The Heart Breaker

by Nicole Jordan

  “No? You had me fooled. That night in Denver McCord looked smitten with you—like he didn’t want to let you out of his sight.” Richard seemed to catch himself. “But yes, of course, I’ll do anything I can to help. I’ll make some discreet inquiries when I get back and let you know as soon as possible. Will that be all right?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Heather murmured in gratitude.

  As he took his leave, Richard also shared a curious piece of news with her and Sloan that might affect their futures.

  “You might be interested to learn Quinn Lovell may be involved in a brewing scandal. I’m investigating his alleged bribery of a judge in a mining scheme and will be reporting in my paper over the next few weeks.”

  Heather knew there was nothing “alleged” about the baron’s bribing of ranchers in their district—it was undisputed fact—but she held her tongue. If Lovell was exposed for the ruthless man he was, however, it could only help Sloan’s chances against him in the election.

  Sloan was not as sanguine about the possibility for a shake-up in the election. Bribery, coercion, even murder had been part of district politics for decades. Nor did he appreciate Weld’s visit as much as Heather did. He didn’t care at all for the attentions the handsome reporter had showered on his wife.

  It was the day after Richard’s departure, however, when Sloan let slip the determined control he’d been exercising over himself. He came home early that afternoon to find Heather in the study, laughing with the schoolteacher over a book Vernon had brought for her perusal.

  His jealousy was unfounded, Sloan knew deep down. Her intellectual conversations with the schoolteacher were one of the few pleasures Heather enjoyed from her past life. He’d asked her to give up most everything else when he married her and brought her here to live on his ranch. Still, it stuck in his craw to see another man giving her such happiness when he himself could barely get her to say two words a day unless it related directly to Janna, the ranch, or the campaign.

  He restrained his urge to say something nasty to Vernon, however, and bided his time until the schoolteacher had left. Then Sloan settled on the sofa beside Heather, who was still browsing through the pages.

  “What is it you found so amusing?”

  “A novel by the humorist Mark Twain, about a boy’s adventures on the Mississippi river. I read it when it first was published a few years ago, but I’d forgotten how delightful it is. In fact you might enjoy it,” she added absently.

  “I’ve already read it.” When she gave him a surprised glance, Sloan said dryly, “I do know how to read, duchess. I just don’t often have the time.”

  An attractive flush stained her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  When Sloan leaned forward to pick up the china pot from the silver tea tray that had belonged to his mother, Heather said quickly, “It’s tea, not coffee.”

  “I’ll try it.”

  “Would you like me to warm the pot?” She started to rise, but Sloan pressed her down with a light hand on her knee.

  “Don’t get up. This will be fine.”

  It was the first time she had let him touch her since their fight, and Sloan considered it an encouraging sign. Not pushing his luck, however, he sipped his tea and watched Heather while she read.

  The companionable silence drew out, even though Sloan’s thoughts were anything but friendly. She was so beautiful, he ached. He could feel the relentless need clawing at him.

  He could not have pinpointed the exact moment her awareness changed, but Heather looked up from her book to meet his gaze. Their eyes locked, and for a moment, the anger, the heartache, the despair faded away.

  Sloan set down his cup slowly. He had promised to keep his hands off her, but he was about to break that promise. He needed to touch her; he couldn’t help himself.

  Hardly daring to breathe, he raised a gentle hand to her cheek and heard the catch of her breath. She sat perfectly still as the backs of his knuckles brushed her skin with a featherlight pressure.

  Her voice was a reedy murmur. “I… should wake Janna … from her nap.”

  “Janna can wait,” he murmured.

  His fingertips moved over her skin, lingering to gently trace the shape of her face. Then, just as slowly, he reached out to take her hand and raised it to his face, pressing her palm against his cheek.

  Heather held herself rigidly still, even while trying to repress the sensual shiver that ran through her at the stirring contact. When he turned his head, pressing his warm mouth against the soft skin of her wrist, her lips parted in a wordless protest.

  She had feared this moment. Feared her own lack of willpower. Feared him. Sloan’s gaze held hers and she saw the tenderness there—compelling, heart-stopping. She could have resisted him if not for that.

  She couldn’t move.

  Sloan was caught in the same spell. He had only meant to touch her, then let her go. But he wanted to kiss her; needed desperately to kiss her. He wanted her to acknowledge her need for him as well.

  He put his hands on either side of her face and bent to brush her mouth with his. A flame, intense and burning, licked up from low in his belly and up to his chest like a wrenching pain. God help him but he wanted her. He wanted to take her here, right now, on the sofa....

  The image of her lying beneath him, open for his pleasure, sent desire throbbing through him, but he knew he had to give her the choice.

  Releasing her, Sloan slowly unbuttoned his shirt. Then he took her hand again and placed her palm against his bare chest, over his heart.

  “I want you.” His kept his voice low and soft.

  She closed her eyes.

  With careful deliberation Sloan reached behind Heather to unfasten the tiny buttons at the back of her shirtwaist. When he’d opened most of them, he snagged his fingers around the high collar of the blouse and drew down the fabric. She remained as still as a marble statue, but he could see her pulse beating in the delicate hollow of her throat.

  He slipped a long-fingered hand beneath her camisole and corset and gently cupped her bare breast, making her draw a sharp breath at the arousing sensation.

  “I want to make love to you, Heather.”

  She trembled. Tendrils of panic danced through her mind, but it was edged with desire. If Sloan had tried to force her, she could have resisted. But his touch was the touch of a lover, the caress of a man who wanted to give, not take. Who wanted to please.

  “Please let me…” he whispered, echoing her thoughts. When he drew down her camisole and the edge of her corset to expose her bare breasts, she saw the quick tightening of his expression.

  “Sloan…”

  “Hush, sweetheart.”

  Not giving her the chance to deny him, he pressed her back to lie upon the couch. Her hands closed over his shoulders, whether to cling to him or push him away, she wasn’t certain. When he covered her breast with his palm, her body responded with instinctive swiftness, the nipple budding instantly beneath his touch, shooting arrows of excited painfulness deep between her thighs.

  Heather drew a long, shuddering breath. “Don’t…”

  Yet she couldn’t struggle against him, didn’t want to struggle as he stretched out beside her. She could feel the heat and power that emanated from that hard, magnificent body.

  “You really want me to leave you alone?” he murmured, lowering his head to nuzzle a rigid nipple.

  Her pulse leapt with desire as his tongue teased her. Her body was aching now, and she moved restlessly against him. When he reached for the hem of her skirts, Heather twisted in halfhearted protest, but Sloan covered her mouth tenderly, seeking to persuade. The sensual pressure was gentle, yet robbed her of breath. She shuddered, breathless and dizzy from the slow intensity of his hot, languorous kisses against her mouth.

  Eventually his attentions moved lower, his lips tracing her bare throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breast… By the time he found her nipple again, Heather was quivering. She moaned deep in her
throat. Her longing for him was overwhelming. Nothing could help her resist the urgent demand of his lips, the hard arousal of his body, the fire that leapt to life when he merely touched her.

  She trembled as he whispered against her skin, “Let me love you, Heather.”

  His hands cupping the lush fullness of her breasts, he took her tight, hurting nipples in turn and drew them into his mouth, biting at each hardened peak. The heat was instantaneous. It burst through her hot and bright, making her burn with excitement.

  “Please…”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  He tongued her stiffened teats until she fought back a ragged moan. Then he sucked harder, making her loins clench wildly. She had to bite her lip to stop herself screaming out for more.

  Sloan himself groaned low in his throat. “God, what you do to me.”

  As if to prove his point, his thighs tightened, driving against her hips. Her skin aflame, Heather arched against him involuntarily, overwhelmed by the warm smell of him, the hardness of his body. She wanted him, God help her. Sweet mercy, how could her body turn traitor this way?

  She made no protest, though, when he drew up her skirts, or when his hand covered her woman’s mound. When his fingers found the opening in her lacy drawers, she lost the wild struggle with herself. She closed her eyes.

  She could hear his sharp intake of breath as he touched her. She was shamelessly wet, and he stroked her moist cleft deliberately, trying to arouse her even further.

  “This is where I want to go,” he murmured hoarsely. “I want to feel you around me, tight and hot and wet.”

  She cried out softly when he insinuated a finger between her swollen flesh lips, but her legs parted readily for him, desire rippling through her yearning body.

  As his fingers caressed her ripe sex, his burning gaze lingered on her face. “Don’t fight it, sweetheart. I want you hot and wild for me.”

  Shifting his position so that he knelt between her thighs, he pulled down her drawers around her ankles.

  Lowering his head then, he pressed his hot cheek against her bare midriff.

  “Sloan … no…”

  “Yes. You want this as much as I do.”

  His jaw scraped her inner thigh as with brazen intimacy he eased her legs wide open. “I want to put my mouth on you.”

  His face pressed into her, his wicked mouth pressing against her fully in a devastating kiss. Only the shredded remnants of her pride kept Heather from moaning in wild pleasure.

  Both his hands clutching the soft full curves of her bottom to hold her to him, he ravished her exquisitely, his tongue delving into her and arousing a lightning bolt of sheer sensation.

  His tongue rasped her sensitive flesh, teasing and tormenting and plying the yearning kernel of feminine pleasure. Slow and tender the lashing glide of his tongue played on her flesh, then thrust inside again, pushing and twisting, deep and hot within her.

  Sobbing, Heather writhed beneath him, thrashing her head from side to side. Her hands clutching his shoulders, she pleaded with him to stop, but Sloan only answered with a growling sound. And soon she no longer cared what scandalous things he was doing to her. She craved his touch, couldn’t bear for him to stop....

  She bucked frantically against him as his triumphant mouth forced jolt after tormenting jolt from her, in a long endless orgasm that shook her to her very core.

  She was still shaking when he moved upward to kiss her mouth hard. She tasted herself on his lips as his tongue penetrated deep. It was a fierce kiss that stripped away any remaining defenses, leaving only primal need.

  Her arms went around his neck. She could feel the energy barely leashed within him as Sloan’s mouth left hers.

  “I’m so hard, I’ll burst if I don’t get inside you.”

  He gave her no more time to recover from the shattering climax. His desire, long restrained, burned hot and hard at his loins. Urgently he rose to his knees and tugged at the buttons of his pants and drawers to free his erection. When he succeeded, she could see his arousal jutting boldly between his sinewed thighs.

  His blue eyes burned into hers as he lowered himself on her again. Heather gasped, feeling the rigid, heated length of his sex brand her thighs like searing steel.

  “Sloan…”

  “I can’t stop now…” he muttered. “I want you too much.”

  He eased the silken head into her quivering flesh, groaning as he sank into the wet velvet of her. She began stirring eagerly to his touch, but with ruthless willpower, he held himself still, reveling in her helpless response.

  “Tell me,” he demanded in a rasping voice, “tell me you want this as much as I do.”

  “Yes…” She longed to feel that great, thick shaft sliding between her legs, thrusting deep within her.

  She wanted to cry out in despair when he withdrew, leaving her aching with loss. But then he entered her strongly again, hot and powerful and alive, sheathing himself tightly inside her. Heather gave a sob of gratitude.

  Then what had begun tenderly suddenly turned wild. He gripped her buttocks, no longer in control. She gasped in welcome as he plunged home… arching against him as his huge shaft drove deep and hard… She cried out, sobbing as his wonderful length impaled her helpless body over and over again.

  They came together in passion and need. He took her with fierce, insistent thrusts, possessiveness surging through him. She was his; his need was almost violent, his desire uncontrollable.

  She shattered an instant before he did. He held her convulsing form still for his thrusts as she clawed at his shoulders, but then the searing tumult caught him in its greedy clutches. In blind desire Sloan bared his teeth and plunged inside her, straining to withhold his soul as he gave her his body.

  His surrender was as violent as his hunger. A hoarse shout dredged from his throat as he gave himself up to the powerful explosion.

  When it was over, when the storm of emotion had passed, he lay against her, spent, shuddering. His skin was sheened with sweat, his heart hammering.

  For a long moment neither of them spoke a word. Drained and limp, Heather lay there unmoving in his arms, while love and despair pulsed through her. She could feel the tears slipping from her eyes.

  “That … should never have happened,” she whispered finally.

  His heart wrenched to realize she was crying. He wanted to hold her close, to soothe her distress and banish her feelings of regret, but she winced when he tried to tighten his arms around her.

  “I asked you not to touch me.”

  The tension was suddenly back between them, sharp as a knife.

  “You were hot as I was,” Sloan replied finally. “Don’t deny it.”

  That was the trouble, Heather thought in wretched misery, remembering her shameless reaction to his seduction. She was helpless against Sloan, her defenses against him in tatters.

  She had no protection for her heart. Her love for him made her so terribly vulnerable. And remaining here would only make the pain worse.

  Chapter 17

  Heather dashed scalding tears from her eyes as she made Janna’s breakfast the following morning. Her need to burrow deep and hide her sorrow and pain wasn’t as strong as her need to escape. She wanted to run, as far and as fast as she could. Janna was all that had kept her from fleeing this morning.

  She couldn’t bear to remain here any longer.

  Swallowing hard, Heather lifted her blurred gaze to stare blindly out the kitchen window. She found it a bleak thought, spending the rest of her days alone, abandoning the life she had made here, the precious daughter, the husband… But she faced a bleaker future if she remained.

  She loved a man who didn’t want her. Desperately loved him. She had vowed to make Sloan forget the sorrow that imprisoned his heart, but she couldn’t heal him. She’d been a fool even to hope to. And a greater fool to misjudge herself so completely.

  She’d thought she could be content with merely being Sloan’s wife, his lover, sharing a deep physi
cal passion without his love. But she had wanted more all along. She wanted him to want her, to care for her, to feel that his life was incomplete without her. As hers was without him.

  No man had ever held such power over her. Until now she had been too proud to beg him for a crumb of affection. But she feared what she would become if she stayed. She would be beyond defenses, unable to protect herself. She would be his, body and soul, accepting his unmeaning cruelties because she was so sick with love for him that she would take anything she could get.

  Heather buried her face in her hands. She had to leave. Going away was the best solution for them both. Perhaps someday the doomed love that had taken possession of her heart would fade and the pain would diminish....

  She gave a bitter, silent sob. And maybe pigs would sprout wings.

  Just then she heard Janna’s exclamation of delight as the child spied her papa. Heather’s spine stiffened. Sloan had silently entered the kitchen, she realized.

  Swiftly she wiped a sleeve across her damp eyes. She would not let him see her cry again.

  He went straight to Janna’s corner and picked up his daughter. As he settled with her at the kitchen table, Heather stole a look at him. His expression was inscrutable, his attention fixed solely on the child.

  She turned away without speaking.

  As the awkward silence drew out between them, though, Heather felt him watching her. Selfconsciously she stirred the oat porridge and scooped a small helping into a bowl, then added brown sugar and a little milk. When she carried the concoction to the table, she paused beside him.

  “Would you care to feed Janna or shall I?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  She set the bowl down before him on the table, then returned to the sink, where she mechanically began cleaning the dirty pot and utensils. Behind her she could hear Sloan spoon-feeding his daughter. When Janna gave a gurgle of laughter, Heather clutched at the edge of the sink, the ache inside her chest savage.