And maybe in him, too, because he pressed a kiss to her temple, leaving his lips there too long for it to be merely an act of solace.
She tipped her head back to look into his face, meaning to thank him, but somehow the words didn’t come. Instead he gazed down into her eyes for a moment and then kissed her mouth. A soft, sweet kiss that nevertheless set those sparks on fire.
But the blaze was short-lived, because just then Meggie came running out of the barn, shouting, “Did you get her down yet?”
Ally ended the kiss abruptly at the sound of her daughter’s voice, but Jackson was slower in taking his arms away.
“I got her,” he answered the little girl in a husky voice that didn’t seem to raise any curiosity in Meggie but told Ally just how affected he’d been by that oh-so-brief kiss.
Meggie took Jackson’s place at a full run, hugging Ally’s waist and hanging on almost as desperately as Ally had hung on to the rung of the windmill ladder.
This time it was Ally who did the soothing and reassuring, and the stroking of Meggie’s hair, too.
But over her daughter’s head, her gaze followed Jackson as he walked away.
She couldn’t help marveling at what had once again ignited between them, almost instantly and all on its own.
And the fact that it had come even at a time when she’d just had the living daylights scared out of her.
As if her attraction to him, her feelings for him, had even more power than that....
* * *
Kansas came to pick up Meggie about an hour later. Her car was full of her sister’s kids—none of whom Meggie had met before—and between that and the windmill fright, Ally expected her daughter to change her mind about the overnight.
But at Kansas’s urge to hurry so they could get to her house, Meggie ran inside and then ran out again with her backpack, kissed Ally goodbye and hopped into the rear of the station wagon with the oldest of the other kids—Ashley—as if they were best friends eager to get together.
And Ally was left as surprised as she was glad to see it.
Still she said to Kansas, “Meggie doesn’t always do well sleeping away from me. If there’s any problem, even in the middle of the night, just call and I’ll borrow Jackson’s truck or something and come get her.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Kansas answered without any concern at all, and somehow Ally sensed she was right.
The other woman got behind the wheel of the car and with parade waves from everyone, off they went.
Ally watched until they disappeared from sight and then turned to go through the house and out back once more where Jackson still worked and expected her return to stack the wood he was chopping.
That was when it occurred to her that for the first time since her arrival here she and Jackson were totally alone on the place.
Not that it mattered, of course. The presence of other people on the ranch hadn’t kept them from kissing, from more than kissing, the past few nights. And other people hadn’t been the cause of the abrupt endings to most of those occasions, either. So what difference did it make?
None at all, she told herself.
Except that, for some reason, she felt a little unnerved by it.
Her trip through the cool, air-conditioned house only made the blast-furnace heat feel all the worse when she went out the sliding glass door and headed for the chopping block.
Jackson was a workaholic, she decided as she passed the pool. She considered trying to persuade him to take the rest of the afternoon off for a swim but she knew he’d never do it. He’d say the wood had to be cut and it had to be cut right now. And they’d probably have a rerun of the power struggle they’d already had over the windmill. So she rejected the idea and merely went to work.
But Lord, it was hot.
Sometime while she was seeing Meggie off, even Jackson had succumbed to it enough to remove his shirt, leaving his chest and back bare as he worked.
That was well and good for him, she thought grumpily, but what was she supposed to do for some relief? She couldn’t strip down to the waist.
Hot and bothered, that’s what she was, though not in any sexual meaning of the phrase, she was quick to reason. She was literally hot. Steaming hot from stacking heavy logs in the kind of heat weathermen warned of.
And what bothered her was that Jackson was forcing her to do it just out of pure orneriness to prove a point. And to get rid of her, not only because she was trespassing on his precious territory but probably also because he had some idiotic notion that a few kisses meant something.
But they didn’t. At least they didn’t have to. Not a few kisses or even more than a few kisses. Or some sleepless nights longing for a sober-sided man in another room. Or even the fact that one of her worst fears could be wiped away with a moment in his arms....
No, none of it had to mean anything.
So what if she couldn’t help being affected by the sight of him half-naked, each time she set the logs on the pile and returned to where he was chopping more wood. After all, there wasn’t a woman alive who could have looked at him that way and not been affected.
His muscles bulged and flexed and rippled beneath tan skin that glistened with sweat as he wielded the ax in a kind of determination that suggested he was more intent on working something out of his system than on doing the job for the sake of getting it done.
But no matter what was behind it, there was a sensuality to his every movement that made Ally’s nerve endings slither to the surface of her own skin, leaving her too aware of her perspiration-soaked T-shirt clinging to her as if it had been hosed down.
How could wood-chopping be a sensual act?
She suddenly began to wonder if her overheated state didn’t owe more to the woodchopper than to the weather.
A glorious sight, he worked with a seamless rhythm that looked as if it barely tapped into the full measure of his power and strength.
Each whack of the ax into the wood began to answer a beat of Ally’s heart and reverberate through her, enlivening more and more inside of her with every blow, rekindling those sparks that had started at the foot of the windmill.
It was crazy, she knew, but she started to see Jackson’s woodcutting as something incredibly erotic. Her nipples puckered up in response and tightened a cord that stretched right through to the center of her. And each fall of the ax raised her body temperature even higher, thrumming that cord, awakening her every sense, her every desire, her craving to slide her palms along that sweat-slickened skin, to press herself against the steely wall of those muscles, to feel his mouth on hers once again, his hands on her body...
“I have to go inside,” she blurted out all of a sudden, sounding as if she were in more of a panic than she had been before, feeling in more of a panic.
Jackson stopped what he was doing and his eyes did a slow roll down to her toes and back up again, as if searching for the cause. But she didn’t wait for him to say anything. She threw the split log she had in her hand onto the pile and headed for the house as if her tail were on fire.
A cold shower! She needed a very cold shower or else she’d either die of heat prostration or jump that man’s bones!
It was just too hot outside, she decided on the way. The sweltering temperature had made her a little nuts. As soon as she cooled off she’d be okay again.
She tore off her clothes the minute she was in her bedroom upstairs and charged into the shower. She didn’t even touch the hot-water knob but only turned on the cold full blast, gasping when the chilly spray hit her.
It was a welcome agony.
It just didn’t work.
Oh, sure, her body temperature began to drop, but her nipples were still kerneled and straining for Jackson’s touch. That cord was still stretched to her lower reaches where an achingly empty need cried out for him. And never in her life had she wanted anyone as much as she still wanted him....
Then, suddenly, a silhouette fell across the frosted glass of the shower
door, two sets of fingers curled over the top of it, and she saw what looked to be Jackson’s head pressed to the outside.
“Tell me to get the hell out of here,” he ordered in the passion-husky voice she was coming to recognize.
All she could think of at that moment was that it didn’t look like he had on any clothes on the other side of the door.
And the last thing in the world she could do was resist what she wanted most, what her whole body cried out for.
She pushed on the shower door to open it and there he stood—naked and so gorgeous her jaw dropped. She couldn’t help letting her gaze rake down his glistening body, the most magnificent male physique she’d ever seen in person or anywhere else.
And he wanted her as much as she wanted him. It was right there for her to see—long, thick, hard proof.
She swallowed back a rise of overwhelmingly potent desire, forced herself to look him in those oh-so-blue eyes and watched him step into the stall with her.
Once he was there and the door was closed behind him, he took her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, instantly capturing her lips with his, insistently, hungrily.
The heat they’d both suffered outside still emanated from him, and sweat mingled with the water that rained down on them, making his taut skin just as slick as she’d imagined as she slid her palms up those solid, bulging biceps.
His mouth opened wide over hers, his tongue thrust inside and Ally answered the urgency in it because she felt it, too.
Almost frantically they each explored the other’s body, like lovers kept too long apart by forces other than themselves, learning and arousing at once. And every caress of those big, callused hands raised Ally to a new level of yearning.
He kneaded her breasts, gently tormented her nipples, reveling in them and tightening the cord inside her even more with the wonders he worked, the tenderness of the restrained power, the adoration of his touch.
She nearly cried out in protest when his mouth deserted hers and those talented hands abandoned her breasts. Except that before she could utter more than a groan, he’d cupped her derriere to lift her slightly, holding her between the shower wall and his hips so his mouth could replace his hands at her breasts, suckling, nipping, tugging at her nipples, flicking them with his tongue in heavenly torture.
Ally closed her eyes, buried her hands in his hair and gave herself up to the miracles the man was working, to the heights of pleasure he was driving her to.
His hands slid from her derriere down the backs of her thighs, lifting her effortlessly and wrapping her legs around his waist so that the long, hard shaft of him barely introduced itself to the spot between her legs that cried out for so much more.
Her breath caught, suspended in anticipation, in a craving so intense she didn’t know if she could survive it.
And then there he was, easing her down, sliding up inside of her, filling her so completely there was no room for her to breathe.
Except that couldn’t have been true, because she heard herself moan, “Oh, Jackson.”
He kissed her again, slowly this time, only pulsing inside her, claiming her, blissfully teasing her, until she flexed back and arched her hips against him.
She felt his smile, accepted the thrust of his tongue as a prelude, and then, finally, he began to move. Delving deep and then retreating. Deeper still and out again.
As good as he was at everything else, he was a master at that, guiding her, setting just the right pace, increasing it at the very moment she needed him to, until, together, passion exploded in them both, driving him to the very core of her. Wave after wave of ecstasy washed through her and seemed to echo in him until the pace calmed, wound down to where it had started and finally stopped completely.
Jackson dropped his forehead to her collarbone. Ally let her head rest back against the tile wall. And as the cold water went on pummeling them, they stayed that way for a moment.
Then Jackson turned off the water and let Ally slide down to stand on her own two feet again. But she was only there for a split second before he scooped her up into his arms and carried her out to her bed, where he laid her down and joined her, pulling her against the length of his side.
He chuckled a little and, with a note of amusement in his voice, said, “Are you afraid of anything besides heights that I should know about?”
“This,” she whispered, meaning what was happening between them.
He smiled down at her, though it was slightly hesitant. “Me, too,” he answered very quietly, apparently knowing what she’d meant.
But fear of the feelings they shared didn’t stop him from kissing her again. Or from reaching one of those now-familiar hands to her breast.
And it didn’t stop her from laying her palm on the side of his neck, or sliding her thigh over his to press herself against him as passion took them on yet another ride.
Instead those feelings welled up to overwhelm the fears and carry them both away....
Chapter Eight
It was ten o’clock the next morning when Ally woke up to a clap of thunder so loud it seemed to strike in the bedroom. A big, callused hand lay on her breast.
She was lying next to Jackson, her body perfectly fitted to the length of his, her head on his chest, their legs entwined, her own hand curved along the side of his thick, corded neck, with nothing but a sheet covering them.
“We overslept,” she told him in a sleep-husky tone when she’d opened her eyes and could see the clock on the nightstand beyond him.
“It’s rainin’,” he answered.
It wasn’t just raining. A torrential downpour pounded the house, and thunder and lightning cracked like whips all around them while his slow hand at her breast kept up a titillating massage.
“Do you just stay in bed all day when the weather turns bad?” she asked with a smile in her voice for what he was awakening inside her.
“Not usually.”
“You just sleep in a little?”
“Not usually.”
But after a night that had included a stand-up supper in the kitchen, another round of lovemaking in the pool, then another on one of the loungers, it was no wonder even Jackson hadn’t been bright eyed and bushy tailed before now.
His hand slipped from her breast to her side and around to her rear end, pressing her more firmly to his hip. “How you holdin’ up?”
“Well enough,” she answered, ignoring the soreness that made that a lie, because he’d already raised anew the now-familiar desire they’d shared into the wee hours of the morning.
He chuckled, a seductive echo from deep in his chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone quite like you, Ms. Brooks.”
She did a slow, tantalizing rub of his chest with a feather-light stroke that kerneled his male nibs almost the way her nipples were. “How am I different?”
“You just never fail to surprise me. Every time I think I have you pegged one way, you up and prove me wrong.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, ma’am, it’s not. It’s not bad at all. Except maybe that I’m enjoyin’ it altogether too much.” He paused a moment, and when he went on, it was in a tone that was quiet and sincere. “Enjoyin’ you altogether too much.”
His hand slid back the way it had come, but bypassed her breast to cup her chin and tilt her face up to him so he could kiss her, chastely, sweetly, lovingly...
“Ah, Ally...” he nearly moaned in what sounded almost like sorrow, leaving her lips to kiss her brow, her eyes, her nose and then her mouth once more.
Somehow she knew what he was lamenting. It was the feelings she knew he had for her even though he’d expressed them only with his body, with his touch, with the tenderness and care he’d shown all through the night.
And she understood, because she shared not only the feelings, but the fear of them, of the pain they could cause. She was very much afraid that she was falling in love with this man. That maybe it was too late and she’d already fallen...
�
�Mom? I’m home!”
Meggie’s call from downstairs, accentuated with the slam of the front door, was like a bucket of cold water thrown on them.
Then Linc’s deeper voice sounded, “Could be they’re out workin’. You take your things upstairs and I’ll go look in the barn.”
“Oh, my god!” Ally said, jumping up and making a mad dash for her bathrobe. “Hide!” she whisper-shouted to Jackson as she did.
But he just lay there, grinning at her, and clamped his hands behind his head. “Tell her to get an umbrella and go collect the eggs,” he said calmly.
Ally opened the door only enough to squeeze her head through, just as Meggie tossed her backpack into her own room and headed for Ally’s.
“Hi, sweetie!” Ally said much too brightly, garnering a chuckle from Jackson that she was relatively sure Meggie didn’t hear. “How was your slumber party?”
“It was good,” her daughter answered. “How come you’re not dressed yet?”
“I guess my alarm didn’t go off. Why don’t you go out and collect the eggs and I’ll be down in the kitchen by the time you’re finished?”
“I could do that later. I want to tell you what we did last night. It was so fun.”
“Go do the eggs first and then tell me while we have breakfast.”
“I already had breakfast.”
“You can tell me while I eat.” The desperate note that was overtaking her tone brought another chuckle from Jackson. Ally amended it to motherly firmness. “Go on now. Use one of the umbrellas from next to the hall tree in the entranceway and don’t get wet.”
Meggie looked at her as if she’d lost her mind but finally conceded, and Ally ducked back into the room, closing the door and falling against it.
“Caught in the act,” Jackson said softly as he got out of bed and came her way in all his masculine, muscular, gorgeous glory.
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