Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] (40 page)

"I think I already proved I can, darlin'. But just in case you had a lapse in memory between the saddle and the door, I'd be happy to prove it again."

His silky threat accompanied the banging of her second boot onto the floor. She swallowed, making the mistake of meeting his gaze. The blaze of desire she saw there melted her limbs faster than a red-hot frying pan melted butter.

"I'm serious," she whispered, her uncertainty turning her protest into a husky lie.

"Me too."

In one sweeping tug, he removed her jeans and drawers from her now-useless legs and sank on top of her, his hardness driving her into the lumpy mattress. Thanks to nothing more than the heat of his palm between her thighs, her reason was already winging south. When he cupped her sticky femaleness, she was nearly lost.

"W-we haven't finished talking about Rotterdam," she argued weakly.

His eyes slitted in a nerve-jangling way. "Darlin', when I'm through with you today, you won't give a hoot or a holler about any Rotterdam. That's a promise."

His mouth silenced any further argument as his forefinger teased a fresh creamy welcome for his love play. Occasionally, just to drive her mad, he added his middle finger, thrusting hard and fast before withdrawing in a leisurely fashion. There was no rhyme or reason to his exquisite torture, and her senses flamed out of control. She couldn't believe he was having his way with her in broad daylight, in a sweltering tin-roofed shack, without the luxury of a single damned sheet! Even more, she couldn't believe she was letting him.

Every time she grabbed for the shreds of her dignity, his masterful teasing blew them away like straws in the wind. He'd tugged open the buttons of her shirt with his teeth—to tantalize her, she was certain. A few controlled nibbles, and her nipples were all but bursting through the muslin of her chemise.

But he didn't stop there. With a feral yank of his teeth, he untied the laces of her undergarment, baring her fevered flesh to his licking, sucking, and nipping. His breaths chased goose bumps in a zigzagging pattern to her navel. When his tongue tickled her there, she laughed between pants, but as his mouth moved lower, she shivered, anticipating the goal of his hungry prowling.

"Zack," she croaked, suddenly made anxious by visions of his tongue and her most private places, "why don't you let me return some of these favors?"

"Can't take that chance, sugar. Baby or no baby, I want to make a trip to the, er, general store first." His voice was muffled as he sucked the bashful flesh between her hip and inner thigh. "But next time, I'll be ready. I promise."

She wasn't exactly sure what he meant. An instant later, she didn't care. He hiked her hips, and she gasped a garbled prayer as his steamy breaths heralded his first kiss.

And what a kiss it was. It went on and on, sweet and savage, tender and untamed. It ripped tiny animal sounds from her throat and turned her thighs to spasming jelly. She dug her fingers into his hair, bucking helplessly, her pleas for him to mount her almost unintelligible between her moans and the sawing of her breath. He shook his head, mumbling something about seeds and spilling them, but she felt his triumphant smile when he added a finger to the wicked taunting of his mouth.

She lost count of the number of times he ignited her. Match, firecracker, exploding star—she did justice to each one. Somewhere along the way, she lost all sanity, all inhibition, and started screaming his name. She felt his hands quake on her thighs; soon, there was only one hand and his mouth, which eventually tore itself free to make its own guttural sound of pleasure.

She collapsed, her lungs heaving like a bellows, and he slumped across her, his unfastened buckle and the open buttons of his fly branding her stomach. She was too exhausted to protest.

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and dropped his head close to her ear. "Bailey." She could barely make out his words between his shuddering breaths. "No more... arguments. They hurt... too much. Promise."

She squeezed her eyes closed
. Please, Zack, ask me anything but that....

"Promise," he whispered again, rubbing his stubbled chin against her cheek.

Nodding reluctantly, she turned her head to hide the tear on her cheek. He sighed. It was a gusty, contented sound, draining the last vestige of tension from his body. Rolling to his side, he cradled her against his chest and smoothed the tangles from her hair.

"I won't let the Rotterdams bully you anymore. I'll find a way. I'll keep you safe. Trust me."

Biting her tongue on her worry, she said nothing. She couldn't.

She'd promised.

Chapter 17

Zack kept his promise too. Before nightfall, he announced his plan: He would try to interest Hank in the experiment he and Bailey were running in the northeast pasture.

"We've got proof that sheep graze a whole lot less than cattle, and drink about one third of the water," Zack explained, cinching Boss for a ride to the Sherridan homestead, where the Rotterdarns had pitched their camp. "Hank was a businessman before he became an anti-woolly politician. I think he'll be interested in our pasture rotations. If not, well..." He shrugged. "There's always Judge Larabee's court."

Bailey shifted from foot to foot, not at all sure she wanted Zack charging off to do battle for her when his feelings were still running so high. What if negotiations with the Rotterdarns broke down and became threats? What if gunshots were exchanged?

"Zack, I'm worried." There, she thought. That wasn't an argument. "Can't this talk with Hank wait until tomorrow?"

He grinned, flashing devilish dimples. "Naw. I'd rather have something to celebrate tonight."

Heat flooded her from head to toe. "Be serious."

"Always," he said huskily, pulling her hard and fast against him.

She couldn't quell the tremor of excitement that raced to her knees. God help her, she
liked
when he grabbed her like that, grinding his hips against hers as if he couldn't get close enough, kissing her as if he were starved for the taste of her mouth.

"Besides," he murmured, his voice throbbing through and around her, "I have an errand to run"—he interrupted himself, mating his tongue with hers—"before the general store closes."

He released her, and it was all she could do not to ooze into a puddle on the drive. His slitted eyes smoldered in that fiery, passionate way she'd come to associate with the leashed volcano inside him. She licked her lips, wondering how she could ever have considered him shy.

He swung into the saddle, all grace and gentility again when he tipped his hat. "Get some rest," he drawled, spurring Boss toward the bridge.

She drew a ragged breath, and her lips curved in a dreamy smile.

It wasn't until he was out of shouting distance that she cursed herself.

Idiot.
She'd meant to remind him that if Nick and Amaryllis were still a couple, the likelihood of Judge Larabee's impartiality was slim.

That evening, after reporting the day's events to Mac, Bailey did a good deal of personal browbeating. Mac had asked her why she'd let Zack take control of business negotiations with Hank, and she'd blushed furiously, unable to tell him Zack's kisses had turned her brain to mashed potatoes. She had also declined to admit that her femininity's unabashed response to Zack's masculinity was one of the most exhilarating experiences she'd ever known.

She would rather have died before admitting such a thing to Zack either. Unfortunately, he would have had to be deaf, blind, and dumb not to realize the power he wielded over her. Her fully awakened womanhood was anything but subtle.

She wished she was more experienced in sexual matters. She wished she understood how he manipulated her desire so easily, because there was another side of her, the outraged, thoroughly male side, that was disgusted by what it considered her newfound weakness. Mac would never have used her desire as unscrupulously as Zack had. She was quite certain that mating with Mac would have been a gentle, chivalrous affair, not a battle of wills. Her masculine side warned her silly, infatuated feminine side to take care, lest Zack dominate her with his love play.

But oh, merciful heaven, the inequality was so divine....

Shortly after nightfall, Zack returned with an eager Hank to discuss the possibility of a sheep-goat-cattle partnership, which proved, in Hank's mind, to be the elimination of all fences. Negotiations broke down somewhere around two o'clock in the morning, when Bailey refused to consider an arrangement in which her "partners" had license to drive their cattle all over her range at will.

Disgruntled, Hank rode off, and a disappointed Zack retired to the barn. Bailey was hard-pressed to disguise her own disappointment. Apparently Zack had never had time to make his urgent purchase in town.

* * *

"Are you sure you have to be gone a whole week, Zack?" Bailey asked uneasily, torn between wanting him by her side and wanting him farther away than Dallas. Her monthly cycle was due to start Friday, and Saturday, unfortunately, was the night of the Harvest Hoedown. Her damned body kept better time than a clock, and she didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified that she'd have her answer inside a week.

Zack nodded, his jaw set. He stood strapping his saddlebags onto Boss, who was impatiently stomping the dust off the barnyard.

"After our meeting last night with Hank, I figure we'll just be wasting our time trying to talk sense into him," Zack said grimly. "I'm going to ride out to Red Calloway's spread, and then visit a couple of the other cattlemen on the board. Maybe they'll see to reason, and we can put the pressure on ol' Hank."

"But what about the Woolgrowers meeting on Friday night?" she reminded him. By the time he rode around the county, drumming up support from the cattlemen and a few of the more influential sheep ranchers, Zack really would be gone all week. Still, if she could get him to come home on Friday, she hoped to announce the news of their baby as soon as she knew the verdict. "You'll want Mac to stand by you when you talk to the board, I'm sure."

His gaze darted her way almost guiltily before he frowned, concentrating again on his buckles and straps. "I haven't forgotten. Mac can meet me there if he's of the same mind. In the meantime, Wes and Cord will be taking turns checking on the cattle. And on Hank. You'll be safe here with Mac and my brothers. I don't reckon Hank will be causing you trouble for a while anyway, not after he got the water he's been after."

She sighed. She wasn't worried about Hank, her safety, the drought, or the damned cattle. Was it too much to ask that Zack might be worried about the same thing she was? Her possible pregnancy?

She couldn't believe he had forgotten what this week meant to them both. Was he just assuming the worst until she told him differently? Or was he deliberately escaping the tedious wait, because he couldn't bear to spend his last week of freedom holed up here with her?

Damn him and everything else. Why did her first dress, her first dance, and her first pregnancy all have to wreak havoc on her at once? Or maybe she'd have to deal with only two supreme disasters by Saturday night.

Her gut clenched at the thought. Having Zack's baby... not having Zack's baby. Either way, her world would be changed forever. She wasn't sure she was prepared. She wasn't sure she could go blithely about her everyday chores when her own personal Waterloo was looming on the horizon.

"Isn't there some way you could come home on Friday?" she asked plaintively, cringing at the sound. She hated her weakness, but she needed some kind of reassurance, some kind of sign from him that when her life crashed down around her, he would be nearby to help shoulder the weight. "We could have dinner, and then you and Mac could ride together to the meeting—"

"Let's not argue about this, Bailey."

She winced at his crisp tone. No, of course not. She should have known better. It was Zack's way or no way.

Besides, this wasn't really his home, was it?

She swallowed hard. She wanted to tell him she'd miss him, that she couldn't bear for him to ride out of her life for a week, much less for the rest of her days. She didn't know how he'd come to mean so much to her in such a short time. With his strong will and his gentle hands, he'd carved a place for himself on her ranch and inside her heart.