by Karen Anders
“Shoot, woman. You are the most exasperating female I’ve ever met. I was trying to keep you from plunging headfirst down onto the hard ground, but maybe I shouldn’t have worried about it, because your hard head would have saved you.”
She pulled away from him to look him in the face, highly amused. “Women are supposed to be mysterious and baffling. It adds to our mystique and keeps men on their toes.”
“Is that what you’re doing, keeping me on my toes?” He cupped her face and slid his thumb along the creamy skin of her cheek. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of it. That’s for sure,” he said quietly.
He touched her lightly, caressing her skin, and the look in his eyes sent her heart fluttering.
“I want you, Sam.”
She smiled as she watched him get all churned up. There was something going on with him, something that she liked. He cared about her, whether he wanted to admit it or not. She could see it in his eyes. He wanted her. It thrilled her down to her toes, and at the same time terrified her. She thought about the diary and the way the courtesan had described pleasuring a man.
She moved closer to him, her hand dropping down to the juncture of his jeans. She cupped him through the tight denim.
Her breath caught and moved shallowly in her lungs. She shut her eyes and unintentionally touched her tongue to her lips. Something liquid pooled through her belly to her lower body and settled heavily and with unmistakable hunger in the cleft below her mound.
She heard him release his breath, as if a fist had slammed into his chest. She opened her eyes and watched him watch her. In the dim loft, his eyes were alive and dark with danger. He rubbed his hands roughly over his face. He breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling quickly. He swallowed and his fists curled so tightly that his knuckles pushed against his skin.
“Jenna.” He whispered her name, the air in the barn thick with their need.
Without removing her hand, she said softly, “Take off your shirt.” Sam’s hands unclenched and he started on the first buttons, baring his sun-warmed skin to her. Before he discarded the garment, she leaned forward and touched her mouth to his collarbone. She inhaled sharply, her mouth burning. She bared her teeth and bit him gently. He groaned softly, leaning into her.
His erection was firm and pulsing beneath her hand. With her free hand she unzipped his jeans and pushed them off his hips.
A sweet ache settled in Jenna’s heart as she pressed against his taut skin. God, how she wanted him, but not just for the short term. She wanted him forever and ever.
Impossible.
She watched his face as her body flowed down his, her hands cupping his erection.
Sam stilled and Jenna wanted to take his hard lips. The look on his face was violent, and a muscle in his jaw flexed. He grabbed her by her shirtfront, drew her up, and close. So close she could feel his breath on her lips. She couldn’t help the shiver of need that coursed through her.
She fought him, wanting to take him into her mouth.
He leaned down and bit her lip with a gentle tug and Jenna thought she would swoon. With his tongue, he laved her flesh between his teeth and she groaned. He let go, replacing the tingling sensation with a wrenching heat as his tongue ran along her mouth. He said, “Do you want to have your way with me?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, and ducked under his arm. But Sam had other ideas. He grabbed her around her waist and swung her over his shoulder while Jenna kicked and struggled. “No. Here in the hay. Please, Sam,” Jenna demanded, and Sam set her on her feet, then trapped her back against his granite chest, his strong, lean hips, and his muscled-to-perfection thighs.
Heat. Everywhere he touched her body brought scorching heat, burning within and without. Sam shuddered with it, his body pressing deeper into hers. Jenna writhed with it and turned away from Sam. Afraid of that heat, she wanted to escape, yet oddly yearned to be consumed by it.
The feel of Sam pressed solidly against her back, her derriere, and the backs of her thighs made her want to scream with her need for him. His breath was hot on the back of her neck, inches away from her skin, sensitized almost to the point of insanity. His touch branded her. Beautiful, callused fingers trailed over her neck and shoulders, moved with aching slowness down the ridge of her spine. His hands finally spread out to loop around the flare of her hips encased in the tight jeans.
A low sound escaped her as he pressed his hard length against her back, where she could feel his arousal with aching clarity.
“In the hay isn’t exactly civilized, Jenna,” he rasped. She twisted against him, the unvoiced cry trapped inside her as he moved his hips slowly. His mouth lowered to sweep the hollow where her neck flowed into her shoulder, his tongue moving in slow, delicious circles over her skin. When his hands left her hips to slide over her belly and capture her breasts, the sound of her pleasure, her passion, came from her throat as a gasping, tearing sound of need.
“But it turns you on,” she said provocatively.
Her breasts ached for his touch and she inhaled sharply as his hands roughly pulled the shirt from the waistband of her jeans, slid up her rib cage and, with a quick, deft motion, unsnapped her bra where it met between her breasts. Her nipples were ready and erect when he finally cupped them in his big, rough, hot hands. His mouth descended to her ear, his voice straining as he sucked her lobe, sending prickles of fire to the tips of her breasts. She arched into him with a moaning cry. “Tell me it turns you on, too,” he demanded, moving beyond control and dragging Jenna with him, with those spoken words.
She cried out again and arched farther into him, the wall of his chest an unmovable, burning hardness against her back. As he took the nipples between his fingers, pinching and tugging on them, Jenna thought it was more than she could take. She struggled and he let her turn so that she was facing him. His eyes blazed with a hard, unyielding fire that reached out and burned her. She gasped at the magnificence of him, his dark, unruly hair. She reached up and ran her fingers through it and he closed his eyes as if in agony.
Without opening them, his mouth descended and captured hers, his lips demanding her to surrender, to submit to him, to give him all that she had to give. But Jenna would surrender later. Right now, she wanted something from him and she was going to get it.
Her hand slid down the taut muscle of his torso to his groin. He moaned hard into her mouth, his hips jerking as her hand curled around his cock.
“Jenna. Oh, God…Jen.” His voice sounded hoarse in the still air of the barn.
She moved her hand up and felt his body bolt in the way he uncontrollably thrust his hips toward her. His knees buckled and he caught himself against one wall, his palms flat for balance. His chest heaved in and out and she stroked his jaw with the lightest of touches. She didn’t want to break his pleasure by distracting him. He was putty in her hands and she took full advantage of it. She pressed against him. Looking up into his face, contorted with feeling, only intensified her desire for the smoothness, the heat of him in her mouth.
When her lips encompassed the head of his penis, he whispered a curse, his hips bucking, his legs quaked and he leaned harder into the wall so that his chest muscles stood out in stark relief. Her hum of pleasure against the hot skin her lips caressed brought a tight groan from him. Bowing at the waist, his restless leg rubbed against her arm, the silkiness of his inner thigh encouraging.
She grasped the base of his shaft and swirled her tongue around the head, laving him until he swore low and vehemently under his breath. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he pulled her up his body. For a split second, he looked into her eyes and she shivered at the dangerous passion there.
He took the ends of her shirt and jerked it up her body, baring her breasts to him, lifting her easily, his biceps bulging from the weight of her. She brought her hands up to clasp his wrists, sliding seductively over the smooth hair on his forearms until she reached the tight, rounded muscles. She tested his taut skin and felt the strength of him pulsate
into her fingers until the maleness of him seemed to seep into her blood and burn.
For a moment of heated silence he just stared at her. Then he caught a nipple between his teeth. He licked and sucked until she arched in desperate, aching need, causing little frissons of heat to explode in her stomach. It was a sensation that reached into the core of her, stabbing so intensely she was afraid she was beginning to unravel.
Finally, giving in to her need to touch him, she ran her hands through that endearing head of hair, liking the soft feel of the strands against her fingers. Enjoying it so much she did it again, much more slowly. Her knees went weak. Desire rushed through her body, hot and thick.
“Damn,” he whispered raggedly before his mouth was on hers, urgently pressing her backward, grabbing her around the waist, bowing her over his arm. Soon, his hands were deftly at her jeans and underwear, and she stepped out of them.
At last, she knew what it was like to be really kissed by him. This was why he kept such a firm control over himself. He had found a well of passion that he hadn’t realized existed. It reached out and engulfed him as easily as a tidal wave engulfed an island with an unrelenting force. The same force that crashed over her.
The heat of his mouth seared every other kiss she’d ever had permanently from her memory. As kisses went, this one was off the scale. There was no point in grading, where Sam was concerned.
He deepened the kiss, his sensuous lips flexing over hers in an urgent fierceness that left her breathless. She felt him spread his heavily muscled thighs to give him better balance. He slid his big hands over her buttocks, jerking her hips against him.
The pulsing heat from his groin reached out to her, made her groan into his soft lips.
The groan tightened his body, and even as he cursed himself for his lack of control, something inside cried out with aching clarity—she was so exquisitely right for him, it was criminal. She fit to him like a perfectly fashioned suit, like a glove fit a hand, like a woman was supposed to fit a man.
He had no idea what he wanted from her except to bury himself in her so deeply he would be lost. He didn’t know why he was so attracted to her, why only she could ignite these primal urges.
The more he kissed her, the more he wanted. The need careened around inside him until he growled deep in his throat and pushed her down into the pile of hay.
He’d refused to dull the ache with alcohol, resisting the urge to drink himself into a stupor over a woman. The truth of the matter was he’d been afraid to pick up a bottle, afraid that a penchant for alcohol would consume him. He couldn’t hide. He had to deal with his emotions and his needs. Yet, in those agonizing days he’d had some insight into his father’s torture, a thread of understanding how seductive it could be to use alcohol to deaden white-hot, all-encompassing desire.
He slid his hips against her slim ones, while he softened the kiss, to woo rather than to conquer.
It was Sam’s undoing when her mouth moved over his in such obvious worship, like a woman paying homage to something beyond her comprehension, something so enchanting and captivating that it defied human understanding. He felt the strength of her arousal and moved against her with an abandon that startled him.
When Sam kissed her, he sensed an innocence, as if she hadn’t been kissed like this before, had never felt this twisting passion that was eating him up. As if she were untried. It couldn’t be possible, as he felt her melt into him and her reaction shattered every other thought apart like glass splintering into tiny crystal shards.
She sighed against his mouth as the wet heat of his tongue came up against her parted lips, which she opened eagerly. She moaned as his tongue explored her mouth possessively, expertly, running it around the silky sweetness, moaning more when her tongue entwined with his, stroking, tasting, begging for more, much more. Her scent was intoxicating, very feminine, very seductive.
“Now, Sam.” He planted his palms on either side of her, and plunged into her with deep, uncontrollable thrusts. He had no finesse left, no self-control. It was raw, base and wild. She started to come before he bottomed out. He felt her contracting around him, heard her breathy gasps spiraling several octaves higher, and pure satisfaction exploded through him. Holding himself deep even as the need to climax beat at him, he ground against her as he felt her climax go on and on and on. All he knew for certain was the feel of her coming apart beneath him was the biggest turn-on he’d ever felt.
When her orgasm tapered off, he began to pump steadily in smooth, hard strokes. Jenna wrapped her legs around his hips and moved in concert with him, and he sucked in a breath.
He thrust two, three, four times and came in a blinding, clenching, white-hot pulsation after pulsation.
Moments later, shuddering with satisfaction, he eased down on top of her. He held her to him and rolled to his side, filled with a ferocious possessiveness.
It made him uneasy, for possessiveness wasn’t an emotion he’d expected to feel. Since Tiffany had left him and he’d sworn that he would never get involved with a woman like her again, he was filled with the need to run. Now he was filled with the need to pull Jenna close and never let her go. But it was never up to him. He’d learned that and accepted it. Tiffany had eventually stayed away until they didn’t have a marriage at all. Here he was again, in that same wagon, knowing he had nothing to offer Jenna that could compete with her rich lifestyle.
He was simply a rancher and an uncomplicated guy. Yet he felt entangled and a surprising sense of completeness.
Even though it was tinged with dread.
10
THE CRASH OF THUNDER woke her and she jumped against Sam’s side. She sat upright, realizing that while they had slept in the sunny meadow after their lunch break, a nasty storm had rolled over them.
A day had passed since the twin calves had been born, and Sam had worked diligently with Tooter so that Sam had the time to show her around his ranch.
Sam sat up next to her, looking at the sky. “I listened to the weather report earlier and it was supposed to be clear all day. But that’s what happens near the gulf. Storms can come in suddenly and catch you off guard. Let’s put the stuff together. I’ll get the horses.”
Sam left her and Jenna quickly collected the leftover meal and returned it to the saddlebag. Fighting against the hard wind, she picked up the blanket. It flapped and wound around her like something alive. A crack of lightning pierced the leaden sky and Jenna heard the frightened whinny of a horse. She wrestled the blanket away from her body in time to see Shadow rear. With horror, she realized that Sam was too close to the horse.
But he didn’t hesitate, nor did he run from the animal. Jenna’s heart was in her throat as Sam tried to calm the skitterish stallion. A peal of thunder and another crack of lightning hit close to the tree the horses were tied to. It was too much for the already frightened animal. He reared again, pulling at the tied reins and they snapped free. The front hooves, dangerously close to Sam’s head, flicked out and caught him across the temple. He grabbed his head and reeled back as the stallion shot out of the meadow and into the deepening gloom.
Jenna dropped the blanket and it went swirling away into the storm. When she reached Sam, he was swearing a blue streak.
“That stallion never did like storms.”
“Sam, your head! Are you okay?” She touched the bloody spot but could barely see where the steel-shod hoof had made contact with his head.
“I’m fine. Just clipped me. Get the saddlebags,” he hollered over the rushing wind. Jenna ran back to the leather bags and over to Sam. The Appaloosa danced at the ends of the reins, his eyes rolling. With a quick flick of his wrist, Sam pulled the reins free and, with one lithe movement, mounted the horse. He took the bags from her and settled them on Spot’s hindquarters.
He reached down his hand and Jenna looked up at him. The blood slid slowly down his face, his blue eyes stood out like a beacon in the raging storm. Her heart shifted in her chest and slowly beat, once, twice, three time
s. She reached up and grasped his hand.
“Bend your knees and jump,” he yelled over the storm. Jenna did as he said and, with brute strength, Sam pulled her up behind him. She clutched at the horse, even though there wasn’t any way she could have slid off, cushioned as she was by Sam’s body. Raindrops stung her cheeks. The cold wind beat against her. But she had to close her eyes against the surprising warmth in her belly, the tight pleasure in her chest at the feeling of Sam against her.
“We should have taken the damn truck.”
“What fun would that have been? Touring your ranch in a four-wheel-drive. How boring.”
He laughed. “You surprise me every minute, Jenna. We’ll have to find shelter. It’s too far to get to the ranch.”
“Where?”
“There’s a line shack not far from here.” At his words, the world went gray and a deluge hit them with the force of a battering ram. Jenna was immediately soaked through to the skin and could barely catch her breath at the cold rain.
For about a minute, she fought the urge to sink against him, and then she gave up the fight. He held her arm around him with a quiet competence, not too tight, not too loose. Jenna felt safe, the rocking motion of the horse soothing. The world around them was swirling, but Sam protected her like precious cargo.
Jenna lifted her head a little and tried to see through the rain. All she saw was a misty landscape with no distinguishable landmarks, at least not to her. There was just the pelting rain and the heavy, cold wind. Spot moved along at a good pace, his hooves muffled by the wet grass and mud.
Sam pulled her tighter against him, afraid of what would happen if he lost his grip and she fell from the horse. He blamed himself for his stupidity in letting them get caught like this.
He gave Spot his head, knowing the animal could instinctively find shelter, just as Sam knew he was moving in the right direction. It must be his cowboy instinct or his horse sense.
Just then Spot came to a shuddering halt. Sam pulled his eyes from her and focused his attention ahead of them. “Hey, boy,” he crooned, his voice hesitant, his attention on the storm in front of them, his hand stroking the horse. Was it danger Spot had sensed?