by Nora Roberts
He was relentless, spinning her beyond time and space the moment he could touch her flesh. She let herself go. Every touch, every frenzied caress, every deep, greedy kiss, took her further from the strict, practical world she’d formed for herself. Once she’d sought solitude and speed when she’d needed freedom. Now she needed only Aaron.
She felt his hair brush over her bare shoulder and savored even that simple contact. It brought a sweetness flowing into her while the burn of his mouth brought the fire. Only with him had she realized it was possible to have both. Only with him had she realized the great, yawning need in herself to have both. Her moan came as much from the revelation as from the passion.
Did she know how giving she was? How incredibly arousing? Aaron had to fight the need to take her quickly, ruthlessly, while they were both still half dressed. No woman had ever sapped his control the way she could. One look, one touch, and he was hers so completely—How could she not know?
Her body flowed, fluid as water, heady as wine, under his hands. Her lips had the punch of an electric current and the texture of silk. Could any woman remain unaware of such a deadly combination?
As if to catch his breath, he took his lips to her throat and burrowed there. He drew in the fragrance from her bath, some subtle woman’s scent that lingered there, waiting to entice a lover. It was then he remembered the bruises. Aaron shook his head, trying to clear it.
“I’m hurting you.”
“No.” She drew him back, close. “No, you’re not. You never do. I’m not fragile, Aaron.”
“No?” He lifted his head so that he could see her face. There was the delicate line of bone she couldn’t deny, the honey-touched skin that remained soft after hours in the sun. The frailty that came and went in her eyes at the right word, the right touch. “Sometimes you are,” he murmured. “Let me show you.”
“No—”
But even as she protested, his lips skimmed hers, so gentle, so reassuring. It did nothing to smother the fire, only banked it while he showed her what magic there could be with mouth to mouth. With his fingers he traced her face as though he might never see it with his eyes again—over the curve of cheekbone, down the slim line of jaw.
Patient, soft, murmuring, he seduced where no seduction was needed. Tender, thorough, easy, he let his lips show her what he hadn’t yet spoken. The hand on his shoulder slid bonelessly down to his waist. He touched the tip of her tongue with his, then went deeper, slowly, in a soul-wrenching kiss that left them both limp. Then he began a careful worship of her body. She floated.
Was there any kind of pleasure he couldn’t show her? Jillian wondered. Was this humming world just one more aspect to passion? She wanted desperately to give him something in return, yet her body was so heavy, weighed down with sensations. Sandalwood and leather—it would always bring him to her mind. The ridge of callus on his hand where the reins rubbed daily—nothing felt more perfect against her skin. He shifted so that she sank deeper into the cushions, and he with her.
She could taste him—and what she realized must be a wisp of herself on his lips. His cheek grazed hers, not quite smooth. She wanted to burrow against it. He whispered her name and generated a new layer of warmth.
Even when his hands began to roam, the excitement stayed hazy. She couldn’t break through the mists, and no longer tried. Her skin was throbbing, but it went deeper, to the blood and bone. His mouth was light at her breast, his tongue clever enough to make her shudder, then settle, then shudder again.
He kept the pace easy, though she began to writhe under him. Time dripped away as he gave himself the pleasure of showing her each new delight. He knew afternoon was ending only by the way the light slanted over her face. The quiet was punctuated only with murmurs and sighs. He’d never felt more alone with her.
He took her slowly, savoring each moment, each movement, until there could be no more.
As she lay beneath him, Jillian watched the light shift toward dusk. It had been like a dream, she thought, like something you sigh over in the middle of the night when your wishes take control. Should it move her more than the fire and flash they usually brought each other? Somehow she knew what she’d just experienced had been more dangerous.
Aaron shifted, and though she made no objection to his weight, sat up, bringing her with him. “I like the way you stay soft and warm after I make love to you.”
“It’s never been just like that before,” she murmured.
The words moved him; he couldn’t stop it. “No.” Tilting back her head, he kissed her again. “It will be again.”
Perhaps because she wanted so badly to hold on, to stay, to depend, she drew away. “I’m never sure how to take you.” Something warned her it was time to play it light. She was out of her depth—far, far out of her depth.
“In what way?”
She gave in to the urge to hold him again, just to feel the way his hand slid easily up and down her bare back. Reluctantly she slipped out of his arms and pulled on her shirt. “You’re a lot of different people, Aaron Murdock. Every time I think I might get to know who you are, you’re someone else.”
“No, I’m not.” Before she could button it, Aaron took her shirtfront and pulled her back to him. “Different moods don’t make different people.”
“Maybe not.” She disconcerted him by kissing the back of his hand. “But I still can’t get a handle on you.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I’m a simple person.”
He stared at her a moment as she continued to dress. “Are you joking?”
Because there was a laugh in his voice, she looked over, half serious, half embarrassed. “No, I am. I have to know where I stand, what my options are, what’s expected of me. As long as I know I can do my job and take care of what’s mine, I’m content.”
He watched her thoughtfully as he pulled on his jeans. “Your job’s what’s vital in your life?”
“It’s what I know,” she countered. “I understand the land.”
“And people?”
“I’m not really very good with people—a lot of people. Unless I understand them.”
Aaron pulled his shirt on but left it open as he crossed to her. “And I’m one you don’t understand?”
“Only sometimes,” she murmured. “I guess I understand you best when I’m annoyed with you. Other times . . .” She was sinking even deeper and started to turn away.
“Other times,” Aaron prompted, holding on to her arms.
“Other times I don’t know. I never expected to get involved with you—this way.”
He ran his thumbs over the pulses at the inside of her elbows. They weren’t steady any longer. “This way, Jillian?”
“I didn’t expect that we’d be lovers. I never expected—” Why was her heart pounding like this again, so soon? “To want you,” she finished.
“Didn’t you?” There was something about the way she looked at him—not quite sure of herself when he knew she was fighting to be—that made him reckless. “I wanted you from the first minute I saw you, riding hell for leather on that mare. There were other things I didn’t expect. Finding those soft places, on you, in you.”
“Aaron—”
He shook his head when she tried to stop him. “Thinking of you in the middle of the day, the middle of the night. Remembering just the way you say my name.”
“Don’t.”
He felt her start to tremble before she tried to pull away. “Damn it, it’s time you heard what I’ve been carrying around inside of me. I love you, Jillian.”
Panic came first, even when she began to build up the reserve. “No, you don’t have to say that.” Her voice was sharp and fast. “I don’t expect to hear those kinds of things.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He shook her once in frustration, and a second time in anger. “I know what I have to say. I don’t care if you expect to hear it or not, because you’re going to.”
She hung on to her temper becau
se she knew it was emotion that brought on betrayal. If she hadn’t had her pride, she would have told him just how much those words, that easily said empty phrase hurt her. “Aaron, I told you before I don’t need the soft words. I don’t even like them. Whatever’s between us—”
“What is between us?” he demanded. He hadn’t known he could be hurt, not like this. Not so he could all but feel the blood draining out of him where he stood. He’d just told a woman he loved her—the only woman, the first time. And she was answering him with ice. “You tell me what there is between us. Just this?” He swung a hand toward the couch, still rumpled from their bodies. “Is that it for you, Jillian?”
“I don’t—” There was a tug-of-war going on inside of her, so fierce she was breathless from it. “It’s all I thought you—” Frightened, she dragged both hands through her hair. Why was he doing this now, when she was just beginning to think she understood what he wanted from her, what she needed from him? “I don’t know what you want. But I—I just can’t give you any more than I already have. It’s already more than I’ve ever given to anyone else.”
His fingers loosened on her arms one by one, then dropped away. They were a match in many ways, and pride was one of them. Aaron watched her almost dispassionately as he buttoned his shirt. “You’ve let something freeze inside you, woman. If all you want’s a warm body on a cold night, you shouldn’t have much trouble. Personally, I like a little something more.”
She watched him walk out of the door, heard the sound of his truck as it broke the silence. The sun was just slipping over the horizon.
Chapter Twelve
He worked until his muscles ached and he could think about little more than easing them. He probably drank too much. He rode the cattle, hours in the saddle, rounded strays, and ate more dust than food. He spent the long, sweaty days of summer at the line camp, driving himself from sunup to sundown. Sometimes, only sometimes, he managed to push her out of his mind.
For three weeks Aaron was hell to be around. Or so his men mumbled whenever he was out of earshot. It was a woman, they told each other. Only a woman could drive a man to the edge, and then give him that gentle tap over. The Baron woman’s name came up. Well, Murdocks and Barons had never mixed, so it was no wonder. No one’d expected much to come of that but hot tempers and bad feelings.
If Aaron heard the murmurs, he ignored them. He’d come up to the camp to work—and he was going to do just that until she was out of his system. No woman was going to make him crawl. He’d told her he loved her, and she’d shoved his words, his emotions, right back in his face. Not interested.
Aaron dropped a new fence post into the ground as the sweat rolled freely down his back and sides. Maybe she was the first woman he’d ever loved—that didn’t mean she’d be the last. He came down hard on the post with a sledgehammer, hissing with the effort.
He hadn’t meant to tell her—not then, not that way. Somehow, the words had started rolling and he hadn’t been able to stop them. Had she wanted them all tied up with a ribbon, neat and fancy? Cursing, he came down with the hammer again so that the post vibrated and the noise sang out. Maybe he had more finesse than he’d shown her, and maybe he could’ve used it. With someone else. Someone who didn’t make his feelings come up and grab him by the throat.
Where in God’s name had he ever come up with the idea that she had those soft parts, that sweet vulnerability under all that starch and fire? Must’ve been crazy, he told himself as he began running fresh wire. Jillian Baron was a cold, single-minded woman who cared more about her head count than any real emotion.
And he was almost sick with loving her.
He gripped the wire hard enough so that it bit through the leather of his glove and into his hand. He cursed again. He’d just have to get over it. He had his own land to tend.
Pausing, he looked out. It rolled, oceans of grass, high with summer, green and rippling. The sky was a merciless blue, and the sun beat down, strong and clean. It could be enough for a man—these thousands of acres. His cattle were fat and healthy, the yearlings growing strong. In a few weeks they’d round them up, drive them into Miles City. When those long days were over, the men would celebrate. It was their right to. And so would he, Aaron told himself grimly. So, by God, would he.
He’d have given half of what was his just to get her out of his mind for one day.
At dusk he washed off the day’s sweat and dirt. He could smell the night’s meal through the open windows of the cabin. Good red meat. Someone was playing a guitar and singing of lonely, lamented love. He found he wanted a beer more than he wanted his share of the steak. Because he knew a man couldn’t work and not eat, he piled food on his plate and transferred it to his stomach. But he worked his way through one beer, then two, while the men made up their evening poker game. As they grew louder he took a six-pack and went out on the narrow wood porch.
The stars were just coming out. He heard a coyote call at the moon, then fall silent. The air was as still as it had been all day and barely cooler, but he could smell the sweet clover and wild roses. Resting his back against the porch rail, Aaron willed his mind to empty. But he thought of her . . .
Fully dressed and spitting mad, standing in the pond—crooning quietly to an orphaned calf—laughing up at him with her hair spread out over the earth of the corral—weeping in his arms over her butchered cattle. Soft one minute, prickly the next—no, she wasn’t a temperate woman. But she was the only one he wanted. She was the only one he’d ever felt enough for to hurt over.
Aaron took a long swig from the bottle. He didn’t care much for emotional pain. The poets could have it. She didn’t want him. Aaron swore and scowled into the dark. The hell she didn’t—he wasn’t a fool. Maybe her needs weren’t the same as his, but she had them. For the first time in weeks he began to think calmly.
He hadn’t played his hand well, he realized. It wasn’t like him to fold so early—then again, he wasn’t used to being softheaded over a woman. Thoughtfully he tipped back his hat and looked at the stars. She was too set on having her own way, and it was time he gave her a run for her money.
No, he wasn’t going back on his knees, Aaron thought with a grim smile. But he was going back. If he had to hobble and brand her, he was going to have Jillian Baron.
When the screen door opened he glanced around absently. His mood was more open to company.
“My luck’s pretty poor.”
Jennsen, Aaron thought, running through a quick mental outline of the man as he offered him a beer. A bit jittery, he mused. On his first season with the Double M, though he wasn’t a greenhorn. He was a man who kept to himself and whose past was no more than could be seen in a worn saddle and patched boots.
Jennsen sat on the first step so that his lantern jaw was shadowed by the porch roof. Aaron thought he might be anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. There was age in his eyes—the kind that came from too many years of looking into the sun at another man’s land.
“Cards aren’t falling?” Aaron said conversationally while he watched Jennsen roll a cigarette. He didn’t miss the fact that the fingers weren’t quite steady.
“Haven’t been for weeks.” Jennsen gave a brief laugh as he struck a match. “Trouble is, I’ve never been much good at staying away from a gamble.” He shot Aaron a sidelong look as he drank again. He’d been working his way up to this talk for days and nearly had enough beer in him to go through with it. “Your luck’s pretty steady at the table.”
“Comes and goes,” Aaron said, deciding Jennsen was feeling his way along for an advance or a loan.
“Luck’s a funny thing.” Jennsen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Had some bad luck over at the Baron place lately. Losing that cattle,” he continued when Aaron glanced over at him. “Somebody made a pretty profit off that beef.”
He caught the trace of bitterness. Casually he twisted the top from another bottle and handed it over. “It’s easy to make a profit when you don’t pay for the
beef. Whoever skimmed from the Baron place did a smooth job of it.”
“Yeah.” Jennsen drew in strong tobacco. He’d heard the rumors about something going on between Aaron Murdock and the Baron woman, but there didn’t seem to be anything to it. Most of the talk was about the bad blood between the two families. It’d been going on for years, and it seemed as though it would go on for years more. At the moment he needed badly to believe it. “Guess it doesn’t much matter on this side of the fence how much cattle slips away from the Baron spread.”
Aaron stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. The lowered brim of his hat shadowed his eyes. “People have to look out for themselves,” he said lazily.
Jennsen moistened his lips and prodded a bit further. “I’ve heard stories about your grandpaw helping himself to Baron beef.”
Aaron’s eyes narrowed to slits, but he checked his temper. “Stories,” he agreed. “No proof.”
Jennsen took another long swallow of beer. “I heard that somebody waltzed right onto Baron land and loaded up a prize yearling, sired by that fancy bull.”
“Did a tidy job of it.” Aaron kept his voice expressionless. Jennsen was testing the waters all right, but he wasn’t looking for a loan. “It’d be a shame if they took it for baby beef,” he added. “The yearling has the look of his sire—a real moneymaker. ’Course, in a few months he’d stand out like a sore thumb on a small spread. Hate to see a good bloodline wasted.”
“Man hears things,” Jennsen mumbled, accepting the fresh beer Aaron handed him. “You were interested in the Baron bull.”
Aaron took a swig from his bottle, tipped back his hat, and grinned agreeably. “I’m always interested in good stock. Know where I can get my hands on some?”
Jennsen searched his face and swallowed. “Maybe.”
* * *
Jillian slowed down as she passed the white frame house. Empty. Of course it was empty, she told herself. Even if he’d come back, he wouldn’t be home in the middle of the morning. She shouldn’t be here on Murdock land when she had her hands full of her own work. She couldn’t stay away. If he didn’t come back soon, she was going to make a fool of herself and go up to the line camp and . . .
