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Authors: Stolen Ecstasy

BOOK: Hannah Howell
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“At eight-and-twenty you are hardly ancient.”
“I was referring to the heady greed of youth.”
“Greed?”
“Greed for lovemaking. Insatiable. That’s how I feel. Are you sore?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Well, not really. And”—she daringly brushed her mouth over his—“I will admit to a touch of greed myself.”
“Only a touch, huh?”
“Well, maybe more than a touch.”
“That’s good.”
“Why?”
“Because, little one,” he growled as he tangled his fingers in her hair and pressed her mouth to his, “you will soon see that I am a very greedy man indeed.”
Chapter Six
 
S
HIFTING SLIGHTLY IN THE SADDLE
, L
EANNE
tried to ease the growing ache in her backside. Having her own mount was nice, despite her strong suspicion that it was stolen, but she wished she had Hunter to lean on now. They were spending long hours in the saddle. Mexico was near and all five men seemed anxious to reach the border.
Glancing at Hunter, she almost smiled as the sight of him caused a familiar ripple of delight low in her abdomen. He had not lied or exaggerated when he had said he was a greedy man. The fact that they were on the run and had four other men with them had not deterred him, although it had caused him to be very innovative at times to provide some privacy. She had no complaints. In truth, she was positively happy, and if that was not playing the fool she did not know what was.
There was one shadow on her horizon. She glanced towards Luke and shivered when he smiled at her. There was pure lust in his look. It was there all the time now. She quickly looked away, then felt her skin crawl when he rode so close to her that his leg brushed hers. He had found far too many excuses lately to brush against her.
“We’ll be in Mexico soon,” he said, his gaze fixed upon her breasts.
“How nice.” She tried to ride ahead of him, but he kept pace with her.
“Now if old Hunter finds better things to do and you get to feeling a mite lonely, you just call on old Luke.”
He smacked his lips in a lewd, suggestive manner and she cringed. She ought to tell Hunter about Luke’s constant harassment but she was afraid of stirring up trouble. Unfortunately, ignoring the man did not work. She was at a loss as to what to do next.
The sound of a shot cracking the still, hot air startled her out of her thoughts. It also startled her mount. She barely got the mare under control in time to respond to Hunter’s curt order to ride for the cover of some rocks. She reined in by the scattered boulders, and Hunter yanked her from the saddle and pushed her down behind them, his own body providing some of her cover.
“A posse?” she gasped.
“Bounty hunter, I reckon.”
“Only one? What can he do against five of you?”
“Pick us off one by one or get us to hand you over.”
“So why don’t we hand her over?” Luke growled. “We can be in Mexico before she opens her big mouth.”
Before Hunter could respond, Tom murmured, his voice as flat and chilly as ever, “Shut up, Luke, and try to spot this bastard.”
“You’d rather lie here and get picked off one by one than hand the skinny bitch over? She ain’t doing us no damn good.”
“I’m not dealing with any bounty hunter,” Tom said firmly.
“He’s in that small ravine just to the left,” Charlie whispered.
At that instant a shot came from their left. It skimmed over the rock Leanne and Hunter were hiding behind. Leanne winced as chips of rock stung her cheek. As she rubbed her cheek she noticed that Hunter and Tom glanced only briefly in that direction. The other three whirled, guns at the ready and mouths agape.
“We’re surrounded.” Luke glared at Leanne.
“Hearing shots from two sides doesn’t mean we’re surrounded,” Hunter said.
“Maybe all of them just ain’t showed themselves yet. They could even be behind us.” Luke turned to peer intently in that direction.
“If there was anyone behind us, you wouldn’t be alive now to worry on it.”
“I reckon he’s in that scrub over there,” Charlie announced.
Straining to look that way, Leanne frowned. “How can he see that far?”
“Don’t know,” replied Hunter as he rechecked his guns. “Just has a knack.”
“Send out the woman and the rest of you can ride off,” bellowed the man in front of them.
“Good idea,” muttered Luke.
“Shut up, Luke.” Tom quickly checked his gun, then started to move away. “I’ll get that one in the scrub.”
“Can he get over there without being seen?” Leanne whispered.
Hunter, unsure of that himself, kept an eye on Tom only to see the man suddenly disappear from sight. “Reckon he can.”
“Hand the woman over, cowboys, and we’ll let you ride off.”
“And then you’ll shoot us in the back,” Hunter answered. “No deal.”
“I give you my word, I’ll let you men go.”
“Your word ain’t worth spit, bounty hunter,” Luke yelled, then fired, shooting somewhat blindly in the direction of the small ravine Charlie had pinpointed.
“Don’t waste your bullets, Luke,” Hunter advised. “You can’t hit him.”
“So let’s ride for Mexico.”
“With him at our backs? No thanks.”
“Fine. Then just what’re we going to do, smart boy? Wait him out? I’ve got no stomach for that.” .
“We wait to see if Tom accomplishes what he set out to do.” Hunter wished there was some alternative, because he did not like the idea of killing a man, not even a bounty hunter.
“If anybody can do it, Tom can,” murmured Charlie, and Jed nodded.
“And you think that’ll be enough?”
“Yeah, I do, Luke. That man in front of us isn’t going to take on all of us once he knows he’s alone.”
Luke apparently saw the sense of that, for Leanne saw him relax a little, although his gaze remained malevolent. She lay half beneath Hunter and heartily wished she were elsewhere. This was a part of outlawry she could not condone. Tom was going to kill a man, and all four outlaws accepted that calmly. No one had been killed yet, not even seriously wounded. Flight had been the main strategy of the outlaws. Now she was forcefully recalled to a fact she had blithely ignored. Outlawry was a violent business. Worse, the violence was often done, by necessity, against those working for the law.
This was how it would be if she tried to make a future with Hunter. This was the future that stretched out before him. The only way around it was if he turned himself in and served his time in jail. Leanne doubted she could stir the sort of emotion in him that would prompt him to make that sacrifice. For a moment her fear was pushed aside by sadness.
A burst of gunfire broke in on her thoughts. For a while, the man to their left shot at them as well. Then, abruptly, the firing from their left stopped. A moment later the man in front of them halted his firing too. Leanne caught a brief glimpse of a hat just as Luke neatly shot it off, causing the bounty hunter to disappear into the shallow ravine again.
“Dooley?” the man in front bellowed. “Dooley!”
“Dooley ain’t able to answer.”
Leanne shivered as Tom’s cool voice cut through the sudden stillness. She felt Hunter heave a sigh, but the soft sound held no relief. Hunter clearly regretted the need to kill anyone. She realized the tactic of retreat was his. She felt comforted by that thought.
“He did it,” she whispered and, although she had no love of bounty hunters, felt sickened.
“Yeah, he did. The man has talents I didn’t suspect.” Hunter could not help wondering why a man with such skills was trailing along with them, working for another and not for himself.
“You sonuvabitch, what’ve you done to Dooley?” screamed the bounty hunter.
“I’d start worrying about myself if I was you,” Tom drawled, his voice raised only enough to carry the distance.
The bounty hunter did not take long to heed that advice. It was less than a minute before Leanne caught a glimpse of the man as he scrambled out of his hiding place and ran. Luke tried to shoot him down despite Hunter’s hissed order to hold his fire. A horse’s rapidly retreating hoofbeats could be heard an instant later. Then Tom suddenly appeared, walking toward them with his usual unhurried stride.
“We’d better ride,” Tom murmured as he strolled towards his mount.
“Why?” Luke stood up and brushed himself off. “They’re gone. Ain’t no need to hurry now.”
“No? What if that fool stops running for a minute? He might just think he’s got some chance of picking us off one by one. He could dog our heels every inch of the way, maybe even over the border into Mexico. I’ve got no liking for dodging bullets all across the Rio. Do you?”
“Nope,” Hunter answered for Luke. “We’re heading out.”
Leanne had no chance to protest. She had barely finished brushing the dirt from her clothes, when Hunter grabbed her by the waist and swung her up into her saddle. It was not until she straightened up and glanced his way that he paused.
“You’re hurt.” His first thrill of fear faded as he saw that the blood on her cheek, though well mixed with dirt, was neither plentiful nor flowing very freely.
Touching her cheek with her fingers, she winced, then frowned at the muddy bloodstains on her fingertips. “I think it happened when the bullet hit the rock. I recall the stinging now.”
“It needs cleaning.” Even as he spoke, Hunter fished a handkerchief from his pocket and dampened it with water from his canteen.
“Thought we was in a powerful hurry and all.”
Hunter ignored Luke’s sneered words as he gently bathed Leanne’s cheek. He hated seeing her hurt, minor as the injury was. It brought home to him, all too starkly, the danger she had been dragged into.
Once cleaned, the abrasions looked unsightly but not in need of much care. He felt an urge to kiss her injured cheek but restrained himself. Revealing such softness was not the way to keep the men in line, especially not men like Luke who already thought him too soft.
As Hunter led the group toward the rapidly nearing Mexican border, he thought about how good it would be to be rid of Luke. In Mexico they would part, and Hunter decided he would do his best to be sure the parting was permanent. He did not trust the man, nor did he like him.
Glancing covertly at Luke, he caught the man staring at Leanne with an expression on his homely face that had Hunter aching to shoot him. The ferocity of his distaste surprised Hunter, but no amount of inner scolding could turn it aside. He forced his attention to the land they were crossing.
The scrub growing out of the hard, dry earth was slowly thickening, turning greener. It was a clear sign that there was a steady, large source of water nearby. Soon they would be at the river that formed the border between Texas and Mexico. Soon he would be one large step closer to achieving his goal. He still had to fight the urge, however, to turn around, to stay in Texas and go home.
When they finally halted at the edge of the Rio Grande, Leanne was so tired she swayed in the saddle. Hunter quickly reined up beside her. Even as Charlie took the reins of her horse, Hunter pulled her from the saddle and set her before him. She slumped against him as she stared at the water.
“It does not look all that grand to me,” she murmured.
Looking over the wide but shallow river, Hunter smiled faintly. “It can be. Reckon it looked pretty grand to the Spaniards who found it after dragging themselves over a long, dry stretch of land.”
“Be dark soon.” Tom lounged in his saddle and slowly rolled a cigarette.
Hunter glanced idly at the sky. “Real soon. Still, we’re so close it seems dumb to stop and camp now.”
“How close?” All Leanne was interested in was how soon she would be able to dismount and rest.
“Across the Rio then six, seven miles to the southeast. Think you can make it?”
Even one mile was going to feel like fifty to her, but she nodded. “Is there a proper bed where we’re going?”
“Soft and big.” He covertly pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his mind filled with images of the use he intended to make of that bed.
“Sounds like heaven. What are we waiting for?”
“Not a damn thing, darling.”
She managed to stay awake until they reached the other side of the river. Luke gave a whoop as they rode onto Mexican soil. Tom reminded Luke that being in Mexico did not guarantee an end to all pursuit. Even as she prayed Tom was wrong about that, Leanne gave in to exhaustion.
“She all right, Hunter?”
Nodding briefly at Charlie, who had edged up alongside him, Hunter murmured, “She’s just exhausted.”
“Yeah. She ain’t made for this,” Jed said as he edged up on the other side. “A little lady. That’s what she is.”
“You think she’ll ever get the law off her back, Hunter?”
“Don’t know, Charlie.”
“It just ain’t right, a girl like her having to run from the law. She didn’t do nothing.”
Shrugging, Hunter murmured, “It could take a while to get people to see that.”
“What’re you going to do about Lucia?” Charlie asked after a moment of pensive silence.
Hunter took a quick look at Leanne, reassured to see that she was still sleeping. “Hell, I’m not too sure. I never promised the woman I would come back to her.”
“Reckon she expects it, though. She won’t like seeing company with you. She could cause some trouble, don’t you think?”

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