“So,” he said, with deliberate lightness, “what were you going to tell me about your stepbrothers? Don’t tell me they were the ones who sat you down and told you about the birds and the bees.”
Caitlin laughed. “Are you kidding? Nobody told me about birds and bees, Tyler. I learned about stallions and mares the day I wandered into our stables when one of our studs—”
Our stables. Our studs. She wasn’t a Baron, the old man wouldn’t let her forget that she wasn’t, but that was the way she thought of herself, as a Baron, as someone who loved Espada almost as much as he despised it.
“—Slade, I think it was, turned around and saw me. I thought he was going to pass out. My stepbrothers, tell me about sex? They taught me to rope horses and herd cows, but sex was for other girls, not for their little sister.” She grinned. “They waited up for me, after my first date.”
“They did, huh?”
“They loved me,” she said simply, “and I loved them. Of course…” She laughed softly and traced the outline of Tyler’s lips with the tip of her finger. “Of course, that didn’t keep me from trying to beat them up. Well, one at a time, naturally.”
“Naturally.” Tyler grinned and rolled her beneath him. “I’m impressed.”
“See, they had this club…”
“Mmm.” He bent his head, nuzzled her hair from her throat. “Los Lobos.”
“Yes.” She bit back a moan as he brushed his mouth against the skin at the delicate juncture of neck and shoulder. “That’s right. I told you about—about—”
Tyler caught her hands and held them. “Go on,” he said softly, as he kissed the hollow of her throat, the slope of her breast. She could feel his lips curve into a smile against her flesh. “Don’t let me distract you.”
Caitlin closed her eyes. “It was—it was just the three of them,” she said, in a breathless flurry of softly whispered words. “And eventually they made me a member, but when they got older, they sometimes met without me in the hayloft…oh. Oh, Tyler…”
“They met in the hayloft,” he said, as he cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumbs across the yearning tips. “Without you.”
“Without me. I guess they talked about—” Her voice broke. He was kissing her belly, her thighs, biting gently at the soft, tender flesh. “About girls,” she said, in a choked whisper. “And—and one time, I heard them talking about virgins and agreeing that—that…” Caitlin’s hips arched from the bed. “I can’t think when—when…” She cried out and he moved up her body and kissed her mouth, drinking in her cries, glorying in her surrender.
“They were boys, sweetheart,” he whispered, slipping his hands under her bottom. “And maybe they knew that taking a girl’s virginity is a hell of a responsibility.”
“Yes.” She made a soft little sound as he parted her thighs. “That’s why I thought you might not be pleased when you realized—when you realized—”
He entered her slowly this time, holding back, sliding into her easily, spinning out the ecstasy of the moment, watching her eyes fill with his image as her body filled with his heat, watching as the pleasure caught her up in a surging wave of desire.
“You gave me a gift.” He moved, then moved again. She rose to him, sobbed out his name as she put her arms around him, as she closed around him like a satin sheath. “An incredible gift. Cait,” he said thickly, “Cait…”
Cait, my love, he thought.
And then he stopped thinking and spilled himself deep inside her again.
* * *
When the first light of the new day touched the hills, Caitlin sat up and looked out the window.
“Look,” she said. “Tyler, what a glorious sight.”
Tyler leaned on his elbow and propped his head on his hand. “Glorious,” he agreed lazily, and stroked his fingers lightly over her breasts. Despite the long night they’d shared, his caress brought a telling flush of desire to her face.
The sight, the knowledge that just his touch could arouse her, filled him with possessive pleasure.
“I’m talking about the sunrise,” she said, with a little laugh.
“Mmm.” Tyler ran his hand up Caitlin’s throat, gently cupped her face and brought her mouth to his for a kiss. “Want to go outside and watch it?”
“Oh, yes. Just give me a minute to get dr…Tyler?” She squealed as he rose from the bed and lifted her, and the blanket she clutched, into his arms. “Tyler,” she said, as he strode toward the patio doors, “we can’t…”
Her protests were useless. Tyler opened the sliding doors, stepped out into the awakening morning, wrapped them both within the king-size blanket and sat down in one of the patio chairs with her in his lap.
“We can do anything we want,” he said smugly, “because we’re the only two people on the planet.”
Caitlin’s smile faded. If only it were true. If only she and Tyler were alone…but they weren’t. Jonas stood between them like an omnipresent apparition. What venom there’d been in his voice, when he’d spoken Tyler’s name last night.
“He’s up to no good, missy. You’ll see.”
“You’re wrong,” she’d said, and Jonas had looked at her and smiled slyly, the way he always did just before he raked in the chips.
She shivered.
“Sweetheart?” Tyler’s arms tightened around her. “Are you cold? Shall we go inside?”
“No. Oh, no. I just—I just felt a chill for a second, that’s all.”
He drew her closer and gently urged her head onto his shoulder. Her body was soft and warm; her hair was a tangled skein of silk against his cheek. She smelled sweetly mysterious, her perfume a subtle blending of memories of the passion-filled night and the promise of the new day, and he wasn’t sure which he wanted more, to just go on sitting with her in his arms, holding her close and inhaling her fragrance, or to spread the blanket in the grass and make love to her again.
“Comfortable?” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple.
Caitlin sighed. “Mmm.”
“You’re sure you’re warm enough?”
“Mmm.”
Tyler chuckled, leaned back in the chair and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“I like a woman who’s easy to please,” he said softly.
She sighed, turned her face toward him and kissed his throat. “Jonas wouldn’t agree,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“That old bastard.” His voice hardened, but she knew, from the way his arms tightened around her, that the sudden edge she heard had nothing to do with her. “How in hell do you put up with him?”
“He’s a difficult man, I agree. But—”
“Oh, hell.” Tyler caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face to his and kissed her. “The last thing I want to do is argue over Jonas Baron.” He smiled, kissed her again, lingering over the sweetness of her mouth. “Tell me about Caitlin McCord.”
Caitlin smiled back. “You want the one-minute story, or the two?”
“I want to know everything about her.” He stroked a fingertip along her lips. “What kind of little girl was she?”
“A tomboy,” she said instantly. “A skinny kid with knobby knees and sharp elbows.” She laughed softly. “That’s what Gage always said, anyway.”
“Gage.” Tyler forced himself to smile. “One of the Barons.”
“The youngest, yes. You’d like him.”
“I doubt it.” Tyler’s smile glittered. “Not if he’s anything like his old man.”
“Oh, he isn’t. None of my stepbrothers are anything like their father.”
“Well, that takes the whole lot of them up a notch in my estimation, sight unseen.”
“They’ve all made their own ways in the world.”
Tyler’s brows lifted. “Baron didn’t set them up in whatever it is they do?”
Caitlin laughed. “Set them up? No way. They defied him, Tyler. Each and every one of them.” Sighing, she snuggled closer. “It’s funny, but you remind me of them in lot
s of ways.”
“What ways?” Tyler said, and told himself it really didn’t matter. Even if he shared the blood of the Baron brothers, he wasn’t one of them. “What ways?” he asked again, and cursed himself for wanting to hear the answer.
“Well, Gage built his own empire, from the ground up.” Caitlin lifted Tyler’s hand, brought it to her lips. “I get the feeling you did, too.”
He shrugged. “Working up a sweat doesn’t mean much.” He paused, cleared his throat. “What about the other two? What are they like?”
“Travis—he’s the eldest—Travis is like you, too.” She turned his hand over, kissed the callused palm. “He can go from being warm and charming to tough as steel in the blink of an eye. And Slade…” Caitlin smiled. “Let’s just say that I’d love to see you and Slade play poker sometime. I don’t know which of you would do a better job of calling the other’s bluff.”
Travis nodded. “You, ah, you’re fond of your stepbrothers,” he said, after a moment.
“I adore them all.” She sighed. “And I know you don’t like hearing it, but I love Jonas, too.” She felt Tyler stiffen and she turned and put her arms around his neck. “My mother married him when I was ten. Two years later, she ran off to New York with an actor she met at a little theater she’d conned Jonas into backing.”
“And left you behind?” Tyler’s mouth thinned. “Was the woman crazy?”
“Leaving me was the best thing she could have done, Tyler,” Caitlin said, with a little smile. “By the time she married Jonas, I’d forgotten the names of half the men she’d lived with. Jonas kept me, even after he divorced her. He gave me a home. Stability. Love. Well, his kind of love, anyway.”
“Love,” Tyler said, and grimaced. “I’ve heard him talk to you, Cait. Does he ever do anything but bark?”
“That’s just the way he is. It’s not personal.”
Tyler gave a bitter laugh. “Everything that SOB does is personal. I’ll bet he thinks that sun rises just for his benefit.”
“You see?” Caitlin smiled and brushed her mouth over his. “That’s just what my brothers would say.”
“Is it,” he said, after a minute.
“You sound just like them. Even your voice has the same timbre.” She smiled and touched the tip of her nose to his. “So?”
“So?”
“So, I’ve told you about me. Now I want to hear about you.”
A muscle knotted in Tyler’s jaw. “There’s not much to tell.”
Caitlin grinned. “Mr. Kincaid is the founder of Kincaid Incorporated,” she said smugly, “which is based in Atlanta, Georgia. He serves on the board of several major corporations and he is honorary chairman of—”
To her absolute delight, Tyler blushed.
“Hell,” he muttered, “you read that stupid brochure my PR department put out.” He drew back, glared at her from under his brows. “How’d you get your hands on that?”
“Never underestimate a country girl, Mr. Kincaid.” Caitlin laughed softly. “I turned on my computer, went out on the internet and looked you up.”
He grinned. “Did you,” he said softly.
“Yes. Yesterday. After you almost gave poor Leighton apoplexy with one look, I figured it might be a good idea to know just who I was up against, Kincaid.”
She caught her breath as he slid his hands under the blanket and stroked them over her flesh.
“What a fine idea, McCord.”
“Looking you up on the net?” she said, and shuddered as his fingers brushed over her breasts.
“Being up against me,” he murmured, and cupped the back of her head. “Come here, McCord, and kiss me.”
She did, and before her heart could take a second beat, the kiss went from soft and gentle to passionate and exciting.
“Tyler,” she whispered.
“Cait.” He turned her in his arms so she was facing him. The blanket slipped, unnoticed, from her shoulders. Sunlight bathed her skin with gold. Travis felt as if a fist were clenching around his heart. “Cait,” he whispered, “take me inside you.”
He watched her face change, watched her eyes darken, her mouth soften as he sought entrance. She smiled, a smile as old as Eve: “Yes,” she sighed, “oh, yes.”
Slowly, slowly, she impaled herself on his rigid length, taking him deep, filling herself with him, feeling her womb constrict as her soul took flight.
I love you, she thought, Tyler, I love you…but his mouth was on hers, his hands were on her hips, he was guiding her in this slow, lush dance, in steps her blood had always known.
And she lost herself in his embrace.
Afterward, he held her close while his breathing slowed and the earth steadied on its axis.
She was warm in his arms, as warm as a kitten basking in the sun, and just as pliant.
He stroked her hair and tried to make sense of what was happening to him.
He’d always been successful with women. There was no boastfulness in admitting it to himself. The simple fact was that there’d never been a woman he’d wanted that he hadn’t been able to have.
But something else was happening here.
Each time he looked at Caitlin, each time he touched her, he felt…Tyler closed his eyes. That was the problem. He didn’t know what he felt. It was as if something were stretching and stirring inside him.
And it scared the hell out of him..
He was thirty-five years old. He’d built an empire with nothing but his own sweat and skill; he’d run the rapids on Alaska’s wildest rivers. He’d skydived, skied mountains without trails and gone spelunking in caves that stretched for miles—and he was terrified of whatever it was his heart was trying to signal to him about a woman he’d only met a week ago.
A woman who was the stepdaughter of the man he was determined to destroy.
Tyler looked down at Caitlin, nestled so sweetly in his arms. He had to tell her the truth. Who he was. Why he’d come here.
What he was going to do.
His mouth thinned.
God, he couldn’t. It was too soon. How could he lay his life out to her that way? “I’m not Tyler Kincaid,” he’d say. “I’m a man named John Smith. My mother is dead, my father is Jonas Baron but he refuses to admit it, and when I was younger, I did some things…”
His throat closed.
He’d never told those things to anyone. Those things had happened to John Smith. He was Tyler Kincaid. How could he even consider dumping all that on Caitlin? They’d only known each other for a short while, been lovers for a night.
And yet—and yet, if miracles were real, if magic could happen, if she felt what he felt…
“Tyler?”
He smiled, gathered her close as she sighed and stirred in his arms.
“Yes, love.”
“Tyler.” Her breath whispered against his throat; she kissed his damp skin, tasted it with the tip of her tongue. “I just wanted to say your name.”
Tell her, he thought fiercely, tell her it’s a name you created…
“And—and to tell you that I’ve never—I’ve never been so happy.” She gave a little laugh and tilted her head back, so she could see his face. “If I had any feminine wiles at all, I’d know better than to tell you that.”
He bent his head, caught her mouth with his and kissed her. “Cait,” he murmured.
“I like it when you call me that. No one ever has.” She smiled against his lips. “You know how I feel, Tyler?”
“As if your life is just beginning,” he said, sliding his thumbs along her cheekbones. “As if this dawn is the start of the rest of your life.”
“Yes! Yes, that’s right. Oh, Tyler, I want—I want—”
“I know you do.” Tyler framed her face with his hands. “But first, sweet Cait, I have things to tell you.”
“Me, too.” She sat up in his lap, her eyes glowing. “Something wonderful happened last night.”
Tyler chuckled. “It certainly did.”
Caitlin laughed and pu
t her hands on his shoulders. “I mean, before I got here. Jonas called me into the library. He said he had something to tell me. That’s when he told me you were going away.”
“Now the woman admits it,” he said softly, teasingly, filling his soul with the sight of her. “The old man told you I was leaving, and that made you happy?”
“Hush.” She kissed him again, sat back and gave him a worried look. “Don’t even joke about it. That part almost tore my heart out.”
Tyler took a deep breath. “That’s what I need to tell you, Cait. About why I came to Espada—and why I’m not leaving.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I don’t?”
“No, of course not. You bought a home here. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t intend to stay in Texas. And no matter what Jonas pretends, I know you’re not the sort of man who’d knuckle under to his bullying.” Caitlin moistened her lips. “I don’t know what the trouble is between you, but I do know you won’t run away from it.”
Tyler linked his hands together at the base of her spine.
“That’s right, Cait. I won’t. I can’t. I have business to settle with Jonas Baron, and until I do, I’m not going anywhere. Sweetheart, I know you think he’s been good to you. Well, maybe he has, in his own selfish way, although how you can still believe it after he’s told you, bluntly, that you’re, hell, I don’t know, less valuable to him because you don’t carry Baron blood—”
“That’s what I have to tell you. That’s all changed.”
“Changed?” Tyler repeated. “How has it changed?”
But he knew. Even before Caitlin said the words, he knew.
“Jonas changed his mind. He’s decided to will Espada to me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOUR days.
Four days had gone by since she’d spent the night in Tyler’s arms.
Caitlin knew how much time had elapsed not only to the hour but to the minute, just as she knew how many times she’d thought about Tyler, wanted him, longed for him.
Now, she was starting to know how much she hated him.
The Taming of Tyler Kincaid Page 15
