by Multiple
Keeping his voice steady, he stroked his hand along her bare back, teasing himself with the thought of kissing his way down her throat to those full breasts. “You okay?” He wanted her focused and confident, not afraid. “Nothing has to happen.”
The cold water washed away from them, steam rising lazily from the surface.
“I want something to happen.” Scarlett clapped a hand over her mouth as she blurted out the words. Sam laughed, pulling her closer and kissing each finger caging her beautiful lips.
“We have all night, Minx. And every night afterwards, don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.” But the surge of almost uncomfortable heat in the water belied her words and he nibbled past her fingers to kiss her cheek and tugged her through the water, abandoning the hot spot for cooler, deeper waters.
Her stiff muscles went lax as he circled the earlobe with his tongue, teasing the soft flesh. A tiny moan slipped from her lips and he grinned. “Better?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good.” He apologized mentally and then gave her a little heave, sending her head first into the icy cold center of the stream. She came up sputtering, color flaring in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the chill. He shook his finger at her. “Uh uh. You’re still a little scared and you’re definitely not as comfortable as you’re pretending.”
“How can you know that?” She demanded.
“Look at the water.” Sam pointed to the bubbles that streamed upwards, exploding steam into the air. “I want you Scarlett. I want to kiss every delicious inch of you. I want to touch your breasts, caress them and tease them and I want to taste your lips as I slide inside of you until I can go no further. I want to bury my cock in your heat and fill you with every part of who I am. But, I’m not doing any of that until you’re ready.”
He deserved sainthood for turning away from her. He forced his legs to walk. Every step assaulted by agonizing need. He wanted her.
He wanted her to want him.
No fear.
No reservations.
No regrets.
She hit him full force, her slender body wrapped around him and carried them both forward into the shallows. Sam twisted, wet skin sliding against his and braced her so that he landed on the soft streambed. Scarlett straddled him, taking advantage of the position and glared at him.
“You said: no more walking away.”
He opened his mouth and she swatted him, wet fingers stinging his chest, but the water stayed cool. His flesh was unmarred.
“You said we ride it out. We stick together. We trust!”
He waited for a pause in the tirade before lifting his brows at her. “Done?”
Her petulant little mouth puckered and then she huffed, settling her weight onto his lap, trapping his cock against the soft, silken folds of her sex. He dug his hands into the streambed, forcing himself not to move, not to breathe too deeply.
She really did want to kill him.
“Micah told me I just had to let you know I was interested. I thought I was doing that.”
He counted to ten and jerked a hand free to catch her hips as she shifted against him. Her virginity was in a precarious enough position as it was.
“Scarlett, exactly what did Micah say to you?”
“He said you came to the mountain to court me. That you liked me. That you were courting me on the way back. That you didn’t have to come after me, not for the gold or for the judge or anything…that you came because you wanted me. Was he wrong?”
The lonely, forlorn note robbed him of speech. He stood, surging upwards from the water, arms wrapped around her and bringing her with him. Her skin slid on his and he cupped her bottom to keep from dropping her.
“No,” Sam confessed, abandoning the last good intention he had to stand on. “He wasn’t wrong. I’ve wanted you from the first night I met you. I just couldn’t reconcile lust with what I thought you were and when I found out how wrong I was, I’d already been such a complete bastard.”
Her arms twined about his neck, her breasts soft and beckoning against his chest. “You weren’t a complete bastard.”
“You still left.” The accusation slipped out, the ache that gripped his heart when he’d realized her room was empty and the hollowness that chased him for days until he’d found her mountain.
Found her.
“I didn’t want to go.” The whispered confession stopped his heart. “I didn’t, Sam. When you found me at the pond, I was scared. I was terrified of what you would think, of what you would say and I had to protect my brothers. I had too.”
“Shh,” Sam pressed kisses to the corner of her mouth, climbing out of the stream and carrying her towards the fire. Under the canopy of shady trees, it was twilight, despite the late afternoon hour. He settled her on the blankets, uncaring of how damp they were and grabbed a spare shirt to towel her off, unwilling to walk the half dozen steps back to the towel she’d left on the rock.
“You were afraid of what Cody and the others would do,” he murmured. “I get that. I never blamed you for being afraid.”
“Just for leaving.”
The truth untwisted the knife in his guts, burning as it pulled free. He rubbed the shirt over her shoulders and down her chest, circling each breast carefully. “Yeah. I hated it.”
“So did I.”
“Don’t ever leave me again,” Sam ordered, sick at the thought.
Scarlett grabbed his hand, holding it to her breast and meeting his hard gaze head on. “I won’t if you won’t.”
“Marry me?”
She blinked. “Sam, are you sure?”
“I’m asking aren’t I?” He swore internally at his own impatience. “I’m not doing this right.” He shifted, backing away a half step and kneeling down, in the grass in front of her. “Scarlett Morning Star, will you do me the honor of being my bride? To have and to hold, until death do we part.”
Her silence worried him until he saw the tremulous tears in her eyes. He waited, not daring to hope when her head began to nod. “Yes, Marshal Samuel Kane, I will marry you.”
He wanted to whoop, but settled for surging forward to kiss her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sam devoured her mouth, the rough calluses of his hands stroking pleasure along her sides. Heat spiraled out of her belly, but the air neither shimmered nor popped. She broke from the kiss to look at her hands and Sam followed her gaze, peppering gentle kisses along her shoulder to her elbow. His teeth scraped lightly against the fold of skin before continuing on to nuzzle her wrist and finally her palm.
“You’ve never burned me,” he murmured, looking at her with so much emotion, she thought she might drown in it. He kissed each finger, gliding them against his teeth and tongue. The heat was liquid fire in veins, each touch sending out another pulsing cascade of need.
She pulled her fingers from his mouth and slid them up into his hair, eager to taste him again and when he kissed her, she kissed him back, the fire that burn within her was in their lips. Her tongue dared past his teeth and she let her hands wander, gliding over hard, rigid muscle.
When her fingers found his cock, she pulled her mouth away to cup it, sliding her hand around the thick head with wonder. Her heart beat a steady staccato rate against her ribs. Knowing what one did and experiencing it were too completely different emotions.
Sam was motionless, watching her and she bit her lip as she closed her fist around his length and gently began to slide her hand back and forth. Stealing a peek at his face, she could see the pulse throbbing in his jaw, the heat in his gaze positively scorching. But to her utter delight, he made no move to stop her.
His fingers wandered to her breasts, to the nipples that strained as if reaching out for his touch. Heat soaked through her at the first brush of his thumb to a turgid peak and her hand slowed, savoring every delicious touch of the velvet hot skin under her fingers and the way his thumbs stroked her.
She
fell back against the bedroll at his urging, his cock slipping free of her hand as his mouth closed over one nipple and he was as good as his promise. She sighed dreamily at the greedy, sucking sensation that pulled the heat up from her belly and tightened the bands of tension through her whole body.
It was better than when she released the fire. The weight of his cock poked at her thigh and she shifted, sliding her legs along his hips. He’d surged against her in the cave, the hard length of his grinding against her sex, but they’d both been in britches, both prevented from truly experiencing the touch of it.
Back arching, she tightened her legs and urged him down. Sam lifted his head to look at her, the half-light left him in shadow, but she could see every emotion clearly, as though she’d discovered the secret to him. He was hers.
She was his.
“It will hurt some,” he murmured, dipping his hand between them and gliding it over her smooth mound, fingers gently probing between the damp nether lips to tease her core. Scarlett whimpered, pleasure writhing through her and she bucked her hips up to his hand.
The second wave crested harder and more furious than the first and she clung to him. When the tiny detonations gave way to simple tremors, she opened her eyes, suddenly shy to find him leaning close and watching her.
He chuckled, caressing his fingers against her soaked sex and she shuddered as another wave of pleasure threatened. How was it possible? She felt limp and ragged and surging with life all at the same time. She swallowed, trying to talk around the sensations assaulting her. “It didn’t hurt.”
Sam laughed, claiming her mouth for another mind melting kiss. He broke the kiss slowly, drawing her lower lip out with his teeth, nipping her playfully. “We’re not done, Minx.”
Scarlett’s eyes widened at the prospect and he shifted, the hard ridges of his belly pressing into hers as his tip of his cock probed at her sex. She held her breath, hands clinging to his shoulders as he held her gaze.
“Breathe,” he murmured, gentle and loving. She nodded her head, digging her fingers into the tense muscles of his shoulders. He slipped forward, easing into her, inch by glorious inch. He slowed, stretching her and easing off on the pressure at the first resistance.
Swallowing, Scarlett shifted her legs, cradling him against her. His mouth descended, touching the corner of her lips in a feather soft kiss and swallowed her sigh, his tongue thrusting against hers as his hips lifted and then speared home. The pain was sharp and bright against the kaleidoscope of pleasure.
Deep inside of her, he stilled, letting her get used to the feel of him as she stretched beyond imagining. His hands glided over her flesh, teasing, caressing until they closed on her hips, gripping firmly to keep her still when she would have rolled them.
“Patience,” he admonished in a strained voice. She studied his face, the vein throbbing in his forehead and the sheen of sweat coating him. He was holding himself back.
For her.
Her heart melted and she arched up, disobedient to the end, mouth seeking his as she bucked against him. He slid back and then drove deeper. The pain gave way to pleasure and she groaned into his mouth, fingers fisting in his hair.
“Want to be slow for you,” his whispers punctuated the kisses and she laughed, locking her legs around his hips. The warmth in her belly was spiraling out in convulsive waves. He kissed her lips, her cheeks and down to the hollow of her throat. She cried out as his strokes grew firmer, deeper and rubbed against her.
Her body began to thrash as the need overwhelmed her, pleasure crashing down as his hips writhed, stirred, swayed and swam into her. The world vanished in a scream of naked sensation. Sam shouted and bucked against her, hot fire spearing into her and exploding the canopy of trees overhead until she was certain fire must have rained down on them.
Her breathing trembled in her ears as he collapsed against her, a warm, masculine blanket of heat sandwiching her between him and the bedroll. Her muscles were slack, her thighs trembled as she let him rest against her. Deep inside, he twitched, softening and it was the most decadent sweetness she’d ever experienced.
Sam’s lips pressed against her damp shoulder, kissing a slow path to her mouth. His nose brushed hers and she found herself gazing into his pleasure drenched eyes. “I love you,” he pledged, shattering the last doubt hiding away in her heart.
“I love you,” she exulted in the privilege. She wanted to shout it from the bluff top. Her gaze drifted upwards for a minute, certain the trees would be ash, but she saw only the fluffy green leaves and thick pine that had been there before. A few feet away, the horses nibbled their grass and the fire burned, their fish likely having turned to charcoal by now. The world was completely different and utterly the same. It didn’t seem possible.
“I told you,” Sam murmured, shifting his weight onto his side and pulling her over to sprawl against him. “You’ve never burned me.”
She laughed, stretching her arms out to examine them. They looked the same, darker, from her time in the sun, but still her arms. Sam rose up on an elbow, his fingers tickling along her side. “What are you thinking?”
“Do I look different?”
He cocked his head, gaze appraising as though giving her question serious thought. “You still look like my Minx. All sass and red hair.”
She laughed and swatted his arm playfully. “I’m serious. Do I look different?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Yes?” Eagerly.
“You look a little more like my wife.”
Shyness swept over her and she ducked her gaze. Wife. Married.
She was going to marry Sam.
Her belly quivered and a coldness surfaced to stab at the warm heat. “Sam?”
“Yes, Minx, just give me a few minutes and I will happily indulge any curiosity.” His voice was warm, spent and playful. She liked this Sam.
She loved this Sam.
The cold reality of their situation stabbed at her again. “Sam, what are we going to do?”
“Make love, probably catch more fish, and cook them. Make love again. Sleep a little. Then ride back to the Flying K and find a preacher.” He stretched his hand to curve possessively over her hip. “Unless you want to skip the catching more fish part.”
She laughed, the feeling so wonderful and free that she hated to clash with it, but her conscience prickled. “No, I…I mean that sounds wonderful, but I meant about the judge. The bounty. You’re a Marshal, you can’t marry a wanted woman.”
His eyes narrowed and his hand tightened on her hip. “No running away, remember?”
“I’m not, I promise.” She spread her hand against his chest, feeling his heart thump against his ribs. “I will marry you. I just, don’t know what that will do to you. You’re a Marshal.”
“I’m a man first,” Sam leaned close, pressing his forehead to hers, blotting out everything from her vision save him. “I’m your man. Micah told you about our Pa and our Ma. How he courted her, brought her from Virginia and built the ranch for her?”
Scarlett nodded slowly, snuggling into the long length of him. It was the most romantic story she’d ever heard. Even now, when Jebidiah spoke of his wife, love populated the words.
“My Ma died when Kid was born. Pa buried her on the ranch, at her favorite spot and he planted that tree. He goes out there, every day and he talks to her. Lots of women in the town, they set their cap for him, but he never paid them any mind. When I was old enough and brave enough, I asked him why he never courted another woman, why he didn’t get married again. Plenty of folk do it, but Pa said, ‘Samuel, I ran wild all through my youth and then I met your Ma. I knew from the moment I saw her, nothing would be the same. It would be better. I courted her fierce, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry a man who lived hard like I did. But I didn’t give up and I promised her, if she let me give her my heart, I’d never take it back.’”
Moisture gathered in the corner of Scarlett’s eyes. “He
meant it.”
“Yes, he did.” Sam sighed, slipping his hand up to cup her cheek. “I never understood how he could love someone that much, what it really meant or what he’d give up or why he’d keep a pledge even after she was gone. I know it’s only been a month, Scarlett. I know we’ve had our differences, but I also know you are the most loyal, most strong, most beautiful woman I have ever known. There will never be another woman for me, you let me give you my heart and I’m never taking it back.”
Emotion swamped her. “Even if…”
“Even if I have to leave the Flying K, Dorado and everything. If we can’t clear you, then we’ll run, but we’ll run together.”
Scarlett rolled against him, hugging him close. Her heart was so full it threatened to burst. But she understood it. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. Only keeping him safe had taken her out of the Flying K, to meet with her brothers. But she’d leave them, all of them, if it meant being with Sam.
Hours later, her body pleasantly sore and aching she snuggled against him, safe and replete. Sam was a creative teacher and she could only hope she was an adept student, but she’d never been so spent in her life. Not even after the firestorm.
She wasn’t surprised to find Quanto waiting for her.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Starlight shimmered through his form, the moon adding to his luminescence.
“I suspected, daughter. No man does what that man did if he does not care. He is a strong soul, a good man and a fair match for you.”
“Were you sure when you sent me away?”
“I would not have sent you otherwise.” Quanto gave her a knowing smile. “But you are both stubborn, tenacious and set in your own ways. You had to learn to see what was right in front of you.”
“He wants to marry me.” Scarlett sighed. The dream was of their home in the mountains, the lake they often swam in and the rocks where they would sit and talk for hours.
“You have doubts.”
“I am afraid for him.”
Quanto shook his head. “A pairing is only as strong as the faith one mate has in the other. You must trust him to know his own heart as he must trust you to do the same.”
