Outlaw

12

"Not a chance," Ten said flatly. "If you think I'm letting you excavate that kiva, you're crazy." He pulled Diana out of the truck and shut the door hard behind her. "You're not going anywhere near that hole."

Diana blinked and stared at the man who had suddenly become every inch the ramrod of the Rocking M rather than the restrained lover who last night had taught her the pleasure of being kissed. Just kissed. All through the long drive to September Canyon, memories had come at odd times, making her shiver; then she would look over at Ten and he would smile at her, knowing what she was thinking.

He wasn't smiling now. Neither his stance nor the taut power of his body suggested that there was a bit of gentleness in him.

"I want your promise on that, Diana."

She waited for the fear that had always come to her in the past when a man had stood hard-shouldered in front of her, his very size a threat that didn't have to be spoken aloud.

"Or else?" she asked tightly.

"Or else we've had a long drive out here for nothing, because we're going back."

"And if I refuse to go back?"

"You'll go anyway."

Diana looked at Ten's gray eyes and wondered how she had ever thought of them as warm, much less hot enough to set fires.

"Ramrod. It does suit you."

He waited.

"I'll stay on this side of the canyon," Diana said angrily. "You have my word on it. Not that you need it. You could enforce your edict and you damn well know it."

"Could I?" Ten asked in a cool voice. "You're smart and quick. You could find a way to go exploring before I could stop you. But now that you've given your word, I won't wake up in a cold sweat, seeing you lying beneath stone, only this time you aren't moving, this time you don't get up and walk away."

Diana felt the blood leave her face. She made a small sound and reached for him.

"Ten?" she whispered, touching his face.

He closed his eyes for an instant. When they opened again, they were alive once more. He bent and kissed Diana's upturned mouth quickly, then more slowly. When he lifted his mouth he whispered, "I'm glad you weren't afraid of me just now."

"I wasn't?"

Ten framed Diana's face between his large hands. "You dug in and gave as good as you got. Then you decided that it wasn't worth a long drive back to the ranch, so you agreed. That's not fear, honey. That's common sense. Me, now. I was scared."

Diana laughed in his face.

"It's true," he said. "I was afraid you'd be frightened of me and then you wouldn't let me kiss you again."

Memories of the previous night rose up in Diana, sending heat glittering from her breasts to her knees.

"What sweet sounds you make," Ten murmured, listening to the soft breaking of her breath. "Will you panic if I put my arms around you and give you the kind of kiss I wanted to give you this morning?"

Her breath came out in a long rush. "I've been hoping you would. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like it's been forever since I kissed you. I miss your taste, Ten. I miss it until I ache."

"Open your mouth for me, honey," he whispered. "I missed you the same way, aching with it."

The heat and sweetness of Ten's mouth locked with Diana's. His taste swept through her, stealing her breath, her thoughts. Her arms tightened around his neck as she sought to get closer to him, then closer still. Soft sounds came from her throat as she gave in to a sweeping need to hold him so fiercely that he couldn't let go of her until his kiss had soothed the aching that had made sleep elude her through the long hours of the night.

Gravity slipped, then vanished, leaving Diana suspended within the hard warmth of Ten's arms. With catlike pleasure she kneaded the flexed muscles of his arms and shoulders, urging him to hold her more tightly, not caring if she could breathe. She felt no fear at the blunt reality of Ten's strength closing around her in a hot, sensual vise, for that was what she wanted, what she had ached for without knowing why or how.

Not until Diana was dizzy from lack of air did she permit the kiss to end, and even then she clung to Ten, her face against the sultry skin of his neck, her body shaking with each breath.

"Oh, baby," Ten said, shuddering with the force of his violent self-restraint. "There's a fire in you that could make stone burn. If you ever want more than kissing from a man, come to me."

Diana made an inarticulate sound and pressed her mouth against the corded tension of Ten's neck. The touch of her tongue on his skin went through him like lightning.

"You taste good," she said slowly, touching him again with her tongue. "Salty. Does your skin taste like that everywhere, or just on your neck?"

Desire ripped through Ten as he thought of his whole body being tasted by Diana's innocent, incendiary tongue. Very carefully he lowered her until she could stand on her own feet. He forced himself not to look at her reddened lips and cheeks flushed by desire. He wanted her until he was shaking with it. He had never wanted a woman like that. And that, too, shook him. "Ten?"

"If you want to get any sketching done, we'd better unload the truck. You'll lose the best light."

"Sweet light."

Ten lifted a single dark eyebrow.

"That's what photographers call late-afternoon light," Diana explained. "Sweet light."

An image came to Ten of Diana wearing only slanting gold light, the womanly curves of her body glowing and her husky voice asking him to touch her. With an effort he banished the image, forcing himself to concentrate on what must be done.

"Where do you want to sketch first?" he asked. His voice was too thick, but he could do nothing about that for a few minutes, any more than he could quickly banish the hard proof of his hunger for her. "I've done all the close-ups of the ruins I can do until the grads clear out more rubble and excavate to a new level," Diana said. "I need to do some perspective sketches, showing the ruins in relation to their natural environment, but to do that, I've got to be on the opposite side of the canyon."

Shrugging, Diana said nothing more. She had agreed not to cross over to the other side of the canyon, which meant that she had no sketches to do at the moment.

Silently Ten swore, knowing his reluctance to let her near the kiva was irrational.

"Get your sketching gear together. I'll go over the area myself. If nothing else gives way, you can sketch anywhere you like. Just make sure I'm within calling distance. And don't go near that damned kiva."

Fifteen minutes later Ten and Diana had unloaded the truck and were ready to go. He set out for the ruins at a pace that made her work hard to keep up. She didn't complain. One look at the line of Ten's jaw told her that he wasn't pleased to be leading her back toward the kiva.

Within a few minutes Diana was tasting the same kind of dread that had haunted Ten. Watching him quarter the area at the bottom of the cliff where she had fallen through, waiting for him to stumble into an ancient trap, standing with breath held until she ached; it was all Diana could do not to call Ten back even though she knew that the chance of his finding another intact kiva was so small as to be insignificant

The chance had been equally small for her, and she had stepped through the roof of a kiva anyway.

Half an hour passed before Ten was satisfied that the terrain concealed no more traps. If there were any other kivas, they had been filled in by dirt long ago or their ceilings were still strong enough to carry his one hundred and eighty pounds. Either way, Diana should be safe. The kiva she had fallen into on her first day was a hundred feet distant, clearly marked by stakes.

Ten signaled for Diana to join him. She scrambled up the rugged slope with the offhanded grace of a deer. Very quickly she was standing close enough for Ten to sense the heat of her body.

"Find anything?" she asked breathlessly.

"Potshards, masonry rubble and that."

Diana followed the direction of Ten's thumb. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. Sometime in the past five to eight hundred years, a piece of the cliff had fallen, all but filling the alcove below. Once the opening had held rooms. Now it held only an immense mound of cracked, broken sandstone. Water seeped in tiny rivulets from beneath the stone, telling of a spring hidden beneath. Her trained eye quickly picked out the angular stones and random potshards that marked an Anasazi site.

"I hope they were already gone when the cliff came down," Diana said in a low voice, remembering what Ten had said.

…lying beneath stone, only this time you aren't moving, this time you don't get up and walk away.

Ten's big hand stroked her head from crown to neck. "Somehow," he said slowly, "I don't think they were. In fact, I'm…certain." He caressed her sensitive nape with the ball of his thumb before he lifted his hand and stepped away. "Better get sketching, honey. Even stone doesn't last forever."

Intent and relaxed at the same time, Diana sketched quickly, not wanting to lose the effect of slanting afternoon light on the ruins across the canyon. At her urging, Ten had crossed the small creek again and stood looking toward the ruins, giving scale to the cliff and the ragged lines of once whole rooms.

"Just a few more minutes," she called.

Ten waved his understanding. Diana's pencil flew over the paper as she added texture and definition to cliffs and canyon bottom, cottonwood and brush. The heightened contrast gave an almost eerie depth to the sketch.

The drawings she had made before had been accurate representations of the ruins as they were today. The drawing she was working on now was a recreation of the ruins as they had looked long ago, when the sound of barking dogs, domesticated turkeys and children's laughter had echoed through the canyon, a time when women ground corn in stone metates or painted intricate designs on pottery while then-men discussed the weather or the gods or the latest rumor of raids from the north. The narrow canyon would have been alive with voices then, especially on a day like today, when the sun was hot and vital, pouring light and life over the land.

Yet today, despite Diana's usual custom, she wasn't sketching people among the buildings. Nor was she sketching the burning blue radiance of the sky. There were heavy clouds surrounding the sole figure in her drawing, a man standing on the margin of the creek. The man was both dark and compelling, black hair lifting on a storm wind, an outlaw shaman calling to his brother the storm.

The power of the man was revealed in the taut male lines of shoulder and waist, buttocks and legs, a strength that was rooted in the center of the earth and in a past when the lives of humans and spirits had been intertwined. Standing with his back to the collapsed alcove, the shaman was a still center in the swirling violence of the wind. His brother the storm had answered the shaman's call.

The shaman turned around and looked at Diana with eyes the color of rain, eyes that saw past the surface of reality to the soul beneath.

Diana shivered, blinked, and realized that she had been staring at the finished drawing so intently that her body was cramped in protest. Automatically she flipped the sketch tablet closed, both protecting and concealing the drawing. She slipped the tablet into its carrying case and stood up. Moments later she was hurrying down the slope toward Ten.

He turned at the sound of her approach, watching her with eyes the color of rain.

"Finished already?" Ten asked, holding out his hand to take Diana's pack.

She gave him her hand instead. Slowly he laced their fingers together until their hands were palm to palm. The sensitive inner skin of her fingers felt the hard pressure of him everywhere. The slow, complete interlocking was as intimate as a kiss. His palm was warm and hardened by work, making her wonder how it would feel on her skin if he were given the freedom of her body.

The thought haunted Diana while she and Ten went through their normal end-of-the-day chores-a basin bath behind the screen, then preparing dinner and cleaning up the campsite. Although the sun had vanished behind stone cliffs, true sunset was still an hour away. Shadows flowing out from the rocks had taken the edge off the unusual heat of the day, but the canyon walls still radiated the captured warmth of the sun.

Diana felt no need to pull her customary loose sweater over the sleeveless cotton blouse she was wearing. In fact, after her camp bath she had substituted sandals and shorts for hiking boots and jeans. Ten was feeling the heat, too. After his bath he hadn't bothered to put on a shirt or socks and boots. At the moment he was stretched out on his bedroll, which he had moved to the edge of the overhang, hoping to catch a vagrant breeze.

"Too bad we're not camping at Black Springs," Ten said, stretching slowly, fully. "There are pools big enough to cool off in."

"Sounds like heaven. Not that I'm complaining," Diana added, frowning over a handful of shards. "I've been at sites where the only water we had was strictly for drinking."

She turned away from the shards she had been sorting, saw Ten sprawled with feline ease across his bedroll and felt an increasingly familiar glittering sensation from her breasts to her knees. Without stopping to think, she walked over and sat next to him.

"Ten?"

His eyes opened. They were a burning silver.

Diana's thoughts scattered, and with them her ability to speak coherently. "Can I-that is, would you- could we-?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Large hands closed around Diana's face, bringing her closer. Their mouths fitted together smoothly, seamlessly, and at the first taste of each other they both made low sounds of pleasure. Ten's hands shifted, lifting Diana, easing her across his chest until most of her weight was pressed against him. The shiver that went through her was as clear as lightning at midnight. He groaned and released her.

"Dammit, honey," Ten said heavily. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I didn't think how you would feel being on a man's bed again, and me half-naked at that."

Diana shook her head. "It wasn't in a bed. It was the front seat of a car. That's why I always sit so far away in the truck. And he never-never completely took off his clothes. Or mine."

Ten closed his eyes so that she wouldn't see the rage tugging against his control. He held her gently against his chest, stroking her head and back, kissing her hair, wishing that he could change the past.

But he could not. He could only hold Diana and want her until it was a kind of agony.

The slow stroking of Ten's hand sent currents of pleasure through Diana, making her breath sigh out. She smoothed her cheek against his chest, encountered a resilient cushion of hair instead of cloth, and made a murmurous sound of discovery. Ten's hand hesitated, then continued its languid journey from the silky hair of her head to the intriguing line of her back. Though the pressure was unchanged, the caress was different, sensual rather than soothing, enticing rather than calming. He felt the heat of her breath on his breastbone as she kissed him lingeringly. Then he felt her lips open. She hesitated.

"Go ahead," Ten said. "Find out if I taste the same there as I did on my neck."

Diana lifted her head until she could see his eyes. "You won't mind?"

His smile was slow, hot, infinitely male. "Baby, you can put that sweet mouth anywhere on me that you want."

Deep blue eyes widened in shock and…curiosity. The shock he had expected. The curiosity made him want to pull her hard against his body and show her just how much he wouldn't mind any damn thing she wanted to do to him.

The first, exploring touch of Diana's tongue made Ten's breath stick in his throat. He had expected a darting taste followed by a smart comment about the limitations of camp baths. He hadn't expected a sleek, hot foray through the thicket of his chest hair. He hadn't expected her purring sounds of pleasure as she tasted him. Most of all, he hadn't expected her nipples to harden against him when she found and caressed his own nipple to a tiny, aching point.

Ten lay rigidly, fighting his own arousal and the sudden, violent need to touch Diana, to hold the sweet weight of her breasts in his hands, to taste and suckle and tease her until she writhed in an agony of pleasure. But all he permitted himself to do was slide the lingers of his left hand deeply into Diana's hair, holding her mouth against him while his right hand kneaded her back from nape to waist, pressing her even closer to the growing heat of his body. When he could bear no more he eased her mouth back up his chest until he could slide his tongue between her teeth, kissing her deeply, drinking her, mating with her in the only way she would allow.

By the time Ten released Diana's mouth she could barely think, much less speak. Her lips felt flushed, full, sated, but the rest of her body ached.

"I want-more than kissing," she said. "But I don't know how much more."

"It's all right," Ten said, kissing Diana's lips gently. "We'll take it slow and easy. The only rule will be the oldest and best one of all. Anytime I do something you don't want, tell me. I'll stop."

"That isn't fair to you. Yes, I know," she said quickly, before Ten could speak. "Life isn't fair. But I don't want to make it any harder on you."

The left corner of Ten's mouth tugged up. "Honey, it can't get any harder than it already is." He brushed another kiss over Diana's mouth, scattering her objections. Moving slowly, he lifted her from his body and stretched her out on her side with her back to him. "You'll feel safer this way, nothing in front of you, nothing holding you down, nothing trapping you. Just me behind you, and you know I'd never take you by surprise, don't you?"

"Y-yes," Diana said. It was the truth. If she hadn't trusted Ten at an instinctive level, she wouldn't even be in September Canyon with him, much less still shivering from his kisses. She let out a long breath that she hadn't been aware of holding and realized that Ten had been right about another thing. She did feel safer lying on her side with nothing in front of her but the view of a canyon slowly succumbing to the embrace of twilight. The setting couldn't have been farther from her memories of being wedged between cold machinery and Steve's relentless body. "Ten?"

"Hmm?"

"You're right. I feel safer this way."

"Good," Ten murmured, glad that Diana's back was to him, for it gave him the freedom to look at the line of her waist flaring into her rounded hips and then tapering slowly to her ankles. If she had seen the hunger and male approval in his eyes as he looked at her, she might have felt less relaxed with her back to him.

Ten's long index finger traced the line of Diana's body from the crown of her head, over her right ear, down her neck, over her right shoulder, down her ribs to her waist, up the rise of her hips, then down every bit of her right leg to her ankle. The primal ripple of her response followed his caress, telling Ten that her whole body had become sensitized to passion.

"That," he said, kissing the nape of Diana's neck, "broke every one of the high school rules about collarbones and waist. Feel like bolting yet?"