The Littlest Cowboy (22 page)

It was good to do this to him. To make him gasp with pleasure. It was something she’d never dreamed of doing to a man. The thrill of it coursed through her like a drug, adding to her own arousal until she felt herself quivering like the reed of an instrument when its player’s lips are over it. She moved her hand aside, lowered her head and kissed his chest. She flicked her tongue over his hard little nipple and scraped her teeth over it, too, while she used her hand to torture its mate.

His chin pointed skyward, and he panted, his chest rising and falling under her. His arms stretched out to either side, and she knew he was letting her lead the way in this. Letting her do what she wanted. Letting her call the shots. Because he didn’t want to push her or scare her or….

“Chelsea…dammit, Chelsea, you’re killing me “

But his words were only hoarse whispers.

She sat up, staring down at him, feeling a power filling her. Feeling more alive, more utterly female than she ever had.

He lifted his hands to her blouse, took hold of the top button, searched her eyes. “Can I?”

Nodding, she sat still as he released every button. He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed the blouse open then down her arms. Lowering his eyes to look at her, he stared at her unbound breasts with something like reverence in his eyes. His hands slid very slowly down the front of her. She didn’t tell him to stop. The heels of his hands and then his palms slipped downward over her breasts, and her nipples stiffened and pressed against his hands. She understood then the cause of his rapid breathing because she could barely control her own. Closing her eyes, she fought to regain it. Warmth and a tingling sensation rose up from the core of her and seemed to pool where he touched her. He drew his fingers downward, closed them on her nipples, the slight pressure and movement causing her to gasp.

He slid his hands around to her back and pulled her gently lower, and lower still, so that she was over him where he lay on the ground. She didn’t resist. She could do this. She could let him guide her, let him have some of her, because she trusted him as she’d never trusted another man.

When she’d bent so low his warm breath caressed her breasts, he lifted his head to kiss the very tips. One and then the other. The contact too brief and too light. But his head remained there, close to her, and he parted his lips and ran his tongue over one yearning nipple, pushing it this way and that for a moment, only to leave it wet and aching for more as he moved to the other. Only when she felt ready to cry in sweet anguish, did he finally capture one of those throbbing nubs in his mouth. He suckled her, very gently at first. Then with more pressure and still more. It felt good. It felt so, so good. Her hands caught his head to hold him there, and she fed him her breasts for a long time. When he lay back, they were wet from his mouth, and the soft breeze wafted over their sensitized peaks and he watched them lengthen as if reaching for him.

Her mind began spinning because the longing wasn’t just where he’d fed on her. It was everywhere. It was all through her body. And the epicenter was between her legs, where she felt hot and wet and empty. Straddling his body, she rubbed herself against him and felt his answering hardness bulging and pushing at her there.

She slid down a little to look at him, swelling behind the jeans he wore. With hands that trembled and a heart that did likewise, she touched the shape of him. As he’d done before, he lay still, arms returning to that nonthreatening position, stretched out at his sides. He let her touch him. Let her run her fingers along the swollen length of him and finally stop at the button of his jeans. Chelsea freed it. And carefully she lowered the zipper. Parted the fly. Saw his shape and size and hardness even more clearly, outlined in white briefs.

She took hold of the jeans at the waist and pushed downward. Garrett obligingly lifted his hips, but when he arched up that way she almost forgot what she’d been doing. She pushed the jeans down to his knees, then pulled away the white fabric and pushed that down, as well. She sat there, astride his magnificent thighs and looked at him. Smooth and dark and so aroused. She moved her fingers closer, touched, traced his length right to the tip, then over it and down the other side. He groaned, and she looked up at his face to see undisguised agony twisting his features. She used her nails, very lightly, on the tip of him, and he lifted his hips off the ground in supplication. She bent her head and kissed him there. That skin tasted different somehow. Musky and male. Erotic. She followed the path her fingers had taken, with her tongue this time, and he moved and twisted and clenched his hands into trembling fists at his sides. If it killed him, she knew he’d let her explore him and learn him until she was ready to take the next step. Whatever she asked of him, he’d do. Whatever she needed, he’d give to her. It was just the way he was.

She cupped him underneath, massaging gently as she closed her lips around him in the most intimate kiss imaginable. And only then did he pull away from her lips, shaking his head when she looked up in question.

“Give…me…a minute,” he gasped. She nodded, amazed she could reduce this giant of a man to this. She sat still, waiting for him to compose himself. He opened his eyes, met hers, smiled at her. “Okay. All right. Is it my turn now?”

A tiny ripple of nerves danced along her spine, but she nodded. She could give as well as take.

He caught her waist in his hands and lifted her up onto her knees. Then he undid her jeans and pushed them down. Chelsea twisted her body to the side and took the jeans off for him. He kicked his off, too, his eyes never leaving hers. When she began to move toward him once more, he whispered, “Wait. The panties, too. I want to see you, Chelsea.”

Her throat had gone as dry as sandpaper. Not from fear–from sheer, gut-wrenching desire. She stood while he lay there watching, and she pushed her panties down and stepped out of them. Garrett blinked as if a sudden bright light had flashed in his eyes as he took in all of her from head to toe, utterly naked.

“You’re…you’re…you’re perfect, Chelsea.”

“I’m not–”

“Shh. Don’t argue, baby. I know perfect when I see it and you’re it.”

She sat down, feeling too exposed standing while he burned her with his gaze.

“Lie down on your back for me, Chelsea. Will you do that for me? The way I did for you?”

She faced him, eyes widening.

“Do you trust me, Chelsea?”

She nodded. Slowly, she lay back on the ground with her thighs pressed tightly together.

Garrett rose up on his knees, near her feet. “Let me look at you. Let me kiss you, Chelsea. I want you to feel the way I was feeling a second ago. Let me give you that.” His hands touched her inner thighs. “Open for me, sweet Chelsea.”

Shivering with passion and nerves and who knew what else, she spread her legs for him. Garrett’s eyes focused on the center of her. Then he lowered his head and kissed her there. His hands moved to open her wide, making her feel utterly vulnerable. Part of her wanted to push him away and cover herself as he looked at her. But he’d remained still for her and she would do the same for him. She kept her hands to the ground on either side of her. And he kissed her again, this time touching places that made her shake and burn and cry. Again and again he pressed his mouth to her. Then his tongue stroked over her in a hot path of fire. He drank from the very depths of her like a man possessed. Craving more. Until she cried out for him to stop because she felt herself losing all control.

So he stopped and he lifted his head. Her body ached for something she couldn’t understand. It yearned and pleaded for fulfillment.

He met her eyes. “I want to be inside you, Chelsea. I want it now. But only if you–”

“Yes!”

She reached for him, and he lowered himself onto her, nudging the tip of his arousal into her wet opening. She planted her feet and arched to receive him further. Garrett slid his hands under her buttocks, held her tight and tipped her up. Smoothly, gently, he sheathed himself completely inside her.

She felt a momentary flare of pain. But Garrett moved slowly, pulling back until she quivered with need, only to plunge himself to the very hilt again. And then again. She found herself moving with him, arching to meet his every thrust, her hands clawing at his backside, clenching and kneading. He claimed her mouth. Took it, this time. She knew now he was beyond thinking about asking permission. His tongue filled her mouth as he drove her to some point beyond rational thought, her insides twisting tightly as he moved with her. And then she exploded around him, crying his name aloud without a thought to whoever might hear. He drove into her again and again until he went stiff all over, shuddering violently.

Then his muscles uncoiled, and he lowered himself down, not on top of her, but beside her. He pulled her head down to his chest, and whispered something she didn’t want to hear. So she pretended she’d imagined it, then climbed on top of him and started kissing him again.

M
ercy.

Chelsea curled in the crook of his arm, naked as the day she was born except for his denim work shirt, which he’d used to cover her a short while ago. Her head rested on his chest, and her fiery hair tickled his skin. Her breaths were slow and rhythmic. Waves of air rushing into her, rolling down to the furthest reaches of her lungs, pausing, and then slowly receding back out to sea as she exhaled.

He hadn’t seen her this relaxed since he’d met her. Which hadn’t been all that long ago. A fact that made him wince. This kind of thing wasn’t like him. Outside, in front of God and everybody, and he’d done things with her he’d never done with any woman.

Outside, for heaven’s sake! And though she was covered–from her shoulders to her thighs at least–he was still lying under the stars fully exposed.

He reached for his Stetson and settled it over his most vulnerable area before laying his head back down on the ground.

She sure had been something.

One of his hands came up to stroke that reddish gold hair of hers, and Garrett closed his eyes, sighing inwardly. Hell, he hadn’t thought it would ever happen. Not to him. Not like this.

She stirred in his arms, and he could tell by the change in her breathing that she was awake. He kept stroking, liking the feel of the silky strands under his palm. And he rather thought she was liking it, too.

“What time is it?” she asked, her voice husky.

Garrett peered up at the stars for a second. “Almost midnight.”

She sat up, his big shirt slid down her back to the ground. Her breasts moved freely and he found himself wanting her again.

Again?

Yep.

“Garrett, what are the others going to think?”

He smiled at her. “They’ll probably think exactly…this.”

She groaned and pulled the shirt over her again. “We’d better get back.”

He frowned as she got to her feet and started pawing the ground in search of her clothes. “I kind of thought we ought to…maybe…talk first.”

She located her blouse, and it seemed to him that she was real careful to keep her face averted. “About what, Garrett?”

“Well…about this. About…you know…this.”

She found her jeans next and stepped into them. “This? You mean the sex?”

The way she said the word made it sound like something simple, like eating or breathing or something. It wasn’t, though. Hell, Garrett’s entire world had been altered here tonight. “Yeah,” he said. “About the sex.”

She pulled on her blouse and tossed his shirt to him. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she told him. “It was just sex. Gee, Garrett, you didn’t think it was anything more than that, did you? I mean, I already explained it to you. I’m not going to get involved with a man. Not any man. Not ever. And just because we had a little fun tonight doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about that.”

He took the blow admirably, he thought. Felt an awful lot like it had landed hard, right in the solar plexus, and he did lose his breath and feel like throwing up. But he managed not to double over or gasp aloud like a fish out of water. He figured those were major coups by themselves.

This was all wrong. He knew it was all wrong on the practical plane of his mind, but the problem was, on the emotional plane of his heart, he was too busy bleeding to notice what the practical side was saying.

She’d hurt him. Taken a blade and driven it in right to the hilt, then given a little twist for good measure. She gathered up the tablecloth they’d been lying on, wadded it into a little ball and carried it back to the spot where they’d had their picnic a lifetime ago. She stuffed it into his saddlebag without pause. Garrett would have folded it with exquisite care, stroking the fabric where her body had touched it. Wondering if the material could retain some of the magic that had happened between them tonight.

But it was pretty obvious the magic was all in his head. She thought they’d had a little fun. Nothing more. And damned if he hadn’t thought she was anything but that kind of woman. He’d believed her to be a lady. A wounded, frightened innocent. An injured doe he could nurture and care for and maybe, if he were lucky, make his own.

Well, he’d been a fool, then, hadn’t he?

He dressed quickly, yanking his clothes on, taking his anger out on them. Then he went for the horses. They’d wandered off, but not too far. Hell, in the heights of ecstasy, he’d forgotten all about them. He doubted Chelsea had been anywhere near as moved.

He walked the horses back to the pond, saddled Paint up for Chelsea and quickly did the same with Duke. When he went to help her climb on, it was to see her swing herself into that saddle all on her own. Quick learner, he thought. Damn her. She hadn’t learned half-enough. Garrett swung onto his own horse and dug his heels in. It was only as Duke leaped into a gallop that Garrett caught hold of his temper and throttled it until it cooled. He couldn’t run ahead and leave Chelsea to play catch-up. Cold as she might be, Vincent de Lorean was still after her. He reined Duke to a halt and waited. When Chelsea rode up beside him, he started off again, at a walk this time.