by Sharon Sala
“Maybe.”
But Glory couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The puppy was all she had left of her life before the fire, and she couldn’t bear to think of losing him, too. J.C. had adored him, and had sworn he would make a good hunting dog, but with her brother gone, the training sessions were over. If the pup came home at all, the only thing he would be hunting was biscuits. But her attention shifted from the missing pup to Wyatt as she noticed his behavior.
Rain began to pepper the glass behind the curtains, and although it wasn’t really cold, she shivered, watching as Wyatt kept pacing from window to window, then to the other side of the house, ever on the lookout for something to come out of the dark. Something…or someone…that didn’t belong. His every movement was that of a man on edge.
The more she watched him, the more fascinated she became. She thought back to the night of the blizzard, and the first time she’d seen him, stretched out on a gurney and covered in blood. And then again, the day he’d been released from the hospital. Who would have guessed that one day, he’d be the single person who stood between her and death?
Looking back now, it hurt to remember how good and how simple life had been. Then she’d had a home and a family and a world that made sense. Now she had nothing but her life. And how Wyatt had come to her from across the miles was still a mystery; why he stayed, an even bigger puzzle. As she rocked, he unexpectedly turned and got caught in her stare.
“Glory…what is it?”
“Why don’t you doubt me? Everyone else does, except maybe Lane.”
His answer was instantaneous, as if he’d thought about it himself, time and time again, and knew all of the words by heart.
“I don’t know. All I know is, from the first there’s been a connection between us. I don’t understand it, but I know that it’s there.” He looked away, unwilling to say too much.
“Everyone thinks I’m crazy, so why are you different? Why do you stay with a crazy woman, Wyatt Hatfield? Why aren’t you running as fast as you can from this mess?”
Now he hesitated. Telling the truth about his growing feelings for her could ruin everything, and yet lying to her was not an option. He had to find an answer somewhere in between. When he looked up, his eyes were full of secrets.
“Maybe I’m just waiting to hear you call my name.”
The rocking chair came to an abrupt halt, ending in the middle of a squeak. Oh, Wyatt. I’m afraid to. I’m afraid to love. I’m afraid that you won’t understand me, and I can’t change.
Again, as he had in the past, he tapped into her thoughts and answered without realizing she hadn’t spoken them aloud.
“I wouldn’t change a thing about you, even if I could,” he said. “I’m the one who’s all messed up. I don’t have it in me to make a good woman happy, because I’ve already tried and failed.”
“No one is perfect, Wyatt. If you wanted to try, I believe that you could make anyone happy.” And then her voice faltered, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. “Even me,” she whispered.
He froze. There was no mistaking the invitation, and ignoring it was beyond him. Because she sat waiting, he went to her, then held out his hands.
Glory took them without hesitation. The magazine in her lap fell to the floor when he pulled her to her feet, and when he began threading his fingers through her hair, her focus shifted, as it did when a vision was upon her. As he cupped the back of her head, tracing his thumbs across the arch of her cheekbones, she lost her center of gravity. Had it not been for Wyatt’s arms, she would have fallen.
Even though she wanted this and much more from him, yielding to his greater strength was frightening. It was as if she’d suddenly lost her sense of self and was being consumed by his power. His voice rumbled too close to her ear, and instinctively, she shivered. Wyatt read her actions as something other than desire, and began feathering small kisses across her forehead, pleading his case as he drew her closer and closer against him.
“Don’t be afraid of me…or of anyone else. Being afraid of love is like hiding from life. Sometimes you have to take a chance to be happy, and taking chances is what life is all about.”
When his hands moved from the back of her head to the back of her neck, she sighed, giving way to a greater need within herself.
“Oh, Wyatt, I’m not afraid of you, only of losing you.”
Lord help both of us.
He lifted her off of her feet. With her lips on his mouth and her body in perfect alignment with his, he began to turn, holding her fast within his arms as her feet dangled inches above the floor. Seductively, deliberately, with nothing but passion for music, they slow danced to a tune only they could hear.
Faintly aware of the ceiling spinning above and the lights blinking in and out of focus as they moved about the floor, she wanted to laugh, and she wanted to cry. She’d never known such joy…and such fear. She was hovering on the brink of discovery in Wyatt Hatfield’s arms.
Wyatt ached, wanting more, so much more than the brief, stolen kisses that he was taking. Time, I need to take my time. But it was all he could do to heed his own words.
Unable to resist the temptation, he traced the curve of her cheek with his mouth and groaned when he felt her shudder. When he began nuzzling the spot below her ear with his nose, then his lips, savoring the satin texture of her skin, inhaling the essence of the woman that was Glory Dixon, she sighed, whispering something he couldn’t understand. Her voice was soft against his cheek, and she yielded to him like a woman, giving back more than she got.
Clutching her fingers in his short, dark hair, she hid her face beneath the curve of his chin, ashamed of what she was about to ask, but afraid this chance would never come again.
“Oh, Wyatt, I’ve learned the hard way that life is too uncertain. This time tomorrow you could be gone, or I could be dead. Please make love to me. I don’t want to die without knowing what that’s like.”
He froze in the middle of a breath, with his mouth near her lips and his hands just below the curve of her hips. Except for the blood thundering through his veins and a pulse hammering against his ear, all movement ceased.
“What did you just say?”
Glory lifted her head. She wouldn’t be ashamed of what she was. Truth was better said face-to-face.
“I asked you to make love to me,” she whispered.
“Not that. The part about dying.”
“I’ve never been with a man, Wyatt. I don’t know what it feels like to have a man’s hands on my body, or a man inside of me.”
“Oh…my…God.”
There was little else he could think to say. Nearly blind with need, it was all he could do to turn her loose, yet it had to be done. He’d started something in the wrong frame of mind, and had to stop it before it was too late.
“Well, damn,” he said quietly, and walked out of the room.
She could hear the front door slam from where she stood. The fire that he’d started was scalding her, from the inside out. She didn’t know whether to cry or scream, to call out his name, or go after him. She was still shaking from the hunger he’d started when she heard the door reopen abruptly, and then slam shut, muting the sound of the wind accompanying the rain still pounding upon the roof. The click of a lock was loud in the sudden silence of the house. She held her breath, afraid to hope, afraid to care…and then the lights went out.
“Wyatt? Is that you?”
“Hell, yes, it’s me,” he growled. “Who else were you expecting? If anyone else touched you but me right now, I’d kill them with my bare hands.”
Even in the dark, she started to smile. She wasn’t going to question what had changed his mind, she would just be thankful that he had.
He found her right where he’d left her, and when his hands moved across her body in the darkness of the room, he felt her inhale, then sigh. He groaned with want as her breasts pushed against the palms of his hands.
“I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“I just went to my car…for these.”
He caught her hands and flattened them against his rain-splattered shirt, guiding them to a shirt pocket to the right of his heartbeat.
Uncertain what was about to happen, she still followed his lead, feeling the pocket, then the flap, then at his instigation, dipping her hand inside. Thunder rattled the windowpanes as a gust of wind slapped tree limbs against the edge of the house. She gasped, spinning toward the sound behind them.
“It’s all right, darlin’. It’s just the wind.”
And then he caught her hand and laid something into her palm.
Glory frowned as her fingers curled around the objects, unable to identify the sharp, clean edges of the flat, foil packets.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is it?”
“Your protection, sweetheart. I have never made love to a woman in my entire life without it in one form or another. I’m not about to put you at risk.”
Oh!
“You guessed it,” he said, and then laughed softly.
The sound of his laughter curled her toes and made her weak at the knees. Heat swept across her body, and she realized she was blushing. “Where were we?” he muttered, and slipped his hands beneath her hips, cupping her body to his, and lowering his mouth in the darkness, searching for the sweetness of a kiss that he knew would be waiting.
The packets dropped to the bed behind them as she wrapped her arms around his neck. And then she moved against his groin, testing the bulge behind his zipper, and whispered against his mouth.
“Right about here…I think.”
Moments later, Wyatt lifted her off her feet and laid her on the bed. The quilt shifted beneath her as his body pressed her deeper and deeper into the mattress.
Wyatt gritted his teeth, reminding himself that making love to Glory would be a whole new ball game, and took a long, slow breath to clear his senses. When he felt her shudder, his heart raced in sudden fear.
“Dear God, don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “I’ll stop this right now if that’s what you want.”
Her hands moved up his thighs, pausing at the sides of his hips. “It’s not fear that makes me tremble, Wyatt Hatfield, it’s you.”
“Have mercy,” he said softly.
“Only if you hurry,” she answered.
He did.
Clothes went flying in the darkness, landing where they’d been tossed with little care for the decorum. Now there was nothing between them but skin and need. Wyatt moved back across her body, settling the weight of himself upon her, testing the size of himself against her fragility. She was so damned tiny it scared him half to death.
Without wasted motion, he took her in his arms and rolled, taking her with him until he was flat on his back and she was lying upon him, mouth to mouth, breast to chest.
And when his hands cupped her breasts, rolling the hard aching peaks between his fingers with delicate skill, she instinctively arched, her mind blanking on everything but his touch.
Oh?
He smiled in the darkness, moving his hands upon her body, mapping the tiny bones and a waist he could circle with both hands, testing the gentle flare of her hips, then letting his thumbs slide down…down.
Oh, Wyatt!
Glory gasped, then moaned as her head fell back and her hips followed the pressure of his fingers. When her body swayed, and the long flow of her hair brushed across his thighs, teasing at the juncture of his turgid manhood, Wyatt shuddered with longing. Not yet, he warned himself.
His hands slid over the quilt top, finding, then opening one of the packets he’d brought in from the car—doing what had to be done, before it was too late to think.
The room spun and the bed tilted. Glory rode with the motion, afraid it would stop, afraid to let go of the man beneath her. He’d built too many fires with the touch of his hands and the sweep of his mouth. Something was building, tightening, spiraling inside her so deep that it had no name. There was no understanding of what would come next, only the mind-bending need for it to be.
“Oh…Wyatt.”
Her cry was soft, almost unheard, but Wyatt felt it just the same. He was aware of what was happening to her and wished he could be inside of her when it happened. But he couldn’t…not the first time…not until she knew that this act came with something besides pain.
“Wyyaatt?”
There was panic in her voice, riding along with a racing heart as he continued to stoke the fires he’d created.
“That’s it, Glory. Don’t fight it. Don’t fight me. Just let it happen.”
And then it did, breaking over her in swamping waves of heat, shattering in one spot and then spilling into every other part of her body.
“Ah, Wyatt,” she groaned, and would have collapsed, had he not caught her in midslump.
“Not yet, sweet lady. There’s a thing I must do, and I ask your forgiveness now, before it’s too late.”
Glory’s mind was still swimming in the midst of pure pleasure when he rolled with her once again. Vaguely aware of the bed beneath her bare back and the weight of the man above her, she was unprepared for the spear of manhood that gently shattered the dissipating pleasure. The pain was sharp, burning and, after such joy, unexpected. Unable to stifle a cry, her fingers dug into the sides of his arms as she instinctively arched against the thrust.
“Ah, Glory, I’m sorry, so sorry,” he whispered, and gritted his teeth to maintain control.
A sob caught at the back of her throat. Afraid to breathe, she braced herself for the next wave of pain. It didn’t come. Only an unexpected fullness she’d never known before. One slow breath after another, she waited for him to move, and only after she began to test the theory herself, did he react.
Bracing himself above her, he shifted slightly, and then smiled in the dark when he heard a soft moan that had nothing to do with pain.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” he whispered.
Her hands snaked around his shoulders. “I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when it’s over.”
His laughter rocked the walls. When he lowered his head, feeling for her lips in the darkness, the smile was still upon his face. And then he started to move, slowly, tentatively, giving her time to adjust to his presence. Deeper and faster, he took her with him, driving like the rain that blew against the outer walls, losing himself in this woman who held his heart in her hands.
The end came almost without warning. One moment Wyatt was in total control, and then Glory moved unexpectedly, wrapping her legs around his hips and pulling him too far in to stop. Heat washed over him like a wave, sweeping everything from his mind but the feeling they’d created together. And then it was over, and he wanted her more.
Long silent minutes passed while he cradled her in his arms, whispering things in the dark that he could never have said in the light, stroking her body with the flat of his hand, unable to believe that this tiny, tiny woman was capable of such passion and love.
Finally he asked her again. “Glory?”
She sighed, and then slid one leg across his knees. “Hmmm?”
“Now are you all right?”
He felt her smile against his chest, and dug his hands in the long tangle he’d made of her hair.
“Oh, Wyatt…I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”
“Know what, honey?” he whispered, as he continued to cuddle her close.
“That love came in colors.”
“That it did what?”
“It’s true. When we…I mean when I…”
He grinned. “It’s okay, I know the moment you’re trying to identify.”
“I saw red…and then white.”
Touched by her admission, he teased her, trying to alleviate his own emotions. “What…no blue?”
“Red was what I saw just before…when you…when we…”
His voice vibrated with laughter. “Darlin’, we’re going to have to find a way to get you past this mental roadblock. Just say it. Whe
n you lost your sweet mind, right?”
“I suppose it was right about then.”
This time, he couldn’t suppress a chuckle. And then her arms tightened around his chest and when he reached out to stroke her face, he felt tears on her cheeks.
“Tears? Don’t tell me I was that bad,” he whispered.
“No, Wyatt. I didn’t cry because it was bad. I cried because it was so good.”
He hugged her, too moved to respond to her praise.
A few seconds passed, and in that time, he felt her restlessness, and knew that there was something else she wanted to say. Then he remembered she hadn’t explained the other color.
“So I made you see red. But what about the white?”
Excitement was in her voice as she lifted herself on one elbow and traced the lines of his face with her fingertips.
“Oh, Wyatt…just as everything within me gave way…I saw you…or at least the essence of you. There was no way to tell where I ended and you began. And the light with which you came to me was so bright…so pure…so white!” Her voice faltered, then broke. “That was when I cried.”
Oh, my God!
More than once, he tried to respond, but there were no words to express what he felt, only an overwhelming sense of inevitability, as if he’d been on the course all his life, and the outcome was out of his hands.
And so they slept, wrapped in each other’s arms while the storm front moved on, and morning dawned to a damp, new day.
The sharp ringing of the telephone near his ear sent Carter Foster scrambling to shut off an alarm. By the time he realized that it was the phone, and not the alarm, he had knocked a stack of papers onto the floor and cracked the plastic housing around his clock.
“Damn it,” he muttered, and then picked up the phone. “Foster residence.”
“It’s Marker.”
The skin on the back of Carter’s neck crawled as his belly suddenly twisted into a knot. Hiring Bo Marker yesterday had been a last resort, but he hadn’t expected to hear from him quite so soon.
“Is it over?” Carter asked.
Marker snorted loudly into the phone, his voice filled with derision. “Hell no, it ain’t over. You didn’t tell me she had a bodyguard and a watchdog.”
