Midnight Remedy (11 page)

But she couldn’t. She could only stare mutely and wonder where her good sense had fled to.

“Then I’ll have to kiss you,” he said. His tongue slid inside her lips, parting them with a gentle pressure. She tasted temptation, exquisite temptation, a temptation that washed away the fears in an explosion of feeling. Helpless, her tongue met his in an erotic dance of pure pleasure while his hands fell to the lapels of her robe, hesitating a moment before he parted the material and covered her breasts.

With a hiss of indrawn breath she drew away and stared at him while he massaged her breasts, flicking the nipples with his thumbs until they stood in rigid peaks against the fabric of her thin nightshirt. Her blood pounded, an erratic rhythm of desire.

“Eric,” she said in a strangled whisper.

“Shh.” He raised a hand to bring her mouth back down to meld with his, kissing her deeply, a slow, sweet, dizzying torture of the senses. His kisses, his hands kneading her breasts, his fingers teasing the nipples made her ache, made her want to forget everything except how wonderful what he was doing to her felt.

She was out of her depth, and she knew it. This had to stop, now, before it went any further. She couldn’t take the risk again, not again. Placing her hands against his chest, she pushed at him. “Eric, this isn’t
 . . .
we can’t
 . . .
”

He took one of her hands from against his chest. Slowly, so slowly, he turned it over and kissed her wrist, and then her palm, all the while watching her eyes. “Why can’t we?”

“Because I
 . . .
because you
 . . .
” Dammit, she felt like a teenager again. When his tongue stroked her palm, she almost forgot what she was saying. “I don’t have casual sex.” There, she’d finally managed a coherent sentence.

Bathed in the moonlight, his face suddenly looked harsher, almost angry. “Neither do I.” He kissed her wrist again and her pulse throbbed erratically.

Remember what happened the last time you trusted a man, she told herself. “I’m not ready to take this step.”

“Then we’ll wait until you are.”

“I’m not sure I ever will be.”

He grinned. “You think not?” His gaze traveled from her face, down to rest on her chest, where, she was achingly aware, the state of her arousal was still obvious. As he regarded her, his shoulders started to shake.

She bristled. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re the only woman I know who can make a Transformers nightshirt look sexy.”

Her chin lifted. “My son gave me this shirt.”

“Like I said, on you it looks great.” He drew her lapels together over her chest, pulling her closer. His hands rested lightly at the valley of her breasts, their lips were a scant inch apart. “You’re kidding yourself, you know.” He pressed a quick, impossibly hot kiss on her lips and let go.

Piper flushed and jumped up from the couch. Someday she’d pay him back for all that arrogant male pride. “Don’t count on it, buster.”

Smiling, he rose from the couch and walked to the door. “It’s damned near impossible not to, Angel. Thanks for dinner.”

“Don’t let the door hit you in the fanny on your way out.”

Piper heard Cole’s voice
coming through the opened window. “Mom! Come see what I found!”

At least he’d waited until she was almost finished, Piper thought, slicing through the orchid cutting she was propagating. “Be there in a minute,” she called to him, wondering what he wanted. Last time she’d heard that note of excitement in his voice he’d found a rattlesn
 . . .

Piper threw down her tools and rushed outside, her heart beating triple time. “Cole, you didn’t—”

“Come on, Mom. Mirabelle had her kittens in the barn.” He tugged on her hand, rushing her along at top speed.

Kittens, she thought, her heart rate settling. She could handle those a lot better than a nest of rattlers. The kittens couldn’t have been more than a couple of days old. Piper didn’t bother cautioning Cole against touching them. Having lived on the ranch his entire life, he knew the rules.

“Why don’t horses have as many babies as cats do?” Cole asked her as they watched the kittens nurse.

“That’s just the way they’re made, I guess,” Piper said. Unless he was in school, Cole was present at every birth on the ranch. He also dogged the vet’s footsteps, whenever he had occasion to come out. Not for the first time, Piper wondered if Cole would be a veterinarian when he grew up. She had mixed feelings about that, since she knew that big animal vets had a hard time earning a living. But Cole was only six, so she wasn’t too concerned yet.

Vets led to thoughts of doctors. Or maybe that was because almost everything had her thinking about doctors lately. One particular doctor, anyway. Eric hadn’t called her since he’d come to dinner, but it had only been two days.

“Want to play catch?” she asked Cole, in an effort to get her mind on the important things in her life. The things that mattered, not this fleeting physical attraction she felt for Eric Chambers.

“Cool,” Cole said.

Cole looked like his father, she supposed, though by now Roger’s image had faded and she had trouble recalling his exact features. Roger. Lord, how easy he’d found it to seduce her, even though she’d been engaged to Neil when they met. He’d swept aside her objections, and she had broken it off with Neil and tumbled into his arms. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known Roger was married. Because she hadn’t wanted to know, hadn’t even considered all the signs that pointed to the truth. Piper would never again make the mistake of believing a man too easily.

“Will you pitch me some, too?” Cole asked her, slipping a grubby hand in hers.

A week’s worth of work awaited her in the greenhouse. Piper looked at her son and felt love squeeze her heart. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s go get the bat and gloves.” Work could wait. Six-year-olds couldn’t.

Forty-five minutes later she rushed into the greenhouse to find Eric looking at her herbs. Her heart leaped at the sight of him, irritating her immensely. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled when he turned to look at her. She wished his smile didn’t make her stomach knot with a fluttery, goofy feeling. “I thought the place was deserted,” he said. “You weren’t in the house or out here.”

“I was at the barn. What do you want?” She knew she sounded ungracious, but she decided it was better that way.

“I know you’ve probably been to the McDonald Observatory, but I wondered if you and Cole wanted to go again. I’d like to see it.”

Sneaky of him to include her son, she thought. “Sorry, I’ve got work. Seems like you should too. Don’t you ever work?”

“Had a slow day.” He studied her thoughtfully and then walked over to her.

Piper backed against the potting bench. “What?” she asked, when he raised his hand to brush his fingers across her cheek.

“Mud,” he said, smiling slowly as he wiped it away. “Are you sure you can’t go?”

Be direct, she told herself. “This isn’t going to work. I told you that the other night. I’m not having an affair with you.”

“Why not?”

Well, that was blunt. She cast around for something, anything to say. “I’m not interested. At least, not enough to go to bed with you.”

“Are you saying you’re not attracted to me?”

“Yes,” she said, wishing he’d drop it and knowing he wouldn’t.

“What about the other night? You seemed
 . . .
” his gaze ran down her body before returning to her eyes “. . . interested then.”

“Heat of the moment” she said, shrugging. “It was late, we were half-asleep.”

He stepped even closer, taking hold of her arms. “Neither of us is half-asleep now. Are we?” His eyes glinted above her.

Her blood heated, her mind turned to mush as she felt the current of heat flow between them. “N-no. What are you doing?”

He pulled her against him and crushed his lips to hers in a kiss that literally knocked her senseless. She curled her fingers into the hair at his nape. Hunger. Heat. From him, and worse, from herself as his tongue swept through her mouth. Not sweet, or gentle, or even seductive, but pure explosive energy and hot desire. In one sweeping, arousing motion, he ran his hands deliberately down her body. When she was nothing but a quivering pool of sensation, he finally stopped kissing her. Her eyes opened to see the anger in his gaze.

“I’d say that proved you a liar, Angel. What do you say?”

He was breathing a little heavily, but that was his sole reaction to a kiss that had robbed her mind of any sane thought and her body of its will. “I’d say it makes you a bastard.”

“Probably.” He bent his head to kiss her again, but she placed a hand on his chest.

“Don’t. Please.”

Their gazes locked and held. Eric released her and stepped back, raking his hands through his hair and muttering a curse.

After a long, awkward silence, Piper spoke. “You probably think it’s strange that a woman like me would hesitate about something like this.”

He shot her a puzzled glance. “What’s that supposed to mean? A woman like you?”

“Well,” she lifted her shoulders, “there’s Cole. Don’t pretend you haven’t heard that he’s illegitimate.” God, she hated that word. Such a cruel word for an innocent little boy.

“So? Are you saying that because you have an illegitimate son, I believe that entitles me to take you to bed?”

She winced and turned her head. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

He swore, crude, succinct and to the point. “Dammit, look at me.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “That was about my ego. Because you said you weren’t attracted to me, not because you said you wouldn’t sleep with me. Good God, do you think I’m so hard up I have to con a woman into bed?”

Her cheeks dimpled. “No, I think you might have to fight them off, if you kissed them like you kissed me.”

He paced away and then back, turning to glare at her. “Do you think
 . . .
” he continued furiously and then stopped. “What?”

“You heard me. Do you have to fight women off?”

A reluctant smile stole over his face. “Not anytime lately. And I haven’t had to fight you off.” He took her hand. “Nothing will happen until you’re ready for it to.”

“What if I never am?”

His fingers gentle, he traced her face. She found it oddly soothing. “Just what kind of men have you been dating, Piper?”

“The wrong kind, obviously.”

He gave her cheek a last, gentle caress and dropped his hand. “Why don’t you let me worry about what I’ll do if and when? You just worry about what you really want.”

But what she wanted to do and the smart thing for her to do were two entirely different matters.