Heartbreak Ranch

by Kylie Brant

  Chapter 11

  She stared at him as if he’d become a stranger. And perhaps he had. It had always been easier to assume Jed acted from some deep-seated belief in her incompetence than from any deeper level. Had always been safer to assume so.

  He reached up and brushed a knuckle beneath her eye. She knew her mirror would tell her his touch traced a shadow that lingered there. “You’ve been running yourself ragged. Did you expect me not to notice? Not to care?”

  Her breath clogged in her throat. Jed simply observed everything. She’d always known that. But caring…no. That was unexpected. And achingly touching.

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me. It’s not a weakness to ask for help, to accept it.”

  “Maybe…” The words were difficult to summon, more difficult to force out of her throat. “Maybe I have to prove something to myself.”

  She searched his gaze, wondered if he could understand what it was like to be buffeted by self-doubt, until virtually paralyzed with overanalysis. She doubted he could comprehend even if she could find the words to explain. He’d never seemed to suffer any second thoughts.

  Except for a moment ago. His voice had been harsh, bewildered, as if he truly couldn’t understand the tricks his instincts played on him. He wasn’t alone. Right now she’d give a great deal to understand what was behind his need to protect her, as well.

  He slowly stood, his body brushing against hers as he rose. Her pulse throbbed, and thoughts scattered. It was difficult to think when that piercing gaze was fixed on hers. Hard to remember caution with his thumb tracing her jawline with a touch that trailed heat.

  When his hand dropped away she should have stepped back, should have made a casual remark and an easy escape. But this didn’t seem casual and it didn’t seem easy. She blinked in wonder when he reached for her hand and smoothed his thumb over the blisters she’d gotten from mopping the acres of floors in the house. Her breath caught as his eyes went smoky. He brought her hand to his lips and touched his mouth to her injuries. And her heart quite simply turned over.

  Perhaps she could have fought the fire and hunger that he unleashed in her so easily. But tenderness from this man was impossible to resist, devastating to the senses. He released her hand, tipped her chin up and fanned his fingers across her cheek. And in the seconds before his descending mouth met hers, she could have sworn she saw a flicker of uncertainty on his face.

  His kiss, when it came, wasn’t uncertain. It was the softest of touches, with an underlying hint of possession. She took a breath, drew in his scent. The aroma was a mingling of tobacco, Scotch, and something uniquely Jed, something a little hot and wild. Their lips met, clung and didn’t quite part. Then Julianne heard his breath rasp, felt the quick clench and quiver of nerves jumping in his fingertips, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach. She leaned closer and sank into the kiss.

  This wasn’t the free fall into pleasure she’d come to expect, but a slow, almost gentle glide. The softness of it weakened her knees, the sweetness melted her defenses. His taste was almost familiar now, but different, too, flavored with a hint of hesitation, a dash of expectancy. Surrounded by the still, rigid air of a man used to control.

  She stepped blindly forward, deepening the kiss, welcoming the immediate answering pressure of his mouth on hers. The solid warmth of his body was close. Her hands came up to rest on his chest, smoothed upward to clutch those muscled shoulders. She was in need of something to steady herself, to counteract the dizzying spiral of need that could consume so quickly.

  He put his arms around her and splayed one hand on the skin bared by the backless sundress. Reaction shuddered through her at the stroke of that calloused palm, the fingers that caressed and claimed. Her mouth twisted beneath his, and too late she considered the danger. Slow, lazy sips of him were no less shattering to her senses than taking him in great greedy gulps. The journey was different, but the impact was the same.

  His mouth left hers, cruised to her throat, found a pulse hammering beneath the skin and laved it with his tongue. Her blood immediately thickened, began chugging moltenly through her veins.

  One hand slipped, braced against his chest, and she was once again reminded of his strength, his endurance. He had always seemed so strong, so indestructible. She was captivated to discover that his strength was tempered by taut muscles and skin that was—her fingers slipped between two buttons of his shirt—smooth and hot to the touch.

  He caught her hand in one of his and held it captive, and his words when they came were ragged and harsh. “I’m not fighting it this time, Julianne.” Her eyes fluttered open, and her head continued spinning at the primitive promise etched on his tightly drawn features. “Stay or go, it’s your decision. But you need to make it.” His fingers tightened convulsively on her back and then relaxed. “Now.”

  She studied him through eyes that struggled to close again, wanting to shut in that picture of him: muscles coiled tightly, jaw clenched, and a whisper of dampness glossing his five o’clock shadow. She wondered how long ago her decision had been made. Swaying forward a little, she whispered against his lips, “Stay.” And felt the utter stillness that came over him, a whisper of a moment before his arms yanked her closer and that rigid control sprang free.

  His mouth claimed hers again, and this time there was nothing gentle about the pleasure that rammed through her. The floor abruptly tilted beneath her feet, and she hooked an arm around his neck to anchor herself. His lips were hungry, almost bruising, and there was primitive satisfaction in the moist tangle of tongues, the scrape of teeth.

  Her head fell back, a gesture of surrender she would have denied had she been aware of it. He took immediate advantage, switching his attention to the long line of her throat, the exquisitely sensitive spot behind her ear. With fingers inclined to tremble, she began to release the buttons on his shirt, guided only by an overpowering need to feel his heated flesh.

  He shuddered when she touched him, and the evidence of her effect on him was heady. He was heavily muscled, his tight skin smooth, and a mat of crisp hair angled down his chest. She pressed her mouth against his skin in a shocking need to taste him, and was rewarded by his ragged groan.

  The sound fueled her edgy need, sparked an equally fierce desire for more. Much more. In the next instant that desire was answered by the slide of his hand beneath her dress, along the bare expanse of thigh. She gasped and shivered at the touch.

  “I’ve wondered all night what you had on under here,” he murmured. And then he found the answer to his question, discovered the lacy wisp of panties beneath.

  Desperate need, fierce and urgent, gushed forth with the force of a geyser. He soothed the tremors rippling through her with long, sure strokes, molding, petting, possessing. But there was no calming the chaos to her senses when his fingers slipped inside the elastic and cupped warm, damp flesh.

  She quivered against him, feeling like she was poised on the edge of a frightening discovery, but without the will to turn back. His touch was light, his fingertips barely grazing the sensitive folds of flesh, and she could feel herself growing soft and moist.

  He leaned forward and took her mouth, his tongue stabbing deep even as his fingers slipped inside her. His thumb found and circled the taut bundle of nerve endings, and he took her to the first climax with fingertips alone.

  She cried out as the fast hard orgasm crashed over her, her knees buckling in the aftermath, driving him deeper. He held her to him for a moment, the touch intact, waiting for her rioting nerve endings to calm. “Jed,” she whispered achingly against his mouth.

  The sound of his name on her lips seemed to unleash a wave of violent emotion. “Yes.” His voice was thick, barely recognizable.

  “Jed.” He drove her up again with one firm movement, and the heated excitement flared anew.

  Twisting against him helplessly, Julianne felt the edges of relief, so recently attained, spiral away. He could cause that so easily, so effortlessly. But not again. No
t without him. Even as the colors fragmented behind her eyelids with each bold stroke of his fingers, she reached for his belt buckle, fumbled for his zipper. He hissed in a breath and crowded her against the desk, arching into her touch.

  And cursed. Roundly.

  Her eyes fluttered open and a smile tugged at her lips as he released her to struggle with half-undone clothes and a desktop littered with papers and the laptop. Their gazes caught, and he leaned over her, an answering smile on his hard mouth, his gaze hot. With a tug he pulled her to him and engaged her mouth in a voracious battle of lashing tongues and deep, hot kisses.

  Julianne was dimly aware of being moved, guided backward, but she kept her eyes closed, too involved in the bombardment of dark tastes, desperate flavors. Something bumped up behind her hips and her weighted eyelids half opened. He’d moved her against a marble-topped table and bunched her skirt up in one fist.

  His shirt was only halfway unbuttoned, and she rectified that oversight now, tugging it from his waistband. His free hand slipped inside her panties for a moment, briefly cupped and squeezed her buttocks, before he pulled the undergarment down her legs.

  “Step out of them,” he rasped, and mindlessly she did so, while at the same time pushing his shirt off his heavy shoulders. He moved between her legs and pulled first one strap down her shoulder, over her arm, and then the other.

  Julianne’s breath jammed in her throat. She watched him, feeling vulnerable and exposed, as he dragged the bodice of her dress down, revealing her bare breasts. The air was cool on her nipples, already drawn into tight, painful knots. His eyes narrowed and he swallowed hard, his breathing harsh in the silence of the room. And then he filled his hands with her, lowered his head and took a nipple in his teeth, and sensation exploded into tearing need.

  A ball of heat formed, low in her belly, and each flex of his mouth sent a fiery streamer of sparks flashing through her, burning her from the inside out. Her hands were restless, smoothing over his broad chest, clutching tight muscles in his shoulders, lingering over the smooth, puckered flesh on his back. The legacy from his childhood. Her touch slowed, became caressing, but he wouldn’t let her calm, wouldn’t let the pace slow. He moved closer, feasting on her, shoving the dress further down until the material was bunched around her waist.

  She stroked her hands down his sides in a sensuous slide, then moved to cup his heavy masculinity in both hands. He started, shuddered mightily, then thrust into her touch. She freed him from his clothes and caressed him with hands that trembled with a touch of awe. He was hard, huge, pulsing. And she wanted.

  They were the only two in the room, in the state, in the universe. At that moment, with his mouth on her, his tongue pressing her nipple to the roof of his mouth to pleasure it, she believed it. Was certain of it. Thoughts dimmed, sensation crowded in until there was space for nothing but the feelings he was creating in her, the brutal needs that even now were spiked to a fever pitch. Again.

  Her touch grew more desperate, and he understood her demand. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a foil package, brushing her hands aside when they would have tried to help. Then he stepped closer, close enough for his manhood to tease the tender flesh between her legs, and stopped.

  “Open your eyes, Julianne.” The words were harsh, guttural. And he waited until she obeyed. He brought her forward until her breasts pressed against his chest, arranged her legs around his hips. And still he waited.

  “I want to watch you.” The words seemed dragged from him, from a place deep inside that he usually kept well hidden. A place that simmered with dark, primitive desires. Her gaze was helplessly entrapped by his. Just as she was trapped by the promise of ferocious pleasure shimmering just out of reach. His face worked, and she couldn’t have looked away if she’d tried. He was a man in the throes of a violent emotion. “I want to see your eyes when we…”

  He moved then and her cry mingled with his ragged groan. His fingers went to her hips and he held her still as he drove deeply inside her. She clenched her legs tightly around his waist and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. They were linked, in the most intimate way a man and woman could be, and still it wasn’t enough. “Jed.” His name was a cry, a plea. It was answered with a powerful thrust, deeper still, followed by a pounding rhythm that bound them both. Tighter. Harder. Higher.

  Her nails scored his shoulders, mindless now, urging him on. Her body shook with each powerful lunge of his hips. She arched, offered more, and he took it. She could feel the climax shimmering, just out of reach, and she held back, suddenly desperate that he join her before going over the next jagged brink.

  He felt her hesitation and reacted immediately. One hand moved between her legs. “Let go,” he urged, demanded. His face was damp, his dark hair clinging damply to his forehead.

  “Not without you,” she panted. She locked her ankles behind his back as his hips thrust with increasing intensity against hers. “Now, Jed. Now.” Their gazes met, held, until his image began to blur as her vision grayed.

  Abruptly she crested, the release slamming into her with a violence that left her breathless. Dimly she was aware of her name on his lips, his body drawing tight and his last powerful lunge before he joined her in a free fall into pleasure.

  Rocking to the Boss’s lyrics blasting through the headphones, Julianne’s hips bumped and circled as she hummed an enthusiastic accompaniment to “Born in the U.S.A.” The vegetables she was chopping by an enthusiastically wielded butcher knife lay in a dizzying array of color that owed more to exuberance than to accuracy. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so loose, so carefree. Every muscle in her body felt vibrantly alive, crackling with health and energy. And she would cheerfully credit the night she’d spent wrapped around Jed Sullivan as the cause.

  It had taken long moments for their breathing to steady, longer still for their limbs to follow suit. Finally, he’d carried her to her room, and there the night had eddied into infinite spinning waves of passion, some long and slow and others crashingly violent. There wasn’t a square inch of her body that had gone untouched, undiscovered. Secrets had been laid bare as sensation had layered over sensation, their hands doing battle to discover what elicited a groan, a gasp, a plea. The hours had been spent in sensual assault, with each of them battling to bring the other to the pinnacle of barbed, edgy need, cresting in shattering, mind-reeling pleasure. With a smugness that went bone-deep, she was willing to call it a tie.

  It had been tempting to give in to Jed’s urgings to go back to sleep when he’d begun to move that morning. It was barely dawn, and neither had given the other much rest the night before. But she’d risen when he did. The days started early on a ranch, especially now that she was taking Annie’s place. A place she’d informed him unequivocally that she wasn’t going to share. With anyone.

  He hadn’t liked it, but he’d grudgingly agreed to her plan to cancel the help he’d arranged for her. She might have been taking unfair advantage by broaching the subject when she’d just sat up in bed, the sheets rumpled around her waist, one hand pushing back her morning-tousled hair. His answer had seemed almost absent as he’d painted her with a look that had been pure liquid fire.

  She put the knife down and began scooping up the vegetables and dropping them in the stew she was preparing. Yes, that might have qualified as taking advantage, but she needed every advantage she could get with Jed. There had been no room last night for doubts or planning or regrets. Nor did she have use for them now.

  I can’t help caring. There was a quick stutter in her heart when his admission echoed in her mind. He’d looked uncomfortable, as if he hadn’t known what to do with the emotion. He wasn’t alone. She didn’t know what to do with it, either. One thing was certain, though. Their relationship had taken an inevitable turn last night. And though she had plenty of questions about the wisdom of the change, she couldn’t seem to summon one regret about the course it had taken.

  She reached for the lid to cover the pot of simmerin
g ingredients. Although she wasn’t anywhere close to Annie’s league in the kitchen, she had come to the conclusion that the simplest meals could be the most filling. Beef stew and plenty of fresh baked bread would go a long way in taking the edge off Jed’s appetite tonight. With a burst of warmth to her cheeks, she strove to push away the memory of his other appetites, cravings that were dark and deep and intensely tempting to explore, to satiate.

  Taking a quick breath, Julianne considered what to do next. Annie had been sleeping the last time she’d checked, and she had plenty of time to complete another chore before the woman would awaken. Slipping off the earphones resignedly, she turned off the disc player and went in search of the cleaning supplies for the bathrooms. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Jed there was satisfaction to be had knowing she was running the house, if not as capably as Annie, at least competently.

  But, she thought, as she trudged to the downstairs bathroom, her nose would have grown a foot if she’d actually claimed to enjoy every aspect of her chores.

  The ringing phone was a welcome respite from the dreaded task. Julianne sprinted to answer it, afraid the sound would awaken Annie. She was slightly out of breath by the time she’d picked up the receiver.

  “I’m trying to reach Jed Sullivan.” The voice in her ear was unfamiliar. Low and roughly masculine, there was a hint of the South in the accent.

  “He’s not available right now, but I’d be glad to take a message.” She walked to a drawer and rummaged through it, searching for a paper and pencil. Jed was never bothered during the day with calls. He normally returned them after supper.

  The voice hesitated a moment. “He does live there, then.” Although not posed as a question, an answer seemed expected. Julianne cocked her head, her curiosity piqued.

  “That’s right. May I ask who’s calling?”

  She waited for the voice to continue, but when his words came, she was rocked with disbelief.