When she’d walked out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her, her knees had been about the consistency of jelly. She’d had to stop and brace herself against the wall until she steadied enough to walk.
Even then she’d been shaking so hard that she’d dropped Trey’s wet clothes. Twice. And it had taken her three tries to get the can of tomatoes positioned correctly in the can opener.
But sometime during her efforts at appearing calm and normal in case the girls lost interest in the television and came to the kitchen, she had crossed a threshold of sorts. Maybe she had crossed it down the hall in that steamy bathroom while she’d stared at a naked man who had so obviously wanted her.
Not just any man. Trey.
If any man had ever wanted her this much, she hadn’t known about it. But this man wanted her. This man who stole her breath and made her heart pound when he kissed her. The man who had such tender consideration for her injured daughter. The man who took the time to let two little girls ride their first horse. That same man who had later climbed on behind her and pressed his hand intimately to her stomach, melting her.
She’d never known a man like Trey Wilder and probably never would again. She was going to take what he was offering her and give what she could. When she left Wyoming in a couple of weeks, she did not want to look back and wonder what it would have been like to make love with the man, the man, who so stirred her senses that she could think of little else but him.
She was going to take him as her lover.
He was going to devastate her. She cared too much for him for it to be otherwise. But caring too much was her problem, as would be the hurting that would come. She didn’t want to waste what little time she might have with Trey worrying about future pain.
Besides, one time might be all she had with him. That might be all he wanted from her. It might be all she would want with him.
Oh, right, she thought with a silent chuckle.
Suddenly something changed around her. The very air seemed to move, yet she felt no breeze or draft.
Trey.
He was there. Without turning to look, she knew he had joined her in the kitchen.
She gave the sauce another stir, then tapped the large spoon against the rim of the pot and set it in the spoon rest next to the stove. Then slowly she turned.
They stood there, not moving, for the length of one breath, then another. Blue was supposed to be a cool color, Laurie thought. But there was nothing cool in Trey’s eyes now. They were hot, so hot she swore she could feel the heat from across the room.
He had left his shirt off as she’d told him to. The soft white T-shirt she had pulled from his drawer and left in the bathroom was now bunched in his fist.
Without taking her eyes from his, she reached for the tube of cream she had placed on the windowsill a few minutes ago. “Sit down and I’ll tend to your back.”
Without taking his eyes from hers, he pulled a chair out from the table, turned it around and straddled it.
Laurie had a death grip on the tube as she took the three steps to his side. Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze free of his and watched herself unscrew the cap. She squeezed out a drop of white cream and dabbed it on the cut on his right temple. Then she moved to his back.
“Whatcha doing, Mama?”
Startled at the sound of Amy’s voice directly behind her, Laurie jumped.
“Ha,” Amy crowed. “I scared you.”
“You did. I thought you were watching TV.”
“It’s a commercial. What are you doing to Mr. Trey’s back?”
“I’m putting cream on the spots where the hail hit him. See these red places, and these two cuts?”
Amy frowned at Trey’s back for a moment then sidled up next to him. “Does it hurt, Mr. Trey? Mama can kiss it and make it better.”
“Can she?”
“Uh-huh. She’s real good at it. She made my wrist all better.” Amy whirled around to his back. “Here, Mama, kiss this red spot.”
Laurie’s breath caught in her throat. Her daughter looked up at her with such sincere hope, and Laurie did so want to get her lips on that skin, and really, what could it hurt, with a five-year-old chaperoning them?
“This one?” she asked, touching one slightly trembling finger lightly to the spot.
Beneath her touch, the muscles on Trey’s back quivered.
“Yeah,” Amy said. “That one first. It’s the biggest.”
Laurie bent and pressed her lips to the big red welt on his right shoulderblade. She felt him stiffen. “Did that hurt?”
Trey cleared his throat. “Uh, no.” No, hurt was not the word. Annihilate came close, Trey thought. “No. It didn’t hurt.”
“Does it feel better?” Amy asked.
“Yeah. It feels fine.” If he felt any finer, he just might explode.
“Do this one next, Mama.”
“All right.”
Trey fought against a shudder. Each time Laurie spoke, her voice got lower. Quieter. Breathier. If she was trying to torture him, it was working. One by one she kissed spots on his back he wouldn’t have given a second thought to. Now he couldn’t get his mind past them. He swore he could still feel her lips at each and every place she kissed, and with Amy directing the process, there were nearly a dozen before Laurie called a halt.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I think we’ve got the worst of them. I think your show’s back on.”
With a squeal of dismay at the prospect of missing something on the television, Amy raced back to the living room.
But Trey wasn’t safe yet. Laurie was at his back again, this time with the cream. It was cool against his skin. Soothing, when he knew he needed to be soothed but wasn’t sure he wanted to be. “I think I liked your lips better.”
“Did you?”
He wondered if that breathy quality in her voice was deliberate. He wondered, for that matter, if the top of his head was still on. “Do you know what you’re doing?” She was, without a doubt, driving him slowly out of his mind.
“Putting cream on your cuts and bruises?”
“That’s not all you’re doing.” He craned his neck and looked at her over his shoulder. “And I think you know it.”
All he could think was that it was a good thing he was sitting down when that knowing, woman’s smile came across her face.
Chapter Thirteen
Laurie was never sure how she made it through supper that night. More than made it through; she’d cooked it. Thank heaven she’d had the spaghetti sauce simmering before Trey came to the kitchen, otherwise she would never have been able to vouch for the ingredients.
But somehow they made it through supper, and through Katy spitting up on Trey after he fed her, and through Carrie and Amy’s bath, followed by just a few more minutes of television, then another drink of water, then a trip to the bathroom for one. Then the other. Then getting Katy settled down for the night. Until finally the house was quiet.
Laurie slipped into her bedroom without saying anything to Trey. Her emotions had run the gamut this day, and she wanted to settle herself.
She’d been amused by Mrs. Biddle’s stories about Trey in his misspent youth. Then the confrontation with the lovely, red-haired Cindy. Concern for Trey when he’d come in from the storm. And after that, everything floated in a haze, because her mind and body had been preoccupied with sex.
There. She had actually let the word form in her mind. She was going to have sex with Trey.
But, oh, she hoped it was more than that. She wanted, for this one night, to make love and be made love to. She wanted caring and consideration and red-hot passion.
She might be setting herself up for disappointment, but, well, she’d been disappointed before, hadn’t she? Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that.
Looking in the mirror over her dresser, she wished she had a slinky black nightgown to wear for him. Or a red-is-the-color-of-fire teddy.
“‘If wishes were horses…’”
; What she had was blue jeans and a shirt, and beneath them, plain white cotton underwear.
“Listen to me,” she thought with disgust. Being a red-blooded male, Trey would surely appreciate the black or red come-hither wear, but he wasn’t so shallow that he would care that she didn’t have them to wear. And if he was, he wasn’t the man for her.
“But he is the man for me,” she told her reflection. “At least for tonight.”
And it was time for her to let him know it, in no uncertain terms.
Trey lost count of the number of times he had paced the living room since Laurie had disappeared into her bedroom. Was she coming out again or had she changed her mind?
No. He couldn’t believe that the woman who’d been giving him those hot, smoldering looks all night had suddenly turned timid. There had been nothing timid about the way she’d looked at him in the shower or the way she’d kissed the bruises on his back or the way she’d met and held his gaze down the length of the table at supper. That woman wanted him, maybe almost as much as he wanted her.
Unless she’d been acting. Teasing.
But why would she? Laurie wasn’t like that. She was warm and open and honest.
Dammit, where was she? He was about to go out of his mind. He’d wanted her practically from the day she’d arrived, and tonight everything she did and said had told him she wanted him, too. That she was ready to take this step with him.
At the end of the living room he turned for the hundredth time toward the doorway to the hall, and there she stood. Her name came out on a sigh of breath.
When Laurie heard it, her blood thickened, her heartbeat slowed, then raced. “I said, before, that I wasn’t ready.”
He walked toward her until he stood a mere two feet away. “And now?”
Nerves suddenly assailed her. Not that she wanted to back out, because she didn’t. But she wanted them both to enjoy what was to come, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to make that happen. During her marriage, sex had been infrequent and hurried. Since her divorce, it had been nonexistent.
But, looking at this man before her now, she knew she had nothing to worry about. He was a man who knew how to pleasure a woman; she was sure of it. He would make up for whatever she lacked. She only hoped she didn’t disappoint him.
“And now,” she told him quietly, “I’m ready.”
She thought he might kiss her then, but instead, he picked up the baby monitor from the occasional table beside the door, then took her by the hand. Unhurried, as if they had all the time in the world, he led her down the hall to his bedroom.
The lamp beside the bed was burning, and the sheet and blanket and comforter were turned down.
He’d readied the room for her. It might have made her nervous, but instead it made her smile, because she thought it was sweet.
Behind her, Trey closed the door. She heard the faint snick of the lock and turned to him.
He took the three steps that separated them and stood before her. His stockinged feet made swishing sounds across the carpet. He set the baby monitor on the nightstand and took her hands in his. “I’ve pictured you here.”
Laurie gazed up into his face and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I’ve pictured myself here.”
“I’m glad you’re finally here.” He lowered his head and nibbled along her cheek.
“So am I.” At the feel of his warm breath against her face, his fingers twining with hers, Laurie’s eyes closed.
“Good.” He worked his way to her jaw and down the side of her neck, where he scraped his teeth lightly along some magical cord there.
Robbed of speech by the hot shiver of current that raced through her, Laurie let her head fall sideways to give him better access. Anything, as long as he didn’t stop.
He didn’t stop. He slipped his arms around her and trailed his mouth around to the hollow of her throat.
Either the bed rose up to meet them, or Trey lowered her to the mattress, Laurie couldn’t swear which. All she knew was that a moment later she was lying crossways on the comforter with Trey’s solid, delicious weight anchoring her as he eased his thigh across hers.
With her hands free since he had released them, Laurie indulged her weeks-long fantasy and, mindful of his injuries, sank her fingers into his thick, black hair.
It wasn’t soft, but neither was it coarse. It was full-bodied and luxurious, and she loved the feel of it against the sensitive skin between her fingers, the way it gleamed in the lamplight.
But there was more hair on his chest, and it drew her as if she were freezing and his chest promised warmth. “Off,” she whispered, tugging his T-shirt up. “Help me.”
The desperate rush in her voice sent heat pooling in Trey’s loins. He wasn’t alone here, neither in his bed nor in his wanting. He would give her whatever she asked for, everything she would take. She wanted his shirt off; it was gone. He whipped it over his head and tossed it somewhere behind him.
“Ah,” she breathed.
Her hands on his chest felt like balm to a bruised soul. How was a man supposed to keep his head when a woman touched him this way?
The fleeting thought came to him that other women had touched him this way but it somehow hadn’t felt the same, hadn’t been as important. As life altering. And then he forgot them, those other women, because right here and now there was only Laurie. Here and now and tomorrow, for as many tomorrows as he could imagine, this was the woman he wanted touching him, the woman he wanted to touch.
Want. He wouldn’t allow himself to think of need. Want, he could deal with. Need worried him, so he refused to consider it. He was too busy, anyway, just then to think straight as he fumbled the buttons free down the front of her blouse and kissed his way in their wake. Her skin was as sweet and soft as he had imagined it during the long, lonely nights of the past weeks. Tonight he wouldn’t be lonely, but he prayed the hours with her in his arms would be long.
With the last of the buttons undone, he lifted her enough so he could pull the blouse free of her arms. Her bra was plain white cotton and, for some reason, sexy as hell. Then, in a heartbeat, it followed the way of her blouse and his T-shirt.
Now, he thought with a low growl. He shifted his weight until his chest pressed against her bare breasts and felt the breath leave his lungs. He could lie this way forever, except he wanted his hands and mouth on her breasts more than he wanted his next heartbeat.
He started at her mouth, kissing her, drinking the soft moan from her lips. Then down her chin, her throat, straight down to the silky, fragrant valley between those soft mounds that drew him like a siren’s call. He buried his face there and breathed in the essence of her.
With his knee he nudged her legs apart and shifted into the cradle of her thighs. And then he feasted, trailing hot, wet kisses up the inner slope of one breast, to the crest. With his tongue he flicked the very tip.
“Ohh.” Everything inside Laurie paused and shifted, centering on that single spot where his tongue teased her flesh. Pinpoints of heat and sensation, like a sharp, electric current, made her arch her back. When he closed his mouth over her nipple and suckled, she cried out in sheer pleasure. With both hands she held his head there so he couldn’t dare leave, wouldn’t dare stop tugging on that invisible wire that led from his lips to her womb. She would gladly spend the rest of her life lying on his bed with his mouth at her breast and his weight between her thighs.
Then he was moving, taking his mouth away, but only to kiss his way to the other breast. Her whimper of protest died half-born, and when he reached the other nipple and thrust his hips against her, it became a moan of tortured pleasure.
Never had she felt so much. Tingling heat and a heaviness in her core, which seemed somehow both empty and full. A lightness of weight, as if she would float off the mattress if Trey weren’t holding her down. And emotions, so many emotions. Caring and gratitude, need and greed, a deep, hungry yearning. And something much stronger and deeper that she shied away from.
When his mouth left her breast and trailed up the side of her neck, Laurie pushed Trey onto his back, determined to give him back the pleasure she’d just received. And, in the process, she discovered that the pleasure had not been all hers. Hearing him suck in a sharp breath when she flicked her tongue over his nipple gave her a heady thrill. The knowledge that she could make this strong man moan helplessly by sucking on his nipple made her feel more powerful in her womanhood than she’d ever felt in her life.
No, the pleasure had not been all hers. If he had felt any of what she was now feeling, he had also been pleasuring himself. The thought thrilled her.
But soon Trey had had nearly all he could take of that particular torture. If she kept it up, he would likely lose control, and he wasn’t ready to let the fire inside him burn them both just yet.
He turned the tables on her and rolled her to her back. It was time to rid her of her jeans, and he did so quickly.
He should have known, after seeing her bra, that her panties would also be plain white cotton. And they were. They were also bikinis, cut high enough on the sides to incite a man to riot. But they were in his way, keeping him from the treasure he sought. It was no problem to slide them down her shapely legs, no problem to follow them down with kisses clear to her toes.
Pale curls nestled at the juncture of her thighs. His hand went there with no need for direction from his mind, while he teased her navel with his tongue.
Laurie arched clear off the bed. She had to grab fistfuls of bedding to anchor herself. And then his mouth was on hers and his finger, only a single finger, slipped into that hot place that ached for him, and waves of sensation exploded deep inside her, radiating outward, taking her with them until there was nothing left of her but him.
Trey watched, humbled that he should be the man allowed to give this woman so much pleasure that her eyes became unfocused. He felt privileged in a way he never had before. And he’d waited as long as he could. But he waited longer still, until her gaze focused again. On him.
Shifting until his hips settled between hers, he pushed his way inside. Hot, damp velvet surrounded him like a glove.
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