Bed of Roses (22 page)

He felt the first quivers of her climax even before she gasped and called out his name again.

Dammit, he was hot for her, so hot that no reason he could think of effectively dispelled the notion to have her then and there. Her body, her sweetness… He wanted everything she had to give him.

With his free hand he worked at the confines of his breeches, freeing his swollen manhood and feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to thrust himself inside her.

“Oh, Sawyer,” she whispered. “Sawyer.” Bright and blazing bliss shimmered through her limbs, her belly, her womanhood. Almost unendurable in its shattering intensity, the pleasure was the strangest, most wonderful experience of her life, and she hoped it would never end.

But it gradually began to lessen, calming from flames that licked through her to mellow sparkles that left her sated and so completely relaxed that she felt she would fall asleep within moments.

She blinked up at Sawyer, but she was too filled with wonder to speak. Instead, she gave him a smile, then slipped her fingers through the thick mass of his dark gold hair.

Sawyer had just maneuvered himself over her hips when he saw her looking at him.

His entire body stilled, his heartbeat the only part of him that moved.

Her eyes looked like those of a young doe, full of gentleness, sparkling with happiness.

Glowing with trust.

Somehow, her tender expression broke the fever of his desire for her.

He knew she wouldn’t stop him if he proceeded with his sensual intentions. On the contrary, she’d welcome the opportunity to experience the full circle of sexual intimacy.

But this was no harlot he’d found in some saloon or brothel.

This was Zafiro.

In the space of only a moment he remembered and pondered all the many things that had never been hers. Things she’d not had as a little girl and would never have as a woman.

A mother or a real home in a town. Proper schooling. Friends her own age, pretty clothes, or a sweetheart.

She’d never had a man make love to her either.

Make love to her? This—what he was about to do—it wasn’t lovemaking.

It was rutting, pure and simple. A quick roll on a hard, hay-strewn floor in a mice-infested barn.

Zafiro deserved better.

Quickly, he readjusted his breeches. She might have learned a great deal from a whore, but she wasn’t one, and he’d be damned if he was going to treat her as though she were.

“Sawyer?”

He sat up and moved his hair out of his face. “Zafiro, I’m sorry. Things got out of hand.”

“They could have gone further. Why didn’t they?”

He pulled her skirt down over her legs, reminding himself that she couldn’t help being so bold. Not only was her openness a part of her character, but as far as he’d been able to determine no one in her life had ever taught her that good girls demonstrated modesty in everything they said and did.

Good girls? He shook his head.

It was Zafiro’s profound goodness that enabled her to take such wonderful care of her elderly companions.

And
he
was one to talk about the carefree attitude she had toward her body and lovemaking! he chided himself. Hadn’t he enjoyed her lack of modesty on more than one occasion?

He certainly had today.

“Sawyer?”

“Button your blouse.”

She heard a hard edge to his voice, as if he were angry with her. Buttoning her blouse, she tried to think of anything that might have irritated him.

When a possible answer came to her, she bowed her head and stared at her lap. “I am sorry if I…did not do everything right. If I did not make your socks fall off.”

“You’re not supposed to know how to do everything right.” A slight grin on his face, Sawyer stood, clasped his hands over his hips, and looked down at her. “And you
do
knock my socks off, Zafiro. But you need to understand that no matter how many things Azucar has told you, you don’t know what you think you know.”

“I—”

“What I’m talking about is your little performance a few weeks ago right here in this very barn. I know you were trying your best, but I’m not the one who didn’t know what to do that night. As a maiden, there was no way in hell you could have even understood what you—”

“I did not know any more today than I knew then. What is the difference?”

“The difference is that today you weren’t going by the things Azucar has described. Today you were responding to your own feelings, and believe me, today was a hell of a lot more pleasant than that night a few weeks ago.”

“For you too? I mean…I made you happy, Sawyer?”

He wasn’t blind; he saw the hope spilling from her eyes. Her desire to please him… Well, that in itself pleased him.

God, he thought. She would have made some lucky man an exquisite mate.

Part of him, some deep-down part, wished he could have been that lucky man. Zafiro was outrageously bold, obnoxious at times, a bit on the wacky side…

But she was a very caring woman. A sensitive woman. Passionate and generous.

And so damn beautiful that sometimes the mere thought of her was sufficient to play havoc with his heartbeat.

Reaching down to her, he pulled several long strands of straw out of her hair, then outlined the curve of her upper lip with the tip of his finger. “Yes, Zafiro, you made me happy.”

His answer satisfied her at first, but a new thought replaced her pleasure with confusion. “How could I have made you happy?” She frowned, certain she was correct in her thinking. “Sawyer, you did not put your man part into my—”

“It made me happy to make you happy. I—” He broke off, wondering how to explain the way of things to her. “I know you’ve never known a man… I mean, well… There’s never been a man in your life who was close to your own age. A woman like you—a naturally passionate woman who’s been listening to Azucar’s tales for so long—were bound to be curious about things. It made me happy to be the man to show you a little bit. To please you in such a way for the first time.”

She understood what he meant. She enjoyed making people happy too. But the fact remained that Sawyer had not found the same sort of physical pleasure that she had. “You should have finished, Sawyer."

He watched a mouse scurry across the floor near Pancha’s stall door. “If I had, I would have regretted it.”

“You would regret making love to me?” Grabbing Sawyer’s hand, Zafiro pulled herself off the floor and stood before him. “What a compliment, Sawyer Donovan. You have put music on my face and laughter in my heart.”

“Music on your…” What was she trying to say? “Music… Oh. I’ve put a smile on your face and a song in your heart.”

“I am being sarcastic,” she clarified in case he didn’t understand.

“Really?” He looked down at the ground and grinned. “You misunderstood, Zafiro. I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you. I meant that I would have felt bad about it later. Taking your innocence on a dirty barn floor… I doubt seriously that’d be the greatest experience of my life, not to mention yours.”

Mulling over his explanation, she watched as he crossed the barn and threw bundles of wilted grass into the animals’ stalls. “You…you care about me, don’t you, Sawyer?” she murmured, her realization almost stealing her voice. “If you did not, you would not have thought two times about having a romp between the sheets here on the dirty barn floor. Your consideration, it means you truly and really care about me.”

Oh, damn, he thought. What sort of romantic notion was going through her busy little mind now?

“Sawyer?”

“I’ve been cutting fresh grass for the animals.” He skirted her question. “The hay’s gone, but I’ve found some good grazing area on the other side of the stream. Like I said, I’m going to fence in a few pastures and—”

“Are you falling in love with me?”

“What? Hell, no!”

His sudden shout startled her so badly that she let out a little shriek. And his vehement denial to her question embarrassed and hurt her.

Was it such an awful thing to fall in love with her? she wondered miserably. Were other women in some way better than she was?

She had no way of knowing. Besides Tia, Azucar, and the nuns, there weren’t any other women around with whom she could compare herself.

Looking at everything in the barn but Sawyer, she rubbed the back of her left calf with the top of her right foot. “So,” she managed to say, “you are going to make pastures for the animals.”

“Yes.” He knew he should leave it at that, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t do it to her.

Because he knew exactly what she was thinking—that there was something wrong with her. That she wasn’t good enough for a man to love. She couldn’t help thinking such things. There’d never been a man around to convince her otherwise.

“You’re wrong, Zafiro.”

She still couldn’t look at him. “Wrong? About what?" she asked as if inquiring about the weather.

“About what you’re thinking.” He walked over to where she stood across the barn. “Zafiro, look at me, please.”

Affecting what she hoped was a nonchalant expression, she raised her face to his.

He hated the hurt he saw in her eyes and etched across her beautiful features. “I can’t fall in love with you, sweetheart,” he said, using the endearment on purpose to ease the sting of his own words. “I can’t stay here at La Escondida. You know that. I… I have to leave. Have to find…who I am. If I can.”

He pushed his fingers through her hair and curled them around the back of her neck. “But if I could love you, Zafiro, it wouldn’t be hard to do. It wouldn’t be hard for any man.”

She felt her lips tilt into a shy smile. “Real-really, Sawyer?”

“Really,” he said, relieved by her smile and the return of the light in her eyes. “And I do care about you. About you and your friends. I don’t want anything bad to happen to any of you.”

His announcement hit her ears like a burst of beautiful music. “You don’t?” she asked just to make sure.

“Why is that so hard to believe? I’m not a monster. It’s true that you and your people have done your level best to drive me insane, but I’ve never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Why do you think I stayed to help you out around here?”

“Oh, Sawyer!” Her arms open wide, Zafiro threw herself straight into him. “You do not know how glad you have made me!”

Instantly, suspicion permeated his senses like a powerful smell. She was up to something again. “Zafiro, what—”

“You do not want anything bad to happen to me or my friends!” She wrapped her arms around his neck and covered his cheeks with loud kisses. “Now I
know
you will help my men!”

“Dammit to hell,” he muttered. “You never give up, do you, Zafiro?” He jerked her arms off his neck and stormed toward the barn doors.

“Sawyer, wait!” She grabbed his hand and tried to keep him still. “You—”

“No! Do you hear me? No! I might not want anything bad to happen to any of you, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean I want to go along with your harebrained schemes! I can’t believe you, you know that? Not only won’t you quit begging me to do something I’ve already told you I won’t do, but you can’t seem to get it through that head of yours that your idea is stupid!
Your men are too old to be young and skillful again!”

“You cannot know that for sure, because you have not worked with them!” She pulled his arm once more. “If I have to knock you out and tie you up with ropes, you are not going to escape me again! I—”

She broke off suddenly, her gaze flying toward one of the wooden boxes she’d rummaged through earlier. Letting go of Sawyer’s hand, she raced toward the box, lifted the lid, and snatched out one of its contents. Hiding the item behind her back, she caught up with Sawyer just as he reached the barn doors.

In the space of only a few seconds he heard a jangling sound, then felt something cold and hard circle and snap around his left wrist.

“There!” Zafiro shouted, holding up her right hand. “Now you cannot escape me!”

He stared at the pair of old, rusty handcuffs that bound him to her. “What—”

“Even if you walk out of this barn right now, you will have to take me with you, Sawyer. Wherever you go, I go, so you might as well listen to what I have been trying to tell you for the past—”

“Take these damned things off—”

“No. Not until you listen—”

“Take them off right now!”

“No.”

“Zafiro—”

“Will you listen to me?”

He glared at her so hard that his eyes began to sting. Had it really been only moments ago when they’d been in each other’s arms, warmed by the heat of passion, and he’d caressed her to the point of sensual bliss?

Now he felt like wringing her slender little neck. “Sawyer?”

He closed his eyes and started to count to ten, but he was so angry that he only got to number six before opening his eyes and glaring at her again. “If you don’t open these cuffs, I’ll—”

“I will release you as soon as you have heard what I have to say. All right?”

He didn’t answer.

“All right?” she asked again.

He still didn’t answer.

“Sawyer?”

“All right, dammit, all right! Say whatever the hell it is you have to say then get these blasted cuffs off!”

“Luis is coming.” The words trembled from her lips, and she felt both relieved and frightened to say them. “Luis.”

She was looking at him as if she expected some sort of effusive reaction from him.

“Luis.” He nodded a slow nod. “What do you want me to do? Cry? Dance a little jig? Wring my hands?”

She continued as though she hadn’t heard a word of his sarcastic reply. “He is going to come to La Escondida and steal me away so that I will always be there to tell him and his gang when danger is coming. Then he and his men can escape the danger, you see.”

“No, Zafiro, I don’t see,” Sawyer snapped. “I don’t understand a damned thing—”

“And I am sure they will kill Azucar, Tia, and my men,” she rushed on, determined to tell him the complete story before he found a way to stop her. “He would not want to leave any live witnesses to—”

“Kill?” God, the story was becoming more convoluted with each word she uttered! “Kill…as in to do something to make someone die?”