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There was sohtened Lorna This was a side of him that she didn’t know or understand She wound her arainst his jacket to hide her face “Don’t talk like that, Benteen,” she murmured Now she was the one who needed to be comforted

His hands took a firm hold of her upper arms to force her away froaze lowered His handsher head up

“How soon can the wedding be arranged?” he asked with a quiet urgency “I want us to leave as soon as I’ve got the supplies and horses we’ll be needing for the drive”

They had waited so long that Lorna didn’t understand why it all had to be rushed now She had tried not to think about leaving the secure world she’d always known The leather gloves were rough against the delicate skin of her cheeks

“Why are you so anxious to go?” she whispered

“You are the only good thing I’ve ever found in Texas,” Benteen murmured Just for a minute, the mask slipped to reveal the pain and bitterness in his expression

Then his dark eyes seemed to absorb her whole into his syste slowly pulled into his arh force She curled her ar body heat

Benteen could feel the pulsing life in the soft feainst him Surrounded by all this death, he needed the renewal her body offered He fed on her lips, eating theue probed the space he’d created

Lorna stiffened at its invasion The sensation was new, and vaguely thrilling She relaxed a little, sensing that it gave him pleasure, that it filled a need he had at this moment Ultimately, that was her objective in the embrace

There was an instinctive reciprocation of the intie in her desires, into so and an to dictate her wants As herto feel hot all over, burning with a fire she didn’t kno to extinguish

The hardness of his leanlyto assert its pressure on her, trapping her against the unyielding boards of the buggy The long skirt of her dress hipped around his legs by the wind There was an insistence about the thrusting angle of his hips that she didn’t understand His hands were under her shawl, pressing her spine to archto achieve the closeness he was de a raw frustration when she failed

His arms relaxed their hold She wasthe ee She pushed against its touch, thinking Benteen was going to force her out of his ar full possession of its ripe fullness, straining against the material of her dress

An inferno of emotions seemed to erupt inside her For a split second she yielded to the her She tried to pull free of his ary was behind her, pushing her into his male wall

There didn’t seeers when she tried to push his hand away froreat distance Her cheeks were scarlet with sha her head, Lorna searched his face in alarm, afraid he would be shocked that she had practically invited him to treat her like this—like one of those soiled doves she’d seen around the saloons But the ache she saw in his eye

s almost made her wish she hadn’t stopped him