“I’m sorry for the way I stormed out of here.”
“You had reason, Logan.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her tone was cool and dismissing. He had no one but himself to blame that Jessie wasn’t the passionate woman who had been so eager for his kisses this afternoon.
“You’d better get some sleep. Morning will be here before you know it. Good night, Logan.”
“Jessie, I—”
“Good night.” Jessie blessed the darkness that kept him from seeing her worry her lip. She lay back on her pillow and pulled the blanket up to her chin. For a few moments more he remained by her side, and she listened to his uneven breathing, fighting not to ask him to stay with her tonight.
She released her breath when he finally moved away. After a while, when only the night noises outside could be heard, Jessie felt her eyes drift closed, but sleep when it came was not restful.
Logan ignored the faint, muffled sounds of Jessie’s restless turnings as long as he could. Twice he got up, and twice as he neared the bed, she seemed to quiet. He was tempted to wake her and find out what was wrong, but stretched back out on the floor. The thick quilts cushioned his body, but his thoughts kept straying to the feel of Jessie in his arms.
When she cried out, his response was immediate. He didn’t stop to think about it. He dived across the room and gathered Jessie against him. She was damp with sweat, her rigid body resisting, then limp in his arms.
She let go of the blanket she had been clutching and wrapped her arms around him. Logan didn’t mind. He held her tight. He wasn’t going to whisper words that made little of her bad dream. He’d always hated being told that it was nothing. Bad dreams were just that for the dreamer.
But he wondered why this night of all the nights he’d been there had brought bad dreams to Jessie.
He hadn’t forgotten this afternoon and the unanswered questions he still had. Smoothing one hand over her tangled hair, he knew he wouldn’t be asking them now.
She was trembling, but he sensed that the dream had ended. She snuggled against him, and Logan rocked her until the trembling subsided. Even then, Jessie made no effort to move away.
Her warm breaths slowed, touching his skin, and he could feel her nipples through the thin cloth of her nightgown pressing against his chest. He tried to ease back a little, but Jessie held him tight. Logan didn’t think she knew what she was doing to him.
He wasn’t about to fall on her like some ravening beast, but the ache that had begun this afternoon had only eased, not left him. And Jessie was the woman who aroused him just by being close.
He couldn’t take advantage of her. But the scent of her was filling him with every breath he drew. He wasn’t a saint, and had no wish to be.
One of them had to be sensible. Logan hadn’t applied for the job—the Lord knew his good sense went out the door when he was near Jessie—but he quickly realized he was stuck with it.
“Jessie? Jessie, do you think you can get back to sleep now?” He attempted to disengage himself from her arms, but she burrowed closer.
“Can’t sleep.” Her voice was muffled. Her open mouth tasted his skin for the first time. Warm. A little salty. Intrigued, Jessie licked her lips and touched him again.
Heartbeat after slow, heavy heartbeat, she was warming him in all the wrong places in all the right ways. He was supposed to be comforting her, not putting himself on a rack. Jessie had made her decision very clear. But now…now, she was tempting him to forget all his good intentions.
“Jess, honey, stop. You don’t know what you’re—”
“Yes. Oh, yes, I do.” She scattered tiny kisses over his shoulders, touching the edge of the bandage, then working her way back to the strong column of his neck. Her fingers kneaded the tense muscles across his back as she came fully awake.
Logan brought his hands around to cup her face. He released an exasperated breath. The last thing he wanted to do was refuse her, not when he ached to bury himself in her and never let go.
“Jess, listen to me. Listen real good, ’cause I don’t know if I can say this again. If you don’t stop, I’m going to kiss you, and kissing you sets a very short fuse on fire. I don’t think I could stop, Jess.”
He felt her mouth slide into a slow smile. At that moment he wanted to see her face, but nothing could make him move away from her. Nothing but Jessie telling him to go.
“And if I want you to kiss me? If for once I didn’t want to think about tomorrow, but only now, would you say no? If all I wanted was you…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t know where the courage to speak had come from. Dreaming of what had happened in the store, and knowing the danger he faced, sharpened her focus on what mattered to her. Logan might want to come back; then again, he might not live to do it. The reasons went on, reasons that tore through all the wrongs of making love to a man she might never see again, and made them right.
His thumbs brushed the satiny skin of her cheeks. He hesitated a second, giving her one last chance to change her mind. Jessie didn’t take it. His eyes drifted closed and he covered her mouth with his.
Her cool lips soon warmed, but never reached the heat of her mouth. She parted them and he slipped his tongue inside.
All the honeyed sweetness he’d dreamed of was there, his for the taking, and he took, chasing every rational thought from his mind.
His tongue delved deeper, stroking hers with gentle, consuming thrusts. He opened his mouth wider, silently asking her to do the same, and when she did, the warmth turned to heat. The slow, almost hesitant duel she began changed heat into a slow, burning flame.
Shimmering and potent, the incredible feelings filled Jessie. Logan assaulted her senses, and she held him tight, afraid she would melt away before she discovered where passion would lead her. The wave of desire welling up inside her stormed over her body and mind.
Logan groaned his pleasure. She lifted her hands to the slightly curly hair on the back of his neck, sliding her fingers through it as she captured his husky groan with her mouth. The sound echoed in her mind, igniting her passion with his. Jessie moved restlessly against him, wanting him closer, not knowing how to show him.
The change in her streaked through him. He resisted the temptation to fill his palm with her breast, for he didn’t want her to stop what she was doing, those teasing forays of her tongue into his mouth. She felt so good in his arms, so perfect, and she seared him with every hesitant touch that built a fire in his loins. And it was all so effortless, so quick, that Jessie didn’t know how close to the edge she pushed him. But when he went over it, she was going to be right there beside him.
He slanted his head, and the new angle deepened the kiss. Jessie never wanted the kisses to stop, never wanted him to stop. Logan stole her thoughts, her doubts, and replaced them with a languor that spread throughout her body.
He pulled back, allowing them both a chance to draw breath. “Jess, oh, Jess.” He pulled her against him, seeking her lips as everything inside himself coalesced into one driving need. He wanted her now, to the point of no return. She gave so much. No teasing, no holding anything of herself back, and unlike any other woman he’d known, Jessie didn’t ask for more than he could give her now.
“Jess. I want to see you. I want to feel your skin against mine.” He breathed the words into her mouth, his fingers seeking the ribbon tie at the neck of her nightgown. He trailed a string of kisses across her jaw, his masculine laughter soft when she tilted her head to allow his lips to follow the curve of her bared neck. He didn’t pause to taste the hollow of her throat where her pulse beat wildly. There was softer skin his lips longed to touch. Logan’s hands caressed her upper arms and shoulders, sliding the cloth down, and once more he wished he could see her. The cloth caught on her nipples, and he lowered his head, using the edge of his teeth to drag the thin cotton free.
He loved the hungry little sounds she made as he took her into his mouth. Holding her breast in one hand, he lifted the satiny flesh, feeling the race o
f her heart that matched his own. With an outpouring of passion he hadn’t expected, Jessie covered the back of his neck with kisses. Her hands guided his head, and Logan let her set the pace despite the intensity of need that built inside him.
Her lips and touch played havoc with the sensitive nape of his neck. Logan had never realized just how sensitive that part of his body was. But Jessie made him know, and made him want more.
Jessie tried to separate the sensations, to savor them, to cherish each one with her mind to be drawn out later, when he was gone. The heat of his mouth…the warm strength of his callused hand gently holding her…the heated silkiness of his skin and the hard muscles bunching in his back, even his ragged sigh as he eased her down on the bed became part of her memory. His hands spanned her rib cage, drawing the nightgown down, kissing the tips of her fingers when shyness had her move to stop him. He swept the nightgown and the blanket to the foot of the bed.
He made a light, sweeping caress of her legs on his return to pay homage to her other breast, noting the faint tenseness of her body.
“You don’t have to be afraid with me, Jess. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t hurt you. Ever. Not here, not now when you’re as vulnerable as I am.”
“But you’re not,” she whispered. “You’ve still got your pants on.”
“I’ll take them off, Jess. When you’re ready.”
“When I’m—”
Her question was lost as she caught her breath before Logan took her mouth with his in a kiss that had her twisting against him, trying to draw him down on the bed with her.
But when he attempted to reclaim the prize he wanted, Jessie cupped his cheeks to stop him. She strung kisses down his throat, scattering them over his chest.
“Jess?”
“Please?”
Logan couldn’t refuse her. He caught one hand in the long tangle of her hair, loving the feel of her warm breath sighing through his chest hair. She murmured approving sounds, then sank her teeth into the meaty muscle of his chest and took a love bite. Moaning, he clasped her head tighter. When her questing lips touched his nipple in the whorl of dark hair, they both froze for a second. Logan held his breath, waiting.
“Do men…I mean, would you feel what I did when you, ah…”
“Whatever pleases you, Jess, pleases me.” He was so hard that even baring his teeth against the pleasure didn’t work. He felt her smile against his skin before her lips gently closed over the nub of his flesh. Daintily her tongue flicked against it. He stroked the bare curve of her hip, burying his thumb in the crease of her thigh. With the hand entangled in her hair, he tried to lift her head, but she resisted, moving lower until the edge of the bed stopped her.
“Come up on the bed with me,” she pleaded softly, giving in to his urge to lift her head. She scooted back toward the wall to make room for him.
“That’s all the invitation I need, Jess.”
Logan thought getting to his feet was an accomplishment considering the state he was in. Shucking his pants proved a sheer miracle between the tremor in his hands and the stubborn buttons. Well, he couldn’t blame the buttons, only the flesh swollen beneath them.
Logan placed one knee on the bed when she reached up and touched him. “Jess!” he hissed. Desire formed a red mist before his eyes. Her boldness amazed him. Caught off guard, Logan remained as he was, for he suddenly realized how hesitant her touch was. Hesitant, questing, almost shy. He wanted to give himself over entirely to the pleasure of filling her hand with his flesh, but he was afraid to move, afraid that he would make her stop.
“I never knew a man could be so velvety soft and hard at the same time.”
Logan thought he would strangle. This from his once-married Jessie? He wasn’t going to ask the obvious question. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached from not asking it. Her caresses grew bolder and his body responded until the merest thought disappeared and his attention focused on the gentle tugging motion of her hand.
The warmth of her breath fanning his flesh snapped him into moving. “Jess, wait. Not like this.” Lord! Had he really said that? But he knew how little control he had left. She withdrew up against the wall, and he realized his mistake. Coming down on the bed, stretching out beside her, he gathered her against him.
“I was wrong to touch you, wasn’t I?”
“No. I loved you touching me. I want you to touch me.”
No trace of a lie was hidden in his voice. Jessie wished the lantern was lit. She would love to see his face. Reaching up with one hand, she traced his lips and smiled when he kissed her fingertips.
“If you loved it so much, then why did you stop me?”
“Because, sweet lady, a few seconds more and I’d be finished before we got you started. Pleasure, Jess. Remember what I said?”
“I remember. That’s what made me so bold. Harry never let me—”
“Harry’s dead. Harry,” he whispered over her mouth, “is not going to be a ghost between us tonight. There’s just you and me and a whole lot of lovin’.”
“A whole lot? As in more than once?”
Logan’s rich male laughter brought her own. She swore there was a choked agreement somewhere but she had buried her head against his chest until the laughter stopped.
And in a voice of needy desperation, Jessie whispered, “Logan, love me. Love me now.”
And he heard the plea beneath the need, a plea he couldn’t answer. But he wanted to, God, how he wanted to.
So he gave Jessie what he could, as much pleasure as she could stand, as much as he was capable of. He found her a generous lover, ready to return every touch, every kiss, boldly following his lead, then coming up with a few moves of her own that had him groaning.
Jessie welcomed the total assault on her senses. He wore her inhibitions away, taking her with him into a realm of sensation where the treasures of life were the heating of skin touching skin and the soft explosions he relayed to her body with each added pleasure. She was lost in the rocking motion of his body, sliding against him, beneath, always wanting more. Without a word he seemed to know what she wanted before she did.
She didn’t know she was starved for praise until his dark voice whispered it.
When her flesh was damp and heated, and her chest hurt from the breath she couldn’t take, Logan showed her another side of loving as he filled her body the same way he had filled her mind and her heart—completely.
“I’m going to be very, very careful with you, Jess,” he murmured, his lips finding the wildly beating pulse in her throat, his hips grinding softly against her. “Loving you…shouldn’t ever…be rushed.” His voice matched the cadence of his body.
He’d gone to the edge and barely clung there, waiting for Jessie. He’d never had trouble waiting for a woman before, but Jessie, ah, Jessie, with her sweet heated touches and soft lips whispering…Jessie drove him crazy.
She cried out, her body trembling, and he knew the danger of wanting more. Just once more, he promised himself, driving her higher with the thrust of his body, taking her mouth, wanting everything she had.
The need was inescapable. Minutes later Jessie melted for him like sugar in the rain and he was shocked at the strength of will he exerted to withdraw. Her hands closed over his hips, stopping him.
“Think, Jess. Think what you’re doing,” he growled in a savage voice.
“I can’t think. I only know I want you. Stay. Stay with me, Logan.”
And once more the underlying plea for what he couldn’t give her beyond tonight overcame any good sense he had.
He’d never spilled his seed inside a woman. He’d never wanted to. Never lost control of himself to forget that a man didn’t leave a woman with a reminder nine months later of a night of pleasure.
But he couldn’t deny Jessie. Wouldn’t deny himself. He wanted it to last forever. Jessie tightened around him. And then there was no room for coherent thoughts or demands. The storm of their desire broke, leaving them drenched and shuddering.
“Are you all right?” he asked, brushing the damp hair back from her face.
“Yes,” she said softly, scattering kisses of her own wherever she could reach. She didn’t realize her arms had tightened their hold on him until he spoke.
“Easy, sweet lady, I’m not going anywhere.”
But you are! she wanted to protest. Jessie didn’t know where she found the strength to tease him. “You can’t leave yet. You promised me a whole night of—”
“Lovin’, Jess,” he finished for her. “Tonight I’m yours and you’re mine.”
“Yes, for tonight. Hours and hours and—”
This time he sealed his mouth to hers, silencing her, silencing the minutes mentally ticking away, knowing there weren’t all that many left. Certainly not the time he wanted. That would take forever.
He gave her a night to remember, just as she had asked for, a night where she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
A grayish light filled the cabin the last time she looked into his eyes. Her own drifted closed, carrying the image of the smile on his lips.
When she woke, Logan was gone.
Chapter Thirteen
A lone horseman studied the lay of the land from the small rise. He sat his horse in a thick stand of cottonwood trees, his gaze touching each spill of moonlight, each shadow that he knew from memory.
Logan judged the time somewhere past midnight. His three-day trek south to the Rocking K was at an end. To avoid a roving band of renegade Apache, he’d been forced to make a wide swing to the east, riding across mesa and butte, skirting the Casa Grande ruins where the ancient ones once dwelled.
But he was home.
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