by Joanne Rock
Fire blazed over her, flames licking up her legs and roaring over her breasts and belly until she yearned to peel off all her clothes. Feel his bare skin on hers. If Carson knew it—or if he felt that, too—he didn’t reveal it with his kiss. He took his time tasting, nipping, exploring. He drew her lower lip between his teeth gently.
Oh. So. Provocatively.
His hands skimmed up her back, fingers gliding over the smooth fabric of her blouse, then venturing beneath it. They stood in the middle of the room and she would have wobbled on her sky-high heels if not for Carson’s strong arms around her, keeping her upright. Through the tissue-thin silk of her skirt, she felt his body heat. She couldn’t help but roll her hips against his, melting at the feel of him.
She felt more than heard the hungry growl of want that started as a rumble in his chest and ended with a quiet hiss of breath between his teeth as he reared back to look at her. She saw the flare of desire in the molten blue of his eyes and it only edged her own need higher.
“We don’t need to rush,” he reminded her, his breathing gratifyingly harsh.
“I’ve waited a long time to feel this way.” A lifetime, actually, but she wasn’t ready to tell him that. “So I’m finding it hard to wait much more.”
She’d never experienced an attraction anywhere close to this. Was it any wonder her hands were a little unsteady as she tugged one end of his bow tie free? Then she smoothed a palm over the hard planes of his chest, very ready to touch all of him.
“In that case—” he reached between them to find the knot on her wrap skirt “—I’d better give you a hand in moving things along.”
With barely a flick of his finger, the fabric floated to the floor, leaving her in a tiny pair of bikini panties and very high heels from the waist down.
“It’s not fair that I practically fall out of my clothes while yours require so much extra time.” She arched an eyebrow at him while she unfastened the top two buttons on his shirt.
“You maneuvered me out of the tie fast enough,” he reminded her, flicking open the tiny hook on the neck of her blouse before sliding his hands under the hem.
Seductive sensations chased over her skin, distracting her from the shirt buttons as he cupped her breasts in his palms. She felt the heat of his touch through the lace of her bra, and a shiver rocked her.
“I’m going to be naked in about five more seconds, though. And then I’ll be too distracted to get your clothes off.” She closed her eyes to better feel all the things he was making her feel.
His thumbs teased circles around the tight peaks through the lace and she was lost. Arching into him, she wondered how much force it might require to tip him back into that huge bed behind him.
Carson kissed his way along her jaw. She clung to him, her fingers wrapping around his arms. Holding tight.
“You let me worry about it,” he murmured in her ear, pausing briefly before his lips continued down her neck. Nipping, licking, driving her mad.
“Carson.” She breathed his name like a plea, unsure what she wanted.
Him, obviously.
But all of him felt so good, she couldn’t decide where to touch next. And all of her felt so damn good, she couldn’t get enough of his touch. His body. His mouth, which drove the hunger higher with each movement of his lips.
He wrapped his arms around her then, lifted her high against his chest and deposited her in the middle of his bed. She tried to keep him there with her, but he edged back to stand at the foot of it.
With deliberate fingers, he unfastened the buttons on his tuxedo shirt, one after the other, his blue gaze never leaving hers.
Intrigued by the hint of muscle in the gaping V of the placket, she lifted herself up on her arms to better admire him.
When he shouldered out of his jacket, the shirt went with it, giving her a view of his squared shoulders and strong arms. Inspired, she took the hem of her wrinkled blouse and lifted it over her head, letting the material fall along the side of the bed while Carson’s hands moved to his belt. And his zipper.
Firelight bathed his skin in a tawny glow while leaving his face in shadow. She watched, fascinated by the movement of his abs as he stepped out of the trousers. Then she stared at the boxers beneath them. She forgot all about her own undressing, her fingers going still on the bra straps she’d been about to shrug out of.
Carson was...impressive.
All of him.
“I. Um.” Her throat was dry. She’d forgotten about birth control. Still, she couldn’t quite link her thoughts to her speech. She was too busy ogling.
A hint of a grin played at his lips. “That’s exactly how I’m feeling right now,” he told her as he joined her on the bed, stretching out beside her.
His thigh was hot next to hers, the bristle of his hair tickling her oversensitive skin.
She watched as he turned her toward him, flicking open the hooks of her bra so the lace fell aside. He kissed each peak, making her forget everything but this. Him.
The want.
“So beautiful.” He said the words into her skin, pressing them in with kisses as he worked his way up her chest.
When he reached the hollow of her throat where the diamond horseshoe pendant lay, he kissed beneath it, the stones clinking dully on his teeth.
She wrapped an arm around him, pulling herself closer to him while he covered her hip with one hand. He spanned her belly with his palm and desire pooled between her thighs. He slid the lace panties down and off. She was so very ready.
Except that she hadn’t brought any protection.
“Do you have anything?” she blurted, placing a hand on his chest, needing to settle this now before she got so caught up she forgot everything else. “I mean, do you have—”
He reached behind her head on the bed and came back with a foil packet.
“I smuggled one in my jacket pocket. Just in case.”
“One?” She couldn’t hide the hint of dismay.
“There are more in a bathroom somewhere,” he promised, tearing open the condom and rolling it into place.
“Good.” Relief settled over her, allowing her to be more fully in the moment. To soak up the pleasure of being with him. “That’s very good.”
Their eyes locked. Emma reached to touch his jaw. She kissed him, her hips sidling closer to his. Grazing the hard length of him.
He slid an arm around her and rolled her onto her back before he settled himself between her thighs. She felt her heartbeat quicken for the space of a few beats.
And then, he eased inside her by slow degrees, taking his time and kissing her. She buried her face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him and tasting the hint of salt on his skin. Pleasure built as he thrust deeper.
Wordless, she could only hold on while he coaxed responses from her body that surprised her. Release came fast and hard, her body clenching around his in one lush spasm after another. He went very still, waiting, wringing every bit of delicious sensation from her body as he kissed her breasts, drawing her deep into his mouth.
And then, while she was still breathless, he began to thrust inside her all over again. Slowly at first. But then building momentum. This time, he touched the damp heat between her thighs, close to where their bodies joined, and she flew apart on contact. She writhed with another toe-curling release. Except this time, Carson came with her, his body tensing everywhere, sweat popping out along his shoulders where she held on to him.
Heat broke over her again and again. She heard his hoarse shout, but her heart pounded so loudly in her own ears, the sound only vibrated through her. He was careful afterward not to collapse on her; instead, he fell heavily on his side and turned her with him, holding her so close that her temple rested just above his heart. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she settled deeper into him, her own heart finally slowing down along with her breathing.
<
br /> Sleep could have claimed her if not for the slow return of reason. As happy as it made her to think she’d fully reclaimed her life now, moving on from her painful past in every way, Emma recognized that this night would change things between them. Irrevocably.
She tried to quiet those thoughts while Carson pulled a sheet around them, tucking her close. But too soon, the questions bubbled to the surface. Would he regret what they’d shared? Was he in a hurry to rejoin his family while the McNeills tried to find their blackmailer?
He’d been vague about the details of the note, and she certainly understood why. But the fact that he hadn’t shared much with her about all the tumultuous events in his world spoke volumes about her place in his life. Had she acted too rashly? It had seemed so logical an hour ago, and now as her body cooled, she wasn’t as sure.
“Emma?” Carson’s voice, soft and close to her ear, startled her eyes open. “Everything okay? You were frowning.”
He tucked a finger into the chain on her necklace and straightened the pendant. The cool platinum slid smoothly against her skin.
“Yes. I just—” Hesitating, she weighed how much to say about what was on her mind. “I feel a bit guilty keeping you here now that I know all you have going on back home.”
“I wanted to bring you here,” he assured her, levering up on one elbow, his forehead furrowed. “That was my choice.”
“But that was before you knew your sister was going out of town.” She didn’t mean to stir trouble. She also didn’t want to be taken by surprise if Carson decided he wanted to leave.
And maybe a part of her recognized that what she’d shared with Carson gave him far more power to hurt her than Austin ever had.
“I don’t understand.” Carson tensed as he straightened. “What are you saying?”
She drew the sheet tighter to her chest, knowing it would be easier on her if she was the one who set boundaries. Who made sure her heart was safe. “I’m saying we should consider flying home tonight.”
* * *
Carson didn’t argue.
Not even a blind man could miss the walls Emma put up after they made love. As much as he was tempted to kiss her and entice her to stay, he knew that would simply delay the inevitable. She was having second thoughts, and he knew she’d been through a lot. He’d make a tactical retreat. For now.
That was why, shortly after midnight, Carson found himself back in Cheyenne. He walked up the flagstone path to the main doors of the Creek Spill ranch house, Emma by his side. She had fallen asleep on the short plane ride home. Or pretended to. He honestly wasn’t sure. He simply understood Emma needed to retreat. And after the way their night together had rocked him, too, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. When he’d pursued the attraction full tilt, he had anticipated the off-the-charts sensuality of their joining. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected the lingering need to protect Emma. Keep her safe.
That element of his relationship with her—wanting to take care of her—complicated things. Hell, here he was, protecting her from him.
Pausing to disarm the security system, Carson opened the door for her. He’d given her one of his T-shirts for the ride home. She wore it with her long skirt, the neck of the shirt sliding off one of her shoulders. He wanted her even more now. Even knowing that she was pulling away. Even when he understood their time together could be limited.
But for tonight, he would let her go.
Tomorrow, he’d figure out his next move.
“I understand if you need to leave,” Emma told him as she slipped off her high heels and bent to pick them up. The brief glimpse of her thigh through the slit of that long skirt threatened to shake his restraint. “If you want to be with your family. I feel totally safe here.”
She was giving him the green light to leave. Another push for space? Frustration ate at him as he flipped on the elk horn chandelier over the main staircase. He had to remind himself they were both tired.
“It’s late. I hadn’t planned on leaving.” Although he had promised his sister he’d speak to their father as soon as he returned to Cheyenne. “And I would appreciate it if this information about a blackmailer targeting the McNeills remains strictly between us.”
“Of course.” She halted on the first step, turning to look back at him as he pulled two bottles of water from a drawer in the refrigerator. “I would never share something like that.”
He nodded, trusting her word on that. Rejoining her on the stairs, he handed her a bottle of water.
“Thank you.” He would head to his parents’ home on the Black Creek Ranch first thing in the morning. “Not everyone in my family is aware of what’s happening yet.” A scandal had the power to affect far more people than just his brothers and half sisters. There were McNeill cousins all over the world.
His phone vibrated in the pocket of his tux jacket, which he was carrying over one arm.
“I’ll let you take that,” Emma told him as they reached the top of the stairs. “Thank you for a beautiful evening, Carson.”
He could see her retreating and felt the sting of disappointment, though he knew he needed to give her space.
He kissed her cheek and stroked a thumb along her jaw, just enough to hear the gratifying intake of breath. See the way her pupils dilated a fraction. When he backed away, though, she hurried into her room and shut the door.
It was a fitting end to a night when he felt like he’d made one misstep after another with her. Withdrawing his phone, he checked his messages. The text from his dad caught his eye.
Paige in tears. Says she won’t rest until Ventura is off McNeill property. Need help calming her down.
Carson didn’t think twice.
Tossing his tuxedo jacket on a chair in the hall, he headed back down the stairs and out the door. Re-arming the security system, he jumped in his truck to see what he could do. Because Donovan McNeill never asked for help. If he admitted that he needed it now, with his own wife, something was really wrong.
And it gave Carson an uneasy feeling that his stepmother was upset about Antonio Ventura being in town. Hadn’t Emma just mentioned that family tonight over dinner? She said her mother had compared the Venturas to the McNeills.
It was probably just a coincidence.
But he couldn’t ignore his family when they needed him now more than ever. Carson planned to look more carefully into the Winning the West director to figure out why having him around would upset his stepmother so much.
Even if that meant the next step in Carson’s pursuit of his stuntwoman guest would have to wait.
Nine
Alone in her suite, Emma stepped out of the steamy shower and toweled off with one of the Turkish terry cloth bath sheets. She should be exhausted from the long day and the stress leading up to the stunt, all the wondering if she would be able to pull it off.
But her evening with Carson had left her wound up. Exhilarated. She was unable to settle down even though it was well after midnight. Their time together had been surreal, so special it almost felt like it had happened to another person.
But now she wasn’t sure how to face the days ahead with him when she knew that what seemed life-changing for her was just a passing pleasure for someone like Carson McNeill. That had been the point of her mother’s urgent texts earlier today. A warning to Emma not to fall for a McNeill the way Jane Layton had once fallen for her employer, Emilio Ventura, father of the man now directing Winning the West. The affair had destroyed Jane’s marriage, probably playing a role in Emma’s father’s suicide, although Jane had never admitted as much. Hurt stabbed through Emma at the thought of her dad, her memories of him painfully scant.
She combed the tangles from her damp hair, wishing she could sort through her muddled thoughts as easily.
She recognized how she might be following in her mother’s unwise footsteps. Because while neither Carson
nor Emma was married to other people, there was still the same kind of imbalance between them. Carson moved in a world of privilege and wealth that allowed him to jet around the country at a moment’s notice. Emma was a maid’s daughter still trying to duck a jailbird ex. What was more, she wasn’t sure she’d come to terms with the fact that she’d stayed in a relationship with Austin after he’d hit her the first time. She wanted to think she would have kicked him to the curb on her own without the intervention of people at her gym the day he’d been arrested. But that decision had been taken out of her hands by the courts, so she’d never had the satisfaction of making it herself.
All this time—training harder, becoming a stuntwoman, getting physically stronger—and she still had no idea if she was tougher where it counted. Emotionally.
That fear was what had sent her running from the best night of her life. The best man she’d ever met.
Yet she had his T-shirt to remember what had transpired between them. Slipping it back on now over her naked body still warm from the shower, Emma padded to the bed and slid between the covers. Everything about her room was luxurious, from the high thread count sheets and white goose down duvet to the thick pile rugs and custom furnishings with rustic touches. Yet the thing she liked most about it was wearing Carson’s shirt. The soft gray cotton held the clean scent of detergent, but underneath that, just barely, she could catch the scent of him. His aftershave. His soap and skin.
She switched off the lamp on the table beside the bed, but the skylight overhead kept the room from being totally dark. She closed her eyes, knowing she’d dream of Carson. Only to have her phone chime with a text.
My sister Scarlett asked me for your #. She has a question about the Ventura family. Do you mind if I share? I’m at my father’s now. My stepmother is not well.
Emma bit her lip, hurting for Carson. He must be worried about his stepmom. She wished she could offer him some comfort. But why did Scarlett want to speak to her? Surely Logan King knew more about Antonio Ventura than she did. Although, when Logan had asked Emma about her riding, she had mentioned her early lessons at the Ventura family’s stables. Maybe he’d shared that information with Carson’s sister.