This Calder Sky (Calder Saga 3)

“You know what he’s going to think when he sees it, don’t you?” she demanded in hot anger.

When he reached the base of the stairs, he stopped to confront her and Maggie paused on the landing. “He’ll guess that you locked your door and I kicked it in. That’s what happened, Maggie.” He eyed her with a cool challenge. “And that’s all that happened.”

“But his imagination won’t stop there!” She was trembling, on the verge of losing control.

“I have no control over what else he might imagine,” he replied.

“Don’t you realize how embarrassing—how humiliating—it is for me to have some cowboy thinking that you broke my door down to get into my room last night?!” she stormed, then came down two more steps to where she was eye-level with the top of his head.

“It never occurred to you last night that I might find it humiliating to be locked out of my wife’s room,” Chase reminded her harshly. “It isn’t so amusing when the tables are turned, is it? Too bad you didn’t consider the possible consequences before you locked the door last night.”

His gibe stung and her hand lashed out to strike his tanned cheek, the contact with his hard flesh jarring her arm. She had little time to enjoy the satisfaction of hitting him before her wrist was seized and she was jerked off balance, stumbling down to the bottom step, where the solid wall of his body checked her fall. A large hand was on her waist to hold and support her. The shock of being brought so abruptly and so firmly in contact with his muscled frame stunned her for an instant. The rough laugh that came from his throat lifted her head sharply to find him regarding her with a smoldering satisfaction that was lazy, yet hard.

“That fiery-tempered girl still lives behind all that polished sophistication, doesn’t she?” He half-drawled the sentence. She started to struggle, but he held her easily, his hand spreading over her spine to press her closer. She stopped trying to fight free of his arms, because when she moved against him like that, it made her sharply aware of his male build and incited all her mating instincts. She stared at the shoulder seam of his shirt and tried to block from her mind all the disturbing sensations that attempted to crowd in. She felt his breath on her hair, and the palm of his hand rubbed the back of her shoulder while her own hands lay motionless on his chest.

“I had forgotten how little you are,” he mused. “Strange.” There was a trace of irony in his voice. “I remember so many things, yet I forgot that.” His mouth moved against her hair, wandering downward toward her ear. Maggie lifted a shoulder, tucking the side of her face against it to prevent him from reaching his objective. His warm, male lips brushed her forehead while his hands roamed leisurely over her back and hips, testing the feel of her in his arms. The satin material of her nightgown was no barrier, able to shield her sensitive nerve ends from the force of his caressing hands. It was a second skin against her body, letting her feel every imprint of his fingers.

“Chase, please don’t.” But she knew he would pay no attention to her whispered protest. It was only her pride that wanted him to stop. All the rest of her wanted him to go on.

“We were so young, Maggie.” His mouth grazed her cheekbone as he spoke. “So young and foolish. We didn’t know the first thing about living. It was all sunshine and green grass for us—all smiles and kisses, with no tears or pain.” Her eyes were shut as his mouth covered her lips in a sampling kiss, then left, taking a little of her breath.

“We can’t go back, Chase. We can’t find what we lost,” she murmured.

“I don’t want what we had in the past.” He rubbed his mouth along her lips as he talked, stimulating her with its warmth and moistness. “I want to build on what we have today so there will be a tomorrow. We’re married; we have a son; and I want you, Maggie.” His voice was rough with longing. “Others have started a life together with less.”

“There’s so much against us,” she reminded him huskily, even while her lips moved in invitation against his.

“Be my wife, Maggie. Let me touch you, hold you, sleep with you,” he urged and let his mouth close slowly and surely on her lips.

H

e kissed her with experience, but he didn’t rely on technique to arouse her. There was an element in the kiss that moved to a much more basic instinct—that primitive core that exists in all humans, the need to have a mate, a need that is both physical and emotional, a need Maggie had never had fulfilled. Her hands slid around the muscled column of his neck as she strained against him, trying to absorb and, in turn, be absorbed.

Chase dragged his mouth from hers, reluctantly, a disturbed heaviness to his breathing and a thick-lidded passion in his dark brown eyes. “That had better mean ‘yes,’ Maggie,” he warned. “I can’t keep breaking down locked doors. You’ve got to open one for me.”

“Yes.” She couldn’t fight her instinctive feelings for him any longer. Right or wrong, a part of her had always belonged to him, so why hold back the rest now?

He kissed her hard and long, claiming what she was giving him and crushing her within his hold. When he finally moved to roughly nuzzle her throat, she was dazed and breathless, and trembling with the powerful force of her feelings. A distant part of her mind registered the sound of the front door opening, but its significance didn’t click until she heard Buck Haskell’s voice.

“Chase … uh … excuse me,” he interrupted with a mocking insistence. “Are you ready to go yet?”

Chase almost turned to look at him, but once his head had lifted, he seemed unable to drag his gaze from her face. Maggie felt a similar fascination with his face, its expression so incredibly warm, melting features that were usually all hard bone and flesh, and the light in his dark eyes glittered so.

“I’m not going today, Buck,” he said. “Tell George I won’t be needing him.” A half-smile lifted the corners of his mouth as her fingertip lightly traced the strong line of his jaw. “And pass the word that Mr. and Mrs. Calder are indisposed today—and aren’t to be disturbed.”

There was a slight pause before Buck replied with a slightly stiff and formal, “Yes, sir.”

With the click of the closing door, Chase moved, bending slightly to slip an arm under the back of her legs and pick her up. She linked her hands around his neck and started nibbling on his neck, tasting his skin and the tangy after-shave lotion while he started up the stairs.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanted to carry you up these stairs in these past weeks?” he asked softly. “Or how hard it’s been to walk past your door every night?”

She made an agreeing sound while her lips feathered the shell of his ear, her teeth taking a playful nip of the lobe. She was floating on a new emotional high that was languorous and lasting. When her half-closed eyes noticed they were entering her bedroom, she drew back slightly to lazily study his compelling profile.

“We can’t shut the door,” she reminded him.

“I know.” He stopped, looking at her possessively. “I’ve had my fill of closed doors. Besides, I gave my word that I wouldn’t expect you to share my bed—so I thought it would be best if we shared yours.”

She laughed softly because he was keeping to the letter of his promise to her. Reaching up, she took off his hat and gave it a little toss. It landed on a chair.