Nan Ryan (9 page)

Mollie automatically reached for the pistol on her hip, then remembered she had respectfully left it behind when she’d gone to her father’s memorial service. The gun was in the other room.

Backing away, Mollie said, “You’re talking crazy, Kid. I’m not yours, I’ll never be yours.”

“Sure you will, honey,” he drawled, advancing on her, spurs clanking, eyes gleaming.

Fighting to keep the terror from her voice, she warned, “I’ll scream. I’ll scream so loud—”

“Scream your head off,” he said, grinning wolfishly, “no one will pay any attention.”

He was right. In this second-rate
posada
, screams and shouts were heard round the clock. Nobody ever bothered to investigate.

Knowing her only hope was to show no fear, Mollie kept her tone level when she said, “I forbid you to—”

“First lesson,” he cut her off, “you’ll forbid me nothing. You might have bossed your drunken old daddy around, but I won’t hold still for it.”

He grabbed her arm then and roughly pulled her to him. Mollie was crushed to his solid length, and before she could protest, his thin, hard mouth came down on hers, pressing her lips painfully against her teeth. She squirmed and groaned and twisted her head.

He released her. She backed away, wiping her mouth on her shirtsleeve. Unruffled, the Kid began to unbutton his shirt.

“You can make this easy or hard on yourself,” he said conversationally. “I planned on being gentle with you, but I prefer it the other way.” His gray eyes glittered with sexual excitement. “I always figured you’d be the fighting kind. Bet you’ll put up one hell of a battle, won’t you, darlin’? Scratch and claw and make me work hard to get it?” The grin growing wider on his bearded face, he took off his shirt, tossed it aside.

“You are insane!” Mollie said, repulsed by his words and by the sight of his bare torso. Hair—thick, dark animal hair—covered his entire chest and belly and crawled up over his shoulders and down his back. “You’re crazy!”

“Crazy about you,” he said. “Have been since the first time I saw you when you were just a skinny fifteen-year-old kid. I wanted you then. Couldn’t sleep for thinking about how it would feel to have those long, coltish legs wrapped around my back.”

“Shut up, you filthy beast,” Mollie shouted, her violet eyes flashing with anger and disgust.

“Now you’re no longer a skinny kid. There’s soft, lush breasts beneath that blouse. Are your nipples big, Mollie? Are they the size of silver dollars?” He chuckled merrily and continued, “And that pretty little ass of yours. I’ve watched you wiggle it in those tight pants and dreamed of the day I would bare it and let it fill my hands while I—”

“Dear God!” Mollie choked and ran for the door.

She never made it. He beat her there, blocked her way, and again pulled her into his arms. Sickened, Mollie did exactly what the Kid wanted her to do. She fought him like a tigress. She screamed and cursed and hit at him. She sank sharp teeth into a sweat-slick, hairy shoulder and bit him as hard as she could. He loved it. His erection was already fully formed and Mollie, struggling impotently, could feel the hard length of him straining against her trembling belly.

She fought harder. She shouted louder. She cursed more colorfully.

It was a powerful aphrodisiac to the Kid. He stood, booted feet wide apart, bare arms wrapped around her, and knew this was going to be a night without compare. He raised a hand, gripped Mollie’s chin, and bent to kiss her. Catching her with her mouth open, he thrust his tongue deep inside. She frantically tried to pull away. His hand moved around to clasp the back of her head as his plundering mouth stayed fused with hers.

Mollie was panicky. The Kid’s thick, bristly beard was covering her nose, his tongue was filling her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Using her sharp nails, she viciously scraped deep furrows down his back.

It worked. He took his mouth from hers and grabbed her arms. “You scratching me up before I even put it in, honey?” A demonic light flashed in his eyes “What
will
you do to me in bed?”

“I am
not
going to bed with you!” she said and spit at him.

He shoved her arms behind her back and held both her wrists in one big hand. He raised his other and rubbed the spittle into the thick mat of hair covering his chest.

Smiling, he said, “That’s all right, darlin’. You wet my chest and I’ll wet yours.” His fingers went to the buttons of her blouse.

Squirming, struggling, Mollie winced when her blouse was pushed apart and he laid a hand on her thin chemise. With one swift jerk he ripped it open, and added heat leapt into his eyes when her bare breasts spilled out.

“Now which one should I lick first?” he said huskily, “the left nipple or the right?”

His fascination with her bared breasts caused him to shift his weight, moving back just a trifle, leaving a bit of space between their bodies. It was enough for Mollie to bring a forceful, punishing knee up to slam into his swollen groin.

The Kid yelped in pain and released her. Mollie flew across the room to the door and had it open before he recovered enough for pursuit. Jerking her blouse together, she bounded down the stairs. Half-crazed, in pain, the Kid came after her. He caught her halfway down. She screamed her outrage when he scooped her up in his arms, turned, and climbed the stairs.

More than a dozen men, loafing in the hotel lobby, saw and heard them. Some laughed and slapped their knees. Others envied the big, bearded Anglo. None considered the disturbance to be anything out of the ordinary.

Back inside the suite, the Kid kicked the door shut behind them. He walked straight to the bedroom and dumped Mollie on the bed. Before she could rise, he was pinning her to the lumpy mattress with his big body.

They wrestled among the bedcovers and all the while Mollie’s fevered brain was churning. While she twisted her head from side to side to avoid his mouth, her eyes fell on the embroidery scissors on a night table where she’d flung them after cutting her hair. The blades were not long, but they were sharp. The scissors were her only hope. No one was going to help her. She had to save herself. She judged the distance to the scissors and inwardly groaned. They were too far away.

There was only one way she would get them within reach.

Mollie abruptly stopped fighting. She made herself go limp and then she said, as if excited, “Kiss me, Kid. Kiss me.”

He raised his head and looked at her, an expression of confusion in his eyes. For what seemed an eternity he stared down at her, his big body pinning her, his bearded face looming directly above her own.

“Mollie, darlin’,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers.

Fighting her revulsion, Mollie allowed him to kiss her. Acting as though she liked it, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, sighing and moaning to convince him she was enjoying it. Believing that he had subdued her and she was now as aroused as he, the Kid let down his defenses. He rolled over onto his back, bringing Mollie with him.

For a time they stayed like that, kissing, stroking. Then they rolled once more, moving closer and closer to the night table. Mollie was again on her back with the Kid atop her, his mouth ravaging hers, his eyes closed in building ecstasy. Hers were wide open, and her right hand was inching toward the table. When her fingertips touched the scissors, an unconscious gurgle of relief rose in her throat and surfaced. The Kid took it as a sigh of passion.

Mollie snatched up the scissors and immediately raised them over the Kid’s broad back. At that second, he raised his head and looked at her with something close to tenderness in his eyes. She gave him one last chance.

“Let me go,” she said. “Please. I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”

“Why, you little bitch!” he snarled. “There’s no being good to you, is there? There’s only one thing you understand and that’s force. Well, if it’s rape you want, I’m your man.” His mouth came cruelly back down on hers while his hand went between them to unbutton his trousers.

With a sigh of resignation, Mollie lifted the scissors high and, with all her strength, brought them down squarely into the middle of Jeff Battles’s broad back. It took a second for him to respond, to figure out what had happened.

His face suddenly becoming a mask of shock and pain, he stiffened and collapsed atop her. Crying hysterically now, Mollie managed to roll him off her and scramble to her feet. Trembling and sobbing, she backed away, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide with the horror of what she had done.

Was he dead? Had she killed him? Should she run downstairs and ask for help? Go for a doctor? Notify the
federales?

Mollie hurriedly drew on a fresh chemise and blouse, buckled her gun belt around her hips, took her saddlebags and went directly to the Kid’s room. Working quickly, she shoved all the stolen loot into the fancy, blood-red leather saddlebags her papa had given her for her birthday. Gold coins and bars soon weighted down the saddlebags, and when Mollie hung them over her shoulder, she staggered under the weight of the fortune.

She managed to make it down the stairs and out into the dusty street to her horse. It took all her strength to toss the loaded saddlebags over the mount’s back. Gasping for breath, she swung up into the saddle and fled.

She had to get out of Mexico. She had a better chance against the authorities in the States than she did in Mexico against the Kid.

Mollie kicked her mount into a gallop and headed north as her papa’s words came back to her. “If anything ever happens to me, promise me you’ll ride straight to Arizona and my old friend, Napier Dixon.”

Lew Hatton didn’t hear the knock on the heavy carved door. A servant ushered the nighttime caller into Lew’s paneled study. Lew looked up from his desk to see an elegantly gowned woman standing in the shadows cast by the dying fire.

“Mrs. Maxwell,” he acknowledged, but did not rise.

“Elizabeth. Call me Elizabeth.”

“What is it you want, Mrs. Maxwell?” came the deep, bored voice of the man lounging back in his chair with the buttons of his fine silk shirt open halfway down his dark chest.

“I want you to make love to me,” she said, neither embarrassed or ashamed to make such a frank declaration.

Lew gave her a half-scornful smile. “On the very day you buried your beloved husband?”

“Yes,” she was quick to reply. “Finally there is nothing standing in our way. You refused me all those years because you had a beautiful young sweetheart. Then even after you lost your sweetheart, you continued to turn me down, saying you didn’t make love to another man’s wife. I am no longer a wife. I’m a widow. Make love to me, Lew.”

Lew slowly pushed back his chair, swung his long legs up onto the desk, and crossed one foot over the other. He raised his arms, laced his fingers loosely behind his dark head and looked at her with amused interest.

Finally he said, “Think you can get out of that dress with no help?”

The brazen woman smiled triumphantly. Then with amazing swiftness she shed her clothes. In a few scant seconds her shimmering satin gown and lace-trimmed underthings were discarded and the petite, ivory-skinned Mrs. Maxwell stood there brazenly before Lew wearing nothing save her black silk stockings, high-heeled slippers, and a glittering diamond necklace with matching diamond earscrews.

She slowly pirouetted for his benefit and when she was again facing him, she asked, “Do you not find me beautiful?” Her hands went to her hips and she moved her satin-slippered feet apart in a provocative pose.

His hooded eyes riveted to her luscious bare body, Lew languidly studied her. The merry widow was exactly the kind of woman with whom he enjoyed making love. Small and soft and fragrant and coquettish. Stunningly beautiful. Fragilely feminine. Endlessly desirable. And shamelessly wanton.

Lew’s hands came down from behind his head. His booted feet returned to the floor. He rose and undressed while the naked Mrs. Maxwell watched delightedly. When he was as naked as she, Lew dropped back down onto his leather chair and motioned her to him.

Giggling girlishly, Mrs. Maxwell climbed onto the lap of the dark, handsome man and eagerly began kissing his sulky, sexy mouth. She sighed as his dark, lean hands swept enticingly over her shoulders and back and breasts.

And when, minutes later, Lew easily lifted her, then settled her astride him, she wet her lips excitedly and raised herself up, purposely allowing one of her full, soft breasts to swing into his face. Shivering deliciously as he obligingly kissed the taut nipple, she wrapped slender fingers around his awesome tumescence and eased herself down on his rigid, pulsing maleness. Sounds of wonder and gratitude issued from her open lips.

“Mmm, yes, oh yes,” she murmured as she rode him enthusiastically, her hands gripping his muscled chest, her bare breasts bouncing seductively, and her rounded bottom slapping against his hard, hair-dusted thighs.

Lew’s strong, sure hands gripped her flaring hips, and he guided her movements as he sat there with his legs apart, rhythmically thrusting his pelvis, driving into her.

Their climaxes came quickly. Too quickly to satisfy either of them completely. Both wanted more. After only a short rest while they regained their lost breath, Lew urged the brunette beauty up off his lap and he too rose.

She said, “Darling, I want more.”

“You’ll get more,” was his quick reply and he swept everything off his cluttered desk, turned her about, and sat her atop it. “As much as you want and more.”

Mrs. Maxwell squealed with joy when she lowered her eyes and saw that he was already again erect and able to give her pleasure. She happily looped her arms around his neck as he pushed her legs wide apart and moved into position. His tanned hands went beneath the twin cheeks of her bottom and drew her to him, telling her if she wanted it to take it.

“Yes, yes, I want it. Oh, God, you’re so big, so hard,” she murmured, reaching for him.

But before she could take him completely a loud knock came on the carved door.

“I’m tied up now, Eduardo,” Lew called out as the throbbing tip of his tumescence slid into the hot-as-fire widow.