Amelia (11 page)

He hadn't spoken, but when she started to go up the steps, his hand came out and prevented the movement.

"Your mouth still holds the evidence of my kisses," he said quietly. "Unless you want my mother to make unwarranted speculations, it might be wise to wait a bit before going inside."

The lazy observation was the last straw in a basket of them. She went up onto the porch and sat down in the porch swing, expecting him to go elsewhere. But he didn't. He eased down beside her and rocked the swing into motion.

Her stiff posture said more than any words could. He slid an arm over the back of the swing and studied her with interest, until her face flamed and her hands clenched in her lap.

"Darcy Valverde enjoys the gifts I buy her and the wealth and position of my name," he said quietly. "But she loathes the touch of my mouth on hers."

She couldn't speak. Her throat felt choked.

"In time," he added coldly, "she will learn to respond to me. Her family is one of the original ones, from the days of the old Spanish land grants. Like my own family, she is born to this country. You will not last the year, Miss Howard. You are too soft, and far too docile, to manage the rigors of this sort of life."

She felt her teeth clench. "Perhaps you are right," she said stiffly.

"There is, after all, more to a relationship between a man and a woman than kisses," he continued, forcing the words out. "Similar backgrounds and common interests are necessary. Darcy can ride like a cowboy and shoot like a Ranger. Despite her sharp tongue, she is accomplished as a hostess."

"She will be exactly what you require in a wife, Mr. Culhane. I knew that."

"I wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss you," he said flatly. "I think you had the same curiosity about me. It was best indulged before there were any formal ties to be broken by such an action. You have a sweet mouth. But it was only curiosity. Nothing more; Not on my part."

"I knew that, as well," she said without looking at him.

He stared at her hard for a moment, trying to read her expression. But it never wavered. She was untouchable on the surface. If he didn't remember so well how her arms had clung, how her mouth had answered his, it might have fooled him. It had been folly to give in to his hunger. Now he was faced with the task of pushing her away and making her aware that he wanted nothing more to do with her.

She was a child in many ways. He should never have touched her. The impulse had been building for days. Weeks. Just as well to have strangled it at birth, but his feverish desire had clamored for expression. It was going to be hard to forget her ardent response. Every time he touched Darcy for the rest of his life, he would mourn the eager submission of Amelia's soft mouth.

"So long as you understand the situation," he said curtly.

She got to her feet. "Indeed I do," she replied brightly. "Good evening, Mr. Culhane."

She didn't look back as she went into the house. In case her mouth was still swollen—and it felt so—she called a soft good night to Enid from the doorway and went quickly down the hall to her room. She throbbed from head to toe with frustrated passion and temper, and she knew she would never sleep. But to have to look at King Culhane again tonight would cripple her heart! Why, why, could he not leave her alone?

 

Quinn helped the Mexican boy into Juarez, to the barrio where he said he wanted to be taken. His people would come for him, he promised. So Quinn left him with two women who apparently knew him and then began the long journey down to Del Rio, from whence the boy had apparently come when he was hurt. As soon as he rode into town, he went along to the commandant's headquarters, where he discussed the bandit Rodriguez.

The Mexican officer was sorry, but they could give him no help in locating the man. It was said that some of Rodriguez's cohorts had been in Del Rio just recently. However, he promised, every effort would be made to cooperate if Quinn cared to stay in Del Rio for a day or so.

Quinn agreed gratefully. That would give him some time to catch his breath and heal his saddle sores, he added, tongue-in-cheek. He left the military commander's office and went to find a telegraph office. He sent word to the Ranger post in El Paso that he was going to conduct a search in Del Rio before returning.

He was tired to death. There was a small cantina where he'd found lodging the last time he was in town. It offered a little something extra: the best girls on the border. It had been a long, dry spell between women, and Quinn needed something soft in his arms for a night. It was an urge he disliked giving rein to, but a man had his needs.

He bought himself a small whiskey and beckoned the wife of the owner to his table, discreetly inquiring if she had a girl for him.

She grinned from ear to ear. Oh, yes, she said with faint malice. She did, indeed have a girl, one who was sure to please the
Americano
. The girl was very pretty. It would cost him a lot for this one. At least five American dollars.

Quinn was intrigued. He'd never seen a pretty woman in a place like this. She must be Mexican, all the others were, but it would be worth the price if what the woman said was true.

He gave the money to the buxom woman, and she showed him to a small room far down the dirt floor of the hall.

"
Allá
," she told him, pointing to the door. "
Buenas noches, señor
," she added with a cruel smile.

Quinn frowned. It sounded as if the woman disliked the girl. He began to wonder if something was amiss here.

He opened the door and went inside, closing and locking it behind him. It was a sparse confinement, with only a chair and a bed and a tiny window. The sounds of music from the cantina drifted in the open window along with voices murmuring in Spanish.

Quinn took off his hat and tossed it onto the chair. He ran a hand through his thick blond hair and moved to the side of the bed.

A girl was lying on the serape that covered the rudely made bed. She had long, black hair that laid around her oval face like a fan. Thick black lashes laid on cheeks that were faintly flushed. Her skin was almost translucent, her lips red, a natural red, not colored. She was wearing a peasant blouse that revealed breasts like pert little apples, firm and beautifully shaped. Her waist was small, and her hips gently rounded above long, elegant legs that showed where her colorful skirt had ridden up to her thighs. Her feet were bare. Pretty feet, he thought absently.

He sat down beside her and gently ran his big hand up her waist and over her breasts. They felt as firm as they looked. She was wearing nothing under the thin blouse, and as he touched her, her nipples hardened. He could see them stand erect. She made a sound and moved on the serape, but her face was drawn as if in pain.

"Wake up, pretty girl," he said softly, and shook her gently. "She was right, you know. You are pretty."

She groaned and shifted. A minute later, her long eyelashes lifted to reveal eyes so blue that for a moment the shock of color startled him. He'd never seen a Mexican girl with blue eyes and white skin, and he frowned.

She stared at him. Her dry, parched lips separated, and she tried to swallow, but her throat was as dry as her mouth.

"
Agua
?" she whispered.

He looked around and found nothing to drink. There was only a tin cup on the bedside table. He took out his brandy flask and poured a little into the cup. He took it to her.

She had to have help to sit up. "
Mi cabeza me duele
," she moaned.

Her head hurt. She spoke perfect Spanish. Her coloring was odd, but she must be what she seemed.

"Drink that," he told her. "Don't talk."

She took a sip and choked, but then she took another and another. She laid back down, breathing steadily as she looked up at him. "
¿Donde estoy
?"

"
Está en una cantina en Del Rio
," he returned.

"¿Por qué?"

He lifted an eyebrow and smiled lazily. How could she not know? He put the cup aside and leaned over her, his big hands framing her face. "Don't you know?" he asked softly.

He bent and laid his mouth over hers. She stiffened and pushed at his chest, but he was hungry, and she obviously belonged here, or what would she be doing in this room?

Her struggles didn't bother him. He'd known prostitutes who felt obligated to put up a fight at first. It never lasted, and they were usually the most ardent ones. He kept on, his experienced mouth slow and sensual on her soft lips, until she relaxed into the covers and submitted.

It was interesting that she stiffened when his hand smoothed over her breasts again. She started to protest, but his mouth opened hers and probed gently inside. Her fingers bit into his hard arms, but she stopped fighting the minute his hand slid under her bodice and over her pretty breast.

"You feel like apples," he whispered into her mouth. "Your breasts are perfect. I want to take them inside my mouth and feel them with my tongue."

She understood English. She must, because the words made her moan.

He untied the string that held the bodice together and slowly pulled it down, baring her to his eyes. He caught his breath audibly at the sight of her white skin. Her nipples were a dark, soft pink, tight and thick against the elegant rise of flesh.

"Sweet Jesus," he whispered, touching her with his fingertips. "I've never seen anyone like you!"

Her voice failed her. His eyes were eloquent. He just looked at her for a long time, his dark eyes fascinated. Then he began to touch her, his fingers slow and gentle, tracing every line and curve of her, making her untried body yield without any effort at all.

"Sit up, little one," he whispered huskily.

He brought her into a sitting position and slid the top away. "I'm going to take a very long time with you," he said as he bent to suckle at her breasts. "I'm going to make it last all night long…"

She felt his hand in her hair as he arched her and began to kiss her body. The sensations were frightening, but not unwelcome. Her legs felt heavy, and there was an unfamiliar tingling in her lower belly. She loved his callused hands on her silky flesh, loved the way he was touching her. He was a stranger. She should not permit this. But just as she thought it, his hand trespassed under her skirt, under her drawers, and found her where she was untouched.

She made a jerky cry at the shocking intimacy and would have captured his hand, but the throb of pleasure his movement there kindled paralyzed her. Her eyes flew open, along with her mouth, and she gaped at him.

"Here?" he asked quietly, and did it again.

She had never dreamed that it would be like this. He touched and stroked and probed, and her body was his, owned by him, possessed by him. He made her reach a pinnacle almost at once, watching her arch and sob and cry out to him. And even as the pleasure began to fade away, he kindled it again and again and again.

By the time he undressed and came to her, she was beyond any sense of reason. He stripped with quiet efficiency and pushed her back onto the bed, sliding between her legs and spreading them wide to admit his tall, muscular body.

She was so ready for him that the first hard thrust was immediately pleasurable, despite the shock of his entry and the faint sensation of tension there. He guided her, moved her under him, whispered to her, tutored her, as the heated minutes gathered speed. She thrilled to the quick, sharp movement of his hips, to the shocking, feverish words he whispered into her ear while he moved on her yielded, burning body.

She clung to him, and when the pleasure bit into her body, she cried out harshly. His mouth covered the sound, muffling it, while he drove furiously for his own fulfillment. She felt him reach it, felt his body cord and jerk helplessly while he groaned into her open mouth.

He collapsed onto her finally and lay there, inert, trying to breathe. There had been women over the years, but never one like this. Her body had been a revelation to him. He had to force himself to withdraw from it, to roll onto his side. Even then, he couldn't let her go.

He pulled her against him and wrapped a long, heavy leg over her hips to keep her there.

"
Señor
," she began unsteadily.

"Go to sleep, little one," he whispered roughly. "Don't ask me to let you go. I couldn't if my life depended on it. You are exquisite," he murmured, brushing her mouth with his. "You are my woman."

She didn't argue. It was all too new, and she was tired. She closed her eyes and pressed close into his muscular body. At once, she slept.

Quinn opened his eyes the next morning to harsh sunlight and a hangover. He hadn't realized the whiskey would hit him that hard. He moved his arm and felt a weight on it.

Frowning, he turned onto his side and looked down. The sight that met his startled eyes knocked the breath right out of him.

She was nude. Her body was perfectly formed from the top of her black hair to the tip of her pretty toes. She lay vulnerable to him on the white sheet that had come away from the serape in the night. As he looked, he knew at once that she wasn't Mexican. She was white. And he understood now, too late, why the woman in the cantina had charged so much for her.

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I
t had been only ten days since Alan, Brant, and Hartwell Howard left the ranch when they returned. Amelia, sitting on the porch with Enid, saw the dust and three horsemen and knew that her brief respite was over. She would have to leave now, to go away from King and back to the uncertainty of life with her father.

But it was just as well, she thought with resignation. She couldn't even meet King's eyes after last night. Not that it seemed to matter to him. He was cold to her, quite obviously making sure that she didn't read anything into last night's ardor. But at least Enid was kind to her.

Now she was going to have to pack her things and go back to the boardinghouse, where her father would drink too much and there would be only the threat of strangers overhearing to protect her from him. It had been successful so far; but he drank more and more. When he bought them a house—which he'd already decided to do—there would be no protection at all.