Woman On the Run (17 page)

She’d seen buff bodies before, of course, at her gym and in photographs. But they had nothing whatsoever to do with the powerful being standing naked by her bed. Cooper’s body didn’t look like a cover-boy type of male body at all. It was stronger, harder, tougher than that. His chest was covered in a mat of thick black hair, black hairs on his forearms and legs, too. His muscles were sculpted by something other than gym equipment. By life, by battle. His body was broad, hard, scarred. A warrior’s body.

He was a warrior.

Julia had completely forgotten that, forgotten that he wasn’t just a nice rancher who wasn’t too good with words. He was, essentially, a trained killer. Probably just like the killers who were after her.

In one quick surge of panic, Julia realized that in her pain and loneliness she had broken Herbert Davis’ cardinal rule—don’t get involved with the locals. She wasn’t supposed to let anyone get close to her. It was too dangerous, he’d said. She couldn’t let anyone know she was in the Witness Security Program. Santana had a long reach and a million dollar bounty was enough to tempt anyone. Julia might well have signed her own death sentence in inviting Cooper into her bed.

In more ways than one. He was the most powerful man she’d ever seen. He could snap her neck with one strong sinewy hand.

Cooper turned slightly towards her. His penis was enormous, long and broad, weeping from the tip.

Danger came from many sources. This was one.

Julia’s heart was thumping so hard, she thought the whole house must surely shake from it. Panic and fear and excitement melded into one huge emotion almost too big for her to contain it.

Cooper kneeled on the bed, his heavy weight making the old mattress dip. Julia had to clench her muscles so she wouldn’t roll into the valley he’d created.

As he bent over her, Cooper didn’t look like a lover about to have sex. He looked like a warrior about to kill. The muscles in his chest and arms were corded, biceps flexing and bulging as he braced one long, strong arm over her to mount her, pulling her thighs apart with his other hand. He wasn’t smiling. There was no softness at all in his face as he looked down at her. The skin over his high angular cheekbones was stretched taut and there was a grim cast to his mouth.

Even his penis was more like a weapon than an instrument of pleasure. It was thick, hard as a club and much larger than any male member she’d ever seen.

He was danger personified and she couldn’t run away.

Her body closed in on itself in panic, but it was too late.

Cooper covered her. He was heavy, unyielding. For a second she couldn’t breathe. One big hand reached between them as he opened the lips of her vagina. She could feel the broad hard head of his penis being fitted to her before she had a chance to relax her vaginal muscles to ease his passage. He thrust sharply with all the strength of his pelvis, hard and deep.

It hurt.

Cooper’s penis was too large for her, she wasn’t ready. It burned inside her, stretching her mercilessly.

Julia blinked away the sudden tears. She whimpered once, then bit her lip. She’d wanted this, had asked for it. If it was too much for her, it was her own damned fault.

Cooper pulled his head back and up, gasping for breath, as if cresting a wave. A thick strand of straight black hair fell over his forehead. His jaw muscles flexed. The tendons in his neck stood out in raised cords.

“Fuck,” he gritted, gripping her hips hard. “You’re not ready.” He was sweating. A drop of perspiration fell on her cheekbone. “Can’t stop. Can’t. Sorry.” His deep voice was strained. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

With a groan, Cooper’s chest lowered until he lay heavily on her, face buried in the pillow next to hers. His thighs flexed powerfully and he began thrusting, fast and hard, with the full strength of his body.

It was exactly like being caught in a wild storm, buffeted by the wind and the elements. Julia clung to Cooper’s shoulders, not in a lover-like embrace, but as she would cling to a tree in a raging tempest.

The tempo of Cooper’s thrusts increased until he was slamming into her, the bed thudding heavily against the wall, the springs creaking loudly in protest. It went on so long Julia lost track of the time, until it felt as if she had spent her entire life with Cooper’s penis inside her, pistoning back and forth.

Suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, Julia surged into climax. She cried out as a wave hit her like an oncoming train, her entire lower body clenching in hard fast convulsions.

Usually, it took her a long time to climax. She’d start feeling little tendrils of pleasure, as if they were arriving from a long way off. Her thighs would start shaking and she would feel warmth in her lower belly. Her body was letting her know what was going to happen long before it actually did.

Not this time. This time it was as if a powerful switch had been suddenly thrown, hurtling her into the strongest orgasm she’d ever had, her vagina pulling tightly on Cooper’s penis.

Cooper shouted into the pillow and she felt the vibrations of his deep voice against her arms, her chest. He groaned and growled, swelled even further inside her and climaxed, too. His thrusts stopped as he pressed into her, as deeply as he could go, jetting waves of semen into her.

Julia’s climax tapered off. She was clinging tightly to Cooper’s shoulders. The muscles in his back were rock-hard with tension, slick with sweat. She was slick all over, too, from Cooper’s sweat and her own, and from his semen trickling out of her to wet her thighs. Julia suddenly realized how…how polite the sex she’d had before had been. Nice polite sex, with no sweating, like taking tea with a man, only more fun and naked.

This had been elemental, brutal, animal. Not nice. Not polite. Even the pleasure had been an…animal pleasure, the way eagles or cougars mated.

He was still iron-hard inside her. Cooper hadn’t been joking when he said once wasn’t going to be enough.

Once was quite enough for her.

Julia was exhausted, overwhelmed by the rough, lengthy sex and the explosive orgasm. Her muscles felt limp, rubbery. Cooper was so heavy she had to inflate her lungs forcefully to be able to breathe. Her thighs were held open to their maximum width, completely open to him. Julia was wondering when it would be okay to push at his shoulder, when Cooper’s hips started moving again.

Oh God, not again. Already it had been the longest sex she’d ever had. And the most exciting. It was still exciting. Though her head told her enough was enough, her lower body wasn’t listening at all.

Cooper’s deep, heavy strokes were more exciting than before. She was thoroughly wet now, with her climax and the amount of semen he’d pumped into her. He moved slickly in and out of her and she was burning up with the pleasure.

Cooper lifted his head and stared down at her, the strong dark features hard and expressionless. They were engaged in the most intimate act two humans could perform and yet she couldn’t tell in any way what he was thinking, what he was feeling.

He was thrusting heavily now, deep hard strokes filling her with raw heat. His hands came up to frame her face, thumbs on her cheeks. Julia was completely immobilized. She couldn’t move her body in any direction, his heavy weight pinned her. She couldn’t move her head. His gaze was so intense she couldn’t even close her eyes.

Slowly, Cooper’s head lowered until his mouth touched hers. To her astonishment, the kiss wasn’t rough, possessive. He touched her mouth lightly, gently, with his, over and over. Light kisses feathered over her cheekbones and eyelids, as soft and as gentle as butterfly kisses. Cooper’s mouth roamed over her forehead, lightly brushing her ear, along her jawline. His mouth was warm and soft. Achingly tender.

The contrast between the light, loving kisses and the raw almost violent sex of their lower bodies was electric, as if two different men were making love to her at the same time. For the first time in her life, Julia couldn’t talk. Even if she’d known what to say, she found her mouth gently occupied every time she thought to speak.

Her hand crept up over Cooper’s hard back muscles and she hooked her arms up over his shoulders, relishing the play of hard muscles as he worked her. He was so amazing to the touch. Like iron, only warm. Though the kisses were slow and languid, as if they had all the time in the world, as if he were a young man kissing a pretty girl for the first time in a meadow, his hips were slamming into her, faster and faster.

Cooper opened her mouth softly, gently with his. When his tongue touched hers, it was enough to set her off. With a cry lost in Cooper’s mouth, Julia climaxed again, harder than before, great waves of heat rolling through her, her vagina clenching tightly then relaxing in time with Cooper’s thrusts. It was so intense she felt like screaming, like crying. Her heart was pounding its way out of her chest. She was clinging to Cooper, tears leaking out of her eyes, running down her face on to the pillow.

Cooper was murmuring something, she didn’t know what. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, could only feel.

He was still hard inside her—it felt like he could stay hard inside her the rest of her life—but his movements had stilled. The sex had stopped but the lovemaking continued, soft gentle kisses over her face, along her neck. Low murmurs, more a vibration in his chest than a sound.

Julia’s arms tightened around him, and she hid her face in his neck. She had no words for him, nothing to say at all. All her defenses were down, broken through. If she opened her mouth now, all her secrets would come tumbling out.

So she clung, and burrowed, eyes tightly closed, overwhelmed with emotions, chest aching, waiting for her heart rate to slow. Her breathing calmed, heart steadied. Holding tightly onto Cooper, the only stable thing in her rocking world, Julia fell asleep.

* * * * *

There was so much blood.

The pale, skinny man lay on the tarmac, a river of blood flowing from his shattered head. It pooled thick and viscous on the ground. She backed away, horrified, slipping over the slick ground. The man with the gun turned slowly, his mouth opening into a cruel scimitar-shaped smile, his lips blood red. “Pretty lady,” he growled, the red smile widening, the gun slowly rising. “Die.”

“No!” she screamed, but no sound came out. The word echoed in her chest but the world was filled with a chill silence. She was on her knees now, scrabbling for something, anything, feeling her heart beating like a drum at the base of her throat, wondering if she would feel the moment when it stopped beating.

“Too late,” the big man growled and his finger tightened and she prepared to die, there on the gravelly ground, kneeling in another man’s blood.

* * * * *

Julia gasped and opened her eyes, trembling, disoriented, lost. She was paralyzed with fear, sweating with it. Where was she? What—?

A large figure stood by the bed, darker than the night. The scream never made it past her closed throat. It came out a tight choked whimper while she scrambled up against the headboard, trying to curl into a ball, hoping she wouldn’t feel the bullet—

The broad figure crouched by the bed and took her trembling hand. “Sally,” a deep voice said.

“Who?” Julia’s head whirled as she struggled to transit from nightmare to reality. “Who’s Sa—” A warning bell clanged loudly in her head. She bit her lips so hard she could taste blood. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Cooper held her hand tightly clasped between his. His hands felt warm and hard and safe. “Sally, honey, listen to me.”

Julia blinked, trying to connect her thoughts but they flew into tiny brittle shards. The only thing holding her together was Cooper’s grasp. She clung to him. Cooper leaned towards her. She could feel his body heat in the cold black night.

“I have to go, honey.” Cooper was fully dressed, down to his heavy black winter jacket. His face was mostly in shadow but she could see his jaw muscles flexing strongly as he bit his back teeth. “Me and five of my men are leaving at 4:30 this morning on horseback to check the line shacks in the hills. It’ll take us at least thirty-six hours. Maybe more. We’ll have to camp out overnight in one of the shacks. I won’t be able to call you ‘cause there’s no cell phone service up there.”

“All—all right.” Julia’s teeth were chattering. She could barely get the words out. Terrifying images from the nightmare still clung to her mind, like smoke after a fire. She hardly knew what he was talking about, had no idea what a line shack was. All she knew was that Cooper was leaving her. Was leaving her alone, in the dark, to fight her demons by herself.

He was frowning. He watched her for a moment or two. “You okay?” he asked finally, the deep voice quiet.

Julia knew what he meant. She’d felt all her muscles protest as she’d scrambled upright. Her thighs ached and she was sore and very sticky between them. The sex had been incredibly rough. Harder and deeper and longer than any sex she’d ever had before. Cooper hadn’t been able to control himself and she somehow sensed he was appalled at that.

He was asking whether he’d hurt her.

He hadn’t, not really. She was sore but most of the soreness was the burning intensity of her climaxes.

You okay?

No, actually, she wasn’t okay. She was lost and scared and lonely. She desperately wanted Cooper to stay. She wanted to hold onto him, feel his strength around her. She wanted him to keep the fear and the loneliness at bay.