Thea Devine (18 page)

This was what she needed, his thick, hard length driving into her, on and on and on. She loved the feeling of his male essence contained within her, enfolded by her, pleasuring her with each virile thrust, loved the knowledge that she was the one who had aroused him. She rocked against him, rotating her hips against him, enticing him into the mystery of her fathomless femininity.

“You were made for me,” he whispered into her mouth, into her soul. “You are mine,” and the words resonated in her heart.

He was perfect for her. The hard luscious length of him fit her exquisitely. The flatness of his hips aligned with hers flawlessly so that the intimate core of her was centered exactly on him. She could touch him everywhere, with her hands, with her feet, and she could look into his eyes and see the same sensation she was feeling mirrored there, stunning in its shared intensity.

She was a wild willing temptress, sleek as a cat beneath him, melting into him, unquenchable in her demand. Her long luscious legs surrounded him, held him, felt him, spread for him to give herself to him with a torrid sensuality that left him gasping.

At the thought of her honey moist haven wide and wanton for him he felt all his power gathering suddenly. His body constricted, and he drove himself into her forcefully with long lusty strokes over and over, to the litany of the ecstatic moans deep in her throat.

And then the creamy sensations began, swelling upward, pluming outward, opulent, thick, billowing out from a hard nub of voluptuous feeling that was hot gold, spiraling and melting deep within her into a cataclysmic release.

He wanted to hold her, caress her, tell her she was wonderful, and he couldn’t wait. He needed completion with her, and in four hard, potent strokes he unleashed his drenching climax deep within her quivering core.

Chapter Eleven

“Where have
you
been?

The voice was Reese’s and the tone jolted her right back to reality. She had been counting the minutes, reaffirming her initial impression of how long it had taken her to get to Logan’s ranch, and she looked at Reese through unfocused eyes.

“Excuse me?” she said blankly as she descended from the buckboard onto the plank walk where he was standing directly in front of the office.

“I’ve been damned worried about you. Why didn’t you leave a note or something?”

She still had no idea what he was talking about. “A note to whom, Reese?”

He looked offended. “Me.”

“Why?” She didn’t look at him as she efficiently hitched the wagon to the post. “I didn’t know I had to clear my whereabouts with you.”

He got it finally. He followed her into the office. “I was worried, Maggie. Mother says she can’t recall when you’ve ever gone off someplace no one knew.”

“Well, this is the first time.”

He perched on the edge of her desk as she sank into her chair.

“But where were you?”

“And it may not be the last either,” she added, flashing him an enigmatic smile.

It was a secret smile, one that shut him out and made him want to know what lay behind it. Already her attention was centered somewhere else, and he was jangling with curiosity.

“Let me take you and mother out to dinner tonight,” he offered.

“Thank you, no.”

“What excuse, Maggie? You have no excuse except that you don’t want to be seen in my company. You would be a lot more honest if you had said that,” he said angrily, sliding away from her.

“Reese, you are acting like a child. Is it so important that I go to dinner with you?”

“I
thought
we had decided we were to be friends.”

“We are.” But even she wasn’t sure of that. She wanted to placate him so that she would have time to savor the wild sweet hours she had spent with Logan. If she argued with him, she would have that to contend with instead, and what was a dinner after all? Two hours of her time, if that. “Fine, I accept your invitation.”

He looked pleased. “Honestly, Maggie, we have hardly had any time in the last week to talk. This whole thing with the Denver North recruiting ads, for instance … I know how upset you are. I can at least share the burden if you won’t let me help any other way.”

She smiled at him uncertainly. She wasn’t sure that was a worry she really wanted to share with him.

Worse, Mother Colleran declined to join them for dinner, and that removed her excuse for ending the evening early.

The hotel dining room was crowded. As they entered, she saw a number of familiar faces, including Mr. Brown, who sat in an unobtrusive corner by himself.

They made desultory small talk until the waiter had passed them the menus. After they ordered, Reese brought up the notices in the supplement again. “What are you going to do, Maggie?”

“There is nothing I can do about that advertising. You know as well as I do that it comes from Denver and I have no control over what goes into it.”

“But how can you justify …”

“I shouldn’t have to justify, Reese. Everyone knows my position, I haven’t changed it, and whenever I feel there’s something to be said, I will say it. A disclaimer will take care of the rest.”

He looked at her admiringly. “That’s damned clever, Maggie.”

“Yes, I thought of it today.” Today, during the long, daydreaming wagon ride back to town. No, not long. Forty-five minutes. Not onerous. Thinking time. Time to luxuriate in feelings and experiences she had thought to deny herself forever. There
was
a way, she thought, just as Logan had said.

She wished he were sitting across the table from her, admiring her cleverness.

“It might be a little too late,” Reese said with a sudden casualness that brought her immediately to attention.

“How so?”

He shrugged. “Because of the talk. You heard the talk, Maggie. An explanation after the fact might not hold water.”

“But I’ll hold to it nonetheless. People will believe whatever they want to, I suppose,” Maggie said, wanting to add that this was to be her last word on the subject. She was saved from that by the arrival of their dinner—a reasonable excuse not to talk for a while.

But after, with coffee and dessert, Reese wanted to tackle the problem of how she could save face.

“There is no way, Reese. The supplements will come in
every week, and every week I will wager you there will be a hiring notice displayed prominently on the first page. I think Denver North has done it on purpose, and I’m not going to worry about it sullying my reputation.”

“All right, fine. You can’t relinquish your revenues from running the supplement—”

“Nor can they specially print a supplement for this region.”

“All right, then …”

“We charge into the fray and say the hell with …”

“Maggie Colleran.”

She froze. She knew that voice and she was not happy that he had chosen to come straight across the room deliberately to seek her out in the view of everyone dining there this evening.

“Mr. Brown.”

“A fine hotel,” he said. “Delightful food.”

“We in Colville like it,” she said shortly.

“Many in Colville are looking to better their positions,” Mr. Brown said. “They would give a great deal to be in a position to dine here whenever they would, to buy the carriage that would bring them here, to rent rooms here by the month and be perfectly comfortable and have their every whim attended to. I must say, I’m enjoying it immensely. Good night, Maggie Colleran.”

She stared at him as he stalked away. “Good Lord, what was
that
about?” And then she felt as though she were being watched, and she turned slowly and looked around the room.

Everyone’s eyes were on her, reflecting accusation and betrayal.

She carried on. She curled the voluptuous memory of her afternoon with Logan close to her heart and went about her business as if nothing had happened.

But everything had happened and everything was changed. Sometime in the middle of the week she had the distinct feeling that Logan was deliberately leaving her alone so she could sort out her feelings.

But for the first time, she had no conflict. She knew why. Logan accepted what she was, or at least on the surface he did. He let her be what she was. He was on the ranch, she was in her office, and sometime in the week they would come together again. She wasn’t worried when, or how. She was too in love with the sensations and the freedom she felt to be concerned with the future.

Only at night did the exquisite yearning almost overpower her, and then she wanted him desperately in her arms and in her bed.

“Well, they’re hiring on,” Arch Warfield announced the following Thursday. “You ought to see the line, Maggie. They got so many applicants I don’t know where they’re going to put them.”

She went to see the line and it was not encouraging. The money was good—too good, and the men on the line were not all men of Colville and surrounding counties.

“Write the story,” she told Warfield, knowing exactly what kind of story he would write. She would balance it somehow. There had to be some way.

She couldn’t allow herself a single distraction: Logan’s sensual temptation was the furthest thing from her mind as she set type Friday night. A.J. was at the press and Jean was inking the type. The disclaimer was written and set prominently on the front page. She didn’t like how it looked, but that was how it would go.

And in the midst of this, Logan walked in.

She was startled to see him. Her mind flashed on the vision of him on his bed the previous Sunday afternoon. She shook it away and greeted him briskly.

“I’ll help,” he offered, and A.J. immediately set him to work inserting the supplements into the ink-dried first
press of the paper.

They worked for four hours beyond that, which was not unusual, and it struck Maggie that there was a faint petulance in Jean’s manner, almost as if he resented Logan’s intrusion into their ritual. Not that it mattered, of course, but there was a certain rhythm that had shifted, and she knew it was due to her constant awareness of him across the room.

A.J. and Jean left her reluctantly, even after she assured them that she was very happy to see Logan, and when she was sure they had gone she locked all the doors and turned down the lights and allowed herself the luxury of feasting her eyes on him.

“I want you, Maggie—right now.”

“How? Not here.”

“Here. It’s been hell this week, Maggie. Turn off the lights and come to me here.”

Every other consideration flew out of her head. She did as he said and groped her way back to him inside the darkened back room, melting into his waiting arms. “It’s been hell for me, too,” she whispered, as he rained light nipping little kisses on her mouth. She wondered how she had borne it when this was all she had wanted, in her heart of hearts, all week.

His kiss deepened and she gave herself to it in the dark, trusting him implicitly to know what she wanted and how to give it to her.

She felt a renewed excitement and wound her arms around him, pressing her body against him. She felt him hardening as he molded her body to his and thrilled to the feeling of how she aroused him with her kisses and her touch.

From the thick honey of his kisses, she felt him pulling up her skirt, and easing her against the wall so that it would brace her and he would be free to do all the things she desired. His hands slid knowingly over her thighs,
seeking the opening that would expose her velvet cleft to his touch. A moment later, his fingers slipped deftly into the textured heat of her, and she shifted against him to ease his way.

He caressed her there and felt the tempestuous arousal that told him that she needed more than his caresses. And he was ready for her.

She felt the long, thick hard slide of his potency into her satin sheath and it was wondrous. She was clothed, supported by a wall, beguiled by his hot kisses and filled with his virile manhood. Behind, she felt his one hand grasp her buttocks, and she thrilled to the feel of his hand guiding her as they coupled in this new way.

Her hips writhed under his masterful hand as he shifted within her.

“Don’t move,” she sighed. “No, move …” She didn’t know. She loved his hard fullness inside her; she wanted to savor it and she heeded him driving her to culmination.

They remained in this erotic embrace for a long while as they kissed each other with slow, languid wet kisses, wishing they could be private and naked.

He moved, slowly at first; he had to move. Her moans and sighs and her volatile whispers told him how much she loved the feel of him thick inside her. Her openmouthed kisses almost sent him spiraling to completion.

He wanted her with him. He wanted her. His whole body tightened as he thrust forcefully into her sweet heat; he was all taut and tight and hard and driving, driving, centering her as he guided and caressed her buttocks to the rhythm of his thrusts, feeling her know just what to do, how to move with him, how to do everything just as he needed her to do it, feeling her explode finally into a frenzy of wild gyrations, grinding against him as an avalanche of sensation cascaded like a waterfall all through her body.

He couldn’t contain himself after that. He tore his mouth from hers to moan her name before his final penetrating lunge propelled him over the edge.

She loved knowing the perfume of their union Would still be with her when she awakened.

“Sunday,” he had said when he left her. “Come to me Sunday.” She couldn’t wait for Sunday. She didn’t care about the paper; she only cared that there was still one more day until she could be with him again.

And with no second thoughts, she reflected, as she made her Saturday delivery rounds.

“Now Maggie,” Arwin said like some Greek chorus, “this excuse on the front page is useless. Everyone saw you talking so sweetly to Mr. Brown at dinner the other night.”

“Did they?” she murmured. She should have followed her first instinct, to either slap his face or leave the room—or both.

Too late now. She was getting in deeper and deeper—so deep it could not be a coincidence. It scared her a little. A little body of negative opinion was mounting against her for reasons she couldn’t yet discern.

“Isn’t it interesting that this is what people are saying?” she asked Reese later. He looked appalled. “It’s a small town, Reese. Every action has its consequences.”

But somehow she was not thinking about consequences with Logan. There was an unrequited hunger in her that only wanted the sensation of the moment. Everytime she thought about him her anticipation rose to a fever pitch. She marveled that she had been so stupid as to think she could use Logan and then hand him over to Annie Mapes.

She was a mile from his ranch the next morning when she realized she had spent the whole trip thinking about
their carnal togetherness. Her body was already stiff with the awareness of what awaited her, and her excitement was all the more stimulating because she had deliberately worn garments she knew were easy to remove and no underclothing.

He was all she wanted, everything from him and no one else, and it seemed to her that her journey to him carried its own reward. She loved seeing him waiting for her in the dooryard, looking tall and lean and gorgeously male. Expecting
her
. Wanting
her
.

He reached for her the moment she reined in the horses and she braced her hands on his muscular shoulders. He lifted her and held her close so that her body slid down the length of his until he could fit his mouth to hers in a hot urgent kiss. He held her at her waist and around her buttocks, and her legs wrapped around his.

He knew she was naked, and the sensations of her movements against him were overwhelmingly tempting. He wanted to take her right there, wanton and willing as she so clearly seemed to be.

Slowly he lowered her to the ground, to force her to release her legs, release him. He eased his mouth away reluctantly and moved his hands from her bottom to cup her face.