“Brooke—”
“I’ll check in with you later today so that you’ll know I’m all right. Bye.” I disconnected the call and frowned. She’d worry about me now. I couldn’t help that. I was worried myself. But at least Pepper didn’t know about the threatening phone call. And after a morning with Marcie and Beatrice, I wasn’t one step closer to finding out who’d made it.
“Hey, Red?”
It was Sloan’s voice. I hurried to the window and saw him standing in the garden below me. Once again, I felt a rush of pleasure just seeing him. Not good, I thought.
“Beatrice told me you were in your room. I’m running a little late, and I have to stop at the stables.”
I glanced at my watch. “You said ten. I still have to change my clothes.”
“When you’re changed, come over to the carriage house. It’ll save us some time.”
“Sure.”
With a little salute, Sloan turned and walked away. I kept my eyes on him as he strode down the same path he’d ridden on earlier with Saturn. He didn’t look as though he was hurrying, but those long legs of his really ate up the ground.
And he belonged to my sister. I should write that on the palm of my hand the way I used to write reminders when I was in junior high.
The brush of something against my leg made me jump. Glancing down, I saw that it was Hannibal, and my heart returned to its usual place in my body. The cat flicked me a look and then rubbed against me again.
“Are you trying to suggest a truce, or are you warning me off Cameron’s fiancé?”
Hannibal made a soft purring sound in his throat that I wasn’t quite able to interpret. “I was just lecturing myself about the same thing. I’m going to have a talk with Sloan while we’re taking our tour.” And I was also going to find out why he hadn’t tried to talk James out of moving the wedding up.
I’d tell him that I didn’t want him to kiss me again. Which was a big fat lie. And he’d know it because so far my response to his kisses on a scale of one to ten could be measured at about a thirty.
Hannibal purred again. Did I actually hear a note of skepticism, or was I just projecting?
“I’ll explain that I need time to get used to him again.” Hopefully, that would work. But my eyes shifted back to Sloan. Who was I kidding? If I got any more used to him, I’d be in his bed. One more day, I reminded myself. Surely, I could keep from jumping his bones for that long.
“It isn’t as though I don’t have other things to occupy my time.” Like finding out what had happened to my sister. And getting to the bottom of why I looked so much like Elizabeth McKenzie. I glanced at my cell phone. Not to mention, avoiding the fate of the previous mistresses of the Hacienda Montega.
“My plate’s full,” I assured Hannibal. And myself.
After taking one last look at Sloan, I turned and strode into the closet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hannibal leap onto the bed, but he didn’t go back to stake his claim on the pillows. Instead, he made a circle, then sat near the side where he could watch me select an outfit to wear.
Quickly, I located a pair of riding breeches and boots, but I couldn’t decide on a blouse. Cameron seemed to have a weakness for silk, and I was torn between the peach, ivory or pale blue one. I held each in front of me. Hannibal growled at the blue one.
As I stripped off my jeans and T-shirt and dressed in Cameron’s clothes, I couldn’t help smiling at the idea that I was taking fashion advice from a cat. I wondered if this was something that he and Cameron did on a daily basis. I wanted to think that it was, that there was a softer side to the picture of my sister that everyone else was painting.
When I was done, I turned in a full circle for Hannibal’s benefit. He made no further noise, nor did he make any threatening gestures. I decided to take his lack of reaction for approval, and I felt a little closer to my sister as I left the room.
The carriage house had been built of the same colored stone as the hacienda, making me assume that it dated back to the same era. At one time, it had been used to store horse-drawn carriages. The lower floor had been renovated and now offered the modern convenience of automatic sliding doors.
It seemed a little far from the main house to use as a garage. Curious, I peeked through one of the glass windows and discovered there were indeed cars inside. The rugged truck that I’d seen Sloan use the day before along with its trailer, a black SUV with the logo of the ranch on it, and a sporty little red convertible that only seated two. It was built for speed, and it was exactly the kind of car that I hoped to own one day.
Was it Sloan’s? Or perhaps it was Cameron’s.
At the side of the building, I found a set of iron stairs to the second floor. On my way up I reviewed in my mind what I was going to tell Sloan—that I needed time to get to know him better and it would be better if he didn’t kiss me again.
That at least wasn’t a lie. It would be a lie if I told him I didn’t want him to kiss me again. I knocked on the screen door.
After waiting a bit, I knocked again. When there was still no response, I allowed my inner Alice to open the door and walk into a spacious kitchen that was neat as a pin. Two arches in the wall to my right allowed access to other rooms. Through the far one came the sound of running water and a man singing.
I moved to the closest arch and spotted a large flat-screen TV, what looked to be a state-of-the-art entertainment center, and two large speakers. Boy toys. There was a comfortable-looking leather couch, and an oak coffee table with a paperback book lying open facedown to mark the page. There were more books in built-in glass-doored bookcases that flanked the fireplace.
My gaze shifted to the art on the walls, and moving closer, I saw that each piece held four photos that had been clustered in the center, then matted and framed. In one group, I saw a man who resembled Sloan standing next to a horse with a baby in his arms. The same man was captured in other poses, two with James. Sloan’s father?
In another, there was a cluster with James and an older boy. He looked to be five or six in one, a teenager in another, and in the others he was a man—Sloan Campbell. It was like having a family album on the walls. Except there were two families and the mother was missing in each set of photos.
Cameron and he had that in common—a mother they’d never known. In spite of that loss, I envied Sloan in a way. My own family was not the type to take photos. There were no albums, no framed pictures on the walls. The ones I had were some that friends like Pepper had snapped and given to me. I glanced around the room and realized that there were no pictures of Cameron—not as a little girl and not as a woman. I found that odd.
Slowly but surely, I was learning about Sloan Campbell. He was a man who worked hard, was good at what he did, and who liked a comfortable, quiet place to come home to at night. I suppose that didn’t make him much different from a lot of men. Or women. I liked to come home to a quiet space myself.
My sister, on the other hand, evidently liked to go out, to meet clients for dinner and drinks—if I could make judgments by her wardrobe and what others had told me.
The singing had stopped, but I could still hear water running as I returned to the kitchen. I knew I was pushing it but I quietly opened the two cupboards that framed the sink. Dishes were stacked in neat piles, mugs arranged in rows. One drawer contained towels, the other a minimal selection of flatware. Then I just had to open Sloan’s refrigerator. You could tell a lot from a person’s refrigerator. I’d once had Mallory Carstairs take an inventory of the contents of her current lover’s fridge and decide to break off the affair. He had been planning to kill her and the telltale mushrooms were right there on the bottom shelf.
There were no mushrooms in Sloan’s fridge. In fact there wasn’t much in the way of food at all. He kept it stocked with bottled water and beer. The top shelf held a bottle of white wine—the same Chardonnay that he’d claimed was Cameron’s favorite. Behind it was a paper bag. Opening it, I saw it contained cheese—three kinds—and a ba
g of plump green grapes.
“Hungry, Red?”
I dropped the bag and whirled around to face Sloan. “I—”
For the life of me I couldn’t get another word out. He was standing in the archway wearing only a pair of jeans, bare-chested and barefoot. I could see that his skin was still a bit damp from his shower. Heat flooded through me. I tried to tell myself that it was from embarrassment because he’d caught me snooping, but that was a lie. It was Sloan who was making my body burn and my mouth water. Oh, I was hungry all right. Only it wasn’t for food. I wanted a taste of Sloan Campbell.
Chapter 13
“Hungry, Red?” He definitely was, Sloan thought as she jumped and whirled to face him. He’d been watching her for some time as she’d poked through his cupboards and studied the contents of his refrigerator as if there was some secret there she was determined to discover. Her concentration had been total. He’d seen the same intentness the evening before when he’d been introducing her to family and guests, and he couldn’t help wondering if she would bring that same concentration to the task of making love to a man. To him.
He’d spent a sleepless night trying to talk himself out of what he was going to do. He’d even tried to sell himself on the idea that if he could have her just once, he could get her out of his system. He hadn’t been successful at either endeavor.
He wanted her. She wanted him. That was the one truth between them. He was going to start there, and see where it would lead. And for the first time in his life Sloan was going to damn the consequences. But he’d wanted to choose the time and the place. And he had. He’d chosen the perfect spot, and he’d planned to take her there.
He studied her now as she stood silently regarding him. She was wearing Cameron’s clothes, well-tailored riding breeches and one of the silk blouses Cameron always favored. He even caught a hint of the scent that Cameron always wore. But it wasn’t Cameron’s eyes he was looking into. Her eyes had never held that combination of heat and promise and innocence. He wasn’t sure which pulled at him more or which caused the desire building inside of him to turn so quickly into a burning ache.
What he was sure of was that his plans had changed. The time and the place was now.
“I thought we’d take the wine and grapes with us,” Sloan said as he walked toward her. “There’s a place I’m going to show you, your favorite place on the ranch, and I thought we’d have a picnic. But we could enjoy them now. If you think you can’t wait.”
“Wait…” My voice was working. Now all I needed was some more words. Thoughts would be good, too. They’d drained out of my mind the moment I saw him standing there. Now that he’d moved closer, I could feel his heat and the sensation was only heightened by the coolness of the open refrigerator at my back. I felt trapped between ice and fire. I took a breath and drew in his scent—soap and something uniquely male, something that was Sloan Campbell. It made my mouth water.
I had to say something. Anything. “I…was just…snooping. I’m sorry. I once read that you can learn a lot about a person from what he or she keeps in their refrigerator. And so I thought I would take a look and—” Now I was babbling. I bit down on my lip because if I kept it up, I might give myself away.
“What did you learn about me?” He took a step closer.
“I…” Just as quickly as it had come, the power to form words and string them into sentences deserted me again. When Sloan touched my arm, I jolted.
“Easy,” he said in the same kind of tone I’d heard him use on Saturn. “I just want to shut the refrigerator door.”
Keeping his hand on my arm, he picked up the bag, replaced it on the shelf and closed the door.
When he finally turned back to me, I found myself pinned against the counter.
“So what did you learn about me?”
I cleared my throat. “You don’t cook much here.”
“Thanks to Elena, I don’t have to. She spoils me. Is that all you learned?”
“You like to read.” I thought of the photos in the living room. “I think that family is important to you. I looked in the other room. I was curious, and when you didn’t answer my knock, I just—”
“You don’t have to apologize. Given the chance, I’d love to search the place where you’ve been staying for the last five weeks. I’m curious about you, too.”
It was a mistake to keep looking into his eyes. The heat there was even more intense than what I was already feeling. He rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip, and I heard my breath catch.
“You’re so responsive.” He lifted his other hand to cup the back of my neck.
I knew what Sloan was going to do. He was going to kiss me. So I raised a hand and pressed it against his chest. Big mistake. His skin felt like warm velvet stretched over steel. The hand at my neck was hard, too. Heat rocketed through me from both contact points.
“I want to kiss you.”
“No.” I don’t know how in the world I got the word out. It was such a lie that I marveled lightning didn’t strike me dead. Never had my mind and body been so diametrically opposed. “Why not?”
Desperately, I tried to remember my sister and what I’d come here to do. I moistened my lips. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“About kissing?” He rubbed the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip again. “No. About not kissing. I know that you probably were curious on the bluff and again last night in the garden, and then this morning you kissed me again to make a point to Marcie and Hal and Beatrice. I understand that. But I don’t want you to kiss me anymore.”
“Liar.”
Okay. So I desperately wanted him to kiss me again. And wanted to kiss him back. And more.
“You’re wrong about why I kissed you.” His thumb began a gentle stroking up and down the back of my neck. Any minute I was going to evaporate into steam.
“Each time I kissed you it was because I wanted to. Because I couldn’t help myself.”
“Really?” He didn’t look entirely happy about that. Still, at his admission, a mix of pleasure and astonishment flooded through me. The fact that he could be feeling the same kind of attraction, the same level of lust that I was feeling made my knees go even weaker.
“In a minute, if you don’t let me go, I won’t be able to help myself, either,” I said.
“You can’t say something like that to me and expect me not to act on it.”
I could have moved then. I didn’t.
He did. His mouth covered mine, and there was nothing of the gentle exploration that he’d used in the garden the night before. Today his lips were hard, his tongue and teeth demanding. Little explosions of pleasure shot through me, making my hunger build with a speed I’d never experienced before. My tongue met his, tangling and caressing. I tasted the hot, minty flavor of his toothpaste and something darker that reminded me of chocolate, only better.
When he bit my bottom lip, pleasure sharpened. I wrapped my arms around him, flattened my palms against that hard smooth skin and tried to absorb him. When hard hands cupped my bottom, I scooted up to wrap my legs around his hips. Through layers of clothes, I felt the rigid length of his penis pressed against my center, and I rubbed myself against it.
With a groan, he eased me onto the edge of the counter and broke off the kiss. For a moment, we were both oxygen starved and breathing hard. He drew away, just a little. But he didn’t release me entirely. He left one hand on my side, his thumb stroking my nipple. The palm of his other hand lay heavily on my thigh, and that thumb was moving up and down between my legs, teasing, promising. The friction at both contact points had me quivering with need.
Sloan’s eyes were narrowed, and his voice was husky when he spoke. “If you want me to stop, say so now.”
He was giving me a choice. But with his hands on me, I couldn’t seem to say a thing. All I wanted was him, hot and hard inside of me. I couldn’t think of anything else.
“If you don’t say something, I’m going to take it as a yes.”
Still he hesitated as if he needed some sign from me. “Yes or no?”
This was wrong. It had to be. But I didn’t care. I’d never felt this way before. Maybe I never would again. “Yes.”
It was triumph now that I saw in his eyes. Then he lifted me off the counter and carried me through the archway and into the bedroom. He laid me on the bed, and then he positioned himself on top of me. My legs parted for him, and once he’d settled between them, he rocked against me. I arched up or tried to. But I was trapped beneath him. His legs were hard between mine, and I could feel the hardest part of him—a solid ridge of granite—pressing against me through way too many layers of clothes.
Then he levered himself off me, and settling himself beside me, he took my wrists in one hand and pinned them above my head.
I started to protest, but he countered by kissing me again. My head began to spin. He still held my hands above my head, and with his foot, he’d pinned one of my ankles to the bed. With his free hand he began to unbutton my blouse, slowly, tantalizingly. Each sensation was so intense—the heat of his body beside me, the dark, rich taste of him and the slow movement of those fingers as they released one button after another. Each time they slipped beneath the silk and brushed my skin I trembled. All the while he feasted on my mouth, exploring every part of it in slow strokes of his tongue as if there was some flavor there he hadn’t yet sampled.
Sloan tugged the blouse free of my slacks and pushed it aside. Then he raised his head and looked down at what he’d uncovered. “Pretty,” he murmured in a husky voice as he ran the palm of his hand over my breast. Through my thin bra of silk and lace, I felt the heat of his touch like a little electric shock. I did my best to arch into his palm.
“I’ve been wanting to touch you, really touch you.” He paused to move his hand lower until it rested flat on my stomach. “Ever since you appeared out of nowhere on that bluff.” He undid the button of my riding pants and drew the zipper down slowly. The sound it made as it opened was incredibly erotic.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Page 24
