Chapter 4
FOR A SPLIT SECOND, Cade was certain the cold water should steam off his skin where it hit.
And all due to a kiss. But this was more than a kiss.
It was the kiss. It rocked him, sending a heady rush through his body.
They stood there getting lost in each other as the cold New Mexico rain thoroughly soaked them.
Her lips were full and pliant. Scalding heat radiated off her body. She opened to him. Her tongue darted out to taste him in a bold caress. The move, quick and yet almost questioning, nearly undid him. He groaned, the sound carried away by the wind that whipped through the grass and rattled leaves.
He couldn’t let the moment go, tasting her with the same surety as she’d done him.
She had the faintest hint of mint on her tongue.
He couldn’t remember her having eaten, as if she’d eaten candy at some point.
In the dark, with her wet body sealed against his, she smelled of clean cotton and the very storm itself.
Underneath that was, he assumed, whatever musky perfume she wore.
The combination all but drove him to his knees.
Warm heat spread through him as their limbs tangled together, her legs inhibited by the cut and length of her dress until, with a noise of obvious frustration, she hiked the hem up to her waist.
Cade gripped her under the arms and set her on the tailgate, moving between her thighs when she grabbed his shirt and tugged.
“Off,” she murmured against his lips, pulling at the buttons.
He yanked at his shirt, those very buttons scattering in every direction. She helped him peel the denim down his arms, and they jointly flung it free as the cuffs cleared his hands.
Their mouths reconnected frantically. He took the kiss deeper.
Or did she? Whatever. The only things that mattered were hands and tongues and teeth, lips and sharp, short sounds of encouragement that trumpeted their own wild intent.
Both soft and calloused hands swept over bared skin wherever they found it.
Lightning skipped cloud to cloud and the resulting thunder echoed in its wake.
But even Mother Nature wasn’t strong enough to stop what they’d started.
He’d lost himself in her so fast. Never before had a woman pulled at him like this.
Never before had he become a slave to taste, smell, touch or the smooth satin of rain-slicked skin under his work-roughened hands.
Never had he expected to find someone with the power to drive him out of his mind.
No way did he want to lose this moment—or this woman.
Cade ran his hands up Emma’s sides and found the zipper for the dress under her left arm. His fingers seemed too large, too clumsy to deal with the delicate dress. Fumbling with the tab, he cursed.
She pushed at his hand.
His fingers were wrapped in the dress, and he pulled.
Fabric ripped.
Struggling, she broke the kiss and glared. “This was my favorite dress.”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
She yanked him into her again, her mouth searing his as she shimmied her upper body free of the garment.
Make that five. I’ll buy her five more.
He slid his hands up the sides of her thighs as the storm picked up force. Wind whipped the rain against his skin. Her bare legs had goose bumps. Intent on pulling her into the warmth of the truck, he broke the kiss again and made to move away.
Emma wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him into her with a bold stare. “Not yet.”
“You’re cold.”
“Not where it matters.”
At her admission, her words husky and laden with wicked intent, he had a singular moment where he was afraid he was going to orgasm with no one touching him.
Like hell.
She pulled him tight to her, fumbling with his belt buckle. A sound of unadulterated need escaped her as the denim-clad ridge of his erection slid across the silk of her panties, riding just the right spot.
So he did it again.
Emma writhed even as she wrapped her hands around his neck. Lips against his, she whispered, “Get those pants undone, cowboy.”
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded, hands first dealing with his belt buckle, and then working his pants and boxer briefs down. His erection sprang free, hard as a cured two-by-four.
The tip of her tongue traced the bow of her upper lip as she looked him over. Then her eyes met his. “All of it.” Her gaze dipped and she took a shuddering breath that translated through the most intimate points of contact between them. “I want everything you have to give, Cade.”
He fished for his wallet, his waterlogged pants complicating things as they slid down his legs.
Finally getting ahold of it, he pulled it free as Emma grabbed his rigid cock, stroking it from tip to root with a firm hand.
Cade closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky as his hips surged forward.
Unable to stop himself, he shouted as he pumped into her stroking fist.
The burn began at the base of his spine. Gripping her wrist, he pulled her hand away from him and sheathed himself. His breaths came short. “You have to stop before I completely lose it.”
All he wanted was to flip her over and drive into her again and again, to lose himself in this woman who brought him to life, who crushed the thick conservative shell he’d erected over the years to subdue his wild side, and who made nothing matter but the moment.
She was his next breath, his next heartbeat, the whole of his desire.
She slid off the tailgate and shed the rest of the dress. Standing there in her silk underwear, she asked, “Isn’t that the point?” Then she undid her bra and tossed it in the bed of the truck with a wicked grin. “You destroyed my classic Chanel LBD. You’re not ruining my La Perla.”
“I have no clue what the hell you’re talking about, and I don’t care.” Whatever La Perla was, he’d burn it to the ground if it meant exposing more of her to his hungry gaze. He stared at her breasts. Luscious and full, with dusky nipples that had beaded with cold, or arousal, or both.
Water dripped off the tips of her nipples. He leaned forward and laved one point before suckling the rainwater from her skin.
Emma arched in to him and cried out, knocking his cowboy hat from his head as she threaded her fingers through his hair. Pulling him closer, she encouraged him to switch breasts.
He blindly followed her suggestion, desperate to taste every inch of her skin.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, then tugged. “Cade.”
His name, little more than a whimper, drew his gaze to hers.
Eyes wild, Emma crushed her mouth to his, their tongues dueling, tasting, taking.
The result was primal. It was the only explanation he had for his behavior. She provoked that in him, reduced him to the most fundamental and basest of man whose needs overrode common sense and courtesy. He would never hurt her, but he would have her.
Now.
EMMA HAD EXPECTED to have a little fun, to fool around, get the sexual tension worked out between them, and then resume the trip to the ranch.
She hadn’t expected to find this insanely sensual man lurking inside the quiet, composed cowboy she’d met earlier.
This man seemed sexually starved, driven by a kind of uninhibited passion she’d never experienced before.
And he brought the same out in her. He made her want things she’d never wanted, beginning with the kind of sex she was about to have—in the open, under a storming sky, with a veritable stranger.
She didn’t care.
Cade grabbed her hips and spun her around, the heel of one shoe catching against a tuft of grass.
The heel snapped, and Emma stumbled. Strong arms caught her as a deep, dark voice breathed across her ear. “I won’t let you fall.”
“But—”
“Trust me,” he murmured, nipping the outer edge of her ear. “Kick your bad shoe off and bend over the tailgate.”
Strong hands directed her, helping her keep her balance. He stroked one hand slowly down her neck, between her breasts and around the underside of her right breast, continuing down her ribs and coming to rest at her hip. She pushed at him.
With a squeeze, he pressed the hot, hard length of his erection between her butt cheeks. He leaned over her and whispered in her ear, “Still willing to take everything I have to offer, Ms. Graystone? Because we’re about to cross a line here, a line we can’t come back from.”
All she heard was “come,” and it’s all she wanted to do right then. “Please, Cade. Please.”
He swiftly snaked his right hand up between her breasts and gripped her opposite shoulder. “Hold on to the tailgate.”
“Why?”
“To keep your hips from hitting the metal so hard I bruise you. I won’t mark you that way,” he said, voice rumbling against her back.
Sweet hell on fire. She gripped the tailgate and pulled her hips off.
She glanced over her shoulder as lightning flashed again, the strobe exposing his hot gaze locked on her backside. Then he pressed his broad head to her folds, and her legs buckled, shoving her onto his length and drawing a shout from both of them.
Cade grabbed her hips and, with care, worked his way into her tight channel. He was so large it almost hurt, stretching her to the point she whimpered, then gasped.
He froze. “Okay?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he began to retreat.
“Don’t!” she cried. She shoved backward, taking him all the way to the hilt. Then she began to ride him, ignoring the almost-painful friction, sure her walls would adjust. They had to. But Lord save her, he was huge.
Cade took over, stroking her slower, pushing one leg up to give him better access and whispering things she only caught fractions of, things like, “Beautiful, stunning, tight, sexy, hell.”
They were simple words of praise from a complicated man, and the offerings meant the world to her.
But soon she gave up trying to hear him as he worked her body like a master painter worked a canvas, taking it from a blank slate to the very thing it had always been meant to be.
She was obviously supposed to be wanton under his touch, and that’s just what she became.
Writhing madly, she urged him to move faster and cursed him in frustration.
He chuckled—chuckled!—and suggested she slow down.
“I don’t want slow,” she ground out even as she pushed at him.
His movements slowed even more. “Don’t tell me what you want, Emmaline Graystone. I want your deepest desires, darkest cravings, the things you can’t live without,” he demanded in a voice that was accompanied by a commanding thrust of his hips.
She mewled, fighting to find her voice, to admit what she most craved. But her voice wouldn’t come.
He drove into her harder, only to slow down as the sensations she craved began to build, layering one atop another. “Answer me, Emma.”
“I need to let go!”
He released every ounce of restraint he’d shown her. He tightened his grip and pushed into her, bringing her release rushing to the surface, the flood of pleasure rippling through her core in waves.
As lightning continued to flash and thunder rolled, wind whipped through the trees and made the rain sting everywhere it struck her bared skin.
He bent his knees and wedded her bare back to his chest, thrusting up into her. Then he slipped his fingers into her core and found her swollen clitoris. She came apart in his arms again.
Head thrown back, she opened her mouth and cried out into the deluge of rain.
He held her to him as he thrust once, twice, a third time, and then let loose what could only be called a roar of satisfaction.
She shook as he did, her legs giving out and leaving him to support her.
Cade scrambled to get ahold of her rain-slicked skin, finally shifting her around and settling her on the tailgate in a lumbering, far less graceful maneuver than he’d pulled earlier.
Settling between her legs, he rested his forehead against hers.
His hot breath skated over her chilled skin.
With infinite tenderness that surprised her, he ran his hands through her hair and simply held their heads together.
Then he retrieved his hat and settled it on her head, smiling as she was forced to tilt the brim up in order to see him.
“You definitely earned the right to wear that,” he murmured, zipping his pants.
“What right?”
“A cowboy never lets anyone wear his hat. Anyone. Unless it’s a woman he wants to bed or has bedded.
It’s a...” He searched for the words, his brow creasing.
“Not sure what it is, really. Not a tradition. Just a thing, I guess. It’s a way to advertise to other men to keep their hands off his... the woman.”
Emma’s stomach sank a little. As far as she was concerned, this had been a onetime thing between them, a way to burn off the tension so they could work together.
It wasn’t some...claiming. She was no one’s territory to mark.
The fight to become her own woman in a profession dominated by men had been too long and too brutal to give in now.
She claimed herself, and no man had the right to claim any part of her as his territory.
If he actually believed that his slapping his hat on her head marked her as off-limits, he had another think coming. But that could be cleared up later.
Right now? She had to come up with a plausible excuse for the condition in which she was going to arrive at the ranch. She had the distinct suspicion even the best explanation would be transparent.
Then there was the internal voice that grew louder and more certain with each passing day, her initial paranoia quickly becoming outweighed by clear evidence that said her business partner, Michael Anderson, was doing his level best to set her up to fail.
If the information made its way back to him that she’d shown up at the Covington ranch looking like she’d been well loved in a tempestuous storm?
Michael would have the ammunition necessary to succeed.