“I wouldn’t say that,” a deep, dark, velvety soft voice rumbled through the tent. “I imagine Veronica is very appreciative of everything you’ve done.”
Startled, I spun around, the dagger and leather cinch strap clutched in my hands. People filled the doorway of the tent—CJ, Butcher, Bliss, Vandal—all of them watching me with silent, harsh faces, the faces of a jury that had made up its mind about the guilt of the accused. But it wasn’t the sight of them that stripped the air from my lungs and stilled my beating heart.
The flat, lifeless look of Walker’s eyes did that.
Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you would believe that I didn’t come here to destroy your saddle while you were all gone to Bliss’s birthday party?” I asked, which was pretty amazing, considering my brain had frozen up at the sight of him, more or less leaving my mouth on its own.
Butcher pushed past the silent Walker into the tent, instantly reducing the available space by approximately 25 percent. “That’s a little difficult when you’re holding a dagger and a bit of saddle. I’m ashamed to admit that when I suggested making everyone think we’d left in order to catch the saboteur, I never thought it would be you. I think it’s better if you leave, Pepper.”
I looked from Butcher to the others as they crowded in the doorway of the tent. A couple of them looked away, unable to meet my searching gaze. Others, like CJ, stood with accusation rampant in their eyes, their body language telling me everything I needed to know.
“How nice you all have such faith in me.” I let my eyes go back to the lodestone that stood so silent in front of them. “No trial, Walker? Am I not even allowed to present my defense?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s necessary.”
That was the moment I understood just what that saying about the straw that broke the camel’s back meant. With one shake of his head and five simple words, I had reached my limit. I had fought harder for Walker than I had ever fought for anything in my life. I had sacrificed myself in order to help him, and rather than have someone—anyone—realize that fact, I was vilified and denounced, damned without regard to my innocence.
I faced my accusors, so hurt and angry I could barely speak. “How can you think I would do anything to harm this team?”
“We saw you with the knife, Pepper,” Vandal said almost apologetically.
Almost didn’t do it.
“I’m CJ’s cousin!” I said, my throat sore with unshed tears.
“A close relationship isn’t always a reliable indicator of someone’s intentions,” Bos said, looking at the ground. “Veronica herself proved that you can’t always trust people near to you. And now you’re on her team.”
I bit my lip. “I’ve trained with some of you. We’ve eaten together, laughed together. I thought we were friends.”
Bliss held my glare long enough to shrug.
“I’m in love with your leader, for god’s sake!” I yelled, trying against hope to make them see reason.
Butcher looked uncomfortable as he glanced at me. “Are you? All we know is that you’re sleeping with him, Pepper. And with due respect, there have been women who’ve used Walker before.”
Tears of mingled fury and pain filled my eyes until I was almost blinded by them, but I would be flayed alive before I allowed any of them to see how much they had hurt me. I elbowed Butcher aside, dodged Walker’s hand as it reached for me, and ruthlessly shoved Vandal and Bos out of my way as I burst out of the tent at a full run, tears snaking down my cheeks as I raced into the night.
Walker shouted my name, but I couldn’t take any more of his anger and pain. I had too much of my own. I needed to be alone, somewhere they wouldn’t find me, somewhere no one would bother me as I beheld the irreparable remains of my miserable life.
An hour later, having sobbed out the worst of my grief on Marley’s strong neck, I brushed the straw off my tights and sneaked out of the stable.
Oddly enough, the sob fest provided me with blessed relief, leaving me rather numb as I picked my way through the tent city toward the minstrels’ contingent. Oh, sure, my mind shied away from thinking about a certain Englishman, and there was a fresh, gaping hole in my chest where he had ripped my heart, but other than those facts, I was doing pretty well.
I stopped by the minstrels’ tent, thanked them for cat-sitting Moth, admired the doll clothes the girls had forced the big cat into, and oversaw the removal thereof (much to Moth’s relief).
“Just so you know,” I told the now-naked cat as we walked toward my tent, “we will not be going to the other tent, the one inhabited by the nice-smelling Englishman. I have a sucking chest wound from where he’s destroyed my heart. My life is over. I plan on falling into a decline just as soon as this nightmare of a trip is over. I may even become an alcoholic and die lonely and alone in a ditch with nothing but a few tadpoles to mourn my passing, assuming they would care in the first place, which, given my popularity, isn’t at all likely.”
Moth refused to join me in my pity party, which just made me feel that much more pitiful. By the time I shoved the door to our tent aside and hustled the big cat in, I was too depressed to do anything but remove his harness.
I didn’t even turn on the light, not wanting to see anything that would remind me of—I stopped my mind before it could say his name, morosely peeling off my tunic and tights, wondering if the leaden weight I carried in my chest would ever ease.
“Doubtful,” I muttered as I gave up groping for my lovely silk nightie.
“What is?” a voice asked just as I dropped onto the sleeping bag in nothing but my undies. “Urf! Christ, woman, you shattered my eardrum,” the voice said again as I screamed at the unexpected surprise of finding my sleeping bag inhabited. My forehead had banged into something hard when I landed, making me see bright yellow stars in the darkness. One of the two arms that had wrapped around me shifted, and then the stars disappeared as Walker turned the camp light on. He rubbed his chin, scowling up at me as I lay halfway across his chest, too stunned to care much about my aching forehead.
“What are you doing here?” I finally gathered up enough wits to ask.
“I assumed you wouldn’t be paying me a nocturnal visit, so I came here instead.”
“Wait a minute; you’re looking disgruntled,” I said, leveling a finger at him. He kissed the tip. I snatched it back, trying to pull myself off him, but he had both arms around me now and I wasn’t going anywhere. Part of me went all swoony over that fact, but I reminded that part that the warm, tempting, sexy man beneath me had just broken my heart and destroyed my life. “Why are you looking disgruntled? You have no right to look disgruntled; I’m the injured party here. If anyone is going to look disgruntled, it’s me. And just what do you mean, you came here instead? You think I’m going to have sex with you?”
“Sex? No,” Walker said, his arms tightening, pulling me inch by inch down until my mouth was just above his. “I don’t expect you to have sex with me, but I hope—I fervently pray—you’ll have your wicked, wanton way with me and make love to me until I fall into a limp, boneless heap beneath you, satisfied to the point of stupor, well loved and hard ridden.”
I shook my head, too stunned to figure it out. “Someone must have taken away the real Walker and substituted Walker Lite. I appreciate the offer, but I prefer the real man, warts and all.”
“I don’t have warts,” he said, and I had to concentrate very hard to ignore both the feeling of his hands stroking down my back and the tempting lure of his warm mouth, just an inch below mine.
“Maybe not, but you do think I sabotaged your saddle. You think I betrayed you. You think I joined Veronica’s team rather than be with you.”
“You did join Veronica’s team,” he pointed out so seriously that I just had to have a quick nibble on his chin. Just for old times’ sake.
“Yes, but not because I wanted to. I was trying to get the proof I needed that she was—”
&n
bsp; Fingers laid across my mouth stopped me from talking, fingers that were quickly replaced by a warm, gentle mouth that teased my lips and pressed sweet kisses all over my face.
“I know, sweetheart. CJ told me what you did.”
“You knew?” A great big lump of unshed tears rose in my throat, making it ache with tightness. “Then why did you think I’d help Veronica sabotage your saddle?”
“I never did,” he murmured as he nuzzled my temples. “I didn’t understand at first why you joined Veronica’s team, but once I spoke to CJ, I figured it out. You said you loved me, and once I understood your plan, I believed you. I just didn’t find out until after you ran off.”
I pushed back on his chest, well aware of his chest hair as it tickled my nipples. “Oh, no, you don’t, you might have believed me tonight, but what about today?”
Remorse filled those lovely, shadowed silver eyes. “Yes, well . . . I should apologize about that. I went a little mad. I thought it was happening all over again—me not being good enough to keep a woman happy. I thought you . . . erm . . . ”
“Was using you? Betrayed you? Didn’t love you?”
“Yes,” he said, lying still, not trying to distract me or hide the fact that he knew he had wronged me. “I haven’t had good luck with women, and I’m afraid it was easier to think the worst of you than to accept what you were willing to give me. I’m sorry for that, Pepper. I’m sorry I didn’t have strength to admit that you were right about us. About me.”
“About you what?” I asked, deliberately turning the screws a little tighter. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t pretty, but I was the one who had offered my heart and been spurned. I figured he owed it to me to say the words.
He sighed, a tiny little frown appearing between his eyebrows. “You want me to say it, don’t you?”
“Yes. It’s requisite to any further actions on my part of the kissing, nibbling, and general touching nature.”
He pulled my hips up and onto him, wiggling me around on his hardness, the satin of my underwear making us slide together with a sensuality that sent shivers down my back. “How about if I just show you instead?”
I shook my head, doing a little squirm when he peeled my underwear off. “Nope. You have to say the actual words. And in English, please; no saying them in Esperanto or Moldavian or something I won’t understand.”
He pulled me upward, catching the tip of my nipple in his hot mouth, his tongue doing a swirl over it that had me arching my back in an attempt to shove my entire breast in his mouth. “What if I were to mime it?” he asked, his breath steaming its way over to my other breast.
“No mime. Please, God, no mime!”
I melted into a big old puddle of Pepper goo when his teeth tugged ever so gently on my other nipple, his mouth and fingertips raising goose bumps on every inch of skin he touched. I tried to spread my fingers across the wonderful chest that was heaving so enticingly beneath me, but his hands slid along my arms, his fingers twining with mine as I leaned down to kiss the words out of him.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked once he retrieved his tongue from where I had sucked it into my mouth. With a twist of his hips I was on my back, the soft hair of his chest teasing my overstimulated breasts as he nibbled the shivery spot behind my ear.
“Not until you say the words.” Molten silver eyes peered down at me for a second before disappearing from view. For one brief, horrible moment I thought he’d left me. Again. “Walker?”
“Right here, my lusty little wench. Just looking for . . . ah, here it is.”
“Here what is—oh, my god! Walker, I am not into S-and-M! I don’t want you to hit me with anything, let alone your belt!”
His sexy chuckle rubbed up the length of my body as he stretched out next to me, his long leather belt clutched in one hand, the other closing around the nearest breast. “As if I would want to mar this beauty. The belt is for your hands, Pepper. I’ve decided that actions speak louder than words, and thus I am going to have to demonstrate to you—at great length, spanning several hours, leaving you so sated your eyes will be crossed—just exactly how I feel about you. Hands, please.”
I thought for a moment—did I trust him? Did I want my hands bound so anything he did would be completely out of my control? Did I want to relinquish my body up to him so he could ravish me until my eyes crossed?
Was there any question? I held my hands together so he could wrap the leather belt around my wrists, tight enough that I couldn’t get them free, but not so tight that it hurt.
“There are unexpected kinky depths to you that I’m going to have to explore in great detail,” I told him as he looped the free end of the belt through the handles of three stacked suitcases beyond my pillow, handing me the end. I clutched it tightly. Tied as I was, my arms were stretched over my head, not too hard, but with a pleasing sense of wickedness and utter lack of control. “I’m thinking that I’ll be paying Bern the Barbarian’s booth a visit and pick up the pair of leather fleece-lined manacles I saw a couple of days ago. They have a pair that will go really well with your eyes. And I saw some wonderful slicky lotion at Bawdy Mary’s Love Hut that heats up when you blow on . . . Ooooh!”
Walker plucked a small plastic bottle from under the pile of his clothes. “Raaaaaspberry,” he drawled with a particularly lascivious leer as he flipped open the top, eyeing my body like it was a playground. I rubbed my leg along his as he knelt next to me.
“Can I pick where you raspberry first?” My breasts, which wholeheartedly approved of the raspberry plan, thrust themselves up in a wanton display of bosomage.
“No,” Walker said, his hot gaze working its way up my legs to the part of me that proved I was a natural redhead. “I am the man. I am the one in charge. You are merely a body spread out here for my enjoyment.”
I pursed my lips and thought for a moment about letting go of the end of the belt, but knew it would ruin Walker’s fun. Not to mention mine. “For a man who was all but begging for my forgiveness a few minutes ago, you’ve gone awfully medieval on me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m going to go medieval all over you,” he said cheerfully, plying the raspberry lotion.
Oh, man, did he!
“Have I shown you how I feel?” he asked who knows how many minutes later, lifting his head from a raspberry-soaked breast, gently blowing over a nipple that was so tight, I worried it might implode from the sheer bliss of his attention. “Do you know now?”
“Not yet.” I gasped, twisting against my bonds and shivering as he drizzled a line of raspberry lotion down my quivery belly, my muscles clenching with anticipation.
“Then I shall just have to try harder,” he murmured as his fingers spread wide, drawing a serpentine pattern that led straight to my personal gates of paradise. His mouth followed the pattern, the heat from his tongue licking along my skin and sank deep within me, firing my blood until I writhed beneath him.
“How about now?” he asked, his voice deep and rough with passion, the sound of it as erotic as the site of him kneeling between my legs, his body hard and aroused and magnificently male. “Now do you understand?”
“No,” I said, vaguely aware the word came out as a sob as he reached for the bottle of lotion, gently baring all my secrets, warm breath steaming my thighs as he teased oil over all the center of my aching need with light, flicking touches of his fingers. I clutched the belt end with everything I was worth, the muscles in my legs cramping with tension as I waited for it, waited for the touch that I knew would send me flying. “More. You need to do more.”
One long, thick, lotion-slicked finger slipped inside me, causing my belly to contract as my muscles tightened in their attempt to grip him.
“Now? Do you know now?” His finger withdrew, then returned with a friend. My hips bucked upward as he leaned over me, pressing kisses to the red raspberry-scented curls. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, still holding the belt, mentally pleading with him to touch me where I wanted to be touched.
&nbs
p; “No.”
“Ah,” he said, his breath hot on the hidden parts of me, the touch of his whiskery cheeks on the sensitized skin of my inner thighs sending streaks of lightning straight up my torso. “Then maybe if I were to try this, you would understand.”
He lowered his mouth to me and licked up every last atom of raspberry goodness. I arched up, wrapping my legs around him, giving myself up to the magic of his touch. The lightning within me turned to a fireball and exploded in my belly as his fingers joined his mouth. Without realizing I had let go of the belt, I clutched his head with my still-bound hands and shouted his name.
Before the echo of it had died, he lunged upward, spreading my thighs and thrusting into me with one smooth move that left him surrounded by my still-quivering muscles. My wrists were bound behind his head as he captured my mouth, his tongue mimicking the thrust of his hips, his chest sliding along my breasts, the lotion providing a wonderful friction as his body moved with mine, the two of us joined so tightly there was no end of him and beginning of me; we simply were, together, one.
“I love you,” he said, his quicksilver eyes burning as his hips moved faster, short, hard moves that sent me soaring a second time without even having come to earth. “God, how I love you. I want you now. I’ll want you tomorrow. I want you in my life always, arguing with me, yelling at me, driving me crazy. I want you forever. Now do you understand? I love you so much it’s killing me.”
“Yes,” I gasped, tasting the salt of his neck as I bit him when my orgasm swept over me, an all-encompassing wave of wonder and joy and rapture that I knew had its origins in the man I held in my arms. “Forever and always.”