His hand went down to stroke between her thighs and she shuddered at the feel of his probing fingers. “Oh, baby, I never wanted a woman this bad before! You want me, I know you do! Say it!”
If she said it, would he end this need that was consuming her like a roaring fire? “Maverick, please!” she gasped. “I never felt like this before! I—I want you!”
“Then touch me,” he commanded. Half frightened, she slid her hand down to hold the hot, throbbing maleness of him. Then drew back.
“Touch me, baby,” he commanded, “as I touch you.”
She touched him, sighing and spreading her thighs farther, tilting herself up for the stroke of his fingers.
“You’re so big, Maverick, I’m afraid—”
“Don’t be,” he said urgently, “don’t be.”
He moved between her thighs, probing with his searing maleness for her velvet place. “It may hurt a little the first time, baby, but don’t fight me. Don’t fight me. . . . ”
Her urgent need was greater than her fear, and she tilted her hips up, digging her nails into his wide shoulders.
She felt him slip inside her, pushing against the thin silk of her virginity. She had a sudden vision of eagles locked in midair, and it was magnificent and passionate and beautiful.
She spread her thighs wide. “Take me,” she gasped, “Oh, please!”
And then Maverick seemed to put all the power of his virile body into one hard stroke. His mouth came down to cover hers, his tongue plunging deep into her mouth as his maleness plunged into her depths. She cried out against his lips, but she was locked in his embrace, powerless as they meshed.
For a long moment, she felt she was being impaled by a fiery, throbbing sword against the ground. She struggled against the pain, which only seemed to excite him more.
“You’re mine!” His lips kissed her face over and over in a strange fever of desire and fury. “You’re mine now, baby! God! I never dreamed I could want a woman so much!”
And he began to ride her. There was no more pain, only desire. She felt her body answering his stroke, felt her hips tilting up to take him still deeper. In a frenzy, she dug her nails into his hips, trying to pull his throbbing blade into the very depth of her being. What it was she wanted she was too innocent to know, but she knew there was even more than this.
Any reluctance, any hesitance she’d felt was lost in her own hungry need. But a small portion of her brain warned her as she arched against him. The aura of civilization had faded and he was as primitive, as savage as his Comanche ancestors. Traveling with Maverick Durango could bring only regret, only trouble to her.
She wouldn’t think of that now. She thought only of this moment, taking him deep within her, capturing this feeling that moved toward a crashing crescendo. Nothing mattered but eagles plummeting toward their destiny, locked in a dizzying fall!
Chapter Three
Maverick looked at the girl in his arms. Never had he felt such an urge for fulfillment. Any moment he would cry out with his driving need. “Wrap your legs around me, baby,” he commanded fiercely as he kissed her.
She did so uncertainly, hesitantly. He felt his maleness pulsating deep within her warm body. He ought to love her gently, control his own wild desire. But she was Joe McBride’s daughter, and for that, the flame-haired beauty must pay!
He began to ride her hard, relentlessly. She flinched away from him even as she dug her nails into his muscular back, whimpering in protest against his mouth. “Maverick,” she gasped, “you’re hurting me. . . . ”
Vengeance made him cold, uncaring. How often had he stood by and heard Annie whimper and cry out while he was helpless to stop the braves?
The girl in his arms felt soft, sensual. Her creamy skin brushed like satin against his dark-bronzed length. He took a deep breath of the slight scent of vanilla. Never had a woman affected him so totally, made him want her so much. The virginal Cayenne had become part of his revenge. He would strike out at his enemy by deflowering McBride’s innocent daughter!
She gasped beneath him and Maverick felt fire consume him all the way down. He couldn’t get deep enough into her warmth to satisfy his primitive urge, couldn’t drive hard enough.
His intensity mounted as he rode her harder, deeper, faster. Beneath his big body, he felt her protesting, fighting, but she was powerless in his muscular arms. Somewhere on high, he dimly heard the eagles scream again. The man who had been the boy the Comanche called Eagle’s Flight reached that summit of emotion and drove hard into the girl’s velvet softness one last time. She arched herself against him and cried out. But his searing mouth muffled her sobs as his body shuddered and gave up its seed.
It seemed a long time that he drifted on the wind currents, spiraling and falling through emptiness like the great eagles mating in midair. When he gradually regained consciousness, he tasted the salt of the tears running down Cayenne’s face.
He was almost contrite, apologetic. Then he remembered that Annie had cried, too, many times, while Pine da poi and the other warriors raped her. How often had the boy called Eagle’s Flight wept and pounded his fists against the ground in helpless rage and frustration because he could not help her?
The vengeance had come full circle. And a circle to Plains Indians was a magic, mystical thing. Would Joe McBride’s guts twist and would he swear in anguish when he heard that an Indian had despoiled his beloved daughter? Not just any Indian; one particular half breed Comanche.
A preacher. What a joke; a preacher. But wasn’t the safest hiding place for a wolf a flock of innocent lambs, all wrapped in a lambskin?
But now the girl beneath him clawed at him in fury. Maverick caught her hands to stop her from scratching bloody trails down his rugged face. “You rotten—! How could you?”
He had never raped a woman before, never hurt one. His memories had turned him into an avenging fury. “I—I’m sorry, Reb,” he murmured, kissing the tears off her cheeks. “I hadn’t had a woman in weeks, couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I hate you!” She pushed at him furiously. “I’m going back to Wichita!”
Maverick slid off her, sat up. The telltale sign of her virginity smeared him. It had been a first for both of them—her first mating, his first virgin. All his women had been saloon whores. “I’m sorry I got rough,” he said again. “Believe me, I never meant to.”
Cayenne scrambled to her feet. “I never pictured my first time happening like this.” She sounded saddened, regretful as she tried to cleanse herself and get dressed.
He watched her as he reached for his clothes. No, he thought, for a girl like you it shouldn’t have happened this way. There should have been a dress of antique lace and a preacher. Then a soft bed with white, perfumed sheets. Maverick had destroyed that wedding night forever for her, along with her innocence, and for a moment he had never regretted anything so much. But he thought of Annie and hardened his heart. “By damn! I said I was sorry! I can’t do anything about it now!”
She glared at him and her green eyes turned as hard, as cold as emeralds. “You bastard! I was feeling something very special for you and you treated me just like you’d treat one of the girls at the Red Garter!”
He grabbed her arm. “Cayenne—”
“Let go of me!” She jerked away from him and flounced over to her horse. “Believe me, I never threw myself at a man like this before, but I was so desperate to get home. . . . ”
“Oh, is that all it is? You’d use that pretty body as a bribe! Well, baby, you’ll get home!” Maverick caught her reins, holding his hands out to help her mount as any Texas cowboy would. “In some ways, you’re no better than the girls at the Garter. At least I know what they’ll charge! None of them ever accused Maverick Durango of not paying what she asked for her services! But that’s a pretty high price, riding through Indian Territory!”
The girl ignored his hands and swung up on the bay unaided. But he saw hope flicker across her features. “I—I don�
�t know. After the way you’ve treated me, I think I’ll find someone else to escort me back to Texas!”
He couldn’t let that happen. He needed her to lead him to Joe, so he swallowed his pride. “Cee Cee, I’m sorry about that. It just happened, that’s all. You’re too beautiful, too desirable.” He had enough experience with women to know what she wanted to hear. Maverick looked up at her and unconsciously ran his finger down the jagged white scar on his high cheekbone.
That long-ago night, the boy called Eagle’s Flight had dipped his fingers in Annie’s scarlet blood, mingling. it with his own that ran from the deep knife cut on his cheek. In anguish, he had made his terrible vow on Annie’s still-warm body. He would get everyone who had hurt her, yes, get them all. He had sworn he would search forever if need be. When the half breed finally found Joe McBride, he would torture and slowly kill him as only a Comanche could. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Her face reflected her confusion, her uncertainty. “I don’t know . . . maybe it was partly my fault. Expecting to be able to stop things after they got started is, I reckon, like stopping a snowball once it starts rolling downhill, gathering speed. . . .”
Maverick gave her his most contrite smile. “You’re the most beautiful, desirable girl I’ve ever met.” Dammit, he thought with annoyance, it was true.
He glanced up at the building thunderheads. “We’d better get out to the herd before that storm blows in.”
Saying that, he caught Dust Devil’s bridle, glancing at the scalp tied to it. Pine da poi. Whip Owner. In his memory, he saw the cruel, hatchet-faced Comanche raping Annie. He smiled as he remembered the frozen horror of that same face years later as Maverick garroted him slowly, deliberately. Pine da poi. His own uncle.
Maverick swung up on the stallion’s right side, Indian fashion. Cayenne’s expression showed uncertainty, hurt, anger. Not only might she not lead him home, what would he do if she went back to Wichita and got the sheriff? A jury of cowboys would go hard on a man who had forced himself on an innocent woman.
“Reb, believe me, I’m sorry.” He gave her his most charming expression. He’d gotten all four of the Comanche; now there was only Joe McBride.
“I—I don’t know.” The girl seemed to be turning things over in her mind, and he had a sudden feeling that she was being driven by her own reasons, her own secrets. “All right,” she said finally, “but from here on out, if you touch me again, I’ll-I’ll kill you! ”
Maverick shrugged. “Fair enough, baby. I’ve got my pride, too. You’ll have to make the first move next time!”
She snorted with contempt, shaking back her tousled hair, and they loped out of the grove toward the herd grazing only a few miles farther south.
They rode a long time in silence. The sky looked like great folds of deep purple and black velvet spreading slowly across the sky. Thunder rumbled and echoed on the horizon.
Cayenne glanced over at him. “When I was little and afraid, Papa used to rock me when it thundered. He said someone he once knew said thunder was only God clearing his throat.”
God clearing his throat. When he was a small boy, how often had his mother held him close in the middle of a storm, comforted him with those same words? He looked over at the flame-haired beauty. Somehow he had never imagined Joe McBride as a loving father, rocking a small daughter to sleep.
Maverick gritted his teeth, remembering. While the Texan rocked his little girl in the warmth of a comfortable ranch house, Annie and the child called Eagle’s Flight had clung together through the rain. She dreamed of the day Joe McBride would ransom her from the Indians. Surely he would take the little half-breed boy, too, and raise him as his own son. But Joe never came. Never. He wondered suddenly what Cayenne’s mother had been like, that second wife? Funny how things turned out. If Annie had never been carried off by the Comanche, taken to wife by a warrior , named Blood Arrow, Maverick might have been Cayenne’s brother instead of her lover.
Cayenne looked over at him. “What you thinking about? You’re so quiet.”
“About what you said about thunder,” he lied. “The Indians believe the thunderbird brings the rain, its giant wings flapping makes the noise. But once I knew a white captive who said it was only God clearing his throat.”
She looked over at him as they rode along, her eyes alive with interest. “It’s a common-enough tale, I reckon. Tell me about the captive.”
If he looked at her, the anguish in his soul would surely show in his eyes. Maverick kept his gaze on the dusty trail ahead. “She waited for more than fourteen years for her husband to ransom her from the Comanche.”
“And he never came? Never sent the ransom?”
Was it raining already? Then why had his vision suddenly blurred? “No, the rotten bastard never came. Probably didn’t want a woman who’d been raped by half the braves in camp.”
Blood Arrow had been killed in battle before his son was ever born, and his brother, Pine da poi, had inherited his captive woman. It was a Comanche custom for a brave to share his woman with his younger brothers. Sometimes when Pine da poi had been drinking, he’d share Annie with any man in camp who offered whiskey.
“That’s the most terrible thing I ever heard,” Cayenne frowned at him angrily. “Why didn’t you help her escape?”
Maverick squeezed his eyes shut tight for a long moment, blinking away the horrible images. “I helped her escape,” he muttered. “I helped her escape.”
He felt rather than saw her piercing stare as he kept his gaze on the trail. “You loved her, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
Only enough that I would have given my life to save hers and in the end . . . no, he wouldn’t think about that. The memory hurt too much.
“Si, I loved her.” He struggled to keep his voice flat, devoid of emotion. “I hate the gringo bastard who cared so little for her. But she loved him; never gave up hope that someday he’d come. I hate him for all those days she wept and waited. And someday I’ll find that man, kill him in the most painful way I can imagine!”
Her face paled and her mouth dropped open. “You don’t mean that. Maverick, you’re talking murder!”
“No, justice.” He gritted his teeth, sorry he had opened up to her, told her too much.
Her expression told him that she didn’t really believe him. The innocent girl could not comprehend such a crime. “But you helped her escape, so maybe you shouldn’t hate him too much.” Her voice was soft, sympathetic. “Papa says the Good Book says: ’Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and we should forgive our enemies.’ ”
Maverick laughed softly, bitterly.
“It is hard to do, isn’t it?” she admitted, a little shamefaced as he looked over at her. “I can’t keep myself from hating Comanches because of—”
“Including half-breeds?” What reason did she have to hate Indians?
But she seemed lost in thought as she rode along, the thunder echoing occasionally. “I can’t imagine that man abandoning a white woman to the savages. It’s just too cruel, too horrible. Maybe he was dead and couldn’t come.”
He would have to be careful not to give himself away. Still, he couldn’t let her words go unchallenged. “I don’t think so. I think the rotten skunk had married again, maybe some rich woman.”
“Oh, God, no man could be that cruel and cold-blooded!” she protested. “He’d better make peace with God or he’ll roast in hell!”
That was exactly where he intended to send Joe McBride, Maverick thought with grim satisfaction.
Lightning crackled across the far horizon, lighting the shadowy lavender dusk. The thunder boomed again like phantom drums of long-dead warriors, echoing and reechoing across the purple clouds, the greenish twilight sky.
Cayenne looked over at him as they loped across the prairie. “I hope we make it before the sky opens!”
He only nodded, worried now about the great, restless herd of cattle back at camp.
A shadowy, unnatural darkness fell across them as
they rode into the camp in silence. Foreboding gray clouds built into a great sky mountain.
“We made it, but there’ll be a storm,” he said uneasily. “Hope we can keep that herd quiet.”
His caudillo, old Sanchez, rode out to meet them. Maverick smiled warmly at his second in command as the Mexican waved his hat with a crippled hand. “Dios! Boss! We thought maybe the Injuns got our caporal! ”
Maverick glanced from the gray-haired, mustached rider over to the girl. “I was . . . detained,” he said, reining up. “But I’ve made the sale. Don Durango will be pleased. And the cattle needed the rest and a chance to graze anyhow.”
The gentle old Mexican nodded and looked at Cayenne, curiosity on his wrinkled face. “Si, that’s right, hombre. And Trace said you’d make him proud.”
Trace, the old Don’s son, had been like an older brother, teaching Maverick to handle a pistol with the best of them. “Sanchez,” he smiled, “this is Miss Cayenne Carol McBride.”
“Buenos noches, Senorita.” The old vaquero touched his battered hat with his disfigured right hand that was missing two fingers. Cowboys, particularly ropers, often carried this mark of the trade, one of the hazards of getting their fingers caught in the lariat as the steer tightened it.
Cayenne smiled. “Buenos noches to you, Senor.”
Maverick watched her, reminding himself that he intended to use her as part of his revenge. He must not think about how pretty she looked when she smiled, how her hair looked like the mane of a wild sorrel filly, how soft and yielding she’d been in his arms. . . .
He frowned at the curiosity in the old man’s gaze. “Just as well we didn’t try to move the herd this afternoon,” Maverick snapped. “We wouldn’t want to be strung out along the trail with a storm moving in.”
“Si, boss. Looks like it’ll be a bad ’un.”
Maverick hooked his thumbs in his belt, watching the big herd moving restlessly in the distance. Two thousand steers. If they ever panicked and started running . . .
Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) Page 5
