The best of the feelings, however, was the lightness of spirit, the sheer freedom Carly felt at shedding the last of her guilt. She could almost see her father smiling, saying, It’s about time, kiddo.
Tyler smiled at her. “You look…happy.”
She laughed again. “I feel like I swallowed a Fourth of July sparkler.”
He chuckled and leaned a hip against the cabinet next to the sink. “What does that feel like?”
Carly pulled the ice cream off the spoon and into her mouth, closing her eyes to savor the cold sweetness. “It feels all tingly and bubbly inside. Kind of fizzy. Like all these sparkling-bright little bursts of light and energy are going off inside me. I feel…euphoric. Invincible.”
She looked it, too. Tyler shuddered with the need to pull her close and touch the sheer vibrant energy shimmering from her skin. She looked like she’d swallowed a sparkler. The air around her fairly crackled. He’d never seen her more alive, more sure of herself. More beautiful, with the light of pleasure in her dark eyes.
She looked…turned on.
All because of the ice cream.
Deep inside, he ached. Selfish though it was, he wanted to be the reason for her sudden euphoria.
Someday, he vowed, would he be.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that what she was experiencing was pure adrenaline mixed with relief at put- ting the past behind her. The feelings would fade in time, become less volatile. But before they faded, he wanted to touch her. He wanted to feel all that energy radiating from her in waves. Wanted to taste it. Let it vibrate through him.
“Did Amanda make it to bed okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “But I think we’ve created a monster. Two, in fact.”
“What monsters?”
“You and your ice cream, and a certain young lady who is, at this very moment, upstairs asleep. In her jeans.”
Carly grinned. “She wouldn’t take them off?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t worry, she will. They’re not that comfortable.” Her spoon clanked against the bowl as she scraped the last of the ice cream—the melted dregs—and finished it off. Then she scooted her chair back from the table and walked to the sink beside him to rinse the bowl. She reached to open the dishwasher, but Tyler stood in the way. “Move your buns, buster.”
“Oh, ho. You really are feeling your oats, aren’t you?”
“What I’m feeling,” she said with a grin and a toss of her head, “is my ice cream.”
“You’ve got some on your chin.”
“Where?” She looked down as though she’d be able to see her own chin.
“Here, let me.” With a hand on her shoulder to keep her from backing away, Tyler leaned down. He heard her breath catch, felt her stiffen, but didn’t let either stop him. With the tip of his tongue, he swiped at the smear on her chin.
“I think…” Her voice, all breathy and hesitant, trailed off.
Unable to deny himself another taste, he nibbled again at her chin. “Don’t think.”
“I think… may be… there’s more.”
He raised his head enough to look into her eyes. “More what?”
She swallowed. Her lips parted. “Ice cream.”
Tyler was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. If she was saying what he thought she was saying, he didn’t dare do anything to break the spell. “Where?” he whispered.
She reached up with one hand and pointed to the comer of her mouth. “Here.”
Heat flashed through his veins. She was inviting him to kiss her. Could a woman get high on ice cream? A man could damn sure get high on a woman. On the look in her eyes, the taste of her skin.
With the tip of his tongue, he touched the corner of her mouth and felt her shiver. She clasped his shoulders, her fingers digging into him. It was all the sign he needed.
But still he moved slowly, a slight swipe of his tongue along her full lower lip. Sweet. She tasted sweet and creamy. Her lip quivered beneath his touch.
He took another taste, this one from her upper lip, before covering her mouth one exquisite bit at a time with his. “Mmm, cold,” he murmured.
“I think my tongue is numb,” she whispered against his lips.
“Can’t have that,” he answered between short kisses. “Let’s warm it.” To keep from pushing too hard too fast, he started slow, nuzzling her lips with his, barely darting his tongue between them before withdrawing.
For Carly, it was too slow. He was torturing her. She felt wild and free and eager. She wanted his kiss, wanted it desperately. With a moan of frustration, she leaned against his chest, wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her lips to him.
His answering moan was music to her ears. His big, hard hands spread across her back. His thighs nudged hers. His breath brushed her cheek. And finally, at last, his mouth took hers fully, firmly, with no more teasing.
The contrast of the warmth of his mouth against the cold of hers intrigued her. She met his stroking tongue with hers until he’d warmed not only her tongue, but all of her.
She savored the taste of him, hot and dark and just a little dangerous. She could feel urgency building in him, the need for more, just as it built in her.
Yes, yes, she wanted to cry. Being in his arms, holding him, kissing him…it all felt so right. There was no one around to know or care. He wasn’t trying to prove a point or make someone angry. He was kissing her simply because he wanted to. She felt that much in her heart. And oh, how she wanted the kiss to never stop.
In his arms, she could forget the terrible mess her life was in, the uncertainty of her future at home, the way Ty- ler’s friends and family treated her. She could forget ev- erything, as long as he kissed her.
And he was most assuredly kissing her, more thoroughly than she’d ever been kissed in her life. Her heart set up a tremendous pounding, and his answered. Her breath came in short, swift gasps, vying with his for the shortest, the swiftest.
Heat and yearning built inside her until she felt her breasts swell against his chest, felt her nipples tighten with anticipation. Moist warmth pooled.and centered down low in her body.
Then his hands began to move across her back. One slid up to cup the back of her head, where his fingers massaged her scalp and toyed with her hair. His other hand moved down to press her hips flush against his, to show her that she wasn’t the only one feeling the heat down low. Then that hand, that hard, treacherous hand, caressed its way up her side until his thumb brushed the full outer curve of her breast
Something inside her melted. It may have been her bones. All of them.
Then his fingers curved around her breast, molding, shaping, lifting. She couldn’t stifle the moan, nor the gasp a moment later when his thumb brushed across her nipple.
He answered with a low growl vibrating from his chest.
God, but his touch was exquisite, torturous, glorious. She’d always thought her breasts were too small, but if he could make her feel this way by just touching them through her clothes, she didn’t care anymore. He stroked the tip of her breast again and again, making her moan each time, making her want more. Making her desperate.
She felt his arousal grow harder against her abdomen, and a corresponding ache bloomed deep inside her. Instinctively, knowing the yawning emptiness was something only he could fill, she moved against him.
Like a snap, he tore his mouth from hers and moved his hand from her breast to her back, leaving her aching for the return of his touch. She cried out in protest.
“I know,” he whispered harshly, his breath rasping in her ear. “Oh, God, honey, I know.” His hands clutched at her, held her tight against him.
When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes. He looked as stunned as she felt. His voice, when it came, was soft and low and filled with what sounded to her dazed mind like wonder. “Wow,” he said.
She swallowed, searching his blue-green eyes, dark now with heat and arousal. The intensity she saw there, along
with her own riotous emotions, made her shiver. Yeah, she thought. Wow.
What had he done to her, that she could lose all sense that way? Never had she given so much of herself to a man before. Not even when things had gone much farther than they had tonight. Not even when she and James had gone all the way. She’d never felt such an aching need to be filled with a man’s hardness. And the need was for this man—Tyler Barnett—no other.
She swallowed again. “I…it’s late.”
Was that a flash of hurt in his eyes? No, it couldn’t have been.
Afraid he might try to kiss her again, afraid she would let him, Carly pulled herself from his arms and fled.
Tyler spent a tortured night reliving every second of that kiss. He hadn’t had to coax her this time. He’d barely made the first move. The next advance had been hers.
In his arms she’d felt the way she had the rare other times he’d held her—perfect. Right As though she be- longed there against him.
“She does, dammit,” he whispered into the darkness of his bedroom. “She does belong with me.”
He’d thought, for a few brief moments while they’d kissed, that she had finally realized the same thing. But when her eyes had cleared and her senses leveled, he’d seen the panic.
No, she didn’t understand yet.
She would, he vowed. He would make her. Somehow.
But during the next few days she did her level best to keep him at arm’s length. She was damned successful at it, too. Not once was he able to see her alone, and it was killing him. He wanted to hold her again, feel her breast in his hand, her lips on his. He needed her warmth, her sweet- ness.
Tomorrow he would need those things even more, yet he knew she wouldn’t give them. Tomorrow was going to be one of the worst days of his life. For tomorrow, he was going to have to let, even urge, his baby, his Amanda, take her first step toward growing up. He was going to have to take her…oh, God—to school.
A shudder tore through him at the mere thought. She was too little, too vulnerable, still had too many problems. She was his baby, for crying out loud. How could his baby be old enough for school?
But she was. God, help him, she was. And it was shred- ding him to pieces. He wanted to keep her home with him forever and refuse to let her grow up. He wanted to bury his face against her soft curls and hold on to her forever.
Knowing he couldn’t, he thought he would have settled for having Carly put her arms around him and assure him he would live through the experience.
Hell, he was ten times more upset about the coming day than Amanda was. Amanda’s confidence, too, was Carly’s doing.
In a panic, Tyler had called Dr. Sanders in San Francisco, trying to get the man to tell him Amanda was still too troubled to deal with the trauma of school.
To give the man credit, Dr. Sanders had done his best not to laugh out loud.
Carly had done, too good a job. Amanda, bless her, was actually looking forward to school, especially knowing three of her cousins would be there, two of whom were going for the first time, as she was. Carly had convinced Amanda that school would be a great adventure.
For Tyler, it would be agonizing torture.
“You have to come with me,” he told Carly in a mo- ment of weakness the morning of the Big Day.
“I can’t, Tyler.”
“Of course you can. You don’t expect me to do this alone, do you?”
She gave him a halfhearted smile. “I don’t think it’s wise for me to go. There’s enough talk and speculation about me already. I don’t want any of that to rub off on Amanda. I don’t want her exposed to the talk. She’ll be much better off if I stay here.”
Tyler tried to change her mind. They argued. He cursed and cajoled and threatened, but she wouldn’t give in. He nearly tried whining, but he figured he’d already come closer to that than was comfortable, and it wouldn’t have budged her anyway.
Carly was upstairs changing the beds when she heard Tyler return from taking Amanda to her first day of school. She finished stuffing the dirty sheets down the laundry chute that led straight to the table next to the washer, then she went downstairs to start the first load.
She stopped short at the kitchen doorway. She hadn’t heard him come in the house. She’d expected him to be outside working. She knew the haying had put his training schedule behind, and that he was trying to get three two- year-old colts ready for sale.
But instead of working his horses, there he sat at the kitchen table, shoulders slumped, gaze transfixed on the cup of coffee he held between his hands.
Sympathy swamped her. But not being a parent herself, her feelings were tinged with amusement. “She didn’t die, you know.”
He jerked his head around. A deep scowl marked his face.
“She only went to school. She’s still your little girl.
He gave an irritated grunt. “Some big help you are.
Carry took pity on him then. She moved to stand behind his chair and started rubbing his shoulders through the soft cotton of his shirt. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard on you.”
He sighed and rolled his head back. His eyes, were closed. He looked tired. As tired as he’d looked during those weeks of haying. “Leaving her at school was damn near as hard as watching her go when Deborah took her away.”
Carly slipped her arms over his shoulders and down his chest, pulling his head back against her. “You’re not going to lose her this time. Not for years and years.” She rested her cheek against the top of his head. “She’ll be home this afternoon.”
He sighed and settled his head against her. “Are you making fun of me?”
“I wouldn’t,” she said sincerely. “Not about this.”
He raised his head and straightened, then pulled her around in front of him. “I’m glad.” With his hands at her waist, he lifted her and sat her on the table.
“What are you doing?”
His hands slipped from her waist and cupped her hips. “I’m satisfying a need.”
Her mouth went dry. “A need?”
His thumbs worked their way into the creases at the tops of her thighs. “You know by now I want you.”
She started to protest, but his hands squeezed her, halting her words.
“You know,” he insisted. “Sometimes, like the other night, the want turns into a craving, a need so hard I ache with it.”
From the look in his eyes, she knew he was talking about the last time they’d kissed. Maybe the time before that, too. The mere reminder had the power to shake her.
“Then there are times like now, he said, laying his head on her lap, “when I just need you to touch me.”
Carly sat frozen as a soft wave of emotion flooded her. His words…did he have any idea what his words meant to her? She couldn’t remember anyone ever really needing her. Even if he didn’t mean it, the very idea that he might need her sent a sweet shaft of pain through her chest.
“Just touch me, Carly.”
The weight of his head on her thighs was heaven. The need she saw on his face, heard in his voice, made her eyes sting. Slowly, afraid he might disappear if she moved too fast, she brought her hands to his back and rested them there.
The heavy sigh that left his lips sounded like relief and was balm to her soul. He nuzzled the side of his face against her legs and wrapped his arms around her hips.
In that moment, Carly Baker fell in love.
Oh, Tyler.
Could he really need her? Or would any soft touch soothe him on this day when he felt low?
She didn’t know, didn’t care. For now she would savor his need and pretend it was just for her.
They stayed that way a long time, with his head on her lap, her hands stroking his back, his neck, his hair. The house was peacefully quiet, only the hum from the refrig- erator filling the silence. From outside came an occasional cackle from one of the hens, a snort from a horse. Now and then, the sound of voices—Tom’s maybe, and Smit- ty’s—drifted up from one of the far cor
rals.
Tyler didn’t move. She wondered if he’d fallen asleep. His hot breath seared through the denim of her jeans and scorched her left thigh. She wanted to lean down and kiss him but was afraid of breaking whatever spell held him against her.
Tyler savored the contact. She couldn’t know how much it meant to him that she would accept him this way, give him the comfort he needed. She couldn’t begin to under- stand what it meant to him to walk into his home and find her there, warm and welcoming even when she didn’t mean to be.
But he had those two-year-olds to work. Tom was good with horses; Smitty was, too. But Tyler always put his horses through their paces himself before judging their readiness for sale. It was past time he did just that.
With great reluctance, he lifted his head from the cradle of Carly’s lap. He was almost afraid to look into her eyes. Had his moment of weakness brought pity? Disdain? Deb- orah would have—
But Carly wasn’t Deborah. Carly’s eyes, when he met them, were open and warm and soft, deep brown. Soothing.
Without letting go of her hips, he stood and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.
As his hands slipped away from her and he turned to go, Carly shivered with the yearning to call him back.
Tyler needed to take his mind off Amanda, off Carly. Off his eagerness to turn around and march back into the house and haul Carly upstairs to the nearest bed. If he would even make it that far. Hell, that damned old kitchen table was starting to look good to him.
He couldn’t work the colts when he was this distracted. He had no business even being around the younger horses when his thoughts were focused elsewhere. But there was one thing guaranteed to sidetrack him, get his concentration back.
“Tom,” he called out “You ’bout through working Striker?”
“Just finishing.”
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