To Love a Wilde (14 page)

She moved slightly, wincing when the small movement caused an ache between her legs.

Or what hadn’t she done, she mentally corrected herself, glancing over her shoulder and seeing Holt’s face, or at least the part that wasn’t buried in the back of her neck.

She felt his breath blow warm air across her neck, and suppressed a shiver as her treacherous nipples responded as though on cue.

Her thoughts quickly went back to what had happened the night before, memories rushing down on her, causing both the blush and the ache between her legs to increase tenfold.

After they’d made love, she vaguely recalled him helping her to gather her clothes and the two of them leaving the barn.

The way he’d made love to her had been unlike anything she’d thought in her wildest fantasies, so unreal, so hot and amazing … unlike anything she could have imagined in her most erotic dreams.

She bit her lip, uncertain what to do yet, wondering if he knew he’d been the first for her.

That he was the first wasn’t something she was ashamed of. It wasn’t as though she’d been saving herself for him, it just hadn’t happened before.

She mentally shrugged, thinking if he asked her that would be her response.

As though he would, she thought.

He probably hadn’t even noticed.

The thought was sobering.

She was well aware that most of the women, if not all, knew the score with him. He was in it for a good time, he’d never made any secret of the fact.

And she was no different than any of the rest.

And now it was the morning after. So clichéd, she thought, her brows coming together in a frown, wondering how or what she’d say to him.

She wouldn’t even let him think she expected anything more from him than what he’d given her last night. She wasn’t embarrassed, nor did she regret what they’d done. It happened.

But why did the thought leave her feeling empty? she wondered. Gradually she allowed her eyes to close, her body sore, her mind weary from the mental gymnastics she’d just put it through.

Holt lay quietly behind Yasmine, the subtle shift in her body posture alerting him the moment she’d awakened. He waited for her to turn to him. One minute stretched into the next until he realized after he heard her soft snores that she wasn’t going to.

He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not.

At any rate it gave him longer to think about what he’d say to her, how they’d go forward … She’d been a virgin. Had he known she’d never been with a
man before he never would have … Before he could finish the thought, he knew it was a lie.

Last night would have happened, whether he had known or not. There was no way he could have walked away from the temptation of her body.

He felt her stir, and immediately his fingers began running up and down her arm in an unconscious, soothing motion.

No, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away from her. They’d gone too far for that.

He just would have tried to make the experience more … classy, he thought, grimacing, thinking how her first time had been in a damn barn.

He thought of the women he’d brought there, from the time he’d had his first sexual experience.

But Yasmine wasn’t anything like the many other women he’d bedded. She was sexy, smart, funny … unique. She defied comparison.

He glanced down at her, felt her adjust herself against him as he lay spooned behind her. When he felt his cock stir, he ignored it. He’d been hard for her on a regular basis, so much so that he’d begun to get used to being that way whenever she was around.

Again, thinking of it being her first time, he wondered what she would expect of him, if anything. Had she been saving herself for that special man?

Holt didn’t fool himself into thinking he was some knight in shining armor. Again, most of the women he
was with knew the score, he was in it for a good time, and that was it.

He ran his fingers lightly over Yasmine’s smooth brown arm, past her small waist and lush hips where the sheet barely covered her.

He would enjoy their time together for as long as they had.

“Hey, about what happened the other night …”

Holt reined in his horse after instructing the men, whirled around and faced Jake. His first inclination was to punch him dead in the mouth, remembering the way he’d felt when he saw him with Yasmine. Removing his Stetson, he wiped the sweat away from his forehead and jammed it back on, and waited for Jake to speak instead.

“Look, I didn’t know you two had something going on, man. Had I known I never would have—” Jake stopped, removing his hat as well before running a hand through his hair, dampened with sweat.

The entire morning, Holt as well as most of the men had been running cattle from their north pasture to the south, and the day hadn’t allowed him to think about much more than the hard work at hand.

But he’d caught the looks Jake had given him whenever their paths had crossed, and the tension between them was palpable. His brothers had noticed as well; he’d seen the glances they’d exchanged as the day wore on, yet neither one had said anything.

They all knew each other too well not to have noticed the tension between him and Jake. Jake was as much a part of the ranch as any of them.

Holt had known Jake from the time they were boys, as Jake’s father had been the foreman on the ranch. Not long after his mother had passed away when Jake was in high school, Jake had come to live with his father in one of the guest cottages on the sprawling ranch. When his father had retired, Jake had then taken over the job as foreman. Although he had his own home in town, he continued to live primarily on the ranch in the small cottage.

To say he was as much family as Holt’s own brothers was an apt statement.

“Look, it’s fine. Just a misunderstanding.”

“Is that all it was? Looked like more than that to me.”

“And if it is—”

He held up both hands. “Just asking.” He stopped, frowned and forged on. “Yasmine is special, Holt. She’s not like the others.”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

Holt was beginning to get pissed, the underlying threat one he didn’t take well. “Whatever is going on between me and Yasmine is our business. And Yasmine is a big girl, I think she can handle herself.”

“I’m not saying she can’t, Holt. Just thought I’d throw that out there,” he said.

“I’m throwing back that I can take care of my woman.”

“Is that what she is for you?”

Holt said nothing more. The realization was hitting him in two ways: one was that it was none of Jake’s damn business what Yasmine was to him. The other was the realization that although he was normally the one to want to retreat, the one who didn’t want to put a label on his relationships, with Yasmine he found that he wanted that, wanted to give a name to what they were to one another.

The thought was sobering.

“W
ant a little company?”

With a mild start, Yasmine glanced away from the large bay window in her bedroom, where she’d been staring out, sightless, for the past thirty minutes, to see her aunt standing in her doorway.

She’d been so wrapped in her own thoughts she hadn’t heard Lilly open the door and enter. She moved away, walking toward her aunt.

“Aunt Lilly, you shouldn’t be out of bed!” Once she’d reached her, Yasmine placed her hand beneath her aunt’s elbow and guided her inside.

“Girl, I’m not an invalid, quit fussing over me,” Lilly admonished, yet Yasmine noticed she accepted her assistance.

She frowned deeply, worried when she felt how
much her aunt was favoring her leg, her limp strongly pronounced. Once she’d helped her aunt to sit on the bed, Yasmine sat near her and crossed her legs beneath her.

“Jackie seems to be working out okay. I think she’ll be able to handle things while we’re gone,” Yasmine said, planting a smile on her face. “Of course she can’t handle things as well as we … I mean you do,” she said, laughing. “But I’m sure everything will be okay.”

“Hmm …” was Lilly’s only response.

“And when we get back, I’ll be back in the kitchen and before you know it, in a few weeks, you’ll be back on your feet and I’m sure wanting your kitchen back.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Of course, I will stay as long as you need me, before I, uh … head back to New York.” Yasmine turned and faced her, quickly reassuring her aunt. “I have everything under control with work. I spoke with the producers of the show and everything is still a go, they fully understand. And of course I’ve spoken with Clayton, as well.”

When her aunt said nothing more, Yasmine continued, outlining her course of action and her plans to return to New York.

“That or the show. I haven’t quite decided which.” She shrugged. “Maybe I can do both.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping the smallest bit.

Just a few short weeks ago, she’d been on cloud nine with the way her career had taken off in ways she’d never
imagined it would in such a short time.

“It’s a dream come true. I can’t wait to get back. I—”

“What’s on your mind, Pooh?” Lilly asked gently, breaking into her monologue.

Immediately Yasmine stopped speaking, the nickname taking her back in time to when she was a young girl. She blinked back the sudden tears that burned the back of her eyes. “You haven’t called me that in years,” she replied softly.

She remembered the first time her aunt had given her the nickname. It had been soon after she’d come to stay with her. Lilly had given her a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal and told her to hug it tight at night, whenever she thought of her parents. Yasmine remembered the number of times she’d done that, holding the bear close as she cried into it, taking it around with her everywhere she went that first year she’d grown so attached to it. In a way, it had become her lifeline, and whenever anyone saw her, Pooh was not far away. So much so, that her aunt had taken to calling her Pooh.

She glanced toward the nightstand. Head drooped down from the years of being handled and its clothes threadbare, the stuffed animal sat. On occasion she still needed the bear, remembering how she’d slept with it just last night, hugging it close, as she’d done all those years ago, as though it was some kind of lucky charm that could make all her worries, doubts and fears go away with a wave of his furry little hand.

If only it could be that easy.

“That seems like a lifetime ago,” she said, glancing at her aunt, referring to the nickname as well as that time
in her life when she’d needed the lifeline. Remembering how she’d slept with the bear, she realized, maybe not so long ago.

When she glanced back at her aunt she saw the fleeting look of sadness in her dark brown eyes, drawing her out of her own problems. “Aunt Lilly?” She paused. “Is everything okay?”

“You’ve grown so much, baby. You’re not that sad little girl anymore.” A small smile tilted her aunt’s mouth. “I couldn’t be prouder of you.” There was a husky quality to her voice. She ran worried eyes over Yasmine. “I couldn’t love you any more if you were my own child. Even though you don’t need me as much as you once did, I’ll always be here for you.”

Yasmine reached over and placed her arms around her aunt. “God, no! I’ll always need you, Mama Lilly. You’re the only person in this world I have ever had to lean on. The only one who cares about me.” She swallowed the tears clogging the back of her throat, her voice shaky. “And you were … still are, the best mother a woman could ever have. I will always need you.”

For long moments the women hugged, and Yasmine allowed the tears to fall. Tears for the little girl who’d lost her parents … for the little girl hopelessly in love with a man for years, one who didn’t … or couldn’t, love her back the way she longed for him to. The way she craved.

With a soothing pat on her back, Lilly drew back and placed both palms on Yasmine’s face, thumbing away
the tears.

“I know you have a lot on your mind, baby,” she said, and again Yasmine felt tears.

“Enough with the waterworks, you’re going to look like Morgan Freeman if you don’t stop!” The crazy comparison made Yasmine laugh through the tears.

“Morgan Freeman?” she sputtered, once her laughter had died out.

Lilly shrugged. “It’s the best I could come up with. You’re making me upset with all of this crying. Those big eyes work for him … but on you?” she shook her head, her eyes twinkling. “Not so much.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t,” Yasmine said, still giggling and sniffing away at the tears.

Lilly patted her hair. “Actually I’m the one who looks more like Morgan than you do, with all of this gray hair in my head and my tiny little fro.”

“Aunt Lilly, stop!” Yasmine laughed outright, the tears long gone. Yasmine had taken her aunt into town earlier that day to get her hair trimmed. With her surgery coming up, she’d wanted an easy-to-maintain style. The one she chose was much shorter than before, and complimentary to her angular face.

“You do
not
look like Morgan Freeman!” Again, Yasmine dissolved into giggles, and this time her aunt joined her.

“And I know you want to look your best tomorrow. What with taking me to the hospital … and spending some alone time with Holt,” she said softly, making the last of Yasmine’s laughter die out at the mention of his name.

“I don’t know what Holt has to do with this. He’s only coming along because he’s worried about you and he loves you.”

“Yes, he does. He’d better.” She harrumphed. “I raised that boy from the time he wasn’t much older than you.” She paused. “I know that all of my boys love me. But we both know that’s not the only reason he’s coming.” She turned Yasmine around, forcing her to look at her face. “And you know that as much as I do. He cares about you, too.”

“Oh, yeah? Well he sure has a funny way of showing it,” she said, shaking her head. “All those women—”

“Those women don’t mean a thing to Holt,” Lilly cut in, shaking her head. “They never have. They’ve just filled a void for him. No more, no less.”

“Maybe that’s all I do for him. Fill a void.”

“How do you feel about him?” Lilly turned the tables on her and Yasmine blew out a breath.