“I know.” She dropped her head to give him better access. His fingers encountered the chain around her neck and as he went to lift it out of his way, he found her wedding and engagement rings dangling from the other end. She clapped her fingers around them as if to hide the rings, but, too late.
“At least you’re wearing them,” he said softly. When she said nothing in reply, to either acknowledge or deny that, he let them go, and dug his thumbs into the spot on her neck he remembered from when they were together before, the place where all of her tension gathered. There the knots still were, waiting for his fingers to find them.
Her skin was warm and silky soft. This close, he caught the scent of lavender in her hair and that female scent that belonged to her alone. There was something about Kate’s scent that drove him crazy. Whatever else had changed, that remained constant.
A moment later, as his hands strayed to her upper arms, she reached up to stay his fingers with her own and turned back to him. She studied him for a moment before she ended the contact between them. “Thanks. You always did have great hands.” She stretched out on her back to stare upward. “C’mon. I was just about to search the sky for the meaning of life.”
Fireflies winked in the darkness as he stretched out beside her and tucked his palms under his head, staring up at the sky. Overhead, they heard the swish and flap of bats’ wings as the night creatures chased the flickering bugs. The purr of evening surrounded them. They lay like that for a long while, just staring at the stars, and again, tonight, shooting stars eluded them.
“Anything?” he finally asked.
“Nope. I got nothing.”
“Me either.”
She grinned and rolled a look at him. “Hey...about the rodeo and Cutter. You know I wasn’t trying to get in the middle.”
“I know. I wasn’t upset with you. It was everything else. And he’s right. I have been promising him.” He sighed. “But so far, the rodeo is just a story he’s heard me tell. The real thing can be a lot scarier for a five-year-old who’s watching his dad possibly getting the shit kicked out of him under a bull.”
With a worried look, Kate picked up a fistful of sawdust and tossed it over her left shoulder. “Pretend that was salt and bite your tongue. Besides,” she added, “you can’t really avoid taking him forever. It’s what you do.”
“Did,” he corrected. “I’m only back at riding now for this place. And when I earn enough to keep us up and running, I’ll give the rodeo up again.”
“You know, you used to love bull riding.”
A sigh escaped him. “I still do. In fact, if you don’t love the rush of it, you’ve got no business on the back of a bull. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I can’t afford to get hurt. Especially now, with this place. Which is why, if things work out with the PBR event in Springfield, Missouri this weekend, I plan on the Copper Mountain Rodeo being my last.”
They’d discussed the Springfield event and Kate had agreed to watch the kids by herself for the few days he was gone. He’d be riding in a Pro Bull Riders Association rodeo and the prize money was too good to pass up. She wished he’d invited them all along, but she understood his need to protect the twins and decided not to take it personally.
He picked up a piece of scrap wood and ran his fingers along the edge of it. “I’ve been saving up for the last six years for a chance like this.” He gestured to the fields around them. “This place fell in my lap because of Frank Greevy’s generosity and, believe me, I’m grateful. But he was sick a long time and nothing’s been touched here for years. The repairs on this place will take everything I have if I’m not careful, before I can even make it a working ranch. So the rodeo, it is.”
She rolled toward him and braced her head on her hand. But she said nothing, just stared through the darkness at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I used to love watching you ride. Well, technically, I was scared to death watching you ride. But you could ride those bulls like nobody’s business.”
A pleased smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t think you should let anything keep you from doing the thing you love.”
He rolled a look up at the stars. “My kids have put a whole different spin on my priorities.”
She dropped her hand to the wooden floor between them and drew little circles in the dusty plank. “I know. I admire that about you. Mostly because I’m so not a grown up. At least, ask my family and they’ll tell you that. My many choices in men have been...well, let’s say flawed.”
He squinted at her in the dark, a funny look that made her ask, “What? Do you want to know how many?”
“How many what?”
“Men. How many men there have been?”
“No. I wasn’t going to ask that.”
“What were you going to ask?”
“I was wondering how they didn’t see in you what I do. How they let you go.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. Don’t say things like that to me.
He touched the diamond rings that dangled against her blouse.
She laughed and pulled the rings back. “I just have them there for safe-keeping. Don’t go getting any ideas.”
He rolled up on his elbow toward her now with a grin. “Like...what kind of ideas?”
“Like...like...that this means something.”
“Does it?”
She clutched the rings between her fingers like a nervous habit. “No.”
But even in the moonlight, under those stars, he could see the lie in her eyes. She could have kept them in a drawer, out of sight. But she hadn’t. They were nestled against her breasts, the precious metal warm from her skin.
Maybe the starlight was to blame, or the fact that they were up here in this treehouse when they should be doing the right thing, but he didn’t feel like doing the right thing. He didn’t feel like doing anything at the moment but what was wrong. She gasped as he slid his hand around her waist and pulled her close to him. “Maybe I don’t believe you,” he whispered against her mouth.
She swallowed thickly and flattened her palm against his chest. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Maybe I like it.” He tucked her against his hips, just so there’d be no mistaking just how hot that fire really was. A tremor of want went through her and her fingers curled into his shirt. “And maybe you do, too.”
“I don’t.”
“Prove it. I dare you.” His mouth hovered teasingly close, his lips barely brushing hers.
“Gawd,” she breathed against his mouth with a smile he could feel. “What’s the deal with everyone daring me lately?”
But then she kissed him, and it was no gentle thing. Her kiss was hungry and full of hot need. She opened to him, wanting his tongue, finding his with hers until they couldn’t get any closer. Until that kiss fused them together. He felt her arms tangle around his neck, restless and tugging him closer yet.
Damn, she tasted good. Red wine and sweet strawberries. And Kate.
An instant later she was on her back and he was on top of her, pushing his knee between her long legs and reveling in the soft press of her breasts against the hard plane of his chest. But he wanted—needed—her closer yet. He wanted inside her. Not just physically, but past that steely wall she’d closed around herself. He wanted all of her, not just the piece she’d agreed to loan him.
He slid his hands up her wrists and pinned them beside her head as he dropped a kiss against her ear, her neck, the little notch in her collarbone. Her hips shifted underneath him, tilting against his aching erection. He answered her movement in kind and she curled her leg around the back of his with a mewl of need.
Tugging the silky tank down the front of her breasts, he left a damp trail of kisses down to her lacy bra, which he pushed aside as well. And when his mouth closed over that tight little bud and he gave a little tug, she arched upward with a little gasp of pleasure.
“Ohhhh...” Her fingers twined with his. “This proves
...nothing.”
“I disagree,” he murmured against the silky, soft skin of her breast.
“Okay,” she breathed, “It proves I...I have no willpower. Under the stars...in a treehouse.”
A grin tugged at his mouth as he released her hands and trailed one of his downward, along the curve of her breast and farther down. “Duly noted.” He tugged up the hem of her long skirt, sliding his palm along her smooth, toned legs and tried to recall how many times he’d dreamed of doing just this in the last six years.
She settled her hands on his shoulders, rocking her head back and forth. “No, really, Finn. We shouldn’t. This is...this is all wrong.”
“You want me to stop?” He let go of her hand and pushed aside the hem of her skirt until his hand cupped her at the damp juncture of her legs. Languidly, he touched her there through her panties. “Ah, God, you’re so wet. I don’t think you do.” She sucked in a breath and dropped her fingers into his hair with a slow tug. And just that made him come close to losing it. He clenched his jaw and slammed his eyes shut. “But I’ll stop if you tell me to.”
“But...but the rules—”
“Screw the rules. You made ’em. You can break ’em.”
Kate knew very well that he was right. But she punished him for that suggestion with a little nip at his throat with her teeth, which she followed with a kiss. She felt a quake rock through him which only aggravated her need for more of the same.
She thought she’d prepared herself for a scenario like this. She’d imagined all the arguments pro and con and argued them all in her mind a dozen times. But once he touched her, logic and common sense abandoned her like a flock of birds at the crack of a gun. She felt adrift on his touch. Hungry for more. And as lost as she’d ever felt in her life.
“You think we’ll come out of this unscathed,” she murmured, catching his hand before he could dip his fingers into her heat. “But we won’t. We can’t undo this.”
“I don’t want to undo it—” And to prove his point, he tugged her panties aside and slid a finger into her. Lifting his head, he watched her arguments collapse and her eyes slide shut. He always had known just where to touch her to make her lose her mind. “Do you?”
She gasped. “That’s...so unfair of you to ask me...now, when you’re...”
“When I’m...?”
“Doing that.”
“Who said anything about fair?”
Ahhh! Nobody.
He added another finger to the mix, slipping in and out of her with a maddening slowness until she was shaking with need. Her breath was a wild thing, trapped in her throat and all she could think was: please don’t stop. Who cared about silly rules when he was...ohhhh! Her back arched and she bent her knees, welcoming him into the valley of her hips in reckless abandon. Vaguely, in some prehistoric part of her brain, that recklessness triggered a warning light. But that light was dim and blinking.
Dipping his mouth to her nipple again, he teased the nub with his tongue and sucked her hard. “You taste so damned good,” he breathed against her skin.
She gasped, sliding her own hand down between them to feel his hard length against her palm. One by one, her arguments ‘against’ doing what they both seemed to want chipped and fell away. And all the arguments ‘for,’ waved little flags, shouting “What’s your problem?”
Her fingers tugged at the button on his jeans. “I want—” she began, but he claimed her mouth again with a groan of pleasure. He pushed himself up on one hand and flicked open the buttons on his jeans, one-handed. She slid her hand up the hard contours of his arm, a touch that churned her thoughts and made her lose her place. What had she been about to say?
Oh, yes. Now she recalled.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I have nothing to prove.” She shoved the waistband of his jeans past his hipbones but he stopped her hand. “Please, Finn...”
“You’re so sweet and wet. But we’ll have to continue this inside. I didn’t bring protection,” he nearly growled.
She tilted her hips against his hand and blurted, “I’m on the pill—” before she could stop herself.
She heard him swallow thickly as his hips ground against her hips in an ancient motion, as his hand did miraculous things. “You sure?”
“Yes! I’m positive!”
“I mean about this.”
Oh. “Stop talking or I’ll lose my nerve.”
And his fingers found that very nerve she mentioned. She squirmed against him. It had been a long, long time since anyone had touched her this way, or even cared enough to touch her this way. For a moment, she allowed herself to forget her resolve.
With one finger, he tugged down the silky panties that stood in his way and poised himself at the apex of her legs. He stared down at her in the darkness, his eyes on hers, saying something she couldn’t make out. Something intentional and deeper than this moment or anything he was about to give her.
And then he slid inside her, filling her, and she nearly cried out with pleasure. His hard velvet stroked her, slowly at first, drawing her ever toward that unfathomable edge that made her thrash her head side to side and moan out loud. “Oh, you feel so good!”
The thrust of his hips seemed to accelerate at her words, moving faster of their own accord, until he seemed to lose control altogether and curve down around her to take all of her into his arms. Grinding, grinding, the friction between them grew unbearable until she tightened around him, spinning off out of control and flying apart. And when she did, he took his own, pounding into her until she felt him come hard and fast inside her. And with her arms and legs wrapped around him in the dark, up high in the tree, she welcomed him and everything he had to give.
***
They lay, spent and sated under the stars on the hard planked floor of the treehouse for a long time afterward. Neither of them felt inclined to move, nor did they feel inclined to discuss the wisdom—or foolishness—of what they’d just done. If Kate had been privy to his thoughts, she imagined he was, right now, deciding that lust and logic made poor bedfellows and that he should have thought things through with his head rather than with those parts of him that had less control.
Her thinking moved along much the same line, though, from somewhere, deep inside her, came the rogue thought, “I might still love him.”
Startled, she sat up in the dark beside him and turned her back on him, clutching her bare knees in the dark. No. No. No, you don’t. You lust after him. Those two things are not the same.
But what if she was falling in love with him again? What if she’d never really stopped? What if she let him break her heart all over again? Could she even survive that?
On the other hand, what if he didn’t break her heart? What if ‘they’ were...possible?
But he’d said nothing about love. Nothing, ever, about wishing their marriage was anything but a fake. He’d gone along completely with the deception without stipulation. Because he needed her. But love her? No. He’d said nothing about love. They were two lonely people, who needed, wanted sex. Nothing wrong with that, except that sex was never just sex with Finn. Intimacy with him was always more complicated than that, all tied up with...feelings.
Sometimes...often, over the years, she would remember that day he’d walked away from her. The tender words he used, the devastation she’d felt, like a scratched CD stuck on repeat. She’d hear those words every day when she was doing something completely routine, like drying her hair or washing dishes. “I wish to God things could be different,” he’d said. “I’m so sorry, Kate. But I have no choice here.” But he’d had a choice and he made it. And she couldn’t make him shut up now. And she couldn’t make herself stop remembering. Maybe he’d been able to forget, but she hadn’t.
Now, he touched her back with the warm palm of his hand, sliding it down to her hip where he caressed the cooling curve of her body. “Hey,” he said softly. “You cold?”
She shook her head. But she was, suddenly. Cold as hell.
“W
anna go in? We could share my bed. At least until morning before the kids get up.”
Again, she shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”
He sat up beside her. “Or maybe it is.” His voice was low and husky with the promise of more of what they’d just done.
Kate tugged her skirt down and shrugged into her tank after she found the silky thing halfway off the edge of the platform. Finally, she gathered up her underwear and turned to him. “This was fun.” She pulled his hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss against his palm. “Really fun. But...don’t ask me to share your bed. Okay? I’ve already broken one rule tonight. A biggie. Don’t ask me to break another.”
“Kate—” he began with a frown of concern.
“Oh, c’mon, let’s not spoil things by getting all serious. And let’s not kid ourselves and try to make this mean something that it didn’t. We had great sex. We’re grownups. We can handle a little indiscretion. Right?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking a little wounded. “Right.”
“All right then.” She kissed him, a quick peck on the mouth, nothing more. “It really was nice, Finn. See you tomorrow?” She sent him her best big-girl smile and climbed down the ladder. It took every ounce of willpower not to stay with him there. Not to wrap herself around him and hold on for dear life. But that wasn’t her. Not even close.
In her small, ugly bedroom, she sat alone for a long time on the edge of her bed, staring at the green shag carpeting on the floor, wondering what was wrong with her? Clearly, her sisters were right. She was messed up and their intervention had been wholly appropriate. She did have a problem. Less than a week here and she’d already done what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. No matter that she’d done the deed with the man who’d once been the love of her life. No matter that he’d made her feel beautiful and wanted tonight.
She’d gone there. Now what? How would they pretend what they’d done hadn’t happened? She, for one, couldn’t. The worst part was she wanted more. She wanted him in her bed tonight, holding her. The temptation to give in to his request to share his bed had made all her other failures pale in comparison.
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