Her breath caught. She flushed, because even an innocent couldn’t mistake what he was feeling and what he wanted now. But the worst of it was that she wanted it just as much. She was caught in a sensual daze and her body ached. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted his hands on her body to soothe the burning ache he’d created. She wanted...him.
He stopped dancing and stood with her in the middle of the dance floor, his pale eyes glittery as they searched hers. “I want to take you out of here,” he said huskily. “I can’t stand much more of this.”
“Yes,” she whispered. She knew what he was saying, and part of her was ashamed and frightened and reluctant. But she cared too much to refuse him.
“All right.” He let her move slowly away from him, but he didn’t let her go. “I need a minute, cupcake,” he said softly. He pulled her back into his arms, but so that their legs didn’t touch. He drew in deep breaths until he could get his body back in control so that what he felt wouldn’t be on public display. Then, gently, he led her off the dance floor and out the door to the Jeep, ignoring the sandwiches he’d already paid for that had just been placed on their table. Food was the very last thing on his mind right now.
“Did you enjoy the rodeo?” he asked on the way home. He hadn’t touched her or said anything vaguely romantic since they’d left the bar. Allison was still in a daze, and her body was on fire to be held close to his. But she tried to keep that to herself.
“I enjoyed it very much,” she said. “I never realized the events were so complicated.”
“It helps when you know a bit about it,” he said. He was nervous. Imagine that, he thought with graveyard humor, and with his reputation. But Allison wasn’t like other women he’d made love to. She was very, very special, and he wanted this to be like no other time for her. He wanted to give her everything.
He pulled off the main road and drove toward the ranch, but there was a dirt track that led into a grove of trees by the creek, and he took that one instead of the ranch road that led home.
Allison felt herself tensing, because she knew instinctively what was in that grove of trees down the road. But she didn’t say a word. She’d committed herself back in Cody. It would be cowardly and cruel to back down now. Of course, that was only an excuse to appease her conscience, and she knew it. She looked at the man beside her and knew that she’d do anything he asked of her. No one had ever been so gentle and kind to her, no man had ever made her feel so special. He’d rescued her from a kind of limbo that she’d been in ever since her parents’ death.
“The line cabin is down there,” he said, trying not to show how desperately he needed her or how nervous he was. “It’s old. Probably the oldest building still in use on the place. The men stay here during the winter when they have to keep up with the outlying herds.”
“I see.”
He pulled up in front of a small, darkened cabin that looked like something out of a history journal and cut the engine and the lights. “It doesn’t look like much, but it’s pretty well kept.”
He got out and helped her out, then led her up the porch to the front door and inside. She felt oddly light-headed, probably, she thought dizzily, the result of the beer and no food.
“See, we even have electricity,” he mused, turning on a small lamp.
The cabin was only one room, with a small kitchen, a fireplace and two chairs, and a neatly made bed with a blue-beige-and-red-patterned quilted coverlet over it. Just the thing, Allison thought, for a cowboy on his own in the winter.
“The bed linen is washed weekly, even if nobody stays here, and we keep a supply of food in the kitchen,” he told her. He turned, his gaze slow and warm on her face as he took off his Stetson and tossed it onto a chair. She looked so young, he thought, watching her. So sweet and vulnerable and hungry for him. His heart raced.
Without another word, he unfastened his bola and unsnapped the buttons down the front of his shirt with a dark, lean hand.
Her breath caught in her throat as he pulled the shirt out of his jeans and opened it. His chest was darkly tanned and thick with curling black hair. He moved toward her with a faintly arrogant expression, as if he knew how exciting and sensuous he was without the trembling of her body and the sudden parting of her lips to tell him.
He caught her cool hands and brought them under the lapels of the open shirt, pressing them palm down on his warm, rough chest. The sensation was incredible. He shivered. “Feel me,” he said huskily, moving her hands around. He drew her to him and bent to her lips, pausing just above them to tease them, torment them, while he let her hands learn the contours of his torso. It was sheer heaven, the feel of those soft, warm fingers on his taut body. He felt himself going rigid all at once and didn’t even try to hold back.
“Allison,” he groaned as he bent to her mouth. “Oh, God, I’ve never wanted anyone so much!”
The wording weakened her, because she knew how he felt. Odd, with his reputation that he could be so vulnerable to an innocent like her. Of course, she thought uneasily, he didn’t know she was innocent. His hands were moving over her back and she hesitated for just one second with maidenly fear of the unknown. Then she relaxed as the kiss began
