After the Ashes(7)

“Why don’t I spare you from wrinkling your pretty dress. I’ll go gather up your brother. What do you say, Lorelei?”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“How do you intend to stop me?”

His heart beat too rapidly to just be testing her. He wanted her to try to change his mind. She inched toward him, but teetered to an abrupt halt a good two feet from where he stood. Barely within arm’s length, she gingerly placed her palms on his waist. He covered her hands lightly with his own. He’d give her the chance to move them only if they roamed in a direction he wanted them to go. Lower—not in the vicinity of the gun belt hanging over his shoulder. His body tightened at the thought.

She appeared clueless of what he wanted. With the invisible chasm still separating them, she turned her face up to his and puckered tightly closed lips.

He’d given Lucky more passionate caresses. “You’re joking, right?”

Her eyes fluttered open, then narrowed at his obvious uninterest in her chaste offer. “I must be. I’m here with you, aren’t I?”

She tried to yank her hands away, but he held her to him.

“That’s more like it. Let’s put that feistiness to good use.” He gripped her waist and jerked her against him. She flattened her palms on his chest. Her efforts to push him away only succeeded in pressing her hips more firmly against his as she leaned back with her upper body.

He bent his knees to take full advantage of her squirming. If she wanted to play at coming to a man’s hotel room to save her lover, he’d give her a good game of it.

“Let me go.”

“You’d do anything for Sullivan, wouldn’t you? Well, if you want to keep me from going out and hauling him in, you’re going to have to offer a lot more than a closed-mouth kiss.”

“I’ll kiss you, all right. You won’t even know your own name when I’m through with you, but not with your weapon digging into me.”

He grinned. Her innocent charade was as weak as her high-and-mighty number. “That’s the way we do it out here, sweetheart. We skip handholding and walks in the moonlight.”

“What if it goes off?”

He swallowed hard, swelling at her words. God, any more talk like that and he just might. How long had it been since he’d had a woman?

“It won’t go off until you want it to, I promise.”

He rubbed his hips against her to make his point.

“Um, I don’t want to get my foot shot off, and I’m sure you don’t want to risk…” She glanced down between them, clarifying her point.

The weapon she spoke of was the .44 Smith & Wesson still in the waistband of his pants. How had he forgotten a weapon within her immediate reach? As he grappled with his stupidity, she jerked from his grasp.

Forcing himself to go slowly, he slid the gun belt from his shoulder and reholstered the revolver. He took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth.

Before he lost his senses altogether, he hung the belt over the black iron headboard of the bed. He wanted to keep his guns within reach just in case Sullivan planned to drop in when things heated up. Set-up or not, his body ached for the release so obviously being offered. If this woman wanted to seduce him to keep him from going after Sullivan, he’d let her—at least until dawn. He could easily catch up with her lover later.

He turned to face her again, but she had widened the distance between them. The atmosphere in the room had cooled. Braddock regained his composure, suddenly realizing the only one who had been on the verge of losing control was him. The little vixen actually performed her job perfectly.

He’d change that. The teasing portion of their game of dangle the cheese had come to an end. No longer would he be the hungry mouse. If she wanted to sacrifice herself for Sullivan, he intended to feast.

He met her gaze and slowly unbuttoned the top of his trousers. She visibly shrank at the challenge. He sank into the straight-backed chair and spread his knees. He slapped his thighs twice in a blatant demand for her to sit in his lap. “Over here. Now”

She took a deep breath and talked to his feet. “This is what happened. Corey ran into this fellow who was interested in a good horse trainer.”

“I know what happened,” Braddock snapped.

“I don’t think you do, because you’re mistaken when you accuse Corey of being part of the robbery. He didn’t know anything about it.”

“Then why was he wearing a bandanna over his face?”

Her gaze jerked up. “What?”

“Christ, you actually believe that bull he’s been feeding you. Not all the men died right away. An eyewitness saw your Corey. Seems he was running a wicked card game a couple of nights earlier in a saloon near Santa Fe. The witness remembered him because Sullivan lost big after someone hinted he was cheating.”