DangerousPassion Read online

  Go home and don’t think about anything at all. Worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

  She left the bank, making sure that the door mechanism locked behind her, and began the weary four-block walk to the livery, where her horse and carriage would be waiting for her.

  * * * *

  “Lookie here, boys!”

  The sound of the male voice directly behind Sarah startled her so badly she nearly fell over in her haste to see who had stepped out of the shadows. She looked at the young man who had spoken, and at his four companions, and Sarah’s heart began pounding furiously with primal fear. The speaker, as well as his friends, was young, perhaps under twenty, who wore range clothes that had not seen a cleaning in quite a while, though he had a well-oiled and thoughtfully cared-for pistol in a holster at his hip. He and his friends were itinerate cowboys, but with barbed wire being strung up nearly everywhere, they had taken to renting out themselves as gunmen. The contemptuous sneer on his lips seemed a permanent, prominent expression.

  “I think this filly is looking for a stallion!” the leader said, his eyes going brazenly up and down over Sarah’s voluptuous curves as he spoke.

  Another young man said, “Jimbo, I believe you’re right.”

  The leader, Jimbo, put his right hand down between his legs to obscenely fondle himself. As he did this, his friends fanned out to surround Sarah, trapping her between themselves and her carriage. She didn’t stand a chance of getting in her carriage, turning it around, and riding away before they captured her. Some fifty yards down the dusty side street of Deadwood, Sarah heard an excited cry, and the fragment of a sentence indicating that Jimbo had found a girl. How many more vicious young men were on their way now?

  Sarah tried to moisten her lips, but her tongue went dry. With as much confidence as she could manage, she said, “You’d better leave now before you get in trouble.”

  This comment brought hissing, sadistic laughter from the leader of the blackguards. Jimbo stepped closer to Sarah, still fondling himself through his baggy, dirty trousers. He licked his lips in a crude manner, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Sarah was disgusted.

  “At this time of night?” the cretin asked. “Hell, ain’t nobody in town dumb enough to open their door or keep a lamp lit. At this time of night, me and my boys own the back streets of Deadwood!”

  “Please leave me alone,” Sarah said. Then, her tone suddenly quivering, she pleaded softly, “Won’t you please just leave me alone?”

  “That would be a damned neighborly thing to do...but it ain’t gonna happen!” Jimbo broke into another peel of laughter that was shared by his gang. “So why don’t you just go along real nice like, and just maybe you won’t get that pretty face of yours all cut up when we’re done with you?”

  Jimbo stepped close enough so that he could reach out and touch Sarah. His dark gaze raked up and down over her, and his expression was a foul thing that was both frightening and ugly to see.

  “I like what I see,” the leader said. “But I don’t like your hair like that. Take out that pin and let your hair down, missy.”

  Sarah contemplated refusing to comply, but then a calmer, more rational voice inside her head whispered that needlessly angering the volatile gunman wouldn’t do her any good. She reached up and pulled out the wooden pin that held her long, auburn hair in a bun at the base of her neck. Her hair, gleaming in the moonlight like some precious metal, fell down her back.

  “See? I can be a real nice fella when a gal knows how to follow orders.”

  The other gunmen cackled at Jimbo’s comments. Sarah shivered inside. There were now eight men standing in a half-circle around her, all of them looking at her with a carnivorous gleam in eyes that held lust but no pity.

  The leader of the outlaws glanced at his men, now close by, then back at Sarah. He made no effort to disguise the fact that he was staring at Sarah, taking in her ostentatious physical charms--and lusting after what he was seeing. Her lusciously rounded, heavy bosom did not require a corset to be held high, and their allure held Jimbo’s gaze for several unblinking seconds. Then, slowly, his gaze crawled slowly down to her stomach, and finally to her pleasantly curved though not extravagant hips.

  “Hey, heifer, where you been all my life?” Jimbo asked quietly, conversationally.

  His tone and manner were in sharp contrast to the quickly rising fear in Sarah’s heart. There was nothing but remorseless menace in the gunman’s black heart. When Jimbo reached out casually to place his hand over Sarah’s plump breast, she started to slap his hand away, but the look in the man’s eyes warned her that he could be much more brutal, more cruel and barbaric, than anyone she could possibly imagine.

  She stood motionless, fearful and yet furious at what was happening. Sarah was disgusted at having the foul young man cruelly pressing his fingers into her breast through her dress while he simultaneously used his other hand to fondle himself through his dirty trousers.

  Jimbo laughed and looked around, making sure that all his men were watching. Then, without warning, he stabbed his fingers into Sarah’s dress at the neckline and ripped down with all his strength. The buttons gave way easily to savagery. Without hesitation, the young hoodlum then grabbed Sarah’s camisole and ripped it apart as well, tearing the thin cotton to expose extravagant breasts.

  “Stop it!” Sarah screamed, crossing her arms to cover herself.

  A cry of excitement went out among the men, a collective howl like wolves on the hunt. Jimbo held a patch of cotton ripped from Sarah’s camisole. He waved it at Sarah, then tossed the cotton to the ground and stepped on it, symbolically crushing her beneath his heel.

  “Now get on your knees!” he hissed, his lust racing through his veins like a drug. He pulled a Bowie knife with a foot-long blade from a sheath attached to his holster. The enormous, razor sharp blade glinted silver in the moonlight. “Get down on your knees, and do it right. Make me angry and you’ll be the sorriest bitch Deadwood has ever seen.”

  There was a moment of complete silence as the outlaws stared at Sarah, devouring her with their eyes as they waited to see if she would willingly sink to her knees to provide them with pleasure, or if fists and boots would be necessary for her to understand that she really had no choice in the matter.

  Through the temporary silence, a much deeper male voice cut through the darkness, causing Sarah and all nine gunmen to turn toward the intruder as he stepped out of the shadows.

  “Walk away from this,” the stranger said. He was talking to Jimbo.

  The stranger was an inch or two over six feet, with broad shoulders and a lean waist. His coat, shirt, and trousers, and even the neckerchief around his throat, were all midnight black. Sarah guessed his age at somewhere around thirty-five, though she could be a couple years off in either direction. His hair was black as midnight, as were his eyes, which despite their darkness glittered dangerously. On his face was an expression that Sarah was incapable of reading. She could not tell from the man’s expression what he was thinking. He just looked dangerous. Deadly dangerous. And seductive. She couldn’t say precisely how, but the stranger moved like a man in complete control of himself and the world around him, and this awareness triggered a physical and emotional response from Sarah that she was only partially conscious of.

  “I told you to walk away from this,” the man repeated, stepping closer. Despite his size, he moved with amazing grace and fluidity.

  Jimbo quickly surmised that the intruder was alone, and once he was confident of this, his attitude changed immediately. He stepped closer to the stranger, moving away from his beautiful captive.

  “No, mister, it’s you who had better turn tail and run like hell,” Jimbo said, menace dripping from every word that passed between his saliva-glistening lips. “Get your ass out of here now while I still say you can.”

  The stranger looked at Sarah and in a tone that was oddly conversational considering the circumstances, said, “The name’s Derek. I’ll get you out o
f this in just a moment.”

  “Seems like this is an imbecile that done wants to die!” Jimbo cackled. He waved the big Bowie knife through the air. “He ain’t even wearin’ a gun!” He spit on the ground, hitting the toe of Derek’s left boot. As he began slicing the air again with his knife, he hissed, “Looks like I’m just gonna have to gut you!”

  Derek’s next move was made so fast and smooth that even though Sarah had watched the entire thing, afterward, she couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t sorcery. Derek reached inside his jacket, under his left arm. When his hand reappeared, a fraction of a second later, he held a Colt in his big right fist. And then there was the hideous roar of the revolver. The force of the bullet that punched into Jimbo’s chest sent him sprawling onto his back in the livery corral.

  The other men were just starting to react, all of them reaching for guns in holsters, when Derek’s heavy Colt screamed its vengeance once again, barely a second after the first. Another deafening explosion; another young, vicious outlaw was sent tumbling in the dirt and manure of the corral.

  Two men were dead. By this time the fastest draw among the outlaws was just clearing his revolver from its holster. He would have been better off if he’d raised his hands and given up. Derek’s aim was true, and the fastest draw among the young killers was the third to die.

  What had been a gang of nine was now down to six. The six remaining, all of them dazed at the speed with which their ranks had been decimated, turned as though a single unit and ran for the open door of the stables, seeking cover from which they might return fire with relative safety.

  “Come on,” Derek said, reaching a hand out to Sarah. “We’ve out-stayed our welcome.”

  Sarah had no intention of putting her hand in Derek’s, or in going anywhere with him. He was a dangerous brute in a black suit. He was obviously skilled in the horrible arts of warfare and gun fighting. He was probably a man cut from the same bolt of cloth as the younger, coarser gunmen who had attacked her.

  But a frantic voice inside Sarah’s brain admitted that he was indeed a killer—but he was not at all the same type killer as those who had ripped open her dress and tore off most of her camisole. In a flashing epiphany, Sarah realized that no amount of contempt for violence would, in fact, stop violence from occurring. In the grandest irony of all, Sarah realized that her only hope of safety rested in the man who seemed most violent of all.

  Placing her hand in Derek’s much larger one, she said, “Please, get me out of this.”

  Derek smiled. It was an incongruous expression under the circumstances, but it made Sarah feel a little more confident just the same.

  “Trust me,” he said, then began leading Sarah into the shadows of Deadwood’s deserted back streets, running swiftly but not as fast as he could.

  Sarah was about to say that Derek was running too fast, and that she would surely fall down at any second. But just as she was about to speak, she heard the reports of revolvers being fired. A bullet kicked up dirt at her right foot as she ran, missing her by inches.

  It added swiftness to her stride as she clutched onto Derek as though holding a lifeline.

  Chapter Two

  That morning, Sarah had chosen to wear her ankle-high, side-button boots with two-inch heels. The footwear was of good quality and quite fashionable. They were also almost impossible to run fast in. She tried to keep up with Derek while he ran a zigzagging course through the back streets of Deadwood, but he had to pull her along just the same.

  They went six blocks before Derek stopped running. He put a finger to Sarah’s lips, silencing her even before she had begun to speak. He looked back in the direction from which they’d come. Several seconds later, Sarah heard the pounding of boots against the dirt street.

  “Come on,” Derek said, leading Sarah down a litter-strewn dark alley.

  Though they were hurrying, they were no longer running, and Sarah was thankful for that. Her right hand was still held by Derek. With her left hand, she held the bodice of her torn dress closed as best she could. When she tried to ease her right hand free from Derek’s grip so that she might see if there was some hope of repairing her camisole and regaining some measure of modesty, he refused to release her.

  “Wait, wait,” Sarah said finally, breathing heavily now as Derek guided her down yet another dark alley. “I think we’ve lost them.” Derek glanced back over his shoulder at her, clearly annoyed. Between gulps of air, Sarah said, “Please, I’ve...got to stop...to catch my...breath.”

  Derek stopped then. He turned toward her, and though it was clear that every muscle in his body was tensed and prepared for action, there was a certain compassionate tenderness in his eyes that Sarah was thankful for. He looked only at her face, managing to keep his eyes from her beautiful, bountiful, nearly completely exposed breasts. That was another thing that Sarah was thankful for. In that instant, it was impossible for Sarah to remember that violent men like Derek were exactly the kind of men that she disliked the most in this world.

  Sarah caught the torn halves of her camisole and inspected the shredded cotton. A swath perhaps four or five inches wide had been completely torn away from the very center of it. There was no possible way that she could repair the camisole. When she checked her dress, she saw that all of the buttons from the neckline to the belt were missing.

  When she thought about what the outlaws had intended to do to her, Sarah felt a wave of gratitude that Derek had given them the swift and merciless justice that they had deserved.

  And then Sarah felt guilty for her emotions.

  “Where are they, Tookie?” a young gunman shouted from the end of the alley. “Anybody see what way they was headed?”

  Sarah gasped. Derek instantly clamped his big hand over her mouth to silence her. She cupped her naked breasts in her hands to hide them. Derek pushed her backward, deeper into the shadows of the alley, until she was against the exterior brick wall of a business that had closed its doors for the day many hours earlier.

  With Derek so close, Sarah was suddenly aware of just how tall and powerful he was. He leaned against her, his lower chest pressing against the backs of Sarah’s hands. She felt the pressure against her breasts and found it curious that the sensation was not unpleasant.

  More shouts echoed down the deserted, muddy back streets of Deadwood. The sound of running feet came from the other end of the alley, and Sarah realized then that there were now more than the remaining six gunmen from the livery corral chasing her. From the sound of it, there had to be nearly a dozen men—perhaps even more—chasing her and Derek, and that they were at both ends of the alley. They were like a wolf pack chasing after a frightened, vulnerable doe, howling in the night to orchestrate their attack. The difference was, if these two-legged wolves caught Sarah, she would not be devoured. What these blood-thirsty animals had in mind for her would not be that merciful.

  A man’s voice, young and yet already ringing with vicious sadism, said from less than thirty yards to Sarah’s left, “I saw them around here. I’m sure I did. That bitch has got to be close!”

  “Frankie, what makes you so damned sure?” another voice added. “Billy Joe said he saw somethin’ over near Old Man Barton’s store.”

  Footsteps retreated. Sarah felt Derek sigh. His body was hard with sinewy muscle, and despite the fear that gripped her, she was distinctly aware of the man’s overwhelming masculine aura. His was the kind of masculinity that touched her at an instinctual level, even though the man’s actions warned her that he was too dangerous for polite society.

  Derek bent low, putting his lips near Sarah’s ear. He whispered, “Stay still. They haven’t any idea where we are. When they leave, then we’ll move on. I don’t know these back alleys, but they don’t seem to, either.”

  He took a half step backward so that his body was no longer in contact with Sarah’s. She continued to keep her hands over the lush mounds of her breasts. She looked up into his face, into the black pools of his eyes. He seemed more angry
than frightened, and this completely mystified Sarah. How many men trying to kill him did it take before he was afraid of being hunted?

  “This really isn’t your fight,” Sarah whispered in the darkness. She felt guilty for the danger she’d put him in. “I’m sorry. Truly I am.”

  Derek shook his head. The move was almost imperceptible. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he explained. “What’s happening here tonight isn’t your fault.”

  “I’m scared. I’m so scared.”

  Sarah hated the tone of her voice, but she could not deny¾even to herself¾the truth in her words. She was entirely emotionally unprepared to fight this kind of war. Her battles had always taken place in the boardrooms and executive offices of the First Bank & Trust of Deadwood, not in the dark alleys of Deadwood’s poorest section of town, hiding from a vicious gang of young outlaws searching with violent desperation for her.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Derek said, the deep timbre of his voice somehow rough and soft at the same time. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  Afterward, Sarah could not understand why she did it. She hadn’t consciously planned it to happen. With complete disregard to consequences, she removed her right hand from her breast, kissed the tips of her fingers, then brought her fingertips to Derek’s lips. He kissed her fingertips as his dark eyes bore into Sarah’s with fiery intensity. Then she watched his penetrating gaze go down to her exposed breast, with its round, light brown areola and the nipple that had become erect with fear. Sarah’s nipple became tighter, more erect, as though responding favorably to Derek’s visual caress.

  “I’ll protect you,” Derek said, his lips moving softly against Sarah’s fingertips, his tone now husky with suppressed passion. “I promise you that.”