Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  He strafed her body with his hand, molding her to him, exhorting her to know how thoroughly she aroused him, needing to feel her legs wrap around his, to feel her want against him. And as she readily complied, a soft growl deep in her throat, he swiftly unfastened the button and zipper of her jeans. Her moan matched his as he slid his fingers beneath her lacy panties and brushed against the crisp curls that hid her core from him.

  Suckling a breast, tormenting her with his fingers, he heard her ragged breathing and knew he was nowhere close to allowing her pleasure to so quickly peak. He pulled away from her. Moving her lax body as if she were a beautiful rag doll, he slowly stripped away her blouse, raised her then settled her on it. He traced the tiny smile on her lips with his tongue as he slipped her bra around, unfastened it and tugged it free of her body. And he removed his shirt and, lifting her up, rested her hips on it. And he tantalizingly, oh, so slowly, pulled down her jeans, kissing each new patch of skin that was revealed.

  “Chance…” She moaned when he reached her feet and removed her tennis shoes and socks before stripping the jeans away. He tossed the jeans aside and drew a harsh, ragged breath when he turned to look at her exposed body. Wearing a pair of lacy black panties that suggested more than hid her from him, Jeannie lay still, her eyes hooded with desire, her lips parted and moist. Her nipples, hard and pointed, seemed to call to him, but then so did every other part of her body. The insides of her elbows, the hollows of her neck, the swell of her hips, her eyes, her lush mouth.

  “You, too,” she whispered. “I want to see you, too.

  He loved the way she watched him as he unfastened his belt and jeans. And grinned a little self-consciously as he yanked off his boots and socks. The sand felt cool and soft beneath his bare feet. But it was the sight of her that made him hard. And he hardened more when she sighed at the sound of his lowering zipper. When he sprang free as he stood in a fluid motion and shoved the jeans away, her light moan echoed his own.

  Instead of lying down in her opened arms, he knelt over her middle and began peeling those lacy panties down her long legs. Again he trailed the slip of clothing with his tongue and lips, kissing the places he’d dreamed about, the spots that made her moan and the secrets that had kept him awake so many nights. And after he slipped the panties free of her arched feet, he dropped them onto her jeans. Parting her legs, he knelt between them, running his hands up the insides of her thighs, kneading her trembling limbs, reveling in every silken, freckled nuance of her. He lifted her feet and massaged them lightly, then rested them behind his head and bent to kiss her opened thighs, the soft, delicate skin leading to her core.

  He glanced at her. Her eyes were staring, glazed and a little wild.

  “You remind me of a roan Appaloosa I wanted to own so badly once upon a time that I spent hours every night trying to figure out a way I could have her. You do that to me.”

  “A man and his horse,” she said, and smiled.

  “You haunt me every bit as much as that horse did.”

  She chuckled. “Nice to know I’m about equal with a cowboy’s horse.”

  “Lady, you don’t know the half of it.”

  She chuckled again, then gasped as he dipped fingers into her honeyed core. Driving himself nearly as insane as he hoped he was her, he lowered his mouth to slowly taste her, hungry to learn all her secrets. With a patience born of nothing but sheer, raw desire to please her in every possible way, he carefully laved, taking in her scent, her essence, needing to hear her call his name, aching to feel her body convulse around his fingers.

  As if reading his mind, she did cry out and arch against him. And faster he kissed her, pressing his fingers into her, slipping his free hand beneath her to raise her even higher.

  She called his name again, a desperate plea, and it was all he could do not to give in to her demands, stop what he was doing and plunge into her, taking her with all his might. But he stayed where he was, his lips and tongue moving faster, his fingers a counterpoint melody.

  “Chance, oh, please, please…”

  She didn’t know if she was pleading for him to stop or to continue. Her legs were shaking, her thighs pressing against the hard planes of his face. Her fingers dug into the sand. Her body trembled, and her breasts heaved. And still he wouldn’t stop, and she felt herself spiraling into a universe she’d never seen before. Colors, sharp blues, reds and glittering white danced in her eyes. And suddenly, and without any more warning that his name tangled in her throat, she bucked against him and convulsed around him, every single part of her drawing inward with sharp spasms of ecstasy.

  More in tune with her body than she could ever have imagined, he held her there in that magical universe, drawing every shuddering element of her release into him and soothing her down again.

  She murmured his name like a litany, a bridge back to this world, and felt tears gather in her eyes, tears not of sorrow but of exquisite release. And when he raised his head, his eyes were glassy and nearly emerald-green with harsh want. She slid her legs down his back and opened her arms to him, beckoning him to come to her.

  He slapped his hand against the water, splashing them both a little, and dragged his wet hand across his face before rising above her, as if no longer seeking permission but demanding access. She raised her hands to his damp face and pulled him down for a kiss.

  Tasting the cool water and herself, she sighed into his mouth. “Please, now, Chance. Now.”

  And he drove into her with a single fluid motion, filling her, calling her name out as he lowered himself deeper into her. He closed his eyes as if in pain, then slowly pulled back until he was nearly outside her again. She tightened her legs and locked her ankles behind his buttocks to pull him inside, deeper and harder. He ground out her name, pressing her breasts flat beneath his chest, thrusting into her with all the pent-up passion he’d been so carefully holding at bay.

  He rocked into her, pressing her against their shirts in the sand, slowly and with deliberate strokes that gentled her even as they reawakened desire. His body was as beautiful as his actions and as powerful as the emotions he inspired in her. She ran her hands along his muscled shoulders, massaging him, exhorting him, drawing him to her, then simply holding on as he began to drive into her in ever increasing thrusts. Faster and harder he met her, murmuring inchoate words or imprecations against her lips or the base of her throat. With each thrust, he paused, as if savoring every single stroke and touch. He stopped abruptly, his breath coming in harsh, jagged intakes. He raised up slightly, his green eyes locked with hers.

  “It’s safe with me, Jeannie,” he said raggedly.

  “Nothing’s safe,” she murmured even as her legs pulled at him, propelling him into that rocking motion.

  He uttered a harsh groan, one so filled with longing and need that it seemed to vibrate through her. And with his eyes gazing directly into hers, as if they were linked at some level far greater than just physical or even primal, he resumed his deep, slow thrusting. Like an inferno gathering flame, he began to pump with greater and greater intensity against her.

  She felt the beginning of another release, the spiraling, coiling sensation that coincided with his flinging her into that other universe. And faster and harder he thundered into her. Calling her name. Demanding she travel with him. And she stayed with him stroke for stroke. Until he froze suddenly, his face pulled tight with agony, her name a prayer on his lips. And she felt him shudder over her, within her. Releasing, pumping, quivering inside her, sending her over the edge into that world of magical colors and glittering white light.

  It seemed hours later that the world devolved into this plane again, and Jeannie understood the whirling colors of red, blue and white had been the chimney high above them, not magically spinning but gloriously expanding as she’d arched to meet Chance. She ran her hands along his shoulders and slowly slid her legs down his, keeping her ankles locked to hold him inside her as long as she could.

  He nuzzled her neck and drew his f
ingers through her hair as if combing it, stroking her differently now that the height of passion had peaked and been conquered. Caressing her instead of exhorting, gentling her instead of urging her to climax.

  She pressed her hands against his arms to have him sink fully down on her, to feel his weight with no barrier.

  “I’ll smash you,” he said.

  “Good,” she answered. And it was good. She’d never thought of it before, how much the sheer physical weight pressing down was such a vital aspect in making love, in knowing one’s partner, letting him know her. For a brief, almost tender second, she thought of David, of how they were together. But this time the thought came without comparisons and without pain. They had been good together.

  And she and Chance were good together. “Amazingly good,” she murmured aloud.

  “And to think, I spent all those nights when I was a kid wanting an Appaloosa when you were out there somewhere in the world.”

  She chuckled, and he groaned as her muscles involuntarily clenched around him.

  Amazing her, she felt him stir within her, a hesitant, almost playful flicker of life. She deliberately gave a squeeze, and delighting her, he matched the pulse with a jolt of his own.

  He chuckled against her, and she felt a ripple throughout her body. And she laughed with him. Around him.

  Chance raised up onto one elbow and gazed at the smiling beauty so securely pinned beneath him. “Hold on to me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Trust me.”

  He wrapped his arm behind her, lifting her up to meet his lips, then gave a mighty shove with the hand still planted in the sand and rolled them over into the cool water of her magic pond.

  She gave a brief shriek and instead of fighting to get away from him clung to him, holding him even tighter against her as he found a footing.

  Still locked within her, loving the way she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, he shifted her so that he could suckle her breasts again. “You’re so incredibly beautiful,” he murmured around a pebble-hard nipple. “A man could never get enough of you.”

  She didn’t answer except for a small moan of pleasure. She loosened her grip around his neck to lean into the water, her hair fanning out from her like a siren trapped by her own music.

  He molded her breasts, nuzzled them, and as she began to rock against him, he lightly nipped at them. And keeping hold of her with his mouth, he lowered his hands to her bottom and cupped the rounded flesh, pulling her more tightly to him, over him, playing with her, touching her, kneading her flesh while he drove into her yet again.

  And when she cried out, his name torn from her lips, her magical waters splashed over them and around them. And for a single shining moment, just as he called her name in return, Chance Salazar knew he was in the exact right place in the universe. It was a place he’d never been before and was all too afraid he might never find again.

  Chapter 10

  A lthough Chance’s watch showed the afternoon had advanced, Jeannie knew the sun wouldn’t set for another five or six summertime hours. This was the longest stretch of hours she’d left the children with Juanita at the ranch except for those rare occasions she went into Carlsbad.

  Still, her reluctance to leave the magic pond showed in how slowly she dressed, stopping too often to shake her clothes free of sand, to rinse her hands yet again in the cool, clear water. There was so much she wanted to be able to say to Chance but didn’t know how. She wanted to give him nothing but the truth, nothing but the sheer, raw honesty they’d shared in this halcyon place this afternoon. But even as she buttoned her blouse and zipped her jeans, she could feel the distance growing between them. For a few blissful hours, he’d almost made her feel whole again, made such a concept as sharing seem possible. But then what? She knew how fragile life was and knew she didn’t have it in her to offer that kind of loving trust and intimacy again. And she certainly didn’t know how to accept it.

  And yet, a very real part of her wanted to ask him to stay with her. Stay long enough to let her heal, let her breathe again. Let her learn how to love him—to love again, period. He’d never know how much she wanted to ask it of him.

  She’d asked him to make her forget, to take her away from the world for a while. Instead, though he’d driven her senseless, he’d brought her back to the world. With all its hurts, its despairs and with every bit of all its joys. And, most frightening of all, all the world’s hopes. She didn’t want hopes—except for the children—and she trembled at feeling them.

  It had been difficult to know what to say to him. Part of her wanted to thank him. Thank him for making her feel a woman again, for making her believe in her beauty, for making her feel every touch, stroke and kiss and give those to him in return. And a darker, more selfish side of her wanted to rail at him for making her feel anything. It made her too aware of all she’d been missing, all she might discover if she allowed herself to remain as open as she’d been in the chasm he called a sinkhole.

  But it had been magic that bound them that afternoon. The water, the red rocks, the blue, blue sky, the privacy. And Chance. Incredible, magical Chance. But magic always had a finish, a conclusion, and it was over with a wave of a wand and a puff of smoke and the final applause.

  What was beautiful and delicious there in that magic spot couldn’t be sustained in the real world, could it?

  They were out of the chasm, in the harshly lit real world, and not all the magic in the world could follow them home. If her body carried the reminders of their time spent together, even that would fade with time. And if her heart might carry marks forever, her heart was well populated with magical moments and loves she’d had to bury and lock away in that heavy dark place.

  She glanced at the nearly invisible cliff edge, as if memorizing it for a time when she would need a lovely memory, then looked at the Guadalupe Mountains so starkly purple, silhouetted in the late afternoon sunlight. With a resolute sigh, she turned Diablo in the direction of the ranch.

  “There’s a shorter way,” Chance said and pointed across the flatlands to the south of the well.

  “That will take us back to the ranch?” Jeannie asked, surprised. She’d only been out here twice, but both times she’d come from the back pasture side, today with the lowing of some two hundred head of cattle to egg her on, the other time without that unique encouragement. She’d come by way of the rolling hills north and west of the ranch headquarters.

  Chance was pointing in a direction she would have thought would take them straight into Carlsbad and away from the ranch. She had to look at him, had to ask him how he knew the way when she’d had only mountains in the background and a few hills that all looked the same to guide her.

  It was almost a relief to discover he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were far in the distance, seeing things in the desert she might never see. He lifted in his stirrups as if eight more inches might grant him a view of the world he couldn’t have seen just sitting there. The muscles on his legs corded with effort of standing in stirrups, and his back was rigid. He sank down and flashed a grin in her general direction. “It’ll drop us on the side of the road where we fought that first fire.”

  Jeannie shrugged and nudged Diablo to follow Jezebel across the flats. “Did you say first fire?” she asked after they left the salt cedars rimming her chasm behind.

  “You weren’t supposed to catch that,” he said. “Forget I said it.”

  “Stop,” Jeannie said, and when he did, she turned her eyes directly to his. She realized she’d been avoiding his eyes ever since the moment they’d decided the bliss was finished, the day was drawing to a close, that they had to leave the magic pond. And, worse, seeing the guarded look in his eyes, she suddenly understood there had been no moment when the deciding happened.

  They’d laughed together, loved together, dipped in the cool water and played together, but there wasn’t a moment when either of them had turned to the other and said, �
�The magic’s over, sweetheart, we have to leave now.”

  There had been no words. No sighs. No negatives of any kind.

  And there had been no promises or dreams of the future talked about in the aftermath of such splendor because she wasn’t capable of promising anything other than a modicum of safety to the children. She couldn’t offer more to Chance, to anyone, because her heart was too damaged, her soul too broken.

  She’d shied away from speaking any of these truths, or even any of the lies she’d hidden behind for so long, when he’d assisted her onto Diablo. But she wondered about them now. Had she been hiding? Was that a strange direction her grief had taken her? Not that she couldn’t love again, but that she wouldn’t? Was her fear of the future—of not having enough love to offer—a mask for a deeper truth, that she was a woman afraid of loving again because to be open to love was to also be vulnerable to pain? It couldn’t be that easy, and yet the notion held a ring of truth.

  “There were other fires?” she asked.

  “A few. Small ones. No big deal.”

  “What were you going to tell me down by the pond?” she asked.

  He pushed his hat back and studied her. “It wasn’t okay to tell you then, but it is now?”

  She nodded.

  He chuckled and shook his head. “But this is a magical spot, too,” he said.

  Jeannie fought the smile his grin was provoking. “And how do you figure that?”

  “It’s Miracle Ranch. That’s enough, isn’t it? Come on, Señora McMunn, it’s time to head for home.”

  She wished she dared ask him what he was thinking as they rode along, but she was afraid he might tell her in that devastating way he had of cutting straight to the heart of things. And if he told her how he felt about her, what would she say? Either way, good or bad, it would be admitting feelings she didn’t want to acknowledge and didn’t remember how to accept.