She wore a dark gray cable sweater and cream slacks, and her hair was gleaming with its midnight sun. Jake felt the desire slam through him. He clenched the reins in his hand, afraid of losing control, of completely coming apart out there in the middle of the field.
“This is private property,” he taunted, knowing damn well that his voice was too harsh. He couldn’t help it. His hands shook. His belly was on fire. He wanted her so badly that if he weren’t careful, he’d take her right there in the doorway.
She smiled and he was lost. “I know,” she answered his greeting, leaning against the doorway, coffee cup in her hand. “I figured I’d negotiate with the owner to stay just a little while longer.”
“Negotiate?”
He brought Alabaster to a halt at the porch, but couldn’t dismount. He couldn’t move or he’d give himself away.
Amanda stepped forward and rubbed a gentle hand over the horse’s nose, her gaze never straying from Jake’s. “Yeah,” she answered, her voice slowing, thickening like warm honey. “I thought I’d invite him in where we could get comfortable. And we could talk a little, and maybe share something to drink....”
Jake managed to raise an eyebrow. “Are you talking bribes here, young woman?”
Her smile widened and her eyes darkened. “If that’s what you want to call it. Did you know that there’s a big, soft down comforter on this bed, too?”
Jake never remembered swinging from the saddle. He didn’t remember whether he tied up Alabaster or how he got inside the door without spilling the coffee in Amanda’s cup. All he remembered was walking into her arms, and then the world was lost.
She was right. There was a down comforter on the bed, but they didn’t use that one, either. They didn’t even make it as far as the bed before Amanda lost her sweater and Jake his hat, jacket and shirt. They stood, entangled in each other, starving for union, desperate for the life they’d only found in each other’s arms. Gasps gathered into moans and crescendoed into words, repeated words, names, each other’s names, endearments, silly and sweet and harsh, cries of surprise and sighs of satisfaction.
She was life in his hands, writhing, dancing, singing. She was the deepest of nights, with her dark whispers of passion, and the hottest of suns, scattered over him by her clever hands. Jake ravaged her mouth. He praised her skin and revealed her mysteries. Her body, so familiar to him, so completely new, urged him on. When he didn’t disrobe her quickly enough, she pulled her undershirt up over her own head with shaking hands. Jake caught her there, trapping her hands over her head, bending to capture her mouth, her throat, her taut, high breasts in his hungry mouth. He undid her slacks one-handed and slid them from her hips, still not letting her help, demanding her satisfaction before she took his.
Lifting her against a chest that forgot to protest, he carried her to the bed and fell into it with her, the springs creaking welcome, the sunlight showering them in their private world. He kissed her, plundered her. He teased her into agony with his hands, never letting her go, consumed her with his mouth, the taste of her salty, soft skin driving him wild. The nub of her nipples between his teeth, against his tongue, torturing him.
She bucked against him, arched against him, rubbing against his chest and belly like a cat, moaning incoherently, her eyes wide, her lips parted. She begged him home with her whimpers and her body, but Jake still wanted more. He swept away her panties, those useful cotton slips of nothing, and tasted her excitement. He dipped, plunged, sipped, until she cried out, again and again, her helpless hands freed against him, her hair spilling over the bed, her back arched. She tugged at him, pleaded, wept. And Jake, knowing he couldn’t wait any longer, finally let her have her way.
Amanda was splintering, her body a shower of light and sound, shuddering, spinning, shivering with urgency. She felt Jake slide up alongside her and took her own kisses. She claimed her own territory with hands that curled into hair and traced muscle and tendon, that tormented, slipping in beneath the taut material of his jeans and hinting at the pleasure she could give. His groan was harsh against her, his hands abrupt. Amanda smiled, captured that groan with her mouth and then began her real torment.
Rubbing, rubbing, a cat in the sun, her body desperate for the hair-roughened contact of his, she fumbled with his belt. Fumbled more with the zipper, until his throat rumbled with protest. And then she tasted that, bent to take his nipple in her mouth and tease it to the same attention as hers. She pushed his jeans down and away, his shorts, and had him to herself. And just when he was beginning to take her shoulders in hand, she pulled away and took her own taste.
His cry was guttural. Her hands refused to still. He writhed just the way she had, and it made her smile. Boots cracked against the wall and denim shuddered to the floor. And Amanda, suddenly powerful in a way she’d never known, eased herself down onto Jake. He took her breasts in his callused, rough hands. He panted, his eyes dilated and deep. Amanda rocked. She filled herself full with him, deep and hard and hot, and she tormented him yet more. And, suddenly, she was the one tormented. She was rocking faster, and the shudders of pleasure, of unbearable fire, caught up with her. She opened her mouth, startled that it could happen again so quickly, so intensely, and then cried out, overtaken. Jake clutched at her shoulders, pulled her down to him, and rasped out her name, again and again, shuddering to silence.
Finally, when the sweet inertia ebbed a little, Amanda was caught by a bubbling delight. Still in Jake’s arms, both of them slick and spent, she found herself giggling.
Jake moved his head around a little. “Something wrong?”
She tried to shake hers, only to bump into his chin. “It just seems like we never say hello anymore.”
She could feel his answering chuckle rumble in his chest. “Hello, Amanda.”
“Hello, Jake.”
They managed finally to find their way beneath the comforter. “You’re an addiction,” he protested, stroking her hair.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I missed you.”
“Me, too.”
“Does this mean we do it my way?”
Another stifled chuckle. “I think we just did.”
She gave him a cuff on the chest. “I’m serious, Jake. I’ve been miserable ever since Betty walked back in that house and we didn’t have any time together.”
“I’ll fire her.”
“You can’t.”
“You can work for me, instead.”
