Cowboy's Bride (9 page)

"That's none of your business," she said,
pushing against his shoulder.
She felt vulnerable and exposed.
He
still stood between her spread thighs, his hands moving to rest on
her cotton skirt, her legs hot and tingling as he pinned her to the
counter.
She could feel the warmth from his body envelop hers, heat
hers.
And his raw masculinity was too distracting, too disturbing.
Too enticing.
If she planned to keep even a bit of her sanity, he
had to leave.
Now.

"Trace, move away."

"No." He lowered his head again, his lips
toying with hers.
God, he wanted this woman like he'd never wanted
another.

"Trace, please." Her lips met his, responded.
His mouth was firm, warm.
Her tongue traced the shape of his lips,
tasted him again and again.
She kissed him even as she tried to
clutch her sanity.
Crazy beyond belief, she was burning up for
more.

His hands moved beneath her top.
He felt her
jerk of surprise as he gently rubbed her soft, satiny skin.
Slowly
his hands pressed against her, his fingers and palm tingling with
sensation.
The softness of her skin was compelling.
He never wanted
to let go.
Skimming across the ridges of her ribs, he moved to her
breasts, feeling their slight weight, learning their shape.
Feeling
the thrust of her nipples against his palms, he sighed softly and
kissed her again, open mouthed, hot.
She was so feminine, so sweet.
His blood heated to boiling.
His desire strengthened until he could
scarcely breathe.

"Dad?" Becky's voice called from outside.

Trace pulled back fast as lightening.
His
eyes flicked open and he stared into Kalli's dark gaze.

"Becky, I thought I told you to go see Josh,"
he called back, his glittering gaze never leaving Kalli's.

"He's watching some dumb TV show." Her voice
drew steadily closer.

Trace brought his hands down from Kalli's
breasts and lifted her from the counter.
Running fingers through
his hair, he leaned into the counter, gripping the tile edge with
hard fingers, keeping his back to the door as his daughter entered
the kitchen, the screen slamming behind her.

"And I didn't want to see it." Becky looked
suspiciously at Kalli, and then at her father.

"Your hair is all messed up," she said,
glaring at Kalli.

"It's hot in here and the braid was
confining," Kalli snapped, trying to draw some semblance of order
to her tangled hair.
In the throes of passion with Trace she'd been
scarcely aware of his loosening the braid and fisting his hand in
her hair.

"Are we going home now?" Becky asked her
dad.

"Yeah, in a minute." He gripped the counter
hard, and willed the blatant evidence of his desire for Kalli to
fade so he could face his impressionable twelve-year-old daughter.
Why couldn't she have watched the blasted TV show with the men in
the bunkhouse?

"Why are you standing there?" Becky
asked.

Kalli glanced at Trace, instantly
understanding.

"He's mad at me and probably holding onto the
counter to keep from wrapping his hands around my neck," Kalli said
easily, moving away from Trace, hoping to distract his daughter.
"I
have some cake I made for dessert.
Would you like some before you
go?"

"Why is he mad at you?" Becky asked, her
suspicion growing as she looked back and forth.

"Because I won't sell him my ranch.
It's
chocolate cake."

"Yeah, I'd like some." Becky moved to the
table.

"Is yeah a Wyoming way of saying yes, or just
the way you and your father say it?" Kalli asked, desperate to keep
some level of conversation going.
She was so nervous around Trace
and embarrassed at almost being caught by his daughter.
She wished
they'd both leave, but she'd see the evening through.
Time enough
to get herself under control when they left.

"I don't know," Becky asked as she took the
offered plate.
"Daddy says it all the time."

"Yeah, I know," Kalli teased, sitting down,
glad of the chair.
Her legs trembled.
She could still feel the
imprint of Trace's hands on her thighs, her hips, her head, her
breasts.
Heat suffused.
It was all she could do to be polite.

"Do you want some cake, Trace?" Kalli asked
politely.

"No." He turned and walked to the door,
snatching up his hat.
He paused and looked at Kalli, his eyes
narrowed and intense.

"This isn't the end, Kalli.
I'll get what I
want."

As he left the kitchen, she shivered
slightly.
She knew he wasn't only talking about the ranch.

"When are you going back to Boston?" Becky
asked as she finished the chocolate cake.
Kalli poured her a glass
of milk and the girl drank it, looking at Kalli with wise old
eyes.

"I'm not."

"Dad says you are.
We don't want you around
here!"

"Why's that?" Kalli was a little surprised at
the vehemence in Becky's tone.
Why did the girl care one way or the
other?

"He kissed you again, didn't he?" she asked.
"Your mouth is all swollen and red."

Jealous?
Kalli wondered, meeting the child's
eyes.
Becky was smart.
And it sounded as if she didn’t want her
father’s attention any where else but her.
Kalli nodded.
She wasn't
about to volunteer anything, but she wouldn't lie to this
child.

"My mother was very beautiful, did you know?"
Becky asked, pushing away her plate, then moving her glass before
her.
She chanced a glance at Kalli to see how she reacted to the
news.

"I'm sure she was.
Your father doesn't strike
me as the type to go for homely women," she said dryly.

"I've seen a picture of them together.
Daddy
keeps it in his room.
She was tall and blond and beautiful."

"I'm not out to replace your mother," Kalli
said gently.
Disturbed by the picture Becky painted, she frowned.
If Trace really didn't care for his ex-wife, why keep her picture
in his room?
Especially after all these years.
She'd been gone over
a decade.
Alyssa.
What a pretty name, obviously in keeping with the
pretty woman.
Kalli refused to name the emotion that surfaced.

"I'm probably going to be as tall as her,"
Becky said proudly, unwilling to let the topic drop.
"I'm already
as tall as you and I'm only twelve."

"Then you'll be lucky.
The only thing I'd
change about myself is my height.
It's awful being so short
sometimes," Kalli murmured.

"Thank you for dinner and the cake." Becky
stood and started for the door.
Pausing where her father had stood,
she turned back.
"And goodbye.
I probably won't see you again."

"Goodbye, Becky.
It was nice meeting you,"
Kalli said politely, wondering if she would see this child again.
Not if she severed all relations with Trace.
And she planned to do
that the next time she saw him.

Which proved to be the very next morning at
six o'clock when he banged on her bedroom door.

"Go away," Kalli called from beneath her
pillow.
She'd had a horrible night.
Dream after dream had chased
through her mind, waking her, making sleep virtually impossible.
Every one of them concerned Trace.
In some he chased her on a
horse, six-guns drawn, running her out of the county.
In others he
kissed her, rubbing his work-rough hands over her hot body,
watching her as she gave in to the urging he constantly whispered
in her ear.
Those had been the worst.

"Rise and shine, Boss Lady.
You've got a
ranch to run."

"Dammit." She got up and stormed to the door,
flinging it wide.
"Right you are, cowboy!
This is my ranch and I'll
run it and I'll start by beginning the day at a reasonable
hour!"

He grinned at her.
She looked good enough to
eat, rosy from sleep, her dark eyes snapping and sparkling and her
hair tousled every which way around her head.
Glancing over her
shoulders, he almost groaned when he saw the tumbled sheets on her
bed, the impression of her head clearly visible on one of the
pillows.

"A reasonable hour?
Sweetheart, it's
six."

"That’s right, and I like to see six o'clock
in the morning from bed."

"Fine." He dropped his hat and reached out to
scoop her up.
In only two seconds he dumped her on her bed and
followed her down, his hard chest pinning her to the mattress as
his hands cupped her face, fingertips threading in her tangled
hair.
His mouth came down hard on hers.

Kalli was astonished.
Then complacent, then
hot and bothered and turned on and wanting more of this wild cowboy
who wouldn't take no for an answer to anything.
Her bare legs felt
the roughness of his denims and the scrape of his boot.
His belt
buckle pressed into her soft skin.
He was heavy and hard.
But all
conscious thought fled as his mouth made sweet love to hers.
As he
brought her to a state of awareness and desire beyond anything
she'd felt before.

Instead of pushing him away, instead of
becoming irate he'd thrust his way into her room, she ran her hands
up his arms, across the broad shoulders, sculpting the shape of his
muscles, squirming a bit beneath him to get more comfortable,
reveling in the taste and scent of him.

She was as soft as down.
As sweet as
honeysuckle.
He would devour her with his mouth if be could.
She
was so sweet, so hot and so compliant.
Why the change?
He expected
fireworks from her, and he was getting them, but not the way he had
expected.

His hand trailed down her throat, across her
shoulder.
Feeling the soft cotton of her T-shirt, for a moment he
envied it.
The shirt covered her torso completely, draped over
every curve and mound and valley.
Just as be wanted to drape
himself over her.
Learn every inch of her, cover every inch of her,
taste every inch of her.
His fingers traced down farther, feeling
the soft swell of the side of her breast, flattened because of his
weight.

Rolling over, he freed her.
Freed her for his
touch.
His hand kneaded her softness through the cotton, wanting to
feel that impudent nipple against his palm again, wanting to feel
her bare skin against his.

His knee slipped between hers and he pushed
his thigh into the notch between her legs.
Rubbing his fingers
across her waist, he pulled up the T-shirt, his knuckles brushing
against her hip.
The softness tantalized his fingertips, sent a
longing deep in his gut to absorb every part of that soft skin
against his own tougher hide.

"Hell." He pulled back and stared into her
glazed eyes as his fingers moved against her hip.
"You're not even
wearing panties."

She shook her head, too bemused to speak.
Her
eyes soft with passion, her body hot and craving.

Slowly his hand moved across her abdomen,
down to feather against the soft curls, Iowa, lower still.

She held her breath, staring at him in
unconscious hunger.

"Don't, Trace.
You need to leave." But her
hands gave lie to her words.
They still gripped him.
One moved
across his shoulders, down to the V of his shirt, one finger
rubbing sensuously against the copper skin of his chest.

"You don't want me to leave," he said softly,
his fingers finding her, softly stroking her.
Her hips rose,
fell.

"You don't even like me." If she said it
often enough, maybe she’d believe it and stop this tantalizing man.
She found and released one button.
Swamped by sweet hot sensations
that built and built.
Fingers fumbled for a second.

"I like you," he murmured, brushing a kiss
against her damp swollen lips.
His finger stroked again, gently
parted her.

She caught her breath, her eyes wide with
wonder and delight.
Then she frowned, tried to close her legs, but
his hard thigh prevented it.