by Tara Janzen
She tunneled her fingers through the length of his hair, pulling him back to her open mouth for her kiss. She took what she wanted, the special taste of him, musky-sweet and all male. She gave in to his strength, the graceful power of muscle tightening his arms, gliding in rhythms designed to steal her breath and fill her with wonder.
Walker groaned, feeling her response wash through him like a promise of the loving to come. She said yes with every sweet stroke of her tongue, with every move of her body against him. He gathered her close and, letting her ride his hips, started the long walk from the relative safety of the living room to the bedroom, where there would be no second chances, not this time.
Blue wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and sunk into the magic of his mouth. He bit her lower lip, softly, gently, then laved the tender flesh with his tongue, tasting himself on her. She ran her hands through his hair, pushing it away from the face that had stolen the peace from her nights. If nothing else, she’d leave knowing whether or not her dreams had lied to her about him, and for that she was willing to pay the price he demanded.
Ten
Walker sat down on the bed and, still kissing her, reached over and turned on the lamp, filling the room with pale light. His hands came back to her neck, his thumbs pressing on the underside of her jaw and angling her mouth across his for the deeper thrusts of his tongue. She pressed her body against him, melting into his arms with a woman’s warmth.
He slid his hands across her shoulders and down her arms, taking her shirt with them, enchanted by the suppleness of lean muscle and silky skin he revealed. She belonged to him like the mountains and the sky, and he would have all of her.
The soft gasps escaping her lips echoed all the way down his body and tightened the ache building in his loins. He needed more of her, and he took it, rolling her onto her back and tracing a long, wet path to her breasts. He didn’t hesitate; he didn’t tease. His mouth closed around one rose-tinted peak, applying a gentle suction. His teeth grazed her, his tongue explored, and beneath him he felt her surrender to the same sweet pleasure intoxicating him.
Blue spread her hands wide and let them drift across his shoulders. His slow, languorous nuzzling of her breasts made her body tremble. He left no place on her skin untouched, and he left a fire behind with every intimate kiss, a fire the moistness of his mouth did nothing to assuage. The power of his arms lifted her higher, dragging her across his body as he pulled her on top of him and reclaimed her lips. Lower, she felt him rubbing up against her in a rhythm to match the sweeping strokes of his tongue. The undulating pattern of his hips increased as he opened his legs and let her slip between his thighs. His hands cupped her derriere, holding her against him, moving her until she picked up the irresistible rhythm.
Suddenly she understood the meaning of the word erotic. It was a total assault on the senses. He wore her inhibitions away, taking her with him into a fantasy realm of sensation where the treasures of life were the warming heat of skin touching skin and the soft explosions he relayed to her body with each added degree of pressure.
She became lost in the rocking motion, sliding against him and on top of him, and always wanting more. Of its own accord her hand moved down his hard, muscled chest. She’d never known the sensitivity of her fingertips until they discovered the satin texture of his skin and the ridges of his ribs, until they delved lower and trailed across his stomach. She lingered, letting her palm absorb the rise and fall of the taut plane, letting the heat of him seep into her pores. And as she touched him, as she traced the miracle of corded muscle and soft skin, of heavy heartbeats and pulsing life that was Walker Evans, she knew she’d found something more valuable than the riches of Lacey’s Lode in Lacey’s son.
“Keep going,” he murmured against her lips, bringing her out of her thoughts and back to reality.
She hadn’t realized they’d stopped kissing, but their mouths barely met between soft inhalations of air. He’d gone very still beneath her, his body tense in anticipation of her boldness. When she didn’t respond to his huskily voiced command, he took her hand in his.
“Making love with me isn’t a mistake, Blue, even if I’m not a nice boy from Texas,” he whispered, kissing her once more, tasting her lips with a gentle stroke. “Hell, I was never even a nice boy from Colorado. . . .” His voice trailed off as he teased a wet kiss into her palm, slowly unraveling her senses and sending a frisson of heat up her arm. His gaze held hers with a golden fire, somber and intense. When her skin was damp and warm, and her chest hurt from the breath she couldn’t take, he slid her hand under his waistband and began unbuttoning his jeans.
“Walker!” she gasped his name.
“Shh, Blue. Just touch me.” He moved beneath her, whispering soft words of love along with her name.
She couldn’t comply with his intimate request, though she longed for it as much as he, but no such problem stayed him. Blue felt his hands move to her pants. She heard the snap break and the zipper give way. His rough hands slid under the denim, and then under cotton, cupping her bottom with his palms. He pulled her down; they touched, and liquid heat poured through her. His low groan mingled with hers as he captured her mouth once more and slowly started the rhythm anew. The wildness and power of him inflamed her senses, sent her reeling. He rolled her beneath him and pressed her deeply into the bed, taking the control she no longer needed.
Her subtle concession required no forethought; the thoughts came tumbling after—thoughts of trust, and Walker, giving and receiving in turn. They drifted and melded with the purely physical excitement he created. They twined with her emotions into a single strand of love.
Love. The truth echoed deep in her heart with a painful longing unlike any she’d ever felt. Her eyes came open on a sharp breath, and she started to pull away, but he caught her and held her fast.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, trying and failing to conceal his frustration. His body hurt with needing to be inside her. He couldn’t lose her. If he didn’t hold her to him now, he’d never be able to hold her. She’d be gone, and this time he’d have to let her go.
Everything was wrong. She felt betrayed by her own sense of values. She’d told him once she wouldn’t settle for sex without love, and he’d made her want him, want him so badly, she ached and her love had no more places to hide. He’d stripped away her defenses, left her vulnerable to truths she didn’t want to accept.
“Blue, tell me,” he insisted, the roughness of his voice softened by the gentleness of his touch.
“I . . . I might be a virgin,” she stammered, not lying but neither telling him her real fear.
“Might?”
She nodded, sending a fall of blond hair down the side of her face, and Walker sighed heavily. He’d done some pretty wild things with women in his life that would leave the question up for grabs, technically, but he didn’t want to give the Texas boy that much credit for imagination. He really didn’t.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she murmured, casting her eyes down, but what she saw only increased her agitation. Walker was beautiful. “He . . . he didn’t force me or anything. There was an awful lot of fumbling around, and l never did quite figure it all out.”
“Obviously.” A wry grin lifted a corner of his mouth as he brushed her cheek with his hand. “I’m not forcing you either, Blue.”
“I know.”
“But I want you very badly.” A patent understatement if he’d ever spoken one. He wanted her crying out his name. He wanted her bound to him with a thousand living ropes of desire and need and love, of tenderness and care, of shared days and nights of comfort beyond passion.
“I know,” she whispered so softly, the words were more breath than sound.
He loved her, too, but caution told him to keep the fact to himself. He didn’t want to scare her off, and if the truth be known, he hardly believed it himself. But he felt love when he looked at her. The dark wings of her eyebrows framed eyes he wanted to find himself in com
e morning. The slight body resting beneath his promised to hold more of the earthly delights to be found between a man and a woman than he’d ever found before—because she was Blue Dalton, the only woman who’d ever captured him with a single kiss. By the time he’d kissed her again, his heart had been long gone down the trail of no return.
“I’m going to be very careful with you,” he said, his lips seeking and finding the pulse point in her neck, his hips grinding softly against her, rekindling the flames. “Very . . . very . . . very careful.” His voice picked up the cadence of his body, and Blue found herself sinking once more into the desirous magic of his touch. Reason and fear fled before the onslaught of his skilled seduction.
Their jeans became an intolerable barrier for Walker. He couldn’t get enough of her, get close enough. He slowed the kiss and the pumping of his body, knowing he was too close to the end to make it good for her. She did things to him, crazy things, with her hesitations and her sweet capitulations. Moment by moment, with every caress of her hands on his body, he felt her come closer to the boundary between shy curiosity and the sheer driving force he’d already given in to. He’d never had trouble waiting for a woman before, but even half clothed she made him restless, made him long for the completion he’d find only when he filled her.
He teased her and played with her, his hands straying ever lower between her thighs. Need pushed him even further, until she met him with an involuntary arch of her hips. A soft moan died unfinished as he took her one step higher, showing her the beginning of the special delight awaiting her. Then, as if she finally understood what he wanted, what he needed from her, she slid her small hand between their bodies. Suddenly he was the one being teased. He took it as long as he could, letting her discover him until he pulsed in her hand with an urgency he could no longer deny.
“Help me, Blue,” he whispered, pushing them both to a sitting position and pulling her to the edge of the bed. He got up and shucked off his pants, then pulled her to her feet. “Kiss me.”
She did, but barely caught his lips with her own before he slipped away, running his mouth in a wet trail down her body as he dropped to his knees. The gentle, gnawing path excited every inch of her; the touch she’d never imagined had her sinking back onto the bed, her body molten with throbbing pleasure.
“Remember that,” he growled huskily, tugging her pants off her feet. Then he started back up, teasing the skin behind her knees and sliding his tongue up her inner thigh.
She was mindless with need, burning up with the anticipation he’d so quickly taught her. She didn’t have long to anticipate, to want. He found her again and again, and he felt her melt beneath his mouth. The trembling sweetness of her pushed him to the limits of his control. But he held himself back one minute more, and another, luxuriating in the taste of her and in his own pleasure, until he felt tension tighten her body and in the next second give completely away.
Groaning in satisfaction, he worked his way back up to her mouth, wrapping his arm around her and carrying her to the top of the bed.
Blue held on to him tightly, so tightly. She needed to know he was real. She needed his touch, his kiss, to keep her world right. She hadn’t known such feelings existed in herself.
But when she felt him pushing against her, slipping inside of her, she jerked her mouth away. “Don’t, Walker, please . . . I can’t take anymore.” Her body was still pulsing too strongly in the aftermath of his first wild assault.
“Yes you can,” he hissed between his teeth, trying to be gentle, and sliding ever deeper. “You can take me. . . . Take me, Blue.”
And she did, until she could take no more of his hardness, no more of his length. Walker moaned and thrust deeply, capturing her gasp of pain in his mouth. In the back of his mind he realized what he’d done, but there’d been no stopping the fever-pitch tide of his need. There was no stopping it now. He couldn’t pull away, but he could try, really try to ease the invasion.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, his voice raw. He held her head in his hands, kissing her brow, her cheeks, the side of her nose. “You won’t hurt again, I promise, Blue. I promise.”
He could have said he was sorry, but he wasn’t. He could have said they hadn’t known for sure, but it wouldn’t have made any difference if they had. The pain was a woman’s to bear when she made love the first time. There was nothing he could or would have done differently. He’d wanted all of her; he’d taken all of her. He’d never intended less, but he did intend oh so much more.
Slowly, when he felt her relax in his arms, he began to withdraw, but not completely. The instant flash of wariness in her eyes brought a smile to his face. The challenge of loving her almost equaled the pleasure—almost, but not quite. Her skin was dewy with perspiration, glowing with the exertion of her release. Her eyes were dark, like midnight, bathing him with the desire he felt building in her again.
You are beautiful, Annabelle Blue”—his smile faded as she moved with him, ever so slightly, reigniting the fire—“and so perfect . . . so tight.” He leaned down and whispered a few soft words in her ear, and Blue felt an all-consuming blush race up her body. “Do you understand?” he asked, sliding into her again.
The muscles in his arms flexed on either side of her, banding her with tensile, golden steel. Yes, she understood. He’d already shown her the place he wanted her to reach again—this time with him deep inside her.
She watched the tawny length of his hair fall over his shoulders as he moved above her. She watched his eyes darken and grow heavy lidded with the increasing force of his need, and somewhere between the beauty of him and the wonder of him, she felt passion catch her again.
He filled her, taking her higher with each thrust until she gasped and moaned. He was right; she was tight, tight with an inescapable need, strung out to the ends of the earth. Her eyes drifted closed as she tried to find release from the pleasure he gave.
“No, no,” he whispered savagely, running his hands through her hair and tilting her head back. “Look at me, Blue. Look at me. I love you. I love . . .” His last word disappeared in a mighty groan, but she didn’t need to hear those words again. He’d seared them on her heart. Her body pulsed with the fierce pledge, with him deep inside her where he belonged. Her eyes closed, but she still saw him, all golden fire and fulfilled promise.
Walker collapsed on top of her, shuddering, sated. His world had changed irrevocably. Many women had loved him well. No woman had ever loved him like Blue Dalton, she of the wild heart and untamed soul.
His mouth roamed up the side of her face, tenderly, gently. He rolled them onto their sides and held her, kissed her until she calmed in his arms. “Are you okay?” he asked, brushing the damp hair back off her face.
“Yes,” she murmured.
He paused to kiss her cheek and gather her close. “And are you mine, Blue?”
“Yes, Walker.” Tonight I am yours. For the rest of my life I’ll remember this night and be yours.
* * *
Walker awoke before dawn, nudged to consciousness by a sense of unease. She was still with him. He felt her slender arm draped across his chest, the warmth of her legs tangled with his. He’d won . . . and he’d lost. She’d surrendered her body, but he’d be a fool to think he’d gotten her everlasting trust and undying devotion. He knew what wasn’t said was usually more important than what was, and she had said damn little after the most incredible sexual experience of his life. Worse, he knew what he’d wanted her to say: all those softly murmured declarations from the lips of other women he’d taken if not exactly for granted, not exactly too seriously either. Ego strokes.
She’d stroked him all right—and his body grew heavy even with the memory—but his ego wasn’t even in the running. He’d wanted to capture her and instead ended up sinking deeper into the trap she hadn’t set. He needed to think.
He rose and settled the blankets back around her body, deliberately not touching her more than necessary. In the living room he stopped and s
toked up the fire to take the chill out of the air. He’d slipped into his jeans and now found his shirt where he’d tossed it on the floor.
The cabin was quiet, peaceful in the darkness of predawn. He moved toward the kitchen with the ease of instinct, finding his way by the beginning glimmers of firelight. Outside, the land lay soundless, covered with muted, rolling shades of palest gray and midnight-blue. Snow rounded off the edges of the meadows where they met tree line and blended the peaks into the horizon, smudging the delineation between earth and sky.
He stood over the sink, running water into the coffee pot, and then he waited through the whole brewing process, drop by quiet drop, watching the night.
Blue roused to a gentle kiss and found herself being gathered into his strong arms, quilt and all.
“Walker?” she murmured, not quite coming awake.
“Shh, Blue.” He kissed her again, lifting her and holding her against his chest. “I want to watch the sunrise with you, but you can sleep.”
Crazy man, she thought, yawning and snuggling her head into the crook of his neck. Crazy, wonderful man.
Walker carried her into the living room and settled them both into the big leather chair in front of the fireplace. In minutes she’d fallen back asleep. He didn’t care. He still didn’t know what to say. He’d just needed her close, needed to know she was still with him.
When next she awoke, it was to considerably more stimulation. He tasted of coffee, and she slid her arms around his neck as his hand caressed her most vulnerable places beneath the blanket. Neither said a word when he lowered her to the floor and slipped out of his pants and into her. Her body welcomed him, all of him, with each filling stroke. The loving was sweet, gentle, without the tumult of the previous night. He nuzzled her neck, his hair falling across her cheek and throat in silky waves to match the quickening of his pace and her heart. She met him with soft moans and a total relinquishing of self.
