When he glanced in her direction again, she could tell he meant the words.
“I have,” she quickly reassured him. “Zach has been great, and he really cares about his horses.”
Jillian snorted. Mariah shot her a glare.
“Let’s be nice to him,” she told her friends.
“I’ll be nice if he stops racing horses,” Kathy said.
Zach’s gaze found Kathy, his eyes instantly apologetic. “I can’t do that.”
“Mmm-hmm,” hummed Kathy, sounding anything but understanding. She tipped her chin up and flicked her long gray braid over a shoulder. “That’s what I thought.”
His “let’s be friends” smile slipped a bit. “Look.” He peered around the room. “I know you think I’m a horrible person, but I’m really not. As I explained to Mariah when we first met, I don’t send my retired racehorses to a local auction—”
“Retired?” Kathy interjected. “Don’t you mean broke down?”
Zach leaned back in his chair. “No.” He met Kathy’s stare head-on. “I actually do retire them. If a horse doesn’t have the speed I need, I don’t race them. I call a buddy of mine who will work with them for a week or two and then we send them to a reputable auction that specializes in reselling racehorses.”
He did? She hadn’t known that.
“Oh, please.” Janice, who was seated next to Kathy, was the second-most-outspoken person in the group. “As if the meat buyers never attend auctions.”
“They don’t attend this auction. It’s up north, and the price the horses sell for are far too rich for the meat man’s blood. They avoid this auction like the plague.”
“So you think,” Kathy said.
“Go ahead and look it up. They post the sale prices online.”
“And how many horses do you have to ‘retire’ each year?” Janice asked sarcastically.
“I only breed a few horses a year.”
“That’s three more than necessary.” This time it was Patty who spoke, her hair as dark as her eyes. “That’s the problem. You breed four. Someone else breeds five. One of your competitors breeds ten and before you know it, there’s hundreds of unwanted racehorses out there that aren’t fast enough to race and don’t have the right mentality to be ridden for pleasure because all you want them to do is go, go, go. So what happens then? You dump them.”
Mariah felt her stomach sink. Patty was right. Why did she have such a hard time remembering that?
“No, I don’t—”
“An auction is dumping them,” Kathy snapped.
“Call it what you will,” Janice added. “You’re being irresponsible.”
“How do you know your horses are going to good homes?” Patty asked. “Do you follow the trailer home?”
There were nods all around the room and for the first time Mariah felt bad. She’d known her friends might give her a hard time, but she hadn’t expected them to attack him.
“Look.” She shot up from her chair. “We all know there are problems. We know things need to change. That’s why I wanted Zach here, so he could give us his side of the story. And at least he showed up to talk to us, unlike the other racehorse owners we’ve invited in the past.”
She held each gaze in the room. Vicky, the teenager, was the only one who smiled encouragingly.
“So instead of putting him on the spot, let’s pick his brain. See what he can come up with as far as a solution. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited. He could be our secret weapon. Our one chance to actually be heard. Don’t you guys feel like me? Aren’t you tired of being thought of as the crazy horse-hugging CEASE person.”
They had the good grace to appear chagrined. Kathy looked away for a moment. One by one they softened their expressions. It was Vicky who truly broke the ice, jumping up from her chair and holding out her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Zach. I’m Vicky.”
Everyone else followed suit, some of them, like Kathy and Janice, more reluctantly than others, but they welcomed Zach, too. When they finished, she met Zach’s gaze. He smiled and mouthed the words Thank you.
You’re welcome, she silently told him back.
And she knew. She just knew—she didn’t just like Zach. She liked him a lot.
And it scared her to death.
Chapter Twelve
She was quiet.
Zach told himself that was because it was dark outside and she had to concentrate on the road.
The meeting had lasted another two hours after Mariah’s “be kind to Zach” speech, the memory of which made Zach smile. She’d been ferocious in her defense of him, almost as fierce as she’d been defending the horses to the board of directors, and it made him feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside.
“I’ll want my own CEASE T-shirt,” he teased.
She glanced at him sharply. The light from his porch shone inside the cab, highlighting her ringlets and setting them aglow.
“Just kidding.”
She smirked, and he smiled. He’d loved watching her talk to her group, had enjoyed the way her face had lit up when they’d talked about writing a mission statement, something they could present to the Golden Downs board of directors. He’d given his opinion when he could. Gradually, the group had lightened up and Zach could tell Mariah had been relieved. So had he. He’d been worried for a moment that her friends might disown her.
When they pulled up in front of his home, she turned to him and said, “Thanks for coming.” She wouldn’t look at him. She stared straight ahead, hands clutching the wheel, face tense.
“You want to come in for a sec?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yup.”
He wanted to kiss her. He’d been wanting to kiss her since that night at the Turf Club.
“I’m really not a bad person.”
She turned to him quickly. “I know that.”
“I don’t know if we, I mean your friends and I, could ever see eye to eye, but I hope so. I am first and foremost a horse person.”
He saw her lips part. She looked away, then back at him again, as if weighing within herself the words she wanted to say. “I know.”
“Have a good night.” He popped the door open.
She caught his hand before he could move. He looked over at her, startled.
“Your horses are lucky to have you as an owner.”
It was a compliment of the highest order and it warmed him through and through, so much so that he did what he’d been dying to do. He leaned across the seat, placed a hand behind her head and pulled her toward him.
“Zach—”
And he kissed her. Hard.
She tried to draw away, placed a hand against his chest, but only for a moment, a nanosecond, really, because it zapped to life, the connection, the current of electricity that ran between them, and it damn near blew his socks off. When their tongues touched, the electricity came to life. She moaned. Or maybe he did. Didn’t matter. It was as if he couldn’t get enough of her, needed to angle his head so he could kiss her more deeply, felt his nerve endings fire to life when she sagged against him and kissed him back. The hand that’d been pressing against him softened.
Bucket seats. He hated them. A damn center console sat between them. He pulled back, cupped her head, looked into her eyes. “I want to keep on kissing you.”
She blinked, the glow of her dash lights revealing her flushed face. “I know.”
“But we shouldn’t.”
“I know.”
“But I can’t seem to stop myself.”
“Then don’t.” She blinked. “Stop, I mean.”
It was all the incentive he needed. This time he held nothing back. This time he let himself go, his hand finding her breast, Mariah arching in
to him as he caressed her. He wanted to taste her, all of her, his mouth slipping off her own and finding her jawline, then her neck. Zach managed to untuck her shirt, lift the edge and expose the lacy fabric of her bra. The damn console might cut into his midsection as he leaned over, but he didn’t care as his tongue slid down her cleavage, his other hand nudging the fabric aside. His whole body ignited, the sight of her nipple turning him on, causing him to shake with pure need. He captured the tip, teasing it into a hard nub, loving the sweet taste of her.
“Zach.” She arched into him.
He attacked the second nipple with the same vigor. When he’d finished teasing both of them into hard points, he drew back and enjoyed the sight of pert breasts standing at his attention, tips still glossy from his mouth. She met his gaze and he smiled.
“Let’s go inside.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because... Because.” Her mouth hung open for a second. “We’re all wrong for each other.”
“No, we’re not.” He bent and then captured her right nipple again. He tasted the end of it, then moved to the other. He lifted his head and said, “This is all right.”
“Zach...”
He began lowering his head, his mouth skating along the surface of her breastbone and then her abdomen, pressing against her, asking her to lean back. She did. Somehow her right leg slid beneath the steering wheel and somehow, despite the car’s limited room, he found himself nipping the waistband of her jeans, his mouth traveling lower until he found it—found the heat emanating from beneath her jeans.
“Oh,” she moaned.
He nuzzled her, pressed his chin into her, then his mouth, listened to her ragged breathing and knew she was close to losing it.
And then he stopped.
He caught a glimpse of her face just before he left the vehicle. He was around to the driver’s side before she could get back into a sitting position. His hand found the door latch, opened it. She almost tumbled from the car. He caught her, helped her to stand, propped her up against her car.
“We’re going inside.”
She stared up at him. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t know,” she all but wailed back. “I think—” He saw her swallow. “I think I’m scared.”
“I am, too.”
Her lips parted. “You are?”
He pressed against her, his body making contact with her own. “I am. But this.” He kissed her again but only for a moment. “And this.” He dropped a hand between them, picking up where his mouth left off, his palm cupping her. “This reassures me that what we’re doing is right.”
His lips found her neck. She sagged against him. He grabbed her hand, tugged her toward his house.
And at last she followed.
* * *
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
He led her toward his house, and Mariah told herself to stop, to protest, to do something other than meekly follow in his wake.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because the minute they were through the front door, he turned and kissed her.
It took only that.
The moment their lips connected, the overwhelming desire for him was back. The tingles, the shivers and the white-hot heat that pooled warmed her insides. It didn’t matter who he was. She didn’t care what he did for a living. The man could turn her on.
He moved again. She followed. They entered his room, and for a moment she snapped out of her desire-induced daze.
“Wow.”
She’d stopped by the door without realizing it, simply taking it all in. Massive master bed. Vaulted ceiling. Wide windows overlooked what she could imagine was a spectacular view in the daylight.
“Like I said, my mom had good taste.”
He led her toward the bed, a fluffy white comforter covering the king-size mattress. He went right to the edge, turned to face her and pulled off his shirt, just jerked the thing over his head and tossed it to the floor. He stood in front of her half naked and all she could think was, Oh. My. Gosh.
He was like one of those comic-book superheroes. All sculpted middle and hard parts. Beneath taut, muscular pecs were twin cords of sinew that stretched down to his naval. The traditional six-pack looked more like an eight-pack because a hard square surrounded his belly and stretched toward his groin, a sprinkling of hair covering it all. Even his sides were muscular and bulging.
“Come here.”
She couldn’t move. Funny, she wasn’t afraid of being intimate with him. No. She couldn’t move because he was the damnedest, sexiest thing she’d ever seen and it had rendered her speechless.
“Mariah?”
She looked away, suddenly abashed. He must have taken the gesture for shyness, because he moved toward her and gently cupped her face. His smile was full of compassion.
“I’ll stop now if that’s what you really want.”
Now? After she’d seen him half naked? Was he crazy?
“All you have to do is say the word.”
He was close enough that she could reach out and touch him...if she dared.
“Mariah.”
Her palm made contact with his bare chest. She inhaled sharply.
No one has to know.
And no one would.
Her fingers slid over the ridges of his chest, found his nipple, and she blushed when she felt it turn hard. She thought she heard him hiss. The sound emboldened her. She opened her eyes, ran her thumb around his dusky center, her own body tingling in response.
He unsnapped his jeans.
She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
One minute she was standing near the door, the next he’d guided her to the edge of the bed. He tugged his jeans down, revealing black boxers and the unmistakable swell of his desire. She quickly looked away. Somewhere along the way he’d kicked off his boots, she noticed. When he finished shrugging off his jeans, he grasped the edge of her shirt and suddenly she turned shy. Why hadn’t she lost those five extra pounds? What if when he saw her naked, he changed his mind? Was she wearing granny underwear? Or her cute little bikinis?
Her hair fell around her shoulders as the shirt slipped free. The cool breeze caused her stomach to contract. Or was that because of his gaze? She didn’t have time to analyze it, because his hand found her naked shoulder. He slid the straps of her bra off, first one shoulder and then the other—slowly, seductively. He stepped forward, their skin grazing as he reached around her and unsnapped her bra. His head lowered and then...
Oh, heaven.
His mouth. It grazed her neck and it did something to her. Every time he kissed her, she went up in flames. This was a man she used to watch from a distance. A drop-dead gorgeous man. Out of her league, and he was kissing her and touching her, and his body—his hard, taut upper body—was against her own, and it turned her on.
She sagged onto the bed. He followed her down and when his mouth caught her nipple, she arched into him hard. How could something so wrong feel so right? How did she get here? In bed with him? The enemy. His teeth played her and teased and she really didn’t care who he was and how incompatible they were for each other, because he’d started to tug her jeans down and she wanted more than his mouth—she wanted him.
His mouth moved lower, as did his hands, tugging the waistband down. Bikini. She wore bikini underwear. Oh, thank God.
“Lift,” he ordered.
She did as instructed. Her boots slid off with her pants and socks; Zach tossed everything on the floor. She had a moment then. A moment when every ounce of self-confidence faded away. She lay there, staring up at him, wondering what he saw. Did he spot the scar from her appendectomy? Did he see the cellulite on her thighs? Would he find her lacking?
“You’re beautiful.”
His head began to lower and she knew this was it. No more recriminations. No more worries. No more thinking.
His lips were soft, his hand even softer as it skated up her side. She needed no more prompting from him. She wanted to taste him again. She wanted to absorb his essence. To become a part of him. Their tongues tangled. She tried to get closer, but the minute she moved he pulled his lips away.
“Stay still.”
She didn’t want to stay still. Just that one kiss had her panting, had her wiggling and moving and wishing for more, but then she felt his hand there, down there, and she gasped. Okay. This would do, too. He cupped her. Her hips jerked up. He went back to kissing her, only something changed. Gone was the softness. He kissed her hard, his tongue insistent, as was his hand. She gave herself up to it all, her legs opening. He dragged a finger up her center and she honestly didn’t think she could take it. She wanted more, so much more, but the minute she moved, he stopped kissing her again.
“Still,” he warned.
No. She didn’t want to be still. She wanted to squirm and wiggle and jerk her hips up and bring their two centers together, but, oh, it was such sweet torture not to move. His mouth returned and so did his hand and she grew dizzy with wanting but every time she shifted, he’d stop. She quickly learned to stay still and it drove her insane. It also turned her on like nothing she’d ever felt before.
He was playing her, she realized, expertly working her into a frenzy, and she let him because she wanted what he had to give so dang much.
His fingers slid beneath the fabric of her underwear. He found her valley. Both his tongue and his finger plunged deep and a million sparks exploded behind her eyes. Her hips came off the bed of their own volition, only this time he didn’t tell her to stay still. This time he let her cry out and move and glide up against his hand and she was falling, falling...
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