Two in the Saddle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  It made no logical sense, but logic wasn’t what drove him. She thrashed under him and at last arched upward, pleading for release.

  Fiercely he gave it, absorbing her shudders. His body throbbed in response and nearly followed her into the whirlwind. She was his. His.

  She muffled her cries with a pillow as she bucked in his arms. Finally she grew still and sagged weakly in his arms. He eased her back against the mattress.

  He had no idea how he found the condoms in the pocket of her robe on the floor, or how he managed to put one on while he was shaking so violently, but somehow he managed. She lay limp and unresisting beneath him, looking up at him with those incredible eyes.

  Feeling bathed in the glow of that gaze, he slid both hands under her bottom, lifted and thrust deep. Once, twice, three times, and he exploded. And then he closed his eyes, needing, for that moment, to hide.

  Because she was right. He wanted a child. With her. Only with her.

  11

  GWEN WOKE in the dim room and noticed daylight edging the shade covering the window. The bed was empty.

  For one terrible moment she was afraid Travis might have packed up Elizabeth and left, but then laughter filtered up the stairs—deep, masculine enjoyment and baby giggles. And the aroma of coffee filled the house. Gwen stretched and smiled. Still here.

  She got out of bed and put on the robe that Travis had left draped across a chair. Nice of him to take time to pick up her clothes, she thought. He’d be a handy man to have around. And she believed he would be around. Only hours before, when he’d been about to make love to her, when he’d been so aroused he’d forgotten all about using protection, he’d given her The Look.

  Gwen had waited since puberty for a look like that from the male of the species, and now that a man had given her one, she wasn’t letting him blather on about staying single. When a man gave a woman The Look, he didn’t really want to continue his bachelor life, no matter how much he insisted that he did.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and headed downstairs, eager to see Travis and Elizabeth again. Yet when she came to the loose board on the stair, she stepped over it so she wouldn’t make noise. She wasn’t really sneaking up on Travis, she told herself.

  Well, okay, she was sneaking up on him. He might try to present his carefree bachelor mask to her this morning, even though she’d seen the real Travis when they were making love. He was always real when he interacted with Elizabeth, and glimpsing him that way would give Gwen the courage to say what needed to be said.

  She padded quietly to the doorway of the kitchen and peeked in. Travis had pulled on jeans and a shirt before coming downstairs, but his feet were bare. He sat in one of the oak kitchen chairs with his back to her.

  Such a broad, beautiful back, she thought. Powerful and strong. Yet the nape of his neck looked so vulnerable, with the tender way his hair wanted to curl right there. His barber must have a tricky time trimming that part. She longed to put her lips against that spot, to swirl her tongue in the same pattern that the hair grew.

  Travis had obviously been into the cinnamon rolls, judging from the crumb-filled pan on the table next to him. Beside it sat an empty bottle of Elizabeth’s formula and a box of tissues. He had the baby propped on his left thigh and Barney the purple dinosaur propped on his right.

  Apparently he was talking for the dinosaur. “You scared the spit out of us last night, Lizzie,” Travis said in a Barney voice as he waggled the dinosaur’s head. “Sounded like a toad in the riverbed, girl. Ribbit, ribbit.”

  The baby laughed and held out both chubby hands toward the dinosaur. Then she coughed, but it was a mild cough, nothing like the night before.

  “Whoops, snot alert,” Travis said. He set the dinosaur on the floor and grabbed a tissue from the box.

  Elizabeth strained backward against his arm, obviously trying to avoid the tissue. Gwen imagined her little pink nose was still sore.

  “Gotta do this, Lizzie.” Travis cupped her head and held her still while he wiped very carefully. “Otherwise you’ll have green slime running down your face, and that’s not gonna attract the guys, let me tell you.”

  Gwen smiled, but his tenderness and gentle voice had begun to affect her in more potent ways, making her skin tingle and her body quicken. She became very aware of her nakedness under the red silk as her erect nipples pushed against the material.

  Travis would notice that right away. She might feel confident of the eventual outcome of their relationship, but she didn’t want to be quite that obvious first thing in the morning.

  She backed away from the doorway to collect herself and ran into the spindly-legged antique table she kept in the hall. The crystal dish of potpourri on top crashed to the floor and broke, scattering dried rose petals everywhere.

  Embarrassed beyond belief, Gwen dropped carefully to her knees and picked up the two biggest pieces of the dish.

  “Gwen? Are you okay?”

  She glanced up to find him standing in the kitchen doorway, Elizabeth in his arms. Despite her embarrassment, she couldn’t help enjoying the picture he made. He hadn’t shaved yet, and he looked wonderfully domestic and sexy with that baby in his arms, like a daddy who had gallantly taken on the child care to give mommy more time to sleep. Oh, he would do just fine.

  “I’m okay. I just bumped into the table,” she said. “It’s probably a dumb place to have a table like that, anyway. I think I’ll put it somewhere else from now on.” She stood, hoping he’d think she’d bumped into the darn thing on the way into the kitchen.

  He surveyed the situation and quite obviously noticed that she was positioned between him and the mess, which meant she must have hit the table going backward. His cocksure grin flashed. “Spying on me, were you?”

  “Not exactly.” Heat suffused her cheeks.

  He turned to the baby. “Count on it, Lizzie. She was spying. Can’t say as I blame her. She’s really hot for me.”

  Elizabeth crowed and bounced in his arms.

  Gwen automatically bristled at his cavalier attitude, the very one she’d been afraid he’d show up with this morning. Eventually he’d be wonderful, but he still had a ways to go. “I’m surprised you and that ego of yours can even fit through a doorway, Evans.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  She looked into his eyes, those golden eyes that had mesmerized her so completely a few hours ago. The gleam of male satisfaction was firmly in place. Before they’d made love, she wouldn’t have looked beyond his bravado. But this morning she gazed at him a little longer and found, buried under that bluster, the shadow of uncertainty, the hunger he so rarely allowed anyone to see.

  She knew how she was supposed to respond in order to play the game by his rules. She should laugh and assure him that he wasn’t bad for a broken-down saddle tramp. Instead she gave him a long, steady look. “No, you’re not wrong,” she said softly. “I’m crazy about you.”

  The cocky grin slipped a little.

  “I’ll be even more specific than that,” she continued. “I think we’re meant for each other.”

  That wiped the smile completely off his face. “Hold on, Gwen. Don’t go getting serious on me.”

  “Too late. I’m in for the long haul.”

  He stared at her, his jaw slack.

  “And if you’re honest with yourself, so are you. We belong together, Travis.”

  “Gwen, just because we had a great time in that bed upstairs doesn’t mean that—”

  Elizabeth grabbed his nose in her tiny fingers and twisted.

  He winced and firmly removed her hand. Then he shook it gently. “Hey, Lizzie. I’ve already got one woman here trying to put a ring through my nose. Don’t you start.”

  Gwen kept a tight rein on her temper. “I’m not basing this conclusion on good sex alone.”

  “Great sex,” he corrected, glancing at her as he hoisted the baby higher up on his shoulder. “But that still doesn’t mean it’s white-lace-and-promises time. I warned you I wasn�
��t into that. And don’t forget that you came to my room, not the other way around. I didn’t talk you into a damn thing.”

  “My memory of our time in bed together is perfectly good.” She made sure he was looking at her before she ran her tongue deliberately over her lips. “How’s yours?”

  His eyes darkened. Then his gaze traveled from her mouth to her breasts and lingered there. By the time he looked into her eyes again, his breathing was ragged. “Time to change the munchkin’s diaper,” he said hoarsely.

  She felt no sense of triumph that she could sway him with the power of suggestion. After all, he affected her as strongly as she affected him. The only difference was that she had admitted what that meant to both of them. He was still fighting it.

  “Let me sweep the hall before you walk through,” she said. “I don’t want you to cut your feet on a piece of glass.”

  “Thanks.” He stepped aside and she moved past him, the silk robe swishing against her legs as she walked. She heard him gulp.

  After dumping the broken halves of the dish in the garbage, she took out a broom and dustpan from the cleaning closet and walked past him again to sweep the hall.

  Elizabeth gurgled and cooed in his arms, but he stayed darkly silent. Gwen was sure he was watching her every movement. And if the front of her robe happened to gape open a bit while she was leaning over to sweep the rose petals into the dust pan, she couldn’t help that.

  “All clear,” she said at last. “While you’re changing her, I think I’ll go take a shower.”

  “Fine.”

  She sneaked a peek at him as he stalked out, and noticed the denim crotch of his jeans was bulging. Well, good, because she wanted him just as much.

  But it wasn’t only about sex, she thought as she went into her suite of rooms and took off the bathrobe. She tossed it on her bed, went into her Victorian bathroom and turned the porcelain knobs to start her shower.

  She hadn’t gone to Travis’s room last night just because she’d wanted him sexually, although that had been part of it. She’d gone because she’d finally seen the warm and caring person under that playboy exterior he was so proud of. She’d gone because the man Travis had shown himself to be through the long night of nursing Elizabeth was a man worth loving.

  He hadn’t disappointed her. She’d never felt more complete than she had in Travis’s arms. From his response, she knew he felt the same way. But something was keeping him from honoring that part of himself that could love, honor and cherish a woman for a lifetime. Gwen intended to find out what that something was.

  In the meantime, she’d freshen up with a shower. Although she sometimes indulged in a long soak in her claw-foot tub, she’d also installed a shower head over it and hung a curtain around it for those occasions when she didn’t have time for a bath.

  Now was one of those times. She wound her hair on top of her head and secured it with a butterfly clip. Then she climbed into the tub, pulled the curtain into place and stepped under the warm spray. She didn’t intend to linger, but the spray felt good on her skin, and she stood and let it pulse down on her. She should get going, she told herself. She needed a cup of coffee and a little breakfast. She needed—

  The shower curtain whooshed back.

  “Travis!” Before she could react, he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her out of the tub in one swift motion.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” he muttered in her ear as he pressed his naked, aroused body up against her slick backside.

  Hot desire roared through her and she started to turn toward him, but he held her fast, cupping her breast with one hand as he slid the other boldly between her thighs.

  “Where’s—” She gasped as he found the sensitive nub buried deep in her curls. “Where’s the baby?”

  His voice rasped in her ear. “She’s fine. She’s in the crib, playing with Bruce.”

  His probing fingers had reduced her to a liquid state already, but she wasn’t sure they should be doing this, with Elizabeth still awake upstairs. She tried to say that, tried to ignore the ache building in her womb, the trembling in her thighs. If he hadn’t been holding her up, she would have crumpled to the floor, weak with passion. “Travis, I don’t think—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said gruffly. He continued to caress her intimately as he guided her to her knees on the fluffy rose-colored bath rug. “This won’t take long.”

  Her heart raced as his mouth touched her damp shoulder and his teeth nipped her skin. His stroked her with knowing fingers, bringing her close, very close. And as he wooed her with his touch, he pressed his chest against her back, urging her down on all fours. He meant to take her like that, she realized, maybe so he could satisfy his lust without looking into her eyes, without allowing her to look into his. This time he didn’t want her to see the emotions there.

  Her mind told her to protest, but her body and soul craved the joining that he silently promised, the chance to have him deep inside her again. She welcomed his first thrust with a shudder of delight.

  He groaned and thrust again. And again. His body quivered against hers with each penetration, and the heavy sound of his breathing filled the small room.

  “Coward,” she taunted fiercely, even as she yearned for each deliberate stroke. Her body tightened, reached, lifted.

  “Witch,” he said with a gasp as he drove deep.

  Contractions swept through her, forcing a cry from her throat.

  He increased the pace, his thighs slapping hers as the wild friction prolonged the intensity beyond anything she’d ever known. At last, when she thought he’d drive her insane with pleasure, he pushed deep, his body pulsing with release as he gasped out her name.

  As he quieted, he gradually eased them both down so she lay in the circle of his body, spoon fashion, with her head pillowed on his outstretched arm.

  He tenderly kissed the nape of her neck.

  With that single gesture, he made her feel cherished. “I know I mean something to you,” she said softly. “More than just a summer fling. I can’t be wrong about that.”

  He smoothed a hand over the curve of her shoulder. His voice was husky. “You’re not wrong. You’ve turned everything upside down for me. But the thing is, I can’t get hooked up with you…or anyone.”

  She took a shaky breath. “Why not?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I think I deserve to know.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  He eased away from her. “I’ll think about it.” With a final kiss on her shoulder, he got up and left the bathroom.

  Eyes closed, she lay on the soft rug, her body richly satisfied, her mind in turmoil. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t commit to her. He’d said he couldn’t. And that sounded like a more serious hurdle than she’d anticipated.

  JUST LIKE he’d been afraid of, the situation was out of control. As Travis dressed and got Lizzie ready to haul her over to Doc Harrison’s for a checkup, he thought how desperate he’d been when he’d gone downstairs to satisfy his unbelievable hunger for Gwen. He’d never felt like that, like some caveman who was ready to drag his mate off by her hair. It was a damn good thing Gwen had wanted to make love, because he trembled to think what he would have done if she’d refused him.

  But she hadn’t refused him, because she loved him. He knew it and she knew it. What’s more, he was beginning to believe he was in love, too, for the first time in his life. The sexual craving, heavy-duty though it might be, wasn’t his major clue, either. No, the other major clue was the kind of man he became when he was with her—a better man, a kinder man, a man he liked looking at when he shaved in the morning.

  Gwen wasn’t so much interested in what she could get as what she could give, and that was a novelty he didn’t have much experience with. No question about it, she’d knocked him for a loop. And now he had to decide whether to tell her about his mother.

  He put on his suede jacket, bundled Lizzie up and carried her
downstairs. Gwen was in the kitchen making soup, and it smelled terrific. She had on a green velvet lounging outfit—pants and a long-tailed shirt. Her hair was piled on top of her head. He wanted to take down her hair and strip off her clothes.

  She glanced up from the pot simmering on the stove and stopped stirring the contents. There was a question in her dark eyes.

  He picked up the infant seat he’d left on one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m taking Lizzie to Doc Harrison’s, to be on the safe side.”

  She lifted the spoon out of the pot and laid it on a spoon rest before turning toward him. “Will you be back?” Her voice cracked slightly. Obviously the answer was very important to her.

  Oh, yes. He couldn’t stay away, and that was what had him tied in knots. If the doc agreed that Lizzie was better, he had no excuse to stay with Gwen another night, but that’s all he could think about. “We’ll be back.”

  The tense lines around her eyes relaxed. “Good. We need to talk.”

  “I know.” He felt Lizzie slipping and hoisted her up more firmly against his shoulder. The baby gurgled and grabbed for his ear. With one hand holding the infant seat and the other holding the infant, he couldn’t do anything about it while she twisted the lobe of his ear in her baby fingers.

  “Hey, Elizabeth, don’t be so rough.” Gwen stepped closer, reached up and unclenched the baby’s fingers. Then she offered her own finger for Lizzie to hold, and there they were, all linked together.

  He breathed in Gwen’s scent and grew dizzy from wanting her. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “As long as I’m going out, do you need anything?”

  Pink tinged her cheeks, and she had that look in her eyes, the one that made him feel about ten feet tall. “Only for you to come back,” she said.

  “I will. This won’t take long.”

  Her color deepened, and he realized he’d said exactly the same thing right before he’d made love to her beside her claw-foot tub. Damn, he was aroused in no time thinking of the way she’d opened to him, the way she’d cried out, the way he’d felt at the moment of climax.