Lasso That Cowboy
Page 24
After dinner, with the rich smell of coffee lingering in the air, Luke excused himself and disappeared. She assumed to set up phase-two of their romantic night.
When he returned to the room looking pleased with himself, she cleared her throat and said, “This was easily the best meal I’ve ever had. I love that you prepared it yourself.” Then, arching an eyebrow, she said in her lowest, breathy voice, “I wonder if the loving will be the best we’ve ever had.”
“It will be. That’s a promise, ma’am.” His low voice thrummed through her like a gentle drum roll. He chuckled. “We won’t stop until it is.” He bent and kissed her cheek, and slid an envelope next to her plate. “For you.”
With butterflies in her stomach, she tore it open. She gasped in joy when two tickets to Paris slid out.
“You mentioned an interest in learning some French.” He smiled. “Our belated honeymoon. Two weeks in the most romantic city in the world.”
She shot to her feet, thrust herself into his arms, basking in the strength she always found there, and gave him a kiss. “This is wonderful!”
“Good. I’m on a roll.” He put his arm around her and led her to their haven, a room filled with yellow Texas roses. The heady smell was more intoxicating than champagne. He had turned down the sheets and scattered rose petals on them. Heat washed over her in anticipation of crawling between those sheets with a husband whose every thought was to make her happy.
Luke turned the lights low. Every nerve in her body tightened. “I thought about having a picnic in the hayloft to celebrate,” he said in a humorous tone, “but decided to save that for tomorrow night. His voice lowered to a husky drawl. “Tonight I want you to have all the comforts of our own room.”
She trailed her fingers across the dresser. “I love our room.” She glanced at the moonlight beaming through the balcony’s sliding glass door, splaying like silver fingers across their bed. Luke wrapped his arms around her. His chest was warm and solid against her back. She leaned into the curve of his body, reveling in how alive he made her feel.
“I thought we’d start with a massage.” He applied pressure to her back with his palms, and she leaned forward, virtually purring. He began to knead her back, digging his fingers into her flesh, finding tense spots, and sending flames coursing through her. He touched the formerly injured area so lightly, that, had she not already been hopelessly in love with this incredibly strong man who could be as gentle as the faintest breeze, she would have fallen for him in that moment.
She felt his warm breath in her hair, his moist lips nibbling at the nape of her neck. Her knees were weak. She turned in his arms and hugged him, loving him with everything that made her a woman. He kissed her deeply, and she felt herself sway against him. He swept her from her feet, carried her to the bed. The mattress gave slightly as he lowered her to the sheet.
Before Amber could catch her breath, Luke leaned over her and touched his lips to hers. The kiss caught fire as quickly as a flame in a hayloft. She wound her arms around his neck and drew him closer, inhaling the mingling of roses and their body scents. She teased his probing tongue. He lowered himself onto her, and his arousal pressed hard against her thigh. Need shot through her and when she moaned, Luke slipped the straps of her gown off her shoulders and caressed her breasts with slow, warm hands. Her nipples hardened and a torrid fever rose within her. She stroked Luke’s shoulders, his back. His skin felt as fiery as a Texas sunburn. She wanted their clothes off. Now!
Laughing at her own eagerness, she rolled away from him, and rising to her knees, she shimmied. Her gown slithered down her body and pooled on the bed. Luke got to his knees and waited, giving her a chance to be the aggressor.
She grabbed his open white shirt and, running her hands over his solid chest muscles, she quickly smoothed away the bothersome fabric. Seeking more of him, she lowered her hands and unzipped his black jeans. She shoved him backward onto the bed and yanked them off.
“So you want to play?” In a tackle move that amazed and thrilled her, he tumbled her to the sheet. They were both laughing now.
Suddenly, breathless and nude, their gazes met in a clash of electricity.
Slowly, he lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was that of a cowboy for his lady, full of respect, adulation, and just the right amount of raw lust. He slid a hand down her thigh and drifted to the inner sensitive skin. She gasped and took a deep breath, trying to hang on as he stroked her. The extra oxygen didn’t slow the wildness rising within, the soaring fervor. Almost out of her mind with need, she arched, her core throbbing with arousal. “Now, Luke. Now!” The huskiness in her own voice heightened her out-of-control desire.
“We’re going for a double silver buckle on this one,” he murmured, extending the delicious pleasure, stretching it.
She was too intent on seeking fulfillment to smile. Although Amber felt sure she couldn’t wait a second longer, he took her higher. “Luke!”
In answer to her cry of frustration, he slipped inside her. She closed her eyes as they moved together. Faster and faster… Almost…then…silver moon beams exploded in her head and she cried out in ecstasy.
Luke collapsed beside her. They were glistening with sweat, and he held her tightly, as though he feared she’d disappear. She wasn’t going anywhere. This was where she belonged, in his arms, floating in warm oneness.
Luke kissed her temple. “Hope you aren’t plannin’ to get up anytime soon,”
She laughed. “Couldn’t if I had to.”
He kissed her eyelids. Gently, she ran her fingers through his hair and tucked her head against his shoulder. She felt safe in his arms—safe, adored and wanted.
They stayed that way for a while, then Luke said, “Ready to try something different?”
When she nodded, he led her into a marathon of fantasies beyond her wildest dreams. The man had the imagination of a romance writer and the energy of ten stallions. One more miracle in her life. She touched her belly. Dare she hope for another?
****
The sun began its rise in the sky, sweeping away the darkness with golden-burnished brush strokes. The mockingbirds sang out, announcing the start of spring and a new day. With her short cotton nightgown rustling against her thighs, Amber leaned on the balcony railing of the now completed second story of their ranch house and inhaled the animal smells, comforted by the familiarity and solidness of her new life. She looked out over the pastures with cattle grazing lazily. The beauty of it brought tears to her eyes. She wasn’t sad. She just felt everything more deeply than ever before. She was grateful for so many things that the emotions just bubbled up inside her—her returned memory, her rugged Texas cowboy husband, her very own adopted daughter, Alicia, her new extended family, Matt, Molly and Mama Virginia, and Virginia’s new fiancé, Dr. De La Fuente.
Behind Amber, the sliding screen door opened, and Luke encircled her with his arms like a warming cloak, smelling of hay and horses.
“How do you feel?” he asked, kissing the back of her hair.
“Great. I slept late.” She’d learned that late on a ranch was anything after sunrise. Luke had been careful not to wake her when he got up at 4:00 a.m. He worried about her getting enough rest, and she let him pamper her a little. Soon, she’d be too busy with wee hour feedings and changing diapers to loll around. She cuddled deeper into his arms.
“Took a break to have breakfast with you and Alicia.”
Amber turned in his arms and faced him. “Matt took her up to his house to eat with Sara Jane.”
Luke’s eyes lit up. “We’re alone?”
In answer, she smiled, knowing what came next.
He nuzzled her neck and patted her tummy, “How’s my son doing this morning?”
“Never better. Digging his heels into my side like a li’l bronc rider—eager to buck himself right outta the chute.”
Luke grinned at her in his sexy way that would forever send her heart racing, then ran his callused hand up her thigh. “Think a few kisses will
settle him down?”
She laughed. “It’ll take more than a few.”
He winked. “I can handle that.”
Later, when they lay basking in the warm afterglow, Amber counted her blessings. She was lucky to have found Luke and Alicia. The bonus was the little son now resting quietly under her heart. It was strange that something as horrible as murder and amnesia had sent her running scared right into the arms of the only man she could ever love. It was Fate, pure and simple. Wonderful, beautiful Fate.
A word from the author…
I hold a Master’s Degree from the University of California, a lifetime teaching credential, and I’m a full time writer and a member of RWA.
Publishing credits include eighteen E-books, four anthologies, and a romantic intrigue cowboy trilogy.
I’m a charter member the Aloha Chapter of the RWA and have appeared often on local writer panels and alone. I’m the author of eighteen novels and several novellas.
My novels are romantic intrigues, with several paranormal and fantasy intrigues. I’m on Facebook and Twitter and would love to connect with other Wild Rose authors.
My passions are family, writing, teaching, and travel. I’m an avid dancer, skater, and walker.
http://www.lyndelakes.com
~*~
Other Lynde Lakes titles
available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.:
BILLBOARD COP
COWBOY LIES
UNDERCOVER COWBOY
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.