hot, wet. But even as she arched, he retreated again. “Look at me. I want to see your eyes the first time. I want to see what it does to you.”
“I can’t.” But her eyes were open, wide and blind. Her body was on the edge of something, like a high cliff where the wind both pulled and pushed. “I need—”
“I know.” God, that voice of hers—straight sex. And now even throatier, rustier, and quivering with little gasps. “But look at me.” He cupped her, watched her eyes go dark with fear and passion.
The first time, he thought. “Let go.”
What choice did she have? His fingers stroked her to flash point, and everything happened at once. Her body tightened like a fist. Lights whirled in front of her eyes, spinning to the roar of sound in her head that was her own frantic heartbeat.
And this pleasure was kin to pain, an eruption that had her helplessly crying out while her body bucked, shuddered, then went slack.
Her skin was dewed with sweat now, her lips soft with surrender when he sought them again. Weakness warred, then gave way to fresh energy as he patiently, ruthlessly worked her back into a frenzy. Her system overcharged, reeled, imploded. She rocked against him, wildly greedy for more. And he gave more until she was pliant again, body still quivering in reaction, breath coming slow and thick.
When he rolled off her she couldn’t even manage a protest, but lay sprawled in the hot, tangled sheets.
He had to pray he wouldn’t fumble now, though his hands shook when he tugged at the snap of his jeans. He’d wanted her sated and satisfied before he took her, wanted her to remember the pleasure if he was unable to prevent the pain.
“I feel like I’m drunk,” she murmured. “I feel like I’m drowning.”
He knew the feeling. His blood was singing a siren’s song in his head, and his loins were screaming for release. Stripping away his jeans, he tossed them aside before he remembered what he carried in his wallet, snugged into the back pocket.
Blessing Tess, he dug into Willa’s nightstand drawer.
“Don’t fall asleep,” he begged as he heard her sigh. “For God’s sake don’t fall asleep.”
“Uh-uh.” But this state of floaty relaxation was the next best thing. She stretched, and the firelight danced over her, rippling golds and reds and ambers. Ben tore his gaze away and finished the business at hand. “Are you going to touch me again?”
“Yeah.” He had to get the nerves under control. The hunger was one thing, he could keep it chained, but the nerves fluttered through his stomach as he ranged himself over her. “I need you.” It wasn’t an easy admission, not the same as want, and he gave it to her as his mouth closed over hers. “Let me have you, Willa. Hold on to me and let me have you.”
And her arms came around him as he slid into her.
Oh, God, so tight, so hot. He had to use every ounce of control not to plunge mindlessly into her like a stallion covering a ready mare. Battling to go slowly, he fisted his hands on either side of her head, watched her face. Watched it so intently, so closely that he saw those first flickers of shock, of acceptance, and finally, that lovely glaze of dark pleasure.
“Oh, it’s wonderful.” She breathed the words out as he moved inside her. “Really wonderful.”
She gave up her innocence without regret, with a smile bowing her lips as she matched him stroke for slow stroke. In his eyes she saw the need he had spoken of, the need focused only and fully on her. When she looked deeper, she saw herself reflected back in them, lost in them.
And this, she thought, when he finally buried his face in her hair and emptied himself into her, was beauty.
“I DIDN’T KNOW IT WOULD BE LIKE THAT.” STILL PINNED beneath him, still joined, Willa lazily played with his hair. “I might have been ready sooner.”
“I’d say the timing worked just fine.” He had fantasies already working. Pouring champagne over that lovely golden body and licking it off. Drop by drop.
“I always thought people set too much store by sex. I guess I’ve changed my mind.”
“It wasn’t sex.” He turned his head, nibbled at her temple. “We’ll have sex some other time. This was making love. And you can’t set too much store by either.”
She stretched her arms up, then lowered them so that her hands could knead his bottom. “What’s the difference?”
He was still half aroused, and well aware it wouldn’t take much to finish the job. “You want me to show you?” Lifting his head, he grinned down at her. “Right now?”
She chuckled and, feeling sentimental, stroked his cheek. “Even a bull needs recovery time.”
“I ain’t no bull. Just stay right there.”
“Where are you going?” My, oh, my, she thought, she hadn’t taken nearly enough time to look at that body of his. It was . . . an education.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her, and strode out without bothering with his jeans.
Well, well. She stretched again, then shifted so that she was cradled by pillows. It seemed the night wasn’t over. Experimentally, she laid a hand on her breast. Her heart was bumping along at a normal rate now rather than with that snare drum riff it had reached when he’d nuzzled just there.
It was an odd feeling, she thought, to have a man suckling you, to have him pull you inside him. And to experience those mirror tugs in the womb.
Everything he’d done had made her body feel different—tighter then looser, lighter then heavier.
She wondered if she looked different—to herself, to him. There was no denying that she felt different.
With all the pain, all the grief and fear in her life over the past months, she had found an oasis. For tonight, if only for tonight, there was only this room. Nothing outside of this room mattered. No, not even murder. She wouldn’t let reality in.
Tomorrow was soon enough for worries, for the fear of what was haunting her ranch, her mountains, her land. Just for tonight she would be only a woman. A woman, she decided, who, this once, would be content to let a man hold the reins.
So she was smiling when he walked back in. And for a moment, just looked.
She’d seen him shirtless before, countless times, and knew those broad shoulders, that strong back. One memorable day she’d caught him and Adam and Zack skinny-dipping in the river, so she’d seen him naked.
But she’d been twelve then, and she wasn’t thinking like a twelve-year-old now. And she wasn’t looking at a teenager, but a man. A powerful one. One that had her stomach flopping around in delighted reaction.
“You look good naked,” she said conversationally.
He stopped pouring the glass he’d brought in with him, turned to stare at her. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”
The fact was, she looked stunning, sprawled over the rumpled sheets without a hint of modesty. Her hair was tumbled, her eyes glowed in the candlelight, and she had one hand low on her belly, idly tapping along with the music.
“You sure as hell don’t look like a novice,” he told her.
“I learn fast.”
Now his smile came, slow, dangerous. “I’m counting on that.”
“Yeah?” She loved a challenge. “So, what have you got there, McKinnon?”
“Your champagne.” He set the bottle on her dresser, where candles flickered. “Have a glass.” The one he brought her was full to the rim. “You may want to be a little drunk for this.”
“Really?” The smile widened into a grin, but with a shrug, she sipped. “Aren’t you having any?”
“After.”
She chuckled, sipped again. “After what?”
“After I take you. That’s what I’m going to do this time.” He trailed a finger from her throat down to her quivering belly. “I’m going to take you. And you’re going to let me.”
The breath backed up in her lungs and it took an effort to push it out. He didn’t look tender now, or flustered. Now with those eyes so dark, so green, so focused. He looked ruthless. Exciting.
“Am I?”
br /> “Yeah.” He could see that pulse in her throat begin to beat and flutter. “It’s not going to be slow, but it’s going to take a long time. Drink the champagne down, Willa. I’ll taste it on you.”
“Are you trying to make me nervous?”
He climbed onto the bed, straddled her, watched her blink in surprise. “Darling, I’m going to make you crazy.” He took the glass, dipped a finger in the wine, then traced it over her nipple. “I’m going to make you scream. Yeah.” He nodded slowly, repeating the process on her other breast.
“You should be afraid. In fact, I like you being just a little afraid this time.”
He trickled the last few drops over her belly, then set the glass aside. “I’m going to do things to you that you can’t even imagine. Things I’ve been waiting to do.”
She swallowed hard as a new and fascinating chill ran over her skin. “I think I am afraid.” She shuddered out a breath. “But do them anyway.”
TWENTY-TWO
I T WASN’T EASY TO TRACK WILLA DOWN ONCE APRIL HIT its stride, and with it the spring breeding season. As far as Tess could see, everything was focused on mating, people as well as animals. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she’d caught Ham flirting with Bess. But she imagined he had been trying to wrangle a pie.
Young Billy was eye-deep in love with some pretty little thing who worked a lunch counter in Ennis. His former liaison with Mary Anne had hit the skids, left him broken-hearted for about fifteen minutes.
The way he strutted around, Tess could see he thought of himself as a man of the world now.
Jim had some slap and tickle going with a cocktail waitress, and even the longtime-married Wood and Nell were exchanging winks and sly grins.
With nothing disturbing the peace and pastoral quality of the air, everyone seemed ready to fall into a routine of work, flirtations, and giggling sex.
There was Lily, of course, with wedding preparations in full swing. And Willa, when she stood still long enough, had a dopey grin on her face.
It seemed to Tess that the cows were trying to keep pace with the humans. Though she couldn’t see anything particularly romantic about a man shooting bull sperm into a cow.
She sincerely doubted the bull was thrilled with the arrangement either, but he was allowed to cover a few, just to keep him happy. And the first time Tess witnessed the coupling was enough of a shock to make her wish it her last. She refused to believe that the bull’s chosen innamorata had been mooing in sexual delight.
She’d watched Nate and his handler breed his stallion too. She had to admit there had been something powerful, elemental, and a little frightening in that process as well. The way the stallion had trumpeted, reared, and plunged. The way the mare’s eyes had rolled in either pleasure or terror.
She wouldn’t have called the process romantic, and it certainly hadn’t been anything to giggle about. The smells of sweat and sex and animal had been impetus enough for Tess to drag Nate off at the first decent opportunity and jump him.
He hadn’t seemed to mind.
Now it was another glorious afternoon, with the temperature warm enough for shirtsleeves. The sky was so big, so blue, so clear, it seemed that Montana had stolen every inch of it for itself.
If she looked toward the mountains—as she often caught herself doing—she would see spots of color bleeding through the white. The blues and grays of rock, the deep, dark green of pine. And if the sun angled just so, a flash that was a river tumbling down fueled with snowmelt.
She could hear the tiller running behind Adam’s house. She knew Lily was planning a garden and had cajoled Adam into turning the earth for the seedlings she’d started. Though he’d warned Lily it was too early to plant, he was indulging her.
As, Tess mused, he always would.
It was a rare thing, she decided, that kind of love, devotion, understanding. With Adam and Lily, it was as solid as the mountains. As often as she wrote about people, watched them so that she could do just that, she’d never grasped the simple and quiet power of love.
She could write about it, make her characters fall in or out of it. But she didn’t understand it. She thought perhaps it was like this land that she’d lived on, lived with for so many months now. She had learned to value and appreciate it. But understand it? Not a bit.
Cattle and horses dotted the hills where grass was still dingy from winter, and men worked in the mud brought on by warming weather to repair fencing, dig posts, and drive cattle to range.
They would do it over and over again, year after year, season after season. That, too, she supposed, was love. If she felt a stir herself, she blocked it off, reminded herself of palm trees and busy streets.
She had, Tess thought with a sigh, survived her first—and she hoped last—Montana winter.
“There you are.” Tess started forward, but Willa rode straight past her toward the near pasture. “Damn it.” Refusing to give up, Tess broke into a trot and followed. She was only slightly out of breath by the time she caught up. “Listen, we’ve got to get into town tomorrow. Lily’s fitting our attendant dresses.”
“Can’t.” Willa uncinched Moon, hauled off the saddle. “Busy.”
“You can’t keep avoiding this.” She winced as Willa thoughtlessly tramped on the infant wildflowers perking up around the fence posts.
“I’m not avoiding it.” After dropping the saddle over the fence, Willa removed the saddle blanket and bit. “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to be wearing some lame dress, probably have posies in my hair. I just can’t take off for the day right now.”
Pulling a pick out of her pocket, she leaned into Moon, lifted the mare’s near hind leg, and went to work on her hoof.
“If you don’t go, Lily and I will have to choose the dress for you.”
Willa snorted, skirted Moon’s tail, and lifted the next hoof. “You’re going to pick it out anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I’m there or not.”
True enough, Tess thought, and with an ease she wouldn’t have believed possible even a few months before, she stroked and patted Moon. “It would mean a lot to Lily.”
This time Willa sighed and moved to the foreleg. “I’d like to oblige her. Really. I’m swamped right now. There’s a lot to get done while the weather holds.”
“Holds what?”
“Holds off.”
“What do you mean holds off?” Tess frowned up at the clear, perfect blue of the sky. “It’s the middle of April.”
“Hollywood, we can get snow here in June. We ain’t done with it yet.” Willa studied the western sky, the pretty, puffy clouds that clung to the peaks. She didn’t trust them. “A spring snow’s a fine thing, gives us moisture when we need it and melts off quick enough. But a spring blizzard.” She shrugged, pocketed the pick. “You never know.”
“Blizzard, my butt. The flowers are blooming.” Tess looked down at the trampled blooms. “Or were.”
“We grow them hardy here—those that we grow. I wouldn’t put that long underwear away just yet. Hold, Moon.” With that order, she hefted the saddle again and carried it toward the stable.
“There’s other things.” Determined to finish, Tess dogged her heels. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you alone in days.”
“I’ve been busy.” In the dim stable, Willa stored her tack and took up a grooming brush.
“With this and that.”
“Which means?”
“Look, so you’re making up for lost time with Ben. That’s fine, glad you’re happy. And you’re busy impregnating unsuspecting cows all day, or ruining your hands with barbed wire, but I need to know what’s going on.”
“About?”
“You know very well.” Cursing under her breath, Tess walked back outside, where Willa began brushing Moon. “It’s been quiet, Will. I like it quiet. But it’s also making me edgy. You’re the one who talks to the cops, to the men, and you haven’t been passing things along.”
“I figured you w
ere too busy playing with one of your stories and talking to your agent all day to worry about it.”