Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “You’re turned on? How can that be when—ohh!”
He nudged her silky hot center with the tip of his cock. “I’m so fucking turned on I can barely stand it.” His words were more of a rumble than anything as he tried his damnedest not to come. When she spread her legs further, then wrapped them around his, he groaned. When she lifted her hips, circling them ever so slightly so that he slid in her pussy another inch, he thought he might die. She was so hot, so fucking tight.
A tiny whimper came from her, and he watched her eyes widen, her lips part. He wasn’t hurting her was he?
“Neela?”
“More,” she whispered, gazing into his eyes. “I want all of you.” Her hands roamed over his shoulders, down his back. When he didn’t move, she grabbed his ass. Sharp nails dug into his flesh as she arched against him. She moaned. It was his undoing.
He surged upward, seating himself fully inside her. She was so tight her pussy felt like a fist squeezing him. “Oh, God,” he groaned. If he moved he’d never last. He was on edge, his balls drawn up tight, his cock already pulsing with pre-cum.
Neela panted. Her hot, quick breaths were sweet against his fevered cheeks. “Travis.” The word was a whisper, a plea.
“I’m so close,” he growled. “I want you with me.”
She whimpered. “Kiss me.”
With the suaveness of a rutting bull, he attacked her mouth, his tongue thrusting inside. Her fingernails bit into his shoulders, and her hips surged upward, taking him that final step.
Without a thought, he pounded into her again and again, his arms shaking, his muscles clenched against release. Knowing she tasted herself on his mouth, and hearing her moan of approval, drove him insane. Her sensuous movements met each of his powerful thrusts.
Her mouth ripped from his, her heels dug into the mattress, and she came with a cry as she arched against him. Her fingernails scored his shoulders. Her muscles tightened around him, squeezing, pulsing, tugging.
He buried his face against her throat, breathed in jasmine and sex, and came with a harsh shout. Pressing her body into the mattress, he wanted to spend eternity right here, with no distinction between his body and his Neela’s.
Rolling to his side, he took her with him. He was lightheaded, a little dizzy. Her inner muscles contracted around his slowly softening dick, and he pressed into her as much as he could. She shivered. Sighed. Tucked her head under his chin and wrapped her arm around him.
God, it felt good. Not just the sex, but also her touch. Her fingers drew idle designs on his shoulder blade. It had been so long.
Sure, there had been a few women since Theresa died. He was a healthy red-blooded male and, once in a while, his own hand just wouldn’t do. But they’d been quick fucks in a seedy motel with anonymous women he’d picked up in the tavern. There’d been no cuddling. No tenderness. Hell, most of the time he hadn’t even kissed them.
Fuck! Oh, God. Oh shit!
And he sure as hell hadn’t had unprotected sex with them!
He went cold inside. His gut clenched, and he thought he might be sick. How could he have been so irresponsible?
Neela raised up on her elbow. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was hoarse, husky. So damned sexy. “Why so tense?”
He licked his dry lips and tried to form a tactful way to say what needed to be said. His mind drew a blank. Okay, go for blunt, not tactful. This was serious, after all. Really serious. “We didn’t use a condom.”
“Oh.” She ran her fingers through his chest hair. It tickled, and it aroused. “I’m clean, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve had all the tests, and you’re the first man I’ve been with in...” Her gaze slid away, focused on the hand teasing his right nipple. “...a really long time.”
He caught her fingers, trapped them against his chest. “Babe. I don’t want to sound like an ass here, but the last thing I need right now is another mouth to feed.”
She swallowed. The sound was loud in the deathly silent room. Her head dipped forward a bit until her hair fell from behind her shoulder and obscured her face from him. “Don’t worry. That won’t happen.”
He released a pent-up breath. Still, he had to ask, to know for sure. “You’re on the pill?”
She shook her head slowly. “I’m sterile.” Her voice hitched. There was no mistaking the pain behind those two words.
Releasing her hand, he brushed the hair away from her face so he could see her. She wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes were closed, but a single tear clung to the edge of her eyelash.
His heart melted. Completely. He gathered her in his arms and held her tight against his chest. She let out a shaky breath and clung to him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She rubbed her cheek against him, a nod of acknowledgment, but she didn’t say a word.
He held her then. Silent. Still. Giving her comfort and himself time to adjust to the news.
Travis’ mind swam with questions. About her injuries. Why she couldn’t have babies. What she’d been doing over the last few years. But mostly he wanted to know that she was okay now, and to find out exactly why she’d come to the Rocking K.
Just when he was going to question her, he felt all the tension leave her body, softening her against him. And then he heard the slow, steady rhythm of her breath. Had she fallen asleep?
Yeah. He nestled her closer to his side and kept quiet. The questions could wait for another time.
He ran his fingers through her hair, bent his head and breathed in her flowery, spicy, womanly scent. And thought again how perfectly they fit together. How was he going to let her go when she decided to return to her life in England?
Chapter Nine
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
Travis watched blood ooze from the scratch on his forearm. His brain still stuck back in bed with Neela, he was going to wind up killing himself before the day was out. Already he’d slammed his thumb with a hammer while fixing a loose board in the barn, almost knocked himself out when he’d hit his head on the underside of the truck while changing the oil, and now scratched the shit out of his arm wrestling with barbed wire.
“Somethin’ eatin’ at you?”
He glared at his smirking brother. “Go to hell.”
Jeff chuckled and tossed him a clean rag from the toolbox in the back of the truck. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite so discombobulated. What’s up?”
“Not enough sleep last night,” he snapped, swiping at his arm. “Chris had night terrors again.” No way in hell was he going to tell Jeff he hadn’t gotten enough sleep because he’d been screwing the housekeeper. And that said housekeeper had been as sweet and gentle as Chris’ own mother, even though the child’s screams had awakened her from a deep sleep.
“Oh. Sorry, man.” Jeff opened a bottle of peroxide and poured it over Travis’ arm. “Thought maybe it had something to do with Neela.”
He grunted, a noncommittal response, while he watched the peroxide foam in the wound. It wasn’t deep, but it burned like a bitch. At least he was current with his tetanus shots.
“She’s one mighty fine woman,” Jeff said. He recapped the bottle and tossed it into the toolbox. “I mean, she’d been a cute kid the last time she was here, but she sure blossomed into something spectacular. Nice curves, and those eyes of hers. Damn, but she’s hotter than a habanero chili pepper.”
Stifling the urge to punch his brother in the nose, Travis raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure your very pregnant wife would love to hear you say that. All she does is complain how fat she is.”
Jeff laughed. “Carol thinks Neela’s hot, too. Even told me so. Besides, my wife knows I like her rather ample backside mighty fine and doesn’t worry about me looking once in a while.” Jeff pulled on his work gloves and reached for the tangled barbed wire. “You, on the other hand,” he said over his shoulder, “are a single, healthy man who’s been living in the same house with an ex-supermodel for almost two weeks. Y
ou telling me you never noticed?”
After making sure he was no longer bleeding, Travis wrapped his forearm in the bandana he pulled from his hip pocket and tied it off with the help of his teeth. “I’ve noticed,” he admitted. “Who wouldn’t?” After pulling on his own gloves, he grabbed the other end of the wire and helped Jeff uncoil it.
“Uh huh. And the boys sure like her. The other night at Josie’s while you two were snarling at each other out on the dance floor, Aaron informed me that they were gonna keep her.”
“Yeah?” he said, doing his darnedest to act nonchalant. “Not exactly their call, now is it?”
Jeff stopped and stood up straight, his hands on his hips. “Nope. Not their call. But I’m kinda wondering how you feel about it.”
Ignoring his big brother’s inquisitive gaze, Travis shrugged and wound the wire around the wooden fence post. “What makes you think she’d be any different from any other woman who’s spent time on the Rocking K? She’ll tire of the seclusion, of the heat. It’s a hundred miles to the nearest mall, and the same distance to eat anything but barbeque ribs and fries. Neela’s not exactly a down-home type of girl like Carol.”
Jeff snorted. Travis turned a glare on him.
“Boy, that’s the most words I’ve heard you speak at one time in years. With all the denying you’re doing, I’d say something’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Fuck you.” Travis grabbed the fence nails and a hammer from the lowered tailgate of the truck.
Jeff chuckled. “You kiss your children with that dirty mouth of yours?”
Travis laughed and shoved Jeff’s shoulder as he stalked by him. “Get back to work. Light’s a-wastin’.”
* * * * *
Carol and Jeff dropped by for cookies and milk after supper. Carol claimed to be going stir crazy—she was supposed to be on bed rest—but Jeff complained she wouldn’t stay put. Neela knew she was the reason they’d stopped over, though. Carol had taken her to the side and asked how she was doing, how she and Travis were getting along.
Neela had shrugged and said, “Fine,” but Carol hadn’t looked convinced.
That morning at breakfast, after Chris had calmed down from his nightmare and fallen back to sleep, and the other two boys were dressed and ready for the day, Travis had hardly glanced in her direction. He’d hugged the boys goodbye, but had walked out the door without so much as a “Have a nice day.”
His nonchalance had hurt, she admitted to herself now as she picked up scattered toys and tucked them in the wooden toy box in one corner of the living room. Dinner had been little better than breakfast. It was as if last night hadn’t happened. Had last night meant absolutely nothing to him? Had he just been horny and she was available?
She couldn’t convince herself of that. A guy who just wanted to get his balls off didn’t do the things he’d done. Wasn’t as tender as he’d been. Didn’t hold her like a cherished gift all night.
“Hey.”
She jumped at Travis’ voice and dropped a stuffed rabbit.
Grinning as he came toward her, he retrieved the animal and tossed it in the toy box. “You okay?”
She frowned. “I’m fine.” She ran her fingers over her forehead. “Tired.”
He nodded and reached for her, but she stepped back, out of his reach.
“What’s wrong?” His own brow furrowed.
Why did you ignore me all day? Why are you being nice now? She shrugged. “I should go to bed.”
“You’re upset with me.”
She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. What was the point in lying? What good would covering her feelings do? She was a terrible liar and, since he’d already guessed... “Yeah. I am.”
He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on the heels of his scuffed boots. “Okay. Let me have it.”
Was this guy serious? He wanted to know why she was pissed off with him? She’d spent the day stewing about his ignoring her that morning, then spent the evening feeling sorry for herself. Now she was just angry. Angry at him for being a jerk and herself for falling so madly in love with him.
“How could you have been so sweet last night and then totally ignore me today?” My God, she thought, she sounded like an absolute shrew. It wasn’t as if he’d promised her anything beyond sex. She’d known going into it that things wouldn’t change between them just because they’d spent the night together.
She turned away, stared out the window at the barn across the yard lit up by floodlights, and rubbed her forehead again. She had the bugger of all headaches brewing.
She heard him sigh. Heard the soft thud of his boots as he moved up behind her. Felt the warmth of his body very close to her back. Saw his reflection in the window.
“I wasn’t ignoring you, princess. I was trying to keep from getting a hard-on while eating breakfast.”
He leaned closer. His breath against her ear sent shivers racing down her spine to her core where, already, arousal stirred to life.
“Every time I looked at you, all I could remember were the little erotic sounds you made while I ate you. Those cries of ecstasy as you came in my mouth again and again.”
Her nipples hardened, sending a wave of painful pleasure arcing through her. She drew in a shaky breath.
He raised his hands, placing them flat against the window, caging her in. “I thought a day working my ass into the ground would ease the tension. But as soon as I walked in the door tonight and saw you at the sink up to your elbows in soapsuds, all I wanted was to feel your hot little hands on me.”
He licked her earlobe, nuzzled her neck. Her head fell to the side, giving him better access to her flesh. “It nearly killed me when Jeff and Carol showed up, because I’d planned to pounce on you as soon as the kids were in bed.”
A bubbly laugh burst out of her and she turned, her body grazing his. They both sucked in their breaths. Her breasts felt super-sensitive, and there was no mistaking the thick ridge of his hardened cock behind the zipper of his jeans.
“Pounce on me?”
He grinned and nodded. “Didn’t you see me practically shoving Jeff out the door a few minutes ago? I thought they’d never leave.”
Face to face, body to body, him leaning slightly over, her lips were only an inch from his. She stared at his mouth, his strong, masculine jaw. She remembered what that five o’clock shadow had felt like against her belly, her breasts, her pussy.
“You don’t regret last night, then?” she asked, hating that she sounded so blasted insecure. But she was.
Travis was the first man she’d been with since the incident, the first man to actually see her entire body. She had to know that it truly hadn’t bothered him.
“Babe, if I didn’t have three boys and a ranch to keep running, nothing—and I mean absolutely nothing in the world—could have dragged me out of your bed this morning.”
Chapter Ten
He moved closer, bending his arms, and brushed his lips over hers. Just that little touch, barely a kiss, made her sizzle more than full-blown intercourse had with any other man she’d ever known. Including Warren, a man she’d thought she’d spend the rest of her life with.
“I’d planned to wake you up real slow,” he said, his breath a tantalizing whisper that tickled her ear. “I’d have slid my hand down your bare back, over your gorgeous ass, stopping to fondle for a few minutes. God, I didn’t have enough time to touch last night. I was so damn hot for you.”
Another brush of lips. A slight thrust of his hips against her abdomen to let her know how engorged his cock was already. She grabbed hold of his belt loops to steady herself so her knees didn’t buckle.
“Then I was going to slip my fingers down between your thighs and gently tease you until you were wet. By then you’d be awake, but pretending to sleep so I wouldn’t stop. I’d slide my fingers—”
She turned her face and caught his bottom lip between her teeth with a grunt of frustration, pulling his body flush against hers as
her arms went around his waist. He took the hint, wrapped his arms around her, and took the kiss down a deep, passionate path. His tongue teased, delved, and danced.
He tasted so good. Smelled so good. Felt so right.
When they pulled apart, they were both panting. Neela laid her head against his shoulder. “Why the hell are you talking about it and not doing it?”
He chuckled, a beautiful sound that rumbled through his chest and vibrated through her. “Damn good question, princess.” He scooped her up into his arms, but this time instead of yelping, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“You know, I think I like this manly, chauvinistic side to you. No one’s ever carried me to bed before.”
His grin shone with mischief. “I like that.” He moved toward the stairs.
“Being called a chauvinist?” she teased.
With a chuckle he caught her lips again. “One thing hasn’t changed about you in the last twelve years,” he said as he carried her up the stairs. “You’ve still got a smart mouth.” He set her on her feet next to her bed and turned on the bedside lamp. “Tonight, I want to see you.”
Not ready for the unveiling of her body under the glare of a light, she pulled open his jeans button and slowly lowered the zipper. She reached in and guided his thick, long cock out of his underwear. Travis sucked in a harsh breath when her fingers closed around him. She grinned and went to her knees.
“First...” She licked the velvet tip of his penis. He tasted of heat, salt and musk. She groaned as her own arousal burned through her like a wild fire. She couldn’t believe she had this effect on him, that she turned him on this much. “...I get to see you.”
His fingers laced through her hair as he sighed. “Ahh, princess, you don’t—”
She took him into her mouth and swirled her tongue around the hard length of his penis. She gripped the base of his rigid shaft and tongued the underside.
Anna Leigh Keaton - Risking It All Page 5
