Lacy (37 page)

"Just tonight," Faye said firmly.
"Lacy, I want to go to San Antonio," she said quickly. "I can
get a job. I can tell people I'm separated or something."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Faye said. "I can't
go on taking care of Papa and pining over Ben. I want to do something with my
life."

"Then I'll help you," Lacy said
quietly. "I have cousins there. One of them has a shop. Perhaps you could
help him."

Faye brightened. "You mean it?"

"I mean it. We'll see later in the week.
Right now," she murmured, "we've got enough problems to take care
of."

"I know what you mean. Poor Mrs. Whitehall.
And poor Katy. I guess she's sad about her husband getting killed."

"I'm sure she is," Lacy lied.

But later, when the house was locked and everyone
else had gone to sleep, Lacy sat quietly by the fire in her bedroom in her long
white gown and worried. The soft knock on the door distracted her. She smiled
as Cole came in.

"I'm sorry. Did I keep you awake
pacing?" she asked.

He shook his head. He was wearing dark pajamas
and a thick robe, his hair still a little damp from his bath. "You were
too quiet at supper. What's wrong?"

The ways things had changed between them, she
felt confident and possessive, especially when she saw the way he was looking
at her, with such quiet tenderness. "I think I need loving," she
whispered, lifting her arms to him.

He smiled as he bent and lifted her, his lips
whispering over hers, as he carried her to bed.

"I think I can oblige you," he
whispered back. He put her under the covers and paused just long enough to
remove his robe before he joined her on the cold sheets. "God, it's
freezing in here!" he burst out.

She curled close to him. "I only laid the
fire a few minutes ago. It's just now catching up. Don't you worry, Mr.
Whitehall. I'll keep you warm until it's burning properly."

"So that's what wives are for," he
teased, searching for her mouth.

She clung to him, smiling under his cool mouth,
enjoying the clean smell of his body. Cole was fastidious, unlike some of the
men who never seemed to bathe. He deplored untidy personal habits—even his
nails were pristine when he wasn't working out on the ranch.

He eased one long, powerful leg between both of
hers and rolled her gently onto her back. "You'll freeze if I take your
gown off," he whispered. I don t care.

"Don't you?" he asked, smiling. He
eased it up and slowly touched her body with his lips, loving her immediate
response, the tiny sounds she made as he explored her.

"Oh, Cole..." she moaned, arching her
back to draw his mouth even closer against her breasts as he suckled them.

"You re so soft," he whispered
hungrily. "It's like touching my mouth to silk. Do you like this,
Lacy?"

"Yes!"

"And this?" He nibbled softly at a
hard nipple and felt her go rigid and gasp for breath. But her clinging hands
told him what her choked voice couldn't—that it aroused her feverishly.

He found her mouth with his as he moved, one
hand opening the buttons on his pajama top and the one on his trousers, pushing
away the last barriers between them. But he didn't remove them completely.

"Please," she whispered as he eased
between her thighs, and her hands hesitated at his rib cage, wanting so
desperately to go around him, under the fabric.

"Lacy..." he began, tormented.

"I love you," she said. Her hands
trembled as they eased down very slowly to his lean hips, against the scarred
flesh with its ridges and taut smoothness. "Please let me," she
breathed. Her teeth nibbled at his lips. He was rigid all over, his body
helplessly probing as he felt the touch of a woman's hands for the first time
in his life on the hard muscles of his buttocks. He cried out, not because she
hurt him, but because the pleasure was like a thousand volts of electricity as
he felt those soft fingers caressing him.

"You see? It's sweet, isn't it?" she
whispered, lifting her hips obediently to the insistent thrust of his. She
enveloped him, warmed him, smiling under his hungry mouth as the springs made
harsh noises under the fierce motion of his hips, grinding her into the
mattress.

She gasped as the sudden stab of pleasure lifted
her rhythmically to him. His hands gripped her slender hips and jerked them
upward while he pushed feverishly against her, his voice breaking on her name
as he drove helplessly for fulfillment. It was too soon.. .he knew it was too
soon, but the feel of her hands.. .was killing him!

Lacy loved him this way, out of control and all
hers. She drew her hands upward over the front of his thighs, against the
secret core of him, and heard him suddenly cry out with anguished pleasure.

The heat and power of his body almost satisfied
her at the last, but even then, she didn't mind that it wasn't quite enough.
She held him, collapsed on her, his weight precious and dear, while he
struggled to breathe.

Her hands smoothed down his long back, uncaring
of the scars and burned places that had healed over and now felt oddly like
satin. She touched him with wonder at being allowed such a forbidden intimacy.

"I never thought.. .you could bear
it," he said unsteadily. "So many scars, Lacy. So terrible!"

"Silly man." She sighed, kissing his
throat, his chest. "When I love you so much?"

"Lacy," he whispered, her name almost
a prayer.

"Shh." She nudged him onto his side;
her hands slowly removing his jacket, then the pajama trousers. He protested at
first, but she whispered softly to him, coaxed, until he gave in to her. When
he was totally nude, as she was—her gown long since having been tossed to the
floor by his impatient hands—she began to pull the covers back in the soft
light from the fire.

"No," he protested huskily.
"Lacy! God, no!"

His eyes were frightened. It touched her that a
man of his courage, his will, could fear just the eyes of the woman he loved.

"You're beautiful, Cole," she
whispered. "Let me look at you."

"Lacy!"

She drew her mouth softly over his while her
foot finished what her hands had started and edged the covers off onto the end
of the bed. "Let me, darling," she whispered into his lips. "Let
me see."

His hands clenched fiercely on her arms. He was
terrified of how she was going to react. She was a gentle woman. She had no
conception of what a burned body looked like, and he desperately didn't want
her to see his.

But she was already looking. She pulled free of
his protesting hands and slowly sat up, her eyes shy on the blatant maleness of
him. His own attention was caught by the firm, soft thrust of her pale breasts
with their fiery red crowns, still hard-tipped from his mouth. He let his
attention waver as his eyes ran down to her taut waist and flat stomach and the
shadow of her womanhood between creamy, soft thighs. He flushed, because the
nudity of her body was still new and fascinating.

While he looked, so did she. There were patches
where his normally rough, dark skin was white, and ridges from healed wounds.
There were places that were red and raw-looking, and missing spots in among the
thick hair that shadowed his thighs and stomach and chest. But he wasn't
nightmarish. He was very well built and extremely sexy, and Lacy groaned
inwardly only at the pain he must have felt.

"Roll over," she whispered, lifting
her eyes to his. "I want to see it all."

"My God, Lacy!"

She bent and put her lips boldly against his
waist, the thick hair tickling her nose. She felt him gasp and stiffen, and
when she lifted her head, she saw another helpless reaction that pleased her
shy femininity.

"Please?" she asked softly.

He couldn't refuse her. He rolled over, his eyes
closed in anguish, and let her look.

His back was the worst, she knew. She bent and
slowly began to put her lips against the most obvious places.

He caught his breath.

"I'm sorry," she said gently. She
rested against him, her soft breasts warm heaven against his cool back.
"Did I hurt you?"

"It doesn't hurt," he managed through
his teeth. "It's just viciously arousing."

"Is it?" She smiled wickedly and did
it again, letting just the tip of her tongue come out as she drew her lips
against the center of his back.

He roared with sweet anguish and rolled over,
catching her hips with strong hands that were bruising in his need.

"Libertine," she whispered, slowly
straddling his hips. She laughed softly at the look on his face. "What's
the matter, cowboy?" she teased. "Are you too old-fashioned to do it
like this?"

"Yes, I'm too old-fashioned to do it like
this," he agreed, and abruptly caught her by the thighs and turned her
under him in one smooth motion. He lowered himself down, impaling her almost at
once, and then poised above her to watch her expression. "Fairy," he
breathed, his eyes moving from her white body to her face in its frame of
disheveled dark hair. "You're so beautiful you take my breath away. How
can you bear to look at me?"

"I love you," she said, and it was in
her voice, in her eyes, her face. She moved slowly, holding his gaze as she
lifted her hips to gently advance his possession and gasped at the sudden surge
of increased pressure that heralded his response.

"Surprised?" he asked softly.
"You don't know much about men even now." He eased down, shifting
slowly from side to side. She made a sound he'd never drawn from her before,
and he nodded even through his own raging excitement. "Now it
begins," he whispered, bending to stay her mouth with his. His teeth
caught her lower lip as he continued the movement of his hips and felt her
begin to convulse. "Now it begins, Lacy,"he whispered. "Now.
Now. Oh... God, now!" He felt her completion, felt it in every cell of his
body, heard the pitiful cries that tore out of her throat and came into his
mouth with her jerking breaths. But he didn't stop, even when she relaxed
suddenly and gasped for breath. Turk had told him once that a woman's body was
capable of endless pleasure. It must be so, because it only took a minute
before his slow movements kindled her again, before her legs entwined with his
and her hips began to lift to meet him.

In the long, exquisite minutes that followed, it
delighted him that he could give her such pleasure. He kept on until he was all
but exhausted, finally giving in to his body's need in one rough thrust that,
incredibly, sent Lacy convulsing again, as well. The harsh slam of one of the
wide wooden slats falling out from under the box springs made them both jump,
and then laugh.

Later, when he could breathe, he lay with her
cheek pillowed on his chest. He wondered at the newness of lying naked in her
arms, his body open and vulnerable in the keen orange light echoing from the
fireplace.

"Even Turk hasn't seen you like this, has
he?" she asked drowsily, smiling as her hand lay flat and possessively
just below his waist.

He stirred, aroused even after the long
interlude at just the touch of her fingers. He chuckled. "No, he hasn't.
Stop. You're much too fragile for another loving like the one we just
shared."

"I know," she moaned. Her lips pressed
against him through the thick hair. "Did you ever used to think it would
be like this if we made love?" she asked.

"Before the war I did," he confessed.
"After I crashed no. I couldn't allow myself to think about it. I had nightmares
about your reaction."

She laughed wickedly. "I'll bet you won't
have them again."

His arms contracted hungrily. "I worship
the ground you walk on," he said. "My God, Lacy!"

She curled into him, snuggling even closer.
"One of the slats fell out just at the last," she said shyly.
"We were in too much of a hurry to move the mattress onto the floor. I
hope we didn't wake anybody up."

He sighed. "I'm just glad it isn't
summer," he said ruefully. She flushed. "I'm noisy."

He bit at her mouth ardently. "I don't
care. I meant the slats, not those exciting little sounds you make when we
slide against each other."

Her mouth captured his and she moaned.