Never had he met such a wild, uninhibited woman. And it made him wild in return. Unable to get enough of her, Wes brought one hand beneath her hips and angled her even more so that he could thrust completely into her. He heard Kam gasp with pleasure, her fingers opening and closing against his shoulders. He wanted to please her, pleasure her. Within seconds, she tensed like an overdrawn bowstring. A gasp escaped her and she trembled violently like a leaf in a mighty storm. Sensing the gripping and releasing around his shaft, he gritted his teeth and his eyes shuttered closed.
As she climaxed, Wes’s body grew hot and the violent eruption of his own orgasm coincided with hers. For a moment they hung in a nether world, fused together, frozen and in a waterfall of bliss that took them higher.
Kam tried to catch her breath as Wes sank heavily against her. He was breathing roughly, the warm moisture caressing her face. She wrapped her arms around him as he laid his head next to hers. Her body sang with a brightness she’d never before experienced. Whatever they had shared was pure magic and her body thrummed like a well-played instrument. His hand moved down the flank of her hip, caressing her, letting her know how much he cherished her. When his mouth met hers and he kissed her ever so gently, it brought tears to Kam’s closed eyes. He smelled of musk, her body scent. Like an aphrodisiac, she inhaled it and the sweat that made Wes the man he was. The glorious sensations still rippled inside her. Every time he moved his hips, her body responded.
Lifting himself up on his elbows, Wes looked down into her tender blue gaze. He smiled as she smiled. When she threaded her fingers through his hair, he felt his heart widen with a joy he’d never known existed. “You’re magic,” he told her roughly.
“No, you are,” Kam whispered tremulously. She moaned softly as he angled his hips and thrust teasingly into her. To her surprise, he grew hard all over again. But then she wanted him, too. “More,” she demanded, drowning in his stormy gaze.
Wes was stunned by how his body had a life of its own with her. “We’re wild animals,” he agreed against her lips. “I like it….”
Kam closed her eyes, feeling her needy body responding to him all over again. She moved her hips, drawing him deep within her once more. The heat built within her and she smiled. “I like it a whole lot, too. Let’s do it again….”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AN HOUR later, they lay exhausted in each other’s arms, the colorful stained-glass lamp throwing rainbow-colored patches across the ceiling and parts of the room. Together, they eased off the bed and showered. Afterward, they dressed and left their secret place of love. Kam would always feel that this room was special—for them. They took the stairs and exited through the feed room once more to avoid detection.
Outside the feed-room door, bathed in darkness, Wes pressed her gently against the barn. He looked into her eyes. “I have a past that dogs me but I’m working to be here with you.”
Kam slid her fingers up across his shoulders. “We all have ghosts from our past, darling. I know we need time and talking. And especially more of this.” She angled her eyes toward the barn. Wes grinned and caressed her cheeks with his roughened fingers. His hands had loved her body into a glowing hunger. His mouth, such a delicious part of his male anatomy, made her hot and shaking once more. Kam wondered if she would ever get over her hunger for him, for his strong, lean body loving her. Whatever the powerful emotions that lay between them, they were binding. Kam felt it in the depths of her pounding heart like an oak tree taking root.
“I don’t want to leave,” Wes told her in a husky tone.
“I know,” Kam said softly. “I wish I could just stay with you all night up there in the barn.”
“We’ll make sure it happens as often as you want.”
She was grateful for his allowing her to make the decision on such intimacy. “We’ll have to be careful. I don’t want anyone in the family knowing. At least, not yet.”
“Right,” Wes agreed. “Too much is going on now. We’ll be careful.”
Giving him a final kiss, Kam whispered, “Hungry?”
He chuckled and pulled her away from the barn. “For you.” Only you. The words, I love you, flew up into his throat. How badly Wes wanted to share them with Kam. But it wasn’t the right time. She had to integrate into her new family. His father had just died. Everything was in chaos right now. Kissing her brow, Wes knew he had to wait for a quieter time in their lives. Eventually, the time would come. Looking into her shining eyes filled with the happiness he knew he’d given her, Wes gulped the words back down inside himself. Patience—that would be his watchword in the meantime.
Placing his arm around Kam’s shoulders, they walked out of the darkness and into the light at the front of the barn. The horses snorted gently and Wes could hear them munching contentedly on their hay. Everything was perfect as they ambled companionably past the corral.
“What’s this?”
Kam jerked to a halt, surprised by Allison’s intrusion. Her voice held sharp censure and she stood there glaring at them. Because of the nearby ranch-house lights, she could see the older woman’s bright red lips twisted into a savage grimace. How much had she seen?
“Taking candy out of the store, Wes?” Allison asked, her tone taunting.
She was dressed for dinner in a pale lilac silk dress with matching heels. The amethyst necklace around her throat went with her dangling earrings. As always, the woman’s hair was kept in place with plenty of hairspray that they could smell even from where they stood.
Wes felt anger stir in him as he met the woman’s judgmental gaze. “Mrs. Mason. Good evening,” he said, his voice low and respectful.
Kam sensed his immediate tension but quietly admired how he didn’t take her bait. “I don’t know that it’s any of your business what Wes or I do, Allison.” Since becoming a legitimate member of the family, Kam had held her tongue. But not tonight. She was damned if this harpy eagle was going to start savaging something so beautiful. All her joy evaporated beneath Allison’s accusing stare.
Allison lifted her chin imperiously. “Since when, little girl, do you get away with being disrespectful toward me?”
Kam held Allison’s glare. The woman looked positively garish in the sulfur light.
“If anyone has been disrespectful,” Kam shot back, “it’s you, Allison. We’re allowed to be together, and we don’t need you poisoning it.”
Allison smirked. “Mind your tongue, girl. You might be a part of this family, but you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. I’m Rudd’s wife in case you forgot.”
Kam saw the woman’s face twist and the glitter increase in her narrowed eyes. Heart pounding, she felt her patience thin to the point where she wanted to fly at the woman and chase her off. Kam had never had these urges before, but Allison now brought out the worst in her. Again, she felt Wes’s hand gripping her shoulder as if in a silent warning to say nothing more.
After so many months of Allison’s innuendoes and digging remarks, Kam could no longer control herself. “Allison, I came from a family where we respected one another. My adopted mother would never say such awful things to me. My adopted father, Morgan, raised me to have manners. When I came here, I was shocked by your behavior. You rule this place like the queen bee and you expect all of us to bow and scrape to you. Well, that’s not going to happen. I will no longer take your snide remarks. If you are going to be nasty, I’ll fight back.”
“You little bitch,” Allison breathed, her fine nostrils flaring. “How dare you!”
“All I ask is respect from you and everyone else. If you can’t give that to me, Allison, then I’ll take you on,” Kam breathed, her voice tense.
“You’re nothing,” Allison whispered unsteadily. “You’re the offspring of a one-night stand. You have no pedigree. You have no history or family heritage.”
Quivering, Kam wanted to lunge at the woman. But then she saw the fear in Allison’s eyes. Why would she be afraid? “I’ll let my daily walk through life be a statement o
f who I am,” Kam told her. “Your assessment means nothing to me. You think everyone is beneath you anyway. You live in a plastic world and you’re only with Rudd for six months out of the year. You raised your children. And when they needed a mother, not a Hollywood starlet, you weren’t there for them. What does that make you?”
With a cry of rage, Allison flew at her.
Startled, Kam froze for just a second. She’d been in too many civil-war situations and had read the woman correctly. She’d been attacked by soldiers intent on killing her. Kam never carried a weapon, but she knew karate. Wes cursed softly beneath his breath and put himself between the women.
“Stop, Allison,” Wes commanded in a dark voice.
The woman came to a halt inches from Wes, breathing hard. Her mouth twisted into a snarl, her small fists clenched.
“Get out of the way, Sheridan!” she barked.
Kam took a step back. It was something new for a man to stand between her and a threat. Her adrenaline heightened, Kam watched as Wes held Allison’s glare. The woman looked like an eagle ready to tear both of them to shreds.
“Allison,” Wes said in a low voice, “I think you need to go back to the ranch house. This isn’t going anywhere. I’ll walk you back to the office.”
Without waiting, Wes slipped his hand beneath Allison’s elbow and turned her around. “This isn’t the way to settle things,” Wes told her in a soothing tone. “When you sleep on it, you’ll see the wisdom of walking away. Come one.”
Kam watched Wes mollify the angry woman. Looking up, she saw the blanket of the Milky Way spreading like spilled, glittering milk across the darkened sky. Her heart felt as though it was leaping out of her chest. Taking in an unsteady breath, Kam began to walk in order to ease the adrenaline charge in her bloodstream. After circling the corral twice, she slowed down. The trail horses munched on grass hay as Kam hitched one foot up on the lowest pipe rung of the fence. Closing her eyes, she rested her arms on the pipe fence and pressed her head down upon them.
“Are you all right?”
Wes’s voice washed over her like a cooling blanket to the heat and anger she felt inside. “I will be. Thanks for stopping her. I—I don’t know what I’d have done,” she whispered.
“I saw you go into your civil-war mode,” he teased grimly. He placed his arm across her shoulders. “It’s going to be all right, Kam.”
Pushing a few strands off her brow, she sighed deeply. “I should have ignored her but I couldn’t. Not anymore…”
“Allison is hard on everyone,” Wes agreed. He studied her profile. “I felt you shift. I’ve never experienced that feeling before with anyone,” he told her quietly. “It was as if you were a different person when she attacked you. And I had an invisible cord attached to you to sense it.”
Laughing sharply, Kam said, “Now you’ve seen my PTSD side.”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder?”
“Yes. That was one of the reasons I quit my job. My adopted father spotted those symptoms in me. He sat me down one night and told me what PTSD does to a person. I took at year off and stayed at home after that. I got help from a therapist and made some inroads into my reactions.”
“Well,” Wes told her, “when you’re about to get killed, anyone would go into that mode, don’t you think?”
“No question,” Kam murmured, feeling the warmth of his strong hand on her shoulder. She loved how Wes would lift his hand and lightly stroke her back as if he were gentling a fractious horse. She hungered for his touch, his way of calming her. “Morgan told me that he’d had PTSD from all his experiences, too. I asked him if it ever all went away and he said no. And then, he laughed and said that if I were ever in a dangerous situation again, I’d know how to survive. You just saw me face down danger.”
Grimly, Wes looked over his shoulder at the ranch house. “I can’t believe Allison attacked you. In the two years I’ve been here, she’s been all bluff with nasty, digging comments. I’ve never seen her do what she did tonight.”
“She sees me as a genuine threat to her life,” Kam growled. “At least I know what she really thinks of me.”
“You can bet Allison is going to tell Rudd, but it won’t be the truth.”
Kam gazed at Wes’s darkened face, noticed the worry banked in his eyes. “What do you think will happen?”
“It will be our word against hers,” Wes said tiredly. “Allison has taken being a drama queen to a high art form. She’s good at blaming others and never taking responsibility for herself in those actions. Allison will get her way, whatever it is.”
Kam shrugged. “What? She’ll throw me off the ranch? Rudd or Iris won’t allow that to happen.”
“I really didn’t know how dangerous Allison can be,” Wes confided. “She’s like a lioness when it comes to her children. It’s all about the will.”
Kam shook her head. “I could care less about that will.”
“But Allison cares,” Wes warned her. “I’ve watched her try to maneuver Iris for two years. The old gal won’t budge and she understands Rudd’s wife better than anyone.”
“That’s all I hear from Allison at the breakfast and lunch table,” Kam grumbled. “It’s always about the damned will. She’s constantly making snide reminders that Iris has to give Regan and Zach equal shares of the ranch when she dies. It sickens me.”
“God,” Wes muttered. “I couldn’t sit there and listen to that kind of stuff every day.”
“Well, obviously, I can’t, either,” Kam said wryly, looking up at him. Just absorbing Wes into her heart calmed her.
Wes laughed a little. “She had it coming. It’s none of her business of what goes on between you and me.”
“She’s trying to run my life,” Kam said unhappily. “Rudd and Iris warned me about her.”
“Good thing you stood up to her,” Wes told her with a slight smile. He saw Kam’s eyes widen a little. “Because Iris and Rudd have lived with Allison for so many years, they’re are able to disconnect from her verbal attacks. Sort of like water rolling off a duck’s back.”
“Not me,” Kam said darkly. “I grew up in my adopted family respected and loved. We never had anything like this going on between any of us, Wes.”
“I’m glad you had that experience before you got here,” Wes said, meaning it. “You know what’s normal. Allison makes this family behave in a twisted way. Rudd won’t take her in hand and tell her to stop.”
“I’ve often wondered why Rudd won’t talk to her. Your family was abnormal, too,” Kam reminded him softly. She reached out and slid her arm around his shoulders.
“It was,” Wes agreed, needing her touch once more. “I knew that not all families were like my own. I had friends who had loving families like yours. That’s what I wanted when I got married, but that got screwed up by my bad choice.”
“Hey, Wes, we all make mistakes.” She gently moved her hand up and down his strong back.
“You don’t seem to.”
Raising her brows, Kam said, “Oh, I have. I just didn’t marry any of the guys, fortunately.”
“At least there, you had good luck,” Wes told her, sharing a soft smile with Kam.
“Maybe,” she said, holding his tender gaze. Kam brushed his cheek with her fingertips. The sandpaper quality of it made her skin tingle. “We all make a lot of mistakes, Wes. The deal is to learn from them.”
Wes kissed the top of her hand and held it. “Maybe I’ve been too hard on myself regarding my marriage. I’m beginning to see that. I was looking at you through that lens until recently and it wasn’t fair to you. Or to me.”
Turning, Kam moved into his arms. “Wes, I’m not her and you know that. You’re moving out from under that shadow and you’re seeing us differently.” Touching his cheek, Kam whispered unsteadily, “And I’m glad. I just think you’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. I want to continue to explore what we have.”
Leaning down, Wes brushed her waiting lips and they parted beneath his. He smel
led the scent of earth mixed with her sweet femininity. Her mouth opened to welcome him in and her arms slid around his shoulders, drawing him strongly against her contoured body. They fitted together, Wes thought, like long-lost puzzle pieces that had searched a lifetime for one another. Where he was hard, she was soft and undulating. A woman’s body reminded him of a valley with hills and mountains. How badly he wanted to explore every inch of Kam once more. But the time was not right now.
Reluctantly, Wes withdrew from her soft, wet lips. He looked deeply into her warm blue eyes. In them, Wes saw love. For him. He was glad he could recognize that look. “Listen to me,” he told her in a gruff tone, “be careful. Allison is going to take this confrontation and blow it out of proportion. She’ll probably do it tomorrow at breakfast, so be prepared.”
Kam smiled. “Don’t worry, Wes. I promise I won’t leap across the table at her when she attacks me. I don’t believe Rudd will side with Allison, no matter what her charges are against me.”
The words, I love you, begged to be torn from his lips once again. How badly Wes wanted to whisper them to Kam. Clearly, love was glistening in her blue eyes. “Well,” he managed, “just be careful. I’ll make sure I’m around tomorrow morning. I’ll send out my assistant to ride the fence line and hang around. I don’t trust that woman.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ALLISON FOUND Rudd and Iris in the living room. They were enjoying their after-dinner coffee and apple crumb cake in their respective overstuffed red leather chairs. As she stormed into the room, she didn’t care that Iris was present. Her heels dug into the bearskin rug. Hands clenched, she marched up to them, breathing hard. Rudd frowned and lowered his coffee cup.
“Allison? What’s wrong?”
Feeling as if her eyes were bulging out of her head, she strangled out in a rush, “It’s that bitch! I’ve had it, Rudd!” Taking her right hand, she shoved her index finger down at the floor. “I want her gone. Now! I don’t care if she’s your long-lost daughter.”
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