Renegade Man (22 page)

She could only
wait, and hope that he might walk back into her life again.

Chapter 14

R
ita -lou saw
Jonah twice that next week: once when he stopped by the dig to see if she
needed anything from town—she told him coolly that she didn’t—and another time as
he was entering the Buffalo Barbershop. Both times he looked supremely
invulnerable.

She felt
cheapened. Her earlier understanding of his apparent indifference had shriveled
to a hard knot of agony in her chest. I deserve this, she thought. I hurt Jonah
twenty years ago, and now the tables have turned.

She hadn’t
intentionally set out to hurt him, but what he had done had certainly been
intentional. Oh, maybe he hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he’d certainly had
every intention of having one last fling with her. But what about her feelings?
Was he so cynical, so callous, that he didn’t care that he had trampled on her
heart in order to prove to himself that he could walk away from her without a
second thought?

She sat in the
kitchen and laboriously coded artifacts. It was Friday night, and she should
have gone into town and assuaged her loneliness at the Border Cowboy. She supposed
that instead she would work through the weekend. Suddenly Magnum sprang up from
his favorite position on the braided rug, his ears pointed, his stance alert.

“What is it,
fella? Someone coming?”

She laid down
her pen to listen. Then she heard the car engine that had alerted the dog. In
spite of her efforts to kill all hope regarding Jonah, a glimmer of
anticipation was kindled inside her. Dressed only in jeans and a lightweight
sweater, she rose from the ladderback chair and padded barefoot across the room
to the window. Before she could peer out, there was a rapping on the door. “Who
is it?” she called.

“Jonah. Open
up.”

She couldn’t
help it. Her body responded with electrical excitement. Why did she let herself
go through this? “What do you want?”

“To talk—about a
proposition.”

“As in business?
Or as in soliciting sexual favors?”

“Cut out the
smart talk and open up.”

She had no
willpower. She undid the lock and opened the door. He stood with his hands
jammed in his pockets, the collar of his white windbreaker turned up against
the late-night chill. “Come on in,” she said stiltedly.

He moved past
her, and she could feel the way her body reacted to him—the heat creeping
through every part of her, the heightened sensitivity of her skin, its fine
hairs rising to erotic attention.

Magnum trotted
over to stand patiently at the tall man’s side, wanting a signal of recognition
from him. Jonah reached down and scratched the dog’s head. “You’re looking
better, pal.”

“Coffee?” she
asked casually, strolling past him into the kitchen. Her heart was racing, but
she was determined not to show her elation.

“No. I can’t
stay long. I’m on my way into Silver City.”

This late at
night? Hope drained out of her. She stopped at the table and turned to face
him. There was an unmistakable aura of male vitality about him that made her
weak with raw, dizzying hunger. How could she think of him this way, she
wondered, when he was doubtless going to call on one of the Silver City belles
that night? She was totally disgusted with herself.

She drew a
fortifying breath. “All right. You said you wanted to talk.”

He looked tense,
or maybe it was just her imagination. No, he looked as if he was bracing
himself for something. Hell, he looked rough and male and intensely desirable.
“Since it seems that C.B. is dead serious about driving you out of Toma—”

“Oh? You’re just
now willing to admit that fact?”

He fixed her
with the chilling blast of his icy green gaze. “Would you mind shutting up
until I can finish, Rita-lou?”

So, it was
Rita-lou now. She returned his frozen glare and folded her arms. “Go ahead.
This better be good.”

“It’s not safe
for you to be living up here at the cabin alone.”

Her words came
out tinged with harsh amusement. “I’ve been living up here alone for two weeks.
Why the concern now?”

“No. You haven’t
been.” His expression took on the strained look of someone in severe
discomfort. “I’ve been keeping an eye out... at the site during the day and up
here at night.”

Her brows rose
in amazement. “Up here?”

He ran his hand
across the back of his neck, as if massaging tense muscles. “Yeah.” The one
word was grudgingly delivered. “I’ve been driving by once or twice a night for
the last—well, since you moved up here.”

She watched him
warily. Wanting to let herself hope, but afraid to. “Sort of a security check?”

“Yeah.”

So that
explained the passing car she heard in the middle of the night. “You said you
wanted to talk to me about a proposition,” she prompted.

“Come back to
the camper—where I can keep an eye on you.”

She had to make
him admit that he wanted her. She couldn’t go back under any other conditions.
“Why are you doing this, Jonah?”

He drew a long,
unsteady breath. “Because, damn it, I can’t sleep at night worrying about you.”

“What about your
precious privacy?” she asked angrily. “You’re sure I won’t get in your way?”

His answer was a
grim laugh. “Hell, yes, you’ll get in my way. But at least I’ll get some sleep.
I can manage to do without my privacy for a little while, but I sure as hell
need my sleep.”

She realized
that that was the closest she was going to get to a commitment from him,
temporary though the proposed arrangement might be. She gave him a daring
smile. “I doubt that you’ll be getting any more sleep than before.”

He studied her
features with unveiled longing. “Ritz,” he said, his voice oddly hoarse. “Come
here.” Mesmerized by the seductive glint in his eyes and the velvet roughness
of his deep voice, she walked slowly forward until he reached out a hand to
capture her arm and abruptly drew her the rest of the way. She found herself
crushed in his embrace. His mouth closed over hers, slanting back and forth in
a fierce, wildly storming kiss.

Too soon, he
raised his head, but only to slide his lips down her neck, sending shivers of torturing
desire rippling through her rapidly heating blood. She felt the intimate,
rising pressure of his body against hers.

“Ritz,” he
breathed in a jagged whisper, “I don’t know how you feel about mercy gestures,
but I sure could use some compassionate passion on your part.”

“I think I could
manage to oblige you.” She stood on tiptoe and chastely pressed her mouth
against his. He didn’t let her get away with it. His hand snared her hair,
tugging her head back, and his tongue forced her lips and teeth into submissive
parting. He captured her mouth in a deep, sweet-tongued kiss. She responded by
stroking the soft inside of his mouth with her own tongue. She bathed in that
kiss, drank it, went damp with it. Her body arched into his, her hips seeking
more intimate contact with him.

Sweat broke out
on his face, mingling with the wetness of their open, groping mouths. Her
tongue traced tiny circles over his face, tasting his salt-wet skin. Suddenly
his hands were all over—rough, clumsy, yet fiercely arousing as they moved over
her waist, her breasts, cupped her buttocks. The incredibly erotic onslaught
was a pleasure she would never have guessed, even in her wildest fantasies.

“I think I may
get used to being ravished,” she gasped.

“Oh, Rita-lou,”
he groaned against her lips, “you bring me to my knees.”

At that moment
she knew she was finished playing archaic female games. “I don’t want you on
your knees.” Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “I just want you to love me,
Jonah. Love me!”

Somehow they
made their way to her bedroom, frenziedly divesting each other of their
clothing as they went. The trail of clothing led to her bed, where they stood
facing each other, she in her lacy bra and silky panties, he in his jeans. His
eyes fixed achingly on her love-dazed face, he unzipped his jeans and dropped
them. His hands slid beneath the elastic of his red briefs, and her breath
caught until those, too, were lying on the floor.

Liquid heat
raced through her. Her eyes traveled down his suntanned chest and the taut
plane of his stomach and fastened on the stark evidence of the effect she had
on him. She felt heady with her newly discovered power.

That headiness
passed swiftly, to be replaced by a dryness in her throat, evidence of her
sudden wanting. There was no way he could miss her erotic expression of red-alert
response: tremulous lips parted in expectation; languid eyes clouded with
desire; skin rosy with feverish passion; breasts rising and failing rapidly.

His fingers
closed on her shoulders, and it was she who went to her knees. Her hands
gripped his thighs, and she buried her face against him, inhaling deeply,
shuddering with the intense clammoring that swept over her.

The steely
muscles of his abdomen jumped reflexively, and a groan ripped from his chest.
“Ohhh . . . Rita- lou,” he gasped.

The pleasure she
gave him—and took for herself— was abruptly ended when he jerked her from her
knees and pressed her down onto the mattress. Her face flushed, her breathing
rapid and shallow, she stared up at him, watching as he bent over her.

Instead of
taking her then, he began a renewed assault on her senses. His head dipped to
nuzzle her neck before his mouth sought the soft skin of her breasts. His
tongue drew tiny concentric circles there that puckered the rosy flesh. Then
his teeth closed on her nipple, extracting a gasp of pure pain and pleasure
from her. She entwined her fingers in his thick hair and pressed his dark head
to her. How entertwined are the pain and plesure that weaves in and our of our
lives, she thought . . . and then forgot to think.

His free hand
roved over her body, grazed her stomach, then claimed the triangular mound of
downy gold. Her ravaged body responded to that skillful hand. She squirmed in
breathless, raging longing when his fingers deserted her nub, then sighed as
they moved lower. His knee spread her pliant legs apart, and his fingers gained
access to the sensitive softness of the opening they sought.

“So tight, so
wet, so good,” he told her in a husky voice that stroked her all over.  First
two fingers, now three, that stretched her painfully . .. and, yes,
pleasurably.

By the time his
fingers stopped their deep stroking, white-hot sensations were screaming
through her body, and she was raggedly desperate for surcease from such
prolonged pleasure. As if fully aware of his power over her body, Jonah raised
himself over her, his shaft probing lightly, teasingly, at the velvety place
where his fingers had been.

“So hard, so
beautiful,” she said, and moaning softly, she arched her hips, her hands
pulling him down to her.

He braced his
hands at either side of her head and sank into her. The glitter in his eyes was
pagan, and his face was taut with the effort of repressing his own needs. He
began to love her with an unselfish determination. With tormenting slowness, he
eased into her wet warmth, then withdrew a fraction of an inch before sliding
deeper this time, driving her wild with the need to be completely filled by
him. Suddenly he plunged into her with a force that elicited a cry of painful
pleasure from her. He held her impaled while her body spasmed with the last
tremors of tumultuous relief.

For long moments
she lay there gasping, feeling his heaviness, his sweat mingling with hers, and
feeling totally female.

When he began to
withdraw, her legs gripped his, and she began her seduction of him, moving her
hips provocatively. “It’s my turn, sailor,” she teased in a lusty whisper. “You
may have a girl in every port, but I’m the one you’ll never forget.”

He stilled her
hips with the controlling pressure of his own and pushed the tumbled hair from
her cheek in a rare gesture of intimacy. “I’ve never forgotten you, Ritz. Your
features have been imprinted on those faceless girls; I never even saw them.”

With that he
crushed her to him, his arm encircling her back, and began his own journey toward
that mystical, explosive completion, and with each plunging stroke she was a
partner on that sensual journey, caressing his beautiful and powerful male
body, urging him toward that one suspended moment of su-preme ecstasy with
hoarse whispers. Then his powerful frame shuddered with wracking fulfillment.

“That was
wonderful,” she whispered, her head pillowed on his massive chest. When he was
within her, she had felt as if she would burst with the enormous feelings that
exploded through her.

Amusement twinkled
in his eyes. “Was? We’ve just begun.”

She groaned.
“I’m sore, you lech!”

“Then I’ll
wait—but not too long.” He tucked her into the hollow made by his bowed body,
curling his arm around her waist, and immediately went to sleep.