Finally he bent his mouth to her ear again. “Hold on, then. Coming back is a bit less smooth.”
Again the muscles in his legs tightened and a long, sexy “eaaaasy, mate,” purred from his throat. Like a Lamborghini switching gears, Tully dropped from his canter to a piston-like two-beat trot. Rio flopped a little until the downshift came again, and Tully walked on as steadily as if he’d never changed gaits at all.
“Oh my gosh.” Rio could barely contain herself. “I’ve never felt anything like that in my life.” She twisted her head to look at him.
“You did great.” He kissed her quickly on the side of the mouth. Then he handed her the reins. “Here. Take over.”
“Oh no. I’m not—”
He ignored her and released control into her hands, snaking his arms around her waist instead. A wash of desire spread through her belly and into her limbs. A soft kiss landed on her hair, then another behind her ear.
“Don’t tell a soul I went riding double without helmets,” he whispered. “I feel naked without it, but it’s worth the sense of danger.”
“Good thing you’re not really naked.” Her voice rasped even to her own ears. “Who knows what I’d do then.”
“I’d like to find out sometime.” He pointed over her shoulder before she could respond. “Head for that gate.”
The reins, instead of taking away her control, made her feel more powerful. David still cocooned her, but his legs no longer held the key to Tully’s route. Instead, he let her pick the path, and his implicit trust lifted her to a high she’d never known.
“It’s not so difficult this, is it?”
“Not with the perfect teacher.”
“It’s not teaching, it’s more like dancing with the right partner.”
He tightened his arms and dragged her bottom two inches backward, settling her more securely against him. A quicksilver thrill dove through her core. Before it could dissipate, he nuzzled her neck again, loosened his hold, and dragged his fingers slowly across her stomach.
“Isn’t there some rule about not distracting the driver?” she whispered. “You don’t want me closing my eyes here.”
“That’s right. Don’t close your eyes,” he commanded. “Concentrate. This is a test.”
“Of what?” she croaked.
“Of your ability to resist me.”
“Well, just give me an F right off the bat. I won’t pass.”
“You have to. We aren’t at the gate yet.”
“What’s so special . . .?”
He halted her words by pulling her T-shirt free of her jeans and stroking her skin softly beneath the hem, up her stomach, to the fabric of her bra. She gasped when his fingers climbed one satin-covered mound and fingered the nipple.
“When you get to the gate, I’ll stop.”
She whimpered at his touch. “I know how to turn this horse right around.”
“But you absolutely won’t.” He moved to her other breast, cupping it and stroking with his thumb.
“This is completely unfair. I can’t touch you back.”
“You have no idea how wrong you are.”
She shifted restlessly.
He let go of her waist with his other hand and slipped it up to meet the first. With a hand on each of her breasts, he teased lightly until she could barely follow his directive to keep her eyes on their destination. When he buried his lips in the hollow beneath her ear and nibbled, the shock waves hit too strongly. She pulled back on the reins with a groan, and Tully halted.
“I don’t want to pass this stupid test. I quit.”
“Fine.” He extracted his hands and, to her surprise, slipped off the horse with graceful ease. Putting his hands up for her, he tugged her down into his arms. “Hang on. Let me take his bridle off.”
He unbuckled the bridle throatlatch in two seconds and pulled on the crownpiece behind Tully’s ears. The horse spit the bit neatly out of his mouth and shook his head vigorously.
“You’re letting him go?”
“It’s all fenced. He’ll come when I call him later.”
He patted the big horse on the rump, and Tully ambled off until he found a patch of grass to his liking. David hung the bridle on a tree flanking a decent-sized log jump.
“What are we doing in the middle of the field?”
He spun her fully to face him and devoured her mouth with another kiss. Her knees nearly buckled at the expertise. Just as had happened back in the barn, she barely recognized this David. The gentle acquiescent son and host was gone. In his place was a confident, skillful man—the unapologetic knight who’d brought her here.
“C’mon,” he said, after ending the kiss. “What I came to show you isn’t far.”
He grabbed her hand. Two minutes later they passed through the gate, and twenty steps after that David led her onto a narrow path straight into the woods. The air cooled immediately, and the scent of pine tickled her nostrils. Another minute later the woods opened up slightly around a rough-hewn structure like something out of Little House on the Prairie.
“It’s an old hunting shelter,” he said, pushing open a heavy pine-slab door. “It was on the property when I bought it, and I purposely left this whole area outside the fence untouched. Most people don’t know it’s here.”
“Do you use it for anything?”
“Only my trysts and illicit liaisons.”
She whipped her head around to stare at him, and he made a face.
“Dork,” she admonished.
“I haven’t ever had a woman out here, if you must know. I’ve done a couple of poker nights by lantern light with a few fellows. I used to love camping. When things get too much now and again, I come spend the night.”
The one-room miniature cabin definitely wasn’t set up as any sort of love nest, but oddly enough it seemed to reflect more of David than his whole beautiful home did. A battered wooden table and three chairs sat by the room’s one, small window. A single bed with a simple rail headboard made of smooth, slender logs stood against the opposite wall—a woolen Hudson’s Bay blanket tucked neatly into the frame and two pillows with mismatched cases propped at its head. Three shelves held some metal dishes, a cast-iron fry pan, and a coffeepot. A can of coffee and a box of granola bars were the only food she saw. And in a far corner, beside a simple, Franklin-type stove, sat an old Western saddle, a thick saddle pad, and a bucket.
On the wall over the bed hung a picture. Of a palomino stallion.
Rio covered her mouth and stared. For an instant sorrow threatened to overwhelm her. She’d resolutely kept from dwelling on what she’d lost—but this was so similar to the picture from her room that the memories came roaring back.
“Oh love, I’m sorry.” David closed the door and gathered her into his arms. “I forgot about the picture.”
“It’s all right.”
It was—with his arms around her.
The kiss this time was nothing like the swashbuckling hero’s claim-staking of minutes before. This one they sought together. Rio poured her overflowing heart into exploration. Sadness, softness, tenderness, and neediness. David accepted it all, drawing her tongue into the warmth of his mouth, kissing away the last vestiges of sadness, healing her with touch and gentleness.
They bumped into the bed frame as they lost track of space and movement. When David sat on the mattress and pulled her onto his lap, the breach in their kiss lasted barely half a second. Only when he laid back, rolled her over him and to her side, and draped one leg over both hers did she twist to free herself.
“David, oh, I don’t think I’m . . .”
“Sssh.” He lifted his head and combed the fingers of both hands into her hair. “I have no plans to ravage you. I didn’t plan this, however deviously it might seem I’ve enticed you here. There’s no mutual agreement, and no protection in my pocket. That’s not my style, I promise.”
The honest, regret-filled words brought her willingly back into his arms.
“Thank you.”
“You make me want to have reckless fun again. I’m more worried about what that means than about you ravaging me.”
“And you make me laugh.”
“Great.” She didn’t really want to make him laugh.
“In all the right ways—the best ways, Rio. Plus, you make me think tattoos are gorgeous. That’s what I’m worried about.”
“Name them.”
“What?”
“Name the tattoos you know I have.” She smiled impishly at his widened eyes.
“Heaven help me, Arionna Montoya, I never know what to expect from you.” She watched his Adam’s apple bob. “The horse.”
She wriggled from his hold, rolled, and unsnapped her jeans. She turned around and pulled down the waistband.
“Man,” he breathed, and his finger traced the fine lines, sending goose bumps across her back. When he kissed the lowest point of the horse’s neck, just above the cleft of her cheeks, a tremor set her shivering. She spun back to face him.
“Next.”
“There’s an owl.”
She pulled off her left tennis shoe and sock and yanked up her pant leg. He smiled and kissed the owl’s beak right above her ankle. Drizzles of pleasure flowed up her calf.
He went after the black-and-white stars and moon on her right side next, leaving wet tongue kisses on each star point and the horns of the moon. Heat blazed on the damp spots when he lifted his head and exposed them to air—like ice turned to fire.
“The feather,” he said.
Deliberately she sat and pulled at the hem of her T-shirt. With hands shaking because it was a completely foreign act to strip slowly for a guy, she managed to work the shirt up and over her head. Brief embarrassment followed the clumsy show, and she sat before him with jeans unbuttoned and bra exposed. His eyes went straight to the subtly shaded blue-and-white feather alongside her breast, and he sat up. Without a word he worked her onto his lap, legs straddling his, and leaned forward to kiss the tattoo, curling his arms beneath hers and grasping her shoulders from behind.
She kissed his hair while he kissed her skin but couldn’t maintain it when his lips followed the feather’s stem into the valley between her breasts. When he nipped gently at the soft skin where the tattoo ended, her head fell back. She held him to her, reveling in the magical connection between the actual location of his mouth and the warm pulsing much lower between her legs.
“I haven’t seen the others,” he murmured. “You said there were six.”
“The butterflies on my left foot and ankle.”
She lifted the foot still clad in a shoe and David removed it. “My dad loved Monarch butterflies,” she said when the tats were revealed. “His over-the-road handle was Monarch, and I guess he liked to call my mother Mrs. M. These are my most recent ones. I got them on my twenty-first birthday. I guess because I was missing Dad.”
“Amazing. They nearly look alive.” David held her foot in his hands and studied the butterfly with folded wings just to the outside of her foot and then the one in flight just over her ankle.
“A good tattooist is a true artist.”
“So you’re beginning to convince me.”
“You don’t need to kiss the smelly barn feet.” She giggled as he traced the delicate Monarch wings on her ticklish skin.
“Not smelly.” He smiled. “I’ll do it to finish the quest for number six.”
She hesitated a moment, sure she wanted to show him but not sure she should. Everything was moving so quickly. “I’ve never shown it to anyone.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s . . . personal.”
“You don’t have to show it now.”
“I know that.”
“So why me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t trust easily but I trust you. I’m also sure you it wasn’t really as easy as you made it seem to offer me this safe place to fall.” She touched his face, framed it with her palms, and lifted it to meet his eyes. “Maybe I’ll regret this. But I want to show you.”
“I don’t want you to regret anything. I do admit, however, you have me wondering what private place you’ve allowed a tattoo artist to invade.”
He teased her so sweetly it gave her confidence. Pulling her foot free, she knelt before him and slipped the zipper of her jeans down. She shimmied the denim and the waistband of her panties down far enough to expose her stomach, low and to the right of her navel. The stark white heart with purple highlighting was two inches tall, and a purple infinity symbol, one broken in the middle, stood out across the heart’s widest section. The pair were framed by a fine green vine of leaves that trailed toward the top of her thigh.
“It’s a little anticlimactic,” she said, her heart thrumming with nervousness. “I was not quite five when my mother died, but sometimes I think I remember her being the only other person I ever really trusted.”
He didn’t say a word.
“She had a necklace with this symbol on it. I have a picture of her wearing . . .” That memory skidded to a painful stop, devoured by the memory of flames reaching for a night sky. “Shit,” she said, and sank back onto her heels. She was sick to death of weeping, but tears fell again. “I’m sorry.”
He folded her into a fortresslike embrace.
“This will happen often as you remember things you lost. I can’t make it better, but I can tell you you’re not weak.”
“It’s such a lost feeling.”
“It is.”
He sounded like he knew. She didn’t want to believe he was just giving lip service to the words, but she didn’t want to question him either. Uncurling herself, she swiped at her eyes and dragged in a shaky breath.
“I used to have a picture of my mother with the necklace on. Dad says they buried it with her, but that she always said it meant she loved the two of us forever.” She rolled onto her back so he could see it again. “I broke the ends of the infinity sign because she left us too soon. It’s a little silly because I really barely remember her. But what little I do remember is still the warmest feeling I have.”
He bent and kissed her the tattoo, caressing her stomach, dipping into her navel with his thumb and grasping her waist. His touch wiped away the sorrow, and the heat between her legs, so close to where he played, made her groan. Every sensation that had built on the horse, and the walk to this cabin, and in the long moments he’d tortured her tattoos with teeth and tongue now swelled into need.
With consummate skill he touched the tender spot between her legs and stretched up at the same time to seal her lips with his. She moved beneath his hand and opened to the thrust of his tongue. It took only seconds to reach the edge of an abyss that completely stole her breath. For an instant she held back, forced herself not to leap, but it was too late for fear, and she let David push her over the edge. Heat, fire, electricity, and relief engulfed her as she tumbled headlong into the colors of release. From far away she heard herself cry out and, finally, as he slowed the motion of his hand, she heard David’s voice, calling her back.
“Hullo,” he whispered when she opened her eyes. “Did you go far away?”
“To the ends of the world.” She closed her eyes again and felt the smile slip onto her lips.
“Good journey?” He nuzzled her ear. Her chin. Her throat.
She pushed him away and sat up, energy flooding her suddenly as if she’d drunk a magic elixir. “It was the most amazing place. One I’ve never been to before.”
She kissed him and reversed their positions. With one glance she knew his body was treating him exactly as agonizingly as hers had treated her. She traced him through his breeches and relished his groan. Slowly working his belt buckle open, and even more slowly running down the zipper of his fly until she could touch him beneath it, she bent to follow her fingers with a touch from her lips.
“I think it’s time
you got to visit, too.”
Chapter Twenty
* * *
RIO CAME CLOSE to finding an idyllic life during the beginning of that week. David and everyone else dashed around with tails on fire as final show preparations ramped up in earnest, but the connection she now felt with him remained real and electric. So real that Kate didn’t bother her anymore. So real that even when David was at his most stressed and likely to bark at someone, she could make him laugh. Deep in his cocoa-infused eyes was always a secret spark showing he remembered, too.
Tuesday night, the show secretary, pressed anyone she could rope and tie into service filling envelope packets containing bib numbers and show information for the competitors. Bonnie, Kim, Kate and Stella helped. Rio, finagled her way onto Andy, David, and Dawson’s group that got to mark the final cross-country course. Working outdoors—not to mention simply being with David, was infinitely more stimulating than stuffing envelopes.
On Wednesday, two flatbed trailers arrived stacked with fence panels and gates. Rio left for work while the trucks were being unloaded. When she returned in the afternoon, both indoor arenas were filled with temporary stalls, and Bonnie, Kim, and all the younger riders hopped around like rabbits labeling them with competitor names.
A dozen Port-A-Potties had been delivered and placed strategically around the barns, stables, and far end of the jumping field. With shiny stadium jumps set prism-like in the outdoor arena, and two beautiful dressage arenas, fenced with low, white chains, set up on a section of flat pasture, Bridge Creek turned into a festival grounds.
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