The foreman oversaw everything. The men, the horses, the ranch itself. They also used both recognized and innovative breeding practices to improve the animal stock. Plus the foreman was in charge of the employees, and maintaining the ranch itself.
She handed Caden one of the paper towels as he peeled the plastic wrap off the plate. “Help yourself. Looks like there’s ham and turkey today.”
“Your favorite,” she mused, and took a half a sandwich.
One eyebrow lifted. “You remember.”
It wasn’t a question. “We’ve known each other most of our lives,” she pointed out. “Hard to not know.”
“Uh-huh.” He took a bite of his sandwich and while he chewed, he studied her.
Emma just barely managed to not shift positions beneath that steady stare. Fire was licking at her bloodstream and her heartbeat was accelerating with every breath she drew. Her skin felt electric, as if her body was pumping out a low-level buzz. Her gaze drifted from his eyes to his mouth, his strong jaw and then his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, then took a swig of beer.
What was it about this man? How could she be reacting exactly as she had when she’d walked away from him all those years ago? Shouldn’t this feeling have gotten fainter? Instead, it was as if her body had only been waiting for her to get close to him again to remind her just what she was capable of.
“You’re staring,” he said.
“You started it,” she countered and lifted her gaze to his again.
She wished she could read his eyes as easily as she used to be able to. But apparently, he’d gotten better at hiding what he was thinking because all she saw in those lake-blue depths was a deliberate distance—and the hint of a smoldering fire. God, she’d missed that fire.
Setting his beer down onto the granite with a soft click, he said, “You wanted to talk, Emma.”
“Yeah, I do.” But where to start? Trying to explain again why she’d left Montana—and him? Demanding an explanation of what was going on between him and her sister? Even as she considered it, she realized that demanding was never the way to go with Caden. Any more than it was with her. Should she ask how he’d managed to build his dream ranch in the same amount of time that she was in California seeing her dreams die?
He was watching her. Waiting. And before she could stop herself, Emma blurted something she hadn’t planned to say. “I missed you, Caden.”
He looked surprised, though why he should have been, she couldn’t have said.
“You didn’t have to miss me, Emma.”
“Maybe I did,” she said. “Maybe I had to find out what was really important to me before I could appreciate what I had.”
Wow. Was that true? It felt true. Being in Hollywood, surrounded by strangers, at first, she’d avoided thinking of him, of this place, her family, so she wouldn’t miss them all so deeply. But as time passed, she’d dredged up memories of Caden, and her home and family, to keep her sane.
He shook his head, stood up and stalked a few paces away from her as if he couldn’t sit still another minute. “You’re not really going to try to convince me that you leaving was a good thing.”
“No.” He’d never believe it, but Emma did. She’d discovered a lot of truths about herself while she was gone. She’d learned that she wasn’t cut out to live in the fast lane no matter what her dreams had been. The mountains and lakes and rivers were where she belonged. She’d learned what was important and what she could toss aside.
Most important, she’d realized that Caden was still at the heart of what she wanted. Needed. But why would he believe that?
“Caden, the important thing is I’m back now. And I’m not going anywhere.”
He shoved one hand through his hair with an impatient gesture. “And I should take your word for that.”
“You don’t have to.” She stood up, too, and walked toward him, stopping just out of reach. “You’ll see it. I’ll be right there at the ranch. I’ll be in town. At the diner. In church. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other whether you like it or not, so you’re going to have to find a way to deal with it. With me.”
“Think so, do you?”
“Well, what else?” she snapped, throwing both hands high. “Are you going to actively ignore me? Come and go from my family’s ranch and not look at me? Play house with my sister and not give me a thought?”
His eyes narrowed. “I told you what’s between me and Gracie is none of your business.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Emma argued, feeling her temper spike along with her lust. “Gracie’s my business and you used to be—”
“Key words there being used to be.”
“Right. Fine. But damned if I’ll watch you go from me to Gracie.”
“Oh?” One dark eyebrow lifted and he gave her a sardonic smile. “Who put you in charge of who I sleep with?”
She sucked in a gulp of air. “So you’re admitting it? You’re having sex with my sister?”
“My sex life is none of your damn business, Emma. How many times do I have to say it?”
Emma was appalled. And yet...he hadn’t really said he was, had he? Was he screwing with her just to make her crazier? That completely sounded like Caden. And really, as pissed as Gracie had been for days, if she was having sex with Emma’s old boyfriend, she would have thrown the fact in Emma’s face long before now.
Okay, maybe she was overreacting here.
“Were you celibate in California?” he taunted, taking a step to close the distance between them. “No guys coming to your bed? No Hollywood pretty men getting you naked and on your back?”
Did the thought of her with other men bother him? Sure seemed to. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t give a damn who she’d been with.
“I never said I was celibate and you weren’t, either—” She didn’t know that for sure, of course, but she couldn’t imagine that Caden had stayed faithful to the memory of a woman who had walked out on him. Though damn it, she hated the images floating in her mind.
Of Caden’s muscled, strong body covering some other woman, burying himself inside her, driving her to the brink of insanity as he’d once done to her. She hated that. Especially if that woman was Gracie.
“Damn straight I wasn’t,” he ground out and moved even closer, looking down at her, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes. “When you left, I lost myself in so many women I damn near couldn’t keep track of them all.”
She swallowed a knot of bitterness clogging her throat, but even at that, she realized that he hadn’t had just one woman who had meant something to him. “You needed dozens of women to take my place, did you?”
“Yes.” He snapped the word and he didn’t look happy about the admission. “Like knowing that? Like knowing that you left such a gaping hole inside me that the more I tried to fill it, the emptier I felt?”
“Of course not,” she whispered, caught by his gaze. There were fires there now, not smoldering, but hot, licking flames that swept over her skin, igniting every nerve ending until she felt as if she was bristling with sexual need.
“I was empty, too, Caden.”
“By choice, Emma.”
True again. She swallowed hard, and reached for him, half-afraid that he’d step away from her, leaving her shattered just to teach her a lesson. But he didn’t move. If anything, he went completely still.
She hadn’t come here for this, at least not consciously. But maybe this was what had been driving her since she got home. The need to touch him and be touched. To remember what it felt like to be so alive that she practically glowed. She wanted him more than she ever had before and if he pushed her away, the pain of it might kill her.
Emma moved up to him and kept her gaze locked with his. Laying both hands on his shoulders, she looked into his lake-blue eyes and said, “We’ve been empty too long, Cade
n. Fill me up. Fill us both.”
“Damn you for leaving, Emma.” His gaze moved over her face, then met her eyes. “And damn you for coming back.”
Then he grabbed her, pulled her in close and bent his head to hers. His eyes locked with hers, his heated stare seemed to burn right through her. “This could be a mistake. For both of us. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“More sure than I’ve ever been about anything in my life,” she told him breathlessly.
“Me, too,” he admitted. “Damn it.”
Five years fell away and once again it was just the two of them, combustible, eagerly leaping into the flames. Emma looked up into his eyes and saw hunger there. That need was something she’d always responded to. Now was no different.
She went up on her toes and took his mouth with hers. For one brief, shining moment, there were fireworks inside. And God how she’d missed them. Then he broke that kiss, pulled away and she was left staring at him, breathing hard.
“What’re you doing?”
He walked to the wall, hit a switch and glanced back at her. “Damned if I’m putting on a show for the cowboys out there.”
“What?” Confusion clouded her mind even more than the desire swirling through her.
“The windows,” he said, coming back to her. “Got a lot of them.”
“I noticed.”
“Well, that switch I just threw darkens the glass so no one sees in.”
Truth be told she hadn’t given the walls of glass in this palace a single thought. She would have jumped him right here and never realized that the whole world could be watching—and maybe she wouldn’t have cared. As long as she had his hands on her again.
“Good thinking.” Then she stopped talking when he kissed her again, taking her mouth with a frenzied need that fired up everything she was already feeling. His hunger was as sharp and insistent as hers.
His tongue parted her lips, swept into her mouth and made her knees weak. Emma actually slumped against him and Caden pulled her in close and tight, his arms coming around her like steel bands.
He tasted her over and over again, never giving her a chance to catch her breath. And Emma didn’t care. Breathing didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this moment. Him. His hands swept up and down her spine, then down to her butt so he could pull her hard against him. So she would feel his erection pressing into her. So she would want him even more than she did already. And just when she was ready to tear both of their clothes off and stretch out on the kitchen floor, Caden broke the kiss again.
“Are you doing that on purpose?” she asked as she swayed unsteadily.
“What?”
“Kissing me senseless then abruptly stopping. Because if you’re doing it to make me crazy, you should know...it’s working.” She tossed her hair back from her face and looked up at him in time to see a flash of humor that quickened and died in his eyes in a heartbeat.
“No,” he assured her, hooking one arm around her waist and leading her out of the room. He kept her pressed tightly to his side as he said, “But damned if we’re doing this on the floor.”
“It’s a nice floor,” she argued.
“Not as nice as my bed.”
Five
Emma’s stomach fluttered and her pulse jumped into a jackhammer beat. He led her down the hall, and she hurried to keep up with his long-legged stride. The main staircase loomed up in the foyer, with hand-turned spindles and a carved oak banister that made it look like one long branch sprouting thousands of leaves. There was a dark red runner in the middle of the stairs that muffled their steps and as they moved, Emma glanced at the windows and saw that they’d all darkened at the flip of the switch Caden had turned on.
“Everyone out there will guess what we’re doing, won’t they?” she wondered aloud, still hurrying alongside him.
He shrugged, kept her close and stepped up his pace. “Do you care?”
“Not a bit.”
“Good.” At the top of the staircase, he turned right, headed for the door at the end of the hall.
Pulling her into his bedroom, Caden kicked the door closed behind them and Emma took a quick look around. The wall facing the lake was glass here as well, but it too was dark, muting the already weak October sunlight until it was barely noticeable. The pines surrounding the lake were bending with the wind, the gray, stormy skies had lowered threateningly and the lake itself looked like a sheet of molten silver.
She barely had time to notice the stone fireplace on one wall, the chests and dressers against two other walls and the massive bed that was clearly the centerpiece of the room. Here, too, he’d had someone carve a head- and footboard with scenes of the lake, the pines and the horses Caden raised and trained. The bed itself was gigantic and covered in a forest green comforter accompanied by what looked like dozens of pillows.
Then his hands were on her and she couldn’t have cared less about the furniture.
“After five years without you, this is gonna be fast, Emma,” he warned, cupping her breasts, and all she could think about was she wanted her clothes gone so she could feel his skin against hers.
“Nothing wrong with fast,” she assured him and tore at her clothes. He did the same and in just a few seconds, they were naked, wrapped together and tumbling back onto the big bed. His body was hot, muscled and strong. He was hard and ready and she didn’t want to waste another minute, so Emma rolled with him until she was straddling him, then went up on her knees.
Smiling, she would have taken him inside her in the next instant, but his big hands settled at her waist, lifted her and tossed her to one side.
Emma slapped one hand down on the bed. “Damn it, Caden, stop stopping!”
“You always were too bossy for your own good,” he muttered and reached out to the bedside table. He yanked the top drawer open, pulled out a condom and ripped the foil packet open.
Emma blew out a breath. God, she was an idiot. Running on hormones and want, she’d have had unprotected sex just to feel him inside her again. “I hate when you’re right.”
He glanced at her and grinned. “Well, then, I guess some things don’t change.”
“Funny.” She went up on her elbows, cocked her head to one side and asked, “Ready now?”
“You gonna argue our way through this, like old times?”
“I will if you don’t get inside me in the next ten seconds.”
“Like I said, bossy,” Caden rasped, then grabbed her, pulled her close and spread her thighs. “Always liked that about you.”
His fingers smoothed up and down her heated, damp core and with every caress, Emma squirmed, shifted, even whimpered a little. Planting her feet on the mattress, she rocked her hips to the rhythm of his touch and felt that hidden, coiled spring inside her tighten further.
“You’re still not inside me,” she ground out.
“You’re still not the boss of me,” he told her, then scooped his hands beneath her butt and lifted her off the mattress.
“Caden!” Emma’s eyes glazed over as his mouth closed over her center. His tongue stroked her, dipped inside and then stroked again. His lips and teeth nibbled at her and when he tasted that one hard, hot nub of sensation, Emma nearly flew off the mattress.
Helpless, her hips rocked spasmodically as he took her, forcing her to feel, to accept, to give herself up to what he could do to her body. It had always been like this between them, a small part of Emma’s brain acknowledged. No matter what, Caden touched her and it was magic. She’d never found this with anyone else. It was him. Only Caden could break through her own sense of self to make her admit that they were more together than they were apart.
That had scared her five years ago.
Now, she just wanted more.
When the first ripples of release hit her, she screamed his name, gripped her fingers into the comforter and
held on as her world rocked around her. And before her body had stopped trembling, Caden was there, pushing himself into her depths, claiming her in the most intimate way possible.
She gasped at that first invasion. He was so big, she could feel her body stretching to accommodate him and the marvelous friction he created when he moved within her, stoked the fire between them.
Emma moved with him, locked her legs around his hips and drew him higher, deeper, wanting all of him. Wanting him to be such a part of her that she wouldn’t be able to let him go again.
His hips pistoned against her in a fierce rhythm that stole her breath even while it encouraged her to match his frantic moves. Emma did, racing toward completion, loving the feel of him, reeling in the memories and the now, tangling together in her mind and heart and body. He levered himself up, to look into her eyes as her body tightened further. As if he could sense she was close and he wanted to watch her take that wild ride.
“Come on, Emma, let go.”
Then she did. What he’d made her feel only moments ago, paled in comparison to what exploded within her body now. She shrieked his name, clung to him and moved with the force of the climax slamming into her. It seemed to roll on and on, taking her higher and higher and Caden kept her firmly tethered to him while she soared. Finally, after what felt like forever, she heard him shout her name and when his body shattered, she clung to him, and they took the hard fall together.
* * *
A few minutes later, Caden had to silently admit that he felt energized in a way he hadn’t in far too long to think about. Making love with Emma again had felt like...coming home. The two of them shared a connection he’d never found with anyone else. And while his body was happy, his mind was racing with all kinds of warning bells and a tiny voice shouting red alert!
He didn’t need that voice, though. He already knew that sex with Emma solved nothing. Changed nothing. There were still five long years between them and the betrayal that had begun it all. That he couldn’t bring himself to forget.
Red Hot Rancher Page 6