was about to blow off when she kissed and caressed him again and again. Fire blazed across his flesh and sizzled though his bloodstream. He could feel himself drawing ever nearer to the crumbling edge of self-control. When he reached for her, she whispered the same words he had said to her the previous night.
“Don’t distract me.”
He swore he was going to pass out when her fingertips trailed down the inside of his legs, then moved up again to cup him in her hand. Her thumb stroked leisurely from base to tip while she drew him into her mouth and traced his throbbing length with her tongue and teeth.
“Have mercy…” he choked out when wild need blazed through him, burning him alive.
“Give no quarter, show no mercy,” she murmured against his rigid flesh. “We may be celebrating our pending divorce, but I vow you will never forget your first wife. I’m saying my own version of fare-thee-well to my one and only husband.”
Van moaned in sweet torment while she worked her erotic magic on his ultra-sensitive body. She left him blind with need and he swore he was going to die from unappeased desire any minute. Then she straddled his legs. When she settled exactly upon him, he became the flame pulsing inside her.
“You should be against the law,” he growled as he arched helplessly against her.
“You already think I am,” she whispered as she linked her fingers behind his neck and moved in perfect rhythm with him. “I see no crime in enjoying you one last time before we part company. Do you?”
Her voice faded when he twisted sideways, taking her to her back in one swift, fluid motion. She peered into his bronzed face, watching the golden flames from the lantern cast light and shadows on his angular features.
Natalie asked herself why she was so bold and brazen with him. How could she yearn for him beyond reason when she itched to pound him over the head for fueling her temper with his cynicism? She couldn’t explain her fierce, uncontrollable desire for Crow any more easily than she could fly to the moon. Despite his dark suspicions about her, she still wanted him once more before she walked out of his life and lured her enemies away to protect him from harm.
She didn’t know if she would survive Marsh and Kimball’s attempt to dispose of her. But they would not harm Donovan Crow, she promised herself fiercely. He had burrowed into her heart and breathed life into her soul.
Her thoughts sailed away like a ship skimming the sea in a brisk wind. She stared into Crow’s fascinating silver-blue eyes and knew without question that she was experiencing her greatest adventure. The feel of his muscular body moving intimately against her, burning like a living flame inside her, took her higher and higher still.
Sensation after indescribable sensation swamped and buffeted her. She swore she was soaring in motionless flight, flying past the stars to grasp that one spectacular feeling she had discovered only when she was one with this raven-haired warrior she had married.
Her breath lodged in her throat when infinitesimal pleasure exploded around her. She dug her nails into his forearms and held on for dear life as she spiraled out of control. Her body sizzled like a meteor blazing across the heavens to its own fiery destruction as rapture consumed her.
“Damn you, sunshine,” she heard Crow growl against the side of her neck. His muscular body shuddered and vibrated against her while he held her as tightly as she clung to him.
“Damn you, too, Crow,” she whispered back and then she smiled in satisfaction as ecstasy streamed through her.
Impulsively, she pressed a feathery kiss to his shoulder, his high cheekbone. Then she ran her hand down his spine to map his muscular hip. A few moments later, he eased down beside her. Ten minutes later, the sound of his methodic breathing assured her that he had dozed off.
Natalie knew she had a small window of opportunity to escape before Crow woke up. That was all the head start she would need.
Chapter Twelve
Without daring to breathe, for fear she would wake Crow, Natalie inched off the bed. She rummaged through his saddlebags for the strands of rope he carried to secure prisoners. Working quietly but carefully, she tied one wrist then the other to the bedposts while he lay facedown in the tangle of sheets.
She stopped dead still when he shifted slightly. He didn’t wake—Thank God!—so she staked