What would Lance do if she kissed him there? If he felt her mouth pressing against him? If she stroked him with her tongue, licking and caressing him the way he often did to her? Would he go wild the way she did when he put his mouth on her?
What would that heated, velvet-covered granite taste like? Like the rest of his skin? Like his tantalizing masculine scent, hot and musky, that surrounded her now, making her lightheaded with longing?
Only the long hours of training as a well-bred lady prevented Summer from acting out such wanton impulses. And Lance himself seemed to have other ideas.
“I love your breasts,” he remarked almost casually as he reached down to stroke her. “I love the way they tighten up when I touch them.” His palm was hot and rough, the callused skin rasping over her swollen nipples.
“Lance…” The word was a breathy whimper as she arched her back, pressing against his caressing hand.
“What, princess?”
“You’re torturing me.”
“Maybe so. Maybe I just want to make sure you’re good and ready for me.”
With thumb and forefinger he gently pinched her left nipple.
Summer gasped and quivered.
“Are you ready for me?”
His tone was quizzical, detached, almost amused, damn him. He knew she was ready, she thought dazedly. The hot scent of sexual arousal emanating from between her aching thighs had to tell him how much she wanted him.
“Touch yourself, and tell me if you’re ready.”
She shut her eyes at his brazen command.
When she hesitated, Lance reached down and closed his hand deliberately over hers, imprisoning her in his grasp. Gently, inexorably, he forced her fingers between her thighs, till they pressed against her woman’s mound.
Summer shivered at the feverish rush of pleasure that flooded her senses.
“Touch yourself, princess. Tell me how it feels.”
She obeyed, suddenly too aroused to care how scandalous her action might be. At his direction, she slid her finger through the heated dew gathered between her thighs, over the throbbing nub of her womanhood, and flinched at the powerful arrow of delight that shot through her.
“Tell me how it feels.”
“G-Good.”
“That’s all? Only good?” The pressure of his cupping hand increased, sending streaking heat shuddering through her body.
“No…better?”
“Much better?”
“Yes…”
“Are you wet there?”
“Y-Yes…”
“Are you hot there?”
“Yes…!”
“Are you hot for me?”
“Yes…Lance!”
“Let me feel.” He bent and dipped his finger into the spirals of dusky hair, finding her slick heat. Slowly, maddeningly, he rimmed the entrance to her body, circling, stroking her there with a leisurely, bewitching rhythm, till her breath shallowed and seemed to vanish. Then his finger entered her, impaling her lingeringly, thrusting unhurriedly within her.
A whimper dredged from her throat, Summer jerked and arched her hips, her inner muscles clenching instinctively around him. “Lance, please…” she panted.
“What do you want, princess?”
“I want you…please!”
He let her have what she wanted…partly. Clutching her hair with his free hand, he leaned close and kissed her in a hard, sensual caress, his lips moving roughly over hers while his fingers plied her throbbing depths. The combination left her half-dazed with hunger.
She had had enough of games, though, no matter how intoxicating. Nearly desperate, Summer reached blindly out to curve her moist fingers around his thrusting manhood. A flaring sense of excitement and triumph claimed her when she heard his sharp rasp of breath. Lance wasn’t nearly as cool and detached as he would have her believe. His body had gone rigid, while his eyes kindled like twin coals.
She could feel him pulsing and burning in her hand. Her heart hammering in her breast, Summer squeezed her fingers lightly, delicately, around his blatant erection. If he wouldn’t end his sensual torture, she would make certain he endured a similar agony.
Lance’s face twisted in a grimace of fierce pleasure at her startling touch. For an instant he thrust his throbbing shaft against her sheathing grasp, straining against the jolt of sensation so strong, it made him shudder. Yet he wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow her to do more.
Gritting his teeth against the surge of need, he abruptly pulled away, making her release him, knowing if he didn’t, he would go off like a sex-starved kid. He wanted to be the one in control tonight. He wanted Summer writhing for him. He wanted her trembling and hungry. He wanted to watch her go crazy in his arms, and when it was done, he wanted it to happen again.
Abruptly he pulled Summer to her feet. When she swayed dizzily, he held her rigid, his hands on the curves of her hips, staring down into her passion-hazed eyes. In a single smooth motion then, he lifted her onto the dressing table.
Instinctively her hands clutched at his shoulders, but her startlement quickly changed to acquiescence when she realized his intent. Pliantly, eagerly, she leaned back, her shoulders against the wall. Lance met no restraint when he spread her legs wide so that she lay open to him.
She was visibly shaking now, her arousal flame-hot, which was just how he wanted her. His hands braced on either side of her thighs, he lowered his head, breathing in her wonderful fragrance, her female heat. With deliberate speed, he planted a soft kiss on her woman’s mound, and Summer groaned out loud.
Lance smiled grimly, reveling in his own power. All he had to do was stroke her with his tongue and she would come apart. But he didn’t want her to come without him. He wanted to be inside her when she shattered, deep, deep inside her.
Sliding his hands beneath her buttocks, he lifted her hips onto his thighs and lowered her onto the throbbing erection pulsing against his stomach. Summer surged toward him, desperate to feel him inside her, to feel the wild beat of his heart match the wild beat of hers.
With a hard thrust of his hips, he crowded into her on one heavy stroke, impaling her to the hilt. Summer shrieked, and climaxed instantly, shuddering, quaking, her breath coming in panting moans.
When a staggering moment later she regained consciousness, it was to find herself draped limply against Lance, her arms, clinging to his neck, her face buried in his smooth, sweat-damp chest, his body’s heat and smell enveloping her. She had melted around him—and he was still huge and hard inside her.
He wasn’t moving at all, yet his breath was coarse in her ear, as if he were making a valiant effort at restraint.
Fighting off an exquisite languor, Summer experimentally moved her hips a fraction of an inch, and had to smile at the way every corded muscle in Lance’s body contracted involuntarily.
“Are you ready for me?” she murmured, her tone exhausted but smug.
“Shut up, witch,” Lance growled.
With the stiffness of rigid control he reached down and drew her legs around him, holding himself inside her shimmering heat. Lifting her in his arms, he turned and strode across the room to the bed, where he lowered them both to the mattress, still joined.
His black eyes held her gaze as his hands came up to roughly tangle in her hair, destroying the just-brushed neatness of her smooth, shining tresses. That was how he wanted her, with that regal image of hers shattered, with her emerald eyes soft and liquid with desire.
He began to move then, with an urgency as intensely primal as anything he had ever felt. Summer. His woman. He would never get his fill of her, the wild sweetness of her body, her lush, welcoming warmth.
Groaning in tender anguish, he took her, claiming, conquering, worshiping all at once. Soon she was responding with the same fierceness, her head thrown back in rapture. And when the flood came, all heat and light and motion, it held an intensity of pleasure as profound as pain.
His hard body buckled against hers, helpless in the throes of fulfillment. A
nd when the shuddering contractions at last faded, Lance shut his eyes, satisfaction and desperation warring in his heart. He loved her, this beautiful, fiery lady who could tie his insides into knots and make every breath feel like his first.
And somehow, someway, he had to make her love him in return.
Chapter 20
The first sign of real trouble came the following morning, when Lance’s livery stable in Round Rock was vandalized. The boy who looked after the livery, Nate Jenkins, galloped up to the cabin after Lance had already left for the range, almost beside himself with distress. Summer sent Nate after her husband while she conferred with Reed and had the buggy harnessed.
By the time she and her brother arrived in Round Rock, Lance was already there, and Nate was showing him the damage. The vandals had cut the leathers on all the harnesses and broken the backs of the riding saddles, scattering them in the yard, as well as driving the stage horses out of the corral. The carcass of one of the animals lay in a pool of blood, a hundred yards from the gate, its throat slit, the wound covered with feasting flies.
Summer stared in horror as Lance hunkered down beside the dead horse. From his expressionless features, she couldn’t guess what he was thinking, and yet she knew him well enough now to sense his rage. And for a moment, when he looked up and met her gaze, she thought she could read grief in his eyes over the senseless loss.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Calder,” Nate Jenkins said for perhaps the twentieth time. “I don’t know how they could have done this without waking me. I was here all night—”
“I don’t hold you to blame, son,” Lance assured him grimly. “You can’t stop people determined on destruction. The last time they stole all the horses instead of turning them loose.”
“You mean this has happened before?” Summer asked in outrage.
Lance gave her a sardonic glance. “You sound surprised, princess. This is white Texas, remember? Somebody thinks this the best way to run me out of the county.”
“What are you going to do?” Reed asked quietly.
With a sigh, he stood up, looking around him at the destruction. “Clean up this place and get on with my work.” He glanced at his wife. “Go on home, Summer. There’s nothing you can do here.”
“But I could help clean—”
“I don’t want you involved.”
She would have protested further, but Reed placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Lance is right—you should stay out of it. It might even be dangerous. He’ll deal with it better if he doesn’t have to worry about you.”
Reluctantly Summer allowed Reed to escort her back to the ranch, and yet she saw her retreat as cowardly. The monstrous warning had been directed at Lance, but he was her husband, and she should stand by him, despite the danger. Besides, she didn’t think anyone would actually hurt her. On the other hand, she couldn’t dismiss the possibility. The Weston name no longer provided her much protection, now that she was Lance’s wife. She could become the target of viciousness, just as Lance was.
The knowledge left her furious and more shaken than she cared to admit. She would never forget the ghastly, pitiful sight of that dead horse. And nothing could have driven home to her more thoroughly the ugly hatred Lance had faced all his life. She felt so helpless. So impotent. As if she were fighting a foe she couldn’t see, against whom she could never win.
Lance wouldn’t discuss the incident with her, she discovered to her frustration. He seemed intent on pretending it had never happened, or at least shielding her from the ugliness. Summer couldn’t be so sanguine.
For a few days, however, life seemed to return to normal. Reed started work on the plans for the new house, and Lance, after discussing the design and material construction with him, rode the twenty miles to Austin to order building supplies. While he was gone, Summer made another attempt to mend her relationship with her sister, or at least persuade her to attend the barbecue.
Amelia rebuffed both. When Summer knocked on the open door to her sister’s bedchamber, Amelia stiffened in her rocking chair and told her tightly to go away. Summer remained out in the hallway, but refused to be driven away.
“Melly, you don’t have to speak to me if you don’t wish to, but please…for your own sake, you have to stop doing this to yourself. You can’t spend the rest of your life hiding in your room.”
“Can’t I?”
“It isn’t healthy to sit here day after day, dwelling on the past.”
“Do you expect me to forget what happened to me?” Her tone was cold, angry.
“No, of course not. But it would be good for you to get out some. I think you should go to the barbecue Saturday night.”
“No.”
“Why not? You know you’ve always enjoyed a party. And Harlan says you are to be the guest of honor.”
She made a contemptuous sound deep in her throat. Summer bit her lip. Amelia had always loved parties, because they were the only times she could shirk the heavy duties thrust upon her at their mother’s death. It grieved Summer to see even that small pleasure denied her. She tried again.
“All your friends are anxious to see you and welcome you home.”
“Th-They won’t.”
“I think they will, if you give them a chance. And there will be lots of gentlemen there who want to dance with a pretty widow.”
A bitter silence greeted her speculation.
“Melly, I know you think your life is over, but it isn’t, not at all. You’re still young. You could marry again, have children.”
Amelia shut her eyes, a look of anguish twisting her features. “I’ve been raped by savages,” she said in a voice so low, Summer could barely hear. “Do you honestly think any white man is going to look at me after that?”
“Yes,” Summer replied quietly. “No man worth his salt would hold your assault against you.”
“No? Name a single man who could overlook what happened to me.”
“Dusty Murdock, for one.”
Amelia seemed startled. “Our foreman?”
“Yes. You may not have known it, but Dusty was sweet on you before you married Limmel.”
“He…he never said anything.”
“I should think not. You never gave him the slightest encouragement—and he worked for us, for goodness’ sakes. If he had dared make unwanted advances, Papa would have fired him on the spot. You know that.”
Amelia made no answer, but Summer left satisfied at least to have given her sister food for thought.
She was more satisfied by her brother’s relationship with her husband. Reed and Lance had begun to get along even better than she’d hoped.
On Thursday morning, the day after Lance’s trip to Austin, as Summer carried a basket of laundry to wash up at the house, she spied the two of them in a side corral and stopped to watch. Lance appeared to be teaching the crippled Reed how to mount with only one leg. His methods seemed unorthodox, but they brought results.
His well-trained sorrel stood patiently while Reed, positioned on the right, grabbed a handful of mane and tried to lever himself up onto the animal’s back. All he managed was to catch the stump of his left leg, which had been padded with a blanket, on the back of the saddle.
Swearing brutally, Reed fell back to the ground, but Lance prodded and taunted him to keep trying.
“You’d damn sure never make it as a Comanche. They wouldn’t put up with a one-legged man for a day. Fact, a warrior would rather be dead than live as a cripple.”
Summer gasped at the cruelty of the observation, even though she was certain it was true, but Reed merely gritted his teeth and tried again, putting every ounce of energy into hauling himself up. He didn’t make it this time, but he came close, so close Summer found herself leaning forward in silent encouragement.
“Use the one leg you do have,” Lance advised him. “Quit trying to pull yourself up and spring from the calf.”
Breaming hard, Reed rested a minute before he attempted it. This time he made it, much to Summer’s
delight and obviously his own. Dragging himself upright in the saddle, Reed gave a shout of triumph and pumped his arm in the air.
Lance seemed unimpressed. “Time to celebrate when you can do that ten times out of ten.”
Walking around to the sorrel’s left, he adjusted a loop of buckskin to support Reed’s severed leg. A crutch had been tied to the saddle, Summer noticed, but she was surprised when Reed unfastened it and tucked it under his left arm, letting it hang straight down.
Under Lance’s supervision, he directed the sorrel around the corral, using the end of the crutch in place of a left spur. Eventually he put the animal through its paces, both horse and rider becoming more familiar with the unusual aid. It was a child’s lesson, reminding Summer of when her brother Tyler had taught her to ride, but Reed, instead of being offended, concentrated as if his life depended on learning this knew skill.
And after a time, when he trotted back to Lance, he was grinning from ear to ear. “By God, it works!”
“On my sorrel, yeah, because I taught him. We’ll have to train a couple of other horses to respond to you, though. And to come when you whistle. Wouldn’t want you caught out on the range without a mount.”
“Would you consider selling this fellow?”
“Sorry, he’s not for sale.” Lance patted the animal’s neck fondly. “We’ve been through too much together. I’ll loan him to you for a while, but I want him back.” He looked up at Reed. “Think you can get down without falling on your face? You need more practice mounting.”
“Sure.”
He hooked the crutch over the saddle horn, where he could reach it once he’d dismounted, then tried to slide off.
Despite his confidence, though, as soon as his right boot touched ground, he lost his balance and fell, landing hard on his right side.
Alarmed, Summer took an automatic step forward, but Lance’s sharp drawl stopped her. “Good thing you’re a rich man, Weston. You can pay somebody to pick you up and wipe your skinned knee.”
Astonishingly, Reed grinned up at him. “Somebody should have washed your smart-ass mouth out with soap a long time ago, Calder.”
The Savage Page 35
