Wild Horses (13 page)

Then she kissed him back and slammed him firmly into the moment as every nerve in his body responded, his muscles reaching, his hands sliding where they'd been demanding to go, down her hip to cup her ass and bring her closer to him, his mouth covering hers and demanding entry. He wanted to feel every piece of her, to ground himself in her calm and practical spirit, to somehow share everything they'd missed in the years between them.

But there was nothing calm nor practical in her response. Her hands wove into his hair and dragged his mouth onto hers, her tongue seeking his, her lips wild with her obvious need. He could barely maintain any control. A moan more like a growl escaped his throat when he turned, supporting himself on an elbow so his other hand could roam over the lush curves of her bra and down the flat plane of her stomach. And all the while he kissed her, his eyes open to try to see her in the darkness, his mouth seeking the warmth of hers over and over.

She moaned into his throat, brought her hips up to press against his erection, and he pushed down on her, grinding her into the hard earth of the shed.

The shed
. He'd forgotten where they were.

Todd froze, then lifted himself carefully off her and to the side. She reached for him and wrapped her arms around his back in an attempt to pull him back down.

His breathing was coming in gasps and he couldn't remember wanting a woman so much, he couldn't even remember wanting
her
this much back in college. Every cell, every part of him was straining to join with her.

But he couldn't. They were in a filthy shed. They had a miraculous second chance and this wasn't how it would happen between them. He took her arms from his back and set them by her sides.

“Todd?” Her voice was soft and tentative.

“Not here.”

She shifted away from him, leaving cold air behind. “You don't want to.”

“What?” He was up and leaning over her in an instant. Kissing her again, briefly, hotly, on the mouth. “You've got it so wrong. I want to, more than I've wanted anything. But not here. Not in the sheep shed.” He leaned down over her, found her cheek in the dark. Nuzzled it, inhaling the soft scent of her, brushed his lips down to her mouth, kissed her again, letting his lips linger over hers. “Trust me, please. We've waited almost a decade. We can wait a little longer.”

She didn't answer. Just clung to him, burying her face into his chest again, and he hugged her tightly to him, pulling the emergency blankets back over them and tucking them in underneath. “Do you really want to make love here? In this dirt? Have you thought about what's in this dirt?”

That brought her humor back. “Ugh. I'm trying not to think about it.”

“So you can see my point.”

She sighed pushed against him so that they were skin to skin all the way along their bodies, and his point didn't make quite so much sense when he ran his hands down her back and pulled her close along him. But if something was going to happen between them, it wouldn't be in this place. He'd taken so much about her for granted when they were young. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

“Let's just try to sleep,” he murmured.

She was silent, and for a moment he thought she'd taken his advice. Then her voice came, small and quiet in the night. “Did you ever fall in love again? After us?”

It was a night for honesty. No matter how uncomfortable. “There was someone I cared about a lot. We were together for a few years.”

He thought he heard a hitch in her breathing, but maybe it was just the rain starting up again, rattling the shed roof. “What happened?”

“She wanted to get married. But it just didn't feel right to me. Not right enough for that kind of commitment. So we broke it off. It was before I moved out here.”

He waited for her to say something, but she was silent. “What about you?”

“Nothing too serious. Not really.”

He was about to ask more but she went on.

“It was always just so busy, you know? Getting my PhD, writing grants, rustling up work...”

“Makes sense.” It wasn't fair, but he was glad she hadn't fallen for anyone. That what they'd had was as unique as he remembered. He brushed a kiss across her cheek in the dark. “These might not be the best circumstances, but I'm glad to have a bit of your time tonight.”

She laughed faintly. “Yeah.” And then she turned so her back was to him. “And now we
should
probably try to get some sleep, right?”

That had been his original idea. But with the imprint of her mouth on his, and her body nestled against him, sleep seemed like a really bad idea. “Right.”

He pulled her closer and arranged the crackly blankets so no cold air was seeping in. Then he put his face down into her hair and breathed her in, trying to fathom how in the world he'd gotten lucky enough to have a second chance with Nora Hoffman.

* * *

N
ORA
'
S
FIRST
CONSCIOUS
thought was that the rain was gone. Her second was that she was lying with her head on Todd's chest. She tried to see his face in the dawn light. Though the piece of sky visible through the cracked open door behind him was getting lighter, inside the shed the shadows were still thick.

Somehow they'd fallen asleep, and Todd was still sleeping. Maybe he was used to sleeping in rough conditions. He was half out of the blankets, an arm flung over his head, as if he was in a luxurious hotel bed and not lying on a tarp on the hard ground.

Getting to sleep had been almost impossible for her. Being next to him, kissing him, holding him was all too much sensation. The memory of his kisses on her mouth and his hands on her body had left her skin buzzing. So she'd lain there, trying to absorb his heat, trying to memorize what he felt like, skin to skin, next to her. Trying to digest the fact that they'd kissed, and he'd stopped them, while she'd wanted to keep going.

How was that possible? How was it that
he
was the practical one? And she was the one trying to take it further?

Ugh. Where was all her resolve from yesterday? To protect herself, to stay away, to be his friend, to be her own woman? Washed away in the rain, evidently, seeing as she'd made out with him on the floor of a sheep shed, and then begged for more.

The moment she'd realized he was going to kiss her all logic had evaporated into the cold night air. He'd been the first person she'd ever slept with. Every magical revelation of what two bodies could do together, could give to each other, had been with him. And they'd had years of it, of long nights spent touching and exploring. How could she resist when offered the chance to revisit it?

But it was scary to realize how quickly he'd scaled the walls she'd built around her feelings. She'd put so much work into cultivating independence. She'd spent years willing herself to look for positive traits in the guys she dated. She'd tried so hard to ignore that whatever she felt for them never approached the passion she'd felt for Todd.

She thought she'd made progress in her slow journey away from the memory of him. But all that was erased now. She was back to the needy, wanting thing she'd been when he'd left her back in Berkeley. And she'd promised herself she'd never go back to that vulnerable place with him, or with anyone, again.

To make matters more pitiful, now she had some new information, and it sat like a prickly thing in her stomach. He'd loved someone else. She'd never been able to move on, yet he'd loved someone else. For years.

Why had she hung on to him for so long? Maybe because she had so few others in her life? Her mom, dad and brothers had all walked away from her and Wade. They'd all chosen their criminal lifestyle over her. Did that cause her to care too much, the first time she found love?

Whatever the reason, she was tired of being pathetic about him. She needed to remember everything that was wrong about him. About them.

His causes, for one. He'd been an eco-warrior. Breaking the law. Twisting his morals to suit his needs.

She didn't need another criminal in her life, no matter how nobly he justified his crimes.

Suddenly she wanted to be far away from Todd and his complicated, offbeat view on the world. Far away from his risks and his shades of gray.

She was a scientist. Trained to simplify, to organize, to categorize. And Todd lived his life in the space between the categories. Where things lacked names and explanations. Where there were risks and unknowns and a hint of something wild. Not a place where Nora had ever spent much time. Not a place where she could ever be comfortable for very long.

She eased herself out from under his arm and away from the fragile heat they'd created beneath the tarp. She tiptoed across the filthy floor to her clothes. Her fleece was still damp, but she pulled it on anyway, and then her wet jeans. Soggy socks and boots followed. In the barely there light of dawn she stepped out of the shed to take a look at the wash, and reacquaint herself with reality.

The clouds had moved east, and though the air was chilly now, she could tell it would soon be sunny and warm. Midsummer promised most days would be in the eighties out here. From the glow in the sky, it would be sunrise soon. She shivered and clutched her arms to her chest. Not soon enough.

Her boots crunched as she hiked in the direction of the wash, but she already knew what she'd find. The roaring torrent was a trickle now, as the dry desert greedily swallowed the remains of the runoff. If they walked quickly, they could be at Todd's truck in half an hour, and home for a hot shower twenty minutes after that. And she couldn't wait another minute to get out of these wet clothes and wash away the memory of a night spent in Todd's arms.

She turned back toward the shed. He'd said they'd waited a decade and they could wait longer. But it had been terrifying to find that she hadn't wanted to wait. She'd wanted him. And her own urgency was a reminder that it was possible to love too much. To give someone else too much power. The way she'd done with Todd when they were younger. The way she was so close to doing now.

There was a low rock near the shed, and she sat on it, knees pulled to her chest for warmth, watching the sky, waiting for sunrise. She needed to fight her weakness. She needed to let go of him. A few tears broke through her resolve and ran down her cheeks.

She heard the creak of the shed door behind her and whirled to face it, scrubbing her hands across her face, wondering what she must look like. Dirty, no doubt, and tired. Todd strode toward her in damp jeans and the dark green fleece jacket he'd been wearing yesterday, streaked in mud. His hair was on end but it didn't matter. The sun chose that moment to come up over the horizon and light everything up golden. He looked like a muddy god.

He stepped closer and took both her hands in his. His eyes were kind, his smile warm. “Good morning,” he said simply.

Her fear made her abrupt. “The wash is almost empty. We can go home.”

He looked at her quizzically for a moment and then nodded. “Sure, I'll just go pack up the stuff.”

She should help. But she didn't want to be back inside that shed with him. “Okay, thanks,” she told him and stayed on her rock, now bathed in brand-new morning sun. Shivering, she curled up, trying to absorb some of its paltry heat.

* * *

T
ODD
DIDN
'
T
KNOW
what he'd been expecting this morning, but it wasn't Nora's cool dismissal. Where was she? Where was the woman who'd writhed in his arms last night, kissed him wildly, made him crazy? Where was the woman who'd shared his secrets? He folded up the emergency blankets and stuffed them in the backpack, followed by the poncho, the tarp and the damp cotton shirts neither of them could bear to put back on.

She was so beautiful. That was his first coherent thought when he'd walked out this morning and saw her trying to absorb the morning sunshine. Her brown hair ran like a tangled waterfall down her back. He'd wanted to brush it out, take away the knots, put everything to rights for her. He'd wanted to kiss her again. It had been a shock to see the remote look in her eyes. To see her already putting the years of distance back between them.

Maybe it was learning the truth about his family business. Or how he'd learned his trade. But those were the facts and he couldn't change them.

He shouldered the pack. He'd screwed up somehow, though how he'd managed it between falling asleep last night and waking up today, he wasn't really sure. He felt out of his league. The Nora he'd known in college had been so easygoing, so undemanding. The Nora he'd met recently seemed a hell of a lot more complicated.

His own observation stopped him in his tracks.
That was it.
Not an answer really, but a solution. This Nora he was falling for wasn't
his
Nora. She wasn't the Nora who'd lived for years in his memory. She'd grown and changed and become a totally different person. Last night they'd revisited their old connection, that chemical history. But that was all it was. A visit to something they'd had before.

If he wanted her now, in the present, he had to do things differently. He didn't understand everything that had happened to her—everything she'd gone through that had made her so wary of him—but he did know something about wary creatures. He worked with them every day. And when he worked with wild horses he kept one thing in mind at all times. You had to earn their trust before you asked anything of them.

Last night he'd gotten it wrong. He'd asked Nora for intimacy—the ultimate vulnerability—without the trust.

Just like when he overstepped with a horse, now he had to back off. He had to get to know her more, earn her trust, help her understand that he was on her side. Only then could he ask for what they'd shared briefly last night.