NINE

Before Elizabeth could so much as jump, she was facedown on the ground, held there by a firm hand at her back. Oddly, her first thought was that this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined him flattening her. She craned her neck awkwardly and saw Kane in a half crouch over her, using the scraggly shrubs that lined the edge of the ledge for cover as he scanned the grounds below them.

Not for the first time she wondered exactly what he’d done over the years to instill such a strong awareness of his surroundings. She’d chalked it up to his background, the instinctive responses and intuitiveness possibly due to his early years on the reservation. Now she wasn’t so sure.

She pushed that aside as well. The bottom line was that no matter his past, no matter how unwise it was, she’d entrusted him with her safety. Her life. Judging from the strain radiating from his every pore and the echo of that horrible single scream from Sky Dancer still ringing in her ears, she suspected she just might be putting that faith to the test very soon.

“Kane?” she whispered as softly as she could.

He immediately bent low, pressing his lips to her ear. “Nothing. I don’t know what spooked her. I can’t see her from here.”

Elizabeth tensed. “Is she—?”

“I’m not sure. She could be behind the barn. The paddock she was in is partially blocked.” He took his hand from her back, but remained almost prone beside her. “Stay here until I signal you to come down.”

“But—”

“Do it, Annie.” He paused, then a harsh whisper filled her ear. “You said earlier you couldn’t afford to worry for me.” Another short pause. “I can’t for you either. Promise me that you’ll stay here until I come back or signal.”

Stunned by the fierceness of his plea, she was slow to answer.

“Promise me!”

She shifted slightly until she could look him square in the face. “Okay! But I’m not helpless.” She swallowed against the denial that shone in his eyes. “This is my life in jeopardy, you can’t expect me not to take an active part in protecting it.”

He shook his head, his expression one of supreme frustration. “Just keep your word, we’ll discuss the rest later.”

In a silent second, he disappeared back down the path. Elizabeth pounded the dirt with her fist, then scooted as close as she dared to the overlook. He hadn’t made her promise not to keep watch over him.

Kane moved swiftly, finding it harder than usual to keep his mind singularly on the task at hand.

I’m not married. Her words rang over and over through his mind as he picked his way closer to the cover of the barn. He searched his soul desperately for the relief that should have accompanied such an announcement. After all, wasn’t that what he’d wanted? Dreamed of? Fantasized about? Beholdened to no one? Free to come to him?

He slipped silently through the opening in the back of the barn where he’d removed several rotting boards. He bit back an oath. The answer was yes. But he was a truly selfish bastard because he wanted more. So much more. For her. For himself. The bitter truth of just how brutally honest he’d been when he’d said he had nothing to offer her burned his throat like acid. There would be no relief, no celebration. Because the outcome hadn’t changed. He was a wanderer. A bounty hunter. They had no future.

His eyes quickly adapted to the pre-evening light that cast the barn in deep shadows. He was alone.

Yeah. He was that all right.

Shoving all thoughts from his mind save making sure the grounds were clear and that Annie was safe, he pressed against the front door, then slid outside. He kept his back to the weathered planking as he moved slowly toward the paddock. In the next instant, all hell broke loose.

Another equine scream rent the air, and as swiftly as he covered the remaining space, he was still too late. Bucking and writhing under her rider, Sky Dancer tried desperately to unseat the stranger.

Kane slid his knife from the sheath on his belt, wishing he had the rifle that was in the bunkhouse. Holding the blade, he balanced the weight in his fingers and waited for the exact moment to let it fly. Unseat him and disable him, but keep him alive for questioning. The mental strategy was automatic. The rider wore baggy clothes and a dusty hat crammed low on his head. Kane couldn’t make much of an ID, other than that he was tall and slender as Kane had predicted. But he’d bet his life it was the same mercenary who had tailed him out of Boise.

Kane shifted his weight, preparing to throw, but just then the rider brought a stick down hard on Sky Dancer’s flanks and the mare shot forward.

With a bloodcurdling whoop, Kane left his cover, fury at the mistreatment of his horse, changing the aim of his throwing arm to dead center. Even as the mare wildly charged the fence at the opposite end of the paddock, her rider turned and leveled a gun on Kane.

Kane crouched just as the report echoed across the ground, then ducked through the rails into the paddock. As he took aim, the horse and rider cleared the fence and went racing across the side field toward a dense stand of trees.

Kane quickly changed course, knowing he had no hope of catching them on foot, but praying that in her frenzy, Sky Dancer would stick with the familiar and take the trail to the stream that lay in the direction they’d fled.

He skirted the front of the house and let loose a string of curses. The truck’s tires had been slashed. With pursuit no longer an option, he switched his mind instinctively back to his immediate surroundings. He hadn’t had the time to check for additional prints, but he couldn’t risk that the stranger had returned alone. He quickly scouted the perimeter of the house, then the interior, before moving to the bunkhouse.

“Dammit!” He sheathed his knife and scooped up his now-empty saddlebag from the corner where he’d stashed it. Some of the contents were strewn across the dusty planked floor, but he didn’t bother searching through it. It was obvious the rifle was gone. He flung the bags hard against the opposite wall. The sun was on its descent, there was no way off the mountain, and the only thing he had to keep them safe was a seven-inch knife and his wits.

He swore again. About the only damn thing in the world he had to be thankful for right now was that Annie had stayed out of the line of fire.

That and the fact that she’d had the good sense not to marry the son of a bitch who was trying to kill her.

Because he’d hate like hell to be the one to make her a widow.

Knowing she’d heard the gunshot, Kane bottled his fury and turned his thoughts to getting back up the trail, wondering how much he was going to tell her.

A rustling sound beyond the warped walls stilled him in midstride. Whoever it was, was moving slowly, stealthily. He gave himself a swift mental kick as he moved to a position flat beside the only door. First, he’d obviously missed a track somewhere, and then he’d made enough ruckus in here to alert an army. At this rate he’d be lucky if he kept Annie alive till sundown. Determination and a fierce rush of protectiveness surged through him, putting him on the razor edge of readiness.

Kane made his move the split instant the intruder moved inside the door. In the space of a heartbeat, he’d slammed him against the wall and held him there with an arm across his solar plexus and a shiny, very lethal knife against the pulse on his neck.

Only it wasn’t a he.

Adrenaline pumping through him like a locomotive, combined with the instant understanding of what he’d almost done, ripped his control to shreds. The result was a barrage of bilingual swearing that put the fear of the devil in her eyes.

“Dammit, Annie!” he yelled finally, then still unable to regain control, he buried his knife deep in the wood a foot above her head. He removed his arm from her chest and pinned her to the wall by her wrists, pushing his nose straight up against hers. “You promised to stay put.”

She gulped. Several times. Her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen. Her chest barely moved as she fought to draw in a shallow breath.

He wasn’t having that problem. His heart was fighting its way out of his chest while his lungs were yanking air in. Trying and failing to calm down, he slid her hands upward until he could hold them over her head in one hand. With the other he gripped her chin. He knew he was scaring her very badly, but dammit …! Very slowly, his voice barely more than a ragged growl, he said, “I could have slit your throat.”

“I’m … sorry.” Her voice was a croak of sound.

“Sorry?” His tone was pure hard steel.

“I heard … the gunshot.” She shuddered. “The barn blocked my view.” Her eyes reflected the wild anxiety she’d experienced, but he didn’t move.

“So you crept around the building, making enough noise to alert the dead.” Now he shuddered. “What if it hadn’t been me in here? Huh? Did you stop to think you might have walked in on the man your fiancé sent up here to kill you?”

Another tremor rippled through her. “I couldn’t wait,” was all she said. She gulped again, her voice taking on a slight quaver. “I had to know if you were okay,” she ended on a whisper.

“Well, I’m not.”

Her eyes widened farther, although with apprehension of an entirely different sort. “You were … The bullet—?”

“No bullet. Just a woman who can’t keep a promise, taking years off my life by almost ending hers. At my hands. Dammit, Annie.” His words ended on a ragged whisper. He was still breathing hard, but the edge of his fury was wearing off.

“I tried. I meant to. But after the gunshot … I couldn’t wait up there forever. I’m sorry I scared you.” Her voice faltered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His anger fled, but the intensity mounted. It hit him all at once. Her body pinned between his bare chest and the wall. Her breasts brushing his damp skin now as she drew deeper breaths. Her brown eyes staring at him as if in that moment, he was her entire world, her only focus.

His body leapt in response.

Then it changed for her too. He saw it first in her eyes. The trepidation and apology were slowly erased by the dawning of keen awareness. Awareness of the unique disadvantages of her position. And of the equally unique advantages of his.

His blood pressure surged upward again along with another part of his anatomy, when he saw the flicker of excitement dance in her eyes as the dangerous edge they were walking on beckoned to her, erotic and tempting. His pulse shattered its earlier speed the instant her lips parted on a soft moan as temptation became acceptance.

All rational thought fled. Primordial. Visceral. Basic. That was the level he was operating on now.

Keeping her wrists pinned to the wall with one hand, he reached over her head and yanked the knife from the wall. He held it between them, the blade reflecting a glittering silver in the black centers of her eyes.

“Do you trust me, Annie?”

She dipped her chin. “Yes,” she whispered.

He rested the flat edge of the blade tip on the bridge of her nose. “Still?”

“Yes.”

He slowly traced the blade down her nose, letting it rest briefly on the plump center of her lower lip, exerting the slightest pressure. Her lips parted. He moved the blade to her chin, down to the hollow at the base of her throat.

“And now?”

“Yes.” The word was raw, hoarse.

He lowered his gaze and trailed the shiny shaft between her breasts, the enticing crevice made deeper by the knotted T-shirt she wore. “Then why didn’t you stay up there, where I knew you were safe?”

He felt the shivers racing through her vibrate the blade. He held very still.

“I thought you were hurt.”

Kane wedged the tip of the blade into the knotted fabric tied beneath her breasts. He risked a glance back to her face. Her eyes flared with a sensual heat that rocked him, and pulsing just below the surface was frustration. “I don’t underestimate you, little sun. There is a time for instinct, even for reckless behavior.” He pushed the knife deeper into the knot. “But there is also a time when I have to be able to count on you to do as I ask.”

A slight smile curved his lips. He knew how she felt. His frustration stemmed from the same unmet need.

“I know.” Her breathing was becoming more erratic, the pulse in her throat fairly vibrated the soft skin covering it. Yet she held his gaze, not flinching, not moving, the light in her eyes not receding one damn bit.

Sweet Lord, how he wanted her. Needed her.

He flipped the knife suddenly, and the knot shredded. He saw her fight the instinctive inhalation as her breasts were freed from the T-shirt’s restraint. The torn edges draped over her sharply defined nipples, the ends hanging limply against her stomach. She didn’t move.

“I’m trying to protect you. Risking my life for it.” He stabbed the knife back into the wood over her head, and released her hands. Pressing his hands on the wall on either side of her face, he leaned closer to her, so their lips were barely a breath apart. “You say you trust me, little sun.”

He felt tremors begin to rock him too. His will to see this through close to disintegrating. He let his gaze drift from her eyes down to her lips, then back up. “I need to be able to trust you too.”

Elizabeth felt as if he’d welded her to the wall, the heat in his eyes was so intense. His concentration on her was profoundly ardent, so much so that she only now realized her hands were still pressed to the rough wood above her head. “You can,” she whispered. “You can, Hawk.”

Her lips parted in anticipation of feeling his mouth on hers. Lord knew the coil of need he’d aroused in her had gone from exquisite to downright violent. A low moan tore from her throat when she realized he wasn’t done with her yet. His lips hovered just above hers. He didn’t kiss her. He kept his hands flat against the rough planking as he moved closer, crowding her tightly to the wall, pinning her hips beneath his thighs, pressing his own into her belly. His arousal was full and hard.

“Say it again, Da’bEntcotc. Little sun, say my name.”

“Eyes of the Hawk.”

He groaned, his hips bucking against her, and she thought he would surely take her mouth then. A sound somewhere between a cry and a whimper escaped her throat when he did not.

“What’s wrong, little sun?” he demanded, his voice low and provoking.

“You’re killing me.”

He shifted, rubbing his chest back and forth just enough to peel the shirt from her breasts. The sudden feel of his smooth, hot flesh against her painfully swollen nipples made her moan loudly.

Then it hit her. He was stronger, far more powerful than she, could easily take what she was so obviously ready and willing to give. But he didn’t. He had her so aroused, it had taken her a while to figure out why.

She let her hands drop to his shoulders. Another low groan rumbled in his chest, barely escaping his tightly compressed lips. Encouraged, she moved her fingers slowly over the deep, rounded contours of his muscles. He shivered as her fingers slipped into the silky black hair that lay long against his neck. She moaned and dug her fingers deeper into his hair until she could grip his head between her hands.

His eyes blazed so hot, she thought she would catch flame, his rigid arousal twitched and throbbed, rubbing the denim of his jeans against her belly. Otherwise he kept utterly still. She could feel his sweat trickle down the center of his chest and into the crease formed by her breasts. She could smell the musky scent of him.

Elizabeth had never felt so alive, so completely aware of her body, her senses, her sensuality. And the knowledge that Kane was experiencing the same thing was intoxicating. His self-restraint had forced them to a point of such heightened sensitivity, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it. Nothing in her life had ever come close to this. But then, she’d never known a man like Hawk.

Her grip tightened, and she slowly brought his mouth down to hers. The first touch of his lips was electrifying, like a thousand bolts of energy zapping each and every nerve ending. She teased him with her tongue, pushing it just inside his mouth then retreating. He didn’t follow her lead, simply went on letting her kiss him.

That only served to heighten her desire to an even greater pitch. She thrust her tongue deeply into his mouth, twining it with his, dancing with it, flirting with it, demanding that he respond to her.

“Hawk,” she pleaded against his lips when he still refused to take the initiative.

“What?”

“Kiss me back, damn you.” She was past being shy. Past worrying about how she sounded. She knew damn well he wanted her as fiercely as she wanted him. “You told me there was a time for reckless behavior,” she ground out. “Well, if this isn’t that time, I don’t know what is.”

He pulled against her grip, moving his head just far enough away to look into her eyes. Shockingly, he smiled. A full smile, a devilishly wicked smile.

“Oh, I’d say you’re being far more reckless than you realize right now.” His smile faded, desire crowding out any last trace of humor. “I just wanted you to understand that everything—trust, desire, power, vulnerability—it all goes both ways between us.”

His quietly spoken words zeroed straight to her heart. She looked deeply into his eyes, trying to see if his soul was reflected there, knowing it made no difference any longer. She loved this man. Her dark warrior with a heart that deserved to be cherished.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “I understand.”

“Good.”

Elizabeth moved in the same instant Kane did, his hands dove into her hair, hers framed his face. She met his lips halfway across the breath of space between them. They joined fiercely, roughly. Softly, wetly. She took his tongue into her mouth and bathed it with her own, he pulled it back then took hers, pulling on it, drinking from it.

She writhed against him, the ache between her legs overwhelming her, screaming at her for release. She pushed against him, glad for his weight pressing on her, knowing if he stepped away now, she’d slide to the floor in a boneless heap. He moved his hands down to her shoulders, then leaned away so he could cup her breasts.

She cried out when he rubbed a callused thumb over her engorged nipple, then again when his mouth and tongue followed. He teased and soothed one while his fingers tortured the other until she thought she’d explode.

Suddenly he grabbed her shoulders and lifted her up the wall. When he pressed against her again, she felt him hard, heavy and throbbing. It was excruciating, it was exquisite. Instinct guided her, and she immediately wrapped her legs around his waist. He groaned into her hair and rocked against her. Her face was buried in his neck and when his body began to establish a steady rhythm she sunk her teeth into the tight skin stretched across his shoulder.

He didn’t even flinch, but she was barely aware of anything at this point except the overwhelming need to remove the barriers preventing them from completing what they’d begun, to put out the inferno they’d started or go up in flames with it. Something, anything, or she was going to die.

“Hold on to me,” he commanded, swallowing her positive response in another heated kiss.

She locked her ankles behind his back. He grabbed her hips and pulled her against him as he turned away from the wall and stumbled to the bed behind them.

He sat down so she was in his lap, never once letting his lips leave hers. He ran his hands up her back and down her arms, peeling the tattered remnants of her shirt from her body. Then he pushed her back. “Let me look at you.” His voice was raw, barely intelligible.

The light had grown dim, but she could plainly see—and feel—how arousing her nakedness was to him. Her response was innate. She reached up and cupped her breasts in her hands, even daring to let her fingertips brush provocatively over her nipples.

“Sweet God, you’re incredible,” he intoned, then continued to talk to her, telling her what she made him feel, at some point slipping into his native tongue.

She understood it all, there was no mistaking his meaning. She reached for his hands and placed them on her, then let go to caress him as well.

He drew his hands up to her face, framing her cheeks. “I need you. Beneath me, over me, through me. With me. No threats of the past, no promises of tomorrow. We know only here, control only what happens between us now.”

Elizabeth felt a sharp stinging behind her eyes. She wanted desperately to tell him she loved him, wipe the doubt from his mind, make him believe in the power they shared only together. Except she knew he would believe it was her agitated state of arousal talking.

Instead she let everything she felt for him shine in her eyes as she repeated his words back to him. “I need you too. Beneath me, over me, inside me. No threats of the past …” she paused, but couldn’t force the rest out. Because she couldn’t lie to him. “If you want nothing from me past today, Hawk, I will grant you that freedom. But I won’t lie to you, because if I have any control over tomorrow, I will try to make it as special as today.”

A great shudder ripped through him, and he yanked her to him, burying his face against her neck as he wrapped his arms around her. She thought she felt a hot warmth on her shoulder, but she didn’t have time to think about it, because in the next instant she was flat on her back and they were clawing each other’s pants off.

In the tumult, they rolled from the bunk to the floor. Kane cushioning her with his big, hard body. She gasped as her legs tangled with his, his bold erection thrusting between her newly bared legs. He moved swiftly onto the pile of mangled cotton and denim they’d just discarded. “Annie—”

“Yes!” She tried to shift under him to ease the fierce ache clawing at her, but couldn’t.

“Slow—I … need … to …” His words ended in a harsh gasp as she arched under him.

She was beyond comprehending his words, only that she had to have him inside her. Now.

“Sweet mother of—” His rough words were broken off as he groped for his pants, which were pinned under her shoulder, struggling briefly, cursing loudly, then finally freeing his wallet from the back pocket.

Kane barely managed to protect himself before Elizabeth was tugging at his shoulders, pulling his hips into the cradle of hers. The tip of him nudged her, and she buried her face against his chest; kissing him, licking him, biting him.

“Hawk,” she panted, wrapping her legs around his hips.

“Little sun,” he responded, then thrust into her, fully and completely.

She sunk her fingers into his back, immediately moving against him, pushing as hard, arching as high as she could, unable to get enough of him.

He shook, his forearms showing the strain as he locked them into place above her shoulders. Then he released a mighty groan and began to move, faster, harder. Deeper with every thrust.

Elizabeth met his every stroke, her own cries becoming louder and louder. The pressure built higher, faster, tighter until she screamed with it.

He kissed her, swallowing her screams into his throat, giving her back a few of his as he continued the relentless pace they both demanded.

Then he suddenly shifted his weight back. Gripping her hips, keeping them joined, he moved to his knees, resting his weight on his heels.

“Look at me!”

Her eyes flew open, she hadn’t even remembered shutting them.

“Almost there, little sun.”

Pinning her with his hot black gaze, never breaking the steady pounding rhythm, he slipped one hand from her hip and let it slide into the tangle of blond curls at the juncture of her thighs where his flesh met hers. He pushed his thumb against her, and she bucked wildly.

“Yeah, come apart for me. For me.”

And she did. Like a million fireworks exploding simultaneously, she climaxed, clenching him tightly with spasms that rocked her over and over.

He reached for her shoulders, pulling her up to him and wrapping his arms around her to hold her tight to his chest.

“Hold me,” he rasped against the hair tangled at her temple. And with her legs and arms locked tightly around him, his lips open on hers, he came apart in her. For her.

Kane opened his eyes for the second time since Annie had fallen asleep in his arms. Judging by the slant of the moonlight coming through the small bunkhouse window, it was past midnight. Her breathing was deep and steady as it had been several hours earlier when he’d woken and lifted her to the cot. When she didn’t awaken, he’d slipped outside to run a quick check on the grounds. No new tracks.

He lifted a hand to the wild tangle of red curls that lay across his chest, smiling when he tried to picture her with hair the same shade of blond as the other sweet nest of curls. He’d thought about moving her—them—to the main house, but she was sleeping so soundly when he’d returned from his little mission, he’d been unable to resist sliding back under the thin blanket and wrapping himself around the warmth of her body. She’d curled right into him, and he’d fallen asleep without even realizing it. Until now.

His hands absently loosened one curl, then another, untangling them, then twining one around his finger. What in the hell was he going to do now? To say things were different was a laughable understatement. Only he wasn’t laughing. Never in his wildest dreams had he come close to imagining their joining would be so powerful, so consuming. The idea of walking away from her seemed beyond impossible now. He’d just found her, dammit.

As he lay there breathing in her soft, sweet scent, he realized he was trying to figure out a way to make it work between them. Even though he knew it was a fantasy. He couldn’t imagine her adapting to his lifestyle, and he wasn’t so far gone he could kid himself about trying to settle down in one place. What would he do? He knew only one thing; tracking people down. Hardly the sort of life Annie deserved.

Not that it made any difference. The second she found out why he’d come up there in the first place, about his connection to Sam Perkins … His stomach pitched.

As much as he’d like to keep her in this narrow, lumpy cot of a bed for about three days, he knew other forces were at work, and they didn’t give a damn about his time schedule. He had to tell her now.

“Hawk?” Her voice was a drowsy murmur against his skin.

He’d never get tired of hearing her say that. Despite his recent decision, his body responded as if the other agenda was still a possibility. A frown creased his brow as he wondered whether he’d ever hear her whisper his nickname again after he confessed. He shoved a hand under his head and tugged her a bit closer to his side. “What?”

“Mmmmmm,” was all she said.

He could feel her smile against his skin. The hand behind his head became a clenched fist. “Annie, we have to talk.”