Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12

by Various Authors

  She grinned as she slipped off her shoes. “Trust me on this, darling. Your body is quite remarkable.”

  “I’ll bet it can’t hold a candle to yours,” he said as he bent to pull off his boots. When he straightened he wrapped his arms around her to pull her against him. “But I’m damned sure going to find out.”

  His eyes held her captive as she felt his hands begin to gather the fabric of her dress. In no time at all, he pulled the clingy knit up and over her head. Then, reaching behind her, he unhooked her bra and slid the straps from her shoulders. The scrap of lace joined her dress on the floor.

  When he stepped back to gaze at her, she hoped that he missed the fact that gravity had affected certain parts of her anatomy and things weren’t as pert as they’d been ten years ago. Of course, they hadn’t known each other then, so maybe he wouldn’t notice that, although still slender and toned, she was approaching forty.

  “My God, Fin, you’re beautiful.” From the appreciative gleam in his eyes, she had no doubt that he meant it.

  Feeling more feminine and attractive than she had in a very long time, she pushed his shirt from his impossibly wide shoulders and tossed it on top of the growing pile of their clothing on the plush white carpet. Sparks of heat rushed through her at the speed of light when he pulled her back into his arms, and she had to force herself to breathe at the first contact of sensitive feminine skin meeting hair-roughened male flesh.

  “You feel as good as I knew you would,” he said, his breathing sounding quite labored.

  “So…do…you.” He wasn’t the only one having trouble catching his breath.

  His large hands splaying over her back felt absolutely wonderful and she marveled at how exciting his callused palms felt on her smooth skin. Closing her eyes, she reveled in the tiny tingles skipping through her at his touch. But when he leaned back to kiss the slopes of her breasts, the coil of need deep in her feminine core tightened to an empty ache and she felt as if she would melt into a puddle.

  His firm lips nibbled and teased until she thought she would go mad if he didn’t take the tightened tip into his mouth. But the moment his mouth closed over her, Fin’s knees gave way and she had to grasp his hard biceps to keep from falling into an undignified heap at his feet.

  “Easy, sweetheart.” His lips grazing her sensitive nipple as he spoke intensified the sensations racing through her body and she barely managed to suppress a moan from escaping. “We’re just getting started.”

  “You really meant it…when you said our lovemaking would take…all night,” she said, struggling to draw air into her lungs.

  He raised his head, the promise in his dark blue gaze causing her heart to pound against her ribs. “I’m going to take my time and by tomorrow morning there won’t be a single inch of you that I haven’t kissed or made love to.” His smile sent an arrow of heat straight to the most feminine part of her. “I’m not from New York, Fin. I’m a country boy with country ways. I take my time and don’t get in a rush about much of anything. And especially when I’m loving a woman.”

  The sound of his smooth, steady baritone and the vow she detected in his navy eyes made her insides feel as if they’d turned to warm pudding. “Th-there won’t be anything left of me but a pile of ashes,” she said, barely recognizing the sultry female voice as her own.

  His sexy grin as he guided her hands to his belt buckle increased the heat building inside of her. “Then I guess we’ll go up in a blaze of glory together, sweetheart.”

  Slowly unbuckling the leather strap, Fin concentrated on unfastening the metal button at his waist. She delighted in the shudder that ran through his big body when her fingers brushed the bulge straining against his fly as she reached for the tab of his zipper. But instead of easing the closure open, she decided to treat him to a bit of the sweet torture he’d been putting her through.

  “I think I’m going to enjoy this slow, country lovemaking,” she said as she leisurely ran her finger along the top of his waistband. She allowed her knuckles to lightly brush his skin and watched his stomach muscles contract in response.

  “I don’t want you get the wrong idea.” He drew in a deep breath. “I swear I’m not trying to hurry things along, but these jeans are getting damned uncomfortable in the stride.”

  “It does appear that you have a problem in that area,” she teased. Taking pity on him, she eased the zipper down. “Does that feel better?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Brushing her fingers aside, he stepped back and made quick work of removing the denim from his muscular thighs. “You have no idea how painful a pair of jeans can be to a man in my condition.”

  When he straightened and reached for her, he hooked his thumbs in the elastic just below her waist. “As good as you look in this little scrap of satin, I think you’ll look even better out of it,” he said as he pulled her bikini panties down.

  Her legs trembled and she had to brace her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she stepped out of them. When she finally found her voice, she reached for the band at the top of his cotton briefs. “By the same token, I think you’ll look fantastic out of these.”

  When she removed the last barrier separating them, her eyes widened and it felt as if the temperature in the room went up several degrees. That night in his barn they’d been in the shadows and there had been little time to pay attention to anything but their hurried coming together. But now she had the opportunity to study his incredible body and the perfection that was Travis Clayton.

  His long legs and lean flanks were as well-defined as his upper torso, but it was the sight of his full erection that sent a shiver of anticipation and need straight to the heart of her femininity. He was an impressively built male, heavily aroused and looking at her as if she were the most desirable creature he’d ever seen.

  “You may make me out to be a liar, sweetheart,” he said, reaching for her.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked, feeling as if she’d go up in flames at the feel of his body touching hers from shoulders to knees.

  “I promised you I was going to love you all night, but now I’m not sure that’s going to be an option.” He shook his head. “Just the sight of you has me hotter than a two-dollar pistol in a skid row pawnshop on Saturday night.”

  “That makes two of us.” Her body quivered at the feel of his hard arousal pressed to her lower stomach. “I feel as if I’m going to go up in flames at any moment.”

  “I think we’d better take this to bed, while we still have the strength to get there,” he said, swinging her up into his arms.

  Smiling, Fin draped her arms around his neck. “I could have walked. The bed is only a few feet away.”

  He gave her a quick kiss and shook his head. “I know. But that would have required me turning loose of you and I didn’t want to do that.”

  His candidness caused her heart to skip a beat. He knew just what to say to make her feel special and cherished. But more than that, she sensed that he really meant what he said. He didn’t want to let her go and she didn’t want him to.

  When they reached the bed, he lowered her enough to pull back the black satin comforter, then placed her gently in the middle of the queen-size mattress. She watched him retrieve something from his jeans, then slide it under the pillow a moment before he stretched out beside her.

  He gathered her to him and fused their lips in a kiss that caused her head to spin. She tasted his urgent male hunger and the depth of his passion and marveled at the fact that she was the object of this amazing man’s desire.

  As he broke the kiss to nibble his way down to her collarbone, Fin drew in a ragged breath. But when he continued to the slope of her breast, then on to the hardened peak, her breath caught. At the first touch of his tongue to her sensitive flesh, she held his head to her and wondered if she’d ever breathe again.

  Taking her nipple into his mouth, he gently sucked and teased as he slid his hand down her side, then along her outer thigh. The delicious tension deep inside of her
increased to an almost unbearable ache, but when he moved his palm up the inside of her leg to her nest of feminine curls, a jolt of need stronger than she could’ve ever imagined raced to every fiber of her being.

  But nothing could have prepared her for the level of excitement Travis created within her when he parted her soft folds and, with a feather-light touch, stroked the tiny node hidden there. Her heart pounded against her ribs and she moved restlessly against him as wave after wave of intense sensation coursed through her.

  Travis was taking her to heights of passion she’d never known existed and she was certain she’d spontaneously combust if he didn’t make love to her soon.

  “Please, Travis…I can’t…take much more.”

  “What do you need, Fin?”

  Driven to distraction by his continued stroking and the feel of his warm, moist lips brushing the puckered tip of her breast as he spoke, she had to concentrate hard on what she needed to tell him. “I need you…to make love to me. Now!”

  “But I’m just getting started, sweetheart,” he said, stroking her more deeply.

  “I’ll never…survive.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Reaching down between them, she found him and used her palm to measure his length and the strength of his need for her. When a groan rumbled up from deep in his chest and his big body shuddered against her, she was overcome by a need like nothing she’d ever known.

  He caught her hands in his to stop her. “I get the idea, sweetheart.”

  His breathing was labored as he moved away from her to find the foil packet he’d tucked under the pillow earlier. When he’d arranged their protection, he rose over her to nudge her knees apart and settle himself between her thighs.

  “Let’s do this together,” he said, smiling as he took her hand in his and helped her guide him.

  His gaze held hers captive as together they became one and Fin knew she’d never experienced anything quite so sensual or erotic. But as he eased his hips forward and her body stretched to welcome him, she gave herself up to the delicious feeling of their joining and abandoned all other thought.

  She watched his jaw tighten as he moved farther into her. “You feel so damn good, sweetheart.”

  “So do you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his broad back and her legs around his slender hips.

  When he was buried completely within her, his heated gaze held hers as he set a slow pace of rhythmic thrusts. The weight of his lower body pressed intimately to hers and the exquisite friction of their movements sent tingling sparks skipping over every nerve in her body and in no time she felt the coil in the pit of her stomach tighten to the breaking point.

  Holding him to her, Fin fought to prolong the feeling of being one with this amazing man. But all too soon the tension inside of her shattered into a million shards of sensation and she moaned his name as the sweet waves of release coursed through her.

  Her satisfaction must have taken him over the edge because a moment later Travis’s big body stiffened, then surged into her one final time as he released his essence with a shuddering groan.

  As the light of dawn began to creep into the room, Travis lay holding Fin’s slight body to his side. After making love again sometime in the middle of night, she’d drifted off. But he’d lain awake, thinking about one of, if not the most, exciting encounters of his life.

  When Lauren had been alive, their coming together had been that of two people comfortable with each other. And although their intimacy hadn’t been overly passionate, it had been satisfying.

  But what he shared with Fin was nothing short of explosive. Her unbridled responses to his lovemaking fueled a fire within him that he’d never imagined possible. Hell, she made him feel more like a randy teenager than a man staring long and hard at fifty.

  It was a real shame that with the coming of morning their time together would end. She’d resume her life as the glamorous editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine, while he went back to being a Colorado rancher, chasing a herd of cattle all over hell’s half acre.

  When Fin moaned and stirred next to him, he glanced down to find her satiny cheeks had turned ashen and her emerald eyes were clouded by a mist of tears. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

  He watched her close her eyes and swallow hard. “I think…I’m going to…be sick.” She’d no sooner gotten the words past her pale lips than she was bolting from the bed and running for the adjoining bathroom.

  Following her, he supported her shoulders as she sank to her knees and lost her battle with the nausea. When she finally raised her head to take a breath, he released her long enough to grab a plush terry washcloth from a rack by the shower and dampen it with cool water.

  “Th-thank you,” she whispered brokenly as he bathed away the beads of perspiration from her forehead and helped her into the robe that had been hanging on the back of the bathroom door.

  “Feeling better now?” When she nodded, he helped her to her feet and led her back to bed. “Do you have some seltzer?”

  “I think there’s some club soda…in the refrigerator behind…the wet bar,” she said haltingly.

  Quickly pulling on his jeans, Travis hurried into the other room. When he returned to the bedroom, he found her once again paying homage to the porcelain god.

  “Do you think it was something you ate that didn’t set well?” he asked as he knelt beside her and helped her take a few sips of club soda.

  She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I’ve been queasy a lot lately, but this is the first time I’ve been sick.”

  Her words slammed into him like a physical blow and he had to force himself to breathe. “How long has this been going on?”

  “I don’t know,” she said weakly. “Maybe a couple of weeks. I’ve been meaning to make an appointment with my doctor, but haven’t gotten around to it.”

  His heart raced and a knot began to form in the pit of his stomach. “Have you had a period since you returned from your trip to the Silver Moon?”

  As he watched her worry her lower lip between her teeth, he knew the answer even before she managed to get the single word out. “No.”

  The timing was right and the fact that they’d failed to use any kind of protection that night in his barn left him with only one conclusion. Taking one deep breath, then another, Travis felt light-headed and just a little queasy himself.

  “Fin, I think there’s a damned good possibility that you’re pregnant with my baby.”

  Four

  When the gravity of the situation finally began to settle in, Travis’s words were as effective as a dose of smelling salts to Fin’s cloudy brain. For the past week, she had purposely denied the telltale symptoms of pregnancy, but it was past time that she faced the facts.

  She’d rationalized the occasional light-headedness and morning nausea as the result of stress from the competition and working grueling hours to win. But apparently that wasn’t the case. It appeared that history was repeating itself and she was pregnant again after only one incidence of unprotected sex.

  “This can’t be happening,” she moaned, burying her head in her hands. “Not again.”

  “It’s going to be all right, Fin. Until you take a pregnancy test, we won’t know for sure,” Travis said, his voice gentle as he lifted her to his wide chest and carried her back into the bedroom. When he placed her on the bed, he sat down beside her and took her hands in his. “If you’ll tell me where the nearest drug store is located, I’ll run out and buy one of those home tests. Once we get the results, we’ll know what we’re facing and figure out how to handle it.”

  She raised her gaze to meet his. “We?”

  He nodded without so much as a moment’s hesitation. “If you are carrying my baby, you’re not going to face the music alone. I’ll be there with you every step of the way and whatever decisions have to be made, we’ll make them together.”

  His vow to lend his moral support was very much appreciated, but until the stick
turned blue, she had every intention of holding out hope that she wasn’t pregnant. “Let’s get that test kit and find out for certain one way or the other.”

  Giving Travis her key to let himself back in and directions to a pharmacy close by, she waited until he left before she allowed her tears to fall.

  What on earth had she gotten herself into this time? And could the timing have been any worse?

  She was in a fierce competition with her family, and especially her twin, Shane, to be named CEO of Elliott Publication Holdings when Patrick retired in a couple of months. Even if Charisma’s growth pushed it over the top and she became the clear winner of the contest, she seriously doubted that her self-righteous father would turn over the reins of his magazine empire to the daughter who made a habit of disgracing him with grandchildren born out of wedlock. And although times were different than they’d been twenty-three years ago and it was perfectly acceptable for a single woman to bear and raise her children alone, Patrick was from a different generation. There was no way he’d hand over his precious company to a woman he considered unable to manage her own life.

  Her breath caught on a sob and she squeezed her eyes shut as she thought of all she stood to lose. “J-Jessie,” she said aloud.

  What would this do to her fledgling relationship with her daughter? They’d just found each other. How would Jessica react to the news that her biological mother and adoptive father had been unable to control themselves and now she was going to have a baby brother or sister?

  Leaning back against her pillows, Fin tried not to think of the fallout an unplanned pregnancy would cause if what she and Travis suspected was true. The implications were endless and just thinking about them made her temples throb and a heavy feeling of dread fill her chest.

  When she heard Travis unlock her apartment door, she sat up and wiped the moisture from her cheeks. She was no longer that frightened fifteen-year-old girl who’d had no recourse but to go along with whatever decision her parents made for her. She was a woman now and no matter what results the test showed, she would handle the situation with dignity, grace and a strength of will that she hadn’t possessed twenty-three years ago.