Desperado Read online

  Oh, I want you all right.

  “And if I can find some wild onions,” Helen was continuing to babble on from across the stream, “we can have liver and onions for supper tonight.”

  He narrowed his eyes. She couldn’t possibly have guessed what he’d been fantasizing about. Could she?

  Can a guy die of horniness? . . .

  For four days, Rafe managed to resist Helen’s allure. She didn’t overtly try to tempt him, but he was a screaming mass of unfulfilled testosterone. Helen standing in a loose flannel shirt and baggy pants, asking him what he wanted for breakfast, “Venison or venison?” was enough to set him off.

  Well, Zeb and Hector should be back in two or three more days. Surely he could hold out that long.

  “So, are you going to help me get the honey?” Helen asked as he finished up his breakfast of bread and—what else?—venison. Helen had told him the day before about a beehive in a nearby tree. She had a plan—Helen always had a plan—for him smoking the bees out of the tree and her climbing the tree to get the honeycomb.

  “It would taste really good on fresh-baked bread,” she coaxed. “I have a little sourdough left.”

  Had he ever eaten fresh honey? He liked honey. Yep, he could taste it now. Drizzling on a piece of bread. Drizzling on . . . Oh, no, here I go again . . . on Helen’s breasts. She’s naked, of course. Maybe up in that tree getting the honeycomb. Yep, she climbed the tree, naked. And when she comes down with the waxy thing in her hands, there’s honey drizzling down her chest, over her breasts, those luscious champagne breasts with their raspberry tips. And she says, “Rafe, darling, my hands are full. Could you lick off this sticky stuff?” And he, being naked, too, of course, and a real helpful gentleman, hoists her up against the tree trunk and uses his tongue to lap the delicious peaks. Some honey even drizzles down on his . . .

  “Rafe, you’re daydreaming again.”

  He grumbled something about spoilsports and turned away so she wouldn’t see the evidence of his perpetual horniness. He wondered idly if lust could be terminal.

  “Will you help me with the honey?”

  “Okay.”

  Boy, was that a mistake!

  They smoked the bees out of the tree with lit, pitch-filled, undried evergreen limbs, escaping with only one or two stings. Rafe kept an eye on the swarm, which hung around in the vicinity but didn’t seem threatening. And Helen climbed the tree with ease, up about twenty feet.

  She wasn’t naked, but that didn’t matter much to Rafe’s overactive libido. Her straining breasts in the flannel shirt, her curvy bottom in the camouflage pants, were enough to set his blood humming. No, no, no. Forget humming. His blood was singing a full-blown opera.

  Helen wrapped a big honeycomb in a piece of oilcloth she’d brought with her and threw it down to him. He laid it on the ground, waiting for her and watching the bees. She left a chunk of honeycomb for the bees so they wouldn’t be too mad. Then, climbing down carefully, Helen set off one of those sudden erotic fantasies that he was prone to these days.

  Helen living in the jungle. Swinging from the trees. Wearing only a skimpy leopard skin—fake, of course, for political correctness. He chuckled. Were they Tarzan and Jane? Nah, that was too easy. She was Tarzette, and he was the famous Harvard anthropologist, come to study the beautiful woman living amongst the apes. They had some unusual sexual practices, those apes did, and he wanted firsthand knowledge of . . .

  “Rafe, would you stop that daydreaming and help me?” Helen snapped. She was hanging by both hands from a limb about ten feet off the ground. “Catch me,” she demanded.

  He grinned. Hey, she wasn’t wearing a leopard skin, and he wasn’t carrying his Harvard notebook, but what the hell! He moved in for the kill.

  “Rafe . . . Ra-afe! What are you doing?”

  “Checking for bee stings.” He was unbuttoning her flannel shirt, spreading the fabric, exposing her chest, about eye level. Rather mouth level. With a sigh, he took a hard nipple between his lips and began to lick. It tasted sweeter than honey.

  Moaning, she arched her neck back between her upraised arms, thrusting her breasts forward.

  He fingered one breast and suckled at the other. Her booted foot inadvertently rubbed against his erection, and his knees almost buckled. A prickling sensation began at the back of his neck, probably an approaching climax, and . . .

  Prickling?

  “Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed, realizing that some bees were setting up camp on the back of his neck. Quickly, he told Helen to jump. He caught her, and they were out of there, grabbing their booty. When they were back at the cabin, laughing over their escapade, Helen examined his neck and found only a few stings. Nothing serious.

  Another close call!

  Sometimes a wallbanger will do . . .

  That afternoon, he worked steadily. He even found several nuggets the size of marbles, so he was feeling optimistic.

  Belting out an old Jerry Reed country music ballad, he sang, “She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft.” It didn’t matter that he couldn’t carry a tune. Singing set a rhythm to his work.

  Life was good. He was starting to get a little more gold—they had several thousand dollars worth so far, not a lot, but a start—he was in love, soon he and Helen would be back in the future, they could make love like Energizer bunnies until his battery—or something else—wore itself out.

  Yep, life was good.

  St. Augustine must be real proud of him. He was handling celibacy better than he’d ever expected. Maybe in another life he’d been a monk.

  He smiled.

  Until he got a gander at Helen.

  She was walking up from the lagoon, where she’d apparently just taken a bath. Wearing only a T-shirt and his black silk boxers—she’d taken a real shine to his underwear—she stopped momentarily to dry her hair with a linen towel. When she bent forward and shook out the drying curls, fluffing them with her fingers, the hem of the shorts rode up. And he got a clear view of her tatoo.

  He lost it then. He really, really lost it.

  He cradled his head in his trembling hands. Craving inflamed his senses and turned his blood molten. His muscles engorged and throbbed.

  “To hell with the condoms,” he raged. Throwing down his pan, he sloshed through the water, overcome with his need for Helen. A man could only take so much. If temptation was good for the soul, he’d been a saint. But every man has his limits.

  Helen was already at the cabin when he caught up with her. “Rafe, what’s wrong?” she asked with concern, dropping her towel.

  “Not a damn thing,” he said huskily, lifting her by her waist up against the log wall. His lips came down hard on hers, and his arousal grew, hurtling him toward a mind-blowing meltdown.

  She took his face in both hands and forced him back a bit, trying to understand. “Rafe, what . . . Oh, my God, don’t do that!” He was tonguing her ear with a feverish rhythm. “What’s going on here? What changed your mind?” she choked out disjointedly.

  “You, baby. You changed my mind.” He ripped out the words.

  Meanwhile, his frantic hands were busy sliding off her shorts and palming her bare buttocks. As he began to unzip his pants, he murmured, “I love your ass.”

  “Rafe, stop a minute and think. What about birth control?”

  “I’m comin’ in bareback, babe. Damn the consequences.” He released his erection with a cry and surged into her before she had a chance to question him further.

  This was going to be the quickest “quickie” in history if he didn’t slow down soon.

  Helen was confused by Rafe’s about-face. And extremely aroused. Her inner folds shifted to accommodate his size and rippled around him in reflexive welcome.

  “Helen.” He said her name as if she were a dream come true. His heavy-lidded eyes were wild and luminous with his need for her. “Help me,” he pleaded in a guttural voice. “Love me.”

  “I do,” she whispered, placing a caressing palm against his face.<
br />
  Locking her legs around his waist, Helen urged Rafe to begin the strokes that would give them both relief.

  “Oh, hell! Oh, damn. O-o-oh . . . I . . . can’t . . . I . . .” He grew even larger inside her. Still unmoving, he threw back his head, arching his neck with anguish. His eyes were squeezed tight, and sweat beaded his forehead.

  She would have begun the movements herself, but her lower body was pinned to the wall, impaled, by Rafe’s heavier weight.

  “Rafe, look at me.”

  At first, he refused to open his eyes. Perhaps he couldn’t. When he finally did, his blue eyes appeared unfocused, pleading.

  “Move, damn it! Now!”

  “I can’t,” he gritted out. “Just wait.”

  “No,” she cried out, and reached a hand between their bodies, skimming her own silky curls, damp with arousal. Then she took the base of his hard sex between her fingertips.

  He let out a keening groan and jerked, as if burned, and pulled out, then instinctively eased back in, one excruciating millimeter at a time. The friction was so intense, she screamed. Or maybe it was Rafe.

  She moved her hands up to his shoulders and let Rafe take over then as he allowed his passion to rule the play. Cupping her buttocks, he drove into her with increasingly shorter and harder strokes. He buried his face in her neck and nipped at her soft flesh. She felt his heartbeat thud against hers.

  “NOW!” Rafe yelled and slammed into her one last time. His big body shuddered against hers as he released his seed. “HEL-EN!”

  Blood drained from her head, and tingles of exquisite pleasure swept her skin, catapulting her in huge spirals upward and upward, culminating in a series of convulsions so fierce she shook.

  They both fell to the ground, unable to stand on their seemingly boneless legs any longer. Their mingled breathing was harsh and loud in the still air.

  She was lying on the ground at his side, her face pressed against the red flannel covering his chest. His arms were thrown over his head, and his bare legs were parted as far as they would go in the slacks that pooled at his ankles.

  At first, Helen thought Rafe had passed out, but his lungs heaved too hard for him to be unconscious. Then she realized his chest wasn’t pumping from deep panting. The lout was laughing.

  Humiliation washed over her as she saw herself the way he must. A frustrated thirty-four-year-old woman who practically attacked him at the least sign of sexual interest. Heck, she couldn’t even remember what had prompted this lovemaking. She didn’t think she’d begged him to take her, but she might have, her frustration level had been that high the past few days.

  Rafe continued to laugh silently, his eyes closed.

  “You jerk!” She gave him a shove of disgust and started to sit up.

  “What was that for?” he inquired, opening his eyes lazily.

  At the same time, he looped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her back down and on top of him.

  She braced her arms on the ground beside his head and glared down at the laughing scoundrel who wrapped both arms around her waist, locking her in place. “Because you’re laughing at me.”

  He nuzzled her neck. “Oh, babe, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at me. Think about it. I just set the world record for E-T-E.”

  “E-T-E?”

  “Yeah. Time from erection-to-ejaculation—E-T-E. Believe me, sweetheart, it’s not a contest guys aim to win.” His mouth curved into a smile so loving she would forgive him anything, even laughing at her. “Besides, if that wasn’t bad enough, I can’t remember the last time, if ever, I made love with my pants around my ankles. I lacked finesse, Helen,” he concluded, as if that were the greatest crime in the world. “I’m pitiful.”

  She smiled then. Pitiful was not a word she’d ever use to describe Rafe. “Who needs finesse? Wham-bam is okay now and then.”

  “Now you are the one laughing at me. Helen, I’d really kind of like to make love this time in a bed. I’m getting too old for caves and wall-bangers and the hard ground. Do you suppose you could move off me, real easy, without turning me into a eunuch?”

  She giggled. “I aim to please.” She stood and quickly donned the black boxers on the ground.

  Rafe got to his feet with a groan and zipped up his slacks. Before she had a chance to step away, he pulled her into his arms, his expression growing serious. “I love you, Helen,” he murmured as he lowered his lips to hers.

  “I love you, too,” she said against his mouth.

  Their kiss was short, but tender and filled with all the emotion they’d had no time to demonstrate in their first tumultuous coming together.

  Military sex? That was a new one . . .

  Later, when Helen prepared to crawl into bed with Rafe, he said, “I have to warn you ahead of time. I have lots of fantasies about you, and I’m planning to indulge every one of them.”

  Her eyes shot up.

  “Does that frighten you?”

  She thought a moment, then shook her head.

  He opened his arms for her then, and Helen flew into the bed, relishing the feel of his bare skin against hers.

  His face turned serious then as he moved over her, taking most of his weight on his elbows, which framed her face. “I haven’t been a religious guy for a long time, but I thank God for you, Helen. You’re like a gift He’s given me, despite all the problems I’ve thrown His way.”

  “What a nice thing to say!” She put one hand on the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. The other caressed his face, delicately. “Since you’ve got religion, I suppose that means you’ll have to make an honest woman of me.”

  “Oh ho! Aren’t you the bold one now? Proposing to a man.”

  She turned her face to the side. It had been presumptuous of her.

  He put a forefinger on her chin and tipped her face back. “Helen, will you marry me?”

  Tears brimmed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “The first time we run into a preacher, or a padre?”

  She nodded, then frowned. “Here or in the future?”

  “Both.”

  They exchanged a smile of pure love, and Helen did feel blessed then.

  Rafe stared down at Helen, amazed at all the new feelings of warmth that filled him almost to overflowing. He brushed his lips across hers, and she sighed.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered. “I never loved anyone before. I didn’t know it could feel so . . . so . . .”

  “Wonderful?”

  “That, and so much more.”

  Her brow furrowed. “But, Rafe, I don’t want us to be blinded by all these emotions. We still have problems to—”

  “Shhh,” he said, stopping her words with a kiss. “We’re going to work out our problems. I’ve told you before, there must be some divine reason for our being in this crazy time warp.”

  “You really are getting religion, aren’t you?” She laughed.

  “Not that much religion.” He rubbed his hairy chest across her breasts in emphasis.

  She inhaled sharply at the delicious torture, and he grinned.

  “Let me get the last of this serious business off my chest—”

  “I like what you do with your chest,” she purred.

  “Stop interrupting me,” he said, nibbling at her bottom lip with his teeth. “What happened before can be excused as a momentary lapse of judgment, but—”

  “It felt like more than a lapse to me,” she said with feigned indignation.

  “You are really asking for trouble, aren’t you? But I’m not going to let you put me off. Our lovemaking outside happened in a heated rush, without thinking. I know what I’m doing now, though, and I’m taking the gamble willingly.”

  “And if there’s a baby?”

  His stomach flip-flopped with queasiness. “Then we’ll have a baby.”

  She blinked back the tears that misted her brown eyes—gorgeous, adoring brown eyes. “But you’d rather not?”

  “I don’t know what I want anymore. Yes, I do. I wa
nt you. And whatever else comes with the package, well . . .” He shrugged. “I just don’t want you to worry. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Now, soldier, let’s start with fantasy number one,” he said, changing the mood abruptly. “I’m the officer, and you’re my new recruit. You must obey my every command. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” She tried but failed to suppress a giggle. “Should I salute?”

  “The officer salutes first. You know that,” he reprimanded, then raised himself slightly, looking down. “Yep, I’m saluting.”

  She arched her back, lifting her breasts to abrade his chest.

  “I like your method of saluting, too,” he rasped out, pressing her down to the bed with his lowering mouth. He kissed her forehead tenderly, swept her cheek with his lips, then blew against the pulsing hollow at the curve of her throat. She was eager for more, but he wanted this time to be a slow celebration of love. “Easy, babe, easy.”

  Helen balked, glaring at Rafe. She didn’t want to go easy. She wanted him, all of him. No cool restraint. No fighting his feelings. Framing his face with both hands, she pulled him to her lips.

  His first kiss was so slow it took her breath away. The second started with his tongue tracing the parted fullness of her lips, then dipping in to explore the erotic recesses of her mouth. She felt that kiss inside her fluttery belly and swelling breasts. With a moan, she gave herself up to the devouring kisses that followed, alternately soft and sweet, then deep and sinfully hot.

  When he dragged his lips from hers, struggling for breath, she choked out, “Some military drill! What was that called?”

  “Plundering.” He smiled against her neck and moved south. Rolling to the side, he examined her body with his hungry eyes, not touching, just looking. “Hmmm. I think it’s time for some reconnaissance.”

  “An exploratory survey of the enemy’s territory?”

  “Uh huh. Oh, I see bunkers ahead that look . . . interesting. Beware those two sentinels on the top.” He kissed first one, then the other taut nipple.

  “Do you always kiss the sentinels?” she gasped out.