A Cattleman's Honor

by Diana Palmer

  She nuzzled her face against his shoulder. “I felt like that, too. I didn’t expect to. I’ve never known what it was to want someone until you started making passes at me.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” he sighed. “I’d reached the end of my patience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “Later. I’ve got work to do tomorrow. We both have to get some sleep. Okay?”

  She sighed, as close to heaven as she’d ever dreamed of being. “Okay, Mack.”

  She let her sated body relax and curled into him, closing her eyes. He gathered her as close as he dared and pulled the covers up.

  “And don’t brood over what I just did to you,” he murmured firmly. “It’s part of the courtship ritual. We’ll restrain ourselves until it’s legal. In the meantime, you and Vivian can plan the wedding.”

  She moved drowsily. “Are you really serious?”

  “Deadly,” he said, and he wasn’t laughing. “I wanted you when you were seventeen and I want you now. Somewhere in the middle, I fell in love without realizing it. These past few weeks have been the purest hell I’ve ever known. I don’t want to go through them again.”

  “Neither do I.” She touched his face in the darkness. “I’ll be the best wife in the world, I promise I will. I’ll take care of you until we die.”

  He swallowed hard. “I’ll take care of you, too, Natalie,” he whispered. “And I’ll never stop loving you. Not even when they lay me down in the dark.”

  She pressed her mouth against his bare shoulder and her hands clung to him. “Not without me, you don’t. Where you go, I go. No matter where.”

  He couldn’t manage another word. He kissed her forehead with breathless tenderness and wrapped her close in the darkness.

  * * *

  The wedding took a lot of planning. It had to be small, because Natalie didn’t recover as fast as she’d hoped to. But it had to be big enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to see them married, and that meant having it at church. They settled on the local Presbyterian church, and Natalie decided to have a traditional white wedding gown and to let Vivian be maid of honor. Mack decided to have two best men so that both his brothers could stand up with them. It was unconventional, but very much a family affair.

  With Mack in a dark suit and Natalie in her elegant puffy-sleeved white silk dress with a long veil and a bouquet of white roses, they were married. They exchanged rings and when Mack lifted the veil to look at her for the first time as his wife, tears rained down her face as he bent and kissed her more tenderly than he ever had before. They looked at each other with expressions that brought tears to the eyes of some of the matrons in the congregation. Afterward, there was the mad dash out the door—done leisurely to accommodate Natalie’s still slow pace—and the rice and ribbons. It was traditional in that respect, at least, and in the reception in the fellowship hall with the cakes and punch.

  “You made the most beautiful bride in the world, Nat,” Vivian said as she kissed her warmly after the ceremony. “I’m so glad things worked out, in spite of me.”

  Natalie laughed warmly. “We both have a lot to learn about life. Besides,” she added, “every bad experience has a silver lining. Look at what mine has produced. And not only for me,” she added wryly.

  Vivian wrinkled her nose as she smiled. “Imagine me, in nursing school,” she chuckled. “But the nurses in Dallas said I was a natural, and I think I am. I love the work, the equipment, everything. I daresay if I study hard, I’ll make a decent nurse.”

  “You could make a decent doctor, if you wanted to,” Mack added as he joined them to slip a possessive arm around his new wife. “We can afford medical school.”

  “I know that,” Vivian said. “But I’m not really keen on spending ten years in school, just the same. Besides,” she said with a grin, “everyone knows that the nurses are the real power in hospitals!”

  Natalie laughed. “You certainly would be.”

  Mack kissed his sister’s cheek. “You’ve changed a lot in the past few months,” he pointed out. “I’m very proud of you.”

  Vivian flushed with pleasure. “I’m proud of you, too, big brother. Even though it took you so long to realize that marriage isn’t a trap.”

  He searched her face quietly. “I was afraid that it might be too much responsibility for Natalie to take on. But uncertainty is part of life. Families band together and get through the bad times.”

  “Indeed they do,” Vivian seconded. “I’m so glad we all had a second chance. Look what wonderful things we’ve done with it!”

  “And the most wonderful is only a few hours away,” Mack whispered in Natalie’s ear a few minutes later as they were preparing to leave on their brief honeymoon to Cancún.

  Natalie pressed her hand against his cheek and felt him lift and turn it to press his lips to the palm. “I’ve waited a long time for you,” she said cheekily. “You said you’d be worth it.”

  He chuckled. “Wait and see.”

  They had Vivian and the boys drive them to the Medicine Ridge airport, where they took the Learjet to Cancún. They were booked into a luxury hotel on the long island just off the mainland, with one of the most beautiful sugary white beaches in the world. It looked like paradise to Natalie.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she kept repeating after they’d checked in and were standing on their private balcony. “It looks like a picture postcard!”

  “You can’t swim just yet,” he reminded her. “But would you like to go and walk on the beach?”

  She turned to him and smiled softly. “Would you?”

  He pursed his lips and gave her lithe body in the peach silk dress a long and ardent scrutiny. “I think we both know what I’d like to do,” he mused. “But I’ll humor you.”

  “It would be nice to look for shells,” she said. “And besides, it’s not dark yet.”

  He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s not dark. I mean, it’s broad daylight.” She hesitated, because he wasn’t getting it at all. She flushed a little. “I couldn’t possibly take off my clothes in the light and do...that...in bed with you looking at me!”

  Chapter Eleven

  He stared at her with utter astonishment. “My God!”

  He looked as if she’d thrown a pie in his face. She put her hands on her hips. “My God, what?” she demanded. He sure was acting funny.

  He took the tourist booklet out of her hands and put it on the round table inside the sliding door. He pulled her to him, very gently, and bent to her mouth.

  It was the first time he’d kissed her with intent, as a lover instead of a fiancé. Despite their intimacy her first night back at the Killain house, she hadn’t dreamed there were such deep levels of intimacy in a simple kiss, until she felt her knees buckle and her body begin to burn with sensations she’d never felt.

  She held on to his arms as his big, warm hands began a slow, teasing exploration of her figure that rose to just under her breasts, and around them, without touching them at all. After a few seconds, her body began to follow them, to entice them and finally to plead for the teasing touch that he denied her. When it came, when she felt his hands close around them, she moaned harshly and caught his wrists to hold his hands there.

  It was like that night he’d touched her so intimately and taught her the sensations her untried body could feel with him. He’d taken her to heights that she’d dreamed about and moaned hungrily over in the time before the wedding. He hadn’t come very close to her in the meantime, apparently dead serious about abstaining until the rings were in place. He had continued to share her bed, but with the hall door cracked open and a resistance to all her flirting that made her reel. He was affectionate, gentle, even tender—but there was nothing indiscreet or urgent. Until now.

  She never felt him ease her down on the bed. Each caress
was followed by one that was more enticing, more teasing, more provocative. Her world narrowed to the needs of her body. She’d gone hungry for him in recent days. She ached to have him against her. She wanted his hands on her bare skin. She wanted his eyes on her. She wanted utter, absolute possession. She arched her back and ground her mouth into his, her hands trembling as they locked behind his head and guided those expert lips to her breasts. They were bare, although she didn’t realize it until his mouth fastened hard onto a taut nipple and began to suckle it. She made a sound that she didn’t recognize and twisted up to prolong the sweet agony of the contact. It had been so long. Too long. Ages too long!

  In the tense, lazy minutes that followed, she was all too eager to shed her clothing, because her body was hungry for his mouth and his hands. They felt warm in the faint chill of the air conditioner, but she was blind to the light that flowed in through the venetian blinds as he ripped the cover off the bed and pushed the pillows after it. His body moved lazily against hers between urgent unfastening and unbuttoning. He managed to get the fabric out of the way and follow it with two pairs of shoes in a blind, throbbing heat that had both of them out of their minds with desire.

  “I thought I’d go mad before the ceremony,” he said against her breasts. “I ached like a boy before his first time. All I could think about was that night we lay naked together in your bed, and you let me satisfy you!”

  “I thought about it, too,” she groaned, clinging to him. “I want it again. I want you!”

  “I want you, too,” he said huskily, suckling her a little roughly in his ardor. “More than you realize!”

  He lifted away from her for a minute, his expression barely controlled, tense. He looked at her nudity with raging desire while he gauged her readiness for what was to come. He traced a torturous path down her taut body and touched her blatantly, his eye narrow and glittery.

  “Yes, you’re ready,” he breathed.

  She wondered how he knew, but before she could ask, he was moving her closer to him with an expertise she couldn’t begin to match.

  He rolled onto his side, pulling her between his long, powerful legs. His hands settled on her slender hips, moving her against the hard thrust of him in an arousing rhythm as he played hungrily with her soft, parted lips.

  One of his long legs eased between both of hers in a teasing motion that was even more arousing than the play of his warm hands on her bare skin. She shivered and tried to get closer.

  “Don’t rush it,” he said tenderly. “I have to be slow, so that I don’t hurt you too much. Let me show you what I want you to do.”

  He guided her with his hips until she was right up against him in an intimacy they’d never shared unclothed. Her eyes widened as she felt him in the most intimate place of all. She jerked a little at the unfamiliar closeness.

  “That’s it, sweetheart,” he coaxed, both hands on her hips, drawing her over him tenderly so that he moved slowly against the faint barrier she could feel.

  Her hands bit into his hard arms. She stared at him, fascinated at the play of expressions on his taut features as his body began to invade hers with the advent of a sharp, unexpected pain. He hesitated, and his hand went between them, working magic on her tense muscles.

  She began to shiver with the onrush of pleasure, diverted from the pain. He was so blatant with his ardor that she lost the last vestiges of fear and began to move with him, hungry, greedy for more of the fierce pleasure he was teaching her.

  “It won’t hurt for long,” he promised as he began to move closer. “I’ll be careful with you.”

  “I don’t care,” she choked, pushing against him in an agony of need. Her eyes closed on a sob. “Oh, please, Mack! It aches so!”

  “Natalie,” he groaned, losing his patience in the heated brushing of her thighs against his. He brought her against him hard while his mouth ground into hers. He felt her body open to him completely, hesitate, flinch briefly.

  His eye opened and looked into both of hers, but she wasn’t hesitating, she wasn’t protesting. Her eyes were blind with passion, her face flushed with desire.

  His hands contracted while he watched her face. She gasped at the slow, deep, sweet invasion and moaned sharply as her body adjusted to this new and wonderful intimacy.

  “Don’t tense,” he whispered.

  “I’m not!” she whispered back, swallowing hard. “It feels...” Her eyes closed and she gasped. “So good, Mack! So...good! So good!”

  She was sobbing with every fierce movement of his hips, her hands clutching at him, her body following the quick, hard dance of his in the silence of the room. Spirals of pleasure were running through her like flames, lifting her, turning her against him. She felt him inside her and the pleasure began to pulse, like the quick, sharp beat of her heart as he moved in a deep, throbbing rhythm. She had a glimpse of his face going taut, and she heard his breath become torturous as the movement increased in fury and insistence.

  She was reaching for some incredibly sweet peak of pleasure. It was there, it was...there. If only she could find the right position, the right movement, the right...yes! She lifted to him in an arch, gasping.

  “There?” he whispered. “All right. Here we go. Don’t fight it...don’t fight it...don’t... Natalie!”

  His voice throbbed like her body, like the pulse that was beating in her eyes, her brain, her body, a heat that was as close to pain as it was to pleasure. And all at once, it became an unbearably wonderful tension that pulled and pulled and suddenly snapped, throwing her against him in an agony of pleasure. She shivered and felt him shiver as they clung together in the most delicious ecstasy she’d ever experienced in her life.

  She heard his voice at her ear, harsh and deep, as his body clenched one last time and finally relaxed, pressing her into the mattress with the weight of him. Her arms curled around his long back and her eyes closed and she smiled, achingly content as she held him like that, heavy and damp and warm, vulnerable in his satiation, on her heart.

  All too soon, he leaned up, his gaze holding on her rapt face. He smiled gently. “Well?”

  She knew what he was asking. She smiled shyly and hid her face in his warm, damp throat.

  He rolled over, still joined to her, holding her close. “How’s the rib cage?”

  “It’s fine,” she whispered.

  “And what do you think about lovemaking, Mrs. Killain?” he whispered wickedly.

  “I think it’s wonderful,” she blurted. “I never would have believed it could be so sweet. And I was afraid!” she added, laughing.

  “I noticed.” He kissed her nose. “Are you ready for a shock?”

  She looked at him, puzzled. “A shock?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  While she was trying to work it out, he lifted her away from him, and she looked down. Her face went scarlet.

  “Now you know, don’t you?” he asked with a worldly wisdom she couldn’t match. He put her down and got out of bed, magnificently naked and not a bit inhibited. He went to the small icebox and pulled out a bottle of beer, which he took to bed, sprawling on top of the sheets against the headboard.

  “Come on,” he coaxed, opening his arm to gather her beside him. “You’ll get used to it. Marriage is an adventure. You have to expect startling discoveries.”

  “This is one,” she murmured, still shy of him like this.

  He chuckled. “I’m just flesh and blood. The mystery will get less mysterious as we go along. We’re through the worst of the honeymoon shocks, though.”

  “Think so?” she mused. “You haven’t seen me with my hair in curlers and no makeup yet.”

  He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re beautiful to me. It won’t matter what you wear. Or how you look. I love you. Now more than ever.”

  He opened the beer and took a sip, putting the bottle to her lips. She made a face. />
  “It isn’t good beer,” he agreed. “But it’s cold and good for the sort of thirst we’ve worked up.” He took another sip and let his eyes run down the length of her soft body, lingering on the places he’d touched and kissed until she flushed. “You really are a knockout,” he murmured. “I knew you were nicely shaped, Mrs. Killain, but you’re more than I ever expected.”

  “That goes for me, too,” she said.

  He kissed her lips tenderly. “Feel like doing that again?” he whispered. “Or is it going to be uncomfortable?”

  She rolled onto her side and slid one of her legs to the inside of his. “It won’t be uncomfortable,” she whispered. She rubbed her body against him and felt him tense with a sense of pride and accomplishment. “I want you.”

  The beer bottle barely made it to the table without overturning as he pulled her to him and kissed her with renewed passion. He really shouldn’t have been capable of this much desire this soon, but he wasn’t going to question a nice miracle. His mouth opened on her eager one, and he forgot the rest of his questions.

  * * *

  That evening, they sat on the balcony after a light supper, drinking cola and watching the moon rise over the Gulf of Mexico. They sat side by side, holding hands and glancing at each other every few seconds to make sure that it was all real.

  “In all my dreams, it was never like this,” she confessed softly.

  “Not in mine, either,” he replied gently. “I don’t like to leave you even long enough to take a shower.” His gaze went hungrily to her face. “I never thought it could be like this, Natalie,” he breathed. “Not so that I feel as if we’re sewn together by invisible threads.”

  She drew the back of his big hand to her lips. “This is what they say marriage should be,” she said dreamily. “But it’s more than I hoped for.”

  His fingers curled into hers. “I know.” He glanced at her hungrily. “You’ll never know how I felt when Vivian confessed that she’d lied. I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d almost lost you.”