Capturing the Cowboy's Heart (22 page)

“
You don’t have to
b
athe in the pond,” he
admitted, his breathing ragged
.

She rose up to run the tip of her tongue across his lips.  “Why not?”  

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to rein in his desire.  “Because it was a joke.”  

“Your kiss?”

Opening his eyes he looked down into those same gold-flecked eyes he had dreamed about every night since Lacy came into his life.  “No
, that was real. 
I’m talking about
us convincing you that you had to bathe
in the pond.  The hot water works at the house.  You just have to fiddle with the
tank to get it going sometimes
.
”

“So you lied to me?”

Hell.  “
Burk and I were just trying to have some fun with you.”

Instead of shoving him away, s
he rose up on her toes and leaned closer to run her tongue across his lips.  “So are you
?”

“Am I?”  She was making it damn hard to think.

“H
aving fun with me?
” she repeated with a teasing roll of her hips.  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?
”

“I never meant for it to go this far,” he admitted guiltily. 

“I don’t mind.  I was hot.  Aren’t you?” she asked as her hands moved down the front of his shirt.

“Very.” 
He
gave in to his desire
and
slid his hands down over her scantily clad backside. 
Lowering his head, he whispered,
“You make me hot, Dalton
.
”

“Good.”  Lacy placed her hands, palms flattened, against Cade’s bare chest. 
Then s
he lifted her mouth to his, but instead of kissing him, she shoved with all her might.  

He fell backwards, arms flailing, into the pond.  A second later,
he
came up sputtering angrily. 
Pushing
the wet hair from his face
, he
looked up at her with a scowl.  “What the hell was that for?”

She stood at the water’s edge, arms crossed.  “
That
was to help cool you off.  And for your information, these aren’t my skivvies.  It happens to be my bikini.  So it looks like the joke’s on you, cowboy.”

“Some joke,” he muttered.

“Oh, dear, what was I thinking?” she said with a playful grin.  “You aren’t wearing your bathing suit.  Nothing worse than wearing wet jeans around.”  She shook her head, tsk-ing as she did so.

He
looked up at her, beads of w
ater
running down his face and shirt.  “Wet denim chafes, you know.”

She
smothered a giggle.  “Sorry.”

He didn’t appear to find the situation quite as amusing as she did.  But instead of giving her a piece of his mind as she expected, Cade began to undo the last few buttons on his shirt.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she watched his long fingers work the buttons free one by one.

“I’m taking off my shirt.”

The wet cotton
parted to reveal his wet, muscular chest, then
slid
slowly
down his arms.  He tossed it
on
to the bank where it landed by her feet in a spray of water.

Lacy looked up to see his hand move down to the fly of his pants.  “Now what are you doing?” 

He waded toward her as his fingers flicked open the button on his jeans.  “I’m taking off my pants.”

Her pulse skittered wildly.  “Why?”

He
offered up that devilish grin that never failed to make her knees weak.  Metal rasped on metal as he dragged the zipper slowly downward.  “Might as well wash up while I’m in here.”

Rivulets of water streamed down
through
the patch of dark curls on his b
road
chest, disappearing beneath the waistband of the briefs at the open fly of his jeans. 

Her
mouth went dry.

“I...I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she argued weakly, unable to take her eyes from
that damp
,
lean, very hard
body. 

His
boots sailed past her
in a spray of water
.

“Cade,” she exclaimed.

A second later, his
jeans landed at her feet.

Oh, God!

She became a part of the ground.  Rooted there, unable to move even if she wanted to.

She didn’t want to.

Her gaze s
lid down
to the clinging white briefs.  No underwear model had ever looked that good, or filled them out so well. 

T
aking advantage of her preoccupation with his briefs, Cade reached out and
snagged
her wrist.

Lacy gasped.  “What
do you think
...”
her words trailed off. 
The bad boy gleam in his eyes said it all.  “You wouldn’t dare!”

Her cries followed her into the water.  This time it was her who came up sputtering only to be greeted by Cade’s all-too-sexy cowboy grin.

“Thought you looked a little hot yourself, Dalton,” he said with a
husky chuckle
.  “Can’t have my employees getting all overheated.  Besides, it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good pond on such a nice afternoon.”

She
glared up at him through a curtain of wet, sagging curls.  “That was a dirty trick.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a
grin.
“I know.”

“Remind me to make a note of that in my story.  Cowboys don’t play fair.”

He arched a dark brow.  “Wouldn’t that sort of be like the pot calling the kettle black?  You pushed me in first if I remember right.”

“Yeah, but you deserved it.”

“Maybe so.”

She reached up to push the hair from her face. 
Big mistake.
  Now her vision was clear to move over Cade’s sun-browned skin. 
She wasted no time in taking in those
broad, perfectly sculpted shoulders and then
her gaze fell to that
spattering of crisp black hair
that ran down his chest, tapering as it
disappeared beneath the straining cotton of his briefs.   

“Funny, Dalton,” he said, his voice thick as he pulled her up against him, “but you still look hot.” 

It was the same teasing manner she had used on him, but he was so right.  Her body temperature had gone up so much it was a wonder the pond wasn’t steaming. 

His hands moved down the curve of her back, searing her flesh.  “Are you hot,
Dalton
?”

Do birds fly?  Does the sun set in the west?  Do leopards have spots?
  Oh, God, was she hot.
 

“Cade, you really shouldn’t be in here in just your...”  Her gaze dropped down and her pulse quickened even more.  “Your underwear.”

His smile widened.  “You know, you’re right.”  Releasing her, he reached down to hook his thumbs inside the waistband of his briefs.

With a gasp, she reached for his hands to still them.  “What do you think you’re doing?” 

Despite her panicked protest, he worked the water-soaked cotton down over his lean hips
, tossing them to the bank
.  “I’m taking your advice.”

“Cade!”
she
exclaimed, wishing her hands weren’t brushing against his heated flesh...skin that felt incredibly hot in contrast to the cool water.

“What is it now, Dalton?” he asked, amusement flickering in his eyes.  “If you want me to kiss you, just say so.”

“Ooh!  You are the most arrogant...most...” 

“Kiss you?  My pleasure.” 
He
dragged her up against him and covered her mouth with his.

She responded by clasping her hands about his neck and opening for him, giving him full rein to taste her mouth again, to feel her again as she brushed up against him. 
Bare
flesh to near
ly
bare
flesh.  Cade was fire and she was so ready to burn. 

His hair-roughened skin brushed against hers sending tremors of delight rippling through her body.  Like a man starved, his mouth sought hers over and over.  And when he pressed closer, she could feel the undeniable evidence of his desire as he moved against her. 

A low groan sounded deep in
his
throat and it was then Lacy realized he wasn’t the one moving.  It was her own traitorous body, silently pleading for more of what she knew only Cade could give her.

As if in answer to her pleas, his hands moved down to cover her backside, holding her to him as his hips rocked slowly against hers,
his erection trapped thick and hard between them.  The
sensual
movement sen
t
shards of pleasure splintering through her.

Cade was sure he was dreaming
. 
He’d never been so mindless with passion.  Ever.
  He shouldn’t want
her this much
.  Shouldn’t need her like the earth needs the rain, like...

“Lacy,”
he
groaned. 

She grasped his face between her hands, eagerly returning his kiss, opening her mouth to the
urgent
, teasing strokes of his tongue.

His hands
skimmed
the gentle curve of her hips and the sliver of material that ran across them.  His thumbs caressed her skin.  “
Your skin is s
o smooth.”

She
caught the lobe of his ear between her teeth and suckled it gently as she moved against him like a cat, begging to be stroked.

“You’re killing me, Dalton.”

“Is it possible to die from wanting?” she asked, the words a whisper against his lips.  Her trembling hands found their way between them, flattening on his chest. 

He closed his eyes as those same hands moved over his burning flesh.  His control was dangling precariously at the edge of no return.  And when her fingers stopped to explore the hard, flat male nipples that control nearly shattered.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
he gasped.

She looked up through half-lidded eyes, dark with passion.  “Yes.  I’m trying to make you burn the way I’m burning
for you
right now.”  Her tongue replaced her fingers.

“Dalton, all I have to do is think of you and I catch fire.” 
He slid
the slender straps of her bikini top
down over
her shoulders
, freeing her breasts
.  “Prepare to feel my heat.”

Cupping them, he
caress
ed
their puckered tips until
she
whimpered
a
nd arched
into his touch, begging for more
.
  He gave her what she wanted, l
owering his head
to close
his mouth possessively over one of the rosy peaks, alternating between suckling it and circling it with his tongue. 

Her
fingers curled over the tops of his shoulders, her long nails digging deep into his flesh as she arched toward the pleasure his mouth so freely offered. 

“I need to touch you,”
he whispered huskily as he pressed the evidence of his need
into
the cradle of her hips. 

“
Yes
.”

His hand moved between them to slip beneath the skimpy lavender bikini bottom.  Cade forced his eyes shut.  She was so damn hot...so wet...so ready.

“Cade!”  Burk’s voice carried through the distant trees.

With a startled gasp,
Lacy pushed away, struggling
to right her bikini top with shaking hands
. 
Cade moved in front of her to shield her from Burk’s view as his friend burst from the trees on his horse. 

“This had better be important,” Cade growled.

“It’s the hay shed
,” Burk said, his breathing labored
. 

“What about it?”

“It caught fire.”

“What the hell do you mean it caught fire?”
he
moved toward the bank and vaulted
out of the pond, leaving Lacy behind.

Burk
paid no mind to
Cade’s nakedness.  “When I got back to the ranch I saw smoke coming
rising up from the hayshed.
”