by Beverly Bird
He let his gaze roam purposefully over her legs again. He heard the tempo of her breath change, and he felt like a heel because at the moment he was just using that good old, basic attraction between them to stall.
He shifted his weight on the lumpy sofa. For the life of him, he didn’t know what to say. He knew what he wanted to do. And it would sure as hell fill the time nicely until Scorpion made his appearance.
Come on, buddy, come on, he urged the man silently, let’s get this over with.
“So,” Carly went on finally, unaccountably nervous, fumbling. “Uh, do you really have a redheaded ex-wife?”
Jack was startled, then relieved that she’d brought up a relatively safe topic of conversation. “Yeah. I do.”
“What’s her name?”
He scowled. “Zoe.”
“Does she really have a temper?”
“It comes and goes.”
“Did you love her?”
That jolted him. “Why would you ask that?” he asked warily.
“Just trying to fill up the silence while you get around to telling me why you came in here.” Carly paused. “Besides, you got a funny look on your face just then when I asked about her.”
He’d been thinking that Zoe was an example of the last time his instincts had failed him. He’d thought—Zoe had said—that she was a woman who would be content with the little he could give her.
They’d both been wrong.
“So?” Carly prompted.
“So what?”
“Did you love her?” She couldn’t have told why she was pushing it. Maybe because he was the one to seem uncomfortable for a change.
“I guess so. The mistake was more mine than hers.”
“You guess you loved her?”
“Well, what do you want me to say?” His voice sounded defensive, even to his own ears, which made no sense because he was fully aware of and accepting of his own shortcomings.
At least, he always had been before.
“I married her, didn’t I?” he went on grimly.
Carly shrugged. “Did you really leave her, or was it the other way around?”
“Actually, she left me.” Jack’s pulse moved warily. What was she getting at? “So she’s not really going to be ticked off when she gets those divorce papers.”
Actually, he had gotten the papers. Eight years ago. Then he remembered his comment yesterday at lunch and realized she’d been baiting him.
Was it she who had gone into his wallet?
Jack got up to pace; he thought pacing revealed entirely too much agitation, yet was unable to stop himself. He decided to change the subject.
“You’re really not in a position to act virtuous about it, are you?” he countered.
Carly blinked at him. “Who? Me? Virtuous about what?”
“About love and marriage, all that garbage.”
“Garbage? How romantic.”
“Can you stand there and tell me that you loved Holly’s father?” Good, he thought, now he was back on an even keel. He needed to know everything there was to know about Holly’s father, he reminded himself. First and foremost, he needed to know if the man knew he was a father. And if he had to provoke Carly Castagne a little bit to get the information, then so be it.
Tit for tat, he thought narrowly. He’d shaken her up, he realized.
She answered stiffly. “Of course I did.”
“So how come I haven’t noticed him around here playing Daddy?”
She gave him a smug half smile. “Because you’ve only been here a couple of days.”
“When was the last time he was here?”
Her smile vanished. “I never told Brett he was a father because I was damned if I was going to prolong contact between us if he didn’t want contact. Which, apparently, he didn’t, once he spotted that blonde. I never heard from him again.”
Brett, he thought with a feeling close to satisfaction. The circle of proof had just neatly closed. No matter what a background check told him, it was always nice to hear verification right from the horse’s mouth, especially in this day and age of computers. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge could hack in and alter records.
“So it was ego,” he said finally, more relaxed, not sure what his excuse was for pushing it now.
Her eyes sparked. “Pride.”
“Goes before a fall. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I’m not falling. I didn’t fall. It all worked out.”
“For who? You or Holly?”
He said it without thinking, on a hunch, or maybe with the memory of his last conversation with the kid. Maybe he’d done it with the intention of putting in a plug for a child who was more or less too young—and definitely too emotionally involved—to do it herself.
Except, hell, he didn’t want to get involved.
And then he really wished he hadn’t.
Carly’s look turned so abruptly stricken that he moved off that subject fast. “So how come you’re all alone now?” he went on, and knew that question had nothing to do with Scorpion, or Holly, or anyone but himself. His heart thumped.
“I want to be,” Carly muttered.
“Didn’t seem that way when you were staring at me across the kitchen last night.”
Shock and hurt flashed through her. “That was low,” she breathed. She moved fast for the door.
“Wait.”
She had meant to leave. She had to leave, Carly thought wildly, but she found herself turning around warily to look at him again. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “That was unnecessary. And probably irrelevant.”
“I want to be alone,” she insisted again, but even she heard that her tone had lost some of its conviction.
Jack’s voice dropped an octave. It alerted her. It became soft, and then it roughened.
“If I touched you right now,” he said slowly, “you wouldn’t even put up half a fight, cowgirl.”
Her heart whaled so hard against her chest it took her breath away. “I don’t play games,” she answered, her voice hitching. “If I wanted it, I’d take what was offered.” And there was an invitation if she’d ever given one, Carly thought wildly. But he didn’t do anything with it. Her skin flamed and she looked away.
Suddenly Jack wanted to dig through a few more of the layers, whether it meant getting deep or not. He wanted to know. “Yeah,” he said. “You do play games. I’ll bet you hate your ex-husband because he walked out on you, when you were pregnant, no less, but you tell yourself—”
“He didn’t know!” she snapped.
“I guess telling him, letting him know, would make the slap in the face so much worse. I mean, what if you told him and he still didn’t hang around? Ouch.”
“I won’t beg!” she shouted too loudly, then she lowered her voice deliberately. “Not with anyone, not for anything.”
No, she wouldn’t. “So what about your father?” He remembered that she’d been awfully bitter in that area, too. And he wanted to know why.
Carly went very still. “Leave him out of this.”
“He just…died.” He mimicked her tone, her explanation, yesterday at the chutes. “Hell of a nerve.”
“Stop it.”
But he wanted it all, wanted to get to the bottom of her. “Loving you wasn’t enough to keep your dad alive after your mother died. He left you the ranch, but you didn’t mean so much to him that he didn’t go and die on you.”
Carly began shaking. Was she that transparent? “Damn you,” she breathed.
Jack saw her eyes shine and he backed off. A little.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “And you’ll be damned if you’re going to let anyone do anything like that to you again, either die on you or run off on you, right?” “That’s my choice,” she gasped.
“Sure it is. And I’ll bet that’s why you’d let yourself touch me. Because I’d be safe. I’ll be gone in a week. No expectations, and no nasty surprises. You can’t get left holding the pieces of
your heart if you know going into it that there’s no future, right?”
Carly finally met his eyes. Her chin tilted up. God, she was tough, he thought, impressed all over again.
“Okay,” she said softly. “So what if you’re right, cowboy? You wouldn’t be a threat to me even if you lived on the next spread.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I don’t think you’re the type who…sticks.”
She had that right. He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to argue the point.
“Don’t kid yourself. If I tried it once—” his eyes coasted deliberately over her again “—I’d sure be back for more.”
Her pulse went wild. “I…in a physical sense, maybe.”
“That’s the part that counts, cowgirl. I don’t see the physical bodies of your father and your husband anywhere around here.” That was a lie, but he went with it without his tongue stumbling. Once, before he’d lost his nerve, he’d been good at lying.
“It’s half of what counts,” Carly insisted stubbornly. “And you’re not venturing too much of the other half yourself. You can’t even look me in the eye and tell me that you honest-toGod loved your wife.”
Correction, Jack thought, I’m not fool enough to try.
He turned away from her abruptly to look out the window. Carly snorted behind him.
“You can dish it out, Jack,” she said softly, “but you sure can’t take it, can you? Your body isn’t with your wife right now, is it? Why’d you let her go?”
Suddenly he was mad. He felt cornered, accused, righteous. He moved dangerously close to her again and put his face near hers.
“Because I’m rarely home. I travel a lot. And it wasn’t fair to her.”
“Sounds like you just didn’t love her enough to hang on.”
“Watch it, cowgirl.” He backed away from her carefully. What difference did any of it make anyway? Carly thought, suddenly tired. She went to the sideboard, drained the last of her brandy and moved for the door.
“Where are you going?” he asked sharply.
“To bed.”
“I can’t let you do that, cowgirl.” It came out before he could think how to best phrase it, how to nudge her along rather than order her about.
Carly whirled back to him, astounded. “Let me?” she repeated, disbelieving. “Just who do you think you are?”
He couldn’t risk it, he thought. She was going to have to stay right here where he could make sure Scorpion didn’t get to her. And he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to talk her into it without playing his cards. Not this woman. He’d just have to sidetrack her a little longer.
That was the practical reason he had for moving past her quickly to block her way to the door. The purely personal reason was that he was pretty sure what her reaction would be.
Suddenly, recklessly, he decided to risk it. He’d work out the twisted, sordid angle of her being Scorpion’s woman later. He wanted her. Was it possible that he had, in some measure, ever since he’d laid eyes on that picture?
Yes, he thought, yes, and the reality of her hadn’t eased the steady ache at all. The reality of her had turned out to be warmer, smarter, kinder, more intriguingly complicated than he could ever have imagined.
For a brief moment, just a brief one, he let himself believe, pretend, that somehow it could all work out.
Carly came at him angrily. When she started to veer around him, he caught her arms and brought his mouth down hard on hers.
Chapter 7
Carly wondered if the groan she heard was his or her own.
In the space of a heartbeat, Jack’s gaze had looked the way it had last night in the kitchen, and maybe, she thought, just maybe she was ready to grab any excuse to get close to him again, to touch him again, to feel.
He dropped her arms and caught her hips instead, pulling her to him hard and suddenly, and delicious shock crashed through her. His body was as male as the scent of him. And his kiss was as hard as his body. He wanted her, he really did want her, and that was so heady, so intoxicating, so good.
And then she got scared.
All the things he had said earlier started to echo in her head again. I’m safe. Oh, no, he wasn’t. I’ll be gone in a week anyway. Was that what she wanted? If she let herself touch him now, she knew somehow that she would ache for him when he was gone.
“This won’t…I can’t…don’t make me…” It was all she could manage.
He looked her in the eye. “Am I making you, cowgirl?”
She took a fraction of a second too long to answer. His mouth covered hers again, then some of the pressure eased, but she knew it wasn’t because he wanted her less. He slanted his head to the side so that he could taste her more fully, and his tongue invaded, forcing her mouth wider.
Something caught on fire inside her, something reckless and crazy. She wanted to deny it and couldn’t. Need rocked her.
His hands relaxed but he didn’t let her go. He maneuvered her backward without breaking the contact of their mouths until she felt the sofa touch the back of her knees. Then she went down, pulling him with her.
“Jack,” she managed, without any true idea of what she wanted to say.
He stopped kissing her and went still. “Say it again,” he whispered after a moment.
“What?”
“My name. Just like that.” In English. Without an accent.
“Jack,” she whispered. She didn’t understand but she did it anyway because he seemed to need it, as much as she needed him to keep touching her. He covered her mouth again, and his kiss was deep and urgent. He swallowed her voice, and drove his hands into her hair.
It was as he imagined, he thought, thick and rich with the scent of her shampoo, something dark and warm and vaguely herbal.
He braced some of his weight on his elbows, and Carly wriggled beneath him until she felt his hardness against her, all temptation and promise. Something both scared and eager, hot and defiant leaped inside her. More. Take it all. She wanted everything he could give her, here, now, just in case the ranch and all her responsibilities swallowed her alive, in case she never got another chance.
Carly cried out. Who was this man? How could he do this to her?
He moved his mouth to her neck and she tilted her head back to give him better access. She shuddered at the wet heat as his tongue traced a line there. He dragged at the front of her T-shirt, and finally she felt his hands on her skin. They were callused and relentless, sliding up over her belly.
He had capable hands, not gentle but demanding. One of them slid up beneath her bra, pushing it away to expose her breasts. He covered one with his hand, and she shuddered as his thumb moved deftly over her nipple, sure and teasing. There was no hesitation in him. He wanted, he took. Sensation plunged through her from that spot, then gathered hot and wild at the core of her.
Danger, her mind screamed. But she felt helpless against her own flaming need.
She pulled frenziedly at his shirt until it was free of his jeans. She finally found his skin as well, sliding her hands up his back beneath his shirt. It was smoother than she would have thought, and his muscles were as hard as she had imagined.
She had to stop this, and she would…she would…soon.
He had been right about her skin, too, Jack thought. It was like satin, fluid muscles sliding beneath it. And she was as hot and honest in her responses as her picture had made him think.
She melted. She burned. She moved beneath him just right, instinctively seeking out and finding a million connections of flesh, pushing his shirt back off his shoulders, her own mouth sliding hot and wet over his neck. Yes, he would deal with the repercussions later, but now he was very, very glad he had thrown caution to the wind.
He closed his mouth over one of her breasts, teasing her nipple with his tongue even as his other hand moved down to her belly.
No apologies, she thought. Just wanting, taking, giving, without games. It was the most incredible ap
hrodisiac she had ever known. Then Jack froze.
He went still so suddenly and completely that Carly didn’t even realize it for a moment. Then his body turned to stone beneath her hands and she opened one eye warily to look up at him.
He was staring at some spot over her head, his head tilted just a little bit like a curious cat who had seen movement in shadow, a cat who was waiting for the prey to show its face.
“What is it?” she whispered, confused, instinctively frightened. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer but placed one hand over her mouth. In contrast to his loving, the gesture was slow and gentle.
Then she heard it, too—the tread of a single footstep outside in the foyer. She couldn’t quite decide if it sounded furtive or just hesitant, but she stiffened because he had.
Something cold washed through her, because she realized that at least one part of this man had not been involved in touching her. Some part of him had been detached, holding back, listening. Otherwise he would never have sensed someone out there so soon. And why should he even care that someone was there? There were people all over the ranch!
Oh, God, what had she done? What had she been about to do, with a man who clearly hadn’t needed even half as much as she had? When would she ever learn?
Carly groaned aloud.
“Shhh,” he cautioned.
A soft rap came at the door.
Jack eased off her. He slid his hand down his left calf and she followed the gesture with her eyes.
“What are you—”
He shook his head hard and fast, silencing her again. He motioned to the door. Another knock sounded. He wanted her to answer it.
Well, of course she would. She got up, trying desperately to pull her clothing back into place, and her hands fumbled.
She had been an utter fool in so many more ways than one, she realized. Her face burned. She had convinced herself that Jack Fain was just an average tourist because she had wanted him to be so badly, because from the beginning some part of her had wanted what had just happened between them to happen. She had wanted something for herself, so she had needed to justify it, to be able to tell herself it was okay.
She crossed unsteadily to the door, unable to look at him. But as she reached for the knob, she felt him move past her, behind her. She whipped around again and saw him step behind the door so that when it opened he would be out of sight of whoever was knocking.