The Horseman

There were good men in this world, but how scarce they were.

Hennessey burst into the room carrying two steaming ten-gallon buckets as if they weighed nothing at all. “Hope you like your bathwater hot.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this. I could manage to make it to the necessary room downstairs. Where the bathtub belongs.”

“Sure, but then I can’t be your hero by bringing a hot, soothing bath to you.”

“I can arrange my own bath.”

“Sure, but then I wouldn’t be here to help you.” He emptied the heavy buckets handily.

Had she heard him right? “I don’t need help getting a bath ready.”

He strode from the room as if he hadn’t heard her.

As if she couldn’t have gone downstairs and asked Mrs. Miller to heat bathwater. Katelyn rescued her hairbrush from the folds in the quilt and brushed her hair until it crackled, and tried not to watch Hennessey every time he entered the room. Every time he hefted the buckets with ease and rippling muscles and quiet competence. A competence her spirit admired, even as she set her mind against it.

“You’ll need this.” He ripped open a brown-wrapped bundle and a snowy white robe tumbled to the covers. So soft and luxurious looking that it made her fingers itch to touch the fabric.

“Let me help you.” He lifted the brush from her hand and set it aside. His pupils grew huge until there was a tiny ring of brown around the black as his knuckles grazed her chin. There was a tug and a yank and the top button at her throat released.

“I can do this myself.”

“I know.” He loosened the next button and the next until the flannel placket fell forward, gaping, offering him a view of the top slopes of her breasts.

His gaze pinned hers as he continued unbuttoning. The pad of his thumb pressed into the inner curve of her right breast. She shuddered deep inside.

“This is wrong. You need to leave.” She couldn’t seem to summon up enough strength to make the words sound forceful.

“I suppose that would be the proper thing to do.” Hennessey released the last button and the fabric fell free.

Air danced across her exposed nipples. They pebbled, tellingly, and heat crept up her face. She was strangely aroused. Liquid, spreading heat curled deep in her abdomen. Her breathing quickened. Her skin felt alive and craving his touch.

She’d never felt this way before. What she ought to do was send him from the room.

Slowly, as if destined, he lifted her hair away from the side of her neck and pressed his kiss there, hot and thrilling, beneath her earlobe.

Want flickered through her like fire.

She knew what he wanted. She’d been married. The quiet horseman might have little experience with women, but she didn’t doubt he had experience of a different sort.

Here she was, alone with him, half-undressed on the bed. If she allowed it, he would have her out of her drawers, too, and naked beneath him spread out on the mattress.

Her stomach turned, remembering what that was like. The lovely heat in her midsection cooled into a faint disappointment.

“I can’t.” She couldn’t look at him.

“Do you think I’d try to take advantage of you?” His hand curled around her neck, so much strength and latent force, but his touch felt soothing and heavenly. “Damn that sorry excuse of a man for what he did to you. But you’re with me now. You’re about to find out what a real man is like.”

“A real man? Are there any of those left in this world?”

“A few of us sainted souls still roam the earth.” He winked, acting cocky, trying to make her smile.

It almost worked. The sudden tension in her eased a little. The hard knot she didn’t know was in her stomach loosened a bit.

He changed, softening the way a rugged granite mountain range softened with the dawn, and leaned his forehead to hers. Close. Intimate. As if he were suddenly a part of her flesh and bone.

“You’re with me now, Katelyn.” A promise, as sure as the earth and sky. As dependable as the floor at her feet. “Trust me, all right? If you do, you’ll see how a man treats a woman.”

His hand sneaked beneath her hair and cradled her head in his palm as his lips slanted over hers. A tender, heartrending brush of steel and heat and desire. A man’s loving kiss that left her stunned, her senses spinning. Her entire body quivered with awareness.

“Come with me.” He took her hand, so small in his, and helped her to her feet.

She was too dazed to argue. He drew her forward and she moved. She felt the heat from the water and the heat from him and burned, wholly, deeply.

He smoothed the nightgown from the curves of her shoulders and the fabric fell in a whisper down her arms, over her hips to pool on the nubby carpet beneath her feet. He moved behind her, his fingertips digging into the curve of her hip, holding her as he fit against her, his kiss to her nape, his hand in her hair. As if he belonged there.

He doesn’t belong with me. She willed the words into her mind, but they were not strong enough to stop the power of his touch. It sifted through her like snow from a benevolent sky, fragile and stunning and unstoppable and so peaceful she closed her eyes and wished it would never end.

His fingertips scraped down her ribs, skimmed lower and caught the cotton waist of her drawers. His breath fanned her nape as he tugged the bow loose and the fabric hung at her hips, ready to fall at any moment.

Naked, exposed, vulnerable, she shivered, but not from fear. Hennessey’s kiss traveled from her nape to her earlobe. The tug of his lips on sensitive skin felt like paradise. His palms caught her hipbones and his fingers interlocked over the curve of her stomach, trapping her against his steeled chest and the hard, impressive manhood jutting against the small of her back.

“I have never seen such beauty.” His confession was a low caress against the sensitized shell of her ear.

She broke then, like snow from the face of mountain, crumbling apart, unable to stop. Inevitable, fated, she closed her eyes and leaned into his strength. She allowed his arms to hold her up as her heart tumbled. What was he doing to her?

“The bath is waiting for you.” His words skimmed the curve of her earlobe. “I’ll just turn around while you, uh, take off the rest of your things.”

Was that shyness she heard in his voice? she wondered as she let the cotton slip to the floor. She laid one hand on the back of his shoulder as she dipped one foot into the steaming water. The lap and caress of the hot water melted her very bones. She brought her other foot into the tub and eased all the way in.

Heaven. She rested her head against the hard rim and closed her eyes. When was the last time she’d felt this good? She couldn’t remember. The delicious water comforted her soreness. Her worries drifted away on the rising steam to evaporate into nothing.

“Does it feel good?”

“Hmm.” She couldn’t speak. That’s how good it was. She was like a hunk of butter melting on a stove. Grateful tears ached in her throat.

Dillon had done this for her. She couldn’t remember anyone doing so much for her in what felt like a lifetime. She had to think of something to do for him in return.

She heard the hush of fabric and the crinkle of paper. Hennessey’s step moved closer. Fabric whispered to a rest on the chair cushion, within reach. She summoned up enough strength to open one eye a slit. He’d brought her the new robe.

“And for you. I hope you haven’t read it.” He laid a volume and a towel next to the robe.

A book? He’d bought her a book? She sat up. Water crashed against the rim of the tub and splashed over. Dillon knelt and handed her the towel to dry her hands.

A more disciplined man would say it was water droplets glistening in the lamplight on her bare, silken skin that aroused him. Or the graceful sweep of her slim hands as she took the towel and dried the dampness from her sensitive fingertips. A better man than him wouldn’t sneak a quick peek at her generous, rose-tipped breasts and creamy thighs.