He thought briefly of his own malevolent odor having ridden all day. Sweat, horse flesh, and leather. Then she cupped his stubble covered, sunburned cheeks with her cool, silky palms, and he decided he didn’t care. He just wanted her lips, pressed to his, now.
She took her time, first smoothing the hair off his brow, then angling her face just so. When she finally closed the distance between their mouths, he was half mad with the need to taste her.
His lips moved beneath hers, sucking, nibbling, urging her to give more. And she gave, parting her lips for him, torturing him with feather light touches of her tongue. When his arms came around her, hungry and possessive, she melted into him, turning his brain to pudding.
He twisted his head to the side, breaking the kiss.
“Zeke?” she murmured, sounding gratifyingly dazed.
“Give me a minute,” he said hoarsely. “Can’t think straight around you.”
She pressed her face into his neck, and he felt the small, satisfied smile curving her lips.
Helpless to resist, he ran a hand down her back. She arched into him like a cat. He wanted to growl. Wanted to devour her. Instead he forced out the words,
“Kitty, tell me nothing of import happened today.”
“Depends on what you mean.”
“Damn it, Kitty, do not toy with me,” he bit out, suddenly unreasonably angry. “I come in to find you crying and…You didn’t…that is, you and James aren’t—” He broke off with a curse.
“Are you asking if I got married today?”
“Yes, damn it.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Apparently Kitty thought the question concerning her marital status comical, because she snorted into his chest.
“Zeke. What on earth—don’t you think he’d be in here with me now if we had gotten married today?”
Liquid rage burned though him at the mere thought of James—of any man—holding Kitty the way he was right now. He drew in a deep, calming breath. Tightened his arms around her. She was here, with him. No one else.
“Never mind. That’s good. That’s all right, then.”
He sifted his fingers through her silky hair and the battle-ready tension gripping him since he’d lost track of her slowly eked out of him. Bone deep fatigue took its place, leaving himlimp, save for one area of his body, which was getting harder by the second.
Unfortunately, Kitty’s quicksilver mood seemed to undergo the reverse of his.
She rolled abruptly out of his arms and sprang from the bed. “What are we doing? What am I doing, Zeke?”
He craned his head to keep her in sight as she made her way to a chair by the window and dropped into it, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.
He sat up. “Kitty, I rode all day, searching for you. All. Day. My body aches and my mouth tastes like I swallowed sawdust. May I have a drink of water?”
She sniffed. “Of course.” She got up, poured a glass of water and brought it to him. He grasped her wrist and held firm as he downed the night chilled liquid in several gulps. When he set the empty glass on the bedside table, she tugged to be free of him.
“Don’t go, Kitty. Sit here beside me and tell me what’s going through that pretty, stubborn head of yours.”
After a brief hesitation, she perched on the edge of the bed, head bowed. “It’s all a mess, Zeke. You and I both know we’re biding our time. I have to do this thing. I have to, for Collin, much as I hate it. You would do no less for your family,” she added with heat.
“Then there’s you. You say you want to be sure I’m not pregnant. But you don’t understand how it is with me…”
“What don’t I understand?” He eased off one boot.
“I’m not like other women. At least I don’t think I am.”
He could have told her that much, but he wisely kept the thought to himself.
