“So why are you starting now? Especially when I didn’t ask for the favor?”
He blew out a deep breath, torn between shaking her and yanking her tightly against him. He ended up taking her into his arms, surprising even himself with his sudden gentleness. What was it about her anyway? The tougher she talked, the gentler he felt he needed to be with her. He pulled her close, tucking her against his chest and rested his chin on top of her head. “Damn if I know,” he said, exhausted. “Damn if I know.”
He felt her hand creep up to his cheek and the tenderness of the touch undid him.
“Come here, Devin.”
He shifted and looked down into those wise gray eyes of hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.” The words just came out, before he even knew he’d thought them. And he realized he’d never meant anything more.
“I’m used to taking care of my own feelings,” she said. “Don’t worry about me.”
And that was the crux of it right there. The realization hit him like a gazzer set on full blast. He did worry about her. He even liked being the one responsible for her.
Heaven help them both.
But then she was pulling his mouth to hers and he finally, blessedly, let the whole thing go. He did something he’d wanted to do all his life, only he hadn’t known it until that very moment. He put his faith and trust in her hands. Trust that she knew what she was doing and that, somehow, they’d make this all okay afterward. Together. An amazingly freeing idea.
“Just enjoy this, Devin.” She smiled up at him and it was so sweet and pure he swore he felt tears burning in his eyes. “I know I am,” she added.
“Yeah,” he said, was all he could say. “Show me what you’re feeling.”
And she did.
In fact, it was she who tore the shirt from the waistband of his pants. She who first ran her hands over bare skin. He’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven when her fingertips skated across his chest. She smoothed her hands along his sides, then stopped when her fingers brushed the leather hilt at the small of his back.
He swore at the distraction, wishing he’d had the foresight to disarm himself first. “A knife,” he said. “I found it in the fishing shed and … borrowed it.”
“I don’t mind. It must be hard to be on protection duty with nothing to protect with.”
He smiled. “Oh, you’d be amazed at what can be used as a weapon.”
“I can only imagine.” She raised a finger to his lips. “And I’d just as soon leave it at the imagination level, if you don’t mind.” She ran her hands along his sides, then looked him in the eyes as she boldly let them run over his backside and around his thighs. “Any other … armaments I should know about?”
He was torn between amazement and amusement. The sheer joy of her had him swinging her up into his arms. She spluttered and that just made it all the more enjoyable. “It’s time to find that bower.”
“What are you talking about?”
But he merely held her tighter when she struggled, humming a tune as he looked for the right place. There was no perfect place—something he swore he’d correct next time—but he wasn’t about to take her up against a fence.
“I can walk, you know.”
“So can I. Now hush, I’m thinking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, we all know how taxing that is for you.”
That was another odd thing. The more biting and sarcastic she became, the more he wanted her. Then the answer came to him. It wasn’t perfect, but it was right. “Do you have blankets somewhere around here?”
“What for?”
“Just answer the question.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Put me down and I will.”
“Can’t you just let me be in charge of anything for more than five minutes?”
“I’m not good at delegating,” she said. Then she winked at him when he reluctantly set her on her feet. “But I promise to let you be in charge later.”
He actually choked. “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.” He tugged her against him and surprised her with another lingering kiss.
“What was that for?”
“You’re more easily managed when you’re breathless,” he said.
She shot him an arch look, but couldn’t maintain it. “You’re probably right,” she said, grinning unabashedly. “Wanna test that theory again?”
“As soon as you find those blankets.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said under his breath.
She pulled free and turned toward her truck. He caught her hand. “Wait up.”
“I’m just going to grab some blankets from my truck. I tossed some in the back seat in case I needed them at the fair, but I never used them.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me.”
She stopped and looked at him, uncertainty in her eyes. “Do you really think there will be trouble tonight?”
He cursed himself. “Only if you don’t hurry,” he said with a grin, hoping to distract her. When it didn’t work, he moved in close to her. “We’ll be fine tonight, Tali. I won’t leave your side.”
“Good.” Her eyes were shining in anticipation. She seemed to trust him to make it all okay. It would have terrified him if it hadn’t made him feel so damn good.
All this trust was bound to lead to trouble. But the air was still warm, the sky was full of stars, and Talia was his for the night.
He flipped the blankets over his arm, took her hand in his, and headed for the path circling the pond. He felt her stiffen slightly and paused. “Is it okay?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “It’s very okay.”
And he discovered then that the rewards for pleasing her were even better than he’d imagined. He vowed to find a way to do it again. As often as he could manage.
Talia’s body was humming in anticipation, but her heart hitched when he took her hand in his. There was a different kind of intimacy in that palm-to-palm contact, a kind of implied trust. They were both in this together, equally, neither one leading the other. Her fingers tightened instinctively and he squeezed her hand in response.
Something inside her settled, then. She looked up to find him watching her. His smile was so natural and heartfelt, it warmed her heart, even as it seemed to warm his. They rounded the bend in the path and the large flat rock loomed ahead, bathed so perfectly in the moonlight it was as if the celestial gods had bestowed a gift on them.
She laughed at that. God, her mind was reeling.
“What’s so funny?” He let go of her hand so she could help him spread the blanket. She missed the contact immediately and wondered if he’d hold her hand while making love to her.
“Nothing. Just silly notions.” Very silly. This was about having sex, not getting all mushy. Best she remembered that, despite how the moonlight twinkled in his dark eyes, and how his voice slid over her skin like a warm night breeze, making her want … too much.
He pulled her up onto the rock and into his arms. “What sort of silly notions?”
She looked up into his eyes, eyes that were shining down into hers with surprising gentleness and fierce need. It was an electrifying combination and yet somehow reassuring. She felt fierce and gentle herself. And he’d laugh himself right off the rock if she started spouting stuff like that.
“Just that the moon seems so cooperative tonight, spotlighting our rock this way.”
“Our rock.” He leaned down and kissed her. Not satisfied with claiming only her mouth, he moved to her chin and along her jaw and down her neck until her knees simply refused to stay locked.
Our rock. She liked the way he’d said it, with a touch of wonder, but no mocking amusement. She suddenly didn’t feel quite so silly after all.
He took her weight against him and sank down until he was sitting with her sprawled across his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly into the cradle of his hips and they both groaned at the delicious contact.
She immediately reached for his open shirt, his waistband, anything that would get them out of the tangle of clothes and closer to fulfilling the need that was almost painful now.
His hands stopped hers. When she looked confused, he buried his face in her hair, then pulled back, dimple flashing in the moonlight. “I had a rather silly notion myself, I guess. Trying to be a romantic rather than the rutting stag you think me to be.”
“I don’t need romance, Devin.” Which was such a lie. But she’d promised no emotional attachments and, no matter what she might feel afterward, it was a promise she had to keep.
He opened his mouth to respond, then apparently decided better of it.
“What? Tell me.”
He stared at her for the longest time, his expression far too serious. “Don’t you know what I’m feeling?”
She leaned farther back, offended. “I told you I’d never invade your privacy and I keep my word.”
He pulled her back to him. “I didn’t mean that way. Never mind. Come here.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes this time. “If it’s not romance you want, then I guess you get the rutting stag.”
“Wait a minute. What were you going to—” But she never got to complete the question because, true to his word, he took her. Fully, with no apologies. And none were necessary.
He unbuckled her overalls and they slid halfway down her legs, but she wasn’t concerned with that tangle because finally, blessedly, his hands were beneath her tank top and covering her. Her nipples peaked so hard it was almost painful. Whatever she might have said came out as one long growl of pleasure. And then his mouth was on her breasts, suckling, nibbling, softly biting until she was a writhing mass of desire, bucking and arching beneath him and not caring how desperate she seemed.
He peeled the shirt over her head and pushed the rest down her legs until she kicked free from all of it and lay beneath him with nothing on but a scant pair of underwear. And even that felt like a dense, cumbersome barrier. She went to wriggle out of them, as well, but he was pulling his own shirt off at that moment and she found herself completely captivated by the look of Devin Archer’s naked chest in the moonlight. Dear God, but you’re beautiful.
It wasn’t until he paused and looked down at her with that cocky grin of his that she realized she’d whispered the thought out loud.
She reached for him, but he stayed her hand, leaning down and pinning it over her head. He captured the other one just as easily and held them both in one hand. It was the oddest feeling, the sense of being a captive to him, and yet she was filled with the power of what she saw in his eyes as he looked at her, all of her. The naked want and desire made her feel like the captor, as well. It was delicious and wicked and she was anxious to explore it.
“You’re the beautiful one, Talia.” He leaned in close, keeping her hands above her head. “The way the moon dips down and touches you here.” He kissed the very tip of one nipple. “And here.” He kissed the other, then pulled it into his mouth. “You taste moon-kissed,” he said and her heart sighed. Because he was giving her the romance anyway, whether he realized it or not.
He trailed lazy kisses down toward her navel. But his reach wouldn’t extend farther as long as he held her hands. So she slid them free, silently begging him to continue.
And he did.
He dragged the tip of his tongue down the narrow line below her navel. Talia’s breath caught and held as he hovered there. “Dear God” she managed, very close to pleading.
He looked up at her, desire so dark in his eyes she almost came right then. “I’ve just begun, sweetheart.” He grinned and her hips lifted of their own volition. He skimmed her panties down her legs with one hand, bent his head to her, and with smooth fingers and a warm, wet tongue, proceeded to prove his point. He ripped her immediately over one edge, then dragged her almost screaming up the next. She came so hard the second time, she thought her body was breaking apart into little pieces of pure, saturated pleasure. And by the time he had her close to her third, he was climbing up her body, grinning like the conqueror he’d just proven himself to be.
Her legs moved up over his hips with no coercion from him. He slid out of his trousers so easily it was as if they melted off him, and probably had from the heat that leaped between them. He moved his hips so smoothly into hers it was as if they’d been created to fit there.
Cradling her cheek with one hand, he lowered his head as he began to press inside her. “Next time, we’ll shoot for romance,” he said, then pushed into her so hard she had to grab hold of his wide shoulders to keep from being shoved right off the blanket.
Her legs wrapped tightly to his hips as he sank deeply into her. It was a startling invasion, but her body welcomed it gleefully. Talia felt as if she’d stepped outside herself as her own body took to his, and took his, as if it had always known this was what it craved, what it needed. What it was born for.
Then she was back inside herself and feeling her own body’s sensations. Oh God, was she feeling. He was a raging force inside her and she alone could master its fury. It was daunting and powerful, terrifyingly glorious and everything she’d ever wanted.
When he arched back and shouted through his release, pouring himself into her as if he meant to empty his very soul, she knew she’d never be able to give herself to anyone else, not like this. It made no sense, and it was no romanticized vision of their lovemaking. It hadn’t been love, but a raw and powerful need that had been slaked. She knew that, understood it to her core. But that didn’t negate the absolute knowledge that she’d found her mate. In the most primal sense of the word.
Archer slid from her and rolled to his back. They both lay there, staring up at the sky as the night air cooled their bodies.
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.
She smiled up at the stars, still dazed and not a little shell-shocked. “I’m very okay.”
“I was rough.”
“You were perfect.”
She didn’t look at him, but she swore she felt him smile. Then his hand reached for hers and tears rose in her eyes, blurring the stars above. With his fingers tightly woven between hers she felt more intimately connected to him than ever before.
She had no idea how much time had passed, she might have even dozed off, when he tugged her to her side and pulled her into the shelter of his body. “Come here,” he murmured.
She willingly let him wrap his heat around her. He tugged another blanket up and over them and she gladly burrowed into it, realizing for the first time how cool the night air had gotten.
The steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek had just begun to lull her to sleep when she felt his hand slide up her side and down along her back. All the sensations that had dimmed into a dull, pleasant buzz, hummed to life again.
“Time for that romance I promised you,” he whispered.
She was going to correct him and save herself from the threat to her heart he’d inflict if he was gentle with her now, when she remembered the look on his face when he’d asked her before if she knew what he was feeling. And then it hit her. He was the one who needed the romance.
It was as shocking a realization as any she’d experienced since he’d walked into her life. Mr. Mercenary, a romantic? The idea made her smile as she looked up into his eyes and did what she knew was right, despite the risk to her heart. “I respect a man who keeps his promises.”
And he was slow and wonderful, amazingly gentle, and perfect. And she realized she’d underestimated just how threatened her heart was. But she’d deal with that later. Much, much later.
Chapter 13
Archer brushed at the annoying gnats, then realized it was whiskers tickling his cheek as he cracked one eye open.
Ringer.
It only took a heartbeat longer to realize that Ringer was presently a cat, but it was a heartbeat too long.
Talia opened her eyes and smiled in surprise. “Where did you come from?”
Archer swore silent
ly. This was not how he’d planned this. But then he’d never planned this.
The cat butted his head against Talia’s and rumbled as she scratched behind his ears. The sun was just beginning to rise and the air was cool outside the little cocoon they’d made inside their blankets. Her hair was a mass of tangled curls and her face was lined with pressure wrinkles from the blanket. Her nose was pink from the cold, but her eyes were sparkling and luminous. She smiled at him, then laughed as the cat tried to wedge himself between them. Lord, she was so beautiful it made his insides hurt.
“Pushy sort,” she said.
“Out of here, mate,” he said. Archer scooped Ringer up and deposited him outside their cocoon, then pulled Talia back to his side.
“Wait, I should make sure he’s okay. I’ve never seen him around here before.” Archer held her against her wishes and she frowned up at him. “What?”
“He’s fine.”
“But—” She looked past him and stared at the cat, suddenly frowning. “That’s odd.”
“What?”
She looked back at him. “I didn’t make any connection with him. Usually, unless I’m concentrating, the feelings sort of ambush me. And yet, he’s not really signaling … anything.” She pushed up on her elbow and stared at the cat again. “But there is this other feeling, like I know him.”
“We can worry about the cat later,” Archer said, tugging her back down against his chest, silently cursing Ringer to eternal hell.
She was still distracted, but at least she was distracted while nuzzling his chest. Distraction was a good thing. In fact, he intended to do a good deal more distracting, but just as he dipped his head to follow through on the thought, hers came up, delivering a good crack to his chin.
“Ow!”
She rubbed her head, then immediately rubbed at his chin. “I’m sorry. I just realized what bugged me.”
Archer frowned and rubbed his chin. There would be no peace, or anything else, until she got it out. “What?”
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