wanted to be.

Chapter Eight.

He carried her, in the moonlit night, to the barn. He entered it and

laid her, in her cocoon of covers, in the rear of the building, where

soft alfalfa lay freed from its bales, ready to be tossed to the horses.

The smell of the hay was sweet, almost intoxicating.

He lay down beside her and brought the back of his hand against her

cheek, touching the length of it, as if he studied just her cheek and

found the form and texture both beautiful and fascinating. Then his

finger roamed over the damp fullness of her lip. He watched the movement

as he touched her, then his eyes met hers. She could still feel, in her

memo~j, in the pulse that seemed to beat throughout her, the touch of

his lips against hers. And yet when he kissed her again, though the feel

was poignant, she knew that he would move away when he did.

He lay back against the hay, staring at the rafters and the ceiling.

He groaned softly, then rolled suddenly, violently, to face her again.

He didn't touch her, but leaned on an elbow to stare at her

reproachfully.

"You couldn't have just arranged a room, for me, huh?"

"You couldn't have just stuck around for a while, huh?" ahe retorted.

He was ruining it, dissolving the moonbeams, destroying the moment she

had imagined and waited for.

He rolled on his back again.

"Go to your room," he told her.

"I had no right to drag you out here."

Tess leaped to her feet, her cheeks flaming, her body and soul in

torment.

She stared at him furiously.

"You have no right to do what you're doing now! To ruin everything!"

"To ruin everything?" He scowled.

"Tess! I'm trying damned hard to do the decent thing!" And she would

never know what an effort it was taking. He felt on fire, as if he

burned in a thousand hells. It had been all right before he touched her,

before he felt her lips parting beneath his.

Before he sensed her innocence and the sweet wildness beneath it, the

passion, the sensuality that simmered and swept beneath it all, that

promised heaven. She was different. He wasn't sure if he dared take her

all the way, because he knew it would mean fragile ties that might bind

him forever. He couldn't find a simple fascination in her beauty; it

would be more, and though he couldn't begin to define it, it was there.

He already slept with dreams of her haunting his mind; he never forgot

for a moment the way she had looked upon the rock, as naked as Eve, as

tempting as original sin.

"Tess, don't you see? I'm trying to let you go!" She paused, and it

seemed that she waited upon her toes, as if she would go or stay

according to the way the breeze came.

There was a curiously soft smile on her face, almost wistful, a look he

had seldom seen.

"What if I don't want to be let go?" she asked him very quietly, with a

breathless, melodic whisper. He wasn't sure he had really heard the

words.

Real or not, they ignited embers within him. He came to his feet and

looked at her across the small, shadowed distance that separated them.

He could almost reach out and touch her. If he did, he would be lost. If

he put his hands upon her now, he would never let her go.

"You have to make up your mind." He almost growled the words.

"No strings, no promises, no guarantees. You should run. You should run

from me just as fast as one of those thoroughbreds of yours."

"Why?"

She didn't move; she hadn't taken a step. There was a note of amusement

and challenge in her voice. Her chin was raised high; her eyes were

brilliant, nearly coal-black in the shadows. He forced himself to walk

around her, but that was a mistake. The moon was filtering through the

windows, and the light played havoc with the flannel gown she wore.

Light touched fabric, molded it, saw through it. He felt again the

softness of the woman he had held, and his hands itched to touch her

again. A hunger took root inside him, one that made him long to caress

and taste and know.

"Why?" He repeated her question.

The reasons were swiftly leaving his mind. If she was willing, he was

more than anxious to drown in the sweet depths of her fascinating

waters. He clenched his fingers and kept moving casually.

"Because we're in a barn, because I've the distinct feeling you don't

know what you're doing, because you're young and because you're probably

the type of woman who ought to fall in love, deeply in love, with the

right man, and have a band of gold, and all the rest. Because I'm the

hardened refuse of an ill-fated war, and though I don't mind a fight, I

wouldn't be looking for more than a lover."

She smiled.

"Lieutenant, what makes you think I'd be looking for anything more than

a lover?"

He almost groaned aloud. If she didn't leave soon. "Tess, I don't think

you know" -- "I'm twenty-four, Lieutenant. And just as much the refuse

of an ill-fated war as you are. That war taught me a great deal. You

can't always wait to seize what you want. Life is too short, too quickly

severed."

She was smiling still, and there was something poignant about her words

that caught hold of his heart. He had never seen her more beautiful,

more feminine, more arresting. Her eyes were wide; her smile was gentle;

her still form was compelling in the flannel that was draped over her

shoulders, nearly falling from them, that conformed to the rise of her

breasts, then fell to the floor. Her hair was a river of dating, honeyed

light that caressed and embraced her, waving around her shoulders and

falling almost to her waist. Her eyes. When he came close, he saw that

they were not coal-black at all, but so deeply colored in the near

darkness that they appeared to be a rich and hypnotic purple.

He held still. He watched her and tried to find the fight words, the

words that would get her to leave. She would hate him for humiliating

and rejecting her, but maybe that would be better than what he wanted.

To own her, to have all of her, to teach her everything she wanted to

know so thoroughly that she would forget everything but the feel of him

beside her.

"Come here then," he said hoarsely.

She still seemed to pause. Like a sprite, like a night witch or angel,

he knew not which. A rueful curve came to her lips, and she said softly,

"Jamie?"

"What?"

"Where did you take your bath?"

He smiled, too.

"At the livery stables. Not at the saloon."

"Thank you," she murmured, then she took a step toward him, and another

step, and she was in his arms.

His mouth closed upon hers, and he let his hands wander where they

would. He had tried to do the decent thing. And it hadn't worked. So

now. She was fragrant, like a drug. He breathed in the scent of her hair

and the scent of her flesh. He kissed her lips and her earlobe, and he

pressed his tongue against the surge of her pulse at her throat, and he

took her lips again, savoring the caress of her tongue, feeling the rise

of heat and need and the rampant beat in his loins as the thrusts of

their tongues became ever more erotic and telling. He stroked her body

through the flannel, caressing her breast, finding the peak and

massaging it to a hard pebble with his thumb and fingers. Then he cried

out and lowered his mouth upon her, his teeth grazing the fullness of

her breast and the hard peak through the fabric, the dampness of his

mouth pervading it and bringing whispers and whimpers to her lips.

She braced herself upon his shoulders, and cried out, falling against

him.

Trembling, he lifted her and set her on the cocoon of sheet and quilt in

the hay. Then he stood over her, watching her. He ripped away the

kerchief at his throat and slowly undid the buttons of his shirt. He

watched her all the while, but her eyes did not close. He threw his

shirt upon the hay, and pulled off his boots and socks, unbuckled his

gun belt and then his pants belt and finally peeled away the last of his

clothing. Her eyes closed at last, but not before her cheeks had taken

on a dusky hue.

"You can still run," he told her harshly.

She shook her head. Her hair lay spread across the quilt and sheet and

dangled into the hay around them. He knelt before 'her and set his hand

upon the hem of her gown, pushing it up.

She had beautiful feet. Small, the toenails neatly manicured. Her ankles

were trim. Her calves were shapely.

He paused to press kisses against her kneecaps, then he continued,

thrusting the gown up to her hips where he paused because his breath had

caught. The entire length of her legs was fine and beautiful, and her

hips were seducflared. Her waist was very narrow, and she was endowed

with the same touch of honey hair to add even greater purity and

innocence to her beauty.

That very touch of purity seemed to be driving him insane. A ragged

pulse beat at his groin, and in his mind, and raged throughout his fin-

gem and his limbs and all of his body. He buried his face Ilgainst her

belly, and a harsh sound escaped him, a cry of ~onging, of need, of