Calder Born, Calder Bred (Calder Saga 4)

He was a deadweight, but she did succeed in rousing him. Ty stirred, mumbling unintelligibly and trying to snuggle back into his corner. Jessy persisted, moving closer to get a better leverage.

“Sit up, Ty,” she ordered patiently and managed to tug him away from the door. “Come on, so I can help you into the house.”

His head lolled as he tried to come awake and discover his surroundings. His hat was pulled so low he had to tip his head back to see.

“Where are we?” he asked thickly.

“We’re home.” She continued to use the plural the way an adult often does with a child.

The sound of her voice seemed to penetrate his consciousness for the first time, and Ty swung his head around to look at her. The high illumination of the yard light did not reach inside the cab of the truc

k, and the exterior light cast even darker shadows inside. Between the dimness and his own blurring vision, Ty couldn’t clearly see the face of the girl with him. There was a vague impression of dark hair and the sheen of a curved cheek. He started to smile.

Satisfied that he was finally awake, or as awake as he’d ever be in his condition, Jessy started to shift away from him so she could climb out the driver’s side and come around to help him out of the truck. “You stay here,” she ordered. “I’ll be right back.”

“No.” His hand grabbed her forearm, his fingers biting into it with careless pressure. “Don’t go. You might not come back.”

“Of course I will,” Jessy chided him and twisted her arm to release it from his painful grip.

Instead of loosening his hold, he tightened it. “No.” Determination hardened his mouth as he refused to let her go. His arm went around her, contracting like an iron band to gather her hard against his shoulder and chest. Jessy’s resistance was tempered by confusion. He was clutching her to him the way a child possessively hugs a toy that had been lost. His face was burrowed into her hair.

“Don’t leave me,” he murmured in an aching voice that stirred her. “I need you. I always have.”

“Ty.” Jessy was stunned, an incredulous thrill running through her. She could hardly believe what she was hearing.

When he lifted his head, her face was shadowed by his hat, but he picked out the gleam of white teeth. She was smiling, but he couldn’t tell whether it was to taunt him or welcome him. His intoxication lowered the barrier that usually kept emotion from showing in his expression.

Her breath caught, lodging in her throat, at the stark need she saw in his face. It was not another cruel joke he was playing on her. He meant it. Her hand trembled as Jessy reached up to trace the ridged angle of his jaw, made bronze by the reflected glow of the outside light.

The hesitant caress of her hand broke the lines of restraint. He had been too vulnerable to risk a rejection, but it wasn’t a rejection her touch signaled. A deep, low moan of longing came from his throat.

His mouth opened moistly on her lips, taking them whole with a bold sensuality she had never before experienced. This was no awkward schoolboy, bumping noses with her, nor a brash teenager, coming on strong and crudely forceful. It unnerved her the way he hotly consumed her, needing and seeking with an urgency that made her feel raw.

Blindly she gave, trying to supply what he seemed to be desperately searching for. The invasion of his tongue brought with it the taste of beer and smoke, and the essence of something else. Everything quickened and rose, the heat of the blood rushing through her veins and the sudden intensifying of all her senses.

His arms never eased the pressure that pinned her to him even when his hands began moving on her body. She couldn’t keep track of where his hands were as they roamed from shoulder to thigh, always pressing and urging. They seemed to only spread the raw intimacy of his kiss over more parts of her body. Passion was something she’d always known she’d possessed, but nothing had ever ignited it before except her own imagination.

She drank in air when he finally dragged his mouth away. But it wasn’t the end; it was the beginning of a series of warm, wet kisses, one connecting to another in a trail over her features. His breath rushed over her skin, hot, moist waves engulfing her. Jessy was awash with sensation. Her hands had long ago found their way around his shoulders to hug and hold.

“You’re mine.” His low voice vibrated against her skin. “I knew it from the beginning.”

Jessy didn’t hear the faint slurring of his words, only the content. She had stopped believing Ty would ever feel the way she did. lb learn it had begun some time ago for him as well was beyond her wildest dreams.

“So did I,” she whispered with a certain fierceness.

“Oh, God, I’ve wanted you for so long.” The groaned words were filled with pent-up longing as he sought her lips in rough need.

Eagerly she turned into the ardent hunger of his kiss. His arms tightened around her, pulling her with him as Ty gradually sank lower in the seat, sliding until they were both awkwardly lying on the length of the seat. Jessy was on the inside, pinned between the seat back and Ty’s hard masculine body.

She was inexperienced, but not naive. What she hadn’t learned observing animals on the ranch, she had picked up listening to bunkhouse talk. When she felt his hand move inside her blouse, seeking out her breasts, Jessy wasn’t concerned with how far he was going, but whether he was going far enough. Her actions had never been governed by what other people regarded as proper behavior for a girl, and they weren’t now.

His hat was pushed to the back of his head as Ty twisted down to nuzzle the small breasts and their tautly erect nipples. What they lacked in size, they made up for in sensitivity. The encircling lick of his tongue sent curls of excitement spiraling in ever-tightening coils through her body. His hand cupped the underswell of a breast and pushed it up to hold it in position while his mouth rolled onto its hard, flesh-brown tip, letting his teeth, tongue, and lips play with it. Her desire intensified to an ache, her hips writhing in search of pressure to relieve the ache.

Ty seemed to weaken on her, lifting his head from her breasts and swaying unsteadily on the support of an arm braced on the seat. Her hands tightened their hold on his shoulders so he wouldn’t overbalance and tip backwards onto the truck floor. Their pressure brought him back to her lips.

“Don’t stop now, Ty,” There was an edge of frustration in her whispered plea, a faint anger that he’d aroused her to this point and might be too drunk to take her all the way.

His breathing was deep and labored. In his present state, more than half drunk and highly aroused, everything was fuzzy. She’d said something to him, but he’d already forgotten what it was. All he could remember was the insistence in her tone. From past experience, he knew that this was the moment when the protests usually came. Ty sought out her lips in the darkness.