Widow Woman

by Patricia McLinn

  “Don’t you want this?” Clipped and hard, his words came each on its own short, impatient breath.

  “What?”

  “Do you want to stop?” he demanded.

  No! But she couldn’t scream that. “Why are you asking this now?”

  “You went still.”

  “I . . .” She met the dark intensity of his look, and ventured a question. “Don’t you want me to be still?”

  His hold on her tightened, but for too short a time to be painful. Then it relaxed. “Is that what he told you?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything,” she said, trying to be fair. “But it seemed faster that way.”

  The stream of words Nick released were in another language, Spanish, she presumed, but neither that nor the cold of his voice changed Rachel’s belief that his wishes wouldn’t do Edward Terhune’s soul the least bit of good.

  “Do, uh, do you want something different, Nick?” If she knew, maybe she could please him.

  “What I want—” He stopped. When he started again, his voice echoed dark and low. “I want to be inside you, Rachel. And I want you moving because it feels so good—No, don’t look away.” His tone was harsh, and when she met his eyes there was nothing gentle there, but Rachel felt her nervousness cracking. “It’s part of nature, Rachel. We didn’t choose it, but it’s there. It’s there between us.”

  She had thought at times that he was a force of nature, not to be controlled or denied. Or maybe it was this that she’d sensed, this connection between them that would not be controlled or denied.

  She looked at him, and knew that there was no more ignoring or putting off. In the harsh lines of his face, she saw the truth. He had recognized the power between them long before she had. He had fought it. And lost.

  She put her fingertips to the bronze skin along his high cheekbone. Above the prickly line of his beard it was surprisingly soft. Leaning forward, she tested his taste with the tip of her tongue. She trailed her lips across his cheek until they met his mouth. She slipped her tongue inside, and felt his hard, powerful body shudder at her entry.

  It happened fast then.

  She tried to focus on each touch and motion, but there were so many, and each worth memorizing. They seemed to flow past her, around her, inside her.

  She knew the instant his broad hand cupped her breast as he had yesterday in the rocking chair. But now nothing separated his touch and her flesh. His fingers on her were warm and strong, firing a rivulet of yearning to the base of her stomach. His mouth on her nipple was moist and demanding, deepening and widening the rivulet to a torrent.

  She knew, also, the moment he moved between her legs, opening her thighs with the pressure of his knee, the stroke of his hand and the urgency of his need. She could see that need in the etched lines of his face, hear it in the forced bursts of his breath, smell it in the sweat that liquefied his scent, touch it in the banded muscles of his arms and shoulders as he slid higher against her.

  He paused at the entrance to her body. The muscles of his braced arms gave a slight tremor, and the light shifted on the line of his jaw as he clenched it. And she knew him well enough to know he gathered in a measure of control that most men wouldn’t have even thought of.

  Instinct told her that, in this, his control was her enemy. She needed him without the restraint of that control.

  Rolling her hips, she brought their lower bodies into full contact and opened to him. He thrust inside her, so quickly and so powerfully that she gasped.

  “Rachel.”

  “It’s all right.”

  I want to be inside you, Rachel. And I want you moving because it feels so good.

  She rolled her hips again. And it did feel good. It felt good like something that was good by itself, yet made you wish for something more, something even better, that wasn’t quite there. Like the unexpected warmth of a late winter sun that made you ache with the promise of spring.

  “Rachel . . .”

  That was the last word he said that she understood. But she didn’t need words. She had the pulse and beat of his body thrusting into hers. She had the hoarse sounds of his desire. She had the taut, carved planes of his face as his need drove him—his need for her.

  And then she felt him inside, where he already filled her so completely, growing even harder, even larger. He threw back his head to face the ceiling, or perhaps the heavens above, and his body shuddered. And she felt the surge of his seed coursing into her.

  She had never known such contentment.

  * * * *

  Rachel woke during the night with her pulse already beating to the stroke of his hand.

  He’d gotten up some time ago and turned down the single lamp. The fire had burned low; she felt the chill air on her cheek, but within the narrow cave of the bunk’s covers, her senses extended no farther than the heat of Nick’s body, and his touch.

  Soreness lingered in her inner muscles, as well as a sensation that seemed the memory of being stretched and filled. Neither the soreness nor that less definable sensation was unpleasant. Yet she was mildly surprised that while they remained she would greet his touch so willingly.

  But she did.

  And soon, in a dark so deep she wondered if her sight came from more than her eyes, she recognized in his face and his body a need as intensely honed as before. It washed over her like a stream made of starlight. Nick Dusaq wanted her, needed her.

  And he took her again, as she gave herself over to that greatest seduction of all.

  * * * *

  The sound of the wind and the pellets of snow it drove against the small cabin woke her. Nick was gone.

  Over the protests of her muscles, she got up, washed quickly with water he’d left warming by the fire he’d stoked before leaving. A pair of practical tendernesses. Lifting the window covering, she caught a ghost reflection in its surface of her silly smile.

  It faded as she studied the storm. There was little light, only a grayish haze blending earth and sky. The wind whipped snow into every uncovered crack. A wet, solid snow to penetrate the skin and chill to the bone.

  An arm’s reach away, pegs stood empty of Nick’s outer clothing. Even for a trip to the shed, he’d use his coat, hat, muffler and gloves. More telling was the absence of the rope he kept in the shack where it wouldn’t freeze.

  She’d never send a man out in this weather. But Nick hadn’t waited for an order, he’d gone on his own.

  If she could, she’d tell him this minute that Circle T hands waited for the storm to pass; no use in a man risking his life unnecessarily to save a few cows. But fretting herself about him would bring him back no sooner. When he did come, he’d be hungry, he’d be cold and he’d be tired.

  By the time she heard hoofbeats approaching at a slow walk shortly after midday, she was adding cooked potatoes to chopped onions and beef frying in a skillet, and feeling tremendously productive. She had enough time before he came into roast the green coffee beans in the remaining skillet.

  The door opened and she turned, still holding the skillet of nicely browned beans.

  Only meeting his eyes, did she give a thought to what it would mean to face him now. After.

  It meant having her muscles melt like wax and her insides tighten and heat as she saw desire still burning in his eyes.

  A gasp escaped her before she spun away, putting the skillet down with a clatter; maybe he’d think the hot handle caused her reaction.

  “Smells good,” came his familiar, low voice.

  “I figured you’d be hungry.”

  “You figured right.”

  Neither said more. With his outer clothes hung up, he came nearer the warmth of the fire. Without asking, he took over making the coffee. She used the emptied skillet for batter biscuits, and in minutes, she’d served the hash and first few biscuits to him.

  “Good,” he muttered around a mouthful.

  He was finishing his second plateful and his second half-dozen biscuits before he slowed.

&n
bsp; “Didn’t stop for breakfast,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t have gone out at all.”

  He raised his head and eyed her. “Wanted to check on the stock and I thought you might like to be alone a spell.”

  She jumped up from the table, busying herself with moving skillets away from the heat before bringing the coffeepot to refill his cup.

  Without taking his eyes off her, he took a mouthful.

  “We don’t expect or want you to go out in such weather. You might not know, coming from Texas, how easy it is for a man to get turned around in a blow like this—”

  “I know.” His quiet words didn’t stem her flow.

  “It can even happen to someone who’s known this land all his life. It’s dangerous,” Automatically, she refilled the cup. “Shag would tell you the same—wait until a storm’s passed.”

  “Okay.”

  She deflated at his lack of fight. “Oh.” She put the pot down.

  “Couldn’t find a single steer in that mess anyway.”

  She caught the tilt of his grin, and this time her “Oh!” held indignation that he’d agreed because it matched his thinking, not for any other reason. Before she added words, he caught her around the waist with one arm.

  While she tried to absorb the impact of that touch, his hand slid higher and cupped the underside of her breast

  She jolted, breaking away, and grabbed both plates and her cup, carrying them to the washbasin. Drinking his coffee, Nick tilted back on the stool and openly watched her.

  She continued washing. When he rose and brought his empty cup, she left plenty of room for him to put it down without contact. But after he’d slid the cup into the water, he moved directly in front of her, his hand on her wrist stopping any retreat.

  “It’s done, Rachel. There’s no use pretending it’s not, or wishing it undone.”

  And no use pretending she didn’t know what he meant.

  “I’m not, uh, I mean I don’t. But . . .”

  He looked at her, relentless.

  “It’s daylight. Nick,” she said at last in an agonized whisper.

  His stare continued. “No arguing that.”

  “You can’t . . . I can’t . . . Touch. That way. I mean, it’s for the night.” The touch, kisses, maybe even more kisses wouldn’t have been so bad, but after last night she knew they wouldn’t stop there.

  He tipped his head, regarding her from slitted eyes. “No need to keep it to the night.”

  “It’s not . . . seemly otherwise.” She wondered if he remembered how easily he’d ignored her objection to his unseemly talk the day before. She’d have used a stronger word but she couldn’t think of one, not with him this close.

  “I can’t see you at night.”

  “See me? Whatever for?”

  “To watch you when I bed you.”

  Rachel gasped at the images his devastating bluntness sent rioting through her mind.

  He started with a kiss that she had no thought to fight. Instead, she welcomed the flames by opening her mouth to his possessing tongue.

  And while she burned, he stripped away her clothes in unhurried seduction, so the fewer layers of cotton and wool and whalebone that covered her from the chill breezes that sifted through the tiny shack, the hotter she felt.

  He laid her on the bunk, and stepped back.

  For a moment, she luxuriated in that fiery glow in Nick’s eyes; he was a man who liked what he saw before him. Until innate curiosity pushed her to try to see what he saw. She looked down.

  Her, naked. Lying on the worn blankets like the naked woman reclining on velvet she’d once seen in a painting over the bar in a Cheyenne saloon.

  Abruptly and screamingly aware of her nakedness, she scrambled up the bunk to a half-sitting position as she drew the covers over her. Her crossed hands held them tightly to her shoulders.

  Nick’s eyes never left her as he stood at the end of the bed and deliberately stripped away his clothes, with not a hint of self-consciousness. It was like watching him rise from the water. Only this time, instead of standing still, he drew nearer, moving to the edge of the bed.

  One knee compressed the mattress by her right foot, shifting the coverings from her feet. Before she knew what he was about, he’d wrapped one hand around her bare ankle.

  He tugged. Not hard enough to dislodge her, but strong enough to make her know what he wanted of her.

  Slowly, she slid her spine lower. He brought his other knee onto the mattress and nudged at her feet, clamped tightly together. Rather than separating, she drew them up by bending her knees, making room for him at the end of bed, watching him warily.

  He watched her as closely, with no hint of wariness.

  “I want to see you.”

  She tightened her hold on the covers at her shoulders. He slid a hand up from her ankle, over her calf, to her knee, drawing the shielding blanket with it. With an easy motion, and undeterred by her strangled protest, he flipped the loose end of the coverings aside, and she was entirely exposed to his gaze except for the angle of cloth stretching from her still rigid hands to the disposed pool of material by her hip.

  His hands stroked across her thighs, hips and abdomen. Long, even slides, then shorter, brushing movements. His calluses set up a friction that brought her skin to nearly the state of heat building inside her. Breaths came short and a little desperate.

  When his hand skimmed across the entrance to her body, she gasped. When he slid a finger inside her, she nearly sobbed.

  He pressed deeper and she moaned.

  “Bend your knees more.” The staccato words proved his lungs were no more regulated than hers.

  She bent her knees, no longer clamped together, but opening to allow him greater access. A low groan came from his throat. He shifted around to replace his hand with his hips between her thighs, moving more quickly than wisely in the narrow bunk. She watched his face split into a grin wicked with mischief and lust as they seemed to teeter, together, on the edge, threatening to tumble out. Then he grasped her hips, steadying them both before he slipped his hands under her thighs, opening her legs wider yet.

  Just the tip of him entered her before he held again.

  In that moment, Rachel knew what she had been so afraid of with this man, why she had resisted, all these months, the draw to him. It was because his power was not that he could take from her, but that he made her want to give.

  She tilted her hips, and he pushed deeper.

  For the first time he closed his eyes, raising his chin to the heavens, and a fierce, exultant look drew his face taut in a way that made her think of a thousand strains of warrior blood, all coming to rest in this man.

  “More.” It was no more a command than a plea, yet it was both.

  She slid her hands down his back until her fingertips pressed into the hard muscles of his buttocks at the same time she lifted her hips, and took him completely.

  “I want you, Nick.”

  His eyes opened as he bowed his back to take her nipple with his mouth, circling it with his tongue then drawing strongly. Sensation crackled through her, out to the ends of her fingers and toes and into the deepest part of her. He grew even fuller and harder there, and she knew he had felt her reaction.

  He kissed her mouth, slow and thorough, then braced himself on straightened arms by her shoulders, and began to move. He never took his eyes off her, or them, watching the movements, the joining that strained to express the tumult in their bodies.

  Rachel knew he watched. But shyness had no room in her. She was too intent on this other . . . on this sensation that she was reaching for something, striving somehow to match him, to be his partner.

  She caught another flash of that fierce exultation in his face. The constraints of uncertainty slid away as she moved stronger, rocked against him, met his thrusts.

  It felt right and powerful. And yet she knew somehow there was more. And she wanted to give it to him.

  “Nick . . .?”

 
“Bend your knees.” He panted. “More.”

  She did, and gasped at the deeper sensation of his penetration. So deep that she raised her legs even more, and instinctively locked them over his thighs.

  “Yes.” He sucked in a breath.

  He shifted his weight to one arm and slid his free hand over her body, stroking her breast before traveling lower, to where they were joined.

  “What . . .?”

  And then she didn’t care what. Or how. Or why. She cared only where, and not even where where was, but that she was reaching it, climbing it. To the top, to the very highest point where sun and wind met earth in a whirl of elements that came together for a glorious, suspended instant of perfect balance, then collided in a deafening cacophony of sensation. Nick above her, in her, with her.

  She floated easily to rest, to lie in the narrow, simple bunk with Nick pressing into her, in complete contentment. When her weighted eyelids at last rose lazily, she found Nick watching her.

  “That never happened for you before.” No question crept into his voice. He knew it.

  “No.”

  “There’s more.”

  She didn’t believe him. But it didn’t really matter. She stood once more on level ground, yet could look at the height she’d reached, content to know that what had been hidden to her for so long was now something she had seen.

  And to know that Nick had taken her there.

  Chapter Ten

  They spent all that afternoon, the night and the following morning wrapped in each other in the narrow bunk.

  They left it only when Nick dressed and tended to the animals. Rachel would fix simple food, wash up and put clothes on. Nick would take them off her first thing.

  The talk was sporadic, but the loving wasn’t. Rachel immersed herself in sensations. She had never imagined so many ways to find pleasure in the joining of a man and a woman. She had never imagined so much contentment in simply stroking the dark-haired arms that encircled her.

  That next afternoon, though, when Nick came in, he said without preamble, “Weather’s breaking. You’ll get through to the main ranch in a couple days.”