8
Stillness gripped the night.
Sister Angelina was snoring. Paloma hadn’t moved in over half an hour. Their fire was low. The brisk wind had died and the wolves and coyotes had fallen silent.
Skye Fargo stood and walked from the fire into the veil of ink. Without being asked, Dalila followed. She wore a bold, almost brazen expression, as if she did this sort of thing all the time. A nervous tic to her mouth and the way her fingers kept twining suggested otherwise.
Fargo wasn’t worried the bandits would pay them a visit. From what he’d overheard, Yago and his friends were to sit tight until Fermin Terreros showed up.
When he was sure they had gone far enough, he turned. His eyes had adjusted and he saw her flash a nervous smile. He also admired the contours of her luscious body. He put his hands on his hips and waited for her to make the first move.
Dalila coughed. “Well,” she said.
“I’m plumb out of flowers,” Fargo said.
“Those would be nice, wouldn’t they? But I guess a girl can’t have everything.” Dalila fiddled with a button. “I’m sorry. But now that we’re about to do it, I want to run off and hide.”
“No one is forcing you.”
“That doesn’t make it easier.” Dalila ran her hands along her arms as if to warm them. “You must think I’m being silly.”
“Some things can’t be rushed.”
“Thank you.” Dalila looked at the ground and at the stars and back at their fire and at the bandit fire, but not him. “God,” she said. “I had it all worked out in my head, how it would go. I would say I was ready and you would take me in your arms and smother me with hot kisses and then lay me down and you would know just what to do, and I would, too.”
“One of us does,” Fargo said. “The other only thinks she does.”
“I haven’t told you this before but you are wise for a gringo.”
“I’m also getting hard.”
“How do you . . .” Dalila glanced at the junction of his legs and lightly exclaimed, “Oh. I see what you mean.”
Fargo was willing to be patient with her although her jabber was grating on his ears. “Either we do or we don’t.”
“Please,” she said.
“Life is never simple.”
“I am not as cynical as you. My family is poor but until this happened I have had a good life.” Dalila gestured at him. “I just can’t believe I am throwing myself at you.”
“If this is throwing,” Fargo said, “I’d hate to see when you crawl.”
“Must you mock me? Can’t you tell I’m scared?” Dalila’s next comment was barely audible. “More scared than I have ever been.”
“Slow and easy does it,” Fargo said, and reaching out, he pulled her to him. She came willingly into his arms. He hugged her and felt her tremble like a frightened fawn. Gently, he ran his hand over her hair and down her back. She went stiff from head to toe.
“I don’t know if I can do this, senor.”
“You want to stop, you only have to say.” Fargo lightly kissed her hair and her forehead and her cheek. Her eyes were as wide as walnuts. He placed a hand on her leg above the knee and she gasped so he took it off again.
“Oh God,” she said.
Fargo let go of her. “If you’re this afraid, maybe we should stop. Save yourself for your husband.”
“If we stop I will never have one,” Dalila said. “I will be cursed to wear a habit the rest of my life.”
“We can always pretend. Tell the nuns we made love and when they ask me I’ll say it’s true.”
“You would lie for me?”
“I’ll stretch the truth when there’s good cause,” Fargo said. “You shouldn’t have to spend the rest of your life miserable.”
“My own sentiments, senor,” Dalila said. “I will do what I must.” Suddenly she pressed against him so they were flush from shoulders to hips and turned her face up to his. “Please,” she said. Then again, almost pleading, “Please.”
Fargo kissed her. He thought she might hold back but she returned the kiss fiercely, grinding her lips so hard, it hurt. He was the one who broke it and said, “No need to be so rough.”
“Show me how. Show me everything.”
Cupping her chin, Fargo kissed her several times, the touch of his lips as light as a feather. He kissed her cheek and her neck and nipped an earlobe. She shivered, then did the same to him. Fargo slid his hands to her lower back and she moved her hips invitingly. His right hand dropped to her backside, and she tensed again.
“A little too fast.”
Fargo remedied that. He slowly kissed her mouth and slowly licked her throat and slowly slid his hand down and covered her bottom. She tensed again, but not as much. He kneaded her and locked lips. Her mouth parted, his tongue found hers, and they stayed locked in their embrace for a good long while.
Dalila pressed her brow to his chest and whispered something.
“I didn’t hear what you said.”
“That was nice.”
“Want more?” Fargo teased.
Dalila’s need got the better of her. Her next kiss was molten. Her body grew hotter.
She didn’t touch him much, though, except to grip him by the shoulders. She was like a baby taking its first steps; unsure of herself, awkward, yet trying.
Fargo thought he heard a slight sound behind him. Spinning, he drew his Colt. It could have been a stealthy footstep.
“What is the matter?” Dalila whispered.
Fargo put a finger to her lips. She nodded and pressed against his side, against his right arm. Shifting, he pulled her around to his left. He didn’t move after that, and thankfully she had the presence of mind to imitate him. The seconds crawled by, and at last he said, “I guess it was nothing.”
“Don’t do that to me,” Dalila said. “I could hardly breathe. I was afraid it was bandits or Apaches.”
Fargo slid the Colt into his holster and enfolded her in his arms. “Now where were we, pretty lady?”
Dalila wriggled and asked, “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“If it wasn’t I wouldn’t do this.” Fargo kissed her and cupped her bottom. She mewed as he lifted her bodily and ground himself against her. They fondled and caressed and explored, Dalila growing bolder with the passing minutes. When he squeezed a breast through her dress, she cooed. When he glided a hand down her thighs, she moaned. And when he slid the same hand between her legs and stroked, her fingernails dug into his arms.
Fargo’s veins pulsed to the hammering beat of lust. He pried at her dress, baring her full twin globes. Shyly, she sought to cover herself but he gently brushed her hand away and swooped his mouth to a nipple. She rose onto the tips of her toes and pulled his head hard into her.
“Yessssss,” she whispered.
Flicking and kneading, Fargo added to her arousal. She groaned and parted her legs wider to grant him access. He hiked her dress and the thin chemise she wore underneath and plunged his fingers up and under the warm folds. At the first brush she arched her back and her ruby lips parted. He thought she was going to cry out but she sank her teeth into his shoulder and moaned. He parted her nether lips. Suddenly she fastened her mouth to his as if to suck him into her.
Around them the night was a black mantle. Fargo knew he should stay alert for sounds and movement but he was losing himself in his need. His pole throbbed for release, and when she rubbed against him, he almost exploded.
Dalila said a few words in Spanish under her breath that Fargo didn’t catch. He licked her neck, pulled her hair, sculpted her backside. Gradually their passion climbed until the tremulous moment on the cusp of entry. He lifted her and was poised to thrust but instead he penetrated her slowly. There was brief resistance, and moist velvet.
Fargo made their coupling last. He held off for as long as he could, as long as he ever had. She became a thrashing cyclone of desire, her inhibitions shattered in the urgency of her craving. She bit him; she clawed him. They soared to a peak higher than the mountains, and then came the torrent. Dalila uttered a soft strangled sob, and gushed. It was the trigger for his release. He pounded and rammed and she locked her legs and rode him.
Exhausted, spent, they collapsed on the ground. She cuddled against him and he caressed her hair and closed his eyes. Sleep tugged at him, welcome rest after the long day, but he fought it off. Not yet, he told himself. Be smart.
“We have to get back.”
“Sí,” Dalila said, but she made no move to rise or pull herself together.
“I mean it.”
“Sí.”
Fargo gently shook her. “We can’t stay out here by ourselves. Your sister and Angelina need guarding.”
“Mi hermana pequena,” Dalila said dreamily, and giggled. “She really wants to be a nun. To waste her life in a prison.”
“A convent doesn’t have bars on the windows,” Fargo said.
“It would be a prison to me.” Dalila opened her eyes. “But now I can live a normal life. The life I want, and not as my mother wants.” She gave him a hard, near-savage kiss. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
Fargo grinned. “Anytime.”
“How about tomorrow night? And the night after that? And if I can persuade Mother Superior to let you take me home, every night until we get there.”
“Damn, girl.”
Dalila gave a toss of her head. “No, senor. I am a niña no longer. You have made me a woman.”
“You helped,” Fargo said.
She laughed and kissed his neck. “Amazing, is it not? Here we are, deep in the mountains with banditos after us, and this is the happiest moment of my life.”
“Don’t get too happy,” Fargo cautioned. “Those bandits catch us, they’ll turn us into worm food.”
“Do not worry. I am not stupid. Mother Superior has told me all about Yago and the man he rides with, that awful Fermin Terreros.”
“What can you tell me about him? How long has he been robbing and killing?”
“For as long as I can remember,” Dalila said. “Terreros is evil. They say he takes the lives of others like other men breathe. They say he likes it. He likes to hurt and to torture.” She shuddered. “They also say that he and his men rape a lot of women. They rape them and then they cut them open and leave them to die.”
She sounded so upset, Fargo looked her in the eyes and said, “I won’t let that happen to you.”
“Or Paloma, I hope. But you are one man and Terreros has twenty riding with him. All of them as vile as he is.”
Fargo regretted not running off those horses. He had to come up with something else, and quickly. “Get dressed,” he said, and rose. He hitched at his pants and settled his gun belt around his hips and patted the Colt.
Dalila moved slower. “I wish I could lie here with you the rest of the night. Just the two of us and the stars.”
“Hurry up,” Fargo said.
“What is your hurry?” Dalila smiled dreamily. “We have all the time in the world, my wonderful lover.”
Fargo gazed down the mountain at the bandit’s fire. “Not if they have anything to say about it.”
Dalila began tying her chemise. “I was thinking about after we have taken my sister to the convent. Will you come live with us or will I come live with you?”
“What?”
She clasped his hand and pressed it to her bosom. “Now that I am yours and you are mine, we will be together forever.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Us,” Dalila said. “We can live with my mother and father until we find a place of our own. She will be mad at first but once she sees how much we care for each other and how good you are to me, she will accept you as her son-in-law.”
“Oh, hell,” Fargo said.
“What is wrong? You care for me, yes? Or you would not have made love to me with such fire.”
“Sure I would,” Fargo said.
Dalila delightedly squeezed him. “You are everything I hoped you would be, my handsome gringo.”
“Oh, hell, hell.”
“Why do you keep saying that? Surely you know that when a man and woman do as we have done, the man must do the honorable thing.”
Fargo had been to Santa Fe before, and to southern California where Spanish culture still held sway. Those of Spanish stock were romantic by nature, and placed a high value on marriage. So much so, fathers were wrathfully protective of their daughters. A suitor who presumed to go too far was often compelled to walk the daughter to the altar at the point of a shotgun or a machete. “You never said anything about this before.”
Dalila shrugged as if it were of no consequence. “I took it for granted you understood. Anyone would.”
“You told me it was to save you from the convent.”
“Yes, there is that, too.”
“Too?” Fargo said.
“Why do you act so shocked?”
“There was more to this than you let on.”
“The important thing is that I have wanted you since I first set eyes on you, and now I am yours forever and ever.”
“Wonderful,” Fargo said.
Dalila laughed and kissed him on the lips. “Yes, isn’t it marvelous?”