Cowboy Sing Me Home (29 page)

            “Can you – b” she said, her voice as
ragged as his own.  “Are you okay to –”

            “I’m fine.  Miraculously cured.”  Although
he wasn’t entirely sure he had the strength to go through with making love to
her, he
knew
he didn’t have the strength to stop. 

            Her skin was as soft as he knew it would
be. He slipped his hands under her top and stroked the smooth line of her back,
cupping her waist in both hands.  He couldn’t get enough of her, wanted to feel
more and more of her, needed to be closer to her more urgently than he’d ever
needed anything. 

            He held her waist and groaned out loud
when she locked her hands behind his back, leaned back and rocked herself
against his thigh.  He could feel her warmth against him, and his heart
thundered to see her, her eyelids heavy, her lips full, her face flushed with
desire.  He’d known it would be this way between them.  Knew that joy and need
would be mixed in equal measures, that the connection would be immediate and
deep.  What he had not known was that he would be unable to catch his breath,
and would be afraid his heart was going to beat out of his chest.

            “And my doctor told me not to do anything
strenuous,” he said, only half joking.

            “Don’t worry,” she said as she brought her
lips back to his.  “I’ll do all the heavy lifting.”

            She stood and held out a hand to help him
do the same, then led him down the short hallway to her bedroom.

            He gripped her hand tightly,
superstitiously afraid to let her go.  “Not that I’m complaining, but this
isn’t at all how my fantasies went.”

            She turned with a sexy, wicked look in her
eye that had his hands itching to touch her again.  “Fantasies, huh?  I’d like
to hear about that.”

            Her fingers were everywhere, unbuttoning
his shirt, stroking his skin, driving him wild.  He ached with the need to be
inside her, but he wanted to prolong it as long as he could, draw out every
drop of pleasure possible.  His head swam with the need, and he swayed on his
feet.

            “All right, Cowboy.”  She gave him a
gentle push onto the bed.  “You’re no good to me if you pass out.”

            He toed off his boots and heard them drop
to the floor, then slid gingerly back onto the pillows, his right leg a heavy
weight.

            She stood beside the bed and unbuttoned
the top button on her blouse.  “I was serious.  I want you to tell me about
your fantasy.”

            “Why?”  He reached to help her with the
next button.

            She stepped out of his reach.  “Because. 
I happen to think your voice is sexy.  And I’d like to hear what you think,
when you think about us.”

            He swallowed, but it didn’t do any good. 
His mouth was still dry.  “For one thing, I didn’t have an ugly white bandage
on my leg.”

            “A minor consideration.”  She unbuttoned
the next button, her eyes molten green on his.  “What else?”

            “Why don’t you come down here beside me,
and I’ll whisper it in your ear?”

            “Why don’t you tell me where we were, in
your fantasy?”

            “We were here, in your trailer.  You made
it pretty clear this was where you wanted to be.  Come here.”

            She shook her head, a smile teasing at the
corner of her mouth, her hair slipping across her shoulders.  “Tell me.”

            “You know, this is a little weird.”  He
scooted back toward her and swung his legs back off the bed.

            “Do you want the rest of these buttons to
come open?”

            “Oh yeah.”

            She put her hand on his shoulder and
locked her elbow.  “Then tell me.  I want to hear.”

            She really did want to hear, he realized
when he heard the hunger in her voice and saw the excitement in her eyes. 

            So maybe it was a little strange, he
thought.  It was also erotic and exciting.  Her eyes still on his, he cleared
his throat and wondered how much she was prepared to hear.  “We were here, in
your trailer, like I said.”

            “Mmmhmm.”  She straddled his legs and
undid the next button, exposing the lacy edge of her bra underneath.

            “I walk in and we just – we just look at
each other.  You’re waiting for me.”

            She unbuttoned two more buttons.

            “We don’t speak, we just… lunge at each
other.”

            “Mmm, passionate.”

            “Very passionate.  And I rip your shirt
off.”

            “That only happens in movies, you know.” 
She undid the last button and stepped close enough that he could rest his cheek
against the curve of her breast.

            “And in fantasies,” he said as he slid the
shirt off her shoulders.  “In my fantasies.”  He kissed the smooth, taut skin
of her stomach, and she twined her fingers through his hair, her breath softly
teasing at his scalp.  He slid his hands down and cupped her bottom, the smooth
roundness of it delighting him.

            “Okay, so you rip my shirt off,” she said
as her fingers went to work on the rest of his buttons.

            “I rip your shirt off, and you are very
impressed by that.”

            She laughed, that dark, throaty laugh he
remembered from the first day he saw her, laughing at Tumbleweeds.  His
erection throbbed painfully in his jeans, and his moved his hands down, to the
line below her shorts, and back up to cup bare skin.

            “You are,” he insisted.  “You’re very
turned on by my strength and manliness.”

            “Ahh, yes, I am that,” she said.

            He lifted his head to meet her eyes, and
he knew at that moment she wasn’t talking about the fantasy.  His eyes locked
to hers, he slid his hands around to the front of her legs, and slipped his
fingers inside her panties.  Her breath hitched and her eyes narrowed as he
touched her moistness.

            She breathed deeply, raggedly, and
murmured a desperate oath as she unhooked the front clasp of her bra and her
breasts sprang free.  He took her nipple in his mouth, and she folded her arms
around his head, her chest heaving with each breath she took.

            She arched against him again, rocking
against his hand, and he felt frantic to get rid of the cloth that separated
them, but was unable to take his hands away long enough to accomplish that. 
She was warm and wet, and the feel of her fascinated him, as if he’d never
touched a woman before.

            He’d certainly never touched a woman like
her before, who openly, unashamedly celebrated the pleasure they brought to
each other.  He should have known she would be this way, though, he told
himself as he drew her hardened nipple into his mouth, caressing it with his
tongue.  Whatever she did, she did head-on and without hesitation.

            “Yes,” she whispered as she moved against
his hand.  “Oh, God yes.” 

            She shrugged the bra to the floor and
tugged his shirt free, popping off the last button in her haste.  They both
laughed, and she said, “So it does happen in real life, after all.”

            She bent over him and kissed a hot trail
from his neck, down his shoulder, then pushed him back until he was lying
sideways across the bed.  He pulled his hands away and unbuttoned her shorts.

            She knelt over him, her white-blonde hair
a curtain around them, and said, “So that’s it?  You’ve ripped off my shirt,
and now you’re just going to leave me hanging?”

            “Oh no.  I get the rest of your clothes
off, too, and mine.”

            “Easier that way.”

            “Much.  And I back you up to the table,
and take you right there.”

            “On my table?”

            “On that very spot.”

            “And I’m okay with that?”

            “Oh yeah, you like it a lot.  Very
enthusiastic about the whole thing, I’d say.”

            “Really?”  Her mouth was hot and wet on
his nipple.

            He cupped her head the same way she’d
cupped his, and fought to find his voice.  “Definitely.”  His voice was ragged
and strained, and it took all he had to speak.  “In fact, you might have called
me a god, I’m not sure.”

            She laughed as she inched down him and
unbuttoned his jeans.  “You make me laugh, Ace.  I like that.”  She tugged the
zipper down slowly, her knuckles pushing gently against his erection, and he
lifted his hips to maximize the contact.

            She took the material in both hands and
pushed his jeans down his legs, careful of the bandage.  His shorts came next.

She became still and quiet as she looked
at the bandage that circled his leg.

            To his shock, she bent and placed a soft
kiss just above the bandage, like she would a child who had fallen and scraped
his knee.  Then she turned her head and rested her cheek against his thigh.

            Luke was overwhelmed by the tenderness of
the gesture, especially on the heels of the most erotic moments he’d ever
experienced.  A lump formed in his throat, and he reached down to stroke her
hair, taking in the scene of her bright golden hair spilling over his lap, her
touch gentle and protective against his thigh.

            “When Stevie said you’d been shot…” Her
voice was a whisper in his heart’s ear.  “I thought I’d lost you, too.”

            He stroked her hair, filled with powerful
emotions.  “Dusty.  I –”

            She must have known what he was going to
say.  She raised her head, and her eyes met his with a look that stopped the
words, and stopped his heart.

            It started again, with a terrible
pounding.  His mouth hung open, his breath raging in and out, and he couldn’t
believe he’d actually been about to say the words.

            Their eyes remained locked across his
body, across the chasm that instantly separated them.  He saw in her eyes
anger, and fear, and a glimmer of hope behind that filled him with sadness
because its tiny flame spoke of all the heartbreak she’d endured.

            Her eyes shifted away, and her shoulders
lifted with a deep breath.  When she turned back to him, she was the same old
Dusty, stoic and in control of herself and the situation.

            “Did I do this, in your fantasies?”  She
took him in her mouth.

            His breath gushed out with the shock of
it.  She felt incredible, hot and wet and wonderful on him.  At the same time,
it broke his heart because he knew she was doing this so she could regain
control.

            He cupped her head, then slid his hands
down to grip her shoulders.  “Dusty.  Come here.”

            “No.”  She resumed her work on him, and he
had to fight to remember why he’d asked her to stop.  “I say when.”

            She said when.  She called the shots. 

            And he let her.  Because it felt too good
to make her stop, and because after what he’d almost said, he didn’t trust
himself to be the one calling anything.  

            When he thought he couldn’t hold out a
minute longer, he slid his hands beneath her arms and tugged her toward him. 
“I have to have you.  Now.”

            She smiled that secretive, seductive
smile.  “Now that’s exactly what you said, in my fantasies.”

            He held her face cupped in his hands, and
he wanted to tell her that it was okay, that he accepted her on whatever
grounds she was willing to give.

            She met his eyes and laid two fingers
across his lips.  He smiled, and when she saw he wasn’t going to try to make
any more foolish declarations, she smiled, too, and rose above him.

            Her eyelids fluttered close and her breath
hitched when she lowered herself onto him.  Breathing deeply, she looked over
her shoulder at the bandage.

            “It’s okay,’ he said hoarsely, his body
jerking at the feel of her tight and warm around him.  “It’s okay,” he said
again when she turned back to him, referring to them, and not his leg.

            This time she did not look away, and
amidst the pleasure they shared with their bodies, her eyes remained on his. 
Like the night behind Tumbleweeds, he felt the connection in the seat of his
soul, knowing she felt it too, and rejoicing when she did not close her eyes
and close him off, but kept the windows to her own soul open, until she rode
them both past the edge of control.

            She collapsed against him, and he wrapped
his arms around her shoulders, her bare skin against his, the blood beating in
their chests in time with the throbbing aftershocks between their legs.  He
held her tightly, and kissed the top of her head.

            Later, when he had the strength to talk
again, he said, “I’ve decided to stay right here, forever.  Just like this.”