by Gayle Wilson
Composed. Serious. And waiting.
“Me either,” she said. “Not until you tell me I have to.”
AT SOME POINT during the night, she had found herself wondering what Colleen thought about their long absence. The curiosity had been fleeting, as were most of the questions she’d entertained during the brief intervals when she was capable of coherent thought, but it filled her with an ironic amusement.
Michael’s sister believed she was sexually experienced. After tonight, that was not a claim she would dare dispute, although her experience had not been acquired in the way that Colleen imagined.
Whatever you just imagined…
Michael’s words echoed in her head, and she realized that what she’d fantasized about their lovemaking had not matched the reality, either. The reality of Michael Wellesley.
A man so secure in his own control, she had felt no need to do anything other than surrender to it. A man so comfortable with his own sensuality that she was free to indulge hers. A man who made love with the same physical prowess he had demonstrated since the day he’d disarmed her and thrown her to the ground in one smoothly choreographed motion.
Throughout the night he had given her incredible pleasure. Seemingly because he enjoyed doing that, certainly without demanding anything in return. Nothing but her willing submission to his guidance.
He had been totally attuned to every nuance of her response. Each shuddering breath had called forth a renewed effort to evoke the next. Each whispered confession of need was followed by another demand on her body, which in turn created another, yet more powerful need. He had answered each one, exceeding every expectation she had ever had.
Now she lay, completely relaxed, her body spooned into his, again listening to him breathe. This time, however, she could also feel each rise and fall of his chest.
Despite the passion they had shared throughout the long hours, despite their continued proximity, that nearness evoked nothing but an exhausted contentment. She was completely sated. Every centimeter of her skin had been sensitized by the slow caress of his lips and tongue and by the knowing touch of long, dark fingers. Every bone, muscle and sinew had been marked with his possession. Every atom of her being satiated with his lovemaking.
He had not been gentle, but she hadn’t expected him to be. He wasn’t a gentle man. She had known that and had been prepared for his dominance.
What she hadn’t been prepared for—couldn’t have been because it was so outside the realm of her experience—was what he was capable of making her feel. And say. And do.
Things she had never done in her entire life. Had never before even thought about doing.
Here with him those acts had become as natural as drawing breath. As right. As necessary. And she had not once considered refusing.
She turned within the circle of his arms. He shifted a little in his sleep to allow her change of positions, as if they had slept together every night of their lives, and then pulled her into a frontal embrace.
She settled against him, her breasts pressed against his chest. Despite her exhaustion, the sensuous abrasion of the coarse hair that covered it sent flickers of sensation, as quick and heated as summer lightning, running throughout her body.
She denied them, pushing them from her mind as she burrowed tiredly into his warmth. Her head rested on his shoulder, their bodies touching along their entire lengths. She put her knee atop his thigh, aware again of the sheer masculinity of hair-roughened skin sheathing strength beneath.
She sighed soundlessly, consciously relaxing into the new position with the intention of going back to sleep. A small adjustment of the leg that lay over his. A repositioning of her arm. A yawn.
At the end of it, his mouth found hers. Opened. Vulnerable. Taken by surprise.
As he kissed her, his hand covered the small of her back, his callused palm settling between the twin indentions on either side of her spine. He applied pressure with the obvious intent of urging her closer. Given the position of her thigh on top of his, the outcome of the maneuver, intentional or not, could be nothing less than an increased intimacy.
And despite the number of times they had made love, she could feel the quick, responsive stirring of his erection. Surprisingly, there was a matching flutter of excitement deep within her own body. Apparently she was not so sated as she had believed.
He deepened the kiss. At the same time he slipped his hand around her knee, the one that lay over his. He hooked his forearm under it, carrying her leg upward.
His erection lay against the exposed heart of her sexuality. Given the backdrop of what they had shared tonight, there was no further need of stimulation.
A rush of hot moisture released in anticipation of his invasion, but again he surprised her. He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him.
The knee he’d moved now rested on the mattress beside his hip. The other fell into place on the opposite side. The hand that had been against her spine supported her until she was sitting upright, astride his body.
She realized that this was one of the few ways they had not made love. And she understood why. He was a man who needed to be in control. A man who took control.
Now he had relinquished it to her. An action as deliberate as any he’d made last night.
As she looked down into his eyes, his mouth curved into a slow smile. Invitation? Or challenge?
She leaned forward, resting her palms on his chest so that they were eye-to-eye. Almost nose-to-nose.
“Ever break a horse to saddle?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “but I’ve ridden a mule or two in my day.”
He laughed. “In Washington?”
“On my daddy’s farm.”
He nodded as if what she’d said meant something. He had never asked about her background, but perhaps he’d wondered.
“What’s it like riding a mule?”
“They’re ornery and stubborn and occasionally they need reasoning with to make them see the error of their ways.”
“You any good at that?”
“Reasoning or riding?”
“What do you think?”
HE WATCHED HER in the early morning light, her hands on his waist, her head thrown back so that the smooth column of her neck was exposed. The powerful muscles in her thighs, strengthened from months of work on the ranch, controlled the movements that were driving him nearer and nearer to the edge of the abyss.
He tried to think about something else. Anything else. Anything but this.
He reached up to touch the locket that lay between her breasts, fingers trembling against the damp satin of her skin. She had told him it was a family heirloom, the only tangible connection she had left to her heritage.
Nicki’s head came up, her eyes opened to look down into his. They were glazed. Unseeing. She closed her mouth, running the tip of her tongue around her lips. The rise and fall of her hips never faltered.
There were things that he needed to say. Things he should tell her, but the words were lodged in the back of his brain, all his powers of concentration focused on another kind of communication. One at which they had grown very skilled.
He couldn’t remember ever letting a woman make love to him. And there was no doubt that’s what she had done. She had touched him in ways that were intimate beyond belief. Yet there had been nothing practiced in what she had done. Nothing that had reawakened the doubts.
It had been clear she made love to him because she wanted to. A gift she gave him because she wanted him to feel exactly as he now did. As though they were intimately connected, and not only in the physical sense, although he couldn’t deny the obvious reality of that.
This was something deeper. Something…spiritual. And he’d never felt that with another woman.
He released the locket to draw the tips of his fingers down her body, tracing a line from the pulsing hollow of her throat, between the globes of her breasts, and then lower still. Trailing across the small, slightly convex curve of her belly
.
His hand hesitated there, his mind picturing smooth, white skin stretched tautly over the growing body of his son or daughter. Because of the inherent danger in what he did, he had never thought about having children. Except now…
He could see her carrying his child. Her body swollen with his seed. Her face glowing with the promise of that.
A promise he had never before wanted. One that he knew was the proper culmination of what they had found together.
The connection had been there from the first. They had fought against it because there had been other battles demanding their concentration. Other adversaries. There still were.
She raised and then lowered her body again. The same tantalizing motion that sheathed the length of his erection in wet heat. So wet that at the peak of each lift, he felt a momentary anxiety that she would lift too far. That she would leave him, if only briefly.
It hadn’t happened, and he knew that in a few seconds it wouldn’t matter. Whatever control he had once had over his own body was spiraling away.
Evaporating like a single raindrop against the heat of a desert rock. Then the droplets would fall closer and closer together, each adding to the accumulation until there was no distinction between them.
Just as there was no break in the rhythm she had established. No chance between those downward strokes to gather his resolve to hold on until she could join him.
He closed his eyes, struggling to contain the welling flood of sensation that clamored for release. His hand slid down the last few inches to touch the spot where their bodies joined.
As it did, he felt the tremors begin in the slim, beautiful body straining above him. He put his hands on her waist again. He heard the breath she took, one long gasping inhalation before the internal cataclysm began.
Her body rocked over his, oblivious now to his reaction. Free at last of the need to control his own responses, he exploded inside her, his hips answering the demand of hers.
He had no idea how long it lasted. An instant. An eternity.
And as it faded, he could again hear the harshness of his own breathing. In the background of that he was aware she was saying something as she continued to climax. And not a single word of it could his brain grasp.
Or maybe there weren’t any words. Perhaps she was as inarticulate as he, just as the hot stream of his ejaculation seemed unending.
Gradually the frantic pace eased. Heat quenched. Muscles relaxed from near convulsion.
She leaned forward against his chest. He kissed her hair, which smelled of summer, and then pressed his lips over the sweat-dampened skin at her temple. It was salt-sweet, warm against his tongue.
Her hand lifted to cup his cheek. He turned his head and kissed her palm.
“Thank you,” he said.
She raised her body away from his, looking down into his face. “For what? Or should I be thanking you, too?”
“For holding nothing back.”
The words didn’t begin to convey what he was feeling. He couldn’t find any others, however, so he let them stand.
“That was never an option.”
“In my experience, it’s always an option.”
“I defer to your superior knowledge, of course, but… Maybe it’s different when you care about someone.”
He nodded. When she didn’t go on, he realized she was waiting for some response from him. Although he had already acknowledged that what they had together was vastly different from anything he’d ever known before and that he needed to tell her that, still he said nothing.
“Obviously riding,” she said softly.
“What?”
“The one I’m better at.” She laid her head on his chest again.
Next time, he vowed, as his lips brushed over her hair. Next time he’d say the words she wanted to hear. Next time.
Chapter Seventeen
“Those test results still aren’t back from the CDC.”
After a quick glance at his sister’s face, Michael went back to saddling the bay and white paint he’d been given permission to exercise in Night Walker’s absence.
“Maybe that means they’ve found something interesting,” he said easily, his hands moving through the routine tasks with a competence that years away from the ranch didn’t seem to have compromised.
“Maybe we should have given them more information,” Colleen said, her brow furrowing as it did when she was worrying.
“What exactly did Shawn tell them?”
“That the blood had been taken from a flock which was supposedly part of a government research program.”
“Maybe that’s the holdup. If they’re trying to match whatever they found in those samples to a protocol database—”
He stopped when he spotted Nicki coming toward them from the house. She’d trimmed her hair so that it shaped her face in a much more feminine style, and the tight-fitting jeans and shirt she wore emphasized her curves. Again he wondered how she’d ever managed to convince anyone she was a boy.
He wondered where the clothing had come from, as they hadn’t set foot off the property since their arrival. Of course, Nicki had immediately been taken under the wing of Colleen’s motherly housekeeper, Melody Castillo. It was possible the garments belonged to Melody’s grandsons, who were both tall and slim enough to be a physical match for Nicki.
“Ready?” he called, noting the hesitation in her stride as she realized Colleen was here.
Maybe she was afraid their morning ride together was about to be aborted. It had quickly become a ritual. One they both looked forward to as a chance to get away from the curiosity of the members of the household.
Colleen’s eyes touched briefly on his, that anxious wrinkle still disturbing her brow, before she turned to smile a welcome. Although Nicki had been at the ranch for almost a week, the relationship between the two women had not progressed beyond the pleasant civility of their first meeting.
For Colleen’s part, he believed that was because he hadn’t yet received any further information about the call-girl accusations. With remarkable restraint, neither she nor Nicki had yet asked what his sources had told him, but he was expecting their questions any day.
He certainly understood how much Nicki wanted to clear her reputation. Once that was out of the way, he hoped the strain between her and his sister would ease.
“Good morning,” Colleen said as their guest drew near.
“Colleen,” Nicki said with a nod.
He thought the response seemed cool, but then he’d noticed the same standoffishness on his sister’s part before. As sensitive as Nicki was, she had obviously picked up on that. Maybe he needed to arrange some opportunities for them to get to know each other better, considering his rapidly developing feelings for her.
“Why don’t you join us, Colleen?” he asked, watching the sudden dilation of Nicki’s eyes. Whatever she was thinking, however, she hid it well, turning to add her invitation to his.
“Dex would have my hide,” Colleen said. “He doesn’t think I do enough work around here anyway. I promised him I’d ride into Denver with him this morning. There’s a bull he wants me to take a look at.”
Michael wondered if his sister was really unaware that the foreman’s constant demands on her time stemmed less from his desire for her input in the running of the ranch than from his personal desire to spend time with her. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that Dex Jones’s interest wasn’t entirely professional, but Colleen seemed oblivious to his attraction to her.
“Why don’t you take Ralph with you?” he suggested. “He’s forgotten more about cattle than you and Dex ever knew.”
Besides, the old man hadn’t been off the ranch since they’d arrived. He seemed to have recovered from whatever illness had sapped his strength during the last few days on the Half Spur. He was back to normal, talkative and almost jovial, enjoying the thought of Nicki fooling Quarrels for so long. Trading that hellhole for the Royal Flush definitely agreed with him.
As it had with all of them, he thought, considering the woman standing confidently beside Colleen. Of course there might be more involved in Nicki’s case than a change of environment. Or that might just be his ego talking again.
“I’ll ask him,” Colleen agreed. “Have fun, you two. And while you’re doing it, think about those of us who have to work for a living.”
He wondered if there was supposed to be a hidden meaning in the words. Or even a not-so-subtle double entendre.
After he and Nicki watched his sister cross the yard and head back toward the house, she turned to him, her face tight. “Maybe she wanted you to go in to Denver with them.”
“She doesn’t need my help. Doesn’t want it either. Besides, I have a job. One she assigned.”
“Why wouldn’t she want it?” Nicki asked, ignoring the other. “I would think running an operation this size would be a big job for anybody. Now that you’re home, she’d probably welcome—”
“My father left the ranch to Colleen in his will.” Despite his belief that he had overcome the old bitterness, there was still a quiver of resentment as he said the word.
“He cut you out of his will?”
Nicki sounded as if she had a hard time believing his father would do that. Of course, so had he.
“He gave me money, but none of the land.”
“But…why?”
“He thought I didn’t value it. Not like Colleen did.”
“Was he right?”
His lips flattened before he forced them opened to say, the single syllable abrupt, “No.”
“Then—”
“He never asked me,” Michael said. As if that explained anything. “If he had, I would have told him how I felt.”
She didn’t state the obvious, even though she was undoubtedly thinking it. Why didn’t you just tell him without being asked? He’d asked himself that same question a thousand times. And had wondered how different his life would have turned out if he had.
“WHY DO I FEEL as if we’re sneaking off like a couple of teenagers?” Nicki asked.
