Lacy (12 page)

"Are you just going to stand there
looking?" she challenged.

"Oh." He blinked. "No, of course
not!" He felt as if it were the first time. His hands were all thumbs as
he got rid of the gray suit and most everything under it.

He had a good body, thank God. Smooth and not
too pale, and fairly muscular.

He removed his shorts and turned, watching her
eyes go down to the explicit masculinity of him.

"Well, my goodness. You're not
little
Ben
after all, are you, honey?" She laughed softly, holding out her arms.
"Come here, you adorable savage, and love me to death!"

This, at least, was familiar territory. He might
not be the world's greatest reporter, but he knew what to do with a woman. As
she learned, quickly and with some measure of astonishment.

He laughed to himself at her shocked eagerness
when she felt his tongue on the soft, warm inside of her thighs. She was noisy,
all right, he thought as he moved up to her soft breasts and felt her go rigid
and whimper when he caught a dusky, fragrant nipple delicately in his teeth and
nibbled it. Yes, she was going to make a lot of noise. He hoped no one was
close enough to hear her.

WHILE BEN WAS ENJOYING
his
evening, Lacy was cursing her own— along with the impulsive threat that had
forced Cole into the intimacy of sharing her room. She was alone, pacing the
floor, dressed in a soft pink cotton gown and flowing robe, and the fact that
they were married didn't make her feel any less like a vamp. It had started out
to be fun, but now she was nervous. She'd felt something new and delicate in
her relationship with Cole all day. A warmth that had been lacking before, a
tender beginning. She didn't want to jeopardize it. But she was so
inexperienced. She knew nothing of men, except what little she'd learned that
unpleasant night with Cole.

She clasped her hands together as she paced the
wooden floor in her bare feet. She hadn't seen Cole since that afternoon. She'd
spent most of it with Marion, talking mostly about Katy. And Cole hadn't come
in for supper. There'd been a sick bull, and he and the veterinarian had spent
the evening worrying over it out in the barn.

Perhaps he'd just been looking for an excuse to
avoid her, she thought miserably. And perhaps he'd go on finding them, every
night...

She spun around as someone quietly opened the
door. She froze in place, staring, as Cole, covered with dust and looking as if
he'd just been brawling with a mob of cattle out on his range walked wearily
into the room.

"How's your bull?" she asked softly.

His dark eyebrows lifted. He even managed a
tired smile as he tugged off his wide-brimmed hat and sailed it across the room
onto a chair. "That wasn't the question I expected, Mrs. Whitehall,"
he replied as he stood before her, tall and overpowering in his lean
masculinity.

"Wasn't it?" she asked, with a demure,
shy smile.

"I need a bath," he said. "And a
lot of sleep." He cocked his head down at her. "Unless...?" he
probed, taking the attack into the enemy camp. He wanted to see if she was
bluffing. And he almost smiled when her face went bloodred and she couldn't
look at him to save her life. He was right. She was putting on an act. She
wasn't half as confident as she made out, and that pleased him. It gave him
some badly needed confidence of his own.

He moved closer, smelling of dust and cattle,
and she looked up to find a strange, soft expression—or what passed for one— in
those very dark eyes.

"Instead of getting things on a physical
level right at the outset, Lacy," he began, his voice deep and soft,
"suppose you and I get to know each other? That's the one thing we've
never done. Not even in the beginning, when you came to live here."

She relaxed visibly. He saw that, and relaxed
himself. He'd been pushing himself all day, finding excuses, giving his men
hell because it was staring him in the face and he didn't know how to tell her—

"Yes," she interrupted his thoughts.
"I'd like that." She ventured a glance up at him. "I didn't mean
to make it sound so blatant in San Antonio. I'd been drinking."

"I know." He hesitated, seeming as shy
as she felt. "Lacy, about sharing the room..."

"Please don't shame me, Cole," she
whispered, averting her eyes.

"I was going to say that I.. .don't mind
it," he said hesitantly.

She looked up, delightfully surprised. Her face
brightened; her warm blue eyes smiled at him. She tingled with pleasure, and it
showed. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Okay, kiddo,"he said, regaining a
little of his old confidence. He touched her chin with his knuckles, smiling
faintly at her. "I guess we can keep from kicking each other out of
bed."

She beamed, her face gloriously beautiful. She
glanced up and then down again. "I hope you don't snore, cowboy," she
murmured.

"Not me, lady. How about you?" he
added as he started into the bathroom.

She picked up a cushion from the chair to toss
at him, and he retreated into the bathroom with a laugh. Minutes later she
heard water running.

She found a magazine and curled up with it. How
odd this felt, to share a room with a man. Even the sounds of bathing were
intimate. She wondered what Cole looked like without his clothing. She'd never
seen him that way. The one night they'd been intimate, he'd never turned on the
light. In fact, looking back, she was almost certain that he hadn't even
undressed completely. Since he'd come home from France, she'd never seen his
shirt open, or off, and most of the cowhands went bare-chested from time to
time, especially in summer. But not Cole. Not ever these days.

Involuntarily her mind went back to the day he'd
left to join his unit for overseas duty. His shirt had been off then, and he'd
kissed her and kissed her. She remembered tugging hungrily on the thick hair
that covered his broad chest, how it had felt to be close to him, to let him
kiss her. She'd thought it was a beginning, but it hadn't been. He hadn't even
written just to her alone once he was gone. And when he came back, he couldn't
bear to let her touch him at all. Not until that morning in the barn, before
he'd come to her room that one night after they'd married. But that was a sad,
shaming memory. He'd hurt her badly, and she'd cried. They hadn't talked about
it until he'd come to see her in San Antonio. It was still hard to discuss it.

Thinking back made her sad. She shook her head
as if to clear it. Then an article in the magazine caught her eye and she
became engrossed in it.

He came out of the bathroom much later, clad in
pajamas and a flowing robe. It was his room, after all; he had clothing in the
closets, too, next to the ones she'd put there on her arrival. She looked up,
forcing a smile.

"You look a few shades lighter," she
remarked dryly.

He chuckled, pausing at the vanity mirror to
sweep back his straight, thick hair with a comb. It was wet, almost black with
dampness, and although he was completely covered in the navy pajamas and robe,
it was so intimate to see him in nightclothes.

He saw her expression in the mirror and half
smiled. "You're the one who wanted to share a room, honey," he
reminded her. "Too late for embarrassment now."

"I suppose so," she murmured. She
studied him, thinking how attractive he was, how masculine. "You never
told me how your bull was?"

"The vet said he'll live." He turned,
studying the brass bed with its huge, spacious mattress. "Which side do
you want?"

"I like the one I'm on, if you don't
mind," she said, putting aside the magazine.

"As it happens, that's the side I
don't
sleep
on,"he answered. He sat down on his side of the bed, yawned, and fell back
onto the pillows. "God, I'm tired. The days get longer, or I get
older."

"Twenty-eight isn't old," she
remarked. She studied his lean, dark face. He'd shaved, and his smooth brown
cheek tempted her lips, but she liked the idea of making haste slowly.
"Sleep well."

"You, too, honey." He rolled onto his
side, studying her with those dark, probing eyes. "You look pretty in a
nightgown, Mrs. Whitehall," he added, with a smile.

She lowered her eyes to his thin mouth.
"I'm glad you think so." She wished she were more experienced, that
she knew what to do next. If she moved closer, would he interpret it as a plea
to be made love to? Would he like that.. .or would it put another wall between
them?

Beside her, Cole was just as uncertain. He
didn't want to rush her. She'd only just come back. And he meant it, about
wanting something more than a physical relationship. He almost laughed at the
irony of that thought. He'd fought this intimacy of being together; he was also
too uncertain of what she'd do if she should find out. She was a tenderhearted
woman, but he didn't want her pity. He wanted... more than that. He remembered,
too, that she'd fought him at the last, the one time they'd been in bed
together, and that she'd cried piteously. It didn't help his pride or his
self-confidence to realize that the experience must have been as unsatisfying
for her as it had been for him.

"Do you suppose you might kiss me good
night?" Lacy asked hesitantly. "Just that. I'm not asking you
to..."

"As if you could, after the last
time," he said quietly. "We're married, Lacy," he said gently.
"And I don't find kissing you any kind of penance. Come here."

She moved closer. The darkness was intimate,
even with the little bedlight burning above them on the brass rail. She looked
straight into his eyes as his mouth moved just over hers, poised there for a
second, and then covered her lips warmly, briefly.

"You taste of coffee," he whispered.

"You taste of tobacco," she whispered
back.

He kissed her again, liking the soft, trembling
warmth of her mouth under the slow, easy movement of his. He felt himself going
rigid. Odd, how quickly it happened with her. His eyes closed and one lean hand
went to her neck, tilting her face to give him better access to her mouth.

"Lacy," he whispered unsteadily,
"open your mouth a little
..."

She did, in shocked pleasure, a tiny gasp at the
unexpectedly ardent command escaping into her mouth.

"Yes.. ."he breathed, and she felt his
tongue slowly probing past her lips, into the dark recesses of her mouth,
finding and teasing her own tongue in a silence hot and heavy with rustling
breath and moist contacts.

Her fingers went up to his lean cheek, touching
it lightly, moving down to feel his mouth locked with hers. Feeling that soft
joining between the excited her, and she moaned.

His mouth lifted suddenly. "Hell, I can't
take much of that," he said unsteadily.

"It's so exciting to kiss," she
whispered back, searching his dark, fiery eyes.

"Yes, and it leads to something you and I
aren't too good at, doesn't it?" he asked, his voice faintly cutting.

She swallowed. "It hurt," she agreed.
"One of my married girlfriends said it usually does.. .at first."

His heart skipped. He'd never talked about it.
He couldn't discuss intimacy, except maybe with Turk. But, then, Turk was a
man.

"You're downplaying it," he said
huskily. "It was bad, Lacy. Really bad. I had nightmares about it weeks
later."

"Oh, Cole," she whispered softly.
"It wasn't your fault. I never blamed you." She leaned forward and
pressed her lips softly to his closed eyelids with tenderness she felt to the
depths of her soul.

He trembled at that soft contact, his body
aching to satisfy itself in hers. But the memory of how he'd hurt her stopped
him. Besides, if he started to make love to her tonight—and then didn't remove
his clothes—it would lead to questions he didn't want to answer yet. Better to
ache than to risk that. God, he wanted her! Wanted her beyond all reason. When
her warm, soft hands touched his face, she made him feel as if he were flying.
He wondered how they might feel against his chest, on his belly, his hips and
thighs, and he groaned aloud, because that was something he could never allow
her to do.

He moved away from her, onto his back. "It's
late.
We
need some sleep "he
said in a voice more tender than any he'd ever used with her before.