Dodge the Bullet (25 page)

He had a callous look on his face, the same
one he got when she’d accidentally backed the tractor into the
fence when he first let her take a turn, back when they spoke to
one another.

“What’s the big deal?”

His brows shot straight to the rim of his
hat, which he’d forgotten to remove when he came inside, a
gentlemanly habit she’d come to respect. “I can’t believe you have
to ask me that.”

God, she’d missed fighting with him. She
could almost see the steam coming from his ears. “Well, I’m asking
and I’m waiting for an answer.” It was high time he got everything
off his chest. She wasn’t sure she could handle his answer under
the best of circumstances, but he was emotional and angry and
hopefully too upset to censor his feelings.

“Everybody in this valley thinks that we’re
… you know what they think.” His brows knitted in irritation.

“You’ve never given a damn about what
anybody thinks.”

“I don’t care what they think about me.”
Dodge sputtered and raised his arms in frustration. “I don’t want
people reading this book and thinking you like to be backed against
walls and…and…dirty talk! Lord.” He let out a big breath, let his
arms fall back to his hips. “I can’t believe you even wrote this
stuff.”

Sarah had to stifle a laugh. “Dodge, some
women like to read about things they’d never actually do.” She
reached for the book. It had been a long time since she’d glanced
at or thought about her old novels. She flipped through the pages
and noticed that the sex scenes had been dog eared. “You make it
sound like S & M or something. This is pretty tame. Believe me,
there’s a lot worse out there.”

“That you wrote?”

“No, this is as wild as I ever got.” She
looked at him, wondered just what bothered him so much.

“I can’t believe your husband let you write
this stuff.”

“He didn’t
let
me do anything. He was
proud of me. If you’d bothered to read beyond the dog eared
sections you would’ve seen that there’s a storyline that many
people connected with. This was one of my best sellers.” She threw
the book on the counter, took a step closer to him.

“There are a lot of good books that don’t
have sex in them. Why’d you have to add it if the story was good on
its own?”

“That’s just the genre. And people like
sex.” She could almost hear Jenny’s mantra in her head,
It’s
just sex, he wants it and you want it…

“Well.” Dodge tried to run his fingers
through his hair, realized his hat was still on and quickly took it
off. “Sorry about that. You know everyone in this valley thinks
that we’re having sex.”

“If everybody already thinks we’re having
sex, including my son,” her brows lifted in annoyance, “then maybe
we should.” She closed the gap between them and pulled the hat out
of his hands, tossed it on the counter. “Maybe you should back me
against the wall right here and end the confusion once and for
all.”

He sighed as his eyes searched her face.
“This is going to get complicated.”

Sarah reached out, grabbed the waistband of
his jeans and pulled him flush with her body. “It already is.”

###

Dodge couldn’t think of all the reasons they
shouldn’t be together with the scent of her surrounding him and
clouding his mind. Without knowing how, he’d backed her against the
wall and pinned her body with his.

“Kiss me, Dodge.” She threaded her hands
through his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. “Kiss me, please, and
end this torture?” The simple sincerity of the plea had all common
sense flying right out the window.

With their eyes locked, his lips brushed
hers. She whimpered, a needy, wildly enticing sound. He gave in
with a crushing burst that knocked her head against the wall.

“Ouch.” She pulled back and rubbed. When he
started to back away she held tight to his shirt. “No, no, no. I’m
okay.” She looked up at him ran her tongue over her lips. “Where
were we?”

That was a damn good question, and one he
couldn’t answer when her hands slipped under his shirt and her hips
wedged between his legs. What had ignited the little firebrand
before his eyes? She didn’t give him time to think about where they
were and who could walk in on them at any moment, but wrapped that
smart little body around him and blanked his mind. He simply had to
have her, as she’d demanded and then begged.

She tasted of freedom, wild, sweet freedom,
and he couldn’t get enough. He fumbled with the clasp on her bra
after he’d whipped the shirt over her head. He jolted when she
reached for his zipper, scraping her back against the wall. She
whimpered in pain.

“Sarah, your back.” He could feel the scab
from her run in with the wire.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine.”

He reached down, grasped her bottom and
lifted her into his arms. “Where’s your bedroom?” The look of happy
surprise on her face made him grin.

She pointed with her hand. “It’s right back
here.”

He reached the room in two long strides,
dropped her on the bed and looked his fill. He’d mussed the hair
around her face, he’d already managed to redden her neck with his
beard, and her eyes appeared hazy with desire. Her bra hung open
where he’d left it.

“Dodge, if you stop now I’ll have to kill
you.”

He grinned and wondered what the hell he was
going to do with the half-naked woman he couldn’t escape. “I’m not
stopping. I don’t have that much self control.” He sat on the edge
of the bed and quickly discarded his clothes.

###

Sarah eased out of her bra, slipped off her
pants and straddled Dodge from behind. She could feel the echo of
her heart against the soft skin of his back. She wanted him, she
needed him like she hadn’t needed a man in so long.

“Thank God.” She bit his lobe and grinned as
he groaned in response. She felt empowered by reckless desire. He’d
finally given in, tossed aside the pretense that there wasn’t
anything between them. He pushed her back against the bed and
covered her with his body. And when she smiled at him, a little bit
embarrassed, a little bit shy, he bit her lip with a wicked
grin.

“Second thoughts?” he asked, his eyes on
hers like a laser.

“I’m not a coward, Dodge. Give me everything
you’ve got.” Something flashed in his eyes, a challenge, or maybe
resignation, but he didn’t keep her waiting for long. He brought
her to the edge, teased her with his hands and mouth, had her
begging for him to take her, take her now, please, Dodge, now. And
then he’d change course, try new tactics and leave her struggling
to take over and end the torture, the sweet, sweet torture. He
wouldn’t surrender control. Being with him was all she’d thought
about for weeks, having him plunge into her and clearing her mind
once and for all. Now that the moment had arrived he seemed to want
nothing more than to savor her desperate cries for him to have her,
take her, fill her. With every touch he found more ways to pleasure
her, more ways to watch her react until she could take no more and
he finally entered her as he pushed her over the edge. He drove
into her, his patience vanished and he bore down on her as if she
were the keeper of life itself.

Sarah let out a cry of release, rising up to
meet his hammering. She pushed him on his back and climbed on top
to execute her own brand of torture. He made it so easy when he
looked at her the way he was now, as if she were the frosting on
the cake he’d been waiting to devour. She rode him and began to
tumble again, drunk on the power and the sensations her body had so
desperately missed. How could he know instinctively how to make her
sing?

###

Dodge fell, they may have fallen together,
he couldn’t be sure in the haze of afterglow. He knew she’d…had a
good time, if only by the fact that she lay gasping for air atop
him. He had the strangest urge to bury his face in her hair and
thank her. Dodge felt sure he’d had better, more satisfying sex,
but at the moment he couldn’t think when. And as he fought the urge
to tell her, she seeped farther into the blood that still raged
within him.

It was just sex, he told himself. Really,
really good sex after weeks of fighting their attraction. But
something about that didn’t ring true. Just sex, his head repeated
in the same rhythm his hands ran up and down her body and she let
out a purr of satisfaction. She felt so small in his arms. Somehow
it didn’t seem possible for the feisty woman who’d just taken him
on the ride of his life to feel so slight. Not just sex, his heart
whispered.

He should be able to walk away now, pull
himself away, but he couldn’t. He lay with her, still inside her,
and listened to her breathing return to normal. Something inside of
him teetered as he caressed her into slumber. He wanted her again.
He knew his need for her would only be worse now that he’d touched
her, and yet they’d only scratched the surface of what they could
be and do to one another. He wanted more with an intensity that
left him spooked.

###

Sarah lay atop Dodge and listened to the
steady beat of his heart, fast at first, so fast, and then slower,
almost in rhythm with her own. She gloried in the feel of his hands
on her, running up and down her body. She wanted to weep with the
joy of having had him, having experienced something so powerful and
so different.

Part of her expected him to have leapt off
the bed by now, leaving her to wonder about the implications of
what they’d done. Part of her felt amazed he laid as he was,
touching her, caressing her with such gentleness. She stayed
sprawled on top of him, afraid to lift her head and start the
dialogue that was too soon in coming.

What would she say? Could she tell him how
it had felt to be loved the way he’d loved her, with teasing and
care and passion? Tell him how he made her feel like a woman worth
desiring? How she hadn’t felt that way in so long? Could she tell
him that she wanted to stay wrapped in his arms and that no matter
how he intended to deny the meaning of what they’d just done, that
they would do it again, damn the consequences?

###

Dodge heard his cell phone ring, muffled in
the pocket of the jeans he’d discarded on the floor. Sarah was
awake now; he felt her stiffen in his arms when the ringing
began.

“I need to get that.” He gently pushed her
aside and reached for his pants, thinking an interruption was as
good a way as any for them to face the music of what they’d done.
“Dodge.” He listened as Miguel explained that he and the boys were
on their way back to the barn and needed instructions for the
afternoon. He had to get out of the house. Fast. “I’ll meet you at
the barn. Keep the boys with you until I get there.”

Sarah sat up at mention of her sons. “Are
they coming home now?”

“No, but they’ll be at the barn any minute.”
He brushed her cheek with his palm, let his eyes glide over her. “I
don’t think they need to see my truck here, do you?”

She kissed his palm. “No. I don’t.”

Between the feline look in her eye and the
feel of her lips on his hand he was hard again. He quickly shifted
on the bed, grabbed his jeans and began dressing so she couldn’t
see how she’d affected him.

Sarah watched him dress, dared him to resist
her as she lay sprawled naked on the bed. “Dodge, I …”

He leaned down and kissed her, slow and
soft, then gently nipped at her breast before heading out the door
with a groan.

Benji paced the rug in his office while his fingers clutched the
pen, whose glistening surface of cool metal had turned hot in his
grip. He’d begun to regret his face-to-face meeting with the man
he’d hired to execute his plans. In hindsight, the meeting sat like
a brick on his chest. He’d never forget the look in the stranger’s
eyes; they were cold, like the eyes of a dead man. The memory of
his eyes had Benji in a panic about what he’d put into motion.

He wanted to convince Mrs. Woodward it was
too dangerous to live alone on a large ranch, show her the worst of
what could happen. When she saw the light he’d swoop right in for
the sale, no fuss, no muss. But he kept flashing back to the man
with the dead eyes. He’d given him instructions, along with a hand
drawn map of the Woodward place, and told him no one was to get
hurt. Benji told him to scrap the whole thing if there was even a
chance that someone might get injured. While the stranger had
nodded in what Benji took as acknowledgement, the furtive look in
his eyes betrayed him.

Benji searched his desk for the antacids
that he’d downed like candy in the last few weeks. He found the
bottle in his top drawer and washed a few down with what was left
of his morning coffee. If everything went according to plan,
tonight was the night he’d seal his fate as the new owner of the
Woodward ranch, thereby granting Saxton all the water he’d need for
the Cooper development and get the monkey off Benji’s back.

Ever since he’d made implications to
Kimberly about vandalizing the Woodward place, she’d been watching
him and keeping her distance. He’d had a weak moment, going on
about his plans in front of her like he had. He’d forgotten, as he
so often did, her humble beginnings. She was too young and naïve to
understand that sometimes he had to get his hands dirty in order to
keep his constituents happy. In politics, keeping people happy by
whatever means necessary was the name of the game. Trouble was,
he’d gotten so used to Kimberly being his yes man that it never
occurred to him that she’d have a conscience. Hell, he thought as
he rubbed away the pain in his chest, it never occurred to him he’d
have a conscience too.

Whether it was Kimberly’s reaction or
looking into the eyes of a man willing to do
anything
for
money, he wasn’t sure, but the combination of guilt and fear clung
to him like a stench to a dog. Maybe with all the guilt he carried
around, he’d give Mrs. Woodward an even better price than he’d
intended. Maybe holding out would prove beneficial for her after
all.