Carol Finch – Lady Renegade (страница 8)

Her thoughts scattered when his raven head moved deliberately toward hers. The air practically popped and crackled between them as he settled his sensuous lips over hers. The scrape of his whiskers was in direct contrast to the surprisingly gentle manner that he stole the breath right out of her lungs. His tongue glided into her mouth and he breathed new life into her.

Lori closed her eyes involuntarily. When he settled suggestively on top of her, the tension melted from her body and she instinctively shifted beneath him, unsure what she wanted or needed, but she definitely needed something his mind-boggling kisses only hinted at.

This man—her sworn enemy who believed the worst about her—was not supposed to taste like heaven or make her feel these warm, throbbing sensations that left no part of her body untouched. But he did.

Before she realized what she’d done, she looped her bound hands over his head and emulated his arousing technique. Suddenly she was ravishing his mouth as he’d ravaged hers. She matched him, kiss for impatient kiss, using everything he had unknowingly taught her. She hoped he felt half as devastated as she did while they were chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip and kiss-to-breathless-kiss.

She shifted restlessly as he nudged his knee between her legs. The erotic sensations he incited took on a life of their own as she breathed him in, tasted him, teased him as he teased her with tantalizing kisses that seemed to go on forever.

His hands moved over the fabric covering her breasts and she arched helplessly into him when the fire of desire burned brighter, more intense. She forgot to breathe when his hand settled between her legs, touching her in that secret place where she burned for him the most.

Then, while she lay breathless, yielding and starving for something she couldn’t name, he reared back, nearly jerking her arms from her shoulder sockets. Scowling, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her bound arms over his head. He stared at her with the strangest expression, as if she had somehow betrayed him. Though why he would think any such thing made no sense to her. Honestly, nothing about the last few minutes made any sense to her.

“I suppose I just failed another of your mysterious tests, Marshal Fox,” she said, her voice nowhere near as steady as she’d hoped. “I consider it very unfair that you don’t give me time to study for these spur-of-the-moment tests.”

His expression transformed into a scowl as he hauled her to her feet and set her away from him. He said not one word as he shepherded her back to where Clem was tethered to his horse and the tree, then tossed her unceremoniously on Drifter’s back. Then he tied her hands and feet in place.

While they rode toward camp, with Clem in tow, Lori forcefully discarded the memory of kissing Gideon Hard-Hearted Fox for all she was worth and of him kissing her back with the same wild, reckless desperation. She fixed her attention on the three marshals guarding the wagon where five outlaws sat cross-legged in a six-by-eight-foot jail cage.

“This is what the first level of my private hell looks like,” she murmured to herself as they approached camp.

It’s what she deserved for kissing Gideon Fox…and liking it so much.

Gideon cursed himself up one side and down the other for his unprofessional mishandling of Lori’s escape attempt and the subsequent embrace. Damn the woman! She’d stunned him by knocking the air out of him. If she’d hit him harder with her doubled fists she could’ve broken his jaw, but she knew how much pressure to apply without maiming. Her double-fisted uppercut had jarred him. And embarrassed the hell out of him.

So naturally, he’d punished her by kissing her—and inadvertently punished himself to the extreme.

Hell and damn! Was he out of his mind? Must be. There was no other reasonable explanation for his inexcusable behavior. Unless you counted being bewitched by a wicked siren that lured him into the depths of forbidden desire and left him drowning in erotic pleasure.

Gideon was thoroughly ashamed of kissing her—and yearning for another taste of her. He’d tested her temper on purpose and he’d provoked her to retaliate. Unfortunately, he’d also discovered that no matter how mad she made him, he couldn’t resist kissing her lush pink lips, sinking into her soft body and skimming his hands over her tantalizing curves and swells.

Gideon decided he was more than ready for a mental and physical break from the grueling demands of chasing fugitives, sleeping with one eye open and standing at the ready to fight for his life. Dealing with criminals who’d just as soon kill him as look at him was wearing him down. Hence, his absurd reaction to the lady renegade he toted to camp.

When he reached camp, every pair of male eyes zeroed in on Lori. Her trim-fitting clothing called entirely too much attention to her tempting body. Fellow marshals and outlaws alike drooled and fantasized about doing the same thing he’d done several minutes earlier.

He had no reason whatsoever to feel protective or possessive, just because he’d impulsively kissed this seductive woman who was wanted for murder.

You’d think the charges against her would be deterrent enough. But no, he’d ignored common sense in his reckless desire to taste her and touch her.

Gideon shifted his attention to Pecos Clem, who was glaring hot pokers at his two cohorts—the men Gideon had forcefully persuaded to give up their leader’s hiding place.

“Nice work, Fox,” Deputy U.S. Marshal Stephen Wilson remarked while he made a close inspection of Lori’s feminine assets—and she had plenty of them, damn it. Then Phen dragged his eyes off her long enough to glance questioningly at Gideon. “Who is she, and does she have a few sisters who look just like her?”

The other men snickered at Phen’s question…until Gideon said, “This is Lorelei Russell. Remember the name?”

The three marshals studied her speculatively then frowned. A moment later Deputy U.S. Marshal Noel Perkins strode over to untie Pecos Clem’s feet from the stirrups then hauled him to the ground. “Your friends have been missing you, Clem. Glad you can join them.”

Dismounting, Gideon walked over to untie Lori’s feet. Instead of pulling her none too gently from the saddle, as Perkins had done to Clem, he clamped his hands on her narrow waist…and wished the hell he hadn’t. Touching her again, no matter how inadvertently or innocently, sparked fiery sensations and memories of their scorching-hot kisses. The minute her feet touched the ground he set her away from him, as if he’d been burned—because that’s exactly how he felt.

While she stared up at him, her golden eyes smoldering with anger and resentment, he turned away. He gestured to the three marshals who waited introduction.

“Lorelei Russell, these are my compatriots. Phen Wilson, Noel Perkins and Mitch Hines. They ride for Parker, same as I do.” He gestured toward the jail wagon. “Two of the men in the cage are with Pecos Clem. The other three are Chester Felding, Leland Bates and Ambrose Thomas. They are wanted in Missouri for bank robbery and assault.”

Lori surveyed the scruffy men in the metal cage, then inwardly cringed at the prospect of being stuffed in the mobile jail with them. Felding, who had a square face, bulky shoulders and a missing front tooth, leered at her as if she were standing naked. Thomas, a frizzy red-haired, overweight prisoner with arms and legs like tree stumps, licked his lips as if she were his next meal.

Bates reminded her of a rat with his pointy nose, dark, beady eyes and scarecrow-thin features. His leer made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

Clem’s two cohorts were no better. The scraggly scoundrels ogled her unblinkingly, making her squirm uncomfortably.

Repulsed, she shifted her attention to the three deputy marshals who scrutinized her closely. Better the devil I know, she thought, glancing sideways at Gideon. Then again, she might find compassion in one of the other lawmen.

She hadn’t found it in Gideon Tough-As-Nails-Fox.

Lori tossed around a polite smile to Phen Wilson, the lanky, blond-haired marshal with pale blue eyes, high cheekbones and a cleft in his chin. He looked to be thirty-five or thereabouts.

Noel Perkins was about the same age as Phen Wilson. He had straight brown hair and hazel eyes. He was thick-chested, stocky and not as tall as Gideon, who towered over everyone.

Mitch Hines had a friendly smile and Lori hoped she could count on him for the simplest of necessities during her captivity. She nodded a greeting to Mitch, whose gray eyes swept over her in careful assessment a second time. His sandy blond head was a little too big for his narrow shoulders, but she predicted he was quick of foot and as agile as a cat.

She wouldn’t want to get into a footrace with him during an escape attempt—if and when she could manage one.

The impulse to flee suddenly assailed her and she shifted restlessly from one scuffed boot to the other.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gideon murmured, as if he’d read her mind, damn him. “The odds are not in your favor. There isn’t an incompetent lawman in the bunch.”