Evan Read online

  After a minute or two, she sank into the mattress with a gentle sigh, and the tension seemed to ease from her.

  “Better?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes.” She turned her head on the pillow and looked at him. “Is it usually like this?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’ve never experienced anything half as powerful in all my life.”

  That had to be a point in her favor. She smiled at him. After a minute he smiled back.

  The door opened suddenly at his back and he moved just as Polly came in. She laughed at Evan’s surprised face.

  “Didn’t you hear me drive up?” she asked, smiling. “How are you feeling, darling?”

  Relieved, Anna almost said, because if Evan had done what her body had begged for, a very embarrassing confrontation could have ensued.

  “I’m feeling tired,” Anna said evasively, smiling back. “But much better. Lori ran to the store. Evan said he’d stay with me.”

  “Nice of you, Evan,” Polly said gently.

  “Yes,” he replied evenly. “If you’re going to be home for a while, I need to get some work done.” He smiled at Anna. “I’ve let things go lately.”

  “I wonder why?” Polly mused. “Thank you for bringing her home,” she added seriously.

  “No problem.” He glanced at Anna, trying not to show how much he hated leaving her, even for a day. “I promised to help Harden shift some cattle this afternoon, but I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve got some videos you might like to watch.”

  She managed a smile. “That would be nice.”

  “Yes, it would,” Polly said. “Duke wanted to take me out tomorrow, but I hesitated, because I hated leaving Anna alone. We’re going fishing,” she added. “Duke and I want to talk.”

  Anna brightened. “Really?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Polly said. “But cross your fingers.”

  “I’ll do that little thing,” she promised.

  “And I’ll babysit,” Evan said with a mocking smile.

  Anna had to fight not to blush at the images he was conjuring up with that sensuous tone, but she reminded herself that she mustn’t read too much into his innuendoes. He wanted her. Maybe it had blinded him to reality.

  “Then I’ll buy those new jeans I saw today.” Polly grinned. “Evan, you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  He looked at Anna and had to fight down another wave of throbbing heat. “No,” he said huskily. “I don’t mind.”

  Anna wanted to beg him to stay, because her scruples were beginning to give under the weight of her desire. But when he came tomorrow, he might lie beside her while they watched television, and with no one in the house—since tomorrow was Lori’s day off—anything might happen. She knew she could never say no to Evan if he really wanted her. But giving in to him would be a big mistake, she realized sadly as reality punctured her bright dreams. His sense of honor might even force him into marriage if he compromised her. She didn’t want a reluctant bridegroom. Love on one side would never be enough.

  Evan smiled, but he didn’t look at her again. He left, and Polly went back to her daydreams, unaware of Anna’s rising fears.

  That night she got up long enough to have supper with her parents, enjoying the way they talked to each other and to her. She felt part of a family for the first time in years. And Polly was actually radiant.

  Later she excused herself and went to lie down, leaving Duke and Polly alone together. When she fell asleep after hours of daydreaming about the day ahead and Evan, they were still sitting in the living room talking.

  Evan arrived late the next morning with two newly released movies in his hand, looking rakish and barely awake in denim and a checked Western shirt. He also looked half out of humor.

  “I was up late doing book work,” he explained to Polly, forcing a smile. In fact, he’d lain awake worrying about what he was going to do if he lost control with Anna and scared her half to death. He knew his fears were irrational, but he’d lived with them far too long to be able to dismiss them now.

  Duke had stayed the night at the house, but he was dressed and ready to leave before Polly awoke and got dressed herself. Lori had served breakfast and gone out with friends to see a movie.

  “How’s my girl?” Duke asked Anna as he joined his wife and daughter and Evan in Anna’s bedroom where she lay, dressed in a long red skirt and a red-and-gold patterned blouse, stretched out on top of her covers with her long blond hair soft around her face and her pretty feet bare.

  Anna kissed his tan cheek when he bent down. “Doing fine. I hope you and Mom catch a lot of fish.”

  “I’ll settle for one pretty one,” Duke murmured dryly, and Polly actually blushed.

  Anna smiled at them. “Go away and enjoy yourselves.”

  They exchanged glances, but they didn’t argue.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Evan told them solemnly. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  He was saying more than the words implied, and they knew it. Polly saw Duke relax visibly, and after a brief conversation, they left.

  Evan walked them out and then returned to Anna’s room, pausing in the doorway to look at her. She looked delicious. His heart began to run wild, just at the sight of her.

  “Do you feel like watching these?” he asked, holding up two tapes of just-released movies.

  “Yes,” she said huskily, thinking how sweet it would be if he lay down with her on the bed and let her lie against him. Her face flamed with desire.

  He had to turn away from that expression. He was glad the housekeeper was around. If she hadn’t been, he wasn’t sure he could manage to keep his hands off Anna.

  “Lori’s here, isn’t she?” he asked tautly, to make sure, while he loaded the first movie into the VCR and turned on the television before he started it.

  “Well…no,” she said. “It’s her day off.”

  His jaw tautened. He actually shivered.

  “Will it help if I promise not to seduce you?” she asked with a lightness she didn’t feel. Her heart was racing.

  He felt his body tauten as he looked at her across the room, his eyes falling helplessly to her blouse. “You wouldn’t have to, don’t you know?” he asked on a harsh laugh. “All you have to do is touch me.”

  Her heart ran wild. The truth of it was in his face, and all her dreams seemed to come true at once. She held out her arms to him, burning up with need.

  He groaned, but he couldn’t help himself. He went to her, feeling her cold hands curve around his neck as he bent, easing her back on the bed. It was wrong, he shouldn’t. But her body was yielding and soft and exquisitely formed, and he felt himself going rigid long before his mouth lowered to her parted lips.

  His body went down alongside hers on the mattress, his mouth fitting over hers with warm, slow mastery as they sank back onto the quilted coverlet.

  It was heaven. Anna nibbled eagerly at his lips, loving the taste of him, the warmth and strength of his body against hers. But just as he deepened the kiss and his arms tightened, she gasped, and he drew back instantly.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked curtly, his eyes worried. “My God, sometimes I hate my own size!”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” she said and lowered her eyes to his hard mouth. “I go hot all over when you kiss me like that,” she whispered huskily.

  He relaxed. His fingers traced her cheek. “All that worry, wasted,” he mused with forced lightness.

  “Do you really think I could ever be afraid of you, Evan?” she asked unsteadily. “Don’t you know already that you could do anything to me and I’d let you?”

  His eyes flashed. He bent hungrily to her lips as one big arm slid under her and lifted her against him. His mouth caressed and withdrew, brushed and lifted, as he aroused her with maddening skill until she was clinging and following his lips with her own, trying to make him end the torment.

  “What do you want?” he whispered.

  “Kiss me!” she moaned.


  His teeth nibbled lazily at her lower lip. “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

  “Do it right. Open your mouth and do it…!”

  He did, at the same time shifting his big body so that his hips were squarely over hers, his arousal hot and blatant as it rested on her soft belly.

  She gasped at the intimacy.

  He lifted his mouth from hers and looked into her shocked eyes. He didn’t move for a long moment, but that wasn’t fear in her eyes. He moved softly and she grimaced.

  He realized then that it was embarrassment, not distaste, and he smiled gently as he levered his body to one side. She smiled back, her face coloring delicately.

  He eased one powerful leg between both of hers and she stiffened.

  He shook his head. “No. This is part of lovemaking. I want you to know everything there is to know about my body. You have to, before we go any further.”

  She had to fight her own shyness, but after a minute she relented and let him rest against her.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, his voice deep and sensual. “I’m letting you learn me, that’s all.”

  She relaxed even more, and as the shock of intimacy slowly wore off, she began to enjoy the feel of his body.

  He knew that she had no experience by which to judge him. That relaxed him a little. There was so much that she didn’t know, but at least, thank God, there was no apprehension in her face. He’d never been able to make Louisa lie with him like this at all. In fact, she’d found intimacy with him almost distasteful. He still remembered how she cringed when he touched her breasts, and she’d never liked his mouth on them.

  He drew his fingers slowly over Anna’s breasts, the sound of flesh against fabric loud in the tense silence as he gently teased around the nipple that suddenly became taut. He held her eyes the whole time, heard her breathing change even as she allowed him the caress with damning generosity.

  She gasped and arched toward his hand, trying to make him end the torment as he touched everywhere except against the hardness that ached for him.

  “Gently,” he whispered. “I’m going to do what you want me to, but let me make you burn for it first.”

  She colored, but she didn’t protest his touch. She lay back against the pillows, her face flushed, waiting, trembling, as he built the torment almost to anguish and she moaned.

  His big hand tensed under her, and he leaned closer, his dark eyes filling the world. “Is it bad?” he whispered.

  “Yes!” Her nails bit into his shoulders as she let him see the helpless reaction of his body to his caress. “Evan, please! Oh, please!”

  He drew his nose softly against hers, his breath on her cheek, her lips, and still his knuckles brushed with maddening slowness just at the very edge of her taut nipple.

  Then, very gently, he caught the hard nub in his fingertips. She felt a rush of heat in her belly, and a long shudder rippled through her. She could barely see him through a blur of anguished desire, her expression one of taut abandon as she arched upward and gasped at the unbelievable pleasure.

  Evan watched her with indulgent tenderness. “So hungry,” he whispered. “I could almost satisfy you just by putting my mouth on you, couldn’t I, little one?”

  The intimacy of the statement made her flush, but she didn’t protest when he began to flick open the buttons of her blouse with careless deftness.

  “Lie still,” he said when she touched his wrist in a faint protest. “Let me look at you.”

  “I’ve never,” she began shakily, her eyes enormous.

  “My God, don’t you think I know?” he asked huskily. His eyes flashed as he pulled the blouse gently aside and then snapped the front catch of the bra. He drew it away from her swollen breasts and caught his breath at the beauty of her creamy body with its mauve nipples.

  “I’m so…big,” she whispered, almost apologetic.

  “You’re as self-conscious about your size as I am about mine,” he said quietly. He touched her, as lightly as a breath, watching her face as she gave herself up to his hands. “You please me,” he said, his voice deep and exquisitely tender. “You arouse me as no other woman ever has, ever will. You’re delicious, Anna,” he breathed, bending toward her breasts with unbearable slowness. “I want to eat you up…”

  His mouth settled over the hard-tipped mound and began to pull at it, nibble at it, with tender absorption. Anna cried out. The pleasure she experienced was so overwhelming that tears stung her eyes. She clung to him, her shaking hands grasping his thick hair, pulling him closer, closer…!

  One big hand was under her skirt. Dimly she registered its progress, felt his touch on her slender legs and then on her flat belly.

  “Anything,” she gasped at his ear. “Anything you want… Evan!”

  His hand contracted on her soft flesh and just for an instant, he gave in to the need that was consuming him. His mouth grew rough, like his insistent hands, and Anna yielded completely. His strength delighted her, his ardor made her weak all over. She bit his shoulder in her own oblivion, hard.

  He caught his breath and jerked up, his face unfamiliar in passion.

  “I…I’m sorry,” she faltered, embarrassed at the expression in his eyes. “I bit you.”

  “Yes.” There was something unfamiliar in the way he was looking at her, in the set rigidity of his face. His eyes fell to her body, to the faint redness where his hungry mouth had touched it. He actually shuddered.

  “I thought you’d be afraid of me like this,” he said quietly.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “I could hurt you,” he ground out. He grimaced at the marks he’d left on her breast. He touched it softly. “I didn’t mean to lose my head like this!”

  That she could make him lose it gave her a sense of wild elation. “It doesn’t hurt, you know,” she said with a gentle smile. “In fact, I liked it.”

  “Dangerous, to say that to me,” he said huskily.

  “I’m not antique glass, Evan. I won’t break if you’re a little rough with me.”

  She moved closer to him, her eyes searching his as she slid her leg gently against his and laid her hand flat against his shirt.

  “What do you want?” he asked softly, delighted and overwhelmed by her desire for him.

  “Can I touch you, here?” she whispered.

  He hesitated for only a minute before he gave in to the need for her hands on him. He snapped open the pearly buttons and tugged the shirttail out of his jeans, holding her eyes while he threw the shirt onto the floor.

  She rested her forehead against the broad, hair-roughened expanse of muscle and her hands caught in the hair, tugging it sensuously. “Like this?” she whispered, wanting nothing more than to please him. “Isn’t this what you like?”

  “Yes,” he said in a choked tone. His hands slid into her hair, moving her forehead against him. “Kiss me the way I kissed you. Here,” he emphasized, guiding her mouth to one side of his chest.

  She caught her breath. It had never occurred to her that men had nipples or could be aroused by having them touched. The possibilities made her dizzy. She slid her lips through the thick hair until she found the hard thrust of a flat male nipple. She nuzzled it first with her nose, then with her lips, then with her teeth. Evan’s big body went rigid and shuddered when she took the nipple in her teeth. She loved the way he responded to her. Her mouth nuzzled all over his chest as he eased onto his back to give her the total freedom of his body. His eyes closed, his chest rippled as she touched it. Her lips pulled softly at the other nipple and he actually groaned. Amazing, she thought, delicious, to be able to make him even momentarily at the mercy of his need for her. She drew her lips daringly down to the wide belt at his hips and bit him delicately just below his navel.

  He shuddered and arched, crying out. Anna lifted her head, shocked and a little frightened by his reaction to so gentle a caress.

  She didn’t recognize him when she saw his face. His eyes were tormented, his face dark with passion, h
is mouth a thin line.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Evan, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

  “For God’s…sake…Anna!”

  He whipped her over beside him, pausing just long enough to strip the open blouse and bra from her, throwing them carelessly on the floor, and then he arched above her and looked down, his big body shivering with need.

  Her breasts were big; full and firm with dark mauve tips that quickly grew hard as he looked at them.

  Instinctively her arm moved to cover herself, but he caught it and pulled her up into a sitting position.

  “No,” he said gruffly. “You belong to me. Let me look.”

  After a minute, she gave in and sat trembling, flushing as he stared at her breasts. This kind of intimacy was new, and a little scary.

  “Only you,” she whispered unsteadily.

  “Only me,” he said, his voice deep and slow and husky. His eyes darkened. “God, you’re beautiful, Anna,” he said roughly. “Absolutely beautiful!”

  She seemed to blossom at the words, her back arching unconsciously. “Evan,” she whispered, shivering. “Evan, I’ll die if you don’t touch me…!”

  He felt the same way. He reached for her hungrily. “So much for patience,” he managed. His jaw clenched as he held her upper arms tightly and let his eyes feed on her beauty. “This is where we could get in over our heads very quickly,” he said through his teeth, and he brought her breasts suddenly against the thick rasping mat of hair that covered him from throat to stomach. “I don’t even know if I can stop,” he bit off against her mouth as he took it hungrily.

  Anna stiffened and shivered at the contact of her taut breasts with his bare chest, the most intimate she’d ever experienced. Evan held her by the rib cage and slowly, torturously began to drag her breasts against that thicket of hair with sensuous movements that were like setting a match to dry wood.

  She hadn’t known that her body could shudder with ecstasy from just the feel of a man’s hairy chest against her bare breasts. But her nails bit into Evan’s big shoulders and she moved with him, her body shivering as the delicious contact aroused her to fever pitch.