Only 05 - Autumn Lover

had stolen through Hunter.
    “You aren’t a widow,” Hunter retorted. “You’re a hot-blooded, reckless girl who doesn’t know her own mind from one minute to the next.”
    Hunter heard his own words and realized that his temper was digging a hole deep enough to bury him. He bit off a savage curse and tried again to reason with Elyssa.
    Just lovers .
    “You’re a young woman,” Hunter said with great care, “and I’m a man old enough to know better. I’m prepared to do what is right.”
    Anger flicked through Elyssa’s veins.
    “I’m not,” she said.
    “Damnation, Sassy! A few days ago you said you loved me!”
    Hunter’s words went into Elyssa like knives. Her breath sucked in on a wave of pain.
    “Did I?” she asked in a brittle voice.
    “You damn well did and you know it.”
    “Well, what do you expect from a hot-blooded, reckless girl but girlish declarations of love?”
    Hunter winced at hearing his own words. Tenderly he stroked Elyssa’s long, tangled hair and tried to gather her closer. The stiff resistance of her body didn’t change.
    “Honey,” Hunter said gently, nuzzling her ear, “I didn’t mean that as an insult to you. I love your reckless passion.”
    A sensuous shiver went through Elyssa at Hunter’s caress. Even angry and hurt, she couldn’t help responding to him. It didn’t even surprise her anymore.
    Elyssa had never known anything close to the incandescent pleasure Hunter gave her. Just the thought of sharing his body again made her breath shorten.
    “In bed, yes, you love my reckless passion,” Elyssa said. “But there’s more to marriage than sex.”
    “Will you listen to reason?” he asked tightly.
    “I always do. But you’re not always reasonable.”
    Before Hunter could answer, Elyssa was speaking again. The sad acceptance in her voice should have come from a woman much older.
    “Don’t let your conscience grind on you,” Elyssa said against Hunter’s neck.
    Hunter’s fingertips caressed her hair and the downward curve of her mouth. He didn’t know what to say. Every word he spoke only seemed to make it worse.
    “I know I’m not the love of your life,” Elyssa said. “But like marriage, love isn’t necessary for pleasure, is it?”
    “Sassy, that’s—”
    “We just proved it,” she interrupted. “Didn’t we?”
    Elyssa’s teeth closed not quite gently on Hunter’s neck. If all she could have of Hunter was his body, she would take it. Deliberately her hands smoothed down Hunter’s torso until she found the place where he was most different from her.
    Hunter’s eyes narrowed against the sudden, impossible leap of his flesh. Her fingertips caressed him like living flames, tracing each sensitive ridge of flesh, every changing texture, learning his growing strength in a silence that burned.
    Then Elyssa’s hot, hungry mouth slid down Hunter’s body, tasting all that she had discovered, memorizing him in a way that left him shaken and wild.
    “Now I know why they’re called fancy men,” Elyssa breathed against Hunter’s aroused, painfully sensitive flesh. “I’m so plain compared to you.”
    With a hoarse sound Hunter dragged Elyssa up his body, rolled over and buried himself in her, ending one sweet torment and beginning another. He moved heavily inside her, sparing her nothing of his potency. Her cries and the hot scoring of her nails told Hunter that Elyssa liked his power.
    The third time Hunter held Elyssa arched and shivering with ecstasy, he let go of control. The endless, pulsing release left him too spent to raise his head.
    Only later, much later, did Hunter realize that no more had been said about duty or conscience or marriage.
    Or love.

23
    B y the time Hunter and Elyssa finally left the twilight intimacy of the cave, it was mid-afternoon. Silently they rode toward the ranch.
    Neither spoke, for neither wanted to argue about what their future should be. For the time being it was enough simply to ride close to each other, near enough to give a gentle touch and receive the flash of a smile in response.
    When Hunter and Elyssa were still a mile from the ranch house, Morgan came at a gallop toward them.
    “Did you see her?” Morgan asked them.
    “Who?” Hunter asked. “Penny?”
    “The Indian girl.”
    “No,” Hunter and Elyssa said together.
    “Well, she’s gone.”
    “What happened?” Hunter demanded.
    “No one knows,” Morgan said. “When Penny found out the girl was gone, she rang the dinner