WM02 - Texas Princess (17 page)

She moved her hand over the scar covering his heart without hesitation, accepting it as a part of him, nothing more and nothing less. When he felt her perfect breast press against the twisted esh, Tobin fought back a groan of pure satisfaction.

His hand moved gently over her bandaged ribs. He wanted to feel more of her, but he’d not risk unwrapping the strips of cotton. At her waist, he shoved her trousers down.

When the esh of her hip l ed his hand, Tobin felt himself tremble. For a man who rationed feelings as if joy came rare and far between, the nearness of her was overwhelming.

Liberty pul ed an inch away, her hands stil framing his face. “It’s al right, Tobin. I want this.” He shoved his hand lower on her hip as she murmurred, “I want you to feel al of me.”

“But ...”

“Just this once,” she whispered as she moved against him. “And then we can go on pretending nothing ever happened. You don’t have to care for me, just hold me tonight.

Be mine tonight as if there is no world outside this place.”

He closed his eyes and pul ed her hips toward him, letting her settle against him.

He felt her surprise at the intimacy of what he’d done, but she wasn’t shy with him.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held tight. “Please love me. No matter what happens tomorrow, or every day of my life, I want to have this one night to remember. Please, Tobin.”

Tobin hoped his tender touch told her she wouldn’t have to ask again.

This might be the rst time for them both, but Tobin and Libby had no desire to tread lightly. Her ngers fumbled with the buttons of his trousers. “I’m tired of worrying about dying; for tonight I want to think only of living.”

“Al right, Libby,” he whispered as he moved his hand between them and unbuckled his belt.

He’d meant to go slow, to be careful of her bruised body and inexperience, but they were both new to this game and neither knew how to slow down. He kissed her with almost violent need as his hands stroked her, claiming every part of her, body.

“Love me,” she whispered softly when he opened her legs. “Please love me.”

She was hesitant when he brushed against her, more afraid that he’d pul away before he loved her than that he’d hurt her.

“You feel so good,” she heard him whisper as he touched her in her most private place.

Rol ing to her back, she waited, trying to control her breathing as he explored her.

His ngers, then his mouth, moved over her. He took deep breaths, breathing her in like an animal nding his mate. He tasted her esh, then kissed each spot as if wanting to erase his hunger for her. Again and again, he returned to her mouth, each time with more re, more need. His low groan of pleasure whispered in her ear, driving her mad with excitement.

She felt cherished, truly cherished, for the rst time in her life.

She’d expected him to move on top, but he stayed on his side, gently pul ing her to him until he entered her. When she cried out in surprise, he pushed hard, his hands on her hips keeping her from moving, his mouth against her ear whispering an apology.

Liberty buried her cry in his chest as he began to move inside her. She felt as if he were splitting her in half, body and soul... shattering her thoughts until there was nothing but him and what they were doing. His words were gentle, his hands rm, his entry into her consuming.

She whimpered as she clung to him, drifting with the hurt as she learned to move with him...as they became one.

He rocked back and forth until he washed the pain away with slow, even strokes of pleasure, each easing deeper inside her.

“Take al of me,” he whispered. “Open up to me, Libby.” He nuzzled her cheek. “There you go. Let me in.”

His words calmed her and his hands once more became a gentle caress over her body. She sighed and tasted his throat, biting softly where blood pulsed. When he kissed her forehead and turned her mouth to his, she opened wide to his familiar kiss, knowing what he wanted as he knew her.

He felt it when she began to enjoy their mating. She leaned her head back and pushed against him no longer passive, but now demanding attention. He let go of her hips and moved up to stroke her straining breasts as he rained kisses down her throat.

He tried to hold back as she began to moan softly, but this was al too new to him, too wonderful. With one last push, he shoved deep inside her and felt like his entire body exploded.

Holding on to her, he drifted free from gravity.

When his heart nal y settled and his mind could form thought, she had moved a few inches away from him. Her ngers were stil tangled in his hair. His hand spread wide across the soft esh of her stomach.

“Libby,” he whispered having no idea what to say. She’d just given him heaven.

“I know.” She laughed nervously. “It was nice.”

Tobin’s head fel back against the tree trunk with a hol ow sound and he wondered if it were his head or the tree that was void. His universe had just shattered, the earth had stop rotating, the sky had fal en into his heart, and al she could say was that it was nice.
Nice
wasn’t the word he would have chosen to describe his feelings.

He didn’t know if he had felt too much or she too little. What they’d done was something grand and wonderful, an act that bound two people together. She acted as if they’d just played a game of checkers.

He pul ed his trousers up and buckled his belt. “Yes,” he nal y managed. “It was nice.”

The feel of her was stil on his skin, the taste of her in his mouth, the dampness of her .

. . He had to stop thinking of what they’d just done—as she apparently had.

He could hear the sounds of her dressing. He leaned back and waited for her to regain her senses. She had every right to yel at him. He should have stopped them. He should have been reasonable even if she were not. Or maybe she’d start crying any moment. After al she’d just given him her virginity. Tobin groaned. Knowing her, she’d probably demand it back.

“You al right?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “You?”

“I’m ne.” She leaned back against him and he circled his arm around her once more as if they were old friends. “You’re not going to say something insane like you love me, are you?”

“No.” He gured the less he said the better at this point.

“Good. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a man who mutters of undying love when everyone with a brain knows love is a eeting thing at best that’s as likely to go as stay.”

Tobin rested his arm behind his head and stared up at the starless sky. Al he wanted to do was lie awake thinking of the paradise he’d just lived through and she wanted to talk. “You have a lot of experience with love, I suppose?” he nal y said.

“Of course I do. I’ve had gentlemen cal ers dropping by the house since I was fteen. A few wrote poetry, most brought owers, some attered me and everything I said.” She laughed. “One even said he’d kil himself if I wouldn’t marry him.”

Tobin thought of asking how many had touched her as he had, but he knew the answer. He also knew, thanks to his sister, that when a woman is thinking something through she likely as not does it out loud. So he let her talk. Cuddled up against him this way she could talk al night if she wanted to.

“I only let a few of them kiss me,” she said simply. “Mostly on the cheek.”

“So, why did you let me”—he paused, then decided to take the safest route—“kiss you?”

She lay her hand over his chest. “You have it wrong.” She yawned. “I kissed you.”

Libby straightened and Tobin felt the point of her elbow sink into his chest. “I had a longing for you, something awful, but now it’s past and we can go back to being friends.”

Before Tobin could think of an answer, she curled back against him. Within minutes her slow breathing told him she was asleep.

Tobin tried to sleep. Maybe in the morning he’d nd out this had al been a dream. One hel of a dream. At some point tonight reality and wishing col ided. He wasn’t even sure how it had happened.

But he did know one thing. Dream or real, come morning the longing for Libby would stil l his every thought. It might be over for her, but for him it was just starting.

chapter 14

Y

when Tobin woke, Libby was gone. For a

moment he felt her loss like a blow. Then reality registered and he wondered if she’d ever been by his side. He’d thought about her endlessly in the midnight hours of each night when he couldn’t sleep. A few times he’d even walked over to where she rested, and pul ed her blanket up to her shoulder, wishing he could join her there. But then he’d walked away and waited for dawn in the shadows thinking of what it would be like if she came to him.

And last night she had.

He didn’t think he had the imagination to dream up what had happened between them.

He could stil feel her skin on his ngers and the scent of her hair lingered in his lungs.

She’d been wild and free, not the proper princess he’d seen before.

Tobin stood suddenly. He had a job to do. He had to get her to Whispering Mountain.

He’d not spend time thinking of what happened last night. There would be time enough for that when he got her to safety. Even without the captain fol owing, there were dangers this far north, dangers she probably didn’t even want to know about.

As he walked toward the cold campre, he noticed both Libby and Stel a were stil asleep. Sometime in the night she’d left him. He felt a strange mixture of sadness and anger. She’d left without a word. Liberty Mayeld had changed his world forever, then simply walked away.

Fog stil hung over the camp in spiderweb wisps. He built up the campre and had coffee on by the time Libby rol ed over.

She smiled up at him. “I had the nicest dream last night.”

That word again, he thought. He’d never considered the possibility anyone could hate a word, but that one was starting to get on his nerves.

“Me too.” Stel a stretched, unaware she’d barged into a private conversation. “I dreamed I was eating at a banquet with food spread al over the table. About the time I was ready to dig in, I glanced over and saw a six-foot rat sitting next to me, al dressed up like King George. He smiled at me with his pointed teeth like I was the next course.”

Libby laughed. “I’ve been to a few state dinners just like that.”

Now they were both giggling. Tobin didn’t see anything funny so he kept quiet. He wanted to hold what happened in the night close to him for a while, just the way he’d held Libby.

“What’s for breakfast?” Stel a asked as she shook her curly hair sending it into a tumbleweed style.

“Coffee,” Tobin answered, “and a few pieces of jerky. But, if we ride hard today, we could be at the ranch tonight for supper.”

Libby accepted a cup of hot coffee without touching To-bin’s ngers as she had the evening before.

He watched her in silence. In truth, he wasn’t sure what to say.

“We leave at ful light,” he said as he moved to the horses giving the girls time to do whatever women do when they need time alone. He almost wished Libby would fol ow him.

If she did, he’d pul her out of the maid’s sight and revisit a few places along her body that he’d gotten to know quite wel . He’d never known a woman could be so soft or taste so good.

Tobin muttered an oath. He had to get his mind on the danger ahead and away from the shadows of last night. He had to think of her safety, not of her ripe body that welcomed his touch, or the way she’d kissed his throat when she’d rst felt joy in their mating.

He swore again. At this rate he’d be lucky to remember the way to his own home. He had to think of what needed to be done, not what he wanted to repeat.

When he returned with the horses watered and saddled, the women were ready. Tobin avoided looking at Libby as she walked past him and took the reins of her mount.

“Morning, Sunny,” she whispered as she showered the horse with more attention then she’d shown him.

Then, to his surprise, she swung up on her saddle before he had time to offer help.

Stel a did the same.

Tobin led them toward Whispering Mountain. He knew this last leg wel . The land was, for the most part, open and sparsely settled. It was also the most dangerous portion of the journey. If Buchanan hadn’t been able to pick up their trail from the senator’s ranch, he might send men ahead. It wouldn’t take much investigating to learn that as far as everyone knew, there was only one way into Whispering Mountain. Men on good horses could have taken the wagon road and already be at the bridge. A dozen men could be waiting for them to arrive.

Tobin knew they had to get to the bridge that joined his land to Texas before dark.

Otherwise, they could easily be ambushed.

He considered taking them through the hidden route over the hil s, but no one had ever traveled that way except family.

Besides, to go that way would take him too close to town and increase their chances of being seen.

Tobin grinned remembering one exception to the familyonly rule: Martha, the housekeeper. Teagen had been forced to bring her that way because the boys had burned the bridge that spring when they learned of their father’s death. She’d been al spit and vinegar when she’d seen them, claiming the boys were more animals than human, but she’d loved baby Sage so the brothers tried to fol ow her orders.

“What’s so funny?” Libby asked as she pul ed her horse up beside him.

Tobin smiled at her. “I was thinking it wil be good to be home.”

Libby nodded. “I feel the same way when I get close to Washington.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Do you think we’re stil being fol owed?”

Tobin shook his head. “If Buchanan thinks you were kidnapped, he’s not likely to think I’l bring my kidnapped victim home. But if the captain is smart enough to realize you weren’t kidnapped, but rescued, then Whispering Mountain wil be the rst place he’l look.”

Libby fol owed Tobin’s thinking. “The men who ambushed my father, if they’re looking for me, wil think the same thing.”

Tobin hated to admit that he agreed. But whoever came would have to kil him rst to get to Libby, and he didn’t plan on making that easy.