Sweet Wind, Wild Wind

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Carson,” Lara said huskily, reaching for him, “you’re killing me.”

  He smiled slowly down at her, memorizing every bit of her sensuality and beauty. “But I’m not even touching you,” he said reasonably.

  “I’ve noticed,” she retorted. “That’s what’s killing me.”

  Lara traced the length of Carson’s powerful body with her fingers until she found the rigid evidence of his hunger. She nipped very lightly at his aroused flesh with her fingernails. Blood beat visibly, heavily, in him, telling her the cost of his restraint “I have a cure for too-rapid heartbeat,” she whispered, tugging softly at him with her fingertips.

  “Do you?” Carson asked, smiling crookedly even as his hips moved in sensual response to her touch. “Maybe I should go get your tape recorder or take notes. Medical science needs to know how to slow down – “

  Carson’s teasing tone changed to a groan as Lara shifted position suddenly, gracefully, and he felt the wild, intimate heat of her mouth loving him. A shudder racked his body.

  “Oh, God, baby,” he gritted, torn between residual laughter and a desire so hot he could scarcely breathe. “I hate to tell you, but that’s not going to slow my heartbeat down one damn bit!”

  Lara laughed softly, and that, too, was a wild kind of caress against his erect, very sensitive flesh. With a thick sound Carson reached for her, only to have her slide like sunlight through his fingers. The cool black silk of her hair fanned across his thighs. He reached for her again, wrapping his fingers securely in the ends of her long hair, but instead of pulling her back up his body and into his arms, he found himself utterly captive to the piercing pleasure she was giving him. With a groan of hunger and passion, Carson released Lara’s hair in order to slide his fingers down the curve of her waist and hip, seeking the silky skin of her thighs until he finally caressed the melting softness that waited for him. He felt her hunger, her shivering heat, her welcoming body, and suddenly he knew that he had to be sheathed within her or he would be pulled apart by the violence of his own need.

  “Lara,” Carson said hoarsely, “I’ve got to have you.”

  She heard the urgency in his voice, felt it in the sudden trembling of his body as he lifted her over him. All teasing gone, she came willingly to him, opening her legs to ride his narrow hips as she settled into place on his body. Carson’s face was dark and harsh with need, his eyes almost black, his body drawn as taut as a massive bow. His visible need sent a burst of passionate heat through Lara, melting her even as he slid deeply into her softness with a smooth thrust of his hips.

  Lara couldn’t understand the words Carson said, for they were blurred by the thick, hard driving of his need, but she saw the transformation of his face when release came, the pleasure so intense that it tore him apart in great, shuddering bursts that made him cry out. Then her own transformation came, her own release, and cries of pleasure and love rippled out of her in the endless moments before she collapsed across his broad chest, breathing as hard as he was. It was a long time before their frantic heartbeats slowed and their breath came at normal intervals. Even then Lara and Carson remained joined, loving each other with gentle kisses and warm hands smoothing over skin still flushed with pleasure. Smiling to herself, Lara put her cheek against Carson’s chest and began silently counting his heartbeats.

  “See?” she said triumphantly, nuzzling his nipple. “It worked.”

  A rumbling, purring sound of contentment replaced the rhythm of Carson’s heartbeat in Lara’s ear. “Sure did,” he said deeply. “Better every time. Better and better and better again. I can’t wait for the – “

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, interrupting, laughing gently.

  “I was talking about your heartbeat. It’s way down. Barely sixty-six a minute. See? It worked. I cured you.”

  Carson laughed aloud and hugged Lara close, wondering how he had ever gotten through the days before she had come back to the Rocking B and to him as warily as a fox tiptoeing through twilight.

  “One time doesn’t prove anything,” he pointed out, nipping sensually at Lara’s ear.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said huskily, tracing the curved shadow at the base of her spine until his fingertips found her feminine heat and softness once again. “Didn’t you learn anything about the scientific method in school?”

  Lara’s thoughts scattered with each slow, gliding caress of Carson’s fingers between her legs. “Science?” she asked. “You mean like friction generating heat and – “ She shivered and gasped as he found and stroked the exquisitely sensitive focus of her desire.

  “I mean like repeatability,” Carson said, rolling over, taking her with him. “Didn’t you know?” he asked, smiling down at Lara with a combination of possession and humor and passion. “That’s the basis of the modern scientific method. If you can’t repeat an experiment, then you can’t draw useful conclusions from the data.”

  “I never was very good at science,” admitted Lara.

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “That’s kind of you,” she said gravely. “Not many men would have the patience to teach – Oh!” Her words fragmented into a soft cry of pleasure.

  Carson’s hand moved slowly as Lara tried again to speak. More soft cries of pleasure came from her lips. She saw the heavy running of Carson’s blood in the pulse beating in his neck, felt it as he grew inside her with every heartbeat and knew that soon he would fill her to overflowing. The thought was unbearably exciting, as was the slow movement of his hips rocking against her.

  “Yeah. Oh” Carson said thickly.

  He lowered his head and took her mouth as completely as he had taken her body. She took him in the same way, wanting him deeply, heat bursting through her in anticipation of the shimmering ecstasy to come.

  This time when their heartbeats finally slowed, they fell asleep in a sweet, hot tangle, not knowing whose skin was being caressed, whose tongue was tasting the slick residue of passion, whose laughter was trembling within the joined peace of their bodies.

  Even hours afterward the memory sent exquisite frissons shivering through Lara, distracting her from her task of sorting the Rocking B’s photo archives into piles according to her first, second and third choices to illustrate her history. The more she and Carson made love, the more ways she found to please him. Tender or wild, gentle or fierce, he brought her an ecstasy so great that she sometimes wondered if she would survive the sweet violence of her release. She had discovered that she brought Carson an equal ecstasy; that, too, was a shattering sweetness pouring through her veins each time she realized it anew.

  Sighing, Lara decided it was just as well that she had missed her chance to catch Donovan in town; her mind was just too scattered to interview a lawyer right now. For the eighth time she looked from the photo in her right hand to the photo in her left. They both showed weathered men riding gaunt horses. Behind them Texas cattle with horns as long as ax handles poured through a narrow gap into a Montana valley that had never before known anything except deer and buffalo. It was the end of one era and the beginning of another, and it had been captured by a man who knew that he had driven his cattle into a place in the history of his country as well as into a lush, ungrazed land.

  Lara put the paired photos aside, unable to choose between them. Instead, she thought about tonight, when Carson would be through with his work. After dinner she would give him a back rub and listen as he talked about the small crises and unexpected pleasures that had come to him during the day. When the knots were gone from his neck and shoulders, he would pull her into his lap, lean back against the couch and ask about the progress of her history.

  She had discovered that Carson had very acute perceptions on the subject of human needs and the land itself, about the kinds of things that didn’t change whether the time span being considered was months or millennia. And, for a man with a pronounced hostility toward the pa
st, Carson had an excellent eye for the photo that told the most about the land, the men and the moment they had been frozen in time by a camera. She had come to value his insights as much as she valued his laughter and the muscular power of his body. Every day she loved him more.

  Lara worked steadily, rapidly, sorting through photos. Most went into a reject pile. The next biggest pile consisted of photos that might be suitable for illustrating her history. Off to one side there was a pile she reserved for sharing with Carson. The pictures in that pile showed everything from a tough old bald-faced cow with three calves peeking out from beneath her belly to the Rocking B’s old ranch house adrift in a sea of snow and moonlight.

  There was a series of wedding pictures, too, each ceremony more elaborate than the last. The same lace scarf had been worn by three generations of Blackridge wives – four, now. The fragile, delicately wrought scarf presently lay in Lara’s dresser drawer, her most prized possession after the wedding ring that fitted so smoothly on her hand. She smiled softly, remembering the morning after they had first made love. Carson had awakened her by putting his hand over her womb and saying that they would be married as soon as possible because he had been too crazy with desire even to think of protecting her last night. Nor would he protect her in the future, unless she wanted it, because the thought of his child growing in her womb was unbearably sweet. But only if she wanted it, too…

  Lara sighed and put her hand just below her waist. Oh, yes, she had wanted it. She had wept when her period had finally come nearly three weeks late. Carson had held her so gently, kissing away her tears, telling her that it was just as well – if he were any happier, he would burst like the Roman candles they had seen at the Fourth of July celebration in town. Besides, he had added, kissing her more deeply, he had discovered that he was selfish. He didn’t mind keeping her all to himself for a while longer. That way he had it all, the anticipation of a child in the future and the reality of a generous, abandoned lover right now.

  A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Lara’s mouth as a shivery feeling invaded the pit of her stomach. She loved being Carson’s woman, his wife, his lover, the future mother of his children. Someday she hoped that he would realize that she was also his beloved. Sometimes after they had made love, or when she rubbed away the tension that tied his shoulders in knots, or when she woke up and found Carson watching her with eyes that were almost gold –

  sometimes then she had the feeling that he wanted to tell her something, something that was very difficult for him to say. Was it I love you?

  Were those the words Carson seemed to be searching for and unable to find? If so, then she wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter whether he talked of love or not. If the words were so difficult, so painful for him to speak, she didn’t have to hear them in order for her life to be complete. Hearing his laughter come more often now that they were married, seeing a smile erase the harsh lines from his face when he looked at her, feeling the brush of his fingers over her cheek when he walked by her chair, those things spoke eloquently of his feelings for her. It wasn’t necessary to hear the words, too, especially if saying them brought pain rather than pleasure to the man she loved.

  “Such a beautiful smile. What are you thinking about, little fox?”

  “Carson!” Lara came to her feet in a rush, her face radiant with the unexpected pleasure of seeing Carson in the middle of the afternoon.

  “I thought you weren’t going to be back until dinner. Did you get all the cows moved to the new pasture?”

  Carson’s arms came around Lara and he lifted her feet off the floor, holding her in a hard, warm hug. “We’re just about done. Murchison and Spur are combing out the strays right now. I’m playing hooky,” he added, nuzzling Lara’s ear and the curve of her neck.

  “I’m glad,” she said softly, kissing his cheek, combing her fingers through his hair, loving him.

  For a moment they rocked slowly in place, absorbing the sweetness of holding and being held. Lara felt her eyes burn suddenly and blinked back tears. He had come like this to her so many times in the past weeks, surprising her with a fragrant wildflower or a colorful, water-polished stone he had plucked from a creek bed. Once he had come in unexpectedly and taken her up on the low ridge above the ranch. There he had told her to close her eyes and listen. There was a strong west wind that day, blowing through the narrow ravines that twisted down from die high, rugged mountains beyond the ranch. The wind was sweet, warm, wild and had a sound that was both beautiful and so lonely that it had torn at her heart. When she had told Carson how she felt, he had said, Yes. That’s why I brought you here. Together we can share the beauty and hold the loneliness at bay. And then he had drawn her so close that she couldn’t tell whose heartbeat she felt in her blood.

  “Do you have a few minutes?” Carson asked. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  “Of course,” said Lara, ruffling the slightly shaggy hair at Carson’s neckline with her fingers, enjoying his warmth and the changing textures of skin and hair.

  “Good. Let’s go before they go back into hiding.”

  “They?”

  “You’ll see,” Carson said, putting Lara back down on her feet and taking her hand, tugging her toward the door.

  On the way out Lara deliberately ignored the litter of pictures and documents scattered across every available surface in the library. She was a little behind schedule on her history, although her faculty advisor had told her to take as much extra time as she needed – as Carson’s wife, Lara wasn’t likely to be kicked off the ranch for asking questions, looking for boundary markers and being generally underfoot in her quest for the Rocking B’s history. Besides, it was much too beautiful to be inside, even with something as fascinating as old photos to sort through. The day was alive, she was alive and Carson’s hand felt so warm in hers.

  Carson helped Lara into the pickup truck and drove along a winding, rutted ranch road. He drove to a distant corner of the Rocking B, where the pasture had been cycled back into grazing land at the beginning of summer. A few sleek cows stood belly deep in wildflowers and grasses, searching among the abundant greenery for favorite forage.

  Carson parked the truck, lifted Lara out and took her hand in a warm grip. Smiling, he ignored her questions and curious glances. He led her along the path that cattle had made to the tiny lake where springwater welled up in clear, sweet ripples. The pond was ringed by a thick growth of reeds and cattails.

  Motioning for silence, Carson led Lara up the back side of a small hill that overlooked the pond. The grass had been recently walked on but was already springing back into upright position. At the top of the hill, Carson pulled Lara down into a nest of fragrant grass laced with flowers. Once seated, Lara was all but hidden by the tall greenery. Carson sat behind her, pulled her between his legs so that she could rest against his chest and got out the binoculars he had taken from the truck.

  “We’re upwind here,” he murmured, the words a bare thread of sound, “so we’ll have to be quiet. Sound carries real well over water, and she’s skittish as hell. I don’t blame her, either,” he continued, quartering the pond with binoculars. “If I had that many – there she is!

  Poor baby. She doesn’t know whether to strut or hide under a rock.”

  Lara felt as much as heard the low chuckle vibrating in Carson’s chest.

  “Here,” he murmured, giving Lara the binoculars. “Look just to the left of that small willow. See her?”

  The warmth of Carson’s breath on Lara’s neck distracted her. “See what?” she whispered, adjusting the glasses. “What am I supposed to

  – Carson!” Lara murmured suddenly, her tone soft yet urgent with excitement. “There’s a mother duck out there with so many ducklings around her that she looks like a city under siege!”

  Carson rumbled softly, a cross between a chuckle and a purr. “Isn’t she something?” he whispered. “When I spotted her, I couldn
’t wait to bring you here. I’ve never seen a duck with that many babies.”

  “And you’re right,” Lara whispered, laughter curling through her words. “The poor thing doesn’t know whether to strut with pride or hide under a rock and have a moment of peace.” For a time Lara counted silently, finding and losing ducklings as they wove around their harried mother. As the number rose, Lara spoke softly aloud, hardly able to believe what she was seeing, “…twelve, thirteen, fourteen,” she counted slowly, trying to keep track of the darting, bobbing bodies. “Fifteen!” she breathed. “My God. Fifteen of the fluffy little darlings. Maybe some of her luck will rub off on me this month,” Lara added softly, smiling to herself.

  Carson’s expression changed, intensity replacing humor on his face. He closed his eyes and brushed his lips over Lara’s hair so delicately that she didn’t even feel the caress.

  “Are you sure, little fox?” he whispered, kissing Lara’s neck with the same aching mixture of emotions as when he had kissed her wedding ring while she slept. “I want you to be happy.”

  Lara lowered the glasses and leaned back against Carson’s warm, broad chest. “I want your baby,” she said softly.

  She felt the shudder that went through him at her words. She heard his breath catch and felt a small, hot trail of moisture as he pressed his cheek against hers.

  “Carson,” Lara said softly, her voice shivering with emotion that she had moved him so.

  “Before you, no one ever wanted me, really. Not the woman who had me, not the man and woman who adopted me, not the women who lined up hoping to marry a big ranch,” Carson said, his voice husky, his arms tight around Lara. “Then you came back and you wanted me despite the way I hurt you four years ago. The thought that you really want my baby, too – “