Masked Cowboy (Men of the White Sandy) (18 page)

He found her spot again. “That.”

Like the promise of the kiss, Mary Beth rocked onto him with the perfect blend of gentle aggressiveness. His eye rolled back into his head as she pressed him against the pillows with the force of her hips.

“God, Jacob,” she panted as he flicked his thumb around her clit in perfect time with the crashing of their hips. “Oh, God.”

His only response was to grab her bottom, pulling her even farther apart so he could drive in deeper and deeper.

His hand cupping her bottom, his thumb driving her clit, his—Mary Beth gasped as she realized he was slowly rubbing the stiff edge of the leather nose back and forth over her nipple.

“
Oh
!” she quietly screamed through clenched teeth as the climax left her rag-doll limp on top of him.

Without a word, he flipped both of them over, holding her hands over her head as he drove hard and fast. She struggled to break free from his grasp so that she could touch him as he’d touched her, but he held firm, the tip of his mask hovering inches from her nose. The long parts of his hair cascaded down around their faces, closing them off from the rest of the world. In the dark little room of his making, there was only Jacob and Mary Beth and a passion neither could ignore.

With a final crashing thrust, he shuddered as he came deep inside of her. Her whole body shaking with the power of the release, she finally pulled her arms free and held his quaking body to hers.

Eight years since he’d done this. She never would have believed it, not given the way he made her feel—the way he felt
inside
of her. Normally, the feeling of responsibility that would come with that kind of knowledge—that she was the first person he chose to be with beyond his high school sweetheart—would have weighed heavily on her. Mary Beth didn’t like to mix this much emotion with her sex. She didn’t sleep with virgins and she didn’t like to stick around long enough for any man to fall in love with her. Sex was a matter of conveniently relieving her sexual energy. That’s the way it had always been.

But as Jacob left her bed and went to get cleaned up in the bathroom, she knew this was different. The first time—that had been different from anything she’d ever experienced. She could have written it off as a one-time-only thing—rough sex against a door.

This time? It should have felt like it always did—but it hadn’t. It had been something else. Something different.

She got cleaned up and slid back into his arms. He pulled the blankets up over both of them and held her to his chest. He was warm and solid and real—something she could believe in, even if she couldn’t quite grasp everything else. She hugged him and he responded by pressing his lips to her forehead. Something about it made her feel safe. Protected.

“
Thečhí
h
ila
,” he whispered in her ear, then his chest rose and fell with even breaths.

As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered what that meant.

That night, Mary Beth had dreams—nightmares, really. She saw the little house with the bloodstained floor, but this time, she saw the bleeding people too. A thing—not quite a man, not quite a bear—moved at the edge of her vision like a shadow, followed by screams. Everything happened out of order—one minute, the dead people were eating dinner, their necks already slit. The next minute, Jacob was bursting in, already wearing the mask. Always, the thing moved where she couldn’t see it. And she couldn’t see Kip. Where was that girl? God, let her still be safe.

Just a dream
, Mary Beth tried to tell herself as the swish of a knife blade passed close to her ears.
Bad dream. Not real. Wake up. Wake up
now.

She shook awake, the remnants of horror still clinging to the edges of her consciousness. Her heart pounding, she rolled over, trying to reorient herself to the here and now—not some shadow of a past she hadn’t even been here to experience. Jacob, she thought. Jacob was here and now and maybe a little morning sex was just the thing to chase the rest of that nightmare away from her.

She groped around the bed, reaching farther and farther for his warm, real body.

She came up empty.

Gone
. Mary Beth sat up with a start. The sheet fell forward, leaving her bare shoulders freezing. She was alone in bed. Throwing on her robe, she raced out into the living room, only to see the couch was put back together, the blankets neatly folded and stacked in a pile on the floor. The table was empty as well. No one was in the bathroom, and in her mounting panic, she even checked the washer/dryer combo before she saw the note taped to the fridge.

“Took Kip home. Jacob.”

She sagged against the table, flooded with relief that everything was normal and yet crushed that he was gone again.

Gone.

Again.

Chapter Eleven

After five long days, Ted Yellow Robe managed to get his plow up to the ranch. Six days after he slipped out of Mary Beth’s bed without waking her, Jacob stood outside the barn, waiting. He had no idea how much trouble he might be in, but he was pretty sure she’d be pissed at him.

She had every right to be.

The air was already warming in the morning light, and soon there would be nothing but mud as far as the eye could see. But it didn’t matter, because she was coming back to the ranch.

She was coming back to him.

Jacob didn’t think that she’d appreciate why he’d left without saying goodbye, but his reasons were honorable. He knew that if she woke up in his arms and kissed him with that mouth, made him breakfast and kept on treating Kip, well, like Kip was a normal girl, he might never leave.

Why would he? When was the last time he’d had a conversation over dinner with someone who was interested in his day and understood his job? For heaven’s sake, when was the last time he’d had dinner with someone who
talked
? It felt like normal—like he’d always thought normal would feel. Like normal looked on
Happy Days
and
The Brady Bunch
and all those shows he’d watched when he snuck over to Ronny’s or Tommy’s after school as a kid. Like normal had been in the Benge or Yellow Robe households, where he’d been just another kid instead of a future tribal leader.

Sitting at Mary Beth’s table, eating the homemade dumplings, talking late into the night and taking the comfort of her bed—well, the whole thing had been profoundly, wonderfully normal. She’d looked at him like he was just a man—not a leader who stepped away from the tribe, not a guy without half his face—just a man. A man she
liked
.

The temptation to stay shut away in her little house, safe from everything but her ferociously sweet mouth, had almost overpowered his better judgment.

But not quite.

Kip liked her. Kip went with her. He had a sickening sense that the safer Kip felt with Mary Beth, the more danger the vet was in.

It was that thought, above all other baser wants and needs, that had propelled him from her bed. The logical part of his brain knew that the more distance between them, the safer she was.

Try and explain that to his dick.

God, but she was good in bed. The way her legs wrapped around him—the way
everything
wrapped around him—it had felt like he’d finally found his place in the world. It wasn’t right that the two months between their first and last time had seemed every bit as long, if not longer, than the eight years between his first and last lover. Suddenly, the line between being wanted and needed and wanting and needing was gone, obliterated by a white woman with almost-gray eyes crying out, “
Oh
!” as she took from him what he hadn’t believed he still had to offer.

Despite the gusting winds, the mere thought of her body shaking in his arms sent his temperature spiking up a few degrees. There was a long way to go until spring. He wasn’t sure when she’d let him back in her bed, but he knew damn good and well it wasn’t going to be soon enough.

Here she comes
. He forced the memory of her warm, bare body curled against his chest as he stroked her hair before dawn broke to the back of his mind.
Don’t be a jerk
.

She almost smiled at him as she dug her boot heels into the compacting snow, but he could see he’d guessed right. She was pissed and he had it coming. He couldn’t stop his face from going blank. Old habits died hard.

“Jacob,” she almost sneered, her eyes narrow slits as she started to stalk past him to the waiting horses.

“Morning, Mary Beth,” he replied, trying to remember what he’d practiced. “How are you?”

That pulled her up short. Slowly, she pivoted on her heels, those furious gray-blue eyes looking all the grayer in the early morning light. She smiled a nice smile, but the rest of her face wasn’t having any of it. “Fine.” She sounded anything but. “How are you?”

He couldn’t help but gulp in air as she glared at him. “Good.”

“How’s Kip?” she asked, her fists jammed into her hips like he was a teenager three hours late for curfew.

“Good,” he squeaked out.
Remember the compliment. Gotta give her a compliment
. “Hey, thanks again for dinner. Kip really liked your chicken and dumplings. They were great.”

Her eyebrows shot up as she screwed her mouth into a slightly-more-amused-than-pissed smirk. “Oh?”

Jacob was sure he was bright red, but it was too late to turn back now. “There’s a good restaurant in Rapid City—Minerva’s—I’ll take you there this spring to make it up to you.” Hopefully, she’ll take that the right way, he silently prayed.

Jesus, if looks could kill, he’d have died three minutes ago. “Listen, you
cho de
, if you think I’m—”

Tommy loudly cleared his throat from just inside the barn door. “Hey, Doc. Good to see you back.”

Her eyes stabbed through Jacob for just a second more before she turned, all bright and cheery, to one of his oldest friends. Who had probably just figured out Jacob was holding out on him. Damn. Now both Mary Beth and Tommy were probably some degree of pissed.

He sighed.
Can’t win for losing.
Then he followed her into the barn.

One day, he’d have to find out what
cho de
meant in Vietnamese. He guessed it wasn’t anything good.

Mary Beth knew it was foolish to get her hopes up, but she still roasted a turkey breast and made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, just in case she had company.

She ate alone. Somehow, the phone call from her mom just reinforced how darned depressing her life was. Why else would she be so relieved to hear her mother’s voice?

She had to be fair. Jacob had done exactly what she’d told him to. After the blizzard sex, as she thought of it, he’d asked her out, albeit not for another six months. Since then, he’d asked her how she was every morning, usually managing to mention something from a previous conversation. He answered her questions while generally looking at her, although he hadn’t touched her again. And when he picked up his dinner at the café before he picked up Kip, he smiled at her, and she saw the man she wanted to know more.

Which was just enough to string her along.

For a month, every night after she sudsed off the smell of manure and sawdust, she hoped that there would be a knock on the door and he’d be there, his black felt hat pulled low over his eye as he slowly looked her up and down. It sent shivers through her body. Every single time.

How ludicrous was it to put on Berry Pink lip gloss before bed? Completely ridiculous, but that didn’t stop her. You just never knew when that man would show up.

But after the non-event that was her loneliest Thanksgiving ever, she resigned herself to her fate. Only five months and twenty-two days until May 1. And then she wanted a date. A real date with the masked cowboy.

The second week of December turned bitter cold. Mary Beth couldn’t bring herself to trudge down to the café. Why torture herself when the wind chill dipped past minus twenty degrees? Besides, she needed a beef break. A girl could only eat so many hamburgers.

So she stayed home.

Robin was getting more serious with Mikey Nolan anyway, and she wasn’t around the café as much since business was so slow. Apparently, Mikey was good for more than just ferrets, but Robin was surprisingly mum about it. Maybe Robin was growing up. She was going to Sinte Gliske University on the rez this coming fall, and realizing that Mikey Nolan—half-Lakota with his own home and business—just might be the kind of guy she needed.

Mary Beth was proud of her surrogate younger sister, even if intense flashes of jealously spiked out of nowhere. Robin seemed to be getting it together and Mary Beth felt stuck in the ninth grade, unable to figure out if the boy she liked really liked her or if he was just playing.

So she channeled her energies into cooking. She made a run to the big Safeway in Rapid City, stocking up for the winter—or at least through the next blizzard. Two hundred and fifty dollars for chocolate chips and Crisco, canned soups and dry beans, tea and cocoa, frozen chicken and frozen veggies—the freezer barely shut. She tweaked Mom’s Chicken Masala recipe until it was perfect, honed her cheesy macaroni bake and experimented with homemade lasagna.

One Tuesday night, the temperatures hovering near zero while a pot of chicken gumbo merrily bubbled on the stove, there was a knock on the door. Mary Beth shot out of her chair, knocking
Ferrets, Rabbits, and Rodents: Clinical Medicine and Surgery
onto the floor. A second, more impatient knock followed the first only a millisecond later.