River Song

by Sharon Ihle

  Cole opted to give reason one more try. He approached the bed, his arms spread wide. "This really is a bad idea, Sunflower. I just can't do it. If you insist on staying here, I'll have to go to your room."

  Alarmed, wanting him near for more reasons than security, Sunny sat up and blurted out, "Would you send this Elizabeth person from your bed?"

  "What?" he said, surprised. "Where did you hear that name? Who told you about Elizabeth?"

  Distressed by his sudden burst of temper, Sunny pulled the sheet up around her neck. "Mrs. Brown said she was your girl."

  "Mrs. Brown? That woman has the tongue of a rooster at dawn. She ought to keep the damn thing inside her mouth instead of wriggling it at anyone who'll listen."

  Cole blew out a frustrated sigh, then glanced over at Sunny. He saw fear and amusement in her eyes. What if he accented that fear, made her see what an impossible request she'd made of him? It might be his last chance to convince her to return to the relative safety of her own room. It was a chance he knew he had to take.

  "I hope you understand if you stay here with me, I can't guarantee you'll leave this room with your virtue in tact."

  When she didn't answer and sat there instead with an intriguing combination of anxiety and curiosity flickering in her Irish eyes, Cole slid his fingers around to the front of the pants he'd thrown on when she knocked at his door. "All right, Sunflower. You win."

  Then he stripped off the jeans and slid in beside her. "Just don't try to say I didn't warn you."

  CHAPTER SIX

  Panic and disbelief widened Sunny's enormous eyes. "You would not—you could not."

  "I can, and I will."

  "You will not."

  Cole fit his hands around her tiny waist and dragged her beneath him. "We've got better things to do than talk. Besides, I think we've already had this conversation."

  "But, I only wanted to stay here with you."

  "What you mean and what you want no longer matters, woman. You've pushed me too far." Done with words he didn’t mean, he pressed down on her opened mouth in a brutal kiss. He would teach her a lesson, show her the folly of her insane proposal, drive her from his room, his heart, with sheer masculine lust. But the mouth he sought to turn away, to harden against his, was soft and yielding, encouraging rather than fighting his savage invasion.

  Cole could taste no fear as he plunged deeper into her sweetness, and found instead a delicious curiosity, an eager response he hadn't considered in his plans to dissuade her. Sunny's essence swirled around him, clouded his thoughts, his purpose. She smelled like lilacs and sunshine, tasted of licorice and honey, moved with an innocent abandon he'd never felt before. He couldn't seem to get enough of her.

  He was losing control, his objectivity, and for a crazy moment, Cole had to wonder who was teaching the lesson here. With the last of his strength, and as savagely as he'd come to her, he tore his mouth away.

  His voice strangled and husky, Cole turned his head from her and muttered, "Go to your room, Sunflower. This really is your last chance."

  Dazed, her head spinning, Sunny's lashes fluttered as she tried to catch her breath. This was her last chance, she suddenly understood, maybe her only chance to be part of the one man who'd made her feel like a woman. Once they arrived at the ranch tomorrow, he would be different. He would return to a life which didn't include her but this Elizabeth person instead—and this Elizabeth probably knew how to warm his bed properly, had most likely done so often. A shiver of anticipation skittered through Sunny as she thought of his kisses, his touch. So far, this lovemaking was not at all objectionable. She would not, could not let this chance slip away.

  "No," Sunny breathed in a smothered whisper.

  Cole groaned and mouthed a silent curse. "You really expect me to lie next to you on this small bed all night and not touch you? Do you have any idea what you're asking of me?"

  Sunny turned languid, expectant eyes on him. "No."

  "No," he echoed with a sigh. "Of course you don't."

  Cole released her and rolled onto his back. This had been a very stupid plan. He'd wanted to scare her off, send her back to her room, not rouse her curiosity, inflame himself beyond rational thought. Now what? he wondered as he fought to get his desire, his emotions, under control. How would he be able to convince her to leave when he wasn't sure he could still convince himself?

  "Cole?"

  Her voice fragrant with the hint of anise, he answered the call and unwisely chanced a glance into her moist, dark eyes. "Damn," he muttered.

  "Damn?" Sunny moved closer to him and slid her hand across his bare chest. With soft, inquisitive fingertips, she traced the tawny map of hair shaped like dove wings, then cocked her head and raised her brows. "What do you mean by damn, Cole Fremont?"

  "I mean—" Captured now by those midnight blue eyes, his flesh tortured by the simple gestures she made with her inexperienced fingers, he gripped her shoulders. "I mean, damn I want you, Sunflower." And until he'd said the words, he didn't realize how much. Every fiber of his being cried out for her, his skin came alive with jolts of lightning everywhere she touched, and her scent smothered him in a dark cocoon of passion.

  His need, his desire, grew huge as he tried to make her understand. "I want you, do you have any idea what that means?"

  She lowered her lashes, stared at the springs of blond curls circling her fingertips, and nodded. "I think I want you in the same way."

  "Oh, Sunny," he moaned, "you don't know what you're saying, what you're doing to me."

  "Show me what I don't know, Cole Fremont."

  "I can't." He tried to push her away, but she resisted, slid under his grip, and began to finger the ridges of the wound she'd sliced into his arm.

  "Does this still hurt?" she purred, lightly kissing the healing injury.

  "No. Leave it alone. Leave me alone." Again he tried to push her away, but this time the attempt was feeble.

  "Why should I leave, Cole Fremont?"

  "Because I don't have a right to anything you offer. Don't you understand?"

  Sunflower cut off his protest by sliding her fingers up his chest, past his throat, to his lips where she buried the tips in his thick mustache. "It is my right to give myself to whomever I choose, is it not?"

  "Well," he said against her soft fingertip, kissing that dusky finger in spite of himself. "I suppose in a way it is."

  "Then I give that right to you."

  Cole's breath caught as he studied her trusting, orphaned- calf expression, and he wondered briefly if he might be teetering on the brink of madness. Somehow, using the last sliver of his control, he made a final effort to explain. "You have a right to much more than me, little flower. I can only give you tonight. You deserve a lifetime with the first man who comes to you."

  Although she wanted that and much more, Sunny replaced her fingers with her lips, and whispered against his mouth, "Tonight will be enough, Cole Fremont. Tonight is all I ask from you."

  As if to bind her promise, convince him of its legality, Sunny pressed her lips to his, opened her mouth in invitation, and awkwardly tried to straddle his legs. Her uneducated body moved across him in a timeless, instinctive rhythm, yet the direction of her passion was blinded by the newness of its birth.

  She was everywhere at once, unbridled, unguided. Cole gripped her shoulders and flipped her over on her back. "Are you sure this is what you want, Sunflower?" But even as he said the words, Cole suspected if she said no, he would be unable to honor the request.

  Her breathing suddenly ragged, Sunny chewed her bottom lip in anticipation, and nodded.

  "Then relax," he whispered as he ran a gentle fingertip across her throat and down to the outline of her breasts. "You asked me to show you. Lie back and let me."

  Cole lifted a length of satin from the center of her camisole, then pulled it, releasing the bow. He stared down at the loosened garment, at the dewy sheen of her dusky breasts, and considered tearing her underclothing off now and granting his ey
es their fill of her. But instead, he reached for the lamp on the bed table.

  "What are you doing?" Sunny gasped, her breath coming in erratic gulps.

  "I thought you'd be more comfortable if I blew out the light."

  "Oh, will you please leave it on? How can I learn everything if I cannot see what is happening, if I cannot look into your eyes and know that I have pleased you?"

  With a sigh that was more of a groan, Cole slid the lamp across the tabletop. She was unlike any women he'd ever known, would ever know. She was real and utterly guileless, beautiful, but refreshingly unaware of her charms. At that moment, he was stunned with the realization he could never touch another woman without thinking of Sunflower, understood she'd stirred him deeper and roused inaccessible corners even he wasn't aware existed in himself. He would find her secrets, he promised silently, find them and make the night something she would remember and cherish forever. The way he would.

  Cole finished unlacing the white satin ribbon, then drew the camisole away from Sunny's body. His breath whistled through his teeth as he gazed on her soft breasts, their rigid peaks beckoning him through the flickering light. Fighting the urge to take her now as his body demanded, Cole gently took one breast in his mouth, teasing the crown with his tongue and caressed its twin with feather-like fingertips.

  Sunny's response was instant, and so filled with pleasure she bit her lip to keep from crying out. His mouth and hands roamed over her body, sparked fires every place they touched, and ignited an inferno when they brushed across the dry tinder of her abdomen. Impatient to know everything at once, she loosened the drawstrings of her drawers when Cole tried to slide them lower on her hips. With only a moment's hesitation, she wriggled out of them and awaited the next lesson.

  "Easy, little flower," he said with a lusty chuckle. "If you rush me, I might hurt you more than is necessary."

  "More than is necessary?" Her mind swimming through all the new sensations, she tried to understand what he meant. "I thought you cared for me. Why do you plan to hurt me?"

  "It's not my plan, little one. It's nature's, but I'll try to make everything as painless as possible."

  Cole brushed his fingers along the inside of her knees as he spoke, and she rewarded him by opening her long swimmer's legs without shame or coyness. Spasms of desire, and something else, ricocheted throughout him as he gazed on the lush raven mat of curls. When he realized his hands, his body, would be the first to touch hers so intimately, it was all he could do to keep his movements slow and gentle.

  Strong hands capable of twisting a thousand-pound steer to the ground, became velvet gloves of tenderness as he stroked her trembling body from head to toe. Wet kisses punctuated by occasional flicks of his exploring tongue made her want to giggle with delight yet scream with sweet agony at the same time. She was a mass of contradictions, wanting but holding back, needing yet keeping something in reserve.

  Cole massaged and teased the flesh of her upper legs and inner thighs until Sunny thought she'd go mad for wanting something, anything to ease the terrible ache between her legs. And when he finally stroked her in that private place, Sunny's breath sucked in painfully, then ceased altogether. She arched and bucked, uncertain if she wanted him to stop or to go on forever, ravage her or leave her in this virginal state for the rest of her life. As new sensations washed over her, each one higher and more intense as his caresses increased, Sunny thought she would die from the pleasure, fill to overflowing with this incredible joy, and explode.

  And then she did.

  Confused, embarrassed by her reaction and wondering why her body was suddenly out of control, Sunny thought of fighting against the delicious shudders and rhythmic spasms. But she was already lost, her mind no match for the thunder and lightning bursting through her veins. A helpless passenger, she rode passion's wild pony until the last pulsing hoofbeat faded in the distance. Only then did she open her eyes and risk a glimpse of Cole's reaction to her strange behavior.

  But she could read no disapproval in his expression. Averting her gaze, she murmured, "I am sorry. I do not know what happened to me."

  "Oh, little flower." Cole kissed her trembling mouth, then lifted her chin with his finger. "What happened just now is only one difference between what you call mating and making love."

  "It is?" Her eyes wide with wonder and relief, Sunflower's sigh was one of contentment. "Then I like this making love. And it was not at all painful."

  "I said," he growled, the corner of his mouth turned up in amusement, "that was one difference. We haven't made love yet, Sunshine. I've only made it easier for you to accept me."

  She thought of what she'd witnessed among the animals, of his earlier warning, and knew he meant to mount her. Sunny's heated blood cooled and she stiffened in fear, even as her curiosity, her desire to become his, remained potent.

  The movement wasn't lost on Cole. "Don't be frightened, sweetheart. There is nothing to fear, only new sensations to experience." He smiled as he took her hand in his. "Do you trust me?"

  Her eyes wide, she nodded and admitted, "With my life, Cole. With my very life."

  Touched beyond words, past comprehension, Cole groaned and slipped their hands beneath the sheets. When he directed her small fingers between the waist band of his underdrawers and the taut skin of his stomach, Sunny tensed and tried to withdraw. "Don't you want to know me the way I know you, little one?"

  "Yes, I do if it will give you as much pleasure."

  "Then relax. I have a feeling you're going to give me more pleasure than I can stand."

  Suddenly nervous and uncharacteristically shy, Sunny's swollen mouth instinctively puckered, and she felt her cheeks grow hot as she allowed him to move her hand down past a coarse crop of hair to the thick base of his desire. Startled by his size, wondering how they could possibly fit together, Sunny tried to jerk away, but Cole kept a firm grip on her wrist, and urged her to explore the entire length of him up to the soft velvet tip.

  Only then did he release Sunny's wrist and allow her to make discoveries on her own. He watched her eyes widen then darken with desire as she explored him, struggled with his sanity as her small hands brought him to unbearable heights of pleasure, and knew after this night, neither of them would ever be the same again. When he was certain he could no longer stand the luscious torment of her touch, he caught her wrists and drew her arms around his shoulders. Incapable of speech, Cole took her mouth with his, tasted its sweet flavor, and found a tenderness within he didn't know he possessed.

  He was magnificent, she marveled as his kiss deepened. Magnificent, wonderful, and if only for tonight, hers. As if guided by some mystic force, Sunny's hands fell from his shoulders, slid across his suddenly damp back to the hollow of his spine, then settled at his rigid buttocks. Cole's body, so different from hers, was hard where she was soft, rippled with muscles where she curved gracefully, and she reveled in their contrasts.

  Her mouth watering in anticipation, Sunny helped Cole remove the final barrier of his clothing, then sucked in her breath when he pressed his hot pulsing need against the tender flesh of her thigh. She squirmed against him when he reclaimed her breast with his mouth, and heard the sounds of her own voice calling his name, begging him to ease the terrible throbbing again.

  "Soon," she heard him promise through the haze. Then, while his tongue continued to tease and circle her captive nipple, Cole slid his fiery hands down her slick body to the place that cried out for satisfaction. This time, her core already hot and damp with passion, she was ready for him, and she cried out in a strangled sob as she begged him to end the sweet torment.

  His own need, white-hot in its intensity, urged him to kneel above her where he loomed for a long moment. Recording her expression, the beautiful glow of desire, Cole committed the moment to memory and knew he would carry it to his grave. Then slowly, his gaze locked in hers, he filled her—with his passion, with his soul.

  Ribbons of sunlight filtered in through the window and bathed Sun
ny with morning's first glow. A warm breeze pushed the curtains aside and found its way to her sated body, where it caressed her as Cole had the night before. Feeling kittenish and feminine, she lifted her heavy lids and stared into the face of her lover.

  Cole still slept, his mustache curled at the corners of his mouth in contentment. The lines fanning out from his eyes were somehow softer this morning, the deep furrows between his brows almost nonexistent. Was she the cause of this newfound peace, or did he awaken smooth and fresh each day and she simply hadn't noticed it before? She smiled at the sight of his tousled blond hair, the way some of the longer curls at his neck, still damp from the night's exertions, clung to his skin. Taking a deep breath, Sunny inhaled his scent, noticed how beautifully it mingled with the clean sweat of their lovemaking and the heady musk of passion.

  She tried to change her position for a view of his entire body, but found she was trapped. Reaching up, Sunny discovered Cole clenched a fistful of her hair in each hand, and when she tried to move the lower half of her body, she also realized one of his muscular legs lay possessively across her.

  Tickled, hoping he felt as contented and happy as she, Sunflower painted the silk of his mustache with a tentative fingertip. When one sleepy green eye inched open and tried to focus on her laughing face, she grinned and murmured, "Top of the mornin' to ye,ave ahala."

  This pried the other eye open. His lip curving up at one corner, Cole released her hair and pulled her to his mouth for a long, leisurely kiss. So it hadn't been a dream or mirage, he thought as she opened herself to him. Sunflower was his in every sense of the word. But for how long and to what end? They would arrive at his home before sundown, be smothered by his family and friends. Would she be accepted by them—by him on his own turf? When their lips parted, he shook off his concerns and centered his thoughts on her radiant beauty. Her cheeks were alive with color, her dark eyes flashing with sparks of Irish mischief. With a hoarse laugh, Cole gathered her in his arms and snuggled her against his chest.