Red Thunder Reckoning

by Sylvie Kurtz

  With the edge of the towel, he wiped her cheeks dry. Her gaze speared his with fiery desperation. “I can’t let those horses go. I can’t let him win.”

  “He can’t hurt you.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know him. He’ll do anything to win and I’m responsible for him being in jail.”

  Kevin swallowed hard. Her torture at Garth’s hands had filled her life for sixteen years. That it had instilled him with capabilities he didn’t have was normal. Letting go would take time. Now was not the time to point out her faulty logic. All he could do was reassure her. “We won’t let him.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Do me a favor?” Ellen asked. She trapped his hand against her cheek, the towel a calming barrier between the voltaic charge of her touch.

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “Make love to me.”

  Lightning flashed. Thunder rattled the windows. The shock of her request jolted him backward on the coffee table, knocking a pile of catalogs to the floor. Kevin swallowed hard and shook his head. “No.”

  “Why not?” She blinked madly as she tried to fold the towel on her knee. “Do you have a problem, you know, in that department?”

  A big problem. I’m in love with you. “No—”

  “A sexually transmitted disease?”

  “No, that’s—”

  “If it’s protection that’s worrying you, there’s no problem. For a couple of reasons, the doctor put me on birth control pills last year.”

  Frustration whined along his nerves. “That’s not—”

  “Don’t you want me?” She lifted her gaze to meet his. A frown of confusion creased her forehead. Her fingers nervously knitted together above the folded towel. Her bare feet, with their moon-pale skin, curled protectively against one another. “Last night. I thought…you might.”

  “Wanting is not the problem.” Far from it.

  “Then what?”

  “The timing’s wrong.” A decade off, at least.

  “How?” She cocked her head to one side, setting the riot of drying curls on her head in motion. They played with the light, sparkling gold, tormenting him with their promise of silk. “You want me. I want you.”

  “You’ve had an upsetting day.” He shoved both his hands in his jeans pockets, reached for the bone feather, thumbed the carved ridges and prayed for strength. “You should go to bed—”

  “I’m trying to maneuver you there.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “You’ll have to help me out, though. I’m not very experienced in the art of seduction.”

  “Trust me, you don’t need any help,” he muttered. He took in a long breath, then leaned forward and tried for a brotherly pat on her knees. “Ellen…”

  “Yes?”

  His fingers curled around the caps of her knees as he tried to figure out what to do next. He wanted her more than he’d thought possible. And here she was asking for what he most desired. Holding her, kissing her, loving her had become an obsession that tormented him day and night since he’d walked onto her ranch. But this wasn’t the way. She was upset over Garth and would surely regret her brashness in the morning.

  Sweat prickled his neck, slid down his spine. His blood pounded through his veins. His want for her was a wildfire he needed to contain—for both their sakes.

  Aroused and angry for even contemplating her invitation, he shot up from the coffee table. In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water at the sink and drank it in one shot. Might as well have spit into an inferno for all the cooling relief it provided.

  “Kevin.” Her hand skimmed over his back. Every muscle in his body tensed, trying to hold back the kick of need to his belly. She drew closer, skated her lips along the side of his neck, slid her hands around his waist. Her busy fingers played with the button of his fly. He tried to muffle his groan, but it chugged through him locomotive loud.

  Swearing, he spun around and grabbed her by the hips. The pupils of her eyes blazed wide open, nearly buckling his knees. He hiked her onto the counter. Driving her knees apart with a check of his hips, he pressed his erection hard against her. “Is this what you want, Ellen? Hard and fast on the kitchen counter? Hot sex with the ranch hand. That’s so cliché.”

  He’d hoped for embarrassment, a flick of pain to prevent the deeper cut. But the fever in her eyes matched the one boiling through his blood. Her voice became whiskey smooth and twice as potent. “If that’s the way you want me, then yes.”

  “Why?” he rasped, digging his fingers through her hair, spearing her with his gaze.

  She swallowed hard. “You don’t scare me. I’ve seen you with the horses, with Blue. I know how good and gentle and caring you are.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know the important things.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I trust you.”

  “Don’t.” I’m lying to you.

  Lightning bleached the sky out the window. One, one thousand. Two, one thousand. Three, one thousand. Thunder growled. He licked the dryness from his lips. “There’s someone out there for you. Not me.”

  She brushed a finger along his wet lips. He tried to find his breath. “I loved Kyle, but he’s dead. I’ve been free for a year, but part of me is still stuck in the cage of my past. I need to forget him.”

  “By using a stranger for sex?” The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. She wanted to use the man he pretended he was to forget the boy he’d been.

  “Not a stranger. A friend.” Her fingers wreaked havoc on his nape. Her gaze suddenly blurred and filled with sadness. Her voice hitched. “Kyle, he’s stuck inside me and I need to know I can go on without him.”

  “It’s a mistake,” he whispered as he held her close. He wasn’t sure if he was telling her or reminding himself. The scent of her seeped into his him like a poison, clouding his mind until he could make out no thought. Everything became pure sensation—heat, love, passion.

  “But it’s my mistake to make,” she said.

  If she was going to do this, if she was going to use a man to forget the boy still living in her heart, then it might as well be with someone who loved her. “Then let’s do it right.”

  He carried her to the bedroom, peeled back the quilt with a rainbow of stars in primary colors covering her bed and set her down on the edge. Looking around, he spotted the fat blue candle on her bedside table. He lit a match from the box beside the ruby-red glass holder. The flame flickered to life. Lightning shimmered through the curtains, but the thunder’s roll was nothing more than a distant murmur.

  As he turned around, a warm, heavy feeling filled his heart. He was in love with her. Had always been. He’d get over it. He’d get over her. Had to. There was no other way around it. But for tonight, he could give her the gift of his love and wrap it into the goodbye to the boy she’d once loved who no longer existed.

  WHEN KEVIN TURNED, her breath caught in her throat. With the candlelight burning behind him, he was faceless. He pulled his T-shirt over his head. The soft light burnished his skin. Her heart skipped unsteadily. Her pulse jumped as if she were a skittish filly.

  What were you thinking? What are you doing?

  His hand hesitated at the zipper of his jeans. “There’s still time to change your mind.”

  Unable to speak, she shook her head.

  “Ellen?”

  “What?” she whispered, and swallowed hard. As she peered into his darkened face, Kyle’s ghost arose from his blank features, teasing her, taunting her. I told you I’d always love you. I’m not going to let you forget me.

  “What do you want, Ellen?”

  “I want…” She gulped in air. “I want to feel like a woman, not a broken body.” Not a broken spirit.

  Kevin offered her a hand. She took it, rose to her feet. He peeled off her damp T-shirt, dropped it to the floor. He rained a trail of kisses down the side of her neck. With a finger, he slid the strap of her bra off her shoulder. His lips followed, drawing a ripple of shivers.
His thumb brushed against her nipple, reaping a small gasp of pleasure from her.

  “You like that?”

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. Her arms snaked around his neck. Her fingers raked into his hair. “Don’t stop.”

  His mouth so soft, so hot, so unexpectedly hungry, spread a delicious warmth through her. The scent of lavender, howood and clary sage from the burning candle further relaxed her. A languid melting overtook her bones, shaping her to the hard lines of his body.

  Lost in the sensation of his hands on her skin, she wasn’t quite sure how the rest of their clothes got to the floor, how they maneuvered to the bed, but suddenly the solid weight of him was over her, enveloping her. She should be afraid, but she wasn’t. For the first time in sixteen years, she felt safe.

  She kissed the fingertips brushing along her cheek. “I knew your hands would be like this.”

  “Like what?” he said huskily.

  “Like magic.”

  “Not magic,” he said, proving himself wrong with a long, slow caress down her back that sparked an electric pleasure from head to toe and had her coiling herself around him.

  With this selfish act of love with a stranger, she thought she’d be saying goodbye to her past, to Kyle, but found she was instead saying hello to herself.

  Each touch, each murmur, each kiss awakened a new part of her. Her body became alive, truly alive. Every fiber, every cell, every atom. Echoes of the past, the feel, the taste, the scent of sex, mingled with the present, filling her with melancholy. But the boy’s hesitation had become the man’s experience, and her girl’s innocence was becoming a woman’s appreciation. Kyle was dead. Kevin was alive. She was alive, so alive.

  Sensations coursed through her, one jumping right over the other, leaving her quivering and desperately wanting more. Her moans of pleasure mixed with the sound of feral delight low in his throat and thundered like runaway horses into her, over her, until reason seemed to race right out of her.

  Holding his gaze, she opened herself to him, arched up to meet him, took him inside her. As he cradled her face with his heavenly hands, the look in his eyes was so fiery, so dark, so deep, she fell into it whole and wasn’t sure she’d ever want to escape.

  The slow rhythm of body learning body quickly turned into a canter, then a mad gallop of pleasure. Under the spell of his gaze, his hands, his mouth, everything inside her gathered, strained, waited.

  He whispered her name. It reverberated inside her ear, inside her heart, inside her soul.

  Then against the thunder of his pulse, the sheer ecstasy etched on his face, the shuddering of his body, she fell apart, giving into the rolling rush of madness charging through her wild horse fast.

  WHEN ELLEN AWOKE, he was spooned around her, a hand curved possessively around her belly, a leg draped lazily over hers, and she’d never felt such deep contentment. The pink of dawn was just beginning to color the horizon.

  In his arms, she’d discovered a physical hunger she’d never expected, her body’s ability to accept a man with a purely feminine response—and love for a man she barely knew.

  There was no getting around it. She’d gone and fallen for a man who’d made it plain he was a cowboy who didn’t want to be fenced in.

  That headlong pitch into something so vital certainly hadn’t been part of her plan when she’d set out to seduce Kevin.

  She’d banished Kyle to a tender place in her heart only he could ever fill, but found she had plenty left to give. Her feelings for Kevin were different than the ones she held for Kyle, but no less potent. Kyle was the past; Kevin the future.

  A dash of panic raced through her. No, not the future, the present. She pushed the wisp of anxiety aside and concentrated instead on the joy singing through her newly awakened body.

  She turned in Kevin’s arms. His features were soft in sleep. Remembering the feel of his kiss, she leaned across the pillow and tasted him again. The light brush of her lips on his reignited a rush of sensations. She skimmed a fingertip down the length of his side, heard the sleepy sound of pleasure deep in his throat.

  She was stepping into dangerous territory, but she didn’t care. She loved what he did to her, how he made her feel alive and strong. She would enjoy the moment while she could. There’d be time enough later to sort through the consequences of loving a man who couldn’t stay anchored too long in one place. She slid her body against his, felt a wholly feminine satisfaction when his body responded to hers.

  Slowly his eyes opened. A smile touched his lips at the sight of her. She loved how it went all the way to his eyes and made them sparkle with fire, the way it made her belly flutter. He wrapped a corkscrew of her hair around his finger and rasped a good-morning into her ear.

  “How’s your shoulder?” she asked, not quite knowing what to expect from him.

  He rolled it once and chuckled. “It’s fine.”

  She loved that sound, the way it seemed to brighten all the dark corners inside her.

  Last night, Kevin’s loving had shown her the possibilities of life. For the past year, she’d cocooned herself, afraid to look at the hurt she’d suffered, afraid to get lost in it. Now she knew she was strong enough to face it.

  She rolled onto Kevin, lost herself in his deep, dark eyes. “There’s time enough for a short ride before we have to get up to feed the horses…if you’re up to it.”

  He was.

  HE LOOKED GOOD on a horse, Ellen brooded as she sat on the fence watching Kevin work Luci in the soft dirt of the ring. Just looking at him made her tight and edgy and needy all over. One night with him and she was already dreaming of something…more.

  You’re a fool. She frowned, trying to concentrate on Luci, seeing only Kevin. Attraction was one thing, need quite another. He was leaving soon. She wasn’t in love. She’d simply rediscovered she was alive at the hands of a capable lover. Nothing wrong with that. Healthy, even. Her hands gripped the fence rail tighter. Mad butterfly wings fluttered in her stomach.

  Her plans for the future included many things, but they didn’t include falling in love. Concentrate on what he’s doing so you can do it yourself once he’s gone.

  Luci wore no saddle, no bridle, just a rope around her neck—and Kevin on her back. She’d tossed her head up and down for the good part of an hour. She still couldn’t pass for a relaxed horse, but she was walking forward and her eyes weren’t quite as glazed.

  He brought Luci over to the fence and Ellen fed her sections of apple. “She did good.”

  “She did wonderful.” Kevin vaulted off and knuckled Luci’s muzzle, catching the side of her hand. The double-barreled blow of tingling skin at their accidental touch and the spark of the memory of Kyle doing the same gesture made her snatch her hand to her side.

  Blue thumped his tail and Kevin bent down to scratch the jealous dog’s ear. The jolt of the past faded and all that was left was the present. Kevin, not Kyle.

  “Do you think you can handle the ranch for the rest of the day?” Ellen asked as she maneuvered Luci through the gate. Her decision, she thought, was what was making her see ghosts all around. Last night, she’d made peace with Kyle. Now she had to continue the healing.

  The horses were fed. The stalls were mucked. Tessa Bancroft had done her daily collection of data. If Ellen was going to get back home before dark, she had to leave soon. A leaden weight settled in her stomach. She had to do this. If she couldn’t, then her life wouldn’t be her own. Fear would tinge the corners of her newfound strength. And that was the last thing she wanted.

  “Why?” Kevin tossed the question offhandedly as he closed the gate behind her. But when he followed her into the barn, his body carried a subtle tension. Like a spring winding, his edginess coiled her own.

  Though she couldn’t use them with Luci, she stopped the mare at a set of crossties. Kevin held her while Ellen grabbed a caddie of grooming tools.

  “Are you going somewhere?” he asked when she returned. The corners of his smile were tight.

&
nbsp; With a chuckle, she tried to make light of fingernails of anxiety suddenly scraping down her back. “You’re not going to go all protective on me, are you?”

  “It’s a male thing.”

  She could practically smell the testosterone wafting from him. She liked it. Feared it. But she wasn’t ready to wear the shirt of dependence again. And it would be too easy to lean on someone like Kevin. She had to do this alone. She picked out a rubber currycomb and rubbed gentle circles on Luci’s back. “I don’t know why I bother. She’s just going to roll in the pond as soon as I let her out.”

  “Natural sunblock. She’s got sensitive skin.” He massaged the mare’s neck until she lowered it for him, then started inching ever so slowly toward the poll she protected so dearly. Magic. If she didn’t watch it, she’d get caught up under the spell of his charm, too.

  “I know.” She switched sides but could still feel Kevin’s gaze boring into her. “I need to go out of town.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I might not be back in time for the evening feed.” She traded the currycomb for a dandy brush, resumed grooming Luci, and couldn’t understand why she tiptoed around the issue. “Look, I don’t owe you an explanation. I was merely letting you know that I was putting you in charge of the horses for the rest of the day. That’s what I’m paying you for, isn’t it? To take care of the horses.”

  He reached for a strand of her hair, twirled it around a finger. “I thought we’d moved a step up from that last night.”

  She nearly melted, but forced herself to keep brushing Luci. “Last night doesn’t change anything. You’re still leaving in a few days.”

  She glanced at him, dared him to deny the fact. He didn’t.

  “I have a bad feeling.”

  “So you’re psychic now?” She bent and traded the dandy brush for a body brush, feeling as if a net were tightening around her.

  “No, but something doesn’t feel right.”