Necessary Evil (28 page)

"Sounds like a long shot. Might work."

"To make it work I need something."

"What's that?"

"I need to know whatever Kier would know if he read Volume Six. If I were the FBI and investigating, you see, I'd know why the hell I'm investigating. Only way to be convincing is tell them some seemingly secret stuff."

It was a seductive pitch. Doyle was the brightest of his men. The subterfuge would be elegant if it worked. Tillman wanted to trust him.

"In short, I need to know what's going on or I won't be effective."

Tillman wanted a drink and rose to pour one.

"You like a Scotch?"

"Please."

Tillman had discovered that the Donahues had no liquor cabinet. An oversize kitchen drawer held the libations. He removed a bottle of Glenlivet, amazed that the Donahues would have a single malt.

As he returned to the table and poured them two Scotches, neat, he decided to begin by giving Doyle a rundown of the Marty Rawlins diary, then observe his reaction before deciding how much more he would disclose.

He might even tell Doyle just how far ahead of the rest of the world he really was.

One sunset with a maiden surpasses ten Tilok feasts.

—Tilok Proverb

I
t didn't matter in what light he saw her, the clothing she wore, composed or unkempt, perspiring or chilled—he found her beautiful.

Kier wanted her.

Jessie seemed resigned to losing him, judging from her sigh, from the sadness in her eyes, from her frown. The gulf between them measured mere inches, but added to that separation were the expectations of his family, friends, and, even though he had not proposed marriage, the innocent expectations of Willow. Once Kier reached across to Jessie, would it be the beginning of a betrayal or the end of one?

He could not think of what to say or how to speak what he felt.

"I never asked you about the mare. What were you doing with the pointing and the chanting?" she asked.

''Body language that a horse would understand. The chanting really just underscores the body language . . . helps get their attention with the changes in volume and tone."

Finally he managed to move his hand so that it was touching hers. Every millimeter that separated them was closed by him. She gave him no help. But the feeling was heady.

"Body language is important with horses too, huh?"

"The most important by far. They're herd animals. In the wild, horses have a pecking order in their band. The lead mare enforces behavioral norms. When she runs a horse out of the herd to enforce discipline, certain things have to happen for the horse to be accepted back. At first the dominant horse squares off, looking the outcast in the eye—challenging. When the subservient horse turns broadside and cocks an ear, it's a half-apology, so to speak. If the lead horse is satisfied, it also turns broadside, takes its eye off the bad horse, and ignores it. If the half-apology doesn't work, the outcast may have to drop its head to get back in—that's a sure sign it wants to come back.

''I was using the two horses as a herd; I was the lead mare. I got her thinking about joining the herd. It's a natural thing for a horse in trouble. I just followed the pattern."

"How did you learn all this?"

"Here and there. A little from Grandfather. Mostly though from horse trainers—even books." He chuckled. "And vet experience. It's not genetic. We Tiloks walked around the mountains. My ancestors didn't have horses nearly as early as the plains Indians. Only the chant was Tilok, and it's a medicine chant to ward off evil spirits and promote healing. I don't know if it works, I just prefer it to humming or yelling."

''I read that people sometimes use body language more than they use words," she said.

''Yeah. First, they square off, like this.'' He looked into her eyes. "But with people it's more of an invitation."

"And how does a person accept this invitation?"

"Prolonged eye contact," he replied while she continued returning his gaze.

"Will that do?"

"That will do. Then you come closer to me."

In response she came around the table. He rose and she pulled him tight. "Like so?"

''You pick up on this very well. Now you get heavy-lidded and half close your eyes. Then you turn your face up just slightly."

Before she finished he covered her lips with his, silencing her next line.

She finished it in her mind:
Should I put my head down now ?
The kiss was better than good. But when she looked into his eyes, she saw the trouble there.

"I'm not sure what we're doing," he said.

"I think," she said, her voice husky, "I think you're asking the wrong person."

She let her eyes meet his. Slowly, as if each millimeter were a separate and painful deliberation, he reached for her again. In him she saw a quiet desperation that he could never voice. They stood wrapped in each other's arms as the flicker of the dying lantern lengthened the shadows and the darkness enfolded them.

She felt no constraint but her fear. His hands moved over her back as if they were at worship, relaxing her, comforting her, making her want more of him. Having once touched, neither wanted to pull away lest good sense intervene. After the failing lantern died and they were bathed only in the soft glow of the remaining one, his searching eyes met hers. In them the pieces of her dreams fit seamlessly together. The touch of his finger across her lips was real, like the rough boards under their feet.

Taking his first finger between her teeth, she tasted his skin and nibbled at his knuckle. Then they pulled each other closer so that her breasts were pressed against his chest, and her lips wandered over his face, placing kisses on his light beard and weather-toughened skin. She learned the nuances of his body. Her hands moved first at the back of his neck, then to his shoulders and the mass of his frame. She ran her hands over his smooth chest, following the contour of a giant pectoral muscle, then teased his nipples between her fingers. On his belly she felt the coarse hairs. Then she cupped the bow of his erection through his cotton shorts. Trailing her fingers along its length, she felt the shudder run through his body. Looking him in the eye, as if daring him to flinch, she reached beneath his shorts and took hold of him.

She felt the tightening in his thighs. Kier's hand trailed across her shoulders. She pulled the cotton briefs over his thighs, strewing soft kisses down his belly as she went. He groaned with longing, and the strength of his hands on her upper arms made her feel delicate. She sensed his body stir with need.

When she saw the question form on his face, she breathed his name and put her lips to his to tell him nothing more need be said or committed to. Jessie pulled him to the bed. Slipping off her T-shirt, she stood before him in her pale blue panties. His large hands caressed her shoulders as he bent to kiss her neck. She shivered at his touch, and she knew with certainty that he was worth the pain of the good-bye.

Putting her hands on his bare chest, she urged him onto the bed, where he leaned back against the pile of pillows along the old mahogany headboard. His fingers interlaced with hers, and in that touching she felt his reverence of her and what they were doing. Moving over him, she wrapped her arms tight around his neck; putting her lips to his ear, she let him feel the heat of her breath.

After a time, she released him and sat back on his thighs. Her breasts were the size of apples but more conical than rounded, high and firm, never having nursed a child. Her nipples, a pastel of brown and pink, stiffened with desire.

Around her neck, the golden hue to her skin contrasted with the starker whiteness around her breasts. Kier drank in the sight of her, his breath catching at the excitement shining in her eyes. The swell of each breast in his lips, the eagerness in her body, her smell, her nakedness.

When Kier used his tongue to feel the texture of her aureola, she shivered and pulled his lips hard on her. He began to lick her, tasting the sweat from the hollow between her breasts. With rhythmic strokes of his soft tongue, he drew from her an urgent moan. She arched herself backward, rising up on her knees. Her long fingers, buried in his hair, pulled at him while his hand gently traced up her leg to the edge of her panties, where he let a finger slip beneath. Jessie's deep breaths told him that the slightest caress would bring her to the edge.

Her body became a telegraph, and Kier the recipient of each nuanced message. Touching Jessie's smooth-skinned back like butterflies kissing the wind, he felt her body coiling around him, the flex of her thighs. Soon he could feel her determined desire, the increased strength of her grip, the arch of her spine pressing his face to her chest. Together they stripped off her panties.

Her triangle was silken and dark, matted down so that it seemed close cropped. Like the rest of her, it struck him as petite. He cupped her face and kissed her fiercely, marrying his tongue to hers, exploring its edges, then its underside. Her legs wrapped like vines around his and he felt the urgency of her pelvis pressing against his thigh.

"I want you," he said simply, looking into her eyes.

Sensing what he wanted, she abandoned herself to his touches and the sweet words murmured over her.

"You are more than I ever conceived, more than I dreamed about," he whispered in her ear.

He put one hand on her bottom, bringing her up on her knees and with the other, he sent feathery-light touches between her legs, setting her to groaning shudders. Then the little touches changed. Around and around his fingers moved, never quite letting her reach the peak of her frenzy, making her crazy with anticipation. A buzzing began in her lower back, then spread up and over her shoulders.

Her fingers dug into the heavy muscle of his arms as she guided him into her. She put her hand down to his and pressed his fingers to her, moving them in a secret rhythm, teaching him. Her breathing now came deep and regular, like an athlete hitting her stride. She rode him on a sheen of sweat that made their thighs buttery slick. After a time a trembling began in her, an ache with the rhythmic squeezing of her legs around his middle. The sweet sensation caused her entire body to cling to him, as if by squeezing tight she might find release.

As she reached for the culmination of her pleasure, her breaths grew ragged again, sounding to her own ear like great gulps of life. Her lovemaking was pure, unfettered by any weight of guilt or worry—she gave herself to it and to him completely. Without a promise or a vow, he had somehow filled her with trust.

In the clenching of her legs he could feel a building rhythm and her pleasant desperation.

She pushed her pelvis even harder into his caressing fingers, clinging to his head as if it were her savior in a storm.

"Please," she said.

Feeling her rush, the wild thrusting of her hips, he pressed on until she screamed her solace, then groaned in satisfaction.

When her breathing had quieted, she lay like a rag against him. She played a little game, squeezing down on him, then giggled when, with his own flexions, he signaled back.

"What are we going to do with this now that I'm spent?"

"Spend you again," he whispered in reply.

Leaning back, she gave a wicked little smile, and Kier covered her lips and neck with gentle kisses until the deeper kisses began again to seem intriguing. After that, she thought of nothing but the pleasure of his tongue on hers, and marveled at the escalating stirring in her loins. While she giggled, he kissed her body endlessly. Patiently, his tongue made long, slow strokes everywhere, as if it had lost its way. Her desire was a tiny cloud over a parched desert, and that cloud grew with the heat of the day until it rained great droplets of relief.

After, when she was floating high above mere physical wanting on the rising currents of her contentment, after her thighs were loosened and as much in love with him as the rest of her, she held him very close as he climaxed in shudders that lasted like August heat into Indian summer.

It was just before she drifted off to sleep that something her mother had once said shot into her mind. She stirred and repositioned herself atop his body.

"What?" he whispered, making her smile.

"What?"

"You're thinking something."

"Hmmm. That old Tilok instinct that saved our lives. Well, I'll tell you what. My mother used to say that sanity lies on the far side of an erection. So now that we're sane, where are we?"

He couldn't answer.

The rules of the hunt do honor to whoever honors them, to the good and the bad alike.