“Ah. Easy. Nurture versus nature,” he said, all the while his hand caressed the side of her breast and she undulated into his touch. “And some things are meant to be. Genes, traits draw some people together. Willow Talks was in love with two men here in town. White men, long knives, the Comanche called us. One was Reg Saxon’s brother. And the other was my ancestor. Both wanted to marry her. Reg Saxon’s brother almost got strung up for hiding her at his house. My ancestor was run out of town by a gang headed by Jeremiah Turner. By the time he came back to get Willow Talks from Fancy’s and the MacRae’s house, Willow Talks had returned to her reservation. Try as my family might she wouldn’t leave.”
“That is so sad. All those people who—” Willow caught back anguish for Willow Talks.
Giles pulled her close. “Don’t cry, darlin’. Don’t. Her sorrows are gone. So are the men who loved her. But we’re here. Willow, hear me. Life is for the living. Now. Not tomorrow. And we live in a time when we can have what we want, most of it, if we seize the moment. I want to seize what you and I feel for each other. Explore it. This easy companionship that is damn sexy. Let me make love to you now.”
“Giles, I’m tempted. But I don’t want to lead you on or—or at worst have you think I’d do it for the thrill of the moment.”
“Tell me I’m wrong. But you want this. Me. And I definitely want to make love to you.”
“And if in the end there is no connection or karma or woo-woo, we’ll have the pleasure of it to remember.” She stroked his cheek, allowing herself to emerge from some cocoon, some layer of reserve.
“And in the end who knows? There may be more.” Smiling, he got to his feet and extended his hand to her. “Come to bed, Willow. Let’s discover what we share between us.”
Triumphant, Giles led her toward his master suite. The bed and bath had served as his personal, private playground for two years. Ever since he’d moved back to Bravado and finished the house, he had waited for the day when he brought a woman here who meant more to him than a night’s entertainment.
He liked his women sweet and rather inexperienced. The lack of a good lover in her past meant a woman could be romanced and caressed into giving all. He liked his women generous and he loved making them ravenous…for him.
Like Case and the three MacRae brothers, he liked his sex long and slow, complicated and somewhat raunchy. But he was no Dominant. He was a lover of females in all their forms and temperaments. But he liked them with him and another man, willing, compassionate, savage and freshly eager.
Willow appealed to him because she was so many elements rolled into one. Yeah, sure, he liked the fact that she was extended family. And he had the feeling she belonged here in Bravado. Liked the people. Him. He liked that she was open to lying down in his bed with him after so few hours together. Some women just freaked if you hadn’t held their hand for months before you hopped in the sack. Sex was mutual caring and fun. True, he liked that Willow seemed somewhat unpracticed when it came to men and sexual relationships. What he had to give her would expand her world. Maybe even tempt him and her to keep expanding it together. You never knew when you took a woman to bed what delicious surprises you’d find. And with this one his cock was jumping the gun to drill inside her before he even got her clothes off and got a sample of those beautiful nipples that had poked through her t-shirt all evening.
The bathroom, like the house, was a world unto itself. Mind-blowing. He had built it that way for his future wife, whoever she might turn out to be. A spa of blue travertine and black granite, the room had everything. A walk-in rain shower. Sauna. An infinity-edge bath, really a small pool, was meant to make love in. The water in the fall at one end ran at a constant eighty degrees night and day. Just in case I come home with a woman I have to have.
Tonight was such a night.
She gasped at the sights in his room and he grinned, warming with satisfaction that he had already pleased her.
He took her to the edge of the pool and brushed his hands down her shoulders to her wrists. “Do you want to take your clothes off or would you like me to do that?”
She inched closer, her lush lips curving in a tease. “You do it.”
He twirled her around and settled her back against him. “Close your eyes and feel. When I ask you a question tell me what I want to know.”
“Okay,” she said with a smile in her tone. “Like what?”
He began to caress her clavicle, the deep hollows there. Her skin was flawless silk and he was distorting her t-shirt to massage her. She didn’t object. “How many lovers have you had?”
“Three.” She let her head loll back to rest on his shoulder and he smiled to himself, his cock a happy dude.
He nuzzled her ear. “Were they any good?”
She hesitated, as if she were recalling them with detail. “One. The other two, terrible.”
“But you like sex.” One of his hands he splayed open and ran it over her shoulder.
“I do. I think I like it better all the time.”
That had a ring to it, an implication he understood because she had most likely spent quite a bit of time with Wade. No matter, Wade wasn’t here.
Giles lifted both her breasts, the fullness turning his knees to water. He cupped her nipples, the skin soft as chiffon. Were they red, pink? He’d know soon.
He thrust a leg between her own, the better to support them both, as he sank an open palm down her ribs. She was tight. Her skin growing hotter. Flicking open the button to her jeans, he sent his hand down to her hip and her mound. Christ. She wore no panties. And she was smooth, shaven. All the better to eat.
“Shall I stroke your clit?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice high and tight.
He did it for her, and god, was she slick and engorged. For me.
“What’s your favorite part of making love?”
She inhaled and seemed to lose herself in whatever her answer would be. “Oh, Giles, I like it all. Being pampered, stroked, eaten. Especially eaten.”
As she spoke he drifted his hand down to invade her slit. She was so wet she was dripping with want. “And has a man ever had your ass?”
“No. Are you going to?”
He kissed her neck. “I’ll prep you so that I can eventually. Wouldn’t want to tear you or cause you hurt.”
“Why do men fuck like that?”
“Because a woman is so tight. Because when she’s well-prepared one man can have her there and a second can have her pussy.”
She shivered.
Oh, baby, you re so sweet. “Do you give a good blowjob, darlin’?”
She tried to turn, but he clamped her close and wouldn’t let her. “I do. Will you let me give one to you?”
“If that pleases you, yes. But only after I’ve had you my way. All my ways.”
“You have to tell me.”
“In this succulent swollen pussy.” He sent two fingers up inside her juicy cunt to demonstrate. “Standing, sitting, from behind. Then if you’re able, in your ass.”
She struggled then to be loose of his arms and he let her go. She faced him and threw him a seductive smile. Caught in his need for her, tangled in her own desires for him.
He was rewarded at once with the sight of her hand to her jeans, and she faced him and let the denim fall. The sight of her naked took his breath.
He worked at words. Shook his head. If this was déjà vu, if he was—what?—genetically reliving or compensating for any part of his ancestor’s failure to have her ancestor, to make love to Willow Talks, then he knew he was paying a heavy price for a karma he had never believed in.
She was so much woman. Big and strong, generously curved but captivating in her sinuous grace.
“You like me,” she whispered, pleased and surprised, a kitten in her joy.
“You can’t imagine, darlin’, how much I do. Walk around the pool.”
“You don’t want to fu—make love to me?” She sounded as if she were pleading for a treat. “I want
to make love to you.”
“I…I need a minute to absorb how damn beautiful you are. Walk. Over there.”
She did. And the muscular play of her legs and her buttocks, the way she swung her long arms and swished her midnight hair nearly sent him to his knees. He walked to the cabinets and took out a box of rubbers. He’d use every one if she let him. Extracting a packet, he dropped the box to the floor.
“Come here, darlin’, right here.” He opened his arms and she walked right inside. “Your skin is like a furnace.”
She lifted a brow. “So are parts of you. Can I undress you?”
He laughed, hugged her and bracing his hands on her hips, he sank before her. There he kissed her navel and nudged her thighs apart. With gentle fingers he pushed apart her labia and inhaled the heavy musk of her desire for him. She glistened with her juices. And he put his lips to hers and sucked her into his mouth.
God almighty, she was his every dream. Wet and moaning, she clutched his shoulder and bucked. “You can’t have me standing. I can’t come this way. I’ll fall!”
He didn’t care. He grabbed her around the knees and ate his fill. God, she was gorgeous and giving and his.
She screamed his name, her hips bucking while he stuck his tongue inside her and felt her palpitations of ecstasy. He needed more. With two fingers up her cunt he got her G-spot. She was sagging, beating his shoulder. He had to have more.
She drifted down and spread herself on the floor tiles. Flowing over her, he went for her sweet pussy again. This time he would milk her and then he would let her milk him.
She whimpered. “Let me have you. Put your cock inside me, please,” she moaned as she came once again.
He found her clit and pinched and played. She beat his chest. He laughed lightly and licked her nub, sucking on it, pulling until she shouted and came again.
This was the way he needed her. Flush from a fresh new orgasm. Her mouth parted, her eyes dreamy, her voice wild.
Then he stood up. With half-lidded eyes she watched him like a hawk and beckoned him with one hand.
Smiling at the lover he had always wanted—compliant, happy, multi-orgasmic and free of old strictures—he shucked off his clothes and returned to her. This time, as he bent over her, he settled his hands under her ass cheeks, laved her to distraction and brought her to a climax one more time. Then he sank his turgid cock inside her tight, tight cunt and fucked her.
God help him. He fucked her. Hard, fast, screaming his own delight, he rammed her, merciless.
She shouted out her own madness, cupping her breasts and tweaking her nipples with the force of her climax and moaning how good he was.
Proud he had done her right he picked her up and walked down the steps into the pool with her. “Let me wash you and then we’ll do this all again.”
“Ohhh, no. I have to go home, Giles,” she said as she clung to him, her voice hollow with sexual exhaustion. “The town. I don’t want people to think I’m—”
He cupped her chin and kissed her lavishly. “I’ll take you home in a few hours. Before sunup. You’re here and mine. I’ll make love to you again and then I’ll take you home to sleep in your own bed.” He combed her hair back from her face and admired her gorgeous bone structure and her strength of will. “I hate to give you up but you and I are going to do this again.”
She cuddled him close, avoiding looking at him.
Christ, Wade had gotten to her. Before me. He clutched her close. How could he keep her? Did he have a chance against Wade? Or was he doomed to fail? With his hands stroking her nipples and her belly he tried to draw her to him but she buried her face in the hollow of his throat. He wanted to scream, cry.
She sniffed and pulled away, calm in her features. “Before I go you must show me the picture of Willow Talks.”
“Sure. Have to give you what you came for.” He grinned. “Aside from me and good lovin’.”
She hugged him, her smile genuinely pleased with him and herself. When she looked at it would she see what he knew about the portrait?
Having held her and made love to her he did have a woo-woo experience and he understood now why that photograph, ragged and brown and faded as it was, had meant so much to the Benedicts. That was the woman who had changed so many of their lives. Willow was her spitting image.
He wondered if he continued with her, if she might change his own.
Chapter Eleven
Giles drove her home before dawn. She crawled into her bed, naked and sighing, and fell deep asleep. At ten she was up in a flash, darting for the shower and all the things she had to do.
Avoiding the image of Wade at the Two Step she told herself she’d figure out what she must decide about the two men in her life…later. Never had she been so head over heels for one man and at the same time delighted by a second. She didn’t think she was fooling herself about her regard for both men. Yet never in her life had she enjoyed herself more with two different men. If she yearned for Wade more than Giles she put that down to Wade’s way with words and constant caresses. But his churlishness turned her off. Hell with him and his bad humors.
She had work to do. And she was not going to go mooning after the local sheriff like some silly star-struck schoolgirl.
Yet that afternoon, as she waded through the historical records in the Bravado County Library, she forced herself time and again to read the words, focus on her facts and figures.
By two o’clock she was done fighting with herself. She returned the boxes and record books to the librarian, said her thanks and headed her car to her B&B.
* * * * *
“You need to go home.” Wade’s deputy Chet Harris leaned over him and hit the button to turn off his computer. “You have been looking at the blank screen for more than half an hour. Either go get some sleep or go shoot a rabbit, will ya?”
“Smart-ass,” Wade shot back.
“Takes one to know one. Go home. Bite what’s eating you. You sure are not getting anything done here.”
“The paperwork on that stolen car?”
“Yeah. I told you I took care of that. Sent it over to the B&B for Miz Turner to give to her insurance company. All set.”
Wade ran a hand through his hair. Looked out the window and blinked at the sun blazing over the line of the far hills. “Thanks.”
“Yeah. Take a powder.”
Wish I could. Not so easy to solve my issues with Willow. Issues, plural. Such as how he could make it up to her for barking at her. So she had gone out with Giles? What of it? He and she had partied and he had no permanent claim on her. But he wanted one. Damn it to hell he needed one. He glanced at his young deputy. “I could fire you, you realize?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow, Sheriff. I sure am ready. But until you get your head screwed on straight I am running this office. Scram!”
Wade got up, reached for his Stetson and searched mightily for some of his dignity. “You call me if anything pops.”
“Would I handle it on my own? I would and I will. At the moment you couldn’t help a little old lady across the street.”
Wade pointed his hat at the upstart. “Your ass is definitely fired.”
“Good. I could use a vacation.”
Wade grumbled and strode to the door. “I’m leaving.”
“Hot damn,” the guy mumbled and waved bye-bye, eyes on his own computer screen.
Wade shut the door with a thud. “Last time I rehire a sergeant straight out of Afghanistan.”
He loped to his truck, swung in and fired up the ignition. Damn if he wouldn’t go home and rest. He needed time off from…wanting Willow Turner.
He pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “Fuck it. No time like the present to go have a drink.”
Minutes later he walked into the private digs of the Bravado Club, minus his hat, his badge and his gun. No authority needed here other than the dungeon master’s. No violence here at all ever. He wanted a stiff drink and a friendly face.
“Hey, Wade.” Jed MacRae came
around the edge of the U-shaped bar. Two other men sat at the opposite end, talking with a woman Wade didn’t know. Floor-to-ceiling glass and subtle lighting had him looking at himself and noticing the shadows under his eyes. He was happy for the diversion to say hello to Jed.
“Bourbon?”
“And branch. Make it a double.”
Jed dug in the well for the bottle. “Tough day?”
“Mmm, you could say.” He drummed his fingers on the black granite, impatient to be rid of his problem, knowing liquor was not the cure.
“Glad you came the other night.”
Wade blinked at him. Then he realized with a start that Jed was not talking about climaxing with Willow Turner in his nice, broad bed but about his appearance at their party for her. “Yeah. Fun.”
“You wouldn’t shit me now, would you?” Jed set a crystal glass before him and arched his brows.
“Could I?”
“Maybe some other day. Right now you look like hell. Want to talk?”
“Do I have to?”
“Your call.” Jed turned.
Jed was a step away when Wade thought better of it. “Hey. Wait. I did come looking for a shoulder to cry on.”
“So hurry up.” Jed tipped his head toward the three at the other end of the bar. “These folks want to do some business.”
“I don’t know the men.”
“New members. They own a computer-based buying service. Moved it here from Vegas. Nice guys. I’ll introduce you but at the moment they’re busy.”
“I see that. They want a room?”
“So they say.”
“Who is she?”
“From Compton. Comes in only during weekday afternoons. I told her she’d meet a lot more of our members at night but she says she can’t come then.”
Wade looked her over. Liked her smile, her laugh. The fact that she wore little makeup. “No collar on her.”
“Up for claiming.”
Wade took a swallow of his drink. A brunette with sun-streaked blonde highlights, she was petite with an oval face and small tits. Not his type. Not anymore. “Nice-looking.”
“Seems like she knows what she’s shopping for.”
Bind Me Close: 3 (Knights in Black Leather) Page 16