Creed's Honor (30 page)

“Actually,” Conner replied, slipping an arm around her waist, “I was idiotic enough to do it twice. Davis and Kim got stranded at the supermarket, and I took them back to the ranch.”

She pulled away just far enough to look up at him. The firelight danced in her eyes and sparkled in her hair. “And then you came back here? Why?”

He bent his head, tasted her mouth. “Because you’re here,” he said, breathing the words as she melted against him. “Nothing could have kept me away.”

B
ECAUSE YOU’RE HERE
.
Nothing could have kept me away.

Those words, like Conner’s kiss, reverberated through her. She rested her cheek against his chest when it was over, sighed softly. His arms were around her, easy and safe.

It came back to her then, some of what Brody had said to her that day, at the bank.
Conner cares for you—when he falls for somebody, he falls hard—he’s rock-solid, the original straight shooter, the kind of guy most women think isn’t even out there anymore.

Conner propped his chin on top of her head. “I hear you had a little run-in with my brother this morning,” he said, as if he’d been reading her mind.

She tilted her head back, looked up Conner. “I’m over it,” she said honestly. “Brody loves you. I realized pretty quickly that he was only trying to look out for you.”

Conner chuckled. The sound echoed through Tricia, just as the kiss had, just now. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I figured that out, after I got past the desire to do him bodily harm.”

Tricia laughed, still gazing into that strong, handsome face. Conner was integrity and commitment personified; if the man signed on for something, he was in for the duration.

Tricia’s doubts about a future with Conner Creed had been slipping away all day, the victims of quiet logic, but as she stood there, drinking in the sight and the feel of him, Tricia said goodbye to the last of her hesitancy.

As frightening as it was, she loved Conner. Furthermore, she would
always
love him. He was literally part of her, and while she would certainly survive without him, possibly even thrive, she’d still be shortchanging herself, settling for less than she might have had. Less than she might have
given.

“What do we do now?” she asked him.

But Conner wasn’t taking the long view, as she was. Not yet, anyway.

“Lay a blanket or two on the floor in front of this fireplace and make love like a caveman and his woman in mating season?”

Again, she laughed, a throaty sound, tinged with mischief. “I thought we had a
dinner
date,” she said. “Not one for hot, wet, unbridled sex.”

He chuckled, held her closer, nibbled at her lips again. The fire burning on that hearth had nothing on the one Conner had ignited inside her. “With any luck,” he murmured, “our dinner date would have evolved into ‘hot, wet, unbridled sex’ anyhow.”

“But we haven’t
had
dinner,” Tricia stalled, just to prolong the anticipation a little.

Conner was already unbuttoning the practical flannel shirt she’d put on after she returned from the closing, in order to help Carolyn with all the moving-in chores. With the storm getting worse by the moment, she’d written off the date with Conner as a lost cause.

And now here he was. Seducing her. Making her
want him—
need
him. Her heart raced, and her breath grew so short that she was afraid she’d hyperventilate.

He moved the shirt back off her shoulders, weighed her lace-covered breasts gently in his rough, rancher’s hands before deftly popping the front catch of her bra, setting her free. Her nipples hardened instantly, not from the chill, but in response to Conner’s hungry appreciation of her partially unveiled body.

The bra went, too, after that, sailing off into the surrounding darkness.

Tricia turned her head, overwhelmed by this new and deeper vulnerability. She and Conner had made love before, of course, but this was different. As fantastic as the first round of sex had been, she’d been responding physically but struggling the whole time not to respond
emotionally.
She’d held back some vital part of herself, even at the frenetic height of satisfaction. Now, she was offering him everything—not just her body, but
everything.

She was gloriously terrified, like an astronaut about to step out of some craft into deep space, except that, in this instance, she had no special NASA-designed suit to sustain her, no line to tether her to the last vestige of a world she knew and understood.

“Conner,” she whispered, closing her eyes, letting her head fall back as he toyed with her nipples, chafed them with the sides of his thumbs, preparing them, preparing
her
for incomprehensible pleasure. “Oh, Conner.”

He kissed her again, lightly this time around, the tip of his tongue exploring the corners of her mouth, promising a deeper, wilder conquering, moments from now. Or minutes, or maybe even hours.

“Wh-what about—protection?” she asked.

Conner was unsnapping her jeans, unzipping them, pushing them down, right along with her panties. He dropped to one knee, worked off her shoes and socks, freed her from the last of her clothing.

She stood bare before him.
Cavewoman by firelight,
she thought fancifully, breathlessly, fully aware of Conner in every part of her.

Aware, too, of the question suspended between them.

“Conner,”
she repeated, with the last of her resistance, the last of her strength.

“I brought something,” he said, and then he took her into his mouth and suckled, and she was utterly, completely, deliciously lost.

Long before Conner allowed Tricia to reach that first, desperately needed orgasm, her knees threatened to give out, and he lowered her to the rug, consumed her with his mouth, his hands, his eyes.

At some point, he must have shed his own clothes, though Tricia had been too delirious to notice until he was kneeling astride her, magnificently naked, his erection huge.

She watched, dazed, as he put on a condom and lowered himself to her.

“I love you, Tricia,” he said, and even though both of them were trembling with need by then, his voice was even, his words clear.

Aroused to a state of primitive need, Tricia answered him with all the honesty in her. “I love
you,
Conner Creed.”

He delved inside Tricia, wringing a shout of hoarse, welcoming joy from her. “Will—you—marry—me?”
he gasped, punctuating the sentence with hard, deep strokes.

Tricia, already teetering on the verge, came then, laughing and sobbing and shouting, “Yes!” all at once.

After the lovemaking—
long
after the lovemaking— Tricia and Conner dined on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, partially dressed and sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, facing each other.

Valentino, hoping for a bite of one of their sandwiches at first, finally settled for a ration of kibble and went back to sleep.

“Some dinner date,” Conner said, his eyes twinkling.

Tricia smiled, raised her shoulders in a slight shrug. She was wearing Conner’s shirt, with only a few strategic buttons fastened. “I’m not complaining,” she said.

He laughed, raised his iced-tea tumbler, a third filled with wine he’d rummaged for upstairs, in the dark, and clinked it against Tricia’s jelly glass. “Me, either,” he replied.

Tricia took a sip of wine, set her glass aside, and gazed sidelong into the fire. “About that marriage proposal—”

Conner stilled. “Second thoughts?” he asked, and while his tone was light, she knew the answer mattered to him.

She met his eyes. “When I said yes, I
meant
yes,” she said.

He let out his breath. He looked like Example A of the perfect man, sitting there, clad only in his jeans, with the flickering fire giving him a light side and a dark side,
like the moon. “Is this going somewhere?” he asked, with no sarcasm at all. He really wanted to know.

Tricia blushed, searching for words. They were about as easy to capture or even herd in one direction as a flock of frightened chickens.

“We were—making love at the time,” she began, feeling her way.

“Yeah,” Conner agreed. “I’d say that’s the understatement of the century, but, yes, we were making love when I asked you to marry me.”

She was too flustered to be diplomatic. “Did you mean it?” she blurted out. “Or was it just—?”

“I never say anything I don’t mean, Tricia,” Conner said, his expression tender and serious now. “I love you. I want to marry you and make babies together and all the rest of it.”

Her heart soared. “Really?”

His mouth crooked up at one corner. “Yeah, really.”

“When?”

Conner chuckled, reached over to give her braid a light tug and then slip it behind her shoulder. “When do we get married, or when do we start making babies?”

She blushed. “Take your pick,” she said, gasping a little when he slid his hand from her hair to the inside of the shirt, cupped it around her breast. The nipple pulsed against his palm.

He eased her down onto her back. “You’re the bride, so you can set the wedding date. Next week, next year—I don’t care, as long as I can do this whenever I want to—”

To demonstrate his point, he laid the shirt open, baring her to the firelight and his gaze and drawing on her with a combination of tenderness and lust that
instantly awakened all the previously satisfied forces within her.

At his own leisurely pace, he attended to her other breast. “And this,” he said, kissing his way downward now. “And, of course,
this
—”

A soft, sweet climax seized Tricia instantly, made her body ripple like a ribbon trailing in the wind. Instead of crying out, she crooned, surrendering to the slow, luxurious pleasure.

She sighed, when it ended, trembled with contentment.

Conner kissed his way back up to her mouth. “Now, the babies,” he began, as if there had been no break in the conversation, no fiercely delicious orgasm to fuse together all the broken places inside Tricia, “might not be as easy to time.”

He was stretched out on top of her now, wanting her.

And she wanted him. Again. Already.

“Why’s that?” she murmured, her hips already beginning to rise and fall of their own accord, seeking him.

He chuckled, the sound a sexy rasp, low in his throat. “Because,” he said, “there was only one condom.”

“Uh-oh,” she purred.

“Yep,” he muttered, kissing the length of her neck.

“You’re sure you only had one?” The question came out on a series of ragged breaths.

“Positive,” he lamented, back at her breast.

She cried out and arched her back. Grasped his face in both her hands and demanded, “Did you mean it when you said you love me, Conner Creed? When you said you want us to have babies together?”

He nodded.

“Then have me,” she whispered.

And he did.

“G
OD BLESS THE POWER COMPANY
,” Tricia said, hours later, when the electricity set things to clunking and then whirring all around her and Conner. The lights came on in her kitchen, and the furnace roared to life two floors below, in the basement. Exquisite curlicues frosted the glass in her bedroom window.

Warmed by each other, four quilts, two blankets and one dog, Tricia and Conner slowly began to untangle their limbs.

“I think we ought to stay here until the house warms up a little,” Tricia said.

Valentino, curled up at their feet, gave a doggish sigh.

“Or a lot,” Conner agreed. “Is that my leg, or yours?”

Tricia laughed. “If it’s hairy, it’s yours,” she teased.

He put his arms around her, held her close against his chest.

“Now, I
know
that isn’t my hand,” he said, with a grin in his voice. And the slightest groan of renewed lust.

Valentino yawned broadly, jumped down off the bed, and padded out into the kitchen. Moments later, he was lapping up water from his bowl. Next, he crunched away on his kibbles.

Conner gave a strangled chuckle and groaned again.

“I’ve decided on a wedding date,” Tricia told him.

“I—can’t wait—to hear about it—” Conner choked out, rolling onto his side and then poising himself above her.

“I think we should get married right away,” Tricia said, getting a little breathless now herself, as Conner began to caress her with slow promise. “As soon as we can round up Natty and your family.”

“Umm,” Conner muttered. “You don’t want a regular wedding?”

“Weddings—take too long to—
oooooh, Conner
—plan. There’s the dress—the cake—the invitations—the—oh, God,
do that again
—”

He grinned. And did it again.

Valentino came back into the bedroom, collar tags jingling, and made a low, whining sound, almost apologetic.

“He needs to go out,” Conner rasped. “Now. Of all times.” He groaned loudly.

Tricia sighed, resigned to the inconveniences of pet ownership. “Yes,” she said. “Now, of all times.”

Conner rose, grumbling, and scrambled into his jeans. Reclaimed his shirt from the floor, where it had fallen the night before, soon after they came upstairs, and put it on. Looked around for his boots, which were still downstairs.

Tricia started to get up.

“Stay there,” Conner told her. “The dog and I will head downstairs and try to tunnel our way out the back door.”

The room was brutally cold, without Conner to keep her warm. It would be a while for the furnace to overtake the chill. So Tricia huddled inside the bedcovers, with only her head sticking out. Before she could protest that Valentino was her dog and therefore her responsibility, both of them were gone.

Tricia spent a couple of minutes trying to work up
her courage to climb out of bed; the least she could do was woman-up and get out there in the kitchen to put the coffee on. Conner, after all, was braving postblizzard conditions; he’d need the hot brew when he came back inside.

The soles of her bare feet nearly stuck to the floor, and goose bumps leaped out on every square inch of her skin.

Teeth clattering together, hugging herself, Tricia hip-hopped to her dresser, snatched a pair of black sweatpants and a blue woolen hoodie from a drawer, and plunged back into bed. She hid there, waiting for the chills to subside, and began squirming into the clothes, still under the covers, when she heard Valentino coming up the inside stairs, with Conner.

She got tangled in the sweatpants and then the sheets, and as she struggled on, she heard a familiar masculine laugh from the doorway.