by Nora Roberts
"Did I forget to thank you for it?"
He lifted his head, grinned. "I guess screaming my name ten or twelve times was thanks enough."
"Well, then." She pushed his hair back from his face, and her eyes were sober. "I don't ever want to be treated like some fragile piece of glass. Not ever again."
"So if I want to break out the cuffs and whips, you're game?''
Her mouth fell open in speechless shock. "I—I—"
"I'm kidding." Christ, what a package she was, he thought on a roar of laughter. And all his. On a spurt of delight, he got to his feet and picked her up. "At least until we've established trust."
"You don't really—I mean, I don't think I could, or would like…" When he laughed so hard he nearly dropped her, she lifted her chin. "I don't care to be the butt of your sick joke."
"It wasn't that sick, and, sugar, you've got a first-class butt." He planted a loud, smacking kiss on her mouth. "But since I doubt you want to stroll back to the house showing it off, let's go get you some clothes."
"I'd appreciate it if you would—what are you doing?" She all but squeaked it as he carried her out of the stall.
"Taking you upstairs to get you something to put on."
"You can't just cart me outside this way. I'm naked. We're naked. Michael, I mean it—Oh, my God." Sunlight and cool morning air slapped her as he stepped through the stable door.
"It's early," he said easily. "No one's around yet."
"We're naked." It was all she could say as he started up the stairs. "We're standing outside naked."
"Looks like it's going to be a hell of a day, too. You got anything on for tonight?"
"I—" Didn't he understand that they were standing on his little porch in the full light of day, buck naked? "Get me inside."
"Chilly? I'm working on it." He shifted her and managed the doorknob.
The insult, she fumed. The insensitivity. The outrageousness of it. "Put me down."
"Sure." He set her obligingly on her feet and waited for the show to begin. She didn't disappoint him.
"Are you out of your mind? What if one of the girls had looked out the window and seen us?''
"It's not even six in the morning. Do they usually stare out the window at dawn, with binoculars?"
Of course not. "That's hardly the point. I won't be hauled around that way because you, in your warped brain, find it amusing. Now get me a shirt."
He ran his tongue around his teeth as he considered her.
Even with hay in her hair, and flushed head to toe with embarrassment and temper, she managed to be dignified. It was… fascinating.
"Sugar, you're getting me stirred up again, and I don't think we have time for another round."
"You—"
"Peasant? Barbarian?"
With an effort, she reined in. It was impossible to have a reasonable argument under the circumstances. "I'd like to borrow some clothes, please."
"What the hell. It'll only take a few minutes."
"Michael." She jerked back, stunned, when she saw the intention in his eyes. "Michael, I will not be—"
Dragged to the floor, kissed into mindless submission, driven to bone-splitting climax.
"Oh, God." She fisted her hands on the rug and let herself be ravished.
It took more than a few minutes, so that Laura found herself sneaking like a thief into her own house. If she could just get upstairs, she thought, easing open a side door and creeping into the parlor. Into her room.
Her children would be waking for school any minute. Her children. Wincing, carrying her shoes, she tiptoed into the hall. Was she out of her mind? How could she possibly explain herself if—
"Miss Laura!"
If the worst happened, Laura thought fatalistically and turned to face a shocked Ann Sullivan.
"Annie. I was just, ah, out… early. Walking."
Very slowly, Ann continued down the stairs. She had been widowed for more than twenty-five years, but she knew the look of a woman who'd spent the night in a man's arms.
"You're wearing a man's shirt," she said stiffly. "And there's hay in your hair."
"Ah." Clearing her throat, Laura reached up and plucked out a bent shaft. "Yes, that's true. I was… out, as I said, and…"
"You've never been able to lie your way out of an open door." Ann stopped at the base of the stairs, facing down her quarry very much like a mother about to lecture a reckless child. With a mixture of amusement and apprehension, Laura recognized the signs.
"Annie—"
"You've been down at the stables rolling around in the hay with that sharp-eyed, womanizing Michael Fury."
"Yes, I've been down at the stables," Laura said shrugging on her cloak of dignity. "Yes, I've been with Michael. And I'm a grown woman."
"With the sense of a peanut. What were you thinking of?" Ann continued, poking out a finger. "A woman like you wrestling in a hayloft with the likes of him."
Because where she loved, she had patience, Laura's voice was calm. "I imagine you know very well what I was thinking of. Whatever you think of him, or of my sense, the fact remains that I'm thirty years old, Annie. He wanted me. I wanted him. And in all of my life—all of it—no one has ever, ever made me feel the way he did."
"A moment's pleasure for—"
"A moment's pleasure." Laura nodded. If that was all it amounted to, she swore she would go to her grave grateful. "I was married ten years and never knew what it was like to be pleasured or, I hope, to pleasure a man like that. And I'm sorry you disapprove."
Ann's face pokered up. "It's not my place to disapprove."
"Oh, don't give me that dignified-housekeeper-to-mistress routine, Annie. It's years too late." With a sigh, she laid a hand over the rigid one with which Ann gripped the newel post. "I know how much you care. I know that everything you say you say out of concern and love, but even that can't change the way I feel. Or what I need."
"And you think you need Michael Fury?"
"No. I know I do. I haven't decided what to do about it, or where I want to go from here, but I do know that I fully intend to have a great many moments of pleasure."
"Whatever the cost?"
"Yes. For once in my life, the hell with the cost. I need to shower." She started up the stairs, paused, turned. "I don't want you going down there badgering Michael over this, Annie. That is not your place, or anyone else's."
Ann inclined her head, kept it lowered until she heard Laura close the door to her room. Perhaps it wasn't her place to speak to Michael Fury. But she knew her duty, and she would do it.
Without hesitation, she walked down the hall and into the library. The call to France wouldn't take long. Then they would see, she thought, brooding out the window. They would see.
"I'd like to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Templeton, if you please. It's Ann Sullivan, the housekeeper of Templeton House."
"In the stables. In the hay. All night?" In the second-floor kitchen of Pretenses, Kate swiveled on the stool and gaped. The ten-minute afternoon break was a great deal more interesting than she'd expected. "You?"
"Why is that so shocking?" Ignoring her tea, Laura drummed her fingers on the counter. "I'm human, aren't I? Not some sort of windup doll."
"Pal, it sounds like you were pretty wound up to me. And I'm not shocked, exactly. I mean, I wouldn't have imagined bouncing on the hay was your style, but hey, whatever works." She grinned and sampled one of the cookies Laura had picked up at the bakery. "And I take it that it worked just fine."
Mollified, Laura took a cookie herself. "I," she said smugly, "was an animal."
With a snort, Kate raised one of Laura's arms over their heads. "Way to go, champ. So, now—about the details."
"I can't. Well, maybe. No." The gleam in her eye matched Kate's. "No."
"Come on, just one detail, then. One little detail of Laura's Wild Night."
She laughed, shook her head, nibbled on her lip. God knew, she could tell Kate, or Margo, anything. And it had been so rare lately for her to be ab
le to share something so wonderful and reckless. Fastidiously, she brushed crumbs off the counter.
"He ripped my clothes off."
"Metaphorically or literally?"
"Literally. Just tore them to shreds. Just…" She pressed a hand to her stomach. "God."
"God,'' Kate echoed, fanning a hand in front of her face.
"That's it." Laura scooted off the stool and dumped her cold tea into the sink. "I can't do this. It feels like high school."
"Pal, you've graduated and your cap and gown are in tatters. Congratulations." She cocked her head as Laura rinsed out her cup. She knew the woman who carefully washed out china as well as she knew herself. "Are you in love with him?"
Laura watched the water run and drain. "I don't know. Love, this kind of love, isn't as simple as I once thought it was. I'm afraid I could be, and I don't want to complicate everything."
"You once told me that love just happened, couldn't be planned," Kate pointed out. "I found out you were right."
With care, she set the cup to drain. She'd already given Kate's question a great deal of thought, knowing it would be asked by those who cared the most. "If it does happen, I'll deal with it. There's so much more to him than I ever imagined. And every time I see one of those pieces I didn't know was there fall into place, I'm more involved."
Laura dried her hands and turned back to Kate. "I'm not going to get dreamy-eyed this time around, or want more than someone's capable of giving. I'm just going to enjoy it."
"Is that going to work for you?"
"The way I feel this afternoon, it's working perfectly." Feeling loose, she stretched her arms high. "Absolutely perfectly."
"Glad to see you two are enjoying yourselves." Margo stepped into the doorway and scowled. "One of you was supposed to relieve me, remember? I, unlike my feckless partners, haven't had a break in four hours."
"Sorry." Laura dropped her arms. "I'll go."
"No, I'll go." Kate hopped off the stool. "It'll give you a chance to fill Margo in."
"Fill me in on what?"
"Michael screwed Laura's brains out last night in a horse stall."
Gracefully, Margo fluffed her hair while Laura flushed. "Really?"
"Ripped her clothes off," Kate added as she headed out the door. "I'll leave Laura to fill in the details."
On a long hum, Margo settled herself on one of the padded ice cream chairs, crossed her long, shapely legs. "Pour me some tea, would you, Laura? I'm whipped."
Automatically Laura poured a cup, brought it to the table. "Want a cookie?"
"Don't mind if I do." Margo debated them, selected, nibbled. "Now, sit your butt down and start filling in those details. And don't worry about being too specific."
Chapter Thirteen
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Whistling between his teeth, Michael sent Zip into a raging gallop, bursting out of the woods into the sun like a flaming fire. The little demon could run, Michael thought. He'd be sorry to lose him, but the offer that had come in that morning closed the deal.
In a matter of hours, the speedy little colt would be on his way to Utah.
"Going to have some fun with the fillies up there, kid. And breed some champs."
And the asking price meant that Michael could close the deal he'd been negotiating for a particularly fine-looking Palomino mare and her doe-eyed foal.
The mare was ornery, he mused, had twice tried to kick him and her handler during the inspection. Michael liked her the better for it, and for the fact that she'd bred such a tough little foal. A foal he was already planning to raise for stud.
Couple more years, Michael thought, the new colt would cover twenty mares, and at four his full complement of sixty.
They'd do fine together, he decided. That snippy Palomino mare and the energetic little buckskin she'd birthed would help him start a new phase of his business.
Within two years, he projected, Fury Ranch was going to mean something—something more than livelihood and survival. It was going to mean quality. And that, Michael thought as Zip tore around the stables, was something he'd lived most of his life without.
It would have been impossible and, worse, embarrassing, for him to explain to anyone that he had always wanted quality. Not just for what he had, or what he built, but for what he was. He'd always wanted to come from something. To be something.
And he had come from nothing. That he'd had to face, couldn't be changed. Nor could he change the fact that it left a sore spot inside him that was never really eased.
He'd gone years telling himself it didn't matter what his parents had been, how he'd grown up, or how he'd lived. But it did matter; now more than ever, he knew it mattered. There was a woman in his life who shouldn't have been there.
Sooner or later, he had no doubt, she'd see that for herself. The insult of it, and the inevitability, made him push the colt for more speed. Not for a minute would he have admitted that he was racing away rather than toward. Nor would he admit, even to himself, that his emotions had been in turmoil from the moment he'd stepped inside the stables last night and found her.
As if she was meant to be there, with him. For him. As if he could take, and hold, maybe even deserve something as lovely and fine and vital as Laura. And be for her what she could be for him.
The hell with that, Michael told himself, squinting into the sunlight as the colt flew over the ground. No way he was going to start fashioning pretty little dreams about a life with Laura. If he was one thing, he was a realist. His time with her was temporary, and he would damn well pack as much into it as he could while it lasted.
He was already into the run, the colt bunched for the leap when Michael spotted the figure loitering at the paddock. They sailed over the fence, spewed up dirt and dust.
"That's a hell of a horse," Byron called out as Michael trotted to him.
"He is." Bending, Michael slapped Zip's neck, then dismounted. "Sold him today. Guy in Utah." After uncinching the saddle, Michael hung it over the fence. "Wants to breed for speed."
"He'll get it." Byron leaned over, patted the colt's sleek throat. "Isn't even winded."
"Nope. He'll tire his rider out first."
"I'm surprised you're not using him for stud yourself. He's prime."
"Yeah, he's prime. But I have more foundation to build before I add a stud." Couple more years, he thought, picturing the foal again, and we'll both be ready. "Right now it's horse trading and building on the investment."
"You've got a good start. That walker there." Byron gestured. "What are you asking?"
"Max?" Michael glanced around, watched the horse swish his tail. "I'd sell my own mother first." He held up his hand, and Max walked over. "Glad to see me, Max?"
Max peeled back his lips so his teeth showed and split the air with a horsey laugh. "Give us a kiss, then."
Max nibbled affectionately on Michael's chin, and being nobody's fool, snuffed at his pockets. "True love is never enough. Want one?"
"A kiss from your horse or a carrot?"
"Whichever."
"I'll pass on both, thanks." But he stroked Max's mane as the horse crunched the carrot. "You got some fine-looking stock here."
"You in the market?"
"I told myself I wasn't, especially with the baby coming." He looked longingly at the mare nursing her foal. "Shit, this takes me back."
Michael picked up a dandy brush and began to groom Zip. "What are you, about two-ten?"
"Twelve," Byron said absently. "Two-twelve."
"That bay gelding with the two front socks? He'd carry you."
Byron studied the bay, noted the lines, the flashy white blaze. "Handsome bastard, isn't he?"
"Good saddle horse, well mannered but no pussy. Needs a firm hand. The right hand." Michael tucked his tongue in his cheek as he continued to work. "Make you a good deal, seeing as you're related to Josh and married to one of my favorite people."
"I didn't come by to horse-trade."
"No?" Placidly, Mich
ael leaned against Zip, lifted a hoof to pick it out. "Why, then?"
"I was in the neighborhood, more or less, and thought you might want to come by on Saturday night. Poker."
"I'm usually up for a game." Then he paused, narrowed his eyes. "This isn't going to be one of those enlightened evenings with women asking if a straight beats a flush."
"Kate would knock you on your ass for that comment." But Byron grinned. "No, it's purely sexist, men only."
"Then I'm in, thanks."
"Maybe I'll win that bay from you."
"Keep dreaming, De Witt."
"Good heart room," he murmured. "About sixteen hands, isn't he?"
Michael smothered a grin, continued to clean his mount's hooves. "About. Just turned four. His sire was a walker, his dam a dark-eyed floozy from Baton Rouge."
"Shit." He was sunk. "You stable?"
"Yep. Here, for now. Then at my place when it's finished. Should be ready to start construction in a couple weeks."
"Let's take a closer look." In his Saville Row suit and Magli shoes, Byron climbed into the paddock.
"I've heard you Southern boys are cardsharps and horse thieves," Michael commented as they strolled companionably toward the bay. "You heard right."
How long was she going to make him wait? Michael paced the floor, contemplated the bottle of wine on the counter. It made him scratch his head. He'd actually gone out and bought wine. Not his usual style, but he'd figured sex in a horse stall wasn't Laura's usual either. The least he could do was offer her a civilized drink. Before he jumped her again.
Which was just what he wanted to do.
If she ever got there.
Of course she was coming. He'd reminded himself of that half a dozen times over the last hour. The way it had been between them the night before, she had to be just as eager for a repeat performance. She'd have thought of him during the day, countless times, the way he'd thought of her.
The way he would have sworn he'd smelled her every time he took a breath. The way he'd caught himself going off into some brainless trance because he could see her face in his head, or hear her voice, or…
Want her. Just want her.
When had he ever wanted anything like this? Once he'd wanted escape, and he'd gotten it. He'd wanted danger and risk and reckless adventure. And he'd gotten that, too. And when he'd wanted peace, a life he could look at with some measure of pride, he'd gone out and gotten that as well.
