Lawless (10 page)

“Not many would try, at a guess, but you are more daring than most, sweetheart.

Yesterday, for instance.”

She liked the endearment the way he said it, with low, deliberate inflection, but at the moment wasn’t sure she trusted the slow, wicked way his mouth curved. “I don’t think you’re as dangerous as everyone believes.”

“Is that so? If I told you what was on my mind at this moment—like you seem to want me to—you might just reconsider that.” He cocked a dark blond brow. “But, since you have such a hankering for conversation, I’ll go ahead and tell you. First off, I’m thinking I like you in just my shirt, buck naked underneath it. I’m also contemplating how fast I can get it off you, have you flat on your back, spread your pretty legs, and be inside that tight little cunt of yours.”

Her heart began a slow pound but she tried to stay as nonchalant as possible. He was being crude deliberately. Laurel felt her throat tighten a little because she remembered well the delicate care in his touch, and the careful way he’d initiated her into sexual intimacy. What he’d just said didn’t remotely resemble what had happened between them.

He shifted in a restive movement of his body. “Want to hear more?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” she muttered, aware of the shirt that barely draped over her thighs to the top of her knees. “Not in your present state of mind.”

“I kind of have this fantasy of you sucking my cock but I suppose you might need a little time before we progress to that. Before Gabe gets back, for sure, though.”

If he wanted to shock her, he was getting there. Laurel started to get up out of the chair but his hand snaked out lightning fast and caught her wrist, dragging her back down. “Stay and talk,” he said in a lethal tone. “You started this.”

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Since it was a one-room cabin, she didn’t have any place to go anyway, so she sank back down defiantly. “Fine. Talk. Tell me more. Do your best to show me how cold and distant and offensive you can be.”

“I think I should for your own damn good.” The words were said on a low growl.

“What do you care about my life?” she retorted. “You worry a lot about me it seems, for a man who only wants one thing. Rescuing me from a gang of lawless thugs, following me around with a loaded gun to protect me, and apparently now you’re concerned I’m too involved with my feelings for you. I’m surprised a man of your
insensitivity
even noticed.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been around a respectable woman, true.” His face changed then, the mask cracking a little. He glanced away. “You’re going to regret ever knowing me.”

She knew him all right. The taste of his kiss, the reverent touch of his gifted hands, the feel of their joining… She also recognized that toneless observation for what it was.

He was wounded down deep, beneath the icy façade, beneath even the decent man who had taken care of her and risked his life to save an unknown woman.

“If it makes you feel any better, if I had a choice of who to fall in love with, I’d have guessed a gunman with a price on his head would have come in dead last. But I didn’t get a choice, it just happened, and Cal Riker isn’t who he seems anyway.”

His fingers let go of her wrist like she was on fire. “Don’t say that. You don’t love me, Laurel. You…
can’t
.”

It was the way he said the last word, with poignant emphasis. That and the fact the hard-edged look shattered and he no longer looked like the indifferent, brooding man who had been so silent and cold all evening.

He looked
stricken
.

Very softly, she told him, “If you’re trying to forbid me to feel a certain way, let me tell you it just so happens not to work. Besides, I think you know full well I feel that way already. That’s why you’ve been acting like you have all day.”

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He shoved himself to his feet with none of his usual lithe grace. One lean hand ruffled his hair. His throat worked. “It doesn’t matter how you feel or how I feel. Nothing good can come of this. Jesus, Laurel, what if I get you pregnant?”

A sense of triumph flickered through her at what he had just admitted, even though she’d carried the conviction his feelings, however buried he kept them, were involved all along. Knowing they existed and getting Cal to admit it were two different things. The idea of having his child was surprisingly not something that bothered her either, even if they weren’t married. If it happened she would have a part of him always.

“I don’t know what can come of it,” she acknowledged softly and also stood, her fingers going to the buttons on his oversized shirt, unfastening the top one with deliberation. “But I do know we have tonight and all the other nights until Gabe returns.”

The look on his face when she let the garment fall off her shoulders said more than any words.

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He was bone tired, dry as dust and his horse had pulled up lame and slowed them down the day before. Will Daniels squinted at the parched ground and then glanced over at his father. Discouragement weighed the older man’s shoulders and he looked like he’d aged ten years in the past few days.

It was no wonder. It was clear they were going to have to turn back. Not one of the ten men in their search party had the heart to say it out loud, and Will had the sinking feeling he was going to have to be the one.

He didn’t want to give up either, but there simply was no trail. They’d been able to track the kidnappers for only about ten miles.

Ten stinking miles, he thought, sick to his stomach with worry over Laurel. No matter how many vows they made to find her, kill the bastards who snatched her and bring her home safe, they couldn’t make good on it if the tracks weren’t there.

“Rain comin’.” Jeff Johnson, their foreman and the best hand on the ranch, murmured as he nudged his horse up along side. “It ain’t gonna help, Will.”

It was true, the breeze carried that telltale whiff, picking up and rattling through the brush. “I know,” he agreed just as quietly. A good rain would obliterate any chance they had, and those chances were already pretty slim and dwindling by the minute. Once they’d lost the trail, they rode on blindly, hoping to stumble across a clue. It was big country and if they hadn’t been so desperate, they would have turned back two days ago.

“Maybe the reward will work.” Jeff, a burly Scandinavian with a shock of pale hair, tried to sound positive, but the disbelief was there in the tenor of his tone anyway. “When we get back, maybe John Evans will have good news.”

“I sure as hell hope so.” Will closed his eyes and took a breath. “If we return empty-handed, it will kill my mother.”

“I ain’t so sure about your father either.” It was said in a low voice.

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“He’s not eating much.” It was an understatement and Will wasn’t surprised. His parents doted on Laurel and why shouldn’t they? His baby sister was spirited and sweet-tempered, and had grown into a lovely woman. That she didn’t deserve whatever was happening to her rankled, but what it was doing to his parents couldn’t be discounted.

The men who took her were going to pay. That was all there was to it.

“Riders comin’.” The laconic observation came from one of the hands, and he pointed at where a plume of dust rose in the distance. “Looks like a decent sized bunch of hosses and they ain’t goin’ slow.”

Will tensed, scanning the horizon, his hand falling naturally to his hip. “It’s too much to hope it’s those bastards, but Jacob is right, they’re moving hell bent for leather. I say we ride to intercept them.”

“Could be Indians,” Jeff observed, looking troubled. “The Utes sure are hanging on.”

“Could be, but considering why we’re out here, a band of fast-moving horses interests me. From all that dust they are in one all-fired hurry.”

His father showed the first spark of animation in two days. He nodded, his mouth tight. “I agree. Let’s ride.”

They spurred their horses, heading due east over the rolling topography. Will knew if they could see the approaching party, they would also be seen. He braced himself. There could be a fight, but the truth was, he was spoiling for one.

Any action, even if it was having bullets winging past him, was preferable to being helpless.

Not Indians, he realized as they got close, the two parties on a collision course.

White men, saddled mounts, and the group was heavily armed. A shout alerted him they’d been seen, and with a start he recognized the horse of the man in the front.

John Evans’s big sorrel gelding. The sheriff had helped them organize the search party in the first place but stayed in town to tend to his duties, tactfully refraining from saying he thought the whole thing hopeless because the River Bend Outfit had been tracked before and never found. Wherever they holed up was a mystery and he’d www.samhainpublishing.com 73

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obviously had little faith in them being able to solve it simply by riding out in the vague direction the witnesses had given.

He’d been right too, damn it.

But for whatever reason he was there now, leading a large party of men.

“I was kinda hoping to run into you all. You aren’t too far off course,” he said without greeting as they drew up. Lathered horses heaved and the sheriff looked grim, but there was a triumphant gleam in his eye. “We came across a camp yesterday and I hoped it was yours.”

“Why?” Will wasn’t interested in polite small talk either, though he liked John and they were friends.

“Because we could use all the firepower and men possible. Most of the River Bend are wanted one way or the other. From what I understand of the position of their camp, dead is going to be the most likely way we take them in. It’s fine by me and saves the judge a lot of trouble.”

“You know where it is?” For the first time he felt a glimmer of true hope. His throat tightened.

“I do.” Evans gave a brisk nod. “What’s more, I also know your sister is safe.”

The staggering relief he felt was punctuated by his father’s inarticulate cry. “How?”

“The same source that has helped me out before. I believe it is reliable and I’ve been told she’s going to be returned to Snowy Peaks soon.”

Will glanced over and saw his father’s eyes glittered with tears. He said hoarsely,

“You’re sure?”

John looked him in the eye. “As sure as I can be without seeing her myself, Will.

The same informant gave me the exact directions to the camp where this bunch is hiding.

Laurel isn’t there. But, the men who took her are. You interested in coming along?”

Interested in the chance to put a bullet in one of the men who’d put his parents—and himself—through hell?

Laurel was supposedly safe.

Thank God.

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“Fuck yes, we are,” he gritted out.

***

Facedown on the bed, Laurel quivered as a finger traced a line down her spine. Two warm hands then cupped her buttocks and squeezed gently. Cal murmured in her ear,

“You have a very nice ass, Miss Daniels.”

She mumbled in amused irritation into the pillow. “Is that your idea of a compliment?”

“It’s just an observation, sweetheart.” He gave one of those low, throaty laughs that made her pulse pick up the pace.

“Not exactly poetic, Mr. Riker.”

“I haven’t been much for poetry since I left university.”

Laurel went still, not wanting to show her reaction to that bit of information. She’d guessed before he’d had a good education, for his speech reflected it. After a moment, she asked in as offhand a tone as possible, “Where did you go?”

“Harvard. If you want a laugh, I studied law.”

She didn’t feel even the glimmer of a laugh. “I wondered. I take it your family was pretty well off then.”

“You could say that.” His tone changed—just a small fraction—and she wished she could see his face.

It was risky to chance pushing him, but when they were in bed like this, with his hands lightly rubbing over her bottom in small, playful caresses, maybe he would be more amiable to a few questions.

Cal Riker amiable? The rest of the world would laugh at the thought, but she was desperate to know more about him.

Choosing her words carefully, she asked, “Do you ever see them?”

“I can’t go back to Texas.”

She could feel the door swinging shut in her face at the tone of his voice. “Do you write?”

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He hesitated, the pause palpable. Then he said coolly, “No. They don’t even know if I’m alive.”

How could you
, she thought first, and then knew the answer without asking the damning question. Cal was protecting them. In his mind he was dead and gone to them already. Never mind he was more alive than anyone she’d ever met, his inner demons held him in a powerful grip.

As neutrally as possible, she murmured, “What did you do in Texas?”

“You don’t want to know.” His hands slid persuasively up, tracing her waist, brushing the sides of her breasts. “Get on your hands and knees, Laurel. We have much better things to do than talk about my past.”

As much as she enjoyed his lovemaking, she didn’t necessarily agree. Knowing him in a sexual way was not the same as
knowing
him. However, he didn’t give her much choice as he slid one arm around her hips and lifted her up. He covered her, his chest pressed against her back, and his long cock rubbed between her open thighs. His breath was warm against her ear. “I like this position. This is how animals mate, how males take their females in the wild.”

Her eyes shut as his hand slipped downward and he found her cleft, rubbing gently.

“Does that feel good? No, don’t bother to answer, I know it does. You make the sexiest little sound, sweetheart, when I get it just right.”

He replaced his fingers with the tip of his rigid penis, rubbing the head lightly against the lips of her labia, parting her, stimulating the sensitive nub she’d had no idea existed before she met him. Laurel moaned, dropping her head forward, shamelessly angling her body to give him the most access. The friction was erotically teasing, the pressure not quite enough to make her climax.