by Gayle Eden
Eventually she tossed in her brush, soaps, the necessary things, and a change to wear home. She kept looking at her reflection in the mirror, asking herself to have more pride, to pay him back and just not show up, but her heart was pounding hard and her hands itched to touch him, her mouth watered to kiss him. She was famished, starved for him, deep in her soul—as much in her heart as in body.
It had been so hard, so very hard, to go year after year, day after day, working, living, and trying not to wonder what he was doing at that same moment. After the worst of the hurt dulled, she was simply empty and longing and God knew Frank didn’t help. A body was a body to Frank, and his seed was to be planted, lust was spent. He hardly kissed her, let alone stirred her body.
Oh, lord. Sara was finally in the buggy and tooling down the road. She felt her hands sweating in her gloves and her legs were weak and trembly. Nervous, excited, she would die if she ran into anyone else on the road.
She didn’t. Several miles up the main road, she spied him like a looming shadow just off the path. He had a horse, which he tied to the back when she stopped, the beast was not branded and though he wore a hat, long calf length duster, he was pretty well disguised with the collar turned up.
“I’ll drive.” He climbed up and she scooted over.
Gathering the reins, Finn flashed her a grin and wink in the dark then murmured after he clicked to the horses, “Stay close to me, Sara.” One of his hands found her knee as he got the buggy at a smart pace.
Sara tugged off her glove and covered his strong, warm, hand. She was against his shoulder, smelling his scent of leather, tobacco and something earthy yet fresh. His brawn, his scent, it emphasized in her mind the contrast in her womanly body and his male one.
“Nervous?” His fingers splayed, captured hers, and their hands were linked.
“Yes.”
“Me. too.” He sighed sharp. “Anxious as hell though. These horses can’t run fast enough for me.”
She laughed and then bit her lip. “I should have gotten drunk.”
“No. We make each other that way.” He turned his head, leaned enough to brush his lips across her brow before attending the road. “I took some brandy there, food and a few things. Guess I own the house.” He laughed. “It’s got a little barn out back, so—”
“Yes.”
Their fingers twined again he husked, “Thank you. God, I didn’t think in a million years you’d go with me. I had to ask. But I didn’t think you would.”
“I didn’t think I would either.” She reached up and took her hat off, needing to feel some night wind to cool her face.
“I won’t let you regret it. I guarantee that.” His laugh was low and soft.
After a bit he had the team full out, so they didn’t talk, just willed the miles to pass, and prayed the hours would slow down.
It seemed too long before he slowed the team and turned off the main road. Taking a long rutted one, that ended with a white frame two story, lamps glowing inside. He let her out, and took the buggy out back, to the barn, bringing her bag back with him.
Sara stood hugging her arms while he opened the door, stepping inside then, and finding a warm parlor.
“I’ll lay a fire. It’s a little nippy.” He put down the bag. “Bedroom is up there, I took the end one.” He went over and began preparing the fireplace.
She saw a basket on the shadowy table in the next room, and a bottle of spirits. Sara made her way to the kitchen, a minute one, and found a glass. She poured two fingers of the brandy and took off her jacket, watching him hang his on the peg with her hat, and his.
He wore a soft cream shirt and well washed denims that molded his long muscular legs and rounded backside. The shirt also clung to mounds of brawn in his arms and chest. His raven and silver hair caught lights from the fire as he pulled off his boots and set them by the door. Padding over and bringing the bottle with him, he sat beside her on the settee, and merely added a bit to her own glass and sipped from it.
“Are we playing house,” Sara peeked aside at him with a dry grin, picturing them, on the blue needlepoint settee together.
Finn raised his brow and grinned then reached down and pulled off her boots. She made a small sound when he tugged until she lay across his muscled thighs, but that was soon stolen by his lips.
Finn cupped the back of her head and leaned down. He kissed her, his other hand busy dispensing with her blouse. In his mouth, Sara groaned. The heat of his hand covered her bare breasts, and hers came to grasp his forearms. By then he’d found the latch on the split skirt and undid it.
Fire crackling, the scent of brandy, and Finn already making her heady, Sara raised her hips on his demand and soon found herself completely nude.
For a long time, Finn sat up just letting his gaze run down that nude body. She held herself still, thinking—that he’d been the first man to see it uncovered, thinking too, about the contrast in that young woman and the one she was today. His hand lifted, undoing her hair, letting it drape over the arm, then he skimmed down over her full breasts and to her stomach. She wondered if the silvery lines on her breasts bothered him.
Her body was rounded, but firm, tawny, and Finn used the pad of his finger to follow a light line radiating from her deep peach nipples. “You’re beautiful, Sara.” He glanced at her face before leaning down and taking her nipple in his mouth.
“Finn.” His name was less than breath because lying there exposed, feeling the denim of his trousers, she arched and moaned. Sara wanted him to devour her.
She found his shirt buttons as he cupped the other. Around his exquisite suckling, she managed to get his shirt off. When he started to sit up, her hand went to his cheek and she kissed him hotly before scoring her mouth down his neck, over his collarbone and muscled shoulder.
Everything outside the two of them was forgotten. Finn cupped her hip, her thighs, rubbed and felt her womanly skin. She bit his nipple. He hauled her to a sitting position, facing him, on her knees. Already her lips were swelling sensually, and her hazel eyes shone with an inner fire.
He burned for her—ached as if dying—he wanted to draw it out.
His big hands full of her lush backside, he stood, laughing at her yelp. He carried her wrapped around him fine, all the way to that bedroom.
Amber lights lit on a faded quilt, but Sara didn’t notice—and didn’t care. As soon as he lowered and had his legs between hers, she plowed her hands through his hair, arching her hips up, and then raising her knees, stroking his denim-clad hips with her soft, trembling thighs.
“Finn. Finn…” She felt him lower, fall to the side, and rolled with him. But, Sara wanted his flesh, his hot musky skin. She tugged at the band of his trousers then tore her mouth from his, and slid down and licked across his lower stomach, aggressively undoing latches.
“Damn.” He breathed hot and helped her shuck them off, the muscles in his legs warm, flexing, Finn rolled with her, trying to gain the dominant control, then surrendering for just a bit, laying on his back. She pushed his arms wide and rubbed her body and lips down him.
Somewhere in his mind, he had thought of losing himself in her again. He had not counted on the older mature Sara, who was licking, biting, and scoring him like a brand. Her hands were busy too, grasping his hard buttocks, rubbing inside his thighs. At one point, he felt her fist the length of his sex and he nearly came off the bed.
“Sara.” He grabbed her hand and rolled her under him, his breathing as thick and uneven as hers, strands of his hair falling over his brow while his green eyes moved with both wonder and helplessness over her face. “I want to see you and breathe you, taste and feel you, in my bones. If you keep touching me, I’m not going to be any good at all.”
She laughed softly. “You felt and tasted pretty good.”
He shivered and sat back, his hands taking her breasts and caressing and molding them. He then shaped her ribs, down her waist and to the nest of strawberry hair. Playing there a moment, he glanced at her
face, watching before he eased between the folds and found her musky and wet.
Sara arched subtly, her arms going back to grasp edges of the pillow and legs widening for his touch.
Finn thrust his finger into her slowly, in and out, and adjusted his position so he could kiss her, nibble at her mouth, and neck. He began making a journey down her body, but once he was between her legs, she half sat and dragged him to her for a wild, deep kiss.
There was no plan or thought then. They were too hungry, too starved—too much needing to be touched, and touch back. He didn’t stop her from laving and licking him, from touching and grasping, and he managed to suckle and taste her, to rub and feel her with his palms as their bodies, skin to hot skin, moved and positioned to get what they wanted.
He was up on his knees, his hands buried in her strawberry hair, feeling it brush silken against the sensitive skin of his lower stomach. She was sweetly, sinfully, killing him—laving his sex, kissing it, breathing his musk. He stretched, tracing the curve of her spine with his palm, teasing between the heart-shaped globes of her backside.
Then pulling her head up, Finn rolled to his back and dragged her up to sit astride his face, lustfully famished, groaning from the tang of her, he felt her riding his tongue. Finn wanted to remember this forever, the hot little cries and moans echoing around that room while he pleasured her.
At some point, he suckled, laved, abraded the swollen bud and fit his finger deep into her sex, until rewarded with her low groan, a rippling of contractions around his fingers… and sweet, hot, bathing of juices, from her climax.
Finn eased her down and sat her fully on his swollen sex. His, “Oh. God. Yes!” was the voice of a man he hardly knew, but he felt primal. He pulled out, leaving her facing away from him, and entered her on his knees again.
“Finn!” She growled and groaned at the first slam. Bedsprings squeaked and the slats shifted. He drove into her those ten hard thrusts before the world exploded into white-hot bliss.
Afterwards, they lay panting, before either moved and found the bathing room. They washed and went back to the room, Finn watching her brush her hair and walk to look out the window, her body clad in his big shirt, unbuttoned.
He didn’t bother with clothing and lit a rolled cigarette, knee up, back against the iron bars of the headboard—content to look at her, trace the slight wave in her silken hair.
When she set on the sill, the shirt parted and her warm skin shimmered in the amber light. The unbuttoned shirt shifted, showing just a hint of her areola, large and deep peach. Her thighs and legs were shapely, strong, and firm.
Nevertheless, it was her face that captured him when she leaned her head on the side and stared out, lost in thoughts—that handsome boned face with just enough freckles and just the right hue of pink lips. The lines at the corner of her eyes only enhanced the image of someone who truly lived, truly laughed, and loved. Her nose was straight lined, proud, not perfect, but symmetrical.
When her gaze flickered to him and she smiled absently, just a hint of a dent in the corner by her lips—something shifted in Finn’s chest.
He sat up and put the cigarette out, standing and then walking to her. Holding himself still as she turned to face him and looked over his body. He was a big man, had worked hard all his life so there was little room for fat amid the muscle. He felt more primal, more of that esurient male—when Sara looked at him.
Her finger came out and traced the line of black hair from his sex to his navel. He captured that finger and kissed the pad before sliding the shirt from her shoulders and carrying her to the bed. This time his big body lay between her legs, and Finn kissed her slow and full, smooth and tender.
It was like some familiar and yet new dance, feeling her hands gliding up his back while they kissed, and letting his touch roam where he could. Paying homage to her womanly shape, while tasting the flavor of her kisses, learning the textures of her mouth.
Head lifting, he nibbled and played at her lips, letting her do the same. He was breathing a scent that wafted through the window she’d cracked, one of autumn mingled with wood and tobacco smoke, stirring some earthy spirit in him as he rubbed his lips to her ear and down the side of her throat.
Sara was wet and ready when he arched in and joined their bodies. A gradual kind of melting had already spread over her, and receptive senses were open to feel, scent, and textures. His powerful frame made each flex in deep. Her hands slid to his buttocks, her legs lifting higher, to invite him there.
It was an unhurried and exquisite climb, breathing deep and harsh, and their bodies moving in sync. But climb it did. Finn curled his torso so he could look down at her. She craned her neck back to see him. On his knees, having grasped the headboard Finn’s eyes were like banked green fire.
“Hold on.”
“I am.” She sank her teeth into her lip as his thrusts escalated and sped.
Arching his own neck, feeling her lips latch onto his nipple, Finn drove into her, seeking forgetfulness of the empty past, and assuaging all the hollow places inside himself that needed her for so long.
Even while he basked in her, felt, and heard distantly her soft cries of his name—and understood that in her own mind Sara was needing him to reach that deep, that hard—that her nails stung his shoulders and back—and her tears wet his chest. Even then—he was in a foggy miasma, every muscle over his bones feeling an extenuation of his sex. Every inch of him drew out the exquisite pleasure. He let the fire kindle and burn, and closed his eyes. Face and body dewed with moisture, going into the fire until it raced, gathered, and exploded in him.
Finn rolled and gathered her to him, breath slowing and his heart pounding but decelerating. He was so relaxed he didn’t move when she got up, bathed, and came back, wiping his sex with a damp cloth.
Clad in his shirt once more, she lay against his side, her leg over his, while Finn rubbed her hair, and let his body enjoy the sensation of repletion.
Sara dozed on and off, never too soundly, because she was aware she had to return home the next morning. She roused when Finn got up and padded to the washroom. He was there awhile before he went downstairs. He brought up food, a tepid but welcome jug of lemonade. The lamp was up while they ate. He had bathed and slipped on his trousers.
They talked a little, mostly about how busy the fall round up was, and some about Falon and Asher—who had his own pony and would make regular visits to get his riding lessons. Alex, and how much Finn respected and liked him. She talked about Ryder, how he and Noah really worked from dusk until dawn and got their branding done, and the contracts filled. Her brother had been a foreman himself but could work under Noah, alongside him, with no contention. Because he was there at the busiest time, he was on the range, or dropping tiredly on one of the bunks at the bunkhouse when he came in. Since the shindig, he had hung out with the hands, playing cards, enjoying downtime, after a hard fall roundup. But there hadn’t been much family time as yet.
They were by the window; each aware dawn was near, occasionally touching, Finn smoking—when a pounding at the door had them sharing a startled glance.
He uttered, “Stay here.”
However, Sara, still wearing his shirt, ran down the stairs with him. She was beside him when he yanked open the door.
Corey, her face wind-flushed and distressed, cried, “You’ve got to come quick, to the ranch—”
“Corey! How did you—” Sara began.
Corey reached for Finn, “You gotta’ get to the ranch. It’s Morgan.”
“Oh-my-God. What happened?” Sara felt her heart drop and looked at Finn who went stark eyed.
“It was that bull. Please, Hurry!”
Finn was already pulling on boots and barking tensely, “Saddle my horse.”
“Take mine back,” Corey offered. “He’s at our ranch. It was closer when the hands found him. I had started to go into town with Falon and Jordan but decided to stick around and I…. I followed you two earlier today.” She looked bet
ween them. “I was just back when I passed Noah in the wagon at a full run, heading for the next town. You don’t want that quack in PineFlatts getting near him, Mr. McCabe.”
“You go on.” Sara grasped Finn’s arm. She looked at her daughter then sighed and took off Finn’s shirt and shoved it in his hands, heading up the stairs—necked—to dress, and hearing Corey’s “My God almighty!”
Finn was out the door with two buttons done. Corey strode with him to the horse she’d ridden. “We got him downstairs. Rose and Falon are seeing to him. Jordan hurried to the ranch, to get clothing for him and check with the hands. Lucas was in town for the elections but someone went to get him.”
“How bad is it?” Finn bounded in the saddle and gathered the reins, every line of his body and face rigid.
“Bad,” Corey said softly wringing her hands. “It broke through the fence and dragged him, knocked him around a lot, before our hands heard his cries….”
Finn said nothing else because he wheeled the horse and took off at a fast gallop. By the time he reached the end of the lane, Sara was outside.
She and Corey headed out back. Sara left the buggy there and rode Finn’s mount. Corey took one of the team bareback. They were right behind Finn.
Corey had a million questions earlier that day when she followed her mother and saw her meet up with Finn, but none of them mattered at the moment. As for Sara, she was thinking only of Morgan and Finn, praying in her mind, hoping against hope, that it was not as bad as the look in Corey’s eyes said it was.
Chapter Six
The man lying in the back bedroom at the Landry ranch house didn’t look like Morgan McCabe. Two hours past sunrise, Finn sat on one side, in a chair, Lucas in the other, oblivious to Falon and Rose who had cut Morgan’s ragged and bloody clothing from him, and before the men got there, hurriedly washed off dirt to see the worst of the gashes.
His face distorted now, black, blue, and swollen, even under where they had had to sew stitches in his brow, cheek, and lip. A four-inch tear an inch wide from the bottom of his jaw down, they had pinched together as best they could.