Texas Two Step: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 1 (7 page)

“Okay?” Mitch’s face held the concern his question asked.

She forced her breathing to slow, drawing in deep breaths until she no longer gasped. She blew out one long breath and smiled. “I am now.”

He pulled slowly out of her. “No one has ever replaced you…could ever replace you.”

Emptiness permeated every cell of her being.

“Nothing has ever felt as good as loving you.” He thrust into her. “Nothing.” His face hardened as his jaw clenched. “I’m sorry, babe. I can’t hold back much longer.”

“Then don’t. Let go. I’ll catch you,” she said, repeating his words back to him.

He plunged into her again and again, the sheen from his sweat glimmering on his brow. She met him stroke for stroke, rocking her hips to meet the rhythm he set. He shoved both hands under her bottom, lifted her to meet his thrusts. With each stroke, he hit her swollen sex nub, driving her again higher and higher.

Her fingernails raked his back as she approached the brink again.

In answer to her pleas and moans, his hips pistoned faster and harder, giving her everything she needed. She came again. Ripple after delicious ripple rumbling through her body. In the next instance, he followed, groaning softly in her ear.

He collapsed on top of her. “Give me a minute. I’ll move,” he gasped into her ear.

She wrapped her arms across his back, soaking in the feel of his weight, storing away memories for the cold years to come. “Don’t hurry. You feel good.”

And so right. How could they—he—have thrown this away?

Cold air blew across Mitch’s face and naked chest. He reached for Olivia to pull her close, to steal some of her warmth. His hand came up with only a cold sheet. No Olivia. Opening his eyes, he searched for her, but found only an empty space in his bed.

Certain she wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye, he searched his suite until he found her wrapped in his robe on the balcony, staring into the sky. Backlit by the moon, she stood in profile, reminding him of a goddess statue. The perfect jut of her nose. Her sensual lips in a pout. Her breasts, full and luscious, rising and falling with each breath. She took his breath away.

Once he’d loved Olivia with a passion so intense it had scared him. Tonight, as they’d made love, he realized the infinite depth of his feelings, but now he was no longer afraid. With maturity came understanding. A love like theirs didn’t come along every day. It was special. Unique. Something to be cherished, not taken for granted. How could he have wasted such a treasure? A youthful mistake, for sure. But he was no longer the naïve boy he’d been.

Would it be possible to find their way to each other again, find the love? He believed—hoped with all his heart—that they could.

Was it too late to start over?

He remembered something his mother had said to him.
It’s never too late to love. And never too late to forgive and find happiness.

At the time, the divorce from Joanna had been fresh and his emotions raw. He’d assumed his mother had been talking about his failed marriage and Joanna’s miscarriage. Since he’d been in no mood to accept advice, he’d nodded and replied, “Right, Mom.”

Now, looking at Olivia in the silvery moonlight, his heart so engorged with love he could hardly speak, he understood what his mother had been trying to tell him.

“Livie.”

She turned toward him. “Mitch.”

He held out his hand. “My bed is empty without you. I missed you.”

She gave him her hand and a smile that didn’t begin to camouflage the sadness in her eyes, a sadness he didn’t understand. He pulled her close and kissed her, putting all his feelings into his kiss, his touch. Tonight, actions were safer than words. He wasn’t ready to put his feeling into words. This time—unlike the night they’d broken up—he’d choose his words with more care and caution.

Her soft arms twined around his neck. Holding her in his arms felt right, like coming home after a long trip.

Her mouth challenged his for control, kissing, nipping, licking, sucking. He didn’t need to hear her words. Her actions conveyed her desire.

He slipped the knot from the robe’s belt. Sliding his hand under the silk to her warm shoulders, he pushed the material off. The robe landed in a heap at her feet. Silvery moonbeams glided across her smooth skin. Forever wouldn’t give him enough time to look at her.

He took her hands and placed them on the concrete railing of the balcony. Moving behind her, Mitch pressed his chest against her soft back. “You are so beautiful in the moonlight,” he whispered, then kissed her behind her ear. “Spread your legs for me. Take me back inside you.”

At his words, Olivia leaned on the railing and parted her legs, arching her bottom toward him. Her sex glistened in the moonlight from her arousal fluids. He kissed her shoulder then ran the tip of his tongue down her back. She moaned on a sigh. He dropped to his knees and drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her essence.

He put his hands on her inner thighs and applied gentle pressure. “Wider.”

Her feet slipped farther apart. Using his thumbs, he separated her folds and ran his tongue alongside her sexual center. He filled his mouth with her sweet nectar while his thumb rotated and stroked her clitoris until he felt the muscles of her thighs begin to quiver. This time he was going to make her wait and come with him. When he stopped she wiggled her bottom.

“Don’t stop. I’m so close.”

He chuckled. “I know, but this time we’re going over together.”

She turned her head until their eyes met. Her fingers flexed against the hard railing. “Fine, but hurry.”

After snatching a condom from the robe’s pocket, he quickly sheathed himself and stood. He grabbed her hips and drove deep into her. Her breath left in a gasp then she moaned, moving her hips back to meet him.

“Harder,” she said with a groan.

He slammed into her again and again, his balls slapping against her flesh.

“Don’t. Leave. Me. Again,” he said, each word accentuated with a driving thrust.

She cried out as her muscles squeezed him with her orgasm, milking his own powerful release. He rested his cheek on her back, struggling to catch his breath.

The second time was as emotionally powerful as the first, if not more. Olivia met his demands and made some of her own. This time, when he climaxed, he understood the depth of his love for this woman, how much he wanted Olivia to be a part of his life. How much he needed to be with her, every day, every hour.

Later, as he drifted into a sated sleep, his last thought was he had to convince her that she needed him as much as he needed her.

Olivia took advantage of Mitch’s sleeping state to study the dark, thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks, eyelashes most women would kill for. How unfair was it that men got such incredible lashes while women curled, mascaraed, glued on fake lashes—anything to get the look of the lashes Mitch sported with no effort.

She lightly brushed his hair off his face, tried to store mental photographs of every detail. The telltale pale of his forehead where his cowboy hat rested glistened in the soft moonlight kissing his face. From his nose down, there was a slight tanning where even the best Stetson couldn’t block the relentless Texas sun.

A little snore escape his parted lips, making Olivia grin. She remembered that snore. There were nights when she couldn’t sleep and would’ve given anything to hear his snore beside her, feel the warmth from his hot body, take comfort from him being near. Nothing—nor anyone—had ever dulled the ache for him she carried deep inside.

There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t have done for him, including giving him up when he’d asked her to. She’d wanted to tell him about the pregnancy, but the timing could not have been worse. Then fate had continued to cause a domino effect of events that kept her from telling him about their baby.

Thinking about her son jerked her guilt front and center again. She slipped from the bed and put Mitch’s robe back on. Mitch would have been—hell, could be—the best father in the world, but she couldn’t risk Adam’s future on it.

She moved quietly from the bedroom into the suite’s living room, where she paced and debated and cursed fate. Each time she reached the balcony, she was sure she should tell Mitch everything. By the time she’d walked back to the suite’s bar, she was positive she and Adam were doing great without him, or any man. Besides, who knew how he would react to the fact she had a son.

The carpet blurred as tears burned her eyes.

Damn it, Mitch. Joanna might have been a long-time friend, but did you have to be the good guy and step up to the marriage plate with her?

Why blame him, you chicken
, she chastised herself.
You could have told him.

And if she had, even more stress and turmoil would have been heaped onto the chaotic mess that had come with James’s death. She couldn’t do that to Mitch.

James dead. Joanna pregnant with James’s child. Mitch stepping up to marry his childhood friend, Joanna. Doing what he thought his brother would have wanted.

Or at least Joanna had said she was pregnant. No baby had ever been born, and from what Olivia had heard no abdominal baby bulge had ever been noted. Joanna had miscarried the baby early in the second trimester. Remembering her own pregnancy, Olivia realized her pregnancy pooch hadn’t become obvious until she was well into her sixth month, so maybe it was possible that Joanna had been pregnant.

Had there ever been a baby, or had the pregnancy been one of Joanna’s elaborate schemes to get James to marry her, only to have it backfire when he died? Mitch’s mother, Sylvia Landry, had always been convinced of the latter.

Years later, Sylvia had confided to Olivia’s mother that if she’d been of sound mind, she never would have let Mitch marry Joanna. But once the deed was done, everyone had tried to make the best of the situation.

Marrying a Landry had been Joanna’s goal. Without James, that left her good friend Mitch. Maybe Olivia should have spoken up, stopped the marriage, told Mitch everything, forced him to—

Stop it. You made the best decision you could at the time.

“Livie?”

Startled, she stumbled into the coffee table and clasped a hand over her jumping heart. Hastily, she dried her eyes on the arm of the robe and turned toward him. “I think I’d better go.”

He went to her and wrapped her in his arms. “What is it, sweetheart?”

For just a moment, she allowed herself to soak in the heat from his arms, allowed herself to feel the joy of being held by him again. Then she forced herself back to reality. “Nothing’s wrong. Really.” She pushed against his chest.

His touch, so gentle and caring, was a caustic acid to her soul, bubbling all her guilt to the surface. Tonight had been a mistake. She’d been a fool to think she could walk away unscathed.

“Stay the night.” He kissed her ear. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he said with a crooked grin.

She shook her head. “I can’t, Mitch. I have to get home.”

“Why? Stay.”

This time she shoved hard enough to force him to take a step back. “I really have to go,” she repeated, her voice coarse with unshed tears. She had to get out of there, and fast.

She untied the robe, letting it glide down her arms onto the floor. Wearing only her locket, she snatched her dress off the floor and wiggled it up her body. She shoved her feet into the pointed stilettos, her toes howling in protest.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, hurrying to the door. “Good night, Mitch.”

“Wait.” He stalked across the room, his long legs eating up the distance between them. Slamming his palm on the door, he held it closed. “You want to tell me what is going on here? Tonight was incredible. We connected as though we’d been apart for a day, not years. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it too. Now you’re charging out of here like the hotel’s on fire. What happened? What’d I do wrong?”

All of her strong bravado momentarily faltered. Her shoulders sagged. The air rushed from her lungs on a sigh. Recapturing her resolve, she stiffened upright. “It was wonderful. You were wonderful. Tonight was wonderful. Can’t we just leave it at that?”
Let me go, please.

“No, damn it, we can’t. Tell me what’s going on.”

She lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, an indifference she didn’t feel. “Nothing’s going on.” She cupped his face in her hands. His prickly whiskers stabbed into her palms. She stood for a moment, enjoyed the feeling of holding his unshaven face before she sighed and swallowed the gallon of tears threatening to overflow at any minute. “Let me go. Please. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Please, please push me out the door. Please don’t be nice. Please don’t ask me to stay again. I only have so much strength.

She leaned forward and kissed him and let her hands slid from his face. He caught one hand and brought it to his mouth, placing a kiss in her palm, branded her as sure as any of his cattle.

“Stay with me tomorrow night. Bring a change of clothes. I want to spend as much time with you as I can.”

Her mouth drew into a grim line. “I’ll try.”

He captured her face between his hands and kissed her. “Tomorrow night.”