The twinkle in her eye took any sting that might have been in her words at another time. Tor grinned at her, more in relief that she hadn't made more of Ava's words than serious amusement at his choice of dates; it was fine with him if Leta misconstrued that.
Eventually, he was going to have to tell her the truth. Unless he wanted the growing attraction between them to amount to nothing, he needed to come clean with her.
For one thing, it was the only right move. But more than that, he was discovering that he really wanted to tell her who he was.
As soon as he was sure she was really and truly interested in him for himself.
Instantly, the thought was followed with a question: And exactly what will it take to convince me of that?
He wasn't being fair to Leta. He knew it. Even if the thought of coming clean with her made his heart pound in utter terror.
Tonight, he decided. I'll tell her tonight. As soon as we get home.
Maybe he could get her to tell him her story, too.
Chapter 7
"Wait here," Tor said as they walked into the bunkhouse.
Leta raised one eyebrow, but she perched on the arm of the sofa.
When her de facto roommate walked back into the living room, he sported a blanket over one shoulder. Leta quit yelling as he marched into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of white wine and an opener.
"Where did that come from?" she asked, certain it hadn't been there that afternoon when she had made lunch.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
Tor waved at her to follow him out the front door.
At the edge of the porch, she paused, gesturing at the crutches leaning against wall beside the door. "I'm not sure I can follow you in the dark. Would it be easier if I used those again?"
"Wait here," he said. For once, his words didn't get hung up on their way out.
Leta leaned against the banister as Tor disappeared into the darkness. After a few minutes, she lowered herself to sit on the steps, breathing in the peace of the cool night air. The sound of crickets in the dark soothed her here. At home in Dallas, a single cricket chirping would have driven her insane. On the Stuart Ranch, their voices combined with the slight breeze to create a kind of music. Even the howls of coyotes in the distance didn't worry her.
By the time Tor returned, sans blanket or wine, she had relaxed into a kind of calm that had become unusual for her in recent years.
"Ready?" Tor asked.
"I guess." She reached for the crutches, but before she touched them, Tor slid one arm under her knees and the other around her back. Without any apparent effort, he lifted her into his arms and strode off into the night. With a gasp of surprise—and if she were to admit it, some delight—Leta threw her arms around his neck.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Blanket." Even in the dark, she could see the twinkle in his eyes as he offered his one-word response.
She laughed aloud. "You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"
Tor shrugged, but the dimple creasing his unscarred cheek was close enough to her face that it was all Leta could do to keep from dropping a kiss onto it.
What is wrong with me? It's like I can barely keep from throwing myself at the man.
Tor had spread the quilt out on the down-slope side of a slight hill, facing away from the house so that what little light leaked from the windows was blocked from view.
When he set her gently down on the blanket, Leta gasped. She couldn't remember having seen so many stars stretching across the night sky, free from light pollution or distraction.
"It looks like a painting," she whispered. "Or some kind of time-release photograph."
Tor's chuckle came from deep in his chest, the most relaxed sound she'd heard from him since they'd met, like something within him had loosened. "City girl," he teased. When he wasn't fighting against it, his voice was deep, almost bass.
"Never denied it," she laughed.
Tor popped the cork out of the bottle and poured a glass of wine out for her.
Leaning back on her elbows, she sipped the full-bodied red and watched the lights of an airplane passing overhead, almost indistinguishable from the stars, except in its motion.
"What happened?" Tor asked, and she didn't even pretend not to understand him.
"I work in a hospital," she began. "Not as a doctor or anything. I'm a coder. An office worker." She lifted her elbows off the quilt and pillowed her head on her hands. "We hardly ever even see the doctors over in admin. But I ate lunch in the cafeteria every day."
Her voice took on the sing-song cadence of a children's bedtime story.
It's easier this way, she realized. Turn it into a story and it becomes like something that happened to someone else.
"One of the doctors asked if he could join me one day. I didn't even know him. Not then." She laughed, a short, harsh, bitter sound. "Of course, by the end of a month, I thought I did know him. By the end of two months, we were going out after work. And after three…." Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. "I thought I was in love." She shook her head. "He was charming and funny and rich and he thought I was wonderful."
When she was quiet for several moments, Tor prompted her as he refilled her glass. "And then?"
"We planned a trip together for this week."
"What happened?"
"His wife found the reservations and assumed it was a surprise for her." She huffed a little laugh. "The fact that he had a wife was a surprise for me. Brent acted I like I should have known all along—as if of course he had a wife. As if I should have been perfectly fine with it from the beginning."
"Ouch."
"So I went online and booked the first place within driving distance that I could afford for the entire week."
"I'm sorry you had to deal with that." Tor's voice came easily out of the darkness, low and rich. When he wasn't fighting to form words, he sounded like a television announcer.
"I thought he was some kind of prince charming. Turns out he was just some rich asshole who thought he could have whatever he wanted, and wasn't above lying to get it." Now that he was talking, she waited for a response to that, but Tor simply stared thoughtfully into the night sky.
She gazed up into the Milky Way, stretching across the sky above her. "It seems kind of small, compared to all that up there." Taking the wine bottle from the grass where Tor had propped it, she held it up so the moonlight shined through it, then split the remainder into their wineglasses. Tor took his from her and drained it without comment.
Since she had first met him, Leta had wanted to ask about the scar. The wine, combined with the stars and the darkness that enveloped them, bolstered her confidence. Before she could talk herself out of it, she ran her fingertips gently across the ridge of the scar that slashed down the far side of his face.
"What happened here?"
His hand made an abortive motion toward hers, as if to stop her from touching the blemish, but then his hand closed into a loose fist and he dropped it into his lap.
"Rodeo accident."
Damn. He was back to monosyllables.
But he leaned into her touch, closing his eyes briefly. Whatever difficulties he might have speaking about the incident, he didn't actually dislike it that she was touching him.
This is a bad idea, Leta. You came out here to get away from men.
She couldn't seem to walk away from this one, though.
"Is that what caused the speech issue?" she asked, her voice gentle.
He nodded, his cheek lightly stubbled under her touch, his eyes reflecting the starlight as he watched her face. She shifted her hand until it cupped his face, covering the scar. Tor leaned toward her and brushed her hair back away from her cheeks.
"I'm sorry you had to deal with that." Her repetition of his earlier words was whispered almost against his mouth as his lips hovered just over hers.
They stayed like that for several seconds, holding themselves—and
each other—millimeters from closing that last space in a way that would change this from a strange, if entertaining, interlude, to something potentially much deeper.
Finally, as if inhaling each other's breath had synchronized their movements, they closed the distance in a heated rush that left Leta dizzy with desire.
* * *
"Stop." Despite every instinct telling him to push forward, Tor forced himself to pull away from Leta.
"What's wrong?" Her voice, breathless from the kiss, sent a bolt of heat straight through him, and he felt himself harden.
What was wrong? Nothing—and everything. He couldn't let this go any further without telling her who he really was.
It had been one thing to let her think he was just another ranch hand when she was some stranger he was helping out.
But now that he knew her story—knew her—he shouldn't keep up the deception. Not if he wanted to be able to look himself in the mirror.
And for the first time in a long time, he discovered that he did.
Scars and all.
When she twined her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, though, he didn't want to stop.
If we keep going, I might never want to quit again.
He'd almost convinced himself to take her back up to the house, to tell her everything.
Then she pulled her shirt off and stared at him, waiting, her eyes reflecting the starlight above.
* * *
What had possessed her to strip her shirt off?
He was about to suggest we quit.
And she didn't want that.
In fact, she realized, if I don't quit now, I'm not going to stop at all.
Suddenly, Leta didn't care.
Tor's gaze raked across her, snagging on her mouth for an instant before he dragged it up to meet her own wide-eyed stare. Everywhere his look had touched burned, as if his eyes had trailed fire across her skin.
His gray eyes turned smoky, darkening even more with desire as she watched, pinned in place by the heat he exuded.
The shy, diffident ranch hand was gone. In his place was a tall, muscular cowboy ready to take what he wanted.
And apparently what he wanted at the moment was Leta. As he held her gaze with his, he held out one hand, lightly closed, and ran his knuckles, slightly roughened from working outside, down the side of her face. The feel of his skin rasping against her sent shivers rolling up and down her back.
"Okay?" The jagged edges of his voice seemed to follow his touch, back down to the side of her neck.
"Yes," she whispered, her own words ragged with want.
This was a bad idea. She had run away from Dallas to get away from the possibility of being seduced by the idea of finding love where she knew it couldn't bloom. But suddenly, she didn't care.
This isn't love. I couldn't fall in love with someone I just met. Someone who can't even talk to me much.
As Tor pulled her into his arms, she decided she didn't care.
Just for tonight, she would let go of her almost obsessive need to analyze everything around her, and allow herself to simply act on her desires.
His lips descended toward hers, and a wave of desire crashed through Leta, stronger than she had anticipated, or even thought possible after the last few months.
She tilted her face toward him, and he claimed her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers in a heated kiss that left her breathless as he unhooked her bra.
Tor ran his forefinger along the side of Leta's breast. As the ridges of the callous brushed against her skin, goose bumps popped up along her arms. Her nipples tightened and her breath caught in the back of her throat.
He watched her intently as he slipped one arm behind her shoulders, pulled her in tighter against him, and brushed his lips against hers.
He swept his hand across her nipple, and it pebbled under his touch. Leta's attention split between concentrating on the feel of his mouth against hers and the stroke of his fingertips as they drifted down, tracing a line from her hardened, sensitive breast down to the skin around her belly button. There he used the raised ridges of the skin on his hands to circle her navel.
At every point he touched, the contrast between the harsh, not-quite-painful scrape of his fingertips and her own soft skin sent chills racing out across every inch of her.
When he grazed his lightly stubbled chin across her cheek and took her earlobe in between his teeth, the sensation made her moan aloud.
Almost frantically, she shoved his jeans down—then waited impatiently as he gently removed her pants, careful with her ankle. As soon as she could. she pushed him backward onto the blanket, allowing his thumb to flick against her clit. As she settled him into her, she could feel the head of his cock pressing against the most intimate part of her.
She closed her eyes to concentrate until she had pulled all of him in, the base of his shaft pressing against her and every inch of him buried inside her. She pulled her feet up onto him and rested her hurt ankle on his thigh, then hooked the toes of the other foot around his leg, pulling her own legs even further apart, as if she could sink down against him even further.
Leaning her hands against his chest and using her foot as leverage, she lifted herself up high. Finally, she opened her eyes to catch his gaze with her own, and slid down him, faster this time.
Tor rested his hands against her hips without really holding on, letting those work-roughened palms slide up and down as she moved against him.
Within moments, she cried aloud, convulsing around him as his thumb continued circling her clit.
When her pleasure faded, Tor turned them over, settling them on the blanket without ever sliding out of her. Then he began pumping in and out of her. Leta ran her hands down his back and clutched his muscular ass, pulling him even deeper into her.
As he began to throb inside her, burying himself as far in her as he could, Leta came again, pulsing in time to Tor's own orgasm, until they were wrapped in and around each other, and she was holding him tighter than she had ever held anyone before.
Tighter than I ever wanted to hold anyone else. Ever.
* * *
She tucked her head under his chin and stretched her body alongside his. Tor reached over her and pulled the quilt up so it folded over her.
"Mmm. I could sleep out here," she murmured.
His laugh rumbled under her cheek and his arms tightened around her. "Let's go home," he said. He sat up, and without bothering to dress, shoved his feet into his boots.
Leta sat up and pulled her knees to her chest as she watched him.
"Hold these," Tor said, piling the wine glasses, bottle, and all their clothes onto her. With a laugh, she wrapped her arms around everything.
Without any other warning, he scooped her up in his arms and strode back toward the bunkhouse.
Leta burst out laughing. "What if someone sees us?" she asked.
Funny how that hadn't occurred to her before.
"Who?"
"Oh, I don't know. Your boss, maybe?"
"I'm not worried."
Chapter 8
By the time she woke up the next morning, Tor had already left for his work day. Once she had a cup of coffee in hand, she moved to one of the rough-hewn rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, gently pushing herself back and forth as she gazed out across the land stretching away from her, golden-tinged in the morning sun.
I should see if he'll take me riding with him during his work day one day before I leave and show me what he really does all day long.
Before she left.
That was something she was going to have to address with him soon. She didn't regret having sex with Tor the night before, even if the logical part of her brain knew it had been a foolish thing to do, especially after everything that happened with Brent.
But at least she was pretty sure Tor wasn't married. She had seen the other ranch hands in the distance over the last several days, going about their daily tasks. If Tor were married, surely he would choo
se to live in town, like the other hands.
Not that there weren't other issues. After all, Leta's vacation was almost over. Soon enough, she'd have to head back to work—back to her everyday life in Dallas.
And even if her time here hadn't been coming to an end anyway, her ankle was almost well enough for her to drive back to Dallas. It would be ridiculous to stay on someone else's ranch simply because she was tempted by a sexy cowboy who worked there.
No, she told herself. Time to grow up. Go home and deal with the mess you left behind when you ran away from Brent.
But not quite yet.
She would spend one more day here, pretending it was someplace she could stay.
And one more night, too.
A shiver ran up her back at the thought.
Necessity isn't that far from Dallas. Not too far for an occasional weekend trip.
Was she seriously considering a long-distance relationship with a barely verbal ranch-hand from Necessity, Texas?
The memory of his fingertips, hot against her skin in the cool night breeze, seemed to graze along her spine again
Apparently I am.
A secretive smile played around her lips.
She rolled her ankle around from side to side. It was definitely getting better, and even with the wide-open vistas stretching out on every side of her, Leta was beginning to feel more than a little claustrophobic.
Maybe I could explore a little while Tor's working—as long as I stay close to the bunkhouse, it should be okay.
She had asked the other day which of the various outbuildings visible from the porch housed animals. Now, of course, she couldn't remember. He had said, "Storage," and waved to encompass most of the buildings. At least one of them held horses. When he'd pointed at a final one and said, "Goats," Leta had laughed aloud and clapped her hands, and Tor shook his head, his dimple coming out in full force.
"Goats," Leta muttered to herself. Surely that would be relatively unthreatening.
Now if only she could remember which building.
The Billionaire Cowboy's Speech (Necessity, Texas) Page 5
