Montana Mavericks Weddings (3 page)

She did. It was some primitive rite of passage that neither could ever forget. Without a single thought for her chastity or the promise she'd made to Troy, her hands caught the hem of the tank top and whipped
it off. She let the garment fall onto the floor and she arched her back and let him look at her full, firm breasts while she shivered with the most obsessive desire she'd ever known.

“And you know…what I want,” she murmured.

“Yes.” He touched her breasts, with a reverence that made her shiver, and his dark head bent. He lifted her and slowly, tenderly, took her inside his mouth to suckle her in the hot, tense silence of the room.

His free hand went behind her, pulling gently until she was lifted and riveted to his hips. His arousal was so blatant that she gasped when she felt him against her.

“When I get like this,” he whispered at her breast, “I can go all night long. I could love you until you were too exhausted to hold me. And I'd still want you.”

Her hands were on his flat stomach, barely touching, shy even in the throes of desire.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, seeing fear and anguish and need. All that. And love.

He winced.

She hung there in his grasp, without wiles, without protest, without coyness. Even without shame.

He looked down at her body, arched in a bow, pleading. He touched her, traced her, ached for her.

She was trembling all over, sobbing with her frustrated longing.

He bent and lifted her close in his arms and stood there rocking her against him, his powerful legs shuddering as he fought the need to throw her down on the floor and ravish her.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered brokenly, pressing her mouth against his throat. “Why?
Why?
”

“I don't know why,” he whispered back, holding her even closer. His eyes closed as he savored the feel of her against him. “I've never lost my head the way I lose it with you.” He buried his face against her breasts. “I can't even look at you and stay sane.”

She touched his cheek as he caressed her with his mouth, watching him at her breast, shivering with the realization that he was as hungry as she was.

“Can't we…lie down?” she choked.

“Baby, if we lie down, I'll have you in two minutes flat.” He ground out the words. “I won't even take time to strip you.”

She put her mouth against his warm shoulder and trembled. “Yes,” she sobbed.

He groaned. He couldn't help it. He had to. He had to…!

He turned, sudden resolution in his hard face, his eyes. He started back toward the sofa and as she looked up at him, he knew that he couldn't stop. He could already feel her under his body, feel her accepting him, feel his possession of her, feel it become urgent.

He made a sound deep in his throat and she clung
to him, ready, aching to belong to him. Finally, she thought feverishly as she pressed closer, finally!

He started to put her down on the leather sofa when the doorbell rang, so loudly that it burst like a bomb on the heated silence of the room.

They stared at each other as if they were just coming out of a daze. His brows drew together as he registered the sight of her bare breasts pressed hard into the hair and muscle of him, her arms tight around his strong neck.

She stared, too, at his swollen mouth that had possessed hers so feverishly, at his eyes that told her how desperately he desired her.

And reality snapped them both back to painful comprehension.

He put her on her feet, holding her while she found her balance. He looked at her breasts as if he wasn't able to stop. He touched them gently, feeling her body tauten, hearing her helpless gasp of pleasure as he stroked her.

“Someone's here,” she whispered.

“I know.” He bent and put his mouth gently against her soft breast. “I want you.”

“I want you…too.”

His cheek turned against her breasts and he held her hard, rocked her there. “Oh, God, Abby!”

“I know.” She smoothed his damp hair. Her eyes closed. “I know, Chayce. I know.”

He was shivering, and she understood why. She
soothed him as best she could and wondered absently if the door was locked. If it wasn't, and someone opened it…

There was a sharp knock.

Chayce lifted his head, still shivering.
“What?”
he demanded in a tone that didn't invite company.

There was a thick pause. “Uh, Chayce?” his foreman and good friend, Kirk Conroy called hesitantly. “Could you come down to the barn for a minute? We had to call the vet out about those heifers that miscarried and he needs to talk to you.”

Chayce had to take a deep breath before he could answer. “I'll be there in a few minutes,” he called back tersely.

“Okay, boss man!”

There were retreating footsteps. Chayce had Abby by the arms. He looked at her as if he couldn't bear the thought of letting her go. He drew her with him to the door, reached behind her and locked it. His eyes were black, alive, demanding.

“We…can't,” she whispered brokenly.

“Why not?” he asked harshly. “He won't come back.”

“Chayce…I'm…engaged…” she sputtered.

His eyes were on her breasts. He drew her to him, dragging her against his chest, shivering with pleasure. “Is this how you feel with him?” he asked unsteadily.

“I don't… I can't…do this…with him,” she moaned.

He seemed to freeze against her. He lifted his head and studied her flushed face. “Never?” he whispered.

“Never. How could I?” she sobbed, her eyes anguished as they met his. “I love you. Damn you, Chayce, I love you…!”

His mouth settled on hers, tasting tears and the warm wonder of her soft lips as he kissed her with exquisite tenderness, framing her face in his warm, strong hands.

He let her go long minutes later, gently easing her away from his body. He brushed the tears from under her wet eyes, frowning as he watched her.

She felt cold without the comfort of his body. Unnerved, she searched the floor for her top and bra.

He followed her gaze, retrieving them. As if it was routine, he eased her back into her clothing between soft, tender kisses and kissed her hungrily when she was dressed once more.

“Your…shirt,” she whispered.

He bent and retrieved it, too, shouldering into it. He invited her hands back to the buttons that she'd unfastened and watched them reverse the process.

When she finished, he tucked it back into his expensive jeans, still watching her.

Her eyes were eloquent as they searched his face.

“It's all right,” he said quietly. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing.” Her voice broke on the word.

He drew in a long, harsh breath. “It's just as well that you want to move the wedding up,” he said with cold self-contempt. “It may be the only thing that will save you from me.”

“I don't understand.”

“Don't you?” He laughed coldly. “I didn't have an idea in my mind that I was going to come near you tonight. I meant to keep you halfway across the room and offer to give you away at the wedding.” His jaw tautened. “And you see what happened. I can't even be in the same room with you without getting aroused, even after four years of keeping my damned distance!”

A
bby was supposed to go and pick out her wedding gown on Saturday. She'd asked Becky to go with her, but at the last minute, Becky had an emergency of her own. Her sister fell and although she wasn't seriously injured, she had to be taken to the hospital and Becky had to go with her.

It was like an omen, Abby thought miserably. Chayce had been back three days and her heart was breaking already, especially after what had happened the first night he was home again. He'd acted as if nothing had happened, and she'd tried to, but the memory haunted her. She'd seen Troy only the day before and he was as morose as she was. It was as if he knew how she felt about Chayce. But they were both trying to get past it. Maybe buying the wedding dress would help.

She started out to her little foreign car and found Chayce leaning against the banister on the front porch, dressed in boots and jeans with a blue-patterned shirt and a white Stetson. His arms were folded over his broad chest and he studied Abby in the concealing ankle-length black-and-white patterned dress she was wearing, with her hair brushed firmly away from her face with its waves tamed by hair spray.

“Trying out for the lead in
Arsenic and Old Lace?
” he drawled as he studied her unappreciatively.

“Troy likes me to dress this way,” she said.

“Then perhaps he should marry someone's maiden aunt instead of you,” he said pointedly.

She shifted her purse to her shoulder. “Are you going somewhere?”

“With you,” he said, indicating the pickup truck. “We're buying a wedding gown, I hear.”

“You'll look interesting in one,” she returned.

He chuckled. “Not a chance. I'm allergic to lace and flowers. Come on. Becky said one of us should go with you. Now,” he added with a dark glance at her clothing, “I understand why she thought so.”

“I like old-fashioned dresses!”

He opened the truck door for her and moved abruptly before she could get in, so that she cannoned right into him and found herself riveted to him.

“You don't,” he said quietly, staring at her. “He's trying to make you into Eve Payne.”

She actually gasped.

“And don't pretend that you don't know it,” he added curtly.

“How would you know? You haven't been around me for four years!”

“Becky has,” he replied, his jaw taut, his eyes glittering as he looked at her. “She seems to feel he's found fault with everything about you.”

She lowered her eyes to his broad chest, feeling all too comfortable this close to him. Cocooned between his long, powerful legs and the truck, with his arm propped against the body of the cab, he felt warm and reassuring despite the excitement his nearness fostered.

“He thinks I'm flighty,” she confessed. “And his mother thinks I should have therapy.”

He sighed heavily. His fingers touched her hair, tugging it forward, out of the stark style she'd sprayed it into. “Even your hair,” he remarked. “It curls, and he doesn't like that, either, does he?”

“He thought I could have it straightened. Chayce!” She tugged at his fingers as they suddenly contracted on her hair.

“Sorry.” He loosened his hold and smoothed over the curls he'd pulled. His eyes were worried as they searched over her wan face. “You don't like him to touch you, do you?”

The question brought her eyes shyly up to meet his. “I never said that.”

He didn't smile. His face was somber. “Your body said it for you. You were starving to death for a man's kisses.”

She laughed without humor. “Only for yours,” she said dully. “It never changes. It never stops.” She closed her eyes. “You shouldn't have come back.”

His hand moved to her cheek. He drew it to his chest and stood just holding her in the soft, warm summer breeze, staring blankly over her head toward the deserted yard. “I had to. That letter knocked the breath out of me.”

“I only asked you to give me away,” she stated.

“I never expected you to want to get married right away. You're still so young, baby.”

“You're the only person I know who thinks that.”

“I'm older than most people you know. Thirty-six. Almost thirty-seven.” His lips touched her hair tenderly. “The years are wrong.”

“Dear old man,” she whispered, nuzzling her face against his chest.

Even through the fabric, he could feel her touching his skin. He shivered.

She heard his heartbeat race, his breathing change. The hand holding her face to him moved to her shoulders and paused there.

Her fingers went to his shirt and slowly unbut
toned it. His hand covered hers, but only for a minute. With obvious reluctance, he removed it.

“This,” he whispered, “is a very bad idea.”

He didn't sound as if it were. She smiled as she pushed the fabric away and put her mouth against thick hair and warm muscle. He smelled of spicy cologne and soap, and her hands buried themselves in the hair that covered his chest while she kissed him with aching delight.

His hands caught her head, but they didn't pull it away. They simply rested there.

After a minute, his breathing became even more strained. He shifted and his hands dropped to her hips, bringing her against the powerful muscles of his thighs.

He was very aroused, but she wasn't frightened. Her hands slid around him, savoring the hard muscles of his back as she moved her mouth against a hard masculine nipple and began to suckle it.

He jerked back, holding her away from him. “No!” he said hotly, barely able to breathe at all now.

She looked at his rigid face and then back at his bare chest, at the faint marks where her mouth had touched him. “That was how I felt,” she said softly, “when you kissed me there.”

“We're on public display,” he remarked.

“In a deserted yard,” she replied. She lifted her eyes to his face and searched it hungrily. “And you let me.”

“Yes,” he had to admit, struggling for breath. “I let you.”

He moved her hands away from his skin and slowly rebuttoned his shirt. He looked more unsettled than ever when he moved away and helped her into the truck.

He took longer than necessary to climb in beside her. He stowed his hat on the rack above the visor and pushed his hair back, glancing at her with unusual intensity.

“Who taught you how to do that?” he asked.

“I watched a movie on a late-night cable channel.”

He started the truck. “You shouldn't be watching programs like that.”

“Why not?”

He searched for a reason and couldn't find one.

She crossed her legs under the long skirt and pushed her hair away from her face. “Troy says they should make the cable company take it off the air, anyway.”

“I'll bet he watches it.”

“Not Troy,” she said with a sigh.

He glanced at her as he backed the truck around and started through the open gate. “He's pretty staid, I guess.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “He has to be. He's a teacher, you know.”

“Does he like kids?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Not much. But he does say we
have to have a son to inherit the ranch when we're gone.”

He made a rough sound in his throat.

“Something you should be thinking about, too,” she chided. “An heir.”

His breath caught in his throat. He hadn't let himself think about children. He stared at the road ahead, trying not to react to the words.

“Does Delina like children?” she persisted.

“I haven't the faintest idea.”

“Don't you talk to her?”

His hand clenched on the steering wheel.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, thinking that she'd put her foot in her mouth. He probably slept with the woman… She closed her eyes on the painful thought.

He saw that, and knew why she'd done it. He let out a long, weary sigh. He couldn't bear to hurt her, not in any way at all. “I don't sleep with her, Abby,” he said after a minute. He stared at his hands on the steering wheel instead of at her shocked face. He glanced at her after a minute and his eyes slid all over her as if they were hands. He looked back at the road. “I haven't slept with anyone. Not for four years.”

He was telling her something utterly profound. She caught her breath. “Oh, Chayce!”

It was more a groan than a whisper. Her face was tormented.

He wasn't feeling much better himself. The whole
damned situation was giving him fits. Abby was going to marry a man she didn't love, a man who wanted to change every unique thing about her. She didn't seem to mind that Troy found fault with her, but he did. It wounded him. He kept telling himself that she needed a younger man, but why did it have to be Troy?

He drew in a worried breath. “Where are you going to look for a gown?” he asked.

“In Whitehorn, of course.”

“There's only one good shop there.”

“I know.”

He didn't say another word. He turned on the radio and gave every indication of listening to the news. Abby stared out the window and thought of how empty her life had become.

 

The dress shop was small, but it was the place local brides went to choose their gowns. The owner, a delicate little lady in her sixties, had been a famous couture designer in her youth and had retired to Whitehorn years before. Her name was Madame Lili.

“Yes, I have heard that you were to marry this summer,” the tiny little woman said, with a moue of distaste as she looked at Abby's current manner of dressing herself. “Would you like to see some samples of the gowns I've made recently?”

“Yes, thank you,” Abby said, surprised that Chayce had come into the shop with her. He settled
in a chair near the window and just stared, his face hard and impassive.

Abby looked as the smaller woman pulled out gown after gown, but there was no enthusiasm in her. At least, not until the owner produced a sample that she'd been working on. Abby's gasp brought Chayce out of his chair. He moved close to her, his lean hand going out to touch the delicate lace of the Victorian wedding gown.

It was made of satin, with exquisite lace trim. It had embroidered flowers on the skirt and bodice, overlaid with more lace. Its sleeves were puffed at the shoulder, mutton-leg sleeves that narrowed and came to a point over the back of the hand. The cuff was embroidered, too.

“It is frightfully expensive,” Madame Lili said. “But worth the price, don't you think?”

“Well worth it,” Chayce said. He looked down at Abby with eyes dark with pain. “It will…suit her.”

She looked back at him with her heart in her face.

Madame glanced from one to the other. “A handsome couple you make,” she murmured with a smile. “You will want a veil, yes?”

Abby started to speak. Chayce caught her hand in his and pressed her fingers.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “She'll want a veil. Something long and delicate,” he added, searching Abby's face covetously.

“I have just the thing! One moment…!”

The little woman went into the back of the shop.

“She thinks…we're marrying each other,” Abby murmured.

He tilted her sad face up to his and searched her eyes. With a long, hungry sigh, he bent his head and touched his lips tenderly to hers. This, she thought, is the way a man would kiss a new bride, with breathless tenderness.

A sob broke from her lips.

He lifted his head and looked at her tormentedly. “God, Abby!” he breathed roughly.

She touched his hard mouth, trying to fight back tears.

Before she could speak, Madame was back, pretending not to notice the tension in the air.

“Here,” she said, proferring a long lace-trimmed veil with the same embroidery that graced the gown, all of it supported by a tiny cap lavishly sewn with seed pearls. “It matches the gown perfectly, yes?”

“Yes,” Abby said. She touched it, her face drawn. “But I don't think…”

“She'll have it,” Chayce said curtly. “The dress, too.”

“But, Chayce,” Abby argued.

“She'll need your measurements,” he told Abby. He turned to Madame Lili. “Will you bill me, or shall I give you my credit card?”

“You are Mr. Derringer, yes?” she asked with a
smile at his faint surprise. “I shall bill you. And may I offer my congratulations?”

“I'm not marrying Mr. Derringer,” Abby said without looking at Chayce. “He's my guardian.”

Madame was visibly taken aback. “Forgive me! I thought…” She laughed nervously. “Of course, there is an affection between you. I was mistaken. Come, my dear, let us take your measurements.”

Chayce went out to the truck with his hands deep in his pockets, morose and anguished. Of course Madame had been mistaken. Abby was fond of him, just as he was fond of her. She'd marry Troy and learn to love him. He was close to her own age, a hard worker and a fine man.

Sure, he thought irritably as he climbed impatiently into the cab of the truck. He was going to remake Abby into Eve Payne, too, and she was going to let him. He hit the steering wheel hard with his hand, furious at the misery his life had become. Four years he'd stayed away, kept his distance, protected Abby from his headlong ardor. And it hadn't made a difference at all. He looked at her and wanted her. He touched her and she was his, yielded and hungry and full of secret fires.

His eyes closed. He had to stop this. He was too old for her. She'd loved him all her life and she was just confused. It had to be gratitude and affection, along with a natural curiosity about sex. He was kidding himself that it could be anything more, at
her age. He excited her, but Troy could probably do that, too, if he approached her in the right way. He couldn't risk his future and her happiness on some crazy juvenile impulse. Besides, he'd had a taste of love eternal, hadn't he? Beverly had taken him for a hell of a ride when he was only a few years older than Abby was now, and he'd never recovered.