Judd closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her hair, drinking in the scent and the silky texture. He’d missed the softness of a woman, the comfort and satisfaction of holding one close. He allowed himself the pleasure of doing just that until he felt her breath ease out of her on a soft sigh. Tucking a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face up to his. “I want to make love with you.”
She lifted her hands to his cheeks and drew his face to hers. “It scares me to death, but I want that, too,” she whispered, then touched her lips to his.
Though his body trembled with his need for her, Judd let her set the pace, taking only what she was ready to offer. When she deepened the kiss, he hooked his arms in a loose embrace at the small of her back. He bit back a groan as she arched to meet him.
Needing to feel the full heat of her body against his, he dropped his hands to the cheeks of her backside and pulled her flush against him. He moved his hips in a slow, sensual dance, his belt buckle clicking against the brass studs on her jeans. Fearing he would bruise her, he unhooked the buckle and stripped the leather strap through the loops of his jeans. Metal clanked dully as he dropped it to the floor at their feet.
Holding her to him with nothing but the pressure of his mouth against hers, he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as he tugged his shirttail from his jeans. He shrugged out of it and tossed it to the floor behind him. Impatient for the feel of her, he fitted his hands at her waist and lifted until her toes cleared the floor. Groaning, he crushed her to his bare chest.
The rub of her sweater frustrated as much as it appeased. He wanted to feel the softness of her skin, lose himself in her feminine swells and curves, drown in her seductive scent. Slowly he lowered her to her feet. Slower still he dragged his lips from hers. Holding her motionless with the strength of his gaze, he caught the hem of her sweater and pulled it up and over her head. Fighting to keep the tremble from his fingers, he unclasped the front closure of her bra and peeled it off her shoulders and down her arms. Pebbled by the cool air, rose-tinted nipples tipped upward, begging for his touch. His breath caught in his chest and burned.
Mesmerized by her beauty, he cupped a porcelain breast, taking its weight in the palm of his hand. Callie inhaled sharply, her breasts swelling, skin against heated skin. He lifted his gaze to hers, then laid a thumb against a nipple and rubbed the turgid peak, watching as the passion built on her face. Her eyes closed and her head fell back. She clasped her hands around his forearms to steady herself.
Hunger grew, gnawing at him, demanding immediate satisfaction, but he fought it back. He wanted to savor each moment, each taste, each sensation. He gathered Callie close, burying his face in her hair, taking in deep breaths to slow the urgency. It was a mistake, for with each breath her scent surrounded him, the fragrance of wildflowers crushed between a man’s hands. He found her lips, and her taste nearly brought him to his knees. Hot, sweet, enticing. Holding her close, he walked backward until his legs hit the bed. He fell across it, taking her with him.
Callie heard a boot hit the floor, then a second. A toe nudged at her foot, found her heel and pushed off her loafer. Her second shoe fell to join the other of its own accord. She flattened her hands against his broad chest, absorbing the thunder of his heart and letting the heat permeate her skin. She molded her hands, tracing and setting to memory the shape of his chest, the strength of his shoulders.
She was only distantly aware of his movements as he shimmied out of his jeans, but when he moved his hands to the snap on hers, she shivered in anticipation. Frustrated as much as he by the clothes that separated them, Callie lifted her hips. Judd rose to his knees above her, caught her jeans in his hands and peeled them down her legs. He tossed them to the floor, then rose above her like a proud conqueror.
The artist in Callie cried out for her clay so that she could capture him just as he appeared at that very moment—with perspiration beading his skin and turning it bronze in the soft lamplight. Every muscle pumped with passion, accentuating the breadth of his shoulders, the bulge of his biceps and thighs, the tapered waist and narrow hips. Virility pulsed from every fiber of his being.
Callie opened her arms, welcoming him. Judd sank against her on a sigh.
To Judd, making love to a woman was much like making music. Both had a rhythm and a song, silently waiting for the touch of his fingers to bring it to life. He sought the music in Callie, playing his fingers over her breasts, down her rib cage, dipping them between her legs, then dragging them back across her heated skin in a rhythm that thrummed silently within him. He heard each tiny gasp of delight, every moan of pleasure, each whispered urging, and reveled in the passion buried within her.
Positioning himself above her with a knee on either side of her hips, he reached out, curving his hands around her breasts, tipping them upwards, then reshaping them in the gentle curve between thumb and finger. He strummed a nail across each tightened bud, watching while her face contorted then softened and a low moan of pleasure rumbled deep in her throat.
Unable to resist, he dipped his head first over one nipple, then the other. He flicked his tongue over each before drawing her breasts together between his hands and taking both nipples into his mouth, alternately sucking and laving until her body bucked against his.
Over and over again he brought her to the edge of insanity, then soothed her with gentle hands and tender words, until she lay panting, her body quivering with her need for him.
“Judd, please,” she cried. “I want—”
Though he knew what she wanted, felt it in every shudder of her body against his, he had to hear her say it. “What?” he whispered, raining fevered kisses from ear to ear. “What do you want?”
Catching his cheeks between her hands, she forced his gaze to hers. “I want you,” she whispered.
The truth of that darkened her eyes, empowering him with her trust—the one thing he’d needed before making her his. He rocked back on his knees and caught her hips between his hands. He drew her to him, slowly losing himself in the velvet wetness. He clenched his teeth and threw back his head, groaning at the exquisite torture of being surrounded by her.
Callie arched against him as shock waves of pleasure rippled through her. He held her hips tight against his until the ripples passed. Then he began to move inside her, slowly setting the rhythm for her to follow.
With each thrust of his groin, he increased the tempo until perspiration beaded his skin beneath her clever hands, and his breath heaved hot and wanting between them. A low, primal growl rose from deep within him as the pressure built. He dug his hands into her hips and arched hard against her, calling out her name as he took her with him over the edge.
* * *
Judd opened one eye to find sunshine bathing the room. He opened the second and cocked his head, slowly focusing on the woman curled against him. Her hair, polished to the color of mahogany by morning sunshine, tumbled across the pillow and spilled over his arm and chest. Beneath the burnished strands, her hand was tucked between her cheek and his chest. Her other hand was buried somewhere under her pillow. She slept like she made love...with trust and total abandon.
Callie. Callie. Oh, Callie. Her name played through his mind again and again, like the refrain of a favorite song. His breath eased out of him on a heavy sigh. He’d made love to a lot of women in his day, and suffered through that morning-after awkwardness when they each went their separate ways. But he’d never awakened with a knot of fear lodged in his chest, dreading that moment of separation. In one night, Callie had chipped her way through the walls he’d erected around himself and burrowed her way into his heart.
He sighed again, then shifted to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, giving him a better view of her face. Her eyelids twitched at his touch, and he held his breath. He didn’t want her to awaken just yet, for he didn’t want their time together to end. Time was something they didn’t have. Once she solved the mystery surrounding her great-grandfather’s birth, he knew she’d leave—fo
r what would keep her in Guthrie? A woman like her would smother and die in a small town like this. She needed the big city with all its culture and color. Dallas was her home and much more her style.
He tensed as his mind clicked to another possibility. Was there someone in Dallas waiting for her return, even now?
In spite of him willing them otherwise, her eyes slowly blinked open and her gaze met his. She smiled sleepily. “Good mornin’,” she murmured and cuddled closer.
“It is that,” he agreed, snuggling her up higher on his chest. “Did you sleep well?”
“Like a rock.”
Judd chuckled. “Me, too.” He traced a line from her shoulder to her hip. She was here with him, had spent the night in his arms, yet he couldn’t shake the worrisome thought about her leaving soon or the possibility of someone awaiting her return.
They hadn’t discussed their pasts. There hadn’t seemed to be the need or even the time for that. But now he was curious and not sure how to raise the question.
“Is there a husband or a boyfriend who might come gunning for me?” he finally asked.
Callie lifted her head and looked at him. He thought he caught a glimmer of apprehension in her eyes, but then she laughed and tucked her head back against his chest. “A little late to be asking that question, don’t you think?”
* * *
Callie sat on a scarred barstool, her stockinged toes curled around its rungs, her chin resting in her hand. Before her, a lump of terra-cotta clay and an armature rested on an old formica-topped kitchen table. Both the stool and the table she’d bought for a bargain at a used-furniture store a couple of blocks from the Harrison House. A drape of plastic sheeting protected a second smaller table “borrowed” from the whorehouse’s main storage room. A plant mister, a scrub brush, several different sized bristle brushes, pieces of wire screen and her modeling tools awaited her use on its top.
It had taken her less than two hours to set up her temporary studio. She’d spent at least two more hours staring at the clay, waiting for inspiration to strike. The deadline for the sculpture for the Houston hospital’s new women’s pavilion was a scant six weeks away.
She shifted on the stool and let out a sigh. So far the clay remained untouched, her hands clean and inspiration something she feared she might never experience again. Knowing the statue wouldn’t form itself, she broke off a large chunk of clay. She scooted her stool closer to the table and began to work the clay between her hands, warming it and softening it.
In her mind’s eye, she saw the completed piece. A mother cradling a sleeping infant to her cheek. She’d never given birth herself, but she could imagine the emotions that would fill a mother’s heart when holding her newborn for the first time. Pride. Love. Thankfulness. All mixed with a measure of awe. Each emotion she wanted reflected on the mother’s face of the finished piece.
Unfortunately, the ability to produce the emotions in the clay escaped her, just as they had at her studio in Dallas. She had hoped that by getting away from Dallas and Stephen, the creative juices would flow.
They hadn’t.
Her shoulders drooped. Maybe Prudy was right, she thought despondently. She’d said that Callie’s creative block had nothing to do with her relationship with Stephen, but more with her relationship with her mother. She’d argued that Callie couldn’t possibly be expected to create something she’d never experienced as a child from her own mother. Granted, Prudy tended to blame every problem in Callie’s life on her mother, but this time Callie could see her point.
Although Frances Sawyer Benson possessed a great many admirable qualities, maternal love certainly wasn’t one of them. Callie couldn’t remember ever being cuddled by her mother, or ever hearing her mother say I love you. Throughout her life, Callie had struggled to earn her mother’s attention and admiration, but she’d never received anything but her constant disapproval.
Papa was aware of Frances’s shortcomings and had always told Callie her mother had inherited every drop of her cold-bloodedness from the Sawyer side of the family. After reading Lizzy’s journal, Callie had a new understanding for that coldness and was inclined to agree.
The thought of the Sawyers and the journal channeled Callie’s thoughts further to Lizzy. Had Lizzy shared the same traits as her mother? Evidently she had, she decided. How else could she have sent her infant son away?
Callie squeezed the clay in her palm, groaning. Coming to Guthrie certainly hadn’t opened her creative juices. If anything, coming to Guthrie and discovering her great-great-grandmother’s secret life had further stymied her ability to create.
The sound of a bark drew her thoughts from her work. She set aside the clay and moved to peer out the window. Across the street, Baby romped on winter brown grass. Judd sat on a park bench, his legs stretched out in front of him, teasing Baby with a ball. He’d pretend to throw it, hide it behind his back, then laugh when Baby bolted and spun in fast circles looking for the ball.
Her throat tightened and she lifted a hand to lay her fingertips against the cold glass. Her inability to evoke visions of motherhood might be blamed on her mother, but her distraction from her work today could be blamed on the man outside, as well.
What was it about him that drew her? she wondered. Was it purely sexual attraction? She’d definitely felt the tug from their first meeting. But, no, she told herself, beyond the physical there was something else. An unexplainable comfortableness that made being with him easy, as if they’d known each other for years.
Silly, because she didn’t know him, not in the way she knew Stephen. Yet, when he looked at her, she didn’t see a stranger, she saw a man, familiar and irresistible. And when he touched her, she didn’t feel violated as she did sometimes with Stephen. She felt...she felt loved.
Her fingers curled against the windowpane at the thought. Loved? How could she possibly feel loved by someone she barely knew? Someone who, by all rights, she should fear?
A knot of apprehension tightened in her stomach. She stared at Judd, trying to fit the allegations that shadowed his past to the man innocently playing with his dog below. Nothing matched. Nothing. Judd Barker was a gentle man, a kind man. He’d never harm anyone, much less a woman.
Hadn’t he proven that last night? He’d told her point-blank he’d wanted to make love with her, and in so doing, had placed the decision at her feet for her alone to make. If she hadn’t been willing, he would never have forced himself on her. She knew that as surely as she knew her name. And he’d given of himself unselfishly, always conscious of her comfort, her needs, without her ever having to voice them.
While she watched, he lifted the ball and hurled it, sending Baby off at a run. He tossed back his head and laughed, the sun bright on his face, the wind whipping at his dark hair. Emotion knotted in her chest.
At that moment, Judd glanced up and caught Callie’s eye. A grin spread across his face, slowly unraveling the knot in her chest. While she watched, he turned a thumb to his chest, pointing at himself, then joined his thumbs and index fingers in the shape of a heart. Without moving his gaze from hers, he slowly lifted a hand to point at her.
A sheet of glass, two stories and a street separated them, yet she felt the heat of his gaze as if they stood nose-to-nose. A warmth slowly spread through her as she watched him push himself to his feet and put on his hat. She couldn’t hear his words, but knew he called Baby because the dog snapped up the ball and raced back to Judd’s side. Judd scruffed Baby behind the ears then took the ball from him and shoved it into the pocket of his duster before heading across the street.
Callie’s pulse kicked in anticipation, knowing he was coming to see her. Anxious to see him as well, she turned from the window, then wheeled about when she caught a glimpse of a sleek, silver car sliding into a parking space across the street. She stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the car as a tall, well-groomed man stepped to the curb and paused to look around.
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the window. �
��Oh, no,” she murmured.
* * *
“Excuse me, please. Could I ask directions of you?”
Impatient to see Callie, Judd started to ignore the request, but inbred courtesy made him turn and wait while the man who’d called to him jogged across the street. The guy looked like a Philadelphia lawyer with his three-piece suit, Italian silk tie and slicked-back hair. In a country town like Guthrie where boots and jeans were standard wear, he looked as out of place as a turd floating in a punch bowl. Judd craned his neck to check out the license plates on the man’s car. Texas.
“What can I do for you?” Judd asked, his voice guarded. Baby growled low in his throat as the man approached, and Judd placed a warning hand on the dog’s collar.
“I’m looking for the Harrison Hotel,” the man replied, breathing heavily.
A jog across the street and the guy was already winded. To Judd’s mind, his endurance fit his image. He jerked his head in the direction the man had just driven. “You just passed it. A block east on the corner.”
The man turned and looked. “So I did.” He chuckled. “A town this small, I’m surprised I missed it.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “To be honest, I’m lucky the town is so small. Made it a hell of a lot easier to find the hotel where my fiancée’s staying.”
A thread of apprehension tightened Judd’s neck. “Oh?”
“Yes, she scampered off at the request of her great-grandfather to trace some of the family who once lived here and forgot to mention where she was staying. The old man’s crazier than a loon. When I had my secretary call him and ask where she was planning on staying, he didn’t even remember he had a great-granddaughter. Took my secretary a while to trace down the hotel, but once she did, I thought I’d drive up and surprise Callie.”
Callie! The name ripped through Judd’s heart like a rusty knife and he stiffened at the pain. It took a moment for him to find his voice. When he did, he replied dryly, “Oh, I’m sure she’ll be surprised.” He touched a finger to the brim of his hat. “Enjoy your trip to Guthrie.” He slapped a hand to his thigh. “Come on, Baby.”
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