by Tessa Bowen
“Slow down, goddamn it. It’s not a date.”
He caught up with her as she struggled to open the door of the barn. “Your dark-haired porno therapist is waiting for you.”
“You’re acting like a child.”
She turned flashing eyes on him. “Yes, I’m behaving badly again, aren’t I? That’s what spoiled daughters of filthy rich oil barons do. They act badly.”
“You could do better—try a little harder. What are you doing in the barn?”
“I’m going to ride, I told you.”
“Like hell you are.”
“I’m leaving today, but I’ll ride one of these Jackson Mustangs even if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You’ve been leaving for days now,” Jeb spat.
“You’ve been stalling my departure as well! Don’t try to deny it.”
Jeb simmered. “Well, it will indeed be one of the last things you do if you try to saddle up. There is no way I’m letting you on a horse in your state. You’d spook even the tamest of animals and end up falling on your head.”
“Maybe it would set me straight!”
“You need to be set straight!”
Lorelai looked at him with a heated challenge burning in her gaze. “I could think of all sorts of ways to be set straight.”
“So could I,” he threw back.
She gave him a haughty shrug. “You’re not willing to do what is required.”
“Aren’t I?”
“Your hand seems to give out when your makin’ love,” she mocked.
Lorelai knew that comment was particularly cruel. She felt the waves of anger coming off him.
“I don’t have makin’ love in mind,” Jeb said through his teeth. “And my hand is just fine.”
To make matters worse, the X-rated therapist had made her way across the lawn. Her voice sounded in the distance. “Are we doing this, or should I come back another day?”
“Another day,” Jeb barked over his shoulder.
Lorelai raised her chin triumphantly. He’d sent her away. She’d won the competition for his attentions.
“What then?” she asked. “What did you have in mind to straighten me out? If makin’ love isn’t on your mind.”
In the next instant, he pounced on her, twirling her so her back was to him, then he lifted her against him and carried her across the barn, depositing her rather unceremoniously atop a hay bale. She tried to scramble to her haunches, but he laid a hand flat to her back, holding her captive against the scratchy hay.
“What are you doing!”
“Showing you how good my hand works.”
Lorelai screeched when she felt cold air on her bottom, and the weight of the bale give as he straddled her, almost as if she was a bucking bronc and he the rider. And buck she did when the flat of his palm came down on her backside—hard—so hard, it made a loud slapping sound and the horses began to whinny in their stalls. She struggled beneath him, as his hand met with her flesh again and again. She was choking on hay and her own screams when he tugged her skirt down to cover her burning ass, then he jerked her to her feet, tossing her over one shoulder, only to throw her like a rag doll into a saddle. He quickly mounted behind her and they were off. His arm was like an iron band around her middle as he spurred the stallion across the lawn, heading toward the open field behind the house.
Her hind end burned as it jostled, but it didn’t matter. Something deep within her burned more—her need for the man behind her. The speed of their wild ride caused tears to stream from her eyes, partly from the pain and partly from the wind whipping past them. She squinted at the looming mountains ahead and wondered how far he’d take her.
She knew one thing, this would be the most exciting ride of her life, because she was with him.
Chapter Five
Jeb ran the horse fast. The half-girl half-woman part-mermaid jouncing in his lap had driven him to the brink of madness once again. He should have turned her away at the door that first night, but the gentleman he’d been raised to be never would or could have. Now, in a matter of days he’d formed some strange bond with her, one that he couldn’t explain. She drove him crazy, yes, but he wasn’t sure he regretted any of the time he’d spent with her. And he couldn’t imagine her gone from his life either, although her impending departure was inevitable—or was it? She’d touched him in some vulnerable place, cast her spell, confused the hell out of him. Maybe in the end, he was just a sucker for a damsel in distress.
They were high in the mountains now. He pulled the horse into a clearing. A few trees dotted the site as well as a plush layer of fresh spring grass. He dismounted and plucked her from the saddle. She swayed where she stood, her ponytail was jammed to the side of her head, loose tendrils falling free to frame her flushed face.
“Now you’ve ridden a Jackson Mustang,” he rumbled.
“You were rough with me.”
Jeb tilted his head, sizing her up. He should feel worse, he had been rough, but something told him she wasn’t truly traumatized. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her nipples were beaded tight against the thin fabric. She didn’t look cold. No, she wasn’t cold—she’d found a thrill in his punishment as well as the perilous ride he’d taken her on.
“I have a feeling you liked it.”
She rubbed her butt and took a shaky step backward. The image of her naked and very taut rump still blazed brightly in his stupid male mind. That was part of the reason he’d tossed her into that saddle, he’d wanted to take her right there on that hay bale. He didn’t know which was worse a hay bale or a truck. Riding hard had given him back some control.
“I thought you were a nice man,” she sulked.
“You pushed me to my limits. Did I hurt your fanny?”
“Yes, but I deserved it.”
“Maybe…but I shouldn’t have thrown you in a saddle right afterwards.” He came toward her slowly. “Let me assess the damage.”
She didn’t argue when he caught the hem of her dress and slowly peeled it over her hip. She was rosy, but not bruised or overly red. Gently, he smoothed the fabric back into place.
“I’m sorry, Lorelai.”
To his surprise the impetuous girl stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms tight around him. Her bosom heaved against his chest and she buried her face in his shirtfront.
“I’m not sorry. You were right. I did like it.”
Jeb groaned even as his arms came around her. His head spun with heady waves of lust. So much for control. She would undo him with her desires, as well as her perfect blushing rear.
When she pulled back and looked at him, he was done for. Those mysterious eyes of hers enslaved him with one sultry blink.
“Lorelai,” he moaned, and grabbed her, lifting her off her feet so he could press her to him. Her feminine core was flush with his male need. He crushed her lips in a hungry all-consuming kiss. She went limp in his arms. He’d literally knocked the wind out of her, in more ways than one. She was soft and pliable—not the saucy hellcat she had been the night before. She was sweet Lorelai, in rumpled linen and a mussed ponytail. He carried her to a particularly soft patch of grass beneath a tree, laying her down upon the velvety blanket of clover.
He stood, gazing down upon her, trying to still the roiling sensations within him. She gazed back. There was calm in her eyes as she began to undo the tiny buttons down the front of her dress until the fabric spread wide, falling around her in a soft cloud, leaving her utterly exposed.
“It’s time,” she said softly.
Jeb took in the perfection of her nubile form with reverence, her flawless skin, slender limbs, the fair patch of hair between them, flat belly, delicately bowed ribs and high peaked breasts that rose and fell.
He knew she was right. It was time. There was no denying it. They’d had this date for a while now.
“You’re so damned beautiful, Lorelai.”
When she opened her arms to him, he quickly disposed of his own clothes and came over her, kissing he
r gently as he pulled her ponytail loose of the rubber band, so he could spread her hair out over the grass.
He worshipped at her altar, running kisses along the graceful column of her neck, between her breasts, holding the dainty globes in his calloused palms as he loved her nipples, then he scooted lower, dipping his tongue into her belly button. His hands caressed over her hips then met at the apex of her thighs, sifting through the pelt that hid her feminine secrets from him. He realized she was shy. She held her legs straight together.
“Part your limbs for me, darlin’,” he cooed. “Let me look at you.”
When he raised pleading eyes to her, she opened her legs for him. Jeb studied her in wonder, she was as pink and lovely as her dress, dewy like the petals of a flower in the morning.
He buried his face there. She tensed. He realized he should have taken more time, but the sight of her drove him wild—and the need to taste her. Her flavor was as mysterious as she was. He adored her with his tongue, easing her legs wider until they relaxed and came around his neck.
Soon she was making sexy keening noises, her back arching beneath his expert ministrations, her fingers tangled in his locks, tugging and pulling. Jeb could sense she was close, and he growled against her needy flesh. It would be just like her to climax quick, lusty blossom that she was—and climax she did, right into his mouth, giving him the gift of her moist release with a shudder and a quake. He didn’t give her much time to recover but kissed his way up her body until his sex was pushed against the soaking hot part of her that he’d just fed upon.
Her eyes were unfocused, but still filled with yearning. “Jeb,” she panted. “Come inside me. I need you inside me.”
He slid home, letting loose his own shudder. They fit together perfectly. He didn’t move a muscle, seated to the hilt, his body wrapped in heaven.
“You sent her away,” she said softly.
“Who, honey?”
“The brunette.”
“She’s common, Lorelai—not like you. How does this feel?”
“Just right.”
And it was just right. Every minute of it. Their eye contact never broke as he began to move within her. Cautiously at first, then more firmly until she whimpered and he groaned with each thrust. Her wondrous limbs hugged him, ankles locked tight at the base of his back, he clutched her flanks as he drove deeper. The scent of her mingled with the scent of the fresh spring breeze and Jeb knew he’d never be this happy again. He also knew he wouldn’t last longer either. She felt too good, better than any other woman he’d had before.
“Smell so good…feel so good,” he mumbled, burying his face in her hair.
He reached between them, wanting to give her one more release before he let go. He found the distended nubbin and smiled against her ear when she burst with two simple strokes of his finger. Her body clenched him tight, squeezing him rhythmically—and he was lost, lost in his own ardor and lost in her sublime and singular body.
He cried out her name as he came, bestowing hot kisses to her lips and cheeks as he bucked against her, emptying himself into her waiting body. He tasted tears on her cheeks and kissed those away before collapsing beside her. He held her hand across his thundering heart.
“That was perfect,” she sighed. “That was just how I’d imagined it would be—when I was seventeen.”
Jeb grinned and threw his free arm across his face, shielding it from her in his embarrassment. “Seventeen is too young to be thinkin’ such thoughts.”
She elbowed him playfully, then tucked herself against him. “What kind of thoughts were you thinking when you were seventeen?”
“Lord knows, and it wasn’t perfect—I should have made it last longer. I should have made love to you all day. You got me all wound up, I wasn’t prepared.”
“You had eight years to prepare.”
“What do you mean?”
Even before the words sunk in, Jeb experienced a niggling feeling in his belly. Something was chewing away at the waves of bliss—reality he supposed. He’d been as tempestuous as she. He shouldn’t have slept with her so quickly. He should have gotten to know her better, and under different circumstances. Indeed, he should have made it last longer—the entire affair, not just their sexual encounter.
“Remember? I told you before in the barn, the day the lamb was born—what you said to me that first time we met.”
“What did I say to you?”
“That you needed eight years to prepare for the likes of me.” She squeezed his hand tight. “I waited eight years. Now here I am, lying in your arms. And I think you prepared quite nicely.”
That sinking feeling Jeb experienced sunk lower, as though his heart had dropped into his gut.
“It was the strangest thing,” she went on. “I was at a party in that horrible sequin dress, newly divorced, out of my head on booze and pills. I thought my life was over—and it was. Well, that life anyway, and then suddenly I thought of you and had an overwhelming urge to see you. I just got in my car and drove straight here. Nothing could have held me back.”
“So it wasn’t a haze of drug-induced lunacy that landed you here. You had a plan.”
“You could say that. I’m not sure I would have followed through with it if I would have been sober, but I was certainly on a mission that night. I told you, I made it in two days, hardly stopped.”
Now straight up panic raced through Jeb. It was all very clear to him, frighteningly clear. He was as moved by her confession as he was horrified. She was just a confused kid—confused like Sophie had been. It had been dishonorable of him to have the affair with Sophie and it had been dishonorable of him to sleep with Lorelai. He’d taken advantage of her, without meaning too. She’d pulled him into the vortex of her storm. He hadn’t experienced such tumult in a relationship since Sophie. And Sophie had ended up dead, all because she’d thrown herself at him, just like this girl had. Sophie had thrown herself at him because she’d missed his brother—and he was the next best thing. Lorelai had thrown herself at him because she was devastated by her split with her husband. He was only a fantasy to her, or maybe worse, just a conquest.
“You were on a mission—a mission to get what you wanted, which was me.”
His words came out flat and cold.
Lorelai raised her head and looked down at him. “Yes.”
“You need to leave here before we both get lost in this thing.”
Her face fell. “What…?”
“How long have you been divorced?”
Now her face went pale. “Officially? Just a week.”
“And how long have we known each other?”
“Not even five days,” she answered quietly.
Jeb didn’t mean the words to come out so harsh, but he was hurt—as hurt as she was about to be. “Have you ever heard the word rebound?”
She disentangled herself from his arms and sat up straight, covering her naked breasts. Her fine brows came together.
“Of course I’ve heard the word. I know the timing is crazy, but I’m not rebounding—I’m in love with you.”
Jeb sat up too, drawing his legs to his chest. “People can’t fall in love in five days.”
“Yes they can,” she argued.
“It’s not the correct way to do things.”
“You can’t just dump me after…after…” she trailed off.
“This wasn’t right of me. I should have exercised more restraint—but you surely make it hard for a man to remain collected.”
“Maybe you need another eight years,” she spat, snatching for her dress.
“Maybe so.”
Lorelai leapt to her feet, standing before him in all her rumpled glory. “You can’t just send me away now. I’ve felt this way about you all this time and now you make me feel like a fool for admitting it to you.”
“You’re all mixed up,” he tried to reason with her. “And rightfully so. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I’m not mixed up! I’m passionate! And I belie
ve in destiny!”
Jeb tugged on his hair. “Don’t start up with the hollering,” he pleaded. “I just want what’s best for you—and for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Ugh—who cares. You just had your roll in the hay, or grass I guess it was.”
“You know me better than that, even if it has only been five days.” He shoved his legs into his jeans and yanked them up. “Don’t start hitting below the belt, Lorelai.”
She got in his face as he rose and buttoned his shirt.
“You mean don’t start acting like a thwarted child?”
“That too.”
“You think I’m just some silly girl—you don’t even see me as a full-grown woman! You aren’t even sure what I am—you think I’m a mermaid from some stupid fairy tale! If I had the mermaid carving right now, I’d throw it right at your nose!”
“You’re right—I’m not sure of a lot of things, but I am sure of this—I want to be more than just some Dallas deb’s goddamn fantasy.”
“You are more! We want the same things—and as far as what’s best for me, you are what’s best for me!”
Jeb shook his head. “I’m not like the people you come from, Lorelai. I’m not a city boy. I never want to leave the ranch, that’s how simple a guy I am.”
“Stop hiding behind the simple guy act. I told you, I never bought that. I never want to leave here either.” She motioned wildly around her. “Who would?”
“You’ll want your fancy Dallas lifestyle again, and a fancy Dallas gent.”
“No, I won’t. I’m through with that life.”
“I’m a burnt-out cowboy with a busted-up hand. The novelty will wear off, Lorelai—trust me.”
“Stop calling yourself a novelty! You are a good man. You could teach me how to be a good woman.”
All he could do was shake his head over and over and stare at his boots. He was denying her heartfelt words as well as what he felt in his own heart.
“I didn’t use my head with Sophie, I followed my emotions and it ended in tragedy.”
“So you think I’m cursed after all—you think you’ll be doomed if you get involved with me, just like you were doomed with Sophie, doomed like some sailor dashed against the rocks.”