A Touch in Time

by McKenna Chase

  He crossed the room to stand behind her, dropping a canvas sack on the counter. “Some ham. Unless you were gonna bring in a chicken to cook.”

  Bring in? As in catch one, break its neck and then pluck it? She grabbed for the sack, peeking inside. “Ham will go perfect with the biscuits I’m making you.”

  “Good,” he said, his large hands skimming up the backs of her legs, “cause I’m starving.” A low grumbled sounded in his throat when he discovered she wasn’t wearing anything but his oversized shirt.

  “I was hot,” she explained with a teasing glance over her shoulder.

  “Reckon that make two of us,” he whispered against her ear as he raised the shirt she’d borrowed and pressed against her backside with his hardness, denim against flesh.

  “Jake...” she said, more of a pleasured groan than a complaint as his hand slid down and around her hip to cup her mound.

  “Yeah, darlin’?” he breathed as he rained kissed along her neck.

  She loved the huskiness in his voice when he called her that. Loved the way he touched her. Possessively. Like she belonged to him and him alone. If only she’d been born in his time. But she hadn’t. She had to go home. Back to her own life.

  “Brianna?”

  She turned to him with a wistful smile. She wanted to be with him, for whatever time she had left there. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she said, “Make love to me, Jake.”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “From the moment I walked in that door and saw you standing here, I haven’t thought about anything else.” He lifted her against him.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her face in the curve of his neck as he carried her off to his bedroom.

  “What about the biscuits.”

  “The biscuits can wait, darlin’. I can’t.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jake eyed Brianna from across the table. A man could get used to waking up beside her every morning. If it weren’t for Deke...

  He pushed the thought away, knowing that even if she couldn’t find a way back to where she’d come from she couldn’t stay there – with him. He had to get her away from there. But to where?

  “After breakfast, we’ll head out to the corral and see if we can find that hole in time you fell through.”

  She offered a small smile. “Let’s just hope I make a smoother landing next time around.”

  He found himself hoping there wouldn’t be a next time. Selfish bastard he was. He wasn’t ready to let her go.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she said, running a self-conscious hand through her hair.

  He leaned forward with a grin. “I was just thinking how good you look for a woman who’s over a hundred years old.”

  She cringed. “Say that again and you’ll be eating every last one of those biscuits I tossed out last night.”

  One had been enough and he’d forced it down not wanting to hurt her feelings. Thankfully, she’d taken one bite of hers and promptly tossed the remaining biscuits outside. It was a good thing his new ‘wife’ could sew because she sure as hell couldn’t cook.

  “How old are you?” he asked. While they had talked the night before about the progress of things in her time, Brianna had pretty much skirted any talk about herself personally.

  “Twenty-six.”

  He did a visual sweep of her body. “I’m thinking I was born about a hundred years too soon. Do all females age as well as you in the twenty-first century?”

  “Modern conveniences and medical advances have lengthened life expectancy for both men and women.”

  He sobered, thinking about her going back to her own time where she would live a long and happy life with some other man. Maybe he wouldn’t take her out to the corral. He’d tie her to his bed and keep her there so she’d have to grow old with him.

  * * *

  “This isn’t working,” Brianna said with a sigh.

  Jake nodded from where he stood leaning against a fencepost, watching her pace the corral.

  “Are you sure that’s where you found me?” she said, pointing to the spot he’d shown her to when they first waked out.

  If she made one more lap around his corral in those ass hugging jeans, he was going to mount her like a stallion.

  “The marks are still there,” he said, pointing to the indents she’d made in the dirt where she’d landed.

  “I don’t see anything. Maybe you’re not remembering right,” she said, biting at her bottom lip.

  He pushed off the post and walked over to her. “Trust me, Brianna, tracking was one of my specialties as a Texas Ranger. The marks are there. This is where you fell.”

  “Okay, I’ll try again,” she said with a nod. “Jake...”

  “Yeah?”

  “In case it works and I’m sent back through time...” Her words faltered.

  “I know, darlin’.” He forced a smile despite the painful twisting in his gut at the thought of never seeing her again.

  She rose up to brush a kiss over his lips. “Thank you. For everything.” Then she stepped back to the spot he’d pointed to and closed her eyes.

  Nothing.

  It wasn’t until she opened her eyes to look at him that he realized he’d been holding his breath.

  “Maybe I should jump off the top rail.”

  A dark brow lifted. “And break your pretty little neck in the process?”

  “That’s how I ended up here in the first place,” she reminded him. “By falling.”

  He walked over and gathered her in his arms. “Darlin’, we’ve gotta prepare for the possibility you won’t be able to go back.” He had to prepare for it. Because as much as he wanted to keep her at the ranch with him, he knew she couldn’t stay. The only person he trusted to keep her secret and keep her safe was his brother and his wife. But how did he even begin to explain to Luke where Brianna had come from? Or how he’d allowed himself to fall for her?

  The thought hit him like a herd of stampeding cows. He’d fallen for her. A woman he’d only known for a few days, one not even from his lifetime, had somehow managed to sneak into his hardened heart.

  “Try again,” he said, setting her away from him. He’d faced death on a daily basis as a Texas Ranger without much thought, but the feelings he had for Brianna scared the hell outta him.

  She nodded and stepped back into the spot, but her efforts were futile. She still stood there, looking beautiful and frustrated. “It’s no use.” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  He wasn’t.

  He held out his hand. “It’s gonna be alright.”

  She took the offered hand, letting him pull her to him. “What if I can’t ever go back?”

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” he assured her as he walked her back to the cabin.

  * * *

  Jake’s gaze traveled across the room to where Brianna sat in a rocking chair, staring blankly into the fire. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to be uprooted from everything he knew and tossed into a world that held nothing familiar. Stuck in a life not of your choosing.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked as he put the last of their supper dishes away.

  “No thanks.”

  He walked over to where she sat and placed a hand on her shoulder. “If there was some way I could get you home, I would do my damnedest to make it happen.”

  “I know.” She sniffed softly. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.

  “Darlin’, no man would consider himself stuck with you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Tell that to my ex.”

  “The man was a fool.” His hand moved to caress her face. “And if it weren’t for Deke, I’d keep you here and show you just how much I like having you around.”

  She looked up at him. “You’re still sending me away?”

  He frowned. “You know I don’t have a choice.”

  She stood and walked over to the fire, her back to him. “Don’t you?�
��

  Did she really think he wanted her out of his life? Jack stepped up to her and slid his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her head. “While Deke is alive, I don’t. That’s why I’m gonna send you to the one place I know you’ll be safe. To Montana with Luke.”

  “You’re sending me to live with your brother?”

  “He’ll understand. And you’ll like Lizzie, his wife. She’d got a heart of gold.”

  Silence filled the air around him.

  “Brianna,” he breathed into her hair. “I want you to be safe.”

  She turned in his arms to face him, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I wish Deke didn’t exist.”

  He kissed the salty droplet away. “I’m glad he does.”

  She gasped. “How can you say that?”

  He smiled. “Because if he hadn’t of tried to kill me I wouldn’t be here with you right now. Wouldn’t have been the man to find you that day.”

  She laughed softly, a soft smile lighting her face. “Considering what’s happened to you since I arrived, I’m thinking you might have been better off still chasing outlaws.”

  “But you’re so much sexier,” he said with a growl as he cupped her backside and pressed his growing erection into her.

  She rubbed against him. “You’re a good man, Jake Dawson.”

  “And I’m about to show you just how good,” he said, sweeping her up in his arms.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Brianna’s breath caught as Jake knelt before her where he’d backed her up against the wall. He’d stripped her of her clothes and then had just stood staring at her as if trying to memorize every naked inch of her. She knew she’d never forget the sight of him kneeling there in front of her, his shirt open, his dark eyes looking up at her with such passion.

  His hands slid up the inside of her bare thighs as his tongue skimmed the flesh just beneath gold belly button ring, moving slowly downward.

  “Jake,” she whispered, her heart pounding.

  “Lord how I need to taste you,” he groaned as his fingers parted her. That tongue, that incredibly gifted tongue of his swept the slick seam of her cunt, making her hips surge.

  Her hands gasped his shoulders as her head fell back against the rough-hewn planks of the cabin wall with a soft, “Yes.”

  His strong hands lifted her legs atop his shoulders, giving him full access to what his mouth sought.

  She cried out as his tongue pushed into her – thick and hard. Tasting her. Stroking her. He was fucking her in the most sensual way possible – with his mouth. But it was more than that. There was a tenderness to his touch that night that made her want to cry. She would miss this. Miss Jake. But she understood why she couldn’t stay. Maybe someday, when Deke was no longer a part of Jake’s life...

  “Brianna,” he breathed against her sensitive flesh, inhaling her scent as he loved her with his mouth.

  Her fingers dug into his hair, grasping a handful as her body shuddered its release. Another perfect orgasm. Maybe all it took was the perfect man.

  Jake lowered her legs to the floor and stood with a cocky grin, his finger stroking the wetness that had gathered where his tongue had just been. “When you’re gone,” he said, his lips brushing her ear, “I’ll dream of the taste of you – the feel of you.”

  She would do the same.

  Sweeping her up in his arms, Jake carried her to the bed and lowered her on the worn quilt.

  Reaching up, she ran her fingers along the scar on his cheek in a loving caress. The handsome, self-exiled loner whose life she’d literally fallen into. And now she’d fallen again – in love. “Give me more to dream about my brave, sexy cowboy.”

  * * *

  Standing at the kitchen window, Brianna couldn’t take her eyes off Jake. He had gone outside that morning to cut firewood and showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. The man’s physical endurance was impressive to say the least. She knew that firsthand. The memory of which nearly had her coming right then and there.

  Oh, what that man did to her.

  The clouds shifted outside, allowing the warming rays of the afternoon sun to caress Jake’s bare chest. Just as her hands and mouth had the night before. Sweat glistened and thick muscles bunched and flexed with every swing of the ax.

  With a groan of frustration, Brianna slid her hand down inside her pants, touching herself the way she wished he were at that moment.

  Closing her eyes, she stroked her heated flesh and imagined it was Jake’s long fingers sweeping through her cum-dampened pussy.

  “Sorry to interrupt such a sweet moment, darlin’...”

  Her eyes flew open with a startled gasp. Yanking her hand free of her pants, Brianna turned to find Jake standing in the doorway. “I...I was...”

  “Thinking about me,” he said with a grin as he closed the door behind him. “You can finish up later. Right now we’ve got company.”

  “Company?” she said, unable to hide the worry in her voice. “Deke?”

  “Worse,” he said, looking oddly amused.

  What could be worse than a crazed murderer bent on revenge? “Who?”

  “A whole wagonload of prying old biddies.”

  “The women from town?”

  “Told you they’d be out to check on you and it appears they brought reinforcements.” He reached for the door.

  “How many?” she called out.

  “Two on top of the two who nearly shot me,” he teased. “I’ll be out chopping wood if you need me.”

  “Jake...”

  He turned, his dark, sensual gaze meeting hers.

  “Don’t you think you should put a shirt on?”

  He glanced down, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Why?” he asked, looking up at her. “Don’t wanna share your ‘husband’ with other females?”

  Hell yes. “Oh, please. I just know how sensitive women from this time period are about...” Her gaze drifted down his bare, chiseled chest. “Seeing a man half naked. You wouldn’t want them fainting all over your front yard.”

  “Fainting?” He chuckled. “No, can’t say I’d want that. Why don’t you go outside and greet our guests while I get cleaned up and make myself more presentable?”

  “Me?” she gasped, looking down at her clothes. “Can’t we just pretend we’re not home?”

  “Too late,” he said. “I’m sure they saw me step inside.”

  What if she said something she shouldn’t? “But I—”

  “You could always take off your clothes and crawl into my bed to wait for me. I’ll go tell them they’ll have to come back some other time. I’m fixing to fuck my wife.”

  “Jake!”

  “We’re newlyweds, darlin’,” he reminded her with a wiggle of his dark brows. “Reckon they’ll understand, considering the fine specimen of manhood you’re married to.”

  If he were Alex, she might have believed he meant that. But Jake wasn’t conceited. Open and honest, yes, but not the least bit stuck on himself. He was, however, enjoying her discomfort far too much. Well, two could play that game.

  “I’ll bet they’ll be even more understanding when I go out there and confide to them that my sexier-than-sin husband is all talk and no action.”

  “Sexier than sin, hmmm?” No sooner were the words out of his mouth when his grin faded. “Now hold on a minute. What do you mean no action?”

  Raising her chin, Brianna flashed him a taunting smile of her own and started for the door. “Don’t worry, Jake. I’m sure keeping a wife satisfied in bed isn’t top priority for husbands in your time period.”

  He reached past her, barring her escape.

  She stared at the large hand on the door in front of her, her smile widening. “Was there something else?”

  He stepped forward, trapping her body between his and the door. Lowering his mouth to her ear, he whispered huskily, “If you really were my wife, Brianna, I promise you’d be more than satisfied in our marriage bed.”

  She shuddered, knowing it to be the tru
th. But thanks to the twist of fate that had brought her there, thanks to Deke and his unrelenting quest for revenge, she would never be that wife.

  She glanced back over her shoulder with a smile. “But they don’t know that. And you know us females. We like having something to gossip about.”

  He spun her around to face him. “Reckon, I’d best go greet our guests with you.”

  Her gaze left his face to trail down his broad, very bare chest. “What about your shirt?”

  “Let them get the vapors. It’ll serve them right for showing up uninvited.”

  Those women wouldn’t be the only ones having vapors. Laughing, she let him lead her outside, admiring his broad, muscular back and the lean, hard ass encased in denim.

  “After you, darlin’,” he motioned her on past him. “They’re here for you.”

  No, they were here for him if she were to judge by the looks on the women’s faces as they eyed her half-dressed ‘husband’.

  Jake watched his ‘wife’ sashay her way out to greet the arriving gaggle of female geese. If the smile on her face when she’d walked away was any indication, she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by his threats. It appeared he really had lost his edge. What sort of Ranger couldn’t even give a woman pause for thought? Hell.