A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy)

by Patricia McLinn

  As soon as she released his other hand from his shirt, he made quick work of her snap. Resting her hands on his shoulders and leaning forward, she placed an open-mouthed kiss at the indentation of his breastbone. He wanted to never move again, to absorb the smooth, moist heat of her caress on his skin until it reached into his bones and touched his soul.

  But his body pushed him now, demanding and urging.

  Unzipping her jeans allowed them to slip partly down her hips, snagging low and gapping in a most inviting way. He slid his hands inside that opening, over her hips and down to the edge of her panties.

  Deprived of her kisses when Cambria straightened, he had the compensation of the small sound that came from the back of her throat as he dipped his fingers under the edge of her panties, and deeper. Smooth, smooth skin. A crisp tickle over her mound. Moist heat beckoning his touch.

  His thumbs stroked, and she moaned, eyes closed, head dropped back.

  He stroked deeper, dipping inside her, and she shuddered, her hands clenching his bare shoulders and drawing an answering shudder from him.

  “Cambria...”

  Her eyes fluttered open.

  He wanted to give to her, to care for her, to provide her solace. To take her out of this moment, this pain, and into pleasure. All that, he wanted to do for her, with touches and kisses and patient, building caresses. He wanted to brush her skin, and have the touch melt into bone and blood until it whispered at the core of her.

  But she wouldn’t allow it. Not completely.

  She slid her hands down his chest in tormenting tandem, then unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans with blessedly less deliberation than she’d taken with his shirt. When she slid her hand inside and cupped him, a light pressure against his aching length, he knew his patience had reached its limit.

  He unhooked her bra and skimmed both it and her shirt over her head. Pausing only to pull a condom from the pocket, he shucked his jeans and briefs in one move. She was still kicking free of her jeans and panties as he laid back and pulled her on top of him.

  He hadn’t known breathing could be so erotic. Each rise and fall pushed her breasts against his chest in a contrast of sensations from the hardened tips surrounded by softness. Each rise and fall fanned shudderingly against the skin at the side of his neck. Each rise and fall brought the faintest scent of her, the scent that matched the taste he’d found with his lips and tongue.

  Hands roamed, explored, tormented, met, left for new worlds to conquer, returned to the old, and started anew.

  He marveled at the texture of her back, sleek and smooth. He gritted his teeth at the sweep of her bent knee across the apex of his thighs. He garbled a moaned curse deep in his throat when her open-mouthed kiss to his nipple slid to the most delicate of sucking motions.

  Grasping her rib cage, he held her away, gaining much-needed sanity, though less control than he might have hoped for.

  “I’ve got to...”

  Her look followed the slight rustle as his groping hand found the condom packet among the covers.

  The space he’d created between their bodies conspired with her questing hand to make him forfeit nearly all his sanity.

  He circled her wrist, but didn’t have the strength to pull her hand away.

  Her voice dipped to a whisper. “You’re so soft.”

  A single moan of tormented laughter was all he managed. “If I were any harder, I’d explode.”

  “I meant the outside.” She sounded flustered, a shade defensive.

  It stopped him from mentioning that the last thing a man wanted to hear in these circumstances was a woman marveling at how soft he was. It also made him feel oddly protective of her. “I know you did, Cambria.”

  Any lingering defensiveness dissipated in her fascinated interest in the maneuvers required to transfer the packet’s content to where it would do the most good. He was sweating and pulsing with a fabulous ache by the time he spread his hands wide on her back and drew her down for a long, deep kiss.

  Still, he would have had her set the pace. He let her know that. Instead, she used her hold on him to tug him as she rolled to her side. He followed, but primitive instinct drove him to do more, and he completed the roll with her firmly under him. She wriggled, he slid, and the contact between their slick, fever-hot bodies was complete.

  “Cambria...” He rolled his hips, bringing his heat and hardness to the entrance of her body, easing so slightly inside, letting her know how she made him feel, but giving her choices of how and when.

  She skimmed her hands down his back to his buttocks, where her palms pressed while her hips rocked, slicing away choices until only here and now remained.

  He probed her deeper, straining to resist the urge to pound into her. She shifted, tilting her hips, and he slid in more. Her lips parted on an indrawn breath. Her hands tightened on him, drawing him into her. He thrust. Withdrew slightly, then thrust again. And again.

  “Boone...Boone,” she whispered. Her hands roamed, curving over the hills at either side of the valley of his spine. Gentle strokes, as if he needed soothing.

  This was supposed to be for her, to give to her.

  He shifted his weight to one arm and moved to slide the other hand between their bodies, but she caught his wrist.

  “Don’t take over, Boone.”

  Forcing his hips to near stillness, he dropped his forehead to hers. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep it slow for you.” At least he’d give her honesty in this. “It’s been so damn long, and you’re so...you feel so good.”

  She shifted and found his mouth. Her tongue slid inside and her hips lifted slightly, two fleeting, delicate motions that set off a volcano.

  His hips drove against hers. “Damn, Cambria—”

  “It’s okay, Boone. It’s—” She gasped and her hands tightened on him.

  She hadn’t pushed him over the edge, she’d shoved him off a cliff. And he had no chance of stepping back to level ground. He was free-falling, with only her to hold on to. Only the sensation of her beneath him, around him. Only the smell of her skin and their passion. Only the sound of her short, panting sighs.

  Impact was staggering, shattering, muscle-convulsing, body-draining. He threw back his head and shuddered with it, bright patterns of colors exploding behind his closed eyelids.

  He collapsed, only one conscious thought slicing through. He’d wanted to give to her. Instead she’d given to him.

  Chapter Nine

  All right, so maybe she’d rushed him a little.

  Maybe, somewhere in the deepest corner of her mind, Cambria had wanted to hold on to the part of herself she would give up if she came apart in his arms.

  Maybe she hadn’t quite been ready to trust him with that, with the knowledge that he could give her a climax.

  That was no reason for Boone to be so ruthless.

  She’d been asleep, content in his arms with the quilt haphazardly drawn over their cooling bodies. But not so deeply asleep that she hadn’t heard him go into the bathroom, hadn’t felt the mattress dip under his return, hadn’t turned into the warmth of his chest. And drifted off again.

  She woke to a mercilessly soft stroking. Her body throbbed with sensation, beating to a pulse he’d set and would not release. Her senses rushed toward the completion that she’d denied them and that his touches promised.

  She knew it was too late, still she reached to touch him, to try to regain some of the control. He caught her hands and pinned them gently above her head with one hand while he held her body with his weight.

  “Not this time, Cambria. This time, I’m taking over.” He let her see his wolfish smile before he lowered his head to take her nipple in his mouth.

  It was the kind of exquisite torture that could leave a woman screaming. Lips, hands, hips, teeth, chest, tongue, legs—all were his instruments. He never hurt her, but he wasn’t gentle. He demanded—that she accept the pleasure he gave her, that she acknowledge she wanted a satisfaction beyond the pleasure.
/>
  He brought her near release, but held her back as he fit his hips between her thighs and drew her legs around him.

  “Cambria, open your eyes.”

  She did. And she kept them open as he drove deep into her. She kept them open even as her body arched to meet him. Even as the rolling shudder of satisfaction carried her away from sanity, followed by a second, deeper tremor. Even as she came apart as completely as she had feared.

  She shut her eyes only when the weight and width of Boone, still joined to her, collapsed on her like a human blanket of comfort. That’s when the tears slipped free. Stupid, inexplicable tears. But Boone asked for no explanation. He shifted her to within his arms and kissed her salted cheeks until they dried.

  She slept then. From pure, sated, physical exhaustion.

  But in that period before dawn when dark retreats but light isn’t strong enough to hold full sway, Cambria slipped out of bed, drawing on her robe. She opened the second drawer of the bureau as quietly as she could, bending to search its shadowed interior for underwear.

  Boone rolled to the side of the bed, but before she could turn to see if he was awake or simply stirring in his sleep, the brush of his fingertips on the back of her right calf made her gasp.

  His voice behind her was rough and slow. “If I ever meet this jackass Toby—”

  “Tony,” she murmured automatically.

  “I’ll be damn tempted to slap him on the back and thank him for being such an ass. For not knowing what he had in you. So you came back to Wyoming, where I could find you.”

  His touch slid higher, across the delicate skin at the back of her knee. It tickled a little, but she couldn’t move away from the sensation. Not for anything.

  She heard the whisper of the mattress, and knew he sat directly behind her. His left hand rested at her hip, then followed the curve of her bottom, gliding over her robe, heating the material caught between their skin until it seemed to liquefy.

  His right hand slid higher up her leg, under the hem of the robe, then echoed the caress of its brethren, but with no material intruding.

  “Close the drawer, Cambria.” His voice was low, ragged.

  When she bent lower to comply, his hands flexed against her. Her breath caught at the sensation and her head came up, meeting her own heavy-lidded reflection in the mirror over the far end of the bureau. The image surprised her. She hadn’t known she could look this way. Like a woman who could get lost in sensation.

  She recognized a faint rustling of foil, but she paid no heed until a stirring behind told her Boone had stood, even before his image joined hers in the mirror.

  He was behind her. Around her, his hands reached the belt’s knot. He slipped it open without his fingers even brushing against her through the robe. The belt dropped to the floor and the robe opened a shadowed gap. Boone leaned over her shoulder, kissed the lobe of her ear, tugged it slightly with his teeth.

  He traced the side of her throat with his tongue, then raised his head just enough to meet her eyes in the mirror. At some level she saw his reaction to her more clearly now, through the mirror, than the first two times they’d made love. The light was brighter, or her eyes were clearer, or his desire was stronger or she was more willing to see.

  She leaned against him, arching her back, letting the robe’s opening gap wider and deliberately, delicately, snuggling her hips against him. He grasped her hips and made the contact blatant. Her eyes shot open at the sensation, through the silk of her robe, of a man, hot and hard, pulsing against her.

  “You’re...”

  The mirror reflected his slightly strained smile.

  “Hard? Hell, yes. I told you it had been a long time. The down side was a short fuse that first time. The up side—” he rocked against her, drawing a gasp “—is having a lot of reserves built up.”

  His hands at her hips gathered handfuls of robe, drawing it up in quick, uneven spurts over her skin until it bunched at her waist, and he pressed against her, full and hot.

  “Just looking at you, Cambria...” His mouth was low at the side of her throat, pushing against the material of her robe to explore the slope to her shoulder. She shifted, letting the covering drop onto her arm, then repeated the action on the other side.

  He reached around to cup her breasts in his hands, circling the aureoles lightly, then stroking firmly across the tips with the pad of his thumbs. With sensation shuddering through her, her head fell back to his shoulder as the rhythm of his hands on her breasts and their hips swaying together caught and meshed.

  He trailed a hand down the center of her body, then slipped a fingertip to the entrance, teasing lightly.

  “I’ve thought of touching you like this, Cambria. From the first time I saw you.”

  His rough admission should have shocked her. She turned to put her lips to the side of his neck, pressing her teeth against his skin when his teasing touch turned into a deeper invasion. She was near the edge.

  “I want you...inside.”

  “The bed? Or...”

  “Now.”

  His second’s hesitation brought her to the edge of reconsideration, but then he moved and there was no regret. She braced her arms on the bureau and let her head drop as he guided himself into her. A shuddering wave crashed over her, quick and so sharp she cried out with it.

  Then she nearly cried.

  So fast. She hadn’t meant it to end so soon.

  “I’m sorry, Boone. I...”

  He stopped her words by rolling his hips against her, into her. And she knew it was far from ended.

  She knew he watched her in the mirror. She raised her head, wanting to see his hands on her, her body flushed. Most of all, to see the fierce satisfaction in his face.

  Sensation built, echoing off nerve endings, streaking to her core. She gasped with the stretching, deep sensation of his thrusts. And cried out a second time at the sight of his reflected face in its stark, possessive grimace as his climax collided with the full, pulsing reality of him inside her.

  She never knew how he got them to the bed, but that was where she came to a sense of herself again. And she knew, absolutely, that she had not settled herself on the mattress, between the sheets, head on a pillow. Left on her own, she would have collapsed on the floor between the bed and bureau and stayed there indefinitely.

  She didn’t sleep. Perhaps she was too shaken.

  She’d had good sex before. She wished that was what this was, even as she faced the reality that it was nothing that unthreatening. The first time they’d made love—well, they’d probably been edging toward that from his first day here when they’d brushed against each other in the barn. But the second time couldn’t be written off as sex or curiosity. She had given a part of herself, a vulnerability, to him. No denying that. And this third time...well, she wouldn’t think about that right now.

  Instead she raised her head and watched him sleep, studying his face, wondering at herself. And at him.

  Even when she knew she was avoiding one issue, Cambria could be honest with herself in another area. Especially in retrospect. She knew her protective skin of wariness, even cynicism, could grate on men’s egos. Some turned away, some grew defensive, some got nasty, some waged a campaign of cloying kindness. Boone simply accepted.

  She touched her fingers lightly to his chin, craving even more contact than body wrapped around body, and he turned his head toward her in his sleep.

  She smiled, ignoring further temptation so he could sleep.

  Acceptance. Yes, he’d given her that. But not as a burden to bear or a flaw to overlook. He seemed to take her prickly exterior as part of her and almost enjoy it. From the start, he had taken her tart retorts in good humor, often giving as good as he got.

  Maybe that’s why he’d scared her—because instead of being driven away by her barriers, he’d embraced them wholeheartedly. How could a woman resist that?

  She couldn’t.

  Cambria dropped her head to the pillow, a puff of amazement
escaping her lips.

  She couldn’t resist. She hadn’t resisted. She wouldn’t resist.

  The thought she’d pushed away, deciding not to think about it, had circled around and caught her anyhow.

  Oh, dear lord, she was falling in love with Boone Dorsey Smith.

  * * * *

  Boone didn’t have a moment alone with Cambria all that interminable day.

  At least not after they’d made love in the shower before she’d practically shoved him out of her cabin so he wouldn’t be spotted by her early rising family.

  But he saw her. From when she came into the kitchen where he ate Irene’s breakfast offering as if he’d been starved for a month, to several sightings as she and Irene hung curtains and did chores in the guest cabins that would receive their first occupants this weekend. Then for a couple hours while she and Pete joined him in working on the cabin. Through a picnic supper at the ball park before Pete’s game that went into extra innings.

  Each time he saw her, the same two emotions surfaced—a primitive possessiveness and a grim determination to tell her the whole truth.

  When he noticed her move with a certain gingerliness, a pang of remorse brought a quick frown. But when she returned a faint smile and a shake of her head, he was reassured enough that his worry slid away under a surge of something less civilized. Call him a Neanderthal, but that private sign of their lovemaking the night before gave him a kind of smug satisfaction. As long as she wasn’t really hurting.

  He supposed, he thought during the tenth inning of the baseball game, it was the feeling a man might have seeing the woman he loved pregnant with his child.

  He sat up so abruptly that Ted jerked his head around to him.

  “Did you see something? You think they’re going to try a double steal?” Ted asked anxiously.

  Boone looked at the field, where the opposing team mounted a threat, without really seeing it. “No. No. It was, uh, a crick in my back.”

  More like in his conscience.

  He loved Cambria Weston. Damnation.