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“Just remember, I’m counting on you to be right about that,” she said, unable to believe she was going along with his scheme.
When they reached the barn, he led Dakota out of his stall and put a bridle on the gelding. Then turning, he loosely put his arms around her. “Thanks for going with me and Cassie today,” he said, kissing her temple. “I know she enjoyed talking to you about her dolls.”
“She’s a delightful little girl. Very bright and outgoing,” Fee said. “I had a wonderful time talking to her.” Grinning, she added, “But I’m really surprised that you didn’t join in the conversation when we were discussing the latest doll accessories.”
“I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know diddly-squat about dolls.” He chuckled. “But if you want to talk toy trucks or action figures, I’m you’re guy.”
“I’ll take your word for that, too,” she said, staring up into his eyes. “But all joking aside, I really did have fun chatting with your niece.”
“What about me?” he whispered, leaning forward. “Did you have a good time talking with me?”
A quivering excitement ran through her body at the feel of his warm breath feathering over her ear and she had to brace her hands on his biceps to keep her balance. The feel of rock-hard muscle beneath his chambray shirt caused heat to flow through her veins.
“Yes, I always enjoy talking to you,” she answered truthfully.
“I like spending my time with you, too.” Lowering his head, he gave her a kiss so tender her knees threatened to buckle before he stepped back, took hold of the reins and a handful of Dakota’s mane, then swung up onto the horse. “Turn your back to me, Fee.”
When she did as he instructed, he reached down and effortlessly lifted her to sit in front of him on the gelding. Straddling the horse, she was glad Chance was holding on to her. “Whoa! This is a lot higher than sitting on Rosy.”
Chance’s deep chuckle vibrated against her back as he tightened his arm around her midsection and nudged the gelding into a slow walk. “I promise you’re safe, sweetheart. I won’t let you fall.”
She knew he was talking about a fall from the horse, but what was going to keep her from falling for the man holding her so securely against him?
Fee quickly relegated the thought to the back of her mind as Dakota carried them from the barn out into the night and she gazed up at the sky. Billions of stars created a twinkling canopy above and the moon cast an ethereal glow over the rugged landscape.
“This is gorgeous, Chance.” She shook her head. “I’ve never seen so many stars in the night sky before.”
“That’s because of smog and too many lights in the city to see them all,” he answered, his voice low and intimate. He tightened his arms around her. “Are you chilly?”
She could lie and tell him that she was, but she suspected that he already knew her tiny shiver was caused by their close proximity. “Not really,” she admitted, leaning her head back against his shoulder. “It’s just that something this vast and beautiful is humbling.”
They rode along in silence for some time before she felt the evidence of his reaction to being this close to her against her backside. So overwhelmed by the splendor of the night, she hadn’t paid attention to the fact that her bottom was nestled tightly between his thighs. But it wasn’t his arousal that surprised her as much as her reaction to it. Knowing that he desired her caused an answering warmth to spread throughout her body and an empty ache to settle in the most feminine part of her.
“Chance?”
“Don’t freak out,” he whispered, stopping Dakota. “I’m not going to deny that I want you. You’re a desirable woman and I’m like any other man—I have needs. But nothing is going to happen unless it’s what you want, too, sweetheart.”
Before she could find her voice, Chance released his hold on her and slid off the horse to his feet. He immediately reached up to help her down, then wrapping his arms around her, gave her a kiss that caused her toes to curl inside her boots before he set her away from him.
Disappointed that the kiss had been so brief, she tried to distract herself by looking around. Something shiny caught her attention and taking a few steps closer, she realized it was the moon reflecting off of a small pool of water. Surrounded on three sides by cottonwood trees, she could see wisps of mist rising from its surface and the faint sound of running water.
“Is that a natural spring?” she asked.
“It’s actually considered a thermal spring even though the temperature never gets over about seventy-five degrees,” Chance said, walking over to stand beside her. “I used to go swimming in it when I was a kid.”
“It’s that deep?” she asked, intrigued. Even with just the light from the moon, she could see a shadowy image of the bottom of the pool.
“It’s only about four feet deep over by the outlet where it runs down to the river.” He laughed. “But to a ten-year-old kid that’s deep enough to get in and splash around.”
Fee smiled as she thought of Chance playing in the water as a child. “I’m sure you had a lot of fun. I used to love going to the beach when I was young, and my grandmother’s house had a swimming pool.”
“We always had a pool up at the main house,” he said, nodding. “But it’s not as much fun as this. Have you ever been skinny-dipping?” he asked.
“No.” She laughed. “Besides not really having the nerve to do it, I would have hated causing Mr. Harris next door to have a coronary, or scandalizing his wife to the point where she refused to go to the senior center with my grandmother to play bingo.”
He gave her a wicked grin and reached down to pull off his boots and socks. “I will if you will.”
“Skinny-dip? Here? Now?” She shook her head. “Have you lost your mind? Aren’t you worried someone will see you?”
He tugged his shirt from his jeans and with one smooth motion released all of the snap closures. “Sweetheart, it’s just you, me and Dakota out here. And since he’s a gelding, all he’s interested in is grass.”
She glanced over at the horse. “What if he runs away and leaves us stranded out here?”
“He’s trained to ground tie.” He reached to unbuckle his belt and release the button at the top of his jeans. “As long as the ends of the reins are dragging the ground, he’ll stay close.” His grin widened. “Are you going to join me?”
“I don’t think so.” She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to abandon years of her grandmother’s lectures on modesty, either.
“Now who isn’t being adventurous?” he teased.
“Trying a different flavor of ice cream is completely different than taking off all of your...” Her voice trailed off when Chance shrugged out of his shirt.
The man had the physique of a male model and she had firsthand knowledge of how hard and strong all those muscles were. She thought about how every time he helped her into his truck or lifted her onto one of the horses, he picked her up as if she weighed nothing.
Unable to look away when he unzipped his fly and shoved his jeans down his long muscular legs, Fee felt a lazy heat begin to flow through her veins. “I can’t believe you’re really going to do this.”
“Yup, I’m really going to do this,” he repeated as he stepped out of his jeans and tossed them on top of his shirt. When she continued to stare at him, he grinned as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer briefs. “I’m not the least bit shy and don’t mind you watching one little bit, but unless you want to see me in my birthday suit, you might want to close your eyes now.”
“Oh!” She spun around. “Let me know when you’re in the water.”
“All clear,” he announced. When she turned back, Chance was standing up in the pool. The water barely covered his navel. “You really should join me. The water is the perfect temperature.”
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head as she avoided looking below his bare chest. “It isn’t deep enough.”
“You know you want to,” he said, grinning.
She didn’t believe for a minute that he would keep his eyes averted as she was doing, but he was right about one thing. She was tempted to throw caution to the wind and go skinny-dipping for the first time in her life.
“I don’t have a towel to dry off with.” Her statement sounded lame even to her.
“We can dry off with my shirt,” he offered.
“And you promise not to look?” she asked, knowing that his answer and what he would actually do were probably two different things.
“Scout’s honor I won’t look while you undress and get into the water,” he said, raising his hand in a three-finger oath.
“Then close your eyes,” she said decisively as she reached to pull the tail of her T-shirt from her jeans.
When he did, she quickly removed her boots and socks, then stripped out of her clothing before she had a chance to change her mind. Stepping into the water, she immediately covered her breasts with her arms and bent her knees until the water came up to her neck.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” she said between nervous giggles.
“Look at it this way,” he said, opening his eyes. His low, intimate tone and the look on his handsome face as he moved through the water toward her made Fee feel as if he had cast a spell over her. “It’s something you can check off your bucket list.”
“I don’t have a list,” she said slowly.
“I’ll help you make one.” His gaze held hers as he reached beneath the water and lifted her to her feet. Taking her into his arms, he smiled. “Then I’ll help you check off all of the new things you’re doing.”
Her arms automatically rose to encircle his neck and the moment her wet breasts pressed against his wide, bare chest a jolt of excitement rocked her. “You said you wouldn’t look.”
“I haven’t...yet.” His slow smile caused a nervous energy in the deepest part of her. “But I never said I wouldn’t touch you.”
As he lowered his head, Fee welcomed the feel of his firm mouth covering hers. Chance’s kisses were drugging and quickly becoming an addiction that she wasn’t certain she could ever overcome.
The thought should have sent her running as fast as she could to the Cheyenne airport and the earliest flight back to L.A. But as his lips moved over hers with such tenderness, she forgot all the reasons she shouldn’t become involved with him or any other man. All she could think about was the way he made her feel.
When he coaxed her to open for him, she couldn’t have denied him if her life depended on it. At the first touch of his tongue to hers, it felt as if an electric current danced over every one of her nerve endings and a tiny moan escaped her parted lips. She wanted him, wanted to feel his arms around her and the strength of his lovemaking in every fiber of her being.
The feel of his hard arousal against her lower belly was proof he wanted her just as badly. The realization created a restlessness within her and she was so lost in the myriad sensations Chance had created, it took her a moment to realize he was ending the kiss.
“As bad as I hate to say this, I think we’d better head back to the house.” His voice sounded a lot like a rusty hinge. “I have a good idea where this is headed and I don’t have protection for us.”
Covering her breasts with her arms, she nodded reluctantly. There was no way she could deny that the passion between them was heading in that direction. Thank goodness he had the presence of mind to call a halt to it.
“Turn around.”
He laughed. “Really? Our nude bodies were just pressed together from head to toe and you’re worried about me seeing you?”
Her cheeks heated. “Feeling is one thing, seeing is entirely different.”
“If you say so,” he said, doing as she requested.
Hurriedly getting out of the water, Fee turned her back to him, used his shirt to quickly dry herself and then pulled on her panties and jeans. But when she searched for her bra, she couldn’t seem to find it anywhere.
“Looking for this?” Chance asked.
Glancing over her shoulder, he was standing right behind her with her bra hanging from his index finger like a limp flag. “I thought you were supposed to stay in the water with your back turned until I got dressed,” she scolded, taking her lacy brassiere from him to put the garment on.
“I stayed in the water right up until you started searching for your bra.” She heard him pulling on his clothes. “After you dried off, you dropped my shirt on it when you reached for your panties.”
“You watched me get dressed? You swore you wouldn’t peek.”
“Yeah, about that.” He turned her to face him and the slow smile curving his mouth caused her to catch her breath. “I was never a Scout so that oath earlier didn’t really count. But just for the record, I told you before I kissed you that I hadn’t looked yet. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to.” He gave her a quick kiss, then bent to pull on his socks and boots.
While he walked over to where Dakota stood munching on a patch of grass, Fee picked up his damp shirt and waited for him to help her onto the gelding’s back. She should probably call her boss at Lassiter Media and arrange for someone else to take over the PR campaign, then head back to L.A. to get her priorities straight before she committed career suicide. But she rejected that idea immediately. No matter how difficult the assignment, she had never bowed out of a project and she wasn’t going to back down now.
She was just going to have to be stronger and resist the temptation of Chance Lassiter. But heaven help her, she had a feeling it was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever have to do.
* * *
Chance lay in bed and damned his sense of responsibility for at least the hundredth time since he and Fee had returned to the house. He hadn’t taken her on the moonlight ride with the intention of seducing her. On the contrary, it had simply been something he thought she might enjoy and he’d been right. She’d loved seeing all the billions of stars twinkling in the night sky.
At least, that’s the way things had started out. What he hadn’t allowed himself to consider was the effect her body would have on his when they rode double. Her delightful little bottom rubbing against the most vulnerable part of him had quickly proven to be the greatest test of his fortitude he’d ever faced. Then, if he hadn’t been insane enough, she’d noticed the spring and he’d had the brilliant idea of going skinny-dipping.
“Yeah, like that didn’t have disaster written all over it,” he muttered as he stared up at the ceiling.
If he’d just stayed on his side of the pool and hadn’t touched her or kissed her, he wouldn’t be lying there feeling as if he was ready to climb the walls. But the allure of her being so close had been more than he could fight and once he’d touched her, he couldn’t have stopped himself from kissing her any more than he could get Gus to give up baseball.
But what had really sent him into orbit had been her response. The minute their lips met, Fee had melted against him and his body had hardened so fast it had left him feeling as if he might pass out. The feel of her breasts against his chest and his arousal pressing into her soft lower belly had damn near driven him over the edge and he’d come dangerously close to forgetting about their protection.
Fortunately, he’d had enough strength left to be responsible. But that hadn’t been easy.
He punched his pillow and turned to his side. No two ways around it, he should have known better. But he’d been fool enough to think that he could control the situation and ended up being the victim of his own damned arrogance.
He’d known full well the moment he’d laid eyes on her at Hannah and Logan’s wedding, a spark ignited within him and with each day since the fire had increased to the point it was about to burn him up from the inside out. He wanted her, wanted to sink himself so deeply within her velvet depths that neither of them could remember where he ended and she began. And unless he was reading her wrong, it was what she wanted, too. So why was he in bed on one side of the hall and she in bed on the other now?
With a guttural curse that his mother would have had a fit over, Chance threw back the sheet and sat up on the side of the bed. Two hours of tossing and turning had gotten him nowhere. Maybe a drink would help him calm down enough to get a few hours of sleep.
Pulling on a pair of jeans, he didn’t bother with a shirt as he left the master suite and stared at the closed door across the hall. He’d like nothing better than to go into that room, pick Fee up and carry her back to his bed. Instead, he forced himself to turn and walk barefoot down the hall to the stairs.
When he reached the kitchen, he went straight to the refrigerator for a beer, and then walked out onto the back porch. Hopefully, the beer and the cool night air would work their magic and help him relax.
Chance took a long draw from the bottle in his hand and stared out into the night as he tried to forget about the desirable woman upstairs. He needed to make a trip into town tomorrow for some supplies, as well as to stop by Lassiter Media’s Cheyenne office to pick up his tickets for Frontier Days at the end of the month. Because Lassiter donated the use of some of their audio and video equipment for the annual event, the rodeo organizers always gave the company complimentary tickets. He attended the finals of the event every year and he thought Fee might enjoy going with him, even if she was back at the rental house by then.
Lightning streaked across the western sky, followed by the distant sound of thunder. It appeared the weather was as unsettled as he was, he thought as he downed the rest of his beer and headed back inside.
As he climbed the stairs a flash of lightning briefly illuminated his way and by the time he started down the upstairs hall, a trailing clap of thunder loud enough to wake the dead rattled the windows and reverberated throughout the house. He had just reached the master suite when the door to Fee’s room flew open. When she came rushing out, she ran headlong into him.
“Whoa there, sweetheart.” He placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her from falling backward. “What’s wrong?”
“What was that noise?” she asked breathlessly.
“It’s getting ready to storm,” he said, trying his best not to notice how her sweet scent seemed to swirl around him and the fact that she had on a silky red nightgown that barely covered her panties.
“It sounded like an explosion,” she said, seeming as if she might be a little disoriented.
“It’s just a little thunder.” He should probably be ashamed of himself, but he had never been more thankful for a thunderstorm in his life. “You have storms in L.A., don’t you?”
Nodding, she jumped when another clap of thunder resounded around them. “Not that many. And I never liked them when we did.”
Chance put his arms around her and tried to remind himself that he was offering her comfort. “I guess I’m more used to them because at this time of year we have one almost every day.”
“Really? That many?” She was beginning to sound more awake.
He nodded. “Occasionally we’ll have severe storms, but most of the them are a lot like Gus—more noise than anything else.”
“I think I’m glad I live in L.A. The city noise masks some of the thunder,” she said, snuggling against his bare chest. “I’d be a nervous wreck if I lived here.”
Chance felt a little let down. He wanted her to love the Big Blue ranch as much as he did even if she was only in Wyoming for a short time. But it wasn’t as if he had been hoping she would relocate to the area. All he wanted was a summer fling.
