Cattleman's Choice (9 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen do,” she said, biting down hard on a roll.

“I'm not much of a gentleman, am I?” he sighed. “I don't suppose if I worked at it all my life, I'd improve a hell of a lot.”

“Yes, you will,” she said softly. She studied his craggy face, liking its hardness, its strength. Her eyes fell to his slender hand and she remembered how tender it had been on her bare skin. She dropped her fork noisily against her plate and scrambled to pick it up.

“Do I make you nervous, Mandelyn?” he murmured wryly. “That's a first.”

She shifted in her seat. “I'm not used to entertaining men here,” she admitted.

“Yes, I know that.”

He was watching her, the way he always did, and that made her more nervous than ever. They finished the meal in silence, and he helped her carry the dishes into the kitchen. Not only that—he insisted on helping as she washed them. He dried them, smiling at her confusion.

“I'm handy in the kitchen,” he reminded her. “I have to be or I'd have starved to death years ago. I don't have women over to cook my dinner.”

She lifted her eyes to his hard face and searched it curiously.

He looked down at the curious expression on her flushed face. “Yes, once in a while they come over for other purposes,” he said softly. “I'm a man, not a plaster saint, and I have all the usual needs.”

Her face colored slowly and he grinned. She tore her eyes away, but her hands trembled and she hated that giveaway sign.

“You're such a little greenhorn,” he murmured. “You don't know anything about men and women, do you?”

“I'm not ignorant,” she muttered.

“I didn't say you were. Just innocent.” He finished drying the last dish and put it to one side. “I like that. Your being innocent, I mean. I like it a lot.”

She couldn't meet his eyes. He made her feel shy and young and all thumbs.

“Why hasn't there been a man?” he asked quietly.

“Let's start your dancing lessons, shall we?” she began nervously. She started past him, but he caught her.

“Why, Mandelyn?” he persisted.

“Carson…”

His big hands caught her waist and crushed her body against his. “Why, damn it?” he burst out, his patience at an end.

Her vulnerability to his nearness shocked her. She panicked and suddenly tore away from him as if she couldn't bear for him to touch her. She stood with her back to him, shivering.

She knew he hadn't liked her withdrawal, not one bit. But she couldn't help it, he terrified her. She was getting in over her head, and she didn't know how to stop him, how to handle him. Carson was more man pound for pound than she'd ever seen.

She swallowed down a rush of shyness and turned back to face him. He was preoccupied, as if he was thinking deep thoughts. He came close again, his gaze intent.

“Suppose you show me how to dance,” he said at last. “Then next week comes culture. I've bought tickets for a ballet in Phoenix. I thought you might come along and explain it all to me.”

She laughed. “You, at a ballet?”

He glared at her. “Stop that!”

“Yes, Carson,” she said demurely.

“Turn on that damned stereo, will you?”

A moment later the music flowed sweetly into the silence. Mandelyn went easily into his arms and showed him how to hold her, not too tightly, not too loosely. Then she taught him what to do with his feet. He was a little clumsy at first, but an apt enough student.

“Why do I have to hold you so far away?” he asked. “I've seen couples practically making love on the dance floor.”

“Not in polite company,” she said huskily, staring at her feet.

“Yes, in polite company,” he murmured. His hands brought her gently closer, until she was standing right up against him, so close that she could feel his heartbeat against her breasts. “Like this. Here.” He brought one of her hands up to his neck and slid his arm further around her, resting his chin on her head. “Mmm,” he murmured, “much better.”

That depended on one's point of view, she thought nervously. She felt stiff, because her body was reacting to his like wildfire.

“Don't panic,” he said softly. “We'll just dance.”

But she was all too close to him, and something had happened to his body that she'd never experienced before. She tried to edge a little away from him, but he held her fast.

“Carson,” she protested weakly.

“Mandelyn, I know you're a virgin,” he said quietly. “I'm not going to make a wild grab for you.”

“Yes, I know, but…but…”

“But you can feel me wanting you and you're frightened, isn't that it?” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “I'm not embarrassed. Why should you be? It's a man's very natural reaction to a lovely woman.”

She'd never heard it put like that. She studied his hard face.

“I've spent my life working with animals,” he said, his voice quiet, deep. “I don't find anything distasteful about reproduction, about sex. You shouldn't either. It's God's way of perpetuating the species, and it's beautiful.”

She flushed, but she didn't look away. “You make it sound that way,” she said softly.

His eyes searched hers intimately. “I don't like the idea of one-night stands and affairs, or people living together without marriage. I'm old-fashioned enough to want a woman with principles when I marry, and not a woman who'll proposition me just because she feels liberated.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Has that ever happened to you?” she asked.

He laughed softly. “As a matter of fact, yes, at a cattle convention, of all places. She was a little rodeo rider and as pretty as a picture. She came up to me, touched me in a way I won't even tell you about and invited me to spend the night with her.”

She hesitated. “Did you?” she asked in a tiny voice, all eyes.

He studied her mouth for a long moment. “Shame on you. A well brought up young woman like you, asking a man that kind of question….”

“Did you sleep with her?” she persisted.

“No, as a matter of fact, I didn't,” he chuckled. “I like to do the chasing.”

“Yes, I imagine you would,” she replied, but she felt relieved all the same.

His hand slid down her back to the bottom of her spine and pushed her just a little closer, and she caught her breath and froze.

“Too intimate?” he murmured. “Okay, I get the message. The kind of girls I'm used to don't mind being held like that. But I guess I've got a lot to learn about civilized behavior.”

She nuzzled her face against his chest with a sigh. “I've got a lot to learn about the reverse,” she said with a smile. “No one's ever held me this way.”

His hands contracted on her waist, and she gasped. “Hey, not so tight,” she laughed. “That hurts!”

“Why don't you go out with anyone?”

That was a good question, but it wasn't the time for confessions. “I like my own company,” she said after a minute.

“You'll need a man one day.”

“No,” she protested. “I don't want anyone.”

His hand caught suddenly in the thick length of her hair and tugged sharply. She gasped at the twinge of pain and stared at him as if he were a stranger.

“You can't live alone forever,” he said harshly, his eyes glittering down into hers. “You need more than your work.”

“What do I need, since you're such an expert on the subject?” she challenged hotly.

He pulled her hair, more gently now, forcing her head down onto his shoulder while the music played on, forgotten. “You need to be dragged into a man's bed and loved all night long. That's what you need.”

“Not with you,” she protested, pushing against his hard chest. “You've got a woman already!”

He wouldn't let go. “I have?”

“Of course,” she grumbled, pushing harder. “The one we're remodeling you for, remember? The one who's too stuck up to like you the way…you are…will you let go of me, damn it!” She stood still, hating the slow, sweet stirrings of her own body as he held her and she felt his heartbeat merging with her own.

His chest rose and fell with gathering speed, and the hand holding her long hair released it and began a caressing motion.

It dawned on her that the music was still playing, a sultry tune that only made more dangerous an already flammable situation.

“Dance, don't fight,” he whispered deeply. “Don't fight me.”

Her legs were trembling as he drew her into a rhythm that was more like making love to music than dancing. His hard thighs brushed her own and never in her life had she felt weaker or more vulnerable.

“I'm afraid.” She didn't know that she'd said it out loud, or that Carson's pale blue eyes glittered like diamonds when he heard her.

“Yes, I know,” he breathed into her hair. His fingers slid between hers caressingly. “I won't hurt you.”

Her nails pressed unconsciously against his chest and he stiffened. She frowned, drawing back so that she could see his face. What she found there disturbed her.

His nostrils flared, his jaw clenched. “No, you aren't the only one who's vulnerable,” he said curtly.

Her fascinated eyes searched his. Her rebellious hands liked his visible reaction to them. They opened the top button of his shirt, and his breath caught, but he didn't make a move to stop her.

Her lower lip trembled. “I…Carson?” she whispered questioningly.

“Go ahead,” he breathed. “Do it.”

“But…”

His open mouth touched her forehead. “Do it.”

He was trembling already. By the time she fumbled open the shirt and eased the edges aside, his quickened breathing was visible as well. Fascinated, she put her hands flat on the hair-roughened flesh and began to caress him with slow, tentative movements. He seemed to like what she was doing, if the intent hardness of his expression was any indication.

She slid her hands around to his muscular back and laid her hot cheek against his bare skin and closed her eyes. He smelled clean and sexy, and she drew her cheek, then her lips, against his body with dreamy motions.

His fingers tangled in her hair and turned her face, so that her mouth was against him.

“Kiss me,” he whispered. “No, honey, not like that. Open your mouth and do it. Yes,” he groaned unsteadily, and his hands grew rough. “Yes.”

She drew her mouth over every hard inch of his chest, up to his shoulders, his throat, his chin. But even on tiptoe, she couldn't reach his mouth.

“Carson,” she moaned protestingly, tugging at his thick hair.

“Do you want my mouth?” he whispered.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered back. She moved her body against his slowly. “Oh, yes, I want it very, very much!”

He bent and touched her lips with his, savoring them for a few taut seconds until her mouth opened. His arms drew her close, his hand held the back of her head still, and the kiss became explosive and hot. He groaned as he felt her quick, fervent response to it. His hands moved down to her hips and pushed them against his, and this time she didn't protest.

Her hands worshipped him, running hungrily up his spine, to his shoulder blades, around to his hard ribs and, daringly, to the muscular stomach above his belt.

He shuddered and lifted his head. She stared up at him with dazed, misty eyes and a swollen mouth.

“Shouldn't I touch you like that?” she whispered.

“I like letting you touch me like that,” he replied huskily. “Unfasten it.”

She flushed. “No, I couldn't!”

He held her hands against him, tenderly. “It's my body, isn't it?” he whispered. “If I don't mind, why should you? Aren't you curious?”

She was. She'd never wanted to touch a man that way, not even Ben when she was eighteen, and the realization shook her to her very shoes.

“Mandy,” he said quietly, “I wouldn't seduce you. You'd have to want it, too, before I'd go that far.”

“But…”

“But what, honey?” He bent and brushed his lips across her eyebrows, her closed eyes.

“Why…are you making love to me?”

His mouth smiled. “Because it feels good. Because I've never made love to a virgin.”

She drew back and studied him curiously. “Never?” she whispered.

He shook his head, smiling. “You're my first.”

She felt young and shy and a little embarrassed. Her eyes fell to his bare chest and she tingled just looking at it. “You're…my first,” she confessed. “I never let anyone…”

“Never let anyone what, baby?” he whispered.

“Touch me…the way you did yesterday,” she said finally.

“Here?” he asked softly, and brushed his knuckles over her soft breast.

“Y…yes,” she faltered. She pressed close to him, shivering a little. He made her feel the wildest hungers.

His hands smoothed down her back and around to her hips. He moved her body lazily against his and caught his breath at the rush of sensation.

“Don't faint,” he teased when she stiffened. “Think of it as private tutoring, Mandy. You're teaching me to be a gentleman. Let me teach you how to be a woman.”

“I'm afraid!”

“I won't force you, precious,” he whispered. “I won't ever force you. Let me show you what magic two people can make. Let me show you how sweet it can be.”

He lifted her gently in his arms and looked down into her hungry gray eyes while his own blazed with pale blue flames. “I've got to have more of you than this,” he whispered. “I want to feel you under me, just once, just for a few seconds.”

“Carson…!” she moaned against his suddenly devouring mouth.

“Sweet,” he whispered unsteadily, biting at her open, pleading lips. “God, you're so sweet….”

She felt him moving, but his mouth was seducing hers, and she clung to him and closed her eyes. She knew he was taking her to the bedroom. She knew, too, that once he had her down on the mattress and could feel her body yielding under the hard pressure of his own that no power on earth was going to stop him from taking her. Despite all the promises, he was on fire for her. And she was on fire for him. It was going to happen, and she wasn't even sorry. She sensed something in him that calmed her, that made her relax and return his tender caresses.