Rachel gripped his wrists. “I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“You started this,” Fargo reminded her. Swatting her hand away, he yanked her nightgown up and plunged his hand underneath. At the contact of his fingers with her thighs, her mouth became a delectable oval of raw desire. She kissed him fiercely, her passion uncontrollable.
Sculpting her smooth skin as if it were warm clay, Fargo kneaded her thighs, starting at her knees and kneading upward. She grew warmer, and her ardor climbed. She thrust hard against him, rubbing herself on his iron member. When he lightly brushed her nether region, she bit his shoulder, then whispered excitedly into his ear.
“Yes! Yes! Do me! Do me right here!”
Fargo wasn’t about to stop. Spreading her legs, he pried at his belt and pants. When his pole was free, he ran the tip along her moist slit. Her reaction was to rise up onto her toes and practically bury her nails in his upper arms. The pain distracted him a few moments, and the next he knew, she had a hand down there and was fondling him.
“You’re magnificent. Do you know that?”
“Not so loud,” Fargo warned. The last thing he needed was to wake her mother and have Martha come charging around the wagon with a cleaver or an ax.
“I want you in me,” Rachel breathed into his ear. “And don’t worry. I’ll keep quiet.”
Fargo thought he heard a sound, and paused.
“What are you waiting for?” Rachel impatiently whispered.
Before Fargo could reply, she rose higher, shifted slightly, and impaled her exquisite rose on his engorged thorn.
Sucking in a deep breath, Rachel closed her eyes and rested her forehead on his chin. “You have no idea how good that feels.”
“Care to bet?” The very first time Fargo coupled with a woman, he became addicted. To him, the soft savor of a female body in the throes of lust was as good as life got. He could never get enough.
“Don’t stand there like a fence post,” Rachel teased. “Do something, will you?”
“Whatever the lady wants.”
“Read my mind.”
Giving her no chance to set herself, Fargo rammed up into her. Rachel threw her head back and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out. Then it was more of the same, up and in, up and in, in an ever faster tempo, Fargo rising onto the tips of his toes with each penetration.
Rachel was in a delirium of rapture, her eyelids hooded, her mouth forming soundless cries as she matched him stroke for stroke.
The explosion ripped Fargo out of himself and left him near breathless with pleasure. Luxuriating in the feeling, he sagged against Rachel and felt her fingers at the nape of his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel said.
Not sure he had heard her correctly, Fargo responded, “What do you have to be sorry about?”
Rachel Winston wistfully smiled and tenderly ran a finger along his jaw. “If you only knew.”
19
Pink and gold tinged the eastern sky when Lester Winston grunted and sat up. Scratching himself, he sleepily regarded the slumbering figures on either side of him. He looked up and gave a slight start. “My word. You shouldn’t scare people like that.”
Fargo had been up for half an hour. He had failed to make his point before, but he would by God make it now. “Do you remember what I told you last night?”
“How could I forget?”
“We need to talk about it some more.”
“Can’t it wait until I’ve had my coffee?” Lester asked, running his big fingers through his hair. “I’m not hardly awake yet.”
“You’re awake enough. The lives of your family and all your friends are at stake.”
“It won’t be like you think it will.”
“Damn it, Lester. Don’t do this. You’re in danger. You and everyone here. Gore really found gold. He needs your wagons to transport it out of Nez Perce country, and he will have them, by God, even if it means wiping all of you out.”
Lester chuckled. “Did I ask you if you had been drinking?”
Fargo almost hit him. “What does it take to get something through that thick skull of yours?”
“Calm down.”
“The hell I will,” Fargo fumed. “I’ve never met anyone so pigheaded in all my life.”
“There is no need for insults. I wish you could put yourself in my boots. Then you wouldn’t be so mad.”
Fargo grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You must warn everyone. You must arm them and be ready when Gore and his killers ride in.”
“When Victor and our protectors ride in,” Lester corrected him.
Fargo drew back. “To hell with you. I’ll warn the others myself so they can defend themselves.”
“You’ll do no such thing. These are my people.” The big farmer smiled. “Now please. Calm yourself. Trust me when I say all will be well. The Good Lord has watched over us from the start and He won’t forsake us now.”
“Damn you.” If beating sense into Winston would do any good, Fargo would gladly pound him to a pulp. “You’re asking for an early grave.”
“If you only knew,” Lester said.
Fargo remembered Rachel saying the exact same thing. He was about to ask what Lester meant when merry chortling let him know someone else was awake.
“He sure is funny, Pa,” Billy said. “He looks fit to lay an egg.”
“Be nice, boy,” the father chided. “He’s worried about us, is all. That’s to his credit.”
“He’s worried about Sis,” Billy said.
Lester made Fargo madder by laughing. “No doubt that’s true. But we should still be nice to him.”
Fargo quickly said, “Then you’ll warn the rest? You’ll be ready for Gore when he rides in?”
“I’m curious. Ready how, exactly? Do you expect us to shoot them from their saddles?”
Billy laughed.
Fargo walked away. It was either that or slug Lester. He went around to the other side of the wagon to cool down. He reminded himself he still had time to warn the settlers himself.
The morning routine got under way.
Rachel gave Fargo a warm smile upon awakening. She languidly stretched, her breasts swelling against her nightgown, and showed the pink tip of her tongue between her lips so only he could see. “Good morning, handsome.”
Martha bustled about preparing breakfast. So did other women.
The men gathered in the middle of the circle for their morning talk about what they planned to do that day.
Fargo got their attention by raising his arms. “I have something to say to you.”
All eyes swung toward him, and then to Lester Winston, who frowned and sighed.
“I suppose we have no choice but to hear him out. He won’t let it drop otherwise.”
“I sure won’t,” Fargo confirmed. “I’ve tried to warn your leader but he has no more sense than a goat. Victor Gore is coming to kill you.”
No one said anything.
“Didn’t you hear me? Gore and Rinson are in cahoots. They need your wagons to take gold back to civilization.”
All they did was stare until one farmer said to Winston, “This is what he’s so agitated about?”
That was the last straw. Fargo shouldered in among them, growling, “What the hell is the matter with you people? You have families. Wives and kids. Don’t you care that they could all be dead soon?”
“That won’t happen,” a farmer declared.
“We love our families,” yet another said.
“I don’t see you rushing for your guns,” Fargo told them. “You don’t even act like you believe me.”
“We’re tillers of the soil, not killers,” the one named Harvey said.
“You’re idiots, is what you are,” Fargo said gruffly. “Plain, goddamned, stupid as hell idiots.”