Chapter 17

Dodge had just pulled the tractor into the barn when he saw Miguel, Kevin and Lyle head out to the water meter on the back side of the property to check the day’s levels. Now was the perfect time to confront little Miss Smarty Pants. He knew she was there. He’d been watching to see if her truck had left all morning. Hell, he’d been watching her since she’d slithered that sweet little body all over him in the barn, then cried in his arms and made him vow never to touch her again. And he was doing a pretty good job of it until he’d kissed her--as long as thinking about her constantly didn’t count. Of course, the guilt he felt whenever Kevin scowled at him helped steel his resolve to leave Sarah alone.

His plan had worked fine until he’d come out from the store late yesterday afternoon, still frustrated after Tommy had confirmed that the car they’d seen with Burwick had been a rental, and found a copy of one of her books sitting on the passenger seat of his truck. He thought it odd that someone had tossed it in, but he’d just shrugged and gone on his way.

As he climbed into his truck and made his way toward her cabin, his mind reeled with images of Sarah draped over him like a blanket. He groaned aloud. Damn it. It’d been hard enough trying to sleep on Miguel’s uncomfortable couch, remembering the feel of her breasts and the taste of her lips. And then he’d picked up the book when he couldn’t fall asleep. He’d read the story all right. All night long. Then he’d taken a cold shower while his head spun with a whole slew of images playing like a movie in his head while he should have been sleeping.

###

Sarah stood at the kitchen sink washing Lyle and Kevin’s breakfast dishes. Although they’d both grumbled about having to get up early in the summer, they got up every morning and helped Miguel with his morning duties. They were learning first hand how to make a ranch run efficiently. As much as Sarah hated to admit it, she was jealous because they spent a good part of most days with Dodge.

She hadn’t heard from him in over a week, but not because he wasn’t around. She’d see his truck at the barn in the morning and all throughout the day. Kevin and Lyle would come home for lunch every afternoon with stories that began, “Dodge this” and “Dodge that.” She wanted nothing more than to plug her ears when they started talking about him. They were bonding, her sons and the man she’d hoped to bed. She knew they respected him. He was fair with them and expected them to carry their weight around the ranch while he pitched in and did a lot of the grunt work himself.

Sarah had wondered if Kevin would be able to be around Dodge after what he’d seen and yet they worked together every day as though nothing had ever happened. If only she could act as if nothing had happened. If only she could turn her mind off and stop obsessively wondering if he was thinking about her the way she was thinking about him. It had to stop.

She had managed to channel some of her pent up anger and sexual tension into one hell of a return novel. She’d reached the halfway point and it was shaping up to be a very good story. Her agent seemed equally excited. She’d emailed a few pages after she’d gotten started and he was hounding her daily for more.

Sarah had just sat down at her computer when she heard someone banging on the door. She was surprised to see Dodge on the other side until she saw the look on his face. He scowled at her again.

“Hello.” She tried to be casual, but she sounded pissy even to her ears.

“I found something of yours last night.” He pushed past her into the house and left her to close the door behind him. “One of your novels.”

Everybody’s a critic.

“I wish I’d never seen it.” He stood there looking at her with his nostrils flared and his brows raised in vexation as if she owed him an explanation.

She reached for the cover of the book that dangled from his hand. “I wrote that book six years ago. What do you want me to say? Sorry?”

Dodge sputtered and for the first time since they’d met, he seemed at a loss for words. “Aw, hell.”

Sarah raised her brows and waited. He moved past her and stomped into the kitchen, threw the book on the counter.

“Do you know where I found this copy?” he asked.

She lifted her shoulders as he pressed on, more than a little grateful to have him in her house again.

“The passenger seat of my truck.” He sneered at her as if she’d done it herself, then stepped to face her with his hands on his hips. “Somebody threw it in the open window of my truck when I was in town to getting supplies. Somebody wanted me to take a look.”

He had a callous look on his face, the same one he got when she’d accidentally backed the tractor into the fence when he first let her take a turn, back when they spoke to one another.

“What’s the big deal?”

His brows shot straight to the rim of his hat, which he’d forgotten to remove when he came inside, a gentlemanly habit she’d come to respect. “I can’t believe you have to ask me that.”

God, she’d missed fighting with him. She could almost see the steam coming from his ears. “Well, I’m asking and I’m waiting for an answer.” It was high time he got everything off his chest. She wasn’t sure she could handle his answer under the best of circumstances, but he was emotional and angry and hopefully too upset to censor his feelings.

“Everybody in this valley thinks that we’re … you know what they think.” His brows knitted in irritation.

“You’ve never given a damn about what anybody thinks.”

“I don’t care what they think about me.” Dodge sputtered and raised his arms in frustration. “I don’t want people reading this book and thinking you like to be backed against walls and…and…dirty talk! Lord.” He let out a big breath, let his arms fall back to his hips. “I can’t believe you even wrote this stuff.”

Sarah had to stifle a laugh. “Dodge, some women like to read about things they’d never actually do.” She reached for the book. It had been a long time since she’d glanced at or thought about her old novels. She flipped through the pages and noticed that the sex scenes had been dog eared. “You make it sound like S & M or something. This is pretty tame. Believe me, there’s a lot worse out there.”

“That you wrote?”

“No, this is as wild as I ever got.” She looked at him, wondered just what bothered him so much.

“I can’t believe your husband let you write this stuff.”

“He didn’t let me do anything. He was proud of me. If you’d bothered to read beyond the dog eared sections you would’ve seen that there’s a storyline that many people connected with. This was one of my best sellers.” She threw the book on the counter, took a step closer to him.

“There are a lot of good books that don’t have sex in them. Why’d you have to add it if the story was good on its own?”

“That’s just the genre. And people like sex.” She could almost hear Jenny’s mantra in her head, It’s just sex, he wants it and you want it…

“Well.” Dodge tried to run his fingers through his hair, realized his hat was still on and quickly took it off. “Sorry about that. You know everyone in this valley thinks that we’re having sex.”

“If everybody already thinks we’re having sex, including my son,” her brows lifted in annoyance, “then maybe we should.” She closed the gap between them and pulled the hat out of his hands, tossed it on the counter. “Maybe you should back me against the wall right here and end the confusion once and for all.”

He sighed as his eyes searched her face. “This is going to get complicated.”

Sarah reached out, grabbed the waistband of his jeans and pulled him flush with her body. “It already is.”

###

Dodge couldn’t think of all the reasons they shouldn’t be together with the scent of her surrounding him and clouding his mind. Without knowing how, he’d backed her against the wall and pinned her body with his.

“Kiss me, Dodge.” She threaded her hands through his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. “Kiss me, please, and end this torture?” The simple sincerity of the plea had all common sense flying right out the window.

With their eyes locked, his lips brushed hers. She whimpered, a needy, wildly enticing sound. He gave in with a crushing burst that knocked her head against the wall.

“Ouch.” She pulled back and rubbed. When he started to back away she held tight to his shirt. “No, no, no. I’m okay.” She looked up at him ran her tongue over her lips. “Where were we?”

That was a damn good question, and one he couldn’t answer when her hands slipped under his shirt and her hips wedged between his legs. What had ignited the little firebrand before his eyes? She didn’t give him time to think about where they were and who could walk in on them at any moment, but wrapped that smart little body around him and blanked his mind. He simply had to have her, as she’d demanded and then begged.

She tasted of freedom, wild, sweet freedom, and he couldn’t get enough. He fumbled with the clasp on her bra after he’d whipped the shirt over her head. He jolted when she reached for his zipper, scraping her back against the wall. She whimpered in pain.

“Sarah, your back.” He could feel the scab from her run in with the wire.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine.”

He reached down, grasped her bottom and lifted her into his arms. “Where’s your bedroom?” The look of happy surprise on her face made him grin.

She pointed with her hand. “It’s right back here.”

He reached the room in two long strides, dropped her on the bed and looked his fill. He’d mussed the hair around her face, he’d already managed to redden her neck with his beard, and her eyes appeared hazy with desire. Her bra hung open where he’d left it.

“Dodge, if you stop now I’ll have to kill you.”

He grinned and wondered what the hell he was going to do with the half-naked woman he couldn’t escape. “I’m not stopping. I don’t have that much self control.” He sat on the edge of the bed and quickly discarded his clothes.

###

Sarah eased out of her bra, slipped off her pants and straddled Dodge from behind. She could feel the echo of her heart against the soft skin of his back. She wanted him, she needed him like she hadn’t needed a man in so long.

“Thank God.” She bit his lobe and grinned as he groaned in response. She felt empowered by reckless desire. He’d finally given in, tossed aside the pretense that there wasn’t anything between them. He pushed her back against the bed and covered her with his body. And when she smiled at him, a little bit embarrassed, a little bit shy, he bit her lip with a wicked grin.

“Second thoughts?” he asked, his eyes on hers like a laser.

“I’m not a coward, Dodge. Give me everything you’ve got.” Something flashed in his eyes, a challenge, or maybe resignation, but he didn’t keep her waiting for long. He brought her to the edge, teased her with his hands and mouth, had her begging for him to take her, take her now, please, Dodge, now. And then he’d change course, try new tactics and leave her struggling to take over and end the torture, the sweet, sweet torture. He wouldn’t surrender control. Being with him was all she’d thought about for weeks, having him plunge into her and clearing her mind once and for all. Now that the moment had arrived he seemed to want nothing more than to savor her desperate cries for him to have her, take her, fill her. With every touch he found more ways to pleasure her, more ways to watch her react until she could take no more and he finally entered her as he pushed her over the edge. He drove into her, his patience vanished and he bore down on her as if she were the keeper of life itself.

Sarah let out a cry of release, rising up to meet his hammering. She pushed him on his back and climbed on top to execute her own brand of torture. He made it so easy when he looked at her the way he was now, as if she were the frosting on the cake he’d been waiting to devour. She rode him and began to tumble again, drunk on the power and the sensations her body had so desperately missed. How could he know instinctively how to make her sing?

###

Dodge fell, they may have fallen together, he couldn’t be sure in the haze of afterglow. He knew she’d…had a good time, if only by the fact that she lay gasping for air atop him. He had the strangest urge to bury his face in her hair and thank her. Dodge felt sure he’d had better, more satisfying sex, but at the moment he couldn’t think when. And as he fought the urge to tell her, she seeped farther into the blood that still raged within him.

It was just sex, he told himself. Really, really good sex after weeks of fighting their attraction. But something about that didn’t ring true. Just sex, his head repeated in the same rhythm his hands ran up and down her body and she let out a purr of satisfaction. She felt so small in his arms. Somehow it didn’t seem possible for the feisty woman who’d just taken him on the ride of his life to feel so slight. Not just sex, his heart whispered.

He should be able to walk away now, pull himself away, but he couldn’t. He lay with her, still inside her, and listened to her breathing return to normal. Something inside of him teetered as he caressed her into slumber. He wanted her again. He knew his need for her would only be worse now that he’d touched her, and yet they’d only scratched the surface of what they could be and do to one another. He wanted more with an intensity that left him spooked.

###

Sarah lay atop Dodge and listened to the steady beat of his heart, fast at first, so fast, and then slower, almost in rhythm with her own. She gloried in the feel of his hands on her, running up and down her body. She wanted to weep with the joy of having had him, having experienced something so powerful and so different.

Part of her expected him to have leapt off the bed by now, leaving her to wonder about the implications of what they’d done. Part of her felt amazed he laid as he was, touching her, caressing her with such gentleness. She stayed sprawled on top of him, afraid to lift her head and start the dialogue that was too soon in coming.

What would she say? Could she tell him how it had felt to be loved the way he’d loved her, with teasing and care and passion? Tell him how he made her feel like a woman worth desiring? How she hadn’t felt that way in so long? Could she tell him that she wanted to stay wrapped in his arms and that no matter how he intended to deny the meaning of what they’d just done, that they would do it again, damn the consequences?

###

Dodge heard his cell phone ring, muffled in the pocket of the jeans he’d discarded on the floor. Sarah was awake now; he felt her stiffen in his arms when the ringing began.

“I need to get that.” He gently pushed her aside and reached for his pants, thinking an interruption was as good a way as any for them to face the music of what they’d done. “Dodge.” He listened as Miguel explained that he and the boys were on their way back to the barn and needed instructions for the afternoon. He had to get out of the house. Fast. “I’ll meet you at the barn. Keep the boys with you until I get there.”

Sarah sat up at mention of her sons. “Are they coming home now?”

“No, but they’ll be at the barn any minute.” He brushed her cheek with his palm, let his eyes glide over her. “I don’t think they need to see my truck here, do you?”

She kissed his palm. “No. I don’t.”

Between the feline look in her eye and the feel of her lips on his hand he was hard again. He quickly shifted on the bed, grabbed his jeans and began dressing so she couldn’t see how she’d affected him.

Sarah watched him dress, dared him to resist her as she lay sprawled naked on the bed. “Dodge, I …”

He leaned down and kissed her, slow and soft, then gently nipped at her breast before heading out the door with a groan.