by Diana Palmer
“Nobody who works here—that’s for sure,” the young man who’d teased Jason about his job said with a sigh. “One of our professors said that an old law on the books could land the whole teaching staff in jail because it refers to anyone with less than five dollars in his pocket as a vagrant.” He glanced up. “Hi, Miss Marsh! Isn’t this a neat ride?”
“It is,” Jason agreed as he opened the door and helped an amused Gracie inside. “The bank and I bought it together.”
The boy’s cheekbones flushed. “It’s yours?”
Jason shrugged. “I do work on the ranch,” he told him with a grin. “But I own the ranch, too. I have some of the finest Santa Gertrudis bulls in Texas.”
The boy whistled. “Do you eat them?”
Jason glared at him. “Would you eat a Rodin sculpture?”
The boy chuckled. “Not really.”
“Same thing. Art is art. See you.”
He got in under the wheel, started the engine, made sure Gracie had her belt on and roared out of the parking lot.
JUST AS HE PULLED ONTO the state highway, the skies opened again and heavy rain pelted the windshield.
“Damn,” he muttered, glancing at Gracie, who wasn’t wearing a raincoat. “I don’t even have an umbrella in here. I thought the rain had stopped.”
“Not to worry, I won’t melt,” she teased, her soft eyes twinkling at him.
He laughed. “I guess not. We’ve got mud puddles in the yard, but I can carry you over them.” He glanced at her. “Did you have anything to eat?”
She shook her head. “Wasn’t time. Besides, the cafeteria had long since closed for the day.”
“I guess we can manage an omelet and some toast by ourselves,” he sighed. “Dilly’s gone to the movies with her mother. It’s her night off. Mrs. Harcourt had to drive up to San Antonio to supervise some last-minute detailing at the house, so she won’t be back tonight, either.”
“I can cook,” Gracie said.
“So can I. We’ll share chores.”
It felt so natural to be with him at the ranch house. It seemed like a long time since they’d been so comfortable together. Despite the earlier argument, they were friends again.
He parked close to the back door, but the whole yard was a mud puddle from the frenzied running of the cattle that had gotten loose earlier.
“We’re going to get soaked, I guess,” he said heavily as he turned off the engine and got out of the car.
Gracie stepped out into a mud puddle, tripped over her own feet and went flying facedown into the slick mud.
She let out a curse she’d heard Jason use. He burst out laughing, so overwhelmed by the picture she made, dripping mud and using range language that he couldn’t even try to be sympathetic.
She picked up a handful of mud and threw it at his shirt. “There,” she muttered as it hit, “now we match!”
He wasn’t even angry. He just shook his head. “Okay, but you can forget about being carried inside,” he said. “Neither of us has to worry about getting wet or muddy anymore,” he added with a rueful glance at his red-spotted shirt.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “You shouldn’t have laughed.”
“I couldn’t help it,” he replied as they walked up onto the porch. “You ought to see yourself!”
“No, thanks.” She hesitated. “This mud is two inches thick on my shoes and your boots.”
“Better take them off and leave them out here, I guess,” he agreed, bending to pull hers off before he sat down in a cane-bottomed chair and shucked his boots. “Mrs. Harcourt will kill us both tomorrow if she has to get red mud off the rugs and the linoleum.”
“I wouldn’t even blame her.”
They walked inside, careful to keep off the pretty wool rugs and made their way down the hall to the bedrooms.
“Ouch,” Gracie murmured as her legs in their sodden slacks rubbed together and hurt. “I must have cut my leg on something.”
“Go have a shower. I’ll have one, too, and then I’ll check the cut,” he said.
She started to say that she could do it, but he looked worried. She just smiled. “Okay.”
He sighed as he stared at her. “Well, you even look good dressed in red mud,” he murmured.
She laughed.
He winked at her and turned into his own room, closing the door behind him.
13
IT HAD NEVER FELT SO GOOD to step under a spray of warm water, Gracie thought as she washed her chilled body and her long hair and wrapped herself in one of the big, soft Turkish towels hanging on the rack by the shower stall. She glanced down at her leg and grimaced as she saw a long scratch on the inside of her thigh just above her left knee. It wouldn’t need stitches, probably, but it was fairly deep.
She picked up her stained slacks and noted a cut on the pants leg. There must have been a piece of metal or glass on the ground under her when she fell.
There was a perfunctory knock at the door and Jason walked in, wearing a pair of black silk pajama bottoms and nothing else. Gracie stared transfixed at the perfection of his muscular, tanned, hair-roughened chest. She remembered how it felt against her bare breasts. The thought excited her, and she became flushed.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t start drooling over me,” he said. “It isn’t nice to take advantage of a man who’s only trying to help you.”
“What sort of help did you have in mind?” she asked with a wicked grin.
He tapped her nose with his finger. “Stop that. Let’s see the cut.”
She propped her leg on the tub and pulled the towel that swallowed her aside just enough to display the cut. “I must have fallen on something,” she said.
“Something sharp,” he agreed, frowning. “When did you have a tetanus booster last?”
“This year,” she said easily.
“Good girl.” He looked in the medicine cabinet for elastic bandages and antibiotic cream. “I think you can do without stitches.”
“I thought so, too. I don’t really feel up to a trip to the emergency room. It’s been a long day.”
“I know.”
He applied the cream and a wide square bandage, his fingers deft and sure on her soft skin. She tingled all over at his touch.
He glanced up at her with an amused smile. “Don’t let me see how much this excites you,” he cautioned. “Anything could happen.”
“Really? Anything?”
He stood up and reached for the hair dryer. “Brave words.”
He turned the dryer on and his fingers sifted through her blond hair as he blew it dry. She moved closer, liking the feel of his body next to her with so much bare skin on display. She felt positively wanton. She wasn’t really afraid of him. She wondered why she ever had been. It seemed perfectly natural to be standing almost in his arms in a towel.
He finished drying her hair and turned off the blower, unplugging it as he laid it back on the vanity table.
She looked up into his black eyes with fascination. She’d known him for so long, but sometimes he was like a stranger. Especially like this. Their relationship had undergone a radical transformation in past weeks.
He took a handful of her soft, pale blond hair and his eyes narrowed as his gaze fell to the swell of her breasts over the drooping towel. His jaw clenched. “You’re very pretty without your clothes.”
“Am I?” She sounded breathless. The tension in the room grew explosive.
“Pretty. Desirable. Irresistible…” He bent and his mouth brushed lazily over hers, only to slide warmly down her throat and onto the soft skin of her breasts. He hesitated as he drew his lips against them, waiting for her reaction. He lifted his head, just briefly, to look into her eyes.
When she didn’t try to back away, he felt a jolt of pure sensuality that ran through him like electricity. He bent again. His hands moved the towel a little lower, out of the way, and his mouth opened on soft, warm, faintly scented skin.
It wasn’t scary at all, when his lips moved ten
derly like that on her bare skin. She forgot to be afraid and shivered with delight. Her arms went around him, her short nails digging into his long, muscular back hungrily while his mouth explored her taut breasts. She was barely aware that the towel had fallen away from her breasts. She didn’t even care. His mouth had opened right over her nipple and was pulling it inside, exploring it in a dark sensuality that made her tremble with need and just a little fear.
He felt her stiffen and lifted his head. His black eyes searched hers. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said quietly. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
“I know.” She traced a pattern in the thick hair over his breastbone. It felt right, standing here with him like this, in such intimacy. She ached all over. The sensations he made her feel were intoxicating. She felt so weak that her legs could hardly support her. “It isn’t scary at all,” she whispered. “I…I like it.”
His big hand covered her small one on his chest. His breathing was noticeably labored.
She could feel the tension in him. She looked up into his glittering black eyes with curiosity and fascination.
He hadn’t slept with Kittie. He’d said that, and he’d never lied to her. She knew that he’d kept to himself for a long time, not even dating anyone. If he’d felt this attraction to Gracie as strongly as she felt it for him, it must have been a very long time since he’d fed that gnawing hunger she could see in his eyes. It made him vulnerable, which, oddly, lessened her fear of him. But her past, and her scruples, had erected a barrier that she couldn’t get through.
“God, I want you!” he murmured roughly.
“I know. I really want to,” she whispered. “But…”
He nodded. “But.” He searched her worried eyes and then smiled gently as he bent to kiss her with exquisite tenderness. And it might have been possible to draw back, just then. But as he held her closer, the towel fell to the floor, so that her nude body was suddenly pressing right against the firm muscles of his chest and stomach in an intimacy they hadn’t really shared until now. He groaned in anguish.
Gracie felt a shudder run right through his powerful body as it echoed in hers. The feel of him against her was like a drug, she couldn’t get enough of it. The touch of flesh against flesh made her knees tremble. She felt herself swelling in odd places, kindling exquisite little stabs of pleasure that grew with each brush of his chest against hers.
Impulsively she lifted against him so that they were standing in a blatant pose that let her feel the immediate response of his body to her closeness. She gasped under his insistent mouth as she registered the powerful capability of it. The thin silk of his pajama trousers was no barrier at all. And when his pajamas fell to the floor, the intimacy was suddenly a narcotic that made her incapable of resistance.
She held on tight, letting his mouth burrow into hers with passion and urgency. The heated exchange was only enhanced when she felt him against her where silk had separated them only seconds before. He throbbed with desire for her, and she ached to satisfy the blatant need.
Her hands ran up and down the muscles of his back as he caught her thighs and pulled her up into even greater intimacy. She whimpered against the warm penetration of his mouth, shivered as his hands slid lower and touched her in a new way. She started to protest, but his touch was suddenly so arousing that she only whimpered again instead and lifted higher to encourage him not to stop.
She hadn’t expected the urgency that overwhelmed her as his hands explored her body, the aching need that blotted out reason. She dragged her breasts against his hard chest with exquisite abandon, her nails digging into him as she pleaded for an end to the tension that threatened to rip her apart.
“Gracie…” he protested, but the word morphed into a groan as he lowered her to the floor over the damp towel that had covered her.
His mouth took the place of his hands, exploring, arousing, tasting her in a hundred ways as they lay in a tangle. All she heard was the rough sigh of his breath against her yielded body, barely audible above the racing whip of her own heartbeat.
She should stop him, she told herself firmly, but his mouth was on the inside of her soft thighs and his thumb had moved up to search against a sensitive area that quickly lifted her off the floor in a shivering little taste of fulfillment that sobbed out of her tight throat. Her long legs moved apart to ease his way. She bit into the shoulder that moved over her, tasting it with her tongue as he levered his powerful body down between her legs and slowly, exquisitely, penetrated her.
She sobbed helplessly as one lean hand slid under her hips and tilted them as he pushed down.
He lifted his head. He was shuddering with the force of his heartbeats. His eyes captured hers as he moved, his face rigid as he felt the barrier.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered in a groan of torment. “I can’t stop!”
“It’s all right. I love you,” she whispered back, shivering under him. “I love you…so much, Jason.”
The words ripped the last of his control away. Anguished joy replaced the guilt in his black eyes. He set his teeth and thrust down, hard. He felt the faint resistance that quickly gave way to his ardor.
Gracie gasped at the stab of white-hot fire that tore through her as he mastered her body, but she didn’t try to push him away. She swallowed hard, while he hesitated.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. She lifted up to him, her eyes holding his. “Don’t stop.”
His big hands slid under her head as he bent to kiss the quick tears from her eyes as he moved slowly, deliberately, against her and heard a little cry of shocked pleasure.
“Did you expect it to keep hurting?” he asked tenderly. “I know how to satisfy you, Gracie. I know how to give you ecstasy. I won’t stop until you’ve taken the last breath of satisfaction from my body…”
His mouth eased down over hers and his tongue teased at the underside of her lip, tracing it in a slow rhythm that matched the exquisite, slow thrust of his body as he found the place and the tempo that made her nails dig into his back, made her hips arch up and push against his.
“Slow down,” he urged in the tense silence. “Slow down, honey. We aren’t in a hurry.”
“Yes…we are!” she moaned.
He laughed tenderly, his lips brushing over her flushed face, tasting tears as he began to shift over her. The new position made her cry out.
He lifted his head and watched her as he moved, saw the agony of pleasure that was growing in her, building like a symphony. Her eyes were glazed with wonder and passion, her lips parted as she struggled to find the place that would end the excruciating tension that was pulling her muscles tight as steel cords.
He moved again, feeling her body clench and shudder around him. “Yes,” he whispered as he shifted one last time and began to drive down into her, savoring her hoarse little pleas, feeling the exquisite contractions that took his own restraint away in a maelstrom of building joy. “Yes! Feel me, Gracie. Feel me…going into you!”
The words excited her beyond measure. His hips arched into hers fiercely. She felt the tension snap in a hot rush of pleasure, heard her voice cry out in a sound she didn’t even recognize as the glorious sensations reached flashpoint and carried her over some flowing hot lava. She shivered as the waves grew even higher. She was vaguely aware of the sound of Jason’s voice in her ears as he pressed his mouth heatedly against her breast for seconds before he arched and groaned and began to convulse above her. She clung to him, her eyes wide-open with shocked wonder as she saw his face. It was so intimate, she thought wildly. So intimate!
His eyes opened, black and glazed, and pierced right into hers as they shuddered together in one final burst of pleasure. He groaned and the tension went out of him as he collapsed in a damp, exhausted heap on her relaxed body.
She held him to her, gloried in the weight of his powerful body as she felt the soft, stabbing echoes of pleasure with the helpless movement of his hips. It had been like a volcanic eru
ption, she thought. She’d never dreamed that such sensations existed. She’d never loved Jason more.
She should have stopped him, she thought then, as shame and guilt began to replace the silvery delight of the pleasure they’d shared. She bit her lip and fought tears. But they rained hotly down her cheeks, onto his, which was lying close against her own.
He felt them and lifted his head, propping himself on his elbows as he studied her stricken expression.
“I told you first times were rough,” he said softly. “I’m sorry I had to hurt you.” He kissed away the tears. “It was bad.”
“It wasn’t,” she argued quietly. Her arms slid around his neck and her face buried itself in his strong, damp throat. “Bad, I mean. It was incredible! But that just makes me feel guiltier. I couldn’t even ask you to stop!”
He kissed her closed eyelids. “Could you do this with someone else?” he asked.
“Heavens, no!”
He lifted his head. He was smiling. It was the most tender, affectionate smile he’d ever given her. “Neither could I. We aren’t permissive people. As it is, we’ve only jumped the gun by a few hours,” he added. “We’ll grab a few hours of sleep. Then we’re going to fly to San Antonio, followed by a trip to the Jacobs County probate judge’s office.”
“We are? Why?” she asked in a daze.
“To San Antonio for rings and a dress,” he said lazily, kissing the tip of her nose. “We’ll collect Mrs. Harcourt and Dilly on the way. We’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Married?” she echoed, still stunned.
He gave her a glowering look. “Married. You had your way with me. Don’t think you’re going to walk away and gossip about me to any woman you meet. I’m not that sort of man.”
Her eyes widened. He looked sane. “Ooookay,” she said, humoring him.
“After all,” he added, gazing down at her pert breasts below him, “I could be pregnant.”
She started to laugh, but then the thought began to flower in her own mind as she stared up into his eyes. “Pregnant.”