She blushed. She looked damn good, with color blossoming in her cheeks and that shine in her eyes. It would be interesting to see what a nice long orgasm did for her.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Sit down,” Conner said, moving on to the coffeemaker and starting the brew. Once it was percolating, he turned around to look at her again. She’d taken a chair, and the dog was standing there with his head resting on her knees, his eyes rolled up at her in frank adoration.
Conner could identify.
“I thought you’d decided Valentino was too big a dog to live in the city,” he ventured. That was as close as his pride would let him get to asking her what her plans were, but he sure as hell wanted to know.
“We’ll adapt,” Tricia said, stroking Valentino lovingly.
Conner reminded himself that it was stupid to envy a dog. “So,” he responded casually, turning away to get cups from the cupboard, “you’re still going back to Seattle?”
“I haven’t decided,” she answered. “There’s no hurry, after all.”
Conner looked back at her. “What about ski-guy?” he asked, and then could have kicked himself. Now she’d know he’d seen—and remembered—that snow-globe picture of her and the boyfriend on her computer screen.
She smiled. “Hunter? That’s over.” She said this lightly, in the same tone she might have used to say she’d once believed that the moon was made of green cheese, but now she knew it was just one big rock. “Actually, it’s been over for a while now, but it took me some time to notice.”
He got real busy with the cups, even though the coffee was a long way from being ready to drink. “I see,” he said, when the silence had stretched to the breaking point. Of course, he didn’t see. He was damned if he could figure out how a woman’s mind worked, sometimes. Especially this woman.
She looked around. “Where’s Brody?” she asked. Then she colored up again. “Sleeping, I suppose.”
“I doubt that,” Conner replied. “He’s out of town right now.”
“Oh,” Tricia said, squirming a little on the hard seat of that wooden chair. Not quite meeting his eyes.
Hot damn, he thought. Was it possible that she was there for another reason, besides fetching her dog?
Whoa, dumb-ass, he told himself silently. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.
Conner needed something to do, so he went ahead and pulled the carafe from the coffeemaker, even though it wasn’t done doing its thing. The stuff sizzled on the little burner and scented the air with java.
He filled a cup for Tricia and one for himself and finally joined her at the table.
“Sugar?” she asked.
Holy shit, he thought, as a zing went through his whole system. But then the request penetrated his thick skull and seeped into the gray matter.
“Sure,” he said, getting up to find the sugar bowl and get her a teaspoon so she could stir the stuff into her coffee. “You want cream, too? I’ve got some of the powdered stuff, I think.”
Tricia shook her head and concentrated on doctoring the contents of her mug. “No, thanks,” she said.
He sat down again.
The dog, he noticed, had positioned himself halfway between the two of them, and he kept turning his head from one to the other.
Tricia’s spoon rattled in her cup.
Conner sipped his own coffee and mused.
Finally, she looked up at him, and he was amazed to see tears standing in her eyes. “I can’t believe Natty won’t be there when Valentino and I go back to the house,” she said.
So that was it, Conner decided. She didn’t want to face her great-grandmother’s empty rooms—not in the dark, anyway, and not after a long and probably uncomfortable flight, followed by the drive from the airport.
“You could stay here,” Conner said. Might as well put it out there in the open. All this pussyfooting around was getting them nowhere. “Go back to Natty’s place after the sun’s up and you’re feeling a little stronger.”
She blinked and, with a subtle motion of one hand, wiped her eyes. “Would you mind?”
Mind? Would he mind?
“I could sleep on the sofa, I suppose,” she said in a thoughtful tone.
“You can have my bed,” Conner answered. There were guest rooms in the house, of course, but none of them were made up, and he couldn’t bring himself to put her in Brody’s, empty though it was. There were probably cracker crumbs on the sheets, anyhow. “I’ll just get an early start on the chores.”
Tricia bit down on her lower lip, finally nodded. She used both hands to pick up her coffee mug this time, and they shook visibly.
“Okay,” she said, looking at him over the rim. “My—my suitcase is in the Pathfinder—”
“I’ll get it,” Conner said, on his feet immediately. Over by the door, he paused to pull on a pair of boots and his denim jacket.
“Thanks,” she said, after clearing her throat.
He braved the cold, retrieved the suitcase and hurried back inside. By then, she was standing at the kitchen sink, rinsing out her cup.
“This way,” he told her, and the words came out sandpaper-gruff.
They followed him, the woman and the dog, through the old-fashioned dining room, into the hallway beyond. Conner flicked on a light when he passed the switch, thumped on the door across from the one leading into his room.
“That’s the bathroom,” he said.
Then he pushed open his own door, where the bedside lamp was still burning; he’d turned it on earlier, when she knocked. The bed, a massive four-poster, dated back to the 1800s, when Micah Creed had brought his mail-order bride home to a much smaller version of this house. According to legend, old Micah wasted no time bedding the woman, and she hadn’t minded.
Tricia peered around his right shoulder, taking in the natural rock fireplace, the bowed and leaded windows that formed an alcove of sorts on one side of the room.
“Wow,” she breathed. “It’s like going back in time.”
“Except for the 3D TV, yeah,” Conner agreed.
Tricia swallowed. “This is—very kind of you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, with a partial grin.
“Oh, believe me,” she replied, with a nervous laugh, “I won’t. Not to anyone. You can just imagine the talk.”
“Hadn’t thought about it,” Conner said, and that was true.
“Of course you haven’t,” Tricia said, seeming to loosen up just a little. “You’re a man.”
Oh, yeah, Conner thought. I’m a man, all right. And I’ve got the hard-on to prove it. He carried her suitcase in and set it on the antique bench at the foot of the bed, then crossed to the bureau to take out fresh clothes. “Make yourself at home,” he said, heading toward the door.
Valentino settled himself on the rug in front of the fireplace, even though the hearth was bare, yawned and shut his eyes.
“You, too,” Conner added, speaking to the dog, and then he and Tricia both laughed.
There was something intimate in the exchange, ordinary as it was. Laughing with Tricia felt good, but when it was over, they were both uncomfortable again.
“Holler if you need anything,” Conner finally said.
And then he left the room without looking back, careful to close the door behind him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ONCE SHE WAS SURE she wouldn’t run into Conner—she’d heard the back door shut smartly in the distance— Tricia took her last clean sleepshirt out of her suitcase, left over from the trip to Seattle, along with her toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, and ventured into the bathroom.
The shower was huge, and there were plenty of thick, thirsty towels. Tricia leaned inside the stall and turned the spigots, planning to adjust the spray, but pleasantly warm water flew out of a dozen different showerheads, placed at all levels and angles. With a little shriek of surprise, she jumped back, laughing, and started peeling off her now-soggy clothes.
What followed wasn’t a
mere shower, it was an experience, like being massaged by a hundred industrious Lilliputians. Although she most definitely had not come to the ranch to seduce—or be seduced by—Conner Creed, the warmth and the soap lather and the dance of the water against her naked skin was sensual.
Okay, Tricia admitted to herself minutes later, as she stood on the lush-plush bathmat, drying off, if she was perfectly honest, maybe coming here was a little bit about having sex with Conner. She didn’t seem to be in any big hurry to put on her nightshirt, after all.
As the steam fog cleared from the big mirror above the long vanity, with its artfully painted ceramic sinks and ornate copper-tile backsplash, Tricia assessed her wild-haired image. She had a pretty good body, compact and firm where firmness was an advantage. She turned in one direction, studying her profile, and then the other.
Finally, since goose bumps were starting to crop up all over, she put on the nightshirt, brushed her teeth thoroughly and crossed the hallway to Conner’s room.
There was a nice blaze crackling in the fireplace grate now, and Valentino, still lounging on the rug, had rolled onto his back in an ecstasy of warmth, all four paws in the air.
Tricia smiled at the sight, but only after she’d scanned the room and made sure that Conner hadn’t stuck around after building the fire.
He hadn’t.
This was, as it happened, both a major relief and a disappointment.
Too tired to consider the implications—there would be plenty of time for that in the morning, when she was over her exhaustion and this crazy sense of ending one chapter of her life to begin another—Tricia crossed the room and climbed into the bed, stretching out on sheets that smelled woodsy and fresh-air clean. Like Conner.
She bunched up a pillow, snuggled down.
The bedframe was probably old, but the mattress was definitely modern, made of some space-age material that supported her softly, like the palm of a huge and gentle hand. She yawned, closed her eyes and promptly conked out, tumbling into a dreamless sleep, deep and sweet.
Hours later, upon awakening to a stream of sunlight and a cheerful yip from Valentino, Tricia stretched deliciously before turning onto her side and seeing Conner on the other side of the room.
Fully dressed, his honey-gold hair damp and recently combed, he was just turning away from the fire. He’d added wood, and the flames leaped and popped behind him, framing him in a reddish glow.
“Hey,” he said. His grin flashed. “All rested?”
“Yes,” Tricia said, as the inevitable sense of chagrin settled over her. She jerked the covers up over her head, so he couldn’t see her face. “Don’t look at me,” she added.
Conner laughed. “That’s asking a lot, don’t you think?”
“I could just die,” she said, the words muffled.
“No need to go that far,” he replied. The echo of laughter lingered in his voice. “I’m in your bed!” she pointed out, through layers of cloth.
“Yes,” Conner answered easily. “I know that.” A pause, a circumspect clearing of his throat. “Believe me, I know. And I’ll admit this isn’t exactly how I pictured things turning out—sure, I imagined you in my bed, lots of times—but I sort of expected to be right in there with you.”
No way she was coming out from under the covers now—or maybe ever. “You pictured me in your bed?”
“I’m human,” he said. Apparently, Conner considered that an answer.
“Please leave the room,” Tricia said. “Before—”
“Before what?” Conner’s voice was throaty.
She felt a distinct tug at the covers. And a need to breathe freely.
Tricia lowered the blankets just far enough to peer over the edge and suck some air in through her nose.
Conner’s face was an inch from her own.
“I have a theory,” he drawled. His gaze rested on her lips, made them tingle with the anticipation of illicit things.
“W-what theory?” Tricia ventured, suspicious and wary and hot to trot, all at the same time.
“That you want to make love as much as I do.”
Her eyes widened. “What makes you think a thing like that?”
How did you know? Am I that obvious?
“I said it was a theory,” Conner murmured, and by then his mouth was almost touching hers.
When he actually kissed her, Tricia couldn’t help responding. The demands of her body instantly overrode conscious reasoning; the wanting raged through her like fire, swift and fierce, devouring every doubt, every hesitation, every fear in its path.
Her arms went around him, her fingers splayed across the hard expanse of his shoulders. The walls and floor and ceiling of that room seemed to recede, leaving in their places a void that throbbed rhythmically, like an invisible heart.
By the time that first consuming kiss was over, Conner was on top of Tricia, his hands pressed into the mattress on either side of her, being careful not to crush her under his weight.
“Hold it,” he murmured, gasping for breath, and for the life of her, Tricia couldn’t have said whether he was addressing her, or himself. “Hold on a second.”
She looked up at him, her very cells drinking in the hardness and heat, the blatant, uncompromising maleness of him.
A fragment of that milestone conversation with Diana flashed in her fevered brain, and a part of Tricia acknowledged that, yes, she was afraid to open herself, body, mind and soul, especially to this man. For all that, her need of him felt ancient, a cell memory, a part of her very DNA.
There was, she knew, no turning back. However advisable that might be.
“Conner,” she said, softly but clearly, “make love to me.”
His eyes were so serious, and so impossibly blue, as they searched hers, took in every nuance of her expression. It was almost as though he could see inside her mind, see past her desire, past her every defense, to the essence of her being, where all her deepest secrets were stored.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, and it was the purest truth she knew in that moment.
Still, Conner hesitated, pushing back from her, standing up. She felt afraid then, afraid he would turn his back and walk away.
Instead, he hauled his shirt off over his head, without bothering to unbutton it first. He opened a drawer in the nightstand and took out a packet, set it within easy reach of the bed, his gaze fixed on her, blue and hot, missing nothing. After a few moments, he was out of his jeans and gently sliding Tricia’s nightshirt up and then off over her head.
He lowered himself to her, kissed her again. Wherever her skin made contact with his, it seemed to Tricia, they fused, one to the other.
She felt dazed and, conversely, powerful. She was more than herself, more than an individual woman with a name and a heartbeat and a collection of disparate emotions—she was womanhood itself, as ferociously feminine as a she-wolf taking a mate. She wanted him inside her.
Now.
But Conner moved at his own excruciatingly slow pace, every nibble or touch of his tongue designed to heighten her need and, at the same time, delay the gratification she craved with her whole being.
His lips traced the length of her neck, returned to her earlobe, shifted to her collarbone and then the rounded tops of her breasts.
When he finally took one of her nipples into the warmth of his mouth, Tricia cried out in throaty, wordless welcome, and arched her back out of pure instinct and incredible need.
Still, Conner savored her.
She alternately flailed and writhed under his mouth and his hands, gasped his name. Pleas spilled out of her, intertwined with desperate commands.
Conner Creed wasn’t taking orders—or dispensing mercies.
He ran the tip of his tongue around her navel, leaving a fiery little circle blazing on her skin, building the sweet, terrible pressure inside her, then easing off.
Tricia clawed at his shoulders, trying to pull him up from her belly, draw him o
nto her, into her.
But still Conner would not be swayed, would not be hurried. Conquer her he would, that was plain, but on his own terms and in his own time.
He moved farther down her frantic body, parted her legs and then raised her by the strength of his hands, took her softly into his mouth.
She gave a strangled, exultant sob, and her legs went around him, because her arms couldn’t reach. She repeated his name, over and over again, like some litany offered in delirium, now begging, now cajoling, now crying out in ecstasy.
The first orgasm was long, endless, with peaks and valleys, slow descents followed by rapid trajectory to an even higher pinnacle than the one before it. It wrung every last ounce of passion from Tricia, that continuous climax, causing her mind and soul to buckle and seize right along with her body. She was breathless when Conner finally let her rest, trembling, against the sheets.
Speech was impossible; she’d forgotten the language. She’d been transported, catapulted out of herself and then flung back in at the speed of light, and yet she felt every delicious thing Conner did to her. She was alive, and responding, on every level—physical, spiritual, mental and emotional.
He asked her again if she was sure; she barely made sense of the question. But she nodded.
Felt the shift of his powerful body as he put on the condom.
And then it happened, the hard, deep thrust as he claimed her.
Had her thoughts been coherent, Tricia might have wondered how Conner could possibly have aroused her to such a state of need, so soon after satisfying her so completely. As it was, she could only marvel, flexing wildly beneath Conner, hungry for release, fighting for fulfillment.
The pace, so slow before, was a rapid, powerful lunging now. The whole of life seemed to be concentrated in their coupling bodies. Tricia at once yearned for relief and wanted to burn in the fire of Conner’s lovemaking forever.
When they came, they came simultaneously, with low, hoarse shouts of nearly intolerable pleasure, slamming together hard, as though to become one and stay that way for all eternity.
Afterward, they clung together, hard against soft, warm pressed to warm, both of them breathless.
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