Gifts of Love

by Raine Cantrell

  And she gave. Gave him her mouth without hesitancy, gave sweetness that burned though his body, gave to him with every curve that softened itself to the hard planes of his.

  She fed him, too. Fed him urgency with the way her lips clung to his mouth, her fingers kneading his shoulder. She didn’t know she tore him apart. He was hard and aching, but the pain was exquisite torment. He wanted more. More of the tiny moans she made, more of the trembling of her mouth.

  He wanted her skin bared to his touch, as naked as he was. Hurting with the same intensity. He wanted Erin wanting him, and only him. He needed to hear her tell him that he alone could still the prowl of relentless hunger that held him within its grasp and was taking slow, far too slow possession of her.

  Wild. That was the way his blood surged through him. Hers had to match. The frantic play of her hand on his arm, his shoulder, now his back, told him she was feeling the tiny claws of passion sink deeper into her.

  But not enough. Not nearly enough to satisfy him.

  He lifted his head, denying himself the taste of her mouth. She quickly brought his lips back to hers. The tentative touch of her tongue to his bottom lip brought a groan up from deep inside him. He gathered her closer to his body and gave her what she silently begged for.

  Kisses that claimed. The possessive ones that left no doubt that she was his. Kisses that grew deeper and deeper still, until the rhythm of the mating that would come enmeshed them in passion’s snare.

  And he wanted more.

  Just as Erin was wanting. She helped him ease her gown from her body. Blindly, she tried to undo the ties that held both petticoat and camisole together. Mace stopped her.

  “Let me,” he murmured, soothing the impatient moves of her hands with his. “I want to unwrap you like a present. For that’s what you are, Erin. A gift. A precious gift I need to have.”

  She fought the well of tears that surged to her eyes. She couldn’t fight Mace—she had possessed no strength to before he spoke. Now her body failed her with its boneless state, its tremors that grew as his hands slid cloth away to bare her to his touch. She crossed her arm protectively over her rounded belly and he stopped easing the drawers down over her thighs.

  “Don’t hide, Erin. You’re beautiful to me.”

  “No. Don’t lie now, Mace. I see myself. I—”

  “Hush, woman. Here, I’ll show you.” With an effort that racked his body, he lowered his head, kissing her fingertips. Using the tip of his tongue, he slid between her fingers and touched the taut skin beneath that they sought to protect.

  His nose nudged her thumb.

  Stubbornly, she refused to yield. How could she, when she was caught up in the most exquisite loving homage paid to her?

  She felt the shape of his smile curve his lips. He gently doubled his effort. Erin’s lips broke into a smile, too. But her smile reflected the sweet glory his kisses offered her. She held her hand in place.

  Mace was determined to have her offer all of herself to him, no barrier between them. His hand caressed the shivering length of her thigh, his thumb pressing the crease below the target of his mouth. He was rewarded by the shift of Erin’s leg, but still her hand remained in place.

  Stringing kisses along the skin her arm rested upon didn’t get her to move. He tried his tongue and failed. His body pushed him to finish this charming game quickly, but his mind overruled this time. Erin needed this. She needed to believe he found her beautiful. He longed for words. And knew he didn’t have them. Not the right ones. Not the ones that spoke of cherishing the life she carried, of cherishing her for being a woman. For becoming his.

  Mace raised his upper body, stroking her thigh, each time lifting his hand higher until his fingers found a way beneath her arm. He walked his fingertips across her belly, lowering his head, so that kisses followed…and trailed lower. His smile deepened. Erin’s hand quickly sought to protect her from this new assault.

  Mace rested his cheek on her belly. His hand, fingers splayed wide, joined it. He waited for the tenseness to leave her.

  Erin stared up in the darkness, seared by his touches. She was going to cry, fought the need, and thought she had won, but Mace seemed bent on wringing tears from her.

  He kissed her. His hand shaped her. He murmured, but she didn’t hear. She was feeling. Tenderness. A cherishing. And loved. Loved? Yes! No matter that the words were not spoken. Her fingertips found his mouth and traced the shape of his smile. She closed her eyes, letting the tears silently slip out, emotions tumbling forth until she was steeped in all that was good. All that she longed for. All that dreams had offered.

  The passing of time held no meaning. Desire returned and strengthened. She lifted his head, whispered her need and waited, vulnerable, exposed, willing him to come to her.

  Mace took her hand and held it against his chest, where his heart thundered with the well of need that filled him.

  “Feel what you do to me, Erin. From the first moment I saw you.”

  She gasped softly as he slid her hand down to the washboard ridges of his stomach, along the powerful strength of his thighs.

  Mace sensed her hesitancy, and longed for her to trust him not to hurt her. He brought her hand to his mouth. “I need you. I hurt for needing you.”

  The sensual strokes of his thumb over her mouth held her still. Mace stroked the drawers down her legs and pushed them free. “This is how I want you. Trembling. Aching. Wanting me.”

  Didn’t he understand? Erin wanted him. She needed him, too. Sharpening its claws, passion flared inside her. She moved against him instinctively, pressing closer, feeling a recklessness take hold of her. She had to make him know how she ached. Petting him didn’t work. True, he shuddered as she tangled her fingers in his chest hair and skimmed the angular jut of his hip. But it wasn’t enough. Her stomach clenched. She teased his lips with her mouth. His jaw invited a kiss, two, then more. She was rewarded by his breathing becoming faster.

  Encouraged, Erin found she wanted to explore the curve of his shoulder; kisses weren’t enough. She tested the heat and strength of him with delicate bites and then soothed them with her tongue. Mace was finally beginning to understand. He cupped her hips with his hands and brought her against him.

  He was impatient now. She felt the fierce twisting need that spiraled through her, through him. Kisses landed where they could, touches were fleeting as heat built and yearned for completion. He was so careful of her sensitive breasts that she moaned with frustration.

  He kissed her long and hard. She was hot and sweet and yielding. He felt the shocked awareness she tried to hide when his hand touched her inner thigh, but he caressed her gently, denying the potent force of his body that drove him

  Easing her leg over his hip, Mace murmured against her lips. He sought a hotter, sweeter softness that would bring an end to the torment racking him.

  She shivered and cried out. Her body tightened with the first true desire she had ever experienced. She wanted Mace inside her. Recklessly, she buried her hands in his hair, pressing tighter to his body, straining to understand what was happening to her. She felt as if she would die if he didn’t take her. With a choked sound mirroring her body’s distress, Erin arched her hips, deepening his touch. A fever built inside her, a fever that spread until she gasped with the breaking of shimmering sensations that left her shaking.

  There was no breath to draw without his heated scent filling her. Erin cried out again and Mace answered with a slow joining of their bodies that left her stunned.

  She felt vulnerable as never before and yet powerful at the same time. He was still, his whispered question of hurting her unanswered for the moment. She was trying to absorb all that his possession brought with it. He moved, a small thrust of his hips, and Erin shattered so that she clung to him.

  As each gentle thrust brought him deeper into her body, so did love for him flow deeper into her heart.

  Even as Mace cautioned her to trust him, he felt his own control breaking. The ply
of her fingers down his back startled a growl of excitement out of him. He tried to temper his grip on her, but her melting softness beckoned his flesh, beckoned and enticed him to drive deeply. There had never been such pleasure rocking through him. Never. Fueled by the fire they created together, Mace felt the balm of passion sealing off old wounds, smothering all sense of betrayal.

  Every movement, every shiver he called from her, every cry brought the aching need for release. He couldn’t catch his breath for a moment when he felt her quivering and then tightening around him. Her soft moans of completion took him to the edge. He faltered in the rhythm of his thrusts, shuddering as the hard heat inside him burst into flames. All he could do against its force was cradle the woman who brought such fierce desire to him in his arms, riding out the storm that refused to release him.

  Erin held him, held him tight. She was overcome by the depth of emotions still surging through her body. The empty places inside her had been filled, far beyond their fiery coupling. She felt healed of old hurts as love bloomed in the joy he had given to her.

  Mace brought his lips to hers, the kiss fleeting as the exhaustion of the hours past finally staked its claim on him. With Erin’s head pillowed on his shoulder, sleep came, and with it a blissful peace.

  That same blissful peace slowly came to Erin as her heart quieted and her mind found refuge in the wonder of loving.

  Hours later, her little one revealed its impatience with a stranger’s touch and smothering warmth. Hard little kicks brought Erin awake and Mace along with her.

  She was embarrassed that his hand covered her belly, gently massaging her, murmuring when his touch didn’t bring a cessation of the baby’s movement. Erin swore she heard a soft chuckle escape him.

  She expected him to turn aside, an expectation that disappeared with his kiss. She expected the same tender loving as before. She stopped thinking when a wildness seized hold of her and only Mace’s will kept it tempered so not to harm her.

  “Let’s see if we can’t rock this little one to sleep, Erin.”

  His desire no longer frightened her, for she knew what was coming. Passion flowered rapidly through her, making fierce demands that Mace willingly answered and satisfied.

  Erin learned ecstasy came with power, no less glorious than that which went before. Heat, lightning and thunder rocked through her as they found completion together.

  When Mace shifted, she thought he would leave her, but he helped her turn to her side so that her back rested against his chest. With one of his arms below and the other above, she felt safe cradled in his arms. Smiling to herself, her last thought was that dreams were coming true.

  Morning brought back reality.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mace’s vicious swearing awakened Erin as he untangled himself from the covers. The room was cold, a weak gray light filtering through the curtains. Squeezing her eyes closed, Erin was afraid to look at him.

  How could the generous lover of the night turn cruel with the morning’s summons? She didn’t know and feared to ask what she had done.

  Grating his teeth together to silence himself, Mace knew that if he had been drunk he might forgive himself. How could he break his own vow? How could he put Erin at risk? He didn’t have the excuse of drinking. He had needed Erin and reached out for her. And she didn’t have the sense of a forest-wary animal to beware of a predator. His gut churned with the thought that he might have harmed her. If he had…The thought remained incomplete. He couldn’t, not even in the silence of his own mind, allow the words to form.

  Yanking on his shirt, he stuffed the tail into his pants, hating the betraying tremble of his hands as they tried to fasten his fly. He eyed his room, searching for his boots, wanting to run, knowing he was wrong, but running just the same. Where he had left them hit him as he was forced to look toward the bed and found Erin cringing.

  Mace longed to tear the quilt she had raised to her chin away from her. He wanted to see if he had bruised her. And what about the ones he couldn’t see? How could he forget what happened to Sky? How could he forget his sworn word not to touch her?

  With a shake of his head, unable to stand there and wait for her eyes to look upon him with accusation, he stalked from the room.

  For a moment Erin didn’t move. What had happened? Had Mace been dreaming that he was with Sky last night? No. He called her name. Not once, but over and over. He had made love to her, not the ghost that haunted him. But why was he cursing? Why did he leave her alone without a word?

  Suddenly she didn’t want to be found in his bed, in his room. Tiny twinges reminded her that she had done more than sleep in his bed last night. Scrambling around to gather her clothes, she slipped her gown on, praying that Ketch and the children were still abed. She would die if they saw her creeping from Mace’s room with her underwear wrapped in her apron, carrying her shoes.

  Thankfully the kitchen was empty, but she knew it would not be for long. She reached the door to her room just as someone opened the back door. Mace called out that coffee wasn’t ready and whoever was there mumbled a reply. Erin slipped inside her room, hurrying to get dressed. But where would she find the courage to go out there and face him?

  Mace solved the problem by simply not being there when she entered to begin making breakfast. He saved her from being flustered by his presence when Ketch came in, poured himself coffee and mentioned that Mace asked him to bring him whatever she made down to the barn. He had calves to tend before he rode out to check his cattle.

  “Worse of the storm passed by,” Ketch informed her, eyeing her over the rim of his cup. “You did real fine, Miz Erin. Got the makings of a real ranch wife.”

  Coming from Ketch that was high praise indeed, and Erin thanked him. For a second, she wished that Mace had said the words. But Mace, she decided, had said enough last night. For, whatever devil rode his back, he was punishing her again. But not this time. She was not going to meekly let him use her as a whipping post. Damned if she would!

  “You get enough sleep?” Ketch asked, his sharp eyesight picking up the faint shadows beneath her eyes and the careful way she was moving.

  “Enough.”

  “Testy, ain’t we?” he prodded, seeing fire in her green eyes.

  “We are not testy, Ketch. We are just fine.” The smile she offered was as brittle as china and not half as pretty.

  “Bristled up like a porcupine, she did,” Ketch told Mace less than an hour later when he brought his breakfast out to the barn. “You did remember your manners an’ thank her for all the work she put in savin’ them calves, didn’t you?”

  “She lives here, doesn’t she?” Mace snapped, having bolted down hot porridge sweetened with syrup. “Eats and sleeps the same as the rest. What we lose on the range hurts her same as us.”

  “That ain’t no answer, an’ you know it, Mace.”

  “It’s all the answer you’re getting.” With plate in hand Ketch left, and Mace wanted to call him back. He wanted to know if Erin was all right, but if he asked, Ketch would want to know why. Damned if he’d tell anyone how he lost control and took her to his bed.

  Now why did he go and open that latched door? He didn’t want to remember the sweetly heated welcome his body found in hers. He refused to.

  Feed, stock, fences and bookwork needed his attention. There shouldn’t have been room in his thoughts for Erin. But there was room. He’d acted the coward, a damn fool of a coward, bedding her, then running out like a green kid caught with his pants down.

  Grabbing hold of the pitchfork leaning against a post, Mace went back to mucking out the stalls. How was he going to rid himself of the taste of her? His senses were swimming in deep water, water the same green as her eyes. He had known she’d be soft and giving. That didn’t surprise him. What shook him was the blinding explosion of passion that had matched his. A passion Sky had never equalled. He froze even as the traitorous thought formed. What the hell was he doing comparing Erin to Sky?

  But if Erin ha
d known about Sky, known his vow and what happened, she wouldn’t be feeling hurt this morning. Yet to tell her about Sky would expose too much of himself, too much that shamed him. It wasn’t a matter of refusing, it was just impossible.

  Erin could think what she liked. If she was angry, that anger would serve them both. The woman had pride, let her use it.

  Pride, Erin. Remember that, she repeated to herself when Mace refused to come in at midday to eat. The children were filled with boisterous spirits, running in and out of the house, tracking mud and snow along with wet clothes. She refused to snap at them, unable to summon the energy.

  She longed to go out and see for herself how the calves that survived were doing, but Mace was out in the barn, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking she was seeking him out. How could he just run off without a word?

  Shooing everyone out of the kitchen once they were done eating, she tended to straightening up, but her mind was free to think back on all that happened last night.

  She didn’t imagine his gentleness. He seemed pleased that he wrung cries from her. If she didn’t please him as a lover what could she do? There wasn’t another woman to talk to—no one but Maddie. And she couldn’t very well write a letter asking her about something so personal.

  This was all Mace’s fault, she decided, scrubbing a pot with a vengeance. If he had talked to her about Sky maybe she would have a reason for why he was acting like a…like that darn bull of his! How dare he make her feel like this? Just how dare he! She didn’t ask him to bed her. She didn’t flirt with him. You didn’t refuse him, either, a tiny voice supplied.

  Well, she was angry. Hurt and angry. Mace Dalton could keep his distance or she’d let him have what for. He was wrong to make her feel that he cared and then treat her as if she wasn’t worthy of one word.