Sam’s Creed (12 page)

His interference was becoming tedious.

She stroked him in a long leisurely pass, cupping the broad head in her palm, discovering a silky drop of fluid at the tip. She had not known men got wet, too. She slid a bit of the moisture to her fingertips.

This time his grip on her wrist was inescapable. He turned in the saddle, maintaining his grip on her hand, forcing her to lean around. “Do you want to really pleasure me, duchess?”

His eyes burned down at her full of passion and anger. She might have pushed him too far. She refused to be afraid. Whatever revenge he wanted for daring to exploit his vulnerability she was willing to pay. “Yes.”

“Then give me your mouth.”

She did, holding his gaze with hers as she parted her lips slowly, inviting whatever he needed. He needed so much, so much more than sex, but it was all he would take. She understood that. Accepted it, but while she was with him she would not leave him wanting. He had passion to give her. She had softness to give him.

The blue of his eyes darkened, his expression hardened. He was going to be mean. She braced herself for it.

He brought her wet fingers to her lips, so close she could smell the sweet scent of his musk. Like freshly crushed grass, yet spiced with something deeper, something compelling.

“This is all I have to offer you.”

She leaned the quarter inch forward, curling her tongue around his essence, taking it into her mouth, still holding his gaze, letting him see her accept his seed in the manner he demanded. It was salty and earthy and for as long as she lived, she knew she would never forget his taste. She swallowed and licked her lips.

His hand slid across her cheek until his fingers cupped her head. He pulled her down almost helplessly as he growled. “I need my ass kicked.”

It took her a second to figure out what he was doing. Memories of his mouth on her pussy flashed through her mind. He wanted her mouth. On his cock. Excitement flared through her in a shock of lust. She licked her lips again. The residue of his need coated her tongue in pure temptation. She would like to know him like that. Would he be as helpless under the whip of her tongue as she had been under his? It was an intriguing thought. She so rarely got the upper hand with him.

“I desire you very much, and I would most like to take you in my mouth right now the way you do me.”

His eyes narrowed and his breath caught before releasing in a growl of words. “Think long and hard before you do this, Bella. There’ll be no pleasure in this for you and there will come a point after which I won’t stop, even when you want me to.”

When, not if. “What makes you think I will want you to?”

“You’re a virgin. You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

“Then you will have to teach me.”

“Not like this. Not on a horse in the middle of nowhere.”

“This is what we have.”

“You deserve better.”

Always he thought she deserved better, more. She curved her hand around his cock, tilting the thick shaft toward her. “You are what I want.”

“You can’t always have what you want.” But she could, and from now she could extract a memory to hold on to later, whenever the bad times came visiting. And they would come. Tejala was relentless. She brushed her thumb across the head. Broad and velvety soft, a cushiony hardness topping steel. Powerful like Sam himself. And hers. “I can have you,
sí?
”

His hand was heavy on her head, his fingers gentle on her cheek, his drawl weary with acceptance. “
Sí.
For now.”

“Then we will make now very good.” She worked her way over. The back of the saddle cut into her hip and she was stretched too far.

“Bella…”

She didn’t want to hear any more regret. “You sound so sad, when I am very sure this will make you very happy.”

“It won’t make you happy.”

“You are wrong.”

She stole his answer by taking him in her mouth. His immediate groan and shudder smoothed like a balm over her unease. He was much bigger than she anticipated, and it was not so easy as she expected to take him. She opened her mouth wider, shifted closer. He slid deeper. Breeze stumbled. His cock speared deep, bumping her cheek before hitting her throat. She scrambled to pull back. “Shit!”

Instead of pulling her off, Sam held her there, hands and hips straining as her throat worked with the effort not to gag. Two heartbeats and he eased off, cradling her head in his hand again rather than restraining her. “Sorry, duchess. You bring out my wild side.”

The head of his cock rode her tongue in shallow strokes.

He always drove her to the edge before delivering her bliss; she would do the same for him. “I like you wild.”

He stopped her before she could try. “I prefer this.” His fingers threaded through her hair, massaging her scalp in small circles, gentling her as his passion hoarsened his voice. “This is good.”

It was too late, he’d shown her what he liked. And that was his cock deep in her mouth. No matter how he tried to hide it, she could feel the urgency within him. The need to thrust controlled by his position. The need to dominate subdued by his promise. Just because he would not unleash it did not mean she did not sense it. Or did not want it.

She pulled back. “Let me go.”

“No.”

Drawing her lips back, she let him feel the edge of her teeth.

He tipped his head back and smiled, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing over her lips. “Tempting me isn’t going to get me to change my mind.”

She was not tempting him, she was threatening him. Her thoughts must have shown on her face.

“I like it rough.”

Then so did she, because the challenge to take him past his control the way he took her past hers was a shiny lure too bright to resist. She had this one night. This was the start. And she was not setting the tone with caution or any false modesty he insisted she had to have because she was a virgin. She shook her head.

“You are in for a big surprise, Sam, when you see who I really am.”

“I’m doing my damnedest not to.”

“Not to what? Be surprised?”

“See you for who you really are.”

“Why?”

“Because it won’t be good for either of us.”

She borrowed one of his own expressions. “I would chance it.”

“I won’t.”

“Then we are back to this.”

Leaving the responsibility of keeping her on the horse up to Sam, Isabella took him back in her mouth. His shudder was very much to her liking. So was his taste, his scent, his groan. She lowered her head on his cock, setting a fast pace, a hard pace, alternately raking the underside of his cock with her tongue and her teeth, confirming one thing with every scrape of her teeth—he did like it rough.

“Use your hands,” he grunted.

It took a minute to get the rhythm he liked, but when she found it, the rewards were high. His pleasure obvious. His cock went rock-hard and swelled even further. She took him deeper, sucking harder, nipping the tip before soothing it with a pass of her tongue, pumping with her hand, coaxing him to climax. She so wanted him to come for her.

She removed her mouth from his hard shaft just long enough to whisper one plea, “Do not hold back.”

She could not bear it if he held back. Not this time. Not with her. She needed him to need her. Needed him to let go for her. Her pussy flowered and ached. Her body wept and her nipples burned as if on fire.

“I won’t, baby. I’ll give you all I’ve got.”

His big palm cupped her cheek and his voice was hoarse and deep. “And you’ll take every drop, won’t you?” His fingers grazed her throat. “Every drop down this sweet throat.”

Scared, excited and eager, she nodded.

“Then take me deep, Bella. Take a breath and take me deep.”

She did, taking him past her need to gag, taking him as deep as she could, raking his balls and cock lightly with her nails, sucking hard until he grabbed her head and pulled her to him. His head dropped back, his cock jerked and his hot seed flooded her mouth in a salty tang. She swallowed, milking him with her hands, taking what he had to give, needing him to give to her, even if only this. When the last pulse faded, and his cock rested quietly on her tongue, she eased back.

“You are pleased?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because it will make the next easier.”

“Easier?”

She pushed back up. She would not have made it without his help.

She snuggled into his back, whimpering when the saddle pressed against her swollen clit. “I have decided what you owe me for saving your life.”

“So what do you want?”

“You to take my virginity.”

“That’s not much of a prize. First times are rarely good.”

“But that is the special part. I want you to make me feel as good as I just made you feel when you do it.”

“Shit, you don’t ask much, do you?”

She kissed his spine, breathing deep of his scent even as she ran her tongue over her lips, gathering in the last of his essence. “I only ask what I know you can give.”

B
ella was offering him his dream. No strings attached. A night of the best sex of his life—it would be the best—and all he had to do was not make it a nightmare for her. Not a bad deal for a man not wanting commitments, so why was it rubbing him raw?

Sam glanced across the campfire in time to catch Isabella running that tongue over her lips again. She always did that when she was nervous. And why wouldn’t she be? She’d leveraged the game out of the realm of play to the harsh truth of reality. Any intelligent woman would rethink her plan when it came to the crunch. He sighed and flicked his smoke into the fire and told his aching cock to take a rest. Nothing was going to happen tonight.

“Having second thoughts?”

Isabella looked up from the cup of coffee she’d been toying with for the last fifteen minutes. Firelight played across her face, shadowing her eyes in mystery, augmenting the aura of femininity she wore like other women wore a fancy hat.

Shit. It was going to kill him to walk away from her tonight.

“No. What makes you ask that?”

“The way you’re sitting there getting more agitated by the second.”

“I am being silly.” She put the cup on the ground beside her. Another stroke of her tongue over her lips. Lust poured through him in a hot, liquid heat riding his blood before pooling in his cock. What was it about the woman that she made him one continuous hard-on?

“Silly or not, let’s hear it.” He might as well deal with her fears as they occurred.

“Ever since this afternoon, you have been putting distance between us.”

“Nothing new about that. I’ve been trying to put distance between us since the day we met.”

She shrugged. “This is different. Now that night is here, I do not know how to get from here…” She made a descriptive motion with her hand from her feet to him “—to there.” She hitched the blanket up over her shoulder. “So I am now worrying.”

He wasn’t sure he was hearing her correctly. “About what?”

“I do not know what is proper, what is improper. What will work. What won’t.”

He blinked. Of all the concerns he figured she had, he hadn’t figured on that. “You don’t know how to seduce me?”

Bella glared at him like it was all his fault. “
Sí,
this is what I do not know.”

She was always surprising him. Despite the regret he knew he was going to feel once this night was over, Sam still felt like smiling. “Pardon me. This is my first time out as a defiler of innocence.”

A little of the lift left her chin. “This is true?”

Of course it was true. What the hell kind of man did she think he was? “Innocence should be protected.”

“As you protect me?”

“It’s part of my job. I’m a Texas Ranger. We have the Creed. I live by it.”

“And making you do this violates this creed?”

He could say yes. She’d promptly feel so guilty about making him violate his creed she’d back off. But it wouldn’t be the truth. And, he wasn’t the man he should be. He wanted what she offered. A taste of what Caine had. What his parents had had. Hell, who was he kidding? He tossed the rest of his coffee. He wanted Bella.

“No. You just make me wish for what can’t be.”

“But already we talked. Tomorrow does not exist.”

“So we agreed.”

It still wasn’t sitting well on his conscience.

“You do not look happy. If we do this, you will have regrets perhaps?”

He glanced across the fire at the sweetness of her face, her curvaceous figure, the dimple creasing her left cheek, the courage in her eyes, the desire she didn’t even bother to hide. “There isn’t a goddamn thing I’ll regret about loving you, but once I take care of Tejala, you’re going to realize this is all for nothing.”

“I think, Sam, that even if Tejala were not a problem in my life, I would be here tonight with you.”

Shit. He was beginning to think honesty should be outlawed.

“That doesn’t change the fact I’m not the kind of man a girl should be throwing her first time away on.”

She stood, tucking the blanket under her arms. “Ah, this is the problem.” She walked around the fire slowly, deliberately, her hips swaying side to side, the smile on her lips a siren’s temptation. “You keep thinking of me as a girl.”

“You’re hardly out of pigtails.”

She stopped just out of his reach, dropping the blanket. It slid off her body in a slow glide, falling to the ground without a protest. He couldn’t help thinking there should be a protest. From more than just him. Beneath it she was dressed in her shirt and skirt and the smile gracing her face was the one a woman wore when she bared herself before her man. Shy with innocence, sultry with expectation. It was the kind of smile that turned a man inside out.

She stepped over the blanket. “I am a woman, Sam. I know the value of myself.” She pulled the thick rope of her braid over her shoulder and made short work of the tie. She tossed it to him. He caught it more out of habit than thought. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“You can still back out.”

She winked and flashed him a dimpled smile and turned around, leaving him looking at the voluptuous outline of her figure. She really was built like a little Venus, all rounded curves and seduction. She glanced at him over her shoulder from under her lashes, that smile on her face evident in her voice.

“I know the value of a man like you.” Sliding her hands behind her neck, under her hair, she turned, raising her arms as she did. “I know the value of what we have together.” Her dark gaze locked on his as her hair poured around her face in a silken waterfall. “I think the question maybe should be—do you?”

He had to struggle to find his voice. “I thought you didn’t know how to get from there to here.”

“I did not, but you reminded me.” She put her hands on her hips. Her weight naturally fell forward on her right foot, emphasizing the curve of her hip, the smallness of her waist. His fingers twitched. The waist he could span with his hands. The hips that would fill those same hands to overflowing. Those incredibly soft hips. “You are a very helpful man.”

Not helpful enough. “If I showed you, how come you’re still over there?”

“Because you have not shown me everything.”

The gentle comeback was a warning. A challenge. He sat a little straighter, everything male in him responding to the blatant femininity in her. Her hands went to the buttons at the collar of her shirt.

“What did I miss?”

“You did not show me you want this, too.”

His cock was so hard it felt like the skin was going to split. “I would think that’s evident.”

She dropped her hands from her throat in a languid gesture, moving them down to her groin. “Not here.” She moved her hands up to her breasts, covering her heart. “But here.”

Her hands were too small to cover the generous curves. He flexed his fingers. She needed bigger hands. His hands.

She tilted her head to the side. Her hair fell over her delicate shoulder, swinging past her hip in a thick curtain. She smiled in a way that had that dimple in her left cheek flashing at him with the life that was so strong in her. “It is not my wish to rape you, Sam.”

The last of his resistance faded under the lash of amusement. And tenderness. She was so much more than he could resist. He held out his hand, palm up. An invitation. “You could never rape me, Bella.”

She placed her palm in his with that absolute trust that devastated him.

“Because you are stronger than me?”

He shook his head, pulling her down onto his lap. “Because you would never find me unwilling.”

She frowned. “But you fight what is between us.”

He placed his finger on the faint line between her brows, smoothing it with a gentle pressure. “Because I know what’s coming if you stay with me. And I know you deserve better, and I want it for you.” He ran his finger over the fringe of her lashes. He wanted her happy and safe. “You’re a duchess, Bella. You deserve a duke.”

She snuggled into his shoulder. “Will this duke love me like a woman, Sam, or will he put me on a pedestal and always expect proper duchess behavior?”

“He damn well better treat you well.”

“Or what? Or you will come beat him up?”

He’d kill him. “I’ll always be there for you.”

“What kind of marriage will that be, Sam? With you always standing between me and this duke. A threat to him, a lure to me?”

“You’ll forget about me once you get back home and the threat of Tejala is removed.”

“Because I am young and do not know my mind?”

Pain flashed through him. He buried it before it could reach his eyes. He couldn’t keep it totally out of his voice. It snapped out in a harsh “Yes.”

She shook her head and sighed. “I will not argue that lie with you tonight, but soon you will have to face the parts of you you hide and make a choice.” She patted his chest. “Patience is not my best virtue, Sam. I cannot promise to wait forever.”

“I never asked you to.”

“
Sí,
this I know. It is almost as regrettable as the other.”

He frowned. “What other?”

She pushed on his shoulder. “Do not pretend to not know.”

He couldn’t think of a thing he’d missed. It wasn’t until he saw the sparkle in her eye and the grin twitching the corner of her mouth that he realized he’d been set up. He played along, knowing how much she needed the illusion of being in control. “You’ll have to fill me in.”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “I can see this is another area of your reputation that has been poofed up.”

“You mean puffed.”

“Poofed, puffed.” She waved her hand. “It is a big disappointment.”

“What is?”

“I am alone in the dark with the notorious Sam MacGregor, lying in his lap—” she motioned to the three open buttons at her throat “—half dressed, and I am still a virgin.”

The smiles were coming easier to him now, slipping past his instinctive need to check them. The woman was incorrigible. And she brought out his sense of play like no one else ever had. “And?”

“I was led to believe that any of those
cosas
would leave me ruined and…”

“And what?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “Panting with satisfaction.”

He took her down to the ground in a slow tumble, sliding his hand under her back, keeping her from hitting the ground too hard. Tonight was going to be less than what she probably expected. He’d heard pleasuring virgins was a tricky business, and he had no experience with the breed for the simple reason he’d never wanted to.

Except with Bella. Bella made him want all sorts of improper things. Which didn’t lessen his responsibility to make tonight the best he could for her. And that didn’t mean starting it off with bruises.

Isabella leisurely placed her arms around his neck, linked her fingers behind his head and waited. If he wanted to prove to her he was a son of a bitch, this was a time to do it. He brought his weight down over her.

She licked her lips. For all her bold talk she was nervous.

“You can change your mind anytime, Bella. Nothing has to go further than you want.”

She sighed and frowned up at him. “Sam?”

He kissed the end of her nose. Her cheeks, corner of her mouth. “What?”

“If you tell me that again, I will slap you.”

He propped himself back up above her. Humoring her was one thing, but he wasn’t a tame puppy. “Duchess?”

“Sí?”

“If you threaten me again—” he placed his fingertip on the end of her nose “—I’m going to tan your hide.”

Her head canted to the side. “Like a child?”

He scooted down a bit. The open neck of her blouse revealed the hollow of her throat and the pulse pounding beneath the soft flesh. “No, like a woman.”

His woman.
If she were his woman, he’d likely be tanning her hide at least once a week for the sheer pleasure of watching the blush of her orgasm match the blush of her spanking. The fire was dying down but it still cast enough light for him to see instead of being intimidated, she was intrigued.

He could picture it all too easily. The skin of her rear flushed from her spanking, as pretty a pink as her pussy and just as enticing. The creamy flesh would be hot against his thighs as he parted her lips, centered his cock, pressed into her snug little channel. And she would be snug. He’d have to work the head in, a little at a time, torturing them both with the slow culmination. His balls burned and pulled up tight to his body. Shit. He could come from the fantasies she inspired alone.

He unfastened the next two buttons of her shirt, making more room for his kiss. He nuzzled the collar aside. The subtle womanly fragrance of her skin smoothed over his senses as he traced the line of her collarbone. Addictive, sweet, an echo of the deeper spice he would find between her thighs. “Tonight we’re going to take this nice and slow.”

This was their night. He wasn’t going to rush it.

He touched his tongue to the underside of her chin, teasing, tasting the salt of her desire, feeling her tremble.

Opening another button, he nibbled his way down over her collar to the scented valley between her breasts.

“I want to hurry,” she panted.

To the good part. She had no idea what she was asking for. No idea what she was cheating herself out of. “You might as well resign yourself, I’m opting for slow.”

Her head dropped back on the bedroll. “Why did I know you would say that?”

“Because we have all night, and I’m a thorough man.”

“Do not forget that I wish to be a thorough woman, too.”

“I won’t forget. By morning, you’ll be a thoroughly satisfied woman.”

She cuffed his shoulder. “And panting.”

He pushed the shirt off her right shoulder, tugging the material out from the waistband of her skirt, exposing her breast and its makeshift support. “Pretty.”

“Always they embarrass me.”

“Funny, they pretty much delight me.” He cuddled her breast in his hand, slipping the support off so there was nothing between his hand and her skin, except heat and anticipation. Her skin was incredibly soft there, smooth and inviting, the color a shade lighter than her face as though an extra dollop of cream had been added to the lushness of her complexion. He plumped her breast up, watching the blush rise over her torso, adding a bewitching pink to the café au lait tint. He could barely make out the faint lingering mark of a bruise. “That was cruel how you bound them. You won’t do it again.”