Lawless (2 page)

“The trouble is, I’m not interested in his money.”

No.

“I’m engaged,” she blurted out.

“Is that so? Then I expect your fiancé will hate my guts.”

That laconic observation brought on more laughter and she felt both humiliated and helpless. The men who hadn’t followed eagerly to divide the money paid for her openly 10

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grinned, not even pretending to unsaddle their horses but listening to every word. She spat out, “I expect he will kill you.”

“Plenty enough have tried.” His face was shuttered and held that same unnerving quality of no emotion.

Oh God, it was true. She was trying to threaten a man with one of the most deadly reputations west of the Mississippi. It was a lesson in futility, for she tried to picture Weston Harper, with his expensive suits and lucrative hotel business, doing anything so stupid as to challenge a notorious gunman even if it was over her honor.

No, he wouldn’t.

“Looks like you have your hands full, Riker.” The half-breed grinned in a flash of white teeth. “Should be an interesting night.”

Her captor gave him a glance that made the smile fade from the other outlaw’s face, and he turned to his horse, busying himself with taking the saddle off the sweating animal.

Even these men, hardened, amoral and ruthless, were afraid of him. She was an unarmed woman at his mercy.

Cal Riker started to walk away again with the slow long-legged stride of a born horseman. “Come along, Miss Daniels.”

Laurel wondered what he would do if she refused again.

She didn’t dare find out.

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He never socialized and sat around the fire, and truthfully, the River Bend Outfit as they had loosely named themselves, was not much a social group to begin with anyway.

They accepted his taciturn absence from their presence in the same way they accepted him in their midst, because he was someone to fear and that was the only law they knew.

He was hard to kill, trying it would be risky, and so they left him alone.

They didn’t suspect a thing, and Cal meant to keep it that way. The tricky part was how to keep up the charade this particular night.

He’d slept outside in the two months since he drifted in and joined the group, using a tarp when it rained, the location advantageous to someone who watched his back with constant vigilance. There was a small outcropping of rock not too far from the camp and a natural depression below it that was comfortable enough in his bedroll. The trees around the area made it hard to approach without making some sound in the dark and he could clearly hear if anyone moved around in the camp.

Which meant they could hear him as well.

This needed to be a good show. His reputation was the only thing between him and a shallow grave.

It was full dark before they finished eating and cleaning up the mess, and by then the men were passing around a whiskey bottle. Cal declined as he always did. He drank alone, and when he had that luxury, he took it. A little liquor made him forget his haunted existence and a lot of liquor was even better.

Tonight was not the time.

The girl flinched when he stood from his crouch after rinsing off his plate and cup in the stream. That she was jumpy wasn’t news, and he didn’t blame her. The next bit of interaction was going to be tricky and he sure hoped she got the message because they 12

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were walking a thin line. From the frightened look in her eyes, she thought things were bad now.

It could get a lot worse. He needed her to understand but couldn’t risk telling her.

“Let’s go.” He jerked his head sideways to indicate the direction.

She wanted to resist, and he knew it, but in the end she went, ignoring the chuckles from the men who watched them disappear under the shelter of the pines, the tangy fragrance heavy in the cooling autumn night. At least he didn’t have to drag her kicking and screaming, which was a relief. He couldn’t help but admire the straight stance of her slender, shapely figure as she walked ahead of him, or the set of her shoulders that told him she understood full well what he wanted from her and her lack of power to keep it from happening.

Laurel Daniels was a lady with a lot of grit and courage and he hoped she could hold on to it without ruining everything until he could get them out of this situation.

The trees made it gloomy even with a bright spattering of stars above. When she stumbled over a branch, he took her arm in an automatic reflex, and led her toward where he had already unrolled his blankets. Under the grip of his fingers he could feel the tension in her muscles, and as they approached the makeshift bed, she tried to jerk away.

“Please.” It was little more than a whisper.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t reassure her. He unbuckled his gun belt, set it down on the ground within easy reach, and took off his hat and tossed it aside. In a stone cold voice, he said, “Lie down.”

“No.” She shook her head, starting to struggle. In the straggling light, her lovely eyes were wide and flashed with both defiance and fright.

Well, shit. He hadn’t thought she’d simply give in without a fight, but he didn’t relish either her fear or that she was going to have to believe—for the next few moments, anyway—that he was going to rape her.

The truth was, he’d never forced a woman in his life, never even dreamed of raising a hand to one, and he wasn’t going to start now.

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Since he was twice her size, it was a simple matter to just pick her up, though it was a little difficult to avoid her fists and nails as she did her best to do the most damage possible when he lowered her to the makeshift bed and used his weight to subdue her struggles. “Fighting won’t do any good,” he said clearly, rewarded by her knee narrowly missing a strategic part of his anatomy as she ignored the warning and twisted wildly beneath him.

“Go to hell,” she panted and tried again. He clamped down one thigh over her flailing legs and smiled grimly. She had spunk. Good, she was going to need it.

From the way the conversation had died down by the fire, he had a feeling the entire group was listening avidly. In fact, since one of the Small brothers was supposed to be on guard duty and watching the gorge, he wasn’t entirely sure they didn’t have an audience too. It wasn’t unknown for them to neglect the duty for drink and cards, so if there was a promising show of him having a good time with the girl, he could see them sneaking away to watch.

Without mercy, he caught her wrists and pinned her arms above her head. He transferred the grip to only one hand and with the other, pulled one of the blankets up over them both.

He had no intention of hurting or violating her in any way, but he was still a healthy adult male, and he couldn’t help but register how soft she felt beneath him, her breasts flattened beneath his chest, the cradle of her hips against his crotch.

And that was enough of that, he reminded himself wryly. Lowering his head in the pretense of nuzzling her neck, he whispered, “I’m not going to hurt you, but please play along.”

Her disbelief evident, she jerked against his hold.

Cal tried again, hoping she understood if she said the wrong thing, they could both be in big trouble. “Please, Miss Daniels…Laurel, just follow my lead and I’ll have you back to your family as soon as possible, no ransom required.”

She turned away from where his mouth grazed the spot below her ear and a choked sound came from her throat.

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He’d never felt like such a brute in his life. Her body was fragile in his arms, delicate and vulnerable.

“They’re listening, understand?” He hoped the urgency in his very low whisper would get through. “This is a performance, got it? The better you play your part, the safer we’ll both be tonight. If they don’t think I’m going to use you, they’ll be suspicious as hell. There is only one of me and six of them. All we have to do is pretend.”

For the first time, she went still and when she turned her head to stare at him, he gave just the briefest nod and prayed if one of the depraved Small brothers was watching he didn’t catch the meaning of it. The lustrous spill of her blond hair caught the faint starlight and the hint of a soft floral scent drifted to his nostrils, the fragrance tantalizing and feminine.

If things were different, I’d be damned tempted…

That treacherous thought wasn’t welcome and he shoved it aside. The difference between Cal Riker and the well-bred daughter of a prosperous rancher was like the top of a mountain peak and the bottom of the ocean. Pretty damn big.

With slow deliberation, he began to unfasten her bodice. That much was necessary if there was an audience, even though he could spare her the rest. When the cloth gaped open, he slid a hand inside and cupped a breast through the material of her chemise. The woman beneath him squirmed in resistance and she spat out, “You bastard! Don’t touch me.”

In his normal tone, he drawled, “Oh darlin’, just wait. I’m going to do much more than touch you.”

As respectfully as possible, he simply kept his hand inside her dress and tried to ignore the arousing effect of the full, firm flesh as he cradled it. He could feel the soft peak of the nipple nestled against his palm, and even though he was more interested in both of them staying alive than anything, he felt his cock begin to stiffen. Luckily, from the fire there came a series of chuckles, and he was jarred back into the reality of the moment.

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Well, he was sure he had just embarrassed the hell out of her by touching her intimately, but it was better than degradation and ill-use at the hands of a band of men with the morals of slinking coyotes.

Cal slid his hand free and delved under the blanket, acting as if he shoved her skirts up but in reality doing nothing more than running his hand up the outside of her thigh and hip. “Get ready to scream,” he murmured, lowering his head so their mouths nearly touched. “If I was really doing this and you didn’t want it, it would hurt.”

She closed her eyes and the muscles in her throat rippled as he shifted more solidly on top of her.

With his hand still under the blanket as if he was unfastening his pants, he gave a low laugh, as if what was happening amused him, instead of the real effect which was being ashamed of his gender in general.

Even though her skirts and his clothing separated them, when he used his knees to push her legs apart he was rewarded with a very low sob that might even have been genuine. A fake rape at the hands of an infamous outlaw might not be as bad as the real thing, but it was probably still traumatizing as she was being forced—if not into sexual congress—into trust, which was probably not very easy.

“Now,” he said between his teeth, surging his hips forward so he rocked against her, pelvis to pelvis, as if he had thrust inside her.

A small scream erupted from her slender throat, carrying just the right edge of despair.
Good girl
, he thought, grateful she’d kept her nerve. Cal began to move in a rhythm that mimicked sexual intercourse, still holding her hands pinned above her head, wishing he didn’t have a full-blown erection because with their bodies pressed together so intimately, she could probably feel he was hard even through her dress and petticoats.

When he thought it seemed long enough, he gave a low, shuddering groan and went still. Not his best performance, he thought with cynical amusement, but hopefully it looked like the real thing. He suspected his balls were going to ache for the rest of the night, because even faking the act didn’t change the reality that his body had a purely 16

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physical reaction to holding a beautiful woman so close and it had been way too long since he’d lain with one.

He whispered against her smooth temple. “Sorry.”

Almost immediately he rolled off of her and let her wrists go. Out loud, he said in a cool, mocking tone that made him cringe inside, “Thanks, darlin’.”

It was a heartless insult of the first degree, especially if he really had brutally had his way with her.

Laurel Daniels sat up in a flurry of long golden hair, her oval face pale except for the scarlet splotches of color in her cheeks. With shaking fingers she fumbled to refasten her dress. “I hope you rot in hell,” she hissed with convincing vehemence.

Cal reached over and hauled her up against him, settling down on the blankets. “I think that’s a sure thing, Miss Daniels. In the meantime, let’s get some sleep.”

***

It was very late and the lonely howl of a wolf came with mournful clarity, the sound echoing in eerie reverberation along the canyon cliff above. The scent of pine was crisp and clean and it had gotten cold as the night settled in. Laurel shifted on the hard ground, unwilling to admit she was grateful for the solid warmth of the man next to her, the shocking reality of sharing the same blankets aside. It was hard to believe it, but she’d even dozed off for a while, which was a miracle considering where she was and who she was with at the moment.

Cal Riker. Who had one arm draped over her waist, her back to his front, with her bottom nestled firmly against his lean hips. When she tried to edge away his hold tightened like a band of iron and she had given up trying to fight the scandalously inappropriate position, mostly because she didn’t care to freeze to death.

She wasn’t at all used to sleeping on the hard ground in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a gang of predatory men either. Odd as it was, he made her feel safe. What had happened—or not happened—earlier still had her confused, but he hadn’t forced himself on her. Even during those mortifying moments when he put his hand inside her www.samhainpublishing.com 17

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dress and cradled her breast, his touch had been gentle and she sensed his reluctance to do it in the first place.