To the One I Love: That Old Familiar FeelingAn Older ManCaught by a Cowboy

by Emilie Richards

  He’d nearly cleared the shelves. Some would go for donations. Some to the trash. None to keep. “Nothing important.”

  “Right,” she said after a prolonged beat. “So, I’ll guess. Your father was a brilliant journalist. So are you. He became involved with a woman considerably younger than he was.” She pulled the paper out of the typewriter and looked at it. “So have you…to an extent. You think Tiffany used him to gain a career she wouldn’t have otherwise had.”

  She stood and he could see that she was nowhere near as calm as her voice would have him believe as she pressed her shaking hands to the desk surface. “Do you really think I’m anything like Tiffany? That I’d use you the way you’re so certain she used your father?”

  “She did use him.”

  “And yet, he married her in the end for the second time. Maybe he loved her, Devlin. And maybe he didn’t,” she continued, ignoring his soft snort. “But I suppose what happened with them, and you, is the reason you never wanted to talk about my career.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  Despite the dim light and shifting shadows, her gaze was searching. “All my life I’ve had things handed to me, as if I were incapable of obtaining them on my own. And I’ve hated it. You know that. At least I thought you did. But if you can’t recognize by now that I want to earn my career based on my own merits—or lack of them—then you really don’t know me at all.”

  Chapter 8

  Marti’s heartbeat seemed suspended as she waited for some response from Devlin. Some indication that she was wrong. That he did know her better than that. That he did care.

  He merely continued working on the shelves.

  She picked up her newly typed article and the flashlight. “Thanks for the help with the story,” she said evenly. “Maybe it was just a moment of insanity on your part, but I still appreciate it.”

  “Fine. You’re welcome. Go.”

  “Sometimes, Devlin, you’re such an ass.”

  “You think that’s news?” He turned, and she caught her breath at the fierce expression that was visible even in the gloomy light. “You’re sitting there typing away, imagining the charge you’ll get at seeing your byline. I’m standing here, pitching out my dead father’s junk, and imagining making love to you while you type!”

  Her fingers loosened. The paper fluttered from her fingers. She barely remembered the flashlight in time to set it safely aside.

  He sat down on the corner of the desk. “Go upstairs, Marti. Choose a room. Before we do something I know you don’t want.”

  She couldn’t make herself move away from him. She touched her fingertips to his hair, brushing it back from his face, slipping through the clipped strands to drift down the side, grazing his ear in a lingering moment before she drew away again. “Are you so sure you know what I do or do not want, Devlin?”

  “You dumped me, cupcake. If not because you didn’t want to go where we were inevitably headed, then why?”

  She shook her head and tucked her hands in the pockets of the robe. Away from temptation. “I wanted to matter to you, Devlin. And I knew I didn’t.”

  “Then you were wrong.” She caught her breath when he drew his fingers down her face. “You were wrong,” he said again. His lips brushed hers. “Give me a chance. I’ll convince you.”

  The words were familiar. Too familiar. The letter, she thought faintly. Maybe, given Devlin’s upbringing—it had been the only way he could express himself—by writing it down like that. But it was so hard to think when he touched her. She was so tired of fighting her feelings, of pretending she was over him. Could ever get over him. That she was immune to want, that she wasn’t excruciatingly, exquisitely aware of the way his body felt against hers.

  She dragged her mouth from his. Outside, lightning flickered. “Were you really imagining…that?”

  He lowered his forehead, pressing it against the top of her head. “Yes.” His voice was clipped.

  She slid her hands up his chest. Touched his warm neck. Act with confidence. It wasn’t so hard, after all. “Tell me.”

  He caught her hands and dragged them away from him. In a quick movement, he spun her around, trapping her back against him with her arms and his crossed in front of her. “You’re killing me, Marti.”

  Her eyes burned and she lowered her head. He was going to push her away again and she couldn’t bear it. His hands moved. And her knees went to water when, instead of setting her away from him, she felt him tug at the tie holding the robe together.

  She dragged in a breath, hardly aware that it sounded more like a moan when the robe loosened. She seemed incapable of making her muscles work for themselves and he seemed to know it as his hands moved her arms to her sides. Then his palms slid beneath the terry cloth, flattening out across her stomach. His splayed fingers drifted upward between her breasts, then downward, toward—

  “Shh,” he whispered when she jumped. His fingertips moved up again, almost soothing, if not for the riot of sensation they set into play. His palms brushed over her breasts and she reached back to steady herself, getting a handful of hard, jean-clad thighs.

  He made a low sound. Like a big cat. Purring.

  She flexed her fingers against his legs and he made the sound again. Her pulse sped. His palms flattened against her belly and pressed her back in the V of his legs. She felt him, then. The distinct shape, the hard press.

  Her head fell back against his chest, her breath unsteady. She heard a low roll of thunder. Or maybe that was her heartbeat. Or his. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. “I didn’t know—”

  “You still don’t.” His hands cupped her breasts, and her skin suddenly seemed two exquisite sizes too small. Every brush of his thumbs across her nipples made her quake. “And you won’t,” he added, his voice raspy. “I don’t have any condoms with me, Marti. I might want you, but I won’t chance you—”

  He hadn’t called her cupcake. Not that she minded so much, anymore. But just then, it seemed to mean something. “I’m on the pill.”

  His thumbs stilled. “Since when?”

  Lightning streaked outside the windows, and the room seemed lit for an aching moment. Long enough for her to see their reflections in the window. She lifted her arms, reaching up to catch his neck, pull his head downward as she lifted hers.

  “Since I met you,” she whispered against his whisker-roughened jaw. Her lips tingled. “Touch me like you said you imagined.”

  He muttered an oath, surging against her. His lips covered hers, demanding. Drugging. His hands burned over her, leaving a trail of fire from her throat to her thighs. And then he touched her. There.

  She cried out, trembling wildly. She heard him exhale. A sound more feral, she’d never imagined. She arched, and his fingers dipped, delved, swirled until she positively ached with hollowness. She turned in his arms. His fingers, wet from her, slid over her hips, catching her thighs, lifting her against him as he stood. She wrapped her legs around his waist, burying her face against the hot curve where his shoulder met his neck. They’d been like this before. Almost. At his hotel room, the night she’d gone to him.

  Only then, they’d been both been dressed. And he’d stopped.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged. His jeans felt deliciously rough against her flesh but she was too desperate to have him to be shocked at herself. “Please, Devlin, don’t stop. Not this time.” She reached between them, fumbling for his fly.

  He turned to the desk, set her on it, and stepped back, grabbing her hand away before she managed to undo more than two buttons. “I’m not stopping.” His voice was low, rough, and full of promise.

  His gaze burned over her and if she looked wanton sitting there on the desk, his robe falling open over her, she didn’t care. Mostly because his expression told her that he did care. And he wanted what he saw.

  He stood before her, his hands planted on the desk to either side of her knees. Then he slowly, deliberately pushed the robe from her shoulders. She lifted her arms out of the
sleeves. White terry cloth pooled on the desk.

  “You’re like Snow White,” he murmured. “Hair as dark and shiny as a walnut. Lips red as wine. Skin—”

  “—too tanned from lying on the sand at Colman Key,” she whispered, “to be white as snow. Take off your clothes, Devlin. You have on too many and I’m getting impatient.”

  “Demanding, aren’t you? Your parents probably spoiled you too much.” In the sputtering candlelight, she could see his lips tilt. In comparison to what his father had given to Devlin, she and her sisters had definitely been spoiled.

  Then he pulled off his clothes, his movements spare and unselfconscious against her avid gaze, and any fleeting thoughts of her sisters or parents fled.

  She swallowed, moistening her lips. Had she ever seen a man more beautiful than Devlin Faulkner? He was bronzed and golden from his head to his toes. She shivered.

  “You’re cold.” His hands covered her shoulders.

  She settled her hands on his chest, flexing her fingers against the rough shadow of hair. “I feel like I’m burning up from the inside out.” She tried to hook her leg around his, pull him closer. But he eluded her to drop a kiss along her shoulder. Then her neck. Her head fell back and she felt his hair brush her chin as he kissed the hollow of her throat, right alongside the necklace he’d given her.

  She was beginning to realize what “blinded by pleasure” was all about. “Devlin, please. I’ve waited all my life for this. Don’t make me wait.”

  “Wait for what?” His hand plumped her breast upward and he teased his tongue over the tight crest. “This?” He bestowed similar favor to its twin. “Or this?”

  She tried to reach for him, to wrap her arms around his wide shoulders, but again he eluded her, pressing his mouth to the valley between her breasts. Tasting his way down over her belly. Kissing her navel. Then the point of her hipbone. The inner curve of her thigh as he leaned over her.

  Her vision pinpointed, narrowed until all she saw was a burst of color inside her head. She was vaguely aware of an unyielding object behind her. The typewriter, probably.

  Later, she might be amused about it. Now, she was only so aroused that she felt like her nerve endings were flying apart. She sank her hands into his hair, but lost her strength to lift his head, to push him away, to do anything but cry out his name when his mouth found her. She convulsed, the colors in her head exploding.

  She was still shaking when he kissed his way back up to her navel, her breasts, her mouth. “Frosting,” he murmured against her lips. “On my cupcake.”

  She almost managed the energy to laugh. She did manage to loop her arms around his neck, and hang on when he lifted her from the desk and carried her from the study.

  “How can you tell where you’re going in the dark?” Her heart was still pounding, her voice breathless. “The flashlight and candles are still in the study.”

  “Good night vision.” He started up the stairs. “Practice skulking through bombed-out villages and embassy corridors.” His hands caressed her back as he reached the top of the stairs and turned through a door. She caught the pale gleam of ivory in another silent flash of lightning.

  Then he set her on her feet, and she heard the rustle of bedding as he yanked back the spread, and sent the decorative pillows tumbling.

  He moved away for a moment, then she heard the scrape of a match and smelled the flare of sulfur. He’d lit a candle on the dresser. Its light reflected in the mirror behind it, magnifying the golden effect. “I noticed the candle earlier. Before the lights went out,” he said as he walked back to her.

  She dragged her gaze up from the evidence that—while he’d wreaked pleasure out of her—he was still very much unsatisfied. Just because she was a virgin, didn’t mean she was naive. But…mercy.

  She tried focusing on what he’d said. The candle. Right. “You’re good at that.” Her skin heated. “Noticing details, I mean. L-like the candle.”

  “Like the fact that you’re ready to jump out of your skin,” he said quietly. “Relax, Marti. I’m not some fifteen-year-old teenager who’s gonna pounce before you’re ready.”

  “And some details you completely misread. Obviously an interpretation problem in that brilliance of yours.” She slid her arms around his waist, flattening her body against his, sighing with profound delight.

  He didn’t seem too averse, given the way his arms surrounded her, pressing her even closer.

  “Come to bed, Devlin.” Was that her voice? Throaty and rich? She took a step back. He followed. Then another step, and another, until she felt the mattress behind her. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

  She felt his lips smile against hers as he kissed her. “That’s a lot of attitude you pack in your petite body.”

  “At least you didn’t call me short.” She pulled him down onto the bed, shuddering as his weight warmed her. His hands slid over her legs and for a painfully brief moment, she felt the full length of him pressing against her. But he levered his weight off her.

  She scrabbled at his hips, wanting him back. He didn’t move, and feeling desperate with need, she moved her hand over him, closing her fingers around him. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m not going to crush you.” His voice was raw. He caught her hand with his, stilling her.

  “Don’t you want me to touch you?”

  He let out a rough laugh, pressing his forehead to her shoulder for an achingly long moment. Then he lifted his head. Looked into her eyes. “Yeah. Dammit, yes.”

  She sank her teeth into her lip, watching him as she caressed him, urging him back to the cradle of her hips. “Don’t…wait,” she could barely manage to speak. “I won’t break, Devlin. I won’t—” Her head fell back as his mouth covered hers, swallowing her moan when he slowly, inexorably took her. She was so ready, so needful, that she barely noticed the brief, burning pain. The only thing that quenched it was more.

  And he gave it.

  Until she cried out again, tears streaking down her temples with the unbridled satisfaction he wrought. Only then did he finally lose control, his hands fiercely gentle as he lifted her hips against his. He groaned out her name and surged harder, deeper. And all she could do was wind her arms around him and hold on as his pleasure shoved her, yet again, over the edge of sanity.

  His heartbeat was still racing against hers when he finally turned to his back and pulled her over him. She didn’t have the strength of a newborn to resist. Not that she wanted to, she thought hazily.

  She was exactly where she wanted to be.

  With the man she loved.

  She’d never need a heating blanket with Devlin, Marti thought, when she woke hours later to a cool, watery light. Her cheek rested against the warm furnace of his shoulder, and the rest of her body was warmed right down the line where she lay against him. His stomach was hard and equally as warm when she smoothed her palm over him, dipping into the shallow navel. She tucked her tongue between her teeth, glancing up at him, only to find an amber gleam watching her between smoky lashes.

  His eyebrow lifted. “Searching for something?”

  A slow heat flushed her skin. “Expect the unexpected,” she murmured.

  His lips curved. “Stealing my line?”

  She dipped her hand beneath the ivory sheet. She’d always thought the “velvet-covered-steel” to be a ridiculous euphemism, but as her palm slid over him, circled him, she realized it was fairly apt. “Stealing something, maybe.” She couldn’t help smiling a little when he sucked in a harsh breath and closed his eyes.

  He caught her hand in his. “You’re awfully brave this morning, Miz Colman.”

  She felt brave. Imbued with some ageless female power, all because she could make this man’s heart race. She slid her knee up his leg, loving the differences in texture between them. “Seems I’m a quick study in some things.” She pushed away the sheet as she straddled him.

  He exhaled roughly, catching her hips in his big palms and stilling her subtle un
dulations. “You’re a menace,” he muttered.

  She laughed softly, because she knew, complaints or not, he was enjoying it. His body didn’t lie. She wriggled out of his hold and sat up, pulling his hands to her breasts, then had to catch her own breath when he dragged his thumbs over her tight nipples, even as he flexed his hips.

  “I should’ve shaved.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

  His smile was vaguely satanic as he tsked. “Razor burn.” His fingers drifted over the tender, reddened patches on her breasts. “I’d make it worse this morning.”

  “Only if you—”

  “Kiss you there? Taste you?” His hands slowed, soothed, taunted, tempted.

  She moistened her lips, scrambling for that heady woman-power feeling. But it was squandering to the four corners in pleasure at his hands on her body, at the long, slow thrust of him against her—all without even entering her. “Devlin—”

  “Come on, cupcake. You’re on top. You call the—” he groaned when she suddenly arched her hips and took him in, fully, tightly “—shots.”

  “Yes,” she whispered throatily, leaning over him. “And what a…bang it is.”

  His laughter was strangled as she kissed him and drove them both right into the eye of another hurricane. After, Marti was barely conscious of Devlin pulling the sheet up and over them, as they both finally slept.

  The sunlight was brighter through the windows when Marti awakened again to find Dev watching her. She felt her face flush. “Hi.”

  His lips tilted. “Hi.”

  It was ridiculous. They’d been achingly intimate with each other, yet she felt strangely shy. “So. This is what the ‘morning after’ phrase is all about.”

  “The afternoon after,” he amended, looking amused.

  “Well.” She sat up, holding the sheet over her breasts. Her hair probably looked like a rat’s nest. “If you’d known what you were getting, you’d have thought twice about writing the letter, I expect.”

  He tugged at the sheet. “What I got was a sexy, beautiful woman who looks even better now than she did before we tore apart this bed. I always knew sex would be phenomenal between us.” Devlin paused, looking puzzled. “What letter?”