Only His

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Most of the time.

  But sometimes, for just an instant, the froth would swirl away and offer a tantalizing glimpse of the man beneath the seething silver water. Before Willow could realize what she had seen, the currents would shift again, concealing everything but Caleb’s wide shoulders rising above the pool.

  Slowly, Willow settled by the edge of the water, rearranging the blanket so that she could sit without revealing more than her naked feet. After a moment of taut silence, Caleb reached for the soap he had brought and began lathering his wet beard. When he finished, he held his hand out for the razor. Willow put half of the folding blade in his hand, but held onto the other half.

  “If you trust me not to cut you, I would like to shave you.”

  Caleb closed his eyes, afraid that Willow would see the stark hunger in them. “I’d like that.”

  “I don’t think I can reach you from here. Can you move closer to the edge?”

  “Not without making you blush.” He hesitated before adding matter-of-factly, “There’s room for you to stand near me, if you don’t mind getting wet again. Your hair will cover whatever the water doesn’t.”

  Willow looked at Caleb. His eyes were closed and his body was relaxed on the wide ledge, as though the hot water had unravelled the constant vigilance that was so much a part of him. Reassured by his casual acceptance of the situation, she pulled her hair forward until it covered her breasts, took off the blanket, and set it beyond the reach of the dancing water. Carefully, she eased into the pool. She had bathed on the other side, where the pool deepened gradually. It got deep very quickly here.

  Her foot slipped and she made a startled sound. Instantly, Caleb’s hands closed around her waist.

  “Hang on,” he said. He lifted Willow and settled her sideways across his knees, shifted his grip, and held her out in front of him. “There’s another ledge of rock somewhere close to my feet. Find it?”

  After a moment of fishing around with her toes, Willow nodded, looking everywhere but at Caleb. The instant of feeling his bare legs beneath her wet bottom had doubled her heartbeat.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  Willow tried, but the water was almost up to her breasts and quite turbulent, for she was in the direct flow of the cascade. After a few attempts, she managed to brace herself against the stone ledge and between Caleb’s knees.

  “All right?” Caleb asked.

  “I think so.”

  He smiled slightly, settled back, and closed his eyes. “Make damn sure, honey. I only have one throat.”

  Willow laughed and felt better. Caleb was so matter-of-fact about the situation that she felt foolish being nervous.

  “Hold still now,” she cautioned.

  As it had been during the battle with the Comancheros, once Willow had a task for her hands, they stopped trembling. She shaved Caleb with quick, deft motions, washing the blade after each stroke. The lather vanished within seconds, torn apart by the currents that boiled softly throughout the pool.

  Caleb sat motionless, but not from fear of being cut. He was afraid if he moved it would be to grab the trout that had so nearly come within his reach. The knowledge of his own nakedness and Willow’s body so close by aroused him violently. The gentleness of her hands caring for him was also arousing, but in a different way. It brought a feeling of being cherished that strengthened rather than weakened his self-control.

  “Almost done,” Willow said, rinsing the razor. “You want to keep your mustache, don’t you?”

  “Damn straight,” he said dryly.

  “Good. I like the feel of it on my skin,” she said, concentrating on her work rather than her words. “There. That’s it. All clean.”

  She rinsed the razor, folded it, and looked up into the tawny blaze of Caleb’s eyes. He took the razor and set it on a rock without looking away from Willow.

  “Do you really?” he asked, his voice deep.

  “Do I what?”

  “Like the feel of my mustache on your skin?”

  Willow heard the echo of her own incautious words. Color stained her cheekbones. “Close your eyes.”

  “Why? I’ve seen you blush before.”

  “I’m going to rinse off your face.”

  Cupping her palms, she tried to bring warm water to his cheeks, but more water drained away than touched him.

  “Here,” Caleb said. He put his hands beneath Willow’s, then lowered them until they were a few inches beneath the water. He bent his head and moved his face from side to side, stroking his cheeks against her hands. When the last of the lather was gone, he took her hands from the water and kissed the center of her palms. “Thank you, Willow. No woman has ever cared enough to shave me.”

  Of their own accord, Willow’s fingers moved from Caleb’s face to his hair, tangling softly in the thick, damp strands. “I’ll cut your hair, too, if you like.”

  “I’d rather you let me kiss you. Will you do that?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yes, I think I will. I like your kisses, Caleb. I like them very much.”

  A faint shudder went through him. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Come here and I’ll tell you.”

  Willow leaned closer, only to lose her footing on the lower ledge. It didn’t matter. Caleb’s hands had already closed around her. He leaned forward, holding her upright in the seething water. The brush of his mustache across her lips made her shiver with anticipation.

  “I want to taste you,” he said against her mouth. “Let me in, honey. Let me kiss you the way we both want it.”

  His teeth closed on Willow’s lower lip in a caress that was both sensuous demand and sensual plea. She made a small sound and opened her mouth, wanting the kiss as much as he did. The slow penetration and retreat of his tongue made her hands clench on his arms. She wanted more of his taste, of his caresses, of him. She wanted to be as close to him as the untamed pool.

  With a small, hungry sound, Willow gave back the kiss in the only way she knew, the way Caleb had taught her, a teasing dance of tongue against tongue, warmth against warmth, hunger stroking hunger until they were locked together in mutual exploration and demand. Vaguely she sensed herself being lifted and turned until she was astride his legs, but her only thought was to lure him even more completely into the kiss, wanting to become so much a part of him that the kiss would never end.

  Slowly, gently, relentlessly, Caleb separated himself from the embrace. Fighting for the control he had felt slipping away with each honeyed stroke of Willow’s tongue, he looked at her with a raw hunger he couldn’t conceal.

  “Willow,” he said hoarsely. “My God…”

  Shuddering, Caleb closed his eyes against the picture she made, her lips reddened by the passionate kiss, her hair floating in golden streams around both of them, her breasts revealed through the wet lace of her camisole, her back arched over his arm, her long legs astride his. The memory of how her pantelets opened went through him in a savage stroke of need. If he moved forward just a few inches, he would be brushing unhindered against the thatch of golden hair.

  As Willow’s glance followed Caleb’s, she realized that she might as well be naked from the waist up. From the waist down she was concealed as he was. Most of the time. She looked down, then glanced up in shock when the hard proof of his passion was revealed by a shift of the current.

  “Easy, honey, don’t panic now. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. Hell,” Caleb said roughly, “just kissing you is hotter than having another woman. You go to my head faster than whiskey.”

  Willow took a breath, saw the narrowing of Caleb’s eyes as he watched her breasts, and remembered how it had felt to have his hands and mouth caressing her. She knew he had also enjoyed it, yet he made no move toward her now. He simply held her and looked at her with a hunger that made her weak. Despite his obvious need, he was in control of himself.

  I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.

&nb
sp; With a virgin’s serene misunderstanding of the power of passion, Willow decided that she could venture more deeply into the compelling currents that swirled between her and Caleb.

  “Does that mean you want to kiss me again?” she asked, her eyes luminous.

  “Yes,” he said, drawing her slowly near, “I want to kiss you, Willow.”

  She tangled her fingers in his hair with a hunger she didn’t understand, impatient to feel the intimacy of his kiss once more. All he did was brush his open mouth over her, caressing her without claiming her, tasting her eyebrows and hair and cheeks, but not the lips that trembled with desire.

  “Caleb,” she said finally, “I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

  “I am kissing you.”

  “Yes, and it’s very nice, but that kind of kissing makes me, well, restless.”

  He smiled slowly. “Does it?”

  The very male smile sent another lash of restlessness through Willow.

  “You’re teasing me,” she accused.

  “God, honey, I sure hope so.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’ve never known anything sweeter than holding you like this with the water all wild around us. So if you want more than I’m giving you, you’ll have to spell it out for me. I don’t want to scare you away, Willow. I don’t want this to end for a long, long time.”

  “I don’t want it to end, either,” she admitted, tracing the line of Caleb’s jaw to his chin, nuzzling the newly revealed dimple with her fingertip, then sliding down to test again the power and resilience of his shoulder. “You feel so good.”

  Caleb closed his eyes and wondered how much he could take before he lost control and frightened Willow away.

  “Tell me, honey. Tell me what you want.”

  She looked at the harsh lines of his face, felt the tension drawing his body taut, and whispered. “Don’t you know?”

  His eyes opened. The passion in their depths was like twin candle flames burning. Carefully, he bent down and bit her lower lip, making her shiver and arch closer to him, her breasts brushing his chest and her hips so close that he felt control slipping away again. Ruthlessly, he clamped down on the hunger that made his whole body rigid.

  “I know what you want, but I don’t know how much,” Caleb said, biting Willow’s lower lip again. “If you ’re too shy to tell me, show me. Do whatever you want to me, however you want it. Anything, honey. Everything.”

  The temptation was extraordinary, the lure irresistible. She rose to it gracefully, coming closer to the instant when escape would be not only impossible, but unwelcome.

  “Whatever I want?” Willow asked huskily.

  “However you want it.”

  “I want it…all,” she whispered, looking at Caleb’s mouth.

  With a groan, he pulled her closer and gave her what she had asked for, taking her mouth even as she took his. The kiss was like the pool itself, hot and constantly changing, teaching her how intimate a kiss could be. She pulled herself closer and yet closer to Caleb’s body, making soft sounds and flexing her hands rhythmically on his arms, testing his male strength with a hunger she couldn’t explain.

  Restlessly, Willow combed her fingers through the dark hair on Caleb’s chest. When she brushed over his nipples his kiss deepened even more. Instinctively, she returned to the sensitive nubs again, intrigued by both the changing texture and the tangible response she drew from him.

  Then Willow felt Caleb’s hands on her own breasts, felt him coaxing her nipples taut. Sensual lightning coursed through her body, making her moan. When his hands released her, she made a hoarse sound of disappointment.

  “What?” he said against her mouth. “Tell me, Willow.”

  “Again.” The word was broken, as hungry as the pink nipples pressing against the fragile fabric of her camisole. “Oh, Caleb, again.”

  Long fingers moved over the ribbons on Willow’s camisole. The transparent cloth parted, floating up on the seething water.

  “Lift up your hair, honey.”

  She gathered up the floating strands and pulled them behind her head. When her arms lifted, her breasts were visible through the turbulent water. Caleb’s eyes narrowed hungrily as he looked at her. His lips parted, showing the white edge of his teeth, and she knew that he wanted to kiss her again, differently. She remembered how it had been to feel his tongue teasing her breasts, his teeth gently caressing, his mouth tugging on her as she changed to meet the sweet demands he made.

  “Caleb,” Willow said huskily.

  He looked up, afraid he would find fear in her eyes. Instead he found fire.

  “Will you…kiss me the way you did this morning?” she asked.

  Slowly, Caleb’s hands tightened, lifting Willow from the water until one of her breasts brushed against his mustache. He felt the shivering that went through her, tightening her nipple until it nuzzled against his lips. His tongue flicked out, circled her, drew her in, loved her until her breath broke and her fingers dug heedlessly into his shoulders. He smiled and closed his teeth around her with exquisite care. She gasped as she arched against him, twisting slowly, knowing only his mouth and the wild singing of passion deep within her body.

  Caleb ached to tangle his fingers in the dark gold at the apex of Willow’s thighs, to test the sleek depths of her, to know if she needed him as much as he needed her. But when he had touched her like that before, she had panicked and begged him to stop. Now she was on her knees in front of him, astride the clenched power of his thighs, her hips moving with the rhythms of his mouth on her breast. Now he couldn’t bear to have her turn away.

  His teeth closed gently on her velvet nipple once more, making her cry out with pleasure. He released her and looked at the transformation passion had wrought in her body. Her breathing was as rapid as his, her creamy breasts were flushed with heat and the loving marks of his mouth, her lips were red, trembling, and her pupils had dilated until her eyes were nearly black.

  She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  “C-Caleb?”

  He closed his eyes because he could not bear to look at Willow any longer without touching the silky flesh hidden between her legs.

  “I—I want—more. But I don’t know—what.” Willow shivered with soft violence. “Help me, Caleb. Help me.”

  His eyes opened and a stillness came over him as he realized that Willow was telling the simple truth. She was stretched on a rack of passion and had no idea how to find release.

  “The kind of touch you want from me made you panic once before.”

  Caleb saw the moment of understanding break over Willow, saw her shudder and close her eyes. For the space of a long breath they remained closed. Then she took her hands, put them over his, and slowly pulled them down her body, drawing them from her breasts to her waist, skimming the deeply indented curves of her torso. Just below her navel, she lost her courage.

  “Stay with me,” Caleb said against Willow’s mouth when she would have lifted her hands from his. “That way I’ll know you want it, too.”

  Her hands rested over his as he slowly eased his palms down her body, seeking the womanly fullness of her hips. The frail cotton of her pantelets was little barrier to his touch. He filled his hands with her round curves and squeezed. She gasped and shivered violently.

  “Frightened?” he asked softly.

  “It feels…strange.”

  “Bad?”

  “No, it just makes me ache in the oddest places.”

  “Does it? Where?”

  Willow’s breath thickened into a soft moan as Caleb’s big hands flexed again, making her very aware of the luxuriant flare of her own hips.

  “Is that where you ache?” he asked, smiling slightly.

  She shook her head.

  “Where, honey?”

  Willow bit her lip and looked at Caleb, torn between passion and embarrassment. “Don’t you know?”

  “I’m beginning to think I don’t know much about you at all,” he admitt
ed in a low voice. His hands flexed and his whole body clenched at the passion coursing visibly through Willow in response to his touch. “Where does it ache, little one? If you’re too shy to tell me, take my hand and show me.”

  For a moment, Willow didn’t think she had the courage to do even that. Then currents swirled and tugged at her, sending a glittering burst of sensation through the pit of her stomach, leaving behind a redoubted ache. She took one of Caleb’s big hands and slowly brought it from her hip to her navel and from there to the warm, water-washed triangle at the apex of her thighs.

  “There?” Caleb asked softly.

  Willow tried to look at him but couldn’t. She closed her eyes and nodded. His palm covered her as his long fingers sought the opening in the pantelets and curled down between her legs, gently seeking her softest flesh, finding it, holding her so close that not even the seething waters of the pool came between them. Her breathing unravelled in a low moan. Instinctively, she tried to protect her tender flesh by closing her legs. It was impossible. She was kneeling astride his thighs, balancing herself by holding onto his shoulders.

  “Easy, little love. I won’t hurt you.”

  Willow barely heard Caleb’s low voice. His hand was moving slowly, both soothing her and increasing the sensual ache. Bright splinters of sensation raced up from his touch, driving away her uncertainty, leaving only a stark pleasure that shortened her breath. Then she felt the tender probing of his finger and stiffened as though he had laid a whip across her bare flesh.

  “Caleb.”

  He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, forcing himself to withdraw from the sleek feminine heat he had just discovered. But he couldn’t force himself to release Willow completely. She felt too good against the palm of his hand, too soft, too hot. Nor could he prevent the languid, caressing movements of his fingers that made her even softer, hotter. Without meaning to, he probed very lightly. She shuddered but didn’t withdraw.

  “Do you want me to stop?” Caleb asked, his voice rough with passion and restraint.

  Willow’s only answer was a moan as something deep inside her tightened and then tightened again, making her body twist slowly against Caleb’s touch.