Wild in the Field

from something far different from fear. Although her first thought was just: Good, now she’d have the chance to punch his lights out.

Killer, of course, started immediately barking-and because Camille wasn’t prepared, the dog yanked the leash from her hand and tore off toward Pete, sounding like a canine version of Sylvester Stallone on a Rambo rampage.

“Oh, shut up, Darby,” Pete said.

The dog promptly sat down and then lay down, tongue lolling. Camille shook her head, flabbergasted at the dog’s docility, but Killer couldn’t hold her attention for long. Her gaze glued on Pete and wouldn’t let go. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“Obviously. I meant why.”

“Because I believed what you said. That you’re fine. And I had the impression you were sick and tired of people treating you as if you were going to break.”

“I am,” she admitted. “Tired to bits of people tiptoeing around me, treating me like fluff.”

“Well, you can take it to the bank, Cam. I won’t be one of those treating you like fluff. I think you can take anything I can dish out.”

“You’re damn right I can,” she assured him.

“Good,” he murmured, and reached for her.

She never saw the kiss coming. Never had a clue that was where he was leading. She felt a long, slow woooosh inside her when his mouth came down on hers, in a kiss that started hard and deep and just kept coming.

His tongue was inside her mouth before she’d scrabbled a spare ounce of oxygen. The screen door clapped behind them; his palm slapped down the porch light switch-and that was the last instant his hands were anywhere but on her.

The cottage was devil-black for an instant…but not really. Moonlight silvered through the naked windows. The light was perfect for kisses so naked they cut right past courtesies and politeness and pretenses.

Camille scrambled to make sense of a world that had become a storm of sensation, electric thunder, instant lightning. His tongue was making love with her tongue. His mouth, wet and hot, was molding hers. His hands, palms splayed, slid down her sides, inch by inch in a claim of ownership. She heard what his hands were saying as if they could talk: I own you. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, but right now, babe, that body of yours is all mine.

Her first sip of champagne had never made her this high, this dizzy. She simply didn’t do this.

She did nice sex.

She and Robert had always had nice sex. They’d shared cute little private jokes. They’d been comfortable, careful with each other. They’d learned all the things new lovers learn.

This wasn’t comfortable. This was scary and wild. This was turning on a faucet full force. “Pete-”

“I’ve got protection.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“If you want to say no, then say it. Anything else, we can talk about later.”

She opened her mouth, planning to say no. Planning to insist he slow down until she found her mind again-the one he was turning into shambles from the inside out. But instead of saying no, for a completely unknown reason, she lifted up on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck.

If she’d been looking for trouble, she found it-faster than a sting, hotter than a fire. In flashes she saw the moonlight on his harsh face, his soft eyes. He peeled her shirt over her head. She peeled his shirt over his. Maybe for a tornado they could have stopped. Maybe.

He swore, twice, just trying to get her into the bedroom. Packing boxes still hadn’t been put away. Some obstacle connected with his shin, another with his foot. Moonlight didn’t extend to the shadows and door-ways…but his kisses did. His touch did.

Pete seemed to know all the private places she’d been hiding in the dark.

Somewhere near the foot of the bed, he peeled the bra straps down her arms, then trailed the straps with his mouth, laving, biting, then baring her breasts for his view. He looked and kept looking, even as he was slowly zipping down her jeans and pushing them off her. There was naked and then there was naked. She’d been naked with Robert, but somehow she’d never felt this completely… exposed.

She kept telling herself that she was afraid, not ready, that she wanted to stop. But his hands were in her hair, and those kisses kept coming. She wasn’t protesting. She was claiming all the kisses he offered, taking everything he gave, demanding more, inviting more. When he lowered her to the bed, the old mattress springs creaked and groaned, not used to the weight of two wildly impatient lovers. The sheets felt moon-chilled, where her skin was unbearably hot. Fevered.

She hadn’t felt anything but anger in so long. She couldn’t explain what was happening. Morality didn’t seem to matter. This couldn’t be love…but it did seem to be about trusting Pete. Or his forcing her to trust him, because he gave and gave and gave. Liquid kisses. Golden kisses. Intimate kisses that tracked from her ankle to the inside of her thigh to the heart of her.

Need spiraled through her body, exploded through her senses, a fierce, urgent hunger that had nothing to do with lust-and yet everything to do with it. Desire coiled in her tighter than a spring, ready to let loose when he suddenly laughed, a low sound of masculine delight…and then he blew a raspberry in her navel to make her laugh, too. Laughter and sex, who’d have thought they went together? But when he nuzzled her breasts, her breath started coming in short, harsh gasps. As sweet as the laughter had been, suddenly she was in a desperate hurry for him, inside her, now.

She’d been torn apart for so many months. Alone for so many months. She didn’t know how to put her life back together. Wasn’t sure if she had a life that could be mended anymore.

But right then, it was as if Pete were taking her to some other place…a place where nothing existed but this urgent excitement. This rush of sensation. His wild mouth, his wicked eyes. His misbehaving hands, coaxing her to do things she didn’t do, to think things she didn’t think, to behave like a woman different than Camille. She was his lover. His abandoned, earthy lover at that moment, no one else, nothing else.

He pulled her beneath him, rising up, giving her a breath’s space-but she saw the glaze of desire in his eyes, saw the sheen of control in his face. She met his first thrust with her legs tight around him, then raised them higher and tighter yet, as if she could take him in as deep as her soul. He whispered something about how sweet she was, how wet, how tight, just for him, but he was already building a rhythm, pumping a beat, taking her on a long, fast ride.

She felt her spine arching, felt her pulse rushing and gathering speed, heard the call from her throat with his name on it. What she’d been so sure was lust wasn’t lust at all, but somehow magic. She felt protected in the circle of his arms, in his heat, in his warmth. He was stronger than she was and until those moments, that instant, she hadn’t known how strong she’d been. Or how badly she’d needed to let go, for a few minutes, to just be…weak. To be herself. To not hold up those steel emotional walls for just a little while.

And then release came to her like a sweet rush of rain, cleansing, healing, freeing. One burst of pleasure followed another, until she lay in his arms, breathless, whipped. He scooped her up and just held her. She heard his thundering heartbeat under her ear, felt his hand stroking down her shoulder and spine.

Gradually she became aware that clouds had chased across the moon. The room was darker, a night chill sneaking in. She’d felt the helpless smile on her lips, yet now felt that smile dying as her eyes opened.

There was no sudden sting of reality. The feeling of being cradled against his brawny chest was wonderful, the sensation of being sexually and emotionally sated was a call of life and hope that she hadn’t felt in months…if ever in her life. Yet when she suddenly lifted her head, she saw Pete’s eyes in the darkness, watching, waiting, as if he’d been half-tense in anticipation of her coming awake again.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t steal my lines. And I can’t talk quite yet. I don’t know what just happened, but it feels like something on a par with hang gliding off Mt. Everest.”

A small smile. “Did we wear you out?”

“We? You did it all. And damn, you’re so small. Where you’ve been hiding all that power and passion,