Page 65 of Red Boar's Baby

“Let me finish.” She moved a little closer so that she could touch him, brushing a hand across his arm. “You’re right. And the interesting thing is how I didn’t even really think about it. I loved the life I’ve led, don’t get me wrong. I regret none of it. But when it came time to settle down, it never occurred to me to look for something permanent in any of the other places I’ve been.”

Costa looked at her wordlessly, and this time she met his eyes full on, seeing the swell of hope there. Diana swallowed and looked away, across the rocks and the valley to the clear gold sun on the hills.

“It’s home,” she said, low. “I love the desert and the mountains. I even love the difficult parts. This isn’t an easy place to live sometimes, and if I had stayed back then, I know I would always have found it too confining. But—but sometimes you have to try spreading your wings first to find out you belong. And I do belong here; I don’t think I could ever leave it forever.”

Leave it. Leave you.

Her hand rested on his thigh, and he sat up so that he could put his hand over hers. She was acutely aware of the nearness of him, the naked maleness of him.

“I’m not sure if you’re saying what I hope you’re saying,” Costa said, his voice thick.

“I don’t know either. I’m still working this out. But I think ...” She turned her head to look him in the face again. “In answer to the other question you asked earlier, I don’t know if we’d work out, but I think I’d like to try.”

For a moment nothing happened; he simply looked at her with his heart in his eyes.

Then he lunged forward, and she met him halfway.

There was nothing tentative about their kiss this time, nothing uncertain. Their mouths crashed together and Diana lost herself completely in the heat and urgency, as one of his hand came up to stroke her hair while the other curled around her waist, pulling her closer.

The next thing she knew she was straddling his naked lap, bare-legged and bare-assed herself, while they went on kissing as frantically as if their lives depended on it.

Kissing turned to petting. Her nipples were stiff and sensitive, brushing against his chest. It was as if twenty years of holding themselves back had built into impossible sensitivity.

Her legs were spread wide around his hips. When he thrust upward and buried himself in her wet heat, she cried out loud.

“Birth control ...” he gasped into her shoulder.

“Implant, don’t worry about it—don’t stop?—”

She couldn’t have stopped now if she’d wanted to, which she emphatically didn’t. Her hips jerked reflexively, and she found herself mounting towards climax with speed she had never experienced before. She cried out again as she crashed into a mind-numbing orgasm, and he gasped into her shoulder as she felt him jerk and spend himself inside her.

“Uh, wow,” he said after a moment, pulling back. “Did you—uh—was that enough?—”

“I wanted it, it was amazing, stop ruining the moment.” She kissed him to take any sting from her words away, and then kissed him again.

And she might have gone on kissing him forever, if they hadn’t been interrupted by the drone of an airplane engine.

They threw themselves apart. Costa grabbed his pants, and Diana hastily scrambled for her jeans and his shirt.

Diana only briefly glimpsed the plane above the hills around them. It was flying low, as if looking for something. Them, possibly. Or maybe it was a sightseeing flight giving the tourists an unexpected show.

“Hey!” Costa yelled, waving. “We’re down here!”

“I don’t think they can see us.” Mercifully, given what they had been doing a moment ago. “We need to get down to the crash site.”

Costa stomped into his boots, and they scrambled down the hill in a hasty flurry of activity. Diana thought they must have missed their chance, the sound of the airplane fading into the distance—but then it came back stronger, and she realized it had been circling, coming in for a closer look.

Now it reappeared, skimming across the sandy valley bottom. There was no chance it couldn’t see the wreck, or read their SOS. Diana started to raise an arm to wave. Then, frowning at the plane, she grabbed Costa’s arm as he began to lift it.

“What?” he asked, reacting to her alarm.

“Don’t you recognize it? That’s the same paint job as the one we crashed. And that looks like the same logo on the tail. It’s not rescuers, Quinn.” She shot him an alarmed look. “It’s Thornburg come back to finish the job he started.”

CHAPTER21

Costa cursed.If the plane and anyone in it were focused on the wreckage and the SOS, it was possible he and Diana hadn’t been seen yet. But he wasn’t going to bet their lives on it.

“We need to get the gun,” he said, gripping Diana’s arm and pulling her into the shadow of a boulder. “If we’re separated, it’s in a crevice in the rocks a few dozen yards higher on the hill from where we hid our clothes last night. The cleft looks a bit like a V.”

---