Nan Ryan (28 page)

But the opposite was true.

Now that she knew about such incredible joy, she yearned to experience the earth-shattering magic again. At the same time, she was frightened by such a prospect. Her body was already on fire for him. If he made love to her again, would the heart within her be on fire for him as well?

Worried that the rugged Ranger might make love to her again, and equally worried that he might not, the princess closed her stinging eyes against the burning sun and dry winds and waterless wastes spreading out around them. Certain that this barren desert was the most god-awful place on earth, she offered up a silent prayer that they would reach El Paso soon.

Very soon.

Virgil, scanning the horizon ahead, noticed the dust devils swirling out of the south from Texas and knew what was coming. A sandstorm was heading their way, sweeping across the desert with the aid of its ally, the hot, dry winds.

Virgil drew rein. The princess’s eyes opened.

“What now?” she asked, perturbed.

He stood in the stirrups, gazed unblinking at the thickening cloud of golden dust in the near distance, sat back down, threw a long leg over, and dropped to the ground.

Unbuckling one of the scarred leather saddlebags, he told her casually, “There’s a little sandstorm heading our way.”

“Oh, no! Can’t you … isn’t there something … well, that’s just all I need!” she said in huff.

“A little sandstorm’s good for the complexion,” he said sarcastically. “Just look at my skin.”

“Such nonsense. And just why are we stopping? Do you plan to sit here and wait for the storm?”

From the saddlebags Virgil withdrew a rumpled white shirt. The princess recognized the shirt he had been wearing when he took her from the Cloud-croft depot platform. She watched, baffled, as he deftly ripped the shirt up into three strips. He tossed two across the saddle. Then, with his teeth, he uncorked the canteen and poured water onto the largest strip.

He shoved the canteen at her. “Hold this.”

She took the canteen and watched as he tied the dampened fabric around Noche’s dusty muzzle. He grabbed the other strips off the saddle and poured water over both. He handed her one and told her to tie it securely over her nose and mouth. She didn’t argue. When she finished, she looked down at him and involuntarily shivered. With the stark white mask covering the lower half of his black-bearded face and his cold blue eyes lingering on her, he looked like a dangerous desperado.

Through the mask, he said, “Now, move up into the saddle and throw your leg over the horse.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She did it.

“Now,” he instructed, “turn around in the saddle so that—”

“I’m to ride backward?”

“You heard me.”

Awkwardly, with his help, the princess turned about so that she was astride the saddle, facing the rear.

She said, “What shall I hold on to?”

“Me,” he said, swung up behind her, and immediately put the stallion in motion. The princess had no choice, she wrapped her arms around him. And she didn’t object when he drew her legs up over his hard thighs and told her to wrap her feet around his calves. She obeyed. With a long arm clasped firmly around her waist, Virgil drew her closer, so close their masked faces were scant inches apart. His piercing blue eyes pinning hers, his breath hissing through the mask, he said, “Better close your eyes now and—” he reached up, cupped the back of her head, and pressed her face flush against his shoulder, “keep your mouth shut.”

Before she could close her eyes the swirling sand spiraled around them. In seconds the storm enveloped man, woman, and beast, the stinging sands blinding them and biting exposed flesh. Her closed eyes burning and watering, the princess clasped her arms tightly behind Virgil’s back and snuggled as close to him as possible.

Too close, it turned out.

The princess was certain she was losing her mind entirely when, in the midst of the howling, swirling, stinging sands, while her only concern should have been getting through the storm alive, she found herself stirring and wanting this masked man in whose powerful arms she was enclosed.

With the roar and whine of the wind-pushed sands deafening her and her eyes closed tightly against the growing tempest, all she could think of was that their riding position was so intimate it was almost like making love. Her head was on his shoulder, her masked face turned inward, pressing his throat. Her arms were wrapped around his strong back. Her parted legs were draped atop his spread thighs, her slippered toes curled around his muscular calves. She realized that he had placed her in this position for her own good. Cradling her against his chest, he could provide the best shelter from the whipping sands with his body.

But, had he realized, she wondered, that with her in that position, it was next to impossible to keep her open pelvis from rubbing against his groin. Ashamed that she could even think of such things at a time like this, the princess could think of nothing else.

While the big black stallion blew and snorted and struggled to move against the thick clouds of sand, the princess gasped and sighed and struggled to keep from moving against the inviting rock-hard body of the Ranger. Her cheeks flushed hot when she realized, suddenly, that she was not the only one who could not sit still.

In subtle thrusting movements, his straining groin began to rise rhythmically to meet each timid touch of hers. At first she thought it was an accident. Like the times they had bumped into each other without meaning to. Soon she knew that it wasn’t. Languidly, at first, and ever so gently, he thrust and parried and teased and the princess felt a pleasant pressure against her prepuce.

As the storm grew in intensity, so did their game. Soon, and not so languidly, they began to brush and buck and bump each other in an unorthodox, yet incredibly thrilling, exercise in escalating sexual arousal.

The strange, thrilling game became more than a game when the princess, to her complete shock, began to feel as she had when Virgil made love to her in the cave. That deep, hot yearning, that nameless, helpless feeling that an overwhelming urgency was building inside, that something frightening and wonderful was happening to her.

Virgil knew exactly what was happening to her because the same thing was happening to him. Jesus, if someone had told him yesterday that he was so hot for a woman that he would—with them both fully dressed—climax with her atop a moving horse in the middle of a sandstorm, he would have said they were insane.

He was the one who was insane.

He couldn’t let this happen way out here with no way to clean himself up. He wouldn’t let it happen. He would give it to her, help her have an orgasm, but he would hold back.

That’s what he intended, but it didn’t work out that way.

At the height of the roaring, biting sandstorm, the mounted pair clung to each other, pressing and grinding their bodies together, imitating the motions of lovemaking until both reached the pinnacle of pleasure, shuddering in shared release without so much as a single kiss being exchanged or a single article of clothing being removed. At that moment, the roaring, wailing sandstorm reached a loud crescendo, then quickly tapered off and died away.

Virgil’s first thought when his heartbeat began to slow was that he couldn’t make it the rest of the way to El Paso without a break from this woman. He
had
to get away from this seductive she-devil for a little while, so he could get his head screwed back on straight.

30

By five that afternoon
, with the sun still high and hot overhead, the mute, mounted pair had finally crossed completely, west to east, the formidable Tularosa country. Silently, Virgil congratulated himself. He had succeeded in safely transporting a woman down out of the steep Sacramento Mountains and across this parched no-man’s-land.

A waterless desert where only the fierce and rugged could live; prickly pear and thorn-covered mesquites, rattlesnakes and tarantulas. She had come through it without injury. He hadn’t been so lucky. Fifteen years in the Rangers without a scratch. Three days with her and he had suffered a nail-scraped jaw, a bloodied earlobe, a gouged eye, and broken ribs.

Relief flooded through him as Virgil drew rein among the scattered prickly pears and tall stalks of ivory-blooming yuccas at the base of the jagged Organ Mountains. A far greater relief for him was the thought that this winsome, worrisome woman would be out of his hair and out of his sight for a few blessedly peaceful hours.

The curious princess, now riding behind him again, wondered why they had stopped. She peered over his shoulder to see what he was looking at and almost swooned with pleasure.

“Are we going there?” she asked, speaking for the first time in more than an hour.

Without turning to look at her, Virgil said, “If you can behave yourself and stay out of mischief until morning, we’ll spend the night at Tierra del Encanto. Think you can manage?”

“Is it a hotel?” she asked, her eyes focused on the sprawling, two-story salmon-hued structure rising from the foothills of the craggy mountains.

“No. A private home.”

As they rode up a long pebbled drive bordered by Texas sable palms, Virgil explained that Don Amondo Rivas, an old and trusted friend and owner of the vast Sunland Ranch, would be more than happy to put them up for the night.

“Who will you tell him I am?” asked the princess.

“Amondo will not inquire,” Virgil said. “His manners are impeccable. You will be whoever I tell him you are.”

“Then could you kindly tell him that I am—”

“Don’t start with that princess nonsense,” he cut her off. “We’ll keep it simple. You will be Miss Jones.”

“What’s my first name?”

“Eva.” He responded so quickly, it made the princess curious.

“Eva? Is Eva the name of someone you—?”

“There’s Amondo now,” Virgil interrupted, raising a hand to wave.

Princess Marlena’s attention turned to the broadly smiling Mexican who was rushing across the manicured grounds to greet them. A powerfully built man with silver-streaked dark hair, a pencil-thin mustache, black flashing eyes, and the smooth unlined face of a boy, Amondo Rivas seemed genuinely thrilled to see them.

Virgil eased the princess off the stallion and swung down himself. Hastily he tore the sweat-stained hat off his head and held it strategically before him. The princess noticed and knew the reason. He was, she suspected, concerned that his trousers were stained from their early afternoon’s carnal calisthenics in the sandstorm.

Her too-large denim trousers didn’t give her away, but on the tender insides of her thighs she could feel the sticky residue of her own body’s release. They were a shameful, dirty pair, no doubt about it. She only prayed that the immaculate Mexican gentleman coming to meet them wouldn’t guess just
how
dirty and shameful.

A young Mexican boy materialized to tend the lathered stallion as the beaming Amondo Rivas reached them, slapped Virgil affectionately on the back, and shook his hand warmly.

“
El Capitán, mi amigo!
” Rivas said, his smile blindingly bright, his dark eyes flashing with delight. “Welcome to Tierra del Encanto! Has been far too long since you last come to visit.”

“Good to see you, Don Amondo,” Virgil said, then inclined his head toward the princess. “May I present my traveling companion, Miss Eva Jones. Eva, this is my very good friend, Don Amondo Rivas.”

“Ah,
Señorita
Eva,” Don Amondo said, reaching for her hand, “is a true pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Her first impulse was to correct him, to tell him that she was a
señora
, not a
señorita
, but Virgil shot her a quick “don’t do it” look.

She said simply, “The pleasure is mine,
Señor
Rivas.”

Don Amondo brushed his mustachioed mouth over the back of her hand and smiled engagingly at her. The friendly Mexican gave no indication, either in word or in deed, that he wondered why she was dressed in soiled men’s clothing or why her hair was dirty and tangled. He displayed, as Virgil had predicted, impeccable manners.

Releasing her hand, Don Amondo clasped his own together in a gesture of joy and said, “You cannot know how glad I am to have company!” Addressing the princess, he explained, “I have a big, loud family, but they are away in Chihuahua City. They have been gone for more than two weeks, and the house is much too quiet. I have been so lonely, but now you have come to visit, to keep me company! I hope you will stay several days.”

He glanced at Virgil, gently took the princess’s arm, and began escorting her toward the imposing hacienda.

“Just for the night,
amigo,
” Virgil said, following.

“No, no, is not long enough,” argued Don Amondo. “Soledad and the children are due home tomorrow,” he looked over his shoulder, his dark eyes imploring. “Surely you wish to see them,
Capitán
.”

“You know I do. But Miss Jones and I have prior obligations,” said Virgil evenly. “We must leave first thing in the morning.”

Purposely speaking loudly enough for Virgil to hear, Don Amondo said to the princess, “You must talk to the
capitán.
Persuade him to stay with us a few days. You will do that, won’t you,
Señorita
Eva?” She didn’t immediately reply. “
Señorita
Eva?”