Authors: Linda Howard
He appeared in the doorway, and his eyes sharpened as he took in the clothes piled on the bed. “What're you doing?” There was an oddly tense set to his shoulders.
“I'm hanging the clothes I won't use in here, so they won't clutter up our closet.”
Maybe it was only her imagination, but he appeared to relax. “Are you ready to go to bed?”
“Yes, I can finish this tomorrow.”
He stood aside to let her get past him, then turned out the light and followed her down the hall. Madelyn was barefoot and in another thin gown much like the one she'd worn the night before, and she got that dwarfed, suffocated feeling again, sensing him so close behind her. The top of her head would just reach his chin, and he had to weigh at least two hundred pounds, all of it muscle. It would be easy to let herself be intimidated by him, especially when she thought of lying beneath him on that big bed. She would be going to bed with him like this for the rest of her life. Maybe he had doubts about the longevity of their marriage, but she didn't.
It was easier this time. She lay in his muscular arms and felt the warmth grow under his stroking hands. But now that she was less nervous she sensed something wrong, as if he were keeping part of himself separate from their lovemaking. He touched her, but only under strict control, as if he were allowing himself only so much enjoyment and not a bit more. She didn't want those measured touches, she wanted his passion. She knew it was there, she sensed it, but he wasn't giving it to her.
It still hurt when he entered her, though not as much as before. He was gentle, but he wasn't loving. This was the way he would have treated either of those other two women he'd been willing to marry, she thought dimly, as a body he'd been given the use of, not as a warm, loving woman who needed more. This was only sex, not making love. He made her feel like a faceless stranger.
This was war. As she went to sleep afterward, she was planning her campaign.
“I
WANT TO
go with you today,” she said the next morning over breakfast.
He didn't look up from his eggs and biscuits. “You're not up to it.”
“How do you know?” she retorted.
He looked annoyed. “Because a lot of
men
aren't up to it.”
“You're repairing fencing today, right? I can help you with the wire and at least keep you company.”
That was exactly what Reese didn't want. If he spent a lot of time in her company he'd end up making love to her, and that was something he wanted to limit. If he could hold himself to once a night, he'd be able to keep everything under control.
“It'll only take a couple of hours to finish repairing the fence, then I'll bring the truck home and go back out on horseback to move the herd.”
“I told you, I can ride.”
He shook his head impatiently. “How long has it been since you've been on a horse? What kind of riding did you do, tame trail riding on a rented hack? This is open country, and my horses are trained to work cattle.”
“Granted, it's been almost a year since I've been on a horse, but I know all about liniment. I have to get used to it sometime.”
“You'd just be in the way. Stay here and see if you can have dinner done on time tonight.”
She narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Reese Duncan, I'm going with you and that's final.”
He got up from the table. “You'd better learn that this is my ranch, and what I say goes. That includes
you. A few words by a judge doesn't give you any say-so in my work. I do the ranch work, you take care of the house. I want fried chicken for dinner, so you can get started on that.”
“There isn't any chicken in the freezer,” she retorted. “Since you don't want me to go shopping, I guess you'll have to change your request.”
He pointed out to the yard. “There are plenty of chickens out there, city slicker. Meat doesn't always come shrink-wrapped.”
Madelyn's temper was usually as languorous as her walk, but she'd had enough. “You want me to catch a chicken?” she asked, tight-lipped. “You don't think I can do it, do you? That's why you said it. You want to show me how much I don't know about ranch life. You'll have your damn chicken for dinner, if I have to ram it down your throat feathers and all!”
She turned and stormed up the stairs. Reese stood there, a little taken aback. He hadn't known Madelyn could move that fast.
She was back downstairs before he could get the truck loaded and leave. He heard the back door slam and turned. His eyes widened. She had strapped protective pads on her knees and elbows, with the kneepads over her jeans. She'd put on athletic shoes. She still looked furious, and she didn't even glance at him. Reese hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and leaned against the truck to watch.
She picked out a hen and eased up to it, scattering a few handfuls of feed to lure the bird. Reese lifted his eyebrows, impressed. But she made her move just a little too soon; the hen squawked and ran for her life with Madelyn in pursuit.
She dove for the bird, sliding along the ground on her
belly and just missing the frantic bird. Reese winced and straightened away from the truck, horrified at the thought of what the dirt and rocks were doing to her soft skin, but she jumped up and took off after the hen. The bird ran in erratic circles around the yard, then darted under the truck. Madelyn swerved to head it off, and another headlong tackle fell an inch short.
“Look, just forget about the chickâ” he began, but she was already gone.
The bird managed to take flight enough to land in the lower branches of a tree, but it was still over Madelyn's head. She narrowed her eyes and bent to pick a few rocks up from the ground. She wound up and let fly. The rock went over the chicken's head. The hen pulled her head down, her bright little eyes glittering. The next rock hit the limb next to her and she squawked, shifing position. The third rock hit her on the leg, and she took flight again.
This time Madelyn judged her dive perfectly. She slid along the ground in a flurry of dust and pebbles, and her hand closed over one of the hen's legs. The bird immediately went wild, flapping her wings and trying to peck the imprisoning hand that held her. They grappled in the dust for a minute, but then Madelyn stood up with the hen upside down and firmly held by both feet, its wings spread. Her hands were dotted with blood where the furious hen had pecked her, breaking the skin. “Faster than a speeding pullet,” she said with grim triumph.
Reese could only stare at her in silence as she stalked up to him. Her hair was a mess, tangled and hanging in her eyes. Her face was caked with dust, her shirt was filthy and torn, and her jeans were a mess. One kneepad had come loose and was drooping down her shin.
The look in those gray eyes, however, kept him from laughing. He didn't dare even smile.
The chicken hit him in the chest, and he grabbed for it, just preventing the bird from making a break for freedom.
“There's your damn chicken,” she said between her teeth. “I hope you're very happy together.” She slammed back into the house.
Reese looked down at the bird and remembered the blood on Madelyn's hands. He wrung the hen's neck with one quick, competent twist. He'd never felt less like laughing.
He carried the dead bird inside and dropped it on the floor. Madelyn was standing at the sink, carefully soaping her hands. “Let me see,” he said, coming up behind her and reaching around to take her hands in his, effectively pinning her in place. The hen had drawn blood in several places, painful little puncture wounds that were blue around the edges. He'd had a few of them himself and knew how easily they could become infected.
He reached for a towel to wrap around her hands. “Come upstairs to the bathroom and I'll put disinfectant on them.”
She didn't move. “It's my hands, not my back. I can reach them just fine, thank you. I'll do it myself.”
His muscled arms were iron bands around her; his hard hands held her easily. Her front was pressed against the sink, and his big body was against her back, hemming her in, holding her. She felt utterly surrounded by him and had the sudden violent thought that she should never have married someone who was almost a foot taller than she was. She was at a woeful disadvantage here.
He bent, hooked his right arm under her kness and
lifted her with insulting ease. Madelyn grabbed for his shoulders to keep her balance. “The hen pecked my hands, not my feet,” she said caustically.
He slanted a warning look at her as he started up the stairs.
“Men who use force against women are lower than slugs.”
His arms tightened, but he kept a tight rein on his temper. He carried her into the bathroom and put her on her feet. As he opened the medicine cabinet she headed out the door, and he grabbed her with one hand, hauling her back. She tugged violently, trying to free her arm. “I said I'd do it myself!” she said, furious with him.
He put the lid down on the toilet, sat down and pulled her onto his lap. “Be still and let me clean your hands. If you still want to fight after I'm finished, then I'll be glad to oblige you.”
Fuming, Madelyn sat on his lap while he dabbed the small wounds with an antiseptic that stung sharply. Then he smoothed antibiotic cream on them and put Band-Aids over the two worst breaks. His arms were still around her; he was holding her as a parent would a child, to soothe it and tend its hurts. She didn't like the comparison, even if it was her own. She shifted restlessly, feeling his hard thighs under her bottom.
His face was very close to hers. She could see all the different colored specks in his eyes, green and blue dominating, but shot through with black and white and a few glittering flecks of gold. Though he had shaved the night before, his beard had already grown enough to roughen his cheeks and chin. The brackets on each side of his mouth framed the beautiful cut of his lips, and suddenly she remembered the way he had closed those lips over her nipple, sucking her tender flesh into
his mouth. She quivered, and the rigidity went out of her body.
Reese closed the first-aid box and set it aside, then let his arm rest loosely across her thighs as he gave her a measuring look. “Your face is dirty.”
“So let me up and I'll wash it.”
He didn't. He washed it himself, slowly drawing a wet washcloth over her features, the fabric almost caressing her skin. He wiped her mouth with a touch so light she could barely feel it and watched the cloth tug slightly at her soft, enticing lower lip. Madelyn's head tilted back, and her eyelids drooped. He drew the cloth down her neck, wiped it across her exposed collarbone, then dipped his hand down inside the loose neck of her top.
She caught her breath at the damp coolness on her breasts. He drew the cloth back and forth, slowly rasping it across her nipples and bringing them to wet attention. Her breasts began to throb, and her back arched involuntarily, offering them for more. She could feel a hard ridge growing, pressing against her hip, and her blood moved heavily through her veins.
He tossed the washcloth into the basin and took his hat off, dropping it onto the floor. The arm behind her back tightened and drew her in to him as he bent his head, and his mouth closed over hers.
It was the same way he'd kissed her in the airport, the way he hadn't kissed her since. His mouth was hard and hot, urgent in his demands. His tongue pushed into her mouth, and she met it with her own, welcoming, enticing, wanting more.
She gave way beneath his onslaught, her head falling back against his shoulder. He pursued the advantage, taking her mouth again, putting his hand beneath her
shirt and closing it over her breast. Gently he kneaded the firm mound, rubbing his rough palm over the nipple until she whimpered into his mouth from the exquisite pain of it. She turned toward him, lifting her arms around his neck. Excitement pounded in the pit of her stomach, tightening every muscle in her body and starting an aching tension between her legs.
With a rough sound of passion he bent her back over his arm and shoved her top up, exposing her breasts. His warm breath feathered across them as he bent to her; then he extended the tip of his tongue and circled one pink nipple, making it constrict into a tightly puckered nub and turn reddish. He shifted her body, bringing her other breast closer to his mouth, and gave that nipple identical treatment, watching with pleasure as it, too, tightened.
Madelyn clutched at him. “Reese,” she begged in a low, shaking voice. She needed him.
This was the hot magic she had sensed about him from the beginning, the blatant sensuality. This was the warm promise she had felt lying beneath him at night, and she wanted more.
He drew her nipple into his mouth with a strong, sucking pressure, and she arched again, her thighs shifting. She felt like a dessert offered up to him, lying across his lap with her body lifted to his mouth, glorying in the way his lips and teeth and tongue worked at her breast.
“Reese,” she said again. It was little more than a moan, heavy with desire. Everything that was male in him responded to that female cry of need, urging him to surge deep within her and ease the empty ache that made her twist in his arms and cry out for him. His loins were throbbing, his body radiating heat. If she
needed to be filled, he needed to fill her. The two restrained matings he'd had with her hadn't been enough, would never satisfy the lust that intensified every time he looked at her.
But if he ever let himself go with her, he'd never be able to get that control back. April had taught him a bitter lesson, one that he relearned every day when he worked on his diminished acres, or saw the paint peeling on his house. Madelyn might never turn on him, but he couldn't take the chance and let his guard down.
With an effort that brought sweat to his brow, he lifted his mouth from her maddeningly sweet flesh and shifted her to her feet. She swayed, her eyes dazed, her top twisted up under her arms and exposing those firm, round breasts. She didn't understand and reached for him, offering a drugging sensuality that he wouldn't let himself take.