Free The Outlaw Bride by Sandra Chastain

wounds so incapacitating that he couldn’t yet mount his horse and search for his brother without help. Suddenly, from the darkness, came a sound. Someone was walking in the courtyard. Bare feet moved across the hard earth like the kiss of a spider building its web. Sound turned into substance when a figure wrapped in sheer white fabric moved into the moonlight. Golden hair turned silver. Gown translucent, nearly nude. The woman looked like a marble statue he’d once seen in a museum. Except this woman was real.
    She came closer, walking slowly, her arms crossed over her breasts. Then she stopped, not two feet from where he was sitting in the darkness. Her arms moved away from her body like unfolding wings. She began to sway. Her feet moved slowly, lifting her body as she danced on her toes.
    Josie.
    Callahan had never seen anything so beautiful. There was no music, except the magic of the inner song that moved her. More graceful than he’d ever thought possible, his clumsy Valkyrie became the angel he’d called her.
    He must have made a sound, for she suddenly stopped.
    “Wash?” she asked in a whisper. “Who’s there?”
    “The devil,” he answered, more roughly than he’d intended.
    “Callahan? How’d you get out here?” She ran toward him in quick mincing steps.
    “I walked. I needed to move. Where have you been?”
    “To the river. I couldn’t sleep.”
    “Neither could I. Please, sit down.”
    She hesitated, then sat beside him and leaned back against the house.
    “You’re wet,” he said. “God, how I’d like to lie down in the river, feel the fresh cold current roll over me.”
    “It’s too far. Would you like me to prepare a basin of cool water for you to bathe yourself?”
    I’d like you to lie with me, in that river, beneath the moon.
“No.” His voice was tight and low. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
    “Here, let me help you get back inside.”
    “Yes” was all he said.
    She leaned over and gently slipped one arm around his chest and the other on his hip. “Ready?” she asked a little breathlessly.
    He could have told her that he could do it himself, but he didn’t. “I’m ready.”
    Callahan knew he shouldn’t lean against her, but he couldn’t stop himself. At least that way he couldn’t see her nipples peeking through her sleeping garment. Despite her wet clothing, she radiated an energy, an inner turmoil that fed the heat and the sweet scents of the night. She moved closer and her breasts pressed against his bare chest, nipples beaded like icy pebbles. Sweet torture.
    “I have to let you go,” Josie said, struggling to handle his weight. She let go of one arm and moved her hand to his chest where she felt the rapid beat of his heart beneath her fingertips. Unconsciously, she leaned against him, as if she were the injured one and he was her strength. It was as if they were the only two people on earth. But they weren’t, and he wasn’t strong enough to stand.
    “Let me move around to your side,” she said. “You can lean on me and the wall.”
    “Not yet,” Callahan said, pulling her against him. And then he was kissing her again, just as he’d wanted from the start. A surge of passion swept over him, washing away every restraint, enveloping them both in its power like the current of that river he’d longed for. His hands slid down her back, cupping her intimately against him. Her womanly needs seemed to match his own.
    His tongue sought the opening of her mouth, inviting, insisting, and she let him in, allowed him to taste her, to make love to her mouth as his body joined in the rhythm. His left hand moved downward, seeking and finding a full breast. She held her breath for one long moment.
    Callahan found his way inside her nightdress and was soon rewarded by the touch of her bare breast. The tremors she set off as she caressed his chest almost undid him. He pressed his throbbing body against hers, refusing to let go, not without touching her—there, where he