CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BESS COULDN’T FIGHT her way out of the sensual web Cade had woven around her. She knew almost certainly that he wasn’t going to stop, but she loved him too much to protest. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Monday she was leaving Lariat forever. This would be all she had of him for the rest of her life.
His mouth enslaved hers, drugging her senseless. He carried her into his bedroom, his body so feverish with desire that he could hardly walk. It was wrong. But even while his mind registered that, his body was throbbing with need, his arms faintly tremulous as they held and cherished Bess.
He loved her. It would only be this one time, he told himself, just this once to hold on to. He didn’t dare admit what he was gambling to keep her. The faint hope that he might make her pregnant was pushed to the back of his mind while he fought all his repressions and principles. But it had been so long, and he loved her more than his own life. Losing her to Robert would kill him.
Bess felt him putting her down on the coverlet, and just for an instant she tried to protest. “Cade, don’t,” she whispered in a voice that was totally unconvincing. His strong hands pulled the dress away from her body.
“I can’t stop, Bess,” he whispered tenderly, his hands unsteady as they eased the fabric away from her soft pink skin. “I’ve got to have you. Sweetheart, I’ve got to,” he whispered, his mouth suddenly on her bare belly as his hands swept her briefs away along with the dress. He felt the scars under his lips, but they didn’t bother him. Bess was soft and sweet, and the scent of gardenias clung to her, making him drunk.
“I want you, too,” she moaned, and he pulled her hands to his hard, hair-covered chest and moved her fingers over the taut muscles. His mouth covered hers tenderly as his fingers worked at his belt and the zipper below it. He put her hands on him and groaned as he felt her touch him as she’d never dreamed of doing. It was intoxicating. Her hands moved experimentally, lightly touching, tracing, learning the hard lines of him. His nipples hardened when her fingers moved across them, and his flat belly rippled when her hands moved shyly back down again.
He was all muscle. Hard and warm and definitely male. He held her hands against him as he lifted his head and sought out her eyes.
His mouth was just above hers, his lips parted, his eyes sensuous. “I dream of having you touch me like this,” he said roughly. “I dream of taking you under me and feeling all that silky softness enveloping me. You are every dream I ever dreamed.”
Her heart was turning cartwheels in her chest. He arched her back, and her soft breasts were under his mouth. He tasted her, the soft, moist suction making her whimper as he poised over her, his lean, fit body faintly trembling with hunger.
“I can’t stop,” she said, moaning with her last breath of self-control, which dissolved with the sudden intimate touch of his hand as it moved down her flat belly. She cried out as the pleasure swept through her, sobbing while he found the right pressure, the right touch, to give her a taste of what was to come.
“We’ve gone too far to stop,” he said softly. “We’ll live with the consequences,” he added, his eyes holding her wild ones for just an instant. “I’m going to cherish you. All our lives we’ll have the memory of today,” he whispered as he bent toward her.
She closed her eyes. He felt the same way she did, she thought headily. He wanted this one memory, too. Perhaps that meant that he did care for her in some way.
He fit his lips against the soft contours of hers. His tongue probed inside and she gave in completely, on fire with the hunger to give in to him. All her noble principles flew through her mind, but her body was too hopelessly abandoned to care.
“Come to me,” he murmured against her mouth.
She felt her body obeying him, coloring as her breasts pushed heavily against his hard chest and her bare belly felt the impact of stark male arousal.
“That’s good,” he breathed. His arms helped her, and his legs shifted slowly between hers, so that she was suddenly fitted into the shocking contours of his powerful body. “No, don’t be afraid of it,” he whispered when she stiffened at the stark intimacy. “I’m aroused, but I won’t lose control. This is as natural as breathing. You’ll get used to it,” he promised huskily as his mouth covered hers again, his weight pressing her gently into the mattress, the warmth and hardness of it making her tremble with new knowledge, new sensation. The feel of his hair-roughened chest over her bare breasts was as starkly pleasurable as the feel of his hips moving with exquisite tenderness over her own.
He tasted of mint, and what he was doing to her lips was fiercely arousing. He bit and teased them, tempted them until they opened. And then he moved down against them with a pressure that became swiftly invasive. His tongue pushed into her mouth with a slow, steady rhythm.
“Cade...oh, Cade, love me,” she moaned, her voice breaking on the words.
He heard her, and his mind, like his body, blazed. She was soft and warm and he wanted her beyond bearing. His lean hands slid from her hips up her waist to the outside of her breasts. He let them rest there, while his thumbs slowly, expertly, teased the soft curves, ever closer to the suddenly taut peaks. He heard Bess gasp, felt her fingers clutch him as she tried to fight. But he kept on, his mouth insistent, his hands more so, because he knew she wouldn’t fight long.
And she didn’t. The narcotic effect of desire washed over her with every sweep of his fingers. She began to tremble as he brushed his thumbs around the hard nipples, leaving her taut with feverish anticipation.
Her eyes opened as she gave in to the feeling he was arousing, and she looked into his dark eyes as she let him see how fiercely she wanted his hands.
“Is it good?” he whispered tenderly, and he didn’t smile.
“Yes...!” she whispered back as his thumbs made one more foray almost, almost, almost to the place she wanted them. Her back arched and she trembled violently, her eyes holding his. “Touch...them,” she pleaded brokenly.
“Soon, little one,” he whispered. His dark eyes cherished her face as gently as his hands cherished her body. “Yes, it’s a fever, isn’t it? It burns. You want me to put my hands on you,” he whispered sensuously. “You want my mouth on your breasts again.”
She moaned at the images he was arousing. Her gasp was audible, and her need was visible. Her face was flushed, her eyes hauntingly beautiful as she moved toward him.
“Bess,” he breathed, and this time his hand didn’t stop. It swept across the hard tip and his fingers contracted suddenly, rhythmically on the soft, bare skin.
She cried out. It was like a consummation. Her wild eyes closed as her body clenched, and she arched her back, shuddering.
Cade could feel himself losing control at the sight of her like that. He’d always imagined that it would be slow and tender with Bess if he ever made love to her like this, that her responses would be shy and a little reticent. He’d never imagined her so passionate and responsive.
With a rough groan he bent and put his mouth over her breast, the heat and moisture of it penetrating as he cherished it.
She caught his head in her hands and pulled it closer, feeling the hot suction with a sense of inevitability. It had been this all along, this avalanche of feverish need. She’d sensed that, once out of control, it would sweep them both away. But there was no running from it now. She was as involved as he was, her body on fire for him, her mind washed away in her first experience of oblivious pleasure. Cade’s mouth found bare, soft, warm skin, and he moaned against her body as he searched over it with his hands. It was the closest to paradise he could ever remember being. She smelled of gardenias and she tasted of rose petals, a softness that made ashes of his most erotic dreams. She was exquisite.
He kept her at fever pitch with hot, hungry kisses as he managed to get out of his clothes. She lay there, her eyes like saucers, her body trembling with hunger until he stood over her, his muscular body bare and fiercely masculine. He held her rapt gaze for a long moment, giving her time to understand the finality of what was going to happen. She stared at him with mingled fascination and fear, but she didn’t turn away. His body clenched and he felt himself shudder when her eyes fell down the length of him and her lips parted.
He barely had the presence of mind to pull her dress under them before he fell down beside her. All that sweet curve of body, his to touch, to savor, to possess.
She felt his hands touching her and trembled with desire. She loved him. This would be the first time, and the only time, but she had to have it. She loved him too much to deny him, or herself, this one exquisite memory.
Her mouth met his halfway, and then she felt the unbearably sweet pleasure of his skin against her own, the clasp of his arms, the hardness of his muscular legs as they entwined with her soft ones.
His hands moved on her with slow expertise, gentling her for what was to come, tenderly arousing her all over again to the same fever pitch that had led to that first intimate touch. Only now he was touching her where she was most a woman, and she gasped and her body flinched involuntarily.
His head lifted and his dark eyes held hers while he probed gently. “I’m going to have to hurt you, sweetheart,” he whispered. “But I’ll be careful, and very, very slow.”
Her voice broke as she saw him move above her, and there was one second of frightened regret.
“No,” he whispered, his hands nudging her legs apart. “It’s all right, Bess.” His mouth brushed her eyes, closing them. “Close your eyes and listen. Listen, sweetheart.” His hands slid under her hips and he whispered to her, starkly intimate things. He told her exactly what they were going to do, how he was going to do it. He teased her lips with his own while his body probed tenderly. The feel of him was beyond her wildest imaginings of intimacy. And still his voice went on and on, the words arousing, forming mental pictures, as he whispered about the pleasure that would follow the pain.
His lips brushed slowly over hers and his tongue teased them. He smiled softly and then he moved down again. His tongue slowly went into her mouth, easily penetrating, gently. She gasped at the first tiny stab of pain. He hesitated, whispering to her, his hands smoothing her hair, tracing her breasts gently. His mouth moved again, his tongue easing inside to touch hers, a little deeper this time. The pain was worse now.
“Don’t try to pull away, amada,” he whispered, the Spanish love word sounded exquisite in the stillness, which was broken only by her rapid breathing and his heartbeat. His hand clasped her hip, holding her. “Only a little longer now. Bear the pain for me. Think past it.”
“It...hurts,” she protested, her eyes wide and hurting.
He held her gaze, his lean fingers gently tracing her mouth. “Only a little longer,” he whispered, carefully pushing against her. He saw the pain begin to go away, felt her gasp. “I’m...having you,” he said hoarsely, as the pleasure began to uncoil in him. His breath sounded suddenly deeper, rougher. He bit at her mouth, the action slow and fierce and oddly arousing, like the changing rhythm of his damp, muscular body above her. “I’m having you, Bess,” he whispered softly. The breathing grew ragged, and he pushed down, watching her pupils dilate, feeling her body suddenly accept him totally as she cried out softly. “There.” He groaned, his jaw tightened and he shivered with the incredible pleasure of possession. “My God...!”
“Cade!” she moaned.
“You’re part of me,” he whispered, awed by the enormity of what they were doing, by the almost awesome oneness. His eyes caressed her, adored her. “Now we join,” he said huskily. He caught her hands and curled them into his, pressing them down above her head. “Now. Yes, now...now, sweetheart. Now!” His hips lifted slowly and then pushed down, lifted again, pushed, and he shuddered with each deliberate movement, his face revealing the strain of his control. “Oh, God...it’s so good...so good!”
Her body trembled. The stinging sensation was being consumed by a different sensation. Hot. Burning. But not pain. Her lips parted on a soft gasp as he shifted and she felt the sharp pleasure tear through her stomach.
“I’ll make you cry out,” he whispered, watching her face as he moved again. He saw the contortions begin and knew why. He felt a harsh pleasure, a masculine kind of pride in his own capability as he felt her shiver and knew that it was pleasure this time. “You’re going to see rainbows.” He breathed roughly as his mouth moved down toward hers. “I’m going to make you see rainbows, however long it takes!”
She moaned into his open mouth. Her fingers curled under his and she began to move with him as she felt the rhythm grow deeper and slower and more terrible. The pleasure was a living thing. Cade was part of her and she was part of him. They were one person, one creature. Her hips lifted to his, her legs tangled with his. Her breasts rose, only to be crushed softly by the descent of his hair-roughened muscles, and he looked down to watch. Her eyes followed his, drawn to the mystery that was a mystery no more. She swallowed and flushed. Her gaze lifted back to his, to find the same wonder and pleasure building in his black eyes.
“Pieces of a puzzle,” he whispered huskily as he began to change the rhythm. “We fit together...like a puzzle. Male and female. Dark and light.” His jaw clenched and he shivered as he began to feel the pleasure. “Oh, God, Bess!” he groaned. His eyes closed and he felt his body tightening. “I want you...!”
She echoed his words, her body gloriously surrendering to the strength and power of his, savoring his endurance when her own had given out. She let him take her then, and the ripple of pleasure caught her unaware as she heard his ragged, tortured breathing and felt the shudder of his body as he drove for fulfillment.
Somewhere in the fever of it, she found a heady taste of the ultimate pleasure. But her joy was in his, because she felt and heard and saw the culmination of his pleasure. He didn’t try to hide his face. He sensed her gaze and let her watch him. It increased the pleasure to such a degree that he heard his own voice cry out, unbearably strained in the quiet room.
A long time later she smoothed his black hair gently and kissed his closed eyes, his damp face, his hot throat as he lay over her, his weight formidable and beloved all at once.
“I love you,” she murmured. She moved against him, sighing as she pulled him even closer. There should be guilt, she thought, but there was none. She’d loved no man except this one. She never would. To love him completely was as natural as breathing, and this memory would last a lifetime.
He heard the words and wished he could be sure that she wasn’t just saying them because he was her first man. He wanted her to mean them, but it was too soon yet.
He rolled onto his back and stretched his cramped muscles, aware of her rapt, curious gaze on the powerful, hair-roughened length of him. He was uncomfortable like this with women, as a rule, and he couldn’t remember a time when he’d made love in the light, despite what he’d once said to Bess. But it was different with Bess. Everything was. Loving her had given him pleasure that made him burn even in the sated aftermath.
Bess moved, disturbed by his silence, and pulled the sheet up over her. She glanced at her dress, which had been under them, and at the faint red traces on it. She flushed, sitting up.
Cade’s eyes found hers in the stillness of the room. She looked embarrassed and almost fragile like that.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I never meant for that to happen.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but there was no need to upset her any more right now. His eyes ran down to the dress and he looked up, concerned. “Was it very bad?”
She shook her head. Her gaze fell to his body and she flushed, turning away.
He threw his legs off the bed half-angrily and got back into his clothes. The door was standing wide-open, and he thanked God that the house had been empty. He hadn’t even had the presence of mind to close and lock it, so lost had he been in Bess and his need to have her that nothing had registered except the desire he felt.
Her fingers clenched on the sheet as he stood up again, his shirt hanging open over the hard muscles and thick hair her hands had found such delight in. Now, sane again, she felt ashamed of what she’d let him do. He hadn’t even said that he loved her, and now he looked as if he despised her. She felt tears moistening her eyes. All the reasons that had seemed so right in the heat of passion seemed irrational now, with the fever gone and cold reality staring them in the face. He couldn’t ever respect her again because of what she’d let him do. Her tender memory had turned into a shaming nightmare.
Cade was feeling something similar. He’d wanted the hope of a child to tie Bess to him, and the fever that had burned in his blood had blinded him to the unfairness of what had seemed reasonable at the time. Now he felt a little ashamed. Bess had been a virgin and he’d seduced her. He’d given her one more reason to hate him, when she had enough as it was. He’d wanted her with him, but it wasn’t fair to force her, to take her choices away.
He was vaguely aware of Bess’s quiet gaze on him. He turned toward her with his shirt still unbuttoned, revealing his damp, hair-matted chest, and his dark eyes searched her wan face as she sat there clutching the sheet over her breasts. His face hardened as he saw the telltale marks of his mouth on her soft skin, the faint redness created by its soft suction.
He reached for the cigarettes and lighter he kept in the drawer of his bedside table and lit one, blowing out a thick cloud of smoke as he went to the window and stared out.
Bess wanted to ask what he was feeling. She wanted him to explain why he hadn’t even tried to stop. But she was too shy and too embarrassed and too ashamed. She pulled the stained sundress over her head and buttoned it, aware of his quiet scrutiny. It would get her back to her own room at least. Then she could throw it away. She knew she’d never wear it again.
She stood up, and her eyes went to the door, which was standing wide-open. She blushed, wondering how she could have lived with herself if anyone had come home and seen them.
“The house is empty,” he remarked, his voice deep, subdued. “No one will be back for an hour or two.”
She folded the material over the stain absently, her eyes downcast, her hair in a glorious tangle around her shoulders.
“Don’t look like that,” he said. “I feel bad enough as it is.”
She turned toward him, her eyes searching his, but there was nothing showing in that poker face. “You didn’t force me,” she faltered, averting her eyes. “I’m as much to blame as you are.”
He drew in a heavy breath. “Three years is a long time,” he said absently. “I thought I could handle it, but you went right to my head.”
She didn’t understand. “Three years?” she echoed.
He lifted the cigarette to his mouth, drew, and blew out a cloud of smoke. “That’s how long it had been for me,” he replied. “I’ve been completely celibate since that last day I gave you riding lessons.”
She didn’t move. Her breath seemed suspended deep in her chest. “But...surely, there were women who wanted you?” she began.
He smiled ruefully. “There are women who’d want any man if he was winning in rodeo competitions. Rodeo fans.” The smile faded. “A man has to want a woman back before he’s capable with her.” His eyes darkened, glittered. “I want you. Nobody else.”
She sighed slowly. “You’ve been avoiding me since that last time we talked,” she said. “I thought you’d given me up to Robert.”
“Damned Robert,” he said shortly. “He’s my brother, and I love him, but I could have beaten the hell out of him with pleasure for the past couple of weeks. You’re mine. I said it and I meant it. I’m not sharing you, least of all with my own brother.”
“Cade...”
“Go ahead,” he said challenging her with a mocking smile. “Tell me you could do that,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the rumpled bed, “with Robert or any other man but me.”
She couldn’t. She shifted, wrapping her arms over her breasts. They were still a little sensitive from the touch of his hands and mouth. Just remembering made her color.
“I... I’ve never wanted anyone but you,” she confessed, lowering her eyes to the bare floor. “I don’t suppose I ever will.”
“Then I think you’d better marry me.”
There it was again, that question that made her feel so wonderful and so sorrowful all at once. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to turn him down a second time, even if it was ultimately for his own good. She looked up, and everything she felt was in her eyes.
“Which is it?” she asked miserably. “Pity or shame or guilt?”
He put out the cigarette in a dish on the bedside table and moved toward her. His lean fingers touched her face, tilting her head back so that their eyes met. “Tell me you love me,” he said.
He was hopeless. Impossible. Arrogant. She reached up and touched her mouth softly to him. “I love you,” she whispered. “But I won’t marry you.”
“Why not?”
She pressed both trembling hands against his chest and stared at the hard muscle and damp, thick hair. “I’ve already told you why,” she said. “I want to try my wings. I want my freedom for a little longer.”
“And you think you can walk away from what we’ve just done together?” he asked gently.
She colored. “It’s the wrong time of the month for me to get pregnant,” she said, lying through her teeth because anytime of the month was the wrong time now.
“That wasn’t what I meant.” He sighed, pulling her forehead against his chest. “You don’t understand how it is. Making love is addictive. You’re going to want it again with me, just as I’m going to want it again with you. But my conscience won’t let me play around with you, Bess. If you won’t marry me, this isn’t going to happen again.”
She swallowed. “You mean, you’d find someone else.”
“How?” he asked, looking into her eyes. “I wasn’t kidding. I can’t make love with other women. I haven’t wanted anyone except you for three years.”
“But—”
He put his forefinger over her lips. “If you’re bound and determined to stay in San Antonio, then go ahead. I won’t try to persuade you, and I won’t compromise you any more than I already have. But if I’ve made you pregnant, I have a right to know.”
“Yes.” She stared up at him with her heart in her eyes, loving him so much that the thought of a child was tormented heaven. She’d have given anything to give him a son. But that was no longer possible and she just had to face it. At least she knew what it was to love him. Her fingers touched his broad chest, and she knew that she’d live on today all her life. Tears stung her eyes as she faced the idea of those long years without him.
“I shouldn’t have let it go this far,” he murmured when he saw the brightness of her eyes. “The first time should be a husband’s right.”
Her gaze met his and locked with it. “Then it would have been yours anyway,” she whispered. “Because there won’t ever be anybody else.” The tears escaped her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, Cade, you can’t possibly imagine how much I love you!”
He wrapped her up against him hungrily, his head bending over hers where it rested on his bare skin. He rocked her, his voice in her ear murmuring endearments, his hands soothing her.
“Stay,” he said huskily. “Take a chance on it.”
“I can’t.” Her voice broke on the words. “I can’t.”
He wished he could understand what she was so afraid of. But maybe if he let her go, despite the agony it was going to mean, she might discover that she couldn’t live without him. It was a gamble, like the one he’d just taken. But he’d been wrong to try to force her to stay by making her pregnant. He didn’t have that right. He had to let her make the decision on her own. She loved him at least. That was in his favor.
She savored his warm strength, the feel and smell and hardness of him in her arms. He had to care about her, or why would he have gone to such lengths to keep her here? Cade wasn’t the kind of man who seduced virgins. He had too much conscience, and too much respect for her. It was going to be hard for him, as old-fashioned as he was.
It was going to be hard for her, too, she admitted ruefully. Despite the modern attitudes of others, hers were cemented in the past, like Cade’s. She’d lived too sheltered a life to accept life in the fast lane.
She pulled away from him at last, wiping her eyes.
He lifted her left hand and stared at the ring before his eyes met hers. His thumb rubbed over it gently. “You might consider yourself engaged now,” he murmured. “That would ease my conscience a little.” He smiled. “It might ease yours, too. I think it’ll be hell for both of us living with what we’ve done otherwise.”
It was only a little concession, she told herself. And did it really matter? Because he didn’t want anyone else, and neither did she. It was no less a bond than the feeling that kept them bound together already. But she had to remember that she couldn’t give in to the need for his name. His child-hunger was the one impenetrable barrier between them, and not even love would make up for that.
“It will have to be a long engagement,” she said after a minute.
Sheer joy danced in his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her see. “Okay,” he said carelessly. “That means you don’t date, by the way,” he added. “Unless you enjoy having your dates beaten bloody, that is.”
She smiled softly. “Would you?”
“Now, I would,” he agreed. The smile faded, and his eyes darkened as he looked down at her. “I’m your lover,” he said. “Remember?”
She hid her eyes from him. “My first lover,” she whispered.
He framed her face in his hands and lifted it. “I hope you dream about it every night of your life,” he whispered against her mouth. “I hope the memory of it gives you hell.”
“Thank you very much...” His mouth covered hers hungrily. He fitted her into the contours of his body, amazed to find that he was instantly aroused.
She felt it and tried to move back, but he caught her hips roughly and pushed them against his. Then he lifted his head and stared at her with mocking amusement.
“That used to happen every time I heard your voice,” he said. “Now I can just look at you and it happens.”
She colored at the way he said it, at the emotion in his voice, at the feel of his hard-muscled body so intimately close.
“How in hell can you still blush?” he asked, smiling.
“It’s new,” she said falteringly.
He bent and brushed his mouth softly over hers. “You might not believe it, honey, but it’s new to me, too.” He lifted her by the waist until she was on a level with his dark eyes, close against him. “I don’t guess I could change your mind about leaving on Monday?”
Her heart skipped. “No.” She leaned forward helplessly and brushed her mouth softly over his. “I love you,” she whispered. Her brows knitted. “I love you...!”
There was anguish in her voice. That disturbed him, but her mouth came back to his, and he gave in to the need to kiss her. His lips pushed hers gently apart and his tongue penetrated into the warmth of her mouth. He heard her moan and felt her tremble. He could almost have given her back those frantic words, but he didn’t want her to feel trapped. She was softhearted, and if she knew how he really felt, she might sacrifice herself for his sake. He couldn’t let her do that, he cared too much.
He lifted his head, drowning in the softness of her, the light in the soft brown eyes adoring him so openly. He shuddered with need and emotion. “I’ll come to see you,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Will you, really?”
“And keep your hands off your big, dark, sexy boss.”
She grinned, leaning closer to bite his full lower lip gently. “I’ll buy Nell a sexy nightdress and send her to see him,” she whispered.
“And tonight,” he added, “you’ll tell Robert you’re leaving and make it plain to him that you’re off-limits.”
The icy anger in his eyes made her weak in the knees. “Cade, I really wasn’t leading him on,” she said softly.
“I know that now,” he replied. “But make it plain, just the same, or I will. And I think you have a pretty good idea of how I’d do it,” he added.
She did. He’d set Robert up and let him find them kissing, or something equally traumatic for the younger man. She laid her cheek against his. “I’ll tell him,” she promised. She sighed, sliding her arms around his neck. “I’ll miss you.”
“You’re holding back something,” he said, startling her. “I’ll find out what it is someday.”
That’s what she was afraid of. But she didn’t say another word. She savored the nearness of him until the sound of an approaching car forced them apart. She felt cold and empty long before she went out the door ahead of him and down the hall to her own room to change clothes before their mothers came home.
Robert came back just in time for supper. But he noticed what the others had—a new kind of look that Cade and Bess were exchanging. It wasn’t blatant, but it was a far cry from the hostility they’d been projecting. Bess’s gaze was purely adoring. Robert sighed as he picked up his fork. He knew without being told that he’d lost her.