Sam’s Creed (24 page)

“Do not thank me.” Zacharias rested his head back against the wall, a faint smile on his lips. “
La Montoya
is the one who wanted you.”

“And it’s your job—”

“To see that
la Montoya
gets what she wants,” Zacharias finished for him.

Sam put his hand to his aching stomach, pressing his lips to Bella’s hair. “That’s going to change.”

Bella perked up. “This way is working for me.”

“As you see,
patron, la Montoya
has her wishes.”

What he saw was too many men indulged Bella’s impulsiveness. “The next man who lets her endanger herself will deal with me.”

Zach shrugged. “She is a wild one.”

“I’m wilder.”

Zach smiled. “So I’ve heard. A wild card.”

Tucker came up beside them and hunkered down. “You all right?”

“Been better.” But not more at peace. Damn, he wanted to pull Bella into his body and shelter her from everything, just absorb her into him until there was nothing between them. He wanted it so badly his hands were shaking. “I thought I told you to keep her from doing something stupid.”

“She’s one crazy woman. Wouldn’t leave. By the time I realized she wasn’t behind me, you came flying out and she went flying after you.”

Tucker unbuttoned Sam’s shirt, their gazes meeting as he looked at the wound. “Something I’m thinking might not have been that stupid.”

“Are you hinting you’d miss me if I wandered off to meet my maker?”

“I’m hinting it might be time for you to start working harder at sticking around.” He gave a pointed glance to Bella. “The rewards can be worth it.”

“That has been mentioned.”

“It has?”

“Yeah.” He pulled Bella close and held her tightly as the black at the edges of his vision surged inward. From afar he heard himself say, “Bella tells me I’m an answer to a prayer.”

S
ome answer to her prayer Sam was turning out to be. Isabella glanced over to where Sam sat, back braced against the trunk of the tree, munching on a drumstick as if everything he wanted was in that picnic lunch her mother had made. It had been two weeks since he’d brought her home. His wounds were almost healed, her bruises barely showed, and still he had not let her know what he wanted of her. He seemed content to hold her at night when the nightmares came, happy to help around the ranch, and generally keep her in a safe place where nothing, not even he, touched her with emotion. He probably thought this is what she needed to heal. Stupid man.

She needed him, his passion, his bossiness. She needed him to touch as though what had happened with Tejala did not matter. She needed him to take over and not leave everything to her. She needed her Sam back.

“Your mother might be a bit testy to live with, but she sure can cook a chicken, can’t she?”

He had her alone on a beautiful day by the river and he wanted to discuss her mother’s cooking skills? “She is a very good cook,” she agreed.

That was it. Again, the short answer that went nowhere. Bella shifted on the blanket. The stick poking her in the hip through the blanket was just one more irritation in a day that wasn’t going at all like she had planned. She considered grabbing another piece of chicken just for something to do, but she was so nervous, if she ate it she’d vomit, and that was one humiliation she could spare herself. “It was a surprise to see Señor Alvarez come calling today.”

“Gossip among the men is that he’s been sweet on your mother for years.” He set the stripped bone on the plate with the others. Nudging the pile straight when it would have tipped to the right.

“I used to fear him. But he is always sweet around Mamá.”

His gaze cut to hers. “Was he sweet to you?”

His long fingers were dark against the white china, reminding her of how they looked against her skin. She loved watching him touch her, having him touch her. She shifted again. Stupid stick.

“Always he was nice. Often, I thought he should remarry. He would be a good father.”

Sam looked up, catching her watching him. “For some men, there’s only one shot at happy and there’s no settling for second best.”

What was he saying? The three feet between them took on monumental significance. For a few seconds she couldn’t breathe let alone speak. The river rippled over stones and birds sang, but inside her, time stopped. Finally, she got a grip on her dread. She took a breath, licked her lower lip. “And he wanted my mother.”

Sam drew up his knee and rested his forearm against it. The tight cotton of his pants cupped his privates with loving detail. The muscles of his upper arm strained his shirtsleeves. “Maybe.”

Desire simmered in her stomach. She wanted those arms around her. He was still looking at her. His eyes measuring every twitch of muscle. Her skin, flushed and sensitized, experienced that look as a touch. The irritation of the stick became unbearable. She rose on her knees, fumbled beneath the blanket and yanked it out.

Then she was faced with a decision. She could resume her former position perched on the edge of the blanket, or join Sam in his patch of shadow-dappled blanket. It wasn’t a hard choice. The stick went flying and the distance between them decreased from three feet to about six inches. The tension between them rose until it crackled like lightning in a summer storm. She placed her hand on the blue plaid next to his. So close, all he had to do was stretch out his pinkie and they’d be touching. Her nipples peaked with her daring. She looked up. Nothing in Sam’s expression changed. She shifted her weight onto the arm closest to him. His lids flickered. In interest or affront? It was so hard to know what he wanted, would find acceptable in the wake of Tejala’s touch. She’d explained to him that Tejala hadn’t raped her, that the blood had been her woman’s time and that had saved her, but did that really make a difference? A man with Sam’s pride had to care what others said about his woman.

“I think Señor Alvarez is more than sweet on my mother. I think he is in love with her.”

As she was in love with Sam.

“Then he should do something about it.”

Impatience at his composure. So should Sam.

“I think he was waiting for her to give him a sign.”

“Giving the lead to a woman like her is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“A woman like her?” She may have fights with her mother, but that did not mean anyone called her names.

“Duchess, your mother is looking for a man, not a puppet.”

The notions caught at her longing and tugged it as tight as her nipples. “That is a strange idea.”

The faintest of smiles hovered in the lines fanning out from the corners of his intense eyes. He wiped his hands and mouth on the wet cloth packed for that purpose. “Not that strange. Some women very much enjoy a man taking their choices away in bed.”

Could he tell how that thought affected her? A crow squawked. A bee buzzed by, and she still couldn’t come up with an argument.

“Some women, duchess, don’t want to make decisions when it come to their relationships.” He put the cloth away. “They like their men to take over, define their limits, test them.”

Images of his cock testing the limits of her pussy flared through her. Her eyes closed on the memory of the intimate burn. It was always such a tight fit. She swallowed hard.

“Some women, perfectly capable women even, prefer a man to take charge in the bedroom.”

Were they still talking about her mother? The flesh of her pinkie burned in anticipation.

Touch me. With your hands as well as your words.

“Some women glory in the surrender to their man.”

She took a breath. They were no longer talking about her mother. “And the men, how do they feel when their woman surrenders?”

“Like they just received an answer to a prayer.”

She could not stand the not knowing any longer. She opened her eyes. Sam’s expression was still carefully controlled, but his eyes, his eyes burned with flames she wanted to step into. “Are you one of these men, Sam? One that needs his woman to submit?”

“Yes.”

Just like that, he answered. No blinking, no hiding. She wished she had the same confidence. She licked her lips, and stared at their hands, so close yet so far apart. Indecision battled with hope. Fear with excitement. “And if I were one of these women, yet not saying so for many fears, how would I let you know that I am trapped by those fears? That I need help?”

He reached out, very slowly, as if he feared she would run. His fingers slid along the side of her throat, curled with blessed familiarity around the back of her neck. His thumb under her chin tipped her face up.

“You would say, ‘I love you, Sam.’”

Tears burned her eyes. “So easy?”

“So easy.”

“Even when the world thinks she was touched by another man, played his whore?”

“The world doesn’t matter.”

A tear overflowed. “Other men will laugh at him. Pity him for his choice of woman. Say things.”

He caught the tear on the edge of his thumb, made it disappear with a swipe. “No one will say anything about my wife.”

Her heart skipped a beat.
Wife?
“No one expects you to marry me now.”

His head bent, the edges of his lips fitting to hers. “Bella?”

“What?”

Very softly, very tenderly, the order breathed into her mouth, “Say the words.”

She clenched her hands into fists, closed her eyes and took a breath. “I love you, Sam. So much I do not know what to do with it. If you—”

His kiss, very soft, very sweet, cut off the rest. “Loving me is enough.”

“What if it is—”

“It’s enough.” He kissed her again, harder, his lips parting hers with the demand she remembered, commanding her response, accepting it as she gave it, giving her in return the confidence to put her arms around his shoulders and pull him to her. This was Sam. This was good. This was what she needed. When she was breathless and pliant, her fears buried under a wave of sensuality, he pulled back, feathering a kiss across her eyelids.

“Was that so hard?” he asked, his deep drawl a warm cocoon she wanted to crawl into.

She settled for resting her cheek against his chest. “Yes.”

“Why?”

She uncurled her fingers, letting them rest against his pulse, and gave him the unvarnished truth. “I do not want to disappoint you.”

The tug on her hair was expected. She tilted her head back, knowing she couldn’t avoid this. The set to his mouth was hard, lending more of that aura of cruelty to his face, but there was nothing cruel about his eyes, or his voice. “That works both ways.”

Impossible. Sam was not afraid of anything. “It is easier for you.”

“How?”

“You give the orders and I follow.”

“But if I give the wrong orders and you get hurt, I have to live with it. And, baby, the thought of you hurting about kills me.”

“I have a choice.”

This time his sigh pressed her cheek first up and then down on a slow expulsion of breath. “Duchess, when I have you bound and naked on my bed, there won’t be much choice.”

The bolt of lust was stronger than the bolt of fear, but not by much. “This is done?”

“Yes.”

“And you do not mind if it excites me?”

His laugh was easy, natural, the way it should be between them. “I thank my lucky stars that it excites you.”

Goose bumps sprang up in the wake of the glide of his palm down her back. She shivered as he lifted her across his lap, dropping back into the support of his upper arm as he nudged her thighs apart with a press of his lean fingers. “You, Bella, are sweet, soft, and everything I’ve ever wanted.”

That was hard to believe. Sam was a very experienced man. The first button on her skirt gave and then the next. His fingers found the ties of her bloomers, and tugged.

His lips brushed against hers as his fingers worked beneath the loose cotton and found her wet core.

She felt his smile as well as his approval as he dragged the callused pad of his index finger up her slit, slowing as it approached her eager clitoris. “Very nice.”

The most eloquent response she could work up to was a whimper that mingled with his breath.

“Put your arms around me, and hold on tight.”

She did, digging her nails into his back, opening her mouth at the touch of his tongue, her hips straining up, needing him to move that finger. Needing him. Just needing him so much.

And then he moved that critical fraction of an inch.

Her head dropped back as every sense focused on that throbbing point of connection. “Oh yes.”

“Sweetheart, open your eyes.”

She didn’t, wanting to hold on to the dream he was weaving.

“Bella.”

It was a warning. She cuffed the back of his head. “Do not distract me.”

His finger on her clit swirled once, twice. Fire arced hot and bright within. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but ride the brilliant wave as it tore through her.

“Open your eyes.”

The brush of his teeth over the arch of her throat pulled the added spice of danger to the conflagration.

She cracked her right lid. Sam was looking down at her, his gaze narrow and intent, his face tight with the desire riding him. It was harder to crack the left eye, but she managed it.

His fingers shifted. Warm pressure enfolded her clit. Ah, she loved it when he got serious.

“Keep looking at me.”

And bossy. She loved that side of him too. His fingers shifted in a delicate glide, changing the grip, the caress, switching to a milking motion that incited a cacophony of pleasure that ripped along her nerve endings, building with each draw, swelling with each glide, pushing and pushing her toward the point of no return. She held her breath as passion rose, closing her eyes to focus on it, holding it desperately. “Watch me.”

The order snapped her eyes open again. Her reward was a firm stroke of his finger. She arched and gasped. Her hips bucked the half inch his grip allowed. She needed more. So much more.

“Good.” It was almost a purr, or maybe a growl. “I want you to come, Bella.”

Isabella dug her nails into the back of Sam’s neck, clinging to sanity. “I do not think I can help it.”

This time the sensation that shot up from her clit was lush and full. Languorous and intense. She shuddered as urgency crested in a high wave, gathering strength, hovering over the agony of anticipation, ready to crash down.

“You’re very pretty when you come,” he whispered into her mouth. “You’re very pretty everywhere.”

His forearm rested against her stomach as he worked at the buttons on her blouse, slipping them free one by one, kissing each new inch of skin as it appeared, swirling his tongue across in a leisurely tasting that echoed in her imagination, transferred to her clit. The buttons gave with amazing ease.

“You are too good at this.”

“That’s not something to be complaining about.”

Her shirt fell open. His harshly indrawn breath pushed his chest against her side. His forefinger traced the scalloped edge of her corset until it rested in the valley between her breasts, not moving, not giving any indication where it would go next. Her nipples throbbed.

“Now this I like.”

She’d worn a sheer pink camisole today. One that tantalized more than it concealed. It was totally impractical for most things. “I chose it for you.”

“Why?”

She blushed and arched her back, presenting him with the gift of her breasts. “Because I knew you would like the way it pushes my breasts up, and the way you can see my nipples through it.”

“Then thank you.” The front ties offered up no more resistance than her shirt. Her left breast tumbled against him, the right clung to the cup, falling to the side, separating from its mate the few inches…

“Oh God.”

His chuckle encouraged her next gasp as he brushed the cup off her breast, exposing her nipple to first the glide of his tongue and then the rasp of his five-o’clock shadow. Bliss ripped from her in a high-pitched cry that echoed in the canopy of sun-dappled leaves shielding them from the brightness of the sun.