Wicked Burn

“Yes,” Niall said firmly. And then, in an attempt to change the subject, “Hey, do you want to go see a movie in El Paso with me right now?”

“Sure,” Meg said as she studied Niall’s face closely.

Niall forced a bright smile. “Good. There’s a romantic comedy playing at that little theater downtown that I never got to see when it first opened.”

All in all, Niall thought her idea for the movie had been inspired. Later that night, when she bade Meg good night and retired to her room, Meg hadn’t had much of an opportunity to question Niall about Vic. They raced to town in order to catch the beginning of the show. Of course they’d been totally absorbed during the movie and Niall managed to keep Meg talking about the plot and the actors on the ride home. By the time she’d hugged Meg and gone upstairs to bed, she’d managed to spend a nice evening with her friend without having to discuss the potentially volatile topic of her relationship with Vic.

In the middle of the night she startled anxiously into wakefulness. She was so accustomed to awakening in such a fashion that it didn’t strike her immediately that she hadn’t been dreaming.

“Shhh,” a deep whisper soothed, followed by a hand caressing her neck.

“Vic?” She blinked in amazement at the large shadow that sat on the edge of her bed. Her surprise at him being there never got the chance to ease before he stood and pulled back the covers. The air-conditioning felt cool on her skin, but Vic radiated heat when he slid his arms beneath her and lifted her as if she weighed as much as her pillow.

“Vic, what the—”

“I’m taking you to my bed, where you belong,” he said in a low voice as he reached for the door.

It felt like heaven to hear him say that, to pretend that he meant more by it than just the purely sexual parameters in which he’d defined their relationship. She pressed her face briefly to his chest and inhaled his clean, spicy scent.

“How’d your work go?” Niall asked him huskily when they were on the gravel turnabout beneath a globe of bright stars set in a lacquered midnight blue sky. She pressed her lips to his neck lightly, skimming them across his skin between kisses. His footsteps faltered slightly at her caress, then speeded up.

“Good,” he said simply.

“Was Donny okay when you picked him up?” she asked. Meg and she had offered to get him after the movie, but Vic had flatly forbidden them to go over to the Farrell farm. It had left Niall feeling chilled that the young man that she’d come to care for so much lived in a place that Vic didn’t want them to go near.

Vic grunted. “Yeah.”

“You worry about him, don’t you?” Niall asked quietly as he paused to open the screen door of the cottage.

Vic didn’t answer until he’d closed and locked the door and carried her into his bedroom. He set her on the edge of his bed and turned the bedside light to a dim setting before he sat down next to her. His dark hair had fallen forward onto his forehead. Earlier, when she and Meg had looked in on him before they’d left for the movie, he’d been wearing his glasses while he worked. Niall couldn’t decide which of his personas she liked better, the handsome, intense intellectual or the man who sat before her now—the long, lean, dead sexy cowboy who had come to claim her for his bed. Maybe the fact that he was such a magical combination of both was what fascinated her so much.

And aroused her almost beyond her comprehension.

“I worry about him,” Vic said simply. He reached out and began to matter-of-factly unbutton the satin pajama top she wore with a pair of matching shorts. “But there’s not much I can do about it. I’m not his father.”

Niall put her hand over his, stilling his actions between her breasts. Her nipples pulled tight at the nearness of his fingers. Niall tried to ignore the sensation.

“You’re more of a father figure to him than he’s ever known,” she said softly. “You should hear how he talks about you. He worships you, Vic.”

He gave a small, off-center grin. “It doesn’t take much to please Donny.” He tried to resume removing her top, but Niall again halted him gently. He looked up at her in slight surprise.

“You’re kidding, right?” she challenged. “Donny trusts about as easily as I climb on a horse.”

Vic’s smile widened to show off that sexy off-center front tooth, making Niall’s lower belly seem to erupt into a slow, molten, downward-moving burn. Still, she refused to be sidetracked until it was absolutely necessary.

“You got on a horse today,” Vic reminded her, his light eyes sparkling.

“Only because you hauled me onto it,” she admonished. “Seriously, Vic, Donny trusts you . . . maybe more than anyone. And he’s very vulnerable right now.”

Vic threw her a dark look. “You’re not about to recommend that I go have some kind of heart-to-heart talk with him, are you?”

“No, it’s not that. He’s a boy. I know how boys are. They communicate everything through actions. But maybe if you took him out riding, or you two did a project together, he would open up about . . .”

Vic smirked slightly as he deliberately removed her hand from restraining him and slid two buttons through satiny fabric before he spoke. “How would you know so much about how boys operate, Niall? You’re the most girly girl I know.”

“I know because I had one.”

His grin faded. His light eyes flashed up to her face.

“What’d ya mean?”

Niall swallowed convulsively. Maybe because she hadn’t been planning on saying it, the words came easier. “I had a little boy,” she whispered. “He died three and a half years ago.”