Taming the Lone Wolf

by Joan Johnston

  “I’ve been chasing some bad men up near Jackson Hole.”

  “Did you catch them?” Rose asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Why did you come home?” Tess asked.

  “For Christmas,” he said simply.

  Tess and Stony’s gaze met over Rose’s head. He might profess not to like children. He might have cut himself off from other people by living on this mountain. But Christmas was a time for families. And he had come back to spend it with them.

  “I see you’ve been busy.” Stony gestured with his free hand at the decorations and the tree. “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  “The greenery I found on the mountain. The rest is ours,” she said. “Harry DuBois brought it out here for us.”

  He frowned. It obviously hadn’t yet occurred to him that she would have had to call someone to take her in to the doctor to have her cast removed. She saw the moment it did.

  “I never thought about you needing a way to get around,” he said. “I guess I should have.”

  “Harry was wonderful about helping me out when I needed to run errands. I could have called 911 in an emergency,” she said.

  His hand tightened on hers. It was an act of possession.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said quietly.

  His hold instantly loosened. But he didn’t let her go.

  “How soon before that stew is ready?” he asked.

  “A couple of hours. I was just putting Rose down for a quick nap before supper.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question now.”

  He arched a dark brow. “What if I read to her? Do you think she’d lie down then?”

  “You’d do that?”

  He gave her a roguish grin. “How long does it usually take Rose to fall asleep?”

  She realized suddenly why he wanted Rose in bed. So he could take her to his.

  “How would you like for me to read to you?” he asked Rose.

  “Will you be the big bad wolf?” Rose asked.

  “How’s this?” Stony growled menacingly in his throat.

  Rose shrieked in mock fright and raced for the bedroom.

  Stony winked at Tess and headed after the little girl. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Tess suspected Stony’s estimate was optimistic. As excited as Rose was, it would be a little longer than a few minutes before he returned. But she had better use whatever time she had to decide how she was going to handle the situation once she and Stony were alone.

  She chewed on her thumbnail worriedly. She didn’t believe Stony would force his attentions on her. Unfortunately he wouldn’t have to use force. She had felt her body respond to his mere presence in the bedroom doorway, to the heat of him, the scent of him, the predatory look in his dark brown eyes.

  To be honest, she had fantasized over the past weeks, as she had slept in the twin bed next to her daughter, what it would be like to spend the night in Stony’s arms. If he beckoned, it would be difficult to refuse him.

  But they would be two strangers having sex, not two lovers making love. It was tempting to imagine herself lying beneath Stony in his bed, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to face herself in the morning. Her husband had been the only lover she had ever had. And though they hadn’t been married when they made love for the first time, she had been deeply in love with him.

  It had happened on a hot summer night, on a blanket laid out on the prairie grass with the sky and stars above them. She had been so frightened and so very excited, because she loved Charlie so much. She had trusted him not to hurt her. Only, it had hurt that first time, and it had never been as good for her as it was for him. But she had wanted to please Charlie, wanted him to love her as nobody else ever had. He had been a cowboy for one of the ranches in the area, much older than her—twenty-three—and, she had thought, much wiser.

  But Charlie hadn’t used any protection, not that first time, and not later. She was equally responsible for what had happened. She accepted that now. But her foster parents had been sorely disappointed in her when she told them she was pregnant and had kicked her out of their house. If Charlie hadn’t married her, she didn’t know what she would have done.

  She understood the male need for sex because her husband had possessed it. She had not understood that a woman could feel the same...hunger. That was the only word that described what she was feeling—had been feeling over the past six weeks—for Stony Carlton. She was surprised because she knew she couldn’t possibly be in love with him. She hardly knew him. But she was attracted to him in a way she had never been attracted to any other man, even her husband.

  She had heard it said that for each person there was a perfect mate, that somewhere in the world the other half was wandering, waiting to be found. She felt that way about Stony, that he was her other half, and that she had to fit herself to him, make him a part of herself, or she would never be complete.

  Yet she shied from joining herself with a man she didn’t love. It seemed...ruthless, heartless, unfeeling.

  Not unfeeling. She was feeling entirely too much. Her body sang with excitement. Her skin tingled. Her breasts felt achy. Her belly curled with desire.

  She stood and paced the living room, like a mountain lion in a cage. She wanted him. But she would be damned if she would give in to such animal urges. She was a rational human being. She should be able to act in a cool and rational manner.

  She would tell him no. And she would mean it.

  She turned abruptly as Stony appeared in the hall-way that led into the living room. He stopped where he was, and she had the sense of being prey, of being hunted. She looked around and realized there was no escape. She had to go through him to get to the front door of the house. Not that she could leave without Rose. And he knew it. Knew she was trapped. She saw it in the merciless smile that curled his lips.

  “Hello, Tess,” he said.

  His rumbling voice skittered over her spine and made her shiver. “No,” she said.

  He quirked a dark brow. “I haven’t asked for anything. Yet.”

  She shoved a wayward curl behind her ear and huffed out a breath of air. Her palms were damp, and she rubbed them down the sides of her jeans, then curled her arms around herself protectively.

  “You feel it, don’t you?” he said.

  “No.”

  His eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile broadened. “I can hardly believe it myself,” he confessed. “I swore off women a while back. You’ve made me rethink my decision.”

  “We’re strangers,” she said pointedly.

  He shook his head slowly, the smile suddenly gone. “We’ve never been strangers, Tess. We’ve known each other forever.”

  So he felt it, too. Whatever it was. That strange connection between them, urging their bodies together, promising a wholeness, a joining of souls.

  Yet, she fought it. Because it couldn’t possibly be right to have sex—it could only be sex—with this man she hardly knew.

  “I want you,” he said as he took a step toward her.

  She held her ground.

  “I haven’t been able to think of anything but you.” He took another step.

  She searched for an escape route, a means of avoiding him. There wasn’t any. Her body quivered as she stood still, waiting.

  “I need you,” he said, his voice guttural, animal. His eyes were lambent, lit by a fire that heated her inside. He took the last step that brought them into contact. “I have to have you.”

  She moaned as his arms slid around her and pulled their bodies together. She felt her breasts crushed against his hard chest even as his palm curved around her buttocks and lifted her until her hips fit into the cradle of his, against the hard, thick length of him.

  Her hands rested on his shoulders, yet she couldn’t summon the strength of will to push him away. It felt so good to be held by him, so impossibly right!

  “This is crazy,” she said at the same time she laid her head back so he
could more easily kiss her throat. His lips and teeth and tongue feasted on her flesh, sending shivers of sensation shuddering through her body.

  She grasped his hair, intending to free herself, but clung to him as his mouth captured hers, his tongue probing until she let him inside.

  And then she was lost.

  His hips thrust against her in time with the movement of his tongue in and out of her mouth. She groaned and arched her body upward, needing to be closer, resenting the layers of denim and cotton that separated them. His hand slid between her legs, and he lifted her nearly off the ground. His thumb caressed her until she gasped, as he found the spot he had been seeking.

  She reached for him with her mouth, needing to be closer, to be connected to him. Then her tongue was in his mouth, tasting him, teasing his inner lip, biting at his lower lip until he growled deep in his throat.

  They began tearing the clothes off each other, couldn’t get them off fast enough. Buttons popped, clattering across the hardwood floor, zippers came down, T-shirts were ripped off until they stood naked before each other.

  His eyes were heavy-lidded, his gaze feral, the pupils huge, making his eyes dark black pools into which she might fall and never return. His body was surprisingly tanned, lean, but muscular, with sinews visible in his arms and shoulders. His belly was flat, his chest furred with black hair that became a narrow black line leading to the curly bush that surrounded his genitals.

  Her gaze rose to his. She was panting, unable to catch her breath. Frightened. And exhilarated.

  It was going to happen. He was going to claim her.

  He was going to make her his.

  She felt her knees weaken, nature’s way of making sure the female was prone, so the male seed could take root. He caught her before she fell and lifted her into his arms, holding her tight against his chest.

  She hadn’t given a thought to where they were, the fact that her daughter could waken and come upon them.

  He carried her to his bedroom, to the king size bed that hadn’t been slept in since he had left. He pulled down the covers and laid her on the cool sheets, following her down until he lay atop her. He nudged her legs apart with his knees and put his hand between her thighs to touch her.

  She flinched at his touch, though it was gentle. It was almost embarrassing how wet and ready she was. His touch made her even more so.

  She stared up at him, wondering what it was about this particular man that made her so vulnerable to him. He reached into the bedside table and found the protection she hadn’t thought about.

  He really doesn’t like children, she thought.

  But she was grateful he was taking the precautions that had been the farthest thing from her mind. She knew better. She knew the consequences of being foolish and in love.

  Well, she was certainly foolish, anyway.

  He spread her hair on the pillow around her face, playing with it, caressing it between his fingertips.

  “It’s softer than I thought it would be. Because of all those curls,” he explained with a smile that made her heart beat faster.

  She slid her hands through his hair. “Yours is soft, too.” She tugged his head toward her, wanting his mouth on hers.

  The kiss was long and slow and deep. Her body arched upward into his, an itch seeking to be scratched.

  His hand curved around her breast, and she made an animal sound at the feel of his callused fingertips on her flesh. He cupped the soft mound and held it steady for his mouth. He sipped at her, licked and bit and licked again. Then he suckled her, drawing her nipple into his mouth.

  She nearly came off the bed.

  He spread her legs with his knees once more and placed himself at the entrance to her. She expected him to thrust quickly, but he took his time, entering her a little way and then backing off, only to return and probe a little deeper, until at last she reached up with her legs around him and urged him inside to the hilt.

  He gave a satisfied sigh as he sank into her that was matched by a guttural sound of her own.

  Then he turned her face up, so she would be looking into his eyes and began to thrust, in and out, slow at first, and then faster, as his thumb played with her between their sweat-slick bodies.

  She began to writhe beneath him, and her eyelids floated downward. She had never felt like this. She couldn’t seem to control her body. It began to contract, to spasm in a way that was both frightening and immensely pleasurable. She fought the lack of control, fought the loss of self.

  “Look at me, Tess,” he commanded. “Come with me,” he urged.

  She opened her eyes and met his gaze, fierce and intense, deep and dark as a well. She began to slide into the darkness where there was nothing but joy, the two of them no longer separate but joined as one euphoric being.

  “You belong to me,” he said triumphantly. “You’ll always be mine.”

  It was the last thing she heard before the darkness consumed her.

  Chapter Four

  THE LOVEMAKING Stony had just experienced far surpassed anything he had ever known with a woman. But he had no idea what had possessed him to utter those unbelievable words at the moment of climax.

  “You belong to me. You’ll always be mine.”

  He had to be out of his mind. For years he had been a loner who didn’t need anyone. He had no reason to marry, because he never intended to have children. What had made him stake his claim on Tess Lowell—a woman who came packaged with a threeyear-old imp?

  He hardly knew the woman.

  He felt like he had known her all his life.

  It had to be lust that had prompted his behavior. He had desired her, so he had taken her to bed. Now that his need was slaked he would be fine.

  Only, he wanted her again already, and they had just finished a bout of lovemaking that was indescribably satisfying. He couldn’t imagine not wanting her tomorrow and the day after that. So maybe it was something more than lust. But what?

  He raised himself on his elbow so he could watch Tess while she slept. The curls around her face were damp with sweat, and her lips were swollen, pouty from his kisses. He had left a love bruise on her throat. He slowly trailed the sheet away, so he could look at all of her.

  It was, after all, only another female body. He had seen his share of them. Why did he find this one so exquisite? Nipples the pink of prairie roses. Breasts full and exactly the right size for him. A slightly rounded stomach. The deep russet curls between her legs. And, oh, those legs! He liked the way she had wrapped them around him, her heels digging into his buttocks, demanding to have him inside her.

  He was aroused again merely looking at her.

  He wasn’t sure what he should do about the situation. He had never wanted anyone to love him because he had no intention of giving love in return. Loving left you vulnerable. He had vowed when his father abandoned him never to give anyone the chance to hurt him that way again. It was safer not to ask for love. It was safer to be alone. Even if it was occasionally lonely.

  Good Lord! Did he want her to love him?

  No, of course not. Though she didn’t yet know it, he was the one responsible for making her a widow. Better not to let his thoughts wander in a hopeless direction.

  But he had no intention of letting Tess go anytime soon. Even though he could never let himself love her. Even if all they could ever have together was fantastic sex.

  Her eyelids fluttered open, and he watched her eyes fill with tears. He kissed away the first salty drop before it could reach the pillow. “What’s wrong?”

  “I...I don’t understand what compelled me to do such a thing. I hardly know you.” She suddenly realized she was naked before him and scrambled to cover herself.

  “Don’t,” he said, catching her wrist and preventing her from drawing the sheet back over her. “I like looking at you. You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m not. I have stretch marks. And my legs—”

  “Are perfect.” He smiled. “All of you is perfect.” He had
n’t noticed the stretch marks. He searched for them and found them along her hips, silvery lines where her flesh had stretched to accommodate a baby. He had a fleeting picture of her grown huge with his child and brushed it away.

  “We have to get dressed,” she said. “Rose will be waking soon.”

  “Don’t worry. I locked the door. She can’t get in.”

  A rueful smile appeared before she said, “You don’t know Rose. She’ll stand at the door and yell until we let her in.”

  “All right. We’ll get up. Soon.”

  She started to rise, but he levered himself over her and kissed her deep and hard. It only took a moment before he was protected and inside her again. He saw her flush and realized she had been wet and hot and ready for him.

  She had wanted him again, too.

  He threaded his fingers through hers and held her hands prisoner above her head as he slowly thrust into her. He stared into her eyes, willing her to accept his claim. Her chin trembled, and her eyes grew liquid with feeling.

  “This was meant to be,” he said. “The two of us together. Don’t fight it, Tess.”

  She groaned and arched upward, raising her breasts to him, an offering fit for the gods. He supped, drinking the heady wine she offered him.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please.”

  He knew what she wanted. He gave it to her.

  Himself. All of himself, enough to make two halves into one whole. Enough to fill them both full. Enough to take them to paradise again.

  * * *

  I NEED HIM. I want him. I never want to leave him.

  They were the first thoughts Tess had when she surfaced from a deep well of pleasure for the second time in as many hours. They frightened her.

  All she had ever wanted her whole life was to be loved, to belong to someone who would need her as much as she needed him. She had needed and loved each set of foster parents who had taken her in. But the most she had ever received in return was adequate care. She had never been mistreated; but she had never been loved, either.

  She thought she had learned her lesson: not to give her love where it wasn’t wanted, not to lay herself open to the pain that came inevitably when she had to acknowledge she wasn’t loved in return. Even with Charlie—heaven forgive him—she had known her love was not returned.