Outlaw Hearts(61)

Jake held her eyes, giving her his darkest, meanest look. “My pa! I shot him dead. What do you think of that?” To his frustration and amazement, he saw no shock, no animosity, no horror. He saw only a strange sorrow.

“I know,” she answered. “I’m sorry, Jake.”

He just stared at her a moment, astounded at her reply, suddenly angry with her. “What the hell do you mean, you know! And you’re sorry? I didn’t tell you in order to get your damn pity!” He let out a nervous laugh. “Jesus, woman, what the hell is the matter with you?”

Miranda put down the sewing. “You expected me to be surprised? After all, that always has been the rumor. After what you told me back at the cabin, I had no doubt it was true. What I’m sorry about is you must have had good cause, which means your father must have been doing something terrible to you or to someone you loved. What did he do, Jake? Does it have something to do with Santana?”

He rolled his eyes and took another swallow of whiskey. “You’re incredible, you know that? What the hell kind of a man kills his own pa?”

“A desperate one, and I’m betting he wasn’t a man at all. He was probably still a boy, and sometimes that same boy comes charging out of the man, fighting, angry, defending himself, refusing to have feelings because he might hurt again, and he doesn’t want to hurt. He’s afraid—”

“Shut up!” He wanted her to flinch, but she didn’t. Damn her! Damn slip of a woman! “Maybe what I ought to do is show you just how much of a man I really am!” he deliberately snarled. He turned and crammed the whiskey back into the crate, then dropped the cheroot back into the tin cup. He began unbuckling his gun belt.

Miranda truly wondered if she had gone too far this time. The man hated it when someone saw through the outer meanness to his vulnerability. It made him furious, and a furious Jake Harkner might not be as safe as she had supposed. Had she trusted too much?

He tossed the gun belt aside, and before Miranda could react, he lunged at her and grasped her arms tightly, painfully. Her eyes widened, and she dropped her sewing when he lifted and moved her like a rag doll, pushing her against the blankets against which he had himself been resting. “I want you, Randy Hayes,” he snarled. “What do you think of that?”

Miranda drew in her breath and faced him boldly. “I think that whatever you want to do to me, you will. After all, you’re stronger than I am. Just don’t take me like your father would take a woman, Jake. And don’t do it just to try to scare me off, because you can’t. I love you, Jake Harkner, and you damn well know it! You’d never hurt me!” Unwanted tears suddenly filled her eyes, and she felt his grip relax. He massaged her arms for a moment.

“Damn you, woman,” he said softly then. “How do you know me that well?” He leaned closer, kissed her eyes, licked at her tears, found her mouth and licked at that too. Miranda found that her instinctive response to him was powerful, as though it was always supposed to be this way. She closed her eyes and met his tongue, letting him slake his own between her lips in a kiss more delicious than any kiss Mack had ever given her. Had she just been too young then to fully enjoy a man? Or perhaps she had just been too long without. She only knew this felt more wonderful than anything she had ever experienced.

Jake groaned, and his kiss grew hotter, deeper. He moved his hands behind her, and she felt him pull a few blankets down, let him lay her down on them. Never had she wanted a man like this, with such wantonness, such an agonizing need. She returned his kisses with a fiery passion she had not known she was capable of feeling.

His lips left her mouth for just a moment, moving to her throat while with one hand he pushed up her dress and felt along her thigh, up to the waist of her bloomers.

“Jake,” she whispered, wondering if she had spoken his name with desire, or if it was just a feeble attempt at protesting. She felt the bloomers coming off, groaned when strong fingers moved into her intimately, drawing out the moistness that told him she needed and wanted him. He stroked and caressed her in magical, circular movements, his strong fingers much gentler than she thought they could be. It was so easy to let him touch her. She wanted and needed this so badly. There was no room for reasoning, only this burning desire to be a woman again. In seconds she was gasping his name in an intense climax, and somehow both of them knew that this first time was too urgent to even bother fully undressing. This was something they both had known was coming, something they both had been fighting uselessly.

She opened her legs willingly, inviting him to take his pleasure in her. She boldly met his gaze to see a blazing fire in his own dark eyes, a fire that spread through her whole body when he suddenly surged inside of her, filling her to ecstasy. She cried out with the thrill of it, wondering somewhere in the back of her mind how he had so quickly gotten himself undone and inside her. He moved in exotic rhythm, and she found herself moving with him, arching herself up to him, grasping his arms and feeling his hard muscles. She groaned his name over and over, giving herself to him in sweet abandon.