by Nora Roberts
The horses’ sides were heaving when they drew them apart. The rain continued to sluice down. She heard Gil give a cackle of laughter over something one of the men said under his breath. Jillian forgot them, giving her full attention to the mare. Soothing and murmuring, she walked her back into the stables.
The light was dim, the air heavy with the scent of dry hay and oiled leather. After removing the bridle, Jillian began to groom the mare with long slow strokes until the quivering stopped.
“There now, love.” Jillian nuzzled her face into Delilah’s neck. “There’s not much any of us can do about their bodies.”
“Is that how you look at it?”
Jillian turned her head to see Aaron standing at the entrance to the stall. He was drenched and apparently unconcerned about it. She saw his eyes make a short but very thorough scan of her face—a habit he’d developed since their discovery in the canyon. She knew he looked for signs of strain and somewhere along the line had stopped resenting it.
“I’m not a horse,” she returned easily and patted Delilah’s neck.
Aaron came into the stall and ran his hands over the mare himself. She was dry and still. “She all right?”
“Mmmm. We were right not to field breed them,” she added. “Both of them are spirited enough to have done damage.” Laughing, she turned to him. “The foal’s going to be a champion. I can feel it. There was something special out there just now, something important.” On impulse, she threw her arms around Aaron’s neck and kissed him ardently.
Surprise held him very still. His hands came to her waist more in instinct than response. It was the first time she’d given him any spontaneous show of affection or offered him any part of herself without reluctance. The ache of need wove through him, throbbing with what he now understood was connected to passion but not exclusive of it.
She was still smiling when she drew away, but he wasn’t. Before the puzzlement over what was in his eyes had fully registered with her, Aaron drew her back against him and just held on. Jillian found the unexpected sweetness disconcerting and wonderful.
“Hadn’t you better see to Samson?” she murmured.
“My men have already taken him back.”
She rubbed her cheek against his wet shirt. They’d steal some time, she thought. An hour, a moment—just some time. “I’ll fix you some coffee.”
“Yeah.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they went back into the rain. “Heard anything from the sheriff?”
“Nothing new.”
They crossed the ranch yard together, both too accustomed to the elements to heed the rain as anything but necessary.
“It’s got the whole county in an uproar.”
“I know.” They paused at the kitchen door to rid themselves of muddy boots. Jillian ran a careless hand through her hair and scattered rain. “It might do more good than anything else. Every rancher I know or’ve heard of in this part of Montana’s got his eyes open. And any number over the border, from what I’m told. I’m toying with offering a reward.”
“Not a bad idea.” Aaron sat down at the table and stretched out long legs as Jillian brewed coffee. The rain was a constant soothing sound against the roof and windows. He found an odd comfort there in the gloomy light, in the warm kitchen. It might be like this if it were their ranch they were in rather than hers, or his. It might be like this if he could ever make her a permanent part of his life.
It took only a second for the thoughts to go through his head, and another for him to be jolted by them. Marriage. He was thinking marriage. He sat for a moment while the idea settled over him, not uncomfortably but inevitably. I’ll be damned, he thought and nearly laughed before he brought himself back to what she’d been saying.
“Let me do it,” he said briskly. She turned, words of refusal on the tip of her tongue. “Wait,” Aaron ordered. “Hear me out. My father got wind of the cut wire.” He watched her subside before she turned away for mugs. “Obviously it didn’t set well with him. These old stories between the Murdocks and Barons don’t need much fanning to come to life again. Some people are going to think, even if they don’t say, that he’s eating your beef.”
Jillian poured the coffee, then turned with a mug in each hand. “I don’t think it.”
“I know.” He gave her an odd look, holding out a hand. She placed a mug in it, but Aaron set it down on the table and lightly took her fingers. “That means a great deal to me.” Because she didn’t know how to respond to that tone, she didn’t respond at all but only continued to look down at him. “Jillian, this has set him back some. A few years ago the idea of people thinking he’d done something unethical or illegal would probably have pleased him. He’s not as strong as he was. Your grandfather was a rival, but he was also a contemporary, someone he understood, even respected. It would help if he could do something. I don’t like to ask for favors any more than you like to accept them.”
She looked down at their joined hands, both tanned, both lean and strong, yet hers was so easily swallowed up by his. “You love him very much.”
“Yes.” It was said very simply, in the same emotionless tone he’d used to tell her his father was dying. This time Jillian understood him better.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d stake the reward.”
He laced his fingers with hers. “Good.”
“Want some more coffee?”
“No.” That wicked light of humor shot into his eyes. “But I was thinking I should help you out of those wet clothes.”
With a laugh, Jillian sat down. “You know I’m still planning on beating out the Double M on July Fourth.”
“I was hoping you were planning on it,” Aaron returned easily. “But about doing it . . .”
“You a gambling man, Murdock?”
He lifted his brow. “It’s been said.”
“I’ve got fifty that says my Hereford bull will take the blue ribbon over anything you have to put against him.”
Aaron contemplated the dregs of his coffee as if considering. If everything he’d heard about Jillian’s bull was true, he was tolerably sure he was throwing money away. “Fifty,” he agreed and smiled. “And another fifty that says I beat your time in the calf roping.”
“My pleasure.” Jillian held out a hand to seal it.
“Are you competing in anything else?”
“I don’t think so.” She stretched her back, thinking what a luxury it was to sit stone still in the middle of the afternoon. “The barrel racing doesn’t much interest me and I know better than to try bronc riding.”
“Know better?”
“Two reasons. First the men would do a lot of muttering and complaining if I did. And second”—she grinned and shrugged—“I’d probably break my neck.”
It occurred to him that she wouldn’t have admitted the second to him even a week before. Laughing, he leaned over and kissed her. But the friendly kiss stirred something, and cupping the back of her neck, he kissed her again, lingeringly. “It’s your mouth,” he murmured while his fingertips toyed with her skin. “Once I get started on it, I can’t find a single reason to stop.”
Her breath fluttered unevenly through her lips, through his. “It’s the middle of the day.”
He smiled, then teased her tongue with the tip of his. “Yeah. Are you going to take me to bed?”
The eyes that were nearly closed opened again. In them he saw desire and confusion, a combination he found very much to his liking. “I have to check the—” His teeth nipped persuasively into her bottom lip.
“The what?” he whispered as her words ended on a little shiver.
“The, uh . . .” His lips were skimming over hers in something much more provocative than a kiss. The lazy caress of his tongue kept them moist. His fingers were very light on the back of her neck. Their knees were brushing. Somehow she could already feel the press of his body against hers and the issuing warmth the pressure always brought. “I can’t think,” she murmured.
It was what
he wanted. Or he wanted her to think of him and only him. For himself, he needed to know that she put him first this time, or at least her need for him. Over her ranch, her men, her cattle, her ambitions. If he could draw her feelings out to match his once, he might be able to do so again and again until she was as rashly in love with him as he was with her. “Why do you have to?” he asked and, rising, drew her to her feet. “You can feel.”
Yes, with her arms around him and her head cradled against his chest, she could feel. Emotions nudging at her, urging her to acknowledge them—needs, pressing and searingly urgent, demanding that she fulfill them. They were all connected to him, the hungers, the tiny fears, the wishes. She couldn’t deny them all. Perhaps, just this once, she didn’t need to.
“I want to make love with you.” She sighed with the words and nuzzled closer. “I can’t seem to stop wanting to.”
He tilted her head back so that he could see her face, then, half smiling, skimmed his thumb over her jaw. “In the middle of the day?”
She tossed the hair out of her eyes and settled her linked hands comfortably behind his neck. “I’m going to have you now, Murdock. Right now.”
He glanced at the tidy kitchen table and his grin was wicked. “Right now?”
“Your mind takes some unusual turns,” she commented. “I think I can give you time enough to get upstairs.” Releasing him, she walked over and flicked off the coffeepot. “If you hurry.” Even as he grinned, she crossed back to him. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she leaped up, locking her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. “You know where the stairs are?”
“I can find them.”
She pressed her lips to his throat. “Top of the stairs, second door on the right,” she told him as she began to please herself with his taste.
As Aaron wound through the house Jillian wondered what he would think or say if he knew she’d never done anything quite like this before. She’d come to realize that the man from her youth hadn’t been a lover, but an incident. It took more than one night to make a lover. She’d feel much too foolish telling Aaron he was the first—much too inadequate. How could she tell him that the first rush of passion had loosened the locks she’d put on parts of herself? How could she trust her own feelings when they were so muddled and new?
She rested her head on his shoulder a moment and closed her eyes. For once in her life she was going to enjoy without worrying about the consequences. Shifting, she leaned back so that she could smile at him. “You’re out of shape, Murdock. One flight of stairs and your heart’s pounding.”
“So’s yours,” he pointed out. “And you had a ride up.”
“Must be the rain,” she said loftily.
“Your clothes’re still damp.” He moved into the room she’d directed him to and glanced around briefly.
It was consistent with her style—understated femininity, practicality. It was a room without frills or pastels, but he’d have known it for a woman’s. It had none of the feminine disorder of his sister’s old room at the ranch, nor the subtle elegance of his mother’s. Like the woman he still held, Aaron found the room unique.
Plain walls, plain floors, easy colors, no clutter. No, Jillian wasn’t a woman to clutter her life. She wouldn’t give herself the time. Perhaps it was the few indulgences she’d allowed herself that gave him the most insight.
A stoneware vase with fluted edges held pussy willow—soft brown nubs that wouldn’t quite be considered a flower. There was a small carved box on her dresser he was certain would play some soft tune when the top was lifted. She might lift it sometimes when she was alone, or lonely. On the wall was a watercolor with all the bleeding passion of sunset. How carefully, how painstakingly, he thought, she’d controlled whatever romanticism she was prone to. How surprised she’d be to know that because she did, it only shouted out louder.
Recognizing his survey, Jillian cocked her head. “There’s not a lot to see in here.”
“You’d be surprised,” he murmured.
The enigmatic answer made her glance around herself. “I don’t spend a lot of time in here,” she began, realizing it was rather sparse even compared to his room in the white frame house.
“You misunderstood me.” Aaron let his hands run up her sides as she slid down. “I’d’ve known this was your room. It even smells like you.”
She laughed, pleased without knowing why. “Are you being poetic?”
“Maybe.”
Lifting a hand, she toyed with the top button of his shirt. “Want me to help you out of those wet clothes?”
“Absolutely.”
She began to oblige him, then shot him an amused look as she slid the shirt over his shoulders. “If you expect me to seduce you, you’re going to be disappointed.”
His stomach muscles were already knotted with need. “I am?”
“I don’t know any tricks.” Before he could comment, she launched herself at him, overbalancing him so that they tumbled back onto the bed. “No wiles,” she continued. “No subtlety.”
“You’re a pushy lady, all right.” He could feel the heat of her body through her damp shirt.
“I like the way you look, Murdock.” She trailed her fingers through his thick dark hair as she studied his face. “It used to annoy the hell out of me, but now it’s kind of nice.”
“The way I look?”
“That I like the way you look. It’s ruthless,” she decided, skimming a finger down his jawline. “And when you smile it can be very charming—the kind of charm a smart woman recognizes as highly dangerous.”
He grinned, cupping her hips in his hands. “Did you?”
“I’m a smart woman.” With a little laugh, she rubbed her nose against his. “I know a rattlesnake when I see one.”
“But not enough to keep your distance.”
“Apparently not—then I don’t always look for a long, safe ride.”
But a short, rocky one, he thought as her lips came down to his. He’d be happy to give her the wisps of danger and trouble, he decided, drawing her closer. But she was going to find out he intended it to last.
He started to shift her, but then her lips were racing over his face. Soft, light, but with a heat that seeped right into him. Her long, limber body seemed almost weightless over his, yet he could feel every line and curve. Moisture still clung to her hair and reminded him of the first time, when he’d dragged her to the ground, consumed with need and fury. Now he was helpless against her rapid assault on his senses. No, she had no wiles, nor he the patience for them.
He could hear the rain patter rhythmically against the window. He could smell it on her. When his lips brushed through her hair, he could taste it. It was almost as though they were alone in a quiet field, with the scent of wet grass and the rain slipping over their skin. The light was gray and indistinct; her mouth was vivid wherever it touched him.
She hadn’t known it could be so exciting to weaken a man with herself. Feeling the strength drain from him made her almost light-headed with power. She’d met him on equal terms, and from time to time to her disadvantage, but never when she’d been so certain she could dominate. Her laugh was low and confident as it whispered along his skin, warm and sultry as it brushed over his lips.
He seemed content to lie still while she learned of him. She thought the air grew thicker. Perhaps that alone weighed him down and kept him from challenging her control. Her hands were eager, rushing here then there to linger over some small fascination: tight cords of muscle that ran down his upper arms to bunch and gather at her touch; smooth, taut skin that was surprisingly soft over his rib cage; the narrow, raised scar along his hipbone.
“Where’d you get this?” she murmured, outlining it with a fingertip.
“Brahma,” he managed as she tugged his jeans down infinitesimally lower. “Jillian—” But her lips drifted over his again and silenced him.
“A bull?”
“Rodeo, when I had more guts than brains.”
She h
eard the sound of pleasure in his throat as her mouth journeyed down. His body was a treasure of delight to her. In the soft rainy light she could see it, brown and hard against the plain, serviceable bedspread. Rangy and loose limbed, it was made for riding well and long, toughened by physical work, burnished by the elements. Tiny jumping thrills coursed through her as she thought that it was hers to touch and taste, to look at as long as she liked.
She took a wandering route down him, feeling his skin heat and pulse as she stripped him. The room was filled with the sound of rain and quickening breathing. It was all she heard. The sweet scent of passion enveloped her—a fragrance mixed of the essence of both of them. Intimate. She could taste desire on his skin, a heady flavor that made her greedy when she felt the thud of his heart under her tongue. Even when her excitement grew until her blood was racing, she could have luxuriated in him for hours. The sharp urgency she’d once felt had mellowed into a glowing contentment. She pleasured him. It was more than she’d believed she could do for anyone.
There were flames in his stomach, spreading. God, she was like a drug and he was lost, half dreaming while his flesh was burning up. Her fingers were so cool as they tortured him, her mouth so hot. He’d never explored his own vulnerabilities; it had always been more important to work around them or ignore them altogether. Now he had no choice and he found the sensation incredible.
She aroused, teased, and withdrew only to arouse again. Her enervating, openmouthed kisses ranged over him while her hands stroked and explored lazily, finding point after sensitive point until he trembled. No woman had ever made him tremble. Even as this thought ran through his ravaged mind, she caused him to do so again. Then he knew she was driving him mad.
The wind kicked up, hurling rain against the window, then retreating with a distant howl. Something crazed sprang into him. Roughly he grabbed her, rolling over and pinning her, her arms above her head. His breathing was labored as he looked down.
Her chin was up, her hair spread out, her eyes glowing. There was no fear on her face, and nothing of submission. Though her own breathing came quickly, there was challenge in the look she gave him. A dare. He could take her, take her anyway he chose. And when he did so, he’d be taken as well.
