go anyway.”

  Diana looked at Ten’s gray eyes and wondered how she had ever thought of them as warm, much less hot enough to set fires.

  “Ramrod. It does suit you.”

  He waited.

  “I’ll stay on this side of the canyon,” Diana said angrily. “You have my word on it. Not that you need it. You could enforce your edict and you damn well know it.”

  “Could I?” Ten asked in a cool voice. “You’re smart and quick. You could find a way to go exploring before I could stop you. But now that you’ve given your word, I won’t wake up in a cold sweat, seeing you lying beneath stone, only this time you aren’t moving, this time you don’t get up and walk away.”

  Diana felt the blood leave her face. She made a small sound and reached for him.

  “Ten?” she whispered, touching his face.

  He closed his eyes for an instant. When they opened again, they were alive once more. He bent and kissed Diana’s upturned mouth quickly, then more slowly. When he lifted his mouth he whispered, “I’m glad you weren
’t afraid of me just now.”

  “I wasn’t?”

  Ten framed Diana’s face between his large hands. “You dug in and gave as good as you got. Then you decided that it wasn’t worth a long drive back to the ranch, so you agreed. That’s not fear, honey. That’s common sense. Me, now. I was scared.”

  Diana laughed in his face.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I was afraid you’d be frightened of me and then you wouldn’t let me kiss you again.”

  Memories of the previous night rose up in Diana, sending heat glittering from her breasts to her knees.

  “What sweet sounds you make,” Ten murmured, listening to the soft breaking of her breath. “Will you panic if I put my arms around you and give you the kind of kiss I wanted to give you this morning?”

  Her breath came out in a long rush. “I’ve been hoping you would. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like it’s been forever since I kissed you. I miss your taste, Ten. I miss it until I ache.”

  “Open your mouth for me, honey,” he whispered. “I missed you the same way, aching with it.”

  The heat and sweetness of Ten’s mouth locked with Diana’s. His taste swept through her, stealing her breath, her thoughts. Her arms tightened around his neck as she sought to get closer to him, then closer still. Soft sounds came from her throat as she gave in to a sweeping need to hold him so fiercely that he couldn’t let go of her until his kiss had soothed the aching that had made sleep elude her through the long hours of the night.

  Gravity slipped, then vanished, leaving Diana suspended within the hard warmth of Ten’s arms. With catlike pleasure she kneaded the flexed muscles of his arms and shoulders, urging him to hold her more tightly, not caring if she could breathe. She felt no fear at the blunt reality of Ten’s strength closing around her in a hot, sensual vise, for that was what she wanted, what she had ached for without knowing why or how.

  Not until Diana was dizzy from lack of air did she permit the kiss to end, and even then she clung to Ten, her face against the sultry skin of his neck, her body shaking with each breath.

  “Oh, baby,” Ten said, shuddering with the force of his violent self-restraint. “There’s a fire in you that could make stone burn. If you ever want more than kissing from a man, come to me.”

  Diana made an inarticulate sound and pressed her mouth against the corded tension of Ten’s neck. The touch of her tongue on his skin went through him like lightning.

  “You taste good,” she said slowly, touching him again with her tongue. “Salty. Does your skin taste like that everywhere, or just on your neck?”

  Desire ripped through Ten as he thought of his whole body being tasted by Diana’s innocent, incendiary tongue. Very carefully he lowered her until she could stand on her own feet. He forced himself not to look at her reddened lips and cheeks flushed by desire. He wanted her until he was shaking with it. He had never wanted a woman like that. And that, too, shook him. “Ten?”

  “If you want to get any sketching done, we’d better unload the truck. You’ll lose the best light.”

  “Sweet light.”

  Ten lifted a single dark eyebrow.

  “That’s what photographers call late-afternoon light,” Diana explained. “Sweet light.”

  An image came to Ten of Diana wearing only slanting gold light, the womanly curves of her body glowing and her husky voice asking him to touch her. With an effort he banished the image, forcing himself to concentrate on what must be done.

  “Where do you want to sketch first?” he asked. His voice was too thick, but he could do nothing about that for a few minutes, any more than he could quickly banish the hard proof of his hunger for her. “I’ve done all the close-ups of the ruins I can do until the grads clear out more rubble and excavate to a new level,” Diana said. “I need to do some perspective sketches, showing the ruins in relation to their natural environment, but to do that, I’ve got to be on the opposite side of the canyon.”

  Shrugging, Diana said nothing more. She had agreed not to cross over to the other side of the canyon, which meant that she had no sketches to do at the moment.

  Silently Ten swore, knowing his reluctance to let her near the kiva was irrational.

  “Get your sketching gear together. I’ll go over the area myself. If nothing else gives way, you can sketch anywhere you like. Just make sure I’m within calling distance. And don’t go near that damned kiva.”

  Fifteen minutes later Ten and Diana had unloaded the truck and were ready to go. He set out for the ruins at a pace that made her work hard to keep up. She didn’t complain. One look at the line of Ten’s jaw told her that he wasn’t pleased to be leading her back toward the kiva.

  Within a few minutes Diana was tasting the same kind of dread that had haunted Ten. Watching him quarter the area at the bottom of the cliff where she had fallen through, waiting for him to stumble into an ancient trap, standing with breath held until she ached; it was all Diana could do not to call Ten back even though she knew that the chance of his finding another intact kiva was so small as to be insignificant

  The chance had been equally small for her, and she had stepped through the roof of a kiva anyway.

  Half an hour passed before Ten was satisfied that the terrain concealed no more traps. If there were any other kivas, they had been filled in by dirt long ago or their ceilings were still strong enough to carry his one hundred and eighty pounds. Either way, Diana should be safe. The kiva she had fallen into on her first day was a hundred feet distant, clearly marked by stakes.

  Ten signaled for Diana to join him. She scrambled up the rugged slope with the offhanded grace of a deer. Very quickly she was standing close enough for Ten to sense the heat of her body.

  “Find anything?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Potshards, masonry rubble and that.”

  Diana followed the direction of Ten’s thumb. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Sometime in the past five to eight hundred years, a piece of the cliff had fallen, all but filling the alcove below. Once the opening had held rooms. Now it held only an immense mound of cracked, broken sandstone. Water seeped in tiny rivulets from beneath the stone, telling of a spring hidden beneath. Her trained eye quickly picked out the angular stones and random potshards that marked an Anasazi site.

  “I hope they were already gone when the cliff came down,” Diana said in a low voice, remembering what Ten had said.

  …lying beneath stone, only this time you aren’t moving, this time you don’t get up and walk away.

  Ten’s big hand stroked her head from crown to neck. “Somehow,” he said slowly, “I don’t think they were. In fact, I’m…certain.” He caressed her sensitive nape with the ball of his thumb before he lifted his hand and stepped away. “Better get sketching, honey. Even stone doesn’t last forever.”

  Intent and relaxed at the same time, Diana sketched quickly, not wanting to lose the effect of slanting afternoon light on the ruins across the canyon. At her urging, Ten had crossed the small creek again and stood looking toward the ruins, giving scale to the cliff and the ragged lines of once whole rooms.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she called.

  Ten waved his understanding. Diana’s pencil flew over the paper as she added texture and definition to cliffs and canyon bottom, cottonwood and brush. The heightened contrast gave an almost eerie depth to the sketch.

  The drawings she had made before had been accurate representations of the ruins as they were today. The drawing she was working on now was a recreation of the ruins as they had looked long ago, when the sound of barking dogs, domesticated turkeys and children’s laughter had echoed through the canyon, a time when women ground corn in stone metates or painted intricate designs on pottery while then-men discussed the weather or the gods or the latest rumor of raids from the north. The narrow canyon would have been alive with voices then, especially on a day like today, when the sun was hot and vital, pouring light and life over the land.

  Yet t
oday, despite Diana’s usual custom, she wasn’t sketching people among the buildings. Nor was she sketching the burning blue radiance of the sky. There were heavy clouds surrounding the sole figure in her drawing, a man standing on the margin of the creek. The man was both dark and compelling, black hair lifting on a storm wind, an outlaw shaman calling to his brother the storm.

  The power of the man was revealed in the taut male lines of shoulder and waist, buttocks and legs, a strength that was rooted in the center of the earth and in a past when the lives of humans and spirits had been intertwined. Standing with his back to the collapsed alcove, the shaman was a still center in the swirling violence of the wind. His brother the storm had answered the shaman’s call.

  The shaman turned around and looked at Diana with eyes the color of rain, eyes that saw past the surface of reality to the soul beneath.

  Diana shivered, blinked, and realized that she had been staring at the finished drawing so intently that her body was cramped in protest. Automatically she flipped the sketch tablet closed, both protecting and concealing the drawing. She slipped the tablet into its carrying case and stood up. Moments later she was hurrying down the slope toward Ten.

  He turned at the sound of her approach, watching her with eyes the color of rain.

  “Finished already?” Ten asked, holding out his hand to take Diana’s pack.

  She gave him her hand instead. Slowly he laced their fingers together until their hands were palm to palm. The sensitive inner skin of her fingers felt the hard pressure of him everywhere. The slow, complete interlocking was as intimate as a kiss. His palm was warm and hardened by work, making her wonder how it would feel on her skin if he were given the freedom of her body.

  The thought haunted Diana while she and Ten went through their normal end-of-the-day chores-a basin bath behind the screen, then preparing dinner and cleaning up the campsite. Although the sun had vanished behind stone cliffs, true sunset was still an hour away. Shadows flowing out from the rocks had taken the edge off the unusual heat of the day, but the canyon walls still radiated the captured warmth of the sun.