A Cowboy's Woman (14 page)

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Authors: Cathy Gillen Thacker

BOOK: A Cowboy's Woman
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Shane held her through the aftershocks, then sank down onto the straw, and in one easy movement, drew her down onto his lap. He cradled her in his arms, kissing her hair, holding her close, tenderly stroking her arms, her back. Waiting for some signal from her. Some deliberate decision. She knew she could still call a halt and he would honor her wishes. Not that it would be easy for either of them. Both her dress and panties were
still half-off, and he was rock hard, straining the front of his jeans.
He leaned back to better see her face. Regarding her tenderly, he tucked her hair behind her ear. “What are you thinking?”
Greta moved her legs restlessly, still aching with the need to be filled. Slowly she grinned. “That this is one time you better finish what you've started, Shane McCabe.”
 
SHANE THREW BACK HIS HEAD and gave a full-blooded laugh that filled Greta with feminine confidence. “I think that can be arranged.”
“And one more thing,” Greta cautioned as they spread the blankets out over the straw, making a nice cozy bed for themselves. He'd given her the confidence to be aggressive, too, and finished, she shimmied out of her panties, kicked them aside. Shane reached behind her, dispensed with the zipper on her dress, then lifted it over her head, tossed it on the floor. His eyes darkened appreciatively as his gaze drifted over her, hotly skimming her breasts, waist, hips, the shadowy vee between her thighs. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely.
For the first time in her life, Greta felt beautiful, inside as well as out. For the first time, she felt good enough. Able to please. The knowledge worried her as much as it pleased. What if this didn't last? How hard it would be to go back....
As if sensing her sudden uncertainty, Shane lifted his hand to her mouth. His thumb traced the seam of her lips, and she began to tremble. Greta tugged the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans, dispensed with the buttons one at a time. Parting the edges of the fabric,
she ran her hands across his chest. Delighting in the swirls of hair covering the sculpted muscles. “Just so you know,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss her way down his chest, lingering over the hard pectoral muscles and tight abs before finding the flat male nipples with her lips and tongue. “This doesn't change anything.” Even though in her heart she knew damn well it did. “We're still not really married,” she asserted stubbornly, doing her best to protect them both from any future hurt and disappointment, in case the odds were right and this arrangement of theirs didn't work out.
“Fine with me.” Shane sucked in his breath as she stripped off his shirt, letting it fall next to the crumpled circle of her dress, and undid his belt. He regarded her with a mixture of heat and tenderness that set her blood to racing. “I never wanted to be married, anyway.”
“Neither did I.”
He couldn't hold back a smile as she knelt before him, took off his boots, then tugged off his jeans. Greta paused, her hand sliding beneath the elastic of his low-slung black briefs. He was hard as a rock beneath her palm. “Then we're in agreement?” She ran her lips down his thighs, felt them tremble and tense.
“Absolutely.” Shane groaned and caught her head in his hands.
Senses swimming with the musky male scent of him, Greta peeled off his briefs. “This is lovemaking pure and simple.” Greta rose on her knees, and found him with her mouth. She traced the hot satiny skin, learning the mysteries of him with lips and teeth and tongue, knowing with Shane it was safe to be as wild and wanton as she had always wanted to be. “We are not—I repeat,
not
—consummating our marriage,” she told him, and
felt him throb with wanting her just as she had with wanting him.
“Agreed,” Shane said hoarsely, dropping down onto the blanket beside her and rolling so she was beneath him.
Greta sighed her relief. Her emotions soaring, she accepted the warm, wonderful weight of him over her. “As long as we've got that straight,” she said loving the way he felt as he fit his body's hard planes to the dips and curves of hers.
“Oh, we do,” Shane whispered. Parting her knees with his, he settled more deeply between them. Then his lips were on hers, and his hands were beneath her hips, lifting and positioning her. She felt his manhood poised to enter, pulsing against her. The climax she'd felt minutes earlier came roaring back. Neither of them could hold back. Greta moaned and bucked, and he plunged into her, burying himself to the hilt, making it an all or nothing proposition with each slow stroke. There was nothing soft or gentle about the way they came together then. What stunned her was the knowledge she felt the same wild abandon and primitive need as Shane. Then it was all so hot and fast there was no time for thought. No time for anything but hot kisses and hotter mating.
Clinging to him, to the passion and excitement he offered, she dug her fingers into his back and moved her hips to match the commanding rhythm of his. Over and over he loved her, until a cry of exultation rose in her throat. He felt her tremble and clench around him, and then all was lost and all was found in the wild recklessness that defined their marriage.
 
SHANE WOKE SHORTLY AFTER DAWN. Greta was still sleeping soundly, curled in his arms, and he was in no
hurry to wake her. The truth was it felt damn good, sleeping with her this way, even on a makeshift bed of straw. And that surprised him, almost as much as their passion. They'd made love repeatedly throughout the night, each time better and more satisfying than the last. She hadn't trusted their incredible chemistry at first, any more than he had. But when they began to lose count of how many times they'd each climaxed, there was no denying it. The two of them were meant for each other, at least in bed. And maybe out of it, too. Which was, of course, the rub.
He wasn't quite certain what he'd expected when he'd convinced her to join him in this escapade—wallflower or hellion—or something in between. He did know he'd never. expected her to be so innocent and eager to be tutored in the ways of love, so unabashedly amorous yet vulnerable, all at once. To the point he didn't know whether he wanted to tame her or take her under his wing. And that confused the hell out of him, too. Before this, he'd never had trouble extricating himself from a woman when the time was right. But this time it wasn't going to be that way. And that had nothing to do with their marriage. It had to do with how she made him feel—as though he wanted to be a part of her life. Not just for now, not for some silly self-serving reason, but for all time. And just how hokey was that? Shane wondered, aggravated with his romantic musings.
He had no more time to contemplate it, though, as Greta groaned and stretched sinuously against him. “What time is it?”
Shane consulted his watch and tried not to think how warm and taut and utterly feminine her body felt. “Almost seven-thirty.” It was all he could do not to haul her beneath him and kiss her long and hard and deep.
But if he did that again, they'd never leave here. Not to mention the fact that with daylight—and horses set to be delivered later that morning, plus a whole host of nosy family itching to get involved in his and Greta's marriage on a daily, hourly basis—came the possibility they could be walked in on.
Greta moaned and, still clasping the blanket to the enticing swell of her breasts, pushed to a sitting position “I've got to get up and get going.” She pushed the tangle of blond curls from her eyes.
Shane damned the arousal already starting. “Busy day?”
Greta nodded and for the first time since they'd started making love, averted her eyes. As he watched her uncurl herself from the blankets and search for her clothes, he knew she felt as confused by all that had happened the night before as he did, now that morning was upon them. And that being the case, maybe it was best they talked about it.
“Something bothering you?” Shane asked.
“Well, actually—” Greta bit her lip and looked over at him uncertainly “—yes, there is.”
Shane shrugged on his shirt, briefs, and jeans. When Greta said nothing more, he urged, “Keep going.”
Greta dropped the blanket just long enough to shimmy into her bra, panties and dress. “Does what we did last night mean we can't get an annulment?”
Shane shrugged.
“Well, obviously we can't get one for not consummating the marriage,” he told her kindly, understanding her concern, even if he was no longer sure he shared her desire for a speedy end to their marriage, “but we probably could still get one on fraud, seeing as how we didn't
really mean our vows when we said them the other night.”
Greta turned away and knelt to slip on her sandals. To Shane's chagrin, she still looked confused and upset. Before he could do more to comfort her, though, he heard the sound of a car coming up the lane. He stepped out of the stall and looked around the open stable doors.
“Who is it?” Greta asked, as she hurriedly picked the straw out of her hair and did her best to restore order with her hands.
Shane sighed. “My father.” And he didn't look any happier to be there than Shane was to have him. Together, he and Greta walked out of the stables. They met up with John in the courtyard. He greeted them pleasantly, then said, “Greta, if you don't mind, I'd like a word with my son in private.”
Shane knew that tone. It had been used a lot in his youth, usually after some escapade or another.
Greta nodded at John in agreement. She looked at Shane, then reached over and squeezed his hand in a way that said whatever happened, or had happened, they were still in this together. She promised softly, “I'll be inside.”
 
GRETA WENT INSIDE, raced to the kitchen and hurriedly put on coffee. Finished, she returned to the front porch, intending to ask them both to come inside where father and son could talk in a more relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately it was already too late. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could see the looks on their faces as they parted company and John left. Whatever they'd talked about had not been pleasant. She waited for Shane to join her on the porch. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Lips compressed thinly, Shane turned on his heel and headed for the stables.
Knowing it probably concerned her, too, Greta followed him into the stable. “You don't look okay.” Shane was silent as he knelt to pick up one of the blankets they'd wrapped themselves in the night before. “What did your dad say?” Greta persisted, picking up the other end of the blanket.
“The usual,” Shane said tensely. They folded the blanket in two, and then again. “That they expected a lot more from me.”
Greta's fingers touched his as she transferred the folded blanket over to him. “It's about our staged spat last night, isn't it?”
Shane looped the first blanket over the stall door, then reached for another. He said nothing, and if it hadn't been for the slight tightening at the corners of his mouth, she might have believed he hadn't heard her. “I'm sorry.” Greta reached down to help him fold another. “I never meant to cause trouble between you and your folks.”
Hurt flared in his eyes, then was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “This isn't anything new, Greta,” Shane sighed. “I've been a disappointment to them from the day I was born.”
The sadness and discouragement in his eyes cut her to the quick. More so because she knew, even if he didn't, that it wasn't true. “How can you say that?” Greta scolded. She helped him carry the folded blankets back to the tack room. “I know how proud they are of you and all your accomplishments. You were the PCRA's world all-around champion seven years in a row before you stepped down from the pro rodeo circuit.” And he'd broken records doing so.
Shane picked up one of the boxes he'd brought home from his shopping expedition the previous day and ripped it open. “How'd you know that?”
Greta flushed, embarrassed to realize her long-running crush on Shane had caught up with her again. “I uh...kept up.” Greta forged on determinedly, helping him shelve the equine supplies he'd purchased. Bridles, bits, vitamins, shampoo, first aid kit. “According to my mother, your folks brag about you—about all their sons—all the time, including you, Shane.”
“Yeah,” Shane frowned as he pulled out jars of liniment and rolls of thick white gauze, “but I'm the one who disappointed them. They put a high price on education and academic achievement. And although I did okay, I was never interested in school. I always wanted to be outside with the horses. When I refused to go to college, and instead went off to try my hand on the professional rodeo circuit, there were a few years where we barely spoke.”
Greta'd had disagreements with her parents, plenty of them over the years, but never anything like that. She could only imagine how painful that must have been for all the McCabes. “But eventually...” she protested, wanting somehow to make this better for him.
“Eventually, yes,” Shane said impatiently, whirling around to face her, “they forgave me for that, when I became successful and my earnings topped the million-dollar mark, and they discovered I had socked enough money away to buy this ranch and start my own business. But I think deep down they're still disappointed that I haven't gone to college and studied agribusiness—like my brother Travis—or settled down and gotten married.” His eyes shimmered with hurt. Greta knew what that felt like, too. And her heart went out to him.

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