Hard Drivin Man (7 page)

At a loss as to what she had said or implied that distressed him, she sought to assure him with truth. “I never ask for the impossible.”
Like devotion. Happily ever after. Those thingsdon’t exist for me.

Frowning, he grabbed her up in his arms and pushed her robe down her body, as impatient as if he’d never had her. “I want to feed you.” He sat down in an open armed chair and pulled her forward, so that she sat on his lap and faced him, her thighs wide and open to his stroking fingers. “Have some eggs, Jess.” He spooned them into her mouth. “And a piece of bacon.” She bit it from his fingers in a nip, confused by his withdrawal.

She turned to the room service cart and surveyed the food. The butter was melting and so was her body. He had loved her so well and so damned often that she was a mass of sexually satisfied Jell-O. She reached over and took a scoop of the butter from the bowl and pushed his robe from his shoulders. Then, she rubbed the butter round and round his nipple.

He jumped and she grinned. “Two can play.”

His dark brown eyes swam with despair as he stopped her with his hand clamped over hers. “What if I want more than playing, Jess?”

Her satiated cunt pulsed in expectation. With him, she was now ready to play—

anytime. “I’m addicted to you, honey.” She fingered his cock with her free hand. His shaft was big and bold, warm and ready. A drop of cum appeared on the tip and she ran her thumb over it.

He bit his lip.

She stood, worked her way out of the chair, then extended her hand to him. “Come make love to me again in a bed, Trey. I’ve never known anything as wonderful as making love to you.”

He followed her to bed and moved with her, flowed with her, covered himself with another condom and finally thrust into her with the lightning of his possession. For hours, they slept until he woke her and told her they were going to dinner in the restaurant.

“No bra,” he ordered her with laughing eyes. “I want to look at you and know when your nipples reach out to me and your pussy gets wet for me.”

“Ha!” She laughed, delighted he had worked himself out of his bad mood. “I’m hard and wet for you twenty-four hours a day!” She ran a hand down his sculpted abs. “What I want to know is how will I manage to eat if I’m not naked in your lap?”

He swatted her on the ass and told her to get dressed.

But in the dining room, he asked for the banquette at the back and sat next to her.

There, in the corner of the room, where few could see behind the potted palms, he ran his hand up her thigh, beneath her flowing skirt and ran his fingers over her slit, then inside her fabulously outraged pussy.

“How am I supposed to eat with you inside me like this?” she scolded him on a chuckle.

He arched his brows and somehow she got through her dinner and he through his, with kisses and laughter for extra relish.

That night, they fell into bed with only a few kisses to warm them and slept like two ship-wrecked sailors.

When she woke the next morning, she heard him calling the front desk and asking for an extension on when they could check out. She rolled over to grin at him, knowing this look at his naked splendour was her last.

“Good morning, babe. Guess what? We’ve slept through the day. It’s four in the afternoon. We need to get up and check out.” He cupped her face and looked at her, grinning. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Fine,” she told him, lying and smiling all in one breath.

She had just spent almost forty hours in bed making love with a man she’d known most of her life. True, a lot of women made love with men they’d known all their lives. That wasn’t unique. But different for her was the fact that she’d done it in so many new ways time after time. And according to their deal, time had been the ticking bomb here. All of this passion was over so soon.

Sorrow swallowed her. She clutched the sheets, watching him pad away to the bathroom. She didn’t want to do without him!

Stop your childishness, Jess!
She punched the pillow. She had enjoyed what they had here—and his declaration that he wanted her in his bed all the time was one she understood.

She wanted him. Inside her body. Loving her. All the time.

But was sex enough for her?

After Clint died she had promised herself that she would look very long and hard at any man who ever again touched her mind or her heart. Clint had enchanted her in bed.

Just like his brother, Trey. Clint had been intelligent, funny and fun-loving. Just like Trey.

Clint had been a man in a hurry to have her. Just like Trey. But Clint had been lazy, undisciplined.

Unlike Trey who was organised, efficient.

Clint had also been a drinker.

Unlike Trey who stopped, always, at one.

Clint had been one to issue ultimatums.
Marry me after graduation. Let me do the finances.

Sign the deed to the ranch over to me. I’m your husband and you owe me.

Not like Trey.

Now whatever she had learned about Trey would go for nothing. Because he was returning to his post, to wherever he was sent. Away from her. And even if she wanted to go with him, she couldn’t. She owned a ranch that was now, and always had been, the one constant in her life. She wasn’t rich enough to hire a foreman like Trey had. She couldn’t go anywhere with Trey, no matter how much she wanted him.

Wanting a man was what had led her to marry Clint. Being so in love with lust that she was blinded to who he really was. She had vowed never to make that mistake again. Yet, here she was trying to decide if she loved this man. And she wondered if she could even make a sound decision about loving any man, let alone
this
man who charmed her and disarmed her—and who by his laughter and grace, alarmed her.

Chapter Four

Their ride towards home in the dusk was so silent, he could damn near hear his heart beat. He reached for her hand at one point and she squeezed it good-naturedly, then withdrew.

He’d thought showing her how he loved her would have made her break down and declare how she cared for him. But she wouldn’t go that far, no matter how often or how well he brought her to climaxes. And as for him, hell, he was a goner, now down with a bad case of the love sick blues. And he hadn’t even left her yet.

He saw the latest road sign and knew he had only fifteen more miles until the turn-off for home. That meant time was out for him to make his pitch, but damn, if he wasn’t a tongue-tied kid. Trying to find the right words, he knew he’d just have to force himself to blurt out what he wanted—what he intended—and sit tight and see where the sparks flew.

At the next right turn off the Interstate highway, he pulled off the lonely road into the service area and parked the truck.

She glanced at him, a question in her eyes.

“Would you like to use the ladies room? Or get a Coke?”

She shook her head no. “Thanks.”

“Me neither.”

“Then why—?”

“I haven’t been fully honest with you, Jess.”

Her lips parted. “About what?”

“What I wanted here.”

She sucked in air like a woman dying for breath. “What do you mean?”

“I asked you to come away with me because I had an ulterior motive.”
Christ, do not lookat me like I’m a vampire.
He grasped her hand, but she snatched it back.

“Tell me,” she pleaded in a small voice. “Get it over with.”

“I took advantage of you to ask you to come away with me.”

She searched the landscape in front of her as if she were looking for a refuge out there.

“Jess, listen to me. I have wanted you all my adult life. Most of my adolescence and maybe in my childhood, too.”

She winced at that.

“I wanted you like I have never wanted any woman. I have waited most of my life hankering after you and when I came home this time, I told myself I was going to tell you how I cared. But you wouldn’t stay at the party at Aunt Marie’s and you wouldn’t come to the house to have dinner with me. So when you came to me the other day to ask for a favour, I took advantage of your need and I made you this offer. Made you take this bargain.”

“And now you hate that you did,” she said on a sound of hushed despair. “I see,” she whispered and seemed to cave inward as she reached for her door handle.

“No!” He caught her before she could escape him. “Listen to me!”

Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

“Oh, honey, I am not telling you I don’t care for you. I’m telling you I love you. I love you, body and soul.”

She blinked, her eyes confused—then horrified.

He tried to bring her close but she pulled back. “I love you, Jess. I always have. I got tired of waiting for you and this time when I came home, I vowed to tell you, show you how much I cared for you. I hope I did.” He pushed a stray curl from her brow. “Tell me you know I love you.”

She gazed outside again, looking for the truth of what he said. Finally, she looked at him again and nodded once. “I—I do.”

“What you don’t know is that the other reason I wanted to show you this now is because I have a decision to make about my military career.”

She frowned.

“While I’m here on leave this time, I am also deciding if I want to re-up for another enlistment term. I’m tired of war, Jess. I’m tired of seeing my men destroyed by bombs and bullets and the desperation of re-deployments back to the desert. I want a family. I want to come home to some peace and quiet and love. I want to come home to you, Jess. I love you and I need you. These hours away with you have convinced me that I have always only needed you, honey.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks then.

“Don’t cry, honey. I’m asking you to marry me.”

She shrank away from him.

He couldn’t believe it. After how he’d worked to make her laugh, love her, she was crying. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? I thought I had shown you how much I care.”

“You did. Oh, Trey, you did! But I—I don’t know if I can do this, make this decision.”

“What? Why not?”

“I need to think about it. I need to be away from you and think about it.”

He brushed her tears from her cheeks, his heart pounding with a sorrow he couldn’t see the bottom of. “My leave is up Friday. When I report, I have to tell my CO whether I’m in or out for the next three years. I need to know, Jess, if I can come home to you or if I’m going to live without you for the rest of my life.”

“Trey, you need to decide so soon?”

“Yes, once and for all. I won’t come back and run this ranch unless you’ll have me, Jess.

I couldn’t live close to you and not have you. I won’t live my life any longer with you just beyond my reach.”

“But how can you ask me to decide whether to change my life so quickly?”

“Call it short, call it unfair. I’ve known you all my life, Jess. I’m giving you twenty-four hours to tell me whether you love me and whether you’ll marry me.”

“A day?”

“It’s all I have, Jess. All any of us has right now. Meet me at the creek at dusk tomorrow night. Tell me your decision then. I can’t wait any longer, Jess. I’ve spent my life loving you and I either have to do it with wedding rings and kids and laughter and tears or not at all.”

* * * *

The sun glowed a bright red through the live oak trees at dusk the next day as Jess walked the barbed wire fence that divided the Rocking H from her own property. Jumpy as a cat on hot coals, she patted her mare and scanned the horizon for Trey.

A few more minutes and dusk would be over, disappeared behind the far western ridge, bringing night and darkness to the day and her past.

She rested her forehead against the saddle of her horse and tried to push out the horror her day had been. What agony she’d felt to know she could choose love again—and be wrong. Or choose love once more—and take a chance this time she could get it right.

She surveyed the creek below, one of Trey’s that ran deeper than any on her land. Was Trey like that? Running deeper, dearer, than Clint ever could have? Could brothers be different?

Logic said yes. She had lived with Clint for sixteen years. He had been a jovial teenager, but as a man he became self-centred, morose, and addicted to a substance that took his will-power and weakened him. As he declined in health, he and she hadn’t slept together and hadn’t communicated like husband and wife for more than eight years. By the time he had been accidently trampled by one of their bulls, he’d ruined his liver, his heart and their chances for any normal relationship.

That’s what came of her teenage love affair. A flame of passion that turned her head, thrilled her young body and ruined the years of young adulthood. Now here she was fascinated by her old friend, Clint’s brother. If she had been a fool to go with Trey to Big Bend, she consoled herself that the two days with him had renewed her spirits, taught her how to laugh again—and made her see that she wasn’t some thirty–eight–year-old hag who was dried up and dead.