Ride the Thunder (22 page)

His hand slid from her throat to mold her back and hips to the unyielding contours of his length. Her senses remembered the musky smell of them, the heady taste of his tongue, and the hammering of his heart. Her raw, wild reaction to him was the same as before. Jordanna felt his hunger devouring her lips, tasting and eating them and arousing an insatiable appetite for his. They strained to satisfy each other. His hands slid underneath her sweater to stroke and mold the bare flesh of her shoulders and back, erotically kneading her skin. Jordanna shuddered at the waves of intense longing that broke over her.

The need was so profound, it became a physical pain. Jordanna twisted away from the possession of his mouth, trying to find some measure of control before she abandoned her pride. As Brig nibbled at the sensitive cord in her neck, desire quivered through
her, warm and golden, a shaft of sunshine lighting her soul.

“Brig,” she sighed his name, at last being able to identify the face that had haunted her.

He lifted his head to take a deep, shuddering breath. His hands glided from beneath her sweater, leaving the bare flesh he had heated, and moved to frame her face. His fingers trembled over her features.

In a wondrous mood, she studied the male face so close to hers. His lean features had been trained to permit few expressions to flit across its surface and to allow few emotions to be revealed. Lines crowfooted from the corners of his eyes and grooves were slashed into the sun-browned skin on either side of his mouth, disappearing into his mustache. It was a compelling face, confident of its ability and its masculinity. She turned her lips into the palm of his hand and kissed it.

The animal brilliance of his hard gaze lifted from her face to look beyond her into the dark. “Frank is coming back.” His voice was husky in its impatience, as his hands left her face to settle on her shoulders.

Jordanna tipped her head to the side, listening intently. There were only night sounds. How could he have heard anything? Then she heard a crunching sound, very faint, footsteps on gravel.

“How could you hear him?” she whispered credulously.

“This is my home ground. I know the sounds that belong and those that don’t.” Brig moved, creating space between them.

“Brig,” Jordanna repeated his name. “Where did you get your name?”

“It’s short for Brigham, after my Grandfather Sanger, but nobody ever uses it.” His fingers tightened to dig into her flesh. Just as quickly, she was released and Brig was turning away. “You’d better go inside.”

Jordanna stiffened in resistance. From the darkness, Frank Savidge emerged on the porch steps. The thud of his weight hit the first board. She gave him a sideways
glance, resenting his intrusion. He was looking at Brig.

“The horses are all right.”

“Good.”

Frank paused on the porch, turning an expectant look to Jordanna. “Are you going inside?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her arms, as if feeling a chill.

Frank walked to the door and opened it for her. Her glance ricocheted off the tall figure in the corner of the porch. His back was turned to her. Walking past the lantern-jawed cowboy, Jordanna entered the living room. Her father glanced up, noting the ranch hand who followed her in.

“Was it cool outside?” he asked.

Her hands were still, crossed in front of her, clasping her elbows. “A bit.” She hadn’t noticed it until shortly before she came in.

The door had barely closed when it was opened again and Brig entered. Fletcher rose from the couch and glanced around the room.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to turn in. We’re having an early start in the morning.”

“Two games apiece,” her brother declared. “It’s time to quit before I end up the loser.” He pushed his chair from the card table where the cribbage board was sitting. “Enjoyed it, Tandy.”

“Anytime.”

“How about you, Jordanna?” Kit glanced her way. “Are you calling it a night, too?”

“Soon. When everyone’s through with the bathroom, I thought I’d take a last bath. A tub is a luxury we aren’t going to have once we are out in the mountains. I’m going to take advantage of it while I have the opportunity,” she said.

“It’s early for me to be going to sleep,” Max said. “But it will feel earlier when I have to get up at dawn. So I guess I’ll go to bed, too.”

“Come on, Frank.” Tandy folded the cribbage board closed. “Let’s get our beds made up here. Brig?” His
gaze swung to his employer in silent question of his intentions.

“I have some paperwork to do before I call it a night.” Brig walked to the desk against the wall. He pulled out the chair and glanced over his shoulder at the others. “Good night.”

T
HE BATHROOM DOOR
opened and closed. Brig remained hunched over his desk, not turning around or glancing over his shoulder at the sound of bare feet approaching the downstairs bedroom—his bedroom. Again there was the click of a door opening and closing.

Behind him, he heard Frank groan and whisper, “Have you ever seen a more beautiful woman in your life?”

His fingers gripped the pen until their tanned knuckles turned white. For the third time, he added the column of figures and came up with the third different answer. He tried again.

“She is very beautiful,” Jocko agreed softly.

Brig combed his fingers through his hair and forced his eyes to concentrate on the numbers. The figures blurred into scratch marks. He had to start the addition all over again.

“The next time I take a bath, I’m going to wallow in that tub,” Frank declared in a disturbed manner.
“Can’t you just see her sitting in there, splashing the water?”

“That’s enough, Frank.” Brig couldn’t take it any more. His voice was low and rough. He was tortured by the agony of having held her in his arms and being unable to do more than that.

His rumbling order was initially met with silence. But it didn’t last long. “I can just see her soaping up her hands and rubbing that lather all over her breasts,” Frank dreamed aloud.

A silent groan tore at his guts. Brig turned in his chair. “I said that’s enough!” he snapped the warning at the bundled cowboy lying on the floor in his sleeping bag. “Turn off the light and go to sleep.”

“What about you?” Frank challenged testily. “Ain’t you going to bed?”

“Not until I get this paperwork done.” As he turned back to the desk, Brig saw the sliver of light beneath the bedroom door. Jordanna wasn’t in bed yet either. He tried to shut his mind to that fact.

“Yon can’t see if we turn the light off,” Frank protested.

“I have the desk lamp.” Brig flipped the switch to light the bulb in the green shade. A click sent the rest of the living room into darkness.

“This floor is hard,” Frank grumbled. “I sure can think of a bed I’d rather be sleeping in.”

“Frank.” The low growl from Brig was his final warning. It didn’t matter that the cowboy didn’t know what his evocative comments were doing to him. They had to stop.

“I’ll shut up.” Then he mumbled to himself, “But there ain’t no harm in wishing.”

The harm was in wanting until desire ate you up whole. Brig could have told him. Silence slowly settled into the room, broken only by the scratching of his penpoint on the paper and the restless rolling and tossing of Frank in his sleeping bag. Brig continued through the tally slip, checking off the earmarks of the calves he’d sold and noting the breeding heifers he’d kept.
He tried not to acknowledge how many times he glanced toward the sliver of light shining below the base of the bedroom door.

Tandy was snoring when Brig finally laid the pen down to rub the rough stubble of beard on his cheek. His hand slid to massage the tense muscles at the back of his neck. He arched his head back, aware of the sleeping sounds from his three ranch hands. Turning his head, his gaze was drawn to the magnet of light. It held him motionless, firing his blood with a rush.

Rising from the chair, he switched off the desk lamp and let his eyes adjust to the darkness; a total darkness, except for the crack of light. His gaze swung to where the staircase was located, his head tipped to a listening attitude. There was only silence from the second floor.

Long, panther-soft strides carried him to the door. If he was taking a risk, Brig didn’t care. It was worth it for the chance to hold that soft, female shape against him, the one that had tortured him for so many nights.

He knocked lightly on the door. At first, there was only silence. Had she fallen asleep with the light on? He reached for the handle when he heard a low, throaty voice demand, “Who is it?” The female huskiness of the sound was like a caress.

“Brig.” His own voice came from a low, deep place, vibrating from the disturbances going on within. “I left some things in my room.”

He sensed the hesitation on the other side of the door. Interminable seconds passed before the knob turned and the door was swung open. The muscles constricted in his chest, paralyzing his lungs. Tall and vaguely regal, Jordanna stood to one side to admit him. A cranberry robe in some velvety material covered the whole of her body all the way to her toes. Its color and the lamplight shining from behind her brought out the red lights in her brown hair. The front of her robe was zipped all the way to her throat. The cuffs of the long sleeves hid her slender wrists.

It was crazy, but Brig didn’t think she could have looked sexier if she had been standing naked before
him. Her face was washed clean of make-up, but the classic lines of her cheekbone, nose and jaw and the fathomless depths of her unusual green-brown eyes didn’t need any adornments.

Her hand fell away from the door and she moved farther into the room. She gestured toward a pile of gear near the wall. “I suppose that’s what you want.”

Brig stepped inside and closed the door. “You didn’t have to wait up for me to get them. You could have set my things outside the door.”

“Yes,” she admitted with a natural candor that was neither bold nor brazen. Where was the mask of sophistication that rich and beautiful women like her usually possessed, Brig wondered? She pretended to be neither coy nor alluring. She confused him at the same time that she aroused him. The need for her, and her alone, pulsed through him like a drumbeat, growing steadily stronger.

“Why didn’t you?” Brig slowly approached her.

“Because I wanted to speak to you . . . privately.” The vague hesitation in her answer made her all the more feminine and all the more desirable. It suggested a vulnerability that he wanted to explore to the fullest.

“What about?” He stopped a foot in front of her, assaulted by her nearness. Her gaze was lifted to his face, her look open and unveiled. He saw in the glittering depths of her eyes the disturbance he was causing. Satisfaction momentarily calmed him.

“I’m sure you have formed the wrong impression—that I’m promiscuous. I’m not,” she asserted in a voice that trembled with the need to convince him. “It isn’t a habit of mine to let perfect strangers make love to me.”

Her choice of adjectives amused him. “I’m not perfect.” Tantalized by the proud lift of her chin, Brig reached out to trace its line.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

Brig felt her agitation and sensed that part of it was due to his touch. It filled him with an exhilarating sense of power. His hand caressed the slim column of
her neck. Her pulse was beating unevenly. His fingers curved to follow the neckline of her robe, stopping at the metal tab of the zipper. He ran it down to expose the hollow of her throat, then further to reveal the shadowy valley between her breasts. The realization leaped within him that she was naked beneath the robe.

Her fingers closed over his wrist to stop the progress of the zipper. “You are not listening to me.” She swallowed to control the husky tremor in her voice. “I’m trying to explain . . .”

“I am a man,” Brig interrupted with careless ease. “And you are a woman, Jordanna, with needs as basic and old as time itself. What more is there to explain?”

His gaze slid to her lips. They opened, but no answer came out. Brig needed no second invitation to possess their parted softness. The instant his mouth touched them, all gentleness left him and he bruised them with the fierceness of his desire. He felt himself grinding her lips against her teeth and tasted the trace of blood in her mouth, but he was powerless to ease the brutal pressure.

Of its own volition, his hand eased the zipper all the way down past her navel and the hand on his wrist made no attempt to stop him. The robe became an irritating barrier between himself and the living alabaster form. Impatiently he pushed it off her shoulders and down her arms, not satisfied until its encircling heap was around her ankles.

His hands rushed over her, too excited by the contact with her flesh to take their time. They covered the miniature mountains of her firm, thrusting breasts and hurried on to the slender ribcage tapering to her waist. The swell of her hips and the rounded cheeks of her bottom filled him with a burning urgency. Brig crushed her to himself, uncaring of his roughness as he tried to defy the physical limitations of the flesh and absorb her wholly into his body. Nothing less would satisfy the raging fire that consumed him.