Heart of Winter (9 page)

“So do I,” Nicole said, smiling. “It was a good party. Winthrop and I started the dancing.”

Mary's eyes widened. “Winthrop was dancing?”

“Yes. He does it very well.”

“He used to,” Mary agreed. “But I have not seen him dance since the accident. How did you manage it?”

Nicole chewed her lip a little and peeked at Mary. “I stood in front of him on the dance floor and wouldn't move.”

Mary laughed. She did it seldom, but when she did, it was wholeheartedly. “Good medicine,” she told the younger woman. “We should bottle you.”

“I'd most likely ferment and become illegal. There's Gerald.”

He joined them, looking a bit hot under the collar and flustered. He grinned. “Ready to go?”

“Been ready quite some time,” Mary said. “Long past my bedtime.”

“There, there, too much sleep can kill a good woman,” Gerald said soothingly. “Think of how I'm saving you from certain death.”

“Saving me from much needed rest,” Mary countered, climbing into the pickup between him and Nicole. “Winthrop danced, she tell you?”

“She didn't have to. I saw it with my own eyes,” he volunteered, grinning past her at Nicole. “I wish I could have taken a picture. Nobody will believe it.”

“Isn't it cloudy tonight?” Nicole was trying to change the subject, but it really did look cloudy, and it was getting colder.

“Snow clouds,” Mary said. “We get buried in snow pretty soon.”

“Not in November,” Nicole said.

“This is Montana. Snow comes early and late—you can't predict mountain weather. And snow in November is pretty routine,” her boss informed her. “Lord, I hope we don't get shut up with that horsey set from back East. They'll be here tomorrow.” He glanced at Nicole. “By the way, one of Winthrop's guests is from Kentucky, an expert on thoroughbreds. Winthrop wants him to take a look at the colt and give him an opinion. He wouldn't be able to race it for a couple of years, of course, but he's thinking along those lines.”

Nicole knew a number of people in the horsey set. She was afraid of meeting someone from her old life, someone who knew her father, who might tell him where she was and what she was doing now. She didn't want him to know anything about her new life. There were deep scars from those young years. She wanted nothing to do with the man who'd driven her mother into a succession of lovers, followed by a fatal accident. Nothing at all.

“Did he tell you the man's name?” Nicole asked quietly.

Gerald glanced at her. “As a matter of fact he did,” he replied. He grinned ruefully. “But I was on the phone at the time and I didn't catch it. There's a Murdock woman, and a couple of brothers named Harris. But I don't think the Harrises know much about horses.”

Nicole consoled herself with the thought that there must be hundreds of horsey sportsmen in the world besides her father. She only nodded, closing her eyes as they went back to the Christopher ranch.

The house was quiet when they got there. If Nicole had hoped to see Winthrop again, she was disappointed. He was nowhere in sight. She said good-night to Mary and Gerald and went reluctantly to her room.

She didn't sleep. She lay awake staring at the ceiling for what seemed hours. Finally she got up and decided to make herself a cup of hot chocolate. Perhaps that would do the trick; she really couldn't stay awake all night.

Since the household was asleep, she didn't stop to fumble through the closet for a robe. Besides, her long flannel pajamas were more than decent, with their pale-pink rose pattern. She looked very young without her makeup and barefoot, as she went down the long, dark staircase. She hoped the house didn't have ghosts, she didn't fancy meeting one.

The kitchen light was on. She opened the door and paused, stopping dead at the sight of Winthrop bending over the stove. He was wearing pajama bottoms, nice brown striped ones, but no top. His chest was…incredible. Broad and bronzed and thick with a wedge of hair that covered his rippling muscles.

He turned, his dark hair tousled, and stared at her. “Looking for someone?” he asked.

“For some hot chocolate,” she confessed. “I can't sleep.”

“I'm making some,” he said. “Come in and find some mugs.”

She stared at herself. “I should get a robe…”

“Why?” he asked, glancing at her. “You're covered up in all the right places, and I'm hurting like hell. I'm not in any condition to lay you down on the kitchen table with evil intent.”

She smothered a giggle, went in and closed the door behind her. “How savage sounding,” she mused as she searched the cupboard for cups. “Think of the splinters!”

“A nice girl like you. Shame on you.” He took the hot chocolate off the stove and poured it into the mugs before he put the pan in the sink to soak. He was limping rather badly, and she grimaced as he sat down with a hard wince.

“That's my fault, isn't it?” she asked gently. “I made you dance when you didn't want to, and you hurt it because of me. I'm sorry.”

“Nobody makes me do a damned thing,” he said curtly. He had two pills. He took them, swallowing them down with a sip of the hot chocolate. “I could have walked away from you if I'd wanted to.”

“But you didn't.”

He turned, his dark eyes holding hers. “I didn't want to. I like holding you. The excuse isn't particularly relevant.”

Her face colored, and he smiled slowly.

She lowered her eyes to her cup and lifted it quickly to her mouth. She sipped at it for a long time, her mind hungry with sweet longings, her eyes darting to his broad, bare chest and back to her cup. He was through with his chocolate, but he sat back, quiet and faintly threatening and just looked at her until her body began to tremble.

“Did you wonder what I looked like under my shirt, Nicky?” he asked with blatant seduction in his voice.

Her lips parted on a husky sigh. She couldn't quite meet that searching gaze. She clung to her empty mug as if it were a life jacket. The silence was suddenly too sweeping, the loneliness of the deserted room staggering in its implications. They were alone. And he wanted her.

She felt him move before she saw him. He took the mug out of her hands and drew her up in front of him, holding her gently by her upper arms.

“There's nothing to be afraid of,” he whispered. “Nothing at all.”

He bent his head and she saw the shadow of his face, felt his chocolaty breath as his mouth brushed against hers. She relaxed then, because he was very slow and sure of himself. He wasn't in any hurry, and the leisure of his movements stopped the panic inside her. She began to unwind, feeling the softness of his mouth along with its hardness, liking the delicate probing of his tongue just under her upper lip. Amazing, she thought, how sensitive her mouth was to that light touch.

She lifted toward him a little, and heard his breath catch. She couldn't know that he was on fire with need, that he was in agony trying to hold back enough to keep from frightening her.

“Sweet,” he whispered against her lips. “You're so sweet.”

He had a lover's voice, she thought, very deep and seductive. She loved to hear him talk anytime, but particularly like this, in hushed whispers. She put her hands against him and felt them tingle where they touched the thick hair that covered him. It was wiry against her palms, deliciously abrasive when she began to draw them over his broad chest, disturbing the muscles so that they rippled under her fingers.

His breath caught. He stopped and suddenly moved back. His eyes held hers, searching them. “I want more than this,” he said tautly.

She couldn't look away. “How…how much more?”

His eyes went to her pajama jacket. “Nothing terribly indiscreet,” he said quietly. His hands followed his gaze. He hooked his index finger into the V neckline of her pajamas and tugged her toward him. “Don't panic, okay? I promise I won't let it go too far.”

She wanted to protest. But her eyes went down to his lean fingers working the buttons with such deftness, and she couldn't look away. He undid them slowly, and then drew the fabric back from her high, pink breasts with a leisurely expertise that hypnotized her.

Then his gaze was on her, looking at her with blatant possession. Winthrop was a man with an eye for beauty, and the expression in his dark eyes told her that he found her beautiful. Her nipples went hard under his scrutiny, and she was embarrassed and tried to cover them. But he stopped her, shaking his head gently.

“It isn't sordid or shameful to let me see you,” he said quietly, his voice very slow and deep. “God never made anything more beautiful than a woman's breasts.”

Her breath stopped in her throat at his words. She looked up at him, her gaze sharing secrets with him. Then he smiled, and it was like the sun coming out.

He touched her cheek, gently tracing it. “Come here and let me hold you, Nicole,” he breathed, drawing her. “Feel my body and let me feel yours. Let me teach you how beautiful it can be to touch skin against skin.”

She let him draw her close, feeling the sting of tears as she went into his arms. Her eyes closed at the first contact with his warm, hard body, and she cried out as her nipples stabbed into his skin, burying themselves in the damp, abrasive mat of hair that covered the hard muscles. “Winthrop,” she murmured.

“Yes.” His hands spread against her silken back, under the pajama top. He drew her very close, closing his own eyes as her soft body melted into him. He was aroused, and she knew it. He felt her stiffen as her legs came into contact with his.

“Don't flinch away from me,” he murmured at her temple, coaxing her back against him. “This is natural, too, and good and sweet and right between a man and a woman. Don't be afraid of it.”

“It's so intimate,” she whispered shakily against his warm, broad chest. His skin tasted of cologne and soap. Masculine smells. Good smells.

“Intimate,” he agreed at her ear. “Yes, it's that. It's exquisitely sweet, having you close to me this way.” His arms tightened and trembled a little. So did his tall, fit body. “Nicky,” he breathed on a groan, bending his head over her. He began to rock her, fostering a new kind of intimacy between them, one that should have shocked her but was strangely familiar now. She clung to him, letting him hold her, yielding to his strength.

“Your leg…” she said a long minute later.

“What leg?” he murmured.

She drew in a long breath, and he shuddered as he felt her breasts swell against his skin.

“It's scary, isn't it?” she whispered. “Holding each other like this.”

“Scary enough,” he agreed on a bitter laugh. “You can't possibly imagine the thoughts going through my mind.”

“I'll bet I can, too,” she said. She nuzzled her cheek against him, loving the rough feeling of the hair over his chest. “Do you like that?”

“Can't you feel how much I like it?” he asked with blatant mockery. “Give me your mouth.”

She lifted her lips to meet his, her hands sliding around him to his back, loving the feel of him, the vibrant masculinity of him. He kissed her slowly, warmly, and even that was intimate, his tongue probing softly in her mouth.

He shifted her a little so that his hand could find the soft curve of her breast and tease it into arching toward those tormenting fingers.

“Do you want me to keep going?” he whispered at her lips.

“Yes,” she whispered back, her voice breaking. She wasn't old enough or sophisticated enough to hide her hunger.

“Like this?” he murmured, with a teasing touch around the nipple, his fingers faintly callused and deliciously abrasive on her soft skin. “Or like this?”

His thumb rubbed suddenly at the tiny hardness and she cried out, a whimper of sound that worked on him like a narcotic. His hand covered her breast and he lifted his head to look into her misty eyes while he caressed her.

“I'm on fire,” he whispered. “Burning.”

“So am I,” she moaned. “Winthrop…”

His head bent to her body, and as she watched, fascinated, he arched her and opened his mouth and put it completely over her breast.

She thought that as long as she lived, she'd never get over the sensation. It went on and on, tearing at her, shaking her, making her too weak to move, to breathe, to think. She was an instrument, and he was playing her with an expert touch, teaching her things about her own body that she'd never known.

She arched farther, her hands in his dark, cool hair, inciting him, begging him. His mouth slid from one breast to the other, and she moaned like a wounded thing, feeding on the sweet ardor of his mouth, living only through him.

Dazed, shuddering with sensation, she barely felt him move. And then she was on his lap in the chair, and he was holding her, cradling her while she cried. She hadn't even been aware of the intensity of her emotions until she felt the tears like rain on her face.