Rawhide and Lace

by Diana Palmer

  “Shhhh, baby. Shhh.” He soothed her with his voice, smoothed back her hair with his hands, comforting her even as he kept up the easy rhythm. “It’s all right. Let go for me. Let go. That’s it. Don’t pull away, don’t move back. Lie still and let me have you. Let me have you now.”

  Suddenly she cried out and opened her eyes wide. Her face contorted, her hands stretched out to the brass bars of the headboard and gripped them until the knuckles whitened. She writhed under him, moaning frenziedly and thrashing this way and that. She began to beg him, whisper to him. Her hips moved with his, moved, moved, until his mind began to feel the pleasure building in his own body.

  All at once, her hips ground up against his and held there; she shuddered uncontrollably and began to cry as her body went into spasm after spasm after sweet, hellish spasm.

  “Open your eyes!” he groaned, clenching his teeth as it began to explode in him, too.

  She did, looking up at him. He saw her eyes for an instant, and then her face blurred as he was hurled through time in an explosion of unbearable brilliance—light and color and rainbows and waterfalls…Then, at last, all was still.

  He felt her under him what seemed like hours later, felt her sweaty warmth, her pulsing heartbeat, the tender trembling of her arms and legs, and the faint sound of weeping.

  “Oh, God, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He touched her face with his hand, gentling her. “Erin, did I hurt you?”

  “No.” She kissed his neck, his throat; she clung to him, still trembling softly. “Oh, sweet heaven, I never dared dream…I…Oh, Ty, that was so scary!”

  “What was?”

  “I…I went wild, didn’t I?” she murmured. “I didn’t even know what I was saying or doing, I just started shaking and I couldn’t stop, and then…then, it burst inside me like an explosion, and I felt as if I were going to die of the pleasure, that I couldn’t bear it…”

  “The little death.” He smiled. “The French call it that. I felt it too, for the first time in my life.”

  “People could die of it, all right.” She clasped her arms tightly around him. “Let me feel all your weight,” she whispered. “Lie on me.”

  He trembled a little at the husky note in her voice. “Like this?” he asked, giving her his weight. “I might crush you.”

  “I’d like that.” Her hands slid down his muscular body, finding his hips and pressing them down over hers. She began to move, to surge sinuously under him. “Ty, I’m sorry, I can’t seem to help it,” she whispered.

  “It’s all right, honey,” he whispered back, sliding his hands under her hips. “I’m just as hot as you are. Here.” He moved her legs, positioning her, and then he lifted his smoldering eyes to hers and watched as he took her. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said softly. “This time, I want to see it.”

  She trembled gently, holding him as he moved. “Again, so soon?”

  “I might make the record books,” he said wryly, then grimaced at the surge of pleasure. “God!”

  She lifted against him. “Can I watch you, too?” she whispered shakily.

  “Yes!” His breath was coming wildly now as her body danced with his, matching each sharp move, teaching him, learning from him, in a rhythm that was quick and hard and devastating.

  “Ty…Ty!” she moaned.

  “Feel it!” he cried. “Feel it. Let me watch you…!”

  Her eyes widened, dilated. She shuddered, and then it was all sharp pleasure and vast explosive sweetness, and his eyes were there, seeing her, dilating, bursting with it. She made a sound, then heard him cry out even as she saw his face contort and redden, his teeth clench, his body tense. She felt him in every cell of her body and clung to him while the world swayed drunkenly around them….

  The ceiling came into sharp focus. She stared at it, trembling, her skin saturated with warmth and dampness and pleasure. She felt him shuddering over her, and her hands smoothed down the long, muscular line of his back.

  “We’ll kill each other doing this one day,” he whispered.

  “I don’t care.” She nuzzled her cheek against his. “You’re wet all over.”

  “So are you.” He lifted himself away from her and fell onto his back. “My God. I can’t believe I felt that.”

  “Neither can I.” She sat up slowly and looked at him, really looked at him, with eyes that revealed both awe and delight.

  He opened his eyes lazily and smiled when he saw her expression. “No comment?”

  She smiled back and shook her head. “How about, ‘Wow’?”

  He laughed. “I could second that.” He stretched and groaned. “I think we broke my back.” Suddenly he sat up. “For God’s sake, your hip!”

  “It’s all right,” she told him gently. “Just a little sore. The doctor did say I should exercise it.” She blushed.

  “I wonder if that was the kind of exercise he had in mind.” He grinned. “Should we discuss it with him?”

  She hit him. That, of course, led to a bout of enthusiastic wrestling, which she lost. She laughed up at him, delighting in their newfound intimacy.

  “I’ll remember next time,” he said, tracing her eyebrows softly. “You won’t have to show me again.”

  She colored more vividly. “You’re incredible,” she said breathlessly, and dropped her eyes to his chest.

  “So are you.” He bent and brushed her mouth with his. “And now,” he said, “how would you like to go shopping?”

  She smiled. “I guess I can lean on the cane, can’t I?” She laughed. “I think I’m too weak to walk.”

  “Then I’ll carry you.” He lifted her out of bed and set her on her feet. He searched her eyes. “No more regrets?”

  “No more.” She pillowed her cheek on his warm, damp chest. “Was this just an impulse, or did you plan it?”

  “An impulse,” he said. “I couldn’t take any more nights like the past several. Cold showers are rough on the system in winter.” He tilted her chin up. “And you were pretty jittery. I had a feeling we shared the same problem. Too many hangups, too little privacy. So I thought I’d try it.”

  She reached up and bit his lower lip. “Can I sleep with you from now on?”

  He chuckled. “I think you’d better. The hall’s pretty cold at night. And sneaking down it would wear me out.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” she murmured dryly.

  “No. We sure wouldn’t.” He tugged her hair. “Let’s get some clothes on. I still have book work to do when we finish in town.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  He pulled on his jeans, glancing over his shoulder at her. “The sooner I get done with the books, the sooner we can go to bed.”

  She made a grab for her slip. “Well, what are you piddling around there for?” she asked. “Hurry up!”

  He laughed softly. For the first time, he had some hope for the future.

  Erin, watching him, was entertaining some hope of her own. She felt deliciously weary and fulfilled, and she wondered at his patience and stamina. He had to be the handsomest man alive, she thought dreamily as she watched him dress. He was more man than she’d ever known, and it was all of heaven to be his wife. She smiled to herself. What a beautiful start for a marriage, she thought. It could only get better.

  Chapter Nine

  Erin walked through the stores with Ty in a kind of dazed pleasure. He held her arm possessively, as if he might be afraid of losing her, and she pressed close beside him, drowning in the newness of belonging.

  He needed a new watchband, so they stopped in a jewelry store. And after Ty had picked out a band and mumbled something to the jeweler, who was going to put it on for him, the friendly clerk talked him into trying on a huge diamond ring. He put it on and eyed it without much enthusiasm. And Erin got an idea.

  She hadn’t thought what to get him for Christmas, and she wasn’t really sure that he’d like a wedding ring or would even wear one. But she had several hundred dollars saved up. And now she knew that the ring he’d tri
ed on would fit him. He didn’t like that one, but she saw him gazing steadily at a gold band inset with a string of diamonds. When the jeweler called him to look at the watchband, Erin motioned to the store clerk, told him what she wanted, and watched him slyly remove the ring from the case and size it. Glancing warily at Ty, he held his forefinger and thumb in a circle shape, and Erin grinned. While Ty was busy she quickly wrote a check and told the clerk to put the ring in a jar of jewelry cleaner.

  “What are you doing? I’m ready to go,” Ty asked impatiently as the clerk came back with a small sack.

  “I needed some jewelry cleaner,” she said with a straight face. “I’m ready now. Thank you,” she told the clerk.

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” he replied politely.

  “What do you need to clean?” Ty asked. “All you wear is that wedding ring.”

  “When I can keep up with it.” She sighed. “I lost it for a while this morning. I know I left it on the sink, but when I went to get it, it had disappeared. And a few minutes later, it was back.” She glanced at his rigid features. “Maybe I’m losing my mind.”

  “Not likely,” he said. “Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  She didn’t see him exchanging a grin with the jeweler. Which was just as well.

  He went with her through the clothing stores in the mall, watching curiously as she looked at price tags more than at the dresses and jeans and blouses.

  “That isn’t necessary, you know,” he told her. “You don’t have to watch prices anymore. You own half the ranch, for God’s sake. I maintain credit in this particular department store. You can have anything you want.”

  She glanced at him and smiled. She knew he wouldn’t begrudge her a dress or two—or three or four, if it came to that. But it was important to her to maintain her independence. And she still didn’t feel entitled to any inheritance. She was almost sure that Bruce had involved her mainly to hurt Ty, not because he’d loved her or had wanted to help. She simply couldn’t use that money with a clear conscience. And Ty didn’t know that she’d just drained her account to buy his Christmas present.

  “I don’t really see anything I like,” she said at last. “I just like window-shopping.”

  He searched her wide eyes. “Erin, you don’t have many clothes….” he began slowly.

  “I don’t need many, not when I’m just hanging around the house, do I?” she said. “Anyway, I don’t care about having a lot of things to wear anymore. The days when I looked good in them are gone.”

  He looked as if he wanted to say something, then he shrugged and let it go.

  The last stop Erin wanted to make was at a Christmastree lot. “We have to,” she pleaded. “I can’t celebrate Christmas without a tree to decorate.”

  He studied her. “Conchita usually sets up a little manger scene….”

  “I want a tree,” she moaned.

  He sighed loudly. “You’ll put yourself in bed with all this walking,” he muttered, noticing the way she was leaning on the cane. “It doesn’t have to be gotten today, does it?”

  “I want a tree,” she persisted.

  He pulled off the road next to the tree lot and cut the engine, shaking his head. “Women.”

  “Men,” she replied.

  He opened the door and got out, and she smiled to herself.

  The tree she wanted was a white pine, gloriously shaped and green. It still had its root ball, too, so that it could be planted after the holiday season.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” he burst out. “Do you mean I’m going to have to pot the damned thing and then go plant it the day after Christmas?”

  “I can’t kill a tree in cold blood.”

  He gaped at her. “You what?”

  “I can’t kill a tree in cold blood, just to put it in the house for a few days. It isn’t natural.”

  “Neither is this.” He glared at the tree and the smiling man who’d just taken his money.

  “If you don’t let me have this tree, I’ll stand one of your horses in the living room and decorate it,” she threatened.

  He stared at the tree. He stared at her. He stared at the man.

  “Go ahead, say it,” she told him. “Come on. Bah, humbug…”

  He turned on his heel, grasping the tree in one hand. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

  “You don’t have to help me decorate it, either,” she said after he’d put it in the trunk of the Lincoln and helped her into the passenger seat.

  “Good.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said gently.

  He glared at her as he started the car and put it in gear. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  She slid over next to him and almost immediately felt his body respond to the nearness of hers. He glanced down and then slipped his arm around her, pulling her even closer.

  “That’s better.” She sighed and pressed her head against his shoulder.

  His lips touched her hair, her forehead. His breath quickened. She reached up and touched his face, his rough cheek, his lips. He looked down and almost ran off the road staring into those soft, warm green eyes.

  She smiled to herself, savoring his closeness, the spicy smell of his after-shave. In all her life, she thought, she’d never been happier.

  They parked in front of the house, but before she could move away, Ty bent his head and kissed her. It was different from any of the kisses they’d shared before. Softer. More tender. More a caress than a kiss.

  “I think we’ll put you on the very top,” he whispered. “You’re as pretty as any angel I’ve ever seen.”

  “You sweet old thing,” she said, and reached up to kiss him back.

  “I’m not that old.” He grinned.

  She knew what he was thinking, and her cheeks went hot. “Quit that,” she said, scrambling out of the car.

  “We’re married,” he reminded her. “It’s okay if we sleep together.”

  “Keep reminding me,” she murmured, and glanced up at him. “You make it all sinfully exciting.”

  He chuckled. “So do you, wildcat.”

  “I’m going to get a bucket for the tree,” she said, turning.

  “Let Red do it,” he replied. “You get off that leg before you break it. You’ve done enough walking for one day.”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” she muttered.

  “What are you going to decorate it with?” he asked suddenly.

  She grimaced. “I forgot. Well, maybe Conchita can think of something.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  The minute she went inside, he found Red, told him what he wanted done with the tree and slipped him a twenty-dollar bill to go and buy decorations.

  Red gaped up at his boss. “Buy what?”

  “Decorations,” Ty said shortly. “For the Christmas tree.”

  “Christmas tree?”

  “You eat a parrot for breakfast or something?” Ty demanded. “She wants a tree. She wants it decorated. I got the tree, but I don’t have any decorations. There’s twenty dollars.” Ty nodded toward the bill. “Go get her something to put on it!”

  Red whistled and pulled his hat low over his eyes. “Talk about earthquakes.”

  “I’ll quake your earth if you don’t get going.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He walked off, shaking his head and muttering.

  Ty glared after him. “You’d think he’d never seen a damned Christmas tree,” he mumbled to himself as he headed for the house.

  * * *

  “The señor is putting up a tree? Inside the house?”

  “A Christmas tree,” Erin told Conchita. “To decorate.”

  There was a long, breathless garble of Spanish. “Never before.” She shook her head. “Never, never. No tree, no fuss, he say; never mind turkey and things. Christmas is only for other people. Now here he buys a tree. I tell you, this is not the same man for whom I work since he is a young man. This is a stranger, señora. He smiles, he
laughs, he compliments me on breakfast….” She threw up her hands. “A miracle!”

  She went off to tell José about it, leaving Erin standing, amused and unmoving, in the hall.

  “I thought I told you to sit down,” Ty said, tossing his hat onto the side table.

  “Well, I—Ty!”

  He jerked her off her feet cane and all, and carried her into the living room, where a fire crackled merrily in the hearth. “Can’t have you hurting that hip, can I?” he murmured. “I have plans for it later.”

  “Oh, do you?” she said, smiling as he found her mouth and kissed it gently.

  He dropped into an armchair next to the fireplace and wrapped her up against him.

  “Conchita told me you don’t usually have a Christmas tree,” she said lazily as his lips brushed hers.

  “We don’t. Not since my father died. It depressed me.”

  “Did he like Christmas?” she asked, fascinated.

  He leaned back against the armchair, letting her head fall naturally onto his shoulder. “Sure,” he said, smiling at the memories. “He was like a big kid. I bought him an electric train set the year before he died, and he played with it by the hour. He told me once that they’d been so poor when he was a kid, all he’d ever gotten in his stocking was fruit and nuts. He’d never even had a store-bought toy.”

  “Poor old soul,” she said gently. “Did they love him, at least?”

  “I don’t think they’d wanted him,” he said. “They had to get married because he was on the way. They never forgave him for forcing them to the altar.”

  She studied his collar, thinking about the child she’d lost. Some of the brightness went out of her.

  He traced her cheek. “Don’t look back,” he said as if he knew what she was thinking. “We can’t change the past.”

  She sighed. “I guess not.”

  He studied her averted face. “I sent Red after some decorations for the tree.”

  “Oh, Ty! That was nice of you,” she said, diverted.

  “I just thought it would be a shame to stand a live tree up in the house with nothing on it,” he said. “People would stare.”