Return to the Black Hills (15 page)

She waited to see if his explorations faltered. True, he’d already seen her in a bikini, but this was different. This wasn’t a little friendly groping. This journey was leading somewhere. Possibly to a place where they both were naked and sweaty and exploring each other’s bodies without fear.

His hand dipped to the base of her spine and a moment later his fingers slipped under the hem of the loose sweatshirt she’d thrown on…without a bra. When his hand settled atop the worst of her scars, she held her breath. He stopped kissing her, pulling back slightly to give her a chance to change her mind or call the whole thing off, she figured.

She didn’t. Because she knew what would happen. He’d feel the ridges and uneven texture of her skin and remember what he’d seen yesterday. He’d congratulate himself on being brave then quickly move on to the normal parts. That’s how the men she’d slept with in the past handled her deformity.

“I know this is probably a dumb question,” he said, his fingers lightly skimming her tragic skin, “but I need to know. Does it bother you when someone touches your scars?”

No one had ever asked that before.

“It’s not physically painful, of course. Most of the nerve endings got fried or buried under the scar tissue, but there are spots that get sensitive in certain weather or when I’ve been sitting in the wrong position too long. I’ve been told it’s like an amputee’s phantom pain.”

He opened up a bit more space between them. “Would you let me look at you?”

“In the dark?” She glanced around, realizing for the first time that there was more light from the stars and the sliver of a moon than she’d thought.

He nodded.

Oh, hell, why not get the inevitable over? The sooner he got this sympathy thing out of the way, the sooner they could fool around. If that was still on the agenda. So far, this seduction wasn’t going anything like the encounters she’d had in the past.

She rolled to her belly, crossing her wrists on top of each other to make a resting spot for her forehead. She breathed slowly, the way she did in a yoga relaxation pose. She closed her eyes, listening to the night sounds: crickets chirping, a bullfrog in the stock pond doing his best to impress his sweetheart and the very distant hum from trucks on the highway. The only smell to reach her nose was from the fabric softener Remy had used in the wash.

A shiver passed through her from head to toe when he pulled up her shirt. “Cold?” he asked, his voice a low, sexy rumble.

“Not really.”

He laid both of his hands on her. She could feel each fingertip, as if she were the piano keys and he was the player. He moved boldly, firmly—a blind student studying in Braille for an important test.

The flesh she’d long termed
dead
tingled in a way that went straight to her core. His touch was intimate but not sexual. And yet, she was more turned on than she could remember being in a long, long time.

She crossed her legs at the ankles, ignoring the twinge of complaint from beneath the tightly wrapped bandage. Her thighs squeezed against each other and her womanly core went moist and hot as she imagined those clever, sensitive hands dropping lower.

He bent over to lay his cheek on a beribboned spot between her shoulder blades. Her doctors had tried three times to improve the grafts in this area, lifting skin from her thigh and the inside of her arms but that particular section refused to heal right.

When he rubbed his nose against the exact place of her worst anguish—a hot spot that had taken forever to heal—she stopped breathing. A rush of emotion—something harsh and savage—tore through her, bringing back memories she’d worked hard to forget. Kindly nurses who did their best to fill in for her absent mother. Worried, serious doctors who probably thought they were talking over her head when they whispered about their young patient’s emotional disconnect.

This spot might have been invisible to the world, and yet, somehow, Cade found it.

“Stop.” Her cry sounded too much like a whimper in her opinion, but it worked. He moved back immediately, giving her the room she needed to flip over.

The cool air made gooseflesh prickle across her exposed belly. She held out her arms to him. “I need you to kiss me.”

He obliged without hesitation, placing his hands on either side of her head and lowering himself close enough for their lips to touch, but not providing the full-body contact she craved.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer, wishing there was a way to crawl through him to come out whole on the other side.

That, she realized, was the sort of power she felt within him, the magic they created together.

She’d never felt an urgency quite this strong.
Desire.
Such a bland word to describe such a powerful force. She grappled with his shirt, needing to feel his skin against hers. His heat. His perfection.

Getting out of her loose sweats was nothing, waiting for him to take off his pants, pure agony. She used the time to clear up the questions that needed to be asked. “Protection?”

“Celibate for ten years.”

Not me.
“The blood tests I had done in Japan showed I was healthy.”
Even if I wasn’t a match for Mom.
“And I’ve been on the pill since I was eighteen.”

Their green light shone brighter than any star in the sky, but apparently Cade needed more. After shedding his pants, he returned to lie beside her, naked and aroused, but he didn’t make a move to hold her. Not right away. Instead, he ran the back of his hand gently across her cheek, as if making certain she was real.

Did he need something else from her? Words of love? Promises of a commitment of some sort?

Don’t make me lie to you,
she whispered silently.

He must have heard because he was the one to say, “This is just tonight. Here and now. Nothing more. Right?”

She nodded. Living in the moment was as Zen as it came with stunt people. You never knew what the next stunt might bring. Here and now was the one sure thing. She’d made that her mantra for a long time. Tonight would be enough.

He could see her mischievous grin in the starlight. “It’s not like you have to chase me. The only pain I feel at the moment is a deep ache. Here,” she answered, moving his hand to the cleft between her legs. She opened for him and he had the answer he needed. She wanted him. He wanted her. Maybe life really was that simple.

His fingers explored her nest of curls much as they had her damaged back—testing, feeling, probing. She inched closer, her back slightly arched. He timed his entry to the second he took her nipple in his mouth. Her moan fired his need all the more.

He made a judgment call. Now.

Keeping his full weight on his knees and elbows, he moved to the top position. Missionary style. He’d never understood the name. Why? Because the man was praying he could satisfy his partner before he completely lost his mind and his control?

He was pretty sure that was one battle he was destined to lose. At least where Jessie was concerned.

Luckily, Jessie applied herself to sex the same way he’d observed her throwing herself into each stunt she performed—with her entire being. The sounds she made were his guideline, his lifeline. Together, they moved like dancers who had danced this routine a thousand times. They crested the biggest, most powerful wave at the exact same moment.

He collapsed mindlessly, his focus—what was left of it—captivated by the delicious afterglow. An occasional high-pitched whine of a mosquito buzzed past his ear, but thankfully none landed. Or if they did, he was too blissed out to notice.

He did, however, notice when she shifted slightly—as if realizing a rock or something was poking her. He immediately rolled to one side, pulling her with him.

“That was incredible,” she said, snuggling closer with a small shiver that brought back his guilt about not planning this better.

He found her sweatshirt and used it to cover her back.

As his body returned to normal, the magnitude of what they’d just done—made love in the open—struck him. His senses went on high alert. Nobody was around to hear them, to know what they’d done, but he rarely left the house after Shiloh went to sleep. What if she woke up and he wasn’t there?

“Are you regretting this already?” she asked, apparently picking up on his growing tension.

He nuzzled her nose with his own and kissed her. “I will never regret this. But I’m not in the habit of leaving the house with Shiloh in it alone.”

“Are you afraid she’ll wake up and come looking for you?”

The question struck him as naive. “No. I’m afraid she’ll wake up, realize I’m gone and jump on the internet. We’ve been arguing over inappropriate social-networking behavior lately, and short of banning her from the computer completely, I’m a bit frustrated and perplexed about how to handle this issue. Any suggestions?”

She sat up and pulled on her top. “Me? Nope. Sorry. I teach a few yoga classes at Girlz on Fire—I mean, I did—but I have absolutely no parenting skills.” She laughed—her tone strained. “And what do you expect given my role model?”

“But your older sisters have children,” he said, a little surprised by her hands-off attitude. “Remy mentioned a niece Shiloh’s age.”

She leaned across him for her pants. “True. But our older sisters had more of a traditional family structure than Remy and me. The Bullies knew their daddy. Mama didn’t divorce him until shortly before Remy and I were born.” She wiggled into her pants then added, “And, of course, Bossy, Bing and Rita are married.”

He heard something uncompromising in her tone—or was it fear? “I’ve never met a single parent—by
single
I mean mother or father, married or not—who claimed to know everything there is to know about raising kids. Some of it you make up as you go.”

She shrugged. “I’m in show business, remember? I do my best work from a script. When you ad lib in stunts, people get hurt.”

She got to her knees. “I’m going to start physical therapy tomorrow after I drive Shiloh to the bus. I should really get to bed.”

He needed to go, too, but he felt a little uneasy. He sensed some undercurrent between them that hadn’t been there before he brought up Shiloh and his worries about her current social-networking addiction.

He scrambled to his feet and helped her up. “If you wait a second, I’ll give you a piggyback ride,” he offered.

She looked at him, unsmiling. “This was nice. Crazy nice. But don’t try to read anything too hearth and homey into it, okay? I’m only here for the summer. Even if my ankle isn’t healed enough to participate in Japan, my life—small and strange as it may seem—is back in L.A. And as much as I like your daughter, believe me, I’m doing Shiloh a favor by not pretending to be the motherly type. Are we clear on that?”

No. Not even close. But she didn’t wait for his answer. She touched the side of his face with a gesture that implied regret and left.

He stood there. Alone. His arms filled with towels that still retained a hint of their heat and the scent of their lovemaking.

Was he confused? Yes. Annoyed? Uh-huh. Sorry he’d had sex with her? Not for a second.

Was he content to leave things between them like this? Hell, no. Whether she liked it or not, they’d forged a connection. He could understand her reluctance to get involved for the long-term—hell, she hadn’t even met Buck. But he’d be damned if he’d let her hide behind her mother’s apparently ineffectual parenting skirts.

He started toward the house, the chill of the night seeping past the afterglow of their crazy-good sex. He shook his head and sighed. Man, he thought, if anyone deserved to be relationship gun-shy, it was him. He’d grown up with Buck for a dad, after all.

Cade could vividly remember his father and step-mom arguing. Inevitably his father would start stomping around in his big cowboy boots. Chairs would suddenly sprout wings and fly across a room. Cade would disappear—under a bed, into the far reaches of a closet—anywhere he could pretend to be an island of serenity in the midst of a hurricane called Buck.

Fortunately, he’d learned early in his marriage to Faith he couldn’t be provoked into those sorts of arguments. He might get upset, angry or deeply frustrated, but he never turned into his father.

Maybe, just maybe, he could help Jessie see that she wasn’t predisposed to be a clone of her mother, either. If he was upset at all, his ire was directed at Mrs. Bouchard. Where was this woman when her daughter needed her? Where was that Old South network of family he’d always heard about? The Bullies would have been in their teens when Jessie was hurt. Why didn’t they do more? And what about any aunts, uncles or grandparents? Someone should have been by that poor little girl’s side to hold her hand and comfort her when her mother couldn’t be present. And if, for whatever reason, her mother chose to be a single parent, why the hell hadn’t she made some sort of effort to provide a father figure for her daughter?

Wasn’t that, in essence, why he moved back to the Black Hills? Yes, he welcomed the chance to be his own boss and make amends with his father, but he also wanted Shiloh to be around Kat, to learn womanly things from her and go to her with questions Shiloh might feel strange asking him.

Jessie’s mother had failed her daughter, in his opinion. Naturally, he couldn’t say that to Jessie. No kid wanted to hear his or her parent criticized. That even held true for Cade where Buck was concerned.

He paused at the corner of the house and stared at the pool a moment. As he’d told his sister, Buck’s instincts had been spot-on where this was concerned. He was looking forward to hosting a party this weekend and actually felt sorry Buck wouldn’t be here to attend it. His father would have treasured the validation. And, now that he was sober, maybe everyone else could have a good time, too, without worrying about the ticking time bomb in the room, waiting for that last, incendiary whiskey to set him off.

Cade shrugged and resumed walking. No, on second thought, why risk it? Buck was where he needed to be and Cade was getting along fine without him.