by Robyn Grady
She cocked her head. “Having withdrawals?”
“I could really do with a fix. You’re gorgeous in L.A. but here…”
His mouth captured hers again—and this time didn’t let go. It got so heated, he began to seriously wonder if his shirt might suffice as a blanket. All the way out here, no one would find them.
When the kiss finally broke, she sighed and looked around. “I’ve been riding out here by myself since I was nine years old.” She plucked some grass and twisted the stems around a finger as he leaned against the trunk beside her. “I know nearly every inch of this land.” She turned around and, with a faint smile, drew a fingertip around an old carving on the tree. “I engraved my name here years ago. I was old enough to want to wear makeup but young enough that my dad would’ve freaked if I had. My mom was gone by then.”
Dex saw another name carved beneath hers, faint now after so many years. He tapped the wood.
“Who’s this?”
Her lips tightened. “Reese.”
“The so-called friend who stole your guy.”
“We don’t speak anymore.”
“No kidding.”
She winced, as if reliving some hurt, then stuck fingers in her mouth and blew out a shrill whistle that echoed over the plain. “Stellar will be back soon.”
“But I’d planned to kiss you at least twenty or thirty more times before we went on. It’s so shady and quiet.” His arms coaxed her near again. “All I want to do is make love to you.” His grin brushed her lips. “Then again, what’s new?”
But she dodged out of his hold and, playing, slid away from him around one side of the giant trunk. She would expect him to follow that way so he crept around the other. When he caught her from behind, she yelped and jumped around, right into his waiting arms.
He took that kiss and would’ve taken more except that the blasted horse was back, nudging his shoulder with her big hairy snout. Finally, Dex threw up his arms.
“Will someone tell that nag to quit pushing me around?”
“She wants to keep moving.” Shelby grabbed her reins, and in one fluid movement, sat perched in her saddle again. “I’ll race you.”
It took him an embarrassingly long time to mount and that was with Stellar standing perfectly still, looking at him pityingly every other time he bounced up but failed to get his blasted leg over. Finally they were trotting off, catching up to the pink gingham shirt disappearing into the distance.
Though he tried, he couldn’t stop his horse from taking up more steam. By the time he reached the old barn where Shelby had stopped and was waiting, he never wanted to say or hear the words, “Whoa, girl,” ever again.
“This is your secret place?” he asked.
“For the longest time.”
Inside, empty stalls lined both walls. Another large wooden door closed off the far end. A crude ladder led to a quiet loft. The hay scattered over the floor and stacked in one corner didn’t smell fresh but neither had it lain there for years.
She tossed her hat and it hooked onto a nail on a post. “It’s not exactly the Beverly Hills Hotel,” she said.
“It has its own charm. I like the decor. Early American provincial barn, if I’m not mistaken.”
Tossing his own hat at the post, looking away before it fell to the floor, he brought her near, tucking his thumbs into her belt and fanning his fingers over the rise of her behind. He looked around and nodded.
“In fact, I feel quite at home here.”
“This used to be our land, too.”
His brow jumped. Used to be? “We won’t be shot for trespassing.”
“Don’t worry. My father sold off this chunk a couple years back. The new owner lives in Connecticut and just lets it sit. It’s up for sale again.”
“Maybe Zeb should buy it back.”
“That money’s gone. At least my dad’s debt-free, though. Lots of folk aren’t.” She rotated around and he brought her back to lean against him while she took in their surroundings. “I’ve been coming here so long. It’ll be weird when it’s passed on to someone who’ll use it.”
She found his hand and led him to the back door. The iron latch creaked as it opened and let a warm breeze in.
“See that hill? I used to dream about building my own place up there. More like a castle than a ranch, with a moat and drawbridge.” She grinned. “I was very young.”
“Did you imagine a Prince Charming riding up on his horse?”
Looking out, she shrugged. “Every girl dreams.”
He didn’t want to ask but, still, he had to know. “Have you brought anyone else here?”
“Not a soul.”
“All this time?” Not even the ex?
“No one.” She squeezed his hand. “Guess I was waiting to show it to someone truly special.”
Deep in his chest, he felt the tug. If she thought he was special, he thought she was spectacular. He’d known women before. Some he’d enjoyed more than others. But he’d meant what he’d said to Zeb Scott. He cared for Shelby a great deal.
When his gaze wandered past her shoulder, he flinched at what he saw hung on a nearby wall.
“That rifle looks more like a club.”
“It’s just for snakes if they want to get too territorial. And for target practice.”
“No shooting apples off heads, I hope.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it but I’m a pretty mean aim.”
“A real-life Annie Oakley.”
“Annie was reputed to have said that she would like to see every woman know how to handle her firearm as naturally as she knew how to handle her babies.”
He dragged a palm down his face. “Life must’ve been tough in the Wild West.”
“In some ways, sure. But they didn’t have all the distractions, either. Except the old-fashioned kind.”
Butting a shoulder against the wall, he grinned. “I’d like to hear more about those distractions.” He rolled a hand through the air. “Perhaps a demonstration.”
She arched a brow before putting her weight on one leg and flicking open the top button of her shirt, then the next. When he began to breathe again and the shirt was completely undone, she tugged the tails out from her belt and turned around. Like a pro, she raised a cute shoulder as she looked at him from beneath her lashes and, opening her shirt, skimmed the shirt to and fro, inch by inch, down her back. When the fabric dropped to the ground, Dex physically shook himself and blew air out between his lips, horny stallion style.
“I hope that’s not the end of the show.”
“I need help.” She rotated around to face him. “With my boots.”
She backed up to steady her weight against a stall door. When she stuck out her right leg, he knelt before her and wrapped one palm around the dusty leather heel, the other over the toe. The boot finally came off with a pop. He fell back on his saddle-sore butt.
She smothered her grin. “If this is too much for you…”
“Just give me that other boot already.”
This one was even harder to get off.
As he tugged at her leg, she laughed. “You’d never make a cowboy.”
“I don’t give in.” He grunted, pulled. “Easily.”
That boot popped, too. But he didn’t land on his behind this time. Rather, he tossed the leather aside, straightened to his full height and found her belt. With a deft jerk, he unbuckled it, then whipped the strip out from its loops. While she blinked up at him, his palms sculpted down her bare sides as his head lowered over hers.
* * *
Shelby thought it felt more like a year than a week since he’d held her this close. As he kissed her thoroughly, scooping his hands over her hips then down the inside of her jeans, she set to work unbuttoning his shirt. His jerking and shaki
ng told her he was heeling off his boots, which were, thankfully, less stubborn than her own.
She eased her lips away and led him into a stall. From a blanket box she brought out a quilt she kept there for chilly afternoons and laid it on a soft patch of hay. She held out her hand.
“Come lie with me.”
He took her hands and together they dissolved onto their makeshift bed.
His kisses were so thoughtful and tender that emotion rose to tickle behind her nose and her eyes. When her breath gave a lurch in her throat, he must have guessed that—being here with him in this place, in this way—had left her a little overwhelmed. As her eyes drifted shut, he dropped a single kiss on each lid before his mouth skimmed down to find her lips again, parted and welcoming.
Without disturbing their kiss, she slid her jeans and underwear off her legs. He did the same. Then he curled over her and kissed her quivering belly, then her breasts still cupped in a white lace bra. Finally his tongue trailed up the line of her throat. Gently he sucked a throbbing pulse point and liquid heat rushed to the heart of her and pooled. As she sighed out a breath, he rolled onto his back. She found herself swept up so that she straddled him, her thighs draped over his.
Warm strong fingers rode up over her ribs. As she leaned in, he weighed and stroked her breasts before he scooped both out of their cups; the surrounding lace pushed them together and up. With his palms oh-so-lightly brushing the nipples, she shifted to lower her chest over his head. As he drew one nipple into his mouth, his hand smoothed down her front until his touch pressed over her pubic mound then slid between the opening at her thighs.
She was slung over him on her hands and knees. As his fingers explored her folds and his tongue teased that nipple, she moved her hips, her shoulders, and gave herself over to the thrill. The sensations grew ever deeper, flashed even hotter. When he began flicking and circling that most sensitive part of her, she held on for as long as she could before her body began to tense and burning pressure started to build and condense.
She needed to come—but not yet.
She reached for his jeans. Finding a foil wrap inside his wallet, she brought out the condom and rolled it over his shaft. Then she maneuvered until she was poised at the right angle above him. She snapped the clasp at her back and her bra dropped away.
His gaze was dark and hungry as his splayed hands trailed up the outside of her arms, along her shoulders to her cheeks. And as she studied his face—his hooded eyes, proud nose, strong shadowed jaw—she knew the decision to bring Dex here was the right one.
This structure had been her greatest place of pleasure as well as her deepest source of shame. Next time she visited, chances were this block of land would be sold. If this was her last time, she wanted only happy memories. Healing thoughts. And having this man envelop and adore her here this way was more than she could have hoped for.
He gripped her hips and guided her down onto his erection, more and more until he filled her. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the glorious rhythmic rub. The push and pull created a glowing friction that quickly lit a flame. With her palms braced on his chest, she rocked more against him, shifting her position enough for each thrust to achieve maximum sensation, hopefully for them both.
As their pace increased, the flame sizzled its way up one very short fuse. Looking down into his face, at that broad bronzed beautiful chest as muscles rippled and crunched, this time she couldn’t stop the conflagration.
She threw her head back as shining bullets shot through her veins and embedded in her core. Quivering with contractions about to break, she hunched down into herself and let go. That pulsing kernel of heat exploded. Clinging on to his chest, thighs squeezing in over his, she shuddered as a delicious deep wave crashed over her and she was swept away.
Eleven
“You’re looking for something?”
Dex was zipping his jeans as he watched Shelby, wrapped in that light blanket, gazing out the stall window she’d opened a moment ago.
“No.” Her back to him, she shook her head. “Not really.”
Closing the distance between them, he held her shoulders and traced his lips up the slope of her neck to her ear. Those times after making love with Shelby, he’d been left with a delicious buzz humming through his blood. He’d felt sated. Lucky. But this time, it was different. It was…special. She’d invited him into her private little world, so different to anything in his, and he’d appreciated the sentiment in a way that warmed his bones. That left him thinking of a next level.
Not marriage. That leap was a long way off for him. But perhaps after everything had settled down and Tate had returned to Sydney, he could ask if Shelby wanted to stay on. Live together. A huge jump for him. Now the idea of sharing his life that intimately with another person both frightened and excited him. And if it didn’t work out…
He dropped a kiss on her temple.
He wouldn’t think that far ahead. Things had a way of working out, even if sometimes that meant moving on. If it came to that, Shelby had survived one breakup—a doozy from what he could make out. If their relationship soured, well, they were adults.
Hell, she might not even want to live with him.
He bundled her up in his arms. “So whatcha looking at?”
“Many years ago, I rode out here one morning and found a fawn tucked in below that brush just over there.” She pointed to a dense thicket. “She was so young, and those big gorgeous eyes stole my heart in a second. I just sat back here, watching, waiting for her mom to come get her. The fawn would push up to stand and call out to her mom for a while then lie back down. When I crept out there to check on her, she’d lay flat down in the grass, like she was dead, not moving an inch.”
“Survival mechanism,” he guessed, peering out, imagining the fawn and an enchanted Shelby.
“When it got on past noon, I started to worry. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to bring her home but what if her mama came back. I decided to ride back and get my dad. He’d know what to do. But he wasn’t happy with me. You see I’d forgotten that my mother was leaving to see her sister in the next state. My aunt was having her first baby.”
“You didn’t want to go with your mother?”
“I was supposed to pack some things that morning. But now I only wanted to keep that fawn safe. My mother had waited until I got back.” Shelby smiled over her shoulder at Dex. “She wasn’t mad. She was the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Except whenever Oklahoma lost a major league game.”
He chuckled. “So your mom headed off without you.”
“We kissed, said goodbye, and she left in the Chevy while Dad and I galloped back here.” Her head tipped back to rest against his shoulder. “The fawn was gone.”
“Mrs. Deer came to fetch her, after all.”
“When we got word about Mom later that day, that was the first thing that popped into my head.”
Dex drew a breath, held her tighter. “What happened?”
“She’d said she wanted to make her first stopover on the way to my aunt’s by dark. But waiting for me to get back had held her up. She’d kept driving through when she should have stopped. Should have rested. The Chevy hit a post around eleven that night. They said she died instantly, but I sometimes wonder how anyone could know that for sure.”
He cupped her head, gently kissed her crown. Shelby blamed herself.
“It was an accident. Nobody’s fault.”
She nodded. After a long moment, she said, “I like to think that the mother came back for her fawn and they went home to the woods together.”
His heart breaking for her, he held her tight. “Honey, I’m sure they did.”
* * *
The weekend came and went. With Tate enjoying these wide-open spaces, Dex suggested they spend a few more days. Zeb was happy. Tate was happier still.
>
The three of them went for long walks and leisurely picnics. Both Tate and Dex’s performance in the saddle improved. Another added bonus was that the initial bond formed between Zeb and Tate grew stronger every day. After the afternoon ritual of feeding the ducks, man and boy would sit together to sort through and shine Zeb’s coins. Zeb even gave Tate a few to start his own collection.
Dex and Shelby had stuck to the separate-rooms arrangement, so it was the afternoons when they spent time alone, usually in Shelby’s abandoned barn.
They’d been there a week when, returning from a ride, she and Dex found her dad in the kitchen, pouring a cup of his strong black coffee with four sugars. Tate was vigorously stirring chocolate syrup into a frosty glass of Murtle’s best.
“I’m heading into town,” Zeb said before pulling down a mouthful. “There’s another leak in the barn roof.”
“How many leaks have you had?” Dex asked, taking a seat next to Tate who was sucking chocolate off his spoon.
“Eighteen this year,” Zeb replied.
“Maybe it’s time for a new roof?” Shelby suggested with a grin when she stopped to thumb chocolate off Tate’s cheek as she crossed to the counter.
“Old one’s fine. Just needs some TLC.” He brushed a kiss on his daughter’s cheek as she poured herself and Dex a cup. “Keeps a man young, repairing things around the place. You handy, Dexter? I should get you up there in a pair of overalls with a mouth full of nails.”
“Sounds…therapeutic,” Dex explained. “But I’m not the world’s best handyman, I’m afraid.”
“Plenty of time to learn.” Zeb drank the rest of his coffee and set his cup down. “When I get back from town, I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“Me too, Zeb?” Tate asked, stirring his milk again.
“You can help me fix that loose plank of the porch,” Zeb said with a wink. “Roof’s a little high for you.”
Shelby handed Dex a full cup and sat down. “It might be a little high for Dex, too. There’s not a big call for fixing barn roofs in L.A.”