Red-Hot Ranchman

by Victoria Pade

  John reached a hand out to cup her bare arm, sliding it from above her elbow down to her wrist and taking her hand in his. “I’m too hot already,” he said with a small, devilish laugh.

  Paige pretended to ignore his hand holding hers, but it wasn’t easy. Not when that warm tingling feeling had turned to sparks and she experienced the same unusual sensation at his touch that she’d noticed before.

  “I think a little of that lightning bolt that hit you as a kid stayed inside you,” she said, meaning for it to be yet another joke but failing at it.

  “Why is that?”

  “I feel the strangest things whenever you touch me.”

  “Strange good or strange bad?”

  “Good…very good…” And she shouldn’t be admitting it.

  “Maybe it’s just that strange somethin’ that’s between us. That keeps us comin’ back together when we’re both givin’ ourselves a whole passel of reasons not to.”

  “Does it happen to you, too? When you touch me or when I touch you?”

  “Somethin’ definitely happens to me,” he said with an innuendo-laden laugh. Then more seriously, he added, “There’s somethin’ between us. I know I’m feelin’ things for you that I’ve never felt before.”

  “Good things or bad?” she countered, her voice rising slightly as he slid his hand up to her shoulder, to the side of her neck and into her hair to caress the back of her head.

  “Good. Only good.”

  He leaned forward just enough to barely press his lips to hers then, and even as Paige told herself not to let him, she moved toward him, too, accepting the kiss, kissing him in return.

  How could she not, when she had feelings for this man? Deep feelings that wouldn’t let her shy away from John or his kiss or anything about him. That only allowed her to welcome it even when he deepened the kiss, when he parted his lips and urged hers to do the same with the very tip of his tongue.

  His arms went around her, pulling her closer before he cradled her head in one of his hands so he could open his mouth wider over hers and plunge his tongue home to explore and plunder and chase away any lingering doubts from her mind.

  She slipped her arms under his, around to his back, laying her palms flat against that wide expanse, reveling in the feel of it.

  No, it wasn’t only the touch of his hands that drove her to distraction. Touching him with hers was almost as wonderful, learning the contours of his hard, man’s body; the unyielding bulge of his muscles; the corded tendons; taut sinews; and strong bones that made him the magnificent specimen he was.

  Holding her still, he slid down the back of the couch, bringing her with him to sit across his lap as his kiss became even more urgent.

  Or maybe it was her kiss that did that. She couldn’t be sure of anything except that she was lost in the maelstrom of sensations, in the emotions roaring through her, and that she was every bit as hungry for him as he seemed to be for her.

  Warm, moist, supple lips left hers only to rain kisses on her cheeks, her chin, down the column of her throat and into the hollow.

  She arched her neck to free the path, sliding her hands over his shoulders and learning the feel of his arms, of his pectorals, of his honed sides as she traveled again to his back to close the space she’d caused that had robbed her breasts of the press of his broad chest.

  But he didn’t let that gap remain closed for long before he kissed his way into the V-shaped opening down the front of her blouse, then unfastened the top button to deepen that V even more.

  Paige’s blood ran hotter and faster in her veins, making her feel light-headed and almost dizzy. She was filled with a new need to pull his T-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans and work her hands under it to the silky heat of his bare skin, rediscovering those hills and valleys of his back and delighting in it as only that first touch could.

  Her nipples were kerneled and straining, craving the feel of John’s magic touch, wanting so badly to know him that she had to fight to keep from throwing open her blouse herself to speed the process.

  Because he was definitely taking his own sweet time about it, driving her wild with anticipation as he unfastened the second button, then paused to kiss the spot he’d just bared.

  But just when Paige thought she might go crazy if he didn’t close one of those incredible hands over a tight, yearning breast, he finally found the tail of her blouse and let one hand rise underneath it rather than baring her the way she’d thought he would.

  And oh, but it was glorious when he reached one of those mounds of flesh!

  A deep, raspy groan of pure pleasure rolled from her throat, an echo of the depth of her desire for him.

  His mouth came back to hers, open wide, his tongue returning possessively, thrusting in and out, teasing, seeking. And suddenly she was all too aware of the bulge that was rising against her hip more and more insistently with every passing moment, every passing kiss, every passing caress of his hand on her breast. His magic hand was kneading, teasing, rolling that hardened crest between his fingers…

  They were lying on what would be his bed for the night—that thought came into her mind as a temptation all its own. She could stay there with him. He would meet her every aching need. More than meet them, she knew.

  But what she didn’t know was enough about the man himself, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. Sure, she’d learned a little more about him tonight, both from his brother and from John himself. But was it enough for her to cross that line into making love?

  Yes! her body cried out. She knew all she needed to! She knew he could work miracles inside her!

  But her mind couldn’t let the sensations, the pleasure, the passion, rule. Too fresh were the memories of her ex-husband, brought to the fore by thinking so much about him when she’d spoken to Julie and again when she’d talked about him tonight. Twice in one day—it seemed like a warning to slow things down with John.

  He abandoned her mouth to kiss his way toward her breasts, where his hand alone was raising the level of her desire by the second.

  Oh, how she wanted to keep quiet and give in to everything her body was crying out for! But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t!

  “No,” she breathed, pushing herself away from him slightly. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  He stopped and this time it was he who groaned, not in complaint, but more in the agony of ending what was only really beginning.

  His hand slipped from her breast, out from under her blouse, pulling it down with him and circling around to her back, where he just held her, closely, tenderly, as if she were delicate china he was afraid of breaking.

  “I won’t tell you I don’t want you, Paige,” he whispered huskily into her hair.

  “It’s too soon,” she barely managed to whisper back when what she really wanted to tell him was that she’d made a mistake in stopping things and to go back to where he’d been before.

  “Okay.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, slid one arm under her knees and lifted her off his lap to sit on the coffee table as if he wasn’t going to be able to contain himself if he didn’t physically remove her.

  “I’m sorry,” Paige said.

  He gave her a smile that melted her heart. It was so sweet and sincere and rakish all at the same time. “What are you sorry for? Was it that bad?” he teased.

  It helped ease the tension—sexual and otherwise—and she was able to smile back at him. “No. It was so good I’m sorry I had to stop. It’s just that—”

  “If it isn’t the right time, it isn’t the right time.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Okay. So how about, say, an hour from now?”

  She laughed again, knowing he was joking. “I don’t think that will be the right time, either.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Mmm, hard to say,” she returned, playing along.

  “But I don’t have to abandon hope.”

  She merely smiled at that.

  He bent far enou
gh over to kiss her once more, with warmth but not with passion, though that was lurking around the edges and wouldn’t have taken anything at all to reignite. Then he reared back. “For now, you’d better go up to bed because I can’t give any guarantees about my powers of restraint.”

  Since she couldn’t give any about hers, either, she thought she’d better do as he suggested.

  “If there’s anything you want…down here, I mean, food or anything…” she found herself babbling.

  “Help myself,” John finished for her.

  “Right.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Night,” he said in that same husky voice that always sent shivers of desire up her spine.

  This time it was Paige who couldn’t bring herself to leave right away. Instead, she lingered there to drink her fill of the sight of him, so handsome with his tousled hair brushing his brow.

  But in the end, she forced herself to her feet, out of the living room and up the stairs to her own room, where she made quick work of getting into bed before she lost the battle with herself and retraced her steps back to John.

  Nevertheless, sleep was not so easy to come by. She could only lie there, staring at the ceiling for a long time. Thinking all the while that her bed had never seemed as lonely or as empty as it did tonight. And that just downstairs was the only man she wanted to fill it. If only she didn’t have the sense that there was something about him that he was keeping from her…

  Chapter Eight

  As couches go, Paige’s was pretty comfortable. But that didn’t mean that John could sleep through the noise of the television coming on—even with the volume turned down low—and the rustling sound of Robbie settling in front of it with a box of cookies to watch Saturdaymorning cartoons.

  Not that John minded. He wanted to get home in time to have breakfast with Dwight anyway. And besides, the early-morning sight of the little boy was worth losing half an hour of sleep.

  From his spot on the couch, he could see Robbie without doing anything but opening his eyes. The little boy still had on the action-figure pajamas of the night before but not the slippers his mother had insisted he wear then, and his honey-colored hair was sticking up at so many different angles he looked like a porcupine.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the floor just a few feet away from John and just a few inches from the TV. Much closer than Paige would have allowed, John was sure. And he was popping cookies into his mouth one after another, whole, and chewing them with his cheeks chipmunk full and his mouth open.

  The sight made John smile and tugged on something inside him. He really cared about that boy. More than just as a neighbor. Like a father. The father he might never get to be…

  But he didn’t want to spoil his pleasure in Robbie at that moment with thoughts like that, so he sat up, put his feet on the floor and rubbed the sleep out of his face with both hands.

  “Did I wake you up?” Robbie asked over his shoulder.

  “It’s all right. I needed to get up anyway.”

  The little boy came and sat beside him on the couch, holding out the cookie box to him. “Want one?” he asked as if offering to share forbidden fruit.

  John laughed. “No, thanks. I try to stay away from cookies until at least seven in the morning.”

  “Yeah, my mom’d get mad if she saw. But it’s Saturday,” Robbie added as if that explained everything. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the cookies or the cartoons anymore, though. Instead, he was staring intently at John’s face. “Can I feel your whiskers?”

  John chuckled, scratching a cheek himself at the mention of his morning beard. “Sure. If you want.”

  Robbie wiped his hand on his pajamas before he reached up to smooth his fingertips along the side of John’s face. “How long before I get ‘em?”

  “Whiskers? A while yet.”

  “Could you teach me how to shave ‘em now, though?”

  “I could. But you might not remember when the time comes.”

  “Yeah, but you might not be around then and I don’t think my mom knows about shavin’ faces.”

  It flashed through John to assure him he would be there when the little boy began to turn into a man and needed another man’s help to take one of those important steps to growing up. He sure as hell wanted to be, he realized all of a sudden.

  And the fact that Robbie could be right, that he might not be there, hurt him the way not many things ever had, taking him by surprise. He knew he was fond of Robbie. He just hadn’t known until that moment how fond of him he was. Or how strong were the stirrings to be a father—not only in general—but to this child in particular.

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Robbie said into the silence John had unintentionally left.

  “No. I’d like to, very much,” he said, struggling to come to grips with this new self-knowledge. And the fact that lurking around the edges were his feelings for Paige, along with the urge to own up to the full power of what they were, too. Feelings that carried even more weight than those of her son.

  “Can I go home with you this mornin’ and watch you shave and you could teach me then?” Robbie asked excitedly.

  “If it’s okay with your mom.”

  “If what’s okay with me?”

  John looked in the direction of the stairs just as Paige came down the last step. Her hair was tied up on the crown of her head, spilling curls. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, she wore a pale blue bathrobe, and all together what John saw was a soft, feminine vision of a woman whom he wouldn’t have minded waking up to every morning for the rest of his life.

  “John said he’d teach me how to shave this mornin’ so when I grow my beard I’ll know how,” Robbie announced as Paige joined them.

  “He says you don’t know about face shavin’,” John explained with a barely suppressed grin.

  “So can I go?” Robbie ventured again.

  “If it’s all right with John, it’s all right with me. Go up and get dressed while I see about breakfast and then—”

  Robbie ran off before she could finish what she was saying and John cut in, too.

  “Don’t worry about breakfast. I was figurin’ on havin’ it with Dwight anyway and Robbie might as well eat with us. We’ll make it a real man’s morning.”

  “Whatever a man’s morning is,” she said with a laugh.

  “Shaving. Bacon and eggs. Burnt toast. That kind of thing,” John answered, making his voice as low as it would go to let her know he was joking.

  He took in her every movement as she propped a slim hip on the arm of the couch. It wasn’t as if he could actually see anything of her shape inside the bathrobe and yet just the scant hints of her body were enough to turn him on.

  “Did you get any sleep at all on this couch?” she asked, clearly not knowing what was going through his mind. Or how much of an effect she could have on him even first thing in the morning, right out of her bed, dressed in a bathrobe that was anything but alluring.

  “I slept like a log…once I got there,” he said, thinking about how long it had taken to squelch the desires for her and escape all the images in his mind of her so close upstairs, soft and sweet and tempting…He cleared his. throat. “How about you? Did gettin’ shot at with an arrow keep you from havin’ a restful night?”

  “No, I slept fine, too. Once I got there,” she added, letting him know that what she’d ended so abruptly between them hadn’t left her any more unmoved than it had him.

  “So I was thinkin’,” he said then, seizing on an idea he’d had lying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, picturing her in his mind. “Tonight’s Saturday night and I thought it might be a good time for a little dressin’ up, a nice meal—maybe over in Tinsdale for a change of scenery. You and me and Dwight. Would you come?”

  One of the things he liked most about her was that it didn’t take much to make her eyes sparkle with the same kind of happy, excited pleasure Robbie showed more o
utwardly. It gave her away every time he suggested something that appealed to her. Like now.

  And even though agreeing never came without her hesitating, obviously thinking twice, debating it and giving him at least one reason why not to go through with it, that sparkle was enough to let him know she wanted his company, that she wasn’t trying to get out of any offer or invitation gracefully even if she didn’t say ‘ yes right off the bat.

  This occasion was no different as she told him he ought to spend the time alone with his brother. But John wouldn’t take no for an answer and she finally gave in.

  “I’ll call Julie and see if Robbie can stay with her.”

  This time it was Robbie who came in on the tail end of the conversation to hear his name. He’d done what his mother had told him to—gone were the pajamas and in their place were jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. He hadn’t combed his hair, but then he hadn’t been told to, either. And he was clearly too eager to go to John’s to make an issue out of it.

  Paige explained their plans for the evening to him and John was glad to see it didn’t seem to hurt his feelings that he wasn’t included. But Robbie was more anxious to get next door and learn to shave.

  “John’s invited you to have breakfast with him and his brother, too, if you want,” Paige told her son. “But you better take the puppy out first, before he piddles on the floor,” she added then, nodding to the dog. He was sniffing the carpet as if in search of a likely spot.

  “Okay. I’ll be waitin’ for you outside,” Robbie announced.

  “Why don’t you take him on the lawn out front? I thought you said he liked it out there better,” John suggested when Robbie took a step in the direction of the rear of the house.

  “Mom doesn’t want ‘im doin’ his business in front. She says I gotta get ‘im to go in back,” Robbie explained before he dashed through the dining room and—from the sounds of it—made quick work of unlocking all the locks and flinging the door open. Then a horrified gasp came from the child. “Oh! Oh! Come ’ere! Hurry! Oh!”