Chloe’s blood heated in response, and she had one quick moment to be grateful she’d gone shopping especially for the party. Her dress was midnight blue silk, shot through with silver threads. It clung to her body and fell straight to the floor. There was a side slit that went high on her right thigh, and the bodice was cut low and supported by two slim straps over her shoulders. The back was a deep vee, and the soft Texas air caressed her skin as she stood there with his eyes on her.
“You look...beautiful.”
His voice was soft, almost lost in the surrounding noise of dozens of conversations.
“Thank you. You look amazing.” Just honest, she thought, enjoying the sight of him in that elegant tuxedo. The black Stetson he wore only added to the whole picture.
Nodding, he mused, “Seems like a nice party.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You hate it.”
“True,” he said with a shrug, “but it seems nice enough.”
“Honestly, I’m bored to tears,” she admitted, letting her gaze slide around the lawn. “I’m here for Ellen, though I don’t think she’s even noticed me yet.”
“I don’t know how she could miss you.”
Chloe slid her gaze to his and saw passion glittering in the depths of his eyes. Her body stirred in response, but her heart ached, because passion wasn’t enough anymore.
For the last few days, she’d been struggling with a hard truth that had somehow slipped up on her. She was falling in love with this hardheaded cowboy. A man who didn’t respect her abilities. Who thought because she was a rich man’s daughter, she was incapable of being more.
And that broke her heart.
“I don’t think I like what I’m seeing in your eyes,” he said. A waiter stopped to offer a tray of champagne flutes, but Liam waved him off.
“What is it you think you see?”
Frowning, he said, “In a word, disappointment.”
“Good catch.” Strange that he could see that in her eyes, but he couldn’t see the love she had for him. A loose strand of hair fell from the messy bun knotted at the back of her head and impatiently, she tucked it behind her ear. “Liam—”
“You’re wrong,” he said quietly.
Curious, she asked, “About what?”
He inhaled sharply. “About what I think of you.”
Sadly, she wasn’t. “Oh, I think you were pretty clear the other day.”
“I was pissed,” he confessed. “Said some things I shouldn’t have.”
Stunned, she stared up at him. “If that’s an apology, it’s not very good,” she told him.
“Yeah, it’s not an apology.”
“Oh, great. Well, thanks for stopping by.” Chloe looked across the yard and watched her little sister throw herself into Brad’s arms.
Whatever Chloe might think of Ellen’s upcoming marriage, at least her sister had found someone who loved her. That put her miles ahead of Chloe.
“Here’s something I haven’t told you enough,” he said softly. “You’ve done a hell of a job, Chloe.”
She turned her head to look at him. “Is that right?”
“It is. You stood up and I didn’t think you could. You did the work and didn’t bitch about it.”
“That’s practically Shakespeare, Liam.” Her lips twitched. He wouldn’t apologize, but he would compliment her, however grudgingly.
He smiled, and the action sent ripples of heat rushing through her. “If that’s how you feel, then what’s the problem?” she asked him.
That smile faded. “A lot of stuff I really don’t want to talk about.”
“That doesn’t help me, Liam.”
“Yeah. I know.” Clearly irritated, he pulled his hat off, slapped it against his thigh. “I can’t help that. But damn it, Chloe, we’ve got a few days left of this bargain. You really want to spend them fighting?”
Well, he had her there. No, she didn’t want to fight with him anymore. She hated being in the guest room. Hated not talking to him, not feeling his arms come around her. Hated waking up and reaching across an empty bed for him.
He was watching her. Waiting. She could feel the tension between them like a pounding heartbeat. He was right. In a few days, this bargain would be done, and who knew what would happen then? Did she really want to cheat herself out of whatever time she had left with him?
“No,” she said finally, going with her heart. If she listened to her head, it would tell her that nothing could be solved by pretending everything was all right. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Thank God.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her in close.
She laughed a little and asked, “Are we going to dance?”
“Not in this lifetime. I don’t dance.” But he held her as if they were dancing and turned in a slow circle beneath the white fairy lights. And as the light and shadow played across his features, Chloe took that last slide into love.
In that moment she knew, however their bargain ended, nothing would ever be the same for her again.
* * *
Back at his cabin, they walked into his bedroom together, darkness shattered only by the moonlight streaming through the windows. Liam closed the door behind them, then turned to her. He slid the straps of her gown off her shoulders and pushed the bodice down, exposing her breasts to the coolness of the room. Her nipples hardened and he smiled.
“I’ve missed the taste of you,” he whispered, and bent to take first one nipple then the other into his mouth. Chloe stood there, hands on his shoulders to maintain her balance, while the world tipped around her. His lips and tongue and teeth worked her flesh, sending her mind into a tailspin while it handed over control to her body.
“Liam,” she said on a groan, “I’m going to fall over in a minute.”
He straightened up, looked down into her eyes and said, “I can fix that.” Sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her to the bed and laid her down on the mattress. “Just stay right there.”
There was nowhere else she wanted to be, Chloe thought, running her own hands up and down her torso, cupping her breasts while he watched her through hungry eyes. He tore off his tuxedo jacket, tie and shirt, then knelt in front of her and pulled her hips to the edge of the bed.
“Liam?”
“Like I said,” he whispered, “I missed the taste of you.”
He flipped her midnight silk gown out of the way and smiled when he realized she hadn’t been wearing underwear. “Well now, if I’d known this, we might not have made it back to the cabin.”
She smiled. “I didn’t want any lines to show under my dress.”
“Well, I’m a big fan of fashion, then.” His thumb stroked that teardrop birthmark on the inside of her right thigh, then moved higher, closer to the burning, throbbing core of her.
Chloe held her breath and parted her thighs for him. Expectation roared into life inside her, and her breath staggered in her lungs.
He stroked her heat, dipped his fingers into her depths, then caressed her again. And Chloe writhed on the mattress, need building, desire pumping through her system. Helplessly, she rocked her hips, wanting, waiting. Liam kissed his way up her thigh, licking that birthmark that seemed to fascinate him so. And then finally, finally, he took her the way she wanted to be taken.
His mouth covered her, his tongue stroked her folds and his hot breath brushed across her own heat and set a blaze that threatened to consume her. Chloe twisted in his grasp as if trying to escape when she was really trying to get even closer, feel even more. Reaching down, she threaded her fingers through his hair and held his head to her. Letting him know, without speaking, that she loved what he was doing to her. That she never wanted it to end.
She looked down at him and watched him taking her so intimately, and that only fed those dancing flames within. Chloe shifted, moved, rocked, all to ratche
t up the expectation and the tightening coil of pleasure inside. Again and again, he licked her, nibbled at her, then he slipped one finger inside her and the combination was just too much for her.
She couldn’t hold on a moment longer, couldn’t stretch out the pleasure for a second more. When her climax hit, Chloe screamed his name and shuddered with the force of the release shaking her. It seemed to go on and on, and she rode those endless waves with a whimpering shiver.
Liam stood, shucked the rest of his clothes and was on her in an instant. He pushed his body deeply within hers while she was still trembling. Chloe wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to climax again so quickly, but Liam made everything possible.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, taking him as deeply as possible. He looked down into her eyes and she read the hunger there. She matched it, needing him more even than she had a moment ago. With sure, purposeful strokes, he claimed her, pushing her higher and higher until finally, her body exploded again, and this time she took him with her. While she held him close, while they were linked so intimately, they plunged into the shadows and made them shine.
* * *
After a long, satisfying night of sex, Chloe woke up wrapped in Liam’s arms, and just for a moment, she paused to savor it. As wonderful as the night had been, she knew that nothing between them had been solved. Nothing had been talked out or decided.
As intimate as they were, as closely joined, Liam was holding back from her and she didn’t know why.
“I can hear you thinking,” he murmured.
“Yeah.” She glanced out the window to where dawn was just streaking the sky with shades of rose and gold. Soon they’d be up and working, each of them doing what they were supposed to do, neither of them talking about what they were going to do.
And she couldn’t stand it.
Pushing away from him, she went up on one elbow to look down into his eyes. “What’s happening here, Liam?”
He reached to tuck her hair behind her ear. “We had a great night and now it’s morning.”
“Don’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I want to know what’s happening between us.” Cupping his cheek with her palm, she said, “I’m not talking about the camp or the ranch or anything else. Just us.”
He sighed and rolled out of bed. “I’m not doing this now, Chloe.”
“The problem is, you never want to do it.”
Liam glanced at her over his shoulder. “And yet you keep pushing.”
“Of course I do, Liam. I want to know.” Her gaze swept over his hard, tanned body. She knew every line, every scar. And yet, there was so much locked inside him that he was keeping from her.
“Maybe you don’t.” The words were enigmatic and only served to feed her need to hear the truth.
Sitting up, she tugged the sheet high enough to cover her breasts. “Why not? Like you said, we’ve only got a few days left in this bargain, so let’s at least have honesty between us.”
He grabbed a pair of jeans and yanked them on, not bothering to do up the button fly. His hair was too long, and he shoved it back from his face. “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about this’ do you not get?”
“All of it,” she countered. “What part of ‘talk to me anyway,’ do you not get?”
He fired a hard look at her, then stomped out of the room. She knew he was headed for the kitchen. For coffee. So she grabbed his dress shirt from the night before, pulled it on and followed him.
He was standing at the sink, staring out at the ranch and gulping that coffee like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He didn’t even glance at her when she walked into the room. Chloe poured herself a cup of coffee because going into a confrontation without it was just unthinkable. And judging from the set of his shoulders and the hard line of his jaw, this was going to be a battle.
“Tell me,” she demanded. “There’s more going on here than just an issue with me. So why don’t you start with why you hate the wealthy so much. You’re rich, too, remember?”
He slanted her a long look. “I worked for my money.”
Taken completely aback, she stared at him. “And no one else did?”
“Not the same,” he said tightly.
“Then explain it.”
“Fine.” He turned around, braced one hip against the edge of the counter and looked at her over the rim of his coffee mug. “You were born into money. Your father, too, probably.”
“And that’s bad.” It wasn’t a question, because she could see in his eyes that he definitely thought it was a bad thing.
“Not bad. Just easy. You can’t appreciate something if you never had to work for it.” He set his cup down. “I saw those people at the party last night. The women dripping in diamonds and the men standing around bragging to each other about their country clubs or cars or golf scores or whatever the hell else they care about. No one was talking about work.”
“It was a party,” Chloe said, and felt the first wave of frustration rise up to nearly choke her. “People were there to have a good time.”
“And to show off.”
He had a point, but... “For some people that is the good time.”
He snorted and shook his head.
And still she tried to break through whatever wall of silence he’d erected around himself. What they had was ending, and she at least deserved to know why.
“I’m not going to apologize for my family. I’ve already told you that I left that life as soon as I could. I work for a living, remember?”
“For now,” he acknowledged.
Those two words hit a trip wire inside Chloe. She felt the physical snap of the leash holding her temper back. “How do you get to make proclamations about what I’m going to do with my life?”
He snapped her a fiery look, and she knew that he too had reached the point where the truth would spill out or be buried forever. “I’ve seen it before.”
“With who?”
“A woman like you,” he said. “Born to money. Beautiful. Building her own life, she said, and I believed her. And for a while, it was true. Then one day, she decided she’d had enough of playing a role and returned to what she’d always been.”
As infuriating as this revelation was, it was also a relief. Finally, they were getting to the bottom of his inability to see her as a hardworking woman with a mind of her own and dreams to build.
“So I’m being judged by what some other woman did?” Chloe couldn’t believe this. She hadn’t been working to convince him she could do the job. She’d been in competition with a memory—a bad one. And the ghost had won. “Because she was a bitch, all women are the same?”
“Not all women.”
“Just the rich ones,” she said.
“Basically.”
“Right.” Shaking her head at the stupidity of this conversation, when she spoke, her voice carried the heat of her rising temper. “You know, my great-grandfather was a wildcatter. He sunk holes over half of East Texas looking for oil. Meantime, he worked the oil fields, moving from one to the next, taking his family with him. They lived in tents, fished for their dinner and worked hard.”
She was tired of being held up as somehow unworthy of respect because her family had money. Well, they hadn’t always. “He and my great-grandmother had five kids, and still managed to save enough money to buy a piece of land outside Beaumont. Grandpa had a hunch, he always said.” Liam was listening, at least. “They worked that plot of land for a solid year before they struck oil.”
He took a gulp of coffee and nodded. “It’s a good story. And your great-grandfather sounds like a hell of a man. But what’s your point?”
“You’re deliberately stupid,” she snapped, “if you don’t see it. They were a team. My great-grandmother was the one holding the family together while her husband w
orked for their future. Their sons grew the company and their children expanded it. My point is people work for what they have, one way or another. They all do. I do.”
“Yeah, but if things don’t work out for you, there’s always Daddy’s money to fall back on, right? So it cushions the failure.”
Chloe threw both hands up. “You’re impossible. Okay. Answer this. If you do manage to someday find a woman who meets your impeccable standards, what happens if you have kids?”
“What?”
“Well,” she said hotly, “they’ll be born into money. Won’t that automatically make them losers not to be trusted?”
“No,” he countered, “because they won’t be spoiled. Like your sister.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Happily.”
Wow. A fantastic night and a beautiful morning had all gone to hell in an instant. Chloe took a breath and blew it out. She wasn’t going to win this. His features were blank, his eyes shuttered and he might as well have been in another county. A part of Liam had already said goodbye to her. Maybe he’d been saying goodbye since the day they met—she just hadn’t heard him.
“I think I’m done with this ranching experiment,” Chloe said, keeping her gaze squarely on his. “So tell me now. Pass or fail? Do I get that land you promised me? Do I stay here at Sterling’s or are you going to tell him that the cowgirl camp won’t work?”
“You still get the land at my place. I keep my word.”
She tipped her head to one side to stare up at him. “And you won’t one day decide you want something else? Change your mind?”
“No,” he said, obviously insulted she’d think it.
“See,” Chloe told him sadly, “neither would I. The difference between us is, I believe you. I’m willing to take the chance that you won’t suddenly turn on a dime.”
“Chloe—”
“Just stop,” she said, both hands up. “I’m going to go pack. I’ll be gone by this afternoon.”
Wild Ride Rancher Page 13
