Hawk's Way (15 page)

“See you tomorrow morning, then,” he said. With a smile and a wave he started the truck and headed down the drive.

Angel was shocked. And dismayed. Had Dallas reconsidered the possibility of courting Honey Farrell? Was this tubing trip intended to change her mind about getting involved with another Texas Ranger?

“When did you decide to ask Honey to go tubing?”

“After supper, while you were drawing with the kids.”
And looking like one yourself.

Dallas had taken one look at Angel lying sprawled unself-consciously on the living room floor, her chin supported on one palm, her lips curved in an amused smile as her pencil moved a mile a minute creating caricatures of Jack and Jonathan, and realized there was no way he was letting her go off alone with Adam Philips.

“Did you invite Honey to come tubing so you can come along and keep an eye on me?” she asked suspiciously.

“No,” he denied.

The flush on his cheeks gave him away. And gave Angel hope. If he didn't want her alone with Adam Philips, it might mean he cared about her. On the other hand there was no telling what might happen with Honey along. More than one man
had lost his heart to a woman without intending to.

Honey wasn't just pretty, she was gorgeous, with dazzling, honey-blond hair, bright blue eyes and a flawless complexion. Not only was she pretty, she had a figure out of a man's dreams. Honey was a tall woman; her body would accommodate Dallas's lanky frame a lot better than Angel's petite size did.

Angel thought back to the few times Dallas had embraced her. He invariably had had to pick her up to fit them together in all the right places. Of course, in a prone position respective heights wouldn't be a problem. But Angel couldn't very well point that out to Dallas without getting into a prone position with him. And that was unlikely at best, considering the current state of affairs.

Angel had actually considered canceling the date with Adam when she realized she was in love with Dallas. Now, not only was she going on the date, she had to wear something that would keep Dallas's eyes on her instead of Honey Farrell. Which meant she was, at last, going to have to expose her limbs like a twentieth-century woman.

By the time they arrived back at Dallas's house, Angel was gnawing at her lower lip, anxious about the step she had decided to take.

“What's wrong?” Dallas asked.

“I can't decide what to wear tomorrow.”

Dallas smiled. From all the fidgeting she'd been doing for the past hour, he'd expected it to be something serious. “That doesn't sound like such a problem.”

Annoyed, she met his amused gaze and said, “I was thinking maybe I ought to make some cutoffs out of a pair of my jeans. What do you think?”

Maybe this was serious after all.

“I thought you'd already decided you don't have to conform to modern dress codes,” Dallas said.

“That's true. But if I'm going to be spending the entire day in the water, wearing something that covers me to the ankles doesn't make much sense.”

“It makes more sense than going naked!” Dallas snapped.

“I wasn't planning on stripping to the skin,” Angel replied in a voice Dallas found irritatingly calm. “I just thought I'd cut off a pair of my jeans.”

“How high are you planning to cut?” Would Adam end up ogling her knees? Her thighs? The curve of her enticing bottom?

“I don't know,” Angel said. “I thought I'd start at the knee, and—” She shrugged. “I'll just
have to see how high I can go and still feel comfortable.”

“I think you're making a mistake.”

“We'll find out, won't we? Do you have a pair of scissors?”

Dallas marched into the kitchen and pulled open a utensil drawer. He stomped back out again and handed her the scissors. “Here. I hope you know what you're doing.”

Angel grinned. “I hope so, too.”

Dallas spent the night staring at the ceiling and wondering what was wrong with him. He didn't care a fig that Adam was probably going to see Honey Farrell in a bikini. But he couldn't stand the thought of Angel's knees on display. He was crazy. Certifiable. Angel had finally sent him over the bend.

* * *

The next morning Dallas was so tired he felt hung over. Angel was full of vim and vinegar. In fact, she hadn't stopped talking since she'd stepped out of her bedroom dressed in a T-shirt, cutoffs and white canvas tennis shoes without socks.

Dallas took a long look at her cutoffs. Mid-thigh. Not as good as he'd hoped (down to her knees). Nor as bad as he'd feared (exposing her rear end). It dawned on him that there was some
thing unbelievably erotic about looking at a woman's ankles, calves and knees, when you knew no other man had ever seen them before. It was like eating of forbidden fruit. More delicious because it was taboo.

He cleared his throat and said, “You have beautiful legs.”

“Thank you.” Pink tinged Angel's cheeks. She couldn't help feeling a little self-conscious, even though her cutoffs were considerably more modest than the shorts Honey had been wearing the previous day. At the same time she felt a sense of freedom and adventure.

“Hey! Anybody home?” Adam let himself in the kitchen door. He stopped short when he saw Angel. “What have we here? Venus in blue jeans.”

“Cutoff blue jeans,” Dallas corrected. “How would you feel about having some company today?”

Adam slipped an arm around Angel's shoulder and grinned at Dallas. “Frankly this is a trip I'd rather make alone.”

A honking horn kept Dallas from saying something to Adam that he would have regretted later.

“Expecting company?” Adam asked.

“Cale's widow and her two sons,” Dallas said. “Figured we'd all go tubing together.”

Adam was aghast. “All of us? A widow, two kids, you, me and Angel?”

Dallas's smile was slow coming, but it was smug when it got there. “Yeah.”

“Dallas? Are you in there?” Honey pushed his screen door open and stuck her head inside. When she spied Dallas, the rest of her—and almost all of her was visible in the sapphire-blue French cut bikini—slowly materialized.

Dallas watched with wicked glee as Adam's jaw dropped. The good doctor was positively drooling. Well, so much for distraction. While the doc was pursuing the luscious woman in the bikini, Dallas would entertain himself with a female who had been daring enough to expose her ankles, calves and knees to public view for the first time.

“Everybody ready?” Dallas asked.

Jack and Jonathan shouted their enthusiasm. Honey glanced shyly at Adam. Adam cleared his throat. Angel tugged on the hem of her cutoffs.

Dallas grinned. “Then, let's go!”

I
t wasn't hard for Dallas to manipulate things so Adam ended up tubing with Honey, while he stuck like cactus to Angel. Their supplies and the picnic lunch were in a cooler that was attached to an extra tube which drifted along with them. Jack and Jonathan provided plenty of diversion to keep Dallas's efforts from being obvious. Of course, Adam was doing his part by being absolutely entranced with Honey Farrell. All in all, Dallas was well satisfied with the way things were turning out.

Angel was having the time of her life. She had never felt so carefree. She was draped across a huge black tractor tire tube, her fanny just dipping into the water. In fact, her feet, fanny, and fingertips were all that had gotten wet so far. The sun bathed her skin with warmth and she felt as lazy as a hound dog on a porch step. She laid her head back on the tube, eased her hands into the water, and let herself drift with the current.

Because of drought, the Frio River wasn't more
than knee-deep in most places. It was so crystal clear it was easy to see the bed of rocks and stones that formed the river bottom and explained the reason Dallas had told her to leave on her canvas tennis shoes during the float. Dallas complained that the low water level made the few rapids less fun. Angel thought they were plenty scary. At least with the lower water levels, the barbed wire that ranches had strung across the river to keep their stock confined was visible.

About an hour into the float Adam called, “Barbed wire ahead.”

Angel stopped her tube and waited while Dallas held the barbed wire up so she could cross under it.

When she floated by him, he said, “Your legs are starting to get a little sunburned. We'd better stop and put some lotion on them.”

Honey immediately stood up in the shallow water and stopped to wait for Dallas and Angel.

“You all go on ahead,” Dallas said. “Angel and I will catch up.”

“Are you sure?” Honey said. “We don't mind waiting.”

Of course, that was a figurative
we
. The literal
we
, including Jack and Jonathan, were chomping at the bit and chafing at the delay.

“Go on ahead,” Dallas urged. “We won't be long.”

“If you're sure—”

Adam Philips cut Honey off when he took her tube out of her hand, set it back in the water, and said, “I'll hold this while you get settled.”

Dallas was pleased with the flush that appeared at Honey's throat.

“Why, thank you, Adam,” she said. “You're so kind.”

Honey had a real Texas drawl, the slow, raspy kind that set a man's neck hairs to standing on end. Dallas could see it was working on Adam. Maybe he'd done his friend a good turn after all.

“You take the tube with the picnic supplies,” Dallas said. “I've got the suntan lotion. We don't need anything else right now.”

Dallas took his time dragging his and Angel's rubber tubes out of the water. When he finally joined her in the sun-sprinkled shade of the cypress trees that lined the bank, the other four tubes were out of sight around the bend.

“Shouldn't we hurry?” Angel asked.

“Naw,” Dallas said. “We'll catch up.”
By the end of the day.

“If people nowadays wore more clothes, they wouldn't need suntan lotion,” Angel pointed out.

“Yeah, but then we guys wouldn't have a
chance to do this to you gals.” Dallas suited word to deed and began applying a handful of suntan lotion along Angel's smooth, bare leg.

Angel was mesmerized by the sight of Dallas touching her bare skin, by the pleasing roughness of his callused hand. Feelings went zooming in all directions. Up to her breasts, down to her belly and all points in between.

“Dallas,” she said in a breathless voice.

“What, Angel?” he murmured, completely absorbed by what he was doing.

“I think that's enough suntan lotion.”

“Yes, that leg's about done. I'll get the other one.”

Angel didn't think it was possible, but feelings started zooming all over again, as though her body hadn't just been through all this a minute ago. Angel's pulse was rocketing, her breath felt shortened as though she'd been running and her body felt discombobulated.

“Dallas, please stop.” She reached down to grab his hand and was surprised when he twined his fingers with hers. She stared at their two hands, which he allowed to rest across her naked knees.

“Oh, my,” Angel said.

“Yes. My thoughts exactly,” Dallas said. He leaned forward and touched her lips with his. He
had been waiting so long to kiss her again, it seemed like forever. Her mouth was unbearably sweet. And resilient. He felt his body tauten, his blood thrum. How could one simple kiss make him feel like this?

Angel moaned.

Dallas broke the kiss and leaned back far enough to see her eyes. She looked as stunned as he felt. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dilated and unfocused, her lips parted. He didn't intend to kiss her again, but he found the dewy wetness of her lips irresistible. He slowly closed the distance between them, waiting for some sign from her that she didn't want this.

It never came.

The sleek softness of her lips joined with his. Dallas deepened the kiss, all the time fighting to stay in control of it. The pleasure gathered in his loins, a slow, steady pulse of need. He took Angel's hand, the one entwined with his, and drew his across his chest and down across his belly. Her flesh felt exquisite against his!

Angel felt the crisp chest hair against the backs of her hands and the warmth of Dallas beneath her fingers. She rubbed her hand against his skin, wanting to touch him in ways she had only imagined in her dreams.

Dallas groaned, a guttural sound of need. His
other hand slid into Angel's hair and tightened, holding her captive for his kiss. His mouth ravaged, his tongue plundered. There was nothing controlled about the flash fire of need that tore through him, obliterating restraint. There was no chance now that she could escape his desire.

Not that Angel seemed in any hurry to get away.

When Dallas felt her tongue tentatively, delicately tracing his lips, he stilled his own tongue and opened his mouth to her. His heart was pounding. It was torture waiting for her, knowing she might change her mind and withdraw.

Angel felt as if she were on the edge of a precipice and that any second she would fall into space. She slid her tongue along Dallas's upper lip, as he had done to her, and slowly, cautiously, slipped it into his mouth. She touched his teeth and tongue, then retreated.

“Angel,” Dallas murmured. “More, please.”

He waited for her to come back with the same uncertainty he felt watching a butterfly that tempts and teases before finally lighting—or fluttering away.

His patience was rewarded.

When she broached his lips this time, his tongue greeted hers and withdrew, enticing her farther inside.

Angel's whole being was focused on the sensations created as she tasted Dallas and he returned the favor. She shuddered with pleasure and angled her mouth for better access.

When he first bit her lower lip, she was startled by the pain. The rush of pleasure that followed as he soothed it with his tongue was so intense she moaned deep in her throat. He taught her how to excite them both with love bites on her lips and throat and ears. His mouth was warm, his breath moist. She shivered. And shivered again.

Somehow her hands had flattened against his chest and she indulged the need to hold him, to touch him, to feel the textures of hair and skin. The first time her fingertips brushed across his nipple it was an accident. His response was immediate and telltale. The softness became a hard bud that was sensitive to her touch. She felt him tauten when she brushed against him the second time.

Entranced with his response, she played with him until, with a ragged voice he said, “Would you like me to do that to you?”

Angel froze. An arrow of pleasure shot from her breasts to her belly at the mere thought of his hands on her in so provocative a place. Before she could form words of consent or protest, Dal
las's thumb had brushed lightly across the cotton T-shirt, creating a hard bud beneath it.

“Oh, my,” Angel said.

“Yes. My thoughts exactly,” Dallas rasped back.

Angel stiffened slightly and Dallas let his hand drop. She wasn't sure what to do. Her body was urging her to further exploration. Her mind was telling her she was an idiot to be playing with fire when she could get burned.

But Angel craved the warmth Dallas offered, and she had great confidence in her ability to take care of herself. She was in complete control of the situation. At least she was until Dallas reached up to cup both her breasts in his hands.

Angel gasped, and her eyes jerked up to meet his eyes, which glowed with arousal.

“You feel so good,” he murmured, his thumbs lazily stroking her through the cotton T-shirt.

She grabbed his wrists, but not to push him away. She wanted his hands to stay right where they were.

“Dallas?” She didn't know what she was asking for. She was certain Dallas did.

Dallas knew, all right. He eased Angel back until she was lying beneath him. He mantled her body with his, easing himself between her thighs so she could feel the evidence of his desire. He
nudged her once with his hips, and was satisfied with the responsive flare of excitement in her eyes.

He watched her as he caressed her body, saw her blue eyes darken and grow heavy-lidded with pleasure. He touched her shoulders and she lifted up to him. He caressed her ribs and felt her arch beneath his body. As he traced a hand across her belly, she sucked it in until her hipbones stabbed at him. Her arms circled round his neck, slipped up into his hair, and clutched him for dear life.

Dallas wanted to go slow, to savor everything with her, knowing it was the first time a man had touched her like this. But he was driven by a fever of need that made him demand what she had to give.

Angel wasn't able to think coherently. She was too busy feeling. Needing. Wanting. While Dallas trailed lavish kisses down her neck, her lips found the salty skin at his shoulder. She was entranced with the differences between them, his strength, his maleness, the hard, ropey muscles that bunched when she touched him. She wanted to feel bare skin against bare skin.

She had opened her mouth to speak when the raucous sounds of teenage voices reached them from the river.

“Way to go, man!”

“All
right!
” Followed by a shrill wolf whistle.

“Yeah! Do it!”

Angel sat upright as though someone had pushed a button on a spring. When she would have jumped up and run, Dallas grabbed her and pulled her into his lap, her face against his chest, hiding her identity from the teenagers.

In moments the current had carried them away. Angel was still trembling with the realization of what might have happened if someone hadn't come along.

For his part Dallas could have cheerfully strangled the three teenage boys. He settled for a grin and a hearty wave as they disappeared around the bend.

When they were gone he said, “I'm sorry that happened.” He paused and amended, “That came out wrong. What I meant is that I'm sorry you were embarrassed. It's so quiet here that I forgot about the rest of the world. I'm not at all sorry for anything else that happened.”

Angel kept her face hidden against his chest as she admitted, “I'm not sorry, either.”

Dallas found her chin and tipped it up so she was looking into his eyes. His voice was intense, urgent when he spoke. “I wish we were alone, Angel, with no one to interrupt us. I want to feel my hands on your skin, all over. I want to kiss
you in places that will turn your face pink. I want to be inside you.”

Angel's lids lowered to hide what his words were doing to her. Could she really contemplate doing what he was asking? Without the benefit of marriage or any commitment from either of them? Without words of love?

“I…I want that, too,” she said. “But—”

Dallas put his fingertips on her lips to stop her. He didn't want to hear the words he knew were coming. She wanted to know whether he loved her. Whether the things they would do in bed together meant something more than the simple pleasures of the moment. She was right to ask. She was entitled to more than just a quick toss in the hay. But that was all he was prepared to offer her.

“We'd better get going,” Dallas said. “If we don't hurry there won't be much left of that picnic lunch.”

Angel felt bereft as Dallas pulled her to her feet and handed her one of the tractor tubes. He couldn't have made himself more clear if he'd shouted it from the rooftops. He didn't want complications in his life. And she was a complication.

The rest of the float might have been uncomfortable if Dallas hadn't thought up a game for them to play, a sort of “most embarrassing mo
ments” kind of thing, where they were supposed to exchange lighthearted stories.