This would never go anywhere. Forget the video incident—that was in the past. But the closer he got to her, the more she realized that she had no idea how to relate to anyone on a profound level. Her parents sure hadn’t given her much insight into being loved, and they had made her feel that it was necessary to never get deep, to always keep a buffer between her and someone else because she wouldn’t be around for much longer, moving on, moving on...
Just the old, tried-and-true sex. That’s what she needed.
That’s what she wanted.
And she was about to get it here in Clint’s room, she thought, as he shut and locked the door behind them.
“Tell me about one of those paintings in the Lupanar, Margot,” he said softly, and even from across the room, his voice had the power to send goose bumps over her flesh.
She went to his large bed, running a hand over the iron footboard. Was this really her, in a lion’s den instead of one that belonged to she-wolves?
Yep. And she was going to enjoy this for what it was, nothing more.
“There are a lot of paintings that feature the phallus,” she said to start off. “Huge ones. You wouldn’t believe the size of those penises.”
Behind her, she heard the rustle of clothing, and her body flashed with heat.
Lust. It was just lust.
She didn’t turn around yet. Allowing her pleasure to also be pain, she reveled in the craving to see him in the flesh again, without that shirt, without those jeans, tanned and bare and rippling with hard-labor muscles.
She kept talking. “There’s also graffiti on the walls. Hic ego puellas multas futui. I remember that one. The loose translation of the Latin is ‘Here I screwed many girls.’”
Had she meant that to be a dig at Clint’s college lifestyle?
“Sounds charming,” he said.
He was closer now, but she didn’t turn around. Not when there were a thousand delicious tingles running down her spine.
“There’s another painting that I remember well,” she murmured. “Two naked people on a bed. The man has the woman’s legs over his lap, but there’s a space between them.”
He was right behind her now, and she kept remembering the day he had touched her from behind, massaging her into a climax that had rolled through her with a ferocious growl.
“Take off your clothes, Margot.”
Her name sounded just as bare as he probably was, but she found herself obeying him. It would be the last time, though.
Just one more time.
She peeled off her sweater, skirt, boots...everything. Then she went to the bed on her own before he could demand anything else of her.
Bold as you please, she slid onto the quilt, her back against the pillows that bunched at the headboard. She kept her knees together, refusing to show him more than she wanted to right now.
But the sight of him rocked her—broad shoulders, chest. Those abs.
And his cock.
It was ready for her as he climbed onto the bed and brought her legs over his lap.
“Did that painting look something like this?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He swept his fingertips up her leg, coming down the side of it. Her nipples went stiff, her center dampening.
Such an intimate touch, she thought, her heartbeat quickening, telling her it was time to run.
But she was staying for some reason.
Her body, she thought. This was what she needed from him tonight.
As he circled his fingers over her belly, making her shift, butterflies clustered inside of her, swiping her with light flutters that winged up to her chest, around her heart.
She chased them off. “There’s another picture I remember. On a bed again, a woman riding a man.”
His smile was tight, as if he knew that she couldn’t take the intimacy. Maybe he couldn’t, either.
He guided her into position—her on top, him on the bottom, his hands braced on her hips.
Giving him a look, lashes lowered, she imitated the painting further, putting her hand on his head.
“The woman in the painting was doing this. I think it was because she wanted to show him that she was in charge.”
“She wouldn’t have it any other way.”
His words went beyond a comment on the painting, straight to a reflection of her, but he didn’t elaborate, instead reaching toward a nightstand into a drawer. He came out with a condom and tore into the packaging.
She took it from him, then slowly covered his cock.
“Was the man’s ‘phallus’ inside the woman in that painting?” Clint asked, teasing, referencing those penis pictures she had mentioned while a pulse throbbed in his neck.
“You can’t really tell, but I’m assuming so.”
With that, she impaled herself on him, already slick with desire.
He went so deeply into her that she moaned, then began moving her hips, making him go in, out.
She’d already removed her hand from his head, but just so he wouldn’t forget that this was still a painted fantasy and nothing more, she started to put it back in position.
He intercepted her before she could recreate the picture, instead placing her hand over his chest.
His heart.
A tiny explosion went off inside her, and it wasn’t centered in her belly this time. It was higher, in a place that was usually so still.
Even so, she didn’t take her hand away from him. She left it there, feeling the beat of his heart—bang, bang, bang. Feeling him inside her, a part of her, thick and long and perfect.
That last thought jarred her.
Perfect?
It was too much for her, and she switched position, turning around so he couldn’t see her face.
He made a throttled sound as she rode him backward while he held her hips, pulling her back to him, pushing her forward.
She bent so that her hands were on his legs, so that she could get to an orgasm before...
Before what? Before she lost part of herself to a man who would probably only end up hurting her even worse than he’d done years ago?
He came with a curse-laden blast, then another, but she still labored, strained, a fierce and brutal pressure clicking inside of her like the clock downstairs, counting down.
One click—almost there...
Two—coming...
Three...four...five...
A pounding climax struck, making her vibrate in every cell until she lost all strength, slumping down on him.
But instead of leaving her like that, he pulled her back to him, tugging the covers around them and possessing her within the cradle of his arms.
Warm.
Intimate.
As she lay against his chest, she let herself become a part of him, her skin against his, melding together. She pictured nights when she wouldn’t want to go anywhere, when she would only want to listen to the sounds outside, or the creaks of this old house speaking to her with reassuring welcome.
And, for a moment, it seemed so real. So possible.
But then the adrenaline started to thread through her as she pictured him, going to another woman...or another place, leaving her behind for something better.
She pushed the images away until they faded to almost nothing, just like an old painting.
* * *
HE PLAYED WITH her hair, just as he’d always wanted to do. Margot wasn’t even objecting, and that shocked the hell out of him.
What’d just happened?
In the midst of his afterglow fog, Clint wasn’t sure, but he’d never experienced anything like it in his life. There’d been a closeness he hadn’t expected, though now, in the aftermath, he could admit that he’d wanted it more than anything.
&nbs
p; Too bad it’d happened with a woman who didn’t want anything more from him than re-creations of brothel paintings.
“You awake?” he asked. Through the window, he could see it was dark. Bedtime.
“Yeah,” she said.
He didn’t know what he wanted from her exactly—the sense that she felt more for him than she should? The hope that she might stick around a little longer?
After blowing out a here-goes-nothing breath, he said, “That night in college...I didn’t bring you up to my room just to make out with you, you know.”
She waited for him to continue, almost as if she didn’t want him to.
He rushed ahead. “I actually wanted to...” God, this wasn’t easy. “I guess I wanted to see what you really thought of that movie.”
She stirred, her hair brushing against his skin.
He said, “So that’s why I brought you there.”
“What I’m hearing in man-speak,” she said, “is that you wanted to get to know me, and the making-out part was incidental?”
Why had he even brought this up? The things a man said after he’d come. Jeez.
She seemed to realize his sudden discomfort, and tentatively draped an arm over his torso.
“I’m glad you told me that.”
“Why?”
She swallowed. “Because it makes me feel... Just thank you. And, by the way, Riley told me that you made sure no one bothered me about the video when we were at the reunion. Thank you for that, too. It was thoughtful.”
There was more to what she was saying. He knew it.
She smoothed her fingers down his ribs. “I had a little crush on you back then. There was good reason you attracted so many women.”
“And you were curious about more than just my charm?”
“Very. But I was also wary, and it took everything I had to go up to that room. And when I saw that camera...”
“You still blame me for that?” He caressed her arm.
“No. But at that point, I thought you just wanted to nail me for bragging rights, especially afterward, when that tape popped up everywhere.” She slid her hand under him, her breasts crushed to his chest. “Before I saw the camera, though, I thought there was something...”
Sounded like the truth bug had her tongue, too.
“What if there was something?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her hair falling over half her face, and he could feel the bad news coming.
“Clint,” she whispered. “I really do like being with you.”
Although she had completely avoided answering him, she couldn’t have been any clearer if she’d hit him over the head with a rock.
But when she drew her leg on top of his thighs, nestling against his hip, nuzzling him beneath his jaw, he wondered if what they had together was clear to her.
10
OUTSIDE, THE NIGHT was mild, but the distance between Dani and Riley as they sat face-to-face on the benches in the gazebo was as chilly as it could get.
Moonlight filtered in through the open walls, shading Riley slightly. Over his shoulder, Dani could see the outline of bunkhouses in the near distance, and even the tip of the horse barn farther down the hill. Country music was playing, probably coming from a ranch hand’s room.
Actually, Merle Haggard had been the only sound between Dani and Riley for the past few minutes, and she was just about ready to burst.
“You’re still mad at me,” she finally said.
“Not mad.” Riley was staring off into the distance, his hair darker in the moonlight. “I’m just confused. Lately, it’s like I don’t recognize you at all.”
She knew he wasn’t talking about the new hairstyle or clothing, either. They were stuck on this whole thing about her wanting to quit her job.
“I’ve told you why I want to try something on my own,” she said. “We’re going to have a lot more money in our savings account since Clint is letting us have the ranch for the wedding. And I found a reasonably priced gown all on my own. It’s vintage. Someone’s selling it on eBay, and that’ll save us money, too—”
“I’m not talking about our wedding.” He exhaled. “Do you remember everything we’ve worked for during the past few years? We’ve planned and plotted how to get ourselves out of that rental house, for starters.”
“We can still do that.” Eventually. “I like where we’re living, Riley. You’re the one who wants to move out, right?”
“That’s because I thought we’d be further along than we are these days.” His posture was stiff, as if his pride was the one thing holding him upright. “I never wanted to run small estates, and someday, there’s going to be a bigger one with bigger perks.”
“You already give me what I need,” she said. “Those dreams of a big wedding were just girlish fantasies. I’m happier with you than I could ever dream of being with anyone else. Can’t you see that?”
So was that why she was cutting her hair and quitting her job and having an early-life crisis?
Her heart reached out to Riley, the best man she would ever find. He was her one, her only, and she was making a mess of what they had.
She didn’t mean to, though.
So why was it happening?
Scooting over on the bench, closer to him, she tugged on his shirtsleeve, toying with it. “I think I’m going about this all wrong.”
“I just wish I knew what you were going about.”
She paused. Should she lay it all out in front of him? What if he didn’t understand?
The words barely got out of her, then they began tumbling like an avalanche she’d been trying to keep back. “I’ve been asking myself so many questions.... But, well, the biggest ones have to do with making all the right choices. How do I know that I’m not losing opportunities left and right because I haven’t opened myself to them?” She inched even nearer to Riley, smelling his barely there, clean cologne. It filled her in so many ways. “But there is one thing I know for sure, and it’s that you’re the right decision. That’s never going to change.”
He held her hand, their fingers entwining.
In the near distance, Merle Haggard sang his outlaw country songs. Riley seemed content just to touch Dani, so she enjoyed the feel of his fingers wrapping around hers, safe, warm, like a cocoon.
But even cocoons needed to open at some point and reveal the changes that had taken place inside. And that was the true issue here, wasn’t it?
It didn’t necessarily make sense to her, but there it was.
Why did she feel so restless these days? And why was it happening even now, as the music infiltrated her, making her heartbeat speed up as she ran her thumb along Riley’s?
Did he have any idea what was underneath the layers she wore? And she meant that literally, because she had hoped that they would be talking tonight, alone. She had hoped that, at some point, they would be stripping the layers off, one by one.
She moved closer to him. “Is everything good with us?”
“Everything’s good.”
He was looking down at their joined hands, his heart in every word he said.
Her Riley. Her good guy in a figurative white hat.
“Time to make up, then?” she asked on a whisper.
“We always do.”
She didn’t know what got into her exactly, but she crossed one leg over the other flirtatiously. He caught the gesture and lifted an eyebrow.
“Do you realize,” she asked, “that we’ve never had make-up sex before?”
“That’s because this was our first real fight, even after all these years.”
Yeah, two even-keeled, levelheaded people. That was them. The first time they’d been together, he had pulled out all the romantic stops—the roses, the champagne, the I Love Yous. Nothing
had gone wrong that night.
And nothing had since then, except for lately.
She subtly unbuttoned the tight sweater she’d purchased just this week—something that made her feel sexier than usual.
Even in the low light, she saw Riley’s gaze go steamy.
“Dani...”
She smiled, feeling like a little devil. Reveling in the urgency that had been creeping up on her this past week.
“This is our first time really fighting,” she said. “I like that you care enough for me to get angry.”
Again, he looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, but there was also an unknown quality in his eyes that drove her on, making her undo her sweater even more.
She couldn’t wait to show him what she had under the layers, what she’d planned for their make-up time.
“We should go back to the room,” he said.
“No.”
He had started to get to his feet, but she pulled him back down and began to work at her sweater buttons again.
When she was done, Riley’s eyes were wide.
She had parted her sweater to show him the bra she’d purchased on the sly at The Boudoir before they’d left Avila Grande last weekend. It was a creation she’d never thought of buying before, and doing so had been an act of freedom.
Bras like this were for other girls.
But not anymore.
Dani could feel him running his gaze over her breasts, which were exposed, thanks to the nonexistent cups and black half-corset underneath.
As he stared, her nipples went hard. “You should see my undies and the garter belt with stockings.”
Crotchless. She’d bought a set.
“Out here?” His voice was gritty. “What if one of the ranch hands walks by? What if Clint does?”
“We’ll be really quiet. And it’s dark enough in this gazebo so that we can just hold our breath and wait for them to pass by.” She leaned toward him. “Come on, Riley. Make up with me.”
This time, he stood all the way before she could pull him back down.
He began to scoop her into his arms. “We’re going to the room.”
“No,” she said, pulling her sweater down her shoulders to her arms so he could see that she wasn’t backing down, then gaining her feet and stepping away from him.
Lead Me On Page 13
