Page 34 of Wyoming Tough

She glared at him. “I’ve caused enough trouble for one day,” she said flatly. She drew in a long breath. “Listen, I should quit….”

“No!”

He was out of the saddle in a heartbeat and standing over her the next. He took her by the shoulders. In the silence of the woods, she could hear her own heart beating as he looked into her eyes and didn’t look away for so long that her heart ran wild. She had to part her full lips to breathe. Her heartbeat was strangling her.

He saw that helpless reaction and it touched him. She couldn’t have faked her attraction to him. It was far too visible.

His hands relaxed and became caressing. They ran up and down her arms in the long-sleeved cotton T-shirt. “You puzzle me,” he said, his voice deep and slow, like velvet. “I don’t like it.”

Her hands pressed against the soft cotton of his shirt. Underneath it she felt cushy, thick hair and hard muscle. She smelled the woodsy cologne and the masculine soap that clung to his skin. He made her tingle all over, just by standing close to her. She looked up at his wide, sensuous mouth and remembered how it felt to kiss him. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it, so much!

“Damn it,” he ground out, because he knew. He could sense her hunger, even before her rapt gaze on his lips proved it to him.

Before she could question the sudden curse, his mouth went down on hers. He kissed her hungrily. His arms lifted her into the instantly hard contours of his powerful body and pulled her into him. His hand went to the base of her spine, insistent as he demonstrated the force of his desire for her.

She tried to protest, but her own body betrayed her. She moaned and pressed close against him, her mouth twisting under his, provoking, pleading, begging for more.

She felt him move, felt the ground suddenly under her back and the weight and warmth of his body melting down into hers. She felt his long leg parting both of hers as his hips moved down between them.

“Dear…God!” he bit off reverently as he felt the pleasure wash over him.

His hands were under her shirt, under her bra. He felt the softness of her small, firm breasts with their hard tips first against his fingers, and then, as he pushed the shirt up out of his way, under his mouth.

He suckled her, hard, feeling her arch under him and cry out. He thought he was hurting her in his ardor and started to lift his head, but her hands pulled, pleaded, dragged his mouth back down.

She tasted like honey. He was drowning in need. He pressed against her in a slow, sensuous rhythm that grew more insistent by the minute. His hand lifted her hips, pulled them against the hardness of him.

He worked feverishly at the buttons of his shirt and opened it so that he could feel her breasts under the crush of his bare chest. His mouth invaded hers. He was desperate to have her. He couldn’t bear to stop, not now!

Neither could she. It was the most passionate interlude of her young life. She wasn’t able to protest. She wanted to know him, as a man, as a lover. She wanted to feel him deep inside her, feel him taking her, possessing her. She wanted…a child…!

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until he suddenly dragged himself away from her, rolled over in an agonized state of denial and groaned as if all the devils in purgatory were pummeling him.

She lay shocked, gasping, as she realized how far they’d gone. She jackknifed, quickly righting her clothing, shivering with denied pleasure. She got to her feet, shaking, and looked away while she fought to get her breath. She was horrified at her own lack of control. It had been so close!

She swallowed, hard, and then swallowed again. She couldn’t force herself to look at him, although she heard him get to his feet, heard his own rasping breath as he worked to regain the control he’d lost.

After a minute, she heard a rough curse break from his throat as he looked at her stiff back.

“So that’s your game, is it?” he asked coldly. “You’d like a child, would you? I don’t suppose you’re taking any sort of preventative. You seduce the boss, there’s a child and you’re set for life. That how it works?”

She turned, shocked. She stared at him with stark embarrassment and averted her eyes. She was flushed and sick at heart. “I…wasn’t thinking at all.”

“Obviously you were,” he said coldly. He smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Good try. But I’m no novice with your sex, and I’m no easy mark.”

“It wasn’t like that.” She faltered, flushing even more.

He gave her a long and very insulting look. “Sure.” He picked up his hat from where he’d tossed it, dusted it off, slanted it over his eyes and went to find his horse, which had wandered off to eat green grass. He mounted and turned the horse. He stared at her, but she didn’t look at him, or answer him. She went to get back on her own mount and rode away without another word.

She was going to have to leave. She knew it certainly. Mallory had made his opinion of her quite clear. What was unclear was why he’d suddenly started kissing her like that. She hadn’t asked for it. Or had she? Her obvious attraction to him was going to be disastrous. He was already suspicious of her, thanks to his girlfriend. She’d blurted out that embarrassing comment and now he was surely going to think she was some gold digger.

Her subconscious must be working overtime, she decided, because she had no conscious thought of starting a family. But to have a child, with a man like Mallory, who was so masculine and attractive…

And bullheaded and suspicious-minded and unkind, she added hotly to herself. Of course she wanted a child from a man like that!

Actually, in her young life, she’d never known passion or such hunger; she’d never thought of marrying and having children. She’d thought herself in love with the persistent accountant until she found out his true motives for courting her. But now she knew there had been nothing at all to that relationship. And he’d pressed her to sleep with him. He’d even said they had no need for birth control, because he wanted children with her. Somehow, she’d had the sense to deny him.

Mallory was thinking the exact same thing about her that she’d thought about her would-be lover. The accountant, she still couldn’t bring herself to say his name even silently, had wanted to trap her into marriage. Mallory thought Morie was up to the same underhanded game. It was humiliating.

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