She pulled away from him, touched his cheek as she gazed into his eyes. “And then you showed up. A bit dramatically, I might add.”
“Got your attention, didn’t I?” he teased, pressed his lips into the palm of her hand.
“Oh, yeah.” She smiled, watched him through heavy-lidded eyes as he moved his mouth to her wrist. “But you know what I really noticed about you that first day?”
“My charming personality?” He nibbled on the tender flesh under his lips, felt her pulse speed up. “My extraordinary sense of humor? The manly way I sank after my plane crashed?”
Her laugh was thick and seductive as he worked his way up to her elbow. “Your feet.”
His feet? He lifted his head and frowned at her. “You noticed my feet?”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured. “When you were in Doc’s office, sitting on the table. I thought your bare feet were sexy.” Her eyes drifted closed. “Could you please keep doing what you were doing just now?”
“What? Oh.” He turned his attention back to the inside of her elbow. “Well, shoot, if I’d have known you had a thing for feet, I would have kept my shoes and socks off and walked around on my hands.”
“I didn’t say I had a thing for feet.” She sighed with pleasure when he tasted the rapid pulse in the crook of her arm. “I just happened to notice yours.”
“What else did you notice?” he asked as his mouth slid over her warm skin.
“Well, let’s see.” Her voice turned smoky. “I think you have good posture.”
“Thanks.” He knew she was teasing now and he smiled against the soft, smooth skin of her inner arm. “Anything else?”
“Ears,” she said breathlessly, and when his mouth moved to her breast, her fingers raked through his thick hair. “You have sexy ears.”
“So you like my legs, my posture and my ears.” He lightly cupped her breasts while he nuzzled through the thin cotton of her tank top. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Just the ones I want to get in bed.” She gasped softly when he slid his hands under her top. “So is it working?”
In one fluid movement, he drew her top up and over her head. “Oh, yeah,” he murmured and eased her back on the bed. “It’s working just fine.”
How wonderful it felt to be swept away like this, Holly thought. To simply close her eyes and let herself float on a sea of sensuality where nothing and no one existed but the two of them. His hands slid over her body, his mouth moved tenderly, teasing, tasting, and each touch was like a tiny wave that lapped gently at her skin, again and again, soothing even as it excited.
“So what—” she arched upward when he palmed her breasts in his large, rough hands “—did you first notice about me?”
“Your eyes,” he whispered against her neck, his voice raw. “They made me think of wild honey.”
She smiled at that, tilted her head to allow his mouth to move more freely. He accepted the invitation, blazed kisses upward to her jaw, her chin, then found her mouth and brushed his lips over hers.
“I’ve wanted you from that first moment,” he said softly, teased the corner of her mouth with his lips while he rubbed her pebbled nipples with his thumbs. “Keeping my hands off you nearly drove me crazy.”
Pleasure rushed through her veins, throbbed in her breasts and between her legs. She squirmed under him, wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer. “You’re driving me crazy now, Blackwolf. Make love to me. Please.”
“I am, sweetheart, I am.”
He kissed her, not hard like she wanted him to, but gently, tenderly, and the sweetness of it nearly made her weep with the love she felt for him. On a moan, she clung to him, wanting this moment to be endless. This man owned her, she thought almost with despair. He owned her heart, her body, her soul. She gave herself willingly to him, completely.
She whispered his name, pleaded with him to hurry, but still he took his time, a long, sensual exploration of her body that left her weak and exhilarated at the same time. Slow, lingering kisses, and soft, lazy caresses. She felt the beat of his heart, heavy and hard, heard the pulsing in her own head.
Clothes fell away until they were skin to skin, soaking in the heat of each other. His arms were muscled, like steel against hers, his legs long and powerful and beautifully naked. She wrapped herself around that strength, felt an urgency, a desperation unlike anything she’d ever known before.
Need drove her, passion guided her, love empowered her. She rose up to him, brought him inside her, intensifying the pleasure until she thought she might not be able to bear it one moment longer. She dragged her hands through his hair when he bent over her, raked her fingernails over his shoulders while his teeth and lips worked miracles on her breasts. His tongue teased one hardened nipple, then he pulled her hard into his mouth and she cried out his name.
Desire. It engulfed them, seeped into every pore, every cell. She could taste it on his lips, feel it on his skin, hear it in his sharp, ragged breaths. Desire. Wild and wonderful, it washed over them, through them. She slid her hands down his strong back to the taut muscles of his rear, felt the coiled heat and gloried in it. For this moment, she knew that he was hers as much as she was his. She would have laughed at the joy she felt from that knowledge, but his lips found hers again and once again she was swept away.
This time, there was nothing gentle in his kiss. It was a kiss meant to ravage, to consume. She met him, felt the same hot, crazed need as he did. She heard her heart pounding in her head…no, not one heart, she thought. Two hearts…
Gasping, Guy dragged his mouth from hers.
“Holly.” His voice was rough and hoarse.
She responded by wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging his mouth back to hers. Her lips were swollen and moist and unable to help himself, Guy slid back into the sweetness and lost himself. He couldn’t get enough of her, he thought. It didn’t matter how much she gave or how much he took, it still just wasn’t enough.
Once again, he pulled away. “Holly. Look at me.”
“Hmm?”
She was already reaching for him, but he took her hands, linked them with his and raised them over her head. “Look at me,” he repeated, struggled for breath as he looked down at her.
She opened her eyes slowly, gazed up at him through a heavy haze of passion.
“You’re the most beautiful, special woman I’ve ever known.”
She smiled at that, eased her body upward, offering herself to him. Blood surged through his veins, hot and pulsing, but he wanted her to know, wanted her to understand.
“I mean it,” he said more gently. “There’s never been anyone like you before.” And the thought that there never would again slammed into his gut, intensified the urgency already pounding in his body.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and because she was unable to touch him with her hands, she used her eyes, let her gaze slide hotly over his body to where they were joined, then moved her hips.
He moaned, but still held onto her hands. The sight of her long, slender, glorious body stretched out under him, eyes half-closed and glazed with need, the heavy rise and fall of her beautiful, full breasts. He bent and kissed the rosy tip of each pearled nipple, heard the soft moan slide from Holly’s lips, then the whimper when he took first one nipple into his mouth and tasted, then moved to the other.
She cried out his name as she arched upward, taut as the string of a bow, ready to be plucked. But still he held her hands firmly in his, wanting, needing to know that she was his completely.
“Now, please now,” she whispered. “I need you.”
Nothing could have ever aroused him more than those words from her. Something inside him snapped and he knew he couldn’t wait one moment longer.
“Yes.” He moved inside her. “Now.”
Velvet-steel against soft silk. Wolf eyes locked to golden-honey eyes. The rhythm built, sensations spiraled, increased. A reckless, wild need that drove them to that sharp, jagged edge where they both
tumbled over.
Holly lay in his arms, unable to move for what felt like a lifetime. She was still floating, and in her mind, she watched each soft, billowy cloud drift slowly by. How clear the sky was up here, she thought. The air fresh and clean. She felt renewed, reborn.
“You okay?” she heard him ask from behind one of her clouds and all she could do was nod and sigh.
The sound of his soft chuckle made her smile, as well.
The tip of his finger traced a slow path down her neck, and the featherlight touch sent waves of warm ripples over her skin. She snuggled closer into the crook of his arm, breathed in the mingled scent of man and woman. A fine sheen of perspiration cooled their bodies. She shivered when his fingertip skimmed the rise of her breast.
“Holly.”
With tremendous effort, she opened her eyes and looked at him. His hair was rumpled, his eyes a deep, dark gray.
“I really hadn’t intended that to happen.”
She lifted her head, arched a brow. “Oh?”
“I mean, before, after you got that phone call from Miranda. You were nervous and upset. I just wanted to take your mind away from that.”
“You succeeded.” She placed her hands on his chest and rested her chin on top, then smiled at him. “And very well, I might add.”
“Yeah?” He gave her a sideways grin.
“Yeah.” She reached out and gently touched the scar on his temple. It seemed like years ago that he’d fallen out of the sky and landed in her life. She wondered if after he was gone, if he would think of her when he looked at that scar.
Her scars, she thought, would be in her heart.
He took her fingers in his hand and brought them to his mouth, then nibbled on her. “You taste good,” he murmured.
“I know a terrific BBQ place in town if you’re hungry.” She felt her pulse jump with each tiny bite of his teeth on her fingertips. “They have ribs so tender they melt in your mouth.”
She gasped as he rolled her onto her back.
“Ribs that melt in your mouth?” He traced each one of her ribs with his fingertips, then slid upward, cupped her breasts in his palms. “Sounds good.”
“Are you trying to distract me again?” she asked, struggling to breathe as his hands kneaded her soft flesh.
“Yeah.” He bent down, kissed her belly, her hip, moved to the vee of her thighs. “Is it working?”
“Oh, yes.” She sucked in a breath as his mouth moved over her. “Oh, yes…”
Ten
The Double Crown Ranch was everything Holly had ever imagined and more: Cattle grazing on land farther than the eye could see, quarter horses gathered under the shade of an old, beautiful oak, fences that seemed to stretch forever. It was a scene from a postcard or a book on beautiful Texas landscapes.
And it was the home of Ryan Fortune.
She felt like a child sitting in the passenger’s seat of the car, wanting to press her nose to the window and take in every magnificent detail. It was all she could do not to constantly yell, “Wow, look at that!” If her palms weren’t sweating and her insides weren’t shaking so fiercely, she just might have. She should have worn the red-print sundress she’d packed instead of the pale yellow sleeveless T-shirt and khaki slacks, she told herself. She didn’t fit in here, amongst all this grandeur. She didn’t belong here. Desperately she wanted to tell Guy to turn the car around right now and go back.
No. She pressed her lips firmly together.
No going back. Not now. Not after coming all this way. She’d see this through, no matter what.
“If you don’t breathe,” Guy said from the other side of the car, “you’re going to pass out.”
She had been holding her breath, she realized and glanced over at him with a sheepish look. She didn’t think she could have done this without him. She knew that she wouldn’t have wanted to.
Two weeks ago, if anyone had told her that she’d be head over heels in love with a man who was only passing through her life, a man who would never love her back, and that man would be escorting her to Texas to meet Cameron Fortune’s family, she would have split a gut laughing.
Two weeks was a very long time.
A lifetime, she thought and took her eyes off the landscape for a moment to look at Guy. Dressed in jeans, a black polo shirt and cowboy boots, he looked as handsome as he did relaxed behind the wheel. He was a man who was as comfortable with himself as he was with other people. A man who made her laugh with one breath, then thrilled her with the next. A man who made her want more than she’d ever wanted before.
He’d made love to her yesterday and last night with such tenderness, then such passion, she’d let herself wonder, just for a moment, if it were possible. That somehow, just maybe, he could love her back. That he might want more than a few days or a few weeks with her. That he might want something…permanent.
Dangerous thinking, she knew. Stupid thinking. Love did that to a person. Made them do foolish things, think foolish things.
Holly refused to be a fool for any man, no matter how much she loved him. Her mother had done that, and where had it gotten her? She’d been a heartbroken, shattered woman who’d wasted her life on a man who didn’t love her back. And while Holly certainly didn’t compare Guy to Cameron Fortune, she knew in her heart that if she let him, he had that kind of power over her, the kind of power that could destroy.
She couldn’t allow that. She refused to waste her life. She wouldn’t cry when he went back to Seattle and she went back to Alaska. She folded her hands tightly in her lap and straightened her shoulders. She wouldn’t cry.
What she would do, she told herself, is enjoy each and every minute with him, remember every touch, every look, every beautiful moment they’d shared. She’d remember and she’d smile with fondness and affection.
And love.
To prove that she could do just that, she forced herself to concentrate on this moment, this memory, of riding in the car with him and seeing Ryan Fortune’s ranch for the first time.
“This is all so incredible,” she said, turning back to look through the window. “So…big. Oh my heavens, there’s the house!”
To say that the house was enormous was an understatement. The style was that of a Spanish hacienda. She could also see the barn not far from the house and what looked like several corrals. Other structures, smaller and quite a distance from the main house, appeared to be additional living quarters, probably for the hired help, Holly decided.
This was where Cameron Fortune had been born. Where he was raised as a child and lived as an adult. Not more than an hour from where Holly and her mother lived, and he hadn’t come to see either one of them even once. The anger she’d once felt turned to simple sadness. She could only feel sorry for the man who’d been given so much, yet done so little with his life.
“Ready?”
She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t realized they were already parked in front of the house and he’d shut off the engine. She glanced at Guy and nodded stiffly. “Ready.”
A moment later, with Guy beside her, she stared at the enormous front door.
“You want me to knock?” he asked.
She shook her head, then sucked in a breath and rapped three times. A pretty blonde wearing a white cotton blouse and black slacks opened the door. She was probably in her late forties, with blue eyes and a lovely smile.
“Holly.” The woman’s face lit up as she reached out and grasped one of Holly’s hands in both of her own. “I’m your Aunt Miranda. Your Uncle Ryan and I are so happy you’re here.”
“Thank you.” Aunt Miranda. Uncle Ryan. How strange that sounded to Holly. And yet, at the same time, it made her chest tighten with longing. Miranda’s grip was firm and warm and the knot in Holly’s stomach loosened a notch.
“And you must be Guy,” Miranda said before Holly could introduce him. “Thank you so much for bringing my niece here. Flynn spoke very highly of you. Now please, both of you, come in before you melt out here
in this heat.”
Guy’s hand on the small of her back calmed Holly’s nerves. She glanced at him as they followed Miranda through the entry. He winked at her, then smiled. She smiled back, grateful that he was with her.
Miranda led them into a large living room. The ceilings were high-beamed, the decor traditional, with brown leather couches and a massive stone fireplace. Spanish blankets, prints and paintings adorned the walls. On a side table, a crystal vase filled with yellow roses lightly scented the air.
“Please sit.” Miranda gestured to a couch with Navajo print pillows, then sat down next to Holly. A petite Hispanic maid brought out a tray with a pitcher of iced tea, set it on the coffee table in front of the couch, then quietly left. “Your Aunt Lily is at the hospital, but you’ll meet her later.”
Aunt Lily. That was Ryan’s wife, Holly remembered. To keep her hands busy, Holly accepted a glass of iced tea, but Guy declined.
“How is…Uncle Ryan?” Holly asked while Miranda poured the tea. She couldn’t have imagined she’d ever refer to Ryan Fortune as her uncle, but now, after meeting Miranda, after hearing the woman actually refer to her as her niece, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as Holly had thought it would be.
“He’s going to be fine.” With a smile, Miranda handed Holly her tea, but the smile never reached the woman’s eyes. “He should be out of the hospital soon.”
Something in Miranda’s voice suggested there was more to Ryan’s illness than she was saying. Holly’s first reaction was not to pry, but she hadn’t come all this way to be treated like an outsider. Either they accepted her now and trusted her, or she’d take the next plane back to Alaska and be done with the Fortune family forever.
Holly leveled her gaze at Miranda. “May I ask what was wrong?”
Miranda hesitated, glanced thoughtfully from Holly to Guy. Outside, in the distance somewhere, a dog barked.
“Anything you say to me,” Holly said, “you can say to Guy, as well.”
Miranda nodded, then seemed to make a decision. “The doctors are still running tests, but they have strong reason to believe that Ryan was poisoned.”
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