“By all of this, do you mean your cattle or the ranch?”
“All of it. I didn't think about taking over when I first came here, but now everything is falling into place.”
Lyric shifted on the couch. “I guess I fell into your lap, too.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you did?”
She blushed. “Don't you know it?”
“I thought you sort of did that yourself.”
She couldn't stop herself from laughing. “I guess I did, but you sort of did it to me, too.”
“How did I do that?”
She waved her hand up and down in front of him. “Well, look at you. Anybody would fall for you when you're like this.”
“I didn't think about making you fall for me when I cut my hair.”
“You liar! Of course, you did.”
He pressed his lips together to stop himself smiling. “Well, maybe just a little bit.”
“It's not just the way you look. Everything about you changed, or maybe just everything about the way you act changed. You're smart, calculating, far-sighted—everything we thought you weren't. You can have anything you set your eye on. You became an Alpha.”
He didn't smile now. “I guess I did. I have your father to thank for that.”
“He gave me his blessing just now.”
“His blessing to do what? To dump Riskin and…”
“And…?”
She peeked at his face. “And mate with you instead…if you want to, I mean. I understand if you don't feel the same way about me. I realize this is sudden and everything. I just....”
He covered her hand with his. “I do feel the same way about you. You know I do.”
Her eyes snapped up. “You do?”
“Do you think I kiss girls all the time the way we kissed in the tack room? Do you think I meet my life's mate every day of the week?”
She could barely whisper. “Is that what I am?”
“Absolutely. And I'm yours. You wouldn't ask your father for his blessing if I wasn't.” His face drifted closer. She swam in those hypnotizing eyes. “We were made for each other, Lyric. We're mated for life.”
“We haven't mated yet.”
“We don't have to. If I never touch you again, we're mated for life. Nothing can change that. We just have to get a few pieces of extra business out of the way before we live happily ever after, like breaking the sad news to Riskin.”
“He saw us kissing, so maybe he already knows.”
“I just had dinner with him. As long as he hangs around the ranch, he's still hoping to get you back.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Mattox nodded. “Don't worry about Riskin. I'll handle him.”
“Just don't hurt him. Don't kill him or anything like that. I couldn't live with that.”
He squeezed her hand. “I'll be gentle with him for your sake. Just don't let any man come between us again, or I won't be responsible for the consequences.”
A brilliant smile spread across her face. She couldn't stop herself leaning toward him. “I won't. If we're together, I won't have to.”
He clasped her hand, but made no move toward her. “It's getting late. I should go to my room. Tomorrow's another busy day.”
“Mattox?”
“Yes?”
“Were you serious about me helping you with your herd?”
“It's not my herd. It's yours. I told you that. I'm doing this for you. All the money from this herd goes to you.”
She closed her eyes. She couldn't stop the blood rushing to her cheeks. “Stop saying that. It isn't true. You're doing this for yourself and no one else.”
“I admit I get a sense of accomplishment out of it, but I want you to reap the rewards. If we're going to be together, I want to make you rich. I want to make you notorious and powerful and unstoppable.”
“You're the one who's notorious and powerful and unstoppable.”
“If I'm any of those things, I am them because I have you.”
“You have me because you are those things. You wouldn't have me if you were weak and shrinking and obedient the way you were before.”
He smiled to show his teeth. “There you go. It's a match made in heaven.”
He bent over his papers, but she held him back. “Don't go yet.”
“I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going upstairs to my room. I'll be right down the hall from you all night long.”
She couldn't let him go. Her whole being thrilled to keep him close to her. “That's still too far.”
He gathered his papers in his free hand. “That's the way it's got to be, at least until we wrap up the loose ends floating around.”
“Do you mean Riskin?”
“That's just one of them.”
Her own attraction pulled her toward him. She wanted so much more than this, so much more than holding hands and talking on the couch. She wanted to devour him, to taste and touch and consume him, but something held her back.
She studied his lips. She longed to kiss them one more time, to experience that delirious vertigo of falling into him through his skin. She wanted to caress his inky chest with every inch of her skin, to drink his indomitable power through his lips.
She didn't cross the barrier separating them, though. What was wrong with her? Hadn't she fallen into his lap along with everything else? Wasn't she part of the spoils he conquered?
She looked up from his lips to find him scrutinizing her with his deep glittering eyes. His eyes danced down to her lips and back up to her eyes, but he made no move to come closer. Did he crave her kiss the way she craved his? Did the same insatiable hunger torment him as burned through her guts? How could he hold himself back like that? Didn't he see how much she wanted him? How could he thrill her and leave her grieving?
She pried her fingers out of his hand. She would just have to deal with this aching need until he got rid of Riskin. Then nothing would stop them from coming together. She inched back on the couch. “I guess we both better get to bed.”
He took his hand back without a word. He crooked his elbow around his papers and got up. Lyric kept her head turned away so he wouldn't see her face twisted in anguish. She swallowed the lump in her throat and coughed. “I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”
He followed her upstairs. When she paused at the upper landing, he squeezed her hand. “Good night, Lyric.”
She nodded, but couldn't speak. This soul-destroying loneliness never bothered her before, not even when her mother died. She always relied on Riskin's company to carry her through hard times, but she couldn't count on that support now. She cut Riskin adrift, and when she put out her hand to grasp Mattox, he slipped through her fingers. She couldn't face going back to her cold dark room alone, not with him so close, so warm and glowing with life.
He gave her one last smile and a nod before he turned away and headed down the hall to his room. Shadows swallowed him up and the door latch caught. That door cut her off from her life, her future. Her whole self waited for her behind that door.
She started to turn away. Her own room waited for her, but it couldn't welcome her like he could. What was she thinking? What loose ends could she possibly tie up to prepare her to meet him any better than she was prepared now?
She made up her mind in the blink of an eye. She turned back around the other way and strode down the hall to Mattox's door. She touched the door, but didn't knock. What would he do? Would he tell her to go back to her room? Of course not. He was her mate. She belonged in his arms, for better or for worse. She would stay with him. She didn't care what anybody said, and hang the consequences.
She grasped the knob and swung the door open. A single lamp burned next to the bed. Mattox sat bare-chested on the bed. His pile of files and papers rested next to the lamp. He could pick them up and study them whenever he wanted to.
He showed no surprise when she walked in and closed the door behind her. He sat up straight and put out his hand to take hers. He drew her
toward him and folded his arms around her waist.
Overwhelming satisfaction and joy welcomed her into his arms. Nothing could ever be more right than this. His head nuzzled against her stomach, and his muscled biceps surrounded her hips in luscious warmth. His breath seeped through her dress and thawed her frozen heart. She left all her loneliness and grief behind in the hall and came home to his embrace.
Chapter 14
Lyric stared down at Mattox's head. The hair swirled around the nexus on his crown. He trailed his fingertips up and down her back, down her thighs to her knees and back up to hug her midsection against his face. His deep breaths infused her with life.
Her hands found their way to his head and laced her fingers through his hair. She massaged his neck to press his face into her belly. His breath blew warm delicate tentacles into her flesh, down into her pelvis and up to her breasts. It sprouted through her skin to meet him. Every corpuscle wanted him and needed him. Every nerve screamed for his touch.
His hands snuck under her dress, but he didn't do anything more than continue his endless tracing up and down her legs. He drove her to distraction with his maddening slow circuit up her thighs and down to her knees. Her body ached all over for more, but he wouldn't rush.
She stroked his head. Her view blurred with the blood rushing to her head. She teetered in passionate excitement for what he would do next. She slid her hands around his neck to his cheeks, and he lifted his face to hers.
Lyric didn't hesitate. She would never hesitate again as long as she lived. He was right about one thing, and no mistake. They had one minor piece of business to wrap up before they could fall into each other's arms forever. That one piece of business was Lyric herself. She and only she could cut the last thread holding her prisoner to the past. No one but she could drive the last stake into the past's dead, shriveled heart to accept the bright new future spread before her.
She killed that past here and now. She kicked it in the teeth so it would never haunt her again. She wanted nothing more to do with it. She would tell Riskin and anybody else who asked what she wanted and what she intended to do. Nothing would stop her from seizing her destiny in both hands.
This was her destiny, this man right here between her palms. She stroked his cheeks and dove headfirst into him. She drank that delicious cocktail to the last drop and tasted the earthy Bruin on his lips.
His hands tightened around her thighs. His breath grated in his throat. His skin flushed warm and vibrant under her hands. His shoulders heaved with every surging breath. She followed his neck down to the wide wall of his back. She explored the intricate black designs rippling under her fingers. Her head spun with a thousand sensations and emotions. Her whole life led to this moment.
Those designs worked their way into her mind. They planted their roots in her soul and occupied her being. They made her one and the same flesh with him and held her against him so she couldn't get away.
He kneaded her legs to a squishy, melting mass. She sagged against him, even as her lips parted to let his tongue slither into her mouth. That sweet wetness filled her to the brim in beautiful spongy steam. It evaporated through her mind so she could think of nothing but him. It wormed into her crotch to ignite her burning hunger for him.
A soft murmur of desire leapt across the electric space between their lips. Mattox broke free to nibble down her neck to her chest. He pushed her neckline aside with his nose and gave her breasts tiny love bites through her dress. His skin glowed under her hands. His heat burned her hands, and his muscles cut her to the quick wherever she touched him.
Higher his hands crept up her legs to the cleft buried inside. He woke her flesh to quivering life with every inch he covered. She followed every chiseled outline of his muscles. She longed to sink her teeth into his chest and arms and back. His wicked tattoos excited her beyond comprehension. She wanted to fill her mouth with that inky skin and taste the sweat of his seething power.
At last, he came to the delicate crease where her thighs met her rounded ass. His fingers snaked around between her thighs and back down to her knees. Just when she thought he would plunge into her molten fissure, he backed off to tickle down her legs again. She murmured under her breath in agony. She couldn't stand this much longer.
His gentle bites on her breasts got harder, more demanding. He nudged her smoldering skin to erotic excitement until she heaved with tortured breath. She shoved her breasts into his face in desperate fury to catch them in his mouth. He rubbed his big head across them to bother her to the peak of raging lust. When she couldn't bear another moment of this, he raised his mouth to hers and consumed her in lingering kisses to melt her all over again.
She smoked in torrential desire. She threw herself at him with everything she had, but he kept his own pace no matter what she did. He teased her legs, but she couldn't spread them standing up in front of him. He rested his head on her chest and belly. He nibbled down her chest to the mounded nest above her hips. He quickened her dripping need, but never fulfilled it.
Her whole being screamed for him. She waited all these years, all these misspent nights, when she never knew she needed him. Now she held him in her arms. She had to have him. She had to reach her completion in him and no other. No force in the universe could stop her—except him.
He held off, longer and longer, until she sobbed and sighed under his hands. He squeezed her thighs to boiling insanity. Her tissues swelled with hot blood, and the steamy syrup sparkled along her ravenous slit. When she pried her eye open to look into his eyes, to search his soul for any sign of hope, she read her destiny written there.
That raw commanding fury driving everything he did drove him toward her, too. He wouldn't let her go. He wouldn't hold her in his arms like this and leave her unfulfilled. He possessed her whole being in his arms. His body fit together with hers in cosmic perfection. They completed each other, regardless of the outcome.
His arms flexed around her and his great fists clasped two big handfuls of her thighs. She couldn't hold herself up any longer. She caved open, and her thighs yawned apart. Her petals pouted around her vacuous opening, and he lifted her off her feet to sit her down on his lap.
She peeped in luxurious delight, and her body rejoiced to find its rightful place against his massive bulk. He cupped his mighty hands around her glorious ass and heaved her into place against his rock-hard manhood.
Now, nothing could stop him from pawing every inch of her in sheer rabid passion. He stroked his hands down her thighs to her knees and pushed her skirts up around her hips. He burrowed under the fabric, and his fingers surrounded her butt cheeks in that soft warmth he imparted to every part of her.
She made no resistance. She threw her arms around his neck and cuddled his face into her chest. He scooped up her ribs to crush her breasts in his hands. He carried their pendulous globes to his mouth and gnawed them to furious delight.
Lyric moaned out loud under his ministrations. Every part of her crashed against his granite being to explode into fireworks. Every move he made destroyed her and brought her back together to experience some new onrushing cataclysm of love and pleasure.
The next time he slipped his hands under her skirt and rose to cradle her ass, he didn't stop there. He continued on to her waist and up her back to her shoulders. He lifted the dress higher and higher until her whole body lay bare and exposed to his scrutiny. Nothing but her white lace bra stopped him from kissing down her neck to her exquisite breasts.
Mattox growled under his breath. He buried his face in her neck, and those black patterns across his chest and shoulders sank their hooks into Lyric's flesh. She couldn't drag herself away from him. Her essence gravitated toward him and kept her skin welded to his for all time.
He dug his fingertips under her bra, and the thing parted to let him in. Her voluptuous breasts collapsed into his mouth, and he sucked the sighing moans from her very flesh. Lyric's head fell back. Her bare thighs embraced his angular hips and bore down hard on the bulg
ing spike between his legs.
She rode that cruel point through her flimsy panties. Her sweet elixir seeped through the fabric to lubricate her tissues for him. His nostrils flared against her chest. He could smell her steam rising to fill his sinuses.
Every move he made drove her to new heights of drunken desire. She bucked and tossed in volcanic tempests of crushing excitement. She couldn't get enough of him fast enough to satisfy her burning need.
He cinched his arms around her ribs and held her firm against the storm smashing through her. He sheltered her in the rock of his own iron presence. He could take anything she threw at him. He could handle the explosion building to a crescendo inside her.
She pressed her lips against his ear and let loose her gusty shrieks of effervescent passion. She cried her intoxicated desire to his fevered brain. Let him hear. Let him know what he did to her. Let him understand how much she needed and wanted and craved him. Then maybe he would catapult her over the edge into deep black fulfillment.
He answered her with quickening desire of his own. The harder she threw herself against him, the tighter he crushed her in his arms. His fingers clawed at her tingling skin. His hands grabbed her alabaster flesh to grip it against him. He discovered every secret hidden under that dumpy house dress.
Underneath her day-to-day uniform, she hid her explosive desire for life, for release, for everything and every scrap of being from the world. She never thought she could find such masterful perfection embodied in one person. He opened the world and the future for her. Nothing remained out of her reach as long as she faced it at his side.
His fingers tiptoed along her thighs to her panties draped around her hips. He touched the saturated barrier dug down deep on his hard point and found the sweet nectar staining her tender leaves. In an instant, he dove inside to stir her brimming font to a fermented foaming froth.
Lyric sought refuge in his kiss, but that couldn't protect her from his inquisitive touch. He probed between her curtains, and the creamed honey coated his fingers to smooth velvet. He purred into her mouth and jabbed his throbbing prick up into her from below.
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