Christmas at Thunder Horse Ranch

“Are you all right?” Dante asked.

She laughed shakily. “I’d be better if you didn’t stop.”

After hesitating a moment longer, he slid slowly into her and began a steady, easy glide in and out.

The initial pain lasted but a moment, and soon Emma forgot it in the joy of the connection between them. So this was what all the fuss was about. Now she understood and dropped her feet to the mattress to better meet him thrust for thrust.

When Dante stiffened, he stopped, his hard member buried deep inside her. A moment later, he dragged himself free and lay down beside her, pulling her into the warmth of his arms.

The heat of his body and the haze of pleasurable exhaustion washed over her and she melted against him. “Mmm. I never knew it would be that good.”

He lay with his arms around her, his body stiff. “You cried out. Why?”

Heat rose into her cheeks. “Did I?”

For a long moment, Dante held her without talking. “You were a virgin, weren’t you?” When she refused to answer, he continued, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Emma rested her hand on his chest, feeling the swift beat of his heart against her palm. “I was embarrassed. Besides, what difference does it make?”

“We wouldn’t have done it.” He smoothed a hand along her lower back.

“Are you sorry you did?” she asked, her lips so close to his nipple, she tongued the hard little point, liking the way it beaded even tighter.

“No.”

She smiled in the darkness and relaxed against him. “Me, either. Virginity is way overrated.”

He tipped her chin up with his finger. “Then why are—were—you still one?” His breath warmed her.

“Like I told you. I’m not good at relationships. I could never get past a first date.”

She could feel his head shaking side to side. “Inconceivable,” he said, then captured her mouth with his.

When he broke the kiss, Emma lay in his arms, basking in the afterglow, their bodies generating enough combined heat that, along with the cocoon of blankets, they held off the cold.

“Just so you know, I’m not good at relationships, either,” Dante said into the darkness. “I can offer you no guarantees.”

“I understand.” The warmth she’d been feeling chilled slightly. What did she expect? Sex was sex. No matter how good it felt, it didn’t necessarily come with emotional commitment.

She couldn’t expect Dante to fall in love with her just because she’d given him her virginity. “Don’t worry. I won’t stalk you or make any demands of you. The ‘no guarantees’ thing goes both ways.”

His hand paused the circular motion he’d begun on her naked back.

She added to boost her own self-confidence, “Thank you for getting me over my awkwardness. I won’t be so hesitant with my future dates.” As soon as she said the words, she could have kicked herself. Would he consider them flippant and insensitive, or worse? Would he think she was loose and easy with her body?

Despite his announcement that he’d give no guarantees, she’d harbored a wish, a dream and a raging desire to repeat what had just happened. When the storm cleared and they made it back to civilization, she hoped he’d ask her out again. Though sex with Dante had been magical to her, he certainly wouldn’t be impressed enough for a repeat performance with an awkward ex-virgin?

Chapter Four (#ulink_84085290-090b-511b-a71c-27d36a0bbeb3)

Dante pressed himself as close as he could get to the jagged hulk of his crashed helicopter; his copilot lay at an awkward angle, still strapped to his seat, dead from a broken neck sustained upon impact. He didn’t recognize the copilot, his face was hidden in shadows.

A movement at the edge of the village where he’d crashed caught Dante’s eye. The flap of a dark robe fluttered in the desert breeze. There. The man he’d seen at the last minute, pointing an RPG at him, stood at the corner of a mud hut.

Staying low behind the metal wreckage, Dante leveled his 9 mm pistol, aiming at the man, waiting for him to step out of the shadows and come within range.

The sound of an engine made his blood run cold. An old, rusty truck rumbled down the middle of the street between the buildings, loaded with Taliban soldiers wielding Soviet-made rifles.

Alone, without any backup, it was him with a full clip against the Taliban. If he wanted to live, he had to make every shot count.

The truck barreled toward him and stopped short. The soldiers leaped over the side. He fired, hitting one, then another, but they kept coming as if the truck had an endless supply. One by one, he fired until the trigger clicked and the clip was empty.

Taliban men grabbed his arms and pulled him from the wreckage, shouting and shooting their weapons in the air. The hum of the truck engine growled louder as they dragged him closer.

“Dante.”

How did they know his name? He struggled against their hold, kicking and shoving at their hands.

“Dante, wake up!”

He opened his eyes. The sand and desert disappeared and dim light seeped in around the blinds over a window.

“Dante?” a soft feminine voice called out and it all came back to him.

“Emma?” he said, his voice hoarse.

She leaned over him, her naked body pressed against his, her breasts smashed to his chest, her thigh draped over his. She smelled of roses mixed with the musky scent of sex.

It took him a moment to shake the terror of being captured and dragged away by the Taliban, and even longer to return to the camp trailer on the North Dakota tundra.

Then he noticed a red mark on Emma’s cheek. “What happened to you?” He reached up to gently brush his thumb around the mark.

She smiled crookedly. “You were having a bad dream.”

“I did that?” His chest tightened and he pushed to a sitting position. “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t hurt.” She pressed her fingers to the red welt. “I’m more worried about the engine noise I hear outside.”

Dante sat still and silent, focusing on the noise from outside. Just as she’d said, an engine revved nearby.

Dante threw back the covers. “Get up. Get dressed.”

“Why?” She asked, scrambling off the bed, gooseflesh rising on her naked skin.

“We don’t know if the man who shot me down yesterday is back.”

“Damn.” Emma grabbed her sweater, tugged it over her naked breasts and slipped into her snow pants and boots.

Dante only had his thermals to pull on and his boots.