“You . . . uh . . . want to eat?” Clint asked.
Lylah nodded. She must have been kneeling in water that wasn’t as deep as it seemed, because she rose from it like an offering. Her body was thin and covered in the sheen of wetness. Her hair clung to her shoulders as droplets trickled from it to slide between her pert little breasts and form a stream that flowed down along her flat stomach. After only a few seconds of the night air, her penny-sized nipples became hard. She looked down at her body, but didn’t make a move to cover herself.
Suddenly, as if she’d just snapped out of a deep sleep, she turned and crossed her arms over her chest. Even though she was covering her front, Clint was still treated to the fine view of her back. The water came to just below her waist, allowing him to see the gentle line of her spine, which guided his eyes straight to the tight curve of her buttocks.
Clint might not have understood her language, but he could tell she was feeling uncomfortable. If he could have talked to her, he might have tried to get closer to her. As it was, he didn’t know if she’d changed her mind completely about something or if she just needed a bit of coaxing. Considering how much she’d already been through, Clint decided not to push her any more.
“Here you go,” he said as he picked up her dress and held it out to her. The breeches she wore under her skirt remained on the ground, but he left them there until she told him otherwise.
Lylah turned to look at him over her shoulder. Realizing she was still halfway out of the water, she lowered herself back down and then turned around again. He could still get an eyeful through the rippling water, and she didn’t seem to mind that at all. When she made her way over to him, Lylah smiled sheepishly and reached up to take the dress from his hand. Her breasts came up a bit from the water, but she quickly dropped down again.
There was plenty Clint wanted to do, but taking advantage of a woman wasn’t one of them. He’d felt a kinship with Lylah despite the fact that they couldn’t have a real conversation. Actually, he felt closer to her because of all the effort it took to express the simplest thing.
“If you want me, you know where to find me,” he said.
Lylah didn’t say anything, but she did shoot him a quick glance over her shoulder. After that, she turned her back to him and dunked her dress into the water so she could wash out some of the dirt.
After a few seconds of waiting, Clint began to feel awkward. She was washing her clothes and seemed to have forgotten he was there. Cursing at one hell of a missed opportunity, Clint walked back to the fire.
FORTY-ONE
All evening and into early night, Clint kicked himself for not grabbing hold of the chance he’d been given. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like an awkward boy who’d been too bashful to ask a pretty girl to dance. He was not a nervous boy and Lylah was not a little girl, which made the misstep even more grating. Even worse was the fact that he couldn’t just go over to her as if nothing had happened. Every moment that passed, the trail just got colder. At least, that’s what he felt until Lylah came to him.
Dinner had been a quiet affair, followed by a quick retreat to his bedroll. Clint had offered the bedroll to her, but Lylah was more comfortable closer to the fire, wrapped up in his jacket. Clint lay on his side, trying to get some sleep, when he heard the faint rustle of movement drawing closer. Before he could shift and get a look for himself, he felt a lithe, warm body slip into place beside him.
Lylah eased in with Clint as simply as the many times she’d climbed up to sit with him in the saddle. This time, however, she was able to drape an arm and leg over his side as she nestled in against him.
Having intended to get some sleep, Clint had already stripped off his boots. When he rolled onto his other side to face her, Clint felt the warm touch of Lylah’s bare breasts against his chest. She was lying naked beside him, watching him with wide eyes as if there was a chance in hell that he might disapprove.
Clint allowed his eyes to wander along the front of her body. Lylah’s skin was dark enough to look as if she’d spent almost too much time in the sun. Her breasts were just small enough to remain pert, even when she was lying on her side. The dark nipples were soft at first, but instantly became rigid the moment Clint placed a hand upon her.
Lylah let out a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes. The smile on her face told him that she’d probably been waiting for that moment almost as long as he had. Her skin was just as soft as it looked. After brushing a hand along the side of her breasts, Clint moved it over her side, along the gentle slope of her hip, and as far down her leg as he could reach. He propped himself up so he could reach a little farther to move the palm of his hand along the tight curve of her backside.
When Clint eased his hand along the back of her thigh, Lylah moaned softly and moved her legs apart. The thatch of hair between them was still a little wet from her bath, but the dampness Clint felt when he explored her further came from anything but water. He watched her face change as he moved his hand from the tender nub of her clitoris to the silky skin of her inner thigh. When he reached between her legs again and eased a finger between the lips of her pussy, Lylah began speaking her own language in a fluid cascade of moaning sighs.
Clint might not have known what she was saying, but he got the intent well enough. Their bodies were doing all the talking that needed to be done. When he started to move his hand away from her, Lylah took hold of it and guided it once more between her thighs. When Clint rubbed her faster down there, she opened her legs wider and groaned louder.
He could feel her climax approaching through the trembles in her muscles all the way down to the curl of her toes. Lylah quickly rolled onto her back, spread her legs wide, and placed her hand on top of his so she could guide him through the last few motions needed to push her over the edge. Clint didn’t need much help in that regard, but it was exciting to let her do what she pleased.
Lylah didn’t care how she looked or how she sounded. All she wanted was to squeeze every last bit of pleasure she could out of the next few moments. When her orgasm finally came, her eyes snapped open and she turned to look at Clint. The expression on her face shifted a few times as he moved his hand and fingers in a few ways she hadn’t been expecting. When she let out the breath she’d pulled in, her entire body shrank down.
Since it looked as if she didn’t have the strength to get up, Clint got to his knees and positioned himself between her legs. Lylah tugged at his jeans, loosening them and then pulling them down as far as she could. He finished the job for her and kicked them off, then knelt once more in his spot.
Now it was Lylah’s turn to let her hands wander. Although she moved her fingertips along Clint’s chest and down his arms, her eyes never left his rigid penis. She gazed at it hungrily, and when her hands drifted below his waist, she seemed hesitant to go any farther.
“No need to be shy now,” Clint said.
Lylah looked up at his face for a moment, but quickly shifted her eyes back to her real target.
Finally, Clint took her hands the way she’d taken his earlier and moved them to his rigid pole. Judging by her initial reaction, Clint thought he might have been the first naked man she’d ever seen. That possibility was dismissed the moment she started stroking him.
Her fingers curled around his erection and slid slowly up and down its length. With her other hand, she reached between her legs to rub the wetness of her pussy. She then used that hand to stroke Clint some more, lathering her own juices on him while stroking him faster and more vigorously.
“Damn,” Clint gasped. “That’s . . . Damn!”
She handled his cock expertly, smiling as he grew harder in her grasp. Clint couldn’t take too much more of that before he moved in closer and pushed her legs apart a bit more. Lylah responded by guiding his cock between her thighs and lifting her backside up off the ground a bit so she could meet him halfway.
When Clint felt the tip of his penis brush against her pussy, he thought he might be in for a
quick night. She was so wet and so soft that entering her was even better than he’d imagined. To make matters even more difficult to bear, she cinched tightly around his cock so he could feel every glorious second of pushing deeper and deeper into her.
Clint lowered himself on top of her and buried his cock in as far as it would go. Staying there for a second, he was able to collect his thoughts. Just when he was under control, he felt one of Lylah’s legs brush against his side while the other slowly encircled his waist. She watched him with tired eyes, as if she needed a second to compose herself as well.
Those few seconds of looking down at her were all Clint required. He started moving slowly in and out of her, watching the intensity build within Lylah’s eyes. When he quickened his pace, Lylah wrapped both legs around him and grabbed his shoulders so she could feel the movements of his muscles as he shifted on top of her.
Clint propped himself up with both arms and then straightened so he was once again kneeling between her legs. But Lylah didn’t release him. She kept her ankles locked at the small of his back and stretched both arms up over her head. Clint placed his hands upon her breasts, savoring the feel of her hard little nipples scraping against his palms as he pumped into her again and again.
Lylah unwrapped her legs from around him and scooted back. She then got onto her knees and pushed Clint back just enough for him to sit down with his legs stretched out in front of him. From there, she climbed into his lap, facing him, and shifted until her legs were once more wrapped around him and his cock was pressing against the wet lips of her pussy. A few more subtle motions was all it took for him to enter her. She straddled him, grinding her hips intently while rubbing her hands against Clint’s back.
They spent the rest of the night like that, shifting from one position to another, resting when necessary and starting up again when the time was right. Not once did a single word have to pass between them.
FORTY-TWO
The following day passed as if nothing else was going on in the world around them. Clint and Lylah awoke under the same blanket, wrapped in each other’s arms, and set about making breakfast and then breaking camp. There was no way for them to get anywhere near Kyle Morrow’s camp that day, so all that remained was to ride.
Eclipse was glad for the chance to run for so many miles at a stretch, and Clint enjoyed the chance to feel the wind against his face. Lylah was perfectly content to sit in the saddle behind him, keeping her arms locked tight around his midsection and even squeezing her knees around him. Every so often, her hands would wander down his stomach and below his waist. Clint did his best to keep going, but her little hands were just the right size to stroke him as they rode. Eventually, Clint’s erection became too hard to bear, so he found a spot where he could let Eclipse graze while he lifted Lylah’s skirt and gave her what she wanted.
Every time they made love, she became bolder. It soon got to the point where Clint thought he would have to deny her advances so they could cover more ground for the day. But she knew just how to get him riled up enough to stop somewhere and indulge her.
Clint didn’t even try to place the blame of any delay on her shoulders alone. If he’d wanted to keep riding, he would have been able to do so. What he enjoyed the most was the fact that Lylah was so persistent. When he felt her hands grow restless yet again, he turned and said, “Enough’s enough. If we don’t ride farther today, we’ll just have to go farther tomorrow.”
She continued to reach for him, so Clint said, “We’re not on a holiday, you know. We need to find Morrow’s camp.”
Lylah understood that name if nothing else. Although her hands remained where they were, she wasn’t rubbing him any longer. Her lips pressed against his ear and she whispered, “Why wait?”
Clint wanted to argue with her, but didn’t have it in him.
He wanted to keep riding, but knew she had a point. They really hadn’t stopped any more than they normally would throughout a day’s ride. Even if they kept riding without pause, it would take at least another day before they reached the hills marked upon Chuluun’s map. Lylah’s directions weren’t exact, but she remembered well enough how long she and Maddy had ridden to get to that stage platform. Clint looked around again and couldn’t see any terrain matching what Lylah had described to the old Mongolian man.
While Clint was thinking about all of this, Lylah was still doing her best to tempt him, and Eclipse was tearing along a stretch of broken trail that would hopefully trim some time off their ride. That’s when Clint remembered that getting to Morrow’s camp too quickly wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If he didn’t allow for a bit of extra time for Eddie and Tumen to catch up, he’d be storming into that den of killers alone. That, quite simply, wouldn’t be very smart.
“Good enough reason for me,” Clint said as he brought Eclipse to a stop.
He swung down from his saddle, helped Lylah down, and then led her to the first place she could brace herself as he lifted her skirt and pulled down her breeches. Lylah was surprised by the sudden change of plan, but was more than willing to go along with it.
It wasn’t too much longer before they were off and running again. With all the stops here and there, Eclipse was able to gallop at full steam for longer stretches of time. In the end, they wound up covering just about as much ground as Clint had set out to at the beginning of the day.
One other result from all of Clint’s and Lylah’s distractions was that they were both too tired to do much of anything once they finally made camp. After nightfall, they sat in front of a fire that was too small to attract much attention from any distance, and shared a simple meal.
They undressed and climbed into Clint’s bedroll, but didn’t do much more than that. Clint enjoyed the feel of her naked body against his, and the way she would occasionally shift in her sleep. Her firm little backside pressed against him in a way that might have been tempting if he hadn’t been so damn tired.
Clint wound up getting one of the best night’s sleep he’d had in a long time. Considering what lay ahead of him, that was just what he needed.
FORTY-THREE
When Clint awoke the next morning, he felt rested and was raring to go. Being that much closer to Kyle Morrow’s camp must have affected Lylah as well, because she was anxious and nervous from the start. Her eyes were already open when Clint woke up, and she didn’t say a word throughout the first portion of the day.
That was when Clint had to remind himself that she really didn’t say much of anything at any time. They’d just gotten so close that he could feel the nervousness coming off her like heat from a rock that had been dug from the bottom of a brazier. She carried herself as if she wanted to curl up and crawl away somewhere. Judging by how tightly she clung to him, Lylah wanted to take Clint right along with her.
Late that afternoon, the flat desert terrain gave way to rocky slopes and jagged peaks covered in thorny scrub, which more closely matched the land that Lylah had described to Chuluun. Pulling on the reins, Clint looked back at her and asked, “Any of this look familiar?”
She was quiet, so Clint held up the map, pointed to it, and then pointed at the land in front of them. That was good enough to get his question across, so she nodded. More than that, she reached out to point to the town that had been written there as one of the few genuine landmarks Clint could use.
Since he seemed to be headed in the right direction, Clint rode on until he spotted the first signs of civilization.
Actually, calling the town of Tucari “civilization” was being mighty generous. It was a collection of dusty, run-down buildings that had a wild feel to it even though there were no fights in the streets or gunshots to be heard. At least, there were none of those things going on at the moment. Everything from the bawdy voices that drifted out of the town’s half dozen saloons to the ragged appearance of the drunks glaring at Clint from the street made Tucari a natural home for outlaws.
Clint only had to spend a few moments in the town to guess that whatever l
aw there might be was not to be trusted. He also felt safe in assuming that he could buy damn near anything from one of the shady characters watching him ride down the street, and that he didn’t want to take his hand too far away from his gun.
When Lylah pointed toward a saloon at the next corner, Clint said, “I don’t think you want to go into any of these places.”
Whether she understood every word or not, she wasn’t happy when Clint steered Eclipse toward another street. She pointed insistently at the corner he was about to leave behind and said, “Go there,” along with several other words in her own language.
“You sure about that?” Clint asked.
Lylah kept pointing, and since one place didn’t look much better than another, Clint played along. He turned Eclipse around and rode toward that saloon she’d been so anxious to visit. When he brought the Darley Arabian to a stop in front of the place, he felt some more taps upon his shoulder.
“See? I told you that you wouldn’t want to go there.”
But Lylah wasn’t pointing at the saloon, and she wasn’t trying to get him to leave. Instead, she pointed to the saloon’s neighbor, which was the darkened storefront of a barbershop. Although it was obvious the shop was closed for business, Clint could see light and movement coming from the rooms directly above it. Suddenly, Lylah cupped her hand to her mouth and shouted something at the upper floor.
“We need to keep quiet,” Clint insisted. “Quiet! Understand?”
She swatted his shoulder and was about to shout once more, but held back once someone on the second floor peeked out through the window.
The face that looked down at the street from above the barbershop was small, round, and framed by a brightly colored scarf. Clint could barely see more than that before the face disappeared inside again. Moments later, a side door flung open from the top of a narrow staircase that led from the second floor down to the alley between the barbershop and saloon. A stout woman practically exploded from the doorway, climbed halfway down, and began chattering in Lylah’s native language.
Pariah Page 14
