Eye of the Storm (13 page)

Heat rose where their bodies touched and flowed through Zan with disconcerting speed. "I might agree, if it wasn't for a rock the size of Pike's Peak boring a hole in my back."

"Guess I am getting the best of this deal."

He eased away and helped her to her feet. He brushed away a patch of dirt on her cheek. Her skin felt smooth and velvety and he knew she would feel that way all over.

"Why do you suppose he pulled that ridiculous stunt?"

He welcomed the distraction from the tightening in his groin that lately had become all too familiar. "He tried to yank my chain and then got angry because I didn't cave."

With a fingertip, she lightly touched a raw spot on his cheekbone. "And now you have a fresh bruise."

Unable to resist, he took her hand and kissed one knuckle. "I know a way you can make it better."

She turned him around and marched him back to the truck. "I do, too.
Your grandmother's magic elixir."

At the cutoff they turned onto what was no more than a dirt track through the prairie. The fields had turned brown and seemed to crave relief. Zan scanned a cloudless sky, smelled the dry-as-dust air and knew that deliverance would not come this day.

"Why does
Winter
hate you?"

"Beats me," he said with a shrug.

"What about the fight you had when you were kids? You came out on top, didn't you?"

He gave her a sideward glance. "How do you know about that? And it wasn't a fight. It was a test of skill and I won. That's no reason for a lifelong hatred. Not around here where skill is respected."

"People are not so different here. You might want to keep that in mind."

Back at the house, Emma reassured Zan that she was a most welcome guest. "We'll eat," she said, "and then there's a council meeting I've been invited to. But you stay the night if you like. My daughter's room is yours."

 
After dinner, Zan volunteered for kitchen duty and Stormwalker went outside. When everything was in place, she joined him on the porch.

"Do you always do this sort of thing out here?" she asked. She pointed to the rags and other paraphernalia he had gathered to clean the saddles neatly stacked one atop the other.

Stormwalker looked up from the harness spread across his lap. "I do when I'm in no mood to hole up in the stable."

She sat beside him on the step. Her body remembered the enticement of his stretched against her. When she looked at him, she knew he remembered, too.

"What should we do?" she asked in a whisper.

"We should run in opposite directions."

She laid a hand on his bare forearm and allowed herself to enjoy the feel of muscle and skin beneath her palm. She marveled at how natural the gesture felt, how natural and how momentous in its simplicity. As simply as a man and a
woman coming
together, or enemies making peace on a warm summer afternoon, they'd breached the distance separating them.

"Let's not."

Warmth and pleasure lit his eyes, igniting the tentative flame that had flickered deep within her like a candle fighting the wind, too delicate to burn brightly, too stubborn to die. His smile sent molten rivulets through her veins, and heated the places she'd so recently rediscovered. An inner glow lit the cold, dark recesses of mind and body where ghosts of the past had hovered.

"My God, Red," he whispered. He pulled her closer. "You look . . . I don't know what I'm seeing in your eyes."

"Exactly what's
there.
" She leaned against him and kissed his mouth. "Let's not lose this moment. Let's find a place and make it last a little longer."

He turned toward the house. "What if my grandmother comes home?"

"And my RV's too close to Mike."

 
He helped her to her feet and led her down the steps and around the corner of the house to the barn. The last slanting rays of the sun warmed her back and she welcomed its touch like that of an old friend.

Once inside the weathered but sturdy building, Zan waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. A horse snuffled; another whinnied. Stormwalker went to the stalls, murmuring to the animals, then turned to her and waited for her to make the first move.

It had to be that way, she knew. She knew, also, that once she took the first step, there would be no turning back. She took it as he stood like a powerful magnet pulling her closer until she was in his arms and his lips claimed hers.

The hunger was mutual, as well as the passion. What each offered was received gladly by the other and returned until they pulled apart, weak and trembling with the feelings they had aroused in each other. Zan buried her face in his shoulder.

He pulled back and looked at her. "I don't think I can let you go this time, Red."

"I don't want you to."

"Have you considered the consequences?"

"Every one," she whispered.

"And...?"

She returned to his arms and slipped her hands around his narrow waist. "Make love with me."

Chapter 8

Stormwalker took Zan's hand and led her to a ladder at the rear of the barn. "That's a loft," he explained. "I spent last night up there."

"Why?"

He shrugged and gave her a shy, boyish smile. "I couldn't sleep with you so close by, so I came out here."

Zan kissed him lightly. "I'm sorry to have put you out of your bed."

They climbed the ladder and in a crouch, moved to the small window. The late afternoon sun swathed the blankets and pillow just beneath with a golden glow. She imagined she could make out the indentations where his head and his body had rested and felt her legs go weak again. She sank to her knees on the sweet-smelling straw that covered the wooden planks.

Stormwalker knelt beside her and searched her face. "Why are you here?" he asked, as he had once before.

"Because it's where I want to be."

She leaned forward, molding her body to his and letting him feel her firm breasts against his muscular chest. His breath caught in his throat as her lips caressed his. She slipped her arms around his waist and waited, but he held back.

She smiled against his mouth and whispered, "I won't break."

He drew away and took her face in his hands, his heated gaze boring into hers. "I could hurt you. I've been alone a long time, and the feelings are strong."

 
She drew her mouth back to his. "I've been alone, too."

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Her lips parted and welcomed his tongue as it drove inside to seek the moist warmth of her mouth and slid along the slick inner surfaces, stroking, beckoning until her tongue followed every movement.

His heartbeat drummed wildly beneath his ribs as his hands traced the sensuous curve of her hips. He pressed her tightly to him, revealing the fierce power she had awakened that now throbbed between them. The movement changed the balance of her body, tearing her lips from his and forcing her head backwards on the slender column of her neck, exposing her throat to a shower of hot, hungry kisses that stopped only when his mouth met the barrier of her open-necked blouse.

 
Zan brought her head forward and watched his eyes as she slowly undid the buttons until her cotton shirt lay open to the waist. Her gaze held his as he pulled the garment free, slipped it off her shoulders and lay it aside. She did the same for him with hands that were unsteady but determined, that warmed him as they brushed his bare skin. She undid a wisp of lacy bra and added it to the small pile of clothing in a corner of the loft.

His gaze caressed her breasts,
then
his hands followed with the gentle touch he might have reserved for a precious treasure. Finally his mouth nuzzled the firm white flesh and teased her nipples. She trembled and he drew away so he could watch her expression. He found a strange light in her eyes, as if a flame flickered in their
depths, that
seared his blood and caused his pulse to race.

"You don't mind it?" she asked.

"What?"

"The scar."

When he'd brought her coffee, he'd noticed the hairline track that ran from breastbone to naval and had given it one fleeting thought . . . that it was connected to the "close call" she'd had.

"You're lucky to be alive, from the looks of it."

"Yes."

"Then I'm lucky, too."

"It doesn't . . . bother you?"

In response, he eased her backwards onto the mat, slowly, with all the control he could manage, following her down and covering her with his body. His fingers laced with hers as he raised her arms above her head. His skin drank in the scent and feel of her. His lips covered her face and throat with kisses, branding him with the memory of her taste.

When he released her hands her fingers threaded themselves through his hair. Her mouth searched hungrily for his. A soft moan throbbed against his lips. He captured it and took it inside as his breath mingled with hers and their tongues joined once more.

He slipped a hand between them, undid her jeans and eased them down over her hips to brush the velvety skin of her abdomen that first quivered beneath his fingers and then warmed to his touch.

She slipped her hands beneath his own butter-soft denims and caressed his buttocks with gentle palms. Her touch caused him to tighten against her belly. Her breath hissed between her teeth and a groan tore from her throat.

"Stormwalker?" she said softly, "I don't want anything between us."

"All right," he said, and together they removed the last of their clothing.

He lay beside her and took in the beauty of her body.

"How can you look at it?" she whispered. "That scar is ugly. It's made me ugly."

With one finger, he traced the long, slender ridge of hardened flesh that ended just above her navel. She shuddered and pulled in her stomach muscles as if to escape his touch.

He passed his palm lightly over the skin stretched tautly across her pelvic bones, soothed with a gentle circular motion that relaxed her though she fought to resist, while his skin tingled from touching her. He moved his hand across the smooth expanse of warm, vibrant flesh and let it trail down her side from breast to thigh.

He urged her legs apart, tested their strong muscles and caressed the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Her legs closed reflexively and trapped his hand in a powerful grip he did nothing to break. Instead, he shifted position; his mouth completed the circle back up her body to the creamy breasts that held such fascination for him.

His tongue traced the scar as his finger tip had done. A strange feeling cut through him, like lightning, piercing and searing as it went. Zan broke the silence with a soft moan, arched into his touch and finally released his hand.

He watched her face as he whispered, "That 'ugly thing' has a strangely erotic effect, doesn't it?"

"I wonder why," she said as she watched him with a sultry, dark-eyed intensity.

"Because nothing about you is repellant to me, not even that scar, and you're no less beautiful or desirable because of it."

"A little like my being here with you even. . . ." As if afraid to spoil the moment, she went no further.

". . .
even
though you have doubts about me?"

"Does that make you angry?"

Stormwalker slipped one leg between hers and let his hand travel lightly down her body once again to rest quietly but temptingly on the mound of curls brushing his thigh.

 
"Red, honey," he crooned against the corner of her mouth, "
there
are too many other feelings in this body to have any room left for anger."

 
"Tell me."

He found the words difficult to frame, and he knew that once he said them, he would be forever vulnerable to her, but he needed to say them and she needed to hear.