Lacy (16 page)

"We're married," she repeated once
more. "Pride shouldn't be involved."

"Pride is my one biggest fault, Lacy,"
he said. He watched the filly prance with narrowed eyes. "I got a double
dose when I was born. It's damned hard to take money from a woman."

"Do you think it would be a bit easier for
me to take it from you, Coleman Albert Whitehall?" she demanded sharply.

He glanced at her, half-amused by the flash of
temper and pride. Yes, she was just as proud as he was, in her way. "Point
taken, Alexandra Nicole."

She smiled with delight. She'd never told him
her middle name. There was only one way he could have known it. "I didn't
know you'd ever looked at our marriage license."

His shoulders rose and fell. "It hung on
the wall for several weeks, until the sight of it began to get to me." He
finished the cigarette and ground it out carefully on a bare spot so that it
didn't catch the dry leaves on fire. "Pride again, Lacy. I couldn't even
apologize for what happened that night."

It amazed her that he'd even thought he needed
to. Surely that was a small crack in the stone that surrounded him. She stared
at his lean, dark hands as they clasped one raised knee before she lifted her
eyes. "I knew you didn't mean to hurt me," she said softly.

His dark eyes held hers, and the silence around
them grew suddenly tense and warm. "What we did together that morning made
my blood sing," he said huskily. "I thought about it all day, dreamed
about it, tasted it. By nightfall, I was burning up." He reached out,
touched her parted lips, feeling the softness of flesh under the dark red lip
gloss, feeling them tremble at his touch. She looked so vulnerable. She touched
something deep inside him, and the words came out without conscious volition.
"Lacy.. .I didn't know," he said hesitantly, because the words came
hard, "that women had to be aroused first."

Her heart stopped beating. It actually stopped.
She stared at him in amazement as the meaning of the words penetrated her mind.

Dark, ruddy color ran along his high cheekbones,
but he didn't blink as he looked at her. "That's right, Lacy. It was my
first time, too."

She could barely speak at all. "But..
.why?"

"You must remember how things were when you
first came to Spanish Flats," he reminded her. His eyes lingered on her
mouth. "I had too much responsibility. Then, the war came. There was so
damned much horror." He sighed heavily. "Afterward," he said,
averting his eyes, "I didn't care about women." He picked up a stick
and twirled its roughness in his hands while he felt her eyes on his profile.
"I wouldn't have hurt you deliberately, Lacy. I just didn't know
much."

Tears stung her eyes. She lowered them to his
long-fingered hands so that he wouldn't see. She could only imagine how much
courage it took for him to admit that to her, with his black pride.

"I'm glad," she whispered fiercely,
startling him. Her eyes lifted to his still face, her voice gentle but a little
unsteady. She managed a watery smile. "If you'd told me that eight months
ago, I'd never have left you!"

He scowled, searching her wide, misty eyes.
"I thought you went because I'd hurt you, made you afraid of me."

She shook her head. "It was because I
thought you'd only used me. I couldn't believe it was because you hadn't been
with anyone else. Men these days.. .well, they're mostly sophisticated, like
Turk."

He relaxed. The ridicule he'd dreaded wasn't
forthcoming. He could hardly believe that she didn't mind his inexperience. He
felt lighter than air as he looked at her. "I never had the chance to get
sophisticated," he said simply. "My father's death was untimely.
Besides all that, you know how I was around women."

"Yes," she murmured, with a dry smile.
"Devastating!"

"Don't be cute," he said curtly.

"I'm not. I worshipped you from afar, but
you were so aloof and unmoved by me that I thought I fell short of your
expectations."

"Well, I'll be damned," he said half
under his breath.

"I did everything but wear a sign around my
neck," she whispered. It was hard to be honest like this. She couldn't
look at him then; she was too embarrassed. "I thought you were the most
wonderful thing since indoor plumbing."

He actually laughed. "You ran a mile to get
out of my way!"

"I was afraid you'd see what a flaming crush
I had on you."

"If I had, you'd have been in a hell of a
lot of trouble," he said teasingly. "I thought you were a dish, Mrs.
Whitehall. Long, elegant legs—"

"Coleman!"

"Excuse me. Limbs."

She gave him a hard glare, her face bloodred,
and he just smiled.

He studied her slender body openly, his eyes
dark and appreciative. Turk had said to act confident, to pretend he knew what
he was doing. It seemed to work, too; it actually intimidated her, made her
more feminine.

"Shy, aren't you?"he said softly, liking
her reactions. He took off his hat and tossed it to one side, sprawling back to
lean against the trunk of the big tree and stare at her with a purely masculine
smile.

She felt her face going hot. This was getting
entirely out of hand. She'd been the one doing the chasing back in San Antonio, and now she seemed to be the quarry. If he was that inexperienced, how did he
know so much?

"Getting cold feet?" he taunted.
"I thought you were the one who couldn't wait to share my bed."

"Cole..."

"What a red face." He chuckled.
"The only delicious prospect about the whole thing is that you knew even
less than I do."

"If it's such a nice prospect, why have you
been spending the past few nights with your cattle instead of me?" she
said, puzzled.

"You didn't seem to mind," he shot
back.

Her head turned, blue eyes sparkling with
temper. "No, I don't mind," she said shortly. "Sleep in the
bunkhouse, for all I care!"

So she did care where he spent his nights. His
thin lips drew into a slow smile. God, she was pretty in a temper. He felt his
body going hot and taut, and he shifted so that she wouldn't notice. Talking
about it was one thing. Being blatant was another. He didn't want to embarrass
Lacy. For all her honesty, she was almost as reticent and reserved as he was.

She started to get to her feet. He reached out,
one of those lightning movements she'd seen a few times, and caught her by the
arm. He jerked her down into his hard arms and turned her so that she was lying
on her back. He slid his hands into hers, pinning them above her head, and his
darkened eyes went down to her breasts. Yes, there were the hard little peaks
Turk had told him about, betraying her own arousal, and he thought he'd never
felt quite as whole, quite as masculine, as he did then. His blood throbbed in
his veins; his chest swelled with pride.

Her eyes widened, looking up into his hard, dark
face, and she felt her body tingle with excitement. This was what she'd wanted
all along, what she'd dreamed about. There was desire in his face, and she wasn't
so afraid now that she knew how inexperienced he was. Intimacy was something
they would learn together.

His fingers linked into hers in slow, exquisite
movements, and all the time he stared down into her eyes. "You aren't
afraid, are you?" he asked quietly.

"Not now," she whispered. Her lips
parted on excited little breaths. The wind rustled the leaves above them, and
the oak smell of the ground under her back was as pleasant as the
tobacco-and-leather fragrance of Cole's taut, hard-muscled body.

His hands contracted gently where they held hers
and his attention diverted to her soft mouth. He bent slowly, opening his lips
as they poised over hers. As he watched, her own lips began to part. He moved
down, fitting his mouth slowly to hers, tasting its warm moistness, feeling the
very texture of her lips as he increased the pressure.

He felt dizzy as his tongue pushed into her
mouth and felt the soft, shy response of her own. He groaned softly, aching for
the warm nakedness of her body, aching to touch her in the most intimate ways.
Would she let him? he wondered. And if he lost his head, would she wonder why
he wouldn't let her touch him, or undress him?

The questions distracted him. He lifted his
head, feeling her excited breath on his moist lips, and looked down at her. Her
blue eyes were narrow, lazy with pleasure, her lips slightly swollen.

"Don't stop," she whispered huskily.

He searched her face. "Don't touch
me," he whispered back. He let go of her hands, waiting to see what she
did.

She lay quietly, her hands beside her head, her
eyes steady on his dark face. She had suspicions about this side of him,
too—about why he didn't want her to touch him or look at his unclothed body.
But for now, she had to teach Cole to trust her.

He poised above her for a long minute, long
enough to realize that she was obeying him without protest. His jaw tautened.
"No questions?" he asked.

"No questions," she whispered. Her
soft eyes searched over his face, adoring it. "Are you going to make love
to me?"

His body tensed at the query. His lips parted
and he looked down at her taut breasts. "Would you let me, in broad
daylight?" he asked tersely.

"Yes."

He felt a fine tremor go through his aching
body. God, he wanted to. He wanted to bury himself in her. This time, he wanted
to make her cry and bite him as he gave her pleasure. He wanted her to feel
what he was feeling, to give as well as take.

"You've never looked at my body," she
said in a stranger's husky voice, challenging him. She was on fire for him now;
she wanted everything with him. "You've touched it, but you've never seen
it. Don't you want to?"

He shuddered. "My God, of course I want
to!" he bit off. "But, Lacy, it's broad daylight—and my men do
occasionally use the barn!"

If she'd been less dazed from his kisses, she
might have laughed at the almost desperate note in his deep voice.

Even so, his reason was getting lost in the
stormy urgency of his own body. He slid his fingers very slowly past her
collarbone, watching how still she lay as he began to trace the soft slope of
her breast. He felt her tremble, heard her breath catch. He slid his hand a
little further, until the tips of his fingers touched the hard tip of her
breast. She made a sound. It was staggering to watch him touch her so intimately.
She had to fight not to protest, even now.

She was softer than he'd dreamed. He'd been too
nervous and hungry to do much of this that night they'd spent together. Turk
was right; it was better when she was vulnerable and submissive. It gave him
pleasure that he could do this to Lacy. He looked into her shocked eyes.
"I like that," he whispered roughly. "I like the sound you just
made."

He rubbed his fingertips over the hardness, and
she whimpered, biting her lower lip. If she died right now, it would be all
right. It was so unbelievable to lie with Cole in the sunlight and feel his
hands taking possession of her body, arousing her, enjoying her. And he
was
enjoying
her. She saw his face, saw the pleasure there, and glowed all over with pride.

With a harsh breath, he pushed his palm gently
against the hard nipple and swallowed her breast. Her lips parted and she
arched, moaning, too far gone to care that he was seeing her blatant
vulnerability to his caresses.

God, she was lovely! He'd never seen a woman's
bare breasts before, except in pictures. He hadn't been able to see Lacy at all
the night he'd spent with her. But he wanted to see Lacy like that, to open her
dress and look at her. But he had to keep his head. Someone could walk by any
time.

Lacy watched him through slitted eyelids. She
thought that there had never been anything as sweet as his hand on her body.
She arched it a little, pulsing with delight. It was all of heaven, this tender
loving. And she hadn't thought him capable of tenderness.

"You.. .hardly touched me that night,"
she said jerkily.

"There wasn't time," he replied. His
eyes fell to her soft, firm breast. His fingertips rubbed slowly at the nipple.
"Lacy, what does it feel like when I touch you like this?"

"It makes me weak all over," she
whispered, her voice husky. "It makes me
...
shaky."