The Heiress and the Sheriff (12 page)

Gabrielle made a palms-up gesture. “All I'm saying is I think you owe it to yourself and her memory to try to find out. You have a job that accesses you to all sorts of investigative sources. Why don't you use them to try to find her?”

Was there any sense to what Gabrielle was suggesting? Wyatt asked himself. Could he have gone all these years hating his mother for leaving him, when she might not really have deserted him at all? Just thinking about it made him sick with regret. And yet if he did find the courage to hunt for her, to find her, how could he bear it if his mother rejected him? It was a risk that carried the promise of great pleasure…or deep pain. Just as did the risk of loving Gabrielle.

But Wyatt didn't have to
love
Gabrielle to enjoy her, he thought. He'd decided a long time ago that grabbing pleasure for the moment was just about all a person could expect out of life.

“Can you guarantee anything good would come of my search?”

“No. But I can guarantee you'll never be truly satisfied until you make an effort to find out what happened to Marilyn Grayhawk.”

A long breath slipped out. “Maybe you're right, Gabrielle.”

It was more than she'd expected him to say. She scooted closer and reached for his hand. “Does that mean you'll try?”

His gaze dropped from her face down to the small fingers wrapped tightly around his. No woman had ever dared to say the things Gabrielle had said to him tonight. But then, no woman he'd ever known had cared about his childhood or his mother. No woman had ever really cared for him. Not with love or deep devotion. Yet he would be crazy, he told himself, to think that Gabrielle felt more than physical attraction for him.

“Maybe,” he repeated. “I'll think about it.”

His gaze lifted back to her face, and she smiled gently.

“I hope you do.”

Slowly, he reached up and pulled the badge from his shirt pocket, then lifted his hat from his head and dropped the badge inside. Gabrielle's heart began to thump with wild anticipation as he leaned over and placed the items on the nightstand behind him.

Outside the row of windows to their left, lightning flashed closer, and the low rumble of thunder gently rattled the glass panes. Wyatt turned back to her and the raw, hungry expression on his dark face had her heart flying to her throat.

“I think a storm is coming,” she said in little more than a whisper.

He leaned closer and his fingers gently brushed at the wisps of hair on her forehead. “I'm sure of it,” he agreed.

Like the wings of a trapped bird, her heart continued to flutter in her throat. She breathed deeply and moistened her parched lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Do you think we should get back to the Double Crown?”

His palm cupped her jaw and chin. “Eventually.”

Gabrielle didn't bother to ask him what that meant. His face and the warm touch of his hand told her. He wanted her.

“Or do you want me to take you back to the ranch now?” he asked softly.

Wyatt's question was more than tantalizing. The part of her that was still living in darkness prodded her to answer, yes. But the rest of her refused to get the simple word past her lips. She needed her memory to have a future. But for tonight she was content to simply make memories with Wyatt.

“No. I don't want to go back to the ranch right now.”

A spark suddenly flickered in his eyes. “You know what I am. How I am. I can't make you promises.”

From the very moment she'd met Wyatt Grayhawk, she'd thought he was a strong man both inside and out. And now that she was beginning to really know him, she could see she'd been right about his strength. The thing she'd been wrong about was his heart. It wasn't the unfeeling rock she'd first imagined. He'd once felt joy and love and pain. But so much of the latter that he'd closed himself off to anything more than a friendly acquaintanceship.

“I already knew that,” she whispered.

One corner of his lips curved upward as his fingers moved to the back of her head. As he fumbled with the
pins holding her hair, he said, “You're a foolish young woman to get next to me like this. You know that too, don't you?”

The corners of her lips tilted into a beseeching smile. “Yes. But I can't help myself.”

His groan said neither could he.

One by one, he continued to slip the pins from her hair. Once they joined his hat and badge on the nightstand, he pushed his fingers through the intricately wrapped strands until her hair lay like wind-rippled waves upon her shoulders.

Gabrielle forgot to breathe as his hands cupped her face and drew her lips to within a fraction of an inch of his.

“You're not a woman I should be wanting,” he murmured huskily, “but, God help me, I do.”

His name was all she could manage to get past her lips before he possessed them with a fierceness that made her head reel. She gripped his shoulders as his tongue delved past her teeth and twined with hers. As he tasted the intimate recesses of her mouth, the zipper at the back of her dress slowly parted, his fingers tugging downward until his hand was resting at the base of her backbone. The soft material fell from her shoulders and pooled around her waist.

Without breaking the contact of their mouths, his hands cupped around her lace-encased breasts, and Gabrielle groaned in the back of her throat.

“Stand up,” he whispered against her throbbing lips.

Shaking, she rose from the bed, and the short dress slid down her hips and onto the floor. She stepped out of the material and her sandals, then stood before him as an offering.

The white scraps of lace covering her breasts and hips reminded Wyatt of her virginity, and for moments he ques
tioned the rightness of taking that from her. But as he'd told her before, rightness or fairness never factored into what life dealt a person. He wanted her and she wanted him. Nothing else mattered.

With one hand, he snagged her waist and tugged her back down beside him. “You're so beautiful, Gabrielle. Beautiful,” he repeated softly. “But you've already been told that, haven't you?”

If she had, she didn't remember it. She doubted any man had spoken the words to her and made them sound the way Wyatt just had, as though he worshipped the very sight of her. The idea sent the power of her femininity surging through her.

“You're making me crazy,” she accused.

He chuckled under his breath as his hands slid around her back. His palms and the pads of his fingers were rough and callused. The friction they made against her smooth skin was terribly erotic and arousing. She closed her eyes as he unhooked the clasp of her bra; the satin straps slipped from her shoulders, allowing the fabric to slide away from her body.

Once he'd tossed it aside, his eyes devoured her nakedness. Her breasts were round and firm, the nipples rose-brown and puckered with excitement. And just seeing she already wanted him made Wyatt's heart thud like a drum in his chest. He rubbed his thumbs across the rigid rosebuds, then bent his head and circled each with his tongue.

Fire shot through Gabrielle's loins, and her fingers pushed into his black hair and tightened against his scalp. She had no memory. Yet she was sure no man had ever touched her this way. No man had ever made her ache with this hot need that was coiling more and more tightly inside her.

He suckled both nipples, then tasted the soft outer flesh
of her breasts, before returning his lips to hers. This time when he kissed her, the two of them leaned sideways until they fell on the mattress.

With his lips still feasting on hers, he crushed her tightly in the circle of his arms. His hands roamed the silky naked skin of her back, then cupped her bottom.

Gabrielle gasped as he quickly jerked the juncture of her thighs against the hard bulge of desire in his jeans, then, with a husky growl of his own, rocked her hips back and forth against him.

Her breathing labored, she spoke between gasps. “Wyatt—I can't—I need—”

“You don't have to tell me,” he countered in a voice rough with desire. “I know what you need.”

And he did.

Heat scorched her entire body as his hand slipped into her panties and his finger found the moist throbbing ache between her legs.

“Don't be afraid,” he whispered against her lips. “Kiss me while I feel you.”

The room spun around her as she obeyed him, and his finger began to work glorious magic. Her bones turned to liquid fire, and soon she was whimpering with a desire so great that it totally consumed her.

She clutched at the folds of his shirt, then fumbled with the snaps as the need to touch him grew ever more desperate. When the front of his shirt parted and her palms found the heated flesh of his chest, he eased away from her and quickly shed the rest of his clothing.

The fact that he didn't bother to turn off the lamp surprised Gabrielle. He was a man who kept so much of his inner self hidden, and she'd expected him to be the same with the outside.

She wondered if he realized how much he resembled a
tall, bronze warrior. His long legs and arms were hard corded muscles, his belly was washboard flat, his chest broad and smooth, the male nipples small and dark. As for his jutting arousal, she tried not to stare, but heat filled her cheeks just the same as he turned to face her.

He turned his back to her for a moment to open a foil packet, and Gabrielle realized he'd already anticipated her lack of birth control. Yet behind that thought also came the shocking awareness that even the risk of becoming pregnant was not enough to make her turn away from this man. He created a feverish need. And not just in her body. Each time he touched her, she could feel her heart melt just a bit more. And she couldn't let herself think of what kind of shape it would be in after tonight.

A gust of wind suddenly rattled the windows, and through the slatted blinds Gabrielle could see tree branches bending beneath the storm.

As Wyatt slid down beside her on the bed, drops of rain began to pelt the glass. “Are you frightened?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.

“Of you? Or the storm?”

The question made him smile, and as his fingers gently pushed through the hair at her temple, she knew she would never regret giving herself to this lonely lawman.

“Both,” he said.

“No,” she answered. “But I'm sure you're going to tell me I should be.”

His white teeth continued to glint in the darkness. “I'm not going to bother. And anyway, I have you where I want you for tonight.”

For tonight.
The words made Gabrielle realize that this was where she wanted to be—always. With Wyatt touching her, loving her, smiling at her as he was now. But in the back of her mind she acknowledged she was living a fairy
tale. Tonight's memory would more than likely be the only thing Wyatt ever gave her.

Reaching out with one arm, he snapped off the lamp, allowing nature's light to illuminate the room. Beyond the window the intermittent lightning exploded like bright fireworks. Yet the storm outside was mild compared to what was going on inside Gabrielle.

Wyatt pulled her close against him, and she eagerly slipped her arms around his neck. The sudden contact of his heated flesh, smooth and hard against hers, was a giddy shock to her senses. Like naked power wires, her breasts, belly and thighs sizzled as his lips once again sought the sweet curves of her lips.

Over and over he kissed her, until her breath was gone and she lay limp against the mattress. All the while his hands made a foray of her body, his fingers discovering sensitive little spots that left her groaning and throbbing with need.

Eventually his lips followed the slow meandering path of his hands until he reached the soft mound of curls that decorated her womanhood. Then his head lifted and he caught her eyes with his.

In the depths of his gaze Gabrielle could see both awe and pain, and the sight seized her heart like the grip of a fist. “Is something wrong?” she whispered hoarsely.

Terribly wrong, Wyatt could have told her. He'd never wanted anything, anyone, the way he wanted Gabrielle. He was visibly shaking with need. And the magnitude of his desire left him feeling exposed and vulnerable—two things he never wanted to be with a woman. But it was too late to hide or turn back. He had to bury himself inside her—or he'd die from the wanting.

“No,” he said with a throaty growl.

With a sigh, she reached up and touched his cheek with
her fingertips. He caught her hand and kissed each finger, then with a groan of surrender, his knee nudged her thighs apart.

Gabrielle wasn't prepared for the sharp slice of pain or the explosion of pleasure behind it, and for a moment she was too stunned to do anything but grip the rigid muscles of his forearms and try to recapture her lost breath.

“Oh…oh, Wyatt,” she whispered with shocked wonderment.

“I know, my little darling. I know,” he said thickly, then, bending his head, he kissed her slowly, sweetly as he gave her body the time it needed to adjust to his invasion.

Like a white-hot sun, pleasure surged through every part of her and soon she was moving against him, with him. Wind slammed against the windows, while on the bed Gabrielle locked her legs around him and welcomed the storm.

 

Hours later Wyatt woke to the patter of gentle rain against the roof and the feel of Gabrielle's soft warm body curled next to him. Her head was pillowed on his arm, and for a long time he studied the precious lines and angles of her sleeping face.

No woman had ever slept in his bed—with or without him in it. He'd never been able to tolerate that much closeness. But then, he had never made love to a woman before.

The admission was worse than the knife wounds he'd suffered in his shoulder and thigh. The stab of the switchblade had healed, but he wasn't sure he would ever recover from his coupling with Gabrielle. Everything inside him had poured into her, and he very much doubted he would ever get all of himself back.