To Tame a Wilde (Wilde in Wyoming) (13 page)

Chapter 21

“E
ver saved a horse and ridden a cowboy instead?”

“Nick! You scared the hell—” The rest of her rant was smothered in his kiss. With a blissful sigh, she turned, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back in earnest. Really getting into his kiss, she stood on tiptoe to get better access.

He didn’t just kiss. He made love to her mouth, just like he made love to her. Hot, sweet and incredibly naughty.

She smiled around his kiss. He broke away, staring down at her.

“What?” he asked, his finger coming up to trace the smile.

She shook her head, “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About?” he asked, releasing her. She sighed, turning to face the documents on her desk.

Sinclair had been in the middle of going over the final documents she was sending off to the Wildes for their inspection before giving it to Nick for him and his family to go over.

His gaze went to the papers on the desk she used at the ranch.

It had been more than a week since they’d gone over it, and she had begun to wonder if Nick was holding something back. Every time she mentioned the settlement he would either divert her attention with lovemaking...or divert her attention with lovemaking.

She frowned. The man made her feel like the easiest woman on the planet, she thought.

He turned and caught the frown. Leaning down, he kissed it away.

“What’s up? I know that look,” he said, yet something in his eyes troubled her.

“You know what’s up, Nick. What I can’t figure out is why?”

“Why, what?” he asked, but she saw the way he evaded her eyes.

“That right
there!
Every time I bring up the settlement you go weird on me!”

When he folded his arms over his chest and stared at her, looking at her as though
she
was the one being strange, she’d had it.

She stomped her foot, feeling all of ten years old, but she was at her wit’s end. Although Nate hadn’t said anything, nor had any of the others, she knew they must be wondering why a matter that should have taken three days, a week tops, had turned into a weeks-long adventure.

The fact that no one had actually said anything to her was a mystery she didn’t understand, but the fact remained: she needed to wrap it up.

Every day she was in Hawaii, the Kealohas were making it harder and harder for her to think of the time she’d have to leave.

“Come on, baby, we have to deal with this. I don’t like that I have to keep trying to get you to look at something that will benefit you. The settlement is fair, but if there is something you don’t like, you or the family, let me know, I’ll let the Wildes know and—

“What?” she asked, her frown returning.

“What if I told you I don’t want a damn thing from your Wilde Boys? My family and I are fine.”

She frowned and moved toward him. She placed a hand on his arm and looked up at him. “What’s going on? What are you talking about? I’m well aware of your family’s wealth, baby. No one is saying you ‘need’ anything from the Wildes,” Sinclair said, shying away from calling them her Wilde Boys without even being aware that she did.

She hadn’t referred to the brothers in that way for a while yet that she was aware of.

“Listen. We need to talk. Really talk,” he said, taking her hand and guiding her toward the desk.

He opened his mouth and began to speak, his eyes locked on hers.

“I...well... See, the thing is,” he began and stopped.

“Baby...are you okay?” she asked and he looked at her, helpless, looking lost.

“Nick?” she asked, her voice lowering, fear threading it.

“I...I want to make love to you, baby,” he blurted the words. “I’ve needed you all day. You know how I get,” he said and buried his head in her neck, his hands shaky as they rested on her waist.

Even as she allowed him to lift her enough to remove her panties, she felt the fine tremble in his hands.

“Nick, baby, we really need to go over the papers,” she moaned as his finger delved inside her, withdrawing her cream, her body already preparing for his.

Before she could question him further, before she realized that he had once again diverted her attention, her panties were on the floor and he was reaching for the box of condoms they kept in her desk.

It hadn’t been the first time he’d taken her in her makeshift office.

Condom donned, seconds later he was easing his thick, long length inside her welcoming body.

As he rolled his hips she accepted him, rocking into him, their bodies swiftly catching one another’s rhythm. Natural-born lovers. She moaned as he groaned, their voices sighs of passion even in sync.

Lazily she rolled back and forth on his shaft, her body calling to his.

The lazy sway of their lovemaking didn’t stop the inferno from building and it wasn’t long before their orgasms hit simultaneously.

As he came, he wrapped his big arms around her waist, bringing her close as he pumped, once, twice, three more times, his voice muffled as he growled his release.

It was long moments before her heartbeat returned to normal.

Not just because of the mind-blowing orgasm, but also because of what she thought she’d heard him growl against her neck as he came.

“God, I love you,”
he moaned in a heartfelt whisper against her neck.

Simple. Direct.

And, oh, God...she loved him, too.

Tears threatened to fall.

* * *

“How’s everything going, Sinclair? Haven’t heard from you. Thought I’d give you a ring, girlfriend!”

Sinclair smiled, leaned back against the soft down cushions on the bed in her hotel room and withdrew her glasses from her nose.

“Hey, Yaz girl, how are you?” she said, glad for the interruption, her mind not on the brief she was finishing, but on Nick, the Kealohas, the Wildes...and the tangled mess she found herself in.

“I’m doing well, babies are doing well, too,” she said and Sinclair smiled.

Yasmine was pregnant, and had recently learned that it wasn’t one Wilde, but two little Wildes growing in her tummy, a fact that had Holt, her husband, with his chest swollen with pride.

“How’s Holt?” she asked, ready to giggle. Holt and Yasmine had always cracked her up, as Holt had a wild sense of humor and could make anyone laugh with a few well-chosen words.

“Girl, he got his chest all poked out, proud, like he
did
something!” she said.

“Yeah, well, girl, he kinda did help. I mean, it takes two and all that.”

“Yes. True. And that is exactly what I’m talking about. It takes
two.
Not one.
Two,
” she emphasized. “With the way my husband is walking around the ranch talking about how potent he is...how, if it wasn’t for his Superman sperm— What, baby? I’m on the phone, I
can’t
talk to you!” she said, yelling at Holt, one hand covering the mouthpiece. Despite the ambivalent feelings Sinclair had due to her own personal situation, she fought back a laugh.

Holt and Yasmine always, without fail, cracked her up. When Yasmine got back on the phone, the two women caught up on what had been going on at the ranch in her absence.

Finally she opened up with Yasmine. She hadn’t told anyone what had been happening between her and Nick, not because she didn’t feel like she could, but mainly because she hadn’t figured out her own feelings. Until he’d told her he loved her.

She knew without doubt she’d heard it.

After she spilled her guts, told Yasmine everything, she waited. Then said, “I love him, Yaz. I really love him.”

She waited for the scream.

It wasn’t a long wait.

“
Oh. My. God!
They were right, Althea and Nate were right! Wahooo! Wait until I tell them. Oh. My.
God!
”

Despite the yelling and hollering, Sinclair picked up on something, a frown making her sit straighter.

“Nate and Althea were right? What do you mean, Althea and Nate were right?” she asked.

She wondered if Yaz’s pregnancy was affecting her in some weird way she had never heard of. There was a pause, and she could feel Yasmine’s discomfort.

“Oh, shoot. Me and my big mouth,” she mumbled.

Oh, no. This wasn’t good.

Of all the women, Yasmine was not only the worst to know a secret, she was the worst to keep a secret. Which was why she knew that what she was about to hear wasn’t going to be something she necessarily wanted to hear.

“You might as well come clean, Yasmine. Cat’s darn well out of the bag. Almost, anyway. Besides...you know you always feel better when you do,” Sinclair said, cajoling the woman and not feeling the least bit bad when Yasmine, in her pregnancy-induced emotional state started to whine, sniffing while saying, in a very small voice that Holt was going to get her when he found out. Then she stopped to giggle at her own words, repeating them.

“Holt’s gonna
get
me,” she said around her giggles. “Maybe the babies will come quicker if he does!” she said, her mind already on something else.

“Focus, Yasmine,” Sinclair said, trying not to snap at the pregnant woman, knowing that it was truly the hormones racing in her body that made her the way she was. Kind of...

“Okay,” said Yasmine, sobering. She began to whine again, begging Sinclair not tell, and on and on...until Sinclair forced the truth out of the woman. Finally.

And the truth made her face blanch.

When Sinclair was able to get off the phone, adroitly avoiding an agreement not to tell the brothers, she in fact wondered who she should confront first. The three men whom she considered brothers...

Or the one she was beginning to love like one. The one who was the identical twin brother of the man she was in love with.

All four men were not only in cahoots with each other, regarding the Wildes and the property, the inheritance and all, but were also responsible for her being there in the first place. They were responsible for all of the time she had been there, and for purposely throwing her and Nick together.

Chapter 22

“I
messed up, Key.”

The admission was made reluctantly as Nick found his brother in one of the stables, after looking for him the entire day.

He’d wrestled with the issue of the Wildes and, more importantly, Sinclair, for the better part of the day.

Hell, he’d been wrestling with it for longer, much longer than that.

“I was wondering when you would come and find me,” his brother replied mildly.

“Am I missing something here?”

“No, Pica. I just figured you would make your way here eventually. Grab a broom. Menial work clears your head,” he said.

With a frown Nick grabbed a broom as his brother’d asked, and began to help him clean out a stall.

“Okay, so what gives? Why are you doing ‘menial’ work, as you put it? Everything okay with you and Sonia?” Nick asked, putting his own troubles to the side to make sure his family was okay.

Key threw him a smile. It was strained in the corners and Nick began to worry. “We’re fine, Pika... No fears. Just shoot. What’s on your mind?”

Again, Nick hesitated. Two times his brother had called him by his nickname, one was to purely tick him off, the other time was as if something was on his mind, bothering him.

He continued to sweep after Key refused to say anything more.

Nick spilled his guts.

Opened up to his brother in ways he never had with anyone else.

He told him how he felt about their parents, how he felt about Clint Wilde.

“I know you don’t feel the same way that I do, Key. I get that. And, man, damn if I know why it affected me like that—that he never found out about us—but it did,” he finished, glancing toward his brother.

“Did?”

Nick laughed. “Yeah, did. Crazy thing is, it doesn’t even matter anymore,” he said, running a hand over the back of his head. “And the reason for that is because of Sinclair,” he admitted, his voice gruff, raw.

His brother said nothing, just continued to work, but Nick knew he was paying close attention to what he was saying.

“I love her more than I thought I could ever love a woman. More than I thought it was possible to love,” he said, and turned away. As much as he loved his brother, he felt exposed admitting his feelings about Sinclair in such an open way.

“Have you told her?” Key asked.

Nick shook his head no even before he’d fully asked the question.

“No. Don’t know how. Hell of it is, I don’t know if she feels the same way.”

“Man, come on. You know the woman loves you. Hell, the whole damn ranch knows how you two feel about each other. Damn sure you haven’t hidden it.”

“I tried. Damn if I didn’t. It’s just that whenever we’re together, it’s like there’s no one else. I love her more than I love the A’kela Ranch.”

When he made that admission the brothers locked gazes. The emotion in his eyes was one he couldn’t hide, not from his twin. The A’kela was not simply their ranch, it was them, who they were.

By saying he loved her more than the A’kela it was clear that his words were deep and heartfelt.

Key smiled. The smile was one of relief, mixed with something more.

He grabbed his brother and hugged him. They hugged for long moments before Nick lightly shoved him, making him laugh as he pushed his twin away.

“I can’t keep her here forever. She has to know the truth soon.”

“Don’t be an idiot like I was with Sonia. Tell her. Don’t let her leave without telling her. And tell her the truth—that you don’t want the Wildes’ ranch. That the Kealohas don’t want the Wyoming Wilde Ranch.”

Nick blew out a breath after patting his brother on the back. “Wish it was that simple. How the hell do you tell somebody you love that you’ve been keeping something from them, just because you wanted to get to know them...? That what you felt from the first time you spoke was something you’d never felt for another person before?”

“Just like that, brother,” Key said.

The brothers locked gazes. Nick laughed. “Just like that, huh?”

“But before you do, there’s something I’ve got to tell you. And I don’t think you’re going to like it,” he warned, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.

Although he felt dread, Nick recognized the gesture, one that he himself made whenever he was unsure of himself.

“Oh, hell...what is it? Don’t tell me... You and the Wildes have been talking?”

The look Key gave him was almost worth the ass-whooping Nick was going to give his brother for going behind his back to talk to the three men Nick had professed to dislike.

Even as he began to roll up his sleeves, Nick knew that as far as ass-whoopings went, this one would be fair and evenly matched.

“Aw, hell. Okay, let’s get this over with so I can tell you everything and you can get your woman,” Key grumbled and began to roll up his own sleeves.

No one knew him like his brother. It was a natural thing to do, to go to him. Even if his brother was an ass sometimes.