Hannibal Rising by Jon Sharpe

neck as she quietly said, “I’ve wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
    “Do tell.”
    “There’s something about you.” Sam touched his chin. “It’s not just that you’re so damn handsome. There’s something else, some quality I can’t describe.”
    “Don’t get carried away.”
    “I’m serious.” A puzzled look came over her as she traced a finger from his beard to his cheek and over to his ear. “I’ve puzzled over it no end and I can’t explain why I feel the way I do. I’ve met other men just as handsome who didn’t affect me the way you do.”
    “Lucky me.”
    “Please. I’m being serious and you’re being sarcastic.” Sam pursed her strawberry lips. “When a lady compliments a man the least the man can do is accept the compliment graciously.”
    “My manners aren’t what they should be,” Fargo enlightened her. “And I don’t give a damn that they’re not.”
    “Ah. The rough-hewn frontiersman. You don’t care for society or its rules. Is that how it goes?”
    “I don’t much care for buffalo shit no matter what others call it.”
    Samantha drew back. “I beg your pardon?”
    “All the airs that you and those like you put on don’t count for a hill of beans. Nothing you do will live on after you. You’ve spent your whole life thinking you’re special because your family has money, but in the end you land in the ground like all those who don’t have any.”
    “All is vanity, yes.” Samantha looked him up and down. “Frankly, I didn’t expect that of you.”
    “I’m too dumb to think?”
    “No, no, it’s not that.”
    Fargo noticed that she didn’t offer a better reason. “I’ll make it plain. I like you but I don’t like your airs.”
    Sam’s face colored and she fingered a button on her dress. “And I don’t like how you talk to me sometimes. But please. Let’s forget all that. We can’t help how we are. I didn’t ask for this life of privilege.”
    “But you sure eat it up.”
    Samantha turned her back to him. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I had other things in mind.”
    Fargo saw her reflection in the mirror; she looked sad. Walking up behind her, he molded his body to hers, reached around, and cupped her mounds.
    Sam gasped and arched her back. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    “What you invited me up here to do.” Fargo squeezed and was rewarded with a soft groan and the grinding of her bottom against his manhood. He felt himself twitch, and smiled.
    “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to.”
    “Airs or not, you’re female.” Fargo bent and kissed her neck and she twisted half around and cupped his chin.
    “Is that all I am to you? You don’t care for me even a little bit?”
    “I told you I like you. It’s not true love, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
    “It’s just that a woman likes to think she means something.”
    Fargo could have told her that the hunger she stirred in him was no different from the hunger that stirred him to eat or the thirst that stirred him to drink. He could have said that she was putting on yet another air. But he didn’t. He said, “Every woman means something in bed.”
    Sam blinked and cocked her head. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.”
    “You’ll talk it to death if you’re not careful.” Fargo drew back. “Make up your mind.”
    “I want to. I really do.”
    “Then shut the hell up.” Fargo kissed her, hard, and thrust his tongue into her mouth. With his one hand he squeezed a breast while with his other he caressed her thighs and cupped her mound of Venus. Another moan escaped her, and she sucked on his tongue as if it were honey.
    Pushing her back, Fargo eased her onto the bed. Her hair spilled about her head as she looked up at him in raw lust.
    “God, I want you.”
    “Don’t talk.” Fargo covered her mouth with his and sank down beside her. He ran his hands over her body, probing, massaging, stroking. She took off his hat and