Thea Devine (12 page)

Her hips jolted against him at the first wild feeling of his fingers. She had been waiting for this, she thought somewhere in the cataclysmic fog where she floated in a sensual haze. She loved how he played with her nipple, rubbing his fingers over it, sliding his hand all over the roundness of her breast and then back again to the lush tip, holding it between his fingers so gently she could just barely tell they were there.

The knowing and the not knowing incited her to a tumultuous arousal. Her body responded to his hot kisses and his fondling of her nipple; white-hot moistness drenched her. Her body rippled, ready for anything, wanting everything, as his fingers surrounded her nipple
and made her firmly aware of his possession.

Her body melted against him and her mouth went wild with urgent kisses. Her hips undulated erotically against the iron length of him in rhythm with the hot pulling of his lips against her tongue and the lush stroking of his fingers on her pebble-hard nipple.

Heat gushed through her, streaming through her veins, spiraling downward in a smoldering paroxysm of sensation that resonated into a crystalline feeling that hovered for one long moment somewhere in the deepest feminine part of her before it shattered into a huge glistening point of light.

She tore her mouth away from his and wrenched his hand away from her body, feeling him shudder just as she collapsed against him. He wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could, and his lips brushed her hair.

“You are wonderful,” he murmured against her ear.

That was wonderful, she wanted to say. She felt her nakedness now, and she was glad of the darkness, and yet the time in his arms seemed so short before he had to be going. She started thinking about the nature of what they had done in the dark and how she wanted to do it again—soon.

“When?” she finally brought herself to ask him.

He felt himself stiffen again at the thought of when. He wished he could carry her off to the ranch and make love to her all night, all day, all the time.

“Tomorrow,” he promised, even though he did not know whether it could be tomorrow, or even whether he could bear to let her go tonight.

“Tomorrow,” she murmured, nestling against him for the few more moments they had left of this night.

His body reacted and she knew it. His desire spurted to life again and they both felt it.

She trembled at the thought of it, and she remembered what he had done. She almost thought of begging him to
stay…. Oh, but stay where?

He knew she was moments away from full, wanton arousal. He ached to caress her all over again. But the time … he felt the full impact of the fleeting time and the knowledge that this would be their only meeting place until she decided she wanted something more.

There was no time to be leisurely, no time for second kisses and caresses lest they lead elsewhere, and no time for completion after that. God, he hated it. He wanted her again and all he could do was prepare to leave her. His only consolation was that she was as unhappy about it as he was.

Tomorrow … the talisman; they would have time all over again tomorrow. It shouldn’t take her long to see that all they had was endless tomorrows with no future, he thought. In the end she would want their union just as much as he.

Tomorrow was Thursday already, and with one part of her mind she dealt with the complexities of pulling the paper together, handling Arch Warfield and his militant pro-railroad articles with some diplomacy. And with the other, she damped down the hot memories of the previous night and tried to pretend it had not happened.

She was in the buggy with Reese, following the survey team to check its progress, when it occurred to her that it might make things easier if Logan had a key so he could let himself in to wait for her.

She was in the back room with Jean doing local advertising layout when she thought of not wearing underclothing when she dressed for him tonight.

She was at her worktable, penciling out the more fulsome phrases in Arch Warfield’s articles when she remembered his succulent kisses. Her body vibrated instantly with yearning.

She had her usual consultations with A.J., and although she thought she sounded coherent she wasn’t sure since she was remembering the feeling of Logan caressing her breast.

How could she stand to wait until tonight?
Late
tonight.

“Well, let’s see,” she murmured, as A.J. plunked himself down next to her so they could go over the order of the newsworthy articles. “Nothing new on Denver North. The survey will be completed this week, and then I suppose the circus will begin. All right. No especially important visitors in town. The usual aunt from Denver and cousin from Texas, I believe. Now, I understand we have some new advertising, so maybe that should be more prominent than inside the backfold page. I’m running a shorter editorial this week. My heart’s not in it for some reason, or maybe I’m just suspicious that Denver North is being so amenable to spending thousands of extra dollars to circle Gully Basin. But I guess we’ll find out about that soon enough. Anything else, A.J.?”

“Well, we’re thinking about listing property assessments and sales; the clerk requested we consider it so it’ll be made public without him having to do so much work.”

Maggie grimaced. “All right.”

“We got some new babies. This was one quiet week, I’ll tell you; I wonder if we shouldn’t think about tacking in some Denver news.”

Maggie shook her head. “No, then they’ll expect it every week, and I’m not sure we can get hold of a Denver paper that frequently. This is enough. We’ll dig out some filler. You can publish the property sales too, and the assessments. The new menu for the hotel dining room, if there is one. Reese’s comings and goings, if you can figure them out. Mother Colleran’s new interest in church social clubs. I’m babbling. Sorry, A.J.”

“No problem, Miz Maggie. Maybe you should buy yourself a new dress. I heard the dress lady got a whole raft of them in the express today, ready-made.”

“A.J.,” she chided, dismissing him by turning her attention back to Warfield’s convoluted prose.

The notion stuck. A new dress. One that perhaps would not have to be supported by stays. One that didn’t have so many buttons, buttons that were irreplaceable, buttons she had crawled on the floor that very morning to retrieve. A simple dress. One he could remove with …

She caught her breath. She was thinking that far ahead already. And even farther ahead than that. She wanted him to undress her. She wanted him—
right now
.

Maggie threw down her pencil and walked to the front door, then turned around to look back into the room. It was so different in daylight. There was no scent of lust in this room in the daylight. No sense of the sensual darkness that had enfolded her in its torrid embrace. In the darkness, she thought, she could be as brazen as a queen.

She felt the heat creep into her cheeks. She couldn’t keep thinking these thoughts. Her mind should be on business. Her mind was on Logan.

What if she should see him today? Could she look him in the eye after begging for his kisses and succumbing to his wanton caresses? Or did she only want him now in the dark, where the sole link between them was her desire for things erotic and forbidden?

What could she wear tonight to dress for him?

Why was she thinking this way?

Why was Jean looking at her so strangely from across the room?

She shook her head to clear away her dangerous thoughts and went outside, just for a moment, to let the clear oncoming spring air warm her.

She was a danger to herself, she thought, and she had not even known it. For the five years she had been courted and had been married to Frank, estranged from him, and finally widowed by him, she had never known the depth of hunger within her. And now it was unleased. She saw that she could become a slave to it—or that Logan could make her one.

Nonetheless, even that sobering thought could not deter her from thinking about the night ahead. She would slake her thirst, she thought; she would fill the bottomless craving with sensual experiences that she could store against the day when he would demand more.

It made so much sense. He knew her limits and
he
was willing to abide by the boundaries that she had delineated. She couldn’t see any reason why, in the cool light of the afternoon, she should not take advantage of what he was offering.

In the distance she saw Dennis Coutts on horseback, cantering down the main street, looking businesslike and determined. He was the last person she wanted to see today, but she knew he had seen her, so she stayed where she was until he reined his horse in and dismounted.

“I was thinking of you just as I got into town,” he said in his same old companionable way.

“How nice to hear that. Any news for me?”

“I think not. I have a feeling your regular stringers would have scooped me anyway. No, things are quiet. Harold is busy counting his money and Denver North seems satisfied, for the moment. I trust you’ve held good to your word—you’re not going after them this week?”

“No, not this week at any rate. Not that Arch has toned down his moralistic prose about the matter. I wish it were possible, but maybe you can tell me if it
is
possible, Dennis. Warfield is adamant that he and Frank had some kind of contract. I know I’ve asked you about it before, but it seems to me that whenever I find cause to get rid of
him he brings it up, as if I’m supposed to honor it in spite of the circumstances. I know you’ve said you know nothing about it, but …”

He put up a temporizing hand. “I’ll check it out again, Maggie. If he disturbs you that much, there must be a way to terminate him.”

“Thanks, Dennis. Anything else?”

There was a brief pause before he answered her. “Nothing you’d care to listen to.”

His tone was so bitter that she felt a pang. It would have worked out so wonderfully for him if he could have stepped into Frank’s shoes, she thought, as she looked away from him to avoid the pain in his eyes. But she never could have given herself to him, not with the abandon with which she had welcomed Logan’s desire—not Dennis, not ever. She couldn’t picture herself begging for his kisses and wanting to feel his hands on her.

When she looked at him she saw that the hot look in his eyes was still intense, still hopeful. “Don’t put that between us,” she said, reaching out her hand to touch his arm.

He pulled away from her pettishly. “You don’t have to console me, Maggie. I understand the situation clearly. All I want you to do is give me a chance to change your mind—when you’re ready.”

“How can I promise that?”

“Yes, well, we do go around in circles on this particular subject. Let’s just say a pleasant good afternoon then,” he muttered testily, and he mounted and left her standing there utterly nonplussed.

He hadn’t believed her, obviously. What had she told him? She didn’t want to give her life over to a man…. The irony of it. She had given one night to Logan Ramsey and look at how he controlled her thoughts already. She could concentrate on nothing else but the thought of
what was to come tonight.

Night fell finally. She was upstairs in her room trying to decide what to wear. Even the notion of taking this time to lay out a wardrobe that would give him the easiest access to her body amused her. She ought to be doing everything she could to obstruct his hands. But still, it was easy to dispense with the bothersome drawers and stockings and just wear the low-heeled kid boots as usual. A skirt … She had an old one that did not require the fasionable draping over a frame that was so impossible on the frontier. And she had a shirtwaist to go with it, but that seemed like too much. How daring did she think she could be?

How daring had he been?

She looked down at the plain cotton camisole she wore in place of the little corset he had destroyed last night. The remnants of her dress hung in her closet to remind her of everything exciting and forbidden. In truth, she needed to wear nothing more than this, and as she decided that she felt her body stiffen and her nipples peak against the soft, much washed material of the camisole.

She licked her lips uncertainly. She was making a statement by the way she dressed, she thought, and she had to be careful that it didn’t lead anywhere but the path
she
wanted to follow.

Nevertheless, as she donned a jacket over the camisole in preparation for the evening’s after dinner hour with Mother Colleran, she felt the edgy excitement possess her at the knowledge she was naked under those clothes and that very soon, she would be encouraging Logan to discover it too.

She was so aware of her nakedness as she sat with Mother Colleran. With every movement she made she could feel the hardness of her nipples against the
camisole and the mounding wetness of her femininity. Her desire flared like a living thing. She wondered that her mother-in-law could not read her salacious thoughts as she sat so decorously across the room from her and reveled in sensual anticipation.

Any moment, any moment … Mother Colleran went to bed. Reese had been long gone. She went to her room and removed her jacket. Ten minutes later, she slipped down the stairs and awaited Logan’s signal.

It came instantly, softly, impatiently, as though he had been waiting a long time. “Hurry,” she breathed, throwing herself into his arms so that the weight of them together eased the door closed. His lips were on hers before he was wholly in the room. His tongue entered her mouth with a long taut thrust, and she opened herself to receive him. A hot wanton wetness possessed her tongue, and she gave herself to it with total sensual abandon. He avidly tasted her all over again, as if he hadn’t spent hours exploring her mouth the night before.

She heard words somewhere in between his luscious kisses; she answered him, hardly breathing the words as his lips hovered above hers, seeking her lips even before she had finished speaking.

“Ah,” she murmured at each firm foray of his tongue between her lips. “I couldn’t wait … I couldn’t wait…” Her tongue sought his. “I couldn’t wait. Kiss me again. Don’t talk …” He didn’t talk. He kissed her and he kissed her, his tongue sliding all over her lips and into her mouth, reaching endlessly for the arousing lushness of her, easing away to murmur against her lips, nipping at her lips, her words inciting him with brazen sensuality as she demanded his kisses.