“You’re in an awful rush, darlin’.”
“I know.” I have to have more of you, all of you I can take. I have to give you as much as I possibly can because I can admit to myself now, I want you forever. I just don’t have the courage to make that happen.
* * * *
Her haste unnerved him. He kept glancing at her on their way home. His questions died down when she just shook her head, unable to answer any of them. If she spoke, she’d cry. Or worse, she feared she’d howl. So she just looked out her window and said nothing.
When he pulled into his driveway, she shoved open her door before he could come around to open it for her. She tugged him along the path, and he came but with apprehension in his every step.
After he put the key in the lock and pushed open the door, she charged through and pulled him after her. Running her hands up through his satin hair, she reached up and kissed him with all the desperate ardor of a woman about to lose her man.
“Baby, what are you doing?”
Tears leaked out of her eyes as she swirled away from him, toward the bedroom.
She kicked off her boots, tore at the buttons on her shirt and her jeans, dropping them, leaving them where they lay. She was naked when he appeared in the doorway. He lifted his chin, motioning her toward the bed, knowing by now, she guessed, that words weren’t going to work with her. She stepped backward, the back of her calf hitting the mattress and allowing her to sink slowly down and push herself across its length.
He came to her, fully dressed, hovered over her like an animal, his green eyes limpid but fierce with anxiety in the dim moonlight streaming through the windows.
She whimpered, arching up, her sensitive nipples brushing his starched shirt, her hands going around his waist. He caught one of her wrists then the other and forced them above her head, his gaze searching hers for clues to what was happening in her brain.
Whatever he thought he saw in her expression, he reached down to unbuckle his belt. Whipping it from its loops, he circled her wrists, then lifted her and shoved her up toward the head of the bed, wrapping the other end of the belt to the iron posts and yanking tight. His body went rigid, his eyes glazed.
Then he drew away.
Shocked that he would leave her, she groaned in objection, but her fears were for nothing. He lifted one of her feet, stroked it, sole to toes, massaged her ankle and kissed her arch. His mouth thrilled and tickled then spread kisses on her knee as his splayed hand slid up the inside of her thigh.
She bowed up, thinking she would come for him then, there, but his skillful fingers seized the other foot. This one he nibbled, making her writhe and gasp as he nipped at each toe and her heel and scored her sole with his fingernails.
She bucked, craving his possession. He drifted away, and she cried out to watch him rummage in his closet. He came back with two more belts. He quickly wrapped one around one ankle and tied the other in the same way. He spread out her legs to secure her to the bottom posts. For each task, he seemed intent, his features harsh in the soft shadows. With a gentle tug, he ensured that she was bound well but not so tightly that she would be hurt.
He crawled over her again, supporting himself on his elbows, his mouth loving hers, then taking her lower lip in his teeth and biting her.
This play she loved, and with her eyes and pouting lips, she told him so.
He slid down and took an eternity while he gazed at her pussy. Finally, he touched her tender flesh, and she quivered. One finger traveled up her seam, like the touch of a butterfly. Both hands to her inner thighs, he pushed her open wider. Her head thrashed. Her cunt creamed. She swallowed in electric excitement.
He stood, while she undulated on the bed in sheer expectation, and he stripped. When he was naked, she swooned with the beauty of his abs and the corded powerful arms that held her so well, so mightily, so often when they made love. She admired his lean hips, the way the muscles bulged and pulled at his taut stomach, and pointed down to his dark thatch of hair and the long cock that stood proudly reaching for her.
He climbed over her, hunched, his shaft pointing down to her mouth, and slid a fingertip inside her lips. She knew what he wanted, though she’d never tongued him at this angle. She didn’t need experience, just him. And god knew, she’d give him whatever he wanted.
She licked his length. He grunted, hands to his hips. She lifted her head and swirled her tongue on his tip, dewy with drops of cum, all for her. She sucked on him, over and over, as he gave her more and more. He held her chin as he dipped into her mouth and she swallowed as much of his length as she could. He groaned and pulled away.
Suddenly, he was parting her swollen, tender labia and pinching her clit until she gasped. Then he spread himself out on the bed between her legs and began a thorough assault on her drenched, needy pussy. He kissed her, sucked her, fingered her and pushed her lips together so that he could titillate her sensitive little nub with his talented tongue and make her scream, “More!”
In two jerks, he had a condom open and on. The moment seemed like a year until he grabbed her legs and pushed them impossibly wider. He sank into her like a long, hard pillar of steel, gripped her hips in two hands and rode her like she’d seen him ride wild horses in the ring. Indomitable and ferocious. With bared teeth and mad devotion to conquering her body with every ounce of power in his own.
She came, gasping for air, grasping for memories to take with her. Her cunt pulsed with clenching ripples of completion that blazed across her consciousness.
He muttered something and drew out of her.
She screamed her objection.
But he loosened the belts at her feet and flipped her over, sending the last air from her lungs in the impact. Her wrists twisted in the belt that tied her to the post. He swirled his hands over her buttocks, and she prayed she knew what he would do next.
Have me there. Finally.
But he kissed her on one cheek and the other. Caressed the fullness of her ass and curled one arm around her hips to lift her up and back to him. He sent his cock deep inside her pussy this way, and in the bliss, she cooed utter nonsense.
He was gone before he gave her any time to build another orgasm.
Instead, he was hauling her hips up into the air, and she trembled, expecting his caress. He spread her cheeks and massaged her asshole. She heard him reach for the gel he kept by the bed for their forays into anal sex play, and she wiggled her ass higher for him to get on with loving her, for godssakes!
The cool lubricant he spread over her little hole and inside had her sighing with his ministrations. He inserted a thumb, as he’d often done before. And a long finger, as he’d done also. But when he withdrew this time, she heard him putting the succulent lube on his cock. She arched.
Oh, hurry, darling, please.
She felt the blunt tip of his rod at her opening, and she caught her breath. But he was a lover who was kind and generous, slow and careful, as he pushed one small iota at a time into her virgin channel and sank ever so much deeper with each moment. He drove her to a mute O of delight. Her fingernails digging up the sheets, she took the fullness of his shaft into her and held on as he took his time to let her feel his might.
The pain was pleasure, and the joy more electric than ever before, as he plunged with deliberate care in and out of her. She whimpered, and he’d pause. She groaned, and he would plunge. The ecstasy was an eternity and the climax, all too brief.
He withdrew, pulled off the condom, rolled her over and, in a few strokes, freed her arms. Limp with exertion, she reveled in his embrace, his kisses to her eyes and her lips, his caresses of her nipples and her hips.
She drifted to sleep like that. Boneless with exhaustion, she awoke once to burrow into him more, remembering his mastery of her and letting herself go back to sleep, aware in the back of her mind that something was dreadfully wrong. But when she woke again, she knew instantly what it was that stalked her.
She loved this man. Now, because of how she had so
recklessly printed things about him that were false and had nothing to do with the head injury that caused his outbursts, he could never love her. She had to accept that as cruel fact.
She’d done this to herself. Carelessly, willfully, thinking that in the rightness of her youth, what she’d seen of him that day in the ring, what she’d read about him being hot-headed bore repeating. She had been wrong. On all counts.
Except for one.
She needed to get her job done for him and build him up so that no one—no one as foolish as she had been—could ever hurt him again.
Chapter Five
The next morning, she awoke to hear him making breakfast in the kitchen. The lure of coffee and his huevos rancheros were usually enough to draw her out like a magnet, but this morning, she escaped to the shower. When she did go out, she had her hair up, wet in a ponytail, and her clothes on from last night. She was determined to be casual, normal and their usual bantering selves. But one look at Kade and she knew today that wasn’t going to work.
He put a mug of coffee in front of her then plunked the jug of milk down, too.
Her eggs came next, warm and fragrant with onions and peppers, but served by a man who was stiff, silent and cold.
“Kade, I want to explain about last night.”
He loomed over her. Breathing heavily, he waited.
She looked up.
His jaw was set, his gaze weary and sad. “Go ahead.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy. Okay.
“I just got upset by Troy and his problems.” Which was true.
“I could see that.”
“You see, I know a lot about alcoholism.”
Kade scowled. ‘How’s that?”
“My father drank himself to death.” She stared at her hands. “I grew up seeing him drunk and demanding and silly. He was a good man, funny and kind, but he also wanted to be a bigger star on the circuit than he ever was. And liquor helped him get over the fact he wasn’t going to be anything but mediocre. You know why. You’ve worked the circuit. Bull riding eats up your youth and your energy and your time. My mother, meanwhile, was lonely. With him gone so often, so long, she would beg him to quit, come home. And one day, he did. He’d gotten hurt, broken his leg. He was home, and of course, there was no money coming in. My mother went to work. But he hated her doing it, and she’d come home, and they’d argue. That’s when he began to drink during the day. When I came home from school, he’d already be drunk. And by the time my mother got home, he was very drunk. They’d argue. And one day, he hit her.”
Kade pulled out a chair and sat down. He covered her hand with his warm one. “What happened?”
“She asked him to leave, and he did. But she didn’t tell him the whole reason why.”
Kade frowned.
“She had found out from her doctor that she had breast cancer. Very advanced and inoperable, you see. She just couldn’t cope with his problems and her own illness. So she asked him to leave, and when he did, it killed them both.”
“That’s why you were brought up by your aunt and uncle,” he concluded then raised her hand to his lips. “Honey, I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I do. I just don’t like to be around people who can’t control their tempers. It makes me nervous. Anxious.”
“I get it. God knows, Troy is just not reliable.”
“I know. That’s what I want to say to you. I know. I shouldn’t freak out when I see someone who has problems with alcohol and anger.” She took her hand away from his grasp. “You see, that’s where I’m so much younger than you.” She smiled sadly at him. “Ten years can be a big rift.” Among other things.
He stood and pulled her up into his arms. “I’m willing to wait around and watch while you grow older, honey.”
“Jeez.” She gave a laugh. “I’ll never catch up to you.”
“You think I’m an old man, huh?”
“No.” She threw her arms around his broad shoulders. “I think you’re a wonderful man.”
His expression turned to stone, and he jerked her against him, raising her jaw so that she had to look him in the eye. She could see that her words had been too banal and not what he’d needed at all.
“I’m your man, baby. Last night,” he voiced dropped an octave, “I made you my woman. Completely.”
She stared up at him. Knowing he wanted her to affirm that she was his. His and no other’s. But she couldn’t now, could she? Because if she did, she’d put herself in deeper with him and never survive leaving.
She kissed his luscious lips, pushed away and ignored the way he blinked at her.
She sat down, ate her eggs and drank her coffee then helped him wash dishes.
In a few minutes, he got his hat down from the wall rack, and the two of them headed for the B&B for her to change her clothes and go to the office.
The trip was silent. The road long.
Two lovers now seemed more like unfamiliar friends.
* * * *
Time or circumstance didn’t change the way they related. Five days passed then ten more, and they worked together in the same airless little office. She secured the details of Kylee Farrell’s appearance for the opening, got the trail ride organizers on board, sent out press releases and reported by phone to Jeff back in San Antonio on a regular basis. With each new victory, she would rejoice and share her news with Kade. He’d grin, laugh, hug her and take her out to the drive-in movie or to the Long Horn to dance in celebration. At night though, when he took her in his arms and they made love, his tenderness brought tears to her eyes. She knew he was slowly, reverently saying goodbye to her, and she didn’t argue or didn’t take the lead from him to try to change the tone of their coupling.
She knew she was leaving. Had always known it. The fact that Kade now knew it, too, made her days easier and her nights in his bed bittersweet. She had never admitted to herself that she was such a coward. Instead, she worked her tail off to ensure Kade Stapleton had what she’d originally come here to give him. Not her love. Her recompense. Amends for the harm she’d done him four long years ago.
Sam noticed the difference between them.
“What gives with you two?” he asked one morning when he was in the office to review the monthly budget numbers. When he got a shrug from Kade and a startled look from Shana, he persisted. “Fighting? Whatever it is, don’t you think you could settle it with a good talk?”
Kade glanced at her, his brows arching. Across the room, she felt his question and couldn’t find a suitable answer for either man.
“All right then.” Sam jammed his cowboy hat on his head. “Have it your way. It’s only gonna get worse, you realize. But I want this solved before it affects our work. Good day to you both.” As he marched out the door, he said a few words to Kade’s receptionist Reata about the foolishness of men and women who care for each other.
Kade stared at the door until Shana thought he’d burn it down with his fury.
She’d seen him fight anger before but not rage. She stood up.
But he shot a glance sideways, his gaze landing at her feet, as if to warn her to step no further. Cursing, he jumped up, grabbed his Stetson from the rack and headed toward the door himself. But when he flung it open and it banged back against the wall, there in the portal stood an open-mouthed Reata hand up ready to knock. A man stood right behind her.
“Jeff!” Shana knew his appearance would only make things worse. Jeff could be very aggressive, especially with men who appeared to be interested in her. “Come in, please. Kade, let me introduce Jeff Wentworth.” She walked toward him and put a hand to his arm,
He shook it off.
Jeff noticed.
Shana didn’t try to cover her frustration as the two men sized each other up.
The body language changed the dynamic for sure. It made Kade wary of this gray-suited city slicker who put his hand out to Kade, but his arms around Shana and kissed her on the mouth. Stunned, she pushed away and had h
im sit in one of their folding chairs.
Jeff glanced around, and his assessment had him nodding and saying, “Wow, I can see why you need help here.”
Kade sucked in a breath and stalked back over to his desk. “Can I have Reata bring you something to drink? It’s hot out there, and you’ve been on the road for a few hours.”
“Coffee is great. Black,” Jeff told him, his brown gaze falling over Kade’s form-fitting western shirt and massive shoulders. “Good to meet you finally. I thought I’d come out and visit with you, maybe take Shana out to dinner and dance tonight. She hasn’t been home since she came here, and I thought she’d need company.” His gaze met Kade’s and held as if to say Jeff thought the reason she’d stayed here was Kade. “And I’ve missed her.”
Kade flexed his jaw. The rage she’d seen after Sam’s statements was a flicker compared to the inferno she saw building in him now.
She hastened to douse the fires. “You didn’t have to come all this way, Jeff. We’re doing well. I’ve told you.” Can I sound any more lame?
Kade punched the intercom with more force than the little phone system needed. “Reata, please bring us in a new pot of coffee. Three cups. Milk for Shana.”
Jeff glared at Kade, noticing that Kade made a point of announcing he knew and remembered what Shana liked in her coffee. Jeff brushed imaginary lint from his trousers as he crossed one leg over the other. “So tell me, how are we doing today?”
Like hell. She inhaled, accepting the fact that she wasn’t going to change Jeff’s or Kade’s attitudes so she might as well get this confrontation over with quickly. “We just had a meeting with the president of the rodeo. You might have met him on your way in. You did? Good. And we went over the month’s projects and budget. We can do that for you, if you like.”
Kade stood. Picked up his hat from his desktop. “You do that, Shana. I have an appointment.” He shoved his hand out to Jeff. “Thanks for coming. See you at the Long Horn tonight. There’s a good band, and I know Shana likes to dance.” He didn’t smile at Jeff and didn’t look at Shana as he turned and left them alone.
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