"You're so sweet to touch," Ty whispered, stroking Janna with slow, hidden motions. "I never knew a woman could be so responsive, so perfect. Satin butterfly, more beautiful to me each time I touch you."
"Ty…" Janna said, moaning his name softly, feeling her tumultuous emotions condense into pure burning desire.
She knew she should tell him to stop but she was unable to form the words. She wanted his touch too much. She had never known such ravishing closeness with anyone, had never even dreamed it was possible. The knowledge that he, too, found something special in her made it impossible to turn away from his need.
Ty heard the telltale break and quickening of Janna's breath and didn't know whether to curse or laugh as he felt himself hardening, succumbing to her sleek satin trap once more. She was a handful of fire, a sensuous dream, so recently a virgin and yet so generous and unafraid as a lover.
Janna's small hands found his in the darkness and she held them motionless, trying to still the secret movements within her body.
"Stop," she whispered, yet even as she spoke she felt her own heat overflowing in silent contradiction.
"Why?" Ty murmured, slowly penetrating and withdrawing from her body despite her clinging fingers. "Am I hurting you?"
"N-no."
To Ty the sensual break and shiver of Janna's voice was as arousing as her heat welling up at his touch.
"You're too innocent to understand how rare you are, how extraordinary this is," he whispered, feeling the vital hardening of his flesh as he bent down to her. "But I'm not innocent. I know. I'd agree to anything in order to keep on touching you. I've never been hike this with any woman. Bruja, sweet fire witch. You burn me alive and I tremble and spend myself within you… and then you renew me with a breath, a kiss, a touch."
Janna whispered Ty's name helplessly, moved beyond words that she could affect him so deeply.
"Renew me," Ty whispered, lifting her hand and kissing it before placing it over his swelling male flesh.
She felt the helpless, sensuous jerk of his body as her fingers curled around him in answer to the pressure of his own hands.
"Teach me?" she whispered.
"Yes," he said. "Every chance I get. All the way from here to Wyoming. And then-"
"No," she interrupted, arching up to meet him. "No tomorrows. Just teach me. Teach me now."
He started to speak, then forgot what he was going to say when her hands moved.
"Like this?" Janna whispered, measuring and caressing him with the same slow, sensuous motion.
"Sweet… God… yes," Ty! said. His whole body tightened and moved with her hands in a sinuous dance that made him tremble. He lowered his head until he could feel her breath against his lips. "And like this," he whispered, fitting first his body and then his mouth to hers, thrusting deeply into her generous warmth. "And this…and this…"
Even as Janna shivered and softly cried out, Ty bent and drank ecstasy from her lips, sinking wholly into her, wondering who was the teacher and who the student in the hushed intimacy of the meadow night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The brutal crack of rifle fire at the northwest end of Raven Creek's meadow jerked Janna and Ty awake in a heart-pounding instant.
Neither one moved.
No more sounds came. After a few minutes Ty eased away from Janna, grabbed his carbine and crawled to a vantage point where he could look out across the meadow. There was nothing in sight. A moment later he sensed Janna coming up behind him. He turned and shook his head. She retreated as silently as she had come. So did he.
Without talking, they withdrew to the place where they had slept. Ty reached for his backpack at the same instant that Janna reached for the cloth she had used to bind her breasts. Although she and Ty had been forced by the cold to put on their clothes in the hours before dawn, he hadn't allowed her to wrap up in the cloth again. Instead, he had curled spoon fashion along her back, slid his hands up beneath her loose shirt and caressed her gently until they both fell asleep.
As soon as Janna's fingers closed on the binding, she realized that she wasn't going to be allowed to use it this morning, either. Ty snatched the cloth from her fingers, rolled it tightly and jammed it into his backpack. Then he pulled her to her feet.
"I'd kiss you," he said very Softly, looking hungrily at her mouth, "but if I did, I'd undress you and lie between your legs again. That wouldn't be a very smart thing to do right now."
Janna's mind agreed, but her body swayed hungrily toward Ty. He let go of her as though he had grabbed something too hot to hold. Saying nothing, Janna turned and began threading through the forest, circling toward the northeast corner of the meadow. After a few minutes she looked at Ty and gestured toward the meadow. He nodded. Together they walked, then crawled and finally wiggled snake fashion toward the edge of the meadow.
In the clear yellow light of morning, the signs were unmistakable-a group of unshod horses had grazed the meadow within the past few days. The presence of small hoofprints and diminutive manure piles told Ty and Janna that the horses were wild, for hunting or raiding parties didn't use mares whose foals were unweaned. Overlaid on the random tracks of grazing animals were those of a shod horse walking across the meadow and into the dense pine forest beyond. It was those prints that had attracted the Indian hunting party the previous night.
"Troon," Janna whispered, looking at the prints.
"How can you tell?"
"See how worn the shoe is on the left front hoof? Troon's too cheap to get his horse shod regularly."
"Wasn't bothering to hide his trail, was he?" Ty muttered.
"He was probably drunk."
"Then he's probably dead. Was it Lucifer's bunch he was following?"
"I can't tell from the tracks around here. I'd have to go to the center and check the muddy spots along Raven Creek. Besides, Lucifer never mixes with his herd when the mares graze. If this is his bunch, his tracks will be off to the side somewhere."
Both Janna and Ty looked out over the empty, inviting meadow that Troon had crossed sometime yesterday. The ground beneath their bodies was still slightly damp with dew, but they were in no hurry to stand up and expose themselves to any watchers who might have been posted by the meadow. Raven Creek's watershed had become all but overrun by Cascabel and his growing band of renegades.
Ty's hard green eyes searched the boundary between forest and meadow, seeking any sign that Indians were about. Birds called and flew naturally, landed in low branches or on the meadow itself. No bird flew up with a startled outcry, indicating that danger lay hidden somewhere around Raven Creek's meadow itself.
Janna watched the area as carefully as Ty. She saw nothing that should disturb her, yet she was reluctant to cross the meadow in pursuit of either Lucifer's tracks or those of Joe Troon. She looked at Ty and gestured toward the meadow in silent question. He shook his head in a slow negative. She didn't disagree. Together they eased backward deeper into the small trees and sun-hungry bushes that ringed the meadow. When both of them were within the cover of the forest once more, Ty gestured for Janna to choose the best route around to the opposite side of the meadow.
Moving quickly and quietly, Janna set off into the forest. Within the fragrant, hushed cover beneath the trees, the going became easier. The tall pines screened out much of the sunlight, making it impossible for plants to thrive on the forest floor. Even so, fallen trees and branches forced Janna to make many small detours. Every few minutes she stopped and stood motionless, watching and listening to the forest with the consummate grace and stillness of a wild deer.