Surely Captain Bender had known it would, but had sent him anyway.
Should he tell Laurie that the captain had sent him, ask what she was to him? But what if he didn’t like the answer?
Fighting for her, killing for her had given him funny ideas—wrong ideas—like the notion that he had some claim over her and the feeling that he didn’t want Laurie needing anybody but him. He didn’t want to share her or give her over to a man old enough to be her father. What did Bender want with someone as young and sweet as Laurie? Boon knew Laurie was too good for the likes of him, but maybe she was too good for Bender, too. But Bender didn’t know where to find the Hammer. Only Boon knew that. And while it was true that the Rangers could easily take the outlaws’ camp, to do so would have cost Laurie her life.
Boon had gotten her out alive. Did she owe him for that? He knew that under normal circumstances she’d cross the street rather than have anything to do with someone like him. But fate had put her in his hands.
He looked at her fingers, now swathed in stained white gloves as they rested, delicate as flower petals on the saddle horn. She had high-class clothes, high-class speech and the look of someone who’d been loved and cared for her whole life.
For the course of this journey she was his. If the captain didn’t like it, he should have sent one of his goddamned perfect Texas Rangers instead of a low-down murdering outlaw.
He smiled, tightening his grip upon her waist, wishing he had cut the damned corset from her. He wanted to feel the soft, warm flesh of her stomach and ribs. She was so different than the women he had known, so fresh and so full of piss and vinegar. Not beaten down or defeated, resigned or crushed by circumstance. She’d fought them and she tried to escape, twice. This was a woman who did not lie down and take what the world handed her. This was not the sort of female to give up or turn to cocaine to numb her from life’s woes. She was not cynical or coarse or jaded. Fresh, vibrant and a real lady, just the opposite of those women in his past.
What he would give to have a woman like this.
What did it matter? She’d never accept the likes of him. Ladies knew enough to keep clear of rattlesnakes and outlaws.
He lifted a curling feathery wisp of hair from her neck and held it in his gloved fingers, then lifted it to his cheek. Soft as a satin ribbon, he decided. Laurie glanced back at him and then leaned away, trying to recapture her hair without snatching it from him. He released it, but her rejection stung. He knew how to make her want him. He’d learned a thing or two back there. She wouldn’t be able to resist him and here she was spread out before him like a banquet. Should he take a bite? If he pleased her, would she come back for more?
Boon thought about that kiss, how Laurie had melted against him right there in front of God and everyone. Nobody had ever kissed him like that, not even Paulette. He knew some women liked his looks, the ones who preferred dangerous men. But not the good ones, not the proper ones. They stayed clear of him as if he had something catching.
Still, even a bad man could please a good woman. He could make her want him without compromising her. It would show her what he had to offer and that he was every bit as knowledgeable as Bender. Maybe if she knew, maybe she’d want to stay with him.
He snorted, disgusted at himself and the turn his thoughts had taken. He wanted her. It was the first time he’d ever really wanted a woman. There were only about a million reasons why that was a bad idea. Even so, he found himself reaching for her.
Chapter Four
They rode in silence. Laurie strained her ears for the sound of pursuit but heard nothing but their horses’ hooves striking the hard-packed earth.
Boon snaked his arm about her waist again, holding her with a gentle ease she found disconcerting. Even her corset stays did not shield her from the heat and intimacy of his touch. The sensation of his warm arm, sheathed only in cotton and the leather wrist cuffs that most cowboys wore, was shocking and stimulating. To make matters worse he splayed his fingers and then drew them together absently, repeatedly, as if unaware that the tender caresses were driving her to distraction.
She straightened and wiggled in an effort to escape the intimate contact, but her movements only served to rub her bottom into the cleft of his lap. Laurie stilled at the thrill of excitement that shot through her. She heard him draw breath.
“You’re driving me crazy, Laurie-gal.”
Even his voice disturbed her, making her insides all liquid and warm. Still, she denied what was happening between them. “I’m doing no such thing.”
“You are. Ripe as a summer peach. Makes me want to take a bite.”
He nuzzled her neck as the horses walked steadily on. The sensation was the most erotic of her life. His warm lips moistened her skin and his hot breath dried it again, leaving her flesh tingling and sensitive. Boon rubbed his stubbled cheek against her downy one and hummed. The deep, low rumble vibrated through her like distant thunder. Laurie drew a sharp breath, trying to control the urge to lift her gloved hand and stroke the strong line of his jaw. She shouldn’t, couldn’t encourage him, but neither did she try to stop him. Instead she clutched the saddle horn with greater ferocity as she leaned back against him.
Boon’s lips pressed to her ear and she melted. If not for the corset she’d be puddled around him like butter left in a sunny window.
His whisper ruffled the hair curling about her cheek.
“That kiss. Can’t get it out of my head. You sure don’t kiss like a lady.”
Laurie’s head sank as she realized how quickly he had seen through her facade. Was that why he was stroking her; did he suspect the truth? It was a terror of hers, that men could tell, just by looking, what she had done.
“Laurie, why?” His words were a whispered caress, a hot demand brushing against her ear. “Why’d you do it?”
How could she answer a question like that when she knew such behavior was inexcusable?
“I don’t know.” Her voice had become a strangled thing that she hardly recognized as her own.
“Likely you don’t. But I do.”
She surrendered to the urge to touch him by laying her head against his broad shoulder and turning away from him so he could not see the hot flush of shame burning her cheeks. Laurie tried not to cry. She was all a jumble inside, wanting one thing and needing quite another. She wanted him to leave her be, wanted to tell him to stop touching her. But her body urged her to rub up against him like a cat demanding to be stroked.
He lifted his hand. When had he removed his glove? Boon trailed his fingers along the column of her neck as if she had intentionally offered the bare flesh just to him. Slowly the caresses reached her throat.
Her breasts felt achy, as if they swelled with the wanting he stirred. A mutiny, she realized, her desires commandeering her rational mind. Now instead of inching away, she pressed back, closing her eyes at the shame and the delight. What was he doing to her and why did she need it so badly?
The desire to feel his hands upon her breasts grew until she had to clamp her teeth together to keep from begging him to touch her. She’d staunched her words, but not the soft moan that rumbled in the back of her throat.
Had he heard it? He nuzzled her neck, lips dropping hot kisses on scorched skin.
Humiliation burned her as the cursed trousers rubbed against the sensitive flesh at her cleft with each rocking step of the horse. The rhythmic bob of the saddle beneath them and the feathery caress of Boon’s experienced fingers set off a whirlwind within her.
All about them the stars wheeled, but down