Later that night, when she’d shown up on the ranch and cornered him in the barn, he’d tried to remind himself of that. She’d been so sweet to him though. She told him she was sorry and wanted to make it up to him. She wanted him to meet her at the creek that night so they could “talk.” When he didn’t immediately agree, she’d kissed him. It was his first kiss and his first experience with wanting a woman the way a man wants one. There was no way he could say no. That had ultimately turned out to be the worst night of his life.
Kadence had been there when he got there. She kissed him again and let him touch her body. They lay down underneath a tree together, and in the middle of making out she pulled away and said, “We should get in the water.”
“I don’t have my suit,” Reed said innocently.
She smiled wickedly. “You don’t need a suit. It’s just me and you. Let’s go skinny dipping. It’ll be fun.”
“Really?”
She winked at him and pulled off her shirt. Reed stood up and stripped off his clothes faster than he ever had in his life. When he was down to his shorts, she stepped up close and kissed him again, pushing his shorts down as she did. When they were around his ankles, he stepped out of them. She reached down and scooped them up and said, “Go ahead, I’m kind of shy. Once you’re in, I’ll undress behind the tree and join you.”
He didn’t question her. He’d been so innocent and trusting and such a horny adolescent. He waded into the water, and when he was in up to his waist, a bright light suddenly came on from the bridge and flooded the water around him. The light blinded him and he couldn’t see anything as he looked toward it, but he heard them. He heard laughing and whistles and dirty comments. Most of all he heard the sound of Kadence laughing as she said, “Come on, guys, let’s go party. Trust me; there is absolutely nothing to see there.”
The most humiliating part of the night came when he realized she’d taken his clothes. She’d left his wallet and the little flip phone his dad bought him for his birthday lying by the tree. He didn’t have a choice; he couldn’t ride his horse home in the nude. He picked up the phone and called Luke, and the rest was history.
*****
“Kadence got a job today,” he said.
“Really, where at?” Stephanie asked.
“Working for Lena at the Roadhouse while her other waitress is out on leave.”
“Mary Ann.” Stephanie had only been in Texas for eight months, yet she knew more people in town than any of them did. She could talk to anyone about anything. Reed envied her that. “She had a miscarriage last year so they’re being extra careful with this pregnancy. Anyway, I’m digressing, as usual. Congratulations, Kadence, that’s great!”
“Yeah, good for you,” Brad said. Reed hadn’t missed the way his younger brother had been looking at him all night. He knew that he would add to what his mother and Luke already had to say about being with Kadence, but like he had with them, he’d take it with a grain of salt. “Are you going to try and get on the books for the rodeo this weekend, Reed?”
Reed looked at Kadence. “I’m not sure. We haven’t talked about it.” Kadence seemed to realize he was deferring to her.
“Don’t let me stop you,” she said. “What event do you enter?”
Brad rolled his eyes, and Reed saw Stephanie shoot him a warning glance. “I ride bulls,” Reed told her. He was in every rodeo she was that entire season when he was fourteen. Apparently she had no memory of it.
“Cool, that’s my favorite event.”
“What about you, Kadence? Are you still barrel racing?” Brad asked.
“I haven’t since I was eighteen. I’m not sure I could any longer.”
“Sure you could,” Reed said. “We could set up a course out near the holding pens so you could practice if you wanted to.”
Reed wasn’t sure what the look was in Kadence’s eyes today, but he knew that it had changed from that first morning she woke up in his bed. He wanted to believe it was fondness, but at the same time didn’t want to set himself up for another heartbreak. “Thanks, Reed. That would be fun. I’m not sure I’d enter into the rodeo, but it would be fun to practice anyway.”
“Okay, I’ll get started on that tomorrow,” he said.
“This roast is delicious,” Kadence remarked, practically licking her fingers.
Stephanie smiled. Reed thought she had one of those smiles that made it impossible to not smile back. Kadence obviously did too. After dinner was over, Kadence tried to help with the dishes, but Stephanie insisted Brad would help her later. Reed doubted that. Unless Stephanie had changed him more than he thought, he’d never seen his little brother touch a dirty dish. They all went out on the back patio instead, and Stephanie brought out dessert and coffee. She poured them each a cup and then sat down and put her hand on Brad’s, looking at him fondly. He cleared his throat.
“So, we really had a bit of an ulterior motive in asking you over for dinner tonight.”
Kadence looked at Reed and he shrugged his shoulders. Brad turned toward his wife, whose cheeks suddenly flushed. She looked at Kadence and Reed. “Well,” she began slowly. “We wanted you to know that you’ll be having a niece or nephew soon.”
Reed’s eyes widened as he looked from his sister-in-law to his brother, who was grinning like an idiot. “You two … a baby?” They nodded gleefully. Reed nearly jumped up from his seat, but held back and widened his grin to match his brother’s. “Well, that’s about the best damned news I’ve heard in a long while. Congratulations, brother … sis.” He stood up and hugged them both. As he returned to his seat, he noticed that Kadence was smiling but it seemed a little forced.
They chatted for a few minutes about baby names and the baby’s room and how far along Stephanie was. Then Stephanie asked, “So, Kadence, where were you living before coming back to Texas?”
“Atlanta.” As she said it, Reed realized he hadn’t even known that. He didn’t know anything about her life. It was frightening and thrilling at the same time. He was looking forward to getting to know her.
“What did you do there?” Brad asked her.
“Um …” She looked at Reed and seemed uncomfortable with the question. Finally, she said, “I was a housewife and a mother.”
Reed dropped the fork full of cake he had almost to his lips and it clanged loudly onto the plate. Brad choked on the sip of coffee he’d just taken, and Stephanie, always the lady, said, “Oh, how nice.”
*****
“You’re married?” Reed had managed to change the subject while on the patio, but they hadn’t stayed much longer before Kadence said she had a headache and they said their goodnights. Reed was silent until they were about halfway back to their cabin, but he couldn’t take it any longer.
“I was,” she said. “I’m not anymore or I guess I am, but to you now.” Her face shone in the moonlight as she winked at him.
“You said housewife and mother. You have a kid?”
“No.”
“Was it your stepchild?”
“No.”
“Damn it, Kadence!” He saw her body jerk in the saddle when he raised his voice. He took a deep breath and in a calmer tone said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
He could only see her profile now, but it looked like she was smiling. “I’d say it was about time.”
“I don’t have any right to yell at you. I reckon I don’t even have any right to question you about your life. I wish you would share more about it with me though. With what I know so far, my imagination is going wild.”
She didn’t say anything else until they’d cooled the horses down and put them away and were finally alone inside the cabin. He was surprised when she took his hand and led him over to the couch. They sat down and she said, “I had a baby almost three years ago. Her name was Claire and she was the most beautiful creature that God ever put on this earth. I was married to a wonderful man and we had a nice house and a great life. When Claire was four months old I put her down fo
r a nap one day and when I went to check on her later she wasn’t breathing. She died from SIDS.” Her eyes filled with tears, and Reed felt the hot sting of his own.
He didn’t know what to say, and her grief was still so apparent that it was heavy in the room as she told the story. He reached for her hand and she let him take it. He held on to it as she went on.
“I was devastated, but my husband Mike … he was just ruined by it. He started drinking, heavily. He stopped going to work eventually, and then when I went out and found a job so that we could pay our bills, he’d spend the day at the Indian casino not far from where we lived. He became as addicted to the gambling as he was to the alcohol. Everyone that knew us told me that I should leave. They said he had to hit rock bottom before he’d get help. But in my mind, we’d already hit the bottom so hard that there was nowhere lower to go. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him alone.
“Some days he’d sit in the nursery and just cry all day, and other days he’d be so drunk he barely knew my name. He had manic days, too, and those were the ones when he’d clean out our bank accounts and go gambling. On the second anniversary of Claire’s death, I came home from work and found him in the bathtub. He’d eaten his shotgun, but he wasn’t dead. He was a vegetable, and for three long months I refused to believe he was gone. When I finally had to admit that and let them pull the plug, I was drowning in hospital debt. He’d quit his job so we didn’t have medical insurance. His life insurance refused to pay because there was a no-suicide clause in the policy.
“About two months to the day of his death, my home was foreclosed on. I had about three hundred dollars in savings at that time. I sold all of our furnishings from the house, his car and tools, and a lot of my nice clothes. The money I made was just about enough to finish paying off the hospital debt and to buy that old car I’m driving. I paid what I could and left Atlanta with less than two hundred dollars in my pocket. Between gas and food, I was broke by the time I got here. I know it’s karma—”
“Don’t say that. Nobody deserves any of that let alone you.”
“No, Reed, what I don’t deserve is you being so nice to me. When you snapped at me a little while ago I thought, here we go … he’s finally going to unleash on me. But you apologized instead. You’re nicer to me than anyone I’ve ever known, and you are the one I deserve it from the least.”
“I told you, that’s all forgiven. We were kids. Please, don’t cry again.” He opened his arms and she folded into them. She turned her face to his and he brought his lips down to meet hers. His breath caught in his chest, and a tiny little moan escaped from his lips as he pressed them into hers.
“Reed …” She pulled out of the kiss, breathless.
“Yes?”
“I want you to make love to me. I want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”
“Just holding you and kissing you makes me feel happier than I’ve ever felt. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“I want to … not to prove anything to you. I want to feel you, all over and inside me.”
CHAPTER SIX
It would take every fiber of his being to say no to that—so he didn’t. He wanted her more than he wanted to take his next breath. He slid his hands up from her waist and let them get lost in her hair. That first night when they’d been drunk, he had been almost incredulous that he was touching Kadence Wright. He’d been so in awe and had too much Jim Beam on board to savor her the way he wanted to. Tonight was his second chance, and in case he never got another one, he was going to make it count.
He tugged on her hair gently and pulled her head back. Lowering his mouth again, he stopped just short of her lips. He was about to ask her again if she was sure, but he heard her catch her breath and whimper, and the heat of that sound raced through him at lightning speed, settling deep in his core. He reclaimed her mouth, and this time the kiss was a long, languid one.
She gripped his t-shirt with her hands and slid it up as they kissed. He pulled up the back of her shirt and placed the palm of his hand against the soft, warm skin. He moved it in slow, small circles as they kissed and felt he was drawing energy from simply touching her. When his shirt was underneath his arms, he pulled back and let her slip it up over his shoulders and head. She took a moment to trace the hard muscles in his chest.
“So sexy,” she said in a husky voice. He felt his head was going to explode. He’d dreamt of her saying things like that about him, but never really believed it would happen. He reached up and took her hands off of him only to lace his fingers through hers. He stood, and she walked with him as he led them backward to the bedroom. He kept going until he felt the bed behind him and then plunged onto it. She followed him, and when his head hit the pillow, her soft, sexy body molded on top of his.
He kissed her again, and then with one arm wrapped around her, he flipped them so he was looming over her. He began unbuttoning her blouse and sucked in a hard breath when he caught sight of her black lace bra with her gorgeous breasts swelling over the top of it. He moved his mouth to her chest and kissed across the swell on either side before sliding his hand underneath her and unhooking the bra. He lifted it up, revealing the supple, sexy flesh. Her nipples were hard and swollen—a magnet for his hungry mouth.
He took one of the tight buds into his mouth and nipped it with his teeth before using his tongue to circle it. She was making soft, sweet noises, and between the taste of her, the feel of her flesh against his tongue, and those noises, he felt like the front of his jeans was suddenly two sizes too small. When he switched breasts, he felt her hands glide down his chest to the top of his pants. She fumbled with the button for a second but managed to get it undone and then had them quickly unzipped. He felt her hands slide down then land on the cheeks of his ass and squeeze, pressing him into her harder and causing a growl to rise up from deep in his throat.
The growl had only just begun to die down when she moved her hands around to the front and he felt her silky, warm fingers wrap around his hard length and begin to stroke. She pulled one hand up to his chest and pushed against him. “Turn over, Reed.”
He rolled onto his back and felt her lips on his chest as her hands tugged at his pants. He reached down and helped her push them over his hips, and she pulled each leg off agonizingly slowly before reaching for his shorts and setting him free. She started to lower her head, and he stopped her. “You don’t have to do that.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Hush. Please. I want to. You need to learn that sometimes it can be about you.” Hearing her say that she wanted him was almost too much. He nodded and hissed through clenched teeth when he felt her warm, wet tongue taste him.
“Oh Jesus, Kadence …”
She opened her lips and let him slide inside, and it was like the Fourth of July. He had never felt anything like what she was doing to him. He knew it was mostly because it was her, his dream come true, Kadence Wright, but it also reinforced his belief that they’d been meant for each other all along. When he could hold back no longer, he slid her up so she was sitting with her thighs on either side of his pelvis. He looked into her green eyes as he unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, and then in a rare moment of needing self-control he said, “Take them off and turn on the light. I want to see you.”
She didn’t argue. She stood and seductively slid her jeans down her long legs and kicked them off her feet. Then she dropped the blouse and bra and hit the light switch on the wall. The bright light blinded him, but only for a second. Then she came into view, standing there naked in front of him.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He reached for her and she climbed back on top of him. He pulled her so her body was pressed into his and used his hands to form a tactile memory of every part of her.
She moaned and whimpered as he touched her, and that was just like throwing kerosene on the fire that raged inside of him. He grabbed her around her bottom and pulled her up his body with his strong arms until his tongue could r
each the most intimate parts of her. He felt her whole body trembling as he nuzzled his face into her, and then he felt the sting of her fingernails on his biceps as she screamed out his name. “Reed! Oh my God! You have to stop. I need you inside me, please, Reed … please …”
The idea of Kadence Wright begging him to get inside her was once again almost his undoing. He let go of her, and when she’d wriggled back down to his waist, he once again flipped them over so that he was on top. He looked at her flushed face and widened eyes and couldn’t believe he was holding her at that moment. In a breathless voice she said, “It’s true what they say about the quiet ones …”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby.” He reached over to the nightstand and pulled open the drawer with one hand. While he fished out what he was after, he caressed her bare neck with his mouth, loving the way the strands of long, dark hair tickled his face. He licked and sucked at her neck until he couldn’t wait a second longer. He finally sat up and opened the package and covered himself.
He reached down and let one of his thick fingers trace between her legs, feeling how excited she was … how badly she wanted him. He shuddered and slid his finger between her soft folds. She writhed underneath him as he slid in and out which quickly sent her into one hell of an orgasm. She cried his name again. He didn’t stop until she finally lay still against the pillow. With his hand he delicately moved the sweaty strands of hair that were stuck to her face and then bent and kissed her again as he wiggled his hips and got into position. He entered her slowly, savoring the moment. It wasn’t long before he had his own tsunami orgasm as Mrs. Reed McMurtry lay enveloped in his loving arms.
*****
Stephanie watched the rise and fall of Reed’s chest as he drifted off to sleep, and a tear rolled down her cheek as she squeezed her eyes. She realized as she lay against him that she hadn’t felt so safe in a long time, maybe ever. She breathed in his masculine scent and listened to his heart pound in his chest. She realized that it pounded like that every time he held her. He loves me.…
To Love And Honor A Cowboy (Cowboy Nuptials Book 2) Page 4
