Every Breath She Takes (23 page)

He let her go the moment she pushed back. Let her go so suddenly, in fact, that she almost stumbled. Chest heaving, eyes glittering dangerously, he dragged a hand across his mouth. “Better run along.”

Run along? Like hell she would!
She touched a trembling hand to her own mouth but made no move to leave. “Dammit, Cal, what was that kiss about? That
hurt
.”

He looked away. “Then you’d better get out of here while the gettin’s good.”

She studied his rigid demeanor, taking in his tight shoulders and averted head.
Why was he being such a jerk?

Suddenly, in a flash of intuition, she understood. He was trying to drive her away. That was his intent. The man who handled everything on his own didn’t know how to lean on anyone. He’d
rather run her off than have her witness what he clearly perceived as a moment of weakness.

The knowledge changed everything. He wouldn’t hurt her, and she wasn’t leaving. She couldn’t make him share his burdens, but she had an idea how to ease the lid on the pressure cooker of his emotions. She stepped closer, laying a hand on the vest.

“Who’s running away? I just want to get this thing off you.” She couldn’t feel his heartbeat through the vest, but a muscle leapt in his jaw. “I was glad to see you wearing it earlier, mind you, but it’s got to go now. I can’t
feel
you through it.”

He closed a hand over her roaming hand. “Don’t.”

She used her free hand to skim his right hip. “Why not?”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?” he challenged.

She held his gaze. “Do you
want
to hurt me?”

“No,” he said on an exhalation. “No, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Good.” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, but he pulled his head back, evidently not ready to surrender yet. She groaned. “What is it now?”

“This might not be such a good idea.” The words came out sandpaper rough. “I was trying to chase you off, grabbing you like that. But I’m so tightly wound right now, I don’t know if I can be careful enough. Do you know what I’m saying?”

The raggedness of his voice excited her. Clearly he wasn’t as in command of himself as she’d thought. Suddenly she wanted to see him lose control completely. She wanted—needed—to drown her own fears and anxieties in the taste and smell of him.

“Careful wasn’t what I had in mind anyway.” Her insides liquefying with desire, she freed her trapped hand and slid her arms around his neck.

His answer was to jerk her close, but this time his forceful kiss sent a jolt of excitement to her very core. Meeting his invasion of her mouth greedily, she dropped her hands to tug at his vest, needing to be rid of that piece of armor. Sensing her need,
he shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor with a thump. The moment it was gone, she flexed her fingers and raked her nails—not especially gently—over hard, fabric-covered muscle.

Groaning, he wrenched his mouth away from hers and caught one of her hands. “Better slow this down,” he said, his voice strangled.

“No,” she protested, “don’t hold back on me now.”

“Lauren—”

“Please, Cal.” Impossibly, desperately aroused now, she surged against him, forgetting this was supposed to be for him. “Don’t hold
anything
back.”

His mouth crashed back down on hers. She was drowning, dying for oxygen, yet she didn’t want to breathe anything but Cal. Then she felt cool air on her legs as he rucked her skirt up to her waist. Bunching the material in his fist, he stepped back. Lauren could have screamed her regret at losing full body contact, but then she saw his face.

His skin seemed stretched more tautly over his bones, and dark patches of color rode his cheeks. For a moment he just stared with hooded eyes at what he’d exposed.

Lauren knew what he’d see—bare, tanned legs and sensible white cotton briefs. She wished she’d worn some tiny scrap, some gossamer-thin thing, so he could rip it away with one strong tug. The thought made her knees wobble.

He caught her, lending the support of his chest even as he plunged a hand into her panties. Anticipating his touch, she moaned, spreading her legs, but he merely yanked the briefs down to her knees. Somehow, that was even more arousing.

She shimmied, and her panties fell. She barely stepped free of them before he backed her up against the wall. He kissed her, fiercely and at length, as though he would have her very breath.

From outside, she heard voices buzzing, laughter.
Someone could walk in at any moment.
Instead of horrifying her, the thought just made her hotter.

“Spread for me,” he commanded.

Lauren obeyed instantly. When his hand found the wetness between her legs, she fairly climbed onto him.

Growling, he lifted her. Her heart leaping against her ribs, she wrapped her legs around him. As though she weighed nothing, he carried her across the room and deposited her on top of a tack trunk, the cool metal sending shivers up her back. She expected him to follow her down, crush her with his weight, but he hauled her closer to the edge of the trunk.

Yes!
was all she had time to think before he lifted her hips. She hadn’t even seen him free himself, let alone get the condom on. But there was no arguing the evidence of the blunt, latex-sheathed hardness nudging her opening.

Without preliminaries, he pushed into her, stretching her. She muffled a scream.

He stilled. “Are you okay?”

Oh, don’t let him stop. Not now.
“Yes,” she gritted.

“Don’t let me hurt you,” he rasped.

“Do it again,” she begged. “Just like that.”

Shuddering, he withdrew and plunged into her again. This time she swallowed her sob. Shifting her legs, she opened wider, arched higher. He grasped her hips tighter, anchoring her against his next thrust. She writhed against him. She couldn’t be open enough, take him deep enough. He drove into her again. Like a flash flood, her climax came out of nowhere, taking her with sudden, shocking violence.

Too soon,
she mourned.

He rocked against her as she rode it out, but incredibly, he didn’t follow her. Her muscles still contracting around him, he lifted her, knocked a horse blanket to the floor and lowered her onto it. Propping himself on his arms, he plunged into her with ferocious, hammering thrusts, over and over and over again. Lauren moaned as the ever-tightening waves began to build again, but Cal covered her mouth with his, absorbing the sounds
as he drove her higher. She tried to spin it out, make it last, but his rhythm was too insistent. Again she was catapulted over the edge into ecstasy. This time, he followed.

Unbelievable
, thought Cal.
Fantastic. Amazing, tooth-rattlingly thrilling sex.

He rolled, pulling Lauren with him, letting her skirt drape them modestly. Her body felt like dead weight, her head lolling. Alarm jolted through him.
Dammit, had he hurt her after all?
He tipped her head up.

“Lauren, are you all right?”

She lifted her head, giving him a smug smile. “Are you kidding? If I felt any better, it’d be illegal.”

He laughed, relieved. “I’m not sure it wasn’t, considering we could’ve been caught. Public lewdness, at the very least.”

She blushed and buried her head against his chest again.

“Hey, we better get dressed and out of here,” he murmured into her hair.

“Mmmmm, I wish we could stay here like this.”

“Me too.” He stroked her back through the fine material of her hopelessly wrinkled tank top, knowing if they stayed here much longer, they wouldn’t stay quite like
this
. “But before long someone’s going to come through that door. They’ll be looking for me soon to start the roping.”

She tipped her head up and kissed his chin. “I guess I better get moving then.”

Despite the fact that he’d prodded her to get up, he felt as if a piece of himself peeled away as she rolled off and got to her feet. Damn, didn’t it seem like he handed her big chunks of himself every time they made love? A frown creased his brow.

Lauren scooped her underwear from the floor, pushing it into a pocket. By the time he’d dealt with his jeans, she’d tidied
her own clothes. She slipped into his arms, and he brushed a piece of straw from her hair.

“I’ll leave first so as not to raise any eyebrows.”

He grinned. “That’s very circumspect of you, Miz Townsend, but I think everyone already knows we’re lovers.”

She grinned back at him. “Yeah, but they don’t need to know we’ve been engaging in—what did you call it?—
public lewdness
in the tack room.”

He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. “Yeah, they’ll never know from the look of you.”

Those blue eyes widened. “What? Do I still have straw in my hair?”

Lord, she was beautiful. He lifted a hand to smooth her hair. “It’s a little mussed, is all. It’s the stubble burn all over you that gives you away.”

She stepped back out of his arms, lifting a hand to her throat. “Oh, crap. Guess I’d better go shower and moisturize.”

Hand pressed to her chest in an attempt to cover the redness, she stepped out into the fading sun and made a beeline for her cabin.

Cal smiled as he folded the horse blanket. He almost wished he hadn’t told her how she looked. The idea of her walking around with her delicate skin abraded and her lips swollen from his kisses—and having people know he’d put those marks on her—pleased him on a very primitive, possessive level.

His smile faded as he remembered his earlier thought about losing himself to her piece by piece.

But that was a
figurative
deconstruction. He stuck the new gloves in his pocket and jammed his hat on his head. Facing two more go-arounds with Misadventure, his more pressing concern was holding his pieces
physically
together.

Then there was the matter of his father. What the devil was he doing here after all these years? It sure as hell wasn’t for a vacation. The man didn’t know what that word meant.

Zane Taggart would be coming clean soon, Cal decided, grabbing his hat. As soon as this rodeo business was out of the way, the two of them were gonna have a talk. And if the prospect of that hurried Zane on his way, so much the better.

Snagging a couple of lariats, Cal walked out into the evening.

Cal pulled his riding glove on, carefully adjusting each seam on each finger. Well, here they were, set to go again under a blistering sun on day two. He scanned the crowd, stopping when he found Lauren’s pinched white face. His heart squeezed.

They’d sat together last night during the bonfire, inhaling the smells of wood smoke and night. He’d draped his coat around her shoulders and pulled her close while the cowhands spun yarns. Cal had heard all their tales before, but he’d enjoyed watching Lauren’s reaction to them. Then Jim had pulled out his mouth organ and young Seth his guitar. Under cover of that thin, lonesome music, he and Lauren had slipped away to her cabin. There he’d made sweet, languorous love to her to make up for the way he’d ravaged her in the barn.

In the morning, she’d made strong coffee and smiled brightly at him, and not once did she ask him not to ride the bull.

But he knew she’d wanted to.

And where was Zane this morning? He hadn’t turned up at the bonfire. Not that Cal had expected him to. As Cal had so often heard as an adolescent, his father didn’t hold with late nights.

His father didn’t hold with vacations either. So what the hell was he doing here?

Damn, he was wandering. He had to clear his mind, focus.

He rolled his shoulders, then climbed the fence. In the chute beneath him, the yellow Brahman stood deceptively docile, like one of his gentle, white-faced Herefords.

Spider joined him. “Looks tame as a tabby cat this morning, don’t he?”

“Hmm.”

Wordlessly Spider helped Cal get the bull rope on below the Brahman’s massive hump. The only sign Misadventure gave that he even noticed this activity was to twitch his ears, but Cal wasn’t fooled. As he’d done a hundred times before, he took a deep breath and let the fear wash over him.

Fear was good. It kept the senses sharp, reactions honed.

He straddled the bull, feet planted on the rails. As Spider held the rope taut, Cal whipped his gloved hand up and down it to heat both glove and rope. Then he slid his hand into the grip, palm up, and gestured for Spider to tighten the rope.

Yeah, this rope was an old friend. He’d resined it lovingly and treated it with glycerin to get just the right shape and stickiness. And now he would commit his safety to it once again.

He cast another sideways look at the crowd. Still no sign of his father. Thank God.

But it wouldn’t have killed him to watch, would it? It’s not like he ever came out to see me.

With a stab of irritation, Cal shoved those thoughts aside. That was his inner kid talking, the kid who’d won his first major event and hadn’t had a soul to celebrate it with.

A head of white hair caught Cal’s attention from across the corral. Harvey McLeod, come to cheer for the bull, no doubt. Then Cal saw the man by McLeod’s side—Brady.
Great
. It was hard to tell, but he guessed they were talking, cowboy fashion, each looking out over the corral. Cal sent a prayer skyward that they wouldn’t come to blows right here in front of his guests.