Lone Star 05 (16 page)

“Ow!” She bucked away from him. “You mean man!”

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“That's all right, brute. Do it some more.” She wanted desperately to please her man and to be rewarded in turn. And with Thad, it seemed so right.

They made their own white heat, the sparks of passion flashing between them, as Thad lowered himself onto her. Jessie, grasping blindly, found his stiff member and guided it between her legs. Slowly, so as to prolong the keen burning sensation, he worked it in. He wanted to plunge ahead all at once. But he held back, thrusting shallowly at first.

Jessie realized what he was doing and followed him. She felt the exquisite agony of his entry, lifting her legs to receive him. Her mind swam with bright visions and she knew that what they were doing was the right thing—the only thing—two people like them should do. She gulped in the night air and it filled her lungs to bursting. She was thrilled by the power of her response to this man. Her senses were dominated by the sharp pang of sexual union.

Thad already felt ready to explode. Soon he had pushed his entire length into her and rested there for a moment, savoring the tight clenching of her organ on his. Never had he felt such warmth, such inviting tightness in a woman. At one time in his life he had thought all women to be the same—but no longer. Who in the world could give a man pleasure like this woman, Jessie Starbuck? No one he had ever known could compare with her.

Now he was crushed down upon her. Jessie's breasts flattened under his weight, and there was not a fraction of an inch of space between their bodies. She reached around and clasped his buttocks, feeling the strange softness of him there. As she did, she pulled him even deeper into her.

Thad expelled a long breath and began pumping. As before, he moved slowly, keeping a rhythmic pace, taking his time. He kissed her, tasting the hotness of her mouth. His arms covered her shoulders, raising her upper body out of the dust. Her seamless back was cool and covered with a patina of perspiration. He loved her all the more for that.

“Jesus, Thad,” she whispered. “I don't believe you. I don't believe this is happening.”

“Stay with me, woman,” he said through clenched teeth.

He was bucking now, nearly unable to control himself. The stars twinkled on, unseeing and unseen. The two lovers were lost in a frenzy of lovemaking, Thad deepening his quick strokes, Jessie lifting to meet his movements. His engorged shaft thrust in and out, almost with a life of its own.

Their guttural cries were muffled. “Jessie, Jessie, Jessie,” he breathed. “You're so damned beautiful. God, I don't want to stop.”

“No ... never,” she hissed in reply, her voice rising almost from her womb. “I want you to give me everything. Please, Thad, I want to feel all of you!”

He paused for a moment to gather his strength, but her demanding legs, now wrapped around his back, did not allow him to rest. She urged him to continue, wordlessly but emphatically. She was too much for him, but he did not give up. Again and again he thrust into her, the tip of his rod probing the very deepest recesses of her chamber of love.

“Oh, yes!” she cried. Then, with a violent shudder, the muscles inside her sheath contracted and rippled. Her face went slack with the intensity of the orgasm, but her heels dug into Thad's backside.

Jessie pushed her pelvis up toward him, wanting more. He had not come yet, and he was still as hard as steel. She could not fathom it. Hoping he could hold on, she begged him for more. “Do it to me, Thad, I only want you to do it to me. Yes!”

With superhuman effort, the rangy bounty hunter held back as the tension built within his loins. He did it for her. He would please her, give her what she wanted. That was the beauty of her—she made him want to give and not take. His strokes were long and even, causing her to come again.

He faced the abyss, quickening his bucking motion. It was black and then white and then black again until he could see no more. His eyes were shut tight, sweat streaming across his brow. He clenched his jaw. Their movements melted into one rocking tempo, sweeping them both up in an eternal liquid flow of suspended time. Like two savages they grunted and groaned, odd syllables escaping from their open mouths. For God's sake, when would it end, Thad wondered.

“Oh, come with me, Thad,” Jessie begged.

And he did. He erupted as he plunged to the hilt. Waves of searing hot fluid shot from deep within him. Like a volcano, the molten essence came up from his core and spilled into her. Then he was empty.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned. He collapsed on top of her, but stayed hard, planted within her.

After a while, Jessie asked, “How long have we been away?” She did not want to alarm the others, who might worry if they were missing.

“Seems like a long, long time,” said Thad. “But I figure maybe half an hour. And I hate to go back. I'd rather you and me spent the night together—alone.”

“Thad.” She spoke his name as if it were an incantation. “I wish we knew each other for a different reason, under different circumstances.”

“Then it would be different, maybe, but it couldn't be any better, Jessie.”

Jessie Starbuck pushed the handsome, broad-shouldered man away reluctantly. He eased out of her and planted himself on his knees above her, bending down to kiss her. She relished the sweet touch of his lips as much as the sweet glow of the time after he possessed her.

He was putting on his shirt.

“You ever thought of getting married? To any of the girls you've known?”

“That's a damned female question if I ever heard one,” he said with a crooked smile lancing across his lean face.

“Just wondered. You know, you ought to. Some woman will be damned lucky.”

“I don't think so. I'm a skittish bronc when it comes to talk like that.”

“Thad, don't waste your life.” Jessie sat up and drew her blouse over her naked breasts. “I mean it when I say you should settle down and get married. You'll have some handsome children too.”

“But you're not volunteerin‘, I take it?”

“Is that a proposal?”

“Damn it, woman, don't twist my words.”

Jessie stood up to draw on her jeans. The scent of sex was still discernible between them. She laughed softly. “You're mighty sensitive for a trail-toughened bounty hunter. I'm just joking, Thad. You'll find the right girl. I might have been—like I say, if things had been different.”

Relieved and somewhat confused, he swung his gunbelt around his narrow hips and buckled it on. “Hell, you're right, Jessie. Sorry.” He stood above her as she pulled her boots back on. “But I'd be proud to call you my wife,” he blurted.

“No, I was out of line,” she said. “Let's get back to Thomas and the others. We shouldn't have left him alone.”

Thad followed Jessie back to the camp, thinking he'd be riding in hell before he understood women.

Thomas Starbuck slouched in front of the embers of the fire, his hands locked behind his back. He had never known such prolonged discomfort and pain. He'd been in the jail nigh onto two weeks and most of that time chained to the wall; and now he was free of that stinking cell but handcuffed and still a prisoner. He hated them all—the Mormons, Mueller, Jessie Starbuck, the gray marshal, the Chinaman, Hill, all of them. And when he got the chance, he vowed fiercely to himself, he'd kill them all. That would give him great pleasure.

He had been alone for what seemed a long time. He wondered where everyone had gone. He knew that Ki and Scott were standing guard nearby—but Jessie and the bounty hunter, what about them? He wondered if Hill was getting into her pants. The thought brought on pain of a different kind, in his groin. She sure was a fine-looking bitch. What he could do to her if he got the chance ... He struggled with the handcuffs until his wrists were raw.

“They'll pay for this,” he hissed loud enough for the dying fire to hear. His soil-streaked face was twisted in hate.

The kid rarely thought back on the events of his early years, or thought about anything longer ago than his last bank attempt or the last posse he had outrun. Not these days. Living was hard and fast and filled with danger, and he couldn't see more than a few hours in front of him or in back.

But he had plenty of time to think now, to remember, to wonder what would have happened to him if he'd done things differently.

Growing up in gold camps and cattle towns hadn't given the boy much of a start—in fact, he had barely survived a few bad illnesses. But luck or a kind old whore or the local preacher always got him back on his feet. He could have died a lot of times along the way, but hadn't. Only God knew why. The kid sure didn't.

The night gripped him in its gunmetal coldness. Starbuck cursed his fate. Once spitting-proud of his reputation, he now wished it had all happened to someone else. He wished he was anyplace but on the trail to Prove—with the hounds of hell on his heels. One way or another, he figured, they'd hang him—unless Mueller was true to his word, which the kid doubted.

How to escape? There had to be some way. But he racked his brains in vain and winced as the cuffs bit into his flesh. He'd bide his time—what little there was left to him. Somehow, he'd make a break for it.

A young man used to violence and freedom of action, Thomas Starbuck found himself temporarily deprived of the means to both. His eyes burned with unspent tears. He kicked at the dust by the fire. Goddamn them all!

How many times had he almost been caught by lawmen and bounty hunters? But always he had eluded them—until now. He remembered the time in Holbrook, Arizona Territory, when he had knocked over the dirty town's only bank. For a dirt poor place, the haul had been good—nearly five hundred dollars. Enough for a man to live well for more than a year if he was careful how he spent it, which Starbuck never was.

No, he loved money too much to save it. It was the getting of money and the spending of it that fascinated him. Anyhow, at Holbrook, he had ridden up to the bank, a dilapidated plank-board building with a shingle on a rusty hook proclaiming its function, at noontime. He carried an empty warbag and an imported Gibbs shotgun with the barrel cut down to seven inches. That and a gutful of boyish bravado. Inside, out of the glaring sunblast of the hot day, he looked around. The bank was empty but for a withered old man in a baggy suit of clothes, who looked to have been around since the Great Flood.

“Howdy, old man,” Starbuck had said. A grin revealed his stained teeth.

The man looked up from his desk. He had been scribbling with a steel-nibbed pen, toting up figures, no doubt. He squinted at the boy who stood before him smiling evilly, the goose gun leveled at his wrinkled face. “What?”

“I said howdy, old man!” the kid snorted, the humor of the situation growing within him.

“What do you want?”

“Money.”

“I don't know you. I can't lend you money. And don't point that cannon at me.”

“I ain't talking about a loan, gramps. I mean to take it—whether you like it or not.”

The old banker was hard of hearing, but he figured out soon enough what this young tough was telling him. And he got mad. “Dadblast you—get your butt out of my bank! No green saddle bum comes in here and makes threats to me. Get out, I say!”

The kid just laughed. He wanted to see how riled he could get the old man. “You don't understand, mister. You don't know who I am. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody. You may be old but you ain't smart. I thought old folks was supposed to be smart. You're plumb stupid.”

“What's that?” The banker strained to hear.

“Don't play deaf with me, fuckhead.” Starbuck chuckled now as he recalled his tough words. “I want all the money you've got.”

By this time the banker knew the kid was not bluffing. But he remained adamant. “Never,” he said.

“I want it sooner than that,” said the kid. He unleashed his gun, emptying buckshot into the old man's head, which exploded like a dropped pumpkin. The kid had enjoyed that, too—watching the headless corpse, blood pumping from the stub of a neck, reel backward and fall to the floor.

Then he attacked the money drawers, filling his bag with all the loose cash he could find. He was off then, vaulting onto his horse and riding away hard, leaving a high plume of fine dust behind him. And he could hear the town stirring to life, but no one challenged him.

It was not until four days later that he had the first indication that a posse was on his trail. He had camped on a high mesa for two days, resting after the hell-run out of Holbrook across the murderously bleak hardpan. He'd thought he had the town spooked, but it wasn't. In the distance, under a hot, glittering sun, he saw the riders—at least ten of them, he figured—clearly on his trail. He gathered his weapons and his warbag full of money and rode on.