“Where are you going?” she asked, staring at his wide, retreating back in amazement.
He stopped in his tracks, but he didn’t turn around to look at her.
“Downstairs. Come down when you’re finished dressing.”
“Downstairs?”
His words when he got them out were low and clipped. “I need a drink.”
Without looking back, he headed down the stairs.
Amanda glared at the spot where he’d stood.
Turning, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, then picked up the hairbrush he’d set back on the dressing table and threw it against the wall in frustration. It landed with a thud, then skittered under the bed.
Her opinion of him hadn’t changed. He was still the most aggravating, conceited, annoying, arrogant… handsome, sexy, exciting…
She finished dressing in a royal snit.
There had to be some way to get back at him for ignoring her attempt at seduction. Like most handsome men he was one of those dance-away lovers, flirting and teasing until you responded. Real sexuality in women scared them to death. She knew that. The men she’d dated back East had taught her.
As long as you said, “Oh sir, what are you doing, you naughty man?” and played the inferior innocent, they could function. It was when you demanded and gave equal time that they fled. Macho men couldn’t handle women…only girls.
As she slipped into the white Victorian-style dress he’d picked out, Amanda’s quick mind searched for a way to get her revenge on Kyle’s abandoned seduction.
Her eyes lit up at a sudden idea the dress gave her as she tied the sash in a bow at her back. She looked in the mirror at her reflection one final time. The dress was exquisite.
It deserved to be seen at the finest restaurant in town. Finest equaled most expensive, she schemed…recalling that Kyle had said he’d take her someplace special when she was dressed.
Of course, they’d have to go to his place while he changed out of his cowboy duster, boots, frayed jeans and faded chambray shirt.
Turnabout. She could watch him dress. Yes, she was liking her idea better and better.
There was a smug smile on her face as she left her bedroom to join Kyle downstairs to put her plan for revenge into action. Before she was done with him, he was going to need a lot of drinks.
When she reached the top of the stairs, all the lights in the house went out at once, pitching it into sudden, complete darkness.
“Kyle….”
There was no answer.
CHAPTER TEN
AMANDA TOOK A TENTATIVE step down the stairs.
“Kyle….” she whispered again into the darkness below.
There was no answer.
Her heart began to pound as she slid her hand along the smooth banister, edging her way down the stairs. When she was almost to the bottom, she heard a noise and froze.
As she stood immobile on the stairs, her eyes began adjusting to the darkness and she began surveying the room, identifying the dark shapes as furniture.
Suddenly a match flared.
She jumped and let out a startled gasp.
A man took shape in silhouette. After lighting a cheroot, he leaned to put the match to a candle, which shed a flickering glow to the room.
She could see now that the man leaning against her armoire was Kyle. Though his face was in shadow, she recognized the long cowboy duster.
He unfolded his arms and moved away from the armoire, adopting a threatening stance, his feet spread wide. His right hand moved to push the cowboy duster back from his right side.
Her eyes widened as the candlelight glinted off the silver buckle of a gun belt slung low across his lean hips. The holster tied to his thigh with rawhide contained a pearl-handled revolver.
Drawing it, he leveled it on her like a gunfighter. His eyes glittered as he motioned for her to step forward.
Amanda did as he wanted, keeping her eyes on the revolver.
“Start taking it off, lady.”
Her eyes wide, Amanda didn’t move.
“Now.”
She swallowed. Her hands reached behind her to untie the sash of the white Victorian dress, then moved to undo the row of tiny pearl buttons. She looked up at him when she’d finished unfastening the last one.
He motioned with the revolver for her to continue.
She stepped out of the dress, standing before him in frilly white undergarments and laced-up ankle boots.
His blue eyes flickered over her with interest.
“Go on.”
Amanda’s hand reached to untie the ribbon on her camisole, then moved to the satin-covered buttons. When all the little buttons were undone, the camisole parted and the candlelight flickered over her shadowed cleavage.
“Take it off.”
Amanda hesitated and he cocked the revolver, motioning with his squared chin for her to do as he said.
The camisole slid to the floor.
His mouth slid into a tantalizing smile. “Pert little thing, aren’t you?” he said as her nipples puckered impudently under his scrutiny.
Amanda’s hands moved to cover them.
“Uh-uh.”
She lowered her hands under his demanding stare.
“That’s better. Now undo your hair.”
Amanda reached to do his bidding, scattering hairpins to the floor around her. When her thick tresses fell to her shoulders, she didn’t have to be told to shake it out.
Kyle stood studying her, the cloud of hair framing her beauty. She could have stepped right out of a history book—every cowboy’s wet dream.
He uncocked the gun and laid it on the armoire.
“Come here.”
Amanda crossed the distance between them with quick steps and threw her arms around him. Looking up into his laughing eyes, she said, “Think you’re pretty cute, do you?”
He didn’t bother to answer, but lifted her up into his arms and carried her upstairs to show her he was real cute, kissing her senseless along the way.
“You, sir, are no gentleman,” Amanda sputtered when he tossed her unceremoniously in a heap in the middle of her brass bed. He put a match to another candle. “I know, ma’am. But then, when you conjured me up, you weren’t exactly having thoughts about gentlemen, now, were you?” Kyle’s grin was wicked as he pulled off his cowboy duster and tossed it over her vanity bench.
“Oh, dear. I suppose this means you’re going to have your way with me,” she said, pretending wide-eyed coyness as she sat in the middle of the bed, covering her bare breasts with her hands.
Kyle stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “My way, your way and every which way,” he promised in a growl that sent delicious shivers down her spine.
“Oh, goody!”
Kyle’s eyebrow arched. “Oh, goody’?”
Amanda looked up at him, fluttering her eyelashes demurely. “Just one of my sweet little virginal expressions.”
His hand stopped abruptly in the midst of unbuttoning his chambray shirt. “You’re not…”
“That’s right. I’m not,” she said, watching his reaction.
He appeared to be real glad, scoring major points with her. Rising to her knees, she crawled over to the side of the bed where he was undressing. Her look was anything but demure as she trailed her tongue over the ridges of his hard, flat belly.
“Uh…Kyle?” she whispered up to him.
“Um…?”
“When?”
“‘When?’” he repeated on a groan as she detoured her tongue to his turgid nipple.
She looked up at him with a temptress’s smile. “Uh-huh. When are you going to have your way with me?”
“If it’s not soon,” he said on an indrawn breath as she raked her teeth playfully over his nipple, “I’m afraid I’m going to die with my boots on.”
Amanda’s eyes slid down to the hard bulge behind the frayed fly of his jeans. “My, my. I thou
ght you left your gun downstairs, Sundance.”
“Us bad guys always have one on us,” he said, giving up on unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt and pulling them over his wrists. The buttons popped, and one of them flew against the brass headboard with a ping.
“Oh, you mean it’s something like an itty-bitty derringer?” she squeaked, getting even with him for toying with her earlier.
Kyle cast her a maligning look as he unbuckled the empty gun belt and discarded it on the floor. “Why don’t you see for yourself?” he dared.
Amanda’s eyes grew wide, and she placed her hand flat against her chest. “Why, I couldn’t do that, sir. It might…well, it might go off in my hand.”
Kyle chuckled. “You’re right. It might at that.”
Reaching down with his hand to cup the soft swell of her breast, he captured her lips in an eating kiss, his tongue thrusting into the warm, moist sweetness of her mouth.
His breathing grew ragged and he pulled back, his hand slipping down to explore under the fluted edges of her tap pants. She emitted a strangled moan of pleasure when the heel of his palm ground into her pelvic bone.
“Do you think you could do me a favor?” he whispered hoarsely, his fingers teasing the throbbing dampness.
Amanda’s head fell back, her eyes closed, and her body trembled with desire. “Anything, sir. Whatever you want. I’ll stable your horse, sew on your buttons, kill the sheriff…anything. Just let me do it… umm… later.”
“Uh-uh. I need you to do it now, Amanda.”
“Now?”
“You don’t want me to die with my boots on, do you?”
Amanda’s eyes fluttered open. “Your boots?”
Kyle nodded. “I need your help getting them off.”
“Oh.”
She took a deep, calming breath and moved off the bed while Kyle sprawled back across it and closed his eyes. He was long, lean and flat, except for the straining protuberance at his crotch. Every inch of him was sexy and golden, even the hollows of his armpits.
Looking down at him, Amanda knew she was probably making a mistake, but like Scarlett, she’d worry about it tomorrow.
“My boots, ma’am,” Kyle said, opening his eyes to see what the holdup was.
Amanda reached down, lifted up his boot by the heel and toe and tried pulling it toward her. It didn’t come off. She took a deep breath and tried again. Nothing.
Kyle, watching her, shook his head disparagingly. “Lady, don’t you know nothing about cowboys? You’re doing it all wrong.”
“I am?”
“Uh-huh. See, you’ve got to swing your leg over my boot like it’s a horse…. That’s it. And then…umph…pull.”
He teased her by wiggling his ankle, wedging his boot up against her femininity. “Kyle!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Behave.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, sliding his boot back and forth, ignoring her instructions with a naughty chuckle.
Without any help from him, she managed to get both his boots off and herself as frustrated as sin.
Turning on him, she demanded, “What do you call that?”
“A lesson,” he said with a wink, pulling her down against him, where he began kissing her throat with hot, openmouthed kisses. “Now you know why ladies love cowboys and cowboys never, ever die with their boots on.”
“You’re incorrigible.” She laughed lustily.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He pulled her over him on her knees, her thighs straddling his chest. Proving just how incorrigible he was, he slid his hands up the backs of her stockings, grazing the bare thighs above and then on up beneath the fluted edges of her tap pants. Squeezing her sleek buttocks rhythmically, he brought the juncture of her thighs to his mouth, sucking at her through the silky material, his teeth nipping maddeningly.
Removing one hand to pull pillows beneath his head, he propped himself up so he could give her up-tilted breasts the same lavish attention.
His tongue flicked back and forth across their peaks until they were hard and puckered. Then, opening his mouth wide, he began paying homage to their thrusting invitation as he laved and sucked until he heard Amanda’s breathy little moans.
His lips slid lower, and he rained darting, then lingering kisses over her lower abdomen, teasing her, his hands still kneading and squeezing her bottom rhythmically.
His nose edged beneath the fluted tap pants provocatively. Her moisture and the dampness of his mouth soon mingled, drenching the scrap of silk and filling the air with the heady scent of sex. Within moments, his ears rang with her joyful whimpers of pleasure as she convulsed against his cheek, his hands working their magic until she quieted.
Pulling her down against him, he folded her in his arms, covering her with gentle kisses and sweet love words. When her breathing returned to normal, he rolled over and got up from the bed. Unsnapping his jeans, he dug something from his pocket before he shucked the jeans from his body and kicked them aside impatiently.
A moment later he rejoined her on the bed, pulling her close.
“Touch me,” he whispered hoarsely, pulling her hand down to his hardness.
“So. You are a gentleman, after all,” she said, feeling the protection he’d used.
She felt his eyelashes flutter closed against her cheeks as a shudder of pleasure rippled over him at her intimate caress.
“Amanda….” He sighed worshipfully.
She opened her mouth to his, and they supped hungrily, their tongues exploring and mating.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he groaned, his breath ragged and uneven.
Levering himself above her, he tugged the silky tap pants to her knees. “Now let’s go ‘someplace special’ together.”
“Yes,” Amanda cried, arching up to meet his thrust as he entered her velvet-soft slickness.
He went up on his knees as he surged again, pulling her with him. Her back arched away from him as she braced herself on her palms. Shivers of pleasure raced along her nerve endings when he lowered his lips to her upturned breasts and sucked them, his hands on her hips continuing to pull her to his hard, deep thrusts.
One hand surged into her dark tresses, pulling her torso up against his. His golden body hair swirling over his wide, sculptured chest abraded her sensitive breasts. When he withdrew slowly, almost completely, then entered her with a quick succession of thrusts, she bit into his shoulder and screamed with the shock of pure pleasure that rocked her.
Kyle lost any vestige of control at her cry of pleasure. He threw back his head, his eyes closed, his mouth open, and ground his groin against her as he throbbed to climax.
They clung to each other, damp and slick…breathless.
When the final tremors of passion ebbed, they collapsed in an embrace of limp satisfaction.
Beside her, Amanda felt Kyle’s lips move against her ear. “I think you just ruined fantasy for me, lady.”
“Does that mean you had a real good time?” Amanda purred.
“Umm….” he murmured, nuzzling her ear. “I should have realized it was really my job and not my sexy body you were after. Much more of that and Noah would find himself notifying my next of kin.”
“You mean that’s all? We’re done?” Amanda teased, leaning up on her elbow and playfully trailing her fingertips across his washboard belly.
“I am…but you go right ahead. Don’t mind me.” Punching up his pillow, he looked over at her with a Cheshire cat smile and said, “I’ll watch.”
Amanda kicked off her tap pants, which had ended up tangled at her ankles, and flipped over onto her stomach. “Not without the price of admission, you won’t”
“‘Price of admission’?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m afraid to ask,” he said, resting his hands behind his head.
“‘Admission’ is the operative word,” she explained.
“You mean I have to…ah…tell y
ou something?”
“Admit to something,” she clarified.
“Like what?”
“It can be anything. Deep, dark sexual secrets are good.”
“Deep, dark…” His eyes widened. “Amanda!”
“I’m waiting….”
“But I don’t have any… Wait a minute, there was the time with the two airline stewardesses in the rest room of the plane….”
“Two stewardesses?”
“Nah, come to think, that was my evil twin.”
“What about your evil twin?” she asked, twirling a strand of his blond hair between her fingers.
“I can’t tell. He’s real shy and made me promise not to tell anyone about him.”
“You’re sure he exists?”
“He’s been around as long as I can remember.”
“I see.”
Kyle turned and scooped her up.
“What are you doing?”
“I decided I don’t want to watch, after all,” he answered, whispering a very naughty suggestion into her ear.
AMANDA LAY PROPPED UP on her elbow, watching Kyle sleep. He looked as though he belonged there beside her on her bed. Even though he was asleep, his presence in the carriage house chased the loneliness from the rooms. If only he was in love with her.
The morning sunlight streaming in through the plantation shutters cast shafts of light, patterning him in a soft, golden glow. In sleep, he was beautifully innocent. His blond hair was mussed as if he’d raked his hands through it repeatedly. His sweeping lashes cast faint shadows on his pronounced cheekbones. A faint stubble showed on his angular jaw.
Her eyes lowered to his chest. She couldn’t help herself. She had to touch him. Touch the golden blond hair matted there…. She laid her hand on his chest tentatively. When he didn’t move, she slid her hand across him in a loving caress.
Kyle’s laugh was rich and lusty as he caught her hand in his strong grip.
“Am I dead?” he asked, opening one eye and looking over at her.
“‘Dead’?”
“I seem to remember being in heaven last night,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips for a nibbling kiss. The sleepy sensuality in his eyes made her stomach somersault as he considered her.
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