Comanche Moon (27 page)

After a moment’s hesitation, Zack said gruffly, “We’ll go back as soon as the horses rest a little.” She nodded. “I thought as much. That’s all right. I’m comfortable here in the shade. And I’m certain Judith is being well-cared for by Tía Dolores.”

“And your sweetheart.”

“Dexter isn’t my sweetheart.” He glared at her baleful y. “Just what is
Dexter,
if he’s not your sweetheart?”

“What could it possibly matter to you? I believe you made it perfectly clear that you have no interest in me beyond a possible threat to your identity.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Her steady gaze held his. “I’m talking about the fact that I have not seen you since that first night I discovered you were anywhere near. Your absence is an evident statement of your disinterest.”

“What it is,” he said evenly, “is knowing when to quit while I’m ahead.”

“And your comment of earlier? What am I supposed to think when you say one thing and act like another?” Baffled, he shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” she whispered, “your saying I was your woman, yet pushing me away.”

“When did I do that?”

“Just a little while ago. You asked if I was Dexter’s woman, then said I was yours.”

He raked a hand through his hair. It was already dry from the heat and wind. “I didn’t exactly
say
you were my woman. Ah, God. I don’t want ties, Deborah. I don’t want to want you.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Damned if I do.” Frustration balled his hands into fists, and he stared down at them before he opened his fingers slowly. The brim of his hat was creased, and he spent a moment straightening it before he could look at her. “I haven’t forgotten how much I want you. But it won’t work. You’re not the kind of woman to live that way.”

“What way?”

He gestured at the hills. “Drifting. Moving from one place to the other, no goal in mind, no home to hold me. I’m too much like the hawk. I just beat my wings against the air and never stay too long on the ground.”

“You’re right. I could not live that way.” She put a hand on his arm, on the bare skin of his forearm where his shirt sleeves were rolled up. He felt her touch all the way to his toes. “Have you thought about it, then? About being with me?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. But it would never work.” A smile trembled on her lips, and she slid her hand to the corded muscle of his biceps, where he was quivering with the effort to keep from grabbing her. “Hawk—Zack—I’ve thought about being with you, too.” 

He closed his eyes briefly. She was pushing his restraint to the limits.

“Forget it. I said it wouldn’t work, and it won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

Her voice was soft and low, as if she had to force out the words. When he opened his eyes to look at her, he saw what it cost her to make this overture. Somehow, it made him feel even worse.

“Look,” he snarled, “I want to be inside you. I want to feel you around me and push myself up in you so deep that you can feel me against your throat, but that’s all. Dammit, that’s all. That’s all it can ever be, don’t you understand that?”

She looked wounded, stricken, her eyes reminding him of the injured horse he’d had to destroy—baffled by the pain. When a single tear slipped from one eye to track her cheek, he clenched his teeth.

And before he knew it, he was pulling her against him, his mouth hot and demanding against her lips, tasting the salt of her tears. Slowly, as he kissed her with all the pent-up frustration of the past weeks, he unbraided her hair until it fell in a silky tangle down her back. Then he put one hand in it, tunneling his fingers up to cradle the back of her head in his palm. His lips moved from her open, sweet mouth to the smooth curve of her throat, and he tugged on her hair to bend her head back further.

He concentrated on the tiny, swift pulse hammering in a creamy hollow while his fingers deftly unbuttoned the rows on her riding jacket. It fell open, and he slid a hand inside, frustrated by the thin silk of a blouse covering her.

Lifting his head, he studied the situation for a brief moment before surrendering to temptation. His mouth covered the silken swell of a breast, wetting the cloth, his teeth nipping at the hard little bead of her nipple. She moaned, and he felt her hands curve over his shoulders. That small sound spurred his desire higher, and he paused.

“How quick can we get this thing off?” he muttered, plucking at the blouse.

She didn’t answer, but sat back and slid her jacket down over her arms.

He watched, as aroused by the sight of that simple action as he was the shadowy jiggle of her breasts beneath the sheer material of her blouse. She undid the single row of buttons, and let the blouse drift in a snowy pile to lay atop her discarded jacket.

Zack stared at her, at the smooth flow of soft skin only partially hidden by her chemise, the enticing shadows beneath the thin muslin. For a moment he couldn’t move. His erection pushed so hard against the front of his pants that it was painful. He’d thought of her like this so many times, it was agony to consider restraint.

Then she looked up at him with desire glazing her eyes, and he forgot all about restraint.

He reached for her, pulling her up against him, dropping from a crouch to his knees, his legs spreading as he pulled her between them. She fit him so well, her body tucked into the angle of his as if made for him. He groaned at the feel of her body pressing against his groin.

She helped him lift her skirts, her hands shaking but eager, their movements hungry. Zack swore mentally when his hand encountered the barrier of her pantalettes, and he hooked his fingers into the convenient open crotch and jerked. There was the rending sound of tearing cloth and Deborah’s faint gasp, but he didn’t care. All he could think of, could focus on, was his driving need to be inside her, to feel her heat close around him.

He stroked a hand over the gentle mound of her belly then lower, his fingers seeking and finding the source of her pleasure. She moaned softly and pressed her face into his shoulder, shuddering when his thumb grazed her.

He held one arm around her back to keep her against him, his other hand moving with quick, erotic flicks that drew small cries from her. Her fingers dug into his biceps, clenching and unclenching, and her thighs parted as his hand moved with the certainty of satisfaction at his fingertips.

“Oh,
God,”
she said in a gasp, and he smiled against the fragrant mass of her hair that tumbled over his chest and smelled of lilac. When he slid a finger into her to test her readiness and she shuddered, then convulsed, he felt it, too. He couldn’t wait any longer.

One hand moved to his gunbelt and unbuckled it, then unbuttoned his pants, freeing himself. He put his hands on her waist, lifted her, then brought her slowly down on him, groaning at the exquisite slide of pleasure. She was hot, so hot, heated silk and velvet rose petals, clenching around him like a supple glove.

For a moment he just held her there, unable to move for fear he would explode, then his arms flexed and he lifted her again, bringing her back down in another delicious stroke of pure sensation. She was panting for breath and so was he. He couldn’t think beyond what they were doing. The need to fill her completely overwhelmed everything else.

He lifted his head from the curve of her neck and shoulder and caught her eyes. Desire glazed them, and made her lips part to show her small white teeth, the soft pink of her open mouth another temptation, as tantalizing as the feel of her around him. He kissed her, fingers digging into her waist as he lifted her again, then brought her hips down in a swift motion that made her cry out as he pushed deeply inside her. He stifled her cry with his mouth, fiercely determined to fill her with himself, a primitive, ancient compulsion that gripped him too hard to ignore.

Grinding her hips down against him, he wanted to consume her with the same passion that devoured him, that rose up so high and hot that he wouldn’t have been surprised to collapse in a shower of ashes and sparks.

Lifting her again and again, bringing her down hot and so hard he heard her gasp, Zack brought them both to release at almost the same moment. His muscles corded with the strain, and he wanted to wait for her, but didn’t think he could. Then she made a high, keening sound and dug her nails into him as she exploded into a series of contractions that shattered his control.

He groaned and stiffened as her body convulsed around him, then shook violently with the force of his own release.

Deborah sobbed softly, collapsing against his chest and wetting his shirt with her tears. He held her as he brought his breathing back to normal, then shifted her a bit to see her face.

“You all right?”

No answer, just an averted nod of her head. He felt a twinge of guilt. She was worth more than this, more than a roll in the dirt. But he had no promises in him, no heart for words he didn’t mean. Promises he couldn’t keep. His hand closed on the back of her head, and he stroked her hair with gentle, soft motions that must have comforted her. After a moment, she sat up a little, still on his lap with his body inside her. He could feel himself getting hard again, and was amazed that he wanted more so soon.

“Zack . . .”

“Shhh.” He kissed her and began the slow, rhythmic motions of sex all over again. This time, there was no sense of urgency, but a calmer, deeper emotion that drove him. And he saw from the slumberous droop of her eyes and her slow, languid movements as she clasped her hands behind his neck and took control, that she felt it, too.

He hadn’t thought it possible, but this time the act was even more satisfying than the last. Maybe it was because Deborah regulated their movements, lifting her body, then sliding slowly down, keeping her eyes on his face as if gauging his reaction, her lips curved in a slow, sensuous smile that mesmerized him. Her hair swayed with her movements, dark fire framing her pale face and naked breasts in a sultry invitation.

God.
She was like a volcanic glacier—ice on the outside but raging fire at her core. Sensuous, passionate, Eve after eating the apple.

She leaned forward, her small pink tongue flicking out to tease his lips, tracing them with a damp heat that made his breath come faster, but when he tried to hold her still for a kiss, she evaded him.

“No,” she murmured, kissing one corner of his mouth, then the other.

He closed his eyes, and felt his body swell inside her, surging up and up in that close, damp heat. She kissed him finally, gently at first, then with an insistent urgency as she sucked on his bottom lip, drawing it into her mouth while his hands teased her breasts and made her hips rock harder and faster against him.

Then, curling her fingers around his biceps, she leaned back so that her hair swung free, her eyes closed as he sought the needy peaks of her breasts, first one and then the other. And when her soft internal muscles clenched around him in a shuddering grip, she cried his name, over and over, her voice echoing on the wind.

“Hawk . . . Zack . . .”

As he lost himself inside her, the searing knowledge that she accepted him as either man, branded into his soul.

Chapter 18

Dark shadows lay over the Velazquez hacienda when they returned. Deborah felt Zack’s gaze on her, and shifted in her saddle. She was embarrassed by her lack of control, her wanton behavior, and he seemed too quiet. She wondered if she’d shocked him that badly. He hadn’t said much of anything on the ride back. Now she was there, and lights blazed against the purple shrouds of dusk.

“Looks like they’re waiting on us,” Zack drawled, and she flicked him a quick glance.

“Yes.”

“What do you want me to tell them?” Startled, she half-turned, and saw that he was staring at her. “The truth—well, not all of it, of course.” His lips twisted. “Of course. I’m not eager to have a rope around my neck.”

“Why do you say that?”

His brow slanted up at a mocking tilt. “Do you think Don Francisco would be glad to welcome me to the family? No, no more than he wants Diamond.”

Deborah suspected that was true. “I guess it’s in his best interests if I remain unmarried.”

“He’ll do anything to keep his lands. I’m surprised he hasn’t been after you himself.” Her shock must have shown in her eyes, because Zack gave a slight shrug. “It’d be one way of keeping you—and the Velazquez lands—in the family.”

“How do you know so much about our business?”

“It’s pretty common knowledge. Besides, Diamond has made it his business to find out the terms of the legal settlement. I think he has more than a casual interest in the lands.”

“So Tía Dolores says.”

“Watch yourself,” he said softly, and when she just stared at him, he looked away from her. Saddle leather creaked as he shifted. His voice was rough. “I told you—no promises.”

“Yes, I heard you.” Pain closed her throat. He’d meant it, then. Even after . . . after what they’d done. It had meant no more to him than he’d warned her it would. She was indeed a fool.

Deborah kicked her horse into a faster pace, and they didn’t speak again.

Dexter Diamond was waiting on them in front of the low, sprawling adobe hacienda, his face like a thundercloud. It was obvious from his saddled horse and the men with him, that he’d been about to set out in search of them. “’Bout gawddamned time you two got back,” he growled, his dark gaze flicking from Zack to Deborah and back. “What took you so long, Banning?” Lantern light brightened the dusk, and Deborah saw the tension in Diamond as he stood with feet planted apart and braced, his eyes narrowed.

He reeked with hostility and suspicion.

Zack dismounted slowly, his posture sending out mixed signals of amusement and danger. “Got a burr in your britches, Diamond? Don’t be shy. Ask what you really want to know.” Diamond stiffened. “All right—you tryin’ to steal my woman?”

“Really!” Deborah exploded, anger and fear making her bolder than usual. “In the first place, Mr. Diamond, I am not
your woman,
and in the second—I resent any insinuation that I would welcome his advances.” For a moment, Diamond bristled with disbelief, but then he slowly relaxed. “Let him answer,” he said roughly, and Zack eyed him without speaking.