Adrienne deWolfe - [Wild Texas Nights 03] (24 page)

Please, God, no more pranks from her tonight...

He popped the first boot from her foot, and it gushed water. She giggled. He poured another inch from the second one, much to her delight. He smiled wryly.

Then she was pulling the quilt tighter around her shoulders and snuggling under his arm.

"Uh, Bailey..." He swallowed, his amusement ebbing as she dropped her head back on his shoulder. Her heat, far more alluring than the incipient fire, lapped over him. "Don't you think you'd be warmer out of those wet clothes?"

She sighed, a blustery, contented sound, and turned her face up to his. "Okay."

Okay?
He gazed blankly at her expectant expression for a moment before he realized she'd just given him permission to undress her.

He blushed to the roots of his hair.

"Uh, what I meant was, you should go back by the bed to undress while I finish building the fire."

She pouted, sliding her cheek closer to the throbbing vein in his throat. Her breaths gusted in steamy little bursts over his tingling skin.

"I want to stay here with ye."

God knew, that was what he wanted too. His traitorous hand had already begun stroking her hair, smoothing its long, wet tangles down her spine and over the soft, sweet swell of her hip.

"Bailey," he murmured, fighting the tremor in his hands as he gripped her shoulders and shifted her firmly, reluctantly, away from him. "You're making this too damned hard on me."

"I am?" She looked for all the world like she was perplexed, even confused by his confession. "I dinna mean to." Dropping her gaze to her bodice, which had sagged just low enough to reveal a tantalizing frill of the lace on her chemise, she shrugged out of the quilt and reached for the buttons on her shirt. "Here. I'll help."

Zack tried not to gape. The cotton parted beneath her fumbling fingers like shucks of maize, and the mounds of her breasts, as pale gold as corn silk, glimmered in the firelight. He blamed the moonshine for his unnaturally slow protest, particularly when she pushed her shirt off her arms, leaving only her transparent undergarments to shield her from his stare.

"Is that better?" she whispered, the tiniest bit breathless. He noticed the goose bumps that sprinkled her skin. Then his gaze was lured by two shimmering pools of indigo, inviting him to dive in. He was nearly undone by the longing in her stare.

Like a drowning man fighting his way to the surface for the third and final time, he grabbed the quilt and pulled it back around her shoulders. "Bailey, honey, you're cold. And you need to sleep."

She leaned within the circle of his arms, a frown puckering her brow. "But I dinna want to sleep. I dinna think you do either," she added with a pointed glance at his crotch.

He didn't need to follow her gaze to know his body was straining to get closer, much closer than even she had dared, and there wasn't much he could do about it except ride out the rising storm.

"Wanting something doesn't make it right or proper," he said in a gravelly voice. "And you know it too. If your father were alive, I'd be picking buckshot out of my behind right now."

"Is that what's got ye strung tighter than a fiddle string? The ghost of my daddy?" Her eyes sparkled, laughing at him in pure pleasure. "Zachariah Rawlins, ye are a special man. And I thank ye for caring enough to want to do the right thing. That means a lot to me." She smiled softly, touching the hair that peeked in rain-swirled curls from his neckline. "I dinna care what anyone else thinks though, Zack. Ye know that."

He swallowed hard. She'd certainly always acted like she didn't care....

She slipped the first button on his shirt. Then the second. His skin shivered under the caress of her work-roughened hands.

"Do ye know how long I've wanted to touch ye like this?" she whispered, sliding her hand beneath the damp folds of fabric, trailing her fingers through the tufts of hair that sprinkled his chest.

"Bailey—"

"I knew ye were the one to wait for," she said, her voice unmistakably breathless now. "I knew it the first day I laid eyes on ye. I tried so hard to make ye notice me, but I never could compete with Caitlin."

"Bailey, that's not true," he whispered, his heart leaping as her hand paused, trembling, above his buckle.

Her palm inched lower, excruciatingly slow. If she had been any other woman, he would have described her petting as timid, uncertain. But he knew Bailey and her reputation. The notion that she might have had more lovers than he was unnerving.

She hesitated another second, and he held his breath, his heart beating in a frenzied rhythm. Then her direction abruptly changed, abandoning the path to his fly. He nearly strangled on the rush of air from his lungs. Her teasing was driving him crazy.

"What do ye like, Zack? Show me."

With both hands, she was gathering fistfuls of cotton, tugging the tail of his shirt from his jeans. The rough hemline dragged over his buttocks and grazed his groin; the final two buttons scraped the underside of his fly, making him twitch. He ached to grab the brass square that winked so enticingly from her own belt.

As consolation, he reached unsteadily for her face, brushing his finger across the satiny flesh, cupping her cheek in his hand. "Kiss me," he answered hoarsely. "I like to be kissed."

She obliged, throwing her arms around his neck and scooting closer until her knees circled his hips. The knowledge that he need only lift her onto his lap to rub against the apex of her thighs was a merciless temptation, and his mind spun, as intoxicated by the idea as he was by the unabashed eagerness of her kiss.

She took him deep into her mouth, treating him to a feast of sensual pressures while she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, kneading his arms, his back, his buttocks. The strength of her hands was an electrifying surprise after the fluttery prodding he'd born from Amaryllis. He liked the way Bailey gripped him, stroked him, boldly communicated her own desires. Lured precariously off center, he rocked forward, and when she wrapped her legs around his waist, he toppled, driving her shoulders into the quilt.

He heard her tiny gasp as his hardness sank into her tender places, and he reveled in the way she pressed back, arching her spine, flattening her breasts against his chest. This was a woman who knew what she wanted, not some calf-eyed virgin who needed him to figure out what pleased her. Not that he'd ever had a virgin before, he reminded himself dimly, sliding a shaking hand beneath her buttocks, tipping her hips and rubbing his ache into the sweet, steamy heat that promised blessed relief. The worst he'd ever allowed himself with a virgin was a fondled breast. He would never have dreamed of grinding his arousal into an innocent's skirts—or jeans.

Bailey whimpered, squeezing her knees to pull him lower. He obliged with a heady rush. Moving his hips in a teasing rhythm, he tickled her ear with his tongue, sucking the velvet hollow until she squirmed. He liked the way her nipples jutted past the wilted lace of her chemise and burrowed into his flesh. He liked the clinking when her buckle scraped his; the crashing of her heart against his ribs; the ripping of her breath below his ear. But what he liked most of all was the dampness that sizzled, growing ever hotter between them.

Her willingness to be mounted was a dangerous enticement. He found himself peeling the muslin from her flushed and puckered breasts. She helped him, rolling the tangled undergarment past her waist and kicking it from her feet. Then she reared up, clutching his belt. His pulse careened at her eagerness. As wildly as he wanted to oblige, he still worried about his technique. He wanted to satisfy her too, not just quench his own desire. So, brushing her hands away, he pushed her shoulders down and fastened his mouth to her nipple.

His name tore from her lips. His nerves fired at the sound, and his pecker chafed against its denim prison, straining to be free. He didn't know how much longer he could withstand the way she writhed and mewed before he started tearing at the buttons on her fly. She'd twined one hand through his hair, tugging it mindlessly in her rising ardor; the other she used to torment him, squeezing his buttocks, scratching his back. With each foray to his waistband, she grew increasingly bolder, working her fevered hand beneath his belt, trying to stroke him. When she succeeded, loosing a throaty growl, he gave up any hope of a tame mating.

"Bailey." He grabbed her wrist, halting the explorations that were costing him his sanity. "Know this." Drawing a shuddering breath, he caught her chin and forced her eyes to meet his. "A man can't stop after a certain point. And I'm at that point now."

A vein hammered in her throat. He watched her eyes for any hint of uncertainty. They'd turned so darkly blue, he could see his reflection, see his own primal urgency like a feral mask upon his face.

She licked her lips. "It's about time," she whispered hoarsely. "I passed my point when ye stuck yer tongue inside my ear."

He should have blushed, but instead he grinned. He couldn't help himself. She was shameless, God help him, and he thrilled to the prospect of riding her out, wet and wild as she bucked beneath him.

"Wrap your legs around my waist," he commanded.

She obeyed, and he rose on all fours, his mouth feasting on hers. With a surge of power that made his head spin, he heaved himself to his feet and strode to the bed. She clasped him tighter, riding higher on his hips, and her spreading female parts bumped in rhythmic invitation against his sensitive head. It was more than he could bear.

He toppled, tearing at her buckle even as he pressed her to the sheets. Panting, she was quick to imitate him. The rational part of him that still remained thought it right and just that he was having the same frenzied effect on her that she'd been having on him for what seemed like forever. He assured himself he would spill his seed so there would be no danger, no regrets, no scandal for her to shoulder. She would be safe, and none of the voters need ever know he'd had this ruinous, one-night affair.

She was swollen, wet, sensitized to his slightest caress. To find her so ready, so eager beyond his bawdiest fantasies, fanned his hunger to a ravenous pitch. He didn't waste much time on fondling; he gripped her hips, dragged her lower, and plunged into the creamy fire of her core.

The yelp that tore from her throat nearly shattered his eardrum.

For a moment, an awful, heart-gutting moment, he froze, his fogged mind trying to make sense of her pain. Thinking perhaps that his weight was too great, he shifted. She whimpered, her body growing tauter than a bowstring when he repositioned himself inside her.

"Bailey..." He could hardly hear his own voice above the sawing of his breath. Blinking back the haze of liquor and lust, he focused on her face, so pale it made the white linens look colorful. She was biting her lip, her eyes nearly black with shock. Or was that fright?

"God in heaven," he choked, the specter of suspicion taking on an ugly, concrete shape. "You're a virgin!"

Confirmation was etched into every trembling line of her body.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

His voice exploded with his outrage, and she shrank, cowering beneath him. "I—I did," she retorted tremulously. "I told ye I'd always wanted ye to be the one. I thought ye understood...."

I knew ye were the one to wait for.
Her confession finally sank into his brain, taking on an ominous clarity, one that the moonshine had blurred.

Merciful God.
He hung his head, squeezing his eyes closed against the truth.
What have I done?

Her hips eased higher in a tentative, conciliatory way.

"Don't move!" he snapped, clutching great handfuls of the pillow, dragging breath after sobering breath into his lungs. Reeling with guilt, dizzy with desire, he feared he would never be able to rein in his need if she started moaning and writhing like she had on the floor.

"Zack..."

He shuddered, fighting every screaming impulse to push deeper. Half in, half out, he could go either way. And either way was a direct path to hell.

"Zack," she repeated brokenly, "please. Don't hate me."

He ground his teeth, keeping his eyes firmly shut. He couldn't brave the pain in those indigo pools. He couldn't face the consequences of his loutish stupidity just yet.

"I wanted my first time to be special," she whispered. "I've waited so long, and—and I've dreamed of this so often. Please don't leave me like this...."

Her words trailed off into a sob, and he almost cried himself. He remembered a time long ago when he'd had dreams about love, about holding a special someone through the night. But Caitlin had used him, and Marybeth had jaded him. The occasional companionship of whores had left him cynical and aloof. He knew what it was like to have his heart carved out and his innocence stripped away.

He couldn't do that to Bailey.

Hugging her instinctively, protectively, he touched his lips to the salty dampness on her cheek.

"I don't hate you," he murmured, stroking her hair, cradling her hips. God, she felt so fragile. Why hadn't he noticed it before?

Bailey swallowed, afraid to breathe when Zack nuzzled her mouth, sipping the tear that had pooled in the corner of her lips. She really had thought he'd understood when she'd spoken of her virginity, but she'd also figured there was nothing she could do to prove the truth if he chose not to believe her. After all, she'd been riding horses, climbing trees, and falling off both of them most of her life. The chances of her virginal barrier still being intact had seemed a long shot.