The wait was maddening. Such a tiny space separated his mouth from hers. She licked her lips as her body pleaded with her to close the distance. As if he had sensed her thought, Conner’s fingers tightened on her neck.
“Conner?” The whisper was half plea, half demand. He was so close, holding her, yet making no move to end her torment. Their breathing was harder, coming faster, and she felt as if she were unraveling inside.
Her hand measured the increased beat of his heart, which more than matched the throbbing ache filling her. Belinda inched her fingertips upward to his shoulder. She held power and male heat that tangled with the faint scent of bay rum. She longed to be bold, to slide her fingers into his thick hair and pull his head down to seal their mouths together.
His teasing kisses continued. He was not a lawman, but an outlaw intent on stealing her very reason. No gentleman skilled in the social arts, but a man too skilled in the arts of seduction. Without touching his mouth to hers, Conner had aroused her until she was melting inside for want of his kiss.
He moved then, his lips brushing lightly against hers, barely touching them. It was not nearly enough. It was not a wicked kiss, but a sweetly coaxing one. Not a kiss of demand, but one designed to expand the need building inside her.
“Does your mouth always tremble when a man kisses you?”
“Does it? No man ever—”
“And none will,” he finished. Conner felt her hands tighten on his shirt. His mouth covered hers. Belinda had done the impossible. She’d gotten under his skin, snapped the patience he’d spent years honing, and she’d made him hungry.
His hunger turned the kiss hot, then hotter, harder and hungrier. He nibbled her lower lip, drawing it into his mouth. She pressed snug against him, her breasts flattening against his chest, her hip pushing against aroused flesh and the muscular thigh he moved to accommodate her.
Using one hand, he pulled the pins from her hat, then the hat itself tumbled backward. His hand worked into the thick coil of hair, using it to tilt her head back as his kisses moved from her mouth to her jaw, down the length of her neck. The high collar of the shirtwaist prevented him from exploring the pulse at the base of her throat.
The harder slant of his lips moved insistently back to her mouth. Belinda tried to separate the sensations, but she yielded to the slow stroking of his tongue and, with a jerky sigh, she offered her mouth without restraint. The giving made her bold. She traced the breadth of his shoulders. The strength of the muscles bunching in his arms made her weak and wanton. His low groan mingled with her sigh.
Belinda was overwhelmed by the intensity of his passion. This is what other women whispered about, this was the desire that overcame all reason.
She found that she wanted to know more, to feel the fluid heat that surged through her as he claimed the dark recess of her mouth. She could feel the hard rise and fall of his chest; it sent a pulsing beat deep into her body until she could hardly breathe past the wild pounding of her heart.
Her hands tangled into the thick hair at his nape, savoring the softness under her fingertips. She felt his hand at her throat then, sliding hungrily up and down. He shifted beneath her, bringing her head back against his shoulder. The kiss deepened, going on and on, until she was near to fainting when his mouth reluctantly lifted from hers.
Conner looked into dark, luminous eyes filled with desire. Slight tremors had racked her body at the start of the kiss, but powerful shudders had replaced them. He had felt each and every one of them, for they acted as a caress against the taut hunger that held sway over his body.
Her lips were a natural rose color, but now they were reddened and swollen. He licked the corner, soothing and enticing her at the same time. At least he had discovered he wasn’t kissing a timid virgin. She had not protested when he slid his tongue into her mouth, but she’d been darn shy to return the pleasure.
Pleasure, as he had long ago taught his brothers, was given to a woman first if a man wanted to find any for himself.
Still, a nagging doubt rose in his mind. Belinda hadn’t stopped him, but she seemed unsure of herself. Her eyes drifted closed and she seemed perfectly content to remain sprawled on him in an abandoned posture oblivious to the true state of affairs—his state to be accurate. Conner’s curse was silent but potent just the same. Her lips curved with a lazy, almost sinful smile. A smile that enticed him. It was the smile of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. Conner knew he was more than ready to satisfy that want. He hurt he was so ready. He couldn’t ever remember feeling a need to have a woman as strong as the one surging inside him for Belinda.
But Conner had it ingrained to always listen to the voice of reason before he acted. He wasn’t being given a choice now. It raised a clamor that he couldn’t continue to ignore.
And reason said that Belinda didn’t know what she was inviting with that smile. He’d likely shock her to the tips of her high-buttoned shoes if he reached behind him and tossed his poncho down on the grass.
Wouldn’t he?
The little doubt played havoc with his mind. He swore harder, silently, damning himself and his conscience for not letting matters take their natural course.
“Conner? Is something wrong? Did I do—”
“Wrong? What could be wrong?” Anger directed at himself laced his voice. He could feel her slight withdrawal from him, although physically she didn’t move.
“I asked you first. One minute you were kissing me senseless, and the next—”
He took her mouth in a quick, hard kiss. It seemed the easiest and best way to keep her quiet. But when he attempted to end it, Belinda held him in place.
“Kiss me, Conner. My curiosity is not nearly as satisfied as yours seems to be.”
Soft and sultry, the words were whispered against his lips. Conner was no saint. He never claimed to be, never wanted to be one.
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Belinda.” He ran his hand up her side, his thumb stopping at the curve of her breast. “I’m a man, not a boy. I won’t stop with kisses. I won’t stop at all.”
“You are very aroused, Conner.”
“Yeah, that about describes the state I’m in.” He closed his eyes briefly, unable to believe that he was having this conversation with her.
Belinda used one finger to rub the outer rim of his ear. He muttered something that she did not understand, something that sounded like an imprecation to the devil. She smiled and snuggled closer.
“Conner, if I am the cause of your…er…discomfort, then let me be the source of easing it.”
His first reaction was to set her on the opposite side of the buckboard seat. What the hell had he set free?
“Belinda, are you flirting with me?”
“If you need to ask,” she murmured with regret, then sighed, “I must not be doing it right. I had hoped—”
“Never mind. You’re doing just fine. As a matter of fact, if you do it any better, I’ll expire right here.”
Her sinful smile was back in place and Conner gave in to the need to kiss her again. Virgin or not, it no longer mattered to him.
He tamped down frustration, tempered his passion that had built too high, too fast, and settled down to give her as much or as little loving as she wanted to take from him.
Pleasure for a woman first, he reminded himself.
But Conner had a last sane thought before he lost himself in the hungry little sounds Belinda began to make. The lady confused the hell out of him.
Chapter Thirteen
“What can be keeping them?”
None of the family assembled in the garden had an answer to Macaria’s question. She had asked it so many times in the past hour that she was not offended when there was no reply.
Kenny and Marty were playing with their pet ferret, PeeWee, and Jessie smiled when they saw she looked at them. A glance at her husband showed him still by the back gate. Ever since Macaria had told them about Belinda Jarvis’s visit today, Logan had withdrawn from her. He h
ad to know how painful this was. She loved Marty as much as he did.
“Come sit with us, Jessie?” Dixie called out.
“I’m too restless to sit.” But Jessie softened her refusal with a smile as she looked to where Dixie sat beneath the shade of a lemon tree, her hands folded over her distended belly. She appeared the picture of contentment with Ty standing behind her chair, gently rubbing her shoulders.
Logan moved outside the gate and Jessie gave in to the need to talk to him alone. Things could not go on the way they had been. Behind her, she heard Ty stop the boys from following her.
He headed for the pond, where the sweeping branches of the willow offered concealment.
“Logan?”
“Go back, Jessie. I’m not fit company for man or beast.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She stood behind him and reached up to touch his collar-length dark brown hair. “This is painful for me, too, Logan. I don’t want to lose Marty. I don’t want to lose you, either.”
He spun around, disbelief flashing in his dark blue eyes. “Lose me? Where did you get such a damn foolish notion? You couldn’t lose me,” he whispered, taking her into his arms. “Never, Jess. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. “You’re so distant with me. You won’t talk to me. I want to know what’s bothering you besides the thought of losing our boy.”
Logan smoothed one hand over her head, pressing her against his chest. He loved her tawny-colored hair down, and they compromised with Jessie wearing it in a long single braid.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded.
“Honey, it’s you. You’re bothering me. Now don’t get all het up and tighter than a newly woven rope, Jess. You think I don’t know that you’re not happy here?”
“But—”
“No, let me finish. You wanted to know what’s bothering me and that’s it. I see how you look after coming back from the house Ty and Dixie are building. I know you want a place of our own. Things just got out of hand and there’s been no time. I only want you happy, love. And now this thing with Marty…”
She pushed away a little bit, just enough to cradle his cheeks with her hands. “Logan Kincaid, I love you. I won’t deny it’s been hard for me to share your mother’s home, not,” she quickly denied, “that she and Sofia have not made me feel welcome. But there’s just too little for me to do. I felt shut out of your life, Logan.
“With Ty and Dixie wrapped up in their own dreams and you so busy all the time, no one needs me. Not even the boys.”
“Jess, oh, Jess, how can you think I don’t need you?” He lowered his head, his loving gaze holding captive her wide, golden brown eyes as he took her mouth in a soul-searing kiss.
And when he lifted his lips from her, he whispered, “Don’t ever tell me again that I don’t need you, Jessie. If I didn’t have you, I couldn’t have made it through these past few months. Just hang on with me a little while longer until Ty can take over his share of the work again. Then I swear to you, love, I’ll make it all up to you.”
They held each other tighter, giving strength to face the wrenching loss that soon would come their way.
“Jess, I’d give everything I own to see you happy. I can’t stop us from losing Marty, but Jess—” he leaned close to whisper in her ear “—let’s make a baby of our own.” His hand covered the lush fullness of her breast, measuring the rapid beat of her heart that matched his. “Say yes, Jessie. Tell me that’s what you want, too.”
“How can I say anything else? I want your baby, Logan. I want us to have our family, too.”
Logan wrapped his arms around her waist, desire hot in his gaze as he looked down at the joy filling her eyes.
“We can’t start now, but damn, woman, I sure want to.”
Jessie laughed. “Ah, but my fine young stallion, who taught me that anticipation heightens all the senses?”
“I did. More the fool for ever telling you that.”
Once again, Jessie rested her head against his broad chest. “Where do you think Conner and that woman are?”
“I’d like to think my brother remembered he’s a Kincaid, not the sheriff, and lost her somewhere in the back of beyond.”
“Logan? You should pity poor Conner, love. He’s done so much for the family, and now he is the one who’s forced to make the choice of being honorable, despite his knowing that it will hurt us. Conner always does the right thing. But you can’t be angry with your brother for that. And he’s alone, Logan. There’s no one to share his burden with.”
“Ah, Jess, you’re a generous woman. More, much more generous than I deserve. Conner’s always had the hardest road to walk. But it hurt me, Jess, really hurt me to hear him say that he’d take sides against me.”
“Hush.” She set her fingertips against his lips. “You know that isn’t true. Conner has sworn to uphold the law. It’s what he’s dreamed of doing. What you and Ty agreed to help him do. You can’t condemn him.”
“Don’t get angry with me. I’ve conceded that his is the difficult choice.”
She turned within the gentle cage of his arms so that she faced the pond. Logan tightened his arms around her waist. “We mustn’t forget that Marty, too, has a difficult choice to make. I don’t mind admitting now that it was hard to forgive Kenny for lying to us about the boys being cousins, even though I understand he did it to protect Marty. Jess, I think Marty’s already made up his mind. He doesn’t want to leave us. Twice now, I’ve heard him call you Ma. Don’t tell me it didn’t please you all to pieces to hear him say that.”
“It did. I can’t lie about that. But I worry that she won’t let us keep him. I wish Conner would get here so this will be over with soon.”
“Conner’ll come, Jess. I just hope Riverton didn’t cause any trouble for him.” Logan’s voice was even, and he didn’t feel a twinge of guilt in keeping secret the news that Hazer had brought back along with supplies from town. No sense in Jessie and his mother getting all upset, or Dixie, who had been ordered to remain calm. But he knew what it cost his brother to shoot his way out of a jail cell filled with rattlers. Even Ty didn’t know how much Conner hated and feared snakes.
The memory of this secret shared with Conner went a long way toward softening Logan’s feelings about his brother. And he found himself repeating to her, “He’ll come. If I know my brother, nothing short of a bullet or a dust storm will stop him.”
It wasn’t a dust storm but one of passion that prevented Conner from moving. The buckboard seat had been abandoned. Belinda was too aroused to be shocked to the tips of her high-buttoned shoes when he tossed the poncho down on the thick grass. She wasn’t wearing the shoes, or the silk stockings that had covered incredibly long, shapely legs. Draped alongside the stockings on the side of the buckboard was her skirt and his gun belt. She hadn’t bothered to run when he reached for the buckle.
He stared down at her, at the play of weak sunlight and shadows from the laced branches overhead on her flushed cheeks, the slender bridge of her nose, on her ripe, sweetly giving mouth. Against the dark, rough-woven cloth, the spilled waves of her blond hair cushioned her head. Her expression was curiously beseeching.
Conner refused to be rushed. He fell to his knees beside her. “Are you sure, lovely lady, that this is what you want?” He called himself a fool, but he wanted no recriminations later. He couldn’t forget that she was a woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it. Still, he had to be sure.
She trailed fingers lightly up his powerful thigh. “How can you still doubt that I want you?” She was mesmerized by the desire in his eyes, by his touch, and by the strong feelings that sprang to life at his nearness.
“We’re going to be very late,” he noted. His hand moved to the tiny buttons at the neck of her shirtwaist and began opening them with unhurried fingers. All the time, he watched her for a sign that this wasn’t what she wanted at all.
“Late?” she repeated in a dazed whisper, resting quietly be
neath his hands.
Conner smiled. Forgetting the purpose of their being together should have flattered his male vanity, but small doubts cropped up over her falling into his hands like a ripe peach.
His fingers slipped under the fragile lawn to lightly stroke her slender neck. “Rose petals,” he murmured. “Velvety soft, fine as silk.” He was being offered the most delectable body of a woman he desired and he’d be a fool to refuse the gift, to deny giving the lady what every sultry sigh asked him for. Yet again, the dark voice of reason asked why. Why him? Why now?
He trailed one finger over the soft rise of her breast. The thin chemise with its feminine, delicate lace edge and tiny pink ribbon tie contrasted sharply with the darker skin of his callused hand. It was no obstacle at all to his sudden need to touch her silken flesh.
Conner slid one hand beneath her back, bringing her up slowly toward his mouth. Her lashes fluttered, her head fell back, lips parting in unmistakable signs of surrender. His thumb and forefinger touched her nipple through the sheer fabric. He thought about taking the generous shape of her mouth beneath his, but contented himself by watching the flush of sensuality mantle her cheeks. Slowly then, patiently, and very, very gently, he teased each crest into aching hardness.
Belinda rewarded him; softly moaning, she arched her back for more.
Her eyes were half closed, her breathing hushed as he finished opening the buttons and slid the soft cloth from the waistband of her skirt. She felt fragile under his hands. As he drew the cloth aside, Belinda roused herself, drawing her arms up to shield her breasts.
“Don’t tease me, honey.” His arousal was aching now and, control or no, he didn’t care to wait too much longer. “If you are, I’ll promise to pay you back later.” Promise was hot in his eyes. He lifted her hand, bringing it to his lips. A faint floral scent rose from her wrist, as delicate and tantalizing as the woman who wore it.
Once a Lawman Page 12
