WANTED (A Transported Through Time book) (17 page)

Jesse cleared the campsite in short order, and before she had time to think of a question to ask or a way to reassure him, he got her astride in his lap the same way he had the night they’d met. The mare followed them on a lead, and as Tommy’s horse had disappeared over the top of the hill, Jesse stopped.

He turned and lifted her in the saddle so she faced him. His mouth assaulted hers.

Assaulted was only word to describe the impact of his kiss, physically and sensually. It knocked her back in both ways. The kiss was hungry and demanding, dominating. Samantha submitted and fought back in turns, her blood rushing with a fever for more. Fire sparked to life inside her. Hungry, desperate, it fed off Jesse’s hands and mouth.

God, so strong, so virile and male. He smelled so male and so needful, not only to touch but also to be touched. She hungered for it. For him.

He broke the kiss. “He shouldn’t have been able to find us.” His eyes searched hers.

“Well, don’t look at me,” Samantha said. “It’s not like a texted him our location or something.”

He frowned at her. “It’s going to be a rough ride. We need to make time. So hold on.”

It wasn’t fair. She might leave at any moment. He thought she was a betrayer, a liar. Yet, he still wanted her. While he might hate it, he was giving in to the same voice she heard. The same longing plea that begged her, turned her into a primal form of herself, ruled by nature and need.

He wasn’t kidding. The gallop jarred her, jostled her, and made her feel strangely free. She held on tight and closed her eyes, smelling the forest and the outlaw and for the first time, felt really far away from home. But safe all the same.

They came to a small clearing. Jesse made camp of two rolls on the ground, no fire and tethering the horses to a tree branch.

He left her to scout and snuck back into camp, scaring her half to death. It was dark and cold, and when he lay down with her in silence, she let her body sink back against his. Mad, suspicious, right or wrong, she hadn’t left yet. The more she lingered, the more she wanted to stay.

For always.

Outhouses, snakes, bad dudes, and all.

His breath tickled at her neck as he lay tense and awake behind her. Samantha shivered. Remembering how he’d kissed her after Tommy left, she dared rolling over to face him. The darkness and shadows hid his gaze, but not the shape of him. She touched his jaw, rubbing her palm over his whiskers. She wished she had the right words.

He caught her hand and tugged her closer. “I’m not a man who coppers his bets easily, Samantha.”

She nodded, hoping he meant he was taking a risk. “I’m worth it, Jesse.”

His mouth slashed against hers. She met his hard kiss in kind.

Jesse tore her shirt loose and grasped both of Samantha’s breasts. She moaned throatily, not caring if the sound echoed, believing that they were free and alone, and this might be her last taste of his deliciousness. Ever.

He massaged her breasts roughly, demandingly. Samantha bit his lower lip and gripped her hands in his hair. His mouth slanted over hers. His hips dug up into hers, spiraling pleasure through her.

She tore at his shirt, matching his demands with her own. She needed to feel his skin, touch his hardness in her hands, and show him how much he needed her.

Jesse
scooped her up
so she dangled, cradled in his arms. “Your pants,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Samantha opened the button fly and shoved them from her body, getting one leg out completely. The air was cold on her skin, his arm warm, soft, strong. He returned her body to a sitting position, but facing away from him.

While her heart broke a small bit, feeling turned away, her body reveled in his confidence and domination. Her core swelled and ached. She wanted it rough and sure. She needed it.

She needed to be mastered, to feel vulnerable. She needed to feel like a woman. Independent, capable, strong, and swept away by something bigger than she. She couldn’t exactly define what she felt, what pulled between them, though it coursed, vibrated. It stole her sanity and placated her fears.

Jesse’s hands found her breasts again, and Samantha arched her back so her womanhood slid against his rigid flesh. Hot, steely, hard. His hips answered hers and pressed back, gyrating in delicious rotations, sending shivers of pleasure through her.

Her pleasure sang out and fell inward into an ache for more. She needed to feel him inside her, delving to the last inch, filling the void he’d created. As Jesse positioned his body, he raised her hips, then impaled her on himself.

Sharp sweetness shot through her. It hurt so good.

Jesse ran a hand up her back and into her hair. He laced a handful of tresses into a firm grip. Her scalp tingled. Her body groaned for more.

She pressed. He withdrew. His cock was so godforsaken hard. Samantha bit her teeth down, ready for his next swift thrust. His thighs tightened under hers, his hands roamed and gripped in turns. She shoved back, meeting him, daring him, taunting him.

He answered her movements with authority, putting her back behind the invisible line she’d stepped across. She dared again. He answered again, harder, slower, deeper.

Her body throbbed in appreciation. God, but she needed this, needed him. She needed to fight back, to give in, to trust and dare all at once.

Samantha grasped one of his hands and brought it to her mouth. She suckled his index finger, biting the flesh, groaning as he drove in and out, in and out of her.

His erection swelled, impossibly harder, bigger, and she knew he would come in her. She refused to let him. Not yet. Not until she’d had her fill.

She pulled off him and twisted around. He aided her body and shoved himself back into the heaven she’d denied him. It was like heaven. Hellishly so.

Digging her nails into his shoulders, she took
what she needed
from him. All the while, their gazes locked, and her body responded with an intense wash of pleasure. Wave after wave coursed through her, out of her, as she stared into his eyes. She recognized his frustration and smiled. She also saw his
reaction
, and drank it in until the oblivion of her climax took over, and she closed her eyes, riding it to the end.

She called out his name over and over again, Jesse being the only word fathomable to share all she had with him, to tell him the truth. Whether it could or not she didn’t know, but the act freed her, and when his cock shot into her, pulsing, reaching her capacity, and he whispered her name, she heard it down to her bones.

His answer. His truth.

“Samantha.”

Yes. God, yes. Jesse. Yes.

She floated to earth on a cloud of satisfaction.

One of the horses
nickered
. Color spread up her neck and flushed her cheeks with heat. What had come over her? The poor horse
s
!
She’d forgotten about them.
After a moment, Jesse shifted. Samantha braved a glance up at his face.

She didn’t know what she expected. Not the stormy look of betrayal. A smile maybe, some uneasy or awkward nod, perhaps?

Her back went ramrod straight, and she matched his glare with one of her own. How dare he look so accusingly at her? It took two to tango, or ride or whatever one called what they’d done among the trees and stars.

“We need to get back,” he said against her neck.

Samantha stirred, nodded and got up. It must be close to dawn but the dark of night still cloaked them. He helped her dress. Even though he was a criminal, he was obviously a gentleman, even in anger. One of the things her father so admired about him. He might have robbed and stolen, but he never killed, and he’d always been mannerly.

Wasn’t that what all witness recollections said about the mass murderer who lived next door?

Now, of all the times and places, she had her father in her head. Memories of him, soberly (once or twice drunkenly) relating the details of what made a gentleman.

A man of character, who rode the line between right and wrong but never lost sight of his purpose or of simple human decency. Like the Brad Pitt kind of guy in Thelma and Louise, she always imagined. Polite, simple in his dealings. He may have waved a gun and taken all they had but never hurt or terrorized anyone.

It pissed off the law, her dad had said. Right now, it pissed her off.

Why couldn’t he be a brute? Why couldn’t he yell, call her every insulting name he had in his arsenal?

Then she could yell back, fight back. If he spoke of it, she might have some avenue to defend herself against the bare betrayal he thought her capable of.

They rounded the top of the hill and began a slow traverse down. The moon hung full and round. Samantha sighed and adjusted her seat, holding her shoulders as rigidly as possible, and tried not to touch his body with hers other than when it couldn’t be helped.

None of her attempts to draw him out worked. He was going to make her say it, wasn’t he? He was going to force her to talk out of his sheer, dooming silence. She shouldn’t have to. She had nothing to defend.

She’d done nothing wrong.

“If you met my dad, like you say, then you know I would die before hurting him. You would know he loved me. He might not have always been there for me, but he did the best he could. For you to think I would bring you harm after all the years I spent hearing about you ... after watching him put so much energy into finding out what kind of man you were—are—and admiring you... Well, I guess you’re not as smart as my father thought you were.”

“Shhhh.”

Samantha inhaled sharply. “I cannot beli—”

Jesse’s hand clamped over her mouth. His voice whispered menacingly in her ear. “Be quiet.”

Be quiet? She moved her elbow, ready to ram it straight back into his belly. He wrapped his arm like a vise around her waist and both arms, effectively stopping her.

“Sammie,” he hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

She froze. All her senses seemed to begin ringing. Adrenaline. It rushed through her so loudly she couldn’t seem to hear or see or think straight. Her heart thudded like a train.

It wasn’t so much his words as how he said them. What he’d called her.
Sammie
. Not Sam. Not Samantha. Sammie. Familiar.

Affectionate.

Firm.

Something was very wrong. Whoever the someone was, it was not Tommy. Oh no. What date had he said it was? She fought through childhood memories for snippets of stories from her father. Jesse betrayed by his crew. When? When had he died? Before she could recall, the world grew fuzzy.

No! She couldn’t leave him. Not now. Not with danger pressing down. But she had no control over staying and she sank into darkness with one last, terrible thought—Jesse Kincaid found murdered.

Shot in the back.

~~~

Chapter Seventeen

A light so bright it hurt her eyes. Sunlight. A stark contrast to the dark of night she sort of fell out of, like a kid falling from a tree and landing on his backside.

She hardly had time to adjust to the piercing light, let alone the dizziness and headache. Samantha put a hand to her temple. Where was she? Better yet, when? A vehicle drove by, its loud honking answering at least one of her questions.

Not sunlight. Headlights.

A breeze, warm and stinking like pavement,
bathed
her face. Again, she tried to sit up and orient herself. Back to her life at the worst possible moment, and she’d landed in the worst possible place. Okay, maybe not the worst, but surely far from the best.

Once her vision lost its blur, she viewed her position on the side of the road. A painful turn of her head showed she was outside Carla’s auction house, dangerously close to the street.

She knew better than to try to stand. While her mind went into full panic for Jesse’s life, a rational part of it also recognized she was in no place or position to stop his death.

He was already dead. Had been for more than a century.

Tears burned her eyes, the salty drops coming so fast that several popped out before she could rub them back. Dead. Right now, he was being shot in the back. But not right now.

Even though it seemed impossible that she might have caused or prevented it, she felt at fault all the same.

She had lured him out, despite being unaware of it. He’d seen something, probably her disappearing, and had become suspicious. His suspicions had thrown him, and he’d acted out of character. He’d left his sister vulnerable, gone to protect her, and instead, he’d ended up being the one at risk.

God, why this? How in the world had her father found a way to pass through time, and why would he put her through the same? Maybe he hoped she’d save Jesse. Maybe he just wanted his daughter to understand why he’d been obsessed with the gentleman outlaw. Whatever the real reason, he should have left instructions or something else to clue her in with that inheritance. Damn him.