Cattleman's Choice Read online

  The room seemed dark and private. There was no sound in it, except for his breathing and the loud tick of the mantel clock.

  He drew his open mouth tenderly across her forehead, his breath hot, his chest shuddering with the harshness of his breathing. Impatiently, he took her hands in his and guided them down the hard muscles of his chest and around to his lean hips. She protested, a stiff little gesture.

  “Don’t fight me,” he whispered unsteadily, moving her hands down the sides of his legs and back up to his hips. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  But there was! Her own reaction to him was terrifying. She felt his legs touch hers and she made an odd sound in her throat, one that he heard.

  His head moved nearer. Her eyes closed and she felt his warm breath at her forehead, her nose, the open softness of her mouth. Unaware of her response, she opened her mouth to invite his, tilted her head back to give him full access. And waited, breathing in his scent as his mouth came closer. Would it be gentle this time, she wondered, or would he hurt…?

  “Mr. Wayne!” The loud call was like a gunshot. Carson’s head jerked up. He looked dazed, and his eyes were a dark blue, haunted, hungry as they met hers for just an instant before he moved away.

  “What is it, Jake?” he asked curtly, buttoning his shirt as he went out onto the porch.

  Mandelyn heard the voices with a sense of unreality. She was still trembling, and her mouth was hungry for the kiss she hadn’t gotten. Her misty eyes searched for Carson and found him standing outside the door. She looked at him with open wonder, letting her rapt eyes wander down the superb masculinity of his back and hips and legs. She remembered the feel of his skin, the smell of him. Her breasts ached and as she crossed her arms, she felt the nipples’ hardness.

  She licked her dry lips and ground her teeth together as she tried to get her rebellious body back under control. It wanted him. God, it wanted him, all of him, skin against skin, mouth against hungry mouth. She almost moaned aloud at the force of that wanting, at the urgency she’d never felt before. Her sweet memories of the man in her past had faded completely away during that passionate onslaught, had been replaced with a different emotion. With a wildness that she’d never known, a violent need.

  How in the world could she face Carson now, after giving herself away so completely? He was still a man, he wouldn’t hesitate to take anything that was offered, despite their long friendship. If she acted like a temptress, what could she expect? He was human.

  She cleared her throat as he came back into the room. If only she could find an excuse to go home.

  “I’ll find you a pole,” he said good-humoredly, grinning at her. “Got a hat?”

  “No.”

  “Here.” He reached into the closet and tossed her a straw one that just fit. “It belonged to me, years back. Well, let’s go.”

  He herded her out the door before she had a chance to protest, and minutes later they went bumping over his pasture in the pickup truck toward the stream where the swimming and fishing hole spread out invitingly past some cottonwood trees.

  “We used to swim here,” he told her as they sat on upside-down minnow buckets in the cool shade. “Some of the boys still do, but it’s a good fishing spot, nevertheless. Here.”

  He handed her the bait can and she stared at it distastefully.

  “Please?” she asked softly, looking up at him.

  His eyes remained on hers for a minute before he turned them back to the bait can. “I’ll show you how.”

  “But, Carson…”

  “Just watch.”

  He threaded worms onto the hook while she grimaced. “Soft-hearted little thing,” he chided. “I’ll never take you rabbit hunting, that’s for sure.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him. “Well, I wouldn’t go, so don’t ask me.”

  “Patty’s having a party next Friday night,” he said as he threw her line into the stream. The red cork bobbed gaily against the murky water. He glanced at her.

  “Is she?” she asked in a breathless tone.

  He threaded worms onto his own hook. “Kind of a social gathering, I think, so folks can get acquainted with her and tour her new office.”

  “She’s really proud of it,” she murmured.

  He threw his own line in and leaned his elbows on his knees, holding the pole between them. Nearby birds were calling, and crickets made pleasant sounds in the underbrush.

  She glanced at him. “Are you going?”

  He laughed shortly. “You know I don’t socialize.”

  She looked down at the ground. “I could…teach you.”

  His eyes glanced sideways. “Could you?”

  “You’ve got the clothes now,” she reminded him. “All you need to know is some of the new dance steps and how to talk to people.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Yes.”

  She shifted on the bucket. “Well, do you want to?”

  “Want to what?” he asked huskily.

  She looked up into his eyes and felt herself going hot all over. She dragged her gaze back to the water. “Uh, do you want me to teach you?”

  “I think you may be the one who needs teaching,” he said.

  Her face flamed, because she knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt like a girl on her first date, tongue-tied and expectant.

  “I know how to dance,” she said.

  “Deliberately misunderstanding me again?” he said with a soft laugh.

  “I thought we came here to fish?”

  “I am.”

  “Do you want to learn to dance or not?” she asked impatiently.

  “I guess so.”

  “You can come over tomorrow night, if you want to,” she said. “I’ll make supper.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “All right.”

  She tingled from head to toe in a new, exciting way. She smiled, and he watched the movement of her lips with an expression that it was just as well she didn’t see. It would have frightened her.

  She studied the bobbing red cork with drowsy, contented eyes, hardly aware when it went straight under. When she felt the tug on the line and realized what was happening, she jerked too soon. The hook came flying up on the bank, straight into her shirt and caught there.

  “My God, were you trying to send the fish to the moon?” Carson drawled. “You caught something at least.”

  She glared at him. “My favorite shirt,” she moaned, letting her eyes fall to the hook sticking through the soft fabric just above the peak of her tiptilted breast.

  “Hold still and I’ll get it out for you,” he said. He put down his pole and knelt beside her.

  She hadn’t realized how intimate it was going to be. In order to extricate the barbed hook, he had to slide one lean, work-roughened hand into the vee-neck of the shirt. And Mandelyn wasn’t wearing a bra. That discovery made Carson start violently.

  His eyes met hers. She could see the dark blue circles around his lighter blue irises, and the black thickness of his lashes. But what she was feeling was the touch of his knuckles on her bare breast, and her body was reacting noticeably to it.

  “Carson, I can get it out,” she said too quickly.

  “Let me,” he whispered. But he was holding her eyes when he said it, and his fingers were moving very delicately on bare skin. She trembled.

  He smelled of wind and fir trees and desert. And his skin was rough against her softness, but it was a natural roughness, like sand against silk, or bark against water.

  Even the crickets seemed to have gone mute. There was silence all around them in the little glade. Nothing existed except Mandelyn’s awed face and Carson’s hard one, and the sound of his breathing as he closed his eyes and tenderly cradled Mandelyn’s head in one big hand.

  She jerked a little in reaction, but he shook his head slowly and lowered his face toward her.

  “Sit still, Mandy,” he whispered as his lips stroked her mouth. “I just want to see how you taste when I’m sobe
r.”

  “Carson, your hand…” she whispered half-heartedly, and her slender fingers touched his hairy wrist in token protest.

  “Shh,” he breathed. His mouth was like a teasing breeze, brushing at her lips. His fingers stroked over the soft curve of her breast, edging toward the hard tip with every movement, teasing her body as he teased her mouth.

  She stiffened, moved. Her eyes opened, her breath quickened. His face was so close that all she could see was his mouth. He’d shaved. That registered. And he tasted of smoke and coffee and mint. But his hand…!

  She caught it just as his thumb and forefinger found the hard tip, and her nails bit into him helplessly and she moaned. It took every ounce of will power she had to move his hand away. She was afraid of the new sensations she was feeling. She was afraid of Carson.

  “All right,” he said softly, not offended at all. Her flushed face and wide, frightened eyes told him everything he needed to know. His hand brushed the long strands of hair away from her cheeks, and he looked at her with such reverence that she couldn’t seem to move.

  “The hook,” she reminded him.

  “Yes,” he murmured, smiling faintly. “Later. I want that kiss, honey.”

  Her heart was beating so wildly that she could barely breathe at all. His head bent and she waited for his mouth, no protest left in her, only a sense of anticipation.

  His lips were warm and hard and exquisitely tender. She closed her eyes with a soft sigh and let him do what he wanted. He eased between her trembling lips, letting her feel the texture of his own. Her hands dug into the hard muscles of his shoulders in an agony of wanting.

  But still he teased her, rubbing his closed lips between her open ones, nibbling at her soft mouth. And then he stopped. She moaned aloud as he got to his feet and reached down to bring her body into the hard curve of his.

  “It’s all right,” he murmured, wrapping her securely in his arms. “I only want to feel you while we kiss.”

  She reached up, hesitant, and touched his hard face.

  “Carson,” she whispered.

  His chest rose and fell roughly. “I’ve waited years for you to say my name that way,” he murmured unsteadily as he bent again. “Years, centuries…”

  “Hard,” she pleaded, trembling. “Hard, please…!”

  A tremor ran through him, probably of shock, she thought dizzily as he took her open mouth. She’d shocked herself with the whispered demand. She tasted him, experienced him with every sense she had as he gently crushed her breasts into his hard chest and his mouth merged roughly, intimately with her own. His tongue stabbed between her teeth, into the dark warmth of her mouth, tangling with her tongue in a wild, exquisite exploration.

  He groaned against her mouth. A faint tremor shook his arms, and she arched into his body. She wanted him. Her body told her that, it screamed at her to end this sweet torment. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, she wanted the driving power of his body to overwhelm her, possess her. She wanted his open mouth on her soft breasts….

  When he lifted his head abruptly, it was like being thrown to the ground. She shivered.

  His darkened blue eyes searched hers quickly, intensely, and although he’d loosened his grip, he still held her by the arms. He started to draw back and her shirt came with him.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered, looking down. The hook that had gone through her blouse had caught in the thick pocket of his shirt.

  She started laughing as reaction set in. Her twinkling eyes sought his. “I’ve hooked you,” she teased.

  He stared at her for a long moment. “I haven’t seen you laugh before. Not like this.”

  “I haven’t felt like this before,” she blurted out. “I mean, being relaxed and going fishing and…and being myself.”

  “Stand still while I get us untangled,” he said, and reached down, frowning as he tried to extract the barbed end of the hook from his pocket. “Damn, I’ll have to cut it,” he muttered. He dove into his pocket and dragged out an old pocket knife, expertly extracting the blade and slicing deftly through the fabric. His eyes glanced at her apologetically. “Sorry, honey, but this is the only way. I’ll buy you another blouse.”

  “You don’t have to do that. It was my fault, after all,” she said breathlessly.

  “Stand still, so I don’t nick you,” he said softly and slid his hand under the fabric again, against her bare skin.

  She felt wildly female at the feel and sight of that dark-skinned, tough hand inside her blouse. Her lips parted and she studied the face so close to hers with wide, fascinated eyes.

  He felt the stare and looked down into her eyes. His hands paused in their task and he watched her for a long moment. “Why didn’t you want me to touch you?” he whispered.

  Her lower lip trembled a little. “I…haven’t been touched…that way since I was eighteen, Carson,” she said unsteadily.

  “If I’d persisted a minute longer, you’d have let me, though, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

  She licked her dry lips and her wide gray eyes searched his blue ones with uncertainty. “I didn’t expect that,” she whispered.

  “Why not? I’m human, Mandy. I may be rough and half-civilized, but I’m capable of wanting a woman.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, touching his hard mouth with her fingers. She searched his eyes curiously. “Carson…you…you’ve had women, haven’t you?”

  Time seemed to hang suspended between them. “Yes,” he said quietly.

  Her breath shuddered out of her throat. Her fingers traced his lips unsteadily, with helpless pleasure. “I’ve never been to bed with a man,” she breathed.

  His nostrils flared. His chest rose and fell raggedly. “You’re twenty-six.”

  She smiled nervously. Having him this close was affecting her wildly. “Yes, I know. Do you think I might get in the record books?”

  “Not,” he sighed heavily, “if you keep touching me that way.”

  “Oh!” Belatedly she realized just how intimate her fingers had grown on his face. She moved them back down to his arm. “Sorry.”

  “You excite me,” he admitted, turning his attention back to the hook. He sliced the fabric gently, not unaware of her hot blush or the increasing pressure of her fingers. “So watch out.”

  That wasn’t going to be easy, she realized, feeling his warm fingers being slowly removed from her blouse. “Thank you,” she said as he removed the hook as well.

  “My pleasure,” he murmured drily.

  “Carson, I didn’t mean to…” she began, losing her train of thought when he looked down into her eyes. “I didn’t know…I wasn’t…”

  “Hush.” He handed her the fishing pole with a warm, knowing look. “I haven’t been with a woman in a long time,” he said slowly. “It was a moment out of time, that’s all. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Of course.” She managed to get a worm on the hook and began talking real estate, out of nervousness. She’d reacted to Carson’s lovemaking like a shy young girl, and she knew now that while he might need lessons in deportment, he’d never need them as a lover. He knew exactly what to do with a woman. And now she was more afraid of him than ever. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never thought of him as a lover. Now it was impossible to think of him any other way.

  He followed her lead in conversation, and they talked about general things for a long time while the day moved lazily by. After they had caught a good number of fish, they packed up their gear and went back to the house.

  “I’ve enjoyed today. Thank you,” she said. She was reluctant to leave him, and that was odd. In the past she’d always been glad to get out of his sight.

  “So have I,” he replied. He studied her for a long moment. “Want to stay for supper? We can cook the fish together.”

  She should have said no. But she didn’t. Her face lit up and she smiled. “Sure!”

  He chuckled. “Want to clean them for me?”

  She frowned. “
Carson, I hate to be a drag, but I don’t think I know how. Uncle didn’t fish, you know.”

  “Yes, and cleaning fish isn’t something you learn in finishing school, is it, little lady?”

  He didn’t say it in an insulting way. She searched his hard face. “Does it bother you, my background?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “If you want to know, I think a lot of you. Until you came along, I’d never met a real lady.”

  “You wouldn’t think I was one at times, though,” she murmured, smiling at him as she followed him into the kitchen.

  “You’re a firecracker sometimes, all right,” he agreed. He caught her by the waist after he’d put down the string of fish, and jerked her against his body. “But I like you that way, Mandy. A woman with a temper,” he murmured, bending, “is usually pretty passionate….”

  His mouth crushed down against hers and she moaned, the sound unusually loud in the confines of the room as she savored his strength, the urgency of his hard kiss.

  He lifted his head, his eyes glittering with some new emotion. “Why did you moan?” he asked roughly. “Fear or pleasure?”

  Her lips trembled and, embarrassed, she pulled away. “I’ll get started on the fish.”

  He watched her for a minute speculatively and then he smiled. “I’ll get some potatoes to fry.”

  It was a quiet supper. She enjoyed her crisp fish, but Carson seemed preoccupied.

  “Want to call it off?” she asked.

  His head came up. “What?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  He shook his head. “No. I want to learn to dance.” His eyes dropped to her soft mouth. “With you,” he added softly.

  Her chest felt tight. He was doing it again, using that wicked charm that she hadn’t known he possessed.

  “I have to practice on somebody, don’t I?” he asked when he saw her hesitation. “I thought teaching me how to make love went part and parcel with teaching me to court a woman,” he added with a wicked smile.

  She flushed. “You don’t need teaching in that department, and well you know it,” she said.

  His eyebrows arched. “I don’t?”