“I couldn’t say. I was more about its teeth, and the way you’d gone so white. I wondered if you’d slide right out of the saddle.”
“Never going to happen.” She laughed a little, closed her hand over his. And stilled when his turned under hers, gripped hard.
“You scared the life out of me. The f**king life.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What in hell are you apologizing for? It’s an irritating habit.”
“I’m . . . working on it.”
“One minute we’re riding along, easy as you please, and I’m thinking, well then, we’ll have dinner and see how that goes. The next, you’re reaping a bloody whirlwind.”
He shoved up, snatched his plate and hers. Which was too bad, she thought, as she’d had a couple more chips, and would’ve eaten them.
“If you don’t want me to apologize, don’t yell at me.”
“I’m not yelling at you.”
“Who then?”
“No one. I’m just yelling. A man can express himself as he pleases in his own house.”
“Nobody ever yelled in my house.”
“What?” He looked genuinely astonished. “Were you reared in a church?”
She laughed again. “I think, maybe—if I go by your gauge—nobody cared enough to yell. Do you care, Boyle?”
“I care you’re not lying on the ground out there with your throat torn out.” He cursed himself as her color slid away. “Now I’m sorry. Truly. I’ve the devil’s own tongue when I’m in a temper. I’m sorry,” he repeated, and put his hands gently on her face to cup it. “You were so fierce. I don’t know what turned me more around. The wolf or you.”
“We came through it. That means a lot.” She put her hands over his. “And you made me dinner, you let me settle before you let it rip. That means a lot, too.”
“Then we’re all right, all right enough for now.”
He touched his lips to hers, gentle this time. And her hands slid to his wrists, tightened.
“I should take you home now.” He eased back, but she kept her hands on his wrists.
“I don’t want you to take me home. I want to stay with you.”
“You’re still turned around.”
“Do I look turned around?”
He managed to step back, a foot away. “Maybe I’m turned around.”
“I don’t mind that.” She rose. “I might even like it. We won a battle, Boyle, together. I want to be with you, to hold on to you, to go to bed with you.”
“I think . . . the sensible thing is to take some time, to talk about that before . . . that.”
“I thought I was the one who talked too much.” She took a step toward him, then another.
“You do, Jesus, you do. But I think, under the circumstances . . . We’ll talk later,” he said, and grabbed her.
“Perfect,” she said, and grabbed him back.
13
HER FEET LEFT THE FLOOR AGAIN, A GIDDY SENSATION WITH HER MOUTH PRESSED TO HIS. He had a hand fisted on the back of her sweater as if he might rip it away at any second, which would have suited her just fine. If she could have managed it, she’d have wiggled right out of the sweater—and everything else.
“We need to—” Whatever he’d meant to say slid away as her mouth came back, avidly, to his.
“Where’s the bedroom?” It had to be close, and if not, the saggy couch looked more than adequate.
“It’s . . .” He tried to think through the hot haze in his brain, then just gripped her ass, gave her a boost. She hooked her legs around his waist as her arms chained around his neck.
Everything tilted and sizzled. She had a vague impression of a dimly lit room, some clutter, some of which he kicked away as he carted her to a bed with dark wooden spindles and cool white sheets.
Then she might have been anywhere—the forest, the ocean, a city sidewalk, a country meadow. There was nothing but him, the weight of him pressed down on her, the big hands roaming, the urgent mouth seeking, taking. Nothing but those cool white sheets growing warmer, warmer as he tugged the sweater over her head, tossed it aside.
Everything about her was so small and exquisite. The br**sts that fit so perfectly into his palms, the hands that dived under his shirt to glide over his skin. He wasn’t a clumsy man, but feared he would be with her, and tried to slow his pace, smooth out his rhythm.
But her h*ps arched up, her fingers dug into bunched muscles, urging him on.
He wanted her nak*d, as simple and basic as that. He wanted that pretty little body uncovered for him, stripped bare for his hands, for his mouth.
He reached down, tugged at the buckle of her belt. She spoke, the words muffled against his lips.
“What? What?” If she’d said stop, he’d kill himself.
“Boots.” Her lips roamed over his face, then her teeth nipped at his jaw. “Boots first.”
“Boots. Right. Right.” Already winded, and a bit disconcerted by it, he slid down, knelt at the foot of the bed, yanked at her right boot. He tossed it; it landed with an abrupt thump. As he tugged on the left, she levered up, got a grip on his hair and yanked his head back to hers.
“You look— It’s all shadowy, and I can just hear the rain starting, and my heart’s pounding so hard.” She punctuated the words with wild kisses. This time when he threw the boot, something crashed and shattered.
“Yours, let me get yours.” She wiggled back for his boot. “They have to go, have to go because I have to get you nak*d or I’ll go out of my mind.”
“I was thinking the same of you.”
“Good, good.” Her laugh, shaky with nerves and excitement, raced up his spine. “Same page, same station.” She shoved the first boot to the floor. “Put your hands on me, would you? Anywhere, everywhere. I’ve almost got this.”
She couldn’t know it, but she’d gotten her wish. She’d dazzled him. “Will it shut you up?”
“Maybe. Probably. There!” She pried off the boot, dropped it.
And flew at him.
She nearly upended them both off the bed, but he managed to wrap around her and roll. Even as he sank into the next kiss, her hands got busy on his shirt. “You’ve got such great shoulders. I just want to—” She dragged it off, pulled the thermal beneath it up and away.
She made a sound like a woman licking melted chocolate from a spoon as her hands ran over his pecs, up to his shoulders, down to squeeze his biceps.
“You’re so strong.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
She laughed again, no nerves this time. “I’m not going to promise the same.”
Agile and quick, she reached back, unclipped the clasp of her bra. “Made it easy for you.”
“I’m up for difficult work.” He drew the bra aside. “Now be quiet, so I can concentrate on it.”
In a moment she couldn’t think, much less speak. So many sensations rushed over her like his hands that thrilled, that took, that tortured. Those rough, workingman palms, the prickly stubble of a daylong beard—thrill over thrill on her quivering skin.
Boys, she realized. Every one who’d ever touched her had been a boy compared to him. All too smooth, too easy, too practiced. Now she had a man who wanted her.
He wasted no time peeling her out of the jeans, exploring her body, feasting on it.
She’d brought the whirlwind in the woods. Now he stirred one inside her just as reckless and wild.
She gave to him, with no hint of restraint or shyness—a bounty of delights and demands that aroused him beyond reason. Her gasp or groan fired more needs, her willful hands sparked nerves over and under his skin. And her mouth, restless and hungry, stirred in his blood like a drug.
Mad for her, he took her hands, drew her arms back until they both gripped the spindles.
When he drove into her, he thought, for a moment, the world exploded. It shook him, the force of it, blinded him, the brilliance of it. Left him, for that breath of time, utterly weak.
Then she rose up to him, taking him deeper on the sigh of his name.
And he was strong as a god, randy as a stallion, mad as a hatter.
He thrust into her, again, again, again, crazed for all that heat, all that softness. She matched his frantic pace, her fingers twining with his, her h*ps slick pistons—driving and driven.
He felt himself flying—an arrow from a bow—the helpless glory of it. Heard her, dimly, let out a sobbing cry as she flew with him.
He collapsed, mindless of his weight on her. His mind still whirled; his lungs still labored. And something in his speeding heart pulsed like an ache.
She quivered beneath him, trembling limbs, pinging muscles. She wanted, badly, to wrap around him, to stroke and nuzzle. But she didn’t have the strength.
He’d just hulled her out.
She could only lie there, washed in heat, listening to his rapid breathing and the slow patter of rain.
“I’m smothering you.”
“Maybe.”
His own muscles shook as he pushed himself off, then just flopped over on his back. He’d never been so . . . caught up, he decided.
What did it mean?
She took a couple of deep drinks of air, then curled over to nestle her head on his chest. There was a simple sweetness in that he couldn’t resist, and he found himself drawing her in a bit closer.
“Are you cold then?”
“Are you kidding? We generated enough heat to melt the Arctic. I feel amazing.”
“You’re stronger than you look.”
She tipped her head up to smile at him. “Small but mighty.”
“I can’t argue.”
It would be easy, he realized, to just stay as they were, to just drift off into sleep awhile. Then take each other again. And what did it mean that he was thinking about it again when he’d barely gotten his breath back?
It meant, perhaps, easy was a mistake.
“I should take you home.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and the hand lazily stroking his chest stilled.
“Branna’d be waiting, I’d think.”
“Oh.” He felt her breath go in, go out. “You’re right. She’ll want to know exactly what happened before. I forgot about all that for a minute. It seems like something outside all this. It’s a good thing one of us is practical.”
Turning her head, she brushed her lips over his skin, then sat up.
When he looked at her in that shadowed light, a glow against the coming dark, he wanted to draw her close again, close, and just hold on.
“We’d better get dressed,” she said.
* * *
BRANNA WAS WAITING, AND TRYING NOT TO PACE AND FRET. She hated only having bits and pieces. Though Boyle had assured her no one was hurt, and he’d look after Iona until she was well settled again, it had been two hours now.
More, she realized.
Worse, Connor had told her not to be such a mother hen, and had taken himself off to the pub rather than—in his words—have his brain assaulted with all her fussing.
Fine for him, she thought with some bitterness. Off he goes to flirt with available women, have a pint or two, and she was left to brood alone.