Montana Sky

aside, then watch the pale skin of her hands glide over the smooth copper of his chest.
    “I want to feel you against me.” He murmured it as he unhooked her bra, slid the straps down, let it slip to the floor between them. Gathering her close, he held her. A tremor rippled through him, a calm lake disturbed by a lazy finger. “I won’t hurt you, Lily.”
    “No.” Of that she could be certain. Of that she could be sure, as his lips lowered to test the skin of her shoulders, her throat. There would be no pain here, not even that of embarrassment. Here there was trust, and desire could be kind.
    She didn’t jump when his fingers tugged at the snap of her jeans. She shuddered, but not with fear, as he slid the denim down over her hips, murmuring to her as he helped her step free.
    Her heart quaked when he stripped off his own jeans, but it quaked in delight and wonder and keen anticipation.
    He was so beautiful, that golden skin taut over lean muscles, that sleek, shiny hair skimming strong shoulders. And he wanted her, wanted to belong to her. It was, to Lily, a fine, glittering miracle.
    “Adam.” She sighed out his name as they lowered themselves to the bed. “Adam Wolfchild.” With the good, solid weight of him pressing her into the mattress, she wrapped her arms tight around his neck, drew his mouth down to hers. “Love me.”
    “I do. I will.”
    • • •
    W HILE THEY CELEBRATED LIFE IN A SHADOWY ROOM . Another celebrated death in the daylight. Deep in the forest, alone and gleeful, he studied the trophies he’d so carefully arranged in a metal box. Prizes of the kill, he thought, stroking the long golden hair of a young girl who’d taken a wrong turn.
    Her name was Traci; she’d told him when he’d offered her a ride. Traci with an I . She claimed to be eighteen, but he’d seen the lie in that. Her face was pudgy still with baby fat, but her body, when he took her into the hills later and stripped her, was female enough.
    It had been so easy. A young girl with her thumb out along the side of the road. A purple knapsack slung over her shoulders, tight jeans showing off her short legs. And that bright gold hair, out of a bottle, of course, but it had gotten his attention, gleaming like gilded fire in the sun. Her fingernails had been painted to match the knapsack, a bright, unnatural purple.
    Later, he’d seen that her toes were accented with the same color.
    He’d let her ramble awhile, he remembered as he stroked the hair. Getting out of Dodge, she said, and laughed. That’s where she was from—Dodge City, Kansas.
    “You’re not in Kansas anymore,” he told her, and nearly fell over laughing at his own wit.
    He’d let her ramble awhile, he thought again, about how she was going to work her way up to Canada, and see some of the world. She took gum out of her sack, offered him some. He found four neatly rolled joints in it later, but had she offered him any of that? No, indeedy.
    He knocked her unconscious, one quick fist to the cheek that had rolled her eyes back white. And he took her up into the hills, to where it was quiet, and private, and he could do whatever he liked.
    He liked to do quite a lot.
    He raped her first. A man had his priorities. Tied her up good and tight so she couldn’t use those purple nails to scratch. She screamed herself hoarse, bucking andsquiggling on that narrow cot while he did things to her, used things on her.
    Smoked her pot and did it all again.
    She begged and pleaded with him to let her go. Then she begged and pleaded some more when she saw he was going to leave her there, tied up and naked.
    But a man had responsibilities, and he wasn’t able to stay.
    When he came back, twenty-four hours later, he could have sworn she was happy to see him, the way she cried. So he did her again, and when he told her to say how much she liked it, she agreed that she had. She told him everything he wanted to hear.
    Until she saw the knife.
    It had taken him more than an hour to clean up the blood, but it had been worth it. Well worth it. And the best part, the very best part, had been the inspiration of dumping what was left of Traci with an I from Dodge City, Kansas, right at the doorstep of Mercy Ranch.
    Oh, that had been sweet.
    Tenderly, he kissed the bloodied hair, placed it carefully in the box.
    They were all running scared now, he thought as he put the box back in its hole, rebuilt the small cairn over it. All of them trembling in their shoes. Afraid of