She was so uncannily close to his thoughts that it shook him. “I wasn’t looking to be healed.”
“I know. You’re not even willing to let it start. You can’t do that until you think you deserve to heal.”
“When did you become an armchair psychologist?” he snapped, telling himself he was on edge because his body wasn’t listening to his mind, not because she was hitting too close to home.
She smiled, a sad little smile that made him wish he could pull back the sharp words. He stood up suddenly, lifting a hand to plow his fingers through his hair. She didn’t move or speak, and finally he turned to her.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Me, too. I’m sure the last thing you want or need from me is advice.”
His mouth twisted. “Let’s not start talking about what I want from you.”
If she noticed his omission of the word “need” she didn’t react. “Why not?”
A harsh, compressed breath escaped him. He turned away from her, standing as she had, staring out the window. “For your own good.”
He sensed rather than saw her get up. “Why don’t you let me worry about what’s good for me?”
He whirled around on her then, stalking over to tower over her. And again she didn’t move, didn’t back away. Which only, he thought angrily, proved his point.
“Because you don’t, damn it! You charge ahead without a second thought. Last night in the barn, and again this morning, following that car alone—”
“But I thought he was the one who killed—”
“Exactly! You thought he’d already killed three horses, but you took off after him anyway! What if you’d been right and he’d decided to kill you to keep you quiet? How do you think Hobie would feel?”
“Hobie would have gone after him, too,” she protested, although it sounded a little halfhearted.
“Fine,” Cole growled out. “You’re both certifiable.”
She looked at him a moment before she said quietly, “You came after me.”
He reached out and grabbed her shoulders. “Because I didn’t want to go to another funeral, especially yours! I—” He broke off, realizing he was practically shouting. His jaw clenched in his effort to control his voice. “Damn it, Tory, I couldn’t take that. Anything else, but not that.”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide and still glistening from her earlier tears. Or new ones. Cole couldn’t tell. She lifted a hand to slowly, with a feather-light touch, caress his cheek. Cole closed his eyes as a shiver of heated sensation rippled through him. He tried to stop, but couldn’t help himself. He turned his head to press his lips against her palm. She didn’t pull away. And he felt that sensation of heat again, only this time it caught, swiftly, as the fire he’d tamped down earlier flared up anew at her touch.
“Where’s Hobie?”
He was already nearly lost in the haze that seemed to overtake him every time they touched, and her soft question startled him. “What?”
“Hobie. Where is he?”
“I...” He shook his head to clear it, but she kept touching him, and it only worked marginally well. “He...he said he was feeling better, so he took Buck out for a ride.” Cole’s brow furrowed as he added, “Said he knew when to make himself scarce, but he’d be back by dark.”
“Oh, he does know.” She smiled, a soft, age-old, womanly smile. Her hand slid around to the back of his neck, and her fingers tangled in the thick hair at his nape. “And dark is a couple of hours from now,” she whispered.
“I know.” The import of that smile—and Hobie’s odd words—hit him at the same time his body surged to attention once more at the feel of her fingers in his hair. “Tory...?”
“Could we try someplace more comfortable this time?”
Cole shuddered first at her words, and again as her fingers began to trace fiery little circles over the sensitive skin at his nape, sending a burst of heat racing down his spine. He grabbed her hand to stop the touch that had his already-far-too-ready body beginning to pulse with need.
“You’re charging in without thinking again,” he warned, his voice hoarse. “You’ll be sorry.”
“I took the biggest risk of my life with you last night,” she said simply. “I’m not sorry. Even if you walk away tomorrow, I won’t ever be sorry.”
She was offering him exactly what he wanted, with no strings attached. So why, Cole wondered, was he so damned ambivalent about it? Why did he want to shake her, and tell her she was a fool for settling for what little he had in him to give? Why the hell did he keep wishing there was more? He’d never cared before, had resigned himself to being alone with his haunted dreams. Kyra had, unintentionally, made him even more certain of it. He wasn’t fit for anyone, but especially not someone like Tory.
But then she lifted herself up on tiptoe to press her lips softly to his. And in that instant, when the fire only she had ever roused in him flared anew, he learned something else about himself: no matter how wrong he knew it was, he didn’t have the strength to say no to this woman. With the barest of touches, the softest of kisses, she owned him.
He was halfway up the stairs with Tory cradled in his arms before he even realized the decision had been made. He barely had the presence of mind to remember the box of condoms in his room before he carried her into hers. The way she looked at him as she took out one of the foil packets made him remember what she’d said about putting it on him, and he groaned, low and harsh with anticipation.
He wanted it to be different this time, to make up to her for his haste, his frenzy, for taking her on a damn desk with little thought for her comfort. But need was surging through him, nearly doubling him over with its power, and he felt as if his entire body was clenching, trembling, already so close to explosion that he seriously doubted his ability to hold back at all.
His hands shook as he undressed her, and the way she shyly let him only added to his fervor. He couldn’t help staring; she was so beautiful, her body rounded and feminine, yet taut and fit from simple hard work. Naked, she sat on the bed and scooted back to make room for him, her eyes never leaving his face despite the color rising in her cheeks. That combination of modesty and eagerness made him stifle another groan, and he stripped off his own clothes hastily.
He felt her gaze on him, and for the first time in his life he had doubts. He’d never taken credit for the way women responded to him. The structure of his body and features were a gift—or curse—of birth, nothing more. He knew that Tory knew that, in the same way she knew the most beautiful of horses sometimes lacked the heart to be great. And he realized he was scared to death that she’d look at him and see that he lacked that same kind of heart.
Then she reached out, her arm raised in an invitation he could no more have denied than he could have stopped breathing. He went down into her embrace with the knowledge that his legs wouldn’t have held him much longer anyway.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered to her, and proceeded to indulge himself in a leisurely exploration of her body, stroking, caressing, first with his hands, then his mouth. He teased her nipples to rigid sensitivity, then suckled her until she cried out. He parted the sandy curls between her thighs and stroked gently until she moaned and her hips began to move. Then he trailed his mouth over her belly to that same place, savoring her cry at the first touch of his lips and tongue.
He lingered, loving the taste of her, and the way she gasped every time his tongue flicked over that tiny knot of nerve endings. He stayed until he knew from her tiny little moans and the slick readiness of her flesh that she was as close as he had been. Only then did he stop and slide off her to lie on his side next to her. He lay still for a moment, not daring to touch her again, painfully aroused by her fiery response to his touch and trying to rein himself in once more.
After a moment Tory raised herself up on one elbow. “Cole?” she asked, in a tiny, confused voice.
“You didn’t have much choice about what happened last night, or how,”
he said. “I was too...” He had to swallow tightly before he could go on. “I was just taking. Now the choice is all yours.”
Her eyes widened, and her breath seemed to catch as she looked at him. Her gaze slid down his body, and color crept once more into her cheeks as she realized what he meant.
“I... I don’t...”
I’m not a virgin...not physically, anyway.
Her words that day by the spring came back to him now, and he only now realized what she had meant. Whatever her experience had been, it obviously hadn’t included much in the way of her own choice in matters. He became even more determined that this time would be different. This much, at least, he could do for her. At least he thought he could; when she lifted her gaze, still wide-eyed and wondering, he wasn’t so sure.
“Whatever you want, Tory,” he whispered. “This time is for you.”
The moment she moved, the moment she began to do as he had done, to run her hands over every inch of him, he knew he’d overestimated his powers of restraint. She touched, she explored, she stroked, rousing sensations that made him wonder if his heart was going to hammer its way out of his chest. She traced a path from the line of his jaw, down the cords of his neck, over his chest—flicking his nipples in a way that made him jump—then down over his belly until the deep muscles there rippled involuntarily.
Her hand slid around his side to delicately trace the web of intersecting ridges of tissue left on his lower back by shards of glass and bits of metal that had been propelled into him like shrapnel. She followed the caress with a slow, soft trail of kisses that made him forget the haunting memory that had risen up when she’d first touched the scars.
Every time she paused, every time she moved to some part of him that shouldn’t have been—never had been—so sensitive, her caress made him shiver, until his hands were knotting the quilt beneath him in his effort not to grab her and drive into her with every bit of his barely leashed urgency.
When her lips brushed over his distended flesh he choked back a shout, but was unable to stop the convulsive buck of his hips. She paused, as if uncertain, then did it again, and then tasted him with a loving curiosity and sweet gentleness that this time ripped that throttled shout from him.
When at last she opened the foil envelope and fulfilled her promise, she made it one of the most arousing things he’d ever had done to him, extending her caresses far beyond the simply donning of protection. At last he had to stop her, reaching down and dragging her hands away.
“In about another ten seconds,” he growled, “that’s going to be academic.”
She blushed, and the color deepened when he grasped her around the waist and lifted her over him. But when she felt the first probing touch of him, her expression changed, changed to a look so ardent that he nearly lost it right there. He let go suddenly. He raised his arms above his head on the bed, and locked his hands around the headboard’s crossbar. Tory’s gaze flew to his face.
“Take me,” he grated, every muscle in his body thrumming with the building pressure. “Like I took you last night.”
He meant it. And the fact astounded him. He wanted her to do it, to be as wild—as out of control—as he had been. He needed to know she was, that it wasn’t just him, and he didn’t care what the significance of that was, not now, not while she was hovering over him, naked and flushed and beautiful, not when he could see the rigid thrust of her nipples, still wet from his mouth, not when the tip of his aching shaft was nearly inside her, already throbbing from the sheer heat of her. Not when—
She moved then, suddenly, taking him in with one swift lunge of her hips. Her name burst from his lips as she suddenly enveloped him in her hot, caressing flesh, and he bucked violently upward, driving himself into her to the hilt. She cried out, not in pain but in sheer, wondering pleasure, and the sound ripped through him, tearing away walls he’d spent years building.
She rode him, hard and fierce and joyously. It was all there in her face, along with something else Cole couldn’t deny and knew he should have known long ago. She loved him. She would never tell him, knowing he didn’t want to hear it, but in these moments of intimate power, all masks were down.
In the instant he realized it, her body arched atop him, her head went back and she cried out his name. He felt the sudden clenching of her inner muscles, tightening around him, drawing him up into the fire with her. He let go, his hands grabbing her hips to grind her harder against him. She writhed atop him, and he thrust upward again and again, no longer caring that he was again out of control.
And then he rose up off the bed to clutch at her as he felt the explosion begin, searing him so deeply all he could do was hold on and ride it out, groaning her name with every boiling pulse of his body.
Moments later, still locked together, they fell back on the bed, Cole at last surrendering to the urge he’d been fighting so long, to just take Tory in his arms and hold on. She clung to him, as if welcoming even this tiny sign of need from him.
If you only knew, he thought, at last admitting that this was far more than he’d ever meant it to be, far deeper, far stronger, and he knew he’d hit that crossroads he’d been fearing. And he didn’t know what he was going to do about it.
But for now, this was enough. Just to hold her, just to feel her nestled against him so sweetly as she drifted into the sleep they both needed. And if he couldn’t stop from wishing for an endless string of times like this, he had only himself to blame. And only himself to blame for being such a fool that he went to sleep thinking it might be possible.
It was much later, when darkness had descended on the ranch, that the gunshot woke him.
Cole jerked upright in Tory’s bed. Small caliber. Probably a .22. Rifle. Firing a long rifle round, judging by the slightly muffled popping sound. Hobie’s, he thought.
Cole’s mind absorbed and cataloged the information in the first two seconds, in the same time span he registered that it was full dark and he must have slept for at least a couple of hours.
And then the realization came that wiped all the rest from his mind: he was alone. Tory was gone.
Chapter 17
Panic seized him, knotting his stomach. He didn’t have time for it, or for the realization it brought to him about his feelings for her. So, for the first time in five years, he didn’t fight it, he acknowledged it. Admitted he was afraid. Afraid of what could happen, afraid that he wouldn’t be good enough, or fast enough to stop it. And then he ignored it. Detached himself from it. He would deal with it later. Right now only one thing mattered. Tory.
He made himself move, yanking on his jeans and boots. He started down the stairs at a run, gave up halfway and went over the railing, landing in the living room with an impact he felt from ankles to hips. He ignored it and kept going.
The shot had come from outside, toward the barn. He resisted the urge to head straight toward it, and quartered around from the west, toward the foothills, where he wouldn’t stand out against the night sky. He ran, hunkered over, but still moving as fast as he could. His heart was slamming against his ribs, and he knew it had nothing to do with exertion. If anything happened to Tory...
He nearly tripped over Rocky, who was crouching near the closed barn door, tail twitching furiously as he stared at the wood as if he could see through it, and didn’t like what he was seeing. Cole swore silently as he recovered his balance, and crept a few feet farther on to where Mac’s run jutted out from his stall, through the barn wall. The outer stall door was still closed, sealing the horse outside in the summer warmth, but there was a small opening in the upper half, and he’d be able to see into the barn.
He went up and over the pipe railing in one step and a leap, sacrificing a bit of speed for silence. Mac nickered softly, and Cole froze, waiting. He could hear voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. But one of the voices was female. Again that nauseating fear rose up inside him. Again he didn’t try to fight it down. He let it rise, and simply ignored it.
; Slowly he crept forward, and slowly rose to peer through the opening.
It was a scene from his nightmares. Worse, because this time it was Tory, her face bruised, a brawny arm across her throat as a dark-haired, stocky man he’d never seen before held her helpless. And had a small automatic pistol jammed against her temple.
Not the gun he’d heard, Cole knew instantly. The blue-steel little gun looked more like a .380, not much for stopping power at any distance, but that would hardly matter to Tory if he fired it now. So the rifle was somewhere else. Had Tory had it, and dropped it or had it taken away when she’d found the intruder? Or had Hobie had it? And where was he?
He waited for the panic as the old deadly formula seemed to have been fulfilled. It didn’t come. The detachment held. Only then did he realize he was reacting automatically, as if at the sight of Tory in such danger everything except what he needed to function had shut down. The sweat, the hammering of his heart, even the fear didn’t even register now; all that mattered was Tory.
Rocky yowled softly from near his feet. It was a measure of the cat’s upset that he took a rare swipe at Cole’s boots now, while he was in them. Cole wanted to hush the animal, but was afraid of being heard. Mac wasn’t so careful; he snorted at the cat, laying his ears back. The man holding Tory looked up.
He had to move now. The man was getting nervous. Cole could see it in his eyes, in the sheen of sweat on his face. And nervous men did stupid things.
Swiftly he went back over the top rail and around to the tack room. Rocky, cutting under the pipe fence, was there before him, almost tangling with his feet again. Dodging the persistent cat, he grabbed a heavy rasp and jammed it into his back pocket. He spotted the shearling jacket he’d thrown in the corner, grabbed it and put it on. He swiftly stuffed a sharp leather awl in one pocket, and a sawtooth curry blade, bent double and fastened, into the other. He didn’t like the idea of having to get close enough to use any of his makeshift weapons, not when the man had a gun on Tory, but they were all he had. Then he went back to the barn door.
Out of the Dark Page 21
