Read Online My Desperado by Lois Greiman - Free Book Online

hip, skittered up his flat, bare abdomen, over the sloping planes of his bare chest, to fall on the relatively safe terrain of his face.
    She could find no words.
    His deep blue gaze latched angrily onto hers. "You told me you was a soiled dove! Don't look so damned shocked! You ain't even seen the best part yet."
    She mouthed something inaudible and kept staring.
    "Hell," he snorted. "You might as well have taken a peek at the rest of me so you could at least answer my questions instead of standing there like a beached trout."
    Her mouth moved again, as if she were trying to speak.
    He leaned closer, listening intently, but there was nothing to be heard, so he scowled, shook his head, and grunted. "Damnedest whore I've ever met. Worthless as tits on a boar."
    "Worthless!" The word came out on a gasp of utter outrage. "Worthless!"
    He watched the fire flood back into her eyes and felt the relative safety of her anger. Her dark brows had drawn down slightly over her unusual eyes, and her nostrils flared with righteous rage. "I brought you here at great personal risk. I could have been killed." She bent slightly at the waist, glaring at him. "Killed!"
    "But you weren't, were you, lady?" he asked caustically, canting a look up and lowering his brows in an attempt to dim the throb in his temples. "And you might notice who took the bullets." He raised a palm to his forehead, trying to quiet the war drums there. "What the hell have you been doing to me? I feel like I've been doctored with a broad axe."
    She stepped away one pace, taken aback by his stunning lack of appreciation. "You have the manners of a Mongolian warmonger."
    "A...Mongolian what?" he questioned dubiously as the room tilted again.
    "Ghengis Khan!" she snapped. "You and he would have gotten on famously."
    "I take it that's an insult," he said weakly, not daring to look up lest his head split.
    "It most certainly is!"
    "Is that the best you can do?" he snorted, chancing a glance about the room.
    Katherine drew herself up even straighten "If I chose, I could scorch the hair right off your chest with my verbal assaults."
    He was silent for a moment. "Why don't I have a shirt on?" he asked curiously, just now noticing that detail. "You women needing to see a real man? Not that I mind. But you needn't be sneaky about it. If you're interested, just ask and I'd be happy to—"
    "You conceited, braying pain in the...the..."
    "Out of the mood now, are you?" he asked, finally looking up and wincing at the pain in his temple.
    "You... You..." She searched for the perfect insult, but it kept eluding her, though her hands were motioning now to assist her thoughts.
    "What?"
    "You..."
    "Jesus!" he spat in irritable impatience. "I could die of hoof-and-mouth before you managed to come up with a single respectable curse word. And I'd like to wait around, lady. Really I would, but I don't have the time. Seems I got me a small army of men after me because of your stupidity. So I'm leaving!" He rose to do just that. The blankets fell away, baring him to her gaze.
    But she failed to notice.
    "Leaving?" she gasped.
    "At least you can hear," he intoned evenly. "Where're my pants?"
    "You think you're leaving?"
    "God, woman, you're making me crazy." He turned, flashing her with his nudity and searching for his clothing. "Just get me my belongings and we'll..."
    "Get back on the bed!"
    Her tone sounded deadly serious, and Travis turned around slowly.
    The open end of a revolver glared at him from the palm of her steady hand.
    "Take one step toward that door and I'll blow your brains out."
    "What the devil kind of nonsense is this?"
    "I dragged you out of the river when you where drowning. I gave you the blankets when I was freezing and exhausted. I walked from here to nowhere in my bare feet so you could ride. I'm not about to let you get yourself killed now."
    Travis scowled, trying to figure this new twist. He cocked his right leg to ease the pain in his thigh and laced his arms across his