Unlikely Lover (18 page)

“I’m glad to meet you, too.” Marianne grinned. “I’ve heard legends about you already.”

“Have you, really?” Erin laughed. She was beautiful even without makeup, Marianne thought, the kind of beauty that comes from deep within and makes even homely women bright and lovely when it shows. “Well, Ty and I got off to a bad start, but we’ve come a long way in very little time. I don’t think he has many regrets about getting married. Not even with twin boys.”

“I can just see him now, changing a diaper.” Ward chuckled.

Erin’s green eyes widened. “But you can,” she said. “Follow me.”

Sure enough, there he was, changing a diaper. It looked so touching, the big, tough rancher Marianne had met before bending over that tiny, smiling, kicking baby on the changing table in a bedroom decorated with teddy bear wallpaper and mobiles.

“Oh, hello, Jessup,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder as he put the last piece of adhesive in place around the baby’s fat middle. “Matthew was wet, I was just changing him,” he told Erin. He glanced toward a playpen, where another baby was standing on unsteady little fat legs with both chubby hands on the rail, biting delightedly on the plastic edging. “Jason’s hungry, I think. He’s been trying to eat the playpen for the past five minutes.”

“He’s teething,” Erin said, leaning over to pick him up and cuddle him while he cooed and patted her shoulder and chanted, “Da, Da, Da, Da.”

Ty grinned mockingly at his frowning wife. “She hates that,” he told the guests. “Most babies say Mama first. Both of them call me instead of her.”

“Don’t gloat.” Erin stuck her tongue out at him. “You just remember who got up with them last night and let you sleep.”

He winked at her, with torrents of love pouring on her from his light eyes. Marianne glanced up at Ward and found him watching her with the oddest look on his face. His green eyes went slowly down to her flat stomach and back up again, and she blushed because she knew what he was thinking.
Exactly
what he was thinking. She could read it in the sudden flare of his eyes, in the set of his face. She went hot all over with the unexpected passion that boiled up so suddenly and had to turn away to get herself under control again.

“How about some coffee?” Erin asked them, handing Jason to his dad. “Ward, if you’ll bring the playpen, the boys can come with us.”

Ward, to his credit, tried to figure out how the device folded up, but he couldn’t seem to fathom it. Ty chuckled. “Here, if Marianne will hold the boys, I’ll do it.”

“Surely!” She took them, cooing to them both, loving their little chubby smiling faces and the way they tried to feel every inch of her face and hair as she carried them into the living room.

“Oh, how sweet,” she cooed, kissing fat cheeks and heads that had just a smattering of hair. The twins had light eyes like their father, but they were green.

“Thank God they both take after Erin and not me,” Ty said with a sigh as he set up the playpen and took the boys from Marianne to put them back in.

“You’re not that bad,” Ward remarked, cocking his head. “I’ve seen uglier cactus plants, in fact.”

Ty glared at him. “If you want that second damned lease, you’d better clean up your act, Jessup.”

Ward grinned. “Can I help it if you go asking for insults?”

“Watch it,” Ty muttered, turning back to help Erin with the coffee service.

The men talked business, and Marianne and Erin talked babies and clothes and fashion. It was the most enjoyable afternoon Marianne had spent in a long time and getting to cuddle the babies was a bonus. She was reluctant to leave.

“Ward, you’ll have to bring her back to see me,” Erin insisted. “I don’t have much company, and I do love to talk clothes.”

“I will,” Ward promised. He shook hands with Ty, and they said their goodbyes. As they drove away, Ty had one lean arm around Erin, looking as if he were part of her.

“That marriage will outlast this ranch,” she murmured, watching the landscape turn gray with a sudden shower. It seemed chilly in the car with that wetness beating on the hood and windshield. “They seem so happy.”

“They are,” he agreed. He glanced at her and slowly pulled the truck off onto one of the farm roads, pulling up under a huge live oak tree before cutting the engine. “Would you like to guess why I stopped?” he asked, his voice slow and tender as he looked at her. “Or do you know?”

Chapter Eleven

N
o, Marianne thought, she didn’t really have to wonder why he’d parked the car. His face gave her the answer. So did the heavy, quick rise and fall of his chest under the green-striped shirt. He looked so handsome that she could hardly take her eyes off him, and the sheer arrogance in his narrowed eyes was intimidating.

But she wasn’t sure she wanted a sweet interlude with him. Her defenses were weak enough already. Suppose he insisted? Could she resist him if she let herself fall in that heady trap?

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she began as he unfastened his seat belt and then hers.

“Don’t you?” he asked. “Even after the way you went scarlet when I stared at your waistline in the twins’ room? You knew what I was thinking, Marianne,” he whispered, reaching for her. “You knew.”

He lifted her across him, finding her mouth even as he eased her down against his arm with her head at the window. Outside rain was streaming down the glass, making a quick tattoo on the hood and the roof, as driving as the passion that began to take over Mari’s blood.

He bit at her soft lips, tender little nips that made her want him. His big hand smoothed over her blouse, under it, finding the softness of her breast in its silky casing.

“Lie still,” he whispered when her body jerked under that gentle probing. “It’s been a long time since we’ve enjoyed each other like this. Too long.”

He kissed her wide eyes shut and found the catch that bared her to his warm, hard fingers. She couldn’t let this happen, she kept telling herself. It was just a game to him, he didn’t mean it. Any minute now he was going to let that seat down and turn her in his arms….

With a wounded cry she pulled out of his arms so suddenly that he was startled into releasing her. She fumbled the door open, deaf to his sharp exclamation, and ran out into the rain.

The long grass beat against her slacks as she ran, not really sure why she was running or where she was trying to go. Seconds later it didn’t matter because he’d caught her and dragged her down onto the ground in the wet grass with him.

“Never run from a hunter,” he breathed roughly, turning her under him as he found her mouth with his. The rain beat down on them, drenching them, making their bodies as supple as silk-covered saplings, binding them as if there had been no fabric at all in the way.

It was new and exciting to lie like this, to kiss like this, feeling the warm, twisting motions of Ward’s big body against hers, their clothes wet and their skin sensitive.

“We might as well have no clothes on at all,” he breathed into her open, welcoming mouth, his voice husky with passion. “I can feel you. All of you.”

His hands were sliding down her body now, exploring, experiencing her through the wet thinness of fabric, and it was like feeling his hands on her skin.

She moaned as she slid her own hands against his hard-muscled back, his chest, his hips. She didn’t understand what was happening, how this passion had crept up on her. But she was lost now, helpless. He could do anything he liked, and she couldn’t stop him. She was on fire despite the drenching rain, reaching up toward him, sliding her wet body against his in the silence of the meadow with the rain slicking their hair as it slicked their skin.

He eased his full weight onto her, devouring her mouth with his. His hands smoothed under her back, sensuously pressing her up against him.

Her body throbbed, burned, with the expertness of his movements. Yes, he knew what to do and how to do it. He knew…too much!

“Tell me to stop,” he challenged under his breath, probing her lips with his tongue. “Tell me to let you go. I dare you.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered, and her eyes stung with tears as she clung to his broad, wet shoulders. “I want you. Oh, I want you!”

His lips were all over her face. Tender, seeking, gentling, his breath catching in his throat at her devastating submission. He was trembling all over with the force of this new sensation. He wanted to protect her. Devour her. Warm her. Hold her until he died, just like this.

His big hands framed her face as he touched it softly with his lips. “I want to give you a baby,” he whispered shakily. “That’s what you saw in my face at Wade’s, and it made you go red all over. You saw, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered back, her body trembling.

He searched her wide eyes, his own blazing with hunger. “I could take you, Marianne,” he said very quietly. “Right here. Right now. I could have you, and no one would see us or hear us.”

She swallowed, closing her eyes. Defeated. She knew that. She could feel how capable he was of it, and her body trembled under his fierce arousal. She wanted him, too. She loved him more than her honor.

“Yes,” she whispered, so softly that he could barely hear.

He didn’t move. He seemed to stop breathing. She opened her eyes and saw his face above her, filled with such frank exultation that she blinked incomprehensibly.

“Baby,” he breathed softly, bending. He kissed her with such aching tenderness that her eyes stung, tasting her lips, smoothing his lips over her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her eyes. “Baby, sweet, sweet baby. You taste of roses and gardenias, and I could lie here doing this for all my life.”

That didn’t sound like uncontrollable passion. It didn’t even sound like lust. She reached up and touched his face, his chin.

He kissed the palm of her hand, smiling down at her through wildly exciting shudders. “Do you know how wet you are?” he said with a gentle smile, glancing down at her blouse, which was plastered against breasts that no longer had the shelter of a bra.

“So are you,” she replied unsteadily and managed to smile back. What good was pride now when she’d offered herself to him?

He touched her taut nipples through the cloth. “No more embarrassment?” he asked quietly.

“You know what I look like,” she whispered.

“Yes.” He opened her blouse, no longer interested in the rain that had slowed to a sprinkle, and his eyes feasted on her soft skin before he bent and tasted it warmly with his mouth.

Mari lifted softly toward his lips, savoring their sweet touch, so much a part of him that nothing seemed wrong anymore.

“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. He drew his cheek across her breasts, his eyes closed, savoring her. “For the rest of my life, I’ll never touch another woman like this. I’ll never lie with another woman, taste another woman, want another woman.”

That was how she felt, too, about other men. She closed her eyes, smoothing his wet hair as he brushed his mouth over her pulsating, trembling body. She loved him so much. If this was all he could give her, it would be enough. Fidelity would do. She couldn’t leave him again.

“I’ll never want another man,” she replied quietly.

He laid his cool cheek against her and sighed, holding her as she held him, with the wind blowing softly and the rain coming down like droplets of silk over them.

Then he moved away, gently rearranging her disheveled clothing. He brushed back her damp hair, kissed her tenderly one last time and carried her in his arms back to the car with her face pressed wetly into his warm throat.

“The car,” she faltered. “We’ll get the seats wet.”

“Hush, baby,” he whispered, brushing a kiss against her soft mouth as he put her into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

He got in beside her, found her warm hand and linked her fingers with his. He managed to start the car and drive it all the way home with one free hand.

Lillian took one look at them, and her eyebrows shot up.

“Not one word,” Ward cautioned as he led Marianne inside. “Not one single word.”

Lillian sighed. “Well, at least now you’re getting wet together,” she murmured with a smile as she wandered back toward the kitchen. “I guess that’s better than mildewing alone.”

Marianne smiled gently at Ward and went upstairs to change her clothing. He disappeared a few minutes later after an urgent telephone call and drove off by himself with only a wink and a smile for Mari. She walked around in a daze, dodging Lillian’s hushed questions, waiting for him to come home. But when bedtime came, he still wasn’t back.

Mari went up to her room and paced the floor, worrying, wondering what to do. She couldn’t leave, not after this afternoon. He wanted her and she wanted him. Maybe he couldn’t offer her marriage, but she’d just settle for what he could give her. He had to care a little. And she loved him enough for both of them.

Why hadn’t he gone ahead, she wondered, when he had the chance this afternoon? Why had he stopped? Was he just giving her time to make up her mind, to be sure she could accept him this way? That had to be it. Well, it was now or never.

She put on her one seductive gown, a pretty white one with lots of lace and long elegant sleeves. She brushed out her dark hair until it was smooth and silky and dabbed on perfume. Then, looking in the mirror, she stared into her troubled blue eyes and assured herself that she was doing the right thing.

An hour later she heard Ward drive up. He came up the stairs, pausing at her door. Seconds later he started away, but Mari was already on her feet. She opened the door breathlessly and looked up at him.

He was wearing a dark pair of slacks with a patterned gray shirt open at the throat. His creamy dress Stetson was held in one hand. The other worried his hair. He stared at Mari with eyes that devoured her.

“Dangerous, baby, wearing something like that in front of me,” he said softly and smiled.

She swallowed her pride. “I want you,” she whispered shakily.

He smiled down at her. “I know. I want you, too.”

She opened the door a little wider, her hands unsteady.