Skin (31 page)

“No.”

“Why not?”

His lips pressed against her throat and a jolt of excitement racked her. His touch stirred something deep and primal within her. It scared her as much as it excited her. She didn’t stop whatever ploy he was up to. First, because she wanted his touch and to follow the path wherever it may lead, and second, in this sexy and compliant mood, she could get some great shots.

“I’d be a lousy father.”

Before she could reply, he lightly bit her jugular and held it between his teeth. Her back arched. His warm, wet tongue laved the length of her neck. Her nipples spiked and she slid her hand between his shirt and chest. The heat of his skin surprised her. She rubbed her fingertips across his flat nipple. It immediately rose to her touch.

His arm slipped around her waist, bringing her closer against his chest. “We’d make beautiful babies, you know.”

Frankie gasped in surprise, and Reese inwardly cringed. What the hell did he just say? And for the love of God, why?

Not wanting to discuss or think about any underlying meaning, he kissed her hard, his mouth plundering her to silence. He wanted her. He wanted her now; he wanted her tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that.

He pulled her over to the blanket he had laid out and lay her down. “I want you, Frankie. Here. Now.”

His hands dove into the thick mass of her hair; he rubbed his face into the silky softness of it and inhaled her scent. He couldn’t remember another time when he considered the scent of a woman. Not her perfume but her true essence. “You smell good.” He rubbed his nose down her throat, then kissed her at the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Frankie’s body swelled beneath his and he pulled her closer in a fierce embrace. He marveled at her complexity and her tenacity. At the same time he saw through her layers. While she pretended to be the hard-ass her family expected, she was nothing more than a scared little girl in a world that lied to her, rejected her, and now wanted her head. Protective feelings pushed their way to the surface of his consciousness. He would, Reese decided at that moment, protect her not only from her family but himself as well.

They were both in too deep. His hands trailed from the small of her back to her breasts. Their full ripeness overflowed in his hands. He’d always considered himself an ass man, but Frankie’s tits were, in his opinion, the eighth wonder of the world. He pushed up her sweater and bra, his mouth hungry for the taste of her. She cried out as he roughly took a nipple in his mouth and sucked hard, his fingers fondling the other.

A wild sense of urgency overtook him, like some wild, untamed thing took possession of him. He wanted her raw and passionate, on the prairie, like his Indian ancestors had taken their women. He pushed her shirt over her head and snatched off her bra. With one hand he unzipped her jeans and pushed them down her legs. She helped by kicking off her shoes. Her panties didn’t have a chance. He ripped them off her.

He unbuttoned his pants and shoved them down just far enough to release his swollen dick. Then he pushed her down on the blanket and plunged deep into her hot wetness.

“Frankie,” he moaned against her lips as he filled her to the hilt. Her hips rocked up to accommodate him and her long legs wrapped around his waist. He knew he was going to come too quick, and he couldn’t help it. Taking her was all he wanted. He’d make it up to her later. Tonight.

He thrust deep, hard, once, twice, a dozen times, his hips bucking out of control like a loco bronc. His body, mind, and soul were possessed with only one aim. The age-old ritual of mating. The chill in the air was nonexistent, Frankie’s hard gasps of pleasure barely registering.

Long pent-up emotion, emotion he didn’t know he harbored swelled. His hips drove into hers, his vision a cloudy haze, his only coherent thought was the woman beneath him who stirred up old hurts and his desire to take her, to send her over the edge to mark her as his.

He exploded inside of her. Frankie cried out. Her legs fell away from him, and her arms tightened around his neck as he drove into her like a battering ram, his seed continuing to spew. He’d never had an orgasm last so long and hard. Just when it peaked, Frankie clasped her thighs around him, her inner muscles pulling him deeper, milking him of every ounce of fluid he possessed. Her back arched and she bit his shoulder, her teeth sharp. He plunged deeper, the pain of her action driving him crazy. Their sweat-slicked bodies slid and slapped, and Frankie threw her head back, her mouth gasping for air as she came in one hard-hitting orgasm.

The minute Reese came back to earth, he pushed his chest up. Still inside her, he scanned her for damage. “I’m sorry, Frankie, I don’t know —”

She pulled his face down by the ears and kissed him hard. When she let him go she smiled, her lips swollen. She licked them. “Did you hear me say stop?”

On his hands, peering down at her, he shook his head.

“Then shut up.” She squirmed out from under him and quickly dressed. When he began to pull his jeans up, she stopped him with her hand. “Jeans only, and leave them unbuttoned — hell, take them off all the way, I’ll get a blanket to drape over you. I want aftermath pictures.

“You’re always working, aren’t you?”

She smiled over her shoulder as she pulled another blanket from the saddlebag. “Ya snooze, ya lose.”

Reese lay back against the blanket. “And you can never lose, can you?”

She nodded. “You get me, Reese, I’m glad.” She tossed him the blanket. “No hard feelings?”

He draped the soft flannel blanket across his lap. She nodded in approval at the full outline of his penis under the thin fabric. Though it had waned, it would still give most guys a complex.

“No, but don’t get all over me when it comes back to bite you in the ass.”

She focused her camera a few steps away from him. “What do you mean?”

“I play to win too.”

“Lie back.” She positioned the blanket to cover most of his cock, only exposing the few full inches of his root. “Put your arms up behind your head.” She focused. “Perfect, now close your eyes.” She zoomed in. “When I tell you, open them slowly, and look at me like you want me.”

F
rankie focused in on Reese’s sexy hooded look. Her eyes dropped to the rising blanket. “You’re hornier than a sixteen-year-old virgin.”

“Stop looking good enough to eat and maybe this old boy will calm down some.”

Frankie laughed, enjoying his compliment. “Sorry, sir, I have work to do. Maybe later, I’ll see if I can squeeze you in.”

His cock reared and he growled. “You’ll do more than squeeze me in.”

“So tell me what you’re going to do to me tonight in the barn?”

His eyes sparkled and his lips turned up into a mischievous smile. “I’m gonna take you from behind like a stallion does a mare.”

She squatted next to him. Pressing her hand against his chest, she pushed him back until he was flat on his back. “Turn slightly to your right. Good, now put both your arms over your head. Yes, wow, Reese, your body just screams ‘fuck me.’ ”

“Fuck me, then.”

His cock stirred beneath the thin flannel of the blanket and she stepped back and caught it in several frames.

“I’m afraid I can’t publish pictures of me riding that lush cock of yours.”

“How about
me
riding it?” The throaty female voice behind the horses startled Frankie, but Reese remained composed. Angie sat mounted on a pretty dark bay mare no more than twenty-five feet from them. Had she seen them just a few moments ago? Frankie flushed, angry.

“This is a closed set, Amy.”

“It’s Angie.” She nudged her horse closer. Frankie turned to Reese to stop her. She found him pulling his pants on, watching the woman approach. Frankie’s temper cranked up a notch to boiling.

Although Reese had his pants buttoned up, he allowed the woman access to her “closed set.” Fury, frustration, and embarrassment clouded Frankie’s vision. Her earlier feelings of violence resumed and she knew if she didn’t get away, she would do something really stupid. She glared at Reese. She couldn’t force him to want only her, and she’d be damned if she’d share him on any level. At odds with how to deal with her out-of-control emotions, she did the only thing she could. She ran.

Frankie backed away from Reese, shoved her camera in her backpack, mounted Rosie, and put her heels to the mare’s flanks.

She didn’t look back, not even when the hot sting of tears blurred her vision. Was she destined to always be second best when it came to men? First her father, then Sean, now Reese. She didn’t hear Reese until Zorro was almost on top of her and Rosie. He grabbed her reins, slowing Rosie to a stop. He was dressed only in his jeans; he hadn’t bothered to grab his shirt.

“Don’t, Frankie,” he said.

She wiped back the sting in her eyes. The breeze picked up, whipping her loose hair against her cheeks. “If you think I’m going to sit there and watch you and that woman make goo-goo eyes at each other, especially after we —” She hiccuped a breath. “You’re mistaken.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Right.”

“Angie and I go way back. We’re friends.”

Frankie rolled her eyes. “Do I look like I need special ed?”

“No.”

“Then don’t expect me to believe that line of bullshit.”

His lips quirked at the corners.

“See!”

“Look, I won’t deny she’s attractive and we had a thing before — but I’m not interested in her.”

She grabbed the reins from him. “I know how men are, Reese, you don’t have to make excuses.”

He maneuvered Zorro around in front of Rosie. The stallion’s bulk stopped her from leaving. “Just how are we?”

“Always craving the excitement of another woman, never content with the one you have, even if it’s just casual. Always looking for something better and more exciting.”

Reese leaned over his saddle, slid his arm around her, and plucked Frankie from Rosie’s back, setting her in front of him. “You’re exciting enough for me, I don’t want anyone else.”

She pushed against his chest. “For the moment.”

“What else is there?”

“The moment after.”

He kissed her. When he released her she let out a long breath. He was doing it to her again. Making her want him.

“Seize the moment Frankie, there might not be a moment after,” he said, his voice husky.

His words sunk in fast. She nodded. She’d live like she was dying.

Frankie and Reese walked from the barn to the house. She felt the stretch of her inner thighs from the unaccustomed exercise on the horse and from Reese.

“I’m going to need supplies,” she said, turning her mind back toward Reese.

“Supplies?”

“To develop my film.”

“Can we send it out?”

She stopped and looked at him. “Hardly. I don’t want to take a chance some clerk will report me for lascivious content.”

“Didn’t consider that. How about if you give me the list and I have Midas pick up what you need?”

“That’ll work. I really don’t feel like driving anywhere. I like the tranquility here.”

Reese looked at her strangely. “That’ll only last a few days, then the cabin fever will set in.”

Maybe. She looked at him just as strangely. He didn’t know her well. Or maybe he did. “Maybe,” she said. Maybe she didn’t know herself.

She steered clear of Angie when she came riding back. Even when Reese headed back to the main barn after a quick lunch where she knew Angie lurked, Frankie kept her cool. She ignored the pangs of jealousy that gnawed at her. She could not change another person’s desires, only her own. It was easier saying those words than living by them.

“Hey, wiseguy, got any news for me?” Reese asked on the barn phone.

“Lots. You secure?”

“As I can be, I’m calling on a land line.”

“Okay, good, here’s what I have. Anthony is tearing San Francisco apart looking for his sister. He’s crying foul and swearing he’ll kill whoever damages a hair on her head.”

“Interesting.”

“It gets better. He had it out with his uncle last night. The old bastard accused the young Turk of embezzling over six million dollars. Had the cooked books to prove it. Said if the old man knew, he’d come back from the grave and slit the punk’s throat. Anthony insisted it was his sister thwarting the old man.”

“Judas bitch” echoed in his ears. Reese’s skin warmed. No, Frankie wasn’t like that. If he had been hit in the gut with a baseball bat, he couldn’t have been more stunned by his revelation. Was he making excuses for her?

Shit!

“If he’s so sure she cheated him out of the money, then why does he want her safe?”

“I think he wants to do the deed himself.”

“Frankie doesn’t have the money.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“She doesn’t have it in her.”

“You’re getting too close to the crack, man.”

Reese shook his head in denial. It wasn’t like that. He hadn’t lost his objectivity. He swiped a hand across the stubble on his chin and wondered if he was being honest with himself.

He recalled the two thugs at the Carmel house, the same two who took out the out-of-towners, and the conversation he’d overheard. Someone was misdirecting. He’d always been a gut guy. His gut told him Frankie wasn’t involved. Regardless of what he overheard and Jase’s innuendo.