Page 50 of Texas Honor

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NO, MARIANNETHOUGHT,she didn’t really have to wonder why he’d parked the car. His face gave her the answer. So did the heavy, quick rise and fall of his chest under the green-striped shirt. He looked so handsome that she could hardly take her eyes off him, and the sheer arrogance in his narrowed eyes was intimidating.

But she wasn’t sure she wanted a sweet interlude with him. Her defenses were weak enough already. Suppose he insisted? Could she resist him if she let herself fall in that heady trap?

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she began as he unfastened his seat belt and then hers.

“Don’t you?” he asked. “Even after the way you went scarlet when I stared at your waistline in the twins’ room? You knew what I was thinking, Marianne,” he whispered, reaching for her. “You knew.”

He lifted her across him, finding her mouth even as he eased her down against his arm with her head at the window. Outside rain was streaming down the glass, making a quick tattoo on the hood and the roof, as driving as the passion that began to take over Mari’s blood.

He bit at her soft lips, tender little nips that made her want him. His big hand smoothed over her blouse, under it, finding the softness of her breast in its silky casing.

“Lie still,” he whispered when her body jerked under that gentle probing. “It’s been a long time since we’ve enjoyed each other like this. Too long.”

He kissed her wide eyes shut and found the catch that bared her to his warm, hard fingers. She couldn’t let this happen, she kept telling herself. It was just a game to him, he didn’t mean it. Any minute now he was going to let that seat down and turn her in his arms....

With a wounded cry she pulled out of his arms so suddenly that he was startled into releasing her. She fumbled the door open, deaf to his sharp exclamation, and ran out into the rain.

The long grass beat against her slacks as she ran, not really sure why she was running or where she was trying to go. Seconds later it didn’t matter because he’d caught her and dragged her down onto the ground in the wet grass with him.

“Never run from a hunter,” he breathed roughly, turning her under him as he found her mouth with his. The rain beat down on them, drenching them, making their bodies as supple as silk-covered saplings, binding them as if there had been no fabric at all in the way.

It was new and exciting to lie like this, to kiss like this, feeling the warm, twisting motions of Ward’s big body against hers, their clothes wet and their skin sensitive.

“We might as well have no clothes on at all,” he breathed into her open, welcoming mouth, his voice husky with passion. “I can feel you. All of you.”

His hands were sliding down her body now, exploring, experiencing her through the wet thinness of fabric, and it was like feeling his hands on her skin.

She moaned as she slid her own hands against his hard-muscled back, his chest, his hips. She didn’t understand what was happening, how this passion had crept up on her. But she was lost now, helpless. He could do anything he liked, and she couldn’t stop him. She was on fire despite the drenching rain, reaching up toward him, sliding her wet body against his in the silence of the meadow with the rain slicking their hair as it slicked their skin.

He eased his full weight onto her, devouring her mouth with his. His hands smoothed under her back, sensuously pressing her up against him.

Her body throbbed, burned, with the expertness of his movements. Yes, he knew what to do and how to do it. He knew...too much!

“Tell me to stop,” he challenged under his breath, probing her lips with his tongue. “Tell me to let you go. I dare you.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered, and her eyes stung with tears as she clung to his broad, wet shoulders. “I want you. Oh, I want you!”

His lips were all over her face. Tender, seeking, gentling, his breath catching in his throat at her devastating submission. He was trembling all over with the force of this new sensation. He wanted to protect her. Devour her. Warm her. Hold her until he died, just like this.

His big hands framed her face as he touched it softly with his lips. “I want to give you a baby,” he whispered shakily. “That’s what you saw in my face at Wade’s, and it made you go red all over. You saw, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered back, her body trembling.

He searched her wide eyes, his own blazing with hunger. “I could take you, Marianne,” he said very quietly. “Right here. Right now. I could have you, and no one would see us or hear us.”

She swallowed, closing her eyes. Defeated. She knew that. She could feel how capable he was of it, and her body trembled under his fierce arousal. She wanted him, too. She loved him more than her honor.

“Yes,” she whispered, so softly that he could barely hear.

He didn’t move. He seemed to stop breathing. She opened her eyes and saw his face above her, filled with such frank exultation that she blinked incomprehensibly.

“Baby,” he breathed softly, bending. He kissed her with such aching tenderness that her eyes stung, tasting her lips, smoothing his lips over her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her eyes. “Baby, sweet, sweet baby. You taste of roses and gardenias, and I could lie here doing this for all my life.”

That didn’t sound like uncontrollable passion. It didn’t even sound like lust. She reached up and touched his face, his chin.

He kissed the palm of her hand, smiling down at her through wildly exciting shudders. “Do you know how wet you are?” he said with a gentle smile, glancing down at her blouse, which was plastered against breasts that no longer had the shelter of a bra.

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