Nan Ryan (48 page)

Her head fell back, and she turned to gaze into the leaping flames of the fire. Star’s tongue licked at her tight nipples, and his sharp teeth raked back and forth. Her hand clasping the dark hair of his moving head, Diane looked dreamily into the fire and felt as if she were melting in the flames.

She stirred when Star’s lips at last deserted her pinkened breasts. With one hand he reached down and removed her slippers. He kissed her hot, flushed face, and placing a hand to the back of her leg, he raised and bent her right knee so that her foot was flat on the ermine rug. With his thumb he hooked the satin garter and slipped it swiftly off, dropping it beside the brandy glass. He then slowly peeled the stocking down her long, slender leg and off over her foot Diane sighed softly, expecting him to remove the other stocking.

He didn’t touch it.

Nor did he toss aside the stocking he’d removed. Holding it loosely in his hand, Star trailed the gauzy silk stocking over Diane’s bare body, teasing her with its ticklish, whispery touch. She squirmed and wiggled and grew more excited with each slow pass of stocking over her tingling body.

When Star drew the wispy stocking slowly, surely back up her bare leg until it was directly between her thighs, Diane moaned and rolled over onto her stomach.

Star smiled and began the game anew, starting at the nape of her neck. Not stopping until the silky stocking was drawn gently up into the crevice between her quivering rounded buttocks.

Her hands clawing at the lush black ermine, cheek pressed against it, Diane’s eyes closed as the tormenting stocking touched her for a fleeting second and was swiftly withdrawn.

Star tossed the silk stocking aside. He leaned down, pressed his hot dark cheek to her shoulder, then turned her over. His passion-hardened face loomed just above hers, his lips hovering inches from her own. His dark eyes flashed with hot desire as he said hoarsely, “Let me love you, Diane. Give it to me, baby. Give it all to me.”

Chapter 44

Star kissed Diane and began slowly to slide down her body, kissing her chin, her throat, her breasts, her ribs. When his fiery lips reached her flat stomach and continued on their downward path, Diane came anxiously up on her elbows, shaking her head.

“God, don’t you dare,” she murmured.

But her purple eyes were shining with excitement, and Star could tell the idea thrilled her.

He kissed the small indentation of her navel and said against her flushed, silky skin, “Relax, my love. I’ll stop any time you want.” With the tip of his tongue he tracked the pale path of fine light hairs from her navel down to the dark, curly triangle between her thighs. “Let me kiss you, sweetheart. Make me happy. Let me make you happy.”

“Star …” she breathed, overwhelmed with emotion.

“Yes, my own sweet love.”

Star lowered his dark face to the raven curls. He nuzzled his mouth and nose in the crisp black coils, opened his lips, and breathed hotly against her. Diane gasped and flung the back of her hand across her mouth. She began to throb and pulsate there between her legs where his hot breath touched her. Star pressed his lips to her. She moaned aloud, and her back arched up off the fur. He touched the tip of his tongue to her. Diane called out his name. Star began eagerly kissing her there, cupping her buttocks with both hands. An involuntary shudder of pure pleasure jolted through Diane.

She came frantically up onto her elbows. Through passion-slitted eyes she looked down and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The darkly handsome Star fully dressed in black custom-cut tuxedo and white pleated shirt. She totally naked save for one silk stocking and satin garter on her left leg. Star with his face buried in the black curls between her thighs. She lying stretched out wantonly on the ermine rug with her legs widely parted to him.

For an instant the shocking sight seemed disgracefully lewd, and Diane experienced a brief disturbing flash of shame. But the shame swiftly evaporated as Star’s heated mouth continued to love her in this heart-stoppingly intimate way. It felt so incredibly good she hoped he would never, never stop. There was nothing appalling about this kind of lovemaking.

It was wonderful.

It was beautiful.

Diane’s eyes were no longer partially closed. They were open wide. And she was no longer thinking how shameful the two of them looked. She was thinking she’d never seen anything so powerfully erotic as the sight of Star’s dark, handsome face between her legs, kissing her in that most feminine of all spots.

Nor had she ever felt anything more deeply than this sweet pleasure his loving mouth was giving her. The joy steadily increased, spiraled higher and higher. Breathing hard, Diane sagged back down on the soft ermine rug as her heated body began to convulse with the first tiny tremors of impending climax. Her heart racing wildly, the muscles in her thighs jumping involuntarily, she flung her arms up over her head and surged her pelvis up to meet Star’s moving, marvelous mouth. She whipped her head to the side and again looked into the fire.

Staring transfixed at the flickering flames, she felt the intense heat of those dancing, leaping flames licking and lashing the throbbing flesh between her legs. She was being devoured by the red-hot fire, completely incinerated in the enveloping blaze.

She gave herself up to the raging inferno. And cried out in shocked ecstasy when her fully ignited body exploded with radiating showers of glorious heat. Star’s mouth stayed fused to her as she thrashed and surged and bucked in abandoned rapture. Then went totally limp on the soft fur rug.

Only then did Star lift his head.

Moving quickly up beside her, he kissed her damp temple and held her close in his arms, murmuring endearments until she was calm and lazy and stretching languorously on the lush furs.

Then he rose and hurriedly began stripping. Diane lay lazily below, unashamedly watching as he shrugged out of the tuxedo jacket, jerked the fully buttoned white shirt up over his head and off. He kicked off his black shoes and stockings, unbuttoned his trousers, and sent them to the floor.

Naked, Star lay back down beside Diane, ready to take her again in his arms.

“No, wait,” she said, pressing a palm against his smooth bare chest. “Lie down, Star,” she softly commanded.

Star nodded and stretched out on his back. Diane rose to her knees and sat back on her heels beside him. Admiring his lean male body, the ridged planes and hollows bathed in the flickering firelight, Diane smiled dreamily.

She said, “Let me love you, Star.”

Star swallowed hard. “Yes, baby, sure.”

Diane reached out to the brandy snifter Star had placed near the hearth. Purposely snaring and holding his gaze, she lowered all five fingers down into the widemouthed snifter, immersed their tips in the warm brandy, and slowly withdrew them.

Star’s belly constricted and became concave when Diane wrapped her free hand around his throbbing, straining erection. Gripping him gently, she placed her brandy-moistened fingertips directly atop the jerking tip. Carefully she painted the velvet smooth flesh with the brandy until it glistened wetly.

Then Diane looked one last time into his wide dark eyes, slowly bent her head, and placed her open lips on him. Star groaned aloud, started to spasm, anxiously reached down, and snatched her up. In preorgasmic excitement and anticipation, he lifted her astride his tensed body, but when he would have melded his hard, straining flesh with her softness, Diane shook her head and stopped him.

“Allow me, my darling,” she whispered.

Star’s arms fell to his sides, and he held his breath. He watched intently as she took him gently in both hands, rose onto her knees, and lovingly guided him into her yielding flesh.

“Baby, baby,” he rasped as Diane slowly, cautiously settled herself fully down onto him.

As Diane had been earlier, Star was thrilled by the sight. She seated astride him, her lovely naked body so soft and pale and perfect against the dark hardness of his own. His gaze lowered to where their bodies were joined, and he felt as if his heart would beat its way out of his heaving chest.

Diane smiled sexily at him, spread her hands on his chest, and began the rolling, erotic movements of her hips.

“Diane, Diane,” he murmured in sweet agony.

Star’s blue-black eyes slid closed in ecstasy as the woman atop him set the pace, led him, loved him, and brought them to an earth-shattering simultaneous orgasm. His body still a part of hers, Diane sagged down to his chest, her open lips sprinkling kisses on his sleek, perspiring shoulder.

“Star?”

“Yes?”

“Did I love you good?”

Star laughed and hugged her tight. “You loved me good, honey. You loved me real good.”

They left their clothes where they’d dropped them. Naked, sated, and sleepy, they staggered down the hall to their room, took a quick bath together, and got tiredly, happily into bed. Their arms wrapped around each other, they fell almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Diane was awakened hours later by the bright moonlight streaming through the wall of glass. She slipped silently from the bed. Naked, she wandered over to look out at the full white moon, which was on its morning descent.

Lifting a bare foot to rub her other ankle, she brushed against an item of clothing tossed over the back of a chair. Diane glanced down and saw the soft black leather vest which Star had worn into Virginia City that afternoon.

Smiling, she picked up the black vest. It belonged to the man she loved, so Diane rubbed the soft, supple leather against her cheek and deeply inhaled the unique male scent clinging to it. She blinked curiously when a single piece of folded paper tumbled out of the vest’s inside pocket and fluttered to the carpet.

Diane bent and picked it up. She meant to put it back into the pocket, but in the day-bright moonlight she saw to whom the message was addressed. The blood instantly went icy in her veins.

Diane’s cold hand shook as she lifted the paper closer and began to read.

September 28, 1895

Pawnee Bill

211 Post—Suite #4

San Francisco, California

The accompanying telegraphic money

order will bind our deal as concerns

your proposed takeover of
Colonel Buck

Buchannan’s Wild West Show
.

Blinking in disbelief, Diane read and reread the succinct message.

Finally lowering the yellow message paper, she carefully folded it and stuck it back inside the vest pocket. For a long moment Diane stood there trembling in the moonlight, too stunned to move, too astounded to think.

Then into her mind flashed the puzzling incident in Star’s library yesterday afternoon. He was writing on a sheet of yellow message paper exactly like the one now folded inside his vest pocket. How strangely he had behaved, violently reacting when she surprised him.

Diane shuddered.

Now she knew the reason. She knew as well his reason for going into town yesterday. The fancy meal had only been his excuse for riding into Virginia City. The real reason had been to send a telegram to her grandfather’s oldest enemy, Pawnee Bill!

Diane’s first inclination was to shake Star awake, show him the damning telegram, and demand an immediate explanation.

She didn’t do it.

No explanation was necessary. The painful truth was right there in the telegram.

Diane was heartsick.

These past four lovely days had meant nothing to Star.
She
meant nothing to Star. His declarations of undying love and marriage proposal were nothing more than a sham. It was all part of a carefully exercised plot. Star was in cahoots with Pawnee Bill. The man who had claimed to love her was only using her. She was nothing more than a pawn.

Revenge!

That was Star’s real goal. His only goal. He had coolly planned out his method of revenge and was cleverly executing it. He was paying them back, meting out retribution.

His carefully planned punishment of her had been to make her fall so hopelessly in love with him she’d be miserably unhappy spending the rest of her life without him.

The old Colonel’s punishment would be the loss of his beloved wild west show. And with it his will to live.

Her bare legs buckling under her, her stomach constricting in agony, Diane sagged onto her knees. Shivering violently, teeth chattering, she wondered how she could have been such a fool. How could she have let herself believe that this cruel, heartless creature actually cared for her?

Dear God, he hated her!

Hated her so much he had stripped her of all her pride. She had bared and opened not only her body to him but her soul as well. And he had taken everything from her. Everything!

Diane’s face burned with shame as she recalled the things they had done just a few short hours ago on the library floor. Her heart squeezed painfully in her naked chest. Tears stung her eyes. She had been skillfully, callously betrayed!

Heartsick and furious, Diane rose from the floor. Holding on to her shaky composure with the obstinacy for which she was well known, she quickly, quietly began getting dressed. She swiftly pulled on the black twill Levi’s and yellow pullover shirt, hastily making plans as she dressed.