The Fall of Maggie Brown

  “You sure you don’t want any?” He held it up in offering.

  “I’m sure.” She was leaning against the opposite wall. A little too far away from the fire for ultimate comfort, but a little too close to Frazer for her peace of mind. He’d managed to wash up as well, and in the flickering firelight he looked both beautiful and dangerous. Why in heaven’s name had she ever gone off with him? She knew he was trouble the moment she laid eyes on him.

  She must have been out of her mind.

  * * *

  FRAZER KNEW SHE’D BE trouble the moment he laid eyes on her. He had to have been out of his mind to continue with this little expedition.

  If he’d thought clearly he could have dumped her anywhere along the way. Left her with Elena while he took off to warn The Professor.

  Not that she would have been safe. Salazar had already known of her existence, and it had only been his own dubious protection that had kept her safe. If he abandoned her she would have been considered fair game.

  Not that there was any reason he should feel responsible. She had chosen to come to San Pablo. She’d walked right into the lion’s den with a singular disregard of the current political situation, and it would serve her right if she met with disaster.

  He had too damned much conscience, that was his problem. He couldn’t abandon a woman in those circumstances, not any woman. It didn’t matter whether she was an American or not, or Stella’s sister. It didn’t matter that she brought out a crazy, protective, irritated streak in him that most people never came close to. He’d do the same for anyone.

  So now that they were up here, less than a mile from the hidden valley where The Professor and his followers had set up headquarters, how the hell was he going to ditch her long enough to get a warning to them?

  He could get her drunk, though she didn’t seem terribly interested. He could try to sneak out while she was asleep, and if he didn’t get back before she woke up he’d give her some embarrassing biological excuse that she couldn’t very well question.

  Or he could simplify matters, tie and gag her and simply go. It would keep her safe and out of the way, and while she’d be mad as hell when he came back, this whole wild-goose chase would be close to being finished. The elections would be over. Morales would be the newly elected democratic president, the Generalissimo would have no choice but to get the hell out of the country, and there’d no longer be any need to keep Maggie from finding out just what happened to her sister, Stella.

  The one thing he wasn’t going to do was sleep with her.

  It was tempting, of course. He’d lain on the mattress last night, listening to the soft sound of her breathing, and it had taken all his considerable willpower to keep still. He could still taste her mouth, feel the heat of her skin. She was sitting there, looking half-dead, his clothes enveloping her, and if he had any excuse in the world he’d take her, here and now, and make her forget about her responsibilities and her sister and her bank and her life in Philadelphia.

  How in the hell could he want someone who chose to live in Philadelphia? He was a wanderer, a free spirit, a man who’d made a new home and a new life in San Pablo, and she was a dutiful Quaker, by nature if not by religion. He belonged with someone like Stella, someone wild and free, not with an uptight little mouse of a woman who looked at him as if he were a pirate. A swashbuckler, she called him. And she was a far cry from a pirate’s wench.

  But he did want her. It was that simple, that basic, and it was taking all his self-control to keep from doing anything about it.

  She’d finished eating, setting the metal bowl down on the dirt floor beneath her. As she moved, the unbuttoned shirt exposed a creamy expanse of breast, and he wanted to groan. He was only making things harder on himself.

  She yawned, a huge, extravagant yawn that was annoyingly appealing. “I’m tired,” she said.

  “Yup. Hard work, kicking a Jeep over a cliff and being carried up a mountainside,” he drawled, looking for trouble.

  But she was too weary to deliver. “I’ll replace the Jeep, of course. When we get back to Las Palmas I’ll get you the money…”

  “Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t my Jeep.”

  That was enough to startle her. “Whose was it?”

  “No one you’ve met,” he said, thinking of The Professor’s reaction when he found out the Jeep was gone. No one I want you to meet if I can help it.

  “How are we going to get back to Las Palmas?”

  “Aren’t you worried about finding your sister?”

  “Can we find her?” Maggie asked. “I’m beginning to think it’s a lost cause.”

  “I could have told you that days ago,” he drawled. “She’s a grown-up, you’re a grown-up. Time to go your separate ways.”

  “But she’s feckless, wild and crazy…”

  “And you’re responsible, sane and boring,” he said.

  She looked affronted. Her hair was drying in a halo of curls from the heat of the fire, and her eyes were huge and troubled. “I’m not boring.”

  “Your life is boring. Have you ever done one crazy, irrational thing in your entire life? Have you ever done anything that wasn’t wise and well-considered and planned?” he demanded.

  She bit her lip. He had a real problem with her mouth—he wanted to be there, tasting her, and her biting it only made him want it more.

  She looked up at him, across the fire-lit room, over the flickering flames. “Yes,” she said.

  ‘Name it,” he challenged her. “Name one stupid, crazy thing you’ve done in the last week, even.”

  “Come to San Pablo.”

  “That doesn’t count. You were being responsible, looking out for your sister and mother.”

  “Okay, then. Hiring you.”

  He shook his head. “Not that, either. I was your only choice. And whether you want to admit it or not, you’re a helluva lot better off with me than you would have been with almost anyone else. Face it, Maggie, you’d be dying of thirst and you wouldn’t take a glass of water unless you’d decided it was a practical decision.”

  She stared at him. “I’ve done impractical and stupid things,” she said.

  “You still haven’t named one.”

  “I kissed you.”

  The silence was so powerful he thought his heart had stopped beating. But it hadn’t—he could feel it hammering against his chest. She wouldn’t look at him—she was staring into the fire.

  “So you did,” he said softly. “And you never did tell me why.”

  She wasn’t going to tell him now, either, he knew that. She wasn’t even going to look at him unless he made her.

  “Come over here, Maggie.”

  It worked. She stared at him in shock. “No.”

  “Don’t be a baby. It’s warm over here, and I’ve made a bed of pine boughs that should be reasonably soft. And if you want I can be on the bottom.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Come here, Maggie. You know you want to,” he said, his voice low and beguiling.

  He waited, patiently, for her next heated protest. He waited for her anger, her insults, her temper. He waited, watching her, leaning back against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him. Waited for her to come to him.

  “I don’t…” she began.

  “Now,” he said, in a firm, gentle voice.

  And she came.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHY she was moving. Why she’d risen to her feet, circled the fire and come to kneel beside Ben Frazer. She had no excuse, no reason, other than she wanted to. Common sense that he’d mocked so thoroughly had vanished. The night was cool but the fire was warm, and he was there, looking at her through the smoky darkness, his blue eyes unreadable.

  “I annoy you,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “You annoy the hell out of me,” he agreed.

  “Elena said you could have any woman in San Pablo.”

  His mouth quirked up in a half smile. “Elena’s mistake
n. And I don’t want any woman in San Pablo.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I want you.”

  She waited for him to touch her, but he didn’t. He simply watched her from beneath his half-closed lids, waiting. She had no idea what he was waiting for.

  “You ever sleep with a swashbuckler, Maggie?”

  “No.”

  “You ever sleep with anyone who’s not a banker?”

  “No.”

  He looked at her. “You ever sleep with anyone at all?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t know what to say. The truth seemed the best idea. “Not for a long, long time.”

  “Define long.”

  “Ten years.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and she wondered if he’d send her back to her spot across the room. Then he opened them again, looking directly at her.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I’m not very good at this,” she said, honesty compelling her. “I mean, that’s sort of a given, since I haven’t done it in ten years, so I’d understand if you change your mind about it—”

  He stopped her babbling with his mouth. His hands caught her face, bringing it to his, and his long fingers stroked her skin. She knew an instant’s panic when he pushed her mouth open with his, but there was no escape, and she didn’t want to. She simply held still, letting him kiss her with a thoroughness that left her breathless and beyond any doubt of what she was getting herself into.

  And then he drew back, cocking an eyebrow. “Changed your mind?” he asked softly.

  “Can I?”

  “Of course,” he said amiably. Too amiably, as if her decision didn’t matter to him in the slightest.

  She started to pull back. “Then I think I’ll—”

  He caught her shoulders, tumbling her into his lap, and kissed her again, a slow, lazy, entirely possessive kiss that made her shiver in reluctant delight. “You think you’ll what?” he whispered, calmly unfastening the tightly tied tails of the shirt she’d borrowed.

  “I think I’ll—”

  He kissed her again, using his tongue, and she felt the shirt part beneath his hand, the one lone button still holding it together. She was sitting cradled in his lap, held there by his arms, by his mouth, by his insistent presence. She wanted to run away and hide. She wanted to push him back against the dirt floor and straddle him.

  She felt the shirt pop open, heard the button go flying across the room to land somewhere in the darkness. “I’m not sewing that one on,” she said when he released her mouth, though she was breathless, panting, trembling.

  He was pushing the shirt from her shoulders, down her arms, and she realized she was sitting on his lap naked from the waist up. She’d never felt so exposed in her life, and instinctively she tried to cover herself with her arms.

  It was a waste of time. He yanked off his own T-shirt and threw it into the darkness, and then he pulled her against his chest, and the smooth, silky warmth of his skin was irresistible. She was clutching her own bare shoulders, trying to cover herself, but he was stronger, warmer, and she wanted to touch him. She did.

  “That’s better, Maggie,” he whispered. “Now why don’t you see if you’re brave enough to kiss me? You know you want to. You know I want you to. Go ahead, try it. I promise I won’t bite. Or at least, not much. And only in the best possible way.”

  His voice was smoky and dark as the night, full of sensual possibilities, and she shivered. And she put her mouth against his, savoring the newness, the heat and damp and demand of him.

  His hands slid up between them to cover her breasts, and she made a choked sound of pleasure in the back of her throat. She couldn’t understand why she’d fought this, why she’d been running away from this when it felt so wonderful. And then he ran his thumbs across her nipples, and she felt a spasm between her legs, and she jerked, startled, suddenly unsure.

  “Just relax, Maggie,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’ll like it, I promise you.”

  “I didn’t before.” She couldn’t believe she’d actually said that out loud.

  He didn’t stop what he was doing, the teasing caress of his fingers on her skin, the soft temptation of his mouth on her neck. “I know. But you will this time. Trust me.”

  Trust me. She’d been trying to put her trust in him since she first met him, across the crowded bar in Las Cruces. He wasn’t like any Boy Scout she’d ever known, he was a swashbuckling pirate, and a woman would have to be a total fool to put her trust in him.

  And she was ready to be a fool. She’d fallen from her pedestal, no longer the wise Maggie Brown. She was foolish, and vulnerable and ready. And Frazer was the man who brought her to that place.

  He lifted her off his lap, carefully, and set her down on the blanket. It was surprisingly soft, and he pushed her back so that she lay there, looking up at him through the flickering firelight. He reached for the waistband of her borrowed jeans, but he didn’t bother unfastening it. He simply pulled the baggy pants down over her hips, off her legs, and she was naked on the soft pallet, about to curl up in a paroxysm of nerves and shyness.

  She didn’t have the chance. He slid over her, his body between her legs, his chest against her breasts. He was still half-dressed, and the feel of the fabric against her skin was a crazy frustration. He slid against her, the rough cloth pressing against her sensitive skin, and she couldn’t stifle a hungry cry. She clutched at him, trying to pull him closer, but he simply laughed.

  “Don’t be in a such a hurry, sugar,” he whispered. “I’ve got things to do.” He sat back, away from her, and she closed her eyes, waiting for him to shuck off his jeans and push inside her. The sound of his zipper sent a little shiver through her, but she didn’t move, waiting.

  The last thing she expected was his mouth on her stomach. He trailed kisses across her skin, moving up to fasten on her breast, sucking at it like a baby, and she reached up and threaded her fingers through his long hair, holding him there, her head tipped back, her body arching with pleasure at the sensation. She’d never considered her breasts to be that sensitive, but it seemed that everywhere his mouth touched, his fingers touched, she was exquisitely responsive. She was so caught up in the pleasurable tug of his mouth on her nipple that his hand between her legs came as a surprise. And then beyond surprise, as he slid his fingers against her, and her body dissolved into a tiny shimmer of delight.

  She was only half aware of what he was doing as he pulled away from her. She heard the tearing sound of a packet, and realized he was getting a condom ready. She hadn’t even thought about such basics.

  And then he caught her hands in his and put the condom in her palm. “Are you afraid to touch me, Maggie?” His voice was soft, raw, needy.

  Very needy. She was beyond doubt, beyond fear. She slid her hand down the hard, silken length of him, and he let out a deep, guttural cry that almost made her climax again. She couldn’t remember touching a man before, but the feel of him, the weight of his strength in her hand was curiously powerful, deeply erotic, and she wanted more. She wanted to taste him, take him deep in her mouth, to feel him all around her, and she started forward.

  “We’re too far along, Maggie,” he said hoarsely. “Put the damned condom on or we’ll do without it.”

  “I’ve never used one before,” she said helplessly.

  He cupped her hand with his, and together they pulled the thin rubber down over him. He looked like a stranger in the flickering darkness. He was a stranger, but it didn’t matter. He was the only thing in the world that meant anything to her, and she lay back on the pallet and held out her arms for him.

  He came to her, as strong and sure as a river, pushing her legs apart to rest against her. She felt her body spasm again, and she stared at him in shock, but he simply pushed against her, sinking slowly, inexorably, filling her. She was clutching the old blanket beneath her, and he covered her hands with his, holding tight, as he pushed all the way into her. He held still for a m
oment, his body rigid with self-control, as she slowly grew accustomed to the invasion. And then he reached down and pulled her legs around his narrow hips, and he began to move.

  After a brief moment she relaxed, letting her body settle into the slow, delicious rhythm of his thrusts. He was right, he wouldn’t hurt her, he’d already given her more pleasure than she’d even imagined. And she liked this, too, the steady, pounding pace that made her skin tingle and her heart race and her hands begin to clench against his.

  He was holding her down, and she didn’t like it. He was moving too slow, and she wanted faster. He was too gentle, and she wanted more, harder, and she couldn’t tell him, she didn’t have the words, she only knew that what had been passive and pleasant was now something that was clawing at her, tearing her apart, and she needed something she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  “What do you want, Maggie?” he whispered in her ear. “What do you need?”

  She wasn’t going to answer. She was beyond answering, caught up in a maelstrom of need and anger, frustration and delight. She yanked her hands from under his imprisoning grip to clutch at his shoulders. He was slippery with sweat, and so was she, and she dug her fingers into his shoulder.

  “What do you want, Maggie?” he whispered again, insistent. He was moving faster now, blessedly faster, pushing into her, and every time he pulled away she wanted to scream, to grab him and pull him deeper inside her.

  “What do you want?”

  “More,” she managed in a choked voice. “You,” she said. “Now.”

  He slid his hand between their bodies and touched her, hard, as he shoved in deep, so deep that their bodies slid across the floor to end up against the wall. The force of her climax hit her like an avalanche, and her entire body convulsed in an orgasm that was almost painful in its intensity. She could feel him in her arms, his body rigid, as he came inside her, and she wanted it to last forever, to never come back to earth, to this dark, cavelike ruin. She wanted him to stay inside her, her legs locked around him, stay like that forever. She didn’t want anything else.