Wanted (40 page)

Just found, but so very magnificent she knew it was incredibly rare.

He moved slightly, and she heard his low curse as the chain on his ankle stopped him. His hands dropped from her.

“Don't,” she whispered. “Please don't stop.”

“I have no right, dammit.”

“You have every right,” she said. “I gave you that right.” Her hand touched his chest, and even through his shirt she felt him shudder, felt the thump of his heart. Her own breathing quickened as familiar yet newly exciting sensations flowed through her. Exciting and poignant and sensual. So very, very sensual. So very yearning. His hands stroked her sides, fondling, caressing as if he were memorizing every detail. Pleasure soared through her. Physical pleasure. But something more. A fine sense of belonging, of rightness.

Nick groaned, both with need and dismay. Dear God, how he had waited a lifetime for this. And now it came too late. He ran his hands through her hair. It was still damp, but it felt like silk against his fingers. Desire pooled in him, stronger than he'd ever felt before, and he knew the reason: he'd never felt anything but physical desire before, and now he felt so much more.

His hands left her hair and cupped her breasts, felt them tightening under his touch, and he knew that Beth's surface tranquility hid a depth of feeling and passion he'd never experienced before. “Beth … Beth,” he whispered. He had never known there could be so much sweetness with a woman. He was torn between touching her like fragile glass and clutching her to him so tightly he'd never lose her.

And then their lips touched again, and he tasted a tear that had rolled down her cheek. He hurt as he'd never hurt before, and he tasted as he'd never tasted before. This moment, this golden splendor, would have to last him forever, through days and weeks and months in jail, or of running.

Images rushed through his mind. Beth smiling at the door of the ranch in Wyoming, Maggie crawling up on his lap, a small boy who was half Beth, half himself, grinning at his first pony. Too late. Too late for any of it.

“Don't run away,” she whispered. “Don't ask me to go.”

He felt the breath being squeezed out of him. His hand went to her chin, and he lifted it until her gaze met his. “I can't stand jail, Beth. I can't. And I won't risk hanging for something I didn't do.”

She bit the corner of her lip, and he saw something dark well there—blood. “I'll always be waiting for you,” she finally said.

He crushed her to him, and she melted against his body, every curve fitting into his, moving so he did not have to. He felt wetness against his cheek. Another tear. And then he wondered whether it had been hers, or his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lori was so aware of Morgan's disturbing presence that she found it nearly impossible to walk. Her legs didn't work right, and she stumbled; only his hand kept her from falling. She had almost blindly led the way through the thicket of pine and wild raspberries. His very touch made her legs even weaker, her blood quicken, creating an ache in the core of her.

She had been able to be strong because she hadn't let him near her.
What are you going to do now?
An inner voice kept asking the question, and she didn't know the answer.

He turned her toward him. “Have we gone far enough?” he asked hoarsely, and she knew he was as affected as she by their closeness. She had asked to speak with him, and his eyes had flared with surprise, then with something else, before they had shuttered again. They had both tried hard to keep away from each other the past week.

No!
They hadn't gone far enough. She wasn't ready yet to face him alone. She wondered whether she would ever be ready. Her voice was buried deep inside her heart. She had to say words that would forever divide them, and she didn't know how she could bear that.

“Lori?” The hoarseness was still in his voice, a hoarseness that came, she knew now, from need. But there was also that odd gentleness again. She hadn't heard it in the past few days. He had schooled himself against it, just as she had. She couldn't make herself look at him. If she did, she would reach up and touch him, her lips would want to meet his, her heart to greet his heart.

“Why did you give me the gun?” The words finally exploded from her, even though she didn't want the answer. She didn't want to hear he trusted her, when she had known all the time they were riding into a trap.

“I told you,” he said mildly. “I didn't want you to run into varmints.” He chuckled, a wonderful, rare sound. “Though I would give the varmints a damn poor chance even if you didn't have a gun.
With
one … whew!”

She nearly melted then. He so seldom indulged in humor that it was always surprising, and incredibly endearing. She couldn't bear for him to be endearing now. Dear Mary, her heart was so fragile now, one small jab would send it crashing into a million pieces.

He moved his hand, which had righted her, up to her shoulder. It fell possessively around her, as if she belonged to him. Part of her did. Part of her always would.

“Were you so sure I would hand it back?”

He stilled, as if he knew he wasn't going to like what came next. As he always did, though, he met the challenge directly. “What's on your mind, Lori?”

“I gave you my word, and I kept it,” she said stiffly, formally. “I'm now withdrawing it.” She knew it sounded ridiculous.

“And what does that mean, exactly?” he said quietly.

She braced herself against the billows of regret already embracing her, choking her. She and Nick had talked today, and he was never going to agree to return to Texas. She'd already set things in motion by telegraphing the family, and she had no choice now but to follow the course she'd charted. She could only try to see that no one was hurt.

Except she knew, heart deep, that they were all going to be hurt. She, Nick, Beth, Morgan. She felt it now in Morgan's quiet tone, in the sudden stiffness of his body. It spoke of emotions he'd tried to hide for so long.

“You're going to have to spell it out for me, Lori,” he said. “Sometimes I'm a little slow.”

If only that were true. If only she didn't care so much. If only she didn't love him so.

“No more promises,” she said.

“Why?” Again that directness was disconcerting.

“I don't think I have to explain that to you,” she said stiffly.

“Don't help your brother ruin his life,” he said tightly. “Don't ruin yours. Ours.”

It was the first time he had ever alluded to a future, and her stomach churned miserably. “I can't go against him,” she said.

“Does he really want that kind of help from you?” His voice was contemptuous. “Then he's not the man I thought he was.”

She twisted away from his hand, from his nearness. “He doesn't want my help, but I can't sit back and watch you take him in.”

“What are you going to do about it, Lori? Shoot me again?” His voice was soft, dangerously so. “Your brother couldn't do it. Can you?”

“He couldn't do it for himself. He could do it for me.”

“And you can do it for him.”

“I did before,” she said, trembling.

“I haven't forgotten,” Morgan said grimly.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn? Why won't you just release him? Then …”

“Then what, Lori?” Lori heard a warning in his voice. Hurt. Pain. “Are you bargaining again?”

“You don't bargain, do you, Ranger? You don't compromise. You don't care about anything but your damn job, about finishing what you started.”

“No, I don't bargain,” he said in a dry, flat tone. “But I do care, damn it to hell.” His jaw set. “You're right about one thing. I haven't cared about anything in a long time, but now …” His lips came down on hers. Hard, like that first kiss in Laramie. Angry. Frustrated. Lori felt the familiar fire rush through her blood, the less familiar but even more compelling sweet lust within her. Her heart hammered against its cage as he pulled her close to him, and she could hear the pounding of his own.

She writhed against him, her insides melting at the feel of his hard body against hers, at the demanding, possessive lips crushing down on her mouth. Her mouth opened to him, and her mind was spinning, soaring with her need for him as his mouth plundered hers with deep, fierce kisses.

She was barely aware of him pulling away, unbuckling his gunbelt, placing it carefully near a tree. He was back in an instant, taking her in his arms and laying her down on the ground. Her arms went around his shoulders as his tongue trailed over her neck, to the opening of her shirt. She wasn't sure whether it was his hands or hers that freed her buttons. Their fingers were entwined, their bodies, as they both desperately sought something the other could give. As if each knew this was the last time …

“Ah, Lori,” he rasped before his mouth found her breasts, caressing her nipples as she felt them grow taut and hard and so very sensitive, so very responsive to his every touch. Her arms went around him, under his shirt, feeling the hard, moving muscles of his back, her fingers finding a scar and gentling for a moment before grasping him closer to her, feeling his arousal against her. Her body arched, and even through the clothes they still wore, she felt the fierce hunger of them both. She looked up, and though the dark shadowed his eyes, she saw the pain etched into his expression. And uncertainty.

The uncertainty was more sensuous, more irresistible, than confidence would have been. Her hand moved from his back, up to his face, along his mouth. She swallowed words she couldn't allow herself to say.
I
love you. I'll always love you
. But she knew her fingers were saying them. She felt it in his mouth, the way his lips twisted into the slightest smile.

His hands became gentle as they slipped down to her waist, unbuttoning her trousers; then one hand caressed her lower stomach, then slipped down between her legs, working a magic that swept away everything but sensation. And then his own trousers were gone, and he was poised above her, his arousal teasing that part of her which was already on fire from his touch.

“Morgan,” she whispered, her own voice hoarse now, as hoarse as his had been. Hoarse with need and want, hoarse with words choked inside her.

His hands went under her, sliding along her hips, pulling her body up to meet his, and she felt his warmth enter, fill her, glide in and out with rhythmic perfection until she heard herself cry out. His mouth covered hers, catching the sound as her body pulsed with his, danced with his, giving and taking in a golden glow that was both electrifying and beautiful. She vibrated with love, with giving the one thing she could give him, with taking the one thing she could take.

And then there was a shattering burst of ecstasy, of pleasure so strong she wanted to remain there forever, in his arms. Her hands dug into him as the pleasure climaxed, then receded slowly, ever so slowly, into something just as wondrous: a warm, lazy contentment of having him next to her, in her, feeling with him those quivering shudders of sensation that continued to dance through them.

She felt suspended in a dreamlike state as he moved, carrying her with him, to his side, his mouth on hers, so gently now, so tenderly. His fingers traced her mouth as she had done to his. They were large, callused, yet so sensitive against her skin. He caught a strand of her hair. “Like honey,” he said.

His hand caught her chin and drew it up so she had to stare straight into his eyes. The moon peeked out from behind a cloud then and seemed to shine directly down into those eyes, deepening that dark blue, sharpening even more its intensity. He seemed to look into her soul, into her heart, and she wanted to cry out in protest.

Instead, her hand ran down his chest, fingering the tufts of dark hair that made an arrow down toward his manhood. She felt him stiffen, felt him growing hard inside her again. He pulled her closer to him and rolled over, so she was on top of him. She felt his manhood arch inside, reaching, and instinctively she sat up, taking more of him into her, so much more than she'd ever imagined possible.

She could see his face, the eyes partly covered by those dark lashes. The face was uniquely his now, its expression troubled, and she knew as did he that while they had just finished making love, this was something else. She wanted him. She would always want him. But as she moved on top of him, she knew she couldn't afford sweetness, and love, and the trust it demanded. So this was to be physical pleasure alone.

Lori looked away from his face, from the puzzlement forming in his eyes, from the sudden understanding that was like a knife in her heart, even as their bodies reacted together as if they had been made for each other. She felt the sensations, the fire and the glow, the physical satisfaction and reactions, but she also felt an incredible sadness rather than the soul-felt joy of a few moments earlier.

His movements became almost violent, hard and thrusting as if pursuing devils he knew he couldn't defeat. The explosion of warmth came, and Lori tried to absorb herself into it.

But he moved, his hands firm as he rolled over, then withdrew and silently dressed. After a few stunned moments Lori did the same. Bereft at the loss, her fingers had difficulty with the buttons, and she turned away from his silent appraisal. When she'd finished, she felt his hands on her shoulder. He turned her to face him. “I was a fool to think … making love to you would make a difference, make you trust me.” He turned away. “It's a mistake I won't repeat.” He tried to be coldly indifferent, but she felt the ache in his voice.

“Morgan …” Her voice broke.

“I can't compete with him, can I?” he said bitterly.

“You're making me choose between you and someone I've loved all my life.”

“I'm not making you do anything.” His voice was cold now, angry. “I've never asked you to choose. I just asked you to trust me.”