“Oh, Lord!”
Still in the normal slow-dance position, Rafe boldly placed both palms on Helen’s buttocks and was guiding her backward and forward against him, teaching her the “dirtier” movements of the dance.
Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Get your hands off my bottom, you brute.”
“I told you it was dirty.” His mouth lifted with humor. “C’mon, Helen, loosen up. Close your eyes. Pretend it’s just you and me. Put your body into it.”
Before she had a chance to react, he flung her away from him, holding onto one hand, then twirled her under his arm for six rotations, all in cadence to the music. John Travolta couldn’t have done it better. She emerged dizzily from her spin to find herself clasped in such a tight embrace she’d probably have groove marks on her stomach from the zipper of his fly.
Belly to belly, he rotated their hips, as one, in an erotic circle. Even their breathing came in unison now. It really was like making love.
And Helen began to forget the cheering miners, and the coins and gold nuggets being thrown to the stage, even the nineteenth-century setting. There was only Rafe and her and the music. And the forbidden dance.
A savage sexual energy flared between them as they learned the rhythm of each other’s bodies. He no longer had to show her the moves. She initiated her own. When he held her close, she felt the thud of his heartbeat against hers. When his hungry, pale blue eyes held hers, she couldn’t look away. She saw the pulse leap at the base of his neck, and she thrilled that she could affect him so.
“Helen.”
Just that soft-spoken word caused a tingling ripple through her oversensitized body.
He inserted a foot between her gown-covered legs and flashed her a challenge.
Brazenly, she took up his silent dare and rode against his thigh in the undulating Latin tempo.
His gasp of pleasure was her reward.
Finally, he turned her, spoon fashion, with his chest to her back. With his left arm wrapped around her waist and his right hand holding her right hand upward, he rolled their hips together in a sweet, scandalous circle, imitating the sex act.
Her knees almost gave out.
He made a low, gurgling sound of male desperation and nipped her shoulder playfully, propelling her in a dancing walk toward the back of the tent. Kissing the side of her neck, he then shoved her rudely to the floor.
“Wh-what?”
“Now!” he clipped out, and she realized, through her sensual haze, that Henry was whistling on the other side of the tent.
Jolted back to reality and the danger at hand, she lifted the canvas and was about to crawl under when she heard an uproar behind her. Rafe had both pistols leveled at the crowd, which was about to rush up onto the stage.
“Go!” he shouted. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She bit her bottom lip indecisively, but obeyed. Henry hurried her to the horses being held by his cousin and helped her mount, murmuring several words of caution. For several long seconds that seemed like years, they waited. Then there was a gunshot, which caused all three of them to jump with alarm.
Almost immediately, Rafe emerged, unscathed. “I shot in the air,” he explained quickly as he vaulted onto his horse. He nodded to Henry’s cousin, then reached down to shake Henry’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough, mi amigo,” he said thickly.
“Me, too,” Helen said tearfully. She blew Henry a kiss as she and Rafe turned their horses and galloped off, out of town in a northerly direction. She glanced back and saw that the angry miners were already swarming from the back and around the sides of the tent. Henry and his cousin melted into the shadows.
When they emerged on the outskirts of town, Rafe slowed his horse for a moment and rode next to her horse. Panting slightly, he gazed at her, a fiery expression on his face. There was anger in his glittering eyes and tight jaw — probably because she’d come to the saloon against his orders — but there was something else, too.