“Lovely Belinda, don’t hide from me.” He kissed her palm, gliding his open mouth across to the fleshy pad below her thumb. Conner bit her very gently, smiling as she rewarded him again with a soft moan.
“Come, let me see you. I want that. I want to touch you,” he whispered in a soft, intimate voice that brought forth a betraying tremble from the woman in his arms. He nestled her hand beside her head and lifted the other one with a brushing motion that peaked her nipples. “I want that very, very much.” A kiss to her fingertips, and this hand too was rested against the wealth of tumbled blond hair.
Compelled by a desire so powerful the world shrank to Conner’s touch, Conner’s voice, Belinda felt helpless as she looked up into eyes smoldering with passion.
“I knew you would be like this.” There was a breathless quality laced in the words as she continued to stare up at him.
“Like this?” Conner said softly, encouragingly.
“Yes, like this.”
His male vanity was pricked to the core. Had she so many men that she compared him to others? He thought it was his curiosity that had paved the path to this point, that, and his lovely lady’s own.
“You must tell me, querida, what this is.” Gentle derision underlay the encouraging tone. “Slow, Belinda? Tender?” His gaze drifted down to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts.
Her thought flashed back to that first morning. Slow as molasses on a winter morning. She had wanted so badly to stop thinking about him and his slow idea of pleasure. Badly? Not true, she decided, or she would not be half-undressed, more than willing to surrender to him.
“Tell me,” he ordered in a low, heated voice.
“Experienced,” she confessed.
Her wide brown eyes were guileless as they gazed up into his penetrating gray eyes. He lowered his head with a deliberate slowness to kiss her.
“Experienced,” he repeated softly, brushing her mouth with his. Polite, savagely civilized, Conner traced the shape of her mouth with his tongue. “I admit, the matter has never been called to my attention, but I appreciate the confidence.”
“I said the wrong thing.”
“Never, lovely lady. Say whatever you please. I certainly will.”
“Honesty was something I thought you would welcome, Conner.”
“I do. Experience and honesty. Is that what the charming Eastern society lady is looking for? A tumble in the wild with a cowboy makes fine conversation over afternoon tea. Doesn’t it?” He teased her lower lip with a nip of his teeth, soothing it with his tongue.
“No. Yes. You confuse me, Conner. I did not lie when I said I wanted you. I never said those words to another man.”
Conner held himself still. He had stripped away her habitual restraint and poise. No guile in her eyes, no coy confession, but truth. And still the dark voice of reason plagued him again.
“Never wanted to say them, Belinda, or never had the opportunity?”
His indulgent, waiting smile beckoned for the truth. Again. Would he leave her nothing secret? Bright with desire and ruthless with impatience, she knew he would stop and walk away if she did not answer him. And the aching fullness that he aroused would remain just that—aching. A moment more of uncertainty held her.
“Conner?”
His thumb touched the corner of her mouth. “No lies. No pretense. You wanted honesty. I demand it.”
“Both then. I never said the words to another man, never wanted to, never allowed any man close enough to make me want to say them.”
She whimpered softly when his mouth took hers, but tenderness turned hard, possessive, and this time her lips parted of their own accord when his tongue sought entrance.
But Conner wanted more than acquiescence as he swept the sweetness of her mouth. He wanted the passion hot, unfettered, and belonging only to him.
Her tongue played softly against his, twined and teased then danced away until he coaxed it forth again. His hands moved beneath her, lifting her up, one hand sliding down to discover the smoothness of her back, pressing her closer.
His mouth left a fiery trail down her throat, his teeth lightly nipping her satin-smooth shoulder. She trembled at the restrained hunger of the small bites, and her arms rose up to grip his strong shoulders. He guided the soft thin lawn cloth from her shoulders, down her arms, over her small hands, freed it completely from her body and tossed it aside.
“Lovely, lovely lady.”
She basked in the rich, heated approval of his voice, in his eyes. He made her feel beautiful and desirable. And Belinda, who never allowed anyone to rule her, allowed Conner the freedom to tease and torment, please and pleasure them both with his maddening slowness.
He removed her arms from his neck and lowered them to her sides, then grasped the thin straps of her chemise to slide them down her arms. The fragile garment was never meant to be removed this way. Conner opened the tiny pink ribbon tie and returned to tug the fine cotton over the ripening swell of her breasts. The bodice tightened, resisting his effort as Belinda did not.
“Conner, must you…must you take it off?” she stammered, moving her legs restlessly, anticipating yet suddenly shy.
“Desire, love, is such a hard, hard mistress. Fickle as the wind, but we’ll manage to outwit fashion to satisfy her. And you. Most especially you.” He gently eased the fabric under the perfectly formed breasts. “There,” he whispered in a rough-soft voice into her ear.
Belinda gasped as the lace edge slid over her nipples, leaving desire racing through her body. The silk of his hair brushed her sensitive skin that neither sun nor man had ever seen, much less touched. She felt poised on the fringe of the unknown, heated and tutored to his lightest touch, about to surrender what she had always guarded.
Sheer insanity.
It was her last thought as he slowly drew the tip of her breast into his mouth and teased her so gently with his teeth and tongue that she was sure this time she would faint from the exquisite pleasure he gave her.
Warm, sultry air, crushed spring grass and the heated scents uniquely Conner’s made a heady blend as she drew ever-deepening breaths. She was pressed back down to the coarse-woven poncho beneath the weight of Conner’s body. His lean hips moved rhythmically against her in a slow dance of persuasion.
She could feel the length of him, his aroused masculinity settling against the apex of her thighs, feel him seeping into every pore, every nerve ending, until she knew only him. Deepening kisses snapped the bonds of her passion. Her hands glided up his arms to clasp his neck. She laced her fingers together as she melted into his powerful frame.
Even as she gloried in the sensations filling her, she longed to touch him as he was touching her. Her fingertips pressed into his shoulders with need. She feared making the wrong move and having him stop the delicious pleasure spreading through her body.
Her body trembled beneath him. Conner arched his neck as her tentative touches grew bolder. He whispered encouragement as an overwhelming sexual response welled up inside him. He no longer asked himself why—all he could think about was having Belinda’s lovely long legs wrapped around him.
She was incredibly responsive. Adding to his pleasure, allowing him to temper driving need to return its full measure back to her. The fragile cloth was no barrier to the heated kisses he trailed across her waist and down the flat plane of her belly. He held her hips, stilling their restless twisting as he freed the tie of her petticoat and added moist kisses to already dampened cloth. A few gentle sweeps and turns and the froth of cotton and lace lay pooled at her feet. His mouth touched dewy warmth and the welcoming heat brought a sheen of sweat to his body.
The blaze of his body bathed her heightened senses. She reveled in the urgency and swiftly moving passion that drove Conner and swept her along in its tide. She answered his needs with dampening flesh and soft cries, and found her own needs sharpened with a greediness she had never known.
His whispers laced over her skin, dark, liquid words without meaning to he
r, but the hushed delicacy of his voice sent a fresh surge of desire to coil deep inside her.
Her heart beating wildly, Belinda cast caution to the wind. She worked her hands down between them, and began pulling at his shirt. Conner proved accommodating. A string of kisses that had her tossing her head from side to side preceded his upward rise until his lips closed over hers.
Driven now, she yanked at the cloth until she could slide her hands beneath it. His back was damp, like the touch of satin and steel, marred with tiny scars, hard and very alive while soft, so soft, to her caressing hands.
The heat of him invaded her on every level of feeling, from the thin layer of skin to the hidden corners of her mind. Conner stole doubts and filled her with drugging sensations. Her senses were drawn to wherever he touched her with his mouth, making her believe each place was where she craved him most, until he moved on to the next, and the next.
Raising himself slightly, Conner looked down at her. Her eyes were bright, the longing in them clear for him to see. He came to his knees, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. If he had harbored any doubts that Belinda wanted him, they instantly disappeared beneath the bold appraisal and blatant approval in her eyes. He blessed every deity and spirit he had ever called upon for the rich bounty waiting before him.
The opened shirt revealed dark hair covering his chest, arrowing down to his waistband. Belinda, no longer unsure of herself, gracefully sat up and stilled his hands.
“Let me,” she murmured, leaning close to scatter kisses as she drew the shirt from his shoulders, down the tense, muscled length of his arms, over his strong hands.
Her head tilted from side to side as she explored the texture and taste of his skin, her long blond hair brushing against him like the softest, finest silk. He shuddered in reaction and felt the smile that curved her mouth. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the heated and satisfying torment. Her lips closed over one brown nub, and a soft cry of surprise drifted upward when she discovered his flesh was as hard and responsive as her own.
Conner’s spread thighs welcomed her closer. He raised his hands to her slender hips, pulling her snug against his violently aroused flesh. Patience strained, he felt the tiny string of kisses she trailed along his waist, and he gently urged her head up until he gazed into her passion-drenched eyes.
“To satisfy your evident curiosity, lover,” he murmured, taking her hands and placing them on his shoulders, “I’ve a most pressing matter that desires your complete attention.”
She leaned into him, drawing his lower lip into her mouth with the edge of her teeth. She rubbed the tip of her tongue over it, sighed, then released his tempting mouth.
“Ah, pressing matters require one’s complete and most immediate attention.” Belinda laced her fingers behind his neck, her forehead touched his and her lips curved in sinful anticipation.
“Accommodate me, love.” He tumbled her onto the ground. Smoothing back the tangled waves of her hair, he grazed his lips against her cheek, then to the lobe of her ear. A delicate and delightful cry suspended talk as he paid homage to her daintily shaped ear and was rewarded by a plea he no longer could deny.
With a sure touch he loosened the ribbon holding her drawers and then sought tantalizing feminine heat. “My compliments to your modiste,” he whispered, touching silken curls through the slit in her drawers. He touched layered softness and honeyed warmth. She writhed helplessly against him. “Very accommodating for a man’s pleasure.”
“And a woman’s,” she returned in a barely audible voice. A shuddering moan escaped her lips. “Conner,” she cried out. In moments she was quivering, gasping with rapturous sighs.
Passion-glazed eyes touched upon his smile. “I commend your style. Please,” she said with a capitulative sigh, “more.”
His laugh was soft and knowing and he touched her again.
It was deeper this time and pleasure flowed in torrents through her senses. She had never thought there could be such thrilling excitement from a man’s touch, as pleasing and as effortless as Conner brought forth from her. Belinda lost herself in enchanted ecstasy.
She barely felt the drifting downward glide of fine cotton against her legs. But she keenly felt the loss of his body and made a fretful sound when he moved away.
“A moment, no more. I’d ask for your assistance, love, but you’re trembling so badly, I fear it will only prolong my…er…discomfort.”
“Take your time.” Belinda could afford to be generous, she was lost in the throes of her release and powerless to move. But she wondered if it would hurt the first time. She heard the soft thud of his boots fall to the ground, then the rustle of cloth sliding against skin. Nothing could make her open her eyes, nothing but the returned coil of tension that held her in thrall, demanding that she look at him.
“Sweet heaven.” Prayer and plea, her gaze lifted to his eyes.
Indecision clouded her gaze. With suffocating patience dredged from deep inside himself, Conner had to address the issue. Although he could never recall having ever, ever referred to his sex as an issue.
“Don’t worry,” he promised, all rich, heated indulgence again. He joined her on the makeshift bed. “We’ll make a perfect fit.”
Belinda stretched her hand to touch him. “Show me. Come show me, Conner.”
Past the point of preliminaries, Conner moved her beneath him, and nudged wide her thighs. His mouth took hers with a greedy, hungry kiss as he pressed against damp heat below. His smooth, gliding progress, aided by the gentle movement of her hips under him, came to a halt.
He remained poised motionlessly for a few moments, allowing her this small grace, but the cost to himself was measured in excruciating frustration. He thrust forward again, and she moaned, her fingertips digging into his shoulders. Determined then, neither brutal, nor overly gentle, encouraged greatly by her pleas, he broke the fragile barrier.
Startled by the pain, she screamed, her eyes snapping open to target his.
“It’s over, love.” He kissed her and murmured in the soft liquid language of his mother’s people, whispering endearments and dark, heated words that by inflection if not meaning, brought forth her eager caresses.
She saw in her mind’s eye, in that instant he had stood before her, tall, heavily muscled chest, lean through torso and hips, his erection bringing forth a silent plea for mercy, even as the fire between her thighs burned hot.
The slow way he moved inside her, withdrawing carefully, only to begin the slow thrust again, formed another plea in her mind. She never wanted this to end. Soft moans and sighs of pleasure seeped from her parted lips and she clung to him, losing the shyness, instinctively undulating her slender hips to draw him deeper. Arching against him, passion driving her as it drove him, Belinda felt a gathering storm that only moments later shattered her. There was a few moments’ respite, then once again the exquisite rhythm started and Belinda relinquished the last ladylike tenet that had guided her. Her ardor was as wild and fierce as the man who showed her the pain was truly over, and only pleasure remained.
Conner was driven by the knowledge that he’d never felt this fierce, reckless desire for any woman before her. She was fire in his hands, and the world hurtled away as he brought her to peak after peak, finding himself as insatiable as his lover until once more he felt the tiny convulsions begin for her and he met them with his own pulsing spasms.
There were moments when time stood still, before he lifted himself to his elbows, his breathing harsh, his body bathed with sweat. He kissed her reddened lips and she stirred beneath him, opening dreamy brown eyes as she reached up to cradle his cheek.
“Curiosity…” Her whisper trailed off, he was still hard within her.
“Replete. And yours?” he murmured with a half smile.
“Sinful bliss.”
“I try.”
“You succeed…”
Chapter Fourteen
“Hairpins for my lady. As many as I could recover.” Conner’s voice was indulg
ent as he dropped the pins into the depression made by the cloth draped over Belinda’s slightly parted thighs.
Belinda sat on the tail of the buckboard, fully dressed, an accomplishment—from a hasty wash in the cold water of the stream to buttoning the last button at her neckline—that Conner had made into love play. Replete, as she believed he was, in passion’s aftermath, she leaned forward to kiss his lips and murmur her thanks.
Conner broke the kiss before he lost himself again with this incredibly responsive woman who puzzled and disturbed him. “The lady entices,” he whispered. He placed his hands on either side of her hips, fingers spread and pressing into the hard, rough plank wood of the wagon’s bed.
“The lady is delighted to know she can.”
“No regrets?”
She returned his serious regard, understanding at once that he was not teasing now. She bit back her first response, an unqualified no. While she had no regrets for what happened between them, for Conner was all that she had secretly dreamed of finding in a lover, she also sensed the underlying and unasked question of why she had chosen him. Especially when she had clearly stated that nothing could come of it. And why not? Belinda hushed the little nagging voice. The reasons were complex and she was too confused to sort them out now, not when Conner loomed so close, his chest bare, gray eyes probing her own, and the taste of him lingering on her lips.
His knuckles whitened with the force of pressing against the hard wood. Abruptly he straightened and turned away.
“Your silence is as eloquent as your love talk. Don’t dally too long, honey, it’s close to noon.” He stood there, tunneling the fingers of both hands through his thick hair before he walked a few steps to pick up his discarded shirt and the poncho from where they lay in the grass.
Once a Lawman Page 13
