In fact, she thought she might drift off to sleep.
Jesse rolled onto his side, facing her. She waited for him to rest a hand on her cheek or her hip, maybe even her breast, but he didn’t touch her.
“Where do your parents sleep when they’re here?” she asked.
Jesse laughed. “They have a suite upstairs. What’s the matter, Cheyenne? Are you afraid they’re going to walk in on us?”
Cheyenne blushed. “Of course not,” she said, and wondered if she’d told the truth. “They’re probably miles away.”
“Palm Springs,” Jesse said, twisting one of her dark brown locks loosely around his finger. “I like your hair down,” he told her.
She turned onto her side, so they were facing each other. “Are we crazy?” she asked.
He smiled, slid his hand down along her upper arm, brought it to rest on the curve of her hip. “Probably.” He was close now, breathing the word against her mouth. As she opened to him, he hooked a thumb under the button of her jeans.
She gave a slight whimper, then slid both arms around his neck.
He kissed her, very lightly at first, then with deepening passion. He unfastened the button, then slipped his hand beneath the hem of her clingy T-shirt, splaying his fingers wide on her belly.
Cheyenne groaned, twisting onto her back.
Jesse didn’t break the kiss, but found the front-catch on her bra and snapped it open, setting her breasts free. Cupping one, chafing the nipple with the tips of his fingers until it hardened, straining toward him.
Cheyenne gasped when he finally let her take a breath. Gasped again when he shoved her shirt up, bent his head and took her nipple full into his mouth.
She cried out, arching her back, and plunged her fingers into his shower-damp hair. Overhead, the stampede blurred, came into sharp focus, and blurred again.
Jesse tongued her other breast, then suckled, at the same time unzipping her jeans.
She lifted her hips, peeled the fabric away with frantic motions of her hands. Jesse paused long enough to pull the jeans down and away, and her panties went with them.
While Cheyenne lay dazed and needing, naked except for her displaced bra and the T-shirt pushed up to her shoulders, Jesse knelt beside her. With one hand, he unbuttoned his jeans. With the other, he stroked the thatch of curls between Cheyenne’s thighs, never going quite deep enough.
She moaned softly, lifting her hips a little, craving his touch.
He hauled off his T-shirt, tossed it aside. Played with Cheyenne in a way that made her give a little whimpery yelp of need.
When he thrust a finger inside her, she made a sobbing sound, threw back her head and closed her eyes. The lower half of her body moved in delicious rhythm with the slow, steady movement of Jesse’s hand.
He must have shed his jeans then; Cheyenne was aware of nothing but the sensations of his thumb, making wet circles around her clitoris, while his finger set fire to the little nest of nerves inside her. Sure enough, he’d found her G-spot. Until that moment, she hadn’t known she had one.
No doubt about it. G-spot up and running.
“Jesse,” she whispered, pleading.
“Not yet,” he said, between her legs now.
“But I’m going to—oh, God—”
He continued to tease her, leaned over her to capture her mouth for another kiss.
She couldn’t lie still, even for his kiss. Tossing her head from side to side, she moaned again, fevered. “Jesse, I’m—”
“I know,” he said. Then he nibbled his way back down her body, draped her legs over his shoulders, slipped his hands under her buttocks and raised her to his mouth.
The moment his tongue flicked against her, she erupted in a shattering orgasm, and a low, keening sound came from her throat. The spasms seemed to go on and on, and just when she thought she couldn’t bear the shrill pleasure of it for another moment, Jesse began to suck on her.
The climax intensified. And then intensified again.
And still it went on.
Cheyenne clawed at the bedding with both hands.
Jesse drew on her harder, and then harder still.
Cheyenne’s body went slick with perspiration.
She screamed Jesse’s name, and then the apocalypse came. She splintered, flew apart like an expanding universe in microcosm, and then dissolved into tiny particles, conscious only of desperate, consuming release.
When the flaming pieces drifted back together, and she became aware of herself as a solid being, she was on her knees, straddling Jesse, and he was gliding inside her. The friction ignited her all over again, and she tried to move faster, hungry for more, but, grasping her hips, he kept slowing her down.
Stroke by long, slow stroke, he drove her into a frenzy of satisfaction, caressing her breasts and urging her on as she rode him.
They came simultaneously, their bodies locked together, seemingly suspended in midair, in the final, catastrophic collision.
When it was over, Cheyenne collapsed onto Jesse’s chest.
He caressed her back, her buttocks, the flesh of her thighs.
She felt his heart, beating against her own. Felt his breath, warm and raspy in her hair.
He was still deep inside her, warming her flesh, making her expand to accommodate him.
She moved to roll off, blissfully exhausted, but he didn’t allow that.
Remarkably, he was getting hard again.
“Oh, Jesse,” she murmured. “We can’t—”
He cupped her face in his hands, drew her head down for his kiss. “Sure we can,” he said, after he’d taken her breath away again. And he began to move beneath her, inside her.
The friction—the friction. She was catching fire again.
Clasping her hips now, he guided her, up and down, up and down, with excruciating leisure, along the length of him. She rode, trembling with need and anticipation, while he told her, in low, gruff words, all the delicious things he meant to do to her.
Over the course of the next few hours, he did them all.
Every one.
Finally, they slept, exhausted, as one flesh.
A few hours later Cheyenne awakened alone, to the sound of running water.
She sat up, momentarily alarmed. “Jesse?”
“In here,” he called.
She crawled off the bed, tested her legs, and stumbled toward the bathroom. The hot tub brimmed with steaming, bubbling water, and candles flickered on the painted tile rim surrounding it on three sides.
Jesse was already in the bath. Two glasses of red wine glistened in the dancing glow of the candles flames.
He beckoned.
Cheyenne joined him.
The water, exquisitely warm, surged against her spent muscles.
Jesse handed her a glass of wine. She sipped, set it aside.
Jesse drew her astraddle of him again, his hands strong on her waist.
“Jesse,” she sighed, wriggling just a little, “I can’t stand one more orgasm.”
He chuckled. “I’d love to test that theory,” he said.
She splashed him.
He laughed and dipped a finger into her wineglass, dabbled the burgundy drops onto her nipple and licked them away.
She moaned.
He repeated the process with her other nipple. Beneath the surface of the water, he found her clitoris again, plucked at it gently, until she writhed with wanting.
She was lost.
That easily, she was lost.
He turned off the jets. Flipped the lever that opened the drain.
The water began to recede.
Jesse knelt, parting Cheyenne with his fingers. Teasing her back to madness with the tip of his tongue.
THE SUN WAS FRINGING the eastern hills with pinkish-gold light when Cheyenne drove into the yard at home. Ayanna came out onto the porch in her bathrobe, a cup of coffee in one hand, a pensive smile widening her mouth.
“Not a word, Mom,” Cheyenne warned, climbing the worn steps
on spaghetti legs. “I’ve got to get ready for work.”
Ayanna took another sip of coffee as she stepped aside to let Cheyenne pass. “Jesse?” she asked.
Cheyenne tossed a look over one shoulder. “I didn’t plan it,” she said. “It just—happened.”
“These things usually do ‘just happen,’” Ayanna observed, following Cheyenne into the house. “You might have called, you know. I suspected you were with Jesse, but I was pretty worried just the same.”
Cheyenne sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her voice down because Mitch was probably still asleep, and if he wasn’t, she didn’t want him to overhear. “I knew I ought to call, but I couldn’t think what to say. I mean, you are my mother.”
“And therefore a completely sexless person who bore two children by virgin birth?”
She laughed softly. “Point taken.”
“Good,” Ayanna said. “I’ll make you some breakfast. And Cheyenne?”
Cheyenne waited.
“You’re glowing. Unless you want everybody at McKettrickCo to know you spent the night with Jesse, you’d better turn down the dimmer switch a little.”
Cheyenne laughed again, waved her mother away, and hurried down the hall to her room.
When she came out forty-five minutes later wearing a lightweight tweed pantsuit and sensible shoes—hair wound into the customary bun—Ayanna was dressed for another day at the supermarket. Jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a blue vest embroidered with her name.
She handed Cheyenne a cup of hot coffee and some news.
“The leasing people just took your car away.”
“Great,” Cheyenne said, deflated. She’d known Nigel was canceling the lease, but she’d expected a little warning. After all, technically she was still working for him.
“Don’t worry,” Ayanna told her, patting her arm. “I’ll drop you off in the van.”
Just then Mitch wheeled out of his room all spruced up. “Bronwyn’s picking me up in an hour,” he announced. “We’re going to Sedona to commune with red rocks.”
Ayanna and Cheyenne looked at each other.
“When was this decided?” Ayanna asked moderately.
“Last night,” Mitch answered. “She stopped by before you got home from the supermarket.” His gaze flicked to Cheyenne and turned pensive. “Doesn’t it hurt to pull your hair back like that?”
Cheyenne ignored him, heading for the kitchen. Normally she didn’t eat much breakfast, but today she was ravenous. She and Jesse had never gotten around to having supper. Nor had they talked, as she’d intended.
She’d planned to tell him that she was still working for Nigel, but it hadn’t happened.
Mitch buzzed along behind her. “How do you feel about nepotism?” he asked with a humorous, hopeful lilt in his voice.
Cheyenne laughed, refilled her coffee cup, then sat down at the table. Ayanna had made pancakes, eggs and sausage patties. If she consumed this much food on a regular basis, she’d have to replace her wardrobe.
“I mean it, Cheyenne,” Mitch insisted. “You’re the human resources person at McKettrickCo. I’m human. I want a job.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Cheyenne promised.
“Maybe I could buy a car. If I had a job, I mean. And I could get a really good computer, too. Shit-can that piece of junk I’m using now.”
“Mitch,” Cheyenne warned.
“If I get hired and I can find a car, will you cosign for the loan?”
“Mitch,” Ayanna said.
“We’ll see,” Cheyenne told him.
She continued her breakfast in relative peace.
“I need money,” Mitch announced. “Bronwyn’s driving us to Sedona. I can’t expect her to pay for lunch, too.”
Cheyenne gave him forty dollars.
“You clear the table and wash the dishes, then,” Ayanna told him. “And don’t give me any static. You can reach the sink just fine.”
“Not a problem,” Mitch said.
Ayanna glanced at the clock. “We’d better go, Cheyenne. I like to allow myself extra time, since the van gets temperamental once in a while.”
Inwardly, Cheyenne sighed. Maybe no one would notice when she arrived for her first day on the job in a psychedelic vehicle lacking only a peace sign to look like a time machine freshly arrived from the 1960s.
Regretfully, she left her plate on the table, still half-filled, and followed Ayanna out to the minibus.
There was a spring popping through the passenger seat.
Ayanna pulled a fringed pillow from the back and set it in place, grinning as Cheyenne hauled herself up and sat down.
The ignition made a disturbing grinding sound when Ayanna turned the key, and the exhaust pipe belched so much smoke, Cheyenne thought the rig was on fire.
Ayanna laughed at the expression on her daughter’s face.
“Mitch is right about your hair, you know,” she said. “You look perpetually surprised, like somebody who’s had one too many face-lifts.”
“Thanks a lot, Mom. That’s just what I needed to hear.”
Ayanna cranked the van into Reverse. Her eyes shone with mischief. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“What?” Cheyenne demanded, worried that the van was either going to blow up or fall apart on the spot.
“You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’,” Ayanna chimed. “Whoa-oh, that lovin’ feelin’.”
“Very funny, Mother.”
Ayanna threw back her head and laughed out loud.
It was a good sound, Cheyenne thought, smiling a little, even if it was at her expense.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JESSE GRINNED AS THE horses bolted through the corral gate, some of them kicking up their heels for sheer joy, others prancing and tossing their heads. He felt like joining them.
He’d awakened before Cheyenne that morning, and had lain for a long time just watching her sleep. Imagining what it would be like to wake up and find her beside him every morning. He’d even gone so far as to try and picture what their kids would look like—anybody’s guess, he finally concluded.
He was fair, she was dark.
It was a genetic toss of the dice.
Whistling, he closed the gate and fastened the latch.
He’d tried to talk Cheyenne into staying for breakfast, but she’d been hell-bent on showing up on time for her first day at McKettrickCo. They’d showered together, though, and had made sweet, slick love before she’d toweled herself off and shimmied back into yesterday’s clothes.
There’d been one awkward moment—just as she was leaving—a sort of hitch in the flow of events. She’d wanted to tell him something. Something that had sobered her expression and darkened her eyes. Probably that neither of them ought to put too much stock in how good the sex had been, because, after all, they were both consenting adults. Things happened.
He’d had similar thoughts himself—until Cheyenne had taken him to places he’d never dreamed existed. Shown him the landscape of his own spirit, with all its sunlight and shadow, all its canyons and mesas and shining creeks.
He wasn’t prepared to call it love.
But it sure as hell wasn’t casual sex, either.
He’d had plenty of that. Probably qualified as an expert. It was usually good; sometimes it even shook him up a little, made him want to reconsider some of the things he’d decided about his life. But sex was an inadequate word in this context; it didn’t describe the kind of sacred communion he and Cheyenne had shared. He could search the dictionary from now till doomsday and never find a definition that suited the situation.
Leaning on the uppermost rail of the gate, he watched the horses frolic in the field for a while, delighting in their freedom, then turned and headed back toward the house.
He was hungry; he’d throw together an omelet or nuke something from the freezer, then drive into town. He needed a break from poker, but maybe he’d stop by McKettrickCo, show a little interest in the family business—now that Cheyenne was part of
it.
She’d probably run him off with the verbal equivalent of a shotgun, but at least he could say howdy.
After that, he’d go on over to the Bridges place and work on the railings for Mitch’s wheelchair ramp.
Sounded like a productive day to him.
Inside the house, he washed up at the kitchen sink, then got out the fixings for his omelet—a few green onions, some mushrooms, a little cheese would dress up the eggs just fine.
While the skillet was heating, Jesse remembered his mother’s message the night before. Time to call her back. The familiar beep reminded him that he’d skipped right over Brandi’s call. With a sigh, he punched in the appropriate numbers. Might as well get it over with.
“Jesse, this is Brandi,” the recorded voice said. “It’s—listen, I really need to talk to you, because this guy came around, and he offered me a lot of money—damn, I forgot to charge this thing—call me later, will you?”
Frowning, Jesse thumbed the callback sequence.
Another recording. “Hi, this is Brandi. I can’t come to the phone right now, but your call is important to me. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Annoyed, Jesse simply said, “It’s me, calling back. Bye.”
What “guy” had come around, offering Brandi “a lot” of money, he wondered, and what the hell did any of that have to do with him?
The phone rang before he could replace the receiver.
“Brandi?”
Familiar laughter trilled in his ear. “Sorry, Jess. It’s only me—your mom. You remember—Callie McKettrick. Tall. Brown hair. A real sense of fashion. The person who gave birth to you.”
Jesse grinned, went back to the stove, stirred the onion-and-mushroom mixture around with the end of a spatula. “I have a vague recollection,” he said with a chuckle. As mothers went, he’d drawn a pretty good one, all things considered. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much.” His mother sighed cheerfully. Callie was a happy woman, for the most part, and she described herself as fulfilled, whatever that meant. She’d never been involved with the company, like his dad was, and she spent most of her time socializing and raising money for various charities, but she was no airhead. Jesse had always been proud of her. “Your dad and I were just wondering how you are, that’s all.”
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