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Tucker's Claim
Sarah McCarty


Tucker McCade has known violence his whole life: orphaned in a massacre, abused as a "half-breed" child, trained as a ruthless Texas Ranger, he's learned the hard way that might makes right. So even he is shocked when he falls for Sallie Mae Reynolds, a Quaker nurse. Unable to resist Tucker's charm and chiseled body, she throws herself into their torrid affair, indulging her wildest sexual fantasies. Tucker's job, however, is the one thing she can't embrace.A staunch pacifist, Sallie Mae can't understand how his strong, caressing hand can clench in fury or pull a trigger. In this lawless land, Tucker knows you have to fight to survive. But when Sallie Mae becomes pregnant, he's willing to do anything to have his family—including hanging up his guns.Every night they spend together binds them closer, slowly erasing their differences. . . until the day Tucker's past comes calling, precipitating an explosive showdown between her faith, his promise and the need for revenge. . . .







Selected praise for the men of

HELL’S EIGHT

Caine’s Reckoning

“Sarah McCarty’s new series is an exciting blend of raw masculinity, spunky, feisty heroines and the wild living in the old west… Caine’s Reckoning is an erotic novel with spicy hot love scenes…Ms. McCarty gave us small peeks into each member of the Hell’s Eight and I’m looking forward to reading the other men’s stories.”

—Erotica Romance Writers

“Intense, edgy and passionate, this is old-school historical romance at its finest.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews (4.5 stars)

“Caine’s Reckoning is a can’t-put-it-down adventure story.…Superb writing and characterization…This exceptional first-in-series book has this reader eagerly anticipating future stories and earns it the RRT Perfect 10 rating…a hands-down winning tale that is not to be missed.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Though Caine and Desi alone would have made this a wonderful romance, the many other men of Hell’s Eight are an integral part of the series and we are certainly left anxious for the next installment.”

—A Romance Review (5 roses)

Sam’s Creed

“Once again using an erotic backdrop, [McCarty] creates a mythic western hero, protective, dominant, and emotionally distant—but never cruel—who believes he is not worthy of the heroine who loves him…Readers who enjoy erotic romance but haven’t found an author who can combine it with an historical setting may discover a new auto-buy author…I have.”

—All About Romance

“McCarty continues her Hell’s Eight series with this solidly plotted tale. There’s wonderful chemistry between Sam and Bella, and the witty banter between them makes the story come alive.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews (4 stars)

“The jaunty banter between Sam and Isabella is almost as much fun to read as the sexual tension that develops. I’m definitely looking forward to future [Hell’s Eight] stories.”

—A Romance Review (4½ roses)




Tucker's Claim

A Hell’s Eight Erotic Adventure

Sarah McCarty











www.spice-books.co.uk (http://www.spice-books.co.uk/)


To all the ladies of my yahoo group. No one could ask for a better group of ladies with which to laugh and share life’s ups and downs. You are simply the best.




Chapter 1


Music drifted out of the gaily decorated church into the humid night air, wrapping around Sally Mae in a breath of lilting joy. She shifted her hip on the railing, leaned her head against the rough porch support and let the notes roll through her, not feeling the guilt so strongly this time. She was healing, from the inside out, the way Jonah said she would in what he’d considered a kindness. But then Jonah had been that type of man, always able to put others before him, always able to see God’s light with no questions attached to the end of the message. His way had always been clear while hers was always a struggle.

Despite their differences, or maybe because of them, she’d been a good wife to him. Their marriage hadn’t been the kind that little girls dreamed up while playing in the yard on a summer’s day, but it had been the stable kind an impulsive woman valued. No matter what her inclinations, Sally had always known that if she couldn’t find the answer in meditation, she would find it with Jonah. He’d been her rock, her balance, her guiding light, and when he’d been murdered, it had shattered her inner light into a never-ending pitch of black, to the point that she’d stopped feeling anything.

For months, she’d walked around in a daze, going through life as if she hadn’t lost a vital part of her faith. And then the townsfolk had started coming to her for healing, seeing her as the next best thing to a doctor, and she’d found solace in being needed. From that solace had come a light that flickered through the darkness. Purpose. Life since Jonah’s death hadn’t been perfect, but she’d found a reason to get out of bed, a pretense on which to keep functioning, and gradually, that pretense had grown into a calling she’d only assumed was hers before Jonah’s death. A calling that distracted her from the emptiness left by her husband’s death. An emptiness she’d been able to ignore until six months ago when Tucker McCade had come back to town.

She grimaced and shifted her position, the star-studded vastness of the landscape striking her anew with its beauty, almost as though it was the first time she was seeing it. And maybe it was. Sometimes she felt that Jonah’s death had wiped clean her understanding of who she was and left a stranger in its place. A stranger who was familiar in her love of these beautiful nights of endless sky and sparkling stars, yet foreign in her attraction to the big Texas Ranger.

She couldn’t pinpoint what drew her to the man. Tucker was too big, too wild, too unpredictable to be described in easy terms. He breathed the violence she abhorred, seemed to believe in nothing but the moment, and the only emotion he let anyone see never made it to his eyes. He was a man of secrets and pain, larger than life, and nothing to which she should be attracted, and yet, somehow, he’d become part of her emerging life.

Laying temptation in front of a man like me is dangerous, pretty thing.

The remembered warning rumbled over her nerves in a deep promise. At the time, she hadn’t thought she’d been laying anything anywhere, just tending the nasty cut on his arm, but looking back, she had stood closer than she’d needed to, and her fingers had lingered longer than they’d needed to. She blamed it completely on the utter fascination of the man. His eyes alone would be enough to fascinate most women—a shocking silver-gray in his dark face. But for her, the fascination went much deeper than his heavily muscled frame and harshly exotic good looks. For her, the fascination went to the glimpses of gentleness that he hid beneath a sarcastic wit and a propensity for violence. A gentleness she suspected he wore with the same ease with which he wore his guns and knives. Tucker McCade was a man who was very comfortable with himself, in the same way Jonah had been, but for different reasons. While Jonah had been comfortable with the path God had revealed to him and his ability to stick to it, Tucker was comfortable with the path he had laid out for himself, and comfortable with his ability to hold it where he wanted.

Sally shook her head, breathing deeply of the humid night air, fragrant with the aroma of the roasting pig that had been served up earlier. Tucker fought at the drop of a hat. He’d fought for Cissy Monroe, who’d changed her mind about prostituting herself to make ends meet, fought for a mongrel puppy pinned down after stealing a loaf of bread, and sometimes he just fought for reasons that had no discernible cause other than that he wanted to. It was in those moments that Tucker McCade scared her, because those were the moments when he was everything his reputation held him to be. Everything she feared. The very thing that had taken her husband. A man as lawless and as violent as this land.

But he was also beautiful and compelling in the way of all wild things. And, much like the music she was trying not to break her mourning by enjoying, he had a way of getting under her skin, reaching down to the primal part of her that responded on instinct and didn’t give a hoot about logic or her Quaker beliefs. The part of her that wanted him very badly.

Closing her eyes, Sally indulged in a bit of harmless fantasy. Imagined Tucker was before her, so wonderfully tall he made her feel small while those broad shoulders of his blocked her view of anything else. Most of all the past. His silvery eyes, so startling above the high slash of his cheekbones, would stare down at her in that semimocking, farseeing way he had that made her both nervous and breathless at the same time. And that long, shiny black hair he wore parted in the center would fall free about his exotic face as he leaned down, enhancing his Indian ancestry to the point of challenge. Enhancing the power of his personality, the magnetism of his sexuality, the sensual fullness of his mouth…He’d reach for her with his big, callused hands that never touched, but instead lingered a scant breath from her skin, promising so much even as they withheld everything. Passion, pleasure, heaven. Hands that killed as easily as they gave joy. A shiver, half negation, half anticipation, shook her from head to toe.

As a Quaker and a pacifist, she never saw the point of fighting. She also didn’t see the point of daring everyone around a body to make something of nothing, but Tucker definitely had a take-me-as-I-am-or-suffer-the-consequences element in his approach to the world. When a woman added the easy confidence with which he did everything to that disregard for convention, it totaled up to a potent combination. One she was finding harder and harder to resist in the bright light of common sense. One she didn’t want to resist in the soft cloak of night with the moon shining brightly and her imagination so willing to sketch out a moment between them.

The music slowed to a swirling crescendo. Inside dancers would be gliding to a stop with varying degrees of style, poised for the next beat, the next partner. While for her, here in this dream, hers already waited. All she had to do was take that step toward Tucker, that forbidden, terrifying step she’d never managed in real life, because in many ways she was a coward. Not because he was half-Indian, not because society said that was wrong—in her world all women and men were equal—but because Tucker McCade stood with his feet in blood while she followed a different path. But still, in her dreams, she could have him, and in her dreams she took that step forward into the touch of his hand, into the warmth of his embrace, into the protection of his strong arms. She sighed as desire coursed through her body at the imagined culmination of months of longing.

He was a cruel man, some said. A hard man, others whispered. But, on an instinctive level, she knew the only thing she would find in his arms was joy. She’d seen the promise of it in his marvelous eyes, felt it vibrate between them whenever they got close, knew deep inside that Tucker would take care of her body the same way he took care of her safety. Totally and completely, whether she wanted it or not.

Folding her arms across her chest and balancing her weight, Sally Mae hugged the knowledge to her, letting it weave through the fantasy, granting to Tucker in dreams the access that she couldn’t in the daylight. Access to touch, access to pleasure. Through the break between songs, when everything was possible, she gave her fantasy permission to move forward into the forbidden with a sense of inevitability. Tucker was a force to be reckoned with at any time, wearing down his quarry with slow, steady pressure. And when it came to resistance, she was apparently no stronger than the outlaws who inevitably surrendered to his law. She didn’t want to fight him anymore. Fighting was draining, especially when what she was resisting was the one thing instinct said could color the darkness that enshrouded her life.

The music inside broke into a merry jig, the rhythm percolating through her blood, picking up her spirits, increasing the tempo of her fantasy, moving from languid to fervored as she imagined his long fingers closing around her wrists, skimming her forearms, her upper arms, her shoulders, the rough calluses abrading her skin in a delicious way that Jonah’s smooth hands never had.

The edges of her dream rippled at the disloyalty. Tucker was Jonah’s opposite in many ways, and it might be the biggest delusion in the world to believe he could be gentle with a woman, but this was her daydream, her escape, and she wanted to believe Tucker could be gentle enough to bring her to the point where she didn’t need gentleness anymore. She forced herself to be honest. Past the point where Jonah had always stopped.

She flinched, shattering the last of her dream, and it was once again just her, the night and the longing that wouldn’t go away. For the warmth of a man’s embrace, the strength of his arms, the burn of his passion. And not just any man. She’d never been indiscriminate. Jonah had been her only lover and until his death she’d never looked at another man, and in those first weeks, hadn’t even been aware that Tucker existed. But one day she’d looked up from the cup of coffee that had been placed in her hand, and there he’d been, his expression solemn, his touch gentle, his eyes reflecting the understanding of the loss she couldn’t accept. He’d been there ever since, popping into her life when he came into town, sheltering her from the worst of everything while he was there, making sure she ate, making sure her patients didn’t get ideas, making sure she was safe and cared for. Making sure she knew he waited. For her.

Moonlight became Sally Mae. It poured over the paleness of her skin with a lover’s tenderness, bringing out the silver gilt in her hair, the smooth perfection of her skin, the mystery of who she was. By day Sally could hide the truth under a bustle of activity, but in the quiet of the night, her secrets escaped. Her loneliness, her hunger, her thirst for adventure. Tucker was a man who’d always preferred night and those things it embraced. Sally was no exception. The woman had integrity, beauty, and an appeal from which he couldn’t walk away. Even if he should. She turned ever so slightly and he could just make out the gentle swell of her breast beneath the inevitable gray of her dress. He narrowed his gaze until the tempting curve filled his line of vision. He smiled. Thank God he’d never been much on “shoulds.”

He watched her, perched like a fairy against the support, her arms crossed over her chest, her head dropping back. The blond of her hair not covered by the fine lawn cap perched on the back of her head shimmered against the dark wood. Sunshine and shadow. The woman was a mystery. Her shoulders lifted on a slight sigh. That emotion he’d noticed lately and couldn’t place shifted over her expression, narrowing her eyes and drawing her upper lip between her teeth.

She’d been in that strange mood a lot lately. Full of a restlessness that teased the edges of his awareness. Made him hard with its potential promise. He’d like nothing better than to step out of the shadows, take her hands in his, uncross her arms and draw them around his neck, accepting the weight of her willowy body against his, her troubles as his. If it were left to him, he’d wrap her in cotton wool and keep her safe from any threat, any worry. But it wasn’t up to him. Though it sure as hell should be up to someone. Sally took too many risks. And lately, whenever he came into town from the hunt for Caine’s wife’s sister, nerves jangled, senses hungry for respite, she’d be watching him with those dark gray eyes that had no idea how they tempted, and he’d forget why he was keeping his distance.

Sally Mae sighed and closed her eyes as the music leaped into the calm of the night. The same moonlight that cast her skin in a silvery glow provided the shadows in which he hid. He knew she wasn’t aware of his presence. She’d be strung as tight as a drum if she had any inkling that he watched her. And not because she found him distasteful. He wasn’t a fool. He knew Sally Mae wanted him, the same as he knew she’d never get serious about it. A brief affair to see how it would be to lie down with a savage, maybe, but he’d learned the hard way that a white woman did not openly take up with a man with Indian blood—not for love or money. She might enjoy him on the side, if the affair could be safely hidden, but there was too much hate between whites and Indians for any more than that to be tolerated. Already there were rumblings because he stayed in her barn.

Not that he gave a shit. Tucker flexed his fingers, remembering the last time someone had suggested he move. It’d felt good to knock the man’s teeth down his throat. Release a bit of that hostility Sally Mae had suggested he pray away. Well, quiet contemplation is what she called it. Tucker shook his head. As if prayer was going to settle the discord caused by a randy wrangler’s speculation. He flexed his fingers again, enjoying the response of muscle. He’d never found talk as effective as action. Might was a great equalizer, and he had plenty of that. And if he had to go back and do it again, that would be the one thing he’d thank his father for giving him the muscle to make a place for himself in a world that had never wanted to give him one.

The hem of Sally Mae’s dress fluttered, drawing his eye. Beneath the somber gray trim of her skirt, he could make out the top of her sturdy boot. Her toe was tapping.

Tucker had never seen Sally Mae dance, had always assumed it was against her religion, but maybe she’d just been in mourning for her murdered husband. Maybe that tapping toe indicated she was ready to come out and join the living. He straightened, the same surge of anticipation thrumming through his blood as when he closed in on his quarry at the end of a long bounty hunt. With the same cold precision, his senses homed in on Sally Mae. He’d lain awake nights, imagining touching his tongue to the smooth white skin at the hollow of her throat where her pulse beat against her smooth white skin. She always smelled of lemon and vanilla, and he bet the scent was strongest there, heated from her excitement and fear. He’d draw a deep breath and take it into himself right before he unbuttoned her prim dress and eased the flaps aside to reveal the treasure beneath.

Some men liked their women plump and soft, some liked them curvy. He’d decided, about two minutes after Sally Mae touched him, that he liked willowy blondes. He’d been in a rage—angry at life, indulging his temper on an equally big man who was in an equally big snit when she’d walked into the saloon, stepped between them and started to lecture them on the foolishness of fighting. He’d had to deck the bastard when he’d hauled back his arm, ready to flatten her. Then he’d had to listen to her lecture him all the way to her house, half-lit, keeping his steps steady because he knew if he tripped she’d try to catch him, and with her delicate build she’d only end up pancaked beneath him. She’d ranted at him in that quiet way she had as she’d gathered her supplies, as if her wild opinions had weight.

He’d sat and listened, breathed her scent, and as he looked around her cozy kitchen later, the longing had hit him with the force of a blow. Had things been different—his mother white or his father Indian—his blood wouldn’t have been mixed and he could have had a home in either the white world or Indian, but as it was, he didn’t fit anywhere except Hell’s Eight. He certainly didn’t fit here, but he’d wanted to. For the first time since his family and town had been wiped out by a Mexican raid when he was sixteen, he’d wanted to fit somewhere other than Hell’s Eight. And when Sally Mae’s hand had settled on his bare arm in an offer of pure comfort, for that brief moment in time, he’d wanted to fit here.

In the months since that night, the need kept creeping back. Didn’t matter how much he told himself Sally Mae was a good woman. Not the kind a man trifled with, he couldn’t shake the belief that she was meant for him. For however long he could tickle her fancy. Since that moment she’d touched him, he’d been biding his time. He was good at that. It made him a good Texas Ranger. A good horse trainer. He eyed the gentle thrust of Sally’s breasts beneath her demure lace collar. A damn good lover.

The music resumed a lively beat. Sally’s toe kept time. He bet she danced with the same inherent grace underlined with an innate sexuality, as she did everything. She was the only woman he knew who could make stitching a wound a sexy event. A smile tugged on the corner of her wide mouth. Probably too wide for beauty, but Tucker liked the generous way she smiled. It reflected the generosity of her spirit. He liked the way her nose wasn’t some small bit of nonsense, too. Straight and narrow it complemented the strength in the rest of her features.

Truth was, a moment spent studying Sally’s face revealed a lot about the woman’s personality. Including how stubborn she was. Just look at the set of her chin. More than one person had tried to get her to move back east after her husband had been shot, but she’d refused politely. When pressed, she’d just ended all argument with a simple statement that she wouldn’t be run out of her home. And when the suggestions had started that she needed to remarry, she’d been just as blunt. Her husband had been a good man. She’d mourn him properly.

The town had backed down. Which had been pure foolishness, in Tucker’s opinion. Texas wasn’t a place for a woman who believed God lived in everyone and turning the other cheek beat a beating when dealing with a threat. Tucker would have put her ass on the next train east, bound and gagged if he’d had to. Sally Mae was too fine for life alone out here. Green to the difficulties she faced, green to the reality that she’d have to marry again. Green to the danger she faced from him. Hell, she’d even pointed out that with a Texas Ranger living in her barn, how much of a threat could there be? Completely missing the connotation people might put on that. Completely missing how right they’d be to speculate on his interest. He did want her and he intended to have her.

On a sensual sigh, she smiled and settled further against the porch wall. Alone in the dark, apart from the town, the way she always was, even though she tended to the townspeople with an evenhandedness a preacher couldn’t fault, taking care of good and bad alike, losing all caution under a sense of dedication. Lately, even more so. As if driven to prove something only she understood. Which was another reason he was still here and not out following the latest lead on what had happened to Ari, Caine’s wife’s sister, why he’d turned down Sam and his new fiancée’s invitation to make his home off Hell’s Eight at their comfortable ranch. He grimaced. He was a glutton for punishment, that was for sure, but someone had to watch over the widow when her common sense took a hike. Like last week when she’d taken in Lyle Hartsmith after he’d been knifed in a bar fight.

Lyle Hartsmith was a real no account, an outlaw with no morals and no allegiance, and if there was any justice in the world, the wound would have killed him, but there was no convincing Sally Mae of that. In her eyes, the prairie rat was one of God’s creatures and entitled to care. And that was the end of it. So Tucker was here cooling his heels, keeping an eye on things, making sure she didn’t take on more than she could handle, feeding a hunger that could go nowhere while he paid back a debt she wouldn’t acknowledge he owed. He shook his head. Who the hell had said that with age comes wisdom? He was thirty-one, and from all recent signs, getting dumber by the day.

The fiddler dropped into a slow, popular tune and Sally’s smile changed, becoming sad and just a little bit lost in the memories the song evoked. No doubt, of her dead husband. Tucker wanted to resent the man for having Sally for his wife, but he couldn’t. Jonah had been a good man who’d deserved better than he’d received. And he’d been stolen from Sally the same way Tucker’s life had been stolen from him when he’d been sixteen—in a hail of bullets and with no warning. He knew the sense of shock left by that kind of murder, the feeling that there was nothing left to hold on to. His parents might not have been the best, but they’d been better than the nothing that had remained when the Mexican soldiers had finished annihilating his small town.

A thinning of Sally Mae’s lower lip told him she was biting it. To hold back sobs? Hell, the night was too beautiful for tears. Especially Sally Mae’s. He stepped out of the shadows, drawn by her sorrow and the need to alleviate it. Drawn by his lust and his hunter’s instincts. Drawn by the desire to make this moment in her life better than the memory that consumed her. It took only three steps to get to the bottom of the stairs. He held out his hand, looked up and asked, “May I have this dance?”

There was a slight start to reveal her surprise, but Sally Mae didn’t move away from the wall, and she didn’t open her eyes, but her smile changed. Softened. She really was in a mood tonight.

“That would be scandalous.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “So was taking a notorious outlaw into your house, but I didn’t see you balk at that.”

Her right eye cracked open. “In that, I didn’t have a choice.”

His instincts perked. His blood thickened with the slow course of desire. “And now you do.”

He didn’t expect her to take his hand, and she didn’t, but her other lid opened and the gaze with which she weighed him was as keen as anyone’s, even Caine’s. And Caine had a wicked ability to take a person’s measure. It’s what made him the natural leader of the Hell’s Eight.

“I find I am at a fork in the road of my life, Ranger McCade.”

His heart beat faster and his senses sharpened. “Forks can be good.”

She closed her eyes again and took a slow breath. The way a person did when they were thinking. “True, but only if one can discern the difference between an opening and temptation.”

She had him there. “An opening?”

“An opportunity provided by God to grow.”

“And without this opening you can’t dance with me?”

With her eyes closed and the moonlight catching on her hair, she looked like an angel he’d seen in a book he’d stolen as a child.

Her eyes opened and he changed his mind. No angel looked that earthy.

“It means I must decide the source of thy temptation for me.”

“As in good or bad?”

“Yes.”

Placing his foot on the bottom step, he grazed his finger over her knee. The practical wool of her skirt did nothing to dim the impact on his senses. “Then I vote for bad.”

Her lids flickered and her lip slipped between her teeth. “Why?”

He smiled, holding her gaze, his pulse kicking up. She wasn’t fighting him. “Because I can make being bad…very, very good.”

Her breath caught. Exhaling, she confessed, “Such is what I suspect, which simply makes my decision that much harder.”

The flush on her cheeks destroyed the last of his good intentions. Sliding his fingers to the back of her knee, he curved his palm over the point. “Want me to make it easy for you?”

Sally’s expression shifted. An element he didn’t recognize enriched the speculation as she ran her gaze over him. The glance, rich in feminine knowledge, burned along his desire, as it traveled from the top of his hat to the toes of his boots, neither of which were courting clean. “Would thee be willing?”

The lack of disapproval in her summation only goaded his anger with the message it sent. He’d been here often enough to recognize the signs. She wasn’t looking for proper from him, just a few illicit moments in bed that she could hug as her sexy little secret on cold winter nights. He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Is your bed getting so cold that you’re lowering yourself to invite a savage into it?”

She blinked and slid off the rail. It was easy to read the emotions chasing across her expression this time. Horror. Affront. Anger. And then pity. “Thee do not think much of thyself.”

That wasn’t true. He thought a lot of himself, he just didn’t think much of how other people saw him. “Thinking on changing me?”

With a cock of her head, she acknowledged his displeasure, then she shrugged. “I’ve been thinking on many things.”

“Like what?” He didn’t trust that too-calm way in which she observed him.

“Like the fact that thee are a good man, as well as being a very big temptation.”

He might be a temptation, but he wasn’t good. And she damn well knew it. “Have you been drinking?”

“I don’t believe in drink.”

She didn’t drink, she didn’t dance and she didn’t believe in violence. “What do you believe in?”

She didn’t answer right away, just studied him with her big gray eyes to the point that he was beginning to feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. And then in that regal way she always moved, which spoke of confidence and commanded respect, she descended the steps. When she reached the bottom one, it was natural to hold out his hand, natural that she place hers in it, natural that he continue to hold it as she took that last step that brought her directly before him. Her fingers curled around his. Her hand was cool and dry. She wasn’t nervous about dancing with him. “I believe in choice.”

And this close it was easy to determine why. There was a touch of alcohol on her breath. Someone had spiked the punch. Sally Mae probably wasn’t in command of all her faculties. A decent man would have escorted her back inside to the dance. But he wasn’t a decent man. He was Tucker McCade, known more for his brawling skills than his scruples. In short, he was no better than he had to be.

“Then I’m glad you’re choosing me.”

Her head cocked to the side as he pulled her in. “Thee are lying.”

Yes, he was. What with Sam just having left with Bella, Tucker was more conscious than ever of what would never be his. A woman to love him for what he was. The way Bella loved Sam. The way Desi loved Caine. But tonight, he was in the mood to pretend that it could be, and with Sally Mae. He drew their linked hands up and to the right, guiding her into his arms. The top of her head tucked under his chin as if it belonged there. “Do you care?” he asked against the silk of her hair.

“Not tonight.”

“Good.”

“Thee are holding me too closely.”

She might be protesting, but he noticed she wasn’t stepping away.

Would thee be willing?

He was more than willing to give her anything she wanted for whatever reason. A man like him wasn’t one for passing up golden opportunities.

“Your husband let you lead when you danced?”

She shook her head. “No, he was like thee. He liked to be in charge.”

At least she had one thing right. He was a man who led. “Then you won’t have trouble following me.”

Her head tipped back. Her eyes were very dark in the shadow of his hold, mysterious with an emotion he couldn’t decipher. “No, I don’t think I will.”

The soft huskiness underlying the statement increased the fire that just being near her ignited. “Good.”

He led her into the first steps of the three-count dance. She followed easily. Her free hand slid up his chest to settle on his shoulder and her head snuggled against him. She was as graceful a dancer as she was in everything else, following him easily under the stars. And he came to a decision. This kind of pretending could be good. “I guess you dance after all.”

“What made thee think I didn’t?”

He smiled at the softness of her tone, as if she, too, didn’t want to break the quiet of the moment. “You seem awfully religious.”

“Being a Quaker does not mean I abandon joy.”

Her hips brushed his as he led her through a turn. His cock jerked as if her fingers had closed around it. Damn, she made him ache like a green boy.

“Glad to hear it.”

Chuckling, she squeezed his hand. “I imagine thee are.”

He wanted to close his eyes, as she had, and wallow in the moment, take the pretense to another level. Take advantage of her inebriation. It would be so easy. She was making it easy, but he remembered the gentleness of her touch on his arm when she’d tended him, the softness she gave him so easily, and knew he wouldn’t do it. Sally’s reputation was a very fragile thing. Nurses weren’t held in high regard, often being considered little better than prostitutes. Being seen dancing with him would cost her everything. He’d give her this moment, but he’d make sure it didn’t come back to haunt her.

Sally’s fingers shifted on his shoulder, moving across, following the line of muscle, testing his strength. His hands did a little testing of their own. The right opened across the small of her back, easily spanning the distance from side to side. She was a very slenderly built woman, to the point that it was hard to believe a body this delicate could house such a backbone of steel.

Her hands slid back up over his biceps to curve over his shoulders.

“Thee are a very strong man.”

It came out more of a sigh.

“You are a very beautiful woman.”

As she shook her head, the citrus scent of her shampoo teased his senses. “I’m not, but it is very nice of thee to say so.”

He debated arguing the point, but there were better ways than words to convince a woman of her beauty, and he’d much rather spend his time indulging them. He led her through another turn, pulling her against him so the press of her hips to the hardness of his cock was more than a brush. More of a lure. Fire raced up his backbone as Sally sighed and relaxed against him, prolonging the moment.

“Thee are also very light on thy feet.”

“It comes in handy in my profession.”

She stiffened. She’d never made any secret that she hated what he did. He had never made it any secret that her dislike didn’t change anything. “Thee will not speak of such things tonight.”

“You think that will make them go away?”

“No, but if we do not speak of them for tonight, they cannot exist.”

“Interesting way to look at things.”

“There is no knowing the future, so I have decided there’s value in enjoying the now.”

The theory coincided with his own. Except for their opposing views on the necessity for violence, he and Sally were often on the same side of an argument. Testing her, he led her through some intricate steps. She had no trouble following them. If she could follow those steps, she was aware enough to make a decision, and if Sally was ready to take a lover, he wanted to be first in line. He finished in a series of turns, pulling her tightly against him, forcing her with pressure in the small of her back to arch away, until she braced her hands against his chest and looked up at him.

“And now is tonight?”

Her lips parted, and he could see the hint of her teeth, the flick of her tongue. Lust shot deep.

“Yes.”

He spun them one last time, before leaning in. “Then let me help you with the enjoying.”




Chapter 2


Kissing Sally was as natural as breathing. Tucker bent and she lifted, participating in the discovery as if she were as hungry for the taste of him as he was for her, her lips already parted when they met his. Soft, demanding with feminine hope. She didn’t have to worry. He wouldn’t let her down in bed. Supporting her with his hand in the small of her back, he arched her closer, not immediately taking advantage of her parted lips, savoring the anticipation, raising it with light nips and easy busses. Grunting as the fire gathered deep inside, built, flashed outward in a near crippling release of pleasure.

“Ah, damn, pretty thing, I knew you’d be like this.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulder, gripping tightly as the shock went through her. No shy miss here, just an open, honest woman very sure of what she wanted, which was good because he’d never been so vividly aware of a woman, the press of her nipples against his chest, the soft graze of her hips, the sweet relaxation of her body against his…Never been so vividly aware of his own senses through a kiss to the point that he could feel his blood surging through his veins, feel her breath whispering over his skin as she relaxed against him with the soft sigh of surrender he’d been imagining for the past six months. Her lips were soft, her muscles taut as she rose up on tiptoe, stoking the fire between them. She pulled back. He allowed it, barely.

There was a touch of wonder in her expression. “Thee kiss like an angel.”

He caught the words in his mouth, holding them, irrationally making more of them than was wise before letting them go and falling into the game, the seduction. Brushing a few strands of hair away from her temple, he smiled as if he weren’t so aroused that he was in danger of simply lifting her, unbuttoning his pants, finding the wet heat of her through the slit in her pantaloons and thrusting deep. “You should see what my devil can do.”

“An angel, a devil, a man and a woman. Our bed is going to be crowded tonight.”

Laughter caught him by surprise, escaping before he could muffle it. “I suppose we could kick a couple out.”

“Good, because I want only thee.”

For tonight. As a young man he’d been slow to hear that silent qualification, but he’d soon learned the reality of this exchange. And the benefits of giving a woman what she wanted. Pretty much, his size and muscle, when combined with the forbidden of his ancestry, meant that no matter what town he landed in, his bed was never empty unless he wanted it to be. Since he’d landed in Lindos for the first time a year ago, he’d slept alone because the only woman he wanted was grieving, but now it looked like his luck was turning. Satisfaction spread right along with his smile. “Good.”

Sally Mae blinked, reached up and touched the corner of his mouth. “Thee are smiling.”

The tenderness, when he expected passion, threw him off balance.

“You’ve seen me smile before.”

She shook her head, leaning back. He liked the way she trusted he’d support her almost as much as he liked the gentle brush of her fingertips over the corner of his lips. “Not a true smile.”

“I’ve got you in my arms with the night in front of me. That’s a lot to be happy about.”

“Will thee think badly of me if I admit I’m smiling for the same reason?”

He pressed experimentally with his fingertips. She responded by snuggling closer, her breath catching as she felt the extent of his desire. “If I say yes, will you try harder to please me?”

“I would be more likely to find a man less persnickety.”

“In that case, absolutely not.”

The softening of her smile let him know she understood his teasing. “Ah, good, because I have my heart set on thee.”

Inside, the music died off. People would be coming out soon to catch a breath of air. They couldn’t stay here.

“What are thee thinking?”

“Where we can go for a little privacy.”

“Thee do not have this all planned?”

The question hit him on a raw spot he had thought long since scabbed over. His mother being Indian didn’t make him an amoral tomcat with nothing better to do than plan the next skirt to lift. “I’ve been busy.”

Trying to find Desi’s sister, Ari, before her uncle’s henchman did. Trying to keep Sam and Bella alive against the outlaws that wanted Sam dead and Bella’s inheritance in their pockets. Trying to keep his hands off Sally Mae.

Sally winced and sighed, her palms pressing against his chest, stroking the apology into his skin. Her fingers tangled in the cord around his neck, sliding down to nudge the bullet he always wore around his neck as a reminder of what happened to those who were weak. “Thee should know I’m not good at this.”

He pulled them away, not liking the thought of her tainted by the memories it harbored. “What exactly is this?”

“This is supposed to be me seducing thee.” She slanted him a look from under her lashes. “I’ve been led to believe it doesn’t take much.”

“To seduce an Indian?”

This time, she slapped his shoulder, the small, painless violence just arousing him more. Pushing back, she glared at him. His hand in the small of her back kept her from putting any real distance between them, but it didn’t keep her from trying. A little of his resentment faded as he quelled the rebellion by lifting her just a bit so her struggles snuggled the ridge of his cock into the V of her thighs. On a sharp gasp, she went utterly still. But she didn’t back down.

“Any man.”

“Your momma tell you that?”

“It was more of a warning, to keep me safe from the base desires of men.”

“And yet, here you are, blatantly tempting my baser self.”

She frowned. “Who wants to aggravate me.”

“Who wants you very much,” he corrected, sliding his hands up her back.

“I’m not so sure I want thee anymore.”

The little liar. The truth was in the way she cuddled against him and the way her eyes watched his lips shape around the words as if imagining other things. “Even if I promise to be very easy to seduce?”

Her fingers dug into his shoulder as he pressed against her in little pulses. “How easy?”

Trailing his fingers down her cheek, over the slight ledge of her shoulder to her chest, he confessed, “Very.”

Biting her lip, she continued to hold still as he found and followed the strap of her camisole beneath her dress. “I could meet thee in the barn.”

The confession came out in a breathless rush that touched his tender side and reminded him she was new to this, likely had never been with anyone but the good doctor. That being the case, this was a very big step for her. The least he could do was make it easy. As his finger hit the bodice of the hidden camisole, he kissed her lips for no reason other than that it had been fifteen seconds since the last time he’d placed his mouth on hers, fifteen seconds since he’d taken her breath as his. Fifteen seconds since he’d felt that particular arc of pleasure go through him. It was no different this time. Pleasure arced in a rich unfurling. And when its journey culminated its race down his spine, settling in his balls, pulling them up tight, it was almost like coming home. This time, when their lips parted, he couldn’t manage easy. His impatience bit into his drawl, dragging it down to a rough growl.

“The barn’s too conspicuous.”

She blinked, not with him yet. Her tongue ran over her lips. “I can sneak.”

As if sneaking was an option. “The rumors will start before you get to the rose garden.”

His staying in her barn when he was in town hadn’t raised suspicions when her husband was alive, but now that she was widowed, a hostile edge had invaded his dealings with some of the town’s more ornery citizens. Pretty much everyone but Sally Mae held his motives in suspicion. And as the days passed, that suspicion was growing.

She sighed and flicked her fingers in dismissal. “Some people lead very boring lives. They seek something to talk about.”

She’d obviously never been on the wrong side of community opinion, otherwise she’d know how much other people’s assumptions could ruin a life. He drew his thumb across the remnants of their kiss, the soft, moist flesh clinging to his calluses.

“Bored people could make life very difficult for you.”

“If I worried about how others see my choices, my life would be equally boring.”

He kind of liked the idea of her life being boring. Predictable. Safe.

“Thankfully, the sacrifice won’t be necessary.” He let her slide down, his breath hissing between his teeth as her stomach slid along his cock. “The moon’s bright enough. I’m thinking that I could meet you down by the pond.”

She ran her hand up his back. “Outside?”

She didn’t sound put off by the idea. He hadn’t really expected her to be. In his experience, being taken outdoors was part of what women expected when they invited him to their bed. “Yes.”

Her fingers pressed against his nape in a fleet kiss of excitement. “I’ll have to take my leave and then stop by the house. I will meet thee in an hour.”

An hour was too damn long. As the only thing he could figure she needed from the house was a blanket, he offered. “I can take the quilt off my bed.”

She stepped back, out of his arms. “Not those kind of things.”

He had a gnawing urge to drag her back. “Care to explain?”

She sighed. “Thee must not take this wrong, but I do not wish to become with child.”

He wasn’t in any particular hurry to be a father, though a part of him couldn’t resist toying with the thought of a child. A little bit of him to go on in the future. He wouldn’t have one, of course. Caught between the Indian world he’d never known and the white world that wouldn’t accept him, there was no place for him, any more than there’d be a place for a child who would no doubt bear his skin color. For him, there were just these stolen moments with different women with no forever on the back end.

“You’ve got a way of stopping that?”

“Yes. Jonah taught me.”

“It works?”

“We were married six years and I do not have a child.”

She sounded neither happy nor sad when she said that, which just struck him as wrong. A woman like Sally Mae, who cared for everyone, would have strong maternal urges. Yet she didn’t have children because her husband had taught her how to avoid it.

Sally’s fingers brushed his, drawing his gaze. “This bothers thee?”

He smiled automatically. “Not a bit.”

She didn’t smile back.

“I do not want thee to take offense, but…” She licked her lips. “I must ask…”

No doubt she wanted to caution him to be gentle. Women always seemed obligated to ask that, as if he weren’t aware of his size and the harm he could do. “What?”

“It occurs to me that a man like thee might already have a woman.”

Shit. He’d rather she’d ask him to be gentle than to be insulting him. “If I did, I wouldn’t be out here kissing you.”

She shook her head, causing moonlight to dance off the crown of braids wrapped around her head as the strings to her white cap danced about her shoulders. He wanted to pull those hairpins out so that heavy swathe of hair spilled like sunlight, brightening the darkness around them.

“I don’t mean to insult thee. It’s just not my way to cause another pain.”

He knew that about her, but it annoyed the hell out of him that she didn’t know the same about him. Then again, why should she? To her, he was a means to an end. “Then you can stop worrying. No one’s expecting me anywhere.”

Except Ari, Caine’s sister-in-law, either dead or held prisoner somewhere out there. But until he received a response to his latest query, he didn’t have a lead to follow so he had no choice other than to stay put.

Sally Mae reached up, cuddling the softness of her breasts into the hardness of his chest. His hand fell naturally to the small of her back, supporting her. There were definitely compensations to staying put. “Except me.”

“Except you.”

He shook his head, feeling her shiver when the ends of his hair f licked across her forearms as her fingers linked behind his neck. She was very sensitive to him. “I’ll be waiting for you at the woods straight off the back door.”

“But what if someone—”

He put his fingers over her lips. “No one’s going to see me unless I want to be seen, but you’re not to walk in the woods at night by yourself.”

“I have done it many times. Two nights ago, in fact.”

“I know.”

She frowned. “Thee watched?”

“I kept guard.”

Her smile caressed his fingertips. “Thee always watch over me.”

“I owe you.”

She went still against him again.

“What?”

Her hands slid down to his shoulders. “Thee are not planning on being with me tonight because thee feel obligated?”

Only a woman could come to that conclusion. “Moonbeam, I’m not that nice a guy.”

The mischief came back to her smile. “Good.”

It was foolish. Someone could come out any second, and the one thing he never was, was foolish. But when Sally looked at him like that—part seductress, part challenge—he lost all sense of civilization. Yanking her into his arms, he kissed her with all the hunger she roused—hard enough to bruise, hard enough to leave an impression. And when he let her go, she swayed, her gray eyes glazed over with the same passion tearing through him. Hell, when he finally got her to himself, they were going to set the grass on fire.

Touching his finger to the kiss-swollen center of her bottom lip, he drew it away from her teeth, revealing the moist inner lining. He licked his lips, savoring her taste. Tonight he’d know what she tasted like all over. Tucking his finger under her chin, he lifted her face to his.

“Don’t make me wait too long.”

Sally stood in front of her mirror, studying her reflection. Tucker McCade was waiting for her out in the woods. The illicit thrill that went through her was very much out of place, but exciting. Staring at the mirror, she wondered what he saw in her. She was a plain woman with plain ways, wearing a plain dress. She had nothing frilly under her dress, such as the saloon girls wore to entice a man. No fancy scents to please his senses. She was just Sally Mae Schermerhorn, widow of Jonah Schermerhorn, mother to none, daughter to none. A woman who’d come west in the hope of finding the sense of belonging that she’d never had, even amidst the accepting arms of the people who had taken her in when she was ten. Even in the arms of her husband.

She touched the demure white cap she always wore over her coronet of braids. Nothing like what was worn by the other women Tucker had known, she was sure. Tucker, with his big bones, big muscles and bold face with the aggressive slash of his cheekbones beneath his incredible silver eyes was a harshly exotic, handsome man. There was nowhere he went that women’s eyes didn’t follow. A dart of insecurity pierced her anticipation. Which meant he could have his pick.

She pulled the cap off slowly, watching in the mirror as it revealed the tightly pinned braids. Suddenly she hated the hairstyle and all it represented. Conformity. Control. Acceptance. Tonight, she wanted to be the woman that Tucker imagined. Someone as fanciful as a moonbeam. She studied the cap, her image. Tonight, for whatever reason, he wanted her. And tonight she wanted to be more than plain Sally Mae. Tonight she wanted to drown in the attraction between them and just bury the pain that festered inside beneath some sort of joy. Since that horrible night when the sheriff had brought her Jonah’s bloody body, along with his last words, she’d been silently screaming. She didn’t want to be silent anymore, locked in her mind with her screams. And tonight she didn’t have to be. Tonight she could give Tucker what he wanted and take a little for herself. No promises would be made. No one would be hurt. Just two bodies coming together to satisfy separate needs. And when it was over, she’d go back to her silence and plain ways and Tucker would go about his wild ones. There was no worry that he would gossip. The added benefit of taking a man with Indian blood as her lover was that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—say a word for fear of being strung up. She didn’t personally care about his heritage. God created all men and women equally, but societal issues did offer her that guarantee.

Another pause as she considered how selfish she was being, using a man to relieve pain. But then she remembered the look in Tucker’s eyes as he’d stood in the back of the cemetery on one of her recent visits. He had stalked over the rise like some wild cougar, his torn-off shirtsleeves and leather vest showcasing his massive chest and powerful muscles, giving him a primitive intimidation, making everyone and everything else seem insignificant. The ever-present bullet hanging on the leather thong around his neck completed the image of a cold, lethal predator. Until his silver gaze met hers. There hadn’t been any sympathy there. No pity. But as she stared into his eyes, understanding arced across the distance between them, and she saw the pain he, too, felt.

It would just be one other thing they had in common—an understanding of how pain too great to be borne had to be hidden, because to let it loose would destroy everything they were. At first, that had made her uncomfortable, but as the months passed there was comfort in knowing that her secret was shared. And now their relationship was going forward, down a path that had a predestined feel to it. An opening, Friends called it. An opportunity, presented by God, to grow.

Sighing, she put the cap on the polished vanity top.

She was going to take a lover. A man not of her race, not of her beliefs. A man who, supposedly, was built of nothing but violence and darkness. A man who had such bright, shining moments of goodness that it was very hard to reconcile his reputation with what she knew. A man with whom, tonight, she would share more secrets. Intimate ones in a step she’d accepted was meant to be. She wasn’t sure what God had planned for either of them, but tonight was right. Others might point a finger if they found out, but the same way she’d known since she was ten that Jonah was to be her husband, she knew Tucker was what she needed tonight.

The knowledge didn’t make her any less nervous. She had an incredible urge to slap the cap back onto her head, to go back into hiding, to let the pain grow until it got too big to fight anymore. To be the coward no one ever let her be. Instead, she unbuttoned her dress and quickly divested herself of her corset. It didn’t seem right to go to a tryst wearing one. She didn’t look in the mirror as she tossed it on the bed and rebuttoned the fastenings.

Running her hands over her stomach, she sighed. It felt strange to feel her flesh beneath her dress. Wearing a corset always made her feel more in charge, as if she had a second backbone to see her through when her own failed, but tonight, it was just her. Tucker had better appreciate it.

A glance at the clock on the wall showed more than an hour had passed since Tucker had left.

Don’t make me wait too long.

Or what? She hadn’t asked what, but nothing her imagination came up with made her feel better. He’d leave? She didn’t want that. He’d come get her? Even worse. The whole reason she was late was because that cantankerous, lecherous Lyle—her current patient—had proved demanding, wanting food and making insinuations while she’d served it. Thank goodness, by tomorrow he’d be up and about and gone. He made her nervous with his sly glances and free ways. While it was her duty to care for the sick, there were some patients she debated the wisdom of saving. Lyle was one.

Immediately, she felt guilty. All men were capable of change. The prompting came from within and there was every chance this last brush with a knife had opened Lyle’s heart. If Jonah was here it wouldn’t be so hard to believe that. She likely wouldn’t have slipped in the first place. Jonah had believed very strongly in God’s power to induce change.

Unlike her. She glanced at her reflection again, noting the high color in her cheeks. The almost wicked anticipation in her eyes. The utterly proper braids above. She reached up and changed her mind halfway to her destination. She couldn’t walk out the door with her hair down. It was too brazen, too bold. It would leave her feeling naked.

Sally knew there was a wildness in her that could match the wildness in Tucker, but knowing it and experiencing it were two different things. To complicate matters, she had a tendency to be shy. If she got mad, that fell by the wayside, but she didn’t intend to be mad tonight. Raking her teeth across her lips to give them a bit more fullness and color, she turned away from the mirror. She would have to do as she was. Jonah had always enjoyed taking her hair down for her. Maybe Tucker would enjoy it, too. Smoothing her skirts, she headed down the stairs and into the sweetness of the night.

Tucker was waiting for her right where she expected. As soon as she stepped into the shadows of the trees, his hand reached out and snagged her arm, pulling her into him.

“You’re late,” he growled as his other hand cupped her head, tilting her head back. Before she could answer, his mouth was on hers, swallowing her gasp of surprise as his tongue plunged past her lips, all the wildness she’d ever sensed in him pouring over her in a shocking bath of fire.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, digging her nails into his nape, she let his passion sweep her up. Pulling him to her, opening her mouth wider, she begged for more as he made a rumbling noise in his chest. A growl? Had he really growled? She shivered with the possibility as he lifted her and walked her back until her shoulder blades came up against a tree. His chest came down against hers, holding her prisoner as his mouth continued to ravish hers.

She’d never been wanted like this. Never had a man come at her like he’d starve if he didn’t have all she had to give as fast as he could get it. It was surprisingly erotic. His thigh pushed between her legs as her knee came up and met the barrier of the fabric of her skirt. She strained forward. He was so close, so close…

That low rumble surrounded her again. His big hands left her back and reached down. His lips bit at hers. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“Any less and I’d be naked,” she moaned as he worked his knee higher so it just grazed her center. Three yanks on the yards of fabric and he had her right leg free. She wrapped it around his calf, which was as high as she could reach. Another rumble, this one bit off in the middle by frustration. “What the hell’s wrong with naked?”

There was no way that he could do anything with her skirts like this, but she could feel how hungry he was, how fevered with need. Because of her. Power and wonder joined desire. “Someone would see.”

“Who cares?”

“Thee would.” She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did.

Fabric ripped and his hands closed over her thigh. Heat seared through her skin. “Yes, I would.” He squeezed. “Only I get to see you like this.”

“Thee can’t see anything.”

This time the rumble was anticipation. “Yet.”

Yet. Such a powerful word. She shuddered. Bark rasped against her back as he shifted his grip. As if she weighed nothing, he lifted her higher, snuggled her tighter. The muscles of his thighs flexed against hers. He was so different from her. Pure muscle and temptation.

He bent his head. There was no evading his mouth. No wanting to. She loved the way he kissed. The way he tasted. She wanted to taste him more intimately. To feel all that muscle flex at her command. She pressed against his shoulder in a silent request.

He shook his head, his hair tickling the sides of her neck. His hat brim shadowed her face as his denial grated into her mouth. “No.”

“Yes.” She pressed harder. “Let me go.”

For a second she didn’t think Tucker heard, but then his chest heaved against hers and he stepped back, his hands settling on the tree beside her head. Still keeping her within the circle of his arms. His mouth was set in a straight line. Beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes slitted. A shiver of awareness swept over her skin. This wasn’t the man she knew. This was the man outlaws feared and women desired. He looked like he’d kill to have her back in his arms. Oh, she liked that.

His mouth twisted. “I’m sorry.”

Licking her lips, she caught the lingering salt of his kiss. “For what?”

His hands drew up into fists, scraping across the rough bark. “I usually save the rough stuff for a little later in the game.”

It took her a minute to understand his meaning. He thought she was afraid? The harsh line of his jaw drew her touch. His skin was smooth without the constant roughness of impending beard that her husband had had. Did Indians not have facial hair? “I like that thee want me like this.”

His teeth closed over the tip of her finger. “Good, because I feel like I’m about to go off like a firecracker.”

She slid down the tree, the bark pulling at her hair, smiling when his hand automatically came between her head and the tree, protecting her even as his breath came in a hard sigh. “Then maybe we should do something to ease the worst of thy hunger.”

She held her breath as she reached for the button fly of his pants. Jonah hadn’t liked her to take charge. Tucker merely took a step back, giving her a bit more room. “Sally Mae…”

There was enough light to see the bulge of his erection pressing hard against his pants. She leaned forward. His fingers twined beneath her braids. To pull her away or hold her close? “What?”

“You’re living dangerously.”

Her smile deepened as she brushed her lips across the broad tip where it rested above his hipbone. His breath hissed in as she opened her mouth and encompassed as much of the broad head as she could through the thick cotton of his pants. “Thee have been telling me that for months.”

“You might want to listen.”

“Not tonight.”

This time when she pushed, he took that step she needed, his eyes shining like silver fire in the new moonlight as she knelt in front of him and unbuttoned his pants. His skin was hot and damp, enabling the slide of her hand down beneath the material. She held his gaze, not bothering to hide how he made her feel. Tonight was about pleasure. “I like knowing I can affect thee like this.”

His laugh rumbled softly around them. “Good, because there isn’t a chance in he—hades after this that I’ll be able to pretend that you don’t.”

She liked that he modified his language for her. She liked even more that, when she slid his underwear down, his cock fell into her hands. Big, surprisingly thick. She curled her fingers under the head, sliding her hand down, her grip widening as his cock thickened until she got to the base. Hair tickled her fingers. He didn’t move as she cupped his balls, rolling his testicles gently between her fingers as she slid her hand back up. Once again as she worked her hand down, her fingers were forced open. She paused, studying his cock—the dark color of the flared head, the sheer size, taking in the enormity of what she was doing.

She was going to sleep with a man other than her husband, going to take him into her body. And once she did, there’d be no going back. She’d no longer just be Jonah’s widow, her future defined by her past. She’d be Sally Mae Schermerhorn. A woman whose future stretched…endlessly…in front of her. She closed her eyes. She felt as though she were perched on the edge of a cliff. One way was disaster. One way was safety. She just didn’t know which way to go. Forward or back. Life or death.

Dear God, I need a sign.

Tucker’s cock flexed in her palm, drawing her attention. His fingertip under her chin pulled her gaze to his. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the vastness of the night sky. It was scary and exciting all at once. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of with me, moonbeam.”

It was the moonbeam that got her. That silly, fanciful name he called her should have offended, but it didn’t. Because it very much fit how she wanted to see herself. She wanted to be silly and fanciful. To be the woman who truly felt as if she could take on anything, especially Tucker’s passion.

“Thank thee.”

Watching his face as she was, she couldn’t miss the smile that twitched his lip at her politeness. She couldn’t blame him for the humor, but laughter wasn’t going to give her what she needed. She needed passion. A lot of passion. Passion so bright it burned her from the inside out. With a swipe of her thumb across the sensitive head of his cock, she banished the humor. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. His mouth settled into the familiar straight line that gave him that dangerous look. Her pussy flexed and her breath caught. Yes, that was how she wanted him to look. Dangerous and ready.

She opened her mouth, letting him watch as she angled the tip downward, not immediately taking him into her mouth, teasing him with the heat of her breath, the sweet agony of anticipation. Pressure on the back of her head pulled her forward. She resisted, just another second, for no other reason than she could, but there was no fighting Tucker. He was a force as elemental as the night, as unstoppable as the wind. As soon as her lips slid over the crown, a drop of hot liquid coated her tongue. Salty. Earthy. Good.

Tucker groaned and his grip on her skull tightened convulsively. “Shit.”

If her mouth hadn’t been full of him, Sally would have smiled. She intended for him to lose a lot more control before morning came. Tonight he was her dream come true and she wasn’t missing a minute of it.

Bobbing her head up and down the length of his cock, she adjusted to his width by stretching her mouth as far as she could until he hit the back of her throat. It was her turn to moan. No matter how hard she worked, she could only take half of him. It wasn’t enough. She wanted all he had to give, wanted to give him everything, more than any other woman ever had. As she caressed his cock, she realized that she wanted to be memorable. To him. Dear heaven, she was breaking her own rules.

His big hand cupped her cheek, his fingers caressing behind her ear as she struggled with the urge to gag.

When she met his gaze, he shook his head. The swaying ends of his hair created slender shadows around them.

“Don’t force it. Just let it happen.”

Everything in her rejected the suggestion. It couldn’t just happen. It had to be right. The way she’d planned. She took him faster, her hands working his balls and the base of his shaft. He didn’t protest, but this time his fingers pressed at the nape of her neck, tilting her head back as she withdrew until she held only the heavy tip balanced on her tongue.

“I’m not going to last too long like this.”

She drew back. Proof welled between them. A shimmering drop of desire bathed in white light. Pure and tempting. Another sign?

“Are thee only good for one time?” That would require an altering of her plans.

Tucker laughed and shook his head, his hair sliding across his shoulders in a pagan enticement. She’d love to feel that hair brushing over her skin. Her nipples tightened and a shiver went through her as her imagination provided an image to feed her passion. His eyes narrowed.

“I’ll be at you so much, you’ll be lucky if you can walk come morning.”

That sounded good to her. If he was “at her” she couldn’t think. Couldn’t mourn. Couldn’t long. “Prove it.”

His expression shifted, lost its neutrality. In its place was lust, passion and a wild emotion she couldn’t place. His beautiful lips barely moved as he said, “That was a mistake.”

She didn’t get a chance to ask why. And in the next breath, she didn’t need to. His cock pressed into her mouth, spearing strong and deep as he pinned her with his knees to her shoulders, holding her to the tree a willing prisoner to his desire. Holding her for the thrust of his cock, the pulse of his pleasure.

The passion in his eyes burned over her, finding an answering level in her, jerking it to the fore, causing her to gasp. Lovemaking with her husband had been proper and satisfying, but it hadn’t had this wildness. And she wanted it, every primitive wild pulse.

When Tucker tried to pull back, she leaned her head forward, doing a little imprisoning of her own, sucking and licking along the throbbing shaft, urging him on with her tongue and teeth, studying his reaction. Glorying in it. Glorying in him. His hand cupped her head in a subtle command to stay put.

“Unbutton your dress.”

She’d never known an order could be so arousing. Clenching her thighs together, watching him watch her, she did. Without being told, she untied her camisole, too, separating both layers until the taut fabric cupped her breasts, pushing them in and up. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, insecurity gnawing at her confidence, stilling her movements. She wanted to please him.

Tucker swore, his eyes glued to the sight, and then with a jerk, he tore his cock from her mouth.

“No.” She grabbed for him, finding only the hard muscle of his thighs.

“Hold still.”

Angling his cock downward, he pumped it once, twice and then hot come splashed over her breasts, covering her nipples in an erotic bonding.

It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him in her mouth, a part of her. When he jerked and his cock came within reach, she tucked her tongue under the broad head, held his gaze as she wiggled it lightly, and let him see the final splash of his seed coat her tongue before slowly swallowing. Tucker swore and moaned. His still-hard cock forged into her mouth, filling her the way she wished it filled the place between her legs. She held him as he relaxed, cuddling her tongue to the softer shape, breathing through her nose as desire and satisfaction poured through her.

She thought it was over, but with a simple motion of his hand behind her head, Tucker took her with him. “I didn’t know you wanted my seed.”

She blinked at the apology. She wasn’t used to such plain speaking. His fingers cherished the curve of her cheekbone, followed the line of her jaw, tucking into the corner of her mouth with the same tenderness with which she cradled his cock. He held her to him as if he couldn’t bear to part. He reached down and cupped her breast in his big palm. The heat of his hand joined the lingering warmth of his seed, sending a shiver down her spine. His lips softened into a smile. “Did you like that?”

She nodded. She had and she wanted more. She wanted the whole experience of Tucker, no matter how shocking, how wild.

“Good.”

Those pagan eyes of his captured every nuance of her expression as he took a step backward, forcing her to creep along with him, and leaned back and sat down. She caught her weight on her hands as he spread his thighs, making a place for her. He clearly did not want her mouth separated from his cock. She didn’t have to wait more than a second to wonder why.

“Get me hard again.”




Chapter 3


It was the first time a woman had ever made him weak in the knees. Not to mention weak in the head. Threading his fingers through Sally’s hair, Tucker struggled for control as her mouth worked his cock. Tonight was his one chance to know the splendor of Sally and he’d already wasted enough time being a selfish bastard.

A simple flex of his muscles brought her up over his chest. Her face turned into his shoulder. He felt the graze of her teeth through his shirt. Lust went through him like a bolt of lightning, searing the ragged edges of his control. “I guarantee you, if you bite you’ll end up right back where you were.”

She looked up at him, her eyes liquid pools of silver in the moonlight. “And thee don’t want that?”

He pressed his lips against her forehead, as he fought to hold on to control. “Moonbeam, I’ll take you any way I can get you, but I want tonight.”

“If that makes me happy, what’s wrong with that?”

“It doesn’t make me happy.”

He felt a smile push against his chest. “Thee realize, of course, that I’m going to disagree.”

He stood, taking her with him. Her little gasp as he lifted her left him feeling more manly than he had a right to. After all, he’d just come on her breasts and not given her any pleasure at all. He’d earned a whipping, not bragging rights. Her breasts…A glance down showed them to be small and white, pert and gleaming with his seed. He couldn’t resist. He cupped her right breast in his hand, the hard nipple prodding the callus on his thumb as he slicked his seed across the tip, branding her as his. Her forehead grazed his cheek as she watched.

He let his thumb linger. She moaned. A fresh flood of desire whipped through him. “That’s a pretty sight, isn’t it?”

She looked up, her eyes soft and luminous. “Yes.”

He couldn’t help himself. He needed another kiss. Her lips parted expectantly. Damn, she was one sexy woman. He breathed into her mouth, “I think we should do it again.”

“Yes.”

“But this time you come for me.”

Her eyes darkened, and a shiver took her from head to toe.

“I see you like that idea.”

“Did thee think I wouldn’t?”

He laughed, tucked his cock into his pants and fastened the top button, keeping his mouth glued to hers, letting the uniqueness of the passion carry him through the mundane. When her knees sagged, he slipped his arm behind them and scooped her up. Her hands came around his neck and she shivered, making him glad for the years of hard labor that had built the muscles in his body.

“I like this, too,” she whispered.

“Good. Give me five minutes and I’ll give you something more to like.”

“Thee have it, but no more.”

The subtle attempt at taking control made him smile as he wove between the trees. He wondered what kind of man her husband had been. Not the doctor, who’d treated all with the same level of competence, but the man who’d lain beside her at night. From the way her fingers were working on the buttons of his shirt, he clearly hadn’t left her with a distaste for relations. The tiny brushes of her nails as she undid the first few buttons before slipping her hands beneath burned like hot sparks.

They broke into a small clearing twenty feet from the pond. The bed of quilts tucked into the middle of the area caught the pale gleam of the moonlight. Sally turned her head as they stopped. He felt her gasp in the expansion of her ribs against his chest.

“When did thee find time to do this?”

He released her legs slowly, savoring the feel of her thighs sliding down the outside of his, imagining the same sweet glide without material between them. He stopped the descent when her pussy aligned precisely with his still-hard cock. “Give a man the right incentive, and he can do anything.”

Her hands pressed against his chest as he lowered her to her feet. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He caught them in his, bringing them up to his mouth, centering a kiss first in her right palm and then the left. “I was serious about this being your turn.”

“And this means I can’t unbutton thy shirt?”

“I’d much rather see you naked.”

She tugged to free her hands. “I’m nowhere near as interesting as thee.”

“I’m not wanting to argue on our first night together, but…”

Her head tilted to the side. “But thee will if I force thee?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will be quiet.”

Her eyes said she intended to be anything but quiet. He smiled. The woman had a fair amount of sass in her. He liked that. Reaching for the pins in her hair, he said, “Not entirely, I hope. There are some things I’d be interested in hearing.”

The first pin fell to the ground. “I’d be open to hearing words like ‘harder.’” He found the next hairpin holding the end of her coronet in place and pulled it free. “Softer.” Five more pins were removed in rapid succession. “Deeper.” The braids unrolled, extending past her rear. She cuddled into his chest.

“How about ‘faster’?”

He shook his head as he untied the end of the braid. “I intend to enjoy every moment of tonight.”

He fluffed her hair out, holding a long, silken strand to the side so that it caught the moonlight. “You have beautiful hair.”

She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “If thee let me finish taking off thy shirt, I’ll let thee feel it against thy chest.” Her nail wiggled between the buttons over his stomach. “And maybe lower, too.”

As he turned her, he said, “You’re a bold little thing.”

“Is that an objection?” she asked over her shoulder.

He went to work on the rest of the buttons on her dress. The buttons were tiny and hard to manage. The frustration just put a finer edge on his hunger.

“Not a bit.”

He got six more free, exposing the hollow of her spine. He paused, taking in the view from the delicate point between her shoulder blades to the sultry hollow just above the fine turn of her ass. She was a very finely built woman. Too fine for him, but he’d survived his whole life stealing bits of other people’s lives, pretending they were his. It wouldn’t hurt to do it one more time. Trailing his finger down the slight bumps of Sally’s spine, he enjoyed the smoothness of her skin a minute before he tested that finegrained perfection with his lips. As she did every time he tried something new, she shivered, paused and then relaxed into his lead.

“I like you just the way you are.”

In truth, Sally Mae knew she wasn’t giving him much to object to. She was being a different woman for him, letting out the wildness he called forward because, with him, there was no right and wrong. It was simply right that his arms came around her waist. Right that she take his kiss against the side of her neck, right that she feel engulfed, treasured, protected. Right that he hold her. Something that had never felt right before with any other man.

“Thee are a very dangerous man, Tucker McCade.”

The touch of his tongue made her jump, right along with the lightning that ripped along her nerves.

“And you’re a very tempting woman.”

“I think…only for thee.”

“Are you going to tell me your husband didn’t appreciate you?”

No, she wasn’t going to tell him that, because it wouldn’t be true. Jonah had been an attentive husband. He’d done his duty by her. But it had been a duty, in some respects. There had been warmth. There had been commitment. There had been a deepening of respect for each other, but there’d never been this primitive lust that burned from the inside out, this primal desire to belong only to him. Mostly, there hadn’t been the…potential that existed with Tucker. “He was a good husband.”

“Well, then, I’ll try to be as good a lover as he was.”

He pressed another kiss just above the curve of her shoulder, bringing the nerve endings to life, raising a string of goose bumps before nestling his wonderful mouth fully into the curve. She tilted her head, granting him access. His big palm opened over her stomach, his fingers spreading wide, his thumb touching hers.

She turned in his arms, slipping her hands around his sturdy back, pressing her fingers against the hard muscles. He was so warm. His tongue stroked her lips, which tingled and swelled to the touch. Her breasts quickly followed suit. What was it about this man that was like a match to tinder to her senses?

“Now I have a question of my own.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t help but wonder what brought you to my way of thinking.”

Ah, he wanted an answer.

“There’s something between us, Tucker, and it occurred to me tonight that I don’t want to die without knowing what it is.”

He tipped her face up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

But he would…someday. Either by God’s hand or by the violence that he courted with the challenge he offered in the way he carried himself. He would leave. And she would have to accept it. But not tonight. “Good.”

His beautiful eyes crinkled at the corners. “Come here.”

She went eagerly, expecting a flood of passion. What she got was something else entirely. Something unexpected. Something that melted her from the inside out and broke loose parts of her that she’d never known existed. Parts that rose to the answer to her question. Tucker didn’t take a woman, he savored her. One taste at a time. One tempting sip followed by another. Tiny sips that led a woman past her inhibitions to the total appreciation that lay beyond.

It was completely sexy, completely consuming to be wanted so much. She shivered as Tucker’s big hand slid down her back, the tips of his fingers riding her spine until they reached the hollow. Pressure urged her between his spread thighs. She shuffled forward on her knees, unmindful of the hardness of the ground, resenting the impediment of her skirt when it drew her up short.

“Blast!” She caught herself on Tucker’s broad shoulders. His chuckle followed her curse.

“You’re still overdressed.”

His fingers were entirely too deft on the waistband of her skirt, unfastening the buttons with speed.

“I’m not that overdressed.”

The waistband gave way and his fingers met the cotton of her pantaloons. “That would be a matter of opinion.”

His mouth crooked in that small smile that always sent her heart to pitter-pattering. Tonight was no different. Lit by the moon, hidden by shadow, his expression was visible only in bits and pieces, but what she saw sent shivers down her spine. The white flash of his smile, the shine of his eyes.

Oh, I could love him.

The thought had just popped into her mind. Forbidden. Scary. Intriguing.

“Tucker…” Her whisper, full of longing, filled the space between them.

“Right here, Sally Mae.”

Another shiver snaked down her spine. He never called her by her name. That he did so now made it just that much more intimate. Wrapping her arms around his neck she let him draw her against the hard muscles of his big body. Her skirt rustled as it slid down her thighs. She didn’t care. She’d waited her whole life for this moment, this man, to take her in his arms. She could feel magic waiting just beyond the next second. It was a sin, but it couldn’t be wrong. Nothing between them could be wrong. The knowledge slid into her soul in a swell of enlightenment. Her confidence grew right alongside. Whatever this was, it was meant to be. And it was right. She lifted her mouth, stealing Tucker’s smile for herself.

His satisfaction rumbled in his chest.

“Hungry?”

The gruff question set her to shivering again.

“Very.”

Another of those sexy growls before Tucker slanted his mouth over hers. The passion in the move rippled across her desire, sparking it higher.

“Yes…”

She wasn’t aware that she’d even spoken the word aloud until he reflected it back in his deep baritone.

“Yes.”

Yes, this was what she’d needed. The thrust of his tongue, the power of his embrace, the shudder of his big body against hers as she straddled his thighs and settled gently over his groin.

“Goddamn it, Sally.”

She shook her head as anticipation blended with pleasure.

She fitted her groin to his, rocking on the hard ridge of his cock, breathing deeply of the humid night air. She spread her fingers across his magnificent chest, touching the tips of her pinkies to the tips of his flat nipples.

Never would she delude herself that this between them wasn’t magic.

His hands slid under her thighs, the backs brushing her pussy and he went to work on the buttons of his pants. “Lift up.”

Lifting up was the best thing she ever did. Lifting up allowed Tucker the opportunity to free his penis. Lifting up allowed the slick slide of her pussy over his thick cock. His very thick cock.

Instinct had her pulling back from the potent threat. “Oh my.”

His big hands settled on her hips, guiding her back into the motion. His cock pressed eagerly. Her breath caught in her lungs. Tension coiled in her stomach, spreading outward. There was the slightest shift in his grip, and then he pressed up. Delicious shivers radiated up from her pussy in hot pulses. Her fingers curled. Something like a growl rumbled in his chest. Her body, still primed from their previous encounter, ignited in a storm of passion.

“Tucker!”

He lifted her, but this time when she came back down, he was waiting for her. His cock wedged into the well of her pussy and her breath exploded from her in a gasp.

“Relax, Sally.”

Yes, she needed to relax, otherwise she’d never be able to take him. Biting her lip, she tried again.

“Shh, baby.” His hand touched her cheek. “I know it’s been a while. We’ll take it slow and easy.”

It had been more than a while. Jonah had never been this big, stretched her to this point, challenged her so.

“Tucker,” she whispered as she took that first little bit.

“Damn, I knew you’d feel like this.”

“Like what?”

His eyes narrowed. “Like a fist coated in liquid fire.”

She blinked and bit her lips. He wasn’t the only one who was burning. “Perfect.”

“Perfect,” he agreed, thrusting up in tiny pulses, testing, stretching until her tight pussy spread over the head of his cock. Only one pulse of his hips kept her from the shining knowledge of what it would be like to be his. “It’s perfect.”

He was perfect and she needed him to…“Hurry.”

“Some things aren’t meant to be hurried, moonbeam, and this is one.”

This was the continuation of the tiny pulses of his hips that teased and retreated, promised and denied. She dug her nails into his chest. “Tucker!”

Another not-quite-there nudge. His thumb swept down, slipped between the wet folds of her pussy and found the hard nub of her clitoris. She almost jumped out of her skin. Fire whipped through her womb, spread outward in a sweep of bliss. His cock slid easier, the erotic burn increased. She wanted more. Needed more.

“Please.”

His gaze held hers. The silver was darkened by the same desire that was coursing through her. She tangled her fingers in his hair, holding on. “Thinking you can give orders now that you’re on top?”

Was she? The answer came to her as he gave her that ghost of possession. “Yes.”

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound that was a velvet caress down her spine. Oh, how she loved to hear him laugh. In one smooth move, he rolled them over, his big hands cushioning her from the ground while his hair fell about her face, shielding them in an intimate cocoon. His cock settled between her thighs with the same easy glide that his smile settled across his lips.

With his broad shoulders filling her vision and his big body dominating hers, she took a deep breath, shivering as the bullet he wore around his neck settled between her breasts. It was warm from his skin. Not for the first time she wondered where he’d gotten it, how it’d come to have so much importance to him.

Propping himself on his elbows, he kissed her hard, hot and…sweet? Oh heavens, so sweet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. The heat from his skin sank into hers, sealing them together. His fingers trailed up her side then along the length of her arm until he’d captured her wrist. She was still shivering when he repeated the procedure on the other side. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he brought both her hands up beside her head, effectively pinning her. A shiver took her from head to toe.

Everything within her melted, but she held onto her fight. The hot cry of pleasure broke past her control.

His lips brushed her cheek, her jaw. “Ah, moonbeam, that was a very sweet sound.”

Not nearly as sweet as the buss of his lips against hers. There was so much emotion contained there. So much held back, so much she wanted to unleash. She forced her eyes open. His face was so close she could make out the fine scar on his upper lip, the tightness of his jaw, the need in his eyes. Another shudder shook her. She was going to fulfill that need tonight.

“Love me, Tucker.”

Had she really said that aloud?

“I will, Sally Mae. Better than you’ve ever been loved.”

He was talking physical love. She didn’t care. She lifted her hips up, begging.

Again that burst of laughter followed by the hot press of his body into hers. His lips nuzzled hers, parted hers, took possession of hers. And this time his cock didn’t stop, just kept forging into her body with relentless pressure that grew right along with the burn of desire.

Mine.

The thought whispered into her mind, her soul. Oh God, this was so much more than physical. Pressing her hands against his chest she opened her mouth, straining for the words that would put an end to temptation. They wouldn’t come, stolen by the thrust of his tongue, his cock. A silent scream of bliss tore through her as he slid deep.

Her “Tucker” blended with his “Damn, Sally.”

Above her his dark face was tight with passion and a battle for control. The night was hot, but he was hotter, all dark muscle and exciting promise. Experimentally, she flexed her inner muscles around the thick intrusion of his cock. Splinters of delight rippled through her pussy, wending their way to her womb. Above her, he jerked and moaned.

His lips met hers in a biting caress. “Keep that up and we’ll be done before we start.”

“Mmm…” She did it again, holding his gaze, absorbing the passion that was hers, just for the asking. A miracle…

“I dare thee to resist,” she whispered as his lips skimmed across her cheek.

His chuckle vibrated against her ear. Within her, his cock flexed, stretching her a delicious bit. Her body quivered. Her muscles contracted.

He whispered back in a low rumble, taking her earlobe between his teeth and biting gently. “Maybe I should just bring you up to my level.”

She suspected she was already there.

“Thee could try.”

“Pushing me, moonbeam?”

Was she? The next bite to her ear was a little harder, adding an erotic sting to the hot pleasure whipping through her.

“Oh, yes.”

Humid air seeped between them as he levered himself up onto his elbows. She resented its touch, her senses wanting only the feel of his skin on hers.

“Why?”

Strands of his hair tickled her breasts. A silken contrast to the hardness that was the man she’d chosen. “Because this is an opening and should not be missed.”

“Can’t say that I’ve ever heard it labeled that way.” His cock caught intimately as he withdrew. She gasped. He paused, holding the tension until it stretched so finely between them, it—she—something had to break.

She dug her nails into his shoulders. “Please.” Oh God, he had to take it—her. Had to put an end to this fire burning so brightly between them. Had to take them to the fiery satisfaction that she could sense waited just beyond her reach. Because if he didn’t, it would be bad. So bad, she’d never stop regretting.

Wrapping her legs around his hips, she pulled herself farther onto his cock, moaning as he stretched her deliciously tight, moaning again as desire whispered a welcoming yes. She groaned with Tucker as that last inch slid home.

“Oh!”

He leaned down, sealing them together knee to chest, so tightly that she could feel the echo of his heartbeat against her own. The trail of kisses he sprinkled down her neck fell like sparks across her skin, igniting a burning yearning for—

“More?”

“Yes.” She needed more.

The tension in Tucker’s arms vibrated down her side as he nipped at her neck. The quilt bunched beneath her hips as she twisted closer. She didn’t care. All she cared about was the slow, tantalizing brush of his mouth over the slope of her breast, the moist touch of his tongue as he cradled her nipple on the rough surface. The gentle pressure as he caught it between his teeth. The searing pleasure as he bit down.

“Mine.”

The claim vibrated against the hard nub, whipping the nerve endings into writhing need.

She made a last grasp at sanity as his cock slid along the ultrasensitive lining of her pussy, tempting the wildness inside her to come forward.

“For tonight,” she gasped.

His response was to thrust deep, stealing her breath, repeating the gesture over and over as he took possession of her senses, her will, with every push of his body into hers, and when his hand slipped between them and found the swollen nub of her clitoris, he took possession of her soul. She shattered, falling into the explosion, embracing the joy, embracing him as he stiffened and swore. His cock flooded her pussy with the warmth of his seed.

She kissed his chest, tasting the salt of his sweat, the depth of his satisfaction. His arms came around her. One hand cupped her head as he rolled them over until she lay on top of him. He brought her mouth down to his, running his tongue along her lips until she parted them for him. His dark eyes caught the moonlight, shining up at her with an almost otherworldly beauty. The shadows weren’t so kind to his face, casting a feral wildness to the harsh planes. Beautiful. Wild. That was her Tucker.

She kissed his lips, squeezing her pussy around his cock as aftershocks rippled through her. His response was immediate and absolute.

“This,” he replied, “is as for as long as we want.”




Chapter 4


Tucker watched Sally Mae from the edge of the woods as she crossed the clearing, her steps a little shorter than normal, her stride not quite so flowing. He’d been hard on her, demanding more, even as she’d given him all, taking him again and again, rising to his touch with soft sighs and eager acceptance. He should have played the gentleman, leaving her alone after the first couple times. She’d been a long time without a man. But he couldn’t. He’d been a wild man, cramming the type of loving he’d normally spread over a month into one night. Taking her in ways he knew damned well Jonah hadn’t. Staking his claim in the most elemental ways he could, expecting her to turn him away, but she hadn’t. She’d given him everything, taken him everywhere, and always with that soft exultant cry that drove him wild. He remembered the first, tight clasp of her pussy around his cock, the resistance as he pushed through the taut muscle of her ass, her gasp as she’d accepted him fully. Her surrender as her body climaxed around his, time after time, without any inhibition, following his lead, letting him take them where he wanted them to go. Over and over. His cock, which should have been worn-out, stirred.

Sally Mae reached the porch and stopped. Though he’d told her not to look back, she did. Not only that, but with lifted chin, she waved. Fool woman. Resignation, pride and the surge of possessiveness that was more than just a simple emotion welled again. Which was ridiculous because, sure as shit, a woman like Sally Mae wasn’t for him. He didn’t know why she had come to him tonight, but there was no way it would happen again. Hell, he had to pay three times the normal price for most whores to assuage their guilt at lying down with an Indian. It wouldn’t be long before the same sense of shame claimed Sally Mae.

Sally entered the house. The door closed. There was no subsequent flare of light. Which was just as well because, if there had been, Tucker would have stood there longer, looking more like a lovesick fool than he already did, lusting after a woman he could never have.

“That’s a fool’s game, you know.”

Tucker sighed and turned to face Tracker. His infatuation with Sally Mae was getting out of control if his senses were so dull that he didn’t hear another approach. If it had been anyone but Tracker who had come up on him outside a white woman’s house, Tucker’d be dead by now. White men were very rigid on the penalty for a red man lusting after one of their women. While he’d like to think it was doubtful that anyone but Tracker could sneak up on him—Tracker and his twin brother, Shadow, were practically ghosts—truth was, he wasn’t sure. Sally Mae was the type of woman to play havoc with a man’s concentration.

“I know.”

The shadows seemed to shift and Tracker stepped into the pale glimmer of dawn. Dressed in his customary black, Tucker couldn’t make out much more of Tracker than his tall, broadshouldered silhouette and the gleam of light off his silver hatband. But he didn’t need to see to know what Tracker looked like. He knew the man’s face as well as he knew his own. When the Mexicans had ridden out that day so many years ago, only eight residents were still breathing. Eight boys. The weight of the bullet around Tucker’s neck seemed to increase the way it always did when he thought back to those days. They’d banded together, to survive. Learned to become meaner and deadlier than anything that tried to take them down, to the point they’d earned the name of Hell’s Eight. If they hadn’t drawn the attention of the Texas Rangers no telling how they would have ended up. They’d been buck wild, taking their revenge with lethal efficiency, but they had been given the choice to become Rangers and they’d taken it, earning a touch of respectability and gaining a broader purpose. Hell, there were even some who’d probably say the Hell’s Eight were downright civilized these days. He smiled. Comparatively.

“After a walk on the wild side, the widow’s going to wander back to respectability, and then where are you going to be?”

Where he’d always been—on the outside looking in. “Looking up a new bed partner. What are you doing here?”

“Just passing through. I thought we’d check on you and Sam.”

“We?”

“Shadow’s here somewhere.”

He bet. “Sam is over at Bella Montoya’s place.”

“So I heard.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the tone in Tracker’s voice. While everyone considered Sam the wild card of Hell’s Eight, Tucker had always felt that Tracker and Shadow were the unpredictable ones. “What else did you hear?”

“I heard he married up with a little spitfire.”

Tucker smiled. “That’s one way to describe Bella. Others would say she’s passionate, funny and completely devoted to Sam.” He wanted that point made. “And they’re not married yet.”

“She good enough for Sam?”

“What are you planning on doing if she’s not?”

“Steer clear?”

“That would be wise. Sam’s a bit touchy about his Bella.”

Tracker grunted. “Fell hard, did he?”

“Like a rock slide.”

Tracker shifted the bundle. “She make him smile for real?”

Tucker understood what prompted the question. They’d all watched helplessly as Sam’s real smile had faded to fake over the years. And they’d all come to the conclusion that what it would take to bring it back would be the right woman.

“I don’t remember him ever smiling more.”

“Good. I’ll have to wander over there and see if she’s got what it takes to love a man like Sam.”

Tucker remembered how Bella had thrown herself after Sam when he’d tumbled over that cliff, how she’d clung and refused to let go, pitting her tiny weight against the force of gravity to keep him here in this world, to the point that she’d almost gone over with him, as she waited for help to arrive. “She’s got what it takes.”

Tucker’s left eyebrow went up. “You sound convinced.”

“I am.”

“Then there’s going to be quite a wedding in a couple months.”

“Yup. Bella’s an heiress in her own right.”

“That must have stuck in Sam’s craw. He’s an independent SOB.”

“Might have, but along with her big ranch came a pack of trouble.”

Tracker laughed, the vicious scar on his cheek glaring white in the predawn. “That would have cheered him up.”

The only thing Sam loved more than Bella was a challenge. “It did lessen the sting.”

“Did he really threaten to kill her mother?”

“Her and the entire crew at the Montoya ranch when Bella went missing.” It was Tucker’s turn to shrug. “They underestimated his devotion to Bella.”

In the shadows, there was a glimmer of Tracker’s smile. “People always underestimate Sam.”

“Yeah, well, this time it was Sam who underestimated Bella’s people. You’re going to like them, Tracker. They’re almost tough enough to be Hell’s Eight.”

“Heard that, too.” Tracker shifted the bundle he held tucked against his side and took another step forward. The first rays of sunrise touched his face. The jagged scar down his cheek almost glowed red with the light. For a moment, Tucker was thrown back in time to the small town where he’d been born, heard again the battle cry of the invading Mexican army, relived the terror, felt the bullet slam into his chest as his knife slid into the stomach of his opponent. Saw Tracker standing over him, blood pouring down his face, a feral smile on his lips as he tossed aside the man who’d shot Tucker.

Tucker reached up and grazed the bullet hanging on a rawhide string around his neck. His lucky charm. His impetus to never forget. The smell of blood lingered in his memory long past the fading of the mental image.

Tucker motioned to the bundle Tracker carried. “What’s that?”

Tracker grinned. The scar crinkled. He was not a handsome man, but he was a fierce-looking one, full of strength and power. And his smile definitely had the tendency to put the fear of God into people.

“Desi sent you a present.”

The bundle wiggled. “It’s not my birthday.”

Suddenly, Tracker cursed and held the bundle away. It whimpered.

“What?”

“I think the damn thing peed on me.”

It was a puppy. Tucker had a way with animals and was known for his ability to train them. “What’d you expect him to do when you were holding him like that?”

“Not use me as an outhouse.”

Tucker could see a red-brown muzzle and long floppy ears. There was no mistaking the pup’s heritage.

“Looks like Boone’s a daddy.” A wave of homesickness washed over him, thinking of the rawboned hound back at the Hell’s Eight compound that everyone had written off as lazy and worthless, but had turned into the hero who’d saved Caine’s wife’s life. “Who’da thought he’d ever work up the energy to court the ladies?”

Boone had always been the laziest hound around. Turned out, he’d just been saving his energy for when it really mattered. Or at least that’s the story Desi touted in the aftermath.

Tracker folded his arm across his chest. “Desi’s kind of disgusted. The one saving grace for Desi is the only dog Boone wants is Daisy. Won’t have any other dog and won’t let anybody else near her.”

Tucker could imagine the dog’s joy and Desi’s consternation. “Must be true love.”

“Uh-huh. Well.” Tracker put the pup on the ground. The similarity to Boone grew as he immediately lay down with a long, drawn-out moan. “Desi saved this one for you. She says he’s Boone’s best.”

“Saved him?” Tucker bent and scooped the pup up. He was big boned, but still not large and he was all gangly puppy wiggles. His ears drooped to his knees and his nose wrinkled back to the bridge. Tucker held him at eye level. “Cute little thing.” The pup licked his face. “Why’d she have to ‘save him’ for me?”

Tracker shook his head, sending his long hair swishing around his shoulders. “There isn’t a body in the territory who doesn’t want one of Boone’s offspring. A dog that’ll track with a knife wound to his chest with no direction other than his conviction that his mistress needs him, hell, that’s the stuff legends are made of.”

There was no doubt the hound had earned his forever place at Hell’s Eight. “Just because Boone’s that way doesn’t mean his kin is.”

Tracker shrugged. “You try telling folks that. They pretty much don’t want to hear anything but that there’s a puppy for them.”

“How many were there?”

“Six, and the competition is stiff for every one. People keep raising their offers.”

“As in money?” The pup snuggled in a disjointed flop against his shoulder.

“Yup. And Desi keeps turning them down flat, much to Caine’s disgust.”

“Why?”

“Seems Desi is real particular where she’ll let the pups go. Calls them Boone’s children.”

“Damn.” Tucker laughed. He would like to have been there to see Caine’s reaction to that. Desi’s Eastern ways often clashed with Caine’s Western practicality.

“Caine used stronger words.” Tracker grimaced and pulled his wet shirt away from his stomach. “He needs the money, and Lord knows the ranch could use it with the pressure those Easterners are putting on us, trying to force Desi out of safety.”

“They haven’t given up?” Tucker sighed. Desi and her twin sister, Ari, were heiresses, but someone didn’t want them to come into their money and was doing his level best to make sure they didn’t. It looked like their father’s trusted solicitor was the culprit, but who the hell could be sure? This wasn’t the kind of battle he was used to. He was used to a straightforward track, hunt and kill. You knew your enemy, and if only for the moment it took to get off a shot, you saw him. But this battle with the threat against Desi and Ari, this was a whole different animal. This took place behind the scenes with whispers and payoffs and well-hidden third parties calling the shots. And the fights were like shooting at ghosts that slipped in and out of the shadows, sniping at Desi and Caine’s happiness, but never coming into the light so they could be exorcised.

“Desi is worth a hell of a lot of money.”

Tucker grunted. “It’d be easier if Caine would take it.”

“A lot of things could be easier, but blood money always comes with a curse.”

“So you’re siding with Caine on this one?”

“You’re not?”

Tracker released his shirt. “It’s Desi’s money. Just because some cowardly son of a bitch hired Comancheros to kill her family to get it doesn’t change that fact.”

“It’s cursed.”

“It’s money, and if put to use as Desi wants, it would put Hell’s Eight in the black.”

It was the same argument they’d been having since it became clear Desi was an heiress. “Some things aren’t worth the price.”

“Desi won’t be in any more danger with the money than she is with someone trying to make sure she doesn’t get it.”

“Money changes things.” Might even change Desi to the point she wanted to go home. And if Desi went, so would Caine. Even if he’d die a slow death in the East, he’d go because there would be no life for him without his Desi. Tucker couldn’t imagine Hell’s Eight without Caine. “And not always for the good.”

Tracker sighed and looked into the distance, a disturbing sense of…inevitability in his expression. As if he knew something Tucker didn’t. “Everything changes. Even Hell’s Eight.”

A chill went down Tucker’s spine. Tracker had worn that same expression all those years ago when he’d looked at the sunny horizon and said, “Today is going to be a bad day.” Eight hours later, the Mexican army had raided, slaughtering everything in their path. He’d thought his life hell before the raid. It was only afterward that Tucker realized he had no idea what hell really was. “Hell’s Eight is forever.”

Tucker wouldn’t believe otherwise.

Tracker smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “So it is.” He motioned to the puppy. “Truth is, placing the puppies has been a good distraction for Desi. She’s getting close to her time.”

“The pregnancy’s going well?”

Tracker’s lips settled to a thin line. “She seems awfully swollen to me.”

“Is that bad?”

He shot him an exasperated glance. “How the hell would I know?”

Sally Mae would. The thought popped into Tucker’s mind. But Sally Mae was here, and Desi was at home at Hell’s Eight, a place Sally would never be. Damn. “It will kill Caine to lose Desi.”

None of them had had much softness in their lives, but when Desi had swept into Hell’s Eight’s circle, they’d all gained hope.

Tracker straightened. “He’s not going to lose her.”

Not if they had anything to do with it, but how much control did a man have over pregnancy? The sense that the world as he knew it was shifting increased.

“From your mouth to whomever’s listening’s ears.” He wouldn’t say God. Couldn’t. He didn’t have Sally’s faith. When God had allowed the Mexican army to wipe out his town and everyone he knew except the Eight, when God had allowed them, as boys, to almost starve to death before they’d found Tia, he’d decided God wasn’t for him.

The pup grunted and wiggled in his arms. Tucker put him down. With a little whine and a look, the pup squatted a couple feet away. As soon as he finished the rest of his business, he attacked a piece of grass and then came and sat on Tucker’s booted foot with a little satisfied squeak.

Tucker slid the toe of his boot side to side, giving the pup an awkward pet. The pup moaned. “He’s the spitting image of Boone.”

“Which is why everyone wanted him, but Desi said he was for you.”

Desi’s way of saying thank-you for all she thought he’d done for her. She really didn’t understand the bond of Hell’s Eight. Between them, there wasn’t a need for gratitude. Hell’s Eight protected their own. And Desi had earned her place. He bent and petted the little guy’s head, catching its ears on his fingertips. They were surprisingly heavy. “There’s no need.”

“Desi’s been trying real hard to fit in.”

Tucker looked up. “She doesn’t have to fit in. She’s already Hell’s Eight.”

Tracker tipped his black hat back. Everything about the man was dark, including his personality, but there was no one better to be on a man’s side in a fight. “She seems to have a need for the formalities when it comes to friendships.”

Because she was still afraid her new way of life would be taken away, as it had been before. As if Caine would ever let anyone near enough to disturb a hair on her head. As if Tucker would. He’d gotten real fond of Desi. She had grit, sweetness and a sense of humor. What had happened to her wasn’t right and should have broken her, but she’d come out of it head high and courage waving. A man had to respect that. “Then I guess I’ll thank her.”

“Caine would appreciate that.” There was a slight shift in Tracker’s stance, a subtle honing of his attention. Tucker knew why. It wasn’t like him to stay away from Hell’s Eight so long.

“You going to be heading home soon?” Tracker asked.

“I’m waiting on a lead to pan out, but after that, yes.” He missed the simple life and acceptance he got at Hell’s Eight. And staying here was making him weak, as evidenced by tonight’s stupidity. Tracker was right. Lusting after Sally Mae was a fool’s game.

Tracker looked toward the house. “Folk get wind of what you’re doing with the widow and there won’t be much left of you to drag home.”

“I’m not doing anything. It was a onetime thing. It’s over now.”

“That wave she tossed you didn’t look like goodbye.”

No, it hadn’t, and that pricked his conscience.

Mine. Had he really said that to her?

“Sally Mae has some odd views on things.”

It’s an opening. What in hell had she meant by that?

“From all I’ve heard, she’s a levelheaded woman.”

Tucker tossed Tracker a grin. The last thing he needed was Tracker chewing on his love life. “How levelheaded can she be if she took up with me?”

The expected, joking agreement didn’t come, but a look that asked who did he think he was fooling did. “The woman has a lot to lose.”

No shit. “I won’t let her get hurt.”

“Good to know. Any ideas how you’re going to prevent it?”

“Mind your own business, Tracker.”

Ever since they were kids in their small town, Tracker had been treating him to that skeptical lift of the brow. It was as irritating now as it had been the first time he’d seen it twenty-four years ago when Tucker had boasted that he could make a stone skip five times across the pond.

“I could argue that you are my business.”

Like hell. “And you’d lose.”

Cocking his head, Tracker conceded the point. Tucker changed the subject.

“What else brings you here?”

“I’m supposed to meet up with Shadow.”

Tracker and Shadow had volunteered to scout the farthestout areas for word of Desi’s sister. No one had protested. The two men, twins, were perfectly suited to the job. They could move through the most dangerous territories undetected. Part of it was due to their appearance, and the other had to do with their uncanny, deadly ability to work in tandem. Almost as if they knew each other’s thoughts without speaking. “Any word on Ari?”

Tucker knew the answer before Tracker spoke. Ari and Desi had been stolen by Comancheros eighteen months ago. As unlikely as it was that Ari was still alive, Caine had promised Desi Hell’s Eight would find her. And what one promised, they all honored. No matter if that promise had them chasing a will-o’-the-wisp of hope that Ari was still alive. There were some things a man didn’t mind doing. And there wasn’t a man at Hell’s Eight who minded looking for Ari. Not only because of how they felt about Desi, but because not one of them could stomach the thought that Ari might be alive and trapped in the hell that the Comancheros delivered women into. Maybe it was because Ari was Desi’s twin and it was like picturing Desi trapped. Or maybe they just needed to make a difference. The past year or two had been frustrating. Raising horses didn’t provide the same day-to-day excitement of bounty hunting. And the reward wasn’t as clear-cut.

“No. I keep hearing talk of how, about a year ago, someone dumped a white girl eight hours south of here.” He shrugged. “But that could be Ari or someone else. Or complete fiction.”

More likely fiction. Made up by someone wanting the reward for information that Hell’s Eight had put out. Or there could be a more nefarious reason. “You think maybe it’s a lure to a trap?”

Tracker shrugged. “It’s unlikely a white woman in those parts wouldn’t generate comment.”

“Well, if it is an attempt to lure Desi out into the open, it’s a fool waste of time.” Tucker pulled his hat down against the first bright rays of the rising sun. “Desi isn’t moving a foot off Hell’s Eight until Caine feels it’s safe.”

And as careful as Caine was of Desi, that wasn’t likely to be anytime soon.

“That’s a fact.” Tracker stared off into the distance, that peculiar stillness surrounding him.

“What?”

Tracker pulled his hat down with the small jerk that said he’d come to a decision. “I’ve just got a feeling, and until I check it out, I’m not bringing any news back to Desi. Good or bad.”

The hairs on the back of Tucker’s neck rose. “You think Ari might be alive?”

“I’ve just got a feeling is all.”

Eerie as it was, Tucker had come to have faith in Tracker’s feelings. “When are we going to check it out?”

“We?”

“Figured I’d come with you. It’s rough country south of here.”

Tracker cast another look at the house. His eyes narrowed. “You sure you want to be leaving now?”

It didn’t take much to figure out where his thoughts had traveled. Tucker let his gaze follow Tracker’s. The house stood as a small dark fortress bathed in the light of sunrise. Dark surrounded by bright. Despair surrounded by hope. And in the midst of it all, Sally slept, protected by her faith and that will of iron that believed miracles were created by man, not God. Son of a bitch. Tracker was crazy if he thought Tucker didn’t understand the reality. The woman did not need a mixedblood, beat-up bounty hunter messing with her life. It just wasn’t as easy to walk away as it should be.




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