Amanda

by Kay Hooper

  A higher overlook would no doubt allow her to see most of Glory spread out below; Amanda made up her mind to keep walking until she found such a place. Not that she wanted to spy on Kate and Ben—she just wanted to look at Glory from a more distant and possibly detached viewpoint.

  She continued to climb a trail that was growing gradually steeper, pausing occasionally to catch her breath and reflect wryly on city living that dulled the senses and left legs overly dependent on wheels in order to get around.

  That thought had barely crossed her mind when Amanda realized she and the dogs were no longer alone on the trail. She heard the sound of approaching hooves and felt the vibration under her feet long before she saw the horses, and that gave her ample time to get well off the trail. She was a good twenty-five or thirty feet away, uphill since she’d climbed, when three horses galloped past. The riders, vulnerable human heads protected by crash helmets, crouched in the stirrups, leaning forward as the horses scaled the steep trail.

  Watching them unnoticed from her place above, Amanda felt only a mild, dispassionate interest. The riders were obviously expert; two young women and a young man, one of the women leading on a gray horse while the other two followed on bay horses. Absorbed human faces, and powerful muscles moving under glossy equine coats. The thuds of hooves and snorts of effort and the faint jingle of metal and the creak of leather.

  Then, just as the horses disappeared around a bend in the trail, the breeze shifted and Amanda caught the warm, faintly musty scents of horses and sweat and leather. Her stomach knotted painfully and dizziness swept over her so swiftly that she swayed on her feet and had to clutch a sapling to maintain her balance. She lifted a shaking hand to wipe cold perspiration from her upper lip, and her breathing seemed very loud in her ears.

  “it’s getting worse,” she murmured, finding the realization both bewildering and threatening.

  It hadn’t been so bad at first, but by her third day at Glory, even a brief wayward breeze from the stables or pastures was enough to leave her feeling sick and shaken. And last night she’d awakened from a nightmare she couldn’t remember except to know that everything had smelled of horses and she had been terrified.

  She didn’t know what it meant, only that these odd experiences—her reaction to horses and the nightmare —both left upsetting feelings of panic and nausea lingering in her, and sometimes for hours afterward she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to run, to get away before …

  Before what? Amanda didn’t know, any more than she knew where the awful fear of horses came from. If she had ever fallen from a horse or been otherwise hurt because of one, she didn’t remember it—despite the lie she had told Jesse and the others. But as far back as she could clearly remember, there was in her a fear of the animals not aroused by the sight or nearness of them—but by their scent.

  She tried to shake off the sensations now, but that proved impossible. The breeze had carried the smell of horse away once more, yet she was still shivering.

  “Never mind looking down on Glory,” she told both dogs, hearing the tremor in her voice. Finding a nice vantage point could be left for another day. She fumbled for the map and studied it, searching for a path—any path—that would take her away from the riding trails and eventually back to the house. Not a minute later, with both clearly anxious dogs sticking close to her now, Amanda changed direction and began heading downhill once again.

  “we’re crazy,” Kate said. “Down in the grass like a couple of teenagers … Anyone could find us here, you know that, don’t you?”

  “No one’s going to find us here,” Ben said. “The gardeners are finished for the day, Maggie’s in the house, and you said Amanda went for a walk. All the riders and other trainers’ll be out for at least another hour, Sully’s with the blacksmith in barn one, and Jesse’s gone until evening. Besides—we’re safer here than We’ve been some other places.”

  “it’s indecent. And I’ll never get the grass stains out of this blouse,” Kate said, but not as if either point troubled her much. She stretched languidly, her naked breasts lifting and her stomach hollowing below her ribs, and Ben watched her with pure enjoyment.

  “you’re beautiful, Katie.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said instantly.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “I don’t.”

  As usual, they’d only partially undressed. Ben was still wearing his boots and though he’d pulled his jeans back up, they remained unfastened. His shirt, at least two of its buttons now missing, was flung across an ornamental stone bench a few feet away from them. As for Kate, she had pushed her skirt back down over her thighs but her blouse was still open.

  She wasn’t wearing panties or a bra, and when Ben had realized that, he hadn’t been able to find a secluded corner of the garden fast enough. He hadn’t even thought about how close to the house they were —closer than ever before—and he didn’t give a damn now that he did think about it.

  This little arbor was mostly shaded in the afternoon, but there was just enough sunlight to dapple the ground and paint Kate’s golden flesh with enticing shadows. He loved to look at her. He only wished that they had the time and a place where he could see her completely naked and look his fill.

  A bed would be nice. All night in a bed would be nicer. Waking up to Kate, Ben thought, would be nicest of all. He wondered how she would respond to him then, drowsy, her lithe body quiet with sleep. And, wondering, he was suddenly possessed by the desire to make it happen.

  But how? How, when Kate rationed their time together in minutes?

  “Why can’t we sleep together?” he heard himself ask.

  “I asked you to come to the house,” she reminded him. “You refused.”

  “You wouldn’t have let me stay all night.” Her silence gave assent.

  “I have a bed, you know,” Ben stated. “A perfectly good bed in a nice, quiet apartment. Why haven’t we ever spent the night there?”

  “I’m too old to be sneaking back home at dawn,” Kate told him with a touch of asperity. She drew her blouse closed, then reached up a hand to her hair and instantly frowned. “What in the world—”

  Ben chuckled and leaned over to kiss her. “Sorry about that, but I love your hair down. I took the pins out because I wanted to watch it move while you were on top.”

  Her hair had probably moved a lot while she’d been on top, Kate reflected, since she had been extremely … active. To her astonishment, she felt her cheeks warm; she had thought herself long past the age of embarrassment, especially with any man, and she had certainly never been fazed by anything she had said or done with Ben—but lately he seemed to have acquired the knack of making her feel self-conscious.

  “Dammit,” she murmured, sitting up as she tried to finger-comb her hair into some semblance of order. “You know I don’t have a brush with me. And what Maggie will think—”

  “She isn’t your nurse anymore, Kate, and hasn’t been for years.” Ben pulled her gently back down beside him and slid long fingers into her loosened hair with obvious pleasure.

  She told herself she should protest again, or move. That was it—she had to move, to get up and straighten her clothing and leave briskly with a casual farewell because that was the way it was between them.

  But she didn’t want to move. Not now. Not yet. It felt marvelous, his hands on her, that soothing yet peculiarly arousing touch against her scalp, and Kate wished she could lie here all day. He bared her breasts again, brushing the material of her blouse aside and using that hand to slowly stroke and fondle while his mouth took hers again and again in kisses so deep she felt consumed by them.

  There was always a moment, when desire for him first surged inside her, that Kate felt strangely uncertain. It had never happened to her with other men, this sense of vulnerability that was a kind of ghostly panic, and with Ben it never lasted long enough for her to try to understand it. But every time she became aware of it, she was unnerved enough to think, This is the
last time.

  Until the next time.

  “My turn,” he murmured against her lips, “to do all the work.” He guided her arms so that they lay stretched out on the grass above her head. “Don’t move. Just feel.”

  Kate felt, and vulnerability vanished as if it had never been. Desire, sharp and hungry, coursed inside her, carrying all else before it.

  She moaned when he began to rub his face slowly back and forth against her breasts, the contrasting sensations of his soft lips and the very faint stubble of his afternoon beard driving her mad. Eyes closed, stretched out half naked on the grass like some mindlessly willing pagan sacrifice, Kate gave herself over to him completely.

  He knew her well. Skillful fingers probed and stroked, unerringly finding her body’s most rawly sensual places—particularly the ones only a lover generous enough to pay attention would ever discover. He knew that if he brushed his lips just under her left ear, her whole body would shiver in pleasure. He knew that the silky flesh on the insides of her elbows was exquisitely sensitive, like the lower curve of each breast, and all around her navel.

  He knew that if he caught her lower lip gently between his teeth she would make a throaty little sound of need, and if he touched his tongue to the tiny birthmark just beneath her left breast she would gasp, and if he glided fingertips down her spine to its base she would moan and arch her back.

  Ben knew all those things, and he used all the knowledge to arouse Kate until she was frantic for him. Then he went further, teasing in a way he’d never done before, prolonging each caress until she was writhing in need.

  When he finally gave in to her husky pleas and settled himself between her trembling thighs, Ben had held himself on the fine edge for so long that his own need made him wild and a little rough. Their passion was always explosive, but this time it was something fierce and primitive.

  Kate recognized the difference, even though she didn’t think lucidly about it; her body was utterly caught up in sensation and her mind was buffeted as if from the force of a gale. The scent of roses was heavy in the air and she could hear birds chirping, and when her release finally came she cried out incoherently, forgetting to mute the sound. Ben cried out as well, his powerful body shuddering in pleasure, and Kate clung to him with a sudden alarmed sense of having lost all control of the situation—and of herself.

  Ben was first to move eventually, easing away and lifting himself off her. He didn’t kiss her, as he normally did at that moment, and his expression was unusually intent. He remained between her legs on his knees, pulling up his jeans and fastening them as he looked down at her in silence.

  For no reason she could have explained, Kate felt an abrupt wave of anxiety. The pleasantly limp aftermath of orgasm was all too brief; she had to force spent muscles to obey her commands. She sat up quickly, pushing herself a little back on the grass so that she put some distance between them and was able to close her legs—and also allowed the friction of the movement to work her skirt back down over her hips and thighs. She drew her blouse closed over her breasts and buttoned it, focusing all her concentration on the task.

  “Kate.”

  He had scattered her hairpins, she realized, and they were no doubt lost in the grass. Now, how was she supposed to put her hair back up? Anyone looking at her would know—

  “Kate, look at me.”

  She did, but spoke before he could. “we’re not going to be able to meet again for a while,” she said as if it didn’t matter. “I’m going to be very busy.”

  Ben didn’t look surprised. “I’ve gotten too close, haven’t I, Kate?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But her denial was too swift, too adamant, and Kate knew it.

  “Is this how You’ve always handled it before?” Ben’s voice remained curiously flat. “A lover gets too close, maybe begins to look at you in a different way or asks why he can’t spend the night with you, and you break it off?”

  “I didn’t say I was breaking it off. I just—”

  “You won’t be any busier this summer than usual.”

  “I’m volunteering at the clinic,” she said. “Three afternoons a week. And I’m helping raise money for the new park, and—”

  “Kate, I didn’t say you weren’t busy, so don’t sound so defensive. Between the charity work and doing the books for Glory, you’re plenty busy. I know that. But You’ve found time to meet me for more than six months now.”

  “I want to spend time with Jesse. He—”

  “He,” Ben told her stonily, “wants to spend time with Amanda.”

  She drew in a quick breath as that blow landed. “I said you were a son of a bitch, and I was right.”

  “Because I tell the truth? Kate, when are you going to accept the fact—the fact—that nothing is going to change between you and Jesse no matter what you do? He’ll go to his grave feeling nothing for you except indifference, and the sooner you realize that the sooner you can make some kind of life for yourself.”

  “I have a life!”

  “You have Jesse’s life. Ever the dutiful daughter, you follow along behind him, eager to be helpful, to do anything he asks, pleasant and low-key and a willing target for abuse if he feels like yelling at someone. You stand in his shadow hoping against hope that He’ll throw a smile or maybe a kind word your way—and it isn’t going to happen.”

  Kate managed a laugh, but it hurt her throat. “Who gave you a license to practice psychology?”

  “I don’t have a license. But I minored in psychology. Horses aren’t my entire life, you know—or would know, if you cared enough to ask.” He looked at her, suddenly, as if he were a psychologist and she were on his couch. “you’re Daddy’s girl, and Daddy doesn’t care, Kate. And if it weren’t for one small but vital difference, you’d end up like those stereotypical Southern virgin spinsters We’ve all read about, worshipping Daddy long after he’s gone and living in a mausoleum devoted to his memory.”

  Through lips so tight they felt numb, she asked, “What difference?”

  He smiled, without amusement. “you’re about as far from being virginal as a woman can get.”

  Ben caught her wrist easily when she would have hit him, and held her glittering silvery eyes with the same inescapable force. “Insulted, Kate? Don’t be. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me how many men You’ve had. I don’t even mind being used as a stress-buster, if that’s what you need. But I’ll be damned if I’ll meekly let you break it off with me just because I might want more than you’re willing to give. I warned you more than once—I’m not a toy, Kate, I’m a man.”

  She laughed with a brittle sound. “You got what you wanted out of this, and don’t pretend otherwise.”

  “Sure I did, in the beginning. Now I want more.”

  “Oh, I see.” Kate’s smile was bitter. “You won’t be a rich woman’s pet, but you wouldn’t mind a bit of compensation for all your extra … work. How much?”

  Ben flung her wrist away from him in a gesture of disgust, his expression suddenly furious. “If you can think that, then the hell with you, Miss Daulton.” He got up and got his shirt, shrugging into it angrily. “Find yourself another stud.”

  “Maybe I’ll do just that,” she snapped.

  “Be my guest. But if it’s Jesse you’re trying to punish by jumping from man to man, you can save yourself the trouble. He doesn’t give a shit, Kate.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him in a voice shedding icicles.

  “Don’t you? Then I’ll explain it so you do. Jesse knows about us. He’s known about all your men.”

  She blinked in shock, her righteous fury draining away as though through a gaping hole in her defenses. “No—he’s never said—”

  “Get it through your head. He doesn’t care.” Ben’s voice remained hard, precise. He tucked his shirt into his jeans with jerky movements.

  Kate was shaking her head. “he’d care. At least for —for our good name,”
she all but whispered.

  Ben shook his head, pityingly. “Jesse’s good name is invulnerable no matter what the rest of you do, and he knows it. Besides, Daultons have always been known for—taking lovers. He told me that himself, Kate. He wished me luck with you. He said nobody ever lasted long. He even said he was thinking about formally adding it to the expected duties of Glory’s trainers. Must oversee a dozen horses and riders at any one time. Must prepare both for shows. Must get results. Must fuck Kate.”

  “No.”

  “That’s what he said. And that’s a direct quote.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said numbly.

  “Oh, yes, you do. Because when you take off your rose-colored glasses, you can see him as well as the rest of us can—and you know he’s capable of it.”

  Kate looked at Ben with hatred. “Get away from me. Do you hear? Get away and stay away!”

  “Gladly.” He walked past the trellis of roses, turned a corner formed by shrubbery, and disappeared, leaving her sitting on the shady grass.

  She sat there on the ground, long legs curled to one side, skirt smoothed down and blouse neatly buttoned and tucked in, and when she heard a little whimpering sound, Kate was shocked to realize it came from her. She pressed her fingers hard to her lips, trying to contain the pain and stop the trembling and summon enough control to enable her to get up and seek the more secure refuge of her bedroom.

  God, it hurt. It hurt because she believed every awful word Ben had flung at her, because she knew it was the truth. It hurt because what he’d told her about Jesse—what Jesse had said to him—was the ultimate betrayal, an unthinkably callous reaction from a father to a daughter’s sexuality. It hurt because it shattered the last fragile hope she’d had that Jesse loved her despite all evidence to the contrary.

  She was nothing to him. Worse than nothing.

  Her whole body hurt.

  Kate forced herself to get to her feet, and it was only when she stood on shaky legs that another shock distracted her from her anguish. For the first time in her life, she felt the warm wetness of a man’s seed trickling down her inner thighs, and she realized that during that second frantic coupling with Ben, he hadn’t worn a condom.