Free Angel In The Rain (Western Historical Romance) by Devon Matthews Page A

and cocked one hip, casual-like. But the intensity in his dark eyes as he stared down at her was anything but relaxed. “Believe this,” he said. “It’s been less than forty eight hours since you were taken from the stage. How long after that do you think your father got the word? Twelve hours? Twenty-four? Are you good at subtraction, Angel? If the wire’s down, he still may not know.”
    His words battered against the iron wall of Angel’s certainty.
    “Let’s assume he does know,” he continued. “How soon would he have dispatched a search party? Taking into account the distance, do you think anyone riding from Clayton Station could have reached this waterhole ahead of us?”
    Oh, God . What he said made sense. Logical, indisputable sense. Her father couldn’t have sent those men at the waterhole. She wavered a moment, wanting to deny, while hope died a slow, whimpering death inside her.
    “I don’t shoot men in cold blood.”
    She lifted her head and looked at him, finding a focus for her anger and frustration. “But you do shoot them, don’t you?”
    “They can leave. I’ll give them the choice.”
    A choice. He would give them a choice. Meanwhile, he gave her no choice whatsoever. She shook her head at the irony. She remained his unwilling captive, subject to his whim and command. And just moments ago he’d proven he wouldn’t hesitate to manhandle and threaten to keep her under his control.
    Well, by God, she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.
    Dropping her arms to her sides, she marched toward him. Rage, fiery as the sun overhead, burned to cinders her last shred of caution.
    She recognized the calculated, measuring gleam in his eyes. He doubtless expected her to let fly at him with a tongue-lashing.
    She had something much more satisfying in mind.
    When she was two feet away from him, she halted, clenched her teeth, and swung at his smug face.
    Swift as a striking snake, he caught her wrist only inches from his cheek.
    His lightning reflex stunned her. She hesitated a heartbeat before she lashed out with her other hand, only to have it captured like the first in his unyielding grip.
    She struggled and jerked against his hold, too furious to give in. He held her easily and that angered her even more. Her wrists burned in his relentless grasp by the time she finally settled, breathing hard and seething with pent-up violence that begged for release.
    Mere inches separated them. She tilted her head, and his ragged breath cascaded over the edge of her jaw. A spark of...exactly what, she couldn’t guess, gleamed in his dark eyes. One side of his lips quirked into the little smirk she’d come to recognize. She knew he intended it to be ugly, but it still jolted her heart off-kilter.
    “You bastard!”
    “So, the wildcat shows her true face at last,” he drawled.
    She’d show him wildcat. She opened her mouth to scream.
    He jerked her forward, crushing her breasts against his chest. Shock raced through her and sucked away her breath. She tried to pull back, only to have him swoop in and plant his mouth on hers.
    Her intent—thoughts of screaming, escape, hurting him—all shattered into sparkling fragments and scattered on the wind. The entire universe suddenly narrowed to one focus: his lips grinding against hers.
    At first, he just held her like that, in a bruising crush meant to smother her cries. Then it changed. His mouth opened over hers, hungry and commanding. She felt the knotted tension in his body, the rapid-fire bursts of his breath against her cheek.
    She had wished for this.
    Only a few times in her life had she been kissed, and never with such unrestrained, savage urgency.
    Her fevered blood responded. She opened her mouth to him, and he swirled inside with a low moan trapped in his throat. Unable to resist, her tongue joined with his in a slow, sinuous dance. Tension gripped her body and sent her straining toward him, seeking his male hardness as though pulled by a magnet.
    Her