Emmett (8 page)

“But you raise cattle, don't you?” she faltered.

“Raising cattle is big business these days, honey,” he said, the endearment, which he never used, coming so naturally with her that he hardly noticed he'd said it.

She noticed, though. Her face colored and her eyes brightened.

He touched her hair, fingering its thick, elegant length in the French plait. He wondered how it would feel to run his fingers through its thick, loosened strands at night. She didn't usually wear it down. “Honey,” he repeated. “It's an endearment that suits you. Your hair looks like wildflower honey in spots, all golden and glowing in the sunlight, Melody.”

As he spoke, he moved closer and his head began to bend. He brushed his mouth over hers until he coaxed it to open. Then he kissed her with piercing hunger, with possession.

Seconds later, she was riveted to every inch of him, held so close that she could feel him in an intimacy they'd only shared once before.

“God!” He ground out the single word, and his hand slipped under her yellow knit sweater to raid her soft
femininity. He kissed her hungrily for a long few seconds and then lifted his head to look into her dazed eyes while his hand felt for the catch to her bra and snapped it with practiced efficiency.

He glanced around them to make sure they weren't being observed. Then, while he watched her, his hand moved up to softly caress her bare breast. He felt it swell, felt its tip go hard and hot in his damp palm.

“Your breasts are very full,” he whispered huskily. “I love touching them like this.”

“Emmett,” she protested weakly, and hid her face against his chest.

She was shy, but not at all inhibited or coquettish. He loved that honesty. His lean hand covered her completely, and he searched for her mouth until he found it.

She felt hot all over. Shaky. Throbbing with a kind of fever. She moaned faintly.

“Yes,” he said roughly. “It isn't enough, is it?”

His hands went to the hem of the sweater and abruptly pushed it up, along with her loose bra. Then he stood and stared at her with an expression she'd never seen on a man's face before. She blushed, because certainly no man had ever looked at her bare breasts before.

“Baby,” he said unsteadily, “you are a walking, blushing work of art!”

He made her feel beautiful. She watched him watching her and couldn't manage to feel any embarrassment. His eyes were explicit and very, very flattering.

His hands shook as he forced himself to pull the fabric down. He couldn't be sure those kids weren't hiding out somewhere nearby and he could lose his head much too easily if he did what he wanted to.

Her misty eyes asked a question.

He avoided meeting them while he reached behind her and refastened the bra under the cover of her sweater.

“I don't have a lot of control with you,” he confessed quietly. “I don't want to push my luck and spoil things.”

“You only looked at me,” she whispered.

“That wasn't all I wanted to do, though,” he said bluntly. He met her eyes. “I wanted to put my mouth on your breasts and taste you with my tongue and my teeth. And if I'd done that, I'd have taken you standing up, right here.”

She stared at him blankly. “You would…bite me?” she asked uncertainly.

He laughed at her expression. “Not like that, for God's sake! I'd nibble you.” He shook his head, because she so obviously didn't understand. “Melody, you're incredible. Just incredible. Have you done anything with a man beyond kissing him?”

She glowered at him. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does. I don't want to scare you.”

“Did I act scared?” she asked, big-eyed.

He smiled, delighted. “No.”

“I'm not afraid of you. I'm a little intimidated because I've never felt anything so overpowering before. But I enjoy having you touch me.” She lowered her eyes to his broad chest. “I…would like to make love to you, Emmett.”

He didn't say anything. After a minute, she was horrified that she'd gone too far, said too much, been too blatant.

She started to turn away, but he caught her softly rounded chin and turned her face back to his.

“I want that, too,” he said tautly. “And that compli
cates things royally. I have three children. You might have noticed…?”

“They're pretty hard to miss,” she agreed.

“And then there's the very obvious fact of your virginity.” He brushed at his jeans. “Listen, I know it isn't modern or sophisticated, but I was raised to think of innocence as something too special to make an entertainment of. Do you understand? My parents always said that a decent man didn't make a plaything of an innocent woman, not when there were so many around who knew the score and weren't looking for marriage. But if a man seduced a virgin, he married her and made her the mother of his children. I'm afraid I still feel that way. I don't sleep with women who aren't experienced. Not ever.”

“I see.” She shivered a little, wrapping her arms around her chest. He was telling her that they had no future. She'd hoped. How she'd hoped! But she had to retain as much of her pride as she could. She forced a smile. “Well, no harm done. Do you think we could have some coffee?”

He felt her pain as if it had been his own. Amazing, he thought, that she cared so much that his words could wound her. He discovered that he couldn't bear to hurt her.

He pulled her into his arms and held her, feeling her stiff posture. He knew what to do about that. His hand slid sensuously down to her hips and moved her against him in a slow, sweet rotation.

She tried to move away, but he wouldn't let her.

“This hasn't happened with anyone since I first found you working in Logan's office,” he whispered at her ear. “Do you feel how capable I am right now? I don't even have to work up to wanting you. I touch you, and I can
take you. You'd have to be a man to appreciate how sweet that immediate response is.”

“You just got through saying…”

“That I don't sleep with virgins,” he finished for her. He smiled against her forehead. “That's right. Why don't you rip my shirt open and kiss me to death? You could push me down in the aisle here and ravish me, if you liked.”

“Emmett,” she said uncertainly, lifting her face to his.

“I'll get something to use the first few months,” he said matter-of-factly, “so that you have plenty of time to decide whether or not you want to let me make you pregnant.”

She stopped breathing. Her eyes went wide and shocked, and her heart began beating against her rib cage. “Wh-what?”

“Three is probably too many already,” he murmured. “And the world is certainly overpopulated. But I would love to give you a baby,” he whispered. “I may not be the best father around, and I've got a lot to learn, but I love kids. We could have just one together, with honey-brown hair,” he added thoughtfully, studying her. “That would be unique. Wouldn't you like to touch me?” he added huskily, dragging her hand to his chest. “I'd like it.”

“Emmett, I can't get pregnant!”

“Yes, you can,” he said. “It's easy. All we have to do is not use anything when we make love.” He lifted his head and frowned down at her. “Didn't you take health classes in school?”

“That's not what I meant! I can't go around getting pregnant!”

“You can if you're married,” he reminded her.

“I'm not married!”

“You will be.” He bent his head and kissed her, slowly and with a deepening hunger. “I can't wait long, either,” he said unsteadily. “Some men can go for months without sex, but I can't. I have to have it. I've abstained since just before Kit and Logan got married, when I first realized that I wanted you. But it's been a long, dry spell, Melody.” He moaned against her mouth. His hands became insistent. “Very long.”

She melted into him. It wasn't a conscious decision, but she wanted him so badly that she couldn't manage any reasons to tell him she wouldn't marry him. The kids, the consequences, all took a backseat to his throbbing need and her desperation to satisfy it.

“I'll marry you,” she said huskily. “I'm probably crazy, and I know you are, and I don't know how I'll manage being a mother to three kids when one of them hates me. But I guess I'll cope, if you're actually proposing and not kidding around.”

He lifted his head and searched her eyes. His hands on her hips were firm and bold. He ground her belly into his in blatant need. “Does it feel like I'm joking?” he asked unsteadily.

“No.”

He brushed her lips with his and whispered something so explicit that she flushed and buried her face in his hot throat.

“Shocked that I can talk to you that way?” he asked roughly. “I'll make you like it, though. I'll make you like what I was talking about, too.”

She pressed closer. Her legs trembled. “I know that,” she breathed.

His head lifted. He searched her eyes. “Once you agree, there won't be any going back.”

“No.”

“Okay, then. We'll go and tell the kids.”

“Not yet,” she pleaded. “Not for at least a week or two. I want you to be sure, Emmett.”

“I already am,” he said quietly. It was quick, maybe too quick, but he didn't have a thought of hesitating. What he knew about her was more than enough. They'd have a good life together. He cared for her and he knew it was mutual.

“For the children,” she hedged. “Let's give them a little time. Just a little, to get used to seeing us together, and doing things with them, before we hit them with it.”

He groaned. “How much do you think I can stand?”

She smiled gently. “I'll be very careful not to make it any worse for you than it is.”

He sighed roughly. “All right. But just a week or two.”

She nodded. “That's fine.”

M
elody went through the next two weeks in a kind of daze. She'd never felt as close to anyone as she felt toward Emmett and Amy and Polk. They went riding and to movies and ball games. They went to rodeos. They watched new releases on the VCR at her apartment and on his at the ranch. All the while, they grew closer as they talked about themselves and their hopes and dreams.

There was nothing physical. Emmett was restrained to the point of madness, only kissing her lightly when he took her home. He never deepened the kisses or touched her or made suggestive remarks. Except for the way he looked at her now, they might have been nothing more than friends.

The one sadness Melody had was that Guy was more withdrawn than ever, and she couldn't help but think he was plotting against them. Amy and Polk had looked
worried a time or two, as if they had something on their minds. Melody was tempted to try to pry it out of them, but there was never an opportunity.

Guy did find one way to irritate her. He found every photograph he had of his mother and put them all in plain view. He talked about Adell at every opportunity. Behind the irritating behavior was fear, but it didn't help Melody to know it. Guy had become her enemy, and she didn't know how to deal with him.

“You aren't giving Melody a chance, are you?” Emmett asked Guy late one evening after he'd taken Melody home and Amy and Polk had gone to bed.

Guy didn't look at him. “I thought you still loved my mother.”

He frowned. “What?”

Guy shifted on the chair. “You were real mad when she went away, but you used to talk about her all the time. I know you miss her. So do we.” He looked up at his father. “Why don't you tell her you want her to come back? She might. Maybe she doesn't like her husband. Maybe she'd like a reason to come back!”

Emmett couldn't tell him about Adell's pregnancy. It would be the last straw for the boy right now. He grimaced. He hadn't known that Guy was nursing such futile hopes. No wonder he was resentful of Melody and upset about her being around all the time.

“Son,” he began slowly, “you have to understand that sometimes even people who care about each other can't live together.”

“But you and my mother did,” Guy returned. “You were happy, I know you were!”

That was desperation. Guy was growing up so fast, Emmett wasn't sure how to handle it. All that rodeoing,
when his kids had needed him and he'd turned away from them, was coming back to haunt him now.

“Your mother wasn't happy with me,” Emmett said quietly. “That's the root of the whole matter. She loves Randy,” he added, gritting his teeth as he made the grudging admission. “There is no chance, whatsoever, that she'll ever divorce him and come back to us. You have to accept that.”

“No!” Guy stood up. “She's my mother! She didn't want to go, you made her! You were never home!”

Emmett tightened the rein on his temper. “That's true,” he said quietly. “Maybe my actions helped her make the decision. But the fact is, if she'd loved me, she'd never have left me. You don't run away from people you love.”

Guy's lower lip trembled. “She didn't love me?”

“Not you! Me!”

Guy averted his eyes. “I don't like Melody. Does she have to keep coming around here?” he said, changing the subject.

“I'm going to marry her.”

Guy looked horrified. He gaped at his father. “You can't! You can't do that! What about Mom?”

“Your mother is married,” he said flatly. “I'm sure she still loves you and Amy and Polk, but she won't be coming back. You're going to have to take it like a man and learn to live with it. Life isn't a cartoon or a movie. Things don't always work out to a happy ending.”

“I don't want Melody here!” Guy said harshly. “She's not going to be my mother!”

Emmett felt exasperated. Arguing was getting him nowhere. He stood up abruptly. “I'll marry whom I please,”
he said flatly. “If you don't like it, that's tough. But you'd better not give her any trouble,” he added with quiet menace. “If her cat disappears again, or anything happens to her that upsets her, I'll hold you responsible.”

Guy flushed, averting his head. The cat haunted him. He couldn't tell his father how sick he'd been when he knew Alistair might have died because of him.

“I won't bother her stupid cat,” he said shortly.

Emmett sighed wearily. “The other kids love her,” he said. “She's kind and gentle and if you'd give her half a chance, she'd care about you, too. But you're the original tough guy, aren't you?” his father asked. “You're Mr. Cool. Nobody is going to get close to you. Not even me.”

Guy averted his eyes.

“I've done everything I can think of to reach you,” Emmett continued. “Including involving you in the routine of running a ranch, but you're too busy or there's a television program on or you have to play with Barney.”

“You're only doing it because
she
isn't around,” Guy said icily. “You'd rather be with her than me.”

Emmett smiled half amusedly. “When you're a few years older, the reason will become perfectly obvious to you.”

Guy flushed. “I know about girls. There's this one at school, but she thinks I'm ugly and stupid. She said so, in front of her girlfriends. I hate girls!” He stuck his hands into his jeans and glared at his father. “Especially Melody!”

Emmett could only barely remember being eleven years old and hating girls. He smiled faintly. “Well,
I'm marrying her whether you like it or not,” he said pleasantly.

Guy turned and stormed off into his room and slammed the door. Emmett lifted an eyebrow. Parenting, he decided, was not a job for the weakhearted. He was going to have to find some way to get to that boy, while there was still time.

 

The next weekend, Emmett and Melody made a formal announcement to Amy and Polk. They knew. Guy had told them already, and they were unusually reserved, glancing at their older brother uncertainly.

“Will you live with us, Melody?” Amy asked.

“Yes,” Melody said quietly. “I hope we'll be good friends. I don't have a family, you know,” she added without looking at them. “Only my brother.”

“Yeah, her brother who stole our mother!” Guy burst out. “Well, I don't want you here…!”

“Go to your room,” Emmett said. His voice was low and very quiet, but the look in his eyes made Guy obey without another word.

“Guy said you'll be mean to us,” Amy told Melody worriedly. “He said you were only pretending to be nice until you hooked Emmett.”

Melody went down on her knees in front of the little girl and studied the green eyes in the softly tanned thin face framed by pigtails.

“Amy, do you know how you feel with different people? I mean, you feel happy around some, and nervous and unhappy around others?”

Amy frowned. “I guess so.”

“Well, sometimes when we don't know people very well, we have to trust our feelings about them. I can't promise you that I'll never be angry, that I'll never lose
my temper, that I'll never hurt your feelings. I'm just a person, and I'm not perfect. But I'll love you a lot, if you'll let me,” she added with a smile. “All of you. I know I'll never be your real mother, but I can be your friend and you can be mine.”

Amy seemed to accept that, and to relax. She smiled. “Polk and I think you're the greatest. Guy just doesn't want you around because he thinks Emmett and our mother will get married again someday.” She grimaced. “But they won't.”

Melody wondered at the wisdom in that small voice. Amy was something of a conundrum. At times she seemed much older than her eight years.

“Do you love Emmett?” Amy asked out of the blue.

Melody blushed, embarrassed.

“Yes. Do you?” Polk seconded, joining Amy, his eyes large under the spectacles as he smiled at her.

Emmett pursed his lips, and his eyes twinkled. “That's it, kids, make her tell you!”

Melody glared at him. “You can be quiet.”

“I want to know,” he persisted. He chuckled softly. “Never mind, then. I'll find out for myself, later.”

That went right over Amy's and Polk's heads, thank goodness. They began to talk about school and soon afterward, supper was put on the table. Guy's was taken to his room by an irritable Mrs. Jenson, because he refused to come out.

The boy's behavior was the one regret in Melody's mind when Emmett left the kids with Mrs. Jenson and drove her back to Houston.

“He isn't going to accept it,” she said, when they were in her apartment and the door was closed. She looked
up at Emmett worriedly. “I can't come between you and your son… Emmett!”

He'd lifted her off the floor in midspeech and carried her without a word into the dark bedroom. He laid her gently on the coverlet and slid onto it beside her. When she tried to speak, his mouth covered her protesting lips. Seconds later, she couldn't speak at all.

Guy and his attitude were forgotten in the slow, tender moments that followed. Emmett eased her out of her dress and slip so gently that she hardly noticed, and his warm mouth moved slowly over every inch of her, kindling unmanageable sensations that quickly made her writhe and moan.

Her eyes grew accustomed to the semidarkness, so that when he removed her bra, she could see his eyes glitter as he looked at her.

“Sometimes I think I dreamed you,” he said huskily. Then his head bent, and what he'd once described to her began to happen all at once. His warm mouth nibbled tenderly at her taut nipples before it moved hungrily over the swollen softness around them. He held her and caressed her to the point of madness, and when his hands invaded the most intimate part of her, she was helpless, enslaved.

He whirled her body against the length of his and enveloped her while he kissed her mouth into submission. The abrasion of his jeans and shirt against her unclothed skin was as exciting as the mouth that was tutoring her own.

She clung to him when he lifted his head. He was breathing roughly and his chest was shaking with the beat of his heart. Against her stomach, she could feel the hard, impatient maleness of him.

“Emmett?” she whispered unsteadily.

“Do you want me?” he asked in a harsh, husky tone.

“Oh, yes,” she said honestly.

“All of me, right now?”

“Yes!”

He sat up, and it was an effort. His hand shot out and the room exploded in light.

For a shocked instant, Melody lay on the coverlet disoriented. Then she saw him looking at her body, at the soft pink nudity that her thin white briefs did nothing to disguise, at the taut, swollen evidence of her desire. She went scarlet and began to lift her hands to her breasts to hide them.

He shook his head, and his hands caught hers. “You're mine,” he said quietly. “We're engaged. That gives me the right to look at you like this. In fact, it gives me a few other rights that I'm damned tempted to exercise.” His hot gaze fell to her stomach and lower, to her long, elegant legs. His hand followed his eyes, and she gasped and moved restlessly, helplessly, on the coverlet.

He eased down, his face somber, almost stern, as his fingers trespassed gently past the elastic band. He touched her and she fought him, wincing.

“Easy,” he said gently. “It isn't supposed to hurt.”

“It…does!”

He bent and brushed his lips tenderly against her wild eyes, her cheeks, her trembling mouth. “You're frightened. There's no need. None at all. When it happens, it will be as easy as falling into water, as easy as breathing. Your body is soft and elastic here,” he whispered. “It will absorb mine, like a glove absorbing a hand.”

The analogy made her shiver. He kissed her flickering eyelids, tracing her long lashes with his tongue. “I
don't want you to be afraid of me. I promise that I won't hurt you, in any way.”

She looked at him worriedly, her eyes big and uncertain.

He nodded. “I suppose I knew all along that it would take more than words.” He reached over and turned off the lamp before he slid alongside her again. “It will be easier for you in the dark, won't it?” he whispered.

She didn't understand what he meant until it began. The soft, stroking motion kindled explosive feelings in her untried body. She tried to fight them at first, but the tide of pleasure he induced was as overwhelming as life itself. She gave in to it, gloried in it, wept and writhed and moaned in an anguish of hot, building tension that finally splintered into the most incredible surge of pleasure she'd ever imagined in her wildest dreams.

He gathered her close and held her trembling body, fighting his own demons even as he banished hers. His lips smoothed over her hot face, tenderly calming her.

“That, magnified,” he whispered at her ear, “is what I'm going to give you on our wedding night.”

She clung to him, dazed. “I never dreamed…!”

“You're more than I ever hoped for,” he said quietly, cradling her in his arms. “You don't tease or play games, do you? And you're not ashamed to feel what I can give you, or to admit that you do feel it.”

She touched his lean cheek and felt the muscles taut in it. “I like to think I'll be able to give it back, when I know how,” she murmured shyly.

He kissed her with aching tenderness. “You will,” he said quietly. “Lovemaking should be mutual. I won't ever take my pleasure at your expense.”

He was a surprisingly considerate man. She had a
fleeting glimpse of him as a lover, and her body moved unconsciously on the coverlet.

“I want you, too, very badly,” he said, feeling and understanding the movement. “But we'll wait until after we're married. I don't want a tarnished memory of our first loving. Hors d'oeuvres, on the other hand,” he murmured wickedly, “are perfectly permissible.”