by Cindy Gerard
An involuntary shiver reinforced her statement.
“You’ve got goose bumps.” Suddenly contrite, he rubbed her arms with the flat of his hands to warm her.
More than her arms warmed up. And her skin wasn’t the only part of her body that reacted involuntarily to the cold—and to his touch. She became aware of another, more interesting, change the same time he did.
The laughter in his eyes had faded. In its place a melting warmth intensified to a burn.
Slowly she followed the track of his gaze.
Beneath lacy bra cups and the light cotton of her white T-shirt, her nipples had tightened into hard peaks. They pressed provocatively against the wet fabric, stiff from the cold and a sudden spike of arousal.
“I suppose,” he said, his voice gone deep and heavy with the weight of arousal, “we’d better get you out of here before you catch that cold you were trying to avoid.”
“Yes,” she echoed softly as the sensitivity of her breasts became almost unbearable and the intimate press of their bodies where she straddled his lap made her ache. “I suppose we’d better.”
Only she didn’t move. She couldn’t. Not with him watching her that way. Not when she wanted him to touch her, to taste her through wet cotton and steal the last of the chill from her blood.
“Em?”
The huskiness of his murmur shivered up her spine like rough, restless fingertips. Watching his mouth, remembering how he tasted, how he wanted, she slowly licked a drop of water from her upper lip.
Garrett groaned. She had no idea. She hadn’t a single clue how she was affecting him. She couldn’t have or she’d have been running for her life.
She was a siren in wet denim and clinging cotton. Her breasts were round and full. The dark center of her nipples pebbled into tight erotic peaks. He knew what they felt like between his fingertips, how to change velvet to diamonds with his touch. He knew how she tasted, like sweetness and sensation and sex.
And he knew he had to put some distance between them, or he’d answer the invitation in her heavy-lidded eyes and start something she wasn’t ready to finish.
With all the will he possessed he clamped his hands around her waist. Jaw set in determination, he lifted her up and off him, letting go only when he was sure she was on solid footing.
Only then did he dare stand up, thankful the icy water had put a damper on his physical reaction to the sensual picture she made standing there.
“We’d better head back,” he said gruffly.
He saw her confusion, gave her the moment she needed for reality to grip her and to recognize that he was backing off. A moment more to remember why.
With a quick, embarrassed smile, she averted her gaze to the river and its scrambling dance over rock and stone.
She worked hard to collect herself. For several seconds her face was fierce with concentration—a concentration that shifted abruptly. Self-conscious awareness gave way to intense curiosity as her brows knit together and she honed in on a spot several yards away.
Before he could ask what she was thinking, she splashed away from him toward a wide spot in the river.
“Em—” he plowed his fingers through his wet hair “—what are you—”
“Wait...wait a second.” She held up a hand, cutting him off.
Knee-deep in water, she bent over and stuck her arm in up to her elbow. She fished around, then dug in with both hands to tug aside a rock. When she straightened, she was clutching a shiny round disk the size of a silver dollar in her hand.
“Garrett—look at this.”
He waded over beside her.
“Is it—could it possibly be?” The brightness in her eyes was out-brillianced only by the glint of sunshine bouncing off the water—and by the glitter of the coin pinched between her fingers.
She offered it to him, anticipation lighting her eyes and coloring her cheeks. He turned it over, tested its weight in his palm, studied it carefully.
“It’s gold,” he said at last.
“I knew it!” She fairly bubbled with excitement. “Frank and Jesse’s?”
He scratched his jaw, took a closer look. “It looks old enough.”
He handed the gold piece back to her with a smile that essentially translated to pride. “You did it, Em. You did what none of us James boys had been able to do. You found the treasure—at least a part of it. It’s the first real proof that it actually might exist. I’d suggest you tuck this someplace where it won’t get away from you.”
Warmed by his smile, she buried the gold piece in her pocket and humming with excitement, scanned the riverbed through the crystal clear water. “Maybe there’s more.”
His slow nod confirmed that he’d been thinking the same thing.
As exuberant as children, they searched for another half hour, but gave up on finding any more coins when the cold water forced them to the shore.
They collapsed on the blanket to let the rays of the sun warm them and finish drying their clothes.
Emma slipped the coin out of her pocket, amazed at its golden color, fascinated by the body heat it had captured and retained even as she held it.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmured, pleasantly exhausted, but riding on the wonder of her find.
“You’re beautiful.”
The gruffness of his voice stilled the absent caress of her fingers over the coin’s shining surface. She was far from beautiful—her clothes were damp and clingy, her hair was windblown and straggly from the water and she wasn’t wearing a drop of makeup—yet the look in his eyes, when she met them, made her feel as beautiful as he wanted her to be.
Something changed between them in that moment. Something she couldn’t positively identify or definitively name. While it was less than a resolution, it felt like much more than a beginning.
What it was, she decided after a moment, was a comfortable common ground, a similar path, and she liked the direction it was taking. Had liked it since they’d shared the wonder of a kiss last night on the steps to the loft. Had wanted it since their heated kiss in the swirling waters of the icy river had renewed an ache both painful and sweet.
Something changed inside her, too. A new confidence, born of his desire for her, added perspective and strengthened her sense of self. Deciding that, like the river, she would go with the flow and see where it took them, she smiled into his velvet blue eyes. “You just want my gold.”
He cocked his head, then touched her with a smile so soft and tender she felt caressed. “There is that.”
They shared a quick grin.
“But you are beautiful. I like seeing you smile, Em. It makes me wish I could find you a bucket of gold.”
It’s not the gold, she wanted to tell him. It was the moment that was golden, it was the man who had made it so. But she couldn’t say it. Not yet. Ultimately not ever, if they didn’t cross that invisible line and open up to each other. If she didn’t cross the line herself and open up to him.
Her newfound confidence helped her fight off old feelings—far too familiar feelings—of inadequacy and isolation. Even though they tried to inch into the warmth of the July afternoon and undercut the memories they were beginning to make, she wouldn’t let them.
They were getting close. When she’d asked him earlier about his father, they’d been so close to bridging what she felt was a huge gap between them. If he would break down and talk to her about something so personal, so painful, she knew she would have had the strength to do the same.
Yes, he’d closed himself off from her today—like he always closed himself off when he had a problem, not realizing that in turn it made her feel the need to conceal her problems from him.
That had been one of their biggest sources of miscommunication. But that was going to change. She knew he’d give her anything—his wealth, his protection, his desire—anything but the part of him he felt he needed to keep under lock and key. And it was that part of him—the knowledge of what made him weak, the key to what made him
strong—that she needed most if they were going to put their life back together.
Three months ago those same feelings of inadequacy she’d successfully wrestled aside today had driven her to the edge. She knew that now. Just as she knew he would never cheat on her. But her strength had been weakened then, her sense of self diminished. She just hadn’t been able to see it.
She wasn’t going to get caught up in that defeated mind-set again, she decided, as she sat there under the baking warmth of the sun and the question in his eyes. Not now that they’d gotten this far. Garrett was right about so many things. She wasn’t her mother; he wasn’t her father. And the past they had together was a good one. No longer was she willing to let their future slip away without a fight.
Strengthened by that conviction, empowered by that newfound strength and by the feelings she had for this man, she ran her thumb over the shining warmth of the coin.
With a new determination and renewed hope, she tossed it in the air. Sunlight caught its sheen, fired the gold as it arched, flipping end over end.
Garrett snagged it out of the air on the fly. He studied it, studied her. “A little careless with your treasure, aren’t you?”
She had been careless, Emma acknowledged, as eyes as crystalline and clear as the sky penetrated hers. They’d both been careless with something far more precious than gold. They’d been careless with each other. That was going to have to end if they were ever going to find their way back to what they’d once had. She decided right then and there that she’d do everything in her power to make that happen.
“Never,” she said, holding his gaze. “Never again.”
She folded her fingers around his until the coin was swallowed by the loose fist of his hand. “Why don’t you hang on to it for me. Hang on until I tell you to let go.”
The sun was a burning ball of apricot gold and blushing rose when they rode back to the cabin. Garrett offered Emma first shot at the shower while he bedded down the mare and fed her.
He needed a little time away from her to settle himself down. He needed some time to think.
Still revved from the events of the afternoon, he couldn’t shake the picture of her, golden and glowing. Couldn’t dull the feel of her against him, warm and wet and willing. And more, he couldn’t deny the notion that there had been a subtle shift in the way she reacted to him. There had been a definitive softness in her eyes. A deeper meaning in her words.
They were closing the gap. Every instinct he trusted told him so. Just like they told him that now, more than ever, he needed to tread carefully. He couldn’t blow this. And he would if he didn’t figure out a way to rein in his libido.
That was the hard part—literally, he conceded with a grim set of his lips—and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep it in check. Not long if she kept responding to him the way she had last night and again this afternoon.
So he deliberately took his time with the mare. He even took the time to gather wood for a fire he doubted they would need, even though the promise of a night chill had drifted in on the late-afternoon air.
He stared at the cabin long and hard before he climbed the porch steps and dumped the armload of split ash into the wood box by the door. Satisfied he was ready to handle another celibate night, he drew a deep breath and ducked into the cabin.
Emma was nowhere to be seen, but the soft creak of the wood floor overhead told him she was up in the loft. Grateful for another few minutes to pull it all together, he headed straight for the shower—and felt his resolve slip a notch then spiral out of orbit and into free fall.
The small bathroom was still steeped in the residual fragrance of her shower. Like her lingerie, Maya had picked out her shampoo. The scent was subtly floral, provocatively feminine. Undeniably sensual. Images—old and new—of him and Emma sharing steam and soap and sex under the warm fingers of a shower spray had him stripping off his shirt and jeans and cooling himself down with ice water for the second time that day.
His blood and his body were chilled to the point of frosting over when he finally cranked off the taps. Whipping wet hair from his face, he stuck his hand past the shower curtain and reached for a towel. When he came up empty, he shoved aside the curtain—then felt his heart hit a solid ten on the Richter scale.
Emma was standing there, the towel in her hand.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
Her voice was whisper soft, Southern seductive, as void of innocence or pretense as the smoky invitation in her eyes.
His heart actually stopped then. He felt it. The heavy thud. The electric stall. The agonizing stillness before it picked up the beat, hard, heavy and harried.
“Thanks,” he said when he could find his voice. Eyes on her, he took the towel from her extended hand. She leaned back against the sink, boldly watched as he dragged it over his body.
Her hair hung damp and shining over her shoulder, the belt of her rose silk robe was looped loosely at her waist. Her dark eyes assessing him, she shifted, then braced her hands on the counter beside her hips when he knotted the towel low at his waist. The rose-colored lapels gaped open. The sight of the long, sleek length of her bare leg, the pale curve of a breast, barely covered by the black French lace of a skimpy teddy, made a joke of the restraint he’d prided himself on possessing.
He’d wanted desperately to keep things slow and sweet and comfortable. But she’d just shrunk the comfort zone to the size of a postage stamp. And slow and sweet had become the impossible dream.
He read the slumberous look in her eyes for the invitation it was and knew that right or wrong, he was going to accept it.
He stepped out of the shower. Stepped against her and felt all his blood pool in his loins where their bodies connected.
“I had this all planned,” he said gruffly. “It was going to be slow.” He lowered his mouth to her throat, tugged at the belt of her robe when she arched her neck in invitation.
“I was going to romance you.” Her instant, shivering response stole his breath as he shoved rose silk from her shoulders and let it fall at her feet on the floor. “With flowers,” he growled between a string of openmouthed, biting kisses that tracked the length of her jawline, “and candlelight.”
When she sighed, a throaty, pleasured sound, he scooped her into his arms and headed for the loft. “And music. There was going to be music, dammit.”
He felt her smile against his lips as she curled her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry to spoil your plans.”
He groaned when she opened her mouth and dragged him into a kiss so deep, so drugging, he had to stop midway up the stairs to taste and plunder and claim.
His towel drifted to the floor as he lowered her to the bed. “I’ll deal with it.” He nuzzled the fragrant hollow between her breasts and tugged the scrap of sexy black lace from her shoulder. “I’ll improvise.”
And then he lost himself in the wonder of her. In the delicate fullness of her breasts, the satin of her belly, the creamy resilience of her thighs.
Seeing her like this, half-naked, wholly needy for him, was an erotic homecoming, months of midnight dreams.
“Look at me.” His hand trembled as be skimmed it over a bared breast. “I’m shaking like it was the first time.”
“It feels like the first time.” Breathless, she covered his hand with hers and guided it to her other breast. “You steal my breath.”
And she stole his heart—just like she had the first time he’d seen her smile. The first time he’d dared to kiss her, the first touch of his calloused hand on the sensitive tip of her nipple.
Her willingness, the unexpected offering of her body, finally did what all of his self-discipline hadn’t been able to accomplish. With aching restraint, he reined in his desire.
This was the woman he loved. This was the woman he had almost lost. He wasn’t going to take the chance of losing her again—not in a wild, primitive rush to satisfy his own suddenly insatiable needs.
He raised his head, b
rushed the hair from her face. Smiled into her passion-glazed eyes.
“Make love to me, Garrett.” She arched to him, restless and needy when he shifted his weight to her side.
“I am, sweet Emma. I am.”
With a gentleness reserved just for her, he eased the lace teddy down her hips and tossed it aside. With a patience that spoke of his love, he tended to the flesh he revealed.
With his hands and his mouth he petted and stroked and brought her to an edge cut sharp with the sting of pleasure, tempered with the urgency of need.
“Easy,” he whispered, when he cupped her intimately and she cried his name. “Just go with it.”
She groaned low and deep and rocked straining hips into the caress of his fingers. “I need you. Inside me. I need you...with me.”
“Soon.” He lowered his head to pinch a taut nipple between his teeth and suckled. “Soon,” he promised, drugged by the taste of her on his tongue, by the heat and wetness of her sliding against his fingers. “This time is for you—just for you.”
With a tortured moan, she stiffened, shuddered and poured into his hand.
Her total absorption in sensation was the most erotic sight he’d ever seen. Knowing that it was to him and him alone she gave herself was more satisfying than his own release—and gave him the strength to stall it.
He gathered her close as her trembling eased and she turned limp and languid in his arms. “My God, you’re beautiful.”
Emma couldn’t talk. Could barely breathe, and at the moment didn’t care if she ever had a cognizant thought again, other than the one attached to the pleasure he’d just given her.
It had been so long. So long since he’d touched her like this. So long since she’d felt she could let him. Even before she’d left him, they’d pulled away from each other physically as well as emotionally.
She shifted in his arms. Lifted heavy eyes to his. He trailed a finger down her cheek. She caught it in her hand, drew it to her mouth. It tasted of him, of her, and it sparked a renewed spike of desire so hot she felt singed by the flame.