Taming the Lone Wolf (6 page)

He raised himself on his elbow so he could watch Tess while she slept. The curls around her face were damp with sweat, and her lips were swollen, pouty from his kisses. He had left a love bruise on her
throat. He slowly trailed the sheet away, so he could look at all of her.

It was, after all, only another female body. He had seen his share of them. Why did he find this one so exquisite? Nipples the pink of prairie roses. Breasts full and exactly the right size for him. A slightly rounded stomach. The deep russet curls between her legs. And, oh, those legs! He liked the way she had wrapped them around him, her heels digging into his buttocks, demanding to have him inside her.

He was aroused again merely looking at her.

He wasn't sure what he should do about the situation. He had never wanted anyone to love him because he had no intention of giving love in return. Loving left you vulnerable. He had vowed when his father abandoned him never to give anyone the chance to hurt him that way again. It was safer not to ask for love. It was safer to be alone. Even if it was occasionally lonely.

Good Lord! Did he want her to love him?

No, of course not. Though she didn't yet know it, he was the one responsible for making her a widow. Better not to let his thoughts wander in a hopeless direction.

But he had no intention of letting Tess go anytime soon. Even though he could never let himself love her. Even if all they could ever have together was fantastic sex.

Her eyelids fluttered open, and he watched her eyes fill with tears. He kissed away the first salty drop before it could reach the pillow. “What's wrong?”

“I...I don't understand what compelled me to do
such a thing. I hardly know you.” She suddenly realized she was naked before him and scrambled to cover herself.

“Don't,” he said, catching her wrist and preventing her from drawing the sheet back over her. “I like looking at you. You're beautiful.”

“I'm not. I have stretch marks. And my legs—”

“Are perfect.” He smiled. “All of you is perfect.” He hadn't noticed the stretch marks. He searched for them and found them along her hips, silvery lines where her flesh had stretched to accommodate a baby. He had a fleeting picture of her grown huge with his child and brushed it away.

“We have to get dressed,” she said. “Rose will be waking soon.”

“Don't worry. I locked the door. She can't get in.”

A rueful smile appeared before she said, “You don't know Rose. She'll stand at the door and yell until we let her in.”

“All right. We'll get up. Soon.”

She started to rise, but he levered himself over her and kissed her deep and hard. It only took a moment before he was protected and inside her again. He saw her flush and realized she had been wet and hot and ready for him.

She had wanted him again, too.

He threaded his fingers through hers and held her hands prisoner above her head as he slowly thrust into her. He stared into her eyes, willing her to accept his claim. Her chin trembled, and her eyes grew liquid with feeling.

“This was meant to be,” he said. “The two of us together. Don't fight it, Tess.”

She groaned and arched upward, raising her breasts to him, an offering fit for the gods. He supped, drinking the heady wine she offered him.

“Please,” she begged. “Please.”

He knew what she wanted. He gave it to her.

Himself. All of himself, enough to make two halves into one whole. Enough to fill them both full. Enough to take them to paradise again.

* * *

I
NEED HIM
. I want him. I never want to leave him.

They were the first thoughts Tess had when she surfaced from a deep well of pleasure for the second time in as many hours. They frightened her.

All she had ever wanted her whole life was to be loved, to belong to someone who would need her as much as she needed him. She had needed and loved each set of foster parents who had taken her in. But the most she had ever received in return was adequate care. She had never been mistreated; but she had never been loved, either.

She thought she had learned her lesson: not to give her love where it wasn't wanted, not to lay herself open to the pain that came inevitably when she had to acknowledge she wasn't loved in return. Even with Charlie—heaven forgive him—she had known her love was not returned.

He had wanted her body, and he had been honorable enough to marry her when she had gotten pregnant. But Charlie had never loved her. He had been incapable of the emotion.

Here she was making the same mistake again. She didn't want to feel what she was feeling. But she didn't know how to stop. She turned and stared at Stony, who was sleeping beside her. She had to get out of here before she let this man sneak past her guard and into her heart.

He didn't like children. He liked living alone. He had no room in his life for her and her child. She would be a fool to trust another man, to give her heart to him. Especially this one.

She had asked Harry about Stony Carlton and gotten few answers. Stony wasn't a lawman, yet he hunted outlaws—rustlers—for a living. She wondered if he knew all about her husband's activities. Her thoughts shied away from contemplating such a possibility. It was better not to know.

Theirs was clearly a relationship doomed at the start. Yet she had let it start. Better to end it now, before she got hurt. Although, there would be hurt, even now. Because, though she wouldn't have wished it, would never have dreamed it, this lonely man already possessed a part of her soul...the part that had been missing all her life.

Tess dressed quickly and left quietly, closing Stony's bedroom door behind her. She was relieved that Rose wasn't yet awake and took advantage of the slight respite to spend some time alone in the living room.

She sat cross-legged on the comfortable sofa in front of the wood stove and watched the flames flickering inside the glass door.

She should leave.

Only, where would she go? Her situation hadn't changed one iota since she had accepted Stony's charitable job offer. She didn't want to continue imposing on him now that she was well. But she had tried to find a job in town once the cast was off her arm and discovered there was no job to be had until the season began. She was stuck here until spring.

She felt Stony's presence before she heard him. She supposed a man used to sneaking up on rustlers had to be able to move quietly. It irritated her nonetheless that she hadn't heard him coming. Although, when all was said and done, there was nowhere she could run.

She turned and found him standing right behind her dressed in nothing more than a pair of jeans. He had left the top button undone, and it was plain he wasn't wearing anything beneath them. The aged denim hugged his body like a glove, revealing the vivid outline of his arousal.

She wrenched her gaze away and turned to stare at the fire.

“We have to talk,” he said, vaulting over the couch and settling softly beside her, his legs crossed Indian style.

She was aware of him, the heat of him, the musky male scent of him. “I have nowhere to go—”

“—or you'd leave,” he finished for her.

“Yes, I would,” she said, her chin jutting. “This...thing...between us is...disturbing.”

“What if I said I understand what you're feeling?”

She glanced at him quizzically. “You do?”

“Something...unusual...has happened—is happening—between us.”

“Something magical,” she said quietly, almost wistfully.

His gaze softened as he met her eyes. “You felt it, too?”

She nodded, then ruffled her hair with her hands. “It doesn't make sense.”

“All I know is I don't want you to leave right now,” he said.

Her lips twisted cynically. “Lucky for you, I can't get another job until the season begins in the spring.”

He smiled. “That settles it, then. You'll stay.”

“But this...thing...between us... What are we going to do about it?”

“If this is something we both want, I don't see why we can't enjoy each other—take physical pleasure from each other—without letting it go any further than that. I don't want a wife.”

“Or kids,” she reminded him.

“Or kids,” he agreed. “But I do want you.”

“And I want you,” she admitted. “So we merely take what physical pleasure we can from each other for a few weeks or months without any other commitment between us?”

“I don't see why not,” Stony said.

Tess saw more than a few pitfalls in his plan, but she looked at him and realized she wanted to feel again the wholeness she experienced when he held her in his arms. “All right,” she said. “Until spring. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

She held out her hand, and he took it. Electricity arced up her arm. She tugged her hand free and stood,
needing to put some distance between them before they ended up in bed again.

“When's supper?” he asked. “I'm hungry.”

“I'm hungry, too,” Rose said, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“You're barefoot again, young lady,” Stony admonished.

Rose yelped and raced back toward the bedroom.

“Where's she going?” Stony asked.

“To get socks, I imagine,” Tess said with a smile.

“Can she get them on by herself?”

“I'll have to help her. The sock drawer's too high for her to reach.”

“You're busy,” Stony said, rising from the sofa. “I'll do it.”

Tess arched a disbelieving brow. “You don't like kids,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, well, I'd like it even less if she got sick. Besides, I'm hungry, and you're putting supper on the table.” He winked, a charming gesture that made her heart flutter. “I think I can handle it.”

It was impossible not to smile back at him. “Be my guest,” she said.

Stony didn't hurry down the hall because he knew Rose would be there waiting for him. He hadn't counted on the little girl's resourcefulness. She had pulled out the bottom drawer of the chest and was standing on it in order to reach the top drawer of the chest, which she had managed to open. The whole chest was in danger of tipping over onto her.

“Rose!” he said, his voice harsh with fear.

She leaned back, startled. Her weight, added to that
of the open drawers, was all it took for the chest to begin its tumble.

He snatched her off her precarious perch and caught the falling chest with his hip. He grunted in pain as everything on top came thumping down onto the braided rug.

“What's going on in there?” Tess called from the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything's fine,” Stony called. “Hunky dory,” he muttered under his breath. He clutched Rose tight while he gave his adrenaline-laced heart a chance to slow down. His hip throbbed where the chest had caught on the bone. He leaned his weight back to force the chest upright.

“What's hunk-dory?” Rose asked, apparently oblivious to the danger she had been in.

“It means you nearly got killed, but you didn't,” Stony retorted as he shoved in the bottom drawer of the chest with his bare foot. He shifted her onto his arm so he could look her in the eye. “You should've asked for help. You could've been hurt.”

“I was getting socks,” she said in a small voice, “like you said.”

Which made the whole thing his fault, he supposed. It surprised him to realize he cared enough about her to be worried that something might happen when he wasn't around to keep an eye on her.

She pointed to the mess on the floor. “Everything fell down,” she said, her chin trembling.

“Yeah, well, nothing's broken,” he said gruffly. “We can put it all back again.” He knew he was an idiot to be trying to placate a three-year-old, but there
wasn't anyone around to catch him at it, so he could do as he pleased.

She wriggled, her sign to be let down, picked up a pewter bookend and handed it to him. “Here,” she said. “I can help put it all back.”

They worked together over the next several minutes. He picked Rose up at her insistence so she could rearrange everything to her liking on top of the chest. By the time they were done, she was smiling again. Seeing that smile made him feel ten feet tall. It was ridiculous to let her under his skin. Especially when she wasn't going to be hanging around very long. But he didn't call Tess to come get her kid. Hell, he was enjoying himself.

“You still need socks, young lady,” he said, folding his free hand around her ice cold toes.

She giggled. “Can you do piggies?”

“Do what?”

“You know. Piggies.”

He was afraid he did know. It sounded like fun. But he wasn't going to let her make a substitute father out of him. “You need socks,” he repeated.

He opened the top drawer and pulled out a pair of pink socks.

“Not those,” she said firmly.

“What's wrong with these?”

“I want the ones with Mickey Mouse.”

Stony started to argue with her, saw the mulish cast of her mouth and changed his mind. Tess would be wondering what had happened to them. He searched through the whole drawer and came up empty.
“There are no socks in here with Mickey Mouse on them.”

“Where are they?” she demanded.

“How should I know?” Frantic to avoid the tantrum he could see coming, he grabbed a pair of socks with white lace and pink bows along the edge. “How about these?”

Her eyes widened, and she said with three-year-old reverence, “Those are only for Sunday school.” And then, “They're my very favorite.”

“You want 'em, you got 'em, kid.” He sat down on the bed and tugged the socks on, despite the resistance of her curling toes.

Rose looked first at the lacy socks and then up at him with something akin to awe. He felt absurdly delighted to have pleased her so well. He took her hand and headed back down the hall. “Come on. Let's go see your mom.”