*
Tal languished, weak and satiated, along Wyatt’s damp body. They were still fused with one another, and sometimes, these moments were just as, if not more, important as their lovemaking to her . . . to them. “I love that we’re joined,” she whispered, sliding her hand up his large biceps, enclosing his broad shoulder.
“Me, too. Best feeling in the world, bar none.”
A ghost of a smile fled across her swollen, well-kissed lips. Her cheek was against his muscular chest, and her eyes were closed. The scent of Wyatt, the combined sexual fragrance of them as a couple, enticed her nostrils, and she inhaled deeply, never wanting to forget that special scent. “I love you, Wyatt. I love you even though you’re so damned overprotective of me.”
Tal barely opened her eyes, adjusting her head against his shoulder so she could stare up into his; he was watching her like the wild, primal male he was. Even now, she could feel his cock twitch within her, feel her channel contract in return. They would never have any issues regarding sex between them. They had given one another the gift of sensation and pleasure that was perfect for both of them.
“Yeah,” he groused, giving her a lazy, lopsided smile as he lifted his fingers, moving them through her black hair. “I did get a smidge overprotective, didn’t I?”
“SEALs are taught to protect their team,” she whispered, nuzzling him, feeling the sandpapery quality of his skin against her cheek. “And I know SEAL guys are really super-protective of the woman they love, their family. That protective nature really comes out in them any time they think their loved one is in trouble.”
“Can’t blame ’em,” Wyatt murmured, watching her eyes smile. “I love you. That night out on that ravine slope, after I’d gotten hit? All I could think of, Tal, was you. How much I loved you. How much I didn’t want to die, but wanted to live instead. I lay there gasping like a fish out of water, feeling the wild thumping of my heart as it hung between going into arrest and straightening out. I didn’t know which would happen.”
His voice lowered and he held her luminous gaze, his hand cupping the back of her head. “I wanted to live to see you again, Tal. I knew I was borderline. I’m not a combat medic for nothing. I’d seen other men die of a heart hit to their Kevlar. I didn’t want to die . . .” He caressed her head, raising himself up just enough to kiss her wrinkled brow, the stark reality in her eyes now.
Lying back on the pillow once more, Wyatt rasped, “I don’t want to live without you, Tal. I want to wake up every damn morning seeing you at my side. I want to hear your laughter during the day; I want to hear what’s on your mind, what you’re feeling in your heart. I’m starving not only to absorb you into my body but hold your heart and your beautiful, courageous soul in my hands as well. I want all of you. Every time we make love, we melt together. We’re one. I love that feeling more than anything else. I’ve never experienced this with another woman in my life. It’s freeing, it’s joyous, and I can’t believe that you love me, that you’re here at my side. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Tal, but in that moment on that ridge, I wanted to live. I willed myself to live, to transcend whatever the hell my body and heart were going through. I wanted to survive it to come back to you.” He saw Tal’s eyes tear up and he groaned, hating to see a woman’s tears. It made him feel so damned helpless. “Hey,” he chided teasingly, “I didn’t tell you this to make you cry.”
Sniffing, Tal shook her head. “You came so close to dying, Wyatt. Damn you.” She sobbed, burying her face against his neck, holding him as tightly as she could.
Aw hell! Wyatt eased out of Tal and propped himself up on one elbow, tucking Tal against him. Her shoulders shook as he wrapped his arms around her. His heart tore with pain, because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. She shouldn’t have been crying over him. He embraced her tightly and rasped against her ear, “It was just a close call, that’s all. I’m here. It’s okay. I’m okay.” He knew she’d lost the last man she’d loved to a bullet. And now this. Awkwardly, Wyatt patted her shaking shoulder. “It’s okay, Tal. Mark was there. He knew what was going on. Hell, if I had gone into cardiac arrest, he’d have just used his fist and thumped me hard in the chest to reset my heart rhythm. I would have been fine. Really.”
Tal cried harder.
Well, that went well, Lockwood. You’re a real Shakespeare with the right words at the right time, aren’t you?
Wyatt could do nothing else but hold Tal, run his fingers through her hair, soothe her with his words and soft kisses against her hairline, and let her get it out of her system. Wrapping his arms around her, he held and rocked her a little. Women cried—it was that simple—but Tal hardly ever cried at all. This was the second time since he’d met her that he’d seen her cry. She wasn’t like Mattie, who cried at the drop of a hat. Cat never cried. Come to think of it, neither did Sage. Even he cried once in a while.
Kissing Tal, Wyatt held her, closed his eyes, and rested his head against hers, wishing he could somehow absorb her pain into himself. He’d rather have suffered than seen Tal suffer any day. Wyatt supposed that was his SEAL protectiveness coming out, but damn it, he couldn’t help it. He loved Tal, and he was going to protect her when he thought it was necessary. Next time, however, he’d make damn sure he was honest with her and wouldn’t withhold anything from her as he had this time. Lesson learned.
CHAPTER 10
On December 31, Wyatt got Tal on a nice old gray quarter horse named Silver. Things were starting to settle down at the ranch since the ambush of the Cardona cartel. He wanted to have a private New Year’s Eve lunch with Tal. The destination was the box canyon where he’d seen the cougar years earlier. It was a nice, peaceful place, a short ride of five miles one way. Tal would probably have an achy butt when it was all over because she wasn’t used to riding, but they’d agreed it was a small price to pay.
He rode Rio, a bright red chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail, one of his father’s good cutting horses, who needed a time-out from the hard work of constantly cutting cows on their ranch. Rio needed a day off like they did. The sun was bright and warm, no breeze, and it was in the low sixties, the weather abnormally warm for winter. Wyatt had packed the lunch, not wanting Tal to do a thing except relax and come down from the crisis they’d just been through. Since she’d let herself cry last night, she’d been a lot quieter than usual, and he could feel her going deep into herself, probably thinking and feeling a lot. He knew her well enough to know that when she was ready, she’d talk to him about what was on her mind. Snipers never did anything rashly or quickly. They studied the landscape, the conditions, and took so many other minute factors into consideration before acting or reacting to a situation.
Wyatt had always appreciated the sniper mind because he had been one himself. Giving Tal time to digest issues was important, and he thought this impromptu picnic lunch on the last day of the year would be a perfect outing for both of them. When he’d approached Tal about it earlier this morning after she’d had her coffee, she was surprised and pleased, eager to spend the day with him on a riding adventure.
His mind ranged over Tal and Mattie. Those two women got along well with one another, and Wyatt was happy about that. Mattie made friends easily and forever with her idealistic, warm, and outgoing personality. Tal was more reserved, but she and Mattie were forging a profound connection, because their loyal, steadfast hearts were so similar and they’d both been emotionally totaled by the loss of a man they loved. Wyatt believed his sister and Tal would be good for one another, if for nothing else than mutual understanding and support. Right now, Mattie could use someone like Tal, who was so solid and dependable, in her life. He sincerely hoped that Mark’s unexpected appearance would not rock Mattie’s world the way his leaving for the Marine Corps had years earlier. Wyatt had discussed it with Tal, and she felt that it was probably a huge moment for Mattie—that emotionally, it was rocking her to her soul. With Mark suddenly showing up out of the blue, Tal felt Mattie had been shattered all over ag
ain. She was still struggling to put her love for him away, but it wasn’t happening. Mattie seemed less depressed, a sparkle in her eyes. He knew that Tal had something to do with it. Tal was good at hauling people out of the ditch when they needed a hand up. Just another reason he loved his woman.
Tal was not a horse person per se, but Wyatt gave her rudimentary lessons on how to steer Silver where she wanted him to go. That the reins were the brakes and her heels the accelerator. She seemed to relax in the western saddle as they rode. Today, she’d put her hair into a ponytail under a red baseball cap with the Marine Corps emblem on the front of it. She always looked good in a pair of jeans. Because it was so warm, she’d changed into a cap-sleeve tee the same color as her hat. Wyatt had tied a light coat behind the cantle of her saddle, just in case it started turning cold later in the day. With her wraparound dark glasses on, he couldn’t see her incredible forest-green eyes.
Rio was frisky, wanting to run or do something other than be kept at a sedate walk. Wyatt was used to riding quarter horses like him and kept him in line and in hand. Silver, on the other hand, a twenty-year-old gelding, plodded along, happy with a rider who asked practically nothing of him. Earlier, Wyatt had removed the black leather vest he wore over his white long-sleeved cowboy shirt because it was getting hot out on the bone-colored desert. Like Tal, he wore jeans and boots. On his head was a black baseball cap with the SEAL emblem in gold thread across the front of it.
They rode together, their boots occasionally brushing against one another. Looking at the rolling desert landscape with the hills in the distance, he thought they could have been in Afghanistan instead. He wondered if Tal was thinking the same thing. Ahead were low thickets and red and yellow ocher sandstone that rose about a thousand feet above the plain. Tal knew this was one of the areas where he hunted deer in season, as well as the place he’d had his cougar encounter. Wyatt wasn’t sure if there were still cougars in these hills, but he was pretty sure there were deer. There was a nice little stream at the back of the box canyon, where there was shade and even a bit of green grass in the springtime. All the animals went to that stream, including the herds of deer. This time of year, he was sure the grass had yellowed and dried, the trees naked and having lost their leaves, but it was still a pretty spot.
As they entered the sandy canyon, the ocher cliffs towering on either side of them, Tal turned toward him. “This is really beautiful. Out of nowhere, you get an oasis rising from this flat desert.”
“Yeah, and it has a stream to boot,” Wyatt said, gesturing toward the rear of the canyon about a quarter mile away from them. “Geologically, millions of years ago, this whole region was shallow ocean. There’s lots of sedimentary rock, and that red stuff is sandstone. The white stuff is limestone. If you take a rock-hound hammer and dig between those layers of colors, you’ll find fossilized sea creatures like trilobites and brachiopods.”
“Wow,” Tal murmured, impressed. She looked up at the walls rising on either side of the canyon. “This is quite a geology hotspot then?”
“I don’t know about that, but most of Texas is part of that old, shallow ocean. That’s why there’s so much oil under it. All those sea creatures that died and drifted to the bottom of that ocean helped create the oil reserves that are under us right now.”
“Has your ranch been tested for oil beneath it?” Tal asked.
“No. My family owns the mineral rights and anything else under the land, and none of my forebears or my father wanted an oil well on our land.”
“So you don’t know if there’s oil?”
Shrugging, Wyatt said, “I don’t.” He smiled a little at her. “Doesn’t really matter. My family were ranchers for many generations before me, and I’m sure we will be once my parents pass on.”
“Who would take it over? Cat? Jake?”
“My parents would like them to run the ranch. Both have been trained to run it, from the accounting to herding cattle to fence mending. Both would be good at it. And they’ve made it known to Mom and Dad that yes, they’d like to have the ranch passed on to them.”
“I don’t see you running a ranch, cowboy.”
His mouth curved; he liked Tal’s teasing him. “Well, my ‘herd’ is a different sort, I guess. I like herding teams of men, as in the case of the SEALs. I was good at it. And now, at Artemis, I have my herd of Mission Planning men and women, who are the best in the business at creating missions that work and pay off.”
“Still,” Tal mused, “it’s your herd. You’re a cowboy at heart, Wyatt.”
He couldn’t see her eyes behind those dark glasses, but he felt the warmth in the smile she shared with him. “I s’pose I am.”
“I’m no cowgirl, that’s for sure.” Tal leaned down, patting Silver’s short, thick neck. “Sorry, old guy, but my butt is sore from riding you.”
Chuckling, Wyatt said, “Oh, you have your herd, too. You had your sniper unit at Bagram. You ran herd on them. You took care of them like a good cowboy or cowgirl would take care of his or her horse and cattle. Only they were men and women instead.”
“I traded in my lariat for a sniper rifle,” she said, grinning over at him.
“All kinds of herds in the world,” Wyatt agreed amicably.
“Do you think Mattie would ever want to help run the ranch?”
Wyatt shook his head. “No. She made it clear to Mom and Dad years ago that she loves teaching the little ones. That’s her life. That’s where she’s happiest, Tal.”
“I think Jake and Cat would be good keepers of your ranch,” Tal agreed. “They have that dedicated work ethic you need to keep a ranch afloat. They aren’t lazy. They’re working seven days a week.”
“Farming and ranching aren’t for the faint of heart,” Wyatt agreed drily. He pointed ahead of them. “Take that little trail you see coming up on your right. That will lead us to a nice grove. The trees’ll be bare, but the stream is there, and there’s a nice place for a picnic lunch on the bank for us.”
Silver seemed to know exactly where the picnic spot in the box canyon was located. There was a happy, gurgling stream filled with rocks and colorful gravel, the water clear and about four feet wide. There was long, yellowed grass on either bank, and Tal liked the bare-branched trees that grew on either side of it, as if it were an avenue. Water was scarce in these parts and the lushness, even in winter, seemed extravagant compared to the desert around the hills where the canyon stood.
*
Wyatt had placed their gray wool blanket next to a tree. He leaned up against the trunk with Tal in his arms. They had eaten lunch and drunk their champagne, and he’d coaxed her to come and sit across his lap and angle herself comfortably across his body. As she settled in, her head resting on his right shoulder, her gaze on him, her hand smoothing the fabric across his chest, he absorbed the love he saw in her half-closed eyes.
“This is nice,” he murmured, leaning over, kissing her unmarred brow. “This is what life is really all about, moments like this.” He cupped her hip in one hand and his other arm wrapped around the center of her back, keeping her tucked in against him. He liked the way her breasts pressed into his chest. Liked the way she fit him like some long-lost part of himself that had finally come home to him.
“I love this,” she whispered, stilling her hand against his recently shaved jaw, smiling up into his stormy gray eyes. Tal knew that look, could feel his erection pressing insistently against her hip. There wasn’t a time when they didn’t desire one another. “I love you, Wyatt.” She leaned forward, pressing her lips against his mouth, feeling an urgency to connect with him in the most intimate of ways. His mouth was cherishing, sliding against her lips, opening her with his urgency. Moaning, she pressed herself against him fully, her arm curving around his neck, hungrily welcoming his mouth against hers. Their breathing became erratic and her heartbeat sped up as he moved his large hand in a caressing motion over her cheeks, tantalizing her with another form of teasing that made her even more damp. Wyatt was a su
preme male animal, there was no question. She’d never had a man turn her on sexually so swiftly, so deeply, as he did. He made her needy for him; any touch he would give her, any stroke of his hand, was as necessary to Tal as breathing. No man had made her feel this way. Ever. Until Wyatt.
Slowly, he disengaged from her wet mouth, staring through narrowed eyes into hers. “This is nice, too,” he said gruffly.
Lips tingling, her lower body erupting with need of him, she laughed breathily, caressing his jaw. “You are a certifiable hunk, Lockwood. All you have to do is look at me in a certain way, and I want to throw you on the floor and take you right then and there.”
“I like your fantasy,” he growled, holding her tight against him, moving his hand over her cheeks, continuing to subtly tease her core, the crotch of her jeans already turning damp. “I feel the same way about you, darlin’. It plays hell with me when we’re at Artemis. As much as I’d like to lock that office door of yours, tear your clothes off, and take you on the floor, it isn’t gonna happen.”
Sighing, she said, “No . . . but it’s nice to go home at night knowing you’re with me and we can do it there.”
Giving her a satisfied look, eyes gleaming, Wyatt said, “Yes, it’s happened a few times, hasn’t it?”
Laughing softly with him, Tal nodded her head, snuggling her brow against his jaw, happier than she’d thought she could ever be. “Everything’s perfect, Wyatt . . . everything,” she said, closing her eyes.
“Yeah, it is, darlin’.” He felt her completely surrender over to him in every way, that sweet smile of hers tipping up the corners of her mouth. He watched the sunlight dance through the branches of the tree overhead, shifting blue highlights through the strands of her hair. “Happy?”
“Completely.”
“Lookin’ forward to marrying this cowboy come June?”
“Mmm, very much. How about you?”
He watched how relaxed Tal’s face became. Wyatt knew that her job, the responsibilities she carried daily, weighed heavily on her. Tal had the experience, the character, to handle it all, but he knew she was a creature of deep feelings that always ran parallel to her life as a businesswoman and a leader. “Oh, I’m a happy camper. Not only will we get married in Kuşadasi, I’ll get to take you away to Tahiti, where we’ll dive for black pearls. That sounds exotic, like you,” he teased, kissing her brow again. Drowning in her barely open eyes, those thick black lashes enhancing their rich green color, he saw the corners of her mouth curve up more.
Unbound Pursuit Page 13
