Wild for the Girl Read online

  Which left the rest of her. Even without the possibility of Reese holding her close, she couldn’t stand the thought that her horse smelled better than she did.

  Squirting shampoo into her palms, she began rubbing it over her shoulders, underarms, and stomach. Reese’s smile grew broader as he watched, and she returned it. “Too country girl for you?”

  “No, it’s just that I think I saw this in a movie. It was X-rated.”

  She finished rubbing lather around and took the hose from him. “I think I’d better do this part myself.”

  He snatched it back. “Not on your life.” He took aim at her chest and grinned. “Ready?”

  His mischievous look tickled something deep inside her. “Can I trust you with that thing?”

  “What can I possibly hurt? You’re already a mess.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Suave. I was thinking more of the force of that spray.”

  “Sissy pants.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “If you try something funny, I’ll hurt you.”

  His smile took on an evil glint. “Shut up and brace yourself.”

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Cold water hit her chest in a fine spray and she sucked in a breath, waiting for something worse. When it didn’t happen, she opened her eyes. Reese directed the spray over her shoulders, then down, turning her gently as he rinsed off the suds. She made two full circles, spinning slowly in front of him until the water ran clean down her stomach, soaking her jeans.

  “I think we’re done,” she told him.

  “I like to be thorough.” He aimed the spray at her breasts, where her nipples were already hard from the cold and poking at the stretchy material.

  She grabbed the hose, turning the nozzle off.

  “Spoilsport.” His gaze took in her drenched jeans. “Whoops, looks like you need to get out of those.”

  “I have a clean pair in the office.”

  “Damn. There goes a perfectly good fantasy.”

  She didn’t believe it. From the look on his face, some private scenario was still playing out in his head, making her conscious of every inch of wet material clinging to her body as she walked Jack to a small corral and turned him out. The horse immediately circled, sniffing the ground for just the right spot, then fell to his knees and onto his side. Grunting with pleasure, he rolled onto his back, twisting a couple of times before completing the turn and hopping back to his feet. Head down, he shook himself off like a dog.

  T.J. laughed, leaning on the fence. Reese watched with raised eyebrows. “Well, that was a wasted effort.”

  “No, we got the sweat off, and that was the important part. Wet horses always roll.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I could give you possible reasons, but what it comes down to is they like it, so I let them do it.”

  He cleared his throat. “Interesting philosophy.”

  “I think your mind just fell into the gutter.”

  “Honey, my mind’s been in the gutter ever since you decided to turn that hose on yourself.”

  She glanced at him. His lazy stare hit her like a laser, starting a slow fire below her stomach. She backed away. “I think I’ll go find those clean jeans.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then go home.” He’d hinted, but she hadn’t actually invited him. She paused, weighing how long she could stand to be around Reese without touching him, how long she could absorb those heavy-lidded stares before giving in to the burning feeling inside her. And not caring what the answer was. “Want to come with me?”

  “Definitely.”

  9

  She couldn’t stop looking at him. Whenever she tried, turning her back as she described some feature of her old barn, she felt him behind her, sending shivers of awareness down her back. She swore every hair on the back of her neck stood on end, shifting left or right to follow him when he moved, a physical radar that never lost track of him.

  It was easier to trail behind him as he explored her barn. That way she didn’t have to pretend interest when he talked about pegged mortise and tenon joints, when all she could focus on was touching him. And laying her hand against his chest. And running her fingers through his thick, brown hair, and rubbing against his body like a contented cat. Naked.

  It was his fault. If he hadn’t turned her quick washup into a sex fantasy, her mind would never have wandered into that dangerous territory. Well, maybe not. But now that it had, she couldn’t think of anything else.

  He’d looked at her as if he felt the same way. When he pulled into her driveway and parked behind her truck, the first thing he did was stride up to her and pull her into a long kiss, his left arm circling her while his right hand found the perfect grip on her rear end. The kind of kiss that melted her from the inside out and left her body humming with need. A warning kiss. As if she didn’t already know he had more on his mind than seeing where she lived.

  She’d unintentionally distracted him with her barn. The architect in him had become excited over the century-old post-and-beam construction, insisting on exploring every inch of the building before going in her house. She understood. She really did, having considered it her special place since childhood. But she was starting to feel like that hot little Porsche he drove, primed to zoom up to top speed, then forced to putter along at a normal speed because mind-blowing, heart-pounding performance wasn’t an option.

  At least, it wasn’t supposed to be. But that was before he’d pulled her body against his and lit a fire between her thighs. That was unexpected! Not the kiss—she’d seen that coming from a mile away. But her body’s all-out response had left her stunned and off balance. She decided it was a good thing. It meant that whatever was between them was physical, not emotional, and according to her recently added footnote, that didn’t break her rule. Guys didn’t have to be local as long as there was no emotional involvement.

  T.J. squinted one eye, giving Reese’s broad back and tight ass a thoughtful look. This was physical, all right. No doubt about it.

  Reese slapped a hand against a post, making her blink to attention. “Still solid as a rock. This place is great.”

  “I know. I like that it has trapdoors in the loft so I can drop hay directly into the stalls, which saves me some work.”

  His eyes lit up with interest as he looked at the boards over his head. “Can we go up there?”

  “Sure. There’s a narrow staircase over here.”

  She followed him up. Hazy light trickled through small windows, almost completely blocked by stacks of hay bales that reached to the rafters. Where occasional sunbeams speared through the bales, dust motes drifted, suspended in light. Long ago someone had strung electric wires and lights down the length of the center beam, but she left them off. The dim atmosphere seemed to go with the silence of the loft.

  At her feet, a calico cat appeared from between the bales, winding herself around T.J.’s ankles in greeting. Across the top of the hay bales, she caught a glimpse of the half-wild gray cat slinking away. She crouched to stroke the calico while Reese explored, touching beams and posts with a look of almost reverent awe on his face. “This is a fantastic structure,” he told her. “Someone took good care of this barn.”

  “Several someones. I’m the seventh owner. My grandfather was the sixth. His father was the fifth.”

  “What about your father?”

  “My mother. It’s her side of the family, but she doesn’t care much for rural life. My parents live in Golden.” She stood and joined him at the far end of the loft, her footsteps muted by the cushion of hay covering the floor, loose wisps and chaff from the three hundred bales that crowded the loft.

  Reese drew her into his arms as he looked around. “I’ve never been in a hayloft before. It’s comfortable in a strange way. Peaceful.” He smiled down at her, almost self-consciously. “I suppose that sounds odd to you. You’re used to it.”

  “No, it has the same effect on me.” It touched her that he felt it. She hadn’t expected
it from the Ivy-League-schooled architect from Boston. It might only be for the quality and endurance of her barn, but she took a chance that it was more than that, that she could share the best part with him. Taking his hand she pulled him to the shuttered opening at the end of the loft where conveyor belts deposited the bales from the hay wagons below. Unlatching the five-foot-high wooden shutters, she pushed them open, letting the late afternoon sunlight pour in.

  Reese stepped to her side slowly, as if hypnotized by the vista, and she pulled him down beside her. With their legs dangling over the edge, they gazed at the view.

  Below and to the left, her horse pasture stretched out, with her small house on the right, near the narrow ribbon of road. Beyond her property, meadowland spread for another half mile, dotted with trees and her neighbor’s cows, until the rocky slopes of Tappit’s Peak took over. Barringer’s Pass lay out of sight, in the narrow valley behind them, but here, in the open stretch where the valley spread out, lay nothing but hardy mountain grasses and the snow-topped peaks beyond.

  T.J. took a deep breath, letting the familiar comfort wash over her, soaking deep into her bones. She never failed to find contentment here, and the corny but real feeling that something in her had been renewed. She couldn’t put it into words, but stole a tentative glance at Reese to see if he understood. Knowing that a simple, “Gee, that’s pretty,” would crush her.

  He said nothing. He didn’t even look at her, but his arm came around her waist and drew her against his side. She snuggled close enough to feel the beating of his heart and the rise and fall of each breath as he gazed over the valley. For one brief moment she closed her eyes, smiling at the relief she felt, then spent the next ten minutes watching with him as the sun slipped below the mountains, leaving a rosy pink-and-orange glow.

  He turned finally, his face inches from hers as he cupped her cheek and dipped his head, kissing her softly. It was still light enough to see him clearly, and his slow smile made her shiver with delight. Or maybe it was the fingertips he stroked down her face and neck. “Thanks for sharing all this with me,” he said, the words brushing like warm feathers against her forehead as he placed another kiss there. “I know it’s part of you, and that means a lot.”

  Something inside her melted into an almost giddy happiness. She hadn’t needed to tell him how special this place was to her, he’d understood, and even found his own reasons to appreciate it. The happiness quickly turned into something that felt an awful lot like lust, reminding her of that other thing she’d been thinking of sharing with him.

  Acting on impulse, she slipped her hand around his neck and pulled his head back down, melding her lips to his. It was like flipping a switch. Within two seconds she was pressed against him while his mouth devoured hers and his hand sought her breast. Her mind spun as she realized Reese had been balanced on that same fine edge between affection and desire, and he dove over it without hesitation.

  She twisted onto her knees and arched against him, fingers plunging into his hair while her mouth opened to his questing tongue. A kaleidoscope of sensations hit—his taste; his scent; a faint hint of lime from his hair; and his body heat, radiant and strong in contrast to the breeze that was cooling with the evening. Beneath it all, she felt the taut muscles of his shoulders and back, giving an impression of strength kept under tight control. A wild urge swept over her, a desire to loosen the bonds on that control, to let him take all he wanted. To take her.

  Breathing heavily, she pushed him away with both hands. He drew back, brow puckered, jaw hard. He started to reach out, then stopped, clenching his hand with an even stronger control as his forehead creased in confusion. His eyes were dark, hooded, but she saw the question there, and the edge of the annoyance he’d feel if she suddenly called a halt.

  She had no intention of doing that. Taking hold of her sports bra, she tugged upward, forcing the tight material over her head with one swift pull. He wouldn’t have hesitated to pull it off, she knew, but the stretchy fabric was hard to manage, and she was too impatient to wait through awkward attempts.

  His brow cleared instantly and his eyes went to her breasts. His gaze drank her in, frank and intense, and her nipples drew into hard buds. The weight of her breasts felt magnified by the sudden loss of support, and by a swelling need to be in his hands. His gaze set off tiny electric shocks that zipped down below her belly to the heat pooling between her thighs. Heart pounding, she waited.

  His eyes lifted to her face, searching and serious. The want was obvious, and barely restrained, and oh, God, it was going to drive her mad if he didn’t hurry up and do something about it. Just when she thought she’d have to throw herself at him, he took her hand and drew her close until her breasts brushed his chest, the sensitive nipples sending more shocks rocketing through her. She caught her breath, then bit her lip, concentrating on not rubbing against him.

  “Understand this,” he told her, his raspy voice holding her as much as his unwavering gaze. “You drive me crazy, T.J., but I know exactly what I’m doing and this is not some momentary impulse.”

  Her thought processes were clouded by a few pressing demands from her body, but she got it. He’d asked her once before who had hurt her. He must have concluded that she’d been a victim of momentary passion, the kind men later shrugged off as meaningless. Well, it had never been that momentary or meaningless, but the end result was the same—she’d been left. More than once.

  She wanted to tell him she didn’t care, that she was okay with momentary impulses. That in fact, she thought impulsive sex might be the way to go, protecting her emotions but satisfying the kind of wild desire she felt with Reese. But that would take several seconds, maybe a whole minute, and she might explode before it was over, so she just nodded her head that she understood. And agreed. Whatever would make him touch her the way she needed him to.

  It was enough for him. He lowered his mouth to her breast and she sucked in a breath at the jolt of pleasure and the answering tug below. As she groaned at the rush of heat, he laid her back on the floor of the loft and continued his attentions. Dry hay scratched against her back, but couldn’t distract her from what he was doing to her front. She closed her eyes, soaking in the sensations of his hot mouth and smooth fingers, then choking back a laugh at the thought that he shouldn’t be setting her on fire in the midst of so much highly combustible material.

  He trailed a string of kisses up to her neck and lifted his head. “Was that a laugh?”

  “No. Take your shirt off.”

  He knelt above her, whipping through the buttons, then peeling the shirt off and tossing it aside. She had her hands on him before he bent over her again, smoothing her palms over the hardness of his chest, and stroking down the length of his back. Nice, but not enough. Slipping her hands between them, she started working at the button on his jeans.

  It wasn’t easy, with him sliding down her body and shorting out her brain cells. His thumb did delicious things to one nipple as he licked the other one, and her fingers fumbled before finally remembering how to unbutton and unzip. It didn’t do her much good—his erection pressed against the front of his jeans so tightly she couldn’t fit her hand inside. She stroked the length of it through the denim, and by the third stroke he rose to his knees, breathing hard.

  Framed against the last of the day’s light, hair tousled from her fingers, he took her breath away. He looked at her for several seconds, expression tightening with concern, which seemed odd, considering the situation.

  “I always use a condom,” he finally said, tension straining his voice.

  That was it? “Good.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Oh.” Oh, shit. His expression reflected the same sentiment as soon as he realized she wasn’t going to magically pull one from her pocket. She was pretty sure her heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds until she thought it through. “I’ve always used one, too, plus the pill. We’re okay.”

  He exhaled a deep breath and any hint of h
esitation dropped away in a fraction of a second. He stood, pulled off his boots, followed by his jeans and briefs. She watched as she sat up to do the same. The long legs and tight butt that had made him look so good in jeans looked even better without them. And the rest of the package . . . her mouth went dry with anticipation. It was possible that being framed against a Rocky Mountain sunset made Reese look better than he would have in her bedroom—but not likely. You couldn’t improve on perfection.

  She was wriggling her jeans over her hips when he knelt in front of her and made quick work of it by pulling on the legs. As he flung the jeans aside, she grabbed for his shirt and spread it over the floor, lying back on top of it.

  He knelt over her, smiling. “A roll in the hay’s not all it’s cracked up to be, huh?”

  “It has nothing to do with the hay, it’s all in the roll.” She gave him a slow smile. “Roll me.”

  He lowered himself, but his kiss went on her breast, not her lips, while his fingers went lower still. He slid one inside her, then out again, spreading the wetness as she breathed a soft “Oh” and closed her eyes. He repeated it, slowly, sending ripples of pleasure through overly sensitized flesh, and making her arch against his hand.

  She opened her eyes to find his gaze locked on hers. “Come here,” she said, reaching for him. He did, holding himself over her as he kissed her, a long, deep kiss that only increased the throbbing wetness between her legs. “Reese,” she said, leaving the rest unspoken.

  His eyes never left hers as he reached between them, positioning himself. Then he lowered his body until his heat merged with hers and the thumping of his heart vibrated against her ribs as he slid inside her.

  She closed her eyes again because it felt so good, and because looking at Reese made her think about him rather than what he was doing, which was too dangerous if she was going to keep this purely physical.

  What he was doing was more than enough. He moved slowly, driving her crazy with increasing need. Hooking her heels over his thighs, she pushed against him, urging him to go faster. “More,” she whispered.