Walk Away Joe (14 page)

 
She shivered and let her eyes drift shut. “Your mouth.” It came out on a whisper that hummed with breathless anticipation.

 
“Open your eyes.”

 
With a languor born of arousal, she obeyed.

 
“Show me where.”

 
Her gaze lowered with heated expectancy to where his hands caressed her before returning to his mouth and lingering.

 
He slowly shook his head. “Not good enough. Show me.”

 
Swallowing hard, she raised her hands to cover his. With slow, deliberate movements, he released her, then clamped his fingers gently around her wrists.

 
“Show me,” he repeated with a hot burn of his eyes, and guided her hands to her breasts.

 
Lost in his promise, helpless to deny him, she cupped them in her hands. As he watched. And waited. And made her touch the spot that ached for his mouth to suckle.

 
With a groan that relayed what her wanton request did to him, he bracketed her ribs with his hands and lowered his head.

 
She arched her back on a sigh and lifted her breast to his mouth, crying out when his impatient wet heat surrounded her. The dark stubble of his jaw scraped her skin with a sweetly savage friction as he claimed her with a hunger that drove her wild, then a gentleness that humbled her.

 
“Tucker,” she pleaded, cradling his head in her hands and burying her face in his hair. “Please... take me to bed.”

Wrapping her tightly against him, he rose. Kicking the chair out of his way, he carried her to his bedroom.

Her gaze went unerringly to the bed, then back to Tucker as he lowered her in a slow, stunning glide to the floor. The pulsing friction of their bodies sliding against each other heated skin and melted bone. She clung to him, needy and weak.

“Not exactly sunshine or soapsuds, but it should do,” he whispered, as his big hands drifted in a sweeping, sensual glide from her bare shoulders to her waist.

Through a haze of longing, she sensed a sudden hesitancy in him that told her the game had taken on new meaning.

As hard as it was to believe, he was nervous with her. This man, who played at love, was suddenly very serious. And very uncertain of what it all meant.

Her smile was reassuring, her voice as soft as the blue of his eyes. “It’ll do,” she assured him, touching her fingers to his jaw. “And so will you.”

She got lost in the look he gave her then, became immersed in the moment as he moved to the bed and sat down. With his hands still encompassing her waist, he tugged her between his spread thighs and pressed his face to her breast.

Thoughts of moments past, of women he’d had, of the life he’d lived, faded like bad dreams at sunrise when he drew her snug against him. In that moment, heat and anticipation, generosity and need, outdistanced even her own feelings of failure and fear.

All she felt was this man and the emotions he evoked in her. Tenderness and compassion. Desperation and desire.

 
And the moment that was theirs. The moment that was now.

She cradled his head in her hands. Burying her fingers in his hair, she lowered her head to his and held him close as his warm breath fanned her flesh and made her shiver.

Unhurried in his exploration, uninhibited in his demands, he tugged down her zipper, then drew her jeans an inch at a time down her hips, his mouth ascending to the warm concave of her belly.

And she fell a little deeper in love.

She’d expected fast and furious. She’d have welcomed rough and ravaging. He gave her leisurely instead. He gave her the pleasure of slow heat and exquisite loving. In the reverent stroke of his hand at her throat. In the whispered encouragement for her to finish undressing him. In the lush, lazy journey of his mouth across her body when they finally lay naked on his bed.

Flesh to flesh, heartbeat to heartbeat, they came together. His strength a stunning contrast to her fragility. His sinew and his dark bulk a complement to her pliancy and her pale, slim limbs.

In his bed, she discovered a new reason for living. In his arms, she learned that physical love could be a spiritual experience. With clever hands and hungry mouth, he made love to her. With whispered words and gentle urgings, he taught her joy she’d never known.

And when she thought she’d experienced every sizzling sensation possible, he introduced her to yet another when he knelt between her thighs and lifted her hips to the tender enticement of his mouth.

She forgot he was a practiced lover. Didn’t care that he was skilled in the finer points of the art. She only wanted what he was willing to give her. Only wanted him.

And wanted him... and wanted him until she clenched her fists in the tangled sheets and begged him.
Please...”

With a languor that made her whimper, he lifted his head. Resting his cheek against the inside of her thigh, he looked up the length of her body, one broad palm spread possessively over her belly.

His eyes glittered like a fallen angel’s as he turned his mouth to the pale flesh of her thigh and placed a long, biting kiss there. When he raised his gaze to hers again, his golden hair, beautifully mussed from her own greedy hands, fell across his eyes, beckoning her to ask him again.

“Please...”

“Please what, Sara?”

She swallowed and reached for him. “Please come inside me.”

Watching her face, he slid the flat of his palm down her belly, then slipped his fingers inside her.

“Like this?” he whispered as she groaned and moved against the sweet, sensual rhythm he set.

“Yesss... Noooo...”

He lowered his head to the dark curls where her pleasure point pulsed with anticipation.

“Like this?” he murmured, then slipped his tongue into her cleft and sent her over the razor edge of sensation, where pleasure flirted gloriously with pain.

She cried out and writhed against him, afraid she’d die if he stopped, certain she would if he didn’t. She quit fighting him then... and let his will take over. Let him stroke and finesse and redefine the act of love as something she’d never known.

Only when she crested, in a shimmering rush of white- hot sensation that left her breathless and murmuring his name, did he rise above her. Only when she thought he’d wrung every nuance of pleasure from her trembling body did he roll on protection and come inside her.

Only then did she realize he’d just begun.

He filled her with a sleek, heavy glide that stole her will and her waning powers of thought. He pleased her with his strength and a rich, seductive rhythm that pulsed as vitally as her heartbeat, as necessary as each labored breath she drew.

Clinging, clawing, craving his heat and his weight and his wild, driving possession, she came again in a blinding climax of delirious sensation and intoxicating speed.

She cried his name, then held him tight, fiercely hanging on as he drove them a full foot up the bed with one final, profound thrust and an exultant, guttural cry.

∙ ∙ ∙

Twilight whispered into the room, washing the walls with dusky darkness, painting misty shadows on the man lying beside her.

Sara stretched like a cat, then drew the sheet to her breasts as she propped her chin on her palm and watched him sleep. Even in slumber, he had a rakish, renegade look about him. Yet, even then, a vulnerability that belied both claims managed to bleed through.

Such a wild, passionate lover. Such a giving, generous man. He wasn’t selfish, as he’d like her to believe. He’d taken such care with her. Such wondrous, exquisite care. A man who didn’t want to become involved would have had sex with her. Tucker Lambert had made love. Not like a man skirting commitment. Not like a man determined not to care. Like a man who wanted everything a relationship between a man and a woman offered, but who was afraid to take for himself.

What makes you so afraid of taking, Tucker Lambert? That niggling question haunted her as she let her gaze travel around the dimly lit room... a room that was furnished with only the barest of necessities. A bed. A dresser. A rack for his hat, an extra pair of boots on the floor. Spartan, sparse. It was a room that carried the marks of a man who put little value on creature comforts, and it added to her impression that he put even less value on himself.

“Redecorating?”

She smiled, letting her gaze drift back to see him awake and watching her. “Just wondering.”

He turned on his side to face her, plumping a pillow under the arm that he folded beneath his cheek. “About?”

About how to reach you and wishing it wasn’t so important that I do, she wanted to say. But it was too soon. And the moment was too special to risk losing. Still, there was an issue to settle that she didn’t feel comfortable putting off—even if it meant it might bring an end to her night with him.

“About whether or not you want me to stay here tonight.”

She’d hoped he wouldn’t have to think about it. Yet, when hesitation momentarily clouded his eyes and had her mentally kicking herself for asking, she willed him to take a little more time.

She was holding her breath by the time he reached for her. He was watching her face as he pulled her close.

“You seem to be forgetting that appetite you worked so hard at building.”

“Ah.” She felt her smile spread into something warm and willing and wonderful. “That’s right. It’s coming back to me now. Something...something about taking all night to satisfy it.”

He rolled to his back and pulled her over on top of him. Running his hands down the length of her spine, he skimmed her bottom, then caressed the back of her thighs.

“Paybacks are hell,” he said, parting her thighs, then easing her over his heat.

“Oh, but you’re wrong,” she whispered, sinking down around him. “Paybacks are... heaven.”

Then he proved it to her by taking her there.

8

………

D
AMN, IF YOU’RE NOT THE
biggest fool known to God, man or machine, Tucker mumbled under his breath as he gathered the reins and fought to concentrate on the gelding’s moves.

 
It was a losing battle, as his thoughts drifted back, against his will, to Sara.

 
One night, he’d told himself. He’d allow himself the luxury of keeping her with him for one night. That was his style. That was his speed.

 
That was the only option.

 
To even think about extending his time with her went against every promise he’d made to himself. If he’d had principles—which he obviously didn’t, or he never would have taken her to his bed—it would have gone against them, too.

 
But she was such a sweet, giving woman. Such a willing, playful lover, that one night had stretched to two. Two to a week, and still he couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

He’d broken every rule he’d ever made about involvement. Rules that forbade waking up with a woman in his bed. Rules that prohibited the kind of indulgence that led to expectations. He’d been feeding those expectations. He’d known from the outset that she thought she cared about him. That alone should have kept him away from her. Her daddy and the tangle they’d had in the past should have done it.

And still he hadn’t made her go.

He told himself it was because he didn’t want to hurt her. He told himself it had nothing to do with needs he hadn’t known he harbored, a sense of peace he’d never thought he’d claim.

He lied.

His mount missed another lick. His fault. Again. He hadn’t been paying close enough attention. Sara had become his habitual weakness.

With renewed determination, he gathered the laboring gelding beneath him and focused on the calf. When he picked up on the white-faced steer, he reined him in.

“Pretty impressive.”

At the sound of Sara’s voice, he had to will himself to check a smile. He eyed her from beneath his hat brim as he dismounted. Tugging off his gloves, he turned the gelding over to Tag to cool him down before he did any more damage.

Then he told himself he wasn’t glad to see her.

“He’s coming,” he said, and walked toward the board fence, where she stood with a mug of coffee in each hand. “He’s got an awful lot of cow smarts, good athletic bend and flex.”

“I was talking about you, cowboy.”

Avoiding her eyes, he thumbed back his hat, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve, and accepted the mug she offered.

“You’re a natural,” she added, smiling up at him over the rim of her mug.

He shrugged and gave up—as he always did—letting go of the smile she managed to coax out of him. “I’m a Texan.”

“It’s more than that,” she insisted. “You’re in love with it. It shows.”

She had him there. Though he fought it, it pleased him that she understood. He hiked a boot on the lower fence rail and propped his forearms over the top rung. “I guess you could say it’s gotten in my blood. Kind of like dust on a dry day. I can’t get away from it. Truth is, I can’t imagine ever wanting to.”

She didn’t say anything. She just looked at him with that soft smile that made him want to talk some more and gradually wore down his determination to resist doing just that.

“From the day I left home,” he heard himself saying, “and got a job mucking stalls and doing most anything dirty and hard on a cutting-horse ranch, I’ve wanted to train cutters.”

“When was that?” she asked, watching his face. “That you left home, I mean.”

He worked his jaw. “When I was eighteen.”

“Why so young?”

He drew a deep breath before answering, then surprised himself again, when he didn’t whitewash the truth with a line of bull. “Economics. Mom had her hands full feeding herself and Tag. She didn’t need me to add to the problem. So I left, got a job and sent money home.”

He could see in her eyes that she was sorry about the hand fate had dealt him. He was sorry then that he hadn’t sloughed off grim reality with a throwaway line. He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t want her admiration. He deserved neither one.