by Gayle Eden
“Uh, huh.” Lucas playfully bit her neck. “You put me in stripes, and I promise you, I’ll wear my gun belt and—”
“All right. No stripes.” She kissed him and then jumped up saying, “Whatever happened to our idea of a small, private wedding anyway?”
“Your mother.” Lucas got up and shared a wry grin with Morgan, before he intoned, “She said you couldn’t have any such thing in a house this grand. And, that you deserved a wedding with all the frills…” His grin faded. “You do. You’re owed one…”
“Lucas…” Her expression was loving and sad at the same time.
“Hey.” He took her chin, looking down at her. “You do. I want to give it to you. Asher is excited. Your whole family is excited. Hell, who would have thought anyone would want their kin marrying me.”
Her smile was back. “My family apparently likes their men barely tamed. It was my step Mamma who ran off in the dead of winter with your father—to build a cabin. And the things she writes about Finn McCabe, well, let’s just say I know where you get it from.”
Morgan slipped off after Lucas’s low laugh that was followed by kissing—that looked like it was heading for the bedroom. If they made it there. One thing he noticed about Lucas, and surprisingly about Falon, was that they were hot blooded and most of the time, could be oblivious when they started kissing.
As he saddled one of the horses, he thought when Asher was there it was almost amusing how they changed. They took separate rooms, played their roles. Though, both loved the boy, and Lucas always spent most of the day with him. Hell, he’d even read books with the lad and lay on the parlor floor looking at maps. However, when he was not there, they made up for lost time.
Having bathed and changed before supper, Morgan wore his denim trousers, black boots, and a green chambray shirt, his dun hat. He didn’t normally wear a gun belt unless there was expected trouble. He had a rifle in the scabbard like most men carried. It got easier over the year, looking at his face, the scars. In the back of his mind, he was still coming to terms with that reflection. Vain or not, it was hard to carry marks on his face. People stared. Kids asked sometimes when he was in town. He tried to be relaxed about it.
Everyone seemed to think Rose didn’t mind them. He thought so too. That did not mean he wished they weren’t there.
Hell, it wasn’t the scars so much that preoccupied him. He was trying to think of what else besides the “I’m sorry” he had already rendered that would make up for his hurting her.
When he reached the ranch, Ryder was nowhere about so he gave the message to Noah—who smirked. If any man was brave enough to tease Ryder Douglas about anything, Morgan would like to meet him. He got on okay with Rose’s uncle, but he didn’t joke around with the man.
Striding to the house, he went around back, seeing the muddy hoe and rake, a pair of wooden shoes, announcing they had been working in the garden. The back door was opened and Corey came striding out, stopping abrupt in the process of putting on her hat.
“Is Rose home? Falon needs some kind of magazine illustration…” his voice trailed off at her obvious raised brow look.
“She’s inside.” Corey settled her hat and stepped off the back porch, heading for the barn.
Morgan took off his own hat; finger combed his hair, and stepped inside the warm kitchen.
Rose was at the heavy sink, her braid mussed and face sun flushed. She wore trousers with the dirty hems rolled up to the calf, and apparently sometime had on a blouse hanging on a chair back. At the moment, he recognized her linen garment as a camisole with ribbon straps. Mesmerized by her creamy shoulders and upper arms, he stole a glance at her well-outlined hips and backside, back up to the wayward strands loose from the long braid.
When she stilled and turned toward him, dragging a folded dishtowel off the edge of the sink to dry her hands. It took everything in him not to drop his eyes to more expanse of skin and cleavage than Rose Landry ever showed a man. Instead, he focused on her cool gray gaze and classical face.
“Falon sent me. She needs some illustration of a wedding cake.” His voice seemed too deep and raspy in the small kitchen.
“I’ll get it.” She tossed the cloth and left the room.
Morgan went over to the sink. He was there when she returned and handed it to him. Instead of taking it from her, he reached up and wiped a smudge of dirt off her cheek.
“Been planting?”
“Yes.” She stared up at him.
He reached for the magazine without taking his eyes off hers.
Rose licked her lips and let her gaze flicker over his face before she let go and stepped aside.
Morgan put the magazine on the table. “I’ve a couple of hours free. Will you ride with me down by the river?”
“I need a bath.” She shook her head looking out the window.
He did lower his gaze, and Morgan did see the plumpness of her full breasts, the cleavage that was deep, and the outline of nipples that were semi hard. Before his own body got out of control, though his mouth did go dry, he offered, “I’ll wait.”
He walked by her, taking a chair and waiting for her to look at him.
She did, saying, “Why should I give you a moment of my time?”
“Because the I’m sorry I offered wasn’t enough. Because—we haven’t ever really talked to each other, Rose.”
She chewed her lip and then looked down at the table, murmuring, “I’ll be a moment. Help yourself to coffee.”
He drank some while he waited, and stood when she entered later—with damp hair tied back with a black ribbon, dressed in denims and soft gray shirt, pulling on a light jacket that would cover her from neck to hip if she buttoned it up. She pulled on a pair of supple boots by the door.
Morgan followed her out, later helping her saddle a mount, and soon they were riding towards the creek that split their lands. She hadn’t buttoned that jacket. The breeze ruffled her damp strawberry hair, drying it.
At the creek he dismounted at a spot, he’d seen her many times, watching her do the same before they secured the horses. He let her choose her place, not surprised she sat on a large flat rock he’d often spied her reading on.
Taking one facing that, he again took off his hat, resting it on his knee. Feeling sun and breeze on him, Morgan felt all sorts of emotions eyeing her face and hair, having smelled the flowery scent she wore as they had been riding.
“We McCabe’s sometimes are blinded by pride. I’m sorry I hurt you, Rose.”
She stared at the water. “All right.”
He sighed hearing that reserve. “I’ve always cared for you, Rose. In many different ways. I have reason to be thankful to you for patching me up and taking care of me, too. I haven’t thanked you for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Morgan ground his teeth at those automatic answers, but went on to tell her what Doc said about that bull. Once that was out of the way, he stood and went to sit beside her. Resting his hat on the rock, he reached out and brushed his fingertips down her cheek. Watching it flush gave Morgan some hope.
“Your name suits you. The shy strength and thorns, the velvet and silk and heady scent. I thought I knew you, but I assumed much and I didn’t realize half of the woman you are. You fascinate me, Rose.”
She turned her face to him as he dropped his hand, her gaze roaming his visage. “I like to think I can be intelligent and strong, and still be a woman, yes. But don’t toy with my emotions, Morgan. Don’t make me trust you.”
His eyes capturing hers he mentally cursed and outwardly groaned. “I’m not a man who plays games, Rose. In your heart you know that.”
“I can’t be your friend.” She looked away.
“What the hell does that mean?” He turned her face back to him. “You’re that angry at me?”
“I’m not angry. You hurt my feelings. But I realize they were feelings I had built out of nothing more th—”
“No Rose. Don’t even finish that.” His hands went to
her shoulders. “Let’s get it said then. We are not talking about friends. We are grown. A man and a woman. In that mix of feelings of protectiveness and whatever else, we were attracted. Tell me that’s not true?”
She swallowed and merely held his gaze.
“I’d like you to trust me, Rose. I hope you will again.” He lowered his head and murmured, “But trusting and like isn’t the only thing I want you to feel.” His mouth landed on hers, not hard and angry like before, but soft and tender.
Morgan almost moaned at the supple feel of her lips. He brushed their mouths and kissed soft, closed mouth kisses at first. It was only when she relaxed the stiffening she’d done on contact, that he parted his lips and teased the seam of her mouth with his tongue.
Being bigger also had another advantage. Morgan was lowering her back, leaning over her when he heard her gasp and part her lips. He gained entry and tasted the softest heaven and sweetest hell. His memory was not wrong; Rose Landry kissed back with lush, erotic skill that had his heart hammering his ribs.
She lay back on the rock and he over her. Morgan had raised one hand to cradle her head, the other he fit against the skin, where the jacket fell open, just between her throat and collarbone.
Keeping the kiss soft was not easy since she gave him her tongue and sensually delved into his mouth too. He was breathing thick and heavy when he raised an inch. Regarding her face and watching her lashes lift. Morgan felt himself half-drowning in the misty dove gray of her eyes.
“Where’d you learn to kiss like that?”
“Where did you?” She rasped back.
Half-smiling he arched his brow but murmured, “You’ve all kinds of secrets, don’t you.” With that, he lowered his head again and took her mouth with a little more aggression. Somewhere in the mutual, deeper kissing, he realized he was painfully aroused. Her scent, the taste of her was more heady and erotic than he could have imagined. Half his brain was saying, this is Rose, go slowly. The other half was groaning, my God, this—is Rose, who is kissing you and setting your blood on fire.
This time when Morgan lifted his head, they were both breathless. He rubbed his lips over her cheek before biting at her ear and tasting her neck with lips and tongue. Adjusting so that his powerful thigh went between her legs, he kissed down the open throat of the shirt, smelling her scent, reveling in the soft silk of skin. His hands had buried in her hair after untying the ribbon that held it. Morgan heard himself husking, “Let me taste you, just a little more.”
However, her hands were also in his hair. He kissed her breasts through the thin linen of her shirt, and gently scraped her nipple with his teeth through it also, Morgan could feel the heat of her sex against his thigh.
“Morgan….”
He raised his head, lowering one hand to undo buttons while he kissed her deep and hard. Lifting again, he could see her flushed face and slightly unfocused eyes. “Just a taste of your soft skin…” He dipped and laved between the full pillows of her breasts.
Rumbling in his throat, he shifted the material over and saw the pale pink nipple distended in the center of it. Morgan first kissed it, and then laved it. He teased it that way, hearing the choppy little breaths from her lips. When at last he circled it with his lips and suckled gently, he was rewarded with her hands on his head holding him there.
In the following moments, he parted the shirt. Soon his lips and tongue had both nipples damp and quivering. Rose had murmured his name a dozen times. Her hips lifted rubbing her sex, unknowingly or not, against his flexed thigh.
Her breasts were large, beautiful, ivory and pale pink at the nipple, and sexual in a way that nearly made him lose his head. Kneading them, teasing the nipples with his thumbs, he kissed her again, tasting a hunger his own body echoed.
When their mouths parted this time he husked in her ear, “You are a passionate woman, Rose. Made for bedding the right way, at the right place and time.” His large hand slid down and under her buttock. “But I feel your heat. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes.”
He lifted his head, nearly undone by the lost sexual look on her face. He could hardly believe it and was still half-afraid of getting his face slapped and offending her when he husked, “Do you want me to pleasure you?”
“Do you…want to?”
“Yes.” He felt his head go light and his body go hot. “You’ll show me what you like?”
She nodded, her hands smoothing his hair before she opened his shirt, palming his own hard breasts over incredibly wide pecs. “Not here, anyone can see. The hands.”
He nodded and did up her shirt. Not wanting to move. Afraid, she would change her mind.
Yet when they mounted and rode onward, she stopped at a shelter, four poles and a roof where hands sometimes rested or stayed the night on the range. Morgan dismounted watching her hair floating around her shoulders, down to her hips as she took off her jacket.
He came up behind her, arms going around her loosely, thinking that perhaps it would be easier for Rose to confide in him if he weren’t looking into her face. “You’ve pleasured yourself?”
“Yes.” She looked glassy eyed. “In spite of my…self-consciousness, my body still hungered. I—thought about you—about us.”
Jesus. His knees were near to buckling. His lips brushed her hair. “I want to use my mouth on you, Rose.”
She shuddered but nodded and turned in his arms, her face buried against his chest. “I want to touch you. I want to pleasure you, too. “
“You’re sure—”
She nodded her voice trembly but thick with hunger. “I’m sure, Morgan.”
He drew her back into the shadow of the overhang and then left her to untie a tarp all hands kept rolled behind the saddle. Laying it down, he faced her, watching her expression as he undid her shirt and massaged her breasts.
She watched his dark hands and fingers, occasionally looking at his face.
Morgan was still reeling a bit that Rose gave herself orgasms. It aroused him just picturing it. He went to his knees and undid her trousers, kissing her ivory stomach and navel, laving her skin, loving her fullness and shape.
When he pulled them below the nest of strawberry curls, she took his head and titled it up suggesting, “Maybe we should lie down before I fall down.”
He picked her up and laid her down, sucking in his breath when he pulled the trousers below her knees. Her legs were beautiful and shapely, all of her womanly and curved, lushed and full. His heart nearly broke his ribs. It was all he could do to control himself. Her scent reached him, flowery and sexual. Her skin looked too soft. Yet Rose was almost too much a woman. More sexual and feminine looking than he could have pictured in fantasy.
On his knees, Morgan ran his palms up her inner thighs then let one cup her sex. She was damp and hot. Rubbing two fingers through the curls, his head lowered to suck at her inner thigh at the moment the pad of one touched her entry. She was creamy, silken. So hot. Morgan kissed both legs, inside from the knee down while his finger warmed in her slick heat. He began sinking it in her and out slowly, not deep but rhythmic. His cock was so thick and hard under the denim that he set his teeth to keep from coming just from touching her.
“I want to touch you too.”
He heard that husk and urgency. He moved his body around, only half attending her undoing his trousers because he parted the folds of her sex and laved her. Making a rumbling purr in his throat because he loved her tang, her scent, and the feel of the tender skin. Alternately sucking and laving, Morgan lost his breath. She was laving him too.
Raising his head, mouth damp with her scent Morgan looked down and saw her pink tongue licking the head of his sex. Every muscle in his body locked as fire went through him.
“My God…Rose.” He touched her head gently with his hand.
She kissed the crown and gave him a look that would set a brush fire, one of a woman hungry and aroused, intent on making him cum.
Morgan leaned over again, pressing her
thighs wide as he began devouring her sex. The more she swelled and hardened, the harder she suckled him... When he used his tongue to thrust into her, she captured and held him tight in her mouth.
Out of his mind and no longer thinking of being shocked or surprised, Morgan let his fingers pleasure her too, while he worried the nub with lips and tongue. He rubbed it with the pad of his fingers, and then sank a finger into her. He rubbed between the globes of her sweet backside and teased her there.
Morgan felt her impending climax and felt his own. He was barely capable of thinking at all as his hips subtly moved and his sex glided into her mouth and out. When her climax came, she suckled him hard, riding his finger and rubbing his tongue on her swollen bud.
He had a few seconds of blinding white pleasure before raising and falling back beside her. Morgan’s heart beat a slow and measured thud. His head floated somewhere else for long intense moments.
Eventually he turned his head, eyeing her closed lashes and beautiful face, the puffed mouth.
“You put your mouth on me.”
She didn’t open her eyes. “I thought about it for years.”
“How’d you know—”
“I read a lot.”
He laughed poorly and reached down to fix his trousers. Rolling to his side Morgan kissed her and kept a hand on her cheek as he murmured, “I want you. All of you. Inside and out, Rose.”
His gaze went over her. “You are the most beautiful creature God ever made. The most complex, yes. But, I like that. All those sides of you.”
She cast heavy lidded eyes on him. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you’ll marry me.”
She scooped her hair back and sat up, lifting her hips to do her trousers and button her shirt. Rose got to her feet and took one of the canteens, tossing him the other. Using a strip of leather from the saddle, she tied her hair back after cleaning up with a bandanna.
Morgan cleaned up too, watching her, not liking the closed off expression on her face. When he was done, the canteen back on his saddle, he went to where she was ready to mount and took her arm, turning her to face him. Light green eyes probed those gray depths as he insisted quietly, “Talk to me.”