Carly glanced out the window again in time to see Rafe kick the recalcitrant generator and stomp off. She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet on that.”
Laurie sighed. “You were right when you said he needed someone. He does. I’ve been telling him that for years. Trouble is, somebody claimed his heart a long time ago. I just didn’t know until we met that it was you.”
Carly’s eyes burned as she shifted the phone to her other ear. Outside, Rafe was nowhere to be seen. “I wish you were right, Laurie. I wish to God you were.”
Rafe had given up on the hundred and one chores left on his list well after the eleven o’clock news ended. He’d ridden out with Pedro to find another dead calf, with signs of the cat everywhere, but no cat in sight. Pedro had come up empty last night, too. Rafe was too tired to pull another all-nighter, but tomorrow night he would stake out the pasture himself.
Exhaustion pulled at Rafe as he stumbled through the front door. Carly had left several strategic lights on for him, which he methodically switched off as he made his way toward his bedroom.
He’d missed lunch, and dinner had appeared anonymously on a covered plate in the barn office sometime after seven. Carly was nowhere to be seen. He’d told himself that was just as well, because he had neither the desire nor the energy for another confrontation.
But as he sat alone under the naked lightbulb, eating the meal she’d cooked for him, he’d found himself missing her company and contemplating what life would be like when she and Evan left. Predictable again.
And quiet. And dull. And lonely.
And what about his son?
His son! A fresh wave of disbelief rolled over him. He was a father with a son. Rafe swallowed hard. It was something he saw every day, but he had never envisioned himself in the role. He and his son, together at a ball game, or a park playing catch. Helping the boy with his homework, or lying on their backs together in the sun, chewing on alfalfa and shooting the breeze.
And despite never having considered it before, he wanted all of it now. He’d been cheated out of the first eight years of his son’s life. He wasn’t about to miss the rest.
The next obvious thought froze those daydreams in mid-fantasy. Evan still didn’t know. How would he react, and how would they tell him? “Hey, son, you don’t really know me well, but I’m your dad,” or “I know this will be a little hard to understand. It was for me, too....”
Rafe squeezed his eyes shut. Somehow or other, he’d find a way. They’d work it out.
Then Evan would be in Ohio and he’d be here.
Hell, there were summer vacations. Holidays. Carly would just have to let Evan come.
But would he want to? And what would Rafe have to offer if he lost this place? He tried to envision bringing Evan to some small apartment in town, then forced the image ruthlessly from his mind.
He wouldn’t, couldn’t lose this place now. He supposed Carly had thought she could sway him against risking the rodeo again, now that he knew about his son. In fact, it had only made him more determined to do whatever it took to keep the ranch. It was the only legacy he had for Evan.
And what about Carly?
A strangled feeling crawled up his throat.
Sharing Evan, they’d have to see each other from now on. How the hell would he manage that? And when she found some other guy to marry, could he watch that man hold her, knowing they shared a bed at night? A shudder drove through him.
Walking down the dimly lit hallway to his room, he passed Carly’s door. She was asleep—had he actually expected her to wait up?—her door firmly shut, her lights decidedly out. But he paused there, imagining her sprawled languidly beneath the thick blankets on her bed.
Tom knew I was still in love with you. With you. With you...
Why, Carly? he wanted to shout. Why, if you were still in love with me, did you stay with Tom? Did he love you like I did? And what sort of a man would share your heart with someone else?
Anger was the automatic response to that question, but his body’s reaction was something else altogether. It had him picturing her naked and willing beneath him. Wanting him as much as he wanted her at this very moment.
He looked down to find his hand poised above her doorknob.
He swore, backed up, and careened down the hallway as if the hounds of hell were after him.
The sound woke her. An unfamiliar, awful sound. She had no idea where it had come from. She sat up in bed, cocked her head and listened.
There. Again. A panting, thrashing, muffled cry.
Rafe.
Carly threw the bedclothes off and lurched out of bed. Grabbing only one of her crutches, she hobbled in the dark toward his room, groping her way along the pitch-black hallway until she came to his door. Inside, the sound escalated.
“Rafe?” she said, fumbling for the light switch. Damn! Where was it?
“Son of a—” came his guttural cry again. “Ahhhhh—Gaaawwd!”
Moonlight spilled onto his bed, and Carly saw him fractionally as he thrashed through it, arms and legs flailing at some invisible enemy, his sheets tangled around him like a shroud.
“Rafe!” She crossed the distance to the bed in a heartbeat, discarding the crutch to lean over him. “It’s all right. It’s a dream. A dream. Wake up!”
She made the mistake of getting in the way of his arm, and he caught her hard across the cheek.
“Uhhh—” she cried as she fell back across the bed in the dark, holding her face. His hands found her, and he crushed her shoulders in his grip.
He cried out something unintelligible, wrestling her off him until she was pinned to the mattress by his superior weight. Even in the dark, she could see that his eyes were wide-open, and his expression was fierce.
Real fear shot through her as she felt her air being cut off. “Rafe!” She was choking, clawing at his arms with her nails. “Rafe—!”
Disoriented, unfocused, Rafe saw her for the first time. In the dark he blinked, his chest heaving.
“C-Carly?”
Her fingers dug in more deeply, in the only reply she could manage.
On a foul oath, he pushed his weight up and off her in an instant, still tangled in the sheet and straddling her hips.
Carly pressed her head back and sucked in air.
He grabbed her by the shoulders in fear. “Christ, Carly! Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head with a cough, still getting her breath. “I’m—I’m okay.” She touched a hand to the forming bruise on her cheek.
He had to lean over her to flip on the green ginger-jar lamp beside the bed. He pulled her hand away with a horrified expression. “Did I do that?”
“I got in your way. It’s—”
“I’m...oh, God, I’m sorry.” He swallowed hard, obviously distressed. His chest heaved, the washboard hardness of his abdomen sharply defined in the moonlight. Her gaze fell to the dusting of dark hair that veed toward the brutal scars that wound around his ribs. It was the first time she’d seen them, and she was hardly prepared. Suddenly she knew what he’d been dreaming about.
He rolled off her, onto his back. The sheet came with him, barely covering the fact that he was naked underneath. He ran both hands down his sweat-slick face.
Carly turned onto her side. “It was my fault. I walked right into your arm. You were asleep.” Silence stretched between them punctuated by his harsh breathing. “Hey, you okay now?”
He was not. Not by a mile. “I didn’t mean for you to...” His voice drifted off, and he looked away, unable to face her.
She touched his arm, thinking to comfort him. His skin felt warm and damp, and her fingers curled around the solid muscle there. “Don’t turn away, Rafe.”
It took him a moment to respond. “It was just a stupid dream.”
“It’s over.” But she knew it wasn’t. Not for him.
“Every time, I think the outcome will change. I’ll avoid the hooves, or roll away in time to miss that goddamn horn. But—” he
shuddered “—it’s always the same.” He sent her a warning look. “Don’t say it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she answered, thinking that there was no better reason not to compete again than this. Her thumb stroked the curve of his biceps, and without contemplating the wisdom of it, she pressed her lips against his warm, bare shoulder. He tasted salty, and the heady scent that belonged to him was dangerously male.
If she’d been thinking, she would have gotten out of his bed, away from the heated perfection of him. She would have run, knowing that one touch might betray her, send her headlong into what she’d been working so hard to deny since she came here.
But she didn’t go. And when she looked up, she found him watching her—his eyes smoky with confusion and desire.
Rafe lifted her palm to his lips and pressed an aching kiss there. What might have passed for chaste under any other circumstances was nothing of the sort here. It was a flagrant warning that rocketed through her like a stab of heat. Rafe’s eyes searched hers as he rolled toward her. Uncertainty warred with smoldering need.
She should run. Flee. Do the sensible thing.
His fingers slid through her hair to cup the back of her head.
Now, common sense told her. Go now.
The sheet slipped away from his naked hip as his knee moved to cover her thighs. Carly heard a whimper and knew it was hers as he pulled her close, his mouth a heartbeat from hers.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered. “Tell me this is crazy.”
“It is,” she said, curling her hand around the nape of his neck.
“Yeah,” he whispered back, then claimed her mouth possessively in a hard, hungry kiss that left no doubt about his intentions. Slick and hot, his kiss slanted across her mouth, first one way, then the other, without a final destination. His tongue mated with hers with the same urgency that had them clinging to one another like drowning sailors amid the ruined bedclothes. As if there were no one else in the world to hang on to and the ocean were closing in.
The surf seemed to pound in her ears as his mouth shifted to her throat, leaving a moist trail from behind her ear to the swell of her breast. Her thin T-shirt proved no obstacle to his quest as his hands gathered it upward until he found what he was searching for.
On a gratified sigh, he cupped both her breasts in his large hands, plumping the weight of them and brushing the rigid tips with his thumbs. Each touch seared her, made her skin quiver with wanting. Oh, she’d forgotten. It had been so long. So very long...
It was lust, but more. She knew that. It was this man, whose hands knew her so well, whose mouth made her want things no other man could make her want. She threaded her fingers through his thick, dark hair.
She still loved him.
She’d tried to deny it for so long, but no more. He belonged to her and she to him. They belonged in this bed together. His loving now was raw with hunger, as was hers for him.
“I love you,” she breathed, almost inaudibly. If he heard over the rustling of the sheets, she didn’t know, and she hadn’t the nerve to say it again. He made no reply, but instead teased her breast with openmouthed kisses, then took one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard.
Carly arched toward him on an inhalation, an explosion of sensation shattering her will to think. Pressure built deep inside her. It circled like a bird toward the center, spiraling with each rhythmic flick of Rafe’s tongue.
His left hand trailed down her ribs, over the jut of her hip, to slide down her thigh and back up along the inside. Carly felt his violent shudder of arousal as he found the spot he sought.
He groaned impatiently at the silky barrier of her panties, and she heard the fabric tear as it disappeared down her hips. The sound excited her, and she twined her good leg around his, drawing him up hard against her. The velvet steel of his arousal pressed against the apex of her legs. She needed... Oh, she wanted...
“Rafe—” she breathed. “Oh, Rafe, please—” She buried her fingers in his hair.
A rough sound like a growl came from deep in Rafe’s throat as he fought to control the inevitable. She was writhing under him, driving him crazy. Her skin felt like silk, all hot and smooth and damp with his loving. And she tasted sweet, like honey. He nuzzled her breast and the soft underside of it as he explored the depths of her slickness with his fingers.
In a rush of physical memory, it all came back to him—each curve, each hollow.... He knew her body as well as his own, but it had been so long. He couldn’t get enough of her.
His gut knotted. He had to be inside her, to sheathe his aching flesh in her heat. He had wanted to make it good for her, but the way she ran her hands up his thighs pushed him beyond his limit. They’d fought this for too long now, but it had been a useless battle. There was no fighting it anymore.
Calling up every ounce of restraint he could manage, he pulled himself away from Carly and reached for the wallet on his bedside stand and the small foil package he always kept inside. It was one thing to be impulsive, another to be arrogant enough to think that what had happened before couldn’t happen again.
When he turned back to her, he knew his moment of caution could have cost them the fire that had nearly burned out of control. But he saw that it hadn’t. Carly watched him, her eyes still smoldering as she slid her hands up his ribs and spread her fingers across his chest. A small, grateful smile tugged at her lips. Then she kissed him with an openmouthed urgency that reignited the blaze all over again. He abandoned all the rational arguments against what they were doing. He was beyond everything but the urge to be one with Carly.
She slid her hands over his chest, skimming over the awful scars that marred his side. For a moment, he grew still, bracing himself for her reaction.
She raised up and tenderly pressed her lips against the worst one. Rafe swallowed hard.
“Incredible, isn’t it?” she murmured, smoothing a thumb across the jagged white scar.
“What?”
“The body’s capacity for healing.” Her gaze lifted to his, and for a moment he wondered if she was really talking about visible scars at all.
“It’s ugly,” he said, lowering himself into the cradle of her hips, hoping to distract her from what he’d rather forget.
“No,” she whispered, nuzzling his shoulder. “It’s your strength. Your resilience. It’s who you are.”
“Who I am,” he repeated, dropping his mouth against her neck. “This is who I am, Carly.” His tongue swirled against her heated skin, and he heard her moan softly. “Scars and all. Can you handle that?”
Her hand slid down between them. “Try me.”
Her first touch made him suck in a breath between gritted teeth. A tremor went through him, and after a moment he clamped a hand over hers to make her stop. His entire body was throbbing.
With a restraint that belied the fierceness he felt, he said, “It’s been a while for me, and I’m dangerously close to losing it here.”
Her lips parted as she watched him, and with only a slight shift and a deep groan of intense pleasure, he buried himself inside her. A small quake moved through her. It almost undid him. For five thundering heartbeats, he held himself still.
“Wait,” he told her in a breathy plea, holding her hips still between his hands. “Ah, Carly, what you do to me—”
“Rafe...don’t stop...”
He started to move. Slowly at first, matching her movements. Then faster. He. breathed her name against her throat with each deep, hot thrust and felt the tiny muscles at the core of her give and take as the tension in her built. She urged him on with whispered entreaties, delivered heatedly against his sweaty flesh. The friction of her softness against his rough chest was nearly unbearable. Her hips undulated beneath his in an ancient rhythm that called him relentlessly deeper.
Her soft cries drove him mad with need, and he held on to control by the barest thread. His breathing grew harsh as they moved together, hands clutching feverish flesh. In a haze, he felt her climb to the top of
that wall and stand teetering on the brink of it. With the finesse of a painter, he stroked her over the edge.
Something shattered in Carly, a pleasure so exquisitely painful that she cried out at the force of it. Her body arched into his, and his arms curled underneath her and held on tight. Over and over her body convulsed with Rafe skillfully holding her there on the knife’s point.
Then, his rhythm increased again, faster and harder than before. The guttural sound of his breathing joined the creaking of the bed. A moment later, he crushed her against the mattress as he spilled himself into her with a strangled groan.
Collapsing, his weight half on, half off her, he lay sprawled with his cheek on her shoulder and his right arm pulling her close.
Carly closed her eyes and, for a long time, held him, loving the press of his weight against her. For years she’d tried to convince herself that good sex was all they’d shared together and that was what she missed. Now she knew that wasn’t true. What they’d shared was more than sex. It was more than two people groping in the dark toward some kind of self-gratification. The bond they shared went deeper than lust.
He was the other half of her. The missing piece. And she wondered how she’d gotten along all these years without it. And how she’d go on without him again when it was time for her to go.
Rafe brushed a thumb along the side of her face, and it came back damp. He raised up on one elbow. “Hey, are you crying?”
“No. Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
“Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, her fingers threading through his hair in tempo to her heartbeat. “No. No. It was just—” I’ve missed you, she thought. Covering his hand with hers, she held it there against her cheek. She never wanted to let go. “Are you sorry this happened?”
“I’m sorry about your cheek. This...?” He shook his head. “This was probably a mistake, but it was also—” his thumb brushed her chin “—inevitable.”
Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t stop them. Rafe leaned close and kissed the moisture, then covered her mouth with his. His kiss tasted salty, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. Unlike his earlier kisses, this one was heartbreakingly tender and said all the things he couldn’t.
To Love A Cowboy Page 14