Wild Ride Rancher

He smiled, and the action sent ripples of heat rushing through her. “If that’s how you feel, then what’s the problem?” she asked him.

That smile faded. “A lot of stuff I really don’t want to talk about.”

“That doesn’t help me, Liam.”

“Yeah. I know.” Clearly irritated, he pulled his hat off, slapped it against his thigh. “I can’t help that. But damn it, Chloe, we’ve got a few days left of this bargain. You really want to spend them fighting?”

Well, he had her there. No, she didn’t want to fight with him anymore. She hated being in the guest room. Hated not talking to him, not feeling his arms come around her. Hated waking up and reaching across an empty bed for him.

He was watching her. Waiting. She could feel the tension between them like a pounding heartbeat. He was right. In a few days, this bargain would be done, and who knew what would happen then? Did she really want to cheat herself out of whatever time she had left with him?

“No,” she said finally, going with her heart. If she listened to her head, it would tell her that nothing could be solved by pretending everything was all right. But that wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Thank God.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her in close.

She laughed a little and asked, “Are we going to dance?”

“Not in this lifetime. I don’t dance.” But he held her as if they were dancing and turned in a slow circle beneath the white fairy lights. And as the light and shadow played across his features, Chloe took that last slide into love.

In that moment she knew, however their bargain ended, nothing would ever be the same for her again.

* * *

Back at his cabin, they walked into his bedroom together, darkness shattered only by the moonlight streaming through the windows. Liam closed the door behind them, then turned to her. He slid the straps of her gown off her shoulders and pushed the bodice down, exposing her breasts to the coolness of the room. Her nipples hardened and he smiled.

“I’ve missed the taste of you,” he whispered, and bent to take first one nipple then the other into his mouth. Chloe stood there, hands on his shoulders to maintain her balance, while the world tipped around her. His lips and tongue and teeth worked her flesh, sending her mind into a tailspin while it handed over control to her body.

“Liam,” she said on a groan, “I’m going to fall over in a minute.”

He straightened up, looked down into her eyes and said, “I can fix that.” Sweeping her up in his arms, he carried her to the bed and laid her down on the mattress. “Just stay right there.”

There was nowhere else she wanted to be, Chloe thought, running her own hands up and down her torso, cupping her breasts while he watched her through hungry eyes. He tore off his tuxedo jacket, tie and shirt, then knelt in front of her and pulled her hips to the edge of the bed.

“Liam?”

“Like I said,” he whispered, “I missed the taste of you.”

He flipped her midnight silk gown out of the way and smiled when he realized she hadn’t been wearing underwear. “Well now, if I’d known this, we might not have made it back to the cabin.”

She smiled. “I didn’t want any lines to show under my dress.”

“Well, I’m a big fan of fashion, then.” His thumb stroked that teardrop birthmark on the inside of her right thigh, then moved higher, closer to the burning, throbbing core of her.

Chloe held her breath and parted her thighs for him. Expectation roared into life inside her, and her breath staggered in her lungs.

He stroked her heat, dipped his fingers into her depths, then caressed her again. And Chloe writhed on the mattress, need building, desire pumping through her system. Helplessly, she rocked her hips, wanting, waiting. Liam kissed his way up her thigh, licking that birthmark that seemed to fascinate him so. And then finally, finally, he took her the way she wanted to be taken.

His mouth covered her, his tongue stroked her folds and his hot breath brushed across her own heat and set a blaze that threatened to consume her. Chloe twisted in his grasp as if trying to escape when she was really trying to get even closer, feel even more. Reaching down, she threaded her fingers through his hair and held his head to her. Letting him know, without speaking, that she loved what he was doing to her. That she never wanted it to end.