Читать книгу Cowboy Fantasy - Ann Major - Страница 8

“Smile, Bertie boy. It’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.”

Something about Melody’s low, Southern voice, something in the images she conjured was so damn sexy, so damn blatant. He began to dream about how good it could be if she put those lips to work.

“Naughty, naughty,” she whispered, reading his mind.

“What the hell…”

“Relax. I didn’t mean anything. I got that line off some bumper sticker when I was driving home today.”

So, she’d been reading bumper stickers, too.

He moved closer. Big mistake. She smelled too good.

“I’ve got one for you, too, darlin’. Humpty Dumpty was pushed.”

She laughed.

To keep from grinning back, he bit his tongue till he tasted blood.

Peeking from behind the door, Melody batted her long, burnished lashes at him, just as she had that night when she’d come looking for him at his apartment. When the lash work got no visible reaction, her impish smile brightened, and she began to tease him in earnest.

His palms dampened. The smile was overkill. Her lash work had done the trick. So had the comment about what he could do with his lips.

No wonder the ambitious Dee Dee had called this morning. A mother knew when her daughter was in the mood to start something. In Dee Dee’s mind he was a prize catch and a big enough dope to fall for her little girl all over again.

“What the hell are you doing home?” he demanded.

“Hi there to you, too—Bertie.”

His mouth thinned. “Don’t call me that unless…”

“Then, hi there, Rancher Black,” she said sassily.

“North will do just fine.”

“Aye. Aye.” Instead of saluting, she touched her lip with a fluttery white fingertip and blew him a kiss.

Little moons sparked.

His lips actually got hot.

Hell, it was August.

His sneer was slow and deliberate, “So, you’ve come back—” Then he added, “What the hell for?”

She flinched at those secret code words, just as he did. Her beauty upset him even more. Her long, straight, reddish-gold hair framed the slender oval of her flushed face. Her golden skin was damp as if she’d just stepped from the shower. And those half-scared, flirty, smoky-blue eyes ate him alive. Why, oh why, did she have to smell of soap and perfumed bath oils?

Even without makeup, she was naturally, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, more beautiful and innocent looking and yet voluptuous than he remembered. She’d come looking for him after her little dance in Shorty’s, after their wild kisses in the parking lot. No sooner had he pulled her inside his place that night, the night he’d wanted her so damn much, he’d felt as if he’d die if he couldn’t have her.

She’d let him take her to bed. But first, she’d actually stripped for him.

“You say I only want to perform in public. Not tonight. Tonight I want to dance just for you. Do you want to dance with me?”

“I’m not the exhibitionist. I’ll watch.”

“You’re gonna have fun. I promise.” Her eyes had gleamed, teasing him, luring him.

She’d put a CD in his player, turned his lights way down and had begun to move in the velvet shadows. For a long time all she’d done was sway back and forth to the heavy beat and run her hands over her body. When he’d joined her, she’d let him grasp her by the waist, pull her close, let him put his hands wherever he wanted, let him strip her ever so slowly. She hadn’t even fought him when he’d undone the buttons of her blouse, one by one. She’d danced and smiled and lured them both to their doom.

The ground rocked under him as he stood on her porch. His heart thudded.

“You look too damn good, darlin’,” he whispered.

“So do you,” she said in a sad, lost tone that matched his own.

Just those words, and he wanted to touch her so bad he hurt. But he remembered the dangerous place that desire had led them to so many times before, so he knotted his callused hands, slipped them into his hip pockets. He took a deep breath and a long step backward.

Instead of her usual grunge attire, she wore some sort of silky, scarlet sarong that clung to her curves so tightly, he saw nipples. And that there was no panty line. It wasn’t hard to imagine her body since he knew exactly what she looked like with nothing on. Show but don’t let him touch, being her motto.

“How the hell could you answer the door in that? I could’ve been anyone.”

“It would have been a whole lot less dangerous if you had been,” she teased before she realized what she was doing. “I was expecting you.”

Her pupils darkened with alarm, but not before her husky voice had rippled over every raw nerve ending, making his skin sting as if he was on fire the way it had that night.

“But you have no right, no claim on me or what I wear…or don’t wear—ever again, Rancher Black.” She lifted her chin, challenging him to more verbal dueling.

“You’re right, of course—Miss Woods!”

No doubt she’d purchased the improbable garment somewhere in the Orient when she’d run away from him on that freighter and driven him mad with jealousy, rage and fear. When she’d finally turned up safe and sound, she’d thrown his life into turmoil all over again when she’d almost seduced him. Then she’d gone off to India.

“I was in the shower,” she said demurely without lifting her gaze to his. “My muscles were stiff after the long drive.”

All of a sudden he had a stiff muscle problem and a mighty keen need for a cold shower, too.

“Would you prefer it if I’d answered the door stark naked?” she teased.

The vision of her naked in a shower stall brought a rush of heat and made the muscle in question pull even tighter. Just for an instant he remembered her in a black lace bra and matching panties and a black velvet hat after he’d removed her blouse and jeans. For no reason at all, he was tugging at his collar.

“Don’t worry…Bertie. If I’d known you were going to be in such a bad mood, I wouldn’t have answered the door at all.”

“Why aren’t you in Austin where you belong?” His voice was as cold as ice.

“Why did you say yes to my mother? This is my parents’ house. It’s your own fault if you’re not where you belong— out on your big ole ranch. Playing king, doing your big man things. Ordering everybody in your kingdom around.”

That wasn’t how it was. Not that he let on.

“Is that what you think of me and my business?”

“Isn’t that what you want everybody to think?”

“I have responsibilities.”

“And they came before me.”

His family hadn’t thought so. “They’re a part of who I am.”

“And I don’t know who I am. Is that what you’re saying?”

In bed or out of it, he almost shouted. Instead he flushed darkly. “My ranch wasn’t the problem.”

“You give everything of yourself to that ranch.”

“Because I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because my father died that’s why!” North remembered the fire. He remembered running. He remembered screaming for help.

“Why you, Bertie?”

“Just…just…” An emotion built and burst inside him, so he waited. “Just because,” he finished darkly, remembering his father’s funeral. “I’m his son. That’s all.”

Her eyes seemed to see inside him, into that shadowy secret place.

She smiled. “You can tell me.”

He glared. “Can I? If you were me, would you trust you…after…”

They’d hardly said hi, and already they were at it.

Yet he preferred arguing and probably so did she—to remembering that night and what had happened in his apartment and what hadn’t.

She was pale and yet breathing hard, every bit as agitated as he was. Those fingers with the little silver moons were tugging at her silken sash. “How can we be discussing this…like it still matters? When nothing about us matters…anymore.”

He watched that rhythmic tugging of those little half moons at her sash as if hypnotized. “My thoughts exactly, darlin’.”

So why was there a painful lump in his throat? Why that painful thickening lower down that stretched his jeans and made him too conscious of her easy power? Why were the memories of his childhood all mixed up with the crazy sexual frustration of that last night? Why this insane desire to yank that infernal sash loose, slide his hands inside that silk robe and pull her against his body when he knew why wanting her was so impossible?

Why couldn’t she be normal? Why did she have to be the sexiest woman alive and not sexy at all?

Those moving fingertips with the little moons that twinkled slid along red silk. He felt his collar tighten like it was really choking him. “Stop playing with that damned sash!”

“Sorry.”

“Do I come in or go?” he growled when her slim hands were still at last. “It’s been a long day.”

“Oh, do come in, Rancher Black,” she teased, pushing the door wider.

“Quit calling me that!”

When she didn’t move out of his way, he was forced to sidle so close to her he almost brushed against her. Which was what she must have wanted because when he was almost past her, she reached out and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“North, I…” Even before the panic flared in her eyes, she chopped off the end of her sentence.

Instantly his muscles contracted beneath the liquid heat of her slim hand. His black head jerked, startling her, and for a long moment they both stared at those fingertips with the tiny silver moons. She’d scarcely touched him, but the effect on his senses was electrifying.

He remembered that last night when her hands had been all over him. She’d been eager, as eager as he. And then suddenly, she’d gotten scared.

“North…” Her little girl voice died in her throat as she splayed her fingers, causing the tiny little moons to twinkle.

He felt her, remembered her in every pore. They’d lain in his bed that night, his body pressed firmly against hers, her lips against his throat, her breast against his chest, the rest of their bodies touching all the way down. She’d felt so right. She always did.

He’d held her for a long time, stroking her hair, trying to gentle her as he might a frightened colt. But she’d gotten frightened again and gone back to the wild on him anyway.

“Don’t start in on me again, darlin’…unless you intend to finish what you start…this time.”

Her hand tightened and then fell away slowly, and still he couldn’t move past her any more than she seemed able to escape him.

“I want to forget you,” he said, but his gaze was on her pink lips.

“That does seem like the sensible solution to our problem.”

“Your problem,” he said in a flat tone.

“And yet—”

“There is not going to be a yet—damn you.”

She blushed. Her eyes remained downcast. “What if I can’t be as sensible or as rational as you? What if I—”

“Not if you crawled—”

She went white at that code word.

“You broke up with me, remember?” he said in a softer tone.

“And you’ll never be able to forgive—” Her husky voice had dropped, too—to something that sounded close to shame or regret.

“That’s right.”

Leave her alone. Cool off. Talk football outside with Sam.

But she looked so small and vulnerable. Suddenly he couldn’t stop staring at her lips and wondering how long since anybody had kissed their wet, pink fullness. Wondering who else knew how they tasted. These thoughts got him so riled, North pushed his way inside, grabbed her, backed her against the red flowers on the foyer wallpaper and pressed his body firmly against hers.

She swallowed. Her eyes shone nervously; her cheeks blazed a brighter hue, but for once, she didn’t try to run.

Suddenly his breathing was fast and irregular. “Why? Why do you always goad me? Why do you always have to push?”

“I—I don’t know. I-it’s just the way I am with you. I don’t like it that I do it, either. North—”

“Shut up,” he said silkily.

Then he touched her cheek with the back of his hand, ran it along her throat. Her skin was smooth and soft. Womanly soft. And hot. So hot. She was burning up just like he was.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

He stroked her hair. “Not just yet. You touched me. You led me on.”

“You’re too easy.”

He grinned. “If only you were as easy.”

She shut her eyes as if to shut him out.

“Your desires are every bit as deep and dark as mine,” he murmured. “Have you found someone else to satisfy them?” Just asking her drove him crazy.

Her lashes fluttered. Her smoky eyes darkened. “No…”

“How long…since you’ve been held? Kissed?”

“Not since…that night.” She turned deep red.

“Me, either.”

Why the hell had he admitted that? Unwanted desire for her wound him tighter. When she tried to run, he seized her arm again. “Not yet, darlin’. You’re not going anywhere. Not just yet. Not till I’ve had a final taste.”

Melody was tall, but he dwarfed her. Easily he scooped her closer. When he snugged her hips against his, she quivered, and even the slight response on her part that warred with the wild panic in her eyes made him explosively needy. Always, always she drove him past the limits of his careful control.

“Why do you always bully me?” she whispered.

“Sometimes I think because you want me to.”

“Don’t say that.”

“What do you want, Melody? What’s so wrong—”

An electric silence hummed between them. She was nervy, yet secretly thrilled and eager, too.

“You scare me,” she said breathily.

“You scare you. You ought to know by now I would never hurt you. Or force you—”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

“I just want to touch you.” He wanted to slide his fingers inside her again, to know she was wet as she’d been that night, despite all her puritanical and hung-up assertions to the contrary.

She shut her eyes, half opened her mouth and sank back against the wall. “If only—”

God, it had been so long. Six months since that wonderful, awful night. He had told himself, never, ever again—not with her. Then the minute he set eyes on her, the minute she touched him, she had him again. More than anything he craved to kiss her, to run his hands through her long, soft hair, to do all the things she’d forbidden him to do.

What would she do this time if he tried? What would she say? What would he do if she ever let him? He’d wanted her so damn much. He’d waited so long.

Maybe he would have held himself in check if Melody hadn’t reached up and brushed her fingertips against the crisp black hair above his white collar. Maybe. But even though her touch was light and tentative, he felt her feverish response behind it, and that alone set him off.

He seized her shoulders to pull her toward him, wondering if this time she’d—

His head came down. Her lips pursed eagerly as she lifted them. In the fraction of a second before their mouths touched, he thought she whispered, “I’m sorry, North. So, sorry.”

But before he could deepen their kiss, he heard the brisk patter of Dee Dee’s footsteps. Quickly he straightened, and Melody twisted her crimson face away, so her mother couldn’t read her.

“Is that you, North!” Dee Dee shrieked from the other end of the hall as she rushed down the hall that was papered to look like a voluptuous garden gone wild in spring.

He froze.

Melody jumped free and began smoothing her hair.

“North…Melody…”

Dee Dee, who was golden and gorgeous and looked years younger than she was, smiled as they hastily backed away from each other and began to fidget—Melody with her sash after she’d finished on her hair and he with his tight collar.

“It’s so good to see you, dear.” Dee Dee smiled knowingly as she came forward and stretched on tiptoes as if to peck his dark cheek. All he felt when her glossy lips hovered close was the stir of her warm breath against his skin. “I’m the chairman of the charity ball, so I was on the phone and couldn’t get the door.”

“You said Melody was in Austin.”

“Did I?” Dee Dee smiled up at him artlessly. “You know Melody. She’s as fickle as Texas weather, and I suppose we’re about due for a norther.”

“After this hellish summer, something a little cool…and frosty might be a welcome change,” he agreed thickly, his eyes on Melody.

“Sam’s out back,” Dee Dee said. When an alarm buzzed in her kitchen, she started. “Why don’t you join him, dear? And while you’re outside, make sure he doesn’t burn up my rib eyes. Meanwhile, I’ll go get you a beer out of the fridge.” Then she flew to the kitchen to check on whatever she had in the oven.

“It’s only one evening together,” North muttered in a hoarse whisper to Melody. “Surely we can be civil and behave ourselves in front of your parents for a few hours—for their sake. For ours, too.”

“Only one night?” Melody looked a little strained as she smiled up at him. “Oh, no, North. I quit my job. I’m home to stay. Or at least I’ll be at Nana’s. You and I could see each other anytime—that is, if we wanted to.”

“Which we don’t.”

“Speak for yourself. The last thing I intend to do where you’re concerned—is behave myself.”

Nana was her grandmother.

“I thought south Texas bored you.”

“I was wrong…about a lot of things.”

He remembered her apology right before their kiss. “What things? What do you mean?”

“I’ll be around. That’s all.”

“You said you loved Austin because it was wild. That south Texas and I bored—”

Her parting shots had cut him to the quick. At one point she’d said he was so ultraconservative that she felt stifled and dead anytime she was anywhere near him.

“Well—” She paused. “I’m here for a while. Not because of you, but because I’m going back to school. To get a masters and a teaching certificate.”

“Teaching? You said you didn’t want to settle for any sort of traditional roles like wife or teacher that women used to be forced into by macho men.”

“I was a child. Naturally I wanted to be glamorous and special.” She paused. “I guess I figured out I like kids. I figured out some other stuff…that I like, too.”

Like men? Like sex? Like me?

As if she read his mind, Melody notched her chin upward a bit defiantly, and he found himself drinking in the beauty of her long slender neck and wondering if she really might be referring to sex.

“With this degree and certificate,” Melody continued, “I can work anywhere in the world. I’ll be independent.”

So that was it! She hadn’t come back because of him. This was about her infernal determination to be independent of him. To stay single.

Not that he cared.

“So you still want to travel?” he whispered, making his voice both insolent and admiring. “To see the world?”

“To be free,” she agreed, but her tone was low and urgent as if this really was important to her, as if making him understand mattered.

“Sexually free?”

She turned red again. “Is that all you ever think about?”

“That does seem to be a burning issue when you’re around.”

“Which is why I wanted to get as far away from you as I possibly could!”

“To have more of your little adventures?”

Her eyes blazed. “You don’t get me at all. I should’ve known better than to try to talk to you. You wouldn’t understand.”

He understood, all right. She teased him. Did she want real adventures with other, wilder men, who weren’t so predictable, who didn’t bore her—as he did?

“You might get into trouble. I worry about you.”

“Well, don’t.” Her eyes smoldered. “This isn’t about you, North.”

Something cold coiled around his heart, and then he saw that she was trembling.

“You’re right, of course,” he forced himself to agree. “We broke up. Or rather, you broke up with me. You said we’re—”

“Finished. And you said—” Her voice was tight and sad, and he realized his parting shots had hurt her, too.

He’d said she was doing him a favor.

She was right. They were finished. It was what she’d wanted, what he wanted, too. He was a rancher, born and bred—traditional to the core. He couldn’t change that. He couldn’t—not for her, not after everything she’d done.

Even so, the thought of other men touching her…of her touching them…

That shouldn’t have bothered him. But his stomach twisted, and a bleak, lonely wave of despair washed over him as he considered working his ranch, dating other women, even Maria—while Melody had romantic adventures.

“I—I guess I’ll go and get dressed,” she said after an awkward spell.

When she left him, North’s gaze followed her. Her waist was slim, the flare of her hips and thighs enticingly sweet. That short red silk thing made her look leggy and coltish. He couldn’t seem to move till she disappeared from his view.

Then he adjusted his collar and raked his hand through his hair. So what if he had to endure one miserable night with her?

They’d catch up on old times. Then he really would forget her. He’d see Maria on Saturday, and maybe he’d find a bad girl on the side to sleep with. From now on, he’d drown himself in other women instead of work.

The only reason Miss Melody Woods was getting to him tonight was that she’d burned him so bad, he’d avoided all women since her.

Until Maria, he reminded himself. Maria was perfect for him. At least Jeff said so.

Could he help it if Melody looked good enough to eat, and that he was starved?

One night with her.

What could possibly go wrong?

Smile. It’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.

Why did those infernal words keep repeating themselves like a broken record? Why did he keep imagining her mouth on his body?

He didn’t like the heat those images brought.

One night.

That was all.