“Soft as a kitten’s chin,” he said huskily, “and the color of the summer sun. My mother used to read me fairy tales about princesses with hair like yours. I never believed them, until now. Touching your hair is like touching sunlight.”
Caleb resumed brushing Willow’s thick hair with slow sweeps of his hand. Strands of gold shifted and shimmered beneath his touch. As though alive, filaments of hair lifted and clung to his hands, silently asking that the gentle caresses continue. Strands followed his fingers, clung to his shoulders, and fanned across his chest in soft invitation. He fought against the temptation to unbutton his shirt and feel the silky touch on his bare skin. His shirt remained fastened, but he couldn’t prevent himself from rubbing a handful of her fragrant hair against his cheek. He inhaled deeply, then forced his fingers to release the locks of hair.
“I think the t-tangles are out,” Willow said hesitantly. “Should I get dressed now?”
The sensuous shiver in her voice made Caleb smile. “No hurry. We’re not going anywhere today. I thought I’d catch another mess of trout and gather some more greens before the weather goes bad again.”
“More rain?”
“Probably.”
“When?”
“After sunset.”
Willow sighed. “I was told the plains were dry.”
“They are. You’re in the mountains now. But compared to where you came from, it’s plenty dry. That’s why you keep licking your lips.”
“I do?”
“You sure do, honey. If you’re carrying any oil in that big old carpetbag of yours, you might put some on. Bacon grease works, but you get tired of the taste real fast.”
For a few moments there was only the whisper of soft bristles moving through Willow’s long hair. She closed her eyes and savored the unexpected luxury of having her hair brushed by someone other than herself. Then a thought struck her.
“How will you catch the trout?”
“Same way I did last night.”
“How was that?”
“With my hands.”
Willow turned and looked over her shoulder with wide hazel eyes. “You’re teasing me.”
“Maybe a little.” Caleb’s nostrils flared as he inhaled the scent of her once more. But not as much as I’m teasing myself. “Close your eyes, you’re distracting me.”
“If I close my eyes, will you tell me how you really catch trout?”
“Sure.”
Long amber eyelashes lowered until they rested against Willow’s smooth skin. Sunshine caught and tangled in the thick lashes, making tiny, iridescent flashes of light. Caleb watched, fascinated, wanting to run the tip of his tongue over the soft fringe.
“My eyes are closed,” Willow pointed out when Caleb didn’t speak.
“I noticed. How did you get such long eyelashes, honey?”
“I stole them from a calf.”
He laughed softly, shaking his head at her quickness.
“Caleb,” she said coaxingly, “how do you catch trout with your bare hands? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.”
“Not even Matthew Moran?”
She shook her head. “Not even Matt.”
With a rumbling sound of satisfaction, Caleb resumed brushing Willow’s hair, admiring its shine and softness. When he began to talk again, there was a subtle difference in his touch, a lingering over the nape of her neck, a tracing of the long tendrils that curled down her arm, a sensuous stroking down the length of her spine that encouraged her to arch against his palm like a cat.
“First of all,” Caleb said deeply, “you have to find trout that haven’t been scared out of their pretty little scales by a southern lady taking a bath in their parlor.”
Willow laughed behind her hand.
“It’s true,” he said, tugging teasingly at a lock of hair. “Trout are like beautiful girls, flighty creatures that take a lot of soothing before they can be caught.”
The brush moved from Willow’s crown to her nape, followed by Caleb’s hand. Long fingers eased beneath the heavy strands and skimmed over the curve of her neck. She shivered, wondering if the touch had been accidental. His fingers skimmed over he neck once more, tracing the hairline with a caress as light as a breath.
“So a man with trout on his mind walks softly and sort of eases up to the edge of the brook,” Caleb continued, his voice as lazy and murmurous as the breeze. “Then he kneels down real slow and easy like, and slides his hand into the water behind a trout.”
As Caleb spoke, his big hand gathered up the golden mass of Willow’s hair and lifted so that he could brush from beneath. Some of the strands slipped away from his fingers, for the hair caught on the big buttons of the cavalry shirt she wore. Setting the brush aside, he began to gently untangle her shining hair from the buttons. No sooner did one strand come free than another slithered from his grasp and fell forward, becoming trapped and tangled on a button.
“Damn,” Caleb said softly, using both hands to corral Willow’s silky hair. “This isn’t working. Lift your arms up, honey. Higher. That’s it.”
Caleb peeled the shirt from Willow’s body so matter-of-factly that she didn’t think to object until it was too late.
“Caleb, I don’t—”
“Once your hand is in the water,” Caleb continued, talking over Willow’s words, “then you just stay real still for a time, as though you had nothing on your mind but sitting and dreaming by a meadow stream.”
The brush glided through Willow’s hair once more, sending shivers of pleasure over her scalp, shivers that were only increased by the soothing hand that followed each stroke of the brush. The strands that fell forward no longer tangled around buttons, but instead fanned in a golden veil over her camisole. The full curves of her breasts pressed up against the fine lace.
While Willow watched, tendrils of hair slid away from her breasts, leaving the peaks barely covered. She bit her lip, wondering if her hair concealed the outlines of her body enough for decency.
“It’s all right,” Caleb said softly, sensing the tension in Willow. He stroked the shining hair that fanned over her shoulders and back. “Your hair covers as much of you as my shirt did. Unless you’re cold?”
She shook her head, making light ripple and twist sinuously through her hair. “The sun is almost hot.”
“Yes, it is.”
Caleb’s voice was so low it was like a purr from a big cat, as much felt as heard. Without breaking rhythm, he continued brushing Willow’s hair with slow, gentle movements until she sighed and relaxed once more, giving herself to a pleasure that was so acute it made sweet chills course over her skin.
“That feels so good,” Willow whispered finally.
“To me, too,” Caleb said, running his hand lightly down her hair. He laughed softly. “I think your hair likes me as much as I like it.”
Willow made a questioning sound.
“Watch,” he said.
The brush followed thick ribbons of hair that had fallen over Willow’s right shoulder and fanned out over her breast.
“See?” He lifted the brush slowly. Shining strands of hair rose languidly, clinging to the brush and to the edge of his hand. “It’s chasing me.”
For an instant, Willow was too shocked to speak. The soft bristles of the brush moving lightly over her breast had stroked it into vivid life, cashing a rush of sensation that left her weak. She closed her eyes as a curious heat radiated suddenly from the pit of her stomach. The sensation was both piercing and sweet, unlike anything she had ever known before.
“Let’s see if the other side likes me as well,” Caleb said in a low voice.
The brush stroked softly over Willow’s left breast, which also was veiled by a fall of golden hair. When the brush lifted, filaments of bright hair followed, clinging to the brush and the made hand that held it.
“Yes,” he said huskily, looking at the breast whose tight peak parted the golden veil of hair, “I believe it does.”
Willow could say nothin
g at all. Her breath was lodged in her throat as another trembling rush of sensation claimed her. When Caleb heard the break in her breathing, his own body responded with a violent surge, his heartbeat deepening and quickening until he could count each pulse in the rigid flesh between his legs. He had expected Willow to leap up an push away his hands or to turn angrily on him for daring to touch her even with the brush.
He hadn’t expected her breasts to blossom at a single touch until her nipples pouted in shades of pink beneath the nearly transparent camisole. The intense sensuality of her response was as startling as the depth of his own passion for her, a passion that shook him until he had to clench his fingers around the brush’s slender handle or lose it to the wildness ripping through his body.
Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, Caleb forced himself to continue the slow, seductive rhythms of the brush moving over Willow’s hair, caressing her scalp, her nape, the slender length of her back. He very much wanted to stroke the golden veil over her breasts again, but he didn’t trust himself not to drop the pretense of the brush and slide his hands beneath her camisole until he could feel her hard nipples nuzzling against the exact center of his palms. He wanted that so much his hands shook.
But the knew it was too soon. Even the most trusting trout couldn’t be taken by storm. Willow wasn’t completely trusting. Caleb sensed the ambivalence in her quite clearly. If he brushed over her breasts right now she would flee. The certainty of her wariness was all that was keeping his hands where they were, stroking her back with slow sweeps that belied the passionate blaze of his narrowed eyes.
“Once your hand is in the water and things have settled down,” Caleb said, “you begin easing closer to the trout. You do it so slowly the fish accepts your presence as natural. While you ease closer, you have to read the trout. Is it getting restless? Is it worried.?”
“How can you tell what the trout is feeling?” Willow asked huskily.
“As my daddy used to say, you have to watch the wee beastie very, very carefully.”
Willow smiled at the faint Scots burr in Caleb’s voice. Soundlessly, she let out her pent-up breath and relaxed a bit more with each slow stroke of the brush.
“You see,” he continued in a deep, lazy voice, “the trout has to think your hand is just a part of the stream, nothing more than a current flowing over her. If you move too quickly, the trout will flee. Then you have to start all over again. Patience is the key. That and the fact that trout just naturally love the feeling of the current stroking over their sleek bodies.”
“Do they really?” Willow asked, her voice unusually husky.
“Why else would trout seek out the fastest currents and just hang there, transfixed, with water caressing them from all sides?”
The weight of Willow’s hair lifted as Caleb began to brush from beneath once more. He caught up all the silky strands and twisted his wrist slowly, wrapping her hair around it. Frissons of pleasure moved over her when she felt the warmth of the sun on her bare nape.
“Think of it,” Caleb whispered against Willow’s neck. As he spoke he brushed his cheek very gently over her nape. “Suspended in rushing currents…”
At first, Willow thought it was her own soft brush whispering so delicately over her skin. Then she felt the warm rush of Caleb’s breath and knew it was his beard caressing her.
“…all that sensitive skin being stroked all at once…all over.”
Willow’s heart began beating so violently she was certain Caleb could hear it. He repeated the exquisite caress again, drawing a low sound from her.
The sound was like a knife slicing through Caleb’s self-control. The tiny feminine cry could have been passion. It also could have been fear. He couldn’t tell without touching her more intimately, and he was too good a hunter to do that just yet. If it was passion making her tremble, further seduction would only make her more eager. If it was fear, further seduction was in order.
No man ever made a meal of the trout that got away.
When Caleb released Willow’s hair and began using the brush again, she was trembling too much to conceal it.
“Aren’t the t-tangles gone?” she asked, shivering.
“Not quite, honey. We’ve got a few to work out yet. Then I’ll braid it for you. One of the Army wives taught me a fancy French way to do it.”
Willow made no more objections, because she didn’t know quite what she should do. Caleb had done nothing that displeased her. Nor had he pressed her for any greater intimacy than that of simply combing her hair. There was another problem, too. If she stood up to leave, she would lose the cover of the blanket over her legs.
And, she admitted silently to herself, she would also lose the sheer pleasure of feeling Caleb’s big, gentle hands smoothing over her hair, enjoying the caresses as much as she did.
Sighing, Willow again gave herself to the golden sensation of having his fingers trailing through her hair and tugging very gently, almost lovingly, on the strands. She no longer felt tense, for she was certain if she asked Caleb to stop, he would.
And knowing that, she felt no need to ask.
The uneasiness that had claimed Willow slid away, leaving behind a shimmering kind of peace that expanded with each slow movement of Caleb’s hand over her hair. Closing her eyes, smiling, Willow wondered if the trout felt half so good while suspended in a stream’s caressing currents.
“So after the trout accepts your hand as part of the water,” she murmured, “then what?”
Caleb released his breath in a soundless rush of air. The relaxation of Willow’s body told him that her previous trembling had been as much wariness as passion. The knowledge simultaneously chastened him and increased the intensity of his own desire. She was worried, uncertain, almost frightened, yet she could no more refuse his sensual lures than the trout could refuse the intimacy of the caressing currents.
“Then you slowly and carefully stroke the trout,” Caleb said in a deep voice, setting aside the brush, “until it’s bemused by pleasure.”
“Is that possible?” Willow whispered. “Can you feel so much pleasure you forget to be afraid?”
“It’s possible.” Caleb gathered her hair again and slowly kissed the nape of her neck. “It just takes gentleness and patience.”
He released her hair so that it fell over his own shoulder. Softly, slowly, as though he could absorb her through his palms, he ran his hands from her shoulders to her fingertips and back up again, this time stroking the sensitive inner skin of her arms.
“Caleb?” Willow whispered, trembling.
“It’s all right, little trout.” He lifted her, turning her until she faced him. His thumb skimmed over her lower lip, then pressed sensuously in a touch very like a kiss. “I’ll be gentle as sunlight with you.”
Luminous hazel eyes watched Caleb. Their beauty fascinated him, color shifting between splinters of blue and green and gold, never the same twice, more beautiful every time he looked.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked huskily.
Willow’s head moved in a slow negative that sent light twisting through her hair and desire twisting through the man who knelt so close to her.
“Some men are rough,” Caleb said, lowering his mouth to Willow’s, stopping a bare fraction from completing the caress. “I’m not one of them. I’ve never pushed a woman who didn’t want me. I never will. Share a few kisses with me, southern lady. If you decide you don’t want me, I’ll let you go.” He lowered his head a fraction more and whispered against her lips, “Do you believe me?”
The delicate caress of Caleb’s breath sent shivers over Willow. “Yes,” she sighed.
The sudden blaze of his eyes was unbearable to her. She lowered her lashes, shielding herself from the golden fire. When his lips brushed softly and repeatedly over hers, she trembled. The few times she had been kissed in the past had been nothing like this. The boys had been as eager as puppies, and as clumsy.
There was no clumsiness in Caleb’s kiss, nor in
the lean hands that held her face so gently she was barely aware of them. The brushing contact of his mouth over hers continued slowly, rhythmically, teaching her to anticipate the next warm pressure of his lips, the next shiver of delight when his mustache would stroke the increasingly sensitive peak of her upper lip.
When the anticipated pleasure didn’t come, Willow opened her eyes and whispered Caleb’s name.
“Yes?” he asked, forcing himself not to kiss the mouth that trembled so enticingly beneath his lips.
“Would you…kiss me again?”
“Those weren’t kisses.”
“They weren’t?”
“No more than a handful of sunlight makes a whole day. Do you want me to kiss you?”
She nodded, sending fragrant, silky hair spilling over his hands.
Smiling, Caleb bent down to Willow once more. His lips brushed over hers again in the caress that had rapidly become addictive to her. Then the tip of his tongue slid between her trembling lips. Her breath came in with a tiny, shocked sound and she stiffened.
“Honey? I thought you wanted me to kiss you.”
“I d-do.”
Caleb searched Willow’s eyes, wondering what was wrong. “Then why did you pull back?”
“I…I’m not used to kissing. It’s been…years.”
Black eyelashes swept down, shuttering the leap of passion in Caleb’s eyes. The realization that Willow had been so long without a man’s touch sent a deep shaft of satisfaction through him. Fancy woman she might be, but she wasn’t indiscriminate with her favors.
“That’s all right, honey. We’ll take it slow and easy, as though it were the first time.”
Caleb’s long fingers slid more deeply into Willow’s hair, seeking the warmth of her scalp, rubbing gently. She sighed with pleasure. He caught the soft rush of her breath as he bent and began brushing his mouth slowly over hers, increasing the pressure by tiny increments until her lips were gently parted. This time when his tongue touched the peak of her mouth, she didn’t withdraw. As he slowly and thoroughly traced the sensitive edge of her lips, she shivered with pleasure at the surprising caress. He repeated the exciting touch again before he dipped inside and skimmed the inner softness of her lips.
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