Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material (19 page)

“Dreamer,” he said huskily, caressing Hope, “come to me.”

She cried aloud and she gave herself to the storm, to Rio, holding nothing back, knowing ecstasy for the first time in her life. It swept through her like a long, wild wind, shaking her to her soul.

She held on to him, crying, and he held her, kissing away the sweet rain of tears. Blindly she clung to him while her lips caressed his neck, his chest, the hard nub of his nipple. She was drowning in ecstasy, in him, and she whispered her love with each breath she took.

He heard her words, felt the tiny wild movements of her body, and control began slipping away from him again. He fought the whirlwind of desire spiraling up from their joined bodies, making him fill her until each of her breaths was a separate caress over him. He wanted to hold himself back, to protest that he wasn’t like this, that no woman had ever aroused him until he wanted to scream with it, but even that primitive release was denied because his throat was as tight around his words as she was around him.

“I wondered on the stairway if I could get enough of you,” he said finally, his voice low and gritty, as intimate as his movements deep within her body. He bit her shoulder with fierce restraint. “I don’t think I can. Have you had enough of me?”

Her only answer was a sharp cry as anticipation coiled impossibly, hotly, within her again. Lightning strokes of new pleasure ripped through her before the aftershocks of her first ecstasy had fully stilled. She tried to say his name but couldn’t. She could only feel his presence inside her.

He filled her, all of her, leaving room for nothing except the hot silver rains sweeping over her once again. This time she didn’t hesitate in surprise or fear. She knew that he was waiting for her within that torrential passion. And then she was with him, holding him hard and close while ecstasy broke around them, consuming them.

It was a long time before the sensual storm passed, leaving them spent, gleaming with moisture, their bodies tightly intertwined.

Rio kissed and caressed Hope gently, cherishing her. He had never known such wild, intense pleasure with a woman. He hadn’t even believed it was possible. She was like a new land opening before him, a new wind calling his name.

“Hope,” he whispered.

He wanted to say more, but was able only to say her name again and again. His mouth opened on her lips, asking for a greater intimacy. When she answered with a gliding pressure of her tongue, he caught it almost hungrily.

Rio didn’t understand his need, for it wasn’t sexual hunger driving him. He felt like a man racing to catch the wind, to hold it, to absorb it so completely into himself that he would never be separate again.

So he held her, surrounding her, letting her drift asleep within the cradle of his arms.

He didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. He lay and watched moonlight bathe Hope in unearthly silver beauty. And when he could control himself no longer, he began touching her with his hands and his lips and his tongue.

She woke slowly, languidly, murmuring Rio’s name and her love while his mouth caressed her lips, her neck, her breasts, her body, moving over her like his brother the wind, learning each of her soft secrets. Long before he came to her she was crying and twisting against his unbearably knowing mouth, lost in the ecstasy shaking her.

Even then he didn’t take her. He simply, hungrily, began all over again, memorizing her, leaving none of her hot skin untasted, knowing all of her, cherishing her with a primal sensuality that shattered her.

That was when he took her, when his name was a wild cry on her lips.

It was her name, too, his broken cry against her mouth, their voices intertwined as deeply as their moonlit bodies.

Nineteen

T
HE NEXT DAY
Hope awoke to the fragrance of rain flowers drifting softly over her skin. She opened her eyes and saw bright yellow blossoms falling from Rio’s hand.

His smile was as warm as the sunrise flooding the room with shades of gold and rose. Kissing her lips gently, he pulled the covers back up to her neck, concealing the womanly allure of her body. His hands curved around the blanket and her breasts.

“Last night taught me that I have no willpower where you’re concerned, so I’m going to put all your temptations out of my sight.”

“Why?” she asked sleepily, winding her arms around his neck. “If you give in, I won’t be nearly so tempting to you afterward, will I?”

Laughing almost roughly, he disentangled her arms, kissing every inch of them along the way. He bit her palms and touched the sensitive skin between her fingers with the tip of his tongue.

“The more I have you,” he said, closing his teeth over each of her fingertips in turn, “the more I want you. If I give in, the only explorations that get done on the ranch today will be done in this bed.”

Hope’s hazel eyes kindled. “What a lovely thought,” she murmured, curling her fingers around his, tugging him down toward her.

“Does that mean you don’t want to go riding with me?”

Amusement curved her lips.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said quickly. “I’ve got a very interesting prospect for a well site. Do you want to go over it with me?”

Her sleepy, sensual humor evaporated. “Do you mean that? Have you really found a place to drill for water?”

“I don’t know. So far things look good. I was going to check it out yesterday, but I went into town instead.” He watched her with searching, intense eyes, wondering how she felt toward him in the clear light of another day.

Hope’s smile faded as she remembered why Rio had left yesterday. He hadn’t wanted to be her lover.

And now he was.

“Hope,” he began, seeing shadows in her eyes.

“No,” she cut in, her fingers over his lips. “I know you didn’t want to be my lover. But it happened. I don’t expect you to change. Don’t expect me to change, either. I love you, Rio. Nothing will change that.”

He gave her a swift, fierce kiss, then left the room like it was on fire. He didn’t trust himself to touch her anymore without sweeping away the blankets and knowing again the searing ecstasy of her body joined with his, her cries rippling through all of his silences.

Yesterday she had been a virgin. Today she was his woman. Tomorrow . . .

Tomorrow belonged to the wind. He would face it when he had to. Until then, today beckoned, radiant with Hope.

“Your bath is two feet deep and steaming,” Rio called as he went down the stairs. “By the time you’re dressed, I’ll have breakfast ready.”

“Where are we going?” Hope asked as she got out of bed. She shivered when her warm bare feet hit the cold bare floor.

“Ain’t telling,” he drawled.

She laughed at his laconic imitation of Mason. Then she raced for the hot welcome of a bath. She lingered, soaking out every small ache of the body she and Rio had so thoroughly enjoyed.

Finally she couldn’t resist the smell of breakfast. Without looking, she stood and reached for a towel. The rack was empty. The nearest towel supply was in the linen closet down the hall. The cold hall.

Just as she nerved herself up for a chilly dash to the linen closet, the bathroom door opened. Rio’s hand appeared. A thick, soft towel dangled from his fist.

“Missing something?” he asked.

“Brrr,” she answered.

He came in and closed the door behind him so that the steamy warmth couldn’t escape. Then he held the towel wide in silent invitation. She stepped into it, and his arms. He kissed her until it was impossible to know whether her flushed skin came from the hot bath or from the even hotter passion he called from her.

“That’s what
I
was missing,” he said huskily. Then he lifted his head and put her away from his hungry, insistent body. “If I don’t stop right now, neither one of us is going to be in any shape to get on a horse.”

“Especially if the horse is Storm Walker,” she said, smiling at him with trembling lips.

“I think I’ll leave that tough old son in the corral today,” Rio admitted. “I suspect he has more hard in him this morning than I do.”

When Hope looked down Rio’s body, she saw the unmistakable bulge pushing against his jeans. A shiver of pleasure coursed through her when she remembered the beauty of his body beneath her hands. In the wake of memory came the rushing, liquid heat that had become familiar last night. Slowly, murmuring approval, she moved her hand over the length of his arousal.

His breath broke. “I thought you would be sore.”

She shook her head.

His hand slid up between her legs. The hungry, molten silk that waited for him was a revelation. His breath broke as his heartbeat doubled.

“You sure?” he asked, stroking her, watching for any sign that she was flinching away.

She shifted, opening to his touch. The hot pulse of her response on his fingers said that she was ready for him.

“I want you to be able to ride,” he said.

Yet even as he spoke, he caressed her, drawing more of her liquid silk to him.

Her eyelids trembled down as an exquisite thrill of pleasure rippled through her. “I’ll tie a pillow to the saddle.”

He laughed and sank to his knees. “That won’t be necessary.”

The sultry, wild whirlwind of his mouth closed over her. When she was trembling and crying, he pulled her down and let the storm take them both. By the time it was spent, he lay fully clothed on the cold floor with her over him like a blanket. Smiling, he stroked her back.

“I must be crushing you,” Hope said.

He laughed, and in laughing moved inside her.

“Mmm,” she purred. “That feels good.”

His heartbeat quickened again. “Better get up, dreamer. We have a well to find.”

She kissed his jaw, sighed, and struggled into a sitting position astride him.

His breath caught. “Hope?”

“Mmm?”

He lifted her off his quickening flesh. “Get out of here or neither one of us will be able to walk, much less ride.”

She looked at Rio, saw that he was still hard, and said, “Why don’t I just drag you fully dressed into that tub? It’s still hot.”

For an instant Hope thought he was going to let her—and so did he.

With a wrench that was almost painful, he stood and tucked himself back into his jeans. He started to say something, shook his head ruefully, and got out of the steamy intimacy of the bathroom.

“Breakfast is ready,” he said from the safety of the hallway.
And so am I.

Again.

His response to Hope kept taking Rio by surprise, like finding an artesian spring in the middle of a vast desert waste. The spring shouldn’t be there. All logic and experience were against it. But there it was just the same, pure and sweet and inexhaustible, pulsing with rhythms that were deeper than logic and experience, as deep as life itself.

By the time Hope dressed and walked into the kitchen, Rio had filled two plates with mounds of hotcakes, ham, and eggs. She measured the huge breakfast and looked at him in silent protest.

“You’ll be glad for every bite by lunchtime,” he said.

She ate without arguing. She knew he was right. Besides, she was unusually hungry. When she tucked the last morsel of hotcake neatly into her mouth and looked up from her plate, he was smiling at her.

Rio touched the fullness of her lower lip, licked his fingertip, and said, “Sweet.”

“Syrup always is,” she pointed out reasonably, smiling at him with love in her eyes.

He shook his head slowly. “Not syrup. You.” He sighed and pushed his chair back from the table. “Let’s go before my good intentions hitch a ride on the wind. Again.”

“You never told me where we were going.”

“You distracted me.”

“Good for me. Was it good for you?”

He laughed. “You know it was. Wind Canyon.”

Smiling, Rio poured the rest of the coffee into a canteen, tossed a paper bag full of sandwiches to Hope, put his arm around her shoulders, and walked out into the sun-filled morning. Leaning lightly against him, she slid her arm around his waist. Her long legs kept pace with clean, graceful movements.

“I’m not a bit sore,” she said, grinning. “Must be all those years of riding.”

He gave a crack of laughter, kissed her swiftly on the lips, and lifted her over the pasture fence. He watched while she caught Aces, swung up bareback on the mare, and rode to the fence. The elegance of Hope’s legs was clear even when they were covered by worn jeans and scuffed cowboy boots. He kept remembering how it felt when those long legs had wrapped around him, holding him tightly within her silky heat.

“You have beautiful legs,” he said when she rode close.

She looked at him, startled. Then she smiled, slid off Aces, and picked up a curry comb.

“My legs are how I got the money to keep the ranch alive,” Hope said as she worked. “Shoes, hosiery, and slit-to-midthigh bedroom stuff was my specialty. The green caftan came from one of my last modeling assignments. I love the way it makes me feel.”

Rio half-closed his eyes. The memory of her silky, beautiful body glowing against the deep green velvet was a pleasure so acute it was almost pain.

“So you take it out and wear it when nobody is around,” he said huskily.

“Except for last night.” Hope shuddered. “Turner knew I’d be here alone. He saw you in town.”

“I know. One of the clerks in the hardware store told me that John Turner took one look at me through the window, reversed direction, and set off out of town like the hounds of hell were after him.” Rio’s eyes changed, becoming as hard as blue-black stone.

“I’m glad you came back,” she said simply.

“Not half as glad as I am.” Emotions vibrated in his voice, a volatile mixture of rage at Turner, anger at himself, and a hunger for Hope so intense that it still could shake him.

With a muttered word, Rio went to the barn. He emerged in a few minutes, leading Dusk. The mare headed toward the horse trailer that had been unhitched from Rio’s pickup and parked beside the barn. Dusk’s movements were the automatic reaction of a horse accustomed to being trailered all over the West as her owner went from town to town, ranch to ranch, horizon to horizon.

“Not yet, girl,” Rio said, draping the roping rein over the corral railing. “First we’ve got a well to find.”

Hope had watched the horse turn toward the trailer, heard Rio’s casual words, and now a cold wind was keening through her soul.

Not yet.

But it would happen. There was no question, no doubt, nothing in Rio’s voice but a calm certainty that he would leave.

Leaning against Aces, Hope struggled to control the storm of grief shaking her.
You knew he was going to leave,
she told herself fiercely.
Last night didn’t change that. Tonight won’t change it.

Nothing will change it.

You’ve fallen in love with the wind, and you knew it even while you were falling.

She had no complaints coming, and accepted it. The choice had been hers every step of the way. Rio hadn’t wanted to be her lover.

Hope. Tell me to stop. I didn’t want to hurt you! I don’t have any past, any future, any present. Hope, I don’t—

Then she had kissed him, wanted him, and he had given her all he could. It was more than any other man had given her: tenderness and fierce passion, serenity and wild ecstasy. She wouldn’t throw Rio’s gift in his face and say that it wasn’t enough. He would blame himself. She knew it as certainly as she knew she loved him.

Are you cruel enough to make him hate himself?
Hope asked herself harshly.
Is that your idea of loving him?

After a few moments Hope straightened her shoulders and went back to grooming Aces with smooth motions of her arm. It wasn’t long before she saddled the mare, led her out of the corral, and mounted swiftly, before Rio could help her, touch her.

Side by side the two horses loped along the dirt road. The wind blew fitfully, tearing puffs of dust from the land.

Rio kept glancing over at Hope, quick looks that were hidden within the shadow of his hat brim. Back at the corral he had seen intense unhappiness on her face. He had wanted to go to her, to hold her, to assure her that everything would be all right, that he would protect her from whatever she feared.

And then he had seen her gather herself, shaking off whatever had clawed at her.

He didn’t know what had happened, or why. He only knew that for a moment Hope had been sliced open all the way to her soul.

He understood what that kind of pain was like, how unexpected it could be, how devastating. So he watched her, reassuring himself that she was truly all right.

Hope caught the indigo flash of Rio’s glance and turned, smiling at him for a moment before she looked back over the velvet-shadowed hills glowing in the early sunlight. The peace of the morning and the rhythmic beat of hooves were like a benediction to her grieving soul.

Rio’s eyes followed her glance. He was accustomed to such sunrises, such silence—but this time Hope was with him, sharing the quiet and the compelling land. Like the dawn itself, she had a quiet that pleasured him. Other women he had known were hurt or frightened by his silence. They had demanded that he take their emotional temperature with constant conversation. He had hated that, hated being with someone so shallow that she changed temperature with each of his silences.