by Cait London
The delight in his taste took her spiraling into the desire to take everything from him, to push straight through to find that exciting male mystique. She wrapped her fists in his hair, claiming that shaggy black mass and pulling him closer to feed upon him. Roman tasted dark, powerful, and edgy, wary of her. Too bad. He was letting her set the tempo and within her, unfamiliar needs stirred and smoldered like embers churned to life by a stormy wind. On impulse, testing his gentleness and her own curiosity, she moved into the kiss and let him gather her closer.
“All I want to know,” Roman said unevenly as she leaned back watching him, waiting to see what he’d do next, this unexplored man she’d found. Ridden with mystery, untouchable, cool Roman Blaylock had definitely heated beneath her lips, a flush on his dark cheeks, his mouth slightly swollen from hers. The rapid pulse beating at the base of his neck proved that she’d gotten the impact she wanted—raw and honest.
Kallista shivered; she’d unlocked enough passion in Roman Blaylock to tether her, and she couldn’t afford the leash, nor the man whose fist gripped Boone’s estate. “Al I want to know,” he repeated huskily, “is where you’re going to sleep tonight.”
“At your place.” She watched as his black eyes heated and his fingertips pressed slightly harder into the outer perimeter of her breast.
Why wasn’t she terrified? Roman had the size and strength to—Yet she didn’t fear him; she wanted to challenge him and push him to the ends of whatever dark reins held him.
“That won’t do, and you know it,” Roman rasped, his eyes locked to her lips. “I’d want you in my bed. And I’m not good at the games you’re playing.”
“You are blunt, Roman Blaylock.” Still...she studied his raw, hungry look, shielding nothing. She appreciated his honesty, that reluctant declaration that proved he wanted her, his fingertips caressing her lightly.
His gaze into her eyes both promised and asked, and Kallista fought the temptation to place her hand along his rough cheek, to absorb that heat into her palm. “I’d like to rent your empty house. That way I can watch you without coming close. I’ll find your weakness and you’ll lose. I’m very good at getting what I want.”
His expression tightened grimly, the lines etching deeper between his black brows and bracketing his mouth. A hard pulse beat in his throat and in his temple, his jaw taut “Games, hmm? I told you, I’m not a player.”
“I think you are. This was a pretty dramatic statement something right out of a cowboy movie—running down a woman and taking her upon your lap. You know you moves. You’ve practiced.”
“Not once before have I brought a woman to ride on my horse with me,” he said formally, as if vowing his life to her. The sincerity corded in his deep, uneven voice stunned her.
In a protective effort to stop the mood from going deeper, and learning too much about Roman Blaylock’s experience with women, she patted his shoulder. The muscles there tensed and shifted into steel. “You’re a big boy. You can take games. And I don’t like men bantering about who I belong to, Mr. Blaylock. Not a bit. I’ve belonged to myself since the last time my mother jerked me away from Boone. You’ve read all about it in that file. How does it feel, knowing everything about me?”
“There are a few things I don’t know.” His gaze caressed her mouth.
Her face burned; Roman had referred to her sexuality, her experience with men. From the way she’d ignited in his arms, Roman would think she...
She braced herself against the flush rising up her cheeks. Then she tossed her head, letting the wind sweep her hair across her face; she didn’t care what Roman thought. She didn’t want to feel for him, for the years his wife wouldn’t let him touch her. From the way Roman held her now, he’d had women to serve his needs.... His needs. Now he wanted her, his gaze caressing her breasts as if he wanted to...
She shifted, preparing to drop to the ground, and Roman hitched her tight against his chest, his arms wrapped firmly around her, a big hand spread on her bottom. “I could flatten you,” she warned.
“I asked you, what has you so worked up?” Then Roman placed his cheek against hers, nuzzled her hair on his way to her ear, and a terrifyingly tender and sweet emotion swept through Kallista. “Are you frightened of me?” he asked in a low vulnerable tone that reached into the scarred corners of her heart.
“No, not of you,” she answered truthfully against the rough stubble on his cheek, enveloped in the scents of a man who worked with cattle and green grass. She closed her eyes, and there in the sunlit pasture, scented of alfalfa and pines, she had the unlikely feeling that Roman Blaylock was holding her in his bed, cherishing her as if he’d never touched a woman before, sharing himself with her—and that he’d always be hers. The thought terrified her; she couldn’t. “You put Boone’s mother’s doilies away. He wouldn’t have liked that,” she said, a light attempt to derail the deeper emotions running through her.
How could the man holding her so carefully hurt a woman? Yet Debbie had said that Roman was too raw, too rough—he’d been that way at the shop, confronting her.
When seeking sex, men changed, Kallista noted from her shadowy experience.
“You just shivered,” he asked. “Why?”
She met his eyes and closed the terror of her past from her, as she’d had to do so many times before. “It’s not you. You don’t affect me one way or another.”
“That’s good...you’re not afraid of me,” he whispered heavily, slowly against her skin, as though he were relieved of a burden. His face nuzzled hers, an odd gesture, smoothing the contours of her face with his rugged ones, cheek against cheek, nose to the flesh at her temple, forehead against forehead, jaw against jaw, as if matching them for life. He breathed unevenly against her ear. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
Kallista opened her eyes to the blinding sunlight, the shadows creeping from the rugged Rocky Mountains. This wasn’t a man she wanted in her life, yet her fingertips dug into his back, binding him closer. She shivered and instantly, Roman’s black head jerked up to study her too intently.
“Were you faithful to your wife?” Her question stunned her, shot into the sunlight before she realized she’d spoken.
He lifted his head and met her eyes, before nodding curtly. “I was. I did not hurt her...ever. And I’m doing the best I can for Boone,” he said in a simple tone that rang of sadness.
“Let me go,” she whispered shakily, terrified of her urge to hold her enemy closer, to comfort him. She reminded herself that the man was ravaging Boone’s estate.
Roman’s fingertips stroked her cheek just once and then slid down the swath of hair crossing her shoulders. “Not before I tell you that you are a fine-looking woman, a strong woman. I like that.”
At ten o’clock that night, Roman lay across Boone’s bed, his arms behind his head, and tried to quiet his body’s restless urge to seek Kallista Bellamy. The shape of her lips haunted him—the two little peaks on her upper lip, and that little dip between them. Her almond-shaped eyes had flashed at him, not soft and meadow green, but as brilliant as emeralds, shooting sparks at him. Then there was that sweet, fascinating curl to her lashes, like little soft blue-black brushes catching the sunlight. Her nose, what there was of it, was perfect.
Out there in the sunlight, Roman had almost rubbed her nose with his, a caress he’d reserved for the Blaylock children and Michaela.
He groaned shakily, and placed his hands on his bare stomach. The aching pressure of his lower body against his jeans had surprised him. He couldn’t get the feel of Kallista, the exotic cinnamony scent of her, to leave him. That soft, firm, curved, strong body had fitted to his like—
The bed creaked when Roman turned to his side, and in the distance he saw lights twinkle in his house. Kallista had had a busy day with telephone installers and electricians, plumbers and every one of them had called Roman to let him know what a fine-looking woman was doing to his house. Ned Redmond had helped the delivery people haul in furniture. Ned was impr
essed by the size of the futon-folding-cushion-chair-thing. George Wyatt said she was turning the place into a jungle with all those potted plants. Else’s pickup had pulled up, then Morganna’s and Hannah’s and the rest of the Blaylock women.
Using binoculars, Dusty and Titus had seen the women carry in mops and brooms. The two elderly cowboys couldn’t wait to help and had returned to The Llewlyn for evening chores with big grins and homemade cherry pie. They bore lipstick marks on their leathery, but freshly shaven cheeks.
Kallista knew exactly how to stir up the country. side...and men. She knew how to appeal to women, eager to help. She could wreck what meager peace he’d found.
Roman forced his eyes to close and breathed deeply, the old house silent and empty. She could kiss like sweet tempting sin, and he’d forgotten—hell, maybe he never knew the heat driving him now—that need to hold her against him, as if she were a part of him forever.
Forever didn’t last, not when it came to women, not for him. His last tangle should have taught him something. He shouldn’t have said that bit about getting her into his bed; he should have waited until she’d cooled down, and tried a flower bouquet. He should have... When he looked at her, all fired up, that lonesome hole in his heart warmed.
Roman shook his head; he hadn’t realized he’d had a lonesome ache until he’d seen Kallista again. He rubbed his bare chest slowly, the nudge of her breasts still pressing upon his flesh. He hadn’t thought about courting a woman, but now—
The phone rang and he jerked it from the cradle. Rio’s voice purred softly from it, “Need any lessons in handling women, bro? From the way you took after Kallista, you do. That’s a fine piece of woman, and she needs a light rein. She makes her own call, and what you’ve got to do is make yourself appealing. For you, that might be impossible. The little girls around might think you’re something, but Kallista is a real woman—”
Roman slammed the phone down, cutting off Rio’s chuckle, and stood. It was going to be a long night: he padded down to his office to work on files, and to keep his vow to Boone.
One week later it was the second week of June with bumblebees humming on the clover blooms, and the ranchers’ new fields spread like green patchwork blankets across the valley. Newborn calves frolicked beside cows, and Homer Mason’s tame elk had made his first sashay down main street. Flower gardens were beginning to thrive. The first lettuce greens had already been served for dinner, green beans were canned, and school was out, filling the streets with children on bicycles. In the Bisque Café’s tiny office, behind the sinks where the greenware’s seams were cleaned and smoothed, Kallista fed the Bisque Shop’s mailing list information into her small computer, her traveling companion.
Advertising took time, but Kallista intended to get the shop into better financial shape; its income was small and steady and could grow with promotion. The Blaylock women were glad to be relieved of the shop’s care, and Kallista had hired two teenage girls to come in afternoons and on Saturdays. Melissa and Jackie’s cleaning of greenware and caring for the shop had helped. Both kilns were running now with Morganna’s all-white table settings, which would be shipped to her. Once into the project, Morganna had run full speed ahead, until her husband Jake Tallman appeared with Lomasi, their two-year-old daughter, and their infant daughter, Feather. Jake’s face had reddened as he had handed Feather to Morganna and explained in a hushed whisper that the “ah...prepared...ah...mother’s... ah...formula is gone. You’ll have to feed her.”
While Jim Croce sang about “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” Kallista thought about the people surrounding Roman, people she didn’t want to hurt on her way to destroy him.
Jake and Morganna had found each other, Hannah’s husband Dan Blaylock adored her, and always had, Logan and his wife had a happy growing brood, Rio was a carefree bachelor with a ladykiller reputation, and Tyrell was busy crunching numbers in New York. Roman was the dearly beloved of the Blaylock family; he could do no wrong, even when he had slid into his shell, remaining apart from their extensive family. He accepted all casseroles, attended all funerals, and helped his neighbors in need. But when all that was required of him was done, Roman retired to his lonely haunt—in Boone’s house...and the Blaylocks had ached for him.
She didn’t; she intended to tear Roman away from Boone’s estate. After a month and a half, she still couldn’t dig out anything bad about Roman Blaylock; at least Channing Boudreaux had given her a full leave of absence from her job, telling her to take her time with “her problem.” Her problem was one Roman Blaylock, lodged like a granite mountain on Boone’s land. Kallista tapped her fingers on the pink ceramic belly-up hippo lying on her desk. Did he really care for Boone, or was ill and kindhearted Boone misled by Roman, who eventually got what he wanted?
Had Roman loved his wife?
Had he been capable of love, or was his devastation merely the outward appearance of a man whose possession, and pride, had been ripped away?
How could he seem so honest—too honest and too real in his need for her?
Kallista inhaled abruptly. Roman Blaylock knew how to hold a woman against him, gently, firmly. His look down at her had been almost tender. Was it a well-practiced look designed to send a woman’s heart skittering and her bones melting?
Melissa and Jackie had sighed and drooled when Roman’s pickup prowled by on Jasmine’s main street, the aging greyhounds sitting up in the truck’s front seat like old friends. Lottie Morales had dipped her paintbrush into her coffee. Sue Corliss had painted Emma Jones’s hand, and Margie Crowfoot’s jaw had dropped the same time as her tiger print plate.
From the banker’s cheerful wife, intent upon painting her new candlestick holders, Kallista learned an interesting tidbit—after that dramatic day at her shop four years ago, Boone had walked into the bank one day and asked to take over Roman Blaylock’s loan on his ranch. It was a small bank and Boone was a member of the board of directors. The bank’s decor was courtesy of Hannah Blaylock, and the Blaylock pioneer family names had been used on a wall mural. The family and town were formidable, strong, united, but Kallista would tear Roman apart—
Used to making her life comfortable wherever she stayed, Kallista glanced out into the shop, empty now, but arranged in a mass of finished ceramics, ranging from dishes, soup tureens and candle holders to picture frames and tiny animals. Hannah, Else, and Bernice had helped build a hurried display of designer dishes that young married women might want to create, but couldn’t afford to buy.
Kallista propped her boots up on the tiny, scarred desk, and leaned back to sip her cappuccino from a new cup. The design was classic, and Morganna had painted it white. With the shop rearranged and repainted and her home comfortable, Kallista focused on the man she intended to tear away from Boone’s estate.
She smoothed the smooth green leaf of the vine nestled beneath the window’s sunlight; the plant was potted in an elegant, tassel decked elephant. Unlike Roman’s rough cheek, the warm and smooth texture of the leaf was predictable, repeated on the next leaf and the one near it. Something leaped inside her every time she thought of him, of the softness in his eyes, that hard mouth easing gently against her own, as if not to frighten her away. He was much too careful of how he handled her.
Kallista distrusted careful men; they usually had reasons, or something to hide. Perhaps Roman Blaylock had perfected his spider and fly technique; his sad, vulnerable look had haunted her.
It wouldn’t do to feel sorry for Roman, not when she was out to dissect him. Kallista settled back in her chair and studied the blinking light on her computer screen. With just a little more time, she could “hack”—break into Roman’s computer with her own—and see exactly what he was doing with all of Boone’s estate.
She glanced at the clock, set in the tummy of a black ceramic cat with a swinging pendulum tail. At six o’clock, the Tuesday night dinner crowd presented a moderate flow on Jasmine’s streets. Ranchers and businessmen squired their wives with an old courtly air. In early Ju
ne, the Community Garden Club had begun its good deeds and new redbud trees and prepared flower beds, stuffed with impatiens, waited to awake on Jasmine’s streets. The old Western community with roots back to mountain men and drovers gently settled into the cool June sunset.
The Tuesday night Men’s Only first session would begin at seven o’clock and end at ten. Hannah had said that Dan had been dragged into the shop once, mumbling and groaning. But when she had finished her project and was ready to go, Dan was meticulously involved with a chunky softball paperweight. He wouldn’t leave until the ball was perfect.
Kallista tapped the pink hippo again, and with her television remote control she prepared an action-destruct movie, to make the men more comfortable. The popcorn popper and the cans of cold soda added to the aura she wanted for Men’s Only Night.
Jasmine’s menfolk were delicate creatures, she’d discovered. Since she’d started promoting the Bisque Café, she’d gotten guarded calls from men, asking cautiously, “Would there be other men there?” When answered affirmatively, they wanted names. Jasmine’s men traveled in packs, uncertain if their manly status would be diminished by a “female activity” like painting dishes. A modern example of Western scouts for the army, several men had come during the week, cautiously looking around and explaining roughly that they were checking on something obscure for their wives. Tuesday was Men’s Only Night, Thursday was Ladies Night, and Friday was Couples Night. She’d scheduled a few birthday parties, the bank had given gift certificates to its clerks for an hour after work on Wednesday and Kallista had a small, tight grip on the community, methodically circling for one bit of suspicious information about Roman Blaylock.
She sipped her cappuccino, and dragged a small box of cheese crackers out of her bag just as the bell over her shop door jingled. Roman stepped into the shop, big, solid and dressed in a crisp new denim jacket, a white shirt and new jeans. His Western boots were highly polished. He carried a sack in one hand and his Western hat in the other; his black gaze locked on her instantly with the impact of a bulldozer.