Arizona Embrace (40 page)

Trinity didn’t answer her. He just stared at her.

“It was the same with Jeb. He thought I was beautiful, too, but he never touched me.” She stifled the sob which threatened to cut off her voice, but she couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.

“You mean …” Trinity couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.

“My husband never made love to me,” Victoria finished for him. The tears flowed freely. “Just like you. What’s wrong with me?”

Trinity covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He pulled Victoria out of her chair and into his arms.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Jeb must have been crazy.”

“Buc wouldn’t touch me either. And you’ve been stumbling over yourself to keep as far away from me as you can.”

“I’ve been practically sitting on my hands to keep from devouring you.”

“No you haven’t. You kept Ben between you and me as long as you could. This afternoon it was Ward and that horse. Now you want to go to bed. Tomorrow you’re leaving for Uvalde. Why are you always running away from me?”

“Running away?” Trinity looked dumbfounded by her interpretation of his behavior. “It’s been all I could do to keep from telling Ben to go to hell and making love to you at least once every hour.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I love you. I love you so much it’s driving me crazy, but I didn’t think you could ever forgive me for what I’ve done to you. I can’t expect a woman to love her jailer.”

“Is that all?” Victoria asked, afraid she couldn’t stand the swelling happiness inside her.

“Is that all?” Trinity repeated incredulously.

“I don’t think of you as my jailer,” Victoria assured him through tears of happiness. “You were always my protector. Even in the beginning, I always felt like your prize rather than your prisoner. I knew you wouldn’t desert me once we reached Bandera.”

“You don’t hate me for what I did?”

Victoria shook her head.

“You forgive me for wanting to shoot your uncle?”

She nodded her head.

“Why?”

“Because I love you. And a woman will forgive the man she loves just about anything.”

“You love me?” Trinity looked stunned, helpless. If Red Beard could have found him just then, he’d have been a goner.
“You
love
me?”

“Yes. I don’t know when it happened, I suppose it started the moment I saw you, but I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Ben for coming back that night.”

“You
wanted
me to make love to you?”

“Yes.”

“Even though you knew I still had to turn you over to the sheriff?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I’ve known what I wanted to say for days now. I was just afraid to say it. I love you, Trinity Smith. I know why you came to Mountain Valley Ranch, and it doesn’t matter. I can’t regret that you came after me, not when I know otherwise I’d never have been able to fall in love with you.”

“But you wouldn’t want to marry me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have anything but this broken-down ranch and a terrible reputation.”

“I married a man because he was rich and well-liked. I’ll never make that mistake again. I’d marry you if you had nothing but Ben’s cabin. I’d marry you even if you didn’t have that much.”

“But you’re a wealthy woman.”

“At the moment I’m poorer than you are. I’d be marrying above myself.”

“You really mean it?” Trinity asked.

“Yes, but I do have one question.”

She felt Trinity stiffen.

“Can you forget Queenie long enough for me to prove all women aren’t like her?”

Some of the excitement seemed to leave Trinity. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget her, but it’s not just Queenie that’s bothering me. It’s what I did. Do you think you can love a man with a ghost in his past?”

“A whole flock of ghosts, as long as I’m the only woman in your future.”

He still seemed unable to believe her. “What will your uncle say?”

“All my life other people have made decisions for me: where I would live, who I could see, who I would marry. Most of them have been wrong. I’m going to do the deciding from now on, and my first decision is that I love you and I want to be your wife. Will you marry me?”

She couldn’t believe she said that. Women didn’t say such things. Men didn’t expect it. They didn’t like it either. Victoria held her breath, afraid Trinity would back away.

Trinity’s happy grin relieved her mind almost immediately. “Yes,” he said, picking her up and swinging her around in a circle. “Just as soon as I find Gillet.”

“You’re sure?”

“T’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Then prove it.”

Trinity just looked at her.

“You said you loved me, that there was nothing wrong with me, that you’d been trying to keep your hands off me for days. Prove it.”

For an instant, he looked like he might refuse, and Victoria’s heart sank. But before she could take a deep breath, Trinity swept her up in his arms and headed for the stairs at a run.

“Watch out, you’ll fall” she warned, a laugh in her voice, when he caught his foot on the hall runner.

“I’m not giving you a chance to change your mind,” he said, taking the steps two at a time.

But he did pause after he set her down on me bed. Victoria’s heart beat faster as he sat down next to her, garnered her in his arms, and rested his cheek against her hair.

“I’ve thought of making love to you for weeks,” he said. “You’ve had me so distracted I wasn’t sure I could keep my mind on business long enough to get you here in one piece. If Ben hadn’t been with us, I might not have.”

“When did you know you loved me?” Victoria asked. She didn’t care about Ben, and she didn’t care about business. She just wanted the reassurance he loved her. She wanted to hear him say the words over and over again.

That night in Ben’s cabin.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Trinity held her away from him so he could look into her eyes.

“I was the man who had taken you from the safety of your uncle’s ranch and was returning you to Texas to be hanged. I had shot the man who rescued you. I was a bounty hunter. What could I expect you to do but spit in my face?”

“You could have told me how you felt.”

“I might have if Ben hadn’t come home. I don’t think I would have been able to stop myself after you kissed me back, but I had myself under control by the next morning.”

“Were you going to say anything the next day?”

“No, you acted like nothing had happened. I figured you’d been too sleepy to know what was happening. And too ashamed if you did.”

Victoria took Trinity’s face in her hands and pulled him to her until they were nearly nose to nose. “I remember every second of that night. I’ve relived it time and time again. “I’ve prayed it wouldn’t be the only time you wanted to make love to me.”

“I’ll always want to make love to you,” Trinity whispered, “even if I grow too old to stand up or too blind to see.”

He kissed her gently, but Victoria’s kiss was hard and insistent. She wanted no gentle wooing. She wanted Trinity to convince her he loved her and wanted her with a desperation equal to her own. He could woo her tomorrow. Tonight she wanted to be swept away on a wave of passion.

Victoria put her arms around Trinity’s neck and drew him to her. She didn’t want to let him go. She wanted to be part of him. She wanted to feel the pressure of his lips on hers, feel her breasts pressed against his chest, feel the length of his body intertwined with hers. After so many years of wondering about love, she wanted to
know
he wanted her. She wanted to be so convinced she could never doubt it again.

Victoria fell back on the bed, pulling Trinity over with her. He tried to kiss her nose, to brush her eyelids, to nibble her ears. She wanted him to make love to her breasts. Even now she burned with the memory of his lips on her nipples. She pressed herself against him, trying to satisfy her urgent need of him.

“Make love to e,” she whispered. “Now?

Trinity didn’t need to be asked twice. Within seconds he had unbuttoned her gown and slipped it from under her. Her camisole took even less time. Soon Victoria lay bared to his vision. For a sliver of a moment, she felt uncertain. If she allowed him to make love to her tonight, she couldn’t undo it tomorrow.

Then she felt his tongue touch the aching nipple, his lips bathe it in their warmth, suck it gently, and her body exploded with a symphony of sensations unlike anything she had ever anticipated. Her hands gripped the bed on either side of her as her body rose in an arch. When he began to massage her second breast with his fingertips, she collapsed on the bed and pulled his head against her as hard as she could.

She writhed beneath his touch, gasping for breath, groaning before each new assault on her sensibilities, welcoming each new salvo of sensations as a confirmation that Trinity did indeed love her.

Trinity’s attention to her breast soon brought them to the point of painful sensitivity. He changed to a gentle brushing with his lips and the end of his tongue while his fingers searched out the mound between her thighs.

Victoria had never anticipated anything of such magnitude. As Trinity probed the moisture of her heat, she cried out, her body out of control. She drove herself upon his hand, wanting his touch, aching for it, needing it deeper and deeper inside her. She was beyond being aware of what he did, only of its effect on her.

She cried out a second time when he withdrew his hand even though he continued to torture her breasts with his lips and tongue. She craved his touch between her thighs. It was there the fire burned out of control. The center of her need lay there.

As he moved above her, Victoria felt Trinity’s fingers invade her once again. She felt him open her wide, felt him stretch her still wider as he entered her. Then he stopped. She urged him on, but he remained poised above her. Without hesitation, Victoria threw herself against him. The stab of pain shocked her, but it faded almost immediately as Trinity sank deep into her welcoming warmth.

Victoria moaned and rose to meet him, hoping to drive him deeper until he reached the core of her need. She felt deserted when he withdrew and ecstatic when he drove into her again. Trinity covered her mouth, face, neck, and shoulders with kisses as he drove into her with increasing speed.

Sensations rose in waves, each one more powerful, each one pulling her deeper into its current. She clung to him, matching him stroke for stroke, gasping breath for gasping breath. Just as she thought she could stand no more, she felt Trinity go rigid, felt his rhythm become uneven. Then as the last wave burst over her, she felt him explode inside her.

Trinity took a deep breath and allowed his racing heart to slow down. He wanted to kick himself. He hadn’t meant to consume Victoria like a prairie fire. He had had too many women for no other reason than to slake the animal need in his loins. He had wanted it to be different with her. How could she believe he loved her when he couldn’t take the time to make love to her? All he could think of was his own galloping obsession. The weeks of wanting her, the days of riding at her side, the nights of laying awake knowing she slept only a few feet away had all proved too much. Once he let the barriers down just a little bit, the backlog of passion swept him away in a flood of desire.

“Is it always like that?” Victoria asked.

“I don’t know,” Trinity replied. “T’ve never been with anyone I wanted to please. I always thought just of myself.”

“Didn’t you think of me then?”

“Yes, but not like I wanted to. I thought about you so long, I couldn’t hold back. I’m sorry.”

“You mean it can be better?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“A lot.”

Victoria was silent for a moment. “I don’t think I could stand it.”

“I know it hurt, but it won’t next time.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean I don’t think I could stand for it to be any better. I thought I was going to die.”

Trinity rolled up on his elbow. “You mean it?”

“I mean it.”

Trinity kissed her. “It was the best for me, too.”

“Better than all those other women?”

“Do you remember the night I massaged your muscles?” Trinity asked. Victoria nodded. “I found out then just being near you, touching you, being able to do something for you was better than anything I’d ever experienced before. It was the best because I was with you. It’ll only get better because next time I’ll try to find out what pleases you.”

Victoria wanted to cry with happiness. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. “You can’t know what it’s like to spend five years wondering why your husband never touched you. Why Buc insisted he loved me but didn’t try to kiss me. Why you wanted me but seemed relieved to have Ben travel with us. I was so afraid there was something wrong with me.”