The Sheriff (Historical Romance)

by Nan Ryan

  Kate became intensely aware of her surroundings. She dreamily glanced around, wanting to remember everything exactly as it was on this unforgettable autumn afternoon. The large drawing room where one day they would entertain invited guests was today their private sexual playground where only the two of them could enter. The blazing fire in the grate licked lovingly at their bodies and bathed their bare flesh with a soft rosy hue.

  She again looked directly into the mirror, at the pair of naked lovers reflected there—the dark, compelling man and the pale, enchanted woman. She sighed deeply, took her hands from Travis’s raven hair and let her fingertips dance nervously along his broad shoulders.

  When his lips released a wet nipple, Kate supposed that he would swiftly rise to his feet and take her to the sofa. She bit her lip when, instead, he remained on his knees. Her heart raced when he wrapped his arms around her, laid his cheek against her stomach and said, “I want to kiss you all over, sweetheart.” He brushed a kiss to her fluttering belly. “And you can watch while I do.”

  Forty-Three

  Kate felt her heart beating in her ears when Travis lifted his head and looked up at her with his dark, sultry eyes that had the power to mesmerize.

  Steadily holding her anxious gaze, he urged her down to her knees before him. For a long, tense moment, they remained in front of the mirror, the only sounds those of the snapping, crackling fire and their own rapid breaths.

  Travis lifted a hand, swept Kate’s long golden hair back off her shoulders, wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her up against him. When he bent his head to kiss her, he hesitated.

  And he said softly, “I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to do, Kate. Never.”

  Then his mouth closed over hers in a kiss that made her heart race and her bones melt. Kate’s weak arms came up around his neck and she anxiously clung to him as he kissed her over and over again. At some point during the heated exchange, Travis put an arm out and gently lowered Kate to the floor, following her down.

  When at last his lips released hers, she was on her back with Travis lying on his side against her. Kate didn’t question him when he said in that slow Southern drawl she’d come to adore, “Turn over onto your stomach, darlin’.”

  Kate turned over, but raised up onto her elbows and rested her chin in her hands. At once she became aware of the slightly abrasive texture of the greatcoat beneath her bare body. In her heightened state of arousal, it felt good.

  But not as good as the heated lips that began scattering kisses over her shoulders. Then over her back and waist. Kate soon lay down flat, sighing and folding an arm beneath her cheek. She had, by design, turned her face toward the mirror. She lay there and watched as Travis kissed her “all over” just as he’d promised.

  She snuggled comfortably against the spread greatcoat while Travis kissed the twin dimples at the base of her spine, then up and over her rounded buttocks and down her thighs, to behind her knees and her calves and ankles.

  It was electrifying.

  She purred like a cat.

  When he eased her over onto her back, she looked up at him and trembled. In his beautiful eyes was all his love, all his passion, plus his promise to cherish her for a lifetime. He leaned down and softly kissed her parted lips, then her throat and her shoulders, his hair ruffling against her chin. He trailed open-mouthed kisses down the center of her chest, around each breast, then enclosed a pebble-hard nipple in his mouth and briefly sucked on it.

  Kate again turned her head and gazed into the mirror. She saw Travis’s handsome face and raised a hand to touch his dark head. But before she could place her fingers in his hair, his lips released the nipple and moved on.

  Sliding downward.

  His hand at her waist, Travis kissed her flat belly. Kate whispered his name as she watched his dark face slowly slip lower. She continued to gaze into the mirror while he probed her navel with the tip of his tongue and then licked the faint line of pale fine hair going down the center of her belly to the blond triangle of curls between her thighs.

  Kate held her breath.

  Travis brushed a kiss to her hipbone. And then, in one swift, fluid movement, he reached for her hand and drew her up into a sitting position. He clasped her waist in both hands, pushed her to feet and maneuvered her about so that she felt the sofa’s edge touch the backs of her legs. She weakly sank down onto the couch and shivered when Travis knelt before her.

  His hands gripped her knees, and he gently urged them apart and drew her to the edge of the cushion.

  He looked directly into her eyes and said softly, “Tell me to stop and you know I will.”

  She could barely breathe. As his dark head slowly lowered to her, Kate automatically lifted her eyes to the mirror. She felt his hands gently clasping her hips, felt his glossy hair tickle her belly. Then she felt his mouth, burning hot, on the inside of her right knee. He kissed the skin there and then, his lips never leaving her flesh, kissed a slow, deliberate path up the warm length of her thigh.

  An eyelash away from the golden curls of her groin, he stopped, raised his head and said huskily, “Kiss me. Kiss me, sweetheart.”

  “Yes,” Kate whispered. She put her trembling hands to his tanned jaws, leaned down and aggressively kissed him, thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. When their lips separated, Travis again bent to her. He kissed her left knee and, as he’d done before, teasingly nipped and licked and his way up to the edge of the springy golden coils.

  Kate was on fire.

  She arched her back and gripped the edge of the sofa’s cushion. Her breath was coming in short little gulps. Her breasts were swelling, the nipples standing out in twin points of desire. Her belly was contracting sharply. And between her trembling thighs, now open to him, the slick female flesh was pulsing with passion and wet with need.

  Kate tensed when at last she felt Travis’s breath stir the curls there. She raised her eyes to the mirror. Her back arched again as she waited, her whole body vibrating, her throat dry, her eyes glazed with passion.

  Travis nuzzled his nose and mouth in the golden curls, then dabbed playfully with his tongue. Lightly he teased the burning flesh beneath, blowing his breath over it. He tormented her until Kate murmured, “Please. Please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Kiss me.”

  “Show me where, baby.”

  Feverish, all her inhibitions burned away in the sexual heat, Kate put her hand between her legs and touched her fingers to the slick, pulsing flesh between her kiss-dampened curls.

  “Here. Kiss me here,” she whispered, feeling as though she would die if he did not.

  He did.

  Travis’s hot mouth immediately covered her fingertips, and for a second, Kate didn’t move her hand. It was tremendously arousing to have his tongue licking her fingers while she touched herself. When she started to take her hand away, he stopped her, swiftly grasping her wrist.

  “No, sweetheart. Let’s play awhile,” he coaxed. “Make the pleasure last.”

  “Show me how.”

  He did just that. And it proved to be a highly exciting diversion. With his tongue, Travis pressed against her slender fingers, and in turn those fingers pressed against the pulsating point of ultrasensitive female flesh. The joy intensified when Travis forced her fingers apart with the tip of his tongue in pursuit of the sweetness beneath.

  Kate found this erotic exercise to be unbearably exciting. It didn’t seem depraved or shocking, but merely a delightful sexual game she was more than pleased to play with her trusted lover. She understood that her opponent’s objective was to get his tongue between her protective fingers. Hers was to prevent that marvelous tongue from gaining access. It was fun, it was bawdy, it was terribly exciting.

  But it was fleeting.

  Kate’s opponent was too talented and she was too incredibly hot to outlast him. The prize for which she could wait no longer was Travis’s burning mouth and stroking tongue on her throbbing flesh.

&nbs
p; Attuned to her every wish, Travis immediately let go of her wrist. She stifled a near sob of bliss when his hot, open mouth took the place of her fingers.

  The first stroke of his tongue brought an incendiary shock of ecstasy unlike anything she’d ever experienced. That awesome joy intensified when she looked into the mirror and watched. She moaned as his tongue spread a sexual fire that threatened to blaze out of control and totally consume her.

  “Travis, Travis!” She called his name, thrust her hands in his hair at the sides of his head and anxiously drew him closer.

  Wild and wanton, she tilted her pelvis up as she opened her legs wider. Her breath was coming in labored pants. Her eyes opened and closed, affording dazed glimpses of them in the mirror. A shuddering climax was imminent; she felt the frightening release coming.

  So did Travis.

  He slid his hands beneath her and clasped the twin cheeks of her bottom. He lifted her slightly and his dark face sank more fully into her. When she began to frantically call his name, he licked and lashed and loved her, giving her all she needed.

  Kate frantically moaned and bucked and writhed. She begged him to stop, then begged him to never stop. She felt that she would surely die if he took his hot mouth from her.

  Then it began. Her climax was so wrenching, so intense that she clung to his dark head, frantically pulling his hair and pressing him closer.

  The orgasm went on and on, and Kate gasped his name as she looked into the mirror and saw his handsome face buried in her flesh, coaxing the eruptions of ecstasy from her with his masterful mouth.

  When the final explosion happened, she screamed and shuddered, and Travis kept his mouth tightly fused to her until she finally collapsed, shaken and gasping for breath, against the sofa’s high back.

  Only then did he raise his head.

  He came up onto the sofa, put his arms around her and held her close against his chest.

  Forty-Four

  A patient lover, Travis suppressed the natural impulse to swiftly seek his own release. Had she been only a beautiful courtesan with whom he could slake his lust, he wouldn’t have waited. He would have already been buried deep inside her.

  But this was Kate.

  His Kate. The woman he loved.

  So he waited.

  And he contented himself with gazing at the two of them in the mirror. It was a vision he knew he would never forget. Kate’s head on his shoulder, her cheek against his chest, her eyes closed. A slender arm was draped across his waist and her pale, limp body was pressed warmly against his side.

  It would have a been sweet, peaceful moment in time if not for the fact that he was so achingly aroused it was painful. Still, he was not going to rush her.

  Travis was looking into the mirror when, without opening her eyes, she laid a gentle hand on his straining masculinity. He jumped, startled, then tensed and held his breath as she eagerly, but ineptly, toyed with him.

  When finally she opened her eyes and lifted her head, she said with childlike innocence, “Show me, Travis. I don’t know how to…”

  His hand quickly covered hers. “Something more like this, sweetheart.” He guided her fingers slowly up and down the length of his erection, from base to head and back again. “It’s easy. Nothing to it, really.”

  Kate quickly caught on. “I’ve mastered it,” she said. “Now take your hand away and let me show you.” He reluctantly obeyed. Stroking him, exciting him, she repeated his own words back to him, “I’d never do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Now, Kate…”

  “Shh,” she warned. Releasing her hold on him, she slipped down off the sofa in one swift, agile movement and turned about to kneel before him.

  Her eyes flashing blue fire, she gripped his knees and pushed them apart. She looked up at him with a mischievous smile and said, “Tell me to stop and I will.”

  Travis didn’t tell her stop. He didn’t trust his voice. It was hard to breathe, much less speak. As Kate’s golden head slowly lowered to him, Travis couldn’t keep from lifting his eyes and glancing into the mirror. He watched like a captivated voyeur.

  He felt Kate’s hands clasping his thighs, felt her silky hair tickling his bare belly. Felt her soft lips, burning hot, on the inside of his right knee. Kate kissed him there, then moved her mouth in a deliberate path up the inside of his steely, hair-dusted thigh.

  And all the while Travis watched in the mirror.

  An inch away from the raven curls of his groin, she stopped, raised her head, tossed her hair back from her face and said, “Kiss me, Travis.”

  He leaned down and kissed her, but when he tried to draw her up onto the sofa, Kate tore her lips from his and again bent to him. She kissed his left knee and teasingly nipped and licked her way up to the edge of the crisp midnight coils.

  Travis’s entire body became rigid with eager expectancy when he felt Kate’s breath against his surging erection. She blew that warm, moist breath on him and his passion-glazed eyes again lifted to the mirror. He almost had a coronary when he felt Kate’s soft lips tentatively settle on the throbbing tip of his erection.

  He allowed himself only a few fleeting seconds to enjoy the erotic sight of her kneeling between his spread knees, her head bent to him, the glorious golden hair spilling over his lap and thighs. When he felt her mouth begin to slide hesitantly down over him, Travis groaned, bit the inside of his cheek and urged her head up.

  “Stop, sweetheart. I want you to stop.”

  “I want to love you like you loved me,” she said.

  “Another time.”

  “But you’re still…you haven’t…”

  “No, but I will once I’m inside you,” he said. Taking hold of her upper arms, he pushed her to her feet, then drew her astride his lap.

  She cupped his tanned cheeks in her hands. “If that’s what you want.”

  “It is, sweetheart.”

  She kissed him and said against his lips, “Know what I want?”

  “Tell me.”

  She lifted her head. “I want to do this myself. You’re not to make a move to help. Let me put…” Her words trailed away.

  “It—and I—are all yours. Do with us what you will.”

  Kate nodded, pushed her tangled hair behind her ears, scooted back on his hard thighs and again gently took him in hand. Then, biting her lip in fierce concentration, she carefully guided the swollen tip up inside her.

  Resting her hands atop his shoulders, she looked steadily into his eyes as she slowly, surely slid down onto him.

  “May I move a little now?” he asked when she was fully impaled upon him.

  “Mmm,” she replied in a silky voice as she looped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his.

  At first his movements were slow, deliberate, the languid flexing of his buttocks, the leisurely surging of his pelvis. His hands filled with the pale cheeks of her bottom, he rhythmically drew her down on him as he rose to meet her.

  But her soft, yielding body was too sweet and he had waited too long for release. He couldn’t hold out much longer. He increased the tempo of his thrusts and, blinded by passion, he no longer looked into the mirror. His eyes closed, his heart hammering, he pumped into Kate with an almost savage hunger. Fearful he would hurt her, but unable to slow the pace of his fevered lovemaking, he slipped his arms under her bent knees to clasp her more firmly to him.

  The position more fully tilted her pelvis and afforded deeper penetration. At once the pleasure, both his and hers, spiraled upward, and they gasped at the escalation of ecstasy.

  For a few frenzied seconds more they made primitive, passionate love this way, their enjoined bodies damp with sexual perspiration, flesh slapping against flesh in a wild, exhilarating ride.

  It might have lasted a few moments longer if Kate hadn’t asked breathlessly, “Can you see us in the mirror?”

  Travis’s dark eyes lifted.

  He saw them.

  And it brought on a draining, pulse-pounding clim
ax unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It was the same for Kate. An orgasm so powerful overtook her that she screamed and clung to him as wave after wave of ecstasy washed over her.

  When the tempest finally passed, she sagged against him, too weak to move. They stayed like that for several long minutes, warmed by the afterglow of incredible lovemaking.

  Finally Travis said, “You’re gonna be the death of me yet, baby.”

  “But you’ll die happy.”

  Laughing, they hurriedly dressed.

  The fire had gone completely out. The big room was chilly. They realized they had stayed at the mansion much longer than intended. Twenty minutes had turned into two hours.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Leaving the citizens of Fortune unprotected all this time,” Kate teased as she drew a woolen dress over her head. “You might lose your job over this, Sheriff.”

  “Could be,” he replied, unconcerned. “I might very well get booted out of town.”

  “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” she said with a smile.

  “If so, will you come with me?”

  “When you like. Where you like.”

  Forty-Five

  “When did you get back, Doc?”

  His white eyebrows lifting, Dr. Ledet replied, “I might ask you the same question, Sheriff.”

  The doctor had arrived in Fortune while Travis and Kate were at the mansion. He’d hardly had time to unlock his office and put down his black bag before hearing the shocking news that Kate had been shot and the sheriff had removed the bullet. She was, he was told, convalescing in the sheriff’s quarters.

  Deeply concerned, the doctor had immediately hurried to the jail. And found it empty, save for a big calico cat dozing on a bunk in one of the cells. He had hurried on through the jail and pounded on the door of Travis’s private quarters. No answer. Really getting worried then, wondering if Travis had been called away to handle a disturbance, leaving the injured Kate alone, the doctor went directly to the sheriff’s desk. He pulled out a drawer, hoping to find a key to Travis’s quarters.