Emma and the Outlaw Read online

  Her own pinnacle came upon her by surprise, ambushing her in the act of possessing him. She flung her head back and called, without words, to the sky, as a string of fireworks went off between her hips. Every sensation was intensified when Steven’s mouth closed over her nipple.

  He sucked until somethin happening inside his own body made him fling back his head and shoulders like a stallion. His hands gripped Emma’s hips and held her to him as he stiffened violently.

  She felt his warmth spill within her and laid her forehead to his shoulder, cherishing the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the steady thud of his heartbeat.

  Sitting up was too much for both of them, and they collapsed onto the springy cushion of flowers, arms and legs entwined. It was a long time before either of them stirred at all.

  Steven raised himself on an elbow, plucked a daisy, and put it through Emma’s loose braid. He continued until a trail of white flowers paraded from her scalp to the place beneath her breast where her hair made a coppery fan.

  His fingers strayed naturally, lightly, from there to her breast, and Emma sighed as he caressed and weighed her in his hand.

  “I want to watch you take your pleasure, little tigress,” he said gruffly, and his fingers moved from her breast to the junction of her thighs. Because he was her king, in that fanciful time and place at least, Emma parted her legs for him.

  Her teeth sank into her lower lip as he found the hidden pearl and bared it to be his plaything. Her right knee drew up, then fell wide of her hip.

  Steven bent to nibble at her lips for a few moments, but after that he watched the different expressions chasing across her face like clouds drifting past the moon.

  When his fingers went inside her, Emma could find nothing to do with her hands. They moved from the ground to her breasts to Steven’s shoulders.

  He laid them gently back on her breasts, and Emma felt her nipples harden fiercely against her palms. “Steven,” she whispered, his name both a plea and a prayer.

  He worked her into a frenzy, and soon Emma’s thighs were thrashing on the soft, fragrant earth, and Steven watched her passion play naked in her face until it was spent. She lay still, her head turned to one side, unable to look at him.

  He kissed the soft expanse of her neck. “Don’t be ashamed, tigress,” he whispered. “There’s never been anything more beautiful than a woman willingly surrendering her body to a man.”

  There were tears in Emma’s eyes when she forced herself to meet his gaze. “What if she’s nothing more than a pretty toy to that man?”

  Steven found Emma’s drawers and gently drew them over her ankles, her calves, her thighs. She lifted her bottom so he could bring them to her waist. “If I wanted a plaything, Miss Emma,” he said hoarsely, “I’d go over to the Stardust and lay my money on the bar.”

  Emma scrambled to her feet and began pulling on her petticoats, her back turned to Steven. “Daisy always says men don’t buy the cow when they can get the milk for free,” she confided, and a little sob followed the words out of her throat.

  Steven gripped her arm and turned her to face him. He was wearing his trousers but nothing else, and Emma’s fingers ached to spread themselves over his chest. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are with your hair all tumbled and filled with daisies?”

  “You’re deliberately changing the subject!” Emma accused, as it began to dawn on her what she’d done, what she’d sacrificed.

  “All right,” Steven barked, “I’ll marry you as soon as we get back to Whitneyville!”

  “Well, that’s damn generous of you, considering that you just ruined me for any other man!” Emma shouted as the librarian chased the tigress back into her cage. She limped around in a circle in that ocean of daisies, searching in vain for her shoes.

  Finally, Steven stopped her restless prowling by holding them aloft. “Tell me to leave, Emma,” he said, when she flung herself at him, grabbing for her shoes. “That was our deal, remember?”

  Emma stopped the struggle and stared at him. As furious as she was with this man, as used as she felt, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would end her torment and perhaps allow her to salvage something of her dreams.

  He took her chin in his hand and held it, leaving her nowhere to look but directly into his eyes. “Say it,” he ordered.

  Stay” Emma whispered, in response to his command. “I want you to stay.”

  Satisfied, Steven opened the picnic basket he’d had packed at the hotel and began lifting out various flavorful dishes to tempt his willing captive.

  Emma tried, but she had no appetite, not after what she’d done. She sat there on the blanket with her head down, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her hair trailing over her breasts and down her back like a hoyden’s. Her beautiful white dress was stained with grass and dirt, and her shoes weren’t laced all the way up.

  Steven didn’t speak again, didn’t try to erase what she was feeling. Instead, he found a comb in her handbag, knelt behind her, and gently began working the tangles out of her hair.

  “Maybe the women of Whitneyville are right about me,” she muttered in genuine despair, and daisy petals fell like rain around her as Steven continued to comb her hair.

  “They might be right about some things,” Steven answered gently. “But they’re dead wrong about you.” There was something soothing in the feel of his hands in her hair, even though the pulling of the comb hurt now and then. “Tell me, Emma—do you really mean to marry the banker?”

  In that instant Emma realized that Steven had compromised her only to keep her from marrying Fulton, that he had no plans to offer her anything lasting. She stiffened. “Yes,” she answered to repay him, even though she’d known for days that she would never be Mrs. F.W. Whitney.

  Steven began rebraiding her hair, and the motions of his hands were slightly rougher now. “I’m taking a herd of cattle over into the Washington Territory for Big John,” he said evenly. “I’ll be gone a couple of weeks, probably. I want your word that you won’t do anything stupid while I’m away.”

  Emma was still angry, and she still felt used and manipulated. “I’ll promise you nothing, Steven Fairfax.”

  He bound the bottom of her braid with a clip she produced from her bag, and gave it a little tug before moving around to sit facing her, cross-legged like an Indian. “If you marry the wrong man,” Steven warned, in a voice all the more ominous because of its quietness, “you’ll regret it into your old age. You’ll never pass a day—or a night—without remembering how it was when we made love in a field of daisies, and wishing to God it could be that way with him. But it won’t be, Emma—no matter how hard you wish.”

  She knew what he said was true, and that made everything infinitely worse. “When will the mail boat come back for us?” she asked, avoiding Steven’s gaze.

  A motion of his hands told her he was checking the watch he carried in his vest pocket, and she saw his suitcoat push backwards to reveal the Colt resting with deadly ease in its holster. “In an hour,” he answered, and he got up off the blanket to walk away.

  Emma didn’t lift her eyes until he returned with an armload of daisies. He knelt behind her again, and when she tried to move away, he stopped her by reaching around and closing his hands over her breasts.

  Emma gave a little whimper and let her head fall back against his shoulder.

  He chuckled, and caressed her for a few moments longer, then began weaving daisies into her braid until it almost looked as though she had flowers for hair. When he was through he laid the plait over one of her shoulders and came around to admire her.

  Because she couldn’t imagine Fulton doing a thing like that, and because she’d probably ruined her life, Emma began to cry.

  Steven smiled and brushed her tears away with the edges of his thumbs. Then he took a piece of fried chicken from the basket and held it to her lips.

  At first she resisted, but her hunger had been stirred and she nibbled at the chicken.
Slowly, systematically, Steven fed her, and there was such sensuality in the ritual that Emma ached to be possessed all over again. Who would have thought a man could seduce her by simply putting flowers in her hair and food into her mouth?

  “Steven—” she whispered.

  He smiled gently. “I know, tigress. But you’re too sore for that.” His finger traced her cheek lightly, sending a delicious shiver through her. “I’ll take proper care of you when I get back from the cattle drive.”

  The quiet arrogance of the remark forced Emma to challenge him. “What if I’m married to—someone by then?”

  “You won’t be,” he answered with absolute confidence, and he slid Emma’s dress down off her shoulders until her breasts stood bare and firm before him. He caressed each nipple with his fingertips until it tightened and protruded, sucked much too briefly at both, and then covered Emma again. “You’ll wait.”

  Emma’s cheeks were crimson, and she began gathering up the food and tucking it back into the basket, just to have something to do. With extreme effort she turned her mind from the pleasures she craved and asked, “Who is it that’s after you, Steven? Who wants to kill you?”

  “Nobody important,” he answered, watching her as though her every motion brought him to some joy too profound to speak of aloud.

  “I have a right to know,” she said, even though she knew she had no rights at all where this man was concerned. She was a serf in his kingdom, destined to do his bidding. He’d just taken her in a daisy field, after all, and made her howl like some creature of the jungle in the process.

  Steven sighed. “Someday I’ll tell you. But this isn’t the time.”

  Emma had to settle for that, and it rankled. She slammed the lid of the picnic basket down and snapped, “And in the meantime, I may be consorting with a criminal!”

  He laughed. “Is that what you were doing, Miss Emma? Consorting?”

  If she could have summoned a genie and wished for one thing in that moment, it would have been the power to bend Steven to her will the way he bent her to his.

  Some passing fairy must have granted her whim, because she remembered the secret Callie had told her in the kitchen that day, concerning what men liked.

  And an hour was plenty of time.

  There was a small jug of water inside the picnic basket, and Emma got it out. Steven frowned, puzzled, when she turned to him and brazenly lowered her bodice. When she brushed his lips with the taut pink tip of a breast, he resisted as long as he could, then moaned and caught it in his mouth.

  As she nurtured him, he gradually sank backwards onto the blanket, and Emma found the buckle of his gunbelt with her fingers. She opened it deftly, and Steven moaned against her nipple when he felt it fall away.

  After that, she unfastened the buttons of his trousers. He gripped her hand for a moment to stop her, but then his fingers relaxed, and he drew harder on her breast.

  She found his manhood, freed it, and caressed it until it stood proud and hard against her hand. When she knew Steven was beyond the point where he might have turned back, she eased his trousers down over his hips.

  With the tepid water from the jug and a checkered table napkin, she gently bathed him, taking her sweet time. Steven endured that, but he cried out hoarsely when her lips finally closed around him

  She teased and tempted him until he was half delirious, and muttering words that made no sense, and then she straightened, giving him a little pat. “Never fear, Mr. Fairfax. I’ll take proper care of you when you get back from the cattle drive.”

  It was a moment before her words penetrated his daze. When they did, he swore and began righting his pants.

  With a smile, Emma stopped him. She bent to him, and he groaned her name when she took him back into her mouth. “God, Emma,” he rasped out, “do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  She was too busy enjoying him and her precious moment of power to answer.

  Fulton watched furiously from the sidewalk as the mail boat made its laborious way toward the wharf. He wasn’t the only one looking n; half the town was watching from various surreptitious vantage points. That was the hardest thing of all.

  Emma’s dress was rumpled and grass stained, he noticed, as Fairfax helped her over the railing onto the dock. And there were daisies jutting out of her braid, giving her the look of a storybook princess. Even from that distance—some twenty yards or so—Fulton could see that her blue eyes had a tired, dreamy expression in them, while her cheeks were flushed pink.

  Suppressing an urge to kill, Fulton rubbed his chin and reflected that there could be no doubt as to what had happened on that infernal island out in the middle of the lake. Fairfax had compromised Emma, and he’d pleasured her in doing it.

  But Fulton was a man who knew how to look at the debit side of a situation as well as the credit side. If Emma had given herself to Fairfax, it meant the townspeople were right. She was a hot-blooded little tramp, and a woman like that would be better in a man’s bed any night of the week than some prim and proper bluestocking. She might even be amenable to the games he liked so much.

  Fulton’s blood heated in his veins. He wanted Emma to be at his mercy, to stretch naked in his bed every night while he took his pleasure, and he wanted her badly enough to marry her in spite of what she’d done with that gunslinger.

  He felt himself go hard under the trousers of his impeccable gray suit. Until that day, he’d been compelled to treat Emma like a lady. Now, he realized his objective could be gained by just a little persuading, and he could hardly wait to get her alone and exercise his rights.

  Anticipation gave him the strength to ignore the public humiliation she’d subjected him to, and he found reason to rejoice in the fact that his mother wasn’t there to see the kind of daughter-in-law she was about to get.

  Drawing a deep breath, Fulton turned away and strolled resolutely back to the bank, ignoring the glances of sympathy or contempt tossed his way as he passed along the sidewalk. There were times when it suited a man to pretend he was blind as a miner in bright sunshine.

  That night the dining hall at the Crystal Lake Hotel was turned into a ballroom. Streamers had been hung from every high surface, and at first the place smelled of early flowers and beeswax. A small band of men with red noses and glassy eyes played awkward music on a platform at one end of the room, and the place was so hot and so full of the scent of sweating bodies and perfume that Emma’s ivory-handled fan was working overtime.

  She stood miserably at Fulton’s side in the green dress she’d made for the occasion, wishing she hadn’t agreed to let him escort her. She’d done it only to spite Steven, and now the evening would be interminable.

  Emma repeatedly scanned the crowd for him, though she was certain even he wouldn’t be crass enough to present himself in public after the events of the afternoon.

  “You look lovely tonight,” Fulton whispered, his breath warm and scented with alcohol as it brushed past her cheek. His hand fumbled for hers, gripped it, squeezing too tightly.

  “Th-thank you,” Emma muttered. She was bitterly aware of her mistake; discouraging Fulton would be more difficult now than before.

  “I hae a surprise for you,” Fulton went on, practically breaking her fingers.

  Emma couldn’t keep herself from wincing. “What?” she asked fearfully, sensing the approach of disaster.

  “You’ll see,” was his cryptic, frustrating answer.

  Fulton smiled indulgently down at her, although she thought she saw a shadow of animosity in his eyes, then he moved to the front of the room and stood up on the crude wooden dais with the musicians.

  Probably because half the people at the dance owed him money, everyone stopped to pay Fulton proper attention as he smiled jovially and held up both hands, palms out.

  “I have a very happy announcement to make,” he said, and the blood drained from Emma’s face. “Miss Emma Chalmers and I will be married before the summer’s out.”

  Emma sucked in
her breath and closed her eyes as a murmur of speculation moved through the crowd. This was followed by a burst of somewhat hesitant applause, and while the women held back, fanning themselves, the men pushed forward to shake Fulton’s hand.

  Emma felt as though she might throw up. God knew, Fulton was used to getting his own way, no matter what objections might be raised, but this time he’d gone too far.

  He came to her like a conquering hero and steered her toward the door. “Come now, Emma, dear,” he said through his teeth, his hand tight on her elbow. “It’s time we were alone together.”

  Fury mingled with the bile burning the back of Emma’s throat. “You will go back up there, Mr. Whitney, and explain that you were only joking. There will be no wedding!”

  His fingers bit into her flesh, and again she saw that hostile wraith move in the depths of his eyes. “I’ve had one humiliation already today,” he said, pulling her along like a half-wit who couldn’t be expected to find her own way. “And I will not suffer another.”

  Emma looked around worriedly, finding no one who looked likely to come to her aid. Big John Lenahan hadn’t arrived yet, and Chloe avoided such gatherings. Emma had no other champions.

  Fulton promptly linked her arm through his and propelled her through the doorway. His motions were rougher than before, and Emma sensed repressed violence in him. Then, in the next instant, she decided she’d imagined it all.

  She was just about to tell him about Steven, right there on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, when Big John arrived, nicely dressed and driving the fancy surrey that had belonged to his late wife. He was accompanied by Steven and Joellen.

  The rancher’s daughter was wearing a sky-blue dress that shimmered in the bright moonlight and made Emma’s carefully stitched frock look dowdy. She clung to Steven as he helped her down.

  Joellen saw Emma at the same time Steven did, and Emma stiffened beside Fulton.

  “Who invited him?” he asked in a loud whisper.

  “It’s a public dance,” Big John pointed out affably, pausing to nod at Emma. He was one of approximately three people in the town of Whtneyville who didn’t feel intimidated by Fulton’s power.