by Leanne Banks
Brock reached across the seat to stop her. “Hold on. Being around you makes me want to lock you in my bedroom,” he said, pulling her onto his lap, “and make love to you until neither of us can take any more.”
Her eyes turned sultry. “How long do you think that would be?”
Feeling the beginning buzz of arousal, Brock slid his hands over her silk shirt, up her rib cage, just beneath her breasts. He constantly fought the urge to possess her, but sometimes his needs overrode his good sense. He was starting to wonder how best to get her out of his system. Maybe that meant filling himself up with her. Maybe then, he wouldn’t feel this insatiable desperate need to feel her and taste her and be inside her.
“A long time,” he finally told her, taking her mouth and lifting his thumbs to her nipples.
He swallowed her sigh as he kissed her. The way she melted into him alternately soothed and aroused him. She was so responsive Brock would bet he could take her in the car, pulling her onto his lap and sliding inside her, pumping…Insanity, he thought, pulling back. The woman was a walking invitation to insanity. They would never be right for each other, he reminded himself. Never.
He took a breath to clear his mind, but her perfume taunted him. It was time, he thought. She needed to know. “Have you checked your bank account lately?”
She shook her head in confusion, her eyes slightly dazed. “No. Should I?” She wrinkled her brow, then looked at him warily. “Is it empty?”
Her doubtful expression was like a jab in his ribs. “Do you really think I would take your money?”
Her eyes widened, and she took a quick breath. “Of course not,” she said, but he caught the sliver of ambivalence in her eyes and cursed her cockroach financial advisor and every other man who had been after her money.
“I sent a friend down to South America to do some cockroach-stomping. He happened to run into your former financial advisor and persuaded him to return your money by wiring it to your account.”
Felicity threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you. This is wonderful! Wonderful.” She squeezed him, then went very still. “And terrible.”
“Terrible?” Lord, this woman was kooky.
Felicity nodded glumly. “I’ve got to get rid of it soon or I’ll end up on that stupid list.”
“What list?”
“The wealthiest-women-in-America list. And they always list marital status, which means I’ll get more proposals. And the money will just sit there adding up, not doing a darn bit of good.”
“Then maybe it’s time for you to set up your foundation,” Brock said.
“You’ll help me?” she asked hopefully.
“I don’t know the laws and tax requirements, but I can find somebody for you who does,” Brock told her, hoping this wasn’t the first slide into a long wacky entanglement with Felicity. He would refer her, then wipe his hands of the matter.
Her eyes grew shiny with unshed tears. She leaned forward and kissed him. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. Now, will you let me buy this truck from you, so I can use it to get my driver’s license?”
Brock’s stomach twisted. Felicity on the open road? “You need more practice,” he said, wondering why he felt he needed to protect this woman from herself. It wasn’t love, he promised himself. He would never fall in love again.
After they returned home, Brock headed out to the north pasture. When he walked through the door that evening, she practically mowed him down.
“I’m leaving for New York in the morning. I’m already packed,” she said, bouncing on her toes. “Your friend did more than get my money back. He brought back Douglas. My attorneys called and they need me to go to New York to make a deposition. While I’m there, I’ll be talking with my financial advisors about my plans.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m so excited I can barely stand it. I can’t thank you enough.”
His mind was stuck on her first statement. I’m leaving for New York in the morning. He felt as if a bull had kicked him. Brock immediately scolded himself. He should be happy to get Felicity out of his hair for a few days. He could concentrate on the ranch. Hell, maybe he’d get lucky and she would decide to stay. After all, her reason for visiting Texas would be gone. His gut twisted at the thought, but he ruthlessly squelched the sensation.
“Brock, aren’t you listening?” she asked, wearing a huge smile. “Everything’s working out because of you!” She threw her arms around him. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, then gazed at him for a long moment. “Maybe you can give me a few suggestions?”
She would give him herself again. He could see it in her eyes. His body immediately responded. Why, he wondered, impatient with himself, did this flighty feather of a woman affect him this way?
“You’re not saying anything. I’m trying to thank you,” she said.
Savoring the softness of her clinging to him, he snatched at the sensations, her scent, the way her breasts grazed his chest and her thighs rubbed his. The sparkle in her eyes usually made him feel lighter, but not now. This could be the last time he held her, he thought, and something inside him rebelled at the prospect. Before Felicity had burst into his home, he’d grown accustomed to living without soft touches and feminine smiles. Before Felicity had blown in from the north like a bad storm, he’d been fine. He would be fine again, he told himself.
Surprised and unsettled by the force of his emotions, Brock backed away and mentally wished her goodbye. “You’re welcome, Felicity. Good luck.”
Ten
Felicity was sitting on his bed when Brock got out of the shower. She wore her silk robe with not much under it, he suspected, and a feminine smile as subtle as an air raid siren. His heart gave a kick.
Brock frowned at his immediate visceral response. “Problem?”
She cocked her head to one side as if she were trying to read him. “I guess that depends on your point of view,” she said. “I’ve locked your door.”
“And?” he asked, towel-drying his hair while he told his blood to stop rushing to his crotch.
“And that could either make you wildly excited,” she said. “Or scare you.”
“Scare me,” he echoed.
“Yes,” she said rising to her feet and walking toward him with a Texas-sized dare in her eyes that brought out every primitive instinct he possessed. “Maybe the idea of being locked in a room alone with me might scare you.”
No more chipping away at his restraint. She might as well blow a cannonball through it. “You’re the one who’s not all that experienced. Maybe having sex with me scares you,” he said, emphasizing the word sex because she was so damn provocative. Her sensual shyness seemed a distant memory.
A trace of uncertainty flickered across her face, but it was quickly gone. “It’s more than sex between us.”
“How can you be sure?”
She lifted her chin. “If you were going to just have sex with a woman, it wouldn’t be me.”
“Why?”
“Because you tell yourself I’m a pain in your very nice rear end,” she said. “But you actually like me. You might even more than like me, but the very idea of more than liking me makes you incredibly nervous.” She gave a slight smile. “Doesn’t it?”
Everything about her was making him sweat, but he would be tarred and feathered before he would confess it.
“It’s okay, Brock. The idea that little me could make big, strong you nervous is very sexy.”
Brock’s meager self-restraint ripped. He could almost hear the sound of it roaring through his ears. He dropped the towel from his waist and backed her against the wall. “Is this what you call nervous?” he whispered, pulling off her robe with one swift tug. “Are you teasing me, Felicity?”
Her eyes were round as saucers. For a moment, she stared at him uncertainly. Then she took a breath and lifted up on her toes to stretch her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to waste time,” she said, and took his mouth.
Brock didn’t know it was pos
sible for a man to melt and harden at the same time. He supposed it had to do with different body parts, and Felicity’s effect on them. Her bold kiss made him want to lift her up and thrust inside her right now. The tender way she held him made him want to linger. The two needs warred inside him while she slid her mouth over his and arched her breasts against him.
Brock groaned and skimmed his hands down to cup her bottom. Her skin was like silk. Every brush of her breasts against his chest was a delicious, unbearable tease. He lifted her slightly and rubbed his masculinity in the damp notch of her thighs.
She moaned and undulated against him, sucking his tongue deeper into her mouth. She kissed him as if she couldn’t get enough of him, as if he were the most important thing in her universe. The room turned into an inferno of his need and her passion. He could see nothing but her, feel nothing but her.
She slid her thigh up the outside of his as if to get closer, and Brock shuddered. He broke away from her mouth. “I want to take you now,” he said, taking shallow breaths.
Felicity rippled her pelvis against him in a movement designed to send him over the edge. She was so wet, so hot, and so close to the part of him that ached for her. Closer, she strained against him.
Brock lost it. Everything about her said take me. So, he did, lifting her against the wall and thrusting inside her.
She gasped and went still, her hands clinging to his shoulders.
For a terrible second, he was afraid he’d hurt her. “Breathe.”
She did, closing her eyes and sinking onto him more fully. “Oh, Brock,” she said and gave a low murmur of pleasure.
She felt so good he didn’t think he could stand it. “You feel like velvet,” he said, drowning in the sensation of how tight, wet and soft she was.
He pumped inside her, and she fastened her legs around his waist. Her breasts swayed temptingly in front of his face. She rolled her hips in delicious counterpart to his thrusts. The tension in his loins roared through his blood until his scalding release tossed him over the top. He felt as if he were falling off a cliff.
Several breaths later, his head began to clear and Brock swore under his breath at what he’d done. He swung Felicity over to his bed, then sat on the side with his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did I hurt you?”
Brock’s heart swelled at her sincere tone coupled with her ridiculous words. He gave a half chuckle despite the seriousness of his slip. “No, but I didn’t protect you.”
He finally looked at her. She lay sprawled on his bed naked with tousled hair and witchy sparkling eyes looking like a plunderer’s prize. She shook her head and lifted her hand to his cheek. “I used something.”
Surprised, he raised his eyebrows. “When did you—”
“I ordered off the Internet. I let my fingers do the walking and overnight mail took care of the rest.”
“You ordered contraception off the Internet?”
“Yes. I couldn’t think of a good secondary reason for Addie to take me to town,” she told him.
Brock sat back against the pillows and pulled her against him. “How did you know we were going to be together again?”
“I just did,” she said simply, looking at him with a gaze that held flickers of yesterday and tomorrow.
She looked good in his bed and felt good in his arms. For a moment he wondered what it would be like to have her in his bed and arms more often. Brock immediately shut off the dangerous thought. He opened his mouth to remind her that he wasn’t a forever man, then closed it when he remembered she was leaving tomorrow.
“I appreciate all you’ve done for the kids,” he told her.
She stroked his chest. “Your kids are a pleasure, but you know that.”
“Pleasure, but not perfection.”
“That’s okay,” she said and glanced at him curiously. “And have I done anything for you?”
“Sure,” Brock said. “You’ve shaved at least two years off my life driving my truck. And my daddy’s study will never be the same. You’ve introduced vegetarian chili onto my cattle ranch and probably escalated my ongoing arguments with the Coltranes and—”
She covered his mouth with her hand. “Enough. I want to know if I’ve done anything for you here,” she said, sliding her hand down to where his heart beat in his chest.
His heart beat faster. “You affect several parts of my body.”
Felicity’s gaze dimmed. “Parts, huh? I must be greedy. I don’t want to affect just parts. I want to affect the whole man.”
He tried not to see the longing in her eyes or hear it in her voice. “It’s been good being with you. Fun,” he said, the superficial term almost making him wince.
Felicity blinked. “Fun? You call what we’re doing fun.”
“You’re a fast learner, Felicity.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head and rose from the bed. “You’re an idiot.”
Surprised by her blunt accusation, he followed her to his feet. “What do you mean?”
Felicity picked up her robe and pushed her arms through the sleeves. “There is something special between us. The way we made love with each other is special.”
“You’re not experienced,” Brock began, reaching for her. “That’s why—”
She pulled back and lifted her hands to ward him off. She was hurt and adamant. “It is not. I may not be experienced, but I know the way we’ve made love is more than fun. And if you really believe that what we’re doing here is just fun, then you are an idiot.”
Brock sighed. “There’s no sense in you getting all upset,” he told her. “Especially when you’re leaving tomorrow.”
Felicity’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What does that have to do with this?”
Brock brutally laid out the facts. “Your reason for being here is gone. You can go back to New York and chauffeurs, maids, Macy’s and vegetarian meals. You don’t ever have to come back here again.”
Felicity’s face turned white, and she stood completely silent for a moment that felt interminable. She drew herself up straight and set her chin. “You’re right. I don’t.”
She walked out of his bedroom door, and Brock was left with the too-quiet stillness of the room. He should have felt relieved, but her scent lingered; he could still feel her fire, and the taste of her on his tongue. He could still see the expression in her eyes that called to him. He could never answer her call, he told himself. It wasn’t meant to be. He would snuff out her memory and the emptiness inside him would disappear, just like Felicity would.
Three days later, Brock struggled with an odd edgy sensation that grew in intensity throughout the day. It gnawed at him just enough to make his temper short. As he watched the kids squabble at dinner, he wondered if a bug was going around.
“You think you’re the smartest second grader in the world,” Jacob accused Bree.
Bree lifted her nose. “Maybe I am.”
“You can’t ride as good as I can.”
“I can read faster.”
“That’s enough,” Brock said. “You two are individuals with individual talents. Neither one of you is better than the other.”
“Jacob got a D on a book report,” Bree announced. “That’s why he’s in such a bad mood.”
“Blabbermouth,” Jacob said with a scowl.
“Son, if you needed help, you should have asked.”
Jacob took a bite of pie, then set his fork down. “Felicity was helping me before she left.”
Brock’s stomach sank, but he pushed the sensation away. “I can help you.”
“You’re too busy,” he said. “Can I be excused?”
Brock stifled a sigh. He had been too busy. He’d been keeping himself busy to escape his edginess. He’d made a big mistake by skipping reading with Jacob the last few nights. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said. “Go take a shower and get out our book.”
“Okay,” Jacob said and stood. “When’s Felicity coming back?
”
Brock didn’t want to hurt his children, and at this moment, he wished he and his kids had never spent one second in Felicity’s presence. “She may not be coming back.”
Bree gasped. “She has to come back. She promised she would teach me more piano, and I told her I would teach her how to speak Texan.”
“She promised she would teach me piano, too,” Jacob said. “And I told her I would show her how to rope a calf.” He paused. “She wasn’t as interested in learning to brand, dehorn and castrate.”
Brock almost chuckled at the thought. Almost. But he saw the concern on his children’s faces. They were counting on Felicity to return, and she very well might not. She had no reason to return, he knew, his stomach giving a vicious twist. “You need to remember that her home is in New York.”
Bree stood. “It is not. That’s just where she was born. She’d rather live here. We want her here. We like her even if you don’t!” On the verge of tears, she bolted for the doorway to collide with Tyler.
“Hey, sweet thing, what’s the rush?” Tyler asked with a grin.
“Daddy says Felicity’s not coming back, but he’s wrong,” she said, and ran down the hall.
Jacob quietly followed her out of the room. Tyler reached down to ruffle the boy’s hair as he passed by. “Hey, bud,” he said, then glanced at Brock with a raised eyebrow. “Looks like everyone’s missing Felicity.”
“The kids are just a little edgy,” Brock said. “A few more days and they’ll get used to her being gone.”
“Think so?” Addie brought Tyler a bowl of beef stew and he nodded his thanks.
“I know so,” Brock said. “Kids have short memories. They get distracted easily.”
“Unless they get attached.”
“They didn’t get attached.”
“Right,” Tyler said with heavy sarcasm. “That’s why Bree is hysterical and Jacob looks like someone swiped his favorite rope.”
“Okay, maybe they got a little attached to her,” Brock conceded. “But it’s not a terminal condition. I’ll spend some more time with them and they’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know, Brock. You don’t look too good yourself.”
